by John Donne
Easter Day 1622
I scarce know a place of Scripture, more diversly read, and consequently more variously interpreted than that place, which should most enlighten us, in this consideration presently under our hands; which is that place to the Corinthians, Non omnes dormiemus, We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. The apostle professes there to deliver us a mystery, (Behold, I show you a mystery) but translators and expositors have multiplied mystical clouds upon the words. St Chrysostom reads these words as we do, Non dormiemus, We shall not all sleep, but thereupon he argues, and concludes, that we shall not all die. The common reading of the ancients is contrary to that, Omnes dormiemus, sed non, &c. We shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed. The vulgate edition in the Roman Church differs from both, and as much from the original, as from either, Omnes resurgemus, We shall all rise again, but we shall not all be changed. St Jerome examines the two readings, and then leaves the reader to his choice, as a thing indifferent. St Augustine doth so too, and concludes œquè Catholicos esse, That they are as good Catholics that read it the one way, as the other. But howsoever, that which St Chrysostom collects upon his reading, may not be maintained. He reads as we do; and without all doubt aright, We shall not all sleep; But what then? Therefore shall we not all die? To sleep there, is to rest in the grave, to continue in the state of the dead, and so we shall not all sleep, not continue in the state of the dead. But yet, Statutum est, says the apostle, as verily as Christ was once offered to bear our sins, so verily is it appointed to every man once to die; And, as verily as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so verily death passed upon all men, for that all men have sinned; So the apostle institutes the comparison, so he constitutes the doctrine, in those two places of Scripture, As verily as Christ died for all, all shall die, As verily as every man sins, every man shall die.
In that change then, which we who are then alive, shall receive, (for though we shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed) we shall have a present dissolution of body and soul, and that is truly a death, and a present redintegration of the same body and the same soul, and that is truly a resurrection; we shall die, and be alive again, before another could consider that we were dead; but yet this shall not be done in an absolute instant; some succession of time, though undiscernible there is. It shall be done In raptu, in a rapture; but even in a rapture there is a motion, a transition from one to another place. It shall be done, says he, In ictu oculi, In the twinkling of an eye; But even in the twinkling of an eye, there is a shutting of the eye-lids, and an opening of them again; Neither of these is done in an absolute instant, but requires some succession of time. The apostle, in the resurrection in our text, constitutes a Prius, something to be done first, and something after; first those that were dead in Christ shall rise first, and then, Then when that is done, after that, not all at once, we that are alive shall be wrought upon, we shall be changed, our change comes after their rising; so in our change there is a Prius too, first we shall be dissolved, (so we die) and then we shall be re-compact, (so we rise again). This is the difference, they that sleep in the grave, put off, and depart with the very substance of the body, it is no longer flesh, but dust, they that are changed at the last day, put off, and depart with, only the qualities of the body, as mortality and corruption; It is still the same body, without resolving into dust, but the first step that it makes, is into glory…
Lincoln’s Inn, Easter Term 1620
After that curse upon the serpent, super pectus gradieris, upon thy belly shalt thou go, we shall as soon see a serpent go upright, and not crawl, as, after that judgment, In pulverem revertěris, to dust thou shalt return, see a man, that shall not see death, and corruption in death. Corruption upon our skin, says the text, (our outward beauty;) corruption upon our body, (our whole strength, and constitution.) And, this corruption, not a green paleness, not a yellow jaundice, not a blue lividness, not a black morphew upon our skin, not a bony leanness, not a sweaty faintness, not an ungracious decrepitness upon our body, but a destruction, a destruction to both, After my skin my body shall be destroyed. Though not destroyed by being resolved to ashes in the fire, (perchance I shall not be burnt) not destroyed by being washed to slime, in the sea, (perchance I shall not be drowned) but destroyed contemptibly, by those whom I breed, and feed, by worms; (After my skin worms shall destroy my body.) And thus far our case is equal; one event to the good and bad; worms shall destroy all in them all. And farther than this, their case is equal too, for, they shall both rise again from this destruction. But in this lies the future glory, in this lies the present comfort of the saints of God, that, after