Chap. XX. - The Epistle to the Philippians. The Variances Amongst the Preachers of Christ No Argument that There Was More than One Only Christ. St. Paul’s Phrases - Form of a Servant, Likeness, and Fashion of a Man - No Sanction of Docetism. No Antithesis (Such as Marcion Alleged) in the God of Judaism and the God of the Gospel Deducible from Certain Contrasts Mentioned in This Epistle. A Parallel with a Passage in Genesis. The Resurrection of the Body, and the Change Thereof.
When (the apostle) mentions the several motives of those who were preaching the gospel, how that some, “waxing confident by his bonds, were more fearless in speaking the word,” while others “preached Christ even out of envy and strife, and again others out of good-will” many also “out of love,” and certain “out of contention,” and some “in rivalry to himself,” (Phi_1:14-17) he had a favourable opportunity, no doubt,437 of taxing what they preached with a diversity of doctrine, as if it were no less than this which caused so great a variance in their tempers. But while he exposes these tempers as the sole cause of the diversity, he avoids inculpating the regular mysteries of the faith,438 and affirms that there is, notwithstanding, but one Christ and His one God, whatever motives men had in preaching Him. Therefore, says he, it matters not to me “whether it be in pretence or in truth that Christ is preached,” (Phi_1:18) because one Christ alone was announced, whether in their “pretentious” or their “truthful” faith. For it was to the faithfulness of their preaching that he applied the word truth, not to the rightness of the rule itself, because there was indeed but one rule; whereas the conduct of the preachers varied: in some of them it was true, i.e., single-minded, while in others it was sophisticated with over-much learning. This being the case, it is manifest that that Christ was the subject of their preaching who was always the theme of the prophets. Now, if it were a completely different Christ that was being introduced by the apostle, the novelty of the thing would have produced a diversity (in belief.). For there would not have been wanting, in spite of the novel teaching,439 men to interpret the preached gospel of the Creator’s Christ, since the majority of persons everywhere now-a-days are of our way of thinking, rather than on the heretical side. So that the apostle would not in such a passage as the present one have refrained from remarking and censuring the diversity. Since, however, there is no blame of a diversity, there is no proof of a novelty. Of course440 the Marcionites suppose that they have the apostle on their side in the following passage in the matter of Christ’s substance - that in Him there was nothing but a phantom of flesh. For he says of Christ, that, “being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; (compare the treatise, De Resur. Carnis, c. vi. (Oehler)) but emptied441 Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant,” not the reality, “and was made in the likeness of man,” not a man, “and was found in fashion as a man,” (Phi_2:6-7) not in his substance, that is to say, his flesh; just as if to a substance 473 there did not accrue both form and likeness and fashion. It is well for us that in another passage (the apostle) calls Christ “the image of the invisible God.” (Col_1:15) For will it not follow with equal force from that passage, that Christ is not truly God, because the apostle places Him in the image of God, if, (as Marcion contends,) He is not truly man because of His having taken on Him the form or image of a man? For in both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image (or “fashion”) and likeness and form shall be claimed for a phantom. But since he is truly God, as the Son of the Father, in His fashion and image, He has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, “found in the fashion “and image” of a man.” For when he propounded442 Him as thus “found” in the manners of a man, he in fact affirmed Him to be most certainly human. For what is found, manifestly possesses existence. Therefore, as He was found to be God by His mighty power, so was He found to be man by reason of His flesh, because the apostle could not have pronounced Him to have “become obedient unto death,” (Phi_2:8) if He had not been constituted of a mortal substance. Still more plainly does this appear from the apostle’s additional words, “even the death of the cross.” (Phi_2:8) For he could hardly mean this to be a climax443 to the human suffering, to extol the virtue444 of His obedience, if he had known it all to be the imaginary process of a phantom, which rather eluded the cross than experienced it, and which displayed no virtue444 in the suffering, but only illusion. But “those things which he had once accounted gain,” and which he enumerates in the preceding verse - “trust in the flesh,” the sign of “circumcision,” his origin as “an Hebrew of the Hebrews,” his descent from “the tribe of Benjamin,” his dignity in the honours of the Pharisee445 - he now reckons to be only “loss” to himself; (Phi_3:7) (in other words,) it was not the God of the Jews, but their stupid obduracy, which he repudiates. These are also the things “which he counts but dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ” (Phi_3:8) (but by no means for the rejection of God the Creator); “whilst he has not his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through Him,” i.e., Christ, “the righteousness which is of God.” (Phi_3:9) Then, say you, according to this distinction the law did not proceed from the God of Christ. Subtle enough! But here is something still more subtle for you. For when (the apostle) says, “Not (the righteousness) which is of the law, but that which is through Him,” he would not have used the phrase through Him of any other than Him to whom the law belonged. “Our conversation,” says he, “is in heaven.” (Phi_3:20) I here recognise the Creator’s ancient promise to Abraham: “I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven.” (Gen_22:17) Therefore “one star differeth from another star in glory.” (1Co_15:41) If, again, Christ in His advent from heaven “shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body,” (Phi_3:21)446 it follows that this body of ours shall rise again, which is now in a state of humiliation in its sufferings and according to the law of mortality drops into the ground. But how shall it be changed, if it shall have no real existence? If, however, this is only said of those who shall be found in the flesh (1Co_15:51-52) at the advent of God, and who shall have to be changed,”447 what shall they do who will rise first? They will have no substance from which to undergo a change. But he says (elsewhere), “We shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord (in the air).” (1Th_4:16-17) Then, if we are to be caught up alone with them, surely we shall likewise be changed together with them.
