This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
THIS WAS WRITTEN BY OUR AUTHOR IN CONFUTATION OF CERTAIN HERETICS WHO DENIED THE REALITY OF CHRIST'S FLESH, OR AT LEAST ITS IDENTITY WITH HUMAN FLESH—FEARING THAT, IF THEY ADMITTED THE REALITY OF CHRIST'S FLESH, THEY MUST ALSO ADMIT HIS RESURRECTION IN THE FLESH; AND, CONSEQUENTLY, THE RESURRECTION OF THE HUMAN BODY AFTER DEATH.
[TRANSLATED BY DR. HOLMES.]
THEY who are so anxious to shake that belief in the resurrection
which was firmly settled' before the appearance of our modern
Sadducees,(3) as even to deny that the expectation thereof has any
relation whatever to the flesh, have great cause for besetting the
flesh of Christ also with doubtful questions, as if it either had no
existence at all, or possessed a nature altogether different from human
flesh. For they cannot but be apprehensive that, if it be once
determined that Christ'(4) flesh was human, a presumption would
immediately arise in opposition to them, that that flesh must by all
means rise again, which has already risen in Christ. Therefore we shall
have to guard our belief in the resurrection 4 from the same armoury,
whence they get their weapons of destruction. Let us examine our Lord's
bodily substance, for about His spiritual nature all are agreed.(5) It
is 'His flesh that is in question. Its verity and quality are the
points in dispute. Did it ever exist? whence was it derived? and of
what kind was it? If we succeed in demonstrating it, we shall lay down
a law for our own resurrection. Marcion, in order that he might deny
the flesh of Christ, denied also His nativity, or else he denied His
flesh in order that he might deny His nativity; because, of course, he
was afraid that His nativity and His flesh bore mutual testimony to
each other's reality, since there is no nativity without flesh, and no
flesh without nativity. As if indeed, under the prompting of that
licence which is ever the same in all heresy, he too might not very
well have either denied the nativity, although admitting the
flesh,—like Apelles, who was first a disciple of his, and afterwards
an apostate,—or, while admitting both the flesh and the nativity, have
interpreted them in a different sense, as did Valentinus, who resembled
Apelles both in his discipleship and desertion of Martian. At all
events, he who represented the flesh of Christ to be imaginary was
equally able to pass off His nativity as a phantom; so that the
virgin's conception, and pregnancy, and child-bearing, and then the
whole course(6) of her infant too, would have to be regarded as
putative.(7) These facts pertaining to the nativity of Christ would
escape the notice of the same eyes and the same senses as failed to
grasp the full idea(8) of His flesh.
Clearly enough is the nativity announced by Gabriel.(1) But what
has he to do with the Creator's angel?(2) The conception in the
virgin's womb is also set plainly before us. But what concern has he
with the Creator's prophet, Isaiah?(3) He(4) will not brook delay,
since sudden/y (without any prophetic announcement) did he bring down
Christ from heaven.(5) "Away," says he, "with that eternal plaguey
taxing of Caesar, and the scanty inn, and the squalid
swaddling-clothes, and the hard stable.(6) We do not care a jot for(7)
that multitude of the heavenly host which praised their Lord at night?
Let the shepherds take better care of their flock,(9) and let the wise
men spare their legs so long a journey;(10) let them keep their gold to
themselves." Let Herod, too, mend his manners, so that Jeremy may not
glory over him.(12) Spare also the babe from circumcision, that he may
escape the pain thereof; nor let him be brought into the temple, lest
he burden his parents with the expense of the offering;(13) nor let him
be handed to Simeon, lest the old man be saddened at the point of
death.(14) Let that old woman also hold her tongue, lest she should
bewitch the child.''(15) After such a fashion as this, I suppose you
have had, O Marcion, the hardihood of blotting out the original records
(of the history) of Christ that His flesh may lose the proofs of its
reality. But, prithee, on what grounds (do you do this)? Show me your
authority. If you are a prophet, foretell us a thing; if you are an
apostle, open your message in public; if a follower of apostles,(16)
side with apostles in thought; if you are only a (private) Christian,
believe what has been handed down to us: if, however, you are nothing
of all this, then (as I have the best reason to say) cease to live.(17)
For indeed you are already dead, since you are no Christian, because
you do not believe that which by being believed makes men
Christian,—nay, you are the more dead, the more you are not a
Christian; having fallen away, after you had been one, by rejecting(18)
what you formerly believed, even as you yourself acknowledge in a
certain letter of yours, and as your followers do not deny, whilst our
(brethren) can prove it.(19) Rejecting, therefore, what you once`
believed, you have completed the act of rejection, by now no longer
believing: the fact, however, of your having ceased. to believe has not
made your rejection of the faith right and proper; nay, rather,(20) by
your act of rejection you prove that what you believed previous to the
said act was of a different character.(21) What you believed to be of a
different character, had been handed down just as you believed it.
