Chap. XI. - The Opposite Extravagance Exposed. That Is Christ with a Soul Composed of Flesh - Corporeal, Though Invisible. Christ’s Soul, like Ours, Distinct from Flesh, Though Clothed in It.
But we meet another argument of theirs, when we raise the question why Christ, in assuming a flesh composed of soul, should seem to have had a soul that was made of flesh? For God, they say, desired to make the soul visible to men, by enduing it with a bodily nature, although it was before invisible; of its own nature, indeed, it was incapable of seeing anything, even its own self, by reason of the obstacle of this flesh, so that it was even a matter of doubt whether it was born or not. The soul, therefore (they further say), was made corporeal in Christ, in order that we might see it when undergoing birth, and death, and (what is more) resurrection. But yet, how was this possible, that by means of the flesh the soul should demonstrate itself108 to itself or to us, when it could not possibly be ascertained that it would offer this mode of exhibiting itself by the flesh, until the thing came into existence to which it was unknown,109 that is to say, the flesh? It received darkness, forsooth, in order to be able to shine! Now,110 let us first turn our attention to this point, whether it was requisite that the soul should exhibit itself in the manner contended for;111 and next consider whether their previous position be112 that the soul is wholly invisible (inquiring further) whether this invisibility is the result of its incorporeality, or whether it actually possesses some sort of body peculiar to itself. And yet, although they say that it is invisible, they determine it to be corporeal, but having somewhat that is invisible. For if it has nothing invisible how can it be said to be invisible? But even its existence is an impossibility, unless it has that which is instrumental to its existence.113 Since, however, it exists, it must needs have a something through which it exists. If it has this something, it must be its body. Everything which exists is r a bodily existence sui generis. Nothing lacks bodily existence but that which is non-existent. If, then, the soul has an invisible body, He who had proposed to make it114 visible would certainly have done His work better115 if He had made that part of it which was accounted invisible, visible; because then there would have been no untruth or weakness in the case, and neither of these flaws is suitable to God. (But as the case stands in the hypothesis) there is untruth, since He has set forth the soul as being a different thing from what it really is; and there is weakness, since He was unable to make it appear116 to be that which it is. No one who wishes to exhibit a man covers him with a veil117 or a mask. This, however, is precisely what has been done to the soul, if it has been clothed with a covering belonging to something else, by being converted into flesh. But even if the soul is, on their hypothesis, supposed118 to be incorporeal, so that the soul, whatever it is, should by some mysterious force of the reason119 be quite unknown, only not be a body, then in that case it were not beyond the power of God - indeed it would be more consistent with His plan - if He displayed120 the soul in some new sort of body, different from that which we all have in common, one of which we should have quite a different notion,121 (being spared 532 the idea that)122 He had set His mind on123 making, without an adequate cause, a visible soul instead of124 an invisible one - a fit incentive, no doubt, for such questions as they start,125 by their maintenance of a human flesh for it.126 Christ, however, could not have appeared among men except as a man. Restore, therefore, to Christ, His faith; believe that He who willed to walk the earth as a man exhibited even a soul of a thoroughly human condition, not making it of flesh, but clothing it with flesh.
Chap. XII. - The True Functions of the Soul. Christ Assumed It in His Perfect Human Nature, Not to Reveal and Explain It, but to Save It. Its Resurrection with the Body Assured by Christ.
Well, now, let it be granted that the soul is made apparent by the flesh,127 on the assumption that it was evidently necessary128 that it should be made apparent in some way or other, that is, as being incognizable to itself and to us: there is still an absurd distinction in this hypothesis, which implies that we are ourselves separate from our soul, when all that we are is soul. Indeed,129 without the soul we are nothing; there is not even the name of a human being, only that of a carcase. If, then, we are ignorant of the soul, it is in fact the soul that is ignorant of itself. Thus the only remaining question left for us to look into is, whether the soul was in this matter so ignorant of itself that it became known in any way it could.130 The soul, in my opinion,131 is sensual.132 Nothing, therefore, pertaining to the soul is unconnected with sense,133 nothing pertaining to sense is unconnected with the soul.134 And if I may use the expression for the sake of emphasis, I would say, “Animae anima sensus est” - “Sense is the soul’s very soul.” Now, since it is the soul that imparts the faculty of perception135 to all (that have sense), and since it is itself that perceives the very senses, not to say properties, of them all how is it likely that it did not itself receive sense as its own natural constitution? Whence is it to know what is necessary for itself under given circumstances, from the very necessity of natural causes, if it knows not its own property, and what is necessary for it? To recognise this indeed is within the competence of every soul; it has, I mean, a practical knowledge of itself, without which knowledge of itself no soul could possibly have exercised its own functions.136 I suppose, too, that it is especially suitable that man, the only rational animal, should