supposed father, Joseph the carpenter, and 1 His mother Mary, and His brethren, and His sisters, were very well known to them. But it was with the view of tempting Him, that they had mentioned to Him a mother and brethren which He did not possess. The Scripture says nothing of this, although it is not in other instances silent when anything was done against Him by way of temptation. "Behold," it says, "a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted Him.'"' And in another passage: "The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him." Who= was to prevent its being in this place also indicated that this was done with the view of tempting Him? I do not admit what you advance of your own apart from Scripture. Then there ought to be suggested ' some occasion * for the temp- tation. What could they have thought to be in Him which required temptation? The question, to be sure, whether He had been born or not? For if this point were denied in His answer, it might come out on the an- nouncement of a temptation. And yet no temptation, when aiming at the discovery of the point which prompts the temptation by its doubtfulness, falls upon one so abruptly, as not to be preceded by the question which compels the temptation whilst raising the doubt. Now, since the nativity of Christ had never come into question, how can you con- tend that they meant by their temptation to inquire about a point on which they had never raised a doubt? Besides, ^ if He had to be tempted about His birth, this of course was not the proper way of doing it, — by announc- ing those persons who, even on the supposi- tion of His birth, might possibly not have been in existence. We have all been born, and yet all of us have not either brothers or mother. He might with more probability have had even a father than a mother, and uncles more likely than brothers. Thus is the temptation about His birth unsuitable, for it might have been contrived without any mention of either His mother or His brethren. It is clearly more credible that, being certain that He had both a mother and brothers, they tested His divinity rather than His nativity, whether, when within. He knew what was without; being tried by the untrue announce- ment of the presence of persons who were not present. But the artifice of a temptation might have been thwarted thus: it might have happened that He knew that those wliom they were announcing to be " standing without," ' Literally, " nobody prevented its being, etc."
3 Subesse.
4 Materia.
5£o adicimusetiam.
were in fact absent by the stress either of sickness, or of business, or a journey which He was at the time aware of. No one tempts (another) in a way in which he knows that he may have himself to bear the shame of the temptation. There being, then, no suitable occasion for a temptation, the announcement that His mother and His brethren had actually turned up^ recovers its naturalness. But there is some ground for thinking that Chrisfs answer denies His mother and brethren for the present, as even Apelles might learn. "The Lord's brethren had not yet believed in Him." 7 So is it contained in the Gospel which was published before Marcion's time; whilst there is at the same time a want of evi- dence of His mother's adherence to Him, al- though the Marthas and the other Marys were in constant attendance on Him. In this very passage indeed, their unbelief is evident. Jesus was teaching the way of life, preaching the kingdom of God and actively engaged in healing infirmities of body and soul; but all the while, whilst strangers were intent on Him, His very nearest relatives were absent. By and by they turn up, and keep outside; but they do not go in, because, forsooth, they set small store ^ on that which was doing within; nor do they even wait,' as if they had something which they could contribute more necessary than that which He was so earnestly doing; but they prefer to interrupt Him, and wish to call Him away from His great work Now, I ask you, Apelles, or will you Marcion, please (to tell me), if you hap- pened to be at a stage play, or had laid a wager '° on a foot race or a chariot race, and were called away by such a message, would you not have exclaimed, "What are mother and brothers to me? " " And did not Christ, whilst preaching and manifesting God, fulfill- ing the law and the prophets, atid scattering the darkness of the long preceding age, justly employ this same form of words, in order to strike the unbelief of those who stood outside, or to shake off the importunity of those who would call Him away from His work? If, however. He had meant to deny His own nativity. He would have found place, time, and means for expressing Himself very differently," and not in words which might be uttered by one who had both a mother and brothers. When denying one's parents in in- dignation, one does not deny their existence.
6 Supen-enissent.
7 John vii. 5.
8 Non computantes scilicet.
9 Nee sustinent saltern.
'oContendens: "videlicet sponsionibus" (Oehler). " Literally, " Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?"- Christ's own words.
•2 The alius is a genitive, and nuist be taken with sertnonis.
CHAT. VIII.]