Now(20) that which had been handed down was true, inasmuch as it had
been transmitted by those whose duty it was to hand it down. Therefore,
when rejecting that which had been handed down, you rejected that which
was true. You had no authority for what you did. However, we have
already in another treatise availed ourselves more fully of these
prescriptive rules against all heresies. Our repetition of them
hereafter that large (treatise) is superfluous,(23) when we ask the
reason why you have formed the opinion that Christ was not born.
Since(24) you think that this lay within the competency of your
own arbitrary choice, you must needs have supposed that being born(25)
was either impossible for God, or unbecoming to Him. With God, however,
nothing is impossible but what He does not will. Let us consider, then,
whether He willed to be born (for if He had the will, He also had the
power, and was born). I put the argument very briefly. If God had
willed not to be born, it matters not why, He would not have presented
Himself in the likeness of man. Now who, when he sees a man, would deny
that he had been born? What God therefore willed not to be, He would in
no wise have willed the seeming to be. When a thing is distasteful, the
very notion(26) of it is scouted; because it makes no difference
whether a thing exist or do not exist, if, when it does not exist, it
is yet assumed to exist. It is of course of the greatest importance
that there should be nothing false (or pretended) attributed to that
which really does not exist.(1) But, say you, His own consciousness (of
the truth of His nature) was enough for Him. If any supposed that He
had been born, because they saw Him as a man, that was their
concern.(2) Yet with how much more dignity and consistency would He
have sustained the human character on the supposition that He was truly
born; for if He were not born, He could not have undertaken the said
character without injury to that consciousness of His which you on your
side attribute to His confidence of being able to sustain, although not
born, the character of having been born even against! His own
consciousness!(3) Why, I want to know,(4) was it of so much importance,
that Christ should, when perfectly aware what He really was, exhibit
Himself as being that which He was not? You cannot express any
apprehension that,s if He had been born and truly clothed Himself with
man's nature, He would have ceased to be God, losing what He was, while
becoming what He was not. For God is in no danger of losing His own
state and condition. But, say you, I deny that God was truly changed to
man in such wise as to be born and endued with a body of flesh, on this
ground, that a being who is without end is also of necessity incapable
of change. For being changed into something else puts an end to the
former state. Change, therefore, is not possible to a Being who cannot
come to an end. Without doubt, the nature of things which are subject
to change is regulated by this law, that they have no permanence in the
state which is undergoing change in them, and that they come to an end
from thus wanting permanence, whilst they lose that in the process of
change which they previously were. But nothing is equal with God; His
nature is different(6) from the condition of all things. If, then, the
things which differ from God, and from which God differs, lose what
existence they had whilst they are undergoing change, wherein will
consist the difference of the Divine Being from all other things except
in His possessing the contrary faculty of theirs,—in other words, that
God can be changed into all conditions, and yet continue just as He is?
On any other supposition, He would be on the, same level with those
things which, when changed, lose the existence they had before; whose
equal, of course, He is not in any other respect, as He certainly is
not in the changeful issues(7) of their nature. You have sometimes read
and believed that the Creator's angels have been changed into human
form, and have even borne about so veritable a body, that Abraham even
washed their feet,(8) and Lot was rescued from the Sodomites by their
hands;(9) an angel, moreover, wrestled with a man so strenuously with
his body, that the latter desired to be let loose, so tightly was he
held.(10) Has it, then, been permitted to angels, which are inferior to
God, after they have been changed into human bodily form,(11)
nevertheless to remain angels? and will you deprive God, their
superior, of this faculty, as if Christ could not continue to be God,
after His real assumption of the nature of man? Or else, did those
angels appear as phantoms of flesh? You will not, however, have the
courage to say this; for if it be so held in your belief, that the
Creator's angels are in the same condition as Christ, then Christ will
belong to the same God as those angels do, who are like Christ in their
condition. If you had not purposely rejected in some instances, and
corrupter in others, the Scriptures which are opposed to your opinion,
you would have been confuted in this matter by the Gospel of John, when
it declares that the Spirit descended in the body(12) of a dove, and
sat upon the Lord.(13) When the said Spirit was in this condition, He
was as truly a dove as He was also a spirit; nor did He destroy His own
proper substance by the assumption of an extraneous substance. But you
ask what becomes of the dove's body, after the return of the Spirit
back to heaven, and similarly in the case of the angels. Their
withdrawal was effected in the same manner as their appearance had
been. If you had seen how their production out of nothing had been
effected, you would have known also the process of their return to
nothing. If the initial step was out of sight, so was also the final
one. Still there was solidity in their bodily substance, whatever may
have been the force by which the body became visible.What is written
cannot but have been.
