{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030644.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030644.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030644.htm","text":"Chapter LXII.\u2014Our Destined Likeness to the Angels in the Glorious Life of the Resurrection.\nTo this discussion, however, our Lord\u2019s declaration puts an effectual end: \u201cThey shall be,\u201d says He, \u201cequal unto the angels.\u201d 7752 As by not marrying, because of not dying, so, of course, by not having to yield to any like necessity of our bodily state; even as the angels, too, sometimes. were \u201cequal unto\u201d men, by eating and drinking, and submitting their feet to the washing of the bath\u2014having clothed themselves in human guise, without the loss of their own intrinsic nature. If therefore angels, when they became as men, submitted in their own unaltered substance of spirit to be treated as if they were flesh, why shall not men in like manner, when they become \u201cequal unto the angels,\u201d undergo in their unchanged substance of flesh the treatment of spiritual beings, no more exposed to the usual solicitations of the flesh in their angelic garb, than were the angels once to those of the spirit when encompassed in human form? We shall not therefore cease to continue in the flesh, because we cease to be importuned by the usual wants of the flesh; just as the angels ceased not therefore to remain in their spiritual substance, because of the suspension of their spiritual incidents. Lastly, Christ said not, \u201cThey shall be angels,\u201d in order not to repeal their existence as men; but He said, \u201cThey shall be equal unto the angels,\u201d 7753 that He might preserve their humanity unimpaired. When He ascribed an angelic likeness to the flesh, 7754 He took not from it its proper substance.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: Our De...","type":"page"}