ON THE FLESH OF CHRIST but censures their faults. Besides, He gave others the preference; and since He shows their title to this favour — even because they listened to the word (of God) — He points out in what sense He denied His mother and His brethren. For in whatever sense He adopted as His own those who adhered to Him, in that did He deny as His ' those who kept aloof from Him. Christ also is wont to do to the utmost that which He enjoins on others. How strange, then, would it certainly ^^ have been, if, while he was teaching others not to esteem mother, or father, or brothers, as highly as the word of God, He were Himself to leave the word of God as soon as His mother and brethren were announced to Him! He denied His parents, then, in the sense in which He has taught us to deny ours — for God's work. But there is also another view of the case: in the abjured mother there is a figure of the synagogue, as well as of the Jews in the unbelieving brethren. In their person Israel remained outside, whilst the new disci- ples who kept close to Christ within, hearing and believing, represented the Church, which He called mother in a preferable sense and a worthier brotherhood, with the repudiation of the carnal relations'hip. It was in just the same sense, indeed, that He also replied to that exclamation (of a certain woman), not deny- ing His mother's " womb and paps," but des- ignating those as more " blessed who hear the word of God." 3 CHAP. VIII. — APELLES AND HIS FOLLOWERS, DIS- PLEASED WITH OUR EARTHLY BODIES, ATTRIB- UTED TO CHRIST A BODY OF A PURER SORT. HOW CHRIST WAS HEAVENLY EVEN IN HIS EARTHLY FLESH.
These passages alone, in which Apelles and Marcion seem to place their chief reliance when interpreted according to the truth of the entire uncorrupted gospel, ought to have been sufficient for proving the human flesh of Christ by a defence of His birth. But since Apelles' precious set* lay a very great stress on the shameful condition s of the flesh, which they will have to have been furnished with souls tampered with by the fiery- author of evil,* and so unworthy of Christ; and because they on that account suppose that a sidereal sub- stance is suitable for Him, I am bound to re- fute them on their own ground. They mention a certain angel of great renown as having cre- ated this world of ours, and as having, after • Abnegavit: " repudiated."
a Force of the indicative quale erat.
4 Isti Apelleiaci.
5 Ignominiam.
6 Ab igneo illo praeside raali: see TertuUian's de Anima. xxiii.; tie Resur. Cam. v.; Adv. OtHnes H teres, vi.
84 the creation, repented of his work. This in- deed we have treated of in a passage by itself; for we have written a little work in opposition to them, oti the question whether one who had the spirit, and will, and power of Christ for such operations, could have done anything which required repentance, since they de- scribe the said angel by the figure of " the lost sheep." The world, then, must be a wrong thing,' according to the evidence of its Creator's repentance; for all repentance is the admission of fault, nor has it indeed any exist- ence except through fault. Now, if the world ^ is a fault, as is the body, such must be its parts — faulty too; so in like manner must be the heaven and its celestial (contents), and everything which is conceived and pro- duced out of it. And "a corrupt tree must needs bring forth evil fruit. "^ The flesh of Christ, therefore, if composed of celestial ele- ments, consists of faulty materials, sinful by reason of its sinful origin;" so that it must be a part of that substance which they disdain to clothe Christ with, because of its sinfulness, — in other words, our own. Then, as there is no difference in the point of ignominy, let them either devise for Christ some substance of a purer stamp, since they are displeased with our own, or else let them recognise this too, than which even a heavenly substance could not have been better. We read in so many words: " " The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven."" This passage, however, has noth- ing to do with any difference of substance; it only contrasts with the once '^ " earthy " substance of the flesh of the first man, Adam, the "heavenly" substance of the spirit of the second man, Christ. And so entirely does the passage refer the celestial man to the spirit and not to the flesh, that those whom it compares to Him evidently be- come celestial — by the Spirit, of course — even in this "earthy flesh." Now, since Christ is heavenly even in regard to the flesh, they could not be compared to Him, who are not heavenly in reference to their flesh. '■» If, then, they who become heavenly, as Christ also was, carry about an "earthy" substance of flesh, the conclusion which is affirmed by this fact is, that Christ Himself also was heavenly, but in an " earthy " flesh, even as they are who are put on a level with Him."^ 7 Peccatum.
* Mtindus is here the universe or entire creation, 'oCensu. " Plane. '? Retro.
'■* Secundum camera. "S Ei adasquantur.
ON THE FLESH OF CHRIST.
[chap. X.
CHAP. IX. — Christ's flesh perfectly nat- ural, LIKE OUR OWN. NONE OF THE SUPER- NATURAL FEATURES WHICH THE HERETICS ASCRIBED TO IT DISCOVERABLE, ON A CARE- FUL VIEW.