Since, therefore, you do not reject the assumption of a body' as
impossible or as hazardous to the character of God, it remains for you
to repudiate and censure it as unworthy of Him. Come now, beginning
from the nativity itself, declaim(2) against the uncleanness of the
generative elements within the womb, the filthy concretion of fluid and
blood, of the growth of the flesh for nine: months long out of that
very mire. Describe the womb as it enlarges(3) from day to day,heavy,
troublesome, restless even in sleep, changeful in its feelings of
dislike and desire. Inveigh now likewise against the shame itself of a
woman in travail(4) which, however, ought rather to be honoured in
consideration of that peril, or to be held sacred(5) in respect of (the
mystery of) nature. Of course you are horrified also at the infant,
which is shed into life with the embarrassments which accompany it from
the womb;(6) you likewise, of course, loathe it even after it is
washed, when it is dressed out in its swaddling-clothes, graced with
repeated anointing,(7) smiled on with nurse's fawns. This reverend
course of nature,(8) you, O Marcion, (are pleased to) spit upon; and
yet, in what way were you born? You detest a human being at his birth;
then after what fashion do you love anybody? Yourself, of course, you
had no love of, when you departed from the Church and the faith of
Christ. But never mind? if you are not on good terms with yourself, or
even if you were born in a way different from other people. Christ, at
any rate, has loved even that man who was condensed in his mother's
womb amidst all its uncleannesses, even that man who was brought into
life out of the said womb, even that man who was nursed amidst the
nurse's simpers.(10) For his sake He came down (from heaven), for his
sake He preached, for his sake "He humbled Himself even unto death—the
death of the cross."(11) He loved, of course, the being whom He
redeemed at so great a cost. If Christ is the Creator's Son, it was
with justice that He loved His own (creature); if He comes from another
god, His love was excessive, since He redeemed a being who belonged to
another. Well, then, loving man He loved his nativity also, and his
flesh as well. Nothing can be loved apart from that through which
whatever exists has its existence. Either take away nativity, and then
show us your man; or else withdraw the flesh, and then present to our
view the being whom God has redeemed—since it is these very
conditions(12) which constitute the man whom God has redeemed. And are
you for turning these conditions into occasions of blushing to the very
creature whom He has redeemed, (censuring them), too, us unworthy of
Him who certainly would not have redeemed them had He not loved them?
Our birth He reforms from death by a second birth from heaven;(13) our
flesh He restores from every harassing malady; when leprous, He
cleanses it of the stain; when blind, He rekindles its light; when
palsied, He renews its strength; when possessed with devils, He
exorcises it; when dead, He reanimates it,—then shall we blush to own
it? If, to be sure,(14) He had chosen to be born of a mere animal, and
were to preach the kingdom of heaven invested with the body of a beast
either wild or tame, your censure (I imagine) would have instantly met
Him with this demurrer: "This is disgraceful for God, and 'this is
unworthy of the Son of God, and simply foolish." For no other reason
than because one thus judges. It is of course foolish, if we are to
judge God by our own conceptions. But, Marcion, consider well this
Scripture, if indeed you have not erased it: "God hath chosen the
foolish things of the world, to confound the wise."(15) Now what are
those foolish things? Are they the conversion of men to the worship of
the true God, the rejection of error, the whole training in
righteousness, chastity, mercy, patience, and innocence? These things
certainly are not "foolish." Inquire again, then, of what things he
spoke, and when you imagine that you have discovered what they are will
you find anything to be so "foolish" as believing in a God that has
been born, and that of a virgin, and of a fleshly nature too, who
wallowed in all the before-mentioned humiliations of nature? But some
one may say, "These are not the foolish things; they must be other
things which God has chosen to confound the wisdom of the world." And
yet, according to the world's wisdom, it is more easy to believe that
Jupiter became a bull or a swan, if we listen to Marcion, than that
Christ really became a man.
There are, to be sure, other things also quite as foolish (as the
birth of Christ), which have reference to the humiliations and
sufferings of God. Or else, let them call a crucified God "wisdom." But
Marcion will apply the knife' to this doctrine also,, and even with
greater reason. For which Is more unworthy of God, which is more likely
to raise a blush of shame, that God should be born, or that He should
die? that He should bear the flesh, or the cross? be circumcised, or be
crucified? be cradled, or be coffined?(2) be laid in a manger, or in a
tomb? Talk of "wisdom!" You will show more of fiat if you refuse to
believe this also. But, after all, you will not be "wise" unless you
become a "fool" to the world, by believing" the foolish things of God."
