Ante-Nicene Fathers • VOLUME 3
Tertullian — Latin Christianity
SECTION 321
Chapter V.--Christ Truly Lived and Died in Human Flesh. Incidents of His Human Life on Earth, and Refutation of Marcion's Docetic Parody of the Same.
Chapter V.--Christ Truly Lived and Died in Human Flesh. Incidents of His Human Life on Earth, and Refutation of Marcion's Docetic Parody of the Same. There are, to be sure, other things also quite as foolish (as the birth of Christ), which have reference to the humiliations and sufferings of God. Or else, let them call a crucif…
2,495 wordsSECTION 322[7021] He has Appelles mainly in view.
[7021] He has Appelles mainly in view. [7022] Sine præjudicio tamen. "Without prejudice to their denial, etc." [7023] The Roman version of the proverb is "out of the lime-kiln into the coal-furnace." [7024] See Tertullian, de Præscr. Hæret. c. xxx. [7025] Ab eo: or, "from that event of the carnal contact." A good reading, fo…
1,548 wordsSECTION 323Chapter 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.
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 gos…
1,371 wordsSECTION 324Chapter X.--Another Class of Heretics Refuted. They Alleged that Christ's Flesh Was of a Finer Texture, Animalis, Composed of Soul.
Chapter X.--Another Class of Heretics Refuted. They Alleged that Christ's Flesh Was of a Finer Texture, Animalis, Composed of Soul. I now turn to another class, who are equally wise in their own conceit. They affirm that the flesh of Christ is composed of soul, [7080] that His soul became flesh, so that His flesh is soul; and a…
2,103 wordsSECTION 325Chapter XIII.--Christ's Human Nature. The Flesh and the Soul Both Fully and Unconfusedly Contained in It.
Chapter XIII.--Christ's Human Nature. The Flesh and the Soul Both Fully and Unconfusedly Contained in It. The soul became flesh that the soul might become visible. [7123] Well, then, did the flesh likewise become soul that the flesh might be manifested? [7124] If the soul is flesh, it is no longer soul, but flesh. If the flesh …
733 wordsSECTION 326Chapter XIV.--Christ Took Not on Him an Angelic Nature, But the Human. It Was Men, Not Angels, Whom He Came to Save.
Chapter XIV.--Christ Took Not on Him an Angelic Nature, But the Human. It Was Men, Not Angels, Whom He Came to Save. But Christ, they say, bare [7138] (the nature of) an angel. For what reason? The same which induced Him to become man? Christ, then, was actuated by the motive which led Him to take human nature. Man's salvation …
741 wordsSECTION 327Chapter XV.--The Valentinian Figment of Christ's Flesh Being of a Spiritual Nature, Examined and Refuted Out of Scripture.
Chapter XV.--The Valentinian Figment of Christ's Flesh Being of a Spiritual Nature, Examined and Refuted Out of Scripture. Valentinus, indeed, on the strength of his heretical system, might consistently devise a spiritual flesh for Christ. Any one who refused to believe that that flesh was human might pretend it to be anything …
2,311 wordsSECTION 328Chapter XVIII.--The Mystery of the Assumption of Our Perfect Human Nature by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He is Here Called, as Often Elsewhere, the Spirit.
[7180] Idonei. [7181] Isa. vii. 14. [7182] Matt. i. 23. [7183] Gen. ii. 7. [7184] Æmula. [7185] Literally, "Gabriel." Chapter XVIII.--The Mystery of the Assumption of Our Perfect Human Nature by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He is Here Called, as Often Elsewhere, the Spirit. Now, that we may give a simpler ans…
1,605 wordsSECTION 329Chapter XX.--Christ Born of a Virgin, of Her Substance. The Physiological Facts of His Real and Exact Birth of a Human Mother, as Suggested by Certain Passages of Scripture.
Chapter XX.--Christ Born of a Virgin, of Her Substance. The Physiological Facts of His Real and Exact Birth of a Human Mother, as Suggested by Certain Passages of Scripture. But to what shifts you resort, in your attempt to rob the syllable ex (of) [7211] of its proper force as a preposition, and to substitute another for it in…
2,232 wordsSECTION 330[7243] Commentator.
