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NOTES AND COMMENTARY
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TITLE
In modern English 'flesh' has a more materialistic sound than 'body'. In Greek and in Latin the opposite is the case.
Sw~ma hardly ever seems to forget its Homeric meaning 'dead body', and though both
sw~ma and corpus come to signify the bodies of living men and animals, they can also refer to the 'mass' of an inanimate object. On the other hand
sa&rc, caro, can only refer to flesh actually or potentially alive: it denotes the material of which the animate body consists, and in the case of actually living bodies is understood to involve the soul, anima, that principle or entity or ratio (differently conceived of by different philosophers, and differently again by Christian theologians) which gives to the material elements of the body their unity, life, and cohesion. The subject of the present treatise is not the Body of Christ in either the natural or the mystical or the sacramental sense of that phrase, but his Flesh: that is, the substance, nature, attributes, and origin of the whole of that human nature which the divine Word assumed at the Incarnation. The question under discussion is one of substance, even of material: not of body as the organized vehicle and instrument of human life, but of the verity of the whole human nature of Christ as involved in the statement that his flesh is truly flesh and his soul is truly soul, both the one and the other derived by natural descent from the progenitors of all mankind.
CHAPTER I
Those who interpret 'resurrection of the dead' in such a sense as to exclude the flesh are also disposed to make difficulties as to the truth of Christ's incarnation: logically so, for if Christ's body which rose again was of flesh such as ours, this constitutes a presumption that our bodies also will rise again. So we have to build up our case from the point at which these break it down, and the
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purpose of the present discourse is to lay foundations for that which will follow. Our subject here is the flesh of Christ, its existence, its provenance, and its quality. The verdict in this case will serve as precedent for the proof of our own resurrection. Our adversaries are Marcion who denied Christ's flesh and his nativity, Apelles who admitted the flesh while denying the nativity, and the Valentinians and others, who profess to acknowledge both, but in a non-natural sense. Actually Marcion, who alleged that the flesh was 'putative', might just as well have acknowledged a putative nativity and a putative growth to maturity.
1 istos Sadducaeorum propinquos. Tertullian supposes himself in court and refers to his adversaries as though they were present. The Sadducees said there was no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: Acts 23. 8.
2 moratam. This, followed by ita (Rigaltius), is undoubtedly the right reading. Rhenanus, in the note quoted by Oehler, seems to read the word as moratam (stabilem et firmam et inconcussam): so also Oehler, whose index does not distinguish between the present instance and De Pat. 4, moratus secundum dominum: De Anima 33, integre morati: Adv. Marc. iv. 15, aliquid et cum creatore moratus nec in totum Epicuri deus (which last is rightly interpreted in a note by Rigaltius, Oehler ad loc.). Here however we must surely read moratam; cf. Juvenal vi. 1 Pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam in terris visamque diu, where the word stands for the non-existent past participle of manere.
3 merito: logically, with good reason (as far as they are concerned). Cf. §4, si Christus creatoris est, suum merito amavit: §17, si primus Adam ita traditur, merito sequens: and frequently. Cf. also Novatian, De Trin. 10, quoted below on §2.
4 distrahunt. So all the MSS. except A (the oldest) which has distruunt (an impossible word), on the strength of which Mercer, followed by Kroymann, reads destruunt, which they observe occurs in the following sentence. This would be good enough stylistic reason for it not to occur here, and in any case the sentences are not parallel. Here the point is that the flesh of Christ is pulled asunder with inquisitions, like a body on the rack:
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for quaestio can mean either a judicial inquiry (as in the republican quaestiones perpetuae) or the examination of slave witnesses by torture: e.g. Cicero, pro Milone 21. 57, facti enim in eculeo quaestio est, iuris in iudido. In the following sentence there is a change of metaphor: Tertullian supposes that the aspirations of the flesh for eternal life (carnis vota) are being pulled down or dismantled (destruunt), and that it is his business to lay again their foundations (praestruere) by establishing the verity of Christ's flesh and of its resurrection. For the metaphor from building-works cf. Adv. Marc. II. i, aliud subruere necesse habuit ut quae vellet exstrueret: sic aedificat qui propria paratura caret: and De Res. Carnis 4, statim incipiunt et inde praestruunt, dehinc interstruunt.
4 tanquam aut nullam omnino. This was the view of Marcion, who regarded everything material as the work of the creator, the enemy of the good god, and therefore evil. Consequently in his view Christ, the representative of the good god, could not have been in possession of a real body, and that which he seemed to have was none at all. Cf. Adv. Marc. v. 20 for the Marcionite comment on Philippians 2. 6, plane de substantia Christi putant et hic Mardonitae suffragan apostolum sibi quod phantasma carnis fuerit in Christo, cum dicit quod in effigie dei constitutus non rapinam existimavit pariari deo sed exhausit semetipsum accepta effigie servi, non veritate, et in similitudine hominis, non in homine, et figura inventus homo, non substantia, id est non carne. Tertullian in reply quotes Colossians 1.15, 'image of the invisible God', and remarks that if the Philippians text means that Christ is not truly Man, then the Colossians text must mean that he is not truly God.
4 aut quoquo modo aliam. Marcion's disciples apparently so far improved on their master's teaching as to admit that there is a certain celestial matter or substance which is not evil, and
suggested that Christ's flesh was of stellar origin: cf. §6, de sideribus, inquiunt, et de substantiis superioris mundi mutuatus est carnem. Others, apparently not Marcionites but Valentinians, were of opinion that Christ's flesh was constituted of condensed (or otherwise transmuted) soul. Marcion's view is discussed §§1-5, his disciples' §§6-9, the others' §§10-16. Quoquo modo would
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naturally mean 'in any and every way', 'at all events', as in §12 (twice) and Adv. Marc. II. 9, quoquo tamen, inquis, modo substantia creatoris delicti capax invenitur cum afflatus dei, id est anima, in homine deliquit:
it is echoed here by omni modo, 'in every way', 'at all events', later in the sentence. But conceivably Tertullian could have written quoquo when he meant aliquo,' in some way or other', and that may be his meaning here.
7 carnis vota. Oehler compares De Res. Carnis 4, nimirum haec erunt vota carnis recuperandae, iterum cupere de ea evadere. But the sentences are not parallel. Here carnis vota (a subjective genitive) are the hope of the flesh concerning its own future: vota carnis recuperandae (an objective genitive) are the soul's hope that it will be again united to the flesh from which death has separated it.
8 examinemus . . . certum est. Tertullian perhaps had in mind Quintilian, Inst. Orat. xii. 3. 6, omne ius quod est certum aut scripto aut moribus constat: dubium aequitatis regula examinandum est: where Lewis and Short (s.v. examine, ad fin.) are wrong in saying that the reference is to judicial examination: rather it is to the advocate preparing his case, and examinare (as in Tertullian) has not lost its primary sense of 'weigh', 'estimate the value of'.
9 caro quaeritur etc. This reading, with the common punctuation of these sentences, is almost certainly right. The second hand of T, and Mesnart, have carnis (dependent on veritas), which makes sense, though not the best sense. It is not true that the verity of Christ's flesh was being sought for, but that the flesh itself was the subject of a judicial inquiry (quaestio). The subject of the present treatise (retractatur) is its verity (an fuerit) and its quality, which last involves the two further questions of its origin (unde fuerit) and its attributes (cuiusmodi fuerit). Kroymann's punctuation, with a semicolon after eius, spoils the rhythm of the sentence without affecting the meaning. Qualitas is practically the same as natura, the essential attributes by which an object is what it is, but with a further suggestion of the worth or dignity
attendant upon that: see a note on §3 periculum enim status sui.
11 renuntiatio eius. Kroymann wrongly observes, hoc est responsio carnis. Renuntiatio cannot mean a speech in reply to an
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accusation or in support of a plea: it means the official declaration either of the result of an election or (as here) of the judicial verdict. Eius is an objective genitive, standing not for carnis but for veritatis. Cf. Cicero, Pro Murena 8. 18, non eundem esse ordinem dignitatis et renuntiationis, propterea quod renuntiatio gradus habeat, dignitas autem sit persaepe eadem omnium. The verdict passed concerning the verity of Christ's flesh will constitute a leading case (dabit legem) concerning our own resurrection: for (as already observed) it is really our resurrection which these people wish to impugn when they deny that Christ's flesh is of the same origin and quality as ours.
