1 Corinthians 15:53-54 — “This mortal must put on immortality”: gift, not natural possession

“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”

1 Corinthians 15:53-54 (KJV)

Context: the closing section of the resurrection chapter

The sentence stands at the end of the longest sustained argument Paul ever conducts. The fifteenth chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians begins with a reminder of the received confession — died, buried, raised on the third day (vv. 3-5) — and then turns against people in the congregation who said there was no resurrection of the dead (v. 12). Everything that follows is refutation: without resurrection the preaching is empty, faith is void, those who have fallen asleep are lost (vv. 14-18).

From v. 35 onward the question shifts from the whether to the how: “How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?” Paul answers with the image of the grain of seed and with a series of contrasts that all describe the same movement: “It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power” (vv. 42-43). In each of these pairs the present man stands on the left, and on the right the gift he does not yet have.

Immediately before our verse Paul draws from this the conclusion that decides everything: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption” (v. 50). And then follows the mystery: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump” (vv. 51-52). Our verse begins in Greek with gár — “for”. It is the ground of this change, not a new piece of information about the constitution of man.

Historically the situation is remarkable. The opponents in Corinth were not materialists. Whoever denied the resurrection of the dead in a city shaped by Greek thought did so, as a rule, not because he thought too little of the soul but because he thought too much of it: if the soul is immortal anyway and the body only its prison, then a bodily raising is no comfort but a step backwards. Paul does not calm these people with the remark that their souls are safe after all. He answers with resurrection and transformation — and with the sentence that this mortal must first put on immortality.

The whole is concluded with two prophetic words. “Death is swallowed up in victory” takes up Isaiah 25:8, where God promises to swallow up death “for ever”; “O death, where is thy sting?” echoes Hosea 13:14. Both words are eschatological: they apply to the day on which God acts. Paul does not transfer the shout of victory to every deathbed, but to the trumpet.

The Socinian core thesis: what one must put on, one does not have

The Socinian interpretation of this verse is of disarming simplicity, and it lies wholly in the wording. Paul does not say: this mortal will be freed from its mortal shell. He says: this mortal must put on immortality. A garment is put on by whoever is not wearing it; a property is received by whoever does not possess it. The sentence therefore presupposes that the man of whom it speaks is not yet immortal — and indeed the man, not a part in him.

With this the point is named at which the ways part. The traditional interpretation reads the verse as a statement about the body: the mortal body receives incorruption at the resurrection, while the immortal soul outlasts it in the meantime. This reading is possible — but it does not stand in the text. Paul writes tò thnētòn toûto, “this mortal here”, with a demonstrative pronoun, as one points at oneself. Of an immortal portion that would be exempt from the necessity of putting on he says not a word. Whoever enters this exception into the verse supplies an anthropology he has gained elsewhere.

The second reason lies in the temporal structure. The deî — “it must” — regularly denotes in the New Testament a divine necessity that runs towards an event: thus Christ “must” suffer and enter into his glory (Lk 24:26). And the infinitive endýsasthai stands in the aorist, the punctiliar tense: not a state that endures, but a process that happens. When it happens Paul has said one verse earlier: “at the last trump” (v. 52). Immortality has a date in this chapter. A property of nature would have none.

The third reason is the lexical finding, and it is so slender that one can enumerate it completely. The noun athanasía, immortality, occurs in the entire New Testament three times: twice in our two verses, where it is promised to men, and once in 1 Timothy 6:16, where it is ascribed to God — and there with the restriction “who only hath immortality”. There is no fourth passage at which something created would be granted immortality as a possession. The finding is therefore not selective but exhaustive.

And finally one must see what the Socinian reading does not assert. It does not deny eternal life; it relocates it. On this interpretation eternal life is not a property that would render the resurrection superfluous, but the gift that is imparted through it. Sozzini formulated this in his treatise on justification by saying that God had resolved to bring his own “over after this mortal life to the immortal, by raising them from the dead”. The raising is the way on which man becomes immortal — not the confirmation that he always was.