[7243] Commentator. [7244] Originis carnalis: i.e. "origin of the flesh of." [7245] Matt. i. 1. [7246] Rom. i. 3; 2 Tim. ii. 8. [7247] In nomine: or, "for the sake of." [7248] Gal. iii. 8, 16. [7249] Censetur. Chapter XXIII.--Simeon's "Sign that Should Be Contradicted," Applied to the Heretical Gainsaying of the True Birt…
2,419 wordsSECTION 331[7284] See Bp. Kaye, On Tertullian, p. 256. A full examination of the tenets of these Gnostic heretics occurs in our author's Treatise again
[7284] See Bp. Kaye, On Tertullian, p. 256. A full examination of the tenets of these Gnostic heretics occurs in our author's Treatise against Marcion. An able review of Tertullian's line of thought in this work on the resurrection occurs in Neander's Antignostikus, Bohn's translation, ii. 478-486. [There is a decisive ebullitio…
2,014 wordsSECTION 332Chapter IV.--Heathens and Heretics Alike in Their Vilification of the Flesh and Its Functions, the Ordinary Cavils Against the Final Restitution of So Weak and Ignoble a Substance.
Chapter IV.--Heathens and Heretics Alike in Their Vilification of the Flesh and Its Functions, the Ordinary Cavils Against the Final Restitution of So Weak and Ignoble a Substance. Hence it is that heretics start at once from this point, [7311] from which they sketch the first draft of their dogmas, and afterwards add the detai…
1,342 wordsSECTION 333Chapter VI.--Not the Lowliness of the Material, But the Dignity and Skill of the Maker, Must Be Remembered, in Gauging the Excellence of the Flesh. Christ Partook of Our Flesh.
Chapter VI.--Not the Lowliness of the Material, But the Dignity and Skill of the Maker, Must Be Remembered, in Gauging the Excellence of the Flesh. Christ Partook of Our Flesh. Let me therefore pursue the subject before me--if I can but succeed in vindicating for the flesh as much as was conferred on it by Him who made it, glor…
2,271 wordsSECTION 334Chapter IX.--God's Love for the Flesh of Man, as Developed in the Grace of Christ Towards It. The Flesh the Best Means of Displaying the Bounty and Power of God.
[7341] Instaurat. [7342] Una notitia ejus = monogamia. Chapter IX.--God's Love for the Flesh of Man, as Developed in the Grace of Christ Towards It. The Flesh the Best Means of Displaying the Bounty and Power of God. To recapitulate, then: Shall that very flesh, which the Divine Creator formed with His own hands in the image …
828 wordsSECTION 335Chapter XI.--The Power of God Fully Competent to Effect the Resurrection of the Flesh.
Chapter XI.--The Power of God Fully Competent to Effect the Resurrection of the Flesh. Thus far touching my eulogy of the flesh, in opposition to its enemies, who are, notwithstanding, its greatest friends also; for there is nobody who lives so much in accordance with the flesh as they who deny the resurrection of the flesh, in…
1,158 wordsSECTION 336Chapter XIII.--From Our Author's View of a Verse in the Ninety-Second Psalm, the Phoenix is Made a Symbol of the Resurrection of Our Bodies.
Chapter XIII.--From Our Author's View of a Verse in the Ninety-Second Psalm, the Phoenix is Made a Symbol of the Resurrection of Our Bodies. If, however, all nature but faintly figures our resurrection; if creation affords no sign precisely like it, inasmuch as its several phenomena can hardly be said to die so much as to come …
1,088 wordsSECTION 337Chapter XV.--As the Flesh is a Partaker with the Soul in All Human Conduct, So Will It Be in the Recompense of Eternity.
Chapter XV.--As the Flesh is a Partaker with the Soul in All Human Conduct, So Will It Be in the Recompense of Eternity. Come now, let our opponents sever the connection of the flesh with the soul in the affairs of life, that they may be emboldened to sunder it also in the recompense of life. Let them deny their association in …
1,630 wordsSECTION 338Chapter XVII.--The Flesh Will Be Associated with the Soul in Enduring the Penal Sentences of the Final Judgment.
Chapter XVII.--The Flesh Will Be Associated with the Soul in Enduring the Penal Sentences of the Final Judgment. "Every uneducated [7379] person who agrees with our opinion will be apt to suppose that the flesh will have to be present at the final judgment even on this account, because otherwise the soul would be incapable of s…
1,710 wordsSECTION 339Chapter XIX.--The Sophistical Sense Put by Heretics on the Phrase "Resurrection of the Dead," As If It Meant the Moral Change of a New Life.
Chapter XIX.--The Sophistical Sense Put by Heretics on the Phrase "Resurrection of the Dead," As If It Meant the Moral Change of a New Life. Now this consideration of the phrase in question, and its signification--besides maintaining, of course, the true meaning of the important words--must needs contribute to this further resu…
1,153 wordsSECTION 340Chapter XXI.--No Mere Metaphor in the Phrase Resurrection of the Dead. In Proportion to the Importance of Eternal Truths, is the Clearness of Their Scriptural Enunciation.