We have thus far gone on the principle, that nothing which is derived from some other thing, however different it may be from that from which it is derived, is so different as not to suggest the source from which it comes. No material substance is without the witness of its own original, however great a change into new properties it may have undergone. There is this very body of ours, the formation of which out of the dust of the ground is a truth which has found its way into Gentile fables; it certainly testifies its own origin from the two elements of earth and water, — from the former by its flesh, from the latter by its blood. Now, although there is a difference in the ap- pearance of qualities (in other words, that which proceeds from something else is in develop- ment' different), yet, after all, what is blood but red fluid? what is flesh but earth in an especial ^ form? Consider the respective qualities, — of the muscles as clods; of the bones as stones; the mamillary glands as a kind of pebbles. Look upon the close junc- tions of the nerves as propagations of roots, and the branching courses of the veins as winding rivulets, and the down (which covers us) as moss, and the hair as grass, and the very treasures of marrow within our bones as ores 3 of flesh. All these marks of the earthy origin were in Christ; and it is they which ob- scured Him as the Son of God, for He was looked on as man, for no other reason what- ever than because He existed in the corporeal substance of a man. Or else, show us some celestial substance in Him purloined from the Bear, and the Pleiades, and the Hyades. Well, then, the cliaracteristics which we have enumerated are so many proofs that His was an earthy flesh, as ours is; but anything new or anything strange I do not discover. In- deed it was from His words and actions only, from His teaching and miracles solely, that men, though amazed, owned Christ to be man.< But if there had been in Him any new kind of flesh miraculously obtained (from the stars), it would have been certainly well known. 5 As the case stood, however, it was actually the ordinary '^ condition of His ter- rene flesh which made all things else about Him wonderful, as when they said, " Whence 'Fit. "Sua. 1 Metalla.
4 Christum hominem obstupcscebant.
5 Notaretur. * Non mira.
hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works?"' Thus spake even they who de- spised His outward form. His body did not reach even to human beauty, to say nothing of heavenly glory. ^ Had the prophets given us no information whatever concerning His ignoble appearance. His very sufferings and the very contumely He endured bespeak it all. The sufferings attested His human flesh, the contumely proved its abject condition. Would any man have dared to touch even with his little finger, the body of Christ, if it had been of an unusual nature; » or to smear His face with spitting, if it had not invited it '° (by its abjectness)? Why talk of a heavenly flesh, when you have no grounds to offer us for your celestial theory? " Why deny it to be earthy, when you have the best of reasons for know- ing it to be earthy? He hungered under the devil's te7nptation; He thirsted with the woman of Samaria; He wept over Lazarus; He trembles at death (for " the flesh," as He says, " is weak " '=); at last, He pours out His blood. These, I suppose, are celestial marks? But how, I ask, could He have incurred con- tempt and suffering in the way I have de- scribed, if there had beamed forth in that flesh of His aught of celestial excellence? From this, therefore, we have a convincing proof that in it there was nothing of heaven, because it must be capable of contempt and suffering.
CHAP. X. ANOTHER CLASS OF HERETICS RE- FUTED. THEY ALLEGED THAT CHRIST'S FLESH WAS OF A FINER TEXTURE, ANIMALIS, COM- POSED OF SOUL.
I now turn to another class, who are equally wise in their own conceit. They affirm that the flesh of Christ is composed of soul,'^ that His soul became flesh, so that His flesh is soul; and as His flesh is of soul, so is His soul of flesh. But here, again, I must have some reasons. If, in order to save the soul, Christ took a soul within Himself, because it could not be saved except by Him having it within Himself, I see no reason why, in cloth- ing Himself with flesh, He should have made that flesh one of soul,"* as if He could not have saved the soul in any other way than by making flesh of it. For while He saves our souls, which are not only not of flesh, 's but are 7 Malt. xiii. 54.
8 Compare Isa. liii. 2. Sec also our A nti-Marcion ^ p. 153, Ediu.
9 Novum: made of the stars. »<> Merentem.
" Literally, " why do you suppose it to be celestial."
•3Animalem: " etherialized • of a finer form, differing from gross, earthy matter" (Neander). MAnimalem. •5 Non cameas.
CHAP. XI.]
