On the Flesh of Christ.

 V.

 Chapter II.—Marcion, Who Would Blot Out the Record of Christ’s Nativity, is Rebuked for So Startling a Heresy.

 Chapter III.—Christ’s Nativity Both Possible and Becoming. The Heretical Opinion of Christ’s Apparent Flesh Deceptive and Dishonourable to God, Even o

 Chapter IV.—God’s Honour in the Incarnation of His Son Vindicated.  Marcion’s Disparagement of Human Flesh Inconsistent as Well as Impious. Christ Has

 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.

 Chapter VI.—The Doctrine of Apelles Refuted, that Christ’s Body Was of Sidereal Substance, Not Born. Nativity and Mortality are Correlative Circumstan

 Chapter VII.—Explanation of the Lord’s Question About His Mother and His Brethren. Answer to the Cavils of Apelles and Marcion, Who Support Their Deni

 Chapter VIII.—Apelles and His Followers, Displeased with Our Earthly Bodies, Attributed to Christ a Body of a Purer Sort. How Christ Was Heavenly Even

 Chapter IX.—Christ’s Flesh Perfectly Natural, Like Our Own. None of the Supernatural Features Which the Heretics Ascribed to It Discoverable, on a Car

 Chapter X.—Another Class of Heretics Refuted. They Alleged that Christ’s Flesh Was of a Finer Texture, Animalis, Composed of Soul.

 Chapter XI.—The Opposite Extravagance Exposed.  That is Christ with a Soul Composed of Flesh—Corporeal, Though Invisible. Christ’s Soul, Like Ours, Di

 Chapter XII.—The True Functions of the Soul. Christ Assumed It in His Perfect Human Nature, Not to Reveal and Explain It, But to Save It. Its Resurrec

 Chapter XIII.—Christ’s Human Nature.  The Flesh and the Soul Both Fully and Unconfusedly Contained in It.

 Chapter XIV.—Christ Took Not on Him an Angelic Nature, But the Human. It Was Men, Not Angels, Whom He Came to Save.

 Chapter XV.—The Valentinian Figment of Christ’s Flesh Being of a Spiritual Nature, Examined and Refuted Out of Scripture.

 Chapter XVI.—Christ’s Flesh in Nature, the Same as Ours, Only Sinless. The Difference Between Carnem Peccati and Peccatum Carnis: It is the Latter Whi

 Chapter XVII.—The Similarity of Circumstances Between the First and the Second Adam, as to the Derivation of Their Flesh. An Analogy Also Pleasantly T

 Chapter XVIII.—The Mystery of the Assumption of Our Perfect Human Nature by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He is Here Called, as Often Else

 Chapter XIX.—Christ, as to His Divine Nature, as the Word of God, Became Flesh, Not by Carnal Conception, Nor by the Will of the Flesh and of Man, But

 Chapter XX.—Christ Born of a Virgin, of Her Substance. The Physiological Facts of His Real and Exact Birth of a Human Mother, as Suggested by Certain

 Chapter XXI.—The Word of God Did Not Become Flesh Except in the Virgin’s Womb and of Her Substance. Through His Mother He is Descended from Her Great

 Chapter XXII.—Holy Scripture in the New Testament, Even in Its Very First Verse, Testifies to Christ’s True Flesh.  In Virtue of Which He is Incorpora

 Chapter XXIII.—Simeon’s “Sign that Should Be Contradicted,” Applied to the Heretical Gainsaying of the True Birth of Christ. One of the Heretics’ Para

 Chapter XXIV.—Divine Strictures on Various Heretics Descried in Various Passages of Prophetical Scripture. Those Who Assail the True Doctrine of the O

 Chapter XXV.—Conclusion. This Treatise Forms a Preface to the Other Work, “On the Resurrection of the Flesh,” Proving the Reality of the Flesh Which W

Chapter VIII.—Apelles and His Followers, Displeased with Our Earthly Bodies, Attributed to Christ a Body of a Purer Sort. How Christ Was Heavenly Even in His Earthly Flesh.

These passages alone, in which Apelles and Marcion seem to place their chief reliance when interpreted according to the truth of the entire uncorrupted gospel, ought to have been sufficient for proving the human flesh of Christ by a defence of His birth. But since Apelles’ precious set118    Isti Apelleiaci. lay a very great stress on the shameful condition119    Ignominiam. of the flesh, which they will have to have been furnished with souls tampered with by the fiery author of evil,120    Ab igneo illo præside mali: see Tertullian’s de Anima. xxiii.; de Resur. Carn. v.; Adv. Omnes Hæres. vi. 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,121    Peccatum. 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 world122    Mundus is here the universe or entire creation. 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.”123    Matt. vii. 17. The flesh of Christ, therefore, if composed of celestial elements, consists of faulty materials, sinful by reason of its sinful origin;124    Censu. 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:125    Plane. “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.”126    1 Cor. xv. 47. This passage, however, has nothing to do with any difference of substance; it only contrasts with the once127    Retro. “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.128    Secundum carnem. 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.129    Ei adæquantur.

CAPUT VIII.

Solis istis capitulis, quibus maxime instructi sibi videntur Marcion et Apelles, secundum veritatem integri et incorrupti Evangelii interpretatis, satis esse debuerat ad probationem carnis humanae in Christo per defensionem nativitatis. Sed quoniam et isti Apelleciani carnis ignominiam praetendunt maxime, quam volunt ab igneo illo praeside mali sollicitatis animabus adstructam , et idcirco indignam Christo, et idcirco de sideribus illi substantiam competisse, debeo illos de sua paratura repercutere. Angelum quemdam inclytum nominant, 0769B qui mundum hunc instituerit, et instituto eo poenitentiam admiscuerit . Et hoc suo loco tractavimus: nam est nobis adversus illos libellus , an qui spiritum et voluntatem et virtutem Christi habuerit ad ea opera, dignum aliquid poenitentia fecerit, cum angelum etiam de figura erraticae ovis interpretentur. Teste igitur poenitentia institutoris sui, delictum erit mundus; siquidem omnis poenitentia confessio est delicti , quia locum non habet nisi in delicto. Si mundus delictum est quia corpus et membra, delictum erit proinde et coelum, et coelestia cum coelo. Si coelestia , et quicquid inde conceptum prolatumque est, mala arbor malos 0770A fructus edat necesse est (Matth. VIII). Caro igitur Christi de coelestibus structa, de peccati constitit clementis, peccatrix de peccatorio censu , et par jam erit ejus substantiae, id est nostrae, quam ut peccatricem Christo dedignantur inducere . Ita si nihil de ignominia interest, aut aliam purioris notae materiam excogitent Christo, quibus displicet nostra, aut eamdem agnoscant , qua etiam coelestis melior esse non potuit. Legimus plane (I Cor. XV): Primus homo de terrae limo; secundus homo de coelo. Non tamen ad materiae differentiam spectat, sed tantum terrenae retro substantiae carnis primi hominis, id est Adae, coelestem de spiritu substantiam opponit secundi hominis, id est Christi. Et adeo ad spiritum, non ad carnem, coelestem 0770B hominem refert: ut quos sic comparat, constet in hac carne terrena coelestes fieri, spiritu scilicet. Quod si secundum carnem quoque coelestis Christus, non compararentur illi non secundum carnem coelestes. Si ergo qui fiunt coelestes, qualis et Christus, terrenam carnis substantiam gestant; hinc quoque confirmatur, ipsum etiam Christum in carne terrena fuisse coelestem, sicut sunt qui ei adaequantur.