Chapter XXI.--No Mere Metaphor in the Phrase Resurrection of the Dead. In Proportion to the Importance of Eternal Truths, is the Clearness of Their Scriptural Enunciation. Well, if it occurs occasionally in certain portions of it, you will say, then why not in that phrase, [7410] where the resurrection might be spiritually unde…
1,422 wordsSECTION 341Chapter XXIII.--Sundry Passages of St. Paul, Which Speak of a Spiritual Resurrection, Compatible with the Future Resurrection of the Body, Which is Even Assumed in Them.
Chapter XXIII.--Sundry Passages of St. Paul, Which Speak of a Spiritual Resurrection, Compatible with the Future Resurrection of the Body, Which is Even Assumed in Them. The apostle indeed teaches, in his Epistle to the Colossians, that we were once dead, alienated, and enemies to the Lord in our minds, whilst we were living in…
886 wordsSECTION 342Chapter XXIV.--Other Passages Quoted from St. Paul, Which Categorically Assert the Resurrection of the Flesh at the Final Judgment.
Chapter XXIV.--Other Passages Quoted from St. Paul, Which Categorically Assert the Resurrection of the Flesh at the Final Judgment. The character of these times learn, along with the Thessalonians. For we read: "How ye turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from t…
822 wordsSECTION 343Chapter XXV.--St. John, in the Apocalypse, Equally Explicit in Asserting the Same Great Doctrine.
Chapter XXV.--St. John, in the Apocalypse, Equally Explicit in Asserting the Same Great Doctrine. In the Revelation of John, again, the order of these times is spread out to view, which "the souls of the martyrs" are taught to wait for beneath the altar, whilst they earnestly pray to be avenged and judged: [7455] (taught, I say…
1,394 wordsSECTION 344Chapter XXVII.--Certain Metaphorical Terms Explained of the Resurrection of the Flesh.
Chapter XXVII.--Certain Metaphorical Terms Explained of the Resurrection of the Flesh. We have also in the Scriptures robes mentioned as allegorizing the hope of the flesh. Thus in the Revelation of John it is said: "These are they which have not defiled their clothes with women," [7473] --indicating, of course, virgins, and su…
967 wordsSECTION 345Chapter XXIX.--Ezekiel's Vision of the Dry Bones Quoted.
Chapter XXIX.--Ezekiel's Vision of the Dry Bones Quoted. Inasmuch, then, as even the figurative portions of Scripture, and the arguments of facts, and some plain statements of Holy Writ, throw light upon the resurrection of the flesh (although without specially naming the very substance), how much more effectual for determining…
1,324 wordsSECTION 346Chapter XXXI.--Other Passages Out of the Prophets Applied to the Resurrection of the Flesh.
Chapter XXXI.--Other Passages Out of the Prophets Applied to the Resurrection of the Flesh. Unquestionably, if the people were indulging in figurative murmurs that their bones were become dry, and that their hope had perished--plaintive at the consequences of their dispersion--then God might fairly enough seem to have consoled …
1,073 wordsSECTION 347Chapter XXXIII.--So Much for the Prophetic Scriptures. In the Gospels, Christ's Parables, as Explained by Himself, Have a Clear Reference to the Resurrection of the Flesh.
Chapter XXXIII.--So Much for the Prophetic Scriptures. In the Gospels, Christ's Parables, as Explained by Himself, Have a Clear Reference to the Resurrection of the Flesh. This is evidence enough from the prophetic Scriptures. I now appeal to the Gospels. But here also I must first meet the same sophistry as advanced by those w…
773 wordsSECTION 348Chapter XXXIV.--Christ Plainly Testifies to the Resurrection of the Entire Man. Not in His Soul Only, Without the Body.
Chapter XXXIV.--Christ Plainly Testifies to the Resurrection of the Entire Man. Not in His Soul Only, Without the Body. To begin with the passage where He says that He is come to "to seek and to save that which is lost." [7506] What do you suppose that to be which is lost? Man, undoubtedly. The entire man, or only a part of him…
1,064 wordsSECTION 349Chapter XXXV.--Explanation of What is Meant by the Body, Which is to Be Raised Again. Not the Corporeality of the Soul.
Chapter XXXV.--Explanation of What is Meant by the Body, Which is to Be Raised Again. Not the Corporeality of the Soul. But He also teaches us, that "He is rather to be feared, who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell," that is, the Lord alone; "not those which kill the body, but are not able to hurt the soul," [7512] …
961 wordsSECTION 350Chapter XXXVI.--Christ's Refutation of the Sadducees, and Affirmation of Catholic Doctrine.
