Chapter 9 considers how Augustine features some of the most extreme expressions of the spiritual resurrection and of hope for the fleshly resurrection as Christians approach their bodily deaths and handle those of others. Augustine’s teaching and preaching on Christian dying, celebrating the Christian martyrs, handling Christian funerary and commemorative practices, and consoling Christian survivors serve to highlight the embodied spiritual life and activities of Christians whose souls have already been resurrected and whose bodies will eventually be resurrected, hopefully to eternal life. Among these discussions, Augustine acknowledges that Paul, the martyred apostle of the resurrection, provides some of the deepest theological insights not only into the mystery of the resurrection, but also into the interim condition of the human person after physical death and before fleshly resurrection. Despite the personal brokenness of death, Augustine sees that the continuity of human identity always remains in the hands of God.

Chapter 12 explores Augustine’s Christocentric speculations on the beatific resurrection of the saints to eternal life. Particularly in Book 22 of De ciuitate dei, Augustine displays both moderation in his tentative articulations and generosity in his allowance of a wide range of eschatological prospects within the parameters set by Scripture and the resurrected Christ. Considering the spiritual body and the ecclesial body of the beatific resurrection, Augustine discusses the perfection of human freedom, the vigor and beauty of the saints’ resurrected flesh, the vindication of history in their resurrected bodies and memories, and the unity and diversity of the resurrected Church. Augustine develops his understanding of the beatific vision to articulate the prospect that it will come not only after, but also from within the beatific resurrection. Enjoying forever the insatiable satisfaction of God, the resurrected community of the saints will indefatigably celebrate and praise the God of the resurrection.

Chapter 11 examines Augustine’s biblical acceptance, articulation, and defense of the miserable resurrection of the damned to eternal death. While admitting the difficult, but candid words of God in Scripture about the eternality of hell, Augustine refuses to subvert the Christocentric standard of final judgment by merely human preferences and sentiments. Particularly in Book 21 of De ciuitate dei, Augustine argues not only for the possibility of the fleshly resurrection to eternal punishment, but also for its suitability. He recognizes that it is not only the denizens of the earthly city which protests against its own self-selected end, but also certain citizens of the pilgrim city of God whose hearts still bear marks of the earthly city’s love. For Augustine, the God of the resurrection will forever lavish his love, his justice, and perhaps even his mercy upon the resurrected damned, who have eternally and impenitently alienated themselves from him.

The epilogue recapitulates the course of this investigation into Augustine’s theology of the resurrection. It then considers how Augustine prepared both the members of the Catholic Church in Hippo for its life after his death and himself for his resurrection after his death. It looks forward in hope of encountering Augustine, living again and forever in the flesh, at the eschatological resurrection.

Chapter 2 focuses on Augustine’s early consideration of the resurrection as the restoration of humanity to the pristine stability of paradise. In starting to describe the resurrection, Augustine begins to articulate the spiritual death and resurrection of the soul and the physical death and resurrection of the body. In this process, he begins to modify his previous notions of the soul’s immortality and the body’s dispensability. Emphasizing more a return to the original creation and less an advance to an eschatological transformation, Augustine reinforces his description of this repristination by articulating not only humanity’s spiritual change at the beginning of time, but also a version of millennialism at the end of time. At the center of these considerations, Augustine begins to explore the fleshly resurrection of Christ, who functions as the sacrament and example of our salvation. Augustine’s later clarifications of his early concept of Edenic repristination evince its limitations.