have been furnished with such a soul as would make him the rational animal, itself being pre-eminently rational. Now, how can that soul which makes man a rational animal be itself rational if it be itself ignorant of its rationality, being ignorant of its own very self? So far, however, is it from being ignorant, that it knows its own Author, its own Master, and its own condition. Before it learns anything about God, it names the name of God. Before it acquires any knowledge of His judgment, it professes to commend itself to God. There is nothing one oftener hears of than that there is no hope after death; and yet what imprecations or deprecations does not the soul use according as the man dies after a well or ill spent life! These reflections are more fully pursued in a short treatise which we have written, “On the Testimony of the Soul.” (see especially chap. iv. supra) Besides, if the soul was ignorant of itself from the beginning, there is nothing it could137 have learnt of Christ except its own quality.138 It was not its own form that it learnt of Christ, but its salvation. For this cause did the Son of God descend and take on Him a soul, not that the soul might discover itself in Christ, but Christ in itself. For its salvation is endangered, not by its being ignorant of itself, but of the word of God. “The life,” says He, “was manifested,” (1Jo_1:2) not the soul. And again, “I am come to save the soul. He did not say, “to explain”139 (see Luk_9:56) it. We could not know, of course,140 that the soul, although an invisible essence, is born and dies, unless it were exhibited corporeally. We certainly were ignorant that it was to rise again with the flesh. This is the truth which it will be found was manifested by Christ. But even this He did not manifest in Himself in a different way than in some Lazarus, whose flesh was no more composed of soul141 than his soul was of flesh.142 What further knowledge, therefore, have we received of the structure143 of the soul which we were ignorant of before? What invisible part was there belonging to it which wanted to be made visible by the flesh?
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Chap. XIII. - Christ’s Human Nature. The Flesh and the Soul Both Fully and Unconfusedly Contained in It.
The soul became flesh that the soul might become visible.144 Well, then, did the flesh likewise become soul that the flesh might be manifested?145 If the soul is flesh, it is no longer soul, but flesh. If the flesh is soul, it is no longer flesh, but soul. Where, then, there is flesh, and where there is soul, it has become both one and the other.146 Now, if they are neither in particular, although they become both one and the other, it is, to say the least, very absurd, that we should understand the soul when we name the flesh, and when we indicate the soul, explain ourselves as meaning the flesh. All things will be in danger of being taken in a sense different from their own proper sense, and, whilst taken in that different sense, of losing their proper one, if they are called by a name which differs from their natural designation. Fidelity in names secures the safe appreciation of properties. When these properties undergo a change, they are considered to possess such qualities as their names indicate. Baked clay, for instance, receives the name of brick.147 It retains not the name which designated its former state,148 because it has no longer a share in that state. Therefore, also, the soul of Christ having become flesh,149 cannot be anything else than that which it has become nor can it be any longer that which it once was, having become indeed150 something else. And since we have just had recourse to an illustration, we will put it to further use. Our pitcher, then, which was formed of the clay, is one body, and has one name indicative, of course, of that one body; nor can the pitcher be also called clay, because what it once was, it is no longer. Now that which is no longer (what it was) is also not an inseparable property.151 And the soul is not an inseparable property. Since, therefore, it has become flesh, the soul is a uniform solid body; it is also a wholly incomplex being,152 and an indivisible substance. But in Christ we find the soul and the flesh expressed in simple unfigurative153 terms; that is to say, the soul is called soul, and the flesh, flesh; nowhere is the soul termed flesh, or the flesh, soul; and yet they ought to have been thus (confusedly) named if such had been their condition. The fact, however, is that even by Christ Himself each substance has been separately mentioned by itself, conformably of course, to the distinction which exists between the properties of both, the soul by itself, and the flesh by itself.” “My soul,” says He, “is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;”154 (Mat_26:38) and “the bread that I will give is my flesh, (which I will give) for the life155 of the world. (Joh_6:51) Now, if the soul had been flesh, there would have only been in Christ the soul composed of flesh, or else the flesh composed of soul. (above, beginning of chap. x.) Since, however, He keeps the species distinct, the flesh and the soul, He shows them to be two. If two, then they are no longer one; if not one, then the soul is not composed of flesh, nor the flesh of soul. For the soul-flesh, or the flesh-soul, is but one; unless indeed He even had some other soul apart from that which was flesh, and bare about another flesh besides that which was soul. But since He had but one flesh and one soul, - that “soul which was sorrowful, even unto death,” and that flesh which was the “bread given for the life of the world,” - the number is unimpaired156 of two substances distinct in kind, thus excluding the unique species of the flesh-comprised soul.
Chap. XIV. - Christ Took Not on Him an Angelic Nature, but the Human. It Was Men, Not Angels, whom He Came to Save.
