Church Fathers: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 3: 3.01.53 Tertullian - Flesh of Christ - Ch 23-End

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Church Fathers: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 3: 3.01.53 Tertullian - Flesh of Christ - Ch 23-End



TOPIC: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 3 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 3.01.53 Tertullian - Flesh of Christ - Ch 23-End

Other Subjects in this Topic:

The Writings of Tertullian

Part Second - Anti-Marcion (Cont.)

V. On the Flesh of Christ. (C0nt.)

Chap. XXIII. - Simeon’s “Sign that Should Be Contradicted,” Applied to the Heretical Gainsaying of the True Birth of Christ. One of the Heretics’ Paradoxes Turned in Support of Catholic Truth.

We acknowledge, however, that the prophetic declaration of Simeon is fulfilled, which he spoke over the recently-born Saviour:228 “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken against.” (Luk_2:34) The sign (here meant) is that of the birth of Christ, according to Isaiah: “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” (Isa_7:14) We discover, then, what the sign is which is to be spoken against - the conception and the parturition of the Virgin Mary, concerning which these sophists229 say: “She a virgin and yet not a virgin bare, and yet did not bear;” just as if such language, if indeed it must be uttered, would not be more suitable even for ourselves to use! For “she bare,” because she produced offspring of her own flesh and “yet she did not bear,” since she produced Him not from a husband’s seed; she was “a virgin,” so far as (abstinence) from a husband went, and “yet not a virgin,” as regards her bearing a child. There is not, however, that parity of reasoning which the heretics affect: in other words it does not follow that for the reason “she did not bear,”230 she who was “not a virgin” was “yet a virgin,” even because she became a mother without any fruit of her own womb. But with us there is no equivocation, nothing twisted into a double sense.231 Light is light; and darkness, darkness; yea is yea; and nay, nay; “whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” (Mat_5:37) She who bare (really) bare; and although she was a virgin when she conceived, she was a wife232 when she brought forth her son. Now, as a wife, she was under the very law of “opening the womb,”233 wherein it was quite immaterial whether the birth of the male was by virtue of a husband’s co-operation or not;234 it was the same sex235 that opened her womb. Indeed, hers is the womb on account of which it is written of others also: “Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.” (Exo_13:2; Luk_2:23) For who is really holy but the Son of God? Who properly opened the womb but He who opened a closed one?236 But it is marriage which opens the womb in all cases. The virgin’s womb, therefore, was especially237 opened, because it was especially closed. Indeed238 she ought rather to be called not a virgin than a virgin, becoming a mother at a leap, as it were, before she was a wife. And what must be said more on this point? Since it was in this sense that the apostle declared that the Son of God was born not of a virgin, but “of a woman,” he in that statement recognised the condition of the “opened womb” which ensues in marriage.239 We read in Ezekiel of “a heifer240 which brought forth, and still did not bring forth.” Now, see whether it was not in view of your own future contentions about the womb of Mary, that even then the Holy Ghost set His mark upon you in this passage; otherwise241 He would not, contrary to His usual simplicity of style (in this prophet), have uttered a sentence of such doubtful import, especially when Isaiah says, “She shall conceive and bear a son.” (Isa_7:14)





Chap. XXIV. - Divine Strictures on Various Heretics Descried in Various Passages of Prophetical Scripture. Those who Assail the True Doctrine of the One Lord Jesus Christ, Both God and Man, Thus Condemned.

For when Isaiah hurls denunciation against our very heretics, especially in his “Woe to them that call evil good, and put darkness for light,” (Isa_5:20) he of course sets his mark upon those amongst you242 who preserve not in the words they employ the light of their true significance, (by taking care) that the soul should mean only that which is so called, and the flesh simply that which is confest to our view and God none other than the One who is preached.243 Having thus Marcion in his prophetic view, he says, “I am God, and there is none else; there is no God beside me.” (Isa_45:5) And when in another passage he says, in like manner, “Before me there was no God,” (Isa_46:9) he strikes at those inexplicable genealogies of the Valentinian Aeons. Again, there is an answer to Ebion in the Scripture: “Born,244 (Joh_1:13) not of blood, nor 542 of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” In like manner, in the passage, “If even an angel of heaven preach unto you any other gospel than that which we have preached unto you, let him be anathema,” (Gal_1:8) he calls attention to the artful influence of Philumene, (compare de Præscr. Hæret. c. xxx. p. 257, supra) the virgin friend of Apelles. Surely he is antichrist who denies that Christ has come in the flesh. (1Jo_4:3) By declaring that His flesh is simply and absolutely true, and taken in the plain sense of its own nature, the Scripture aims a blow at all who make distinctions in it.245 In the same way, also, when it defines the very Christ to be but one, it shakes the fancies of those who exhibit a multiform Christ, who make Christ to be one being and Jesus another, - representing one as escaping out of the midst of the crowds, and the other as detained by them; one as appearing on a solitary mountain to three companions, clothed with glory in a cloud, the other as an ordinary man holding intercourse with all,246 one as magnanimous, but the other as timid; lastly, one as suffering death, the other as risen again, by means of which event they maintain a resurrection of their own also, only in another flesh. Happily, however, He who suffered “will come again from heaven,” (Act_1:11) and by all shall He be seen, who rose again from the dead. They too who crucified Him shall see and acknowledge Him; that is to say, His very flesh, against which they spent their fury, and without which it would be impossible for Himself either to exist or to be seen; so that they must blush with shame who affirm that His flesh sits in heaven void of sensation, like a sheath only, Christ being withdrawn from it; as well as those who (maintain) that His flesh and soul are just the same thing,247 or else that His soul is all that exists,248 but that His flesh no longer lives.





