God and immortality were associated in Christian thought. Christians, said a writer using the name of Peter, are to be "partakers of the divine nature." "If the soul," says Tatian, "enters into union with the divine spirit, it is no longer helpless, but ascends to regions whither the spirit guides it; for the dwelling-place of the spirit is above, but the origin of the soul is from beneath."[68] "God sent forth to us the Saviour and Prince of immortality, by whom he also made manifest to us the truth and the heavenly life."[69] The Christian's life is "hid with Christ in God," and Christ's resurrection is to the {164} early church the pledge of immortality--"we shall be ever with the Lord." For the transmigration of souls and "eternal re-dying," life was substituted.[70] "We have believed," said Tatian, "that there will be a resurrection of our bodies, after the consummation of all things--not, as the Stoics dogmatize, that in periodic cycles the same things for ever come into being and pass out of it for no good whatever,--but once for all," and this for judgment. The judge is not Minos nor Rhadamanthus, but "God the maker is the arbiter."[71] "They shall see him (Jesus) then on that day," wrote the so-called Barnabas, "wearing the long scarlet robe upon his flesh, and they will say 'Is this not he whom we crucified, whom we spat upon, and rejected?'"[72] Persecution tempted the thought of what "that day" would mean for the persecutor. But it was a real concern of the Christian himself. "I myself, utterly sinful, not yet escaped from temptation, but still in the midst of the devil's engines,--I do my diligence to follow after righteousness that I may prevail so far as at least to come near it, fearing the judgment that is to come."[73] Immortality and righteousness--the two thoughts go together, and both depend upon Jesus Christ. He is emphatically called "our Hope"--a favourite phrase with Ignatius.[74] [Sidenote: Martyrdom and happiness]