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

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 development130    Fit. different), yet, after all, what is blood but red fluid? what is flesh but earth in an especial131    Sua. form? Consider the respective qualities,—of the muscles as clods; of the bones as stones; the mammillary 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 ores132    Metalla. 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.133    Christum hominem obstupescebant. But if there had been in Him any new kind of flesh miraculously obtained (from the stars), it would have been certainly well known.134    Notaretur. As the case stood, however, it was actually the ordinary135    Non mira. 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?”136    Matt. xiii. 54. Thus spake even they who despised His outward form. His body did not reach even to human beauty, to say nothing of heavenly glory.137    Compare Isa. liii. 2. See also our Anti-Marcion, p. 153, Edin. 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;138    Novum: made of the stars. or to smear His face with spitting, if it had not invited it139    Merentem. (by its abjectness)? Why talk of a heavenly flesh, when you have no grounds to offer us for your celestial theory?140    Literally, “why do you suppose it to be celestial.” 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”141    Matt. xxvi. 41.); 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.

CAPUT IX.

Praetendimus adhuc, nihil quod ex alio acceptum sit, ut aliud sit quam id de quo sit acceptum, ita 0771A aliud esse , ut non suggerat unde sit acceptum. Omnis materia sine testimonio originis suae non est, etsi demutetur in novam proprietatem. Ipsum certe corpus nostrum, quod de limo figulatum etiam ad fabulas nationum veritas transmisit, utrumque originis elementum confitetur: carne, terrenum ; sanguine, aquenum . Nam , licet alia sit species qualitatis, hoc est, quod ex alio aliud fit, caeterum, quid est sanguis, quam rubens humor? quid caro, quam terra conversa in figuras suas ? Considera singulas qualitates, musculos ut glebas, ossa ut saxa, etiam circum papillas calculos quosdam; aspice nervorum tenaces connexus, ut traduces radicum et venarum ramosos discursus, ut ambages rivorum, et lanugines ut muscos, et comam ut cespitem, et ipsos medullarum in 0771B abdito thesauros, ut metalla carnis. Haec omnia terrenae originis signa et in Christo fuerunt: haec sunt quae illum Dei Filium celavere, non alias tantummodo hominem existimatum, quam ex humani substantia corporis. Aut edite aliquid in illo coeleste de Septemtrionibus, et 0772A Vergiliis , et Suculis emendicatum. Nam quae enumeravimus, adeo terrenae testimonia carnis sunt, ut et nostrae. Sed nihil novum, nihil peregrinum deprehendo. Denique, verbis tantummodo et factis, doctrina et virtute sola Christi, homines obstupescebant. Notaretur etiam carnis in illo novitas miraculo habita. Sed carnis terrenae non mira conditio: ipsa erat, quae caetera ejus miranda faciebat. Cum dicerent: Unde huic doctrina et signa ista? Etiam despicientium formam ejus haec erat vox. Adeo nec humanae honestatis corpus fuit, nedum coelestis claritatis. Tacentibus apud nos quoque Prophetis de ignobili aspectu ejus, ipsae passiones, ipsaeque contumeliae loquuntur: passiones quidem, humanam carnem; contumeliae vero, inhonestam probavere . An ausus esset aliquis unque summo perstringere corpus novum, 0772B sputaminibus contaminare faciem, nisi merentem ? Quid dicis coelestem carnem, quam unde coelestem intelligas, non habes? Quid terrenam negas, quam unde terrenam agnoscas, habes? Esuriit sub diabolo, sitiit sub Samaritide, lacrymatus est super Lazarum, trepidavit ad mortem. 0773A Caro enim, inquit, infirma. Sanguinem fudit postremo . Haec sunt, opinor, signa coelestia. Sed quomodo, inquam , contemni et pati posset, sicut et dixi, si quid in illa carne de coelesti generositate radiasset? Ex hoc ergo convincimus nihil in illa de coelis fuisse, propterea ut contemni et pati posset.