But Christ, they say, bare157 (the nature of) an angel. For what reason? The same which induced Him to become man? Christ, then, was actuated by the motive which led Him to take human nature. Man’s salvation was the motive, the restoration of that which had perished. Man had perished; his recovery had become necessary. No such cause, however, existed for Christ’s taking on Him the nature of angels. For although there is assigned to angels also perdition in “the fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” (Mat_25:41) yet a restoration is never promised to them. No charge about the salvation of angels did Christ ever receive from the Father; and that which the Father neither promised nor commanded, Christ could not have undertaken. For what object, therefore, did He bear the angelic nature, if it were not (that He might have it) as a powerful helper158 wherewithal to execute the salvation of man? 534
The Son of God, in sooth, was not competent alone to deliver man, whom a solitary and single serpent had overthrown! There is, then, no longer but one God, but one Saviour, if there be two to contrive salvation, and one of them in need of the other. But was it His object indeed to deliver man by an angel? Why, then, come down to do that which He was about to expedite with an angel’s help? If by an angel’s aid, why come Himself also? If He meant to do all by Himself, why have an angel too? He has been, it is true, called “the Angel of great counsel,” that is, a messenger, by a term expressive of official function, not of nature. For He had to announce to the world the mighty purpose of the Father, even that which ordained the restoration of man. But He is not on this account to be regarded as an angel, as a Gabriel or a Michael. For the Lord of the Vineyard sends even His Son to the labourers require fruit, as well as His servants. Yet the Son will not therefore be counted as one of the servants because He undertook the office of a servant. I may, then, more easily say, if such an expression is to be hazarded,159 that the Son is actually an angel, that is, a messenger, from the Father, than that there is an angel in the Son. Forasmuch, however, as it has been declared concerning the Son Himself, Thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels” (Psa_8:5) how will it appear that He put on the nature of angels if He was made lower than the angels, having become man, with flesh and soul as the Son of man? As “the Spirit160 of God.” however, and “the Power of the Highest,” (Luk_1:35) can He be regarded as lower than the angels, - He who is verily God, and the Son of God? Well, but as bearing human nature, He is so far made inferior to the angels; but as bearing angelic nature, He to the same degree loses that inferiority. This opinion will be very suitable for Ebion,161 who holds Jesus to be a mere man, and nothing more than a descendant of David, and not also the Son of God; although He is, to be sure,162 in one respect more glorious than the prophets, inasmuch as he declares that there was an angel in Him, just as there was in Zechariah. Only it was never said by Christ, “And the angel, which spake within me, said unto me.” (Zec_1:14) Neither, indeed, was ever used by Christ that familiar phrase of all the prophets, “Thus saith the Lord.” For He was Himself the Lord, who openly spake by His own authority, prefacing His words with the formula, “Verily, verily, I say unto you.” What need is there of further argument? Hear what Isaiah says in emphatic words, “It was no angel, nor deputy, but the Lord Himself who saved them.” (Isa_63:9)
Chap. XV. - The Valentinian Figment of Christ’s Flesh Being of a Spiritual Nature, Examined and Refuted out of Scripture.
Valentinus, indeed, on the strength of his heretical system, might consistently devise a spiritual flesh for Christ. Any one who refused to believe that that flesh was human might pretend it to be anything he liked, for - as much as (and this remark is applicable, to all heretics), if it was not human, and was not born of man, I do not see of what substance Christ Himself spoke when He called Himself man and the Son of man, saying: “But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth;” (Joh_8:40) and “The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath-day.” (Mat_12:8) For it is of Him that Isaiah writes: “A man of suffering, and acquainted with the bearing of weakness;” (Isaiah 53:3, LXX) and Jeremiah: “He is a man, and who hath known Him?” (Jeremiah 17:9, LXX) and Daniel: “Upon the clouds (He came) as the Son of man.” (Dan_7:13) The Apostle Paul likewise says: “The man Christ Jesus is the one Mediator between God and man.” (1Ti_2:5) Also Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles, speaks of Him as verily human (when he says), “Jesus Christ was a man approved of God among you.” (Act_2:22) These passages alone ought to suffice as a prescriptive163 testimony in proof that Christ had human flesh derived from man, and not spiritual, and that His flesh was not composed of soul,164 nor of stellar substance, and that it was not an imaginary flesh; (and no doubt they would be sufficient) if heretics could only divest themselves of all their contentious warmth and artifice. For, as I have read in some writer of Valentinus’ wretched faction,165 they refuse at the outset to believe that a human and earthly substance was created166 for Christ, lest the Lord should be regarded as inferior to the angels, who are not formed of earthly flesh; whence, too, it would be 535 necessary that, if His flesh were like ours, it should be similarly born, not of the Spirit, nor of God, but of the will of man. Why, moreover, should it be born, not of corruptible [seed], but of incorruptible? Why, again, since His flesh has both risen and returned to heaven, is not ours, being like His, also taken up at once? Or else, why does not His flesh, since it is like ours, return in like manner to the ground, and suffer dissolution? Such objections even the heathen used constantly to bandy about.167 Was the Son of God reduced to such a depth of degradation Again, if He rose again as a precedent for our hope, how is it that nothing like it has been thought desirable (to happen) to ourselves168 Such views are not improper for heathens and they are fit and natural for the heretics too. For, indeed, what difference is there between them, except it be that the heathen, in not believing, do believe; while the heretics, in believing, do not believe? Then, again, they read: “Thou madest Him a little less than angels;” (Psalms 8:6, LXX) and they deny the lower nature of that Christ who declares Himself to be, “not a man, but a worm;” (Psa_22:6) who also had “no form nor comeliness, but His form was ignoble, despised more than all men, a man in suffering, and acquainted with the bearing of weakness.” (Isaiah 53:3, LXX) Here they discover a human being mingled with a divine one and so they deny the manhood. They believe that He died, and maintain that a being which has died was born of an incorruptible substance;169 as if, forsooth, corruptibility170 were something else than death! But our flesh, too, ought immediately to have risen again. Wait a while. Christ has not yet subdued His enemies, so as to be able to triumph over them in company with His friends.
