Книга пророка Даниила, Глава 3, стих 94. Толкования стиха

THE INCORRUPTION OF RESURRECTION BODIES. AUGUSTINE: Human weakness uses its acquaintance with things experienced to measure divine works that are beyond its experience and thinks it has made a keen observation when it says, “If there is flame, it is hot; if it is hot, it burns; if it burns, then it burned the bodies of the three men thrown into the fiery furnace by the wicked king.” If then even those who might not understand the idea of divine works still believe that a miracle was wrought on these three men, why should we then not believe that he who prevented those bodies from being consumed by the fire also prevented his body from being consumed by fire or famine or disease or old age or any other of the forces by which corruption usually breaks down human bodies? But if anyone says that incorruption against the fire was not added to the flesh of the three men, but that the power of the destruction was taken away from the fire itself, why do we fear that he who took away the ability of the fire to destroy not make flesh that could not be destroyed? . . . The divine power is able to remove whatever qualities he wills from that visible and palpable nature of bodies, while some qualities remain unchanged; so he is able to add unwearying strength to mortal members, preserving the characteristic marks of their form, even when they have died because of the corruption of mortality, so that the mortal appearance is there but wasting disease is absent; motion is there, but fatigue is not; the ability to eat is there, but the necessity of hunger is not. LETTER 205.

GOD’S PROVIDENTIAL CARE KNOWS NO BOUNDS. NOVATIAN: The Father’s care and providence neither allowed the garments of the Israelites to perish nor the worthless shoes on their feet to wear out; nor, finally, did he permit the wide trousers of the captive young men to be burned. And this is not without reason, for if he who contains all things embraces all things (all things, however, and the whole sum are made up of individual parts), then it follows logically that his care will be bestowed on every individual part because his providence extends to the whole, whatever it be. ON THE TRINITY 8.6.

THE SAFETY OF THE YOUNG MEN FORESHADOWS THE RESURRECTION. TERTULLIAN: “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death” and therefore no more corruption, it being chased away by incorruption, even as death is by immortality. . . . That the raiment and shoes of the children of Israel remained unworn and fresh for the space of forty years . . . that the fires of Babylon injured neither the cloaks nor the trousers of the three young men . . . that Jonah was swallowed by the monster of the deep, in whose belly whole ships were devoured and after three days was vomited out safe and sound—to what faith do these notable facts bear witness, if not to that which ought to inspire in us the belief that they are proofs . . . of our own future integrity and perfect resurrection? . . . They are written that we may believe both that the Lord is more powerful than all natural laws about the body, and that he shows himself the preserver of the flesh the more emphatically, in that he has preserved for the body even its very clothes and shoes. ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH 58.