Have you, then, cut away(3) all sufferings from Christ, on the ground
that, as a mere phantom, He was incapable of experiencing them? We have
said above that He might possibly have undergone the unreal
mockeries(4) of an imaginary birth and infancy. But answer me at once,
you that murder truth: Was not God really crucified? And, having been
really crucified, did He not really die? And, having indeed really
died, did He not really rise again? Falsely did Paul(5) "determine to
know nothing amongst us but Jesus and Him crucified;''(6) falsely has
he impressed upon us that He was buried; falsely inculcated that He
rose again. False, therefore, is our faith also. And all that we hope
for from Christ will be a phantom. O thou most infamous of men, who
acquittest of all guilt(7) the murderers of God! For nothing did Christ
suffer from them, if He really suffered nothing at all. Spare the whole
world's one only hope, thou who art destroying the indispensable
dishonour of our faith? Whatsoever is unworthy of God, is of gain to
me. I am safe, if I am not ashamed—my Lord. "Whosoever," says He,
"shall be ashamed of me, of him will I also be ashamed."(9) Other
matters for shame find I r none which can prove me to be shameless t
in a good sense, and foolish in a happy one, by my own contempt of
shame. The Son of God was crucified; I am not ashamed because men must
needs be ashamed of it. And the Son of God died; it is by all means to
be believed, because it is absurd.(10) And He was buried, and rose
again; the fact is certain, because it is impossible. But how will all
this be true in Him, if He was not Himself true—if He really had not
in Himself that which might be crucified, might die, might be buried,
and might rise again? I mean this flesh suffused with blood, built up
with bones, interwoven with nerves, entwined with veins, a flesh which
knew how to be born, and how to die, human without doubt, as born of a
human being. It will therefore be mortal in Christ, because Christ is
man and the Son of man. Else why is Christ man and the Son of man, if
he has nothing of man, and nothing from man? Unless it be either that
man is anything else than flesh, or man's flesh comes from any other
source than man, or Mary is anything else than a human being, or
Marcion's man is as Marcion's god.(11) Otherwise Christ could not be
described as being man without flesh, nor the Son of man without any
human parent; just as He is not God without the Spirit of God, nor the
Son of God without having God for His father. Thus the nature(12) of
the two substances displayed Him as man and God,—in one respect born,
in the other unborn; l in one respect fleshly in the other spiritual;
in one sense weak in the other exceeding strong; in on sense dying, in
the other living. This property of the two states—the divine and the
human—is distinctly asserted(13) with equal truth of both natures
alike, with the same belief both in respect of the Spirit '* and of the
flesh. The powers of the Spirit,(14) proved Him to be God, His
sufferings attested the flesh of man. If His powers were not without
the Spirit(14) in like manner, were not His sufferings without the
flesh. if His flesh with .its sufferings was fictitious, for the same
reason was the Spirit false with all its powers. Wherefore halve(15)
Christ with a lie? He was wholly the truth. Believe me, He chose rather
to be born, than in any part to pretend—and that indeed to His own
detriment—that He was bearing about a flesh hardened without bones,
solid without muscles, bloody without blood, clothed without the tunic
of skin,(1) hungry without appetite, eating without teeth, speaking
without a tongue, so that His word was a phantom to the ears through
an imaginary voice. A phantom, too, it was of course after the
resurrection, when, showing His hands and His feet for the disciples
to examine, He said, "Behold and see that it is I myself, for a spirit
hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have;"(2) without doubt, hands,
and feet, and bones are not what a spirit possesses, but only the
flesh. How do you interpret this statement, Marcion, you who tell us
that Jesus comes only from the most excellent God, who is both simple
and good? See how He rather cheats, and deceives, and juggles the eyes
of all, and the senses of all, as well as their access to and contact
with Him! You ought rather to have brought Christ down, not from
heaven, but from some troop of mountebanks, not as God besides man, but
simply as a man, a magician; not as the High Priest of our salvation,
but as the conjurer in a show; not as the raiser of the dead, but as
the misleader(3) of the living,—except that, if He were a magician, He
must have had a nativity!
