3 - The Transmutation of Human Flesh into an Angelic Body

Summary

Chapter 3 focuses on Augustine’s early consideration of the resurrection as the transmutation of human flesh into an angelic body. In pondering Christ’s bodily ascension into heaven, Augustine experiments with the substantial transmutation of flesh and blood into an angelic, celestial, and ethereal body. As an attempt to handle our advancement in and through our beatific resurrection, Augustine’s experiment allows him to defend the bodily resurrection against the philosophical objections of unbelievers, who claim that earthly bodies cannot exist in heaven, and the exegetical objections of the Manichaeans, who insist that the substance of flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50). What permits this experiment, however, is Augustine’s conviction that the continuity and integrity of our human identity, both personal and communal, are grounded and crowned by the God of the resurrection. Augustine’s later precisions of his early concept of angelic transmutation manifest its insufficiencies.