{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/203/2030893.htm","path":"chr/ecf/203/2030893.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/203/2030893.htm","text":"44. But that you may not suppose this to be a novel doctrine peculiar to Paul, I will adduce also what the Prophet Ezekiel foretold by the Holy Ghost. \u201cBehold,\u201d saith he, \u201cI will open your graves and bring you forth out of your graves.\u201d 3421 Let me recall, further, how Job, who abounds in mystical language, plainly predicts the resurrection of the dead. \u201cThere is hope for a tree; for if it be cut down it will sprout again, and its shoot shall never fail. But if its root have waxed old in the earth, and the stock thereof be dead in the dust, yet through the scent of water it will flourish again, and put forth shoots as a young plant. But man, if he be dead, is he departed and gone? And mortal man, if he have fallen, shall he be no more?\u201d 3422 Dost thou not see, that in these words he is appealing to men\u2019s sense of shame, as it were, and saying, \u201cIs mankind so foolish, that when they see the stock of a tree which has been cut down shooting forth again from the ground, and dead wood again restored to life, they imagine their own case to have no likeness to that of wood or trees?\u201d But to convince you that Job\u2019s words are to be read as a question, when he says, \u201cBut mortal man when he hath fallen shall he not rise again?\u201d take this proof from what follows; for he adds immediately, \u201cBut if a man be dead, shall he live?\u201d 3423 And presently afterwards he says, \u201cI will wait till I be made again;\u201d 3424 and afterwards he repeats the same: \u201cWho shall raise again upon the earth my skin, which is now draining this cup of suffering?\u201d 3425","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. III: Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus.: Section 44","type":"page"}