But certain disciples 4 of the heretic of Pontus, compelled to be
wiser than their teacher, concede to Christ real flesh, without effect,
however, on(5) their denial of His nativity. He might have had, they
say, a flesh which was not at all born. So we have found our way "out
of a frying-pan," as the proverb runs, "into the fire,"(6)—from
Marcion to Apelles. This man having first fallen from the principles of
Marcion into (intercourse with) a woman, in the flesh, and afterwards
shipwrecked himself, in the spirit, on the virgin Philumene,(7)
proceeded from that time(8) to preach that the body of Christ was of
solid flesh, but without having been born. To this angel, indeed, of
Philumene, the apostle will reply in tones like those in which he even
then predicted him, saying, "Although an angel from heaven preach any
other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let
him be accursed."(9) To the arguments, however, which have been
indicated just above, we have now to show our resistance. They allow
that Christ really had a body. Whence was the material of it, if not
from the same sort of thing as(10) that in which He appeared? Whence
came His body, if His body were not flesh? Whence came His flesh, if it
were not born? Inasmuch as that which is born must undergo this
nativity in order to become flesh. He borrowed, they say, His flesh
from the stars, and from the substances of the higher world. And they
assert it for a certain principle, that a body without nativity is
nothing to be astonished at, because it has been submitted to angels to
appear even amongst ourselves in the flesh without the intervention of
the womb. We admit, of course, that such facts have been related. But
then, how comes it to pass that a faith which holds to a different rule
borrows materials for its own arguments from the faith which it
impugns? What has it to do with Moses, who has rejected the God of
Moses? Since the God is a different one, everything belonging to him
must be different also. But let the heretics always use the Scriptures
of that God whose world they also enjoy. The fact will certainly recoil
on them as a witness to judge them, that they maintain their own
blasphemies from examples derived from Him.(11) But it is an easy task
for the truth to prevail without raising any such demurrer against
them. When, therefore, they set forth the flesh of Christ after the
pattern of the angels, declaring it to be not born, and yet flesh for
all that, I should wish them to compare the causes, both in Christ's
case and that of the angels, wherefore they came in the flesh. Never
did any angel descend for the purpose of being crucified, of tasting
death, and of rising again from the dead. Now, since there never was
such a reason for angels becoming embodied, you have the cause why they
assumed flesh without undergoing birth. They had not come to die,
therefore they also (came not) to be born. Christ, however, having been
sent to die, had necessarily to be also born, that He might be capable
of death; for nothing is in the habit of dying but that
which is born. Between nativity and mortality there is a mutual
contrast. The law(1) which makes us die is the cause of our being born.
Now, since Christ died owing to the condition which undergoes death,
but that undergoes death which is also born, the consequence
was—nay,it was an antecedent necessity-that He must have been born
also,(2) by reason of the condition which undergoes birth; because He
had to die in obedience to that very condition which, because it begins
with birth, ends in death.(3) It was not fitting for Him not to be born
under the pretence (4) that it was fitting for Him to die. But the Lord
Himself at that very time appeared to Abraham amongst those angels
without being born, and yet in the flesh without doubt, in virtue of
the before-mentioned diversity of cause. You, however, cannot admit
this, since you do not receive that Christ, who was even then
rehearsing(5) how to converse with, and liberate, and judge the human
race, in the habit of a flesh which as yet was not born, because it did
not yet mean to die until both its nativity and mortality were
previously (by prophecy) announced. Let them, then, prove to us that
those angels derived their flesh from the stars. If they do not prove
it because it is not written, neither will the flesh of Christ get its
origin therefrom, for which they borrowed the precedent of the angels.
It is plain that the angels bore a flesh which was not naturally their
own; their nature being of a spiritual substance, although in some
sense peculiar to themselves, corporeal; and yet they could be
transfigured into human shape, and for the time be able to appear and
have intercourse with men. Since, therefore, it has not been told us
whence they obtained their flesh, it remains for us not to doubt in our
minds that a property of angelic power is this, to assume to themselves
bodily Shape out of no material substance. How much more, you say, is
it (within their competence to take a body) out of some material
substance? That is true enough. But there is no evidence of this,
because Scripture says nothing. Then, again,(6) how should they who are
able to form themselves into that which by nature they are not, be
unable to do this out of no material substance? If they become that
which they are not, why cannot they so become out of that which is not?
But that which has not existence when it comes into existence, is made
out of nothing. This is why it is unnecessary either to inquire or to
demonstrate what has subsequently become of their (7) bodies. What came
out of nothing, came to nothing. They, who were able to convert
themselves into flesh have it in their power to convert nothing itself
into flesh. It is a greater thing to change a nature than to make
matter. But even if it were necessary to suppose that angels derived
their flesh from some material substance, it is surely more credible
that it was from some earthly matter than from any kind of celestial
substances, since it was composed of so palpably terrene a quality that
it fed on earthly ailments. Suppose that even now a celestial flesh (8)
had fed on earthly aliments, although it was not itself earthly, in the
same way that earthly flesh actually fed on celestial aliments,
although it had nothing of the celestial nature (for we read of manna
having been food for the people: "Man," says the Psalmist, "did eat
angels' bread,"(9)) yet this does not once infringe the separate
condition of the Lord's flesh, because of His different destination.