Chap. XXV. - Conclusion. This Treatise Forms a Preface to the Other Work, “On the Resurrection of the Flesh,” Proving the Reality of the Flesh Which Was Truly Born, and Died, and Rose Again.

But let this suffice on our present subject; for I think that by this time proof enough has been adduced of the flesh in Christ having both been born of the virgin, and being human in its nature. And this discussion alone might have been sufficient, without encountering the isolated opinions which have been raised from different quarters. We have, however, challenged these opinions to the test, both of the arguments which sustain them, and of the Scriptures which are appealed to, and this we have done ex abundanti; so that we have, by showing what the flesh of Christ was, and whence it was derived, also predetermined the question, against all objectors, of what that flesh was not. The resurrection, however, of our own flesh will have to be maintained in another little treatise, and so bring to a close this present one, which serves as a general preface, and which will pave the way for the approaching subject now that it is plain what kind of body that was which rose again in Christ.





Elucidations.

I.

(In the body of a dove, cap. iii.)

The learned John Scott, in his invaluable work The Christian Life,249 identifies the glory shed upon the Saviour at his baptism, with that mentioned by Ezekiel (Eze_43:2) and adds: “In this same glorious splendor was Christ arrayed first at his Baptism and afterward at his Transfiguration…By the Holy Ghost’s descending like a Dove, it is not necessary we should understand his descending in the shape or form of a Dove, but that in some glorious form, or appearance, he descended in the same manner as a Dove descends…Came down from above just as a dove with his wings spread forth is observed to do, 543 and lighted upon our Saviour’s head.” I quote this as the opinion of one of the most learned and orthodox of divines, but not as my own, for I cannot reconcile it, as he strives to do, with St. Luk_3:22. Compare Justin Martyr, vol. 1. p. 243, and note 220, this series. Grotius observes, says Dr. Scott, that in the apocryphal Gospel of the Nazarenes, it is said that at the Baptism of our Lord “a great light shone round about the place.”





II.

(His mother and His brethren, cap. vii.)

It is not possible that the author of this chapter had ever conceived of the Blessed Virgin otherwise than as “Blessed among women,” indeed, but enjoying no especial prerogative as the mother of our Lord. He speaks of “denying her” and “putting her away” after He began His Ministry, as He requires His ministers to do, after His example. How extraordinary this language - “the repudiation of carnal relationship.” According to our author, never charged with heresy on this point, the high rewards of the holy Mary, in the world to come will he those due to her faith, not to the blessing of “her breasts and of her womb.” Christ designates those as “more blessed,” who hear His word and keep it. This the Blessed Virgin did pre-eminently, and herein was her own greater blessedness; that is, (our author shews) her crown of glory depends chiefly, like that of other saints, on her faith and works, not on her mere Maternity.







FOOTNOTES



228 Literally, “Lord.”

229 Academici isti: “this school of theirs.”

230 i.e., “Because she produced not her son from her husband’s seed.”

231 Defensionem.

232 Nupsit.

233 Nupsit ipsa patefacti corporis lege.

234 De vi masculi admissi an emissi.

235 i.e. “The male.”

236 Clausam: i.e., a virgin’s.

237 Magis.

238 Utique.

239 Nuptialem passionem.

240 Epiphanius (Hær. xxx. 30) quotes from the apocryphal Ezekiel this passage: Τέξεται ἡ δάμαλις, καὶ ἐροῦσιν - οὐ τέτοκεν. So Clem Alex. Stromata, vii. Oehler.

241 Ceterum.

242 Istos.

243 Prædicatur.

244 Tertullian’s quotation is, as usual, in the singular, “natus.”

245 Disceptatores ejus.

246 Ceteris passivum.

247 Tantundem.

248 Tantummodo.

249 I quote the Ed. London, 1739, Vol. V., p. 249.