13 invicem sibi testimonium responderent (A), the superficially more difficult reading, looks like the original: it is perfectly good Latin, of Tertullian's kind, though sufficiently unusual to have provoked variants. Testimonium redderent (T) has the appearance of an attempt at interpretation. The other readings are evident conflations, and serve merely to show that both the older variants were known to the copyists of M and P. Kroymann's invicem sibi responderent hardly meets the case, for it means no more than 'correspond' or 'form the counterpart of one another'. What is required is not mutual correspondence but mutual
testimony, and that is what A gives us. For other senses of respondere cf. Apol. 9, cum propriis filiis Saturnus non pepercit, extraneis utique non parcendo perseverabat, quos quidem ipsi parentes sui offerebant et libentes respondebant (either 'acceded to his demand' or, more probably, 'answered in the affirmative the priest's challenge as to whether they were making a willing gift'): De Corona ii, credimusne humanum sacramentum divino superduci licere et in alium dominum respondere post Christum, a reference to the responsio fidei at baptism.
15 licentia often retains its natural sense of 'permission': e.g. De Exhort. Cast. 8, multum existimo esse inter licentiam et salutem: de bono non dicitur 'licet', quia bonum permitti non expectat sed assumi: so also Ad Uxorem I. 2, per licentiam tunc passivam materiae
subsequentium emendationum praeministrabantur, 'general permission', and Adv. Marc. I. 29, vacat enim abstinentiae testimonium cum licentia
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eripitur. But there are places where it means a permission assumed rather than granted, something of the nature of presumption, as seems to be the case here, and at Adv. Marc. i. 3, an duos deos liceat induct poetica et pictoria licentia, et tertia iam haeretica.
16 Apelles, according to Hippolytus, Philos. vn. 38, said that Christ
ou0k e0k parqe/nou gegenh~sqai, ou)de\ a1sarkon ei)nai . . . a)ll' e0k th~j tou~ panto_j ou)si/aj metalabo&nta merw~n sw~ma pepoihke/nai, toute/sti qermou~ kai\ yuxrou~ kai\ u(grou~ kai\ chrou~. For his relation to Marcion see De Praescr. Haer. 30.
18 confessus, the reading of most MSS., should probably be retained. Professus (T Kroy.) is the wrong word in this context. Its correct use is of things personal to the professor, e.g. artem aliquam, philosophiam, etc. Its appearance here will be due to editing by T or his archetype, on the ground that confessus is too good a word for the supposedly insincere admission of a truth: hence the substitution of professus in its medieval sense 'pretend to acknowledge'. For confiteri in this sense cf. Adv. Marc. i. 6, deum vero confessus utrumque (sc. et potiorem et quem credit minorem) duo summa magna confessus est.
18 aliter illas interpretari: so ATBmg. : illis of the other MSS. makes no evident sense. According to Irenaeus, whose account of the matter is adopted by Tertullian and Hippolytus, the Valentinian doctrine was briefly this: There are two Christs, both of them distinct from (though one of them comes into a loose association with) Jesus. The superior Christ, who is, and must remain, totally unknown to any except his four superiors in the pleroma, is the last-born fruit of the pleroma. Along with his consort Holy Spirit he was emitted by Mind, after the expulsion of Achamoth, with the function of teaching the aeons that Abyss and Silence, the primary aeons, are forever unknowable and incomprehensible. This gospel of the unknowable so delighted the aeons that each of them contributed the best it possessed, and the combination of all their gifts produced Jesus, the perfect fruit of the pleroma. The lower Christ is in no way connected with the above. He was fabricated by Craftsman, the non-divine creator of the world, and (like his maker) is of 'spiritual' (i.e. non-divine)
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constitution. This Christ appeared on earth in an 'animal' body, i.e., a body constructed of soul (anima), being born 'through' (not 'of') a virgin. At his baptism in Jordan he was taken possession of by that composite almost-divine Jesus-Saviour. In this manner the Valentinians, admitting Christ's flesh, 'otherwise interpreted it' as being constructed of soul: and, admitting his nativity, they could explain it in any or all of four ways—as confection by all the aeons, as fabrication by Craftsman, as birth through a virgin, or as possession by Jesus-Saviour descending in the form of a dove. The third of these, birth through a virgin, in a body constructed of soul, is chiefly in Tertullian's mind here and in §§10-16. The above description is condensed from Tertullian, Adv. Valentinianos, Irenaeus, Haer. I, Hippolytus, Philos. vi.
19 sed et must be retained. Kroymann, without MS. authority, writes scilicet, which is out of place in introducing an author's explanation of his own remarks, its proper function being to indicate his deductions (with which he suspects the other will not agree) from the theories or expressions of his adversary. The sentence refers to Marcion, who denied the flesh of Christ by alleging it to be merely putative, and (removing all Matthew and the beginning of Luke from the Gospel) denied the nativity altogether, suggesting that Christ appeared on earth full-grown, without antecedents, by the bank of Jordan in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, in a form which was not flesh, but merely looked like it. Tertullian retorts that he might just as well have retained the nativity, arguing that it was only a phantasm of a nativity in the same way as what had all the appearance of flesh was merely putative flesh. Cf. Adv. Marc. iii. 8, phantasma vindicans Christum;
and below, iam nunc cum mendacium deprehenditur Christus caro, sequitur ut et omnia quae per carnem Christi gesta sunt mendacio gesta sint, congressus, contactus, convictus, ipsae quoque virtutes: and again, sic nec passiones Christi eius (sc. Marcionis) fidem merebuntur: nihil enim passus est qui non vere est passus: vere autem pati phantasma non potuit.
20 nativitatem (A Oeh. Kroy.) receives support from mendacium Christus caro in the previous quotation: all the other MSS., with
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Rhenanus and Mesnart, have nativitatis, which makes no difference to the general sense, but runs better with phantasma confingere and may be what Tertullian wrote.
21 infantis ordo, 'birth and growth of the Child': cf. Adv. Marc. iv. 21, where ordo appears in the same connexion: quando nec confusionis materia conveniat nisi meo Christo, cuius ordo magis pudendus ut etiam haereticorum conviciis pateat, omnem nativitatis et educationis foeditatem et ipsius etiam carnis indignitatem quanta amaritudine possunt perorantibus.
Oehler, in a note to De Pud. 9, ordinem filii prodigi, suggests that ordo means 'narrative', which in some cases is possible, but not at Adv. Marc. iv. 7, reliquum ordinem descensionis expostulo, 'the concomitants of that alleged descent'.
22 tw~| dokei=n haberentur. Kroymann marks a lacuna here, which he suggests should be filled out with magis esse quam haberent ut eosdem etc. If this meant what it is supposed to mean, it would indicate that Tertullian was a partial, but not a thoroughgoing, docetist: which is not the case. Also it would throw fefellissent into the wrong tense. The sentence is perfectly clear, and no alteration is called for.
23 elusit, T (and, by implication, A) Rig. Oeh. Kroy.: the other authorities have illusit. The sense required is apparently 'mocked at', 'played tricks with', which would be illusit (which would require a dative object, as at Tacitus, Ann. xvi. 1): eludere more commonly means 'escape by guile', as at Petronius 97, scrutantium eluderet manus (like Ulysses escaping from the Cyclops), but it can approach to the sense here required, as at Tacitus, Hist. I. 26 quaedam apud Galbae aures praefectus Laco elusit. For the general sense cf. Adv. Marc. v. 20 (commenting on Philippians 2. 8) et mortem crucis: non enim exaggeraret atrocitatem extollendo virtutem subiectionis quam imaginariam phantasmate scisset, frustrate potius eam
quam experto, nec virtute functo in passione sed lusu.
CHAPTER II
Marcion repudiates the prophecies, and deletes from his gospel the narratives, of Christ's conception, birth, and childhood. We can guess his reasons for this, while denying his authority to do it.
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If he is a Christian he ought to believe the Christian tradition. But he is not a Christian: his own action in denying the Christian belief he once held at once shows this and proves that that former belief is older than the heresy he has invented, and is therefore the original belief, and is the truth. This appeal to antiquity is my standing refutation of all heresies, and would of itself be
sufficient in the present case: yet, to fortify my argument still further, I proceed to examine the reasons he alleges.
1 quid illi etc. Cf. Adv. Marc. v. 6, quid illi cum exemplis dei nostri? Similar phrases frequently occur. On the rejection of the Old Testament cf. Adv. Marc. I. 19, separatio legis et evangelii proprium et principale opus est Marcionis. Gabriel, though mentioned in the Gospel (but in those chapters which Marcion rejected), belongs to the original creation and not (Marcion would say) to the father of Marcion's Christ. Adnuntiatur, in the language of the public spectacles, would refer to the (spoken) programme: inducitur to entrance on the scene: but the theatrical metaphor is so remote as to be almost out of view.