Chapter XXXVI.--Christ's Refutation of the Sadducees, and Affirmation of Catholic Doctrine. Let us now see whether (the Lord) has not imparted greater strength to our doctrine in breaking down the subtle cavil of the Sadducees. Their great object, I take it, was to do away altogether with the resurrection, for the Sadducees in …
1,219 wordsSECTION 351Chapter XXXVIII.--Christ, by Raising the Dead, Attested in a Practical Way the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Flesh.
Chapter XXXVIII.--Christ, by Raising the Dead, Attested in a Practical Way the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Flesh. After the Lord's words, what are we to think of the purport of His actions, when He raises dead persons from their biers and their graves? To what end did He do so? If it was only for the mere exhibition of …
1,135 wordsSECTION 352Chapter XL.--Sundry Passages of St. Paul Which Attest Our Doctrine Rescued from the Perversions of Heresy.
Chapter XL.--Sundry Passages of St. Paul Which Attest Our Doctrine Rescued from the Perversions of Heresy. Now it is no matter of surprise if arguments are captiously taken from the writings of (the apostle) himself, inasmuch as there "must needs be heresies;" [7543] but these could not be, if the Scriptures were not capable of…
900 wordsSECTION 353Chapter XLI.--The Dissolution of Our Tabernacle Consistent with the Resurrection of Our Bodies.
Chapter XLI.--The Dissolution of Our Tabernacle Consistent with the Resurrection of Our Bodies. It is still the same sentiment which he follows up in the passage in which he puts the recompense above the sufferings: "for we know;" he says, "that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a house not made wi…
1,558 wordsSECTION 354Chapter XLIII.--No Disparagement of Our Doctrine in St. Paul's Phrase, Which Calls Our Residence in the Flesh Absence from the Lord.
Chapter XLIII.--No Disparagement of Our Doctrine in St. Paul's Phrase, Which Calls Our Residence in the Flesh Absence from the Lord. In the same way, when he says, "Therefore we are always confident, and fully aware, that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not be sight," [7566] i…
1,203 wordsSECTION 355Chapter XLV.--The Old Man and the New Man of St. Paul Explained.
Chapter XLV.--The Old Man and the New Man of St. Paul Explained. But in their blindness they again impale themselves on the point of the old and the new man. When the apostle enjoins us "to put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and to be renewed in the spirit of our mind; and to put on the new …
905 wordsSECTION 356Chapter XLVI.--It is the Works of the Flesh, Not the Substance of the Flesh, Which St. Paul Always Condemns.
Chapter XLVI.--It is the Works of the Flesh, Not the Substance of the Flesh, Which St. Paul Always Condemns. You may notice that the apostle everywhere condemns the works of the flesh in such a way as to appear to condemn the flesh; but no one can suppose him to have any such view as this, since he goes on to suggest another se…
969 wordsSECTION 357Chapter XLVII.--St. Paul, All Through, Promises Eternal Life to the Body.
Chapter XLVII.--St. Paul, All Through, Promises Eternal Life to the Body. For that must be living after the world, which, as the old man, he declares to be "crucified with Christ," [7602] not as a bodily structure, but as moral behaviour. Besides, if we do not understand it in this sense, it is not our bodily frame which has be…
1,140 wordsSECTION 358Chapter XLVIII.--Sundry Passages in the Great Chapter of the Resurrection of the Dead Explained in Defence of Our Doctrine.
Chapter XLVIII.--Sundry Passages in the Great Chapter of the Resurrection of the Dead Explained in Defence of Our Doctrine. But "flesh and blood," you say, "cannot inherit the kingdom of God." [7622] We are quite aware that this too is written; but although our opponents place it in the front of the battle, we have intentionall…
1,106 wordsSECTION 359Chapter XLIX.--The Same Subject Continued. What Does the Apostle Exclude from the Dead? Certainly Not the Substance of the Flesh.
Chapter XLIX.--The Same Subject Continued. What Does the Apostle Exclude from the Dead? Certainly Not the Substance of the Flesh. We come now to the very gist [7638] of the whole question: What are the substances, and of what nature are they, which the apostle has disinherited of the kingdom of God? The preceding statements giv…
1,120 wordsSECTION 360Chapter L.--In What Sense Flesh and Blood are Excluded from the Kingdom of God.
Chapter L.--In What Sense Flesh and Blood are Excluded from the Kingdom of God. Putting aside, however, all interpretations of this sort, which criminate the works of the flesh and blood, it may be permitted me to claim for the resurrection these very substances, understood in none other than their natural sense. For it is not …
1,465 wordsSource & rights
Historical text source: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. The downloaded text itself records Public Domain.