For One who was to be truly a man, even unto death, it was necessary
that He should be clothed with that flesh to which death belongs. Now
that flesh to which death belongs is preceded by birth.
But whenever a dispute arises about the nativity, all who reject
it as creating a presumption in favour of the reality of Christ's
flesh, wilfully deny that God Himself was born, on the ground that He
asked, "Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? " (10) Let,
therefore, Apelles hear what was our answer to Marcion in that little
work, in which we challenged his own (favourite) gospel to the proof,
even that the material circumstances of that remark (of the Lord's)
should be considered.(11) First of all, nobody would have told Him that
His mother and brethren were standing outside, if he were not certain
both that He had a mother and brethren, and that they were the very
persons whom he was then announcing,—who had either been known to him
before, or were then and there discovered by him; although heretics(12)
have removed this passage from the gospel, because those who were
admiring His doctrine said that His supposed father, Joseph the
carpenter, and 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." (1) And in another passage: "The Pharisees also came unto Him,
tempting Him." Who (2) 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 s some occasion (4) for the temptation. 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 announcement
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 contend that they
meant by their temptation to inquire about a point on which they had
never raised a doubt? Besides,(5) if He had to be tempted about His
birth, this of course was not the proper way of doing it,—by
announcing those persons who, even on the supposition 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 announcement 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
whom they were announcing to be "standing without," 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(6)
recovers its naturalness. But there is some ground for thinking that
Christ's 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 evidence of
His mother's adherence to Him, although 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(8) on that which was doing within; nor do they even wait,(9) 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 happened to be at a
stage play, or had laid a wager (10) 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?" (11) And did not Christ, whilst
preaching and manifesting God, fulfilling the law and the prophets, and
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,(12) and not in words which might be uttered by one who had
both a mother and brothers. When denying one's parents in indignation,
one does not deny their existence, 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(2) 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
disciples 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
relationship. It was in just the same sense, indeed, that He also
replied to that exclamation (of a certain woman), not denying His
mother's "womb and paps," but designating those as more "blessed who
hear the word of God." (3)
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 (4) 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,(6) and so unworthy of
Christ; and because they on that account suppose that a sidereal
substance is suitable for Him, I am bound to refute them on their own
ground. They mention a certain angel of great renown as having created
this world of ours, and as having, after the creation, repented of his
work. This indeed we have treated of in a passage by itself; for we
have written a little work in opposition to them, on 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 describe the said angel by the figure of "the lost sheep." The
world, then, must be a wrong thing,(7) according to the evidence of its
Creator's repentance; for all repentance is the admission of fault, nor
has it indeed any existence except through fault. Now, if the world (8)
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 produced out of it. And "a corrupt
tree must needs bring forth evil fruit." (9) The flesh of Christ,
therefore, if composed of celestial elements, consists of faulty
materials, sinful by reason of its sinful origin; (10) 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:(11)"The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the
Lord from heaven."(12) This passage, however, has nothing to do with
any difference of substance; it only contrasts with the once (13)
"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 become 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.(14) 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.(15)
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
appearance of qualities (in other words,that which proceeds from
something else is in development (1) different), yet, after all, what
is blood but red fluid? what is flesh but earth in an especial (2)
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 junctions 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, of flesh. All these marks
of the earthy origin were in Christ; and it is they which obscured Him
as the Son of God, for He was looked on as man, for no other reason
whatever 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 characteristics
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. Indeed it was from His words and actions only, from His
teaching and miracles solely, that men, though amazed, owned Christ to
be man.(4) But if there had been in Him any new kind of flesh
miraculously obtained (from the stars), it would have been certainly
well known.s As the case stood, however, it was actually the
ordinary(6) condition of His terrene flesh which made all things else
about Him wonderful, as when they said, "Whence hath this man this
wisdom and these mighty works?"(7) Thus spake even they who despised
His outward form. His body did not reach even to human beauty, to say
nothing of heavenly glory.(8) 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 (10) (by its abjectness)? Why talk of a
heavenly flesh, when you have no grounds to offer us for your celestial
theory?(10) Why deny it to be earthy, when you have the best of reasons
for knowing it to be earthy? He hungered under the devil's temptation;
He thirsted with the woman of Samaria; He wept over Lazarus; He
trembles at death (for "the flesh," as He says, "is weak "(12)); at
last, He pours out His blood. These, I suppose, are celestial marks?
But how, I ask, could He have incurred contempt and suffering in the
way I have described, 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.