Chap. XVI. - Christ’s Flesh in Nature, the Same as Ours, Only Sinless. The Difference Between Carnem Peccati and Peccatum Carnis: It Is the Latter Which Christ Abolished. The Flesh of the First Adam, No Less than that of the Second Adam, Not Received from Human Seed, Although as Entirely Human as Our Own, Which Is Derived from It.
The famous Alexander,171 too, instigated by his love of disputation in the true fashion of heretical temper, has made himself conspicuous against us; he will have us say that Christ put on flesh of an earthly origin,172 in order that He might in His own person abolish sinful flesh.173 Now, even if we did assert this as our opinion, we should be able to defend it in such a way as completely to avoid the extravagant folly which he ascribes to us in making us suppose that the very flesh of Christ was in Himself abolished as being sinful; because we mention our belief (in public),174 that it is sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven; and we further declare that it will come again from thence in all the pomp175 of the Father’s glory: it is therefore just as impossible for us to say that it is abolished, as it is for us to maintain that it is sinful, and so made void, since in it there has been no fault. We maintain, moreover, that what has been abolished in Christ is not carnem peccati, “sinful flesh,” but peccatum carnis, “sin in the flesh,” - not the material thing, but its condition;176 not the substance, but its flaw;177 and (this we aver) on the authority of the apostle, who says, “He abolished sin in the flesh.”178 Now in another sentence he says that Christ was “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” (also in Rom_8:3) not, however, as if He had taken on Him “the likeness of the flesh,” in the sense of a semblance of body instead of its reality; but he means us to understand likeness to the flesh which sinned,179 because the flesh of Christ, which committed no sin itself, resembled that which had sinned, - resembled it in its nature, but not in the corruption it received from Adam; whence we also affirm that there was in Christ the same flesh as that whose nature in man is sinful. In the flesh, therefore, we say that sin has been abolished, because in Christ that same flesh is maintained without sin, which in than was not maintained without sin. Now, it would not contribute to the purpose of Christ’s abolishing sin in the flesh, if He did not abolish it in that flesh in which was the nature of sin, nor (would it conduce) to His glory. For 536 surely it would have been no strange thing if He had removed the stain of sin in some better flesh, and one which should possess a different, even a sinless, nature! Then, you say, if He took our flesh, Christ’s was a sinful one. Do not, however, fetter with mystery a sense which is quite intelligible. For in putting on our flesh, He made it His own; in making it His own, He made it sinless. A word of caution, however, must be addressed to all who refuse to believe that our flesh was in Christ on the ground that it came not of the seed of a human father,180 let them remember that Adam himself received this flesh of ours without the seed of a human father. As earth was converted into this flesh of ours without the seed of a human father, so also was it quite possible for the Son of God to take to Himself181 the substance of the selfsame flesh, without a human father’s agency.182
Chap. XVII. - The Similarity of Circumstances Between the First and the Second Adam, as to the Derivation of Their Flesh. An Analogy also Pleasantly Traced Between Eve and the Virgin Mary.