2 et in virginis utero etc. Utero (TB) (since inducitur follows) is more likely to have been altered to uterum than conversely. Conceptus, balancing nativitas, will be the substantive, not the participle: there is no question of the child conceived being
introduced into the womb, but rather of Isaiah's prophecy concerning conception in a virgin's womb bringing that fact to public notice.
2 cum [Esaia) propheta creatoris? Esaia (XR) may be a marginal note on propheta. A reads cum esset a propheta creatoris, which is meaningless. For esset a TB (followed by Kroymann) have essentia (omitting propheta), which is almost as meaningless, for what has the essence of the Creator to do with the present subject? The passages of Quintilian referred to by Kroymann simply state that essentia was a word newly invented by Sergius Flavius or by Plautus the Stoic: they have no relevance to the present passage. Evidently Tertullian's point is that though we refer to Gabriel and Isaiah for testimony to the reality of the nativity and conception, Marcion repudiates both, as belonging to the older dispensation: for according to him the new
dispensation
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began, not with any annunciation, but with the unheralded appearance of Christ at the baptism in Jordan. Cf. Adv. Marc. i.15, at nunc quale est ut dominus anno xii Tiberii Caesaris revelatus sit? and ibid. 19, anno xv Tiberii Christus Iesus de caelo manare dignatus est, spiritus salutaris. This discrepancy in the dates is explained by referring xii to the beginning of the ministry, xv to Pentecost: but Luke 3. I has 'fifteenth year' for the former (unless perhaps Marcion altered it to 'twelfth'). See also Adv. Marc. iv. 7 (quoted in the following note).
3 qui subito etc. Cf. Adv. Marc. iii. 2, atquin nihil putem a deo subitum, quia nihil a deo non dispositum. Novatian, De Trin. 10, ut merito haereticorum istorum testamenti veteris auctoritatem respuentium nescio cui commenticio et ex fabulis anilibus ficto Christo atque fucato passim vere et constanter dicere, Quis es? unde es? a quo missus es? quare nunc venire voluisti? quare tails? vel qua venire potuisti? vel quare non ad tuos abisti, nisi quod probasti
[leg. probas te] tuos non habere dum ad alienos venis? etc. Novatian's argument is that the Incarnation was the climax of a long preparation and the
fulfilment of many prophecies: like Tertullian, he observes that Marcion's Christ comes without preparation (subito) and as a trespasser upon another's property. Cf. Adv. Marc. i (passim) and iv. 7, anno xv principatus Tiberiani proponit eum descendisse in civitatem Galilaeae Capharnaum, utique de caelo creatoris in quod de suo ante descenderat... apparere subitum ex inopinato sapit conspectum qui semel impegerit oculos in id quod sine mora apparuit... quid autem illi cum Galilaea, etc.?
4 aufer hinc, inquit, etc. These will not be supposed to be Marcion's actual words: it is a common enough rhetorical trick to put words into one's opponent's mouth which may reasonably be supposed to express the consequences of his thought.
6 deum suum etc. As the angels belonged to the Creator's dispensation it would have been their own God whom they praised if Luke 2. 14 had been included in Marcion's gospel. Viderit etc. seems to mean: 'What they meant by this, and what particular bearing it has on nativity, is their own concern, and I, Marcion, refrain from inquiring into it.' AF, followed by Oeh.,
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Kroy., read, dominum: Tertullian usually, but not invariably, says deus for the Father and dominus for the Son: by this rule, in view of Luke 2. 14 deum would be correct, unless perchance honorans refers not to the angels' song in particular, but to their presence in honour of the new birth. Noctibus = noctu, as Kroymann observes: but De Cor. 11 is not in point, as the sense there is distributive.
8 glorietur, i.e. at having his prophecy fulfilled: Jer. 31. 15, quoted at Matt. 2. 17.
10 oblationis. I have adopted this reading of TB with some hesitation: it is an obvious correction for anyone to make who found obligations in his text, whereas there seems no reason for a change in the other direction. Sumptu obligations would mean 'the expense to which the Law bound them', with a reference to the thrice repeated 'Law of the Lord' in Luke 2. 22-24.
11 senem moriturum... contristet has the more abundant MS. testimony. Tertullian makes Marcion misunderstand the text. Simeon was not sad at the approach of death, but relieved at the prospect of departure.
12 ne fascinet puerum. According to the superstition (still current on the continent, and not unknown in parts of England) the evil eye is put upon children by their having kind words addressed to them by strangers, especially old women. Cf. De Virg. Vel. 15 (quoted in part by Oehler): nam est aliquid etiam apud ethnicos metuendum, quod fascinum vacant, infeliciorem laudis et gloriae enormioris eventum: hoc nos interdum diabolo interpretamur, ipsius est enim boni odium: interdum deo deputamus, illius est enim superbiae iudicium, extollentis humiles et deprimentis elatos. The latter, however, is not 'evil eye', but more akin to what Homer calls
ne/mesij.
12 originalia instrumenta. Instrumentum means documentary authority: Lewis and Short give examples of this sense from Quintilian and Suetonius: so also Apol. 18, instrumentum litteraturae, 'literary evidence', i.e. the Old Testament (where Oehler gives a number of parallels). For originalia cf. De Praesc. Haer. 21, ecclesiis apostolids matricibus et originalibus fidei, 'seedbeds and nurseries of the faith': De Monog. 7, vetera exempla originalium personarum, referring back to ibid. 6, sed adhuc nobis quaeramus aliquos originis
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principes, 'our spiritual fathers from whom we trace our origin', e.g. Adam, Noah, St Paul, Abraham in respect of faith, not of polygamy, Joseph, Moses, Aaron: Apol. 21, dudum Iudaeis erat apud deum gratia ubi et insignis iustitia et fides originalium auctorum, 'in so far as they continued in the notable righteousness and faith of the patriarchs from whom they took their origin': Adv. Marc. ii. 9, nec potest (inquis) non ad originalem summam referri corruptio portionis—in Marcion's view, the fall of man, resulting from the corruption of that breath of life, the soul, which the Creator breathed into Adam, proves that the originalis summa, the original account on which (so to speak) the cheque was drawn, i.e. the substance of the Creator, is delicti capax (which to
Tertullian is blasphemy): Adv. Hermog. 19, ad originale instrumentum Moysi provocabo, 'Moses' narrative of the creation'. So here originalia instmmenta are the documents which testify to Christ's origin, the nativity stories of the Gospel, which are as it were his birth-certificate, and which Marcion has presumed to suppress. At De Anima 3, by argumentations originales, id est philosophicas, we must understand not (as Junius suggests) theories drawn from natural principles, but theories which the philosophers have constructed concerning the origins of things.
14 ex quo, oro te: etc. Oehler's correction of A (quo for qua) is apparently intended to mean, 'Since how long ago, pray?', and gives a good sense in conformity with Tertullian's general criticism of the recent emergence of the heresies: cf. e.g. De Praesc. Haer. 30, where however we have ostendant mihi ex qua auctoritate prodierint. Kroymann, with more than his usual felicity, takes the reading of TX, adding exhibe from A, ex qua oro te auctoritate? exhibe, which could find parallels in Cicero, e.g. Pro Flacco 32. 78, litteras...quas ea de muliere ad me datas...requisivit: recita (though here recita is addressed to the clerk of the court). For the general sense of the passage cf. Adv. Marc. i. 21, exhibe ergo aliquam (sc. ecclesiam) ex tuis apostolici census et obduxeris... non esse credendum deum quem homo de suis sensibus composuerit, nisi plane prophetes, id est non de suis sensibus: quod si Marcion poterit did, debebit etiam probari.
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15 si apostolicus. Cf. De Praesc. Haer. 32, 33, where the following phrases occur, in this order: aetas apostolica: ecclesiae apostolicae (plural): ab apostolis in episcopatum constitutes apostolici seminis traduces: apostolica doctrina: apostolicus (sc. vir): apostolici (viri). Also Adv. Marc. i. 21, apostolica traditio: apostolic census ecclesiam: ibid. IV. 2, apostolicos (Mark and Luke, as distinguished from Matthew and John): ibid. v. 2, scriptura Apostolicorum (the Acts). Also De Pud. 21, exhibe igitur et nunc mihi, apostolice, prophetica exempla, ut agnoscam divinitatem,
addressed to the Roman pontiff, with whose policy concerning second marriages
Tertullian does not agree: apparently the pope described himself as apostolicus: possibly so also did Marcion, with less justification.