Exegesis: key terms and word field

Five linguistic observations carry the interpretation. None of them is speculative; all can be shown from the Greek text.

endýsasthai — “to put on”

The verb endýō means simply: to put on a garment. Paul uses it readily and always for something that comes from outside: “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14), “ye have put on Christ” (Gal 3:27), “put on the new man” (Col 3:10), “put on the whole armour of God” (Eph 6:11). In none of these cases does the thing put on denote a property that the wearer already brought with him. The image lives precisely on the difference between the one who puts on and what is put on.

Especially instructive is the parallel in 2 Corinthians 5:2-4, where the same word field describes the eschatological transformation: Paul longs “to be clothed upon”, that “mortality might be swallowed up of life” — and expressly fears to be found “naked”. Whoever presupposes an immortal soul as a possession of nature can hardly explain this fear: an immortal soul is never naked. The world of imagery presupposes rather that man does not yet wear the decisive garment.

The form is middle (endýsasthai, “to clothe oneself”), which is occasionally taken as a hint at an achievement of one’s own. The context excludes this: four verses later Paul thanks “God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 57). Man puts on; the tailor is another.

phthartón and aphtharsía — the corruptible and incorruption

The word pair belongs to the root phthorá, ruin, decay, corruption. It describes not a moral deficit but a physical condition: that which falls apart. Paul has already used it twice in the chapter, in v. 42 (“it is sown in corruption”) and in v. 50 (“corruption doth not inherit incorruption”). Both passages speak of the whole man with a view to his death, not of a body to which an incorruptible soul would be added.

The rest of the New Testament confirms this usage. Peter speaks of an “incorruptible inheritance” that is “reserved in heaven for you” (1 Pet 1:4) — that is, precisely not lying within us; Paul reproaches the heathen for having exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God (Rom 1:23), and in Romans 2:7 holds out eternal life to those who “seek for glory and honour and incorruption”. What is sought is not a possession.

athanasía — immortality, three times in the New Testament

Here lies the slenderest and therefore the strongest finding. Athanasía, the proper word for immortality, stands three times in the whole New Testament: in 1 Corinthians 15:53 and 15:54, where it is promised to the raised, and in 1 Timothy 6:16, where it is ascribed to God — with the addition ho mónos échōn athanasían, “who only hath immortality”.

With this, the talk of the natural immortality of the soul is not weakly attested but nowhere attested. It does not occur in the Bible as a statement. What does occur is a God to whom immortality is proper, and a man to whom it is promised. The philosophical proposition of the indestructible soul has its home with Plato, in the Phaedo, and from there it migrated into Christian doctrine — a process which the Polish Brethren noted not polemically but historically.

deî — “it must”

The impersonal deî denotes in the language of the New Testament almost throughout a necessity grounded in God’s counsel: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” (Lk 24:26); “even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (Jn 3:14); “this scripture must needs have been fulfilled” (Acts 1:16). It never describes a natural process, but always an ordinance.

And a plain logical rule holds: a necessity is pronounced only where what is required is not yet the case. Of one who were already immortal one could not say that he must put on immortality. The sentence would cancel itself.

tò thnētòn toûto — “this mortal”

The demonstrative toûto is not ornamental. It points: this one here, which is at this moment writing and breathing. The same expression recurs in Paul where he speaks of the “mortal bodies” that God will quicken (Rom 8:11), and of the “mortal flesh” in which the life of Jesus is made manifest (2 Cor 4:11). In every case the mortal is the concrete, whole man under the sign of death.

Linguistically it would have been easy for Paul to make the reservation that tradition reads into the verse. He could have written: this mortal body, this corruptible part. He does not write it. He sets down a neuter form that comprises everything in this man which is subject to death — and exempts nothing from it.

Comparison of interpretations

Sozzini and the Racovian Catechism: immortality as goal, not as equipment

The doctrine at issue here is one of the most peculiar of the Polish Brethren, and it was held against them from every side: man did not become mortal through sin, but was created mortal from the beginning. The Racovian Catechism grounds this soberly — man was formed from earth, at once needed nourishment, was destined for the begetting of descendants, and the tree of life in the garden would have had no sense if life had been unforfeitable anyway. Decisive for our passage is the distinction the Catechism introduces in doing so:

“Furthermore, it is one thing that man was created for immortality, and quite another that he was created immortal: for the former can indicate only the end for which man was created; the latter, however, points to his natural constitution.”