Chap. XXI. - The Epistle to Philemon. This Epistle Not Mutilated. Marcion’s Inconsistency in Accepting This, and Rejecting Three Other Epistles Addressed to Individuals. Conclusions. Tertullian Vindicates the Symmetry and Deliberate Purpose of His Work Against Marcion.
To this epistle alone did its brevity avail to protect it against the falsifying hands of Marcion. I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man, that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline. His aim, was, I suppose, to carry out his interpolating process even to the number of (St. 474 Paul’s) epistles. And now, reader,448 I beg you to remember that we have here adduced proofs out of the apostle, in support of the subjects which we previously449 had to handle, and that we have now brought to a close450 the topics which we deferred to this (portion of our) work. (This favour I request of you,) that you may not think that any repetition here has been superfluous, for we have only fulfilled our former engagement to you; nor look with suspicion on any postponement there, where we merely set forth the essential points (of the argument).451 If you carefully examine the entire work, you will acquit us of either having been redundant here, or diffident there, in your own honest judgment. [Elucidation II.]
Elucidations.
I.
(Soul and Spirit, cap. xv. and notes 361 and 362.)
Dr. Holmes, in the learned note which follows, affords me a valuable addition to my scanty remarks on this subject in former volumes. See (Vol. 1. pp. 387, 532), references to the great work of Professor Delitzsch, in notes on Irenaeus. In Vol. 2. p. 102, I have also mentioned M. Heard’s work, on the Tripartite Nature of Man. With reference to the disagreement of the learned on this great matter, let me ask is it not less real than apparent? The dichotomy to which Tertullian objected, and the trichotomy which Dr. Holmes makes a name of “the triple nature,” are terms which rather suggest a process of “dividing asunder of soul and spirit,” and which involve an ambiguity that confuses the inquiry. Now, while the gravest objections may be imagined, or even demonstrated, against a process which seems to destroy the unity and individuality of a Man, does not every theologian accept the analytical formula of the apostle and recognize the bodily, the animal and the spiritual in the life of man? If so is there not fundamental agreement as to 1Th_5:23, and difference only, relatively, as to functions and processes, or as to the way in which truth on these three points ought to be stated? On this subject there are good remarks in the Speaker’s Commentary on the text aforesaid, but the exhaustive work of Delitzsch deserves study.
Man’s whole nature in Christ, seems to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit’s suffusion of man’s spirit this rules and governs the psychic nature and through it the body.
II.
(The entire work, cap. xxi.)
He who has followed Tertullian through the mazes in which Marcion, in spite of shifts and turnings innumerable, has been hunted down, and defeated, must recognize the great work performed by this author in behalf of Christian Orthodoxy. It seems to have been the plan of Christ’s watchful care over His Church, that, in the earliest stages of its existence the enemy should be allowed to display his utmost malice and to bring out all his forces against Truth. Thus, before the meeting of Church-councils the language of faith had grown up, and dear views and precise statements of doctrine had been committed to the idioms of human thought. But, the labours of Tertullian are not confined to these diverse purposes. With all the faults of his acute and forensic mind, how powerfully he illuminates the Scriptures and glorifies them as containing the whole system of the Faith. How rich are his quotations, and how penetrating his conceptions of their uses. Besides all this, what an introduction he gives us to the modes of thought which were becoming familiar in the West, 475 and which were convening the Latin tongue to new uses, and making it capable of expressing Augustine’s mind and so of creating new domains of Learning among the nations of Europe.
If I have treated tenderly the reputation of this great Master, in my notes upon his Marcion, it is with a twofold purpose. (1.) It seems to me due to truth that his name should be less associated with his deplorable lapse than with his long and faithful services to the Church, and (2.) that the student should thus follow his career with a pleasure and with a confidence the lack of which perpetually annoys us when we give the first place to the Montanist and not to the Catholic. Let this be our spirit in accompanying him into his fresh campaigns against “the grievous wolves” foreseen by St. Paul with tears. Act_20:29-30.
But as our Author invokes a careful examination of his “entire work,” let the student recur to Irenaeus (Vol. 1. p. 352, etc.) and observe how formidable, from the beginning, was the irreligion of Marcion. His doctrines did truly “eat like a canker,” assailing the Scriptures by mutilations and corruptions of the text itself. No marvel that Tertullian shows him no quarter, though we must often regret the forensic violence of his retort. As to the Dualism which, through Marcion, thus threatened the first article of the Creed, consult the valuable remarks of the Encyc. Britannica, (“Mithras”). Mithras became known to the Romans circa B.C. 70, and his worship flourished under Trajan and his successors. An able writer remarks that it was natural “Dualism should develop itself out of primitive Zoroastrianism. The human mind has ever been struck with a certain antagonism of which it has sought to discover the cause. Evil seems most easily accounted for by the supposition of an evil Person; and the continuance of an equal struggle, without advantage to either side, seems to imply the equality of that evil Person with the author of all good. Thus Dualism had its birth. Many came to believe in the existence of two co-eternal and co-equal Persons, one good and the other evil, between whom there has been from all eternity a perpetual conflict, and between whom the same conflict must continue to rage through all coming time.”
FOOTNOTES
437 Utique.
438 Regulas sacramentorum.
439 Nihilominus.
440 Plane.
441 Exhausit ἐκένωσε.
442 Posuit.
443 Inventum ratione.
444 Virtutem: perhaps the power.
445 Candidæ pharisaeæ: see Phi_3:4-6.
446 [I have adhered to the original Greek, by a trifling verbal change, because Tertullian’s argument requires it.]
447 Deputari, which is an old reading, should certainly be demutari, and so say the best authorities. Oehler reads the former, but contends for the latter.
448 Inspector: perhaps critic.
449 Retro: in the former portions of this treatise.