16 si tantum Christianus es, for dummodo Christianus sis, seems somewhat lame, but is not impossible: si autem (T) and si tantummodo
(F) seem to be editorial attempts at improvement.
20 rescindendo quod retro credidisti: cf. Adv. Marc. i. 1, non negabunt discipuli eius primam illius fidem nobiscum fuisse...ut him iam destinari possit haereticus qui deserto quod priusfuerat id postea sibi elegerit quod retro non erat: ibid. iv. 4, adeo antiquius Marcione est quod est secundum nos, ut et ipse illi Marcion aliquando crediderit. To the same effect De Praesc. Haer. 30, with a brief history of the various sects.
Retro is Tertullian's regular word for antea: he even says retrosiores for aetate priores (Apol. 19). There is precedent for it in Horace, Carm. iii. 29. 46, non tamen irritum | quodcunque retro est efficiet, neque | diffinget infectumque reddet | quod fugiens semel hora vexit. But there may be a Christian reason for Tertullian's practice. The ancients, facing with hopeless longing towards a vanished golden age, regarded the past as in front of them (e1mprosqen, antea) and the future as behind them (o1pisqen, postea). The Christian, looking for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, takes the opposite view: and, in spite of the inveterate usage of the Latin language, the change of thought is reflected in Tertullian's vocabulary. Philippians 3. 13
ta_ me\n o)pisw e0pilanqano&menoj toi=j de\ e1mprosqen e0pekteino&menoj
(a metaphor from running a race) may have influenced Tertullian to the
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regular use of a word which Horace used in this sense only once. But I am not aware that other Christian writers copied him: nor, for that matter, does modern English.
21 et nostri probant: wrongly omitted by Kroymann: what he means by saying that they break the rule of the clausula is not clear: they have precisely the same rhythm as those he leaves by removing them. The circumstances are those referred to Adv. Marc. i. i, non negabunt discipuli eius primam illius fidem nobiscum fuisse, ipsius litteris testibus: cf. ibid. iv. 4, quid nunc si negaverint Marcionitae primam apud nos fidem eius adversus epistulam quoque ipsius? quid si nec epistulam agnoverint? certe Antitheses non modo fatentur Marcionis sed et praeferunt: ex his mihi probatio
sufficit. It is not clear what this letter was. It can hardly have been a profession of faith exacted by the Roman church on Marcion's arrival from Pontus: there is no evidence that at that date or for centuries later any church exacted such written professions, even from the clergy. It appears from the second quotation (above) that the Marcionites denied the authenticity of the letter, so that Tertullian is prepared to waive it and prove his point from the Antitheses alone.
24 aliter fuisse is intelligible, though somewhat concise, and need not be altered. Kroymann inserts creditum tibi, meaning presumably abs te creditum: there is no need for it. Cf. De Praesc. Haer. 38, ex illis (sc. scripturis) sumus antequam aliter fuit, antequam a vobis interpolarentur, where the text is doubtful: ibid. 30, quidquid emendat ut mendosum retro alterius fuisse demonstrat, where Ursinus' suggestion of anterius would simply duplicate retro, so probably read and punctuate ut mendosum, retro aliter fuisse etc.: ibid. 32, nisi illi qui ab apostolis didicerunt aliter praedicaverunt.
29 ex abundanti retractamus. The general rejection of all heresies on the ground of their recent emergence would have been sufficient to cover this present case: but, offering more proof than our cause strictly requires, we proceed to discuss Marcion's reasons for denying Christ's nativity. Tertullian dislikes
argumentation, but he will use it under protest to prepare the way for scriptural exposition: cf. Adv. Marc. i. 16, nunc enim communibus
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plurimum sensibus et argumentationibus iustis secuturae scripturarum quoque advocationi fidem sternimus. Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat. iv. 5. 15, egregie vero Cicero pro Milone insidiatorem primum Clodium ostendit, tum addidit ex abundanti, etiam si id non fuisset, talem tamen civem cum summa virtute interfectoris et gloria necari potuisse: ibid. v. 6. 2, the wise litigant will not rest his case on his own affidavit, nor will he challenge his adversary to that course, but will prove his case on argument or testimony and will introduce the affidavit, if at all, ex abundanti.
CHAPTER III
Marcion's reasons for denying Christ's nativity can only be either that to God such a birth is impossible or else that it does not be- seem him. We discuss first the question of impossibility, on which we observe: (1) That to God nothing is impossible except that which is not his will, and thus we have to inquire whether this was his will. We submit that if it had not been his will to be born he would have abstained from showing himself in human form and thus giving the impression of having been born: for this would have been a false impression, unworthy of God. (2) There is no force in the objection that it was enough that Christ should know the truth about himself, and that it was men's own fault if they received a false impression of him: the fact would remain that he had forfeited our confidence by giving the false impression. (3) Ill-founded also is the suggestion that if he had really been born and had truly taken manhood upon him, that is, if God had really been changed into man, he would have ceased to be God. In ordinary cases, we admit, by changing into something else a thing ceases to be what it was. But God, being unchangeable, is not subject to this law, and it is in his power to change into man without ceasing to be God. (4) We add that angels are reported to have assumed real human bodies and yet remained angels: if angels have this power (and they, according to Marcion, belong to an inferior God), a fortiori Marcion's superior god must have it. And Marcion dare not say that these angels had only a phantasm of a body: for this would put the Creator's angels on a level with Marcion's Christ. (5) Similar was the case
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of the Holy Spirit descending in bodily form as a dove—except that this is not in Marcion's gospel. If asked what afterwards became of those bodies, we answer that they were withdrawn into the nothingness from which they had been brought into being: and, in any case, what the Scripture says must be true.
1 quatenus stands for quandoquidem: cf. Apol. 19, habetis quod sciam, et vos sibyllam, quatenus appellatio ista verae vatis veri dei passim super ceteros qui vatidnari videbantur usurpata est. Hoc, the judgement which Marcion considered himself competent to make, non natum esse Christum. Arbitrium is strictly speaking a judgement in equity concerning not the fact of obligation but the amount: cf. Cicero, Pro Rosc. Com. 4. 10, iudicium est pecuniae certae, arbitrium incertae. It is from the other (also classical) sense of arbitrium, 'power', 'authority' (e.g. Tacitus, Ann. vi. 51, rei Romanae arbitrium, the imperial power), that we obtain the expression liberum arbitrium, 'freedom of choice'.
3 voluerit is the reading of all the MSS. Ursinus, followed by Kroymann, reads noluerit, wrongly. The catch is in the particle an. Tertullian uses these interrogative particles in ways peculiar to himself: e.g. Apol. 1 (Hoppe, line 15), an = nonne: ibid. 9 (line 37), necubi = annon alicubi: ibid. 19 (line 65) and frequently, non = nonne: ibid. 35 (line 24), ne forte = an forte. Here an stands for annon, and no alteration is called for.
4 compendium may prossibly be used here in its original sense of weighing two things in the same balance: Lewis and Short give several examples. The two questions, whether God was
incompetent, and whether it was unseemly, could be treated as one. God did consent to give the impression of manhood, and consequently
of having been born. That establishes the seemliness of it: and as
God's veracity requires that the impression given should correspond with the truth, we have also the answer to the question of fact, and therefore of competence as well as seemliness. But the question of seemliness is pursued further in the following chapter. It appears then more likely that compendium here means a short cut: cf. Adv. Marc. I. 1, nunc quatenus admittenda congressio est, interdum ne compendium praescriptionis ubique advocatum diffidentiae
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deputetur, regulam adversarii prius retexam, ne cui lateat in qua principalis quaestio dimicatura est: ibid. ii. 29, quodsi utraque pars bonitatis atque iustitiae dignam plenitudinem divinitatis efficiunt omnia potentis, compendia interim possum Antitheses retudisse.
10 illud is in all MSS. except A, and should no doubt be restored. Kroymann rightly indicates that it is the object of patiatur, not the subject of interest: but his reading falsam (sc. opinionem) is unnecessary and unjustified. On the sentence as a whole cf. Adv. Marc. i. 11, quid ergo tantopere notitiam sui procuravit, ut in dedecore carnis exhiberetur, et quidem maiore si falsae? nam hoc turpius, si et mentitus est substantiam carnis.