Racovian Catechism, ‘The mortality of man’

This distinction is exactly the one that 1 Corinthians 15:53 requires. To be created for immortality means to have it before one as a destination; to be created immortal would mean to bring it with one as a constitution. The verse speaks of the first possibility: the mortal must put on what is its goal. And because it is a goal, it cannot be a starting condition.

With equal care the Catechism separates two concepts that are constantly confused in the debate: mortality and death. The reproach that whoever calls man mortal makes him a lost man misses the matter:

“The Apostle in that place treats not of mortality but of death itself, and indeed of eternal death. But immortality differs greatly from death, and indeed from eternal death, since someone can be mortal and yet never have to die, much less be under the necessity of remaining eternally in death.”

Racovian Catechism, ‘The mortality of man’

With this the gravest suspicion is excluded. To be mortal does not mean to be delivered over to destruction; it means not to have life from oneself. Whoever receives it from God keeps it — and that, as Paul says, by putting on what is given to him. The same Catechism describes this way in another place as a sequence of stages, and makes unmistakably clear who acts:

“In setting this forth the Apostle describes certain stages by which men attain immortality: namely, that God invites those whom he has predestined to be conformed to his Son in immortality, through the preaching of the Gospel, to lay hold of his heavenly kingdom; then frees them from all fear of sins; and finally leads them on to immortality and eternal life.”

Racovian Catechism, ‘The concepts of predestination, election, and calling’

“To attain immortality” — that is exactly the movement of putting on. Sozzini himself described it in the very first section of his treatise on justification as the content of the divine decree, and with a precision that names the date and the means along with it:

“God, out of his highest and sole goodness, once resolved to forgive all sins to all who come to insight and thenceforth renounce worldly desires, living soberly, righteously, and piously in the present world, and to bring them over after this mortal life to the immortal, by raising them from the dead.”

Fausto Sozzini, “On Justification”, ‘Christ’s death and blood as the seal of the forgiveness of sins’

Note the phrase “bring them over after this mortal life to the immortal, by raising them from the dead”. The raising is here not an appendix to a continuance already secured, but the means of the transition itself. What lies between mortal and immortal life is not a living on, but an act of God.

How central this concept is for Sozzini is shown by his interpretation of 2 Peter 1:4. There the apostle promises participation in the divine nature, and the interpreters disputed whether moral imitation of God in the present life was meant by it. Sozzini contradicts and determines the expression wholly eschatologically:

“Hence I confess that by the name of the divine nature he does not understand the imitation of God in this life, but solely blessed immortality.”

Fausto Sozzini, “On Justification”, ‘Participation in the divine nature according to Peter’

That is a remarkable sharpening. To participate in the divine nature means for Sozzini: to become immortal. Immortality is therefore not what distinguishes man from the animal, but what makes him like God — and for that reason it can come only from God. On this logic it would be a contradiction to assert it at the same time as the self-evident natural possession of every man.

And yet this doctrine is with Sozzini no cool theologoumenon. In his commentary on the First Letter of John he explains why the apostle writes that the joy of his readers may be full, and grounds it with a sentence that turns the whole matter to the personal:

“For there can be no perfect joy in that man who is deprived of the hope of immortality.”

Fausto Sozzini, “Commentary on the First Letter of John”, ‘Perfect joy through holiness and immortality’

Hope of immortality — not knowledge of its possession. Precisely in this lies the difference from the philosophical doctrine of the soul. Whoever possesses immortality needs no hope, but only instruction about his constitution. Whoever expects it directs himself towards one who can give it. The Socinian interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:53-54 therefore takes nothing from man that Scripture grants him; it only gives it back to him in the form in which it stands there: as promise.

