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 XI.—The Opposite Extravagance Exposed.  That is Christ with a Soul Composed of Flesh—Corporeal, Though Invisible. Christ’s Soul, Like Ours, Distinct from Flesh, Though Clothed in It.

But we meet another argument of theirs, when we raise the question why Christ, in 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 itself147    Demonstraretur: or, “should become apparent.” 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,148    Cui latebat. that is to say, the flesh? It received darkness, forsooth, in order to be able to shine! Now,149    Denique. let us first turn our attention to this point, whether it was requisite that the soul should exhibit itself in the manner contended for;150    Isto modo. and next consider whether their previous position be151    An retro allegent. 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.152    Per quod sit. Since, however, it exists, it must needs have a something through which it exists. If it has this something, it must be its body.  Everything which exists is a bodily existence 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 it153    Eam: the soul. visible would certainly have done His work better154    Dignius: i.e., “in a manner more worthy of Himself.” 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 appear155    Demonstrare. to be that which it is. No one who wishes to exhibit a man covers him with a veil156    Cassidem. 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, supposed157    Deputetur. to be incorporeal, so that the soul, whatever it is, should by some mysterious force of the reason158    Aliqua vi rationis: or, “by some power of its own condition.” 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 displayed159    Demonstrare. 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,160    Notitiæ. (being spared the idea that)161    Ne. He had set His mind on162    Gestisset. making, without an adequate cause, a visible soul instead of163    Ex. an invisible one—a fit incentive, no doubt, for such questions as they start,164    Istis. by their maintenance of a human flesh for it.165    In illam: perhaps “in it,” as if an ablative case, not an unusual construction in Tertullian. 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.

CAPUT XI.

Sed aliam argumentationem eorum convenimus, exigentes, cur animalem carnem subeundo Christus, animam carnalem videatur habuisse. Deus enim, inquiunt , gestivit animam visibilem hominibus exhibere, faciendo eam corpus, quae retro invisibilis 0774A extiterit, natura nihil, nec semetipsam videns, prae impedimento carnis hujus, ut etiam disceptaretur, nata anima an non, mortalis ne sit, an non . Itaque animam corpus effectam in Christo, ut eam et nascentem et morientem, et, quod sit amplius, resurgentem videremus. Et hoc autem quale erat , ut per carnem demonstraretur anima sibi aut nobis, quae per carnem non poterat agnosci: ut sic ostenderetur, dum id fit, cui latebat, id est caro? tenebras videlicet accepit, ut lucere posset . Denique, adhuc prius retractemus, an isto modo ostendenda fuerit anima, an in totum invisibilem eam retro allegent; utrum quasi incorporalem, an etiam habentem aliquod genus corporis proprii. Et tamen cum invisibilem dicant, corporalem eam 0774B constituunt, habentem quod invisible sit. Nihil enim habens invisibile, quomodo potest invisibilis dici? Sed ne esse quidem potest, nisi habens per quod sit. Cum autem sit, habeat necesse est aliquid, per quod est. Si habet aliquid per quod est, hoc erit corpus ejus. Omne quod est, corpus est sui generis: nihil est incorporale, nisi quod non est. Habente igitur anima invisibile corpus, qui visibilem eam facere susceperat, utique dignius id ejus visibile fecisset, quod invisibile habebatur, quia nec hic mendacium, aut infirmitas Deo competit: mendacium, si aliud animam, quam quod erat, demonstravit; infirmitas, si id quod erat demonstrare non valuit. Nemo ostendere volens hominem, cassidem aut personam ei inducit. Hoc autem factum est animae, si 0774C in carne conversa alienam induit superficiem. Sed et si incorporalis anima deputetur, ut aliqua vi rationis occulta sit quidem anima, corpus tamen non sit, quidquid est anima; proinde impossibile Deo non erat, et proposito ejus congruentius competebat, nova aliqua corporis specie eam demonstrare, quam ista communi omnium, alterius jam notitiae; ne sine caussa visibilem ex invisibili facere gestisset animam, istis scilicet quaestionibus opportunam, per carnis in illam humanae defensionem. Sed non poterat Christus inter homines nisi homo videri. Redde igitur Christo fidem suam; ut qui homo voluerit incedere, animam quoque humanae conditionis ostenderit, non faciens eam carneam, sed induens eam carne.