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 set [7056] lay a very great stress on the shameful condition [7057] of the flesh, which they will have to have been furnished with souls tampered with by the fiery author of evil, [7058] 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, [7059] 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 world [7060] 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." [7061] The flesh of Christ, therefore, if composed of celestial elements, consists of faulty materials, sinful by reason of its sinful origin; [7062] 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: [7063] "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." [7064] This passage, however, has nothing to do with any difference of substance; it only contrasts with the once [7065] "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. [7066] 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.
[7056] Isti Apelleiaci.
[7057] Ignominiam.
[7058] Ab igneo illo præside mali: see Tertullian's de Anima. xxiii.; de Resur. Carn. v.; Adv. Omnes Hæres. vi.
[7059] Peccatum.
[7060] Mundus is here the universe or entire creation.
[7061] Matt. vii. 17.
[7062] Censu.
[7063] Plane.
[7064] 1 Cor. xv. 47.
[7065] Retro.
[7066] Secundum carnem.
[7067] Ei adæquantur.
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 development [7068] different), yet, after all, what is blood but red fluid? what is flesh but earth in an especial [7069] 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 ores [7070] 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. [7071] But if there had been in Him any new kind of flesh miraculously obtained (from the stars), it would have been certainly well known. [7072] As the case stood, however, it was actually the ordinary [7073] 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?" [7074] Thus spake even they who despised His outward form. His body did not reach even to human beauty, to say nothing of heavenly glory. [7075] 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; [7076] or to smear His face with spitting, if it had not invited it [7077] (by its abjectness)? Why talk of a heavenly flesh, when you have no grounds to offer us for your celestial theory? [7078] 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" [7079] ); 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.
[7068] Fit.
[7069] Sua.
[7070] Metalla.
[7071] Christum hominem obstupescebant.
[7072] Notaretur.
[7073] Non mira.
[7074] Matt. xiii. 54.
[7075] Compare Isa. liii. 2. See also our Anti-Marcion, p. 153, Edin.
[7076] Novum: made of the stars.
[7077] Merentem.
[7078] Literally, "why do you suppose it to be celestial."
[7079] Matt. xxvi. 41.