Overview of the writings of Sozzini

Logical arguments

From 1 Corinthians 15:53-54 and its context the following arguments follow:

1. Argument from putting on. Whoever puts on a garment is not wearing it beforehand. Paul says of “this mortal” that it must put on immortality. The sentence therefore presupposes that it does not have it. A property one possesses is not put on, but noted.
2. Argument from necessity. The deî denotes a divine ordinance that runs towards an event, and it is pronounced only where what is required is still outstanding. “It must become immortal” cannot sensibly be said of one who is immortal.
3. Argument from the date. The infinitive stands in the aorist, and Paul has named the moment one verse earlier: “at the last trump” (v. 52). Immortality has a date in this chapter. What has a date is an event, not a nature.
4. Argument from the lexical finding. Athanasía stands three times in the New Testament: twice here as a promise to men, once in 1 Timothy 6:16 as a property of God — and there with the word “only”. A passage that would grant a creature immortality as a possession does not exist.
5. Argument from the demonstrative pronoun. Tò thnētòn toûto means “this mortal here”. The expression points at the whole present man. An immortal portion that would be exempt from the necessity of putting on is not designated in the text.
6. Argument from the missing reservation. Paul could have specified: this mortal body, this corruptible part. He does not do so, although the chapter deals at length with the body and he could easily have formulated the distinction. The restriction is entered by the interpreter, not by the apostle.
7. Argument from the character of gift. Four verses later Paul thanks “God, which giveth us the victory” (v. 57), and the same apostle expressly calls eternal life “the gift of God” (Rom 6:23). A gift is what one does not already have; a property of nature is owed to no one’s thanks.
8. Argument from the grain of seed. To the question of the how Paul answers: “That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die” (v. 36). The image requires a real death as a passage. A living on that undercuts death would destroy the analogy on which Paul builds his whole argument.
9. Argument from the clause of futility. Paul writes that without resurrection “they also which are fallen asleep in Christ” are perished, and adds: “If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink” (vv. 18, 32). Both are unintelligible if the souls of those fallen asleep were blessed with God anyway. Then nothing would be perished and nothing in vain.
10. Argument from death swallowed up. The shout of victory “Death is swallowed up in victory” takes up Isaiah 25:8 and stands in the aorist: an event that occurs at the trumpet. Were death for the believer in any case only the passage of the soul into blessedness, nothing would remain to be swallowed up — and the shout would be rhetoric without an object.

Biblical cross-references

The following passages are essential for the understanding of 1 Corinthians 15:53-54:

1 Timothy 6:16 — “who only hath immortality”

The third and last passage at which the word athanasía occurs in the New Testament ascribes it to God and expressly restricts it to him by mónos, “only”. With this the frame is set within which 1 Corinthians 15:53 wants to be read: what God alone has, man can only receive. The two passages do not contradict each other, but complement one another into a closed statement.

Romans 2:7 — to those who “seek for incorruption”

Paul promises eternal life to those who, by patient continuance in well doing, “seek for glory and honour and incorruption”. A seeker does not have. The phrase makes sense only if incorruption is a goal one pursues — and not a mark one brings along as a man.

2 Timothy 1:10 — Christ has brought life and incorruption to light

Of Christ it is said that he has “abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”. What is brought to light was hidden. Were the immortality of the soul a general truth of human nature, it would not first have had to become manifest through the gospel — the philosophers would already have known it.

Romans 6:23 — “but the gift of God is eternal life”

The verse sets wages and gift over against each other: the wages of sin is death, the gift of God eternal life. Where something is called a gift, it is not a component of the recipient. And the death set over against it is real death, not the continuation of life in another place.

Luke 20:35-36 — “neither can they die any more”

Jesus says of those “which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead” that they can die no more, for they are equal unto the angels. The inability to die is here expressly bound to the resurrection and granted to those accounted worthy — not to all men by virtue of their nature.

Isaiah 25:8 — “He will swallow up death in victory”

The prophetic word that Paul takes up in v. 54 promises an action of God on a future day: he will swallow up death and wipe away the tears from all faces. Death is here a real adversary who must be removed, not a gate one passes through anyway.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 — the comfort lies in the raising

Paul comforts the mourners not with the present condition of their dead, but with the coming of the Lord, at which “the dead in Christ” rise first. Only after that follows the “and so shall we ever be with the Lord”. The order is the same as in 1 Corinthians 15: first the trumpet, then the fellowship.

Genesis 3:22-24 — access to the tree of life

Man is driven out of the garden, “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever”. The text presupposes that eternal life is something that can be granted to man or withheld from him. Had he possessed it by nature, the measure would be pointless — an argument which the Racovian Catechism already presses.

Objections and Socinian answers

Objection 1: “Paul here speaks only of the body.”