11 conscientia in common Latin usage is either (a) joint knowledge, knowledge shared with others, or (b) consciousness, or (c) a good or bad conscience (not necessarily with bona or mala). In Tertullian it seems to take its meaning from the Pauline text (1 Cor. 4. 4)
ou)de\n ga_r e0mautw~|, and to indicate that which one is conscious of in one's own judgement of oneself, though it may not of necessity be within the cognisance of others. Cf. Adv. Prax. 13, ceterum si ex conscientia ('that private Christian knowledge') qua scimus dei nomen et domini et patri et filio et spiritui sancto convenire deos et dominos nominaremus etc. The word appears again at the end of the following sentence almost in its modern sense of 'conscience'.
15 quantum ad fiduciam etc. This reading of A is apparently correct. Quam tu, of the other authorities, is somewhat lame, and tu is redundant. Fiducia apparently means our confidence or trust in Christ: 'If his birth and his manhood were an acted lie, how could we trust him in anything?' From Apol. 39, fidem sanctis vocibus pascimus, spem erigimus, fiduciam figimus, it seems likely that fides refers to the formal content of the faith, while fiducia is the Christian's personal trust in Christ.
19 hominem vere induisset. Homo is Tertullian's regular word (and in this he is followed by the other Latin fathers, including St Augustine) for Christ's human nature, with nowhere any suggestion that the use of this term might be mistaken (in a
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Nestorian sense) to indicate a distinct human person. Cf. Adv. Prax. 30, hominem eius, and my note.
20 periculum enim status sui etc. Cf. Adv. Marc. I. 6, non est autem dei desinere de statu suo, id est de summo magno. Status, I have suggested elsewhere (Adv. Prax., Introduction, pages 50-53), represents the copulative verb in so far as it introduces attributes which are essential and permanent, and constitute the natura of an object: in that case, it also involves the idea of stability. And as substantia represents the existential verb, being the thing as it is in itself, in the case of God both substantia and status are ex hypothesi indestructible and eternal: and as status represents the sum total of the necessary attributes, the properties, the meaning here is that whatever it is that God does with himself there is no danger of his losing all or any of those properties (of eternity, immortality, etc.) by which as God he is distinguished from all that is not God: if there were, it would be conceivable that he could amittere quod erat dum fit quod non erat.
21 conversum. Cf. Adv. Prax. 27, quaerendum quomodo sermo caro sit factus, utrum quasi transfiguratus in carne an indutus carnem, and the answer to this question there given. On the term con- versum and its subsequent rejection I venture to refer to my note on the above passage (page 320) and to my Introduction, pages 72, 73: to which I would now add that it seems possible that it was Marcion who said conversum, and that Tertullian, to avoid com- plicating the argument, accepts the word without protest and (for the moment) argues from it without remarking on its un- suitability.
24 non competit ergo etc. A alone has eius cui (T is here defective). Kroymann's (inexact) quotation from Ad Nat. i. 5 is apparently intended to show that competere can be used absolutely, to mean 'is possible'—which is true enough, though the clause quoted does not exemplify this.
25 ea lege est is conceivably equivalent to a verb of commanding, and so is followed by ne instead of the more correct ut non: cf. Adv. Marc. i. 3, conditions, et ut ita dixerim lege quae summo magno nihil sinit adaequari.
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27 nihil deo par est literally means that nothing is on a level with God: from which it follows that there is nothing which can be used as an analogy to suggest that what happens to it in certain circumstances will happen to God in like circumstances: cf. Adv. Marc. I. 4, de deo agitur, cuius hoc principaliter proprium est, nullius exempli capere comparationem, quoting Isaiah 40. 18, 25, and adding, divinis forsitan comparabuntur humana, deo non ita: aliud enim deus, aliud quae dei.
27 ab omnium rerum conditione: so ATP, the others having condicione. The words are often confused, not by Tertullian, but by his copyists. See a separate note, p. xxxix, in which it is
suggested that conditio (when it does not mean the act or process of creation, or the created world or rerum natura) refers to those natural attributes or relationships which accrue to an object by virtue of its natura, but looking outward rather than inward: whereas condicio refers also to outward relationships, but of a more fortuitous or transitory character. Here apparently conditione is correct, (a) as contrasting the natural attributes of things with the essential attributes of God, and (b) as suggesting that, being created things, they will necessarily be subject to influences to which the Creator is not subject.
30 diversitas means more than 'difference': in many cases
'opposition' will not be too strong, as in the common expression diversa pars, 'my opponents'. Here the suggestion is that just because created things are in this way affected by change, the opposite must be the case with God, and that he cannot be affected, even by change.
33 quorum utique etc. In the clause as usually punctuated ut (added by Kroymann before in omnibus) seems necessary, unless (as is very unlikely) utique can stand for sicut. But this makes a very ugly sentence, and probably the easiest way out is to correct the punctuation, placing a colon after non est.
34 angelos creatoris etc. The narrative of Genesis 18 and 19, if carefully read, indicates that the Lord appeared to Abraham accompanied by two angels: that after Abraham's hospitality and the conversation with Sarah the two angels went away to
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Sodom while the Lord remained behind in conversation with Abraham: that the angels alone entered into Sodom and rescued Lot: and that when they had come out of the city the Lord rained fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven and destroyed it. It was assumed by Tertullian (as by Justin and by practically all commentators until the fourth century) that the Lord here is God the Son—a point however upon which Tertullian does not insist in the present context, being concerned only to refute the Marcionite suggestion about the angels. His observations here are a summary of what he writes Adv. Marc. iii. 9, where his
argument is as follows: Marcion's suggestion that the flesh of Christ can be taken to have been putative because the angels appeared to Abraham and to Lot in phantasmate, putativae utique carnis, must be rejected, because (1) non admitteris ad eius dei exempla quem destruis, for, the better and more perfect you suppose your god to be, the less do the Creator's precedents apply to him: (2) The angels' flesh was not putative, it being just as easy for God to provide veram substantiam carnis as to exhibit real sensations and actions in
putative flesh: (3) Marcion's god, who has created no flesh (nor anything else), might perhaps be allowed a phantasm of flesh, whereas our God, who had made flesh out of clay, would have been able to make for the angels flesh out of any material he wished: for it was much easier for him to do this than to make the world out of nothing, by his mere word: (4) The God whom Marcion
acknowledges promises to men veram substantiam angelorum (Luke 20. 36): why then shall not our God have given to the angels veram
substantiam hominum, undeunde sumptam? (5) The verity of their flesh is attested by three witnesses, sight, touch, and hearing: and it is more difficult for God to deceive than to produce true flesh, undeunde : (6) Other heretics allege that the angels' flesh ought to have been born of flesh: we reply that their flesh had to be human for purposes of human converse, but needed not to be born because the reason for their appearance was not (as Christ's was) to reform our nativity by nativity and to destroy our death by resurrection: for which reason Christ himself appeared to Abraham in veritate quidem carnis, sed nondum natae quia nondum moriturae, sed et discentis iam inter homines conversari: (7) Since 'he maketh his angels spirits
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(breaths or winds) and his apparitors a flaming fire', truly winds and truly fire, he also made them truly flesh.
38 adeo detinebatur. It does not appear from Oehler's or Kroymann's data who was responsible for this obvious correction of the MSS. a deo. T's reading is easy to explain, and may safely be disregarded.
39 inferioris dei . . . potentiori deo. It is necessary (though, in view of his language, not always easy) to remember that Tertullian's God, the God of Christians, is the Creator of the world, the God of the Old Testament as well as of the New. Expressions such as the present (which are sufficiently frequent) are therefore ironical, arguing against Marcion on Marcion's own ground. Cf. Adv. Marc. i. 11, nam et quale est ut creator quidem ignorans esse alium super se deum... tantis operibus notitiam sui armaverit...ille autem sublimior sciens inferiorem deum tam instructum nullam sibi prospexerit agnoscendo paraturam? Also ibid. ii.
1, nam qui in inferiorem deum caecutis, quid in sublimiorem? and ibid. ii. 27, si enim deus, et quidem sublimior, tanta humilitate fastigium maiestatis suae stravit ut etiam morti subiceret, et morti amis, cur non putetis nostro quoque deo aliquas pusillitates congruisse? The above reading (of A alone) is therefore undoubtedly correct.
42 hominem indutus: see above, hominem induisset.
43 sed non audebis etc. Precisely because Marcion has ascribed to Christ a phantasm of flesh, he is bound to maintain that the flesh assumed by the angels was real: otherwise there will be parallel action between the New Testament and the Old, and it will follow that the same God is responsible for both—which Marcion would not care to admit. A specious argument, but hardly convincing.
