Book III.
Wherein Christ is shown to be the Son of God, Who created the world; to have been predicted by the prophets; to have taken human flesh like our own, by a real incarnation.
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Chapter I.--Introductory; A Brief Statement of the Preceding Argument in Connection with the Subject of This Book.
Following the track of my original treatise, the loss of which we are steadily proceeding [3092] to restore, we come now, in the order of our subject, to treat of Christ, although this be a work of supererogation, [3093] after the proof which we have gone through that there is but one only God. For no doubt it has been already ruled with sufficient clearness, that Christ must be regarded as pertaining to [3094] no other God than the Creator, when it has been determined that no other God but the Creator should be the object of our faith. Him did Christ so expressly preach, whilst the apostles one after the other also so clearly affirmed that Christ belonged to [3095] no other God than Him whom He Himself preached--that is, the Creator--that no mention of a second God (nor, accordingly, of a second Christ) was ever agitated previous to Marcion's scandal. This is most easily proved by an examination [3096] of both the apostolic and the heretical churches, [3097] from which we are forced to declare that there is undoubtedly a subversion of the rule (of faith), where any opinion is found of later date, [3098] --a point which I have inserted in my first book. [3099] A discussion of it would unquestionably be of value even now, when we are about to make a separate examination into (the subject of) Christ; because, whilst proving Christ to be the Creator's Son, we are effectually shutting out the God of Marcion. Truth should employ all her available resources, and in no limping way. [3100] In our compendious rules of faith, however, she has it all her own way. [3101] But I have resolved, like an earnest man, [3102] to meet my adversary every way and everywhere in the madness of his heresy, which is so great, that he has found it easier to assume that that Christ has come who was never heard of, than He who has always been predicted.
[3092] Perseveramus.
[3093] Ex abundanti.
[3094] i.e., "as the Son of, or sent by, no other God."
[3095] i.e., "was the Son of, or sent by, no other God."
[3096] Recensu.
[3097] [Surely Tertullian, when he wrote this, imagined himself not separated formally from the Apostolic churches. Of which see De Præscriptione, (p. 258) supra.]
[3098] Ubi posteritas invenitur. Compare De Præscript. Hæret. 34, where Tertullian refers to "that definite rule, before laid down, touching the later date' (illo fine supra dicto posteritatis), whereby they (i.e., certain novel opinions) would at once be condemned on the ground of their age alone." In 31 of the same work he contrasts "posteritatem mendacitatis" with "principalitatem veritatis"--"the latter date of falsehood" with "the primary date of truth." [pp. 258, 260, supra.]
[3099] See book i. chap. 1.
[3100] Non ut laborantem. "Qui enim laborant non totis sed fractis utuntur viribus." Panstratia pansudie; Anglice, "with all her might."
[3101] In præscript. compendiis vincit.
[3102] Ut gestientem.
Chapter II.--Why Christ's Coming Should Be Previously Announced.
Coming then at once to the point, [3103] I have to encounter the question, Whether Christ ought to have come so suddenly? [3104] (I answer, No.) First, because He was the Son of God His Father. For this was a point of order, that the Father should announce [3105] the Son before the Son should the Father, and that the Father should testify of the Son before the Son should testify of the Father. Secondly, because, in addition to the title of Son, He was the Sent. The authority, [3106] therefore, of the Sender must needs have first appeared in a testimony of the Sent; because none who comes in the authority of another does himself set it forth [3107] for himself on his own assertion, but rather looks out for protection from it, for first comes the support [3108] of him who gives him his authority. Now (Christ) will neither be acknowledged as Son if the Father never named Him, nor be believed in as the Sent One if no Sender [3109] gave Him a commission: the Father, if any, purposely naming Him; and the Sender, if any, purposely commissioning Him. Everything will be open to suspicion which transgresses a rule. Now the primary order of all things will not allow that the Father should come after the Son in recognition, or the Sender after the Sent, or God after Christ. Nothing can take precedence of its own original in being acknowledged, nor in like manner can it in its ordering. [3110] Suddenly a Son, suddenly Sent, and suddenly Christ! On the contrary, I should suppose that from God nothing comes suddenly, because there is nothing which is not ordered and arranged by God. And if ordered, why not also foretold, that it may be proved to have been ordered by the prediction, and by the ordering to be divine? And indeed so great a work, which (we may be sure) required preparation, [3111] as being for the salvation of man, could not have been on that very account a sudden thing, because it was through faith that it was to be of avail. [3112] Inasmuch, then, as it had to be believed in order to be of use, so far did it require, for the securing of this faith, a preparation built upon the foundations of pro-arrangement and fore-announcement. Faith, when informed by such a process, might justly be required [3113] of man by God, and by man be reposed in God; it being a duty, after that knowledge [3114] has made it a possibility, to believe those things which a man had learned indeed to believe from the fore-announcement. [3115]
[3103] Hinc denique.
[3104] As Marcion makes Him.
[3105] Profiteretur.
[3106] Patrocinium.
[3107] Defendit, "insist on it."
[3108] Suggestu.
[3109] Mandator.
[3110] Dispositione, "its being ordered or arranged."
[3111] Parabatur.
[3112] Per fidem profuturum.
[3113] Indiceretur.
[3114] Agnitione.
[3115] Prædicatione, "prophecy."