The objection is the most serious one, and it has a correct observation on its side: Paul does in this chapter actually speak of the body, at length and with great care. But precisely that makes his silence at this place eloquent. Whoever has spoken of sōma for seventeen verses and then comes to the decisive sentence does not without reason suddenly choose another expression: not “this mortal body”, but “this mortal” — a neuter, comprehensive form that includes everything subject to death.

Moreover the objection amounts to a halving of the victory. The shout in v. 54 does not read: death is overcome for the body, while it never reached the soul. It reads: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” If the real self of man was not affected by death anyway, then death was from the beginning only half an adversary — and the victory over it only half a message. The force of the Pauline closing jubilation presupposes that the whole man was really threatened.

Finally it must be asked where the self-evidence comes from with which the objection presupposes the immortal soul. It does not come from the lexical finding, for this knows immortality only as a property of God and as a promise to men. It comes from the philosophical tradition in which Christian doctrine grew up. The Racovian Catechism distinguishes cleanly at this point: to be created for immortality and to be created immortal are “quite another” thing — the former designates a goal, the latter a constitution.

Objection 2: “Paul desired to depart and to be with Christ.”

Both passages set two magnitudes over against each other, not three. In Philippians 1 Paul weighs between remaining and departing; being with Christ is the alternative to living on in the congregation. About the stretch in between he says nothing, because it plays no part in his weighing. For one who perceives nothing after death, being with Christ follows immediately upon departing — not because no time passes, but because no time is experienced.

With 2 Corinthians 5 the context is still more instructive, for there Paul uses the same image of clothing as in our verse. He longs “to be clothed upon”, that “mortality might be swallowed up of life” (v. 4), and he expressly fears to be found “naked” (v. 3). This fear cannot even be formulated within the framework of the doctrine of the soul: a soul immortal by nature cannot be naked. The chapter therefore does not support the opposing position, but employs the same logic of imagery as 1 Corinthians 15: man waits for a garment that he does not yet have.

Decisive, however, is that the same Paul who utters these longings expressly dates the transformation to the last trumpet and expressly binds the comfort of the mourners to the raising (1 Thess 4:16). Whoever credits him with not contradicting himself will read the brief personal turns of phrase from the extensive doctrinal passages, and not the other way round. Sozzini himself exercised the greatest restraint in this question and conceded that we know nothing certain about the condition of the departed — an attitude that commits itself to neither of the two sides and builds no doctrines out of obscure passages.

Objection 3: “The spirit returns to God who gave it.”

The verse says less than the objection takes from it, and the context says even the opposite. Ecclesiastes 12:7 describes a dissolution: what God joined together in the act of creation — dust of the earth and spirit of life — falls apart again in death. The frame is Genesis 2:7, where God forms man from earth and breathes into him the breath of life, whereupon man becomes “a living soul”. If God takes the breath back, there remains not a person, but there remains earth.

The Hebrew term rûach denotes life force, not an ego with consciousness. The same book says expressly of the animal that it has the same breath and that all go to one place (Eccl 3:19-21). And the same Preacher states soberly: “the dead know not any thing”, and in the realm of the dead there is “no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom” (Eccl 9:5, 10). Whoever takes 12:7 as proof of a conscious living on must devalue these statements of the same author.

Above all, however, the objection does not help the opposing position, even if one follows it. For a spirit that returns to God because God gave it is precisely not an independent immortal core, but entrusted property that falls back to its owner. That is exactly the Socinian point: life is a loan. And it fits exactly with Paul, who ascribes immortality to him who has it “only”, and lets man put on what is given to him.

Objection 4: “Even the lost endure eternally — therefore the soul is immortal.”

The objection hangs on an interpretation of the word “eternal” that biblical usage does not compel. Aiōnios denotes what belongs to the coming age, and in the New Testament it is used also of processes that are completed: Sodom and Gomorrah were judged with “eternal fire” (Jude 7), and they are no longer burning. An eternal punishment is accordingly a punishment whose effect is irreversible — and the most irreversible effect is the end of life.

Precisely thus does Scripture predominantly speak of the outcome of the lost: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23), “who shall be punished with everlasting destruction” (2 Thess 1:9), “fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28). The contrast in Matthew 25:46 is thus not life in joy against life in torment, but life against non-life — and that corresponds exactly to what Paul presupposes in 1 Corinthians 15.