48 qui spiritus cum esset. Hoc is without meaning, and must be removed, as Mesnart suggested. Spiritus here is a general term, the predicate of the sentence, 'and though he was spirit'. From John 4. 24, deus spiritus est, Tertullian deduces that 'spirit' is a generic term descriptive of the divine being, the kind of
'substance' God is. The meaning here is that although (or because)
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the Holy Spirit who descended upon Jesus was God, he was no less truly a dove than he was God, yet his assumption of that new thing which he had not previously been, involved no destruction of that divine Thing which is unalterably himself. Cf. Adv. Prax. 26.
55 corporis soliditas. Cf. Cicero, De Nat. Deorum I. 19. 49, who says that according to Epicurus the gods are perceived non sensu sed mente, nec soliditate quadam nec ad numerum ut ea quae ille propter firmitatem stere/mnia appellat, sed imaginibus similitudine et transitione perceptis.
This is probably the sense Tertullian has in mind here. For other meanings of solidus see a note on § 6.
CHAPTER IV
Having disposed of the suggestion of impossibility, we turn to the complaint of unseemliness. It is possible to make great play with the inconveniences, even the sordidness, of conception, pregnancy, childbearing, and infancy. These are really sacred things, the concern of all men alike, and those who think ill of them despise our common humanity—which indeed Christ did not despise, but loved it, redeeming it at great cost. In loving our humanity he loved all that appertains to it, nativity and flesh included, for these are inseparable from it. During his ministry he cleansed the flesh from all manner of diseases, and finally from death itself. If he had appeared among men in a form lower than human, this in our human judgement might have been accounted foolish. But 'God hath chosen the foolish things of the world'—and what is it that the world counts as foolish? Not, surely, the conversion of mankind from idolatry and their instruction in all virtues, but that God should be born, born of a virgin, born in human fashion with all its inconveniences. In spite of the fables of its mythology the world can imagine no greater foolishness than this.
2 corporatio seems to be a new coinage. Swma&twsij is used by Hermes Trismegistus (apud Stobaeum, Eclog. I, page 730) for the eternal fact or process by which bodies are brought into existence so as to be the object or instrument of the eternal operations of
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science and art: for since science and art are eternal there must eternally exist, or be coming into existence, in the transcendental sphere, bodies for them to work on. This is certainly not what Tertullian means by the word: the whole tenor of his argument shows that by corporatio he means not the genesis of a body but the assumption of one, either fabricated for the purpose, as in the Theophanies, or drawn from the stock of Adam, as in the
Incarnation. The word in this sense is a synonym of incarnatio, and by implication scriptural: though it remains conceivable that in the present context it is due not to Tertullian but to Marcion, who may have wished to becloud the Incarnation by the use of a term borrowed from an alien philosophy.
3 perora, age iam etc. Cf. Adv. Marc. iii. 11, age iam, perora, in illa sanctissima et reverenda opera naturae, invehere in totum quod es. Tertullian is an inveterate plagiarizer from himself. Cf. Adv. Marc. iv. 20, where it is objected that Marcion's Christ, being incapable of these indignitates, must also be incapable of confusio, quoting Luke 9. 26, 'Of him shall the Son of man be ashamed.'
5 coagula etc. The punctuation used in the text seems to be the best: Kroymann's is ingenious, but breaks the flow of the sentence. All difficulty would disappear if we could insert sordes after carnis.
6 in diem (TB) should perhaps be restored, if only on the principle that the longer text is usually the correct one.
9 honorandum is almost certainly correct: cf. infra, ham venerationem naturae, and Adv. Marc. iii. 11, quoted above. Horrendum
(T) gives exactly the wrong sense, as horres, in the next sentence, shows.
10 utique et oblitum. dedignaris quod etc. So I read, and punctuate, following exactly neither set of authorities. Ablutum would also make sense, 'even when he has been washed you despise him because he is straightened out etc.' But the more forcible word is better: Tertullian is making Marcion insist to the full on the unseemliness of the process.
16 certe Christus dilexit etc. Cf. Adv. Marc. I. 14, postremo te tibi circumfer, intus ac foris considera hominem: placebit tibi vel hoc
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opus dei nostri quod tuus dominus, ille deus melior, adamavit, propter quem in haec paupertina elementa de tertio caelo descendere laboravit, cuius causa in hac cellula creatoris etiam crucifixus est: and ibid. i. 29 (of Marcion's god, who forbids marriage), quomodo diligit cuius originem non amat?
20 magno redemit, from i Cor. 6. 20, h0gora&sqhte ga_r timh~j, where Lat. vg. has pretio magno: cf. ibid. 7. 23,
timh~j h)gora&sqhte (Lat. vg. pretio empti estis).
26 qui redemit. Qui, my own correction of what I took to be a misprint in Oehler, seems also to have occurred to the corrector
of T.
31 si revera etc. This piece of bad taste is not without parallel: it neither can nor need be excused. Opinor is commonly used ironically, of an opinion attributed to the adversary, but with which the writer does not agree: here the suggestion is the writer's, and neither party ought to have entertained such an idea.
34 de nostro sensu etc. So I read, following A. We have a perfect right, even a duty, to judge according to our own best mind concerning things it is suggested that God might have done. If any alteration is needed, it is the substitution of est for si or sit before plane stultum.
35 si tamen non delesti. Marcion retained this text, 1 Corinthians 1. 27, 28. Cf. Adv. Marc. v. 5, etiam Marcion servat. quid est autem stultum dei sapientius hominibus nisi crux et mors Christi? quid infirmum dei fortius homine nisi nativitas et caro dei? ceterum si nec natus ex virgine Christus nec carne constructus, ac per hoc neque crucem neque mortem vere perpessus est, nihil in illo fuit stultum et infirmum, nec iam stulta mundi elegit deus ut confundat sapientiam etc. Tertullian often quotes this text: e.g. De Praesc. Haer. 7, de ingenio sapientiae saecularis quam dominus stultitiam vocans stulta mundi in confusionem etiam philosophiae ipsius elegit.
45 apud. For the practical equivalence of apud and penes, cf. De Anima 14 and Waszink's note. At Apol. 17, desinunt tamen Christiani haberi penes nos, it appears that penes has quite lost its 'internal' significance.
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CHAPTER V
Since we are speaking of 'foolish things', things supposedly unworthy of God, are not the passion of Christ, and its
accompaniments, more foolish in appearance even than his birth and
incarnation? Why does not Marcion excise these? Possibly because, as a phantasm, Christ can have had no sensation of them. Therefore we have to ask, was Christ really crucified, and did he really die? If not, the apostle was at fault in claiming to know nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and in insisting that he was buried and that he rose again. In such a case our faith also is false and our hope in Christ is a phantasm: also Christ's murderers will be excusable, for they will be found not to have really killed him. But all this is simply to deny the world's only hope. Our faith has to have something for men to be ashamed of—else why did our Lord warn us of the consequences of being ashamed of him? It is precisely these things that can be considered a matter of shame : yet how can they have been real in him, unless he was real in
himself, having real flesh like ours? This in fact was the reason for his becoming the Son of Man, that he might have wherewith to suffer these indignities: and he cannot have been man without flesh, or have possessed flesh without birth from a human parent, any more than he can have been God without the divine
substance, begotten of God as Father. This is how he is presented to us, at the same time God with divine powers and man subject to human weaknesses, his miracles showing the one, his passion showing the other. It is not permissible to make out that Christ was half a lie, for he is wholly the Truth: his manhood must be as real as his godhead, and manhood involves human birth and the possession of a body like ours. On his own testimony we may not think of him as a phantasm, either before his resurrection or after: and Marcion in particular has no right to think so, for he derives his Christ from a god wholly good and candid and veracious. But Marcion's Christ ought not to have come down from heaven, but out of a troupe of wonder-working magicians— except that, even so, he would have been a real man.
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[This is one of the most lucid sections of Tertullian's work, in which his Latin flows with unwonted ease and perspicuity. There was therefore the less reason for Kroymann to have disturbed the text with a multitude of alterations of words and punctuation. The text printed is that commonly received, with perhaps one or two minor improvements.]
7 sed non eris... credendo. This sentence, as Kroymann remarks, is not necessary to the argument. But it is precisely the kind of aside which would have been interpolated by a pleader making a speech with his adversary present: and this is what Tertullian is pretending to do.
8 passiones... non rescidisti. Marcion retained St Luke's narrative of the passion, though he excised the parting of the garments so as to avoid the acknowledgement of Psalm 22. See Adv. Marc. iv. 40-42 for Tertullian's comments which (except for the tone of voice in which they are made) seem entirely justified. Apparently Marcion said that 'the Christ' deserted the phantasm of a body at the supposed moment of death, and returned to heaven: he omitted to consider what it was that was left behind, or what it was for which Joseph provided burial—though this too, with the narrative of the Easter appearances, was retained in his gospel.