But, leaving Alexander with his syllogisms, which he so perversely applies in his discussions, as well as with the hymns of Valentinus, which, with consummate assurance, he interpolates as the production of some respectable183 author, let us confine our inquiry to a single point - Whether Christ received flesh from the virgin? - that we may thus arrive at a certain proof that His flesh was human, if He derived its substance from His mother’s womb, although we are at once furnished with clear evidences of the human character of His flesh, from its name and description as that of a man, and from the nature of its constitution, and from the system of its sensations, and from its suffering of death. Now, it will first by necessary to show what previous reason there was for the Son of God’s being born of a virgin. He who was going to consecrate a new order of birth, must Himself be born after a novel fashion, concerning which Isaiah foretold how that the Lord Himself would give the sign. What, then, is the sign? “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” (Isa_7:14) Accordingly, a virgin did conceive and bear “Emmanuel, God with us.” (Mat_1:23) This is the new nativity; a man is born in God. And in this man God was born, taking the flesh of an ancient race, without the help, however, of the ancient seed, in order that He might reform it with a new seed, that is, in a spiritual manner, and cleanse it by the re-moral of all its ancient stains. But the whole of this new birth was prefigured, as was the case in all other instances, in ancient type, the Lord being born as man by a dispensation in which a virgin was the medium. The earth was still in a virgin state, reduced as yet by no human labour, with no seed as yet cast into its furrows, when, as we are told, God made man out of it into a living soul. (Gen_2:7) As, then, the first Adam is thus introduced to us, it is a just inference that the second Adam likewise, as the apostle has told us, was formed by God into a quickening spirit out of the ground, - in other words, out of a flesh which was unstained as yet by any human generation. But that I may lose no opportunity of supporting my argument from the name of Adam, why is Christ called Adam by the apostle, unless it be that, as man, He was of that earthly origin? And even reason here maintains the same conclusion, because it was by just the contrary184 operation that God recovered His own image and likeness, of which He had been robbed by the devil. For it was while Eve was yet a virgin, that the ensnaring word had crept into her ear which was to build the edifice of death. Into a virgin’s soul, in like manner, must be introduced that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of life; so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex, might by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve had believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel.185 The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. But (it will be said) Eve did not at the devil’s word conceive in her womb. Well, she at all events conceived; for the devil’s word afterwards became as seed to her that she should conceive as an outcast, and bring forth in sorrow. Indeed she gave birth to a fratricidal devil; whilst Mary, on the contrary, bare one who was one day to secure salvation to Israel, His own brother after the flesh, and the murderer of Himself. God therefore sent down into the virgin’s womb His Word, as the good Brother, who should blot out the memory of the evil brother. Hence it was necessary that Christ should come forth for the salvation of man, in that condition of flesh into which man had entered ever since his condemnation.
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Chap. XVIII. - The Mystery of the Assumption of Our Perfect Human Nature by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He Is Here Called, as Often Elsewhere, the Spirit.
Now, that we may give a simpler answer, it was not fit that the Son of God should be born of a human father’s seed, lest, if He were wholly the Son of a man, He should fail to be also the Son of God, and have nothing more than “a Solomon” or “a Jonas,” (Mat_12:41-42) - as Ebion186 thought we ought to believe concerning Him. In order, therefore, that He who was already the Son of God - of God the Father’s seed, that is to say, the Spirit - might also be the Son of man, He only wanted to assume flesh, of the flesh of man187 without the seed of a man;188 for the seed of a man was unnecessary189 for One who had the seed of God. As, then, before His birth of the virgin, He was able to have God for His Father without a human mother, so likewise, after He was born of the virgin, He was able to have a woman for His mother without a human father. He is thus man with God, in short, since He is man’s flesh with God’s Spirit190 - flesh (I say) without seed from man, Spirit with seed from God. For as much, then, as the dispensation of God’s purpose191 concerning His Son required that He should be born192 of a virgin, why should He not have received of the virgin the body which He bore from the virgin? Because, (forsooth) it is something else which He took from God, for “the Word “say they, “was made flesh.” (Joh_1:14) Now this very statement plainly shows what it was that was made flesh; nor can it possibly be that193 anything else than the Word was made flesh. Now, whether it was of the flesh that the Word was made flesh, or whether it was so made of the (divine) seed itself, the Scripture must tell us. As, however, the Scripture is silent about everything except what it was that was made (flesh), and says nothing of that from which it was so made, it must be held to suggest that from something else, and not from itself, was the Word made flesh. And if not from itself, but from something else, from what can we more suitably suppose that the Word became flesh than from that flesh in which it submitted to the dispensation?194 And (we have a proof of the same conclusion in the fact) that the Lord Himself sententiously and distinctly pronounced, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” (Joh_3:6) even because it is born of the flesh. But if He here spoke of a human being simply, and not of Himself, (as you maintain) then you must deny absolutely that Christ is man, and must maintain that human nature was not suitable to Him. And then He adds, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” (Joh_3:6) because God is a Spirit, and He was born of God. Now this description is certainly even more applicable to Him than it is to those who believe in Him. But if this passage indeed apply to Him, then why does not the preceding one also? For you cannot divide their relation, and adapt this to Him, and the previous clause to all other men, especially as you do not deny that Christ possesses the two substances, both of the flesh and of the Spirit. Besides, as He was in possession both of flesh and of Spirit, He cannot possibly, when speaking of the condition of the two substances which He Himself bears, be supposed to have determined that the Spirit indeed was His own, but that the flesh was not His own. Forasmuch, therefore, as He is of the Spirit He is God the Spirit, and is born of God; just as He is also born of the flesh of man, being generated in the flesh as man.195
Chap. XIX. - Christ, as to His Divine Nature, as the Word of God, Became Flesh, Not by Carnal Conception, nor by the Will of the Flesh and of Man, but by the Will of God. Christ’s Divine Nature, of Its Own Accord, Descended into the Virgin’s Womb.
