Chapter VIII.—Absurdity of Marcion’s Docetic Opinions; Reality of Christ’s Incarnation.

Our heretic must now cease to borrow poison from the Jew—“the asp,” as the adage runs, “from the viper”887    So Epiphanius, adv. Hæres. l. 23. 7, quotes the same proverb, ὡς ἀσπὶς παρ᾽ ἐχίδνης ἰὸν δανιζομένη. [Tom. II. p. 144. Ed. Oehler.]—and henceforth vomit forth the virulence of his own disposition, as when he alleges Christ to be a phantom. Except, indeed, that this opinion of his will be sure to have others to maintain it in his precocious and somewhat abortive Marcionites, whom the Apostle John designated as antichrists, when they denied that Christ was come in the flesh; not that they did this with the view of establishing the right of the other god (for on this point also they had been branded by the same apostle), but because they had started with assuming the incredibility of an incarnate God. Now, the more firmly the antichrist Marcion had seized this assumption, the more prepared was he, of course, to reject the bodily substance of Christ, since he had introduced his very god to our notice as neither the author nor the restorer of the flesh; and for this very reason, to be sure, as pre-eminently good, and most remote from the deceits and fallacies of the Creator. His Christ, therefore, in order to avoid all such deceits and fallacies, and the imputation, if possible, of belonging to the Creator, was not what he appeared to be, and feigned himself to be what he was not—incarnate without being flesh, human without being man, and likewise a divine Christ without being God! But why should he not have propagated also the phantom of God? Can I believe him on the subject of the internal nature, who was all wrong touching the external substance? How will it be possible to believe him true on a mystery, when he has been found so false on a plain fact? How, moreover, when he confounds the truth of the spirit with the error of the flesh,888    As in his Docetic views of the body of Christ. could he combine within himself that communion of light and darkness, or truth and error, which the apostle says cannot co-exist?889    2 Cor. vi. 14. Since however, Christ’s being flesh is now discovered to be a lie, it follows that all things which were done by the flesh of Christ were done untruly,890    Mendacio.—every act of intercourse,891    Congressus. of contact, of eating or drinking,892    Convictus. yea, His very miracles. If with a touch, or by being touched, He freed any one of a disease, whatever was done by any corporeal act cannot be believed to have been truly done in the absence of all reality in His body itself. Nothing substantial can be allowed to have been effected by an unsubstantial thing; nothing full by a vacuity. If the habit were putative, the action was putative; if the worker were imaginary, the works were imaginary. On this principle, too, the sufferings of Christ will be found not to warrant faith in Him. For He suffered nothing who did not truly suffer; and a phantom could not truly suffer.  God’s entire work, therefore, is subverted. Christ’s death, wherein lies the whole weight and fruit of the Christian name, is denied although the apostle asserts893    Demandat. it so expressly894    Tam impresse, “so strongly.” as undoubtedly real, making it the very foundation of the gospel, of our salvation and of his own preaching.895    1 Cor. xv. 3, 4, 14, 17, 18. “I have delivered unto you before all things,” says he, “how that Christ died for our sins, and that he was buried, and that He rose again the third day.”  Besides, if His flesh is denied, how is His death to be asserted; for death is the proper suffering of the flesh, which returns through death back to the earth out of which it was taken, according to the law of its Maker? Now, if His death be denied, because of the denial of His flesh, there will be no certainty of His resurrection. For He rose not, for the very same reason that He died not, even because He possessed not the reality of the flesh, to which as death accrues, so does resurrection likewise. Similarly, if Christ’s resurrection be nullified, ours also is destroyed. If Christ’s resurrection be not realized,896    Valebit. neither shall that be for which Christ came.  For just as they, who said that there is no resurrection of the dead, are refuted by the apostle from the resurrection of Christ, so, if the resurrection of Christ falls to the ground, the resurrection of the dead is also swept away.897    Aufertur. And so our faith is vain, and vain also is the preaching of the apostles. Moreover, they even show themselves to be false witnesses of God, because they testified that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise. And we remain in our sins still.898    1 Cor. xv. 13–18. And those who have slept in Christ have perished; destined, forsooth,899    Sane. to rise again, but peradventure in a phantom state,900    Phantasmate forsitan. just like Christ.

