Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] It is no wonder if arguments are also snatched from the apostle's own writings, since heresies have to exist — and they could not exist unless the scriptures could also be wrongly understood. [2] So heresies, having got hold of the two men that the apostle set forth, the inner, that is, the soul, and the outer, that is, the flesh, have assigned salvation to the soul, that is, to the inner man, but ruin to the flesh, that is, to the outer — because it is written to the Corinthians, For though our outer man is being decayed, yet the inner is being renewed day by day. [3] But then, the soul by itself is not the man — it was inserted afterward into the thing already fashioned and already called man — nor is flesh without soul the man, for after the soul's exile it is written off as a corpse. So the word man is, in a manner, the pin joining two substances knit together, and under that name they cannot exist except cohering with each other. [4] Further, the apostle prefers the inner man to be understood not so much as the soul, but as the mind and disposition — that is, not the substance itself but the flavor of the substance — since, writing to the Ephesians about Christ dwelling in the inner man, he plainly means the Lord to be brought home to the senses. [5] Finally he adds, Through faith, and In your hearts, and In love — placing faith and love, not as substantial properties of the soul, but as things conceived within it; while by saying In your hearts — hearts being a substantial property of the flesh — he has already assigned this very inner man to the flesh, since he locates him in the heart. [6] Now observe how he speaks of the outer man being decayed, but the inner being renewed day by day — not so that you should take this as that decay of the flesh which, from the day of death onward, it suffers to its everlasting undoing, but rather the decay it undergoes, within the span of this present life, before death, through the vexations and pressures, the torments and punishments, endured for the sake of the Name. [7] For this inner man too will certainly have to be renewed here — advancing by faith and discipline, day by day, through the prompting of the spirit — not there, that is, not after the resurrection, where he will certainly not need renewing day by day but once, all at once, in full. [8] Learn this from what follows: For our present light and momentary affliction, he says, works for us, through excess upon excess, an eternal weight of glory — we not looking at the things that are seen — that is, the sufferings — but at the things that are not seen — that is, the rewards: for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. [9] The pressures and injuries, then, by which the outer man is decayed, he affirms are to be despised precisely as light and temporal, setting the weight of eternal, unseen rewards and of glory against the labors by which the flesh here is worn down through suffering. [10] So then that is not the decay which men assign to the outer man as the everlasting destruction of the flesh, meant to rule out the resurrection. [11] So too elsewhere he says, If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him: for I count the hardships belonging to this present season as nothing weighed against the glory about to be unveiled in us. And here again he shows the lesser hardships set against their own rewards. [12] Now if it is by way of the flesh that we share his suffering — since it properly belongs to the flesh to be worn down by sufferings — then it will also belong to that same flesh to receive what is promised in return for that shared suffering. And so, assigning to the flesh the very property of these pressures, as also above, he says, For once we had reached Macedonia, our flesh found no rest whatever: [13] and then, so as also to give the soul its share in that suffering, he says, We were pressed on every side — fightings without (that is, battering the flesh), fears within (that is, afflicting the soul). [14] So then, even though the outer man is decayed, this is to be understood not as one losing the resurrection, but as one enduring vexation — and this not without the inner man as well. Thus it will belong to both alike to be glorified together, just as to suffer together: for the fellowship of rewards must run its course to match the partnership of labors.