9 diximus retro, i.e. in §1.
10 nativitatis... imaginariae. Imaginarius apparently in this connexion means no more than 'unreal': cf. De Corona 13, omnia imaginaria in saeculo et nihil veri: so Adv. Marc. iii. 8, 11 caro imaginaria. But there are places where it (still meaning 'unreal') refers to the imaginary (supposedly real) entities of the gnostic ideal worlds; e.g. Adv. Val. 27, ita omnia in imagines urgent, plane et ipsi imaginarii Christiani: and other places where it seems to mean imaginative (if I understand these two passages aright) in a reprehensible sense, as at De Monog. 10, the widow habet secum animi licentiam, qui omnia homini quae non habet imaginario fructu repraesentat, and Adv. Val. 17, of the conceptual effects of Achamoth's imagination.
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11 interfector may conceivably have the sense assigned to it by Tertullian's compatriot Appuleius, in the phrase interfectae virginitatis.
11 crucifixus est deus: so all the MSS. except T, which has dominus: but cf. passiones dei, deum crucifixum, above. The whole context requires deus.
15 igitur means 'in that case', and there is no need to make the present sentence into a question. It is the necessary deduction from an affirmative answer to the questions preceding.
20 qui me confusus fuerit: Mark 8. 38, Luke 9. 26, conflated with Matthew 10. 32. Cf. Apol. 4, bonorum adhibita proscriptio suffundere maluit hominis sanguinem quam effundere, 'is more a matter of exaction than of execution'. Confusus, for pudore suffusus, unknown in classical and pagan Latin, appears first in the versions of the above texts. As appears from Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 19. 4, the verb can be active, or deponent (with an accusative object), or passive: et confusurum qui confundentur confessionem eius ...a Christo confundentur. It belongs to that class of expressions which developed in the popular speech which lies behind the biblical versions, and is older than Christian Latin literature, having become necessary in view of the new Christian attitude towards certain moral acts or experiences. The Roman was incapable of personal shame or personal repentance: the most he could arrive at was the impersonal pudet me, poenitet me. Christians found that impersonality was not good enough, and developed expressions like confusus sum, poenitentiam ago (which does not mean 'do penance') to describe what was to them a personal act. Rigaltius, and subsequent editors, altered me of the MSS. to mei, apparently to balance eius in the following clause: the versions of the Gospel all read confusus me fuerit... confundetur eum: Rönsch, Itala und Vulgata, p. 354, makes no mention of genitive government.
23 bene impudentem. On first reading this (in Oehler's text) I thought there was possibly a misprint for bene imprudentem, which would balance better with feliciter stultum: but cf. non pudet etc., below. Imprudens and impudens were often confused
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by the copyists: cf. e.g. Cicero, De Lege Agraria ii. 17. 46, an is impudenter populo Romano per legis fraudem surripiatur, where Lauredanus rightly suggests imprudente: ibid. iii. 2. 5, multo impudentior,
where one group of MSS. have (wrongly) imprudentior: ibid. iii. 2. 8, nemo est tam impudens istorum, where all the MSS. have imprudens (corrected by Naugerius).
30 novit, almost equivalent to potest, is unusual in Latin, especially with a non-personal subject. Tertullian may have been copying the Greek idiom, e.g. Demosthenes, Phil.
1. 40, proba&l- lesqai d' h2 ble/pein e0nanti/on ou1t' oi]den ou1t'
e0qe/lei. Posse to Tertullian is a matter of power: whereas being born, and dying, are in a sense a restraint of power, for which nosse is more suitable. See the critical note for a possible difference of reading and punctuation.
33 nisi si aut aliud etc. The sequence of thought is perfectly clear, and no alteration is called for. It is admitted that Christ is 'man' and 'son of man', for so it is written in St Luke's Gospel. If then, as Marcion demands, we deny the obvious deduction from this, that Christ was possessed of human flesh, we need to find some other means of justifying those expressions: which can only be either (a) that 'man' signifies not human flesh but something else, or (b) that human flesh can have some origin other than human birth, or (c) that Christ's mother is not human, or (d) that the father of Marcion's Christ, Marcion's 'good god', is human. The second and third suggestions are hardly in point here: but they fill out a good rhetorical sequence, and there is no reason for thinking that Tertullian did not write them.
37 nec deus sine spiritu dei. 'Spirit', once more, means the divine substance: see above on §3, qui spiritus cum esset.
38 utriusque substantiae census, a pregnant expression, very difficult to translate. Census means both origin, and the rank or quality which depends upon origin. Perhaps 'the rank (or quality) deriving from the two substances'.
40 quae proprietas conditionum etc. Cf. Adv. Prax. 27, secundum utramque substantiam in sua proprietate distantem...et adeo
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salva est utriusque proprietas substantiae ut spiritus res suas egerit in illo...et caro passiones suas functa sit, where Tertullian's argument is that the facts of the case, recorded in the Gospel and referred to by St Paul, preclude us from thinking that the Incarnation
involved such a confusion or mixture of godhead and manhood as would have produced neither the one nor the other but something in between. Proprietas does not mean 'property' in any sense involving possession, but the fact that each of the substances, and the conditiones, is what it is and is not the other. On conditio see a note on page xxxix.
44 perinde is the reading of A: the other authorities have proinde. There are indications that, either by second-century writers or by their medieval copyists, the two words were either confused or treated as equivalent, as in several places in this treatise. In the Medicean codex of Tacitus proinde occurs several times in the sense of perinde: e.g. Hist. ii. 27, haud proinde id damnum Vitellianos in metum compulit quam ad modestiam composuit: ibid. ii. 39 and 97, where Rhenanus in the editio princeps substituted perinde.
46 maluit, credo, nasci etc. Cf. Adv. Prax. 11 (with C. H. Turner's brilliant emendation), unum tamen veritus est, mentiri veritatis auctorem semetipsum et suam veritatem. I have ventured to write credo for the MSS. crede or credi (the latter is certainly wrong): though with some hesitation, for in Latin oratory this interjected credo seems to be usually ironical, and not to express the speaker's real opinion: e.g. Cicero, Phil. x. 7. 15, qui autem hos exercitus ducunt? ei credo qui C. Caesaris res actas everti, qui causam veteranorum prodi volunt: and ibid. 9. 18, non sunt enim credo innumerabiles qui pro communi libertate arma capiant.
57 ecce fallit etc. This theme is developed more fully Adv. Marc. iii. 8, especially: et ideo Christus eius, ne mentiretur, ne falleret, et hoc modo creatoris forsitan deputaretur, non erat quod videbatur et quod erat mentiebatur, caro nec caro, homo nec homo, proinde deus Christus nec deus: cur enim non etiam dei phantasma portaverit?... quomodo verax habebitur in occulto tam fallax repertus in aperto?... iam nunc cum mendacium deprehenditur Christus caro, sequitur ut et
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omnia quae per carnem Christi gesta sunt mendacio gesta sint, congressus, contactus, convictus, ipsae quoque virtutes... sic nec passiones Christi eius (sc. Marcionis) fidem merebuntur: nihil enim passus est qui non vere est passus, vere autem pati phantasma non potuit. eversum est igitur totum dei opus etc. The subject is continued ibid. iii. 10, and frequently recurs.
60 nec deum praeter hominem. Tertullian regularly uses praeter as a conjunction ( = nisi), e.g. De Res. Carn. 22, nec ulli praeter patri notum: Adv. Prax. 13, nemo alius praeter unus deus. But I can find no parallel to the present case, where praeter is equivalent to sine.
CHAPTER VI
Some of Marcion's disciples (of whom Apelles is one) are prepared to admit the reality of Christ's flesh, while still denying that it was born. Apelles' informant is alleged to have been an angel who spoke in (or to) the woman Philumena: the apostle (at Galatians 1. 8) has provided us with a reply to this. Their
statement is that Christ 'borrowed' flesh from the substances of the superior world, and they support it by pointing out that in the Scriptures angels are reported to have assumed human bodies without being born. But (1) since they have assigned the Old Testament to a god whose works they repudiate, they have no right to apply its precedents to their own god. However, we shall not press this objection, for our case is strong in itself. (2) The purposes in those cases were different from the purpose of Christ's incarnation. Christ came with the intention of dying (which the angels did not) and consequently must needs be born. And in fact, on the occasions referred to it was the Lord himself who appeared in flesh not yet born because not yet to die. (3) Yet since our adversaries do not admit that it was the Lord who thus appeared, we shall challenge them to prove their case as if it were angels. This they cannot do, for it is not so written: and we for our part are justified (in default of contrary evidence) in
suggesting that the angels' bodies were created out of nothing for each occasion. (4) Neither are we told what happened to those bodies afterwards, and so may well be right in suggesting that they
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reverted to the non-existence from which they came. (5) Even if we should allow that those bodies were formed out of some material, it is more natural to suppose it to have been material from the earth than from heaven, for they fed on earthly food. And if it is objected that heavenly bodies could feed on earthly food no less than earthly bodies on the manna that came from heaven, we revert to our primary contention that the circumstances, like the purposes, of Christ's incarnation were different from these, and demanded a real birth as a precondition of a real death.