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,(13)
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 clothing Himself with flesh, He should
have made that flesh one of soul,(14) 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,(15) but are 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,(1) that Christ came forth not to deliver the
flesh, but only our soul, how absurd it is, in the first place, that,
meaning to save only the soul, He yet made it into just that sort of
bodily substance which He had no intention of saving! And, secondly, if
He had undertaken deliver our souls by means of that which He carried,
He ought, in that soul which He carried to have carried our 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,(2) 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 soul that was saved, since that was in peril of damnation.
We therefore now conclude that as in Christ the soul was not of flesh,
so neither could His flesh have possibly been composed of soul.
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
itself(3) 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,(4) that is to
say, the flesh? It received darkness, forsooth, in order to be able to
shine! Now,(5) let us first turn our attention to this point, whether
it was requisite that the soul should exhibit itself in the manner
contended for;(5) and next consider whether their previous position be
(7) 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.(8) 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 it(9) visible
would certainly have done His work better (10) 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 appear (11) to be that which it is. No one who
wishes to exhibit a man covers him with a veil (12) 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, supposed (13)
to be incorporeal, so that the soul, whatever it is, should by some
mysterious force of the reason (14) 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 (15) 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,(16)
(being spared the idea that)(1) He had set His mind on(2) making,
without an adequate cause, a visible soul instead of (3) an invisible
one—a fit incentive, no doubt, for such questions as they start,(4) by
their maintenance of a human flesh for it.(5) 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.
Well, now, let it be granted that the soul is made apparent by
the flesh,(6) on the assumption that it was evidently necessary (7)
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,(8) 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.(9) The soul, in my
opinion,(10) is sensual.(11) Nothing, therefore, pertaining to the soul
is unconnected with sense,(12) nothing pertaining to sense is
unconnected with the soul.(13) 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 perception(14) 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.(15) 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 rio 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." (16) Besides, if the soul was
ignorant of itself from the beginning, there is nothing it could (17)
have learnt of Christ except its own quality.(18) 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," (19) not the soul. And
again, "I am come to save the soul. He did not say, "to explain" (20)
it. We could not know, of course,(21) 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 soul (22)
than his soul was of flesh.(23) What further knowledge, therefore, have
we received of the structure (24) 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?
533
The soul became flesh that the soul might become visible.(1)
Well, then, did the flesh likewise become soul that the flesh might be
manifested?(2) 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.(3) 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.(4) It retains not the name which
designated its former state,(5) because it has no longer a share in
that state. Therefore, also, the soul of Christ having become flesh,(6)
cannot be anything else than that which it has become nor can it be any
longer that which it once was, having become indeed(7) 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.(8) 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,(9) and an indivisible
substance. But in Christ we find the soul and the flesh expressed in
simple un-figurative(10) 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;"(11) and "the
bread that I will give is my flesh, (which I will give) for the
life(12) of the world.(13) 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.(14) 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 unimpaired(15) of two
substances distinct in kind, thus excluding the unique species of the
flesh-comprised soul.
But Christ, they say, bare(16) (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,"(17) 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 helper(18) wherewithal to execute the
salvation of man? 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,(1) 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"(2) 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 Spirit(3) of God." however, and "the Power of the Highest," 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,(5) 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,(6) 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."(7) 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."(8)
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;"(9) and "The Son of man is Lord of the
Sabbath-day."(10 For it is of Him that Isaiah writes: "A man of
suffering, and acquainted with the bearing of weakness;"(11) and
Jeremiah: "He is a man, and who hath known Him?"(12) and Daniel: "Upon
the clouds (He came) as the Son of man.''(13) The Apostle Paul likewise
says: "The man Christ Jesus is the one Mediator between God and
man."(14) 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."(15) These passages alone ought to suffice as a
prescriptive(16) testimony in proof that Christ had human flesh derived
from man, and not spiritual, and that His flesh was not composed. of
soul,(17) 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,(18) they
refuse at the outset to believe that a human and earthly substance was
created(19) 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 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.(1) 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 ourselves? 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;"(3) and
they deny the lower nature of that Christ who declares Himself to be,
"not a man, but a worm;"(4) 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."(5) 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;(6) as if, forsooth,
corruptibility(7) 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.
The famous Alexander,(8) 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,(9) in order that He might in His own person abolish
sinful flesh.(10) 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),(11) 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 pomp(12) 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;(13) not the substance, but its flaw;(14) and (this we aver)
on the authority of the apostle, who says, "He abolished sin in the
flesh."(15) Now in another sentence he says that Christ was "in the
likeness of sinful flesh,"(16)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,(17) 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 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,(1) 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 Himself' the substance of the selfsame flesh, without a human
father's agency.(3)
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 respectable(4) 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."(5) Accordingly, a virgin did
conceive and bear "Emmanuel, God with us."(6) 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.(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 contrary(8) 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.(9) 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.