What, then, is the meaning of this passage, “Born196 not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God?” (Joh_1:13) I shall make more use of this passage after I have confuted those who have tampered with it. They maintain that it was written thus (in the plural)197 “Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” as if designating those who were before mentioned as “believing in His name,” in order to point out the existence of that mysterious seed of the elect and spiritual which they appropriate to themselves.198 But how can this be, when all who 538 believe in the name of the Lord are, by reason of the common principle of the human race, born of blood, and of the will of the flesh, and of man, as indeed is Valentinus himself? The expression is in the singular number, as referring to the Lord, “He was born of God.” And very properly, because Christ is the Word of God, and with the Word the Spirit of God, and by the Spirit the Power of God, and whatsoever else appertains to God. As flesh, however, He is not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of man, because it was by the will of God that the Word was made flesh. To the flesh, indeed, and not to the Word, accrues the denial of the nativity which is natural to us all as men,199 because it was as flesh that He had thus to be born, and not as the Word. Now, whilst the passage actually denies that He was born of the will of the flesh, how is it that it did not also deny (that He was born) of the substance of the flesh? For it did not disavow the substance of the flesh when it denied His being “born of blood” but only the matter of the seed,’ which, as all know, is the warm blood as convected by ebullition200 into the coagulum of the woman’s blood. In the cheese, it is from the coagulation that the milky substance acquires that consistency,201 which is condensed by infusing the rennet.202 We thus understand that what is denied is the Lord’s birth after sexual intercourse (as is suggested by the phrase, “the will of man and of the flesh”), not His nativity from a woman’s womb. Why, too, is it insisted on with such an accumulation of emphasis that He was not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor (of the will) of man, if it were not that His flesh was such that no man could have any doubt on the point of its being born from sexual intercourse? Again, although denying His birth from such cohabitation, the passage did not deny that He was born of real flesh; it rather affirmed this, by the very fact that it did not deny His birth in the flesh in the same way that it denied His birth from sexual intercourse. Pray, tell me, why the Spirit of God203 descended into a woman’s womb at all, if He did not do so for the purpose of partaking of flesh from the womb. For He could have become spiritual flesh204 without such a process, - much more simply, indeed, without the womb than in it. He had no reason for enclosing Himself within one, if He was to bear forth nothing from it. Not without reason, however, did He descend into a womb. Therefore He received (flesh) therefrom; else, if He received nothing therefrom, His descent into it would have been without a reason, especially if He meant to become flesh of that sort which was not derived from a womb, that is to say, a spiritual one.205
Chap. XX. - Christ Born of a Virgin, of Her Substance. The Physiological Facts of His Real and Exact Birth of a Human Mother, as Suggested by Certain Passages of Scripture.
But to what shifts you resort, in your attempt to rob the syllable ex (of)206 of its proper force as a preposition, and to substitute another for it in a sense not found throughout the Holy Scriptures! You say that He was born through207 a virgin, not of208 a virgin, and in a womb, not of a womb, because the angel in the dream said to Joseph, “That which is born in her” (not of her) “is of the Holy Ghost.” (Mat_1:20) But the fact is, if he had meant “of her,” he must have said “in her;” for that which was of her, was also in her. The angel’s expression, therefore, “in her,” has precisely the same meaning as the phrase “of her.” It is, however, a fortunate circumstance that Matthew also, when tracing down the Lord’s descent from Abraham to Mary, says, “Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Christ.” (Mat_1:16) But Paul, too, silences these critics209 when he says, “God sent forth His Son, made of a woman.” (Gal_4:4) Does he mean through a woman, or in a woman? Nay more, for the sake of greater emphasis, he uses the word “made” rather than born, although the use of the latter expression would have been simpler. But by saying “made,” he not only confirmed the statement, “The Word was made flesh,” (Joh_1:14) but he also asserted the reality of the flesh which was made of a virgin We shall have also the support of the Psalms on this point, not the “Psalms” indeed of Valentinus the apostate, and heretic, and Platonist, but the Psalms of David, the most illustrious saint and well-known prophet. He sings to us of Christ, and through his voice Christ indeed also sang concerning Himself. Hear, then, Christ the Lord speaking to God the Father: “Thou art He that didst draw210 me out of my 539 mother’s womb.” (Psa_22:9) Here is the first point. “Thou art my hope from my mother’s breasts; upon Thee have I been cast from the womb.” (Psa_22:9-10) Here is another point. “Thou art my God from my mother’s belly.” (Psa_22:10) Here is a third point. Now let us carefully attend to the sense of these passages. “Thou didst draw me,” He says, “out of the womb.” Now what is it which is drawn, if it be not that which adheres, that which is firmly fastened to anything from which it is drawn in order to be sundered? If He clove not to the womb, how could He have been drawn from it? If He who clove thereto was drawn from it, how could He have adhered to it, if it were not that, all the while He was in the womb, He