I recently came across a post by a very errant Latter-day Saint who claimed that beginning from the second century CE until the Medieval period, there was a rejection of the resurrected body being physical. He was (correctly) called up on this by an Evangelical Protestant apologist who quoted from Tertullian and Augustine.
I am rather busy this week with a forthcoming taxation exam, so I don’t have time to go through my physical copy of the Schaff Early Christian series and/or dig up volumes from my (6,000+ volume) library, but the following page from Catholic Answers, "Resurrection of the Body" provides many quotes from Christian writers during this period showing that the physical nature of the resurrected body was positively affirmed. Here are some representative quotes:
Polycarp of Smyrna
"[W]hoever perverts the sayings of the Lord for his own desires, and says that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, such a one is the firstborn of Satan. Let us, therefore, leave the foolishness and the false-teaching of the crowd and turn back to the word which was delivered to us in the beginning" (Letter to the Philippians 7:1–2 [A.D. 135]).
Aristides
"[Christians] have the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ himself impressed upon their hearts, and they observe them, awaiting the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come" (Apology 15 [A.D. 140]).
Second Clement
"Let none of you say that this flesh is not judged and does not rise again. Just think: In what state were you saved, and in what state did you recover your [spiritual] sight, if not in the flesh? In the same manner, as you were called in the flesh, so you shall come in the flesh. If Christ, the Lord who saved us, though he was originally spirit, became flesh and in this state called us, so also shall we receive our reward in the flesh. Let us, therefore, love one another, so that we may all come into the kingdom of God" (Second Clement 9:1–6 [A.D. 150]).
Justin Martyr
"The prophets have proclaimed his [Christ’s] two comings. One, indeed, which has already taken place, was that of a dishonored and suffering man. The second will take place when, in accord with prophecy, he shall come from the heavens in glory with his angelic host, when he shall raise the bodies of all the men who ever lived. Then he will clothe the worthy in immortality, but the wicked, clothed in eternal sensibility, he will commit to the eternal fire along with the evil demons" (First Apology 52 [A.D. 151]).
"Indeed, God calls even the body to resurrection and promises it everlasting life. When he promises to save the man, he thereby makes his promise to the flesh. What is man but a rational living being composed of soul and body? Is the soul by itself a man? No, it is but the soul of a man. Can the body be called a man? No, it can but be called the body of a man. If, then, neither of these is by itself a man, but that which is composed of the two together is called a man, and if God has called man to life and resurrection, he has called not a part, but the whole, which is the soul and the body" (The Resurrection 8 [A.D. 153]).
Tatian the Syrian
"We believe that there will be a resurrection of bodies after the consummation of all things" (Address to the Greeks 155 [A.D. 170]).
Theophilus of Antioch
"God will raise up your flesh immortal with your soul; and then, having become immortal, you shall see the immortal, if you will believe in him now; and then you will realize that you have spoken against him unjustly. But you do not believe that the dead will be raised. When it happens, then you will believe, whether you want to or not; but unless you believe now, your faith then will be reckoned as unbelief" (To Autolycus 1:7–8 [A.D. 181]).
Irenaeus
"For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and from their disciples the faith in . . . the raising up again of all flesh of all humanity, in order that to Jesus Christ our Lord and God and Savior and King, in accord with the approval of the invisible Father, every knee shall bend of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue shall confess him, and that he may make just judgment of them all" (Against Heresies 1:10:1–4 [A.D. 189]).
I have encountered other Latter-day Saints who (incorrectly) think that only we affirm the physicality of the resurrected body; while many errant members of other denominations do hold to this view, the official teachings of Roman Catholicism and the various denominations within Protestantism and elsewhere affirm this, too. Only Jehovah's Witnesses and a few small groups hold that the resurrected body is "spiritual" only. I do hope that Latter-day Saints will be more careful in making statements about the Patristics and the theology of other faiths in the future on this point and others.
Recommended Reading:
Norman L. Geisler, The Battle for the Resurrection
Michael L. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach
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