It is moreover remarkable that the objection reverses the burden of proof. It infers from an interpretation of the word “eternal” an anthropological thesis that would have to be grounded elsewhere. The Racovian Catechism separates carefully at this point: mortality and eternal death are two different things, for someone can be mortal “and yet never have to die”. The mortality of nature therefore grounds no lostness — and lostness grounds no immortality.

Objection 5: “The soul cannot be killed.”

The verse is usually cited without being read to the end. The second half runs: “but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” The sentence therefore does not say that the soul is indestructible, but: men cannot destroy it, but God can. Precisely on this rests the admonition; without this possibility the intensification “rather” would be empty.

With this Matthew 10:28 is one of the clearest proofs for Socinian anthropology and not against it. The soul is something that God can destroy — thus a creature among creatures, not a divine spark. Ezekiel says it plainly: “the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek 18:4, 20). A thing that can die is not immortal.

What Jesus wants to give his disciples with this word is, incidentally, not a doctrine about the constitution of the soul, but fearlessness before persecutors. The persecutors can take life, but not the life of the coming world; that stands in God’s hand, and God is the one to whom alone fear is due. This fits without a break into the line of 1 Corinthians 15: whoever expects the resurrection from God has death no longer to fear — not because it does not really strike him, but because God is stronger than it.

Theological consequences

Related verses

The following passages support, deepen, or contrast the interpretation presented here:

• 1 Timothy 6:16 — “who only hath immortality”: the third and decisive passage of the word athanasía.
• Genesis 2:7 — man becomes a living soul; he does not have it as an indestructible addition.
• Ezekiel 18:4 — “the soul that sinneth, it shall die”: the soul is mortal.
• Ecclesiastes 9:5 — “the dead know not any thing”: no consciousness between death and raising.
• Psalm 146:4 — with the last breath “his thoughts perish”.
• Psalm 6:6 — “in death there is no remembrance of thee”: the praise falls silent with the man.
• Daniel 12:2 — those who sleep in the dust shall awake: the same date, the same hope.
• John 11:11-14 — death as sleep, explained by Jesus himself: “Lazarus is dead.”
• Luke 23:43 — the promise to the man crucified with him, read from the resurrection.
• Acts 2:29 — David is dead and buried, his sepulchre is still there.
• Matthew 10:28 — God can destroy soul and body: the soul too is destructible.
• Romans 6:23 — “but the gift of God is eternal life”: gift, not equipment.
• 1 Corinthians 15:24 — the end of the same chapter: the handing over of the kingdom to the Father.

Summary

1 Corinthians 15:53-54 is no incidental remark, but the point at which Paul says wherein the resurrection consists: what is mortal must put on immortality. The sentence is linguistically unambiguous. A garment is put on by whoever is not wearing it; a necessity is pronounced where what is required is outstanding; an aorist denotes an event, and the moment Paul has named one verse earlier: the last trumpet. Whoever takes this together reads here no statement about the constitution of man, but the announcement of a gift.

The lexical finding is thereby unusually clear, because it is unusually slender. Athanasía stands three times in the New Testament: twice here, as a promise to men, and once in 1 Timothy 6:16, where God has it “only”. A passage that would grant a creature immortality as property does not exist. The talk of the natural immortality of the soul is therefore not badly attested, but unattested — it comes from Greek philosophy and migrated into the interpretation; it did not arise out of it.

Precisely here the care of the Polish Brethren sets in. The Racovian Catechism distinguishes being created for immortality from being created immortal — the former designates a goal, the latter a constitution — and it separates mortality from eternal death, because someone can be mortal and yet never die. Sozzini himself describes God’s decree as the purpose of bringing his own “over after this mortal life to the immortal, by raising them from the dead”, and calls blessed immortality that in which participation in the divine nature consists.

What is gained in this is more than a correction of anthropology. The victory that Paul proclaims in v. 54 becomes a whole one only when death was a real adversary — and that it is swallowed up is God’s deed, not the discovery that it never really took hold. The hope at issue is therefore no information about an unforfeitable interior, but trust in one who can give what he alone possesses. Sozzini said it in a single sentence: there can be no perfect joy in the man “who is deprived of the hope of immortality”.