As to “The body fitly framed &c.”

26. The fifth passage selected by him for blame is the most important, that in which I explain the statement of the Apostle. ³⁰⁵² “From whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through every juncture of ministration, according to the working in due measure of every several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.” Here I summed up in a short sentence Origen’s exposition which is very long and goes over the same ideas in various words, yet so as to leave out none of his illustrations or his assertions. And when I had come to the end, I added:

“And so in the restitution of all things, when Jesus Christ the true physician comes to restore to health the whole body of the Church, which now lies scattered and rent, every one will receive his proper place according to the measure of his faith and his recognition of the Son of God (the word ‘recognize’ implies that he had formerly known him and afterwards had ceased to know him), and shall then begin to be what he once had been; yet not in such a way as that, as held by another heresy, all should be placed in one rank, and, by a renovating process, all become angels; but that each member, according to its own measure and office shall become perfect: for instance, that the apostate angel shall begin to be that which he was by his creation, and that man who had been cast out of paradise shall be restored again to the cultivation of paradise;” and so on.

Footnotes

496:3052

Eph. iv. 16