was tied to it, as to His origin,211 by the umbilical cord, which communicated growth to Him from the matrix? Even when one strange matter amalgamates with another, it becomes so entirely incorporated212 with that with which it amalgamates, that when it is drawn off from it, it carries with it some part of the body from which it is torn, as if in consequence of the severance of the union and growth which the constituent pieces had communicated to each other. But what were His “mother’s breasts” which He mentions? No doubt they were those which He sucked. Midwives, and doctors, and naturalists, can tell us, from the nature of women’s breasts, whether they usually flow at any other time than when the womb is affected with pregnancy, when the veins convey therefrom the blood of the lower parts213 to the mamilla, and in the act of transference convert the secretion into the nutritious214 substance of milk. Whence it comes to pass that during the period of lactation the monthly issues are suspended. But if the Word was made flesh of Himself without any communication with a womb, no mother’s womb operating upon Him with its usual function and support, how could the lacteal fountain have been conveyed (from the womb) to the breasts, since (the womb) can only effect the change by actual possession of the proper substance? But it could not possibly have had blood for transformation into milk, unless it possessed the causes of blood also, that is to say, the severance (by birth)215 of its own flesh from the mother’s womb. Now it is easy to see what was the novelty of Christ’s being born of a virgin. It was simply this, that (He was born) of a virgin in the real manner which we have indicated, in order that our regeneration might have virginal purity, - spiritually cleansed from all pollutions through Christ, who was Himself a virgin, even in the flesh, in that He was born of a virgin’s flesh.
Chap. XXI. - The Word of God Did Not Become Flesh Except in the Virgin’s Womb and of Her Substance. Through His Mother He Is Descended from Her Great Ancestor David. He Is Described Both in the Old and in the New Testament as “The Fruit of David’s Loins.”
Whereas, then, they contend that the novelty (of Christ’s birth) consisted in this, that as the Word of God became flesh without the seed of a human father, so there should be no flesh of the virgin mother (assisting in the transaction), why should not the novelty rather be confined to this, that His flesh, although not born of seed, should yet have proceeded from flesh? I should like to go more closely into this discussion. “Behold,” says he, “a virgin shall conceive in the womb.” (Isa_7:14; Mat_1:23) Conceive what? I ask. The Word of God, of course, and not the seed of man, and in order, certainly, to bring forth a son. “For,” says he, “she shall bring forth a son.” (Isa_7:14; Mat_1:23) Therefore, as the act of conception was her own,216 so also what she brought forth was her own, also, although the cause of conception217 was not. If, on the other hand, the Word became flesh of Himself, then He both conceived and brought forth Himself, and the prophecy is stultified. For in that case a virgin did not conceive, and did not bring forth; since whatever she brought forth from the conception of the Word, is not her own flesh. But is this the only statement of prophecy which will be frustrated?218 Will not the angel’s announcement also be subverted, that the virgin should “conceive in her womb and bring forth a son?” (Luk_1:31) And will not in fact every scripture which declares that Christ had a mother? For how could she have been His mother, unless He had been in her womb? But then He received nothing from her womb which could make her a mother in whose womb He had been.219 Such a name as this220 a strange flesh ought not to assume. No flesh can speak of a mother’s womb but that which is itself the offspring of that womb; nor can any be the offspring of the said womb if it owe its 540 birth solely to itself. Therefore even Elisabeth must be silent although she is carrying in her womb the prophetic babe, which was already conscious of his Lord, and is, moreover, filled with the Holy Ghost. (Luk_1:41) For without reason does she say, “and whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luk_1:43) If it was not as her son, but only as a stranger that Mary carried Jesus in her womb, how is it she says, “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb? (Luk_1:42) What is this fruit of the womb, which received not its germ from the womb, which had not its root in the womb, which belongs not to her whose is the womb, and which is no doubt the real fruit of the womb - even Christ? Now, since He is the blossom of the stem which sprouts from the root of Jesse; since, moreover, the root of Jesse is the family of David, and the stem of the root is Mary descended from David, and the blossom of the stem is Mary’s son, who is called Jesus Christ, will not He also be the fruit? For the blossom is the fruit, because through the blossom and from the blossom every product advances from its rudimental condition221 to perfect fruit. What then? They, deny to the fruit its blossom, and to the blossom its stem, and to the stem its root; so that the root fails to secure222 for itself, by means of the stem, that special product which comes from the stem, even the blossom and the fruit; for every step indeed in a genealogy is traced from the latest up to the first, so that it is now a well-known fact that the flesh of Christ is inseparable,223 not merely from Mary, but also from David through Mary, and from Jesse through David. “This fruit,” therefore, “of David’s loins,” that is to say, of his posterity in the flesh, God swears to him that “He will raise up to sit upon his throne.” (Psa_132:11; Act_2:30) If “of David’s loins,” how much rather is He of Mary’s loins, by virtue of whom He is in “the loins of David?”