all this, (so that this is not my last act, to die, nor my last scene, to lie in the grave, nor my last exit, to go out of the grave) after, says Job; And indefinitely, After, I know not how soon, nor how late, I press not into God’s secrets for that; but, after, all this, Ego, I, I that speak now, and shall not speak then, silenced in the grave, I that see now, and shall not see then, ego videbo, I shall see, (I shall have a new faculty) videbo Deum, I shall see God (I shall have a new object) and, In carne, I shall see him in the flesh, (I shall have a new organ, and a new medium) and, In carne mea, that flesh shall be my flesh, (I shall have a new propriety in that flesh) this flesh which I have now, is not mine, but the worms; but that flesh shall be so mine, as I shall never divest it more, but In my flesh, I shall see God for ever…
If thou hadst seen the bodies of men rise out of the grave, at Christ’s resurrection, could that be a stranger thing to thee, than, (if thou hadst never seen, nor heard, nor imagined it before) to see an oak that spreads so far, rise out of an acorn? Or if churchyards did vent themselves every spring, and that there were such a resurrection of bodies every year, when thou hadst seen as many resurrections as years, the resurrection would be no stranger to thee, than the spring is…
If the whole body were an eye, or an ear, where were the body, says Saint Paul; but, when of the whole body there is neither eye nor ear, nor any member left, where is the body? And what should an eye do there, where there is nothing to be seen but loathsomness; or a nose there, where there is nothing to be smelt, but putrefaction; or an ear, where in the grave they do not praise God? Doth not that body that boasted but yesterday of that privilege above all creatures, that it only could go upright, lie today as flat upon the earth as the body of a horse, or of a dog? And doth it not tomorrow lose his other privilege, of looking up to heaven? Is it not farther removed from the eye of heaven, The sun, than any dog, or horse, by being covered with the earth, which they are not? Painters have presented to us with some horror, the skeleton, the frame of the bones of a man’s body; but the state of a body, in the dissolution of the grave, no pencil can present to us. Between that excremental jelly that thy body is made of at first, and that jelly which thy body dissolves to at last; there is not so noisome, so putrid a thing in nature…
Thy skin, and thy body shall be ground away, trod away upon the ground. Ask where the iron is that is ground off of a knife, or axe; Ask that marble that is worn off of the threshold in the church-porch by continual treading, and with that iron, and with that marble, thou mayest find thy father’s skin and body; Contrita sunt, The knife, the marble, the skin, the body are ground away, trod away, they are destroyed, who knows the revolutions of dust? Dust upon the King’s highway, and dust upon the King’s grave, are both, or neither, Dust Royal, and may change places; who knows the revolutions of dust?…
We pass on. As in Massa damnata, the whole lump of mankind is under the condemnation of Adam’s sin, and yet the good purpose of God severs some men from that condemnation, so, at the resurrection, all shall rise; but not all to glory. But, amongst them, that do Ego, says Job, I shall. I, as I am the same man, made up of the same body, and the same soul. Shall I imagine a difficulty in my body, because I have lost an arm in the East, and a leg in the West? because I have left some blood in the North, and some bones in the South? Do but remember, with what ease you have sat in th
e chair, casting an account, and made a shilling on one hand, a pound on the other, or five shillings below, ten above, because all these lay easily within your reach. Consider how much less, all this earth is to him, that sits in heaven, and spans all this world, and reunites in an instant arms, and legs, blood, and bones, in what corners so ever they be scattered. The greater work may seem to be in reducing the soul; That that soul which sped so ill in that body, last time it came to it, as that it contracted original sin then, and was put to the slavery to serve that body, and to serve it in the ways of sin, not for an apprenticeship of seven, but seventy years after, that that soul after it hath once got loose by death, and lived God knows how many thousands of years, free from that body, that abused it so before, and in the sight and fruition of that God, where it was in no danger, should willingly, nay desirously, ambitiously seek this scattered body, this Eastern, and Western, and Northern, and Southern body, this is the most inconsiderable consideration; and yet, Ego, I, I the same body, and the same soul, shall be recompact again, and be identically, numerically, individually the same man. The same integrity of body, and soul, and the same integrity in the organs of my body, and in the faculties of my soul too; I shall be all there, my body, and my soul, and all my body, and all my soul. I am not all here, I am here now preaching upon this text, and I