Chapter V.—Christ Truly Lived and Died in Human Flesh. Incidents of His Human Life on Earth, and Refutation of Marcion’s Docetic Parody of the Same.

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 knife63    Aufer, Marcion. Literally, “Destroy this also, O Marcion.” 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?64    Educari an sepeliri. be laid in a manger, or in a tomb? Talk of “wisdom!” You will show more of that 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 away65    Recidisti. 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 mockeries66    Vacua ludibria. 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 Paul67    Paul was of great authority in Marcion’s school. “determine to know nothing amongst us but Jesus and Him crucified;”68    1 Cor. ii. 2. 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 guilt69    Excusas. 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.70    The humiliation which God endured, so indispensable a part of the Christian faith. Whatsoever is unworthy of God, is of gain to me. I am safe, if I am not ashamed of my Lord. “Whosoever,” says He, “shall be ashamed of me, of him will I also be ashamed.”71    Matt. x. 33, Mark viii. 38, and Luke ix. 26. Other matters for shame find I none which can prove me to be shameless 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.72    Ineptum. 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.73    That is, imaginary and unreal. 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 nature74    Census: “the origin.” of the two substances displayed Him as man and God,—in one respect born, in the other unborn; in one respect fleshly, in the other spiritual; in one sense weak, in the other exceeding strong; in one sense dying, in the other living. This property of the two states—the divine and the human—is distinctly asserted75    Dispuncta est. with equal truth of both natures alike, with the same belief both in respect of the Spirit76    This term is almost a technical designation of the divine nature of Christ in Tertullian. (See our translation of the Anti-Marcion, p. 247, note 7, Edin.) and of the flesh. The powers of the Spirit,77    This term is almost a technical designation of the divine nature of Christ in Tertullian. (See our translation of the Anti-Marcion, p. 247, note 7, Edin.) proved Him to be God, His sufferings attested the flesh of man. If His powers were not without the Spirit78    This term is almost a technical designation of the divine nature of Christ in Tertullian. (See our translation of the Anti-Marcion, p. 247, note 7, Edin.) 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 halve79    Dimidias. 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,80    See his Adv. Valentin, chap. 25. 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;”81    Luke xxiv. 39. 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 misleader82    Avocatorem. of the living,—except that, if He were a magician, He must have had a nativity!

CAPUT V.

Sunt plane et alia tam stulta, quae pertinent ad contumelias et passiones Dei; aut prudentiam dicant Deum crucifixum. Aufer hoc quoque, Marcion, imo hoc potius. Quid enim indignius 0760B Deo? quid magis erubescendum, nasci an mori? carnem gestare, an crucem? circumcidi, an suffigi? educari, an sepeliri? in praesepe deponi, an in monumento recondi? Sapientior eris, si nec ista credideris. Sed non eris sapiens, nisi stultus saeculo fueris, Dei stulta credendo. An ideo passiones a Christo non rescidisti, quia ut phantasma vacabat a sensu earum? Diximus retro aeque illum et nativitatis et infantiae imaginariae vacua ludibria subire potuisse. Sed jam hic responde, interfector veritatis. Nonne vere crucifixus est Deus ? nonne vere mortuus, ut vere crucifixus? nonne vere resuscitatus, ut vere scilicet mortuus? Falso ergo statuit inter nos scire Paulus tantum Jesum crucifixum? falso sepulturum ingessit? 0760C falso resuscitatum inculcavit? Falsa est igitur et fides nostra, et phantasma est totum quod speramus a Christo? Scelestissime hominum, qui interemptores excusas Dei. Nihil enim ab eis passus est Christus, si nihil vere est passus. Parce unicae spei totius 0761A orbis. Quid destruis necessarium dedecus fidei? Quodcumque Deo indignum est, mihi expedit. Salvus sum, si non confundar de Domino meo. Qui mei , inquit, confusus fuerit, confundar et ego ejus . Alias non invenio materias confusionis, quae me per contemptum ruboris probent bene impudentem et feliciter stultum. Natus est Dei Filius; non pudet, quia pudendum est: et mortuus est Dei Filius; prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est: et sepultus, resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile. Sed haec quomodo in illo vera erunt, si ipse non fuit verus, si non vere habuit in se quod figeretur, quod moreretur, quod sepeliretur et resuscitaretur, carnem scilicet sanguine suffusam, ossibus structam, nervis intextam, 0761B venis implexam, quae nasci et mori novit? Humana sine dubio, ut nata de homine; ideoque mortalis haec erit in Christo, quia Christus homo et filius hominis. Aut cur homo Christus et filius hominis, si nihil hominis et nihil ex homine? nisi si aut aliud est homo quam caro, aut aliunde caro hominis, quam ex homine; aut aliud Maria, quam homo, aut homo deus Marcionis . Aliter, non diceretur homo Christus, sine carne; nec hominis filius, sine aliquo parente homine: sicut nec Deus, sine Spiritu Dei; nec Dei Filius, sine Deo patre. ita utriusque substantiae census hominem et Deum exhibuit: hinc natum, inde non natum; hinc carneum, inde spiritalem; hinc infirmum, inde praefortem; 0761C hinc morientem, inde viventem. Quae proprietas conditionum, divinae et humanae, aequa utique naturae utriusque veritate dispuncta est, 0762A eadem fide, et spiritus et carnis . Virtutes spiritum Dei, passiones carnem hominis probaverunt. Si virtutes non sine spiritu, proinde et passiones non sine carne: si caro cum passionibus ficta, et spiritus ergo cum virtutibus falsus. Quid dimidias mendacio Christum? Totus veritas fuit. Maluit, crede, nasci, quam ex aliqua parte mentiri, et quidem in semetipsum; ut carnem gestaret sine ossibus duram, sine musculis solidam, sine sanguine cruentam, sine tunica vestitam, sine fame esurientem, sine dentibus edentem, sine lingua loquentem; ut phantasma auribus fuerit sermo ejus per imaginem vocis. Fuit itaque phantasma etiam post resurrectionem, cum manus et pedes suos discipulis inspiciendos offerret 0762B : Aspicite, inquit , quod ego sum, quia spiritus ossa non habet, sicut me habentem videtis (Luc. XXIV), sine dubio manus et pedes et ossa, quae spiritus non habet, sed caro. Quomodo hanc vocem interpretaris, Marcion, qui a Deo optimo, et simplici, et bono tantum, infers Jesum? Ecce fallit et decipit, et circumvenit omnium oculos, omnium sensus, omnium accessus et contractus. Ergo jam Christum non de coelo deferre debueras, sed de aliquo circulatorio coetu; nec Deum praeter hominem, sed magum hominem; nec salutis pontificem, sed spectaculi artificem; nec mortuorum suscitatorem, sed vivorum avocatorem. Nisi quod et si magus fuit, natus est.