ON THE FLESH OF CHRIST even distinct from flesh, how much more able was He to secure salvation to that soul which He took Himself, when it was also not of flesh? Again, since they assume it as a main tenet,' that Christ came forth not to deliver the flesh, but only our soul, how ab- surd it is, in the first place, that, meaning to save only the soul, He 3'et made it into just that sort of bodily substance which He had no intention of saving! And, secondly, if He had undertaken to deliver our souls by means of that which He carried, He ought, in that soul which He carried to have carried onr soul, one (that is) of the same condition as ours; and whatever is the condition of our soul in its secret nature, it is certainly not one of flesh. However, it was not our soul which He saved, if His own was of flesh; for ours is not of flesh. Now, if He did not save our soul on the ground that it was a soul of flesh which He saved. He is nothing to us, because He has not saved our soul. Nor indeed did it need salvation, for it was not our soul really, since it was, on the supposition, =* a soul of flesh. But yet it is evident that it has been saved. Of flesh, therefore, it was not composed, and it was ours; for it was our soid that was saved, since that was in peril of da77inatio7i. We there- fore now conclude that as in Christ the soul was not of flesh, so neither could His flesh have possibly been composed of soul.
CHAP. XI. THE OPPOSITE EXTRAVAGANCE EX- POSED. THAT IS CHRIST WITH A SOUL COM- POSED OF FLESH — CORPOREAL, THOUGH INVIS- IBLE. 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 as- suming 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 itself ^ to itself or to us, when it could not possibly be ascer- tained that it would offer this mode of exhib- iting itself by the flesh, until the thing came ' Praesumant.
= Scilicet.
3 Demonstraretur: or, '• should become apparent."
into existence to which it was unknown,* that is to say, the flesh? It received darkness, forsooth, in order to be able to shine! Now,s let us first turn our attention to this point, whether it was requisite that the soul should exhibit itself in the manner contended for;* and next consider whether their previous position beUhat 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 im- possibility, unless it has that which is instru- mental to its existence.* 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 a bodily existence J/// ^<?«^/7>. Nothing lacks bodily existence but that which is non-exist- ent. If, then, the soul has an invisible body. He who had proposed to make it' visible would certainly have done His work better" if He had made that part of it which was ac- counted invisible, visible; because then thers 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 hy- pothesis) 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 appear " to be that which it is. No one who wishes to exhibit a man covers him with a veil '- or a mask. This, however, is precisely what has been done to the soul, if it has been clothed with a cover- ing belonging to something else, by being con- verted into flesh. But even if the soul is, on their hypothesis, supposed '^ to be incorporeal, so that the soul, whatever it is, should by some mysterious force of the reason ^ 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 displayed 's 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,'* (being spared ♦ Cuilatebat.
5 Denique.
6 Isto modo.
7 An retro allegent.
8 Per quod sit.
9 Earn: the soul.
loDignius: i.e., "in a manner more worthy of Himself." " Demonstrare. ■^Cassidein. '3 Deputetur.
14 Aliqua vi rationis: or, " by some power of its own condition.'
15 Demonstrare. «6 Notitiae.
ON THE FLESH OF CHRIST.
[chap. XII.
the idea that) ' He had set His mind on ' making, without an adequate cause, a visible soul instead of^ an invisible one — a fit in- centive, no doubt, for such questions as they start,* by their maintenance of a human flesh for it.s Christ, however, could not have appeared among men except as a man. Re- store, therefore, to Christ His faith; believe that He who willed to walk the earth as a man exhibited even a soui 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,* on the assump- tion that it was evidently necessary ^ 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,* without the soul we are nothing; there is not even the name of a hu- ■^ man 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. 9 The soul, in my opinion,'" is sen- sual." Nothing, therefore, pertaining to the soul is unconnected with sense," nothing pertaining to sense is unconnected with the soul. '3 And if I may use the expression for the sake of emphasis, I would say, '''' Atiimoe anima scnsiis est'' — " Sense is the soul's very soul." Now, since it is the soul that imparts the faculty of perception '" 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 prop- •Ne.
» Gestisset.
4 Istis.
5 In illam: perhaps " in it,''' as if an ablative case, not an un- usual construction in TertuUian.
' Ostensa sit.
7 Si constiterit.
*Denique.
9 Quoquo mode. •« Opinor.
" Sensualis: endowed with sense. '- Nihil animate sine sensu. '3 Nihil sensuale sine anima.
M We should have been glad of a shorter phrase for sent ire (" to uae sense "), had the whole course of the passage permitted it.