Chapter XXXVII.--Other Turgid and Ridiculous Theories About the Origin of the Æons and Creation, Stated and Condemned.
Now listen to some other buffooneries [6924] of a master who is a great swell among them, [6925] and who has pronounced his dicta with an even priestly authority. They run thus: There comes, says he, before all things Pro-arche, the inconceivable, and indescribable, and nameless, which I for my own part call Monotes (Solitude). With this was associated another power, to which also I give the name of Henotes (Unity). Now, inasmuch as Monotes and Henotes--that is to say, Solitude and Union--were only one being, they produced, and yet not in the way of production, [6926] the intellectual, innascible, invisible beginning of all things, which human language [6927] has called Monad (Solitude). [6928] This has inherent in itself a consubstantial force, which it calls Unity [6929] These powers, accordingly, Solitude or Solitariness, and Unity, or Union, propagated all the other emanations of Æons. [6930] Wonderful distinction, to be sure! Whatever change Union and Unity may undergo, Solitariness and Solitude is profoundly supreme. Whatever designation you give the power, it is one and the same.
[6924] Oehler gives good reasons for the reading "ingenia circulatoria," instead of the various readings of other editors.
[6925] Insignioris apud eos magistri.
[6926] Non proferentes. Another reading is "non proserentes" (not generating).
[6927] Sermo.
[6928] Or, solitariness.
[6929] Or, Union.
[6930] Compare our Irenæus, I. 2, 3. [Vol. I. p. 316.]
Chapter XXXVIII.--Diversity in the Opinions of Secundus, as Compared with the General Doctrine of Valentinus.
Secundus is a trifle more human, as he is briefer: he divides the Ogdoad into a pair of Tetrads, a right hand one and a left hand one, one light and the other darkness. Only he is unwilling to derive the power which apostatized and fell away [6931] from any one of the Æons, but from the fruits which issued from their substance.
[6931] Achamoth.
Chapter XXXIX.--Their Diversity of Sentiment Affects the Very Central Doctrine of Christianity, Even the Person and Character of the Lord Jesus. This Diversity Vitiates Every Gnostic School.
Now, concerning even the Lord Jesus, into how great a diversity of opinion are they divided! One party form Him of the blossoms of all the Æons. [6932] Another party will have it that He is made up only of those ten whom the Word and the Life [6933] produced; [6934] from which circumstance the titles of the Word and the Life were suitably transferred to Him. Others, again, that He rather sprang from the twelve, the offspring of Man and the Church, [6935] and therefore, they say, He was designated "Son of man." Others, moreover, maintain that He was formed by Christ and the Holy Spirit, who have to provide for the establishment of the universe, [6936] and that He inherits by right His Father's appellation. Some there are who have imagined that another origin must be found for the title "Son of man;" for they have had the presumption to call the Father Himself Man, by reason of the profound mystery of this title: so that what can you hope for more ample concerning faith in that God, with whom you are now yourself on a par? Such conceits are constantly cropping out [6937] amongst them, from the redundance of their mother's seed. [6938] And so it happens that the doctrines which have grown up amongst the Valentinians have already extended their rank growth to the woods of the Gnostics.
[6932] See above, ch. xii. p. 510.
[6933] The Æons Sermo and Vita.
[6934] See above, ch. vii. p. 506.
[6935] See above, ch. viii. p. 507.
[6936] See above, ch. xiv. p. 511.
[6937] Superfruticant.
[6938] Archamoth is referred to.
tertullian christ_flesh anf03 tertullian-christ_flesh On the Flesh of Christ /ccel/schaff/anf03.v.vii.html
On the Flesh of Christ
V.
On the Flesh of Christ. [6939]
This was written by our author in confutation of certain heretics who denied the reality of Christ's flesh, or at least its identity with human flesh--fearing that, if they admitted the reality of Christ's flesh, they must also admit his resurrection in the flesh; and, consequently, the resurrection of the human body after death.
[Translated by Dr. Holmes.]
------------------------
Chapter I.--The General Purport of This Work. The Heretics, Marcion, Apelles, and Valentinus, Wishing to Impugn the Doctrine of the Resurrection, Deprive Christ of All Capacity for Such a Change by Denying His Flesh.
They who are so anxious to shake that belief in the resurrection which was firmly settled [6940] before the appearance of our modern Sadducees, [6941] as even to deny that the expectation thereof has any relation whatever to the flesh, have great cause for besetting the flesh of Christ also with doubtful questions, as if it either had no existence at all, or possessed a nature altogether different from human flesh. For they cannot but be apprehensive that, if it be once determined that Christ's flesh was human, a presumption would immediately arise in opposition to them, that that flesh must by all means rise again, which has already risen in Christ. Therefore we shall have to guard our belief in the resurrection [6942] from the same armoury, whence they get their weapons of destruction. Let us examine our Lord's bodily substance, for about His spiritual nature all are agreed. [6943] It is His flesh that is in question. Its verity and quality are the points in dispute. Did it ever exist? whence was it derived? and of what kind was it? If we succeed in demonstrating it, we shall lay down a law for our own resurrection. Marcion, in order that he might deny the flesh of Christ, denied also His nativity, or else he denied His flesh in order that he might deny His nativity; because, of course, he was afraid that His nativity and His flesh bore mutual testimony to each other's reality, since there is no nativity without flesh, and no flesh without nativity. As if indeed, under the prompting of that licence which is ever the same in all heresy, he too might not very well have either denied the nativity, although admitting the flesh,--like Apelles, who was first a disciple of his, and afterwards an apostate,--or, while admitting both the flesh and the nativity, have interpreted them in a different sense, as did Valentinus, who resembled Apelles both in his discipleship and desertion of Marcion. At all events, he who represented the flesh of Christ to be imaginary was equally able to pass off His nativity as a phantom; so that the virgin's conception, and pregnancy, and child-bearing, and then the whole course [6944] of her infant too, would have to be regarded as putative. [6945] These facts pertaining to the nativity of Christ would escape the notice of the same eyes and the same senses as failed to grasp the full idea [6946] of His flesh.
[6939] In his work On the Resurrection of the Flesh (chap. ii.), Tertullian refers to this tract, and calls it "De Carne Domini adversus quatuor hæreses": the four heresies being those of Marcion, Apelles, Basilides, and Valentinus. Pamelius, indeed, designates the tract by this fuller title instead of the usual one, "De Carne Christi." [This tract contains references to works written while our author was Montanistic, but it contains no positive Montanism. It should not be dated earlier than a.d. 207.]
[6940] Moratam.
[6941] The allusion is to Matt. xxii. 23; comp. De Præscr. Hæret. 33 (Fr. Junius).
[6942] Tertullian's phrase is "carnis vota"--the future prospects of the flesh.
[6943] Certum est.
[6944] Ordo.
[6945] To dokein haberentur. This term gave name to the Docetic errors.
[6946] Opinio.