Chap. XXII. - Holy Scripture in the New Testament, Even in Its Very First Verse, Testifies to Christ’s True Flesh. In Virtue of Which He Is Incorporated in the Human Stock of David, and Abraham, and Adam.
They may, then, obliterate the testimony of the devils which proclaimed Jesus the son of David; but whatever unworthiness there be in this testimony, that of the apostles they will never be able to efface, There is, first of all, Matthew, that most faithful chronicler224 of the Gospel, because the companion of the Lord; for no other reason in the world than to show us clearly the fleshly original225 of Christ, he thus begins his Gospel: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” (Mat_1:1) With a nature issuing from such fountal sources, and an order gradually descending to the birth of Christ, what else have we here described than the very flesh of Abraham and of David conveying itself down, step after step, to the very virgin, and at last introducing Christ, - nay, producing Christ Himself of the virgin? Then, again, there is Paul, who was at once both a disciple, and a master, and a witness of the selfsame Gospel; as an apostle of the same Christ, also, he affirms that Christ “was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh,” (Rom_1:3; 1Ti_2:8) - which, therefore, was His own likewise. Christ’s flesh, then, is of David’s seed. Since He is of the seed of David in consequence of Mary’s flesh, He is therefore of Mary’s flesh because of the seed of David. In what way so ever you torture the statement, He is either of the flesh of Mary because of the seed of David, or He is of the seed of David because of the flesh of Mary. The whole discussion is terminated by the same apostle, when he declares Christ to be “the seed of Abraham.” And if of Abraham, how much more, to be sure, of David, as a more recent progenitor! For, unfolding the promised blessing upon all nations in the person226 of Abraham, “And in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed,” he adds, “He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” (Gal_3:8, Gal_3:16) When we read and believe these things, what sort of flesh ought we, and can we, acknowledge in Christ? Surely none other than Abraham’s, since Christ is “the seed of Abraham;” none other than Jesse’s, since Christ is the blossom of “the stem of Jesse;” none other than David’s, since Christ is “the fruit of David’s loins;” none other than Mary’s, since Christ came from Mary’s womb; and, higher still, none other than Adam’s, since Christ is “the second Adam.” The consequence, therefore, is that they must either maintain, that those (ancestors) had a spiritual flesh, that so there might be derived to Christ the same condition of substance, or else allow that the flesh of Christ was not a spiritual one, since it is not traced from the origin227 of a spiritual stock.
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FOOTNOTES
108 Demonstraretur: or, “should become apparent.”
109 Cui latebat.
110 Denique.
111 Isto modo.
112 An retro allegent.
113 Per quod sit.
114 Eam; the soul.
115 Dignius: i.e., “in a manner more worthy of Himself.”
116 Demonstrare.
117 Cassidem.
118 Deputetur.
119 Aliquia vi rationis: or, “by some power of its own condition.”
120 Demonstrare.
121 Notitiæ.
122 Ne.
123 Gestisset.
124 Ex.
125 Istis.
126 In illam: perhaps “in it,” as if a ablative case, not an unusual construction in Tertullian.
127 Ostensa sit.
128 Si constiterit.
129 Denique.
130 Quouo modo.
131 Opinor.
132 Sensualis: endowed with sense.
133 Nihil animale sine sensu.
134 Nihil sensuale sine anima.
135 We should have been glad of a shorter phrase for sentire (“to use sense”), had the whole course of the passage permitted it.
136 Se ministrare.
137 Debuerat.
138 Nisi qualis esset.
139 Ostendere.
140 Nimirum.
141 Animalis.
142 Carnalis.
143 Dispositione.
144 Ostenderetur: or, “that it might prove itself soul.”
145 Or, “that it might show itself flesh.”
146 Alterutrum: “no matter which.”
147 Testæ: a pitcher, perhaps.
148 Generis.
149 Tertullian quotes his opponent’s opinion here.
150 Silicet: in reference to the alleged doctrine.
151 Non adhæret.
152 Singularitas tota.
153 Nudis.
154 Tertullian’s quotation is put interrogatively.
155 “The salvation” (salute) is Tertullian’s word.
156 Salvus.
157 Gestavit.
158 Satellitem.
159 Si forte.
160 For this designation of the divine nature in Christ, see our Anti-Marcion, p. 247, note 7, Edin.
161 Hebioni.
162 Plane.
163 Vice præscriptionis.
164 Animalis.
165 Factiuncula.
166 Informatam.
167 Volutabant: see Lactantius, iv. 22.
168 De nobis probatum est: or, perhaps, “has been proved to have happened