am at home in my library considering whether St Gregory, or St Jerome, have said best of this text, before. I am here speaking to you, and yet I consider by the way, in the same instant, what it is likely you will say to one another, when I have done. You are not all here neither; you are here now, hearing me, and yet you are thinking that you have heard a better sermon somewhere else, of this text before; you are here, and yet you think you could have heard some other doctrine of downright predestination, and reprobation roundly delivered somewhere else with more edification to you; you are here, and you remember your selves that now ye think of it, this had been the fittest time, now, when everybody else is at church, to have made such and such a private visit; and because you would be there, you are there. I cannot say, you cannot say so perfectly, so entirely now, as at the Resurrection, Ego, I am here; I, body and soul; I, soul and faculties; as Christ said to Peter, Noli timere, Ego sum, Fear nothing, it is I; so I say to myself, Noli timere; My soul, why art thou so sad, my body, why dost thou languish? Ego, I, body and soul, soul and faculties, shall say to Christ Jesus, Ego sum, Lord, it is I, and he shall not say, Nescio te, I know thee not, but avow me, and place me at his right hand. Ego sum, I am the man that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his wrath; Ego sum, and I the same man, shall receive the crown of glory which shall not fade…
It shall be Caro mea, my flesh, so, as that nothing can draw it from the allegiance of my God; and Caro mea, My flesh, so, as that nothing can divest me of it. Here a bullet will ask a man, where’s your arm; and a wolf will ask a woman, where’s your breast? A sentence in the Star Chamber will ask him, where’s your ear, and a month’s close prison will ask him, where’s your flesh? a fever will ask him, where’s your red, and a morphew will ask him, where’s your white? But when after all this, when after my skin worms shall destroy my body, I shall see God, I shall see him in my flesh, which shall be mine as inseparably, (in the effect, though not in the manner) as the hypostatical union of God, and man, in Christ, makes our nature and the Godhead one person in him. My flesh shall no more be none of mine, than Christ shall not be man, as well as God.
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
All Kings, and all their favorites
As virtuous men passe mildly away
At the round earths imagin’d corners, blow
Away thou fondling motley humorist
Batter my heart, three person’d God; for, you
Before I sigh my last gaspe, let me breath
Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with teares
Busie old foole, unruly Sunne
By our first strange and fatall interview
Come live with mee, and bee my love
Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defie
Deare love, for nothing lesse then thee
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Father of Heaven, and him, by whom
For every houre that thou wilt spare me now
For Godsake hold your tongue, and let me love
Goe, and catche a falling starre
Honour is so sublime perfection
I am a little world made cunningly
I am two fooles, I know
I can love both faire and browne
I fixe mine eye on thine, and there
I long to talke with some old lovers ghost
I scarce beleeve my love to be so pure
I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
Immensitie cloysterd in thy deare wombe
In what torne ship soever I embarke
Kinde pitty chokes my spleene; brave scorn forbids
Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this
Let me powre forth
Marke but this flea, and marke in this
No Lover saith, I love, nor any other
Now thou hast lov’d me one whole day
O might those sighes and teares returne againe
Reason is our Soules left hand, Faith her right
Salvation to all that will is nigh
Send home my long strayd eyes to mee
Shee’ is dead; And all which die
Show me deare Christ, thy Spouse, so bright and clear
Since I am comming to that Holy roome
Since she whom I lov’d hath payd her last debt
Sir; though (I thanke God for it) I do hate
Sleep, sleep old Sun, thou canst not have repast
So, so, breake off this last lamenting kisse
Some that have deeper digg’d loves Myne then I
Stand still, and I will read to thee
Sweetest love, I do not goe
T’have written then, when you writ, seem’d to mee
The heavens rejoyce in motion, why should I
This is my playes last scene, here heavens appoint
This twilight of two yeares, not past nor next
Thou hast made me. And shall thy worke decay?
Thou shalt not laugh in this leafe, Muse, nor they
Though I be dead, and buried, yet I have
Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes
Twice or thrice had I loved thee
Well; I may now receive, and die; My sinne
What if this present were the worlds last night?
When by thy scorne, O murdresse, I am dead
When I dyed last, and, Deare, I dye
When my grave is broke up againe
When that rich soule which to her Heaven is gone
Where, like a pillow on a bed
Why are wee by all creatures waited on?
Wilt thou forgive that sinne where I begunne
You have refin’d mee, and to worthyest things