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,"'—as Ebion(2) 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 man(3) without the seed of a man;(4) for the
seed of a man was unnecessary s 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 Spirit(6)—flesh (I say) without seed from man, Spirit with seed
from God. For as much, then, as the dispensation of God's purpose(7)
concerning His Son required that He should be born(8) 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."(9) Now this very
statement plainly shows what it was that was made flesh; nor can it
possibly be that(10) 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?(11) 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,"(12) 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,"(13) 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.(14)
What, then, is the meaning of this passage, "Born's not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God?"(16)
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)(17)" 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.(18) But how can this be, when all who
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,(1) 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 ebullition(2) into the coagulum of the woman's blood. In
the cheese, it is from the coagulation that the milky substance
acquires that consistency,(3) which is condensed by infusing the
rennet.(4) 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 Gods 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 flesh(6) 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.(7)
But to what shifts you resort, in your attempt to rob the
syllable ex (of)(8) 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 through a virgin, not of" 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."(11) 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."(12) But Paul, too, silences these critics(13) when he says,
"God sent forth His Son, made of a woman."(14) 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,"(15) 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 draw(16) me out of my
mother's womb."(1) Here is the first point. "Thou art my hope
from my mother's breasts; upon Thee have I been cast from the womb."(2)
Here is another point. "Thou art my God from my mother's belly."(3)
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,(4) by the umbilical cord, which
communicated growth to Him from the matrix? Even when one strange
matter amalgamates with another, it becomes so entirely incorporated(5)
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 parts(6) to the mamilla, and in the
act of transference convert the secretion into the nutritious(7)
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)(8) 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.
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."(9) 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."(10) Therefore, as the act of
conception was her own,(11) so also what she brought forth was her own,
also, although the cause of conception(12) 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?(13) Will not the angel's announcement also be subverted,
that the virgin should "conceive in her womb and bring forth a
son?"(14) 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.(15) Such a name as
this(16) 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 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.(1) For without
reason does she say, "and whence is this to me that the mother of my
Lord should come to me?"(2) 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?(3) 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 condition(4) 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 secures 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,(6) 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."(7) 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?"
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
chronicler(8) of the Gospel, because the companion of the Lord; for no
other reason in the world than to show us clearly the fleshly
original(9) of Christ, he thus begins his Gospel: "The book of the
generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham."(10)
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,"(11)—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 person(12) 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."(13) 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 origin(14) of a
spiritual stock.
We acknowledge, however, that the prophetic declaration of Simeon
is fulfilled, which he spoke over the recently-born Saviour:(1)
"Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in
Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken against."(2) 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."(3) 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 sophists(4) 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,"(5) 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.(6) Light is light;
and darkness, darkness; yea is yea; and nay, nay; "whatsoever is more
than these cometh of evil."(7) She who bare (really) bare; and although
she was a virgin when she conceived, she was a wife(8) when she brought
forth her son. Now, as a wife, she was under the very law of "opening
the womb,"(9) wherein it was quite immaterial whether the birth of the
male was by virtue of a husband's co-operation or not;(10) it was the
same sex(11) 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."(12) For who is really holy but
the Son of God? Who properly opened the womb but He who opened a closed
one?(13) But it is marriage which opens the womb in all cases. The
virgin's womb, therefore, was especially(14) opened, because it was
especially closed. Indeed(15) 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.(16) We read in
Ezekiel of "a heifer(17) 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; otherwise(18) 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."(19)
For when Isaiah hurls denunciation against our very heretics,
especially in his "Woe to them that call evil good, and put darkness
for light,"(20) he of course sets his mark upon those amongst you(21)
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.(22) Having thus
Marcion in his prophetic view, he says, "I am God, and there is none
else; there is no God beside me."(23) And when in another passage he
says, in like manner, "Before me there was no God,"(24) he strikes at
those inexplicable genealogies of the Valentinian AEons. Again, there
is an answer to Ebion in the Scripture: "Born,(25) not of blood, nor 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,"(1) he calls attention to the artful influence of
Philumene,(2) the virgin friend of Apelles. Surely he is antichrist who
denies that Christ has come in the flesh.(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.(4) 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,(5) 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,"(6) 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,(7) or else that His soul is all that exists? but
that His flesh no longer lives.
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 far the approaching subject now that it is plain what kind of body
that was which rose again in Christ.
I. (In the body of a dove, cap. iii. p. 523.)
The learned John Scott, in his invaluable work The Christian
Life,(1) identifies the glory shed upon the Saviour at his baptism,
with that mentioned by Ezekiel (Cap. xliii. 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, 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. Luke iii. 22.
Compare Justin Martyr, vol. i. p. 243, and note 6, 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. p. 527.)
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.