CAPUT VIII.

Desinat nunc haereticus a Judaeo, aspis (quod aiunt) a vipera mutuari venenum; evomat jam hinc proprii ingenii virus, phantasma vindicans Christum. Nisi quod et ista sententia alios habebit auctores, praecoquos et abortivos quodammodo Marcionitas, quos apostolus Joannes (Joan. II, 4) antichristos pronuntiavit, negantes Christum in carne venisse; et tamen non ut alterius Dei jus constituerent, quia et de isto notati fuissent; sed quoniam incredibile praesumpserant Deum carnem. Quo magis antichristus Marcion sibi eam rapuit praesumptionem; aptior scilicet ad renuendam corporalem substantiam Christi, qui ipsum Deum ejus nec auctorem carnis induxerat, 0331D nec resuscitatorem: optimum videlicet, et in isto diversissimum a mendaciis et fallaciis creatoris. Et ideo Christus ejus ne mentiretur, ne falleret, 0332A et hoc modo creatoris forsitan deputaretur, non erat quod videbatur, et quod erat mentiebatur; caro, nec caro; homo, nec homo: proinde Deus Christus, nec Deus. Cur enim non etiam Dei phantasma portaverit? An credam ei de interiore substantia, qui sit de exteriore frustratus? Quomodo verax habebitur in occulto, tam fallax repertus in aperto? Quomodo autem in semetipso veritatem spiritus fallacia carnis confundens, negatam ab Apostolo (II Cor. VI, 14) lucis, id est veritatis, et fallaciae, id est tenebrarum, commisit communicationem? Jam nunc, cum mendacium deprehenditur Christi caro, sequitur ut et omnia quae per carnem Christi gesta sunt, mendacio gesta sint, congressus, contactus, convictus, ipsae quoque virtutes. Si enim tangendo aliquem liberavit 0332B a vitio, vel tactus ab aliquo; quod corporaliter actum est, non potest vere actum credi sine corporis ipsius veritate. Nihil solidum ab inani, nihil plenum a vacuo perfici licuit. Putativus habitus, putativus actus: imaginarius operator, imaginariae operae. Sic nec passiones Christi ejus fidem merebuntur: nihil enim passus est, qui non vere est passus. Vere autem pati, phantasma non potuit. Eversum est igitur totum Dei opus. Totum christiani nominis et pondus et fructus, mors Christi negatur, quam tam impresse Apostolus demandat, utique veram, summum eam fundamentum Evangelii constituens, et salutis nostrae, et praedicationis suae: Tradidi enim, inquit (I Cor. XV, 3, 4), vobis in primis, quod Christus mortuus sit pro peccatis nostris, et quod sepultus sit, et 0332C quod resurrexerit tertia die. Porro, si caro ejus negatur, quomodo mors ejus asseveratur, quae propria carnis est passio per mortem devertentis in terram, de qua est sumpta secundum legem sui auctoris? Negata vero morte, dum caro negatur, nec de resurrectione constabit. Eadem enim ratione non resurrexit, qua mortuus non est, non habendo substantiam scilicet carnis; cujus sicut et mors, ita et resurrectio est (I Cor. XV, 13). Proinde resurrectione Christi infirmata, etiam nostra subversa est. Nec ea enim valebit, propter quam Christus venit, si Christus non resurrexit . Nam sicut illi, qui dicebant resurrectionem mortuorum non esse, revincuntur ab Apostolo ex resurrectione Christi; ita, resurrectione Christi non consistente, aufertur et mortuorum 0332D resurrectio, atque ita inanis est fides nostra, inanis est praedicatio Apostolorum, inveniuntur autem etiam falsi testes Dei, quod testimonium dixerint 0333A quasi resuscitaverit Christum, quem non resuscitavit, et sumus adhuc in delictis, et, qui in Christo dormierunt, perierunt, sane resurrecturi, sed phantasmate forsitan, sicut et Christus.