The question of the nature and origin of the corporal substance assumed by the angels who appeared to Abraham and to Lot (Genesis 18, 19) is discussed Adv. Marc. iii. 9, under the following heads: (a) The Marcionite postulate of a superior and more perfect god demands that his methods also should be better than those of the Creator, his presumed inferior: and consequently non admitteris ad eius dei exempla quem destruis. (b) We do not admit that the flesh assumed by those angels was putative: for if it was easy for the Creator (as Marcion alleges) to have provided the semblance of putative flesh, it was even easier for him, being the creator of human flesh, to provide actual human flesh to act upon the
perceptions of the observers, (c) Marcion's god (i.e. not the Creator), being incapable of creation, would necessarily have to produce a phantasm, being unable to provide the reality: whereas our God, who formed flesh in the beginning out of the dust of the ground, could equally well have formed flesh for the angels out of any material whatsoever, (d) As the Marcionite gospel (Luke 20. 36) records the promise that men will possess angelic substance, what is to prevent our God from making angels possess human
substance undeunde sumptam? (e) As Marcion does not feel bound to explain from whence this angelic substance will be derived, neither are we bound to explain the origin of that human substance, but are at liberty to postulate its real impact upon the three senses of vision, touch, and hearing: difficilius deo mentiri quam carnis veritatem undeunde producere, licet non natae. (f) The flesh assumed by the two angels was true flesh, as also was that of the Lord who appeared with them: but in neither case would it have been
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proper for that flesh to be produced by process of birth. For birth is the antecedent of death, and the angels were not going to die, as neither was the Lord at that time. Afterwards, when the Lord came with intent to die for our redemption, he would obtain his flesh by birth: but the time for that was not yet. The angels, therefore, neque ad moriendum pro nobis dispositi brevem carnis commeatum non debuerunt nascendo sumpsisse, sed undeunde sumptam et quoquo modo omnino dimissam, mentiti eam tamen non sunt. (g)
Since the Creator 'maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flaming fire', he is equally capable of making them flesh, (h) And finally, the promise of reshaping men into angels (Luke 20. 36) is made by the same God who had in former time shaped angels into men: from which it appears that the same God is the God of both Testaments.
The argument of the present chapter covers only the section numbered (f) of the foregoing analysis. The suggestion that the bodies of the angels may have been created especially for the occasion seems to be Tertullian's own. The statement that one of the three who appeared to Abraham was the Lord himself appears in Justin Martyr and remains common form until the fourth century (cf. supra, p. 100): it undoubtedly provides the most reasonable account of the narrative. Cf. Adv. Prax. 14, and my note (page 269). Irenaeus, Haer. iv. 14, referring to Genesis 18.
1 says deum... qui in figura locutus est humana ad Abraham, without going more fully into the matter.
4 de calcaria in carbonariam. This ancient equivalent of
'out of the frying-pan into the fire' is not in the Adagia of Erasmus, and seems to be otherwise unknown.
7 solidum Christi corpus. Solidus is used by Tertullian in two senses: (a) 'Solid', as opposed to hollow, ethereal, or unstable: e.g. Adv.
Val. 16, exercitata vitia (sc. of Achamoth) et usu viriata confudit (sc. Soter) atque ita massaliter solidata defixit seorsum in materiae corporalem paraturam: Adv. Marc. iii. 9, caro verae et solidae substantiae humanae: so also De Exhort. Cast. 2, solida fides, and here, solidum corpus, 'a body in three dimensions', (b) In a sense derived from testamentary usage, 100 per cent: e.g. Ad Uxor. I. 1,
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tu modo ut solidum capere possis hoc meae admonitionis fideicommissum deus faciat: De Monog. 16, aliud est si apud Christum legibus Iuliis agi credunt, et existimant caelibes et orbos ex testamento dei solidum non posse capere ( = haeredes ex asse fieri non posse): hence De Monog. 3, etiam si totam et solidam (complete and entire) virginitatem sive continentiam paracletus hodie determinasset, ut ne unis quidem nuptiis fervorem carnis despumare permitteret: and De Res. Carn. 36, solidam resurrectionem (i.e., as appears from the context, utriusque substantiae humanae).
8 suscepit ab ea carries an unobtrusive reference to the Roman father's act of lifting up his wife's child from the ground and thus acknowledging it as his own: the two preceding words make it an oxymoron.
8 et angelo quidem etc. Cf. Adv. Marc. iii. 11, nam et Philumene illa magis persuasit Apelli ceterisque desertoribus Marcionis ex fide quidem Christum circumtulisse carnem, nullius tamen nativitatis, utpote de elementis eam mutuatum.
The citation of Galatians i. 8 is repeated from De Praesc. Haer. 6, where there is the comment, providerat iam tunc spiritus sanctus futurum in virgine quadem Philumene angelum seductionis transfigurantem se in angelum lucis, cuius signis et praestigiis Apelles inductus novam haeresim induxit (? introduxit): cf. ibid. 30, where the angel becomes an energema.
11 his vero quae insuper etc. The apostolic text being sufficient to rebut the claim to angelic inspiration, our own task is to
controvert their supporting arguments. On argumentantur see a note on §17 (page 156).
12 seqq. Kroymann's reconstruction of this passage is rash and unnecessary: the traditional text makes perfectly good sense. Moreover he is wrong in his observation that qualitas idem fere quod substantia: Tertullian is too careful with his words for this kind of equivocation, and ex ea qualitate in qua videbatur stands, by a common enough ellipsis, for ex eius qualitatis materia in qua videbatur.
22 sed utantur etc. Here, as frequently elsewhere, Tertullian will not insist on his praescriptio, having a sound case on other
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and more general grounds. Cf. Adv. Prax. 2, sed salva ista praescriptione ubique tamen... dandus est etiam retractatibus locus, etc.
28 comparent velim et causas etc. Causa, except where it means an action at law, seems to be used by Tertullian almost always for the final cause or purpose, while ratio refers to the precedent cause or preliminary reasoning: these two aspects of the same matter are indicated below, consequens erat, immo praecedens, etc.
So also §10, et hic itaque causas requiro, where, once more, final causes alone are brought under review. Cf. Adv. Marc. ii. 4, videbimus causas quae hoc quoque a deo exegerunt... si legis imponendae ratio praecessit, sequebatur etiam observandae: ibid. ii. 11, ita prior bonitas dei secundum naturam, severitas posterior secundum causam: and especially ibid. ii. 6, where the causa for which men have freedom of will is, oportebat dignum aliquid esse quod deum cognosceret, while ratio is the reasoning by which God thought out this plan.
36 forma is the architect's or surveyor's plan: therefore 'purpose' or 'intention'.
40 pro quo, by ellipsis for pro eo pro quo.
44 qui iam tunc etc. Cf. Adv. Marc. iii. 9 (referred to above), ideoque et ipse tunc apud Abraham in veritate quidem carnis apparuit, sed nondum natae quia nondum moriturae, sed et discentis iam inter homines conversari, but with the caveat that the 'learning' was for our sake rather than his, so that we might the more easily believe that he had come for our salvation if we knew that he had done something of the kind already.
46 nisi prius... annuntiarentur, i.e. until the prophetic announcement of his birth and death (by Isaiah and others) had prepared for him and ensured his recognition.
47 carnem de sideribus concepisse (A), as the more difficult reading, should perhaps stand: the other may well have been a marginal paraphrase of this, avoiding the apparently inappropriate word concepisse.
50 etsi corporis alicuius: the angels, being of spiritual substance, have a body, for spirit is body, of its own kind—on the
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Stoic principle that everything that exists is 'body' of some kind. Cf. Adv. Prax. 7, quis enim negabit deum corpus esse? and my notes on pages 232, 234.
52 ad tempus: cf. Adv. Marc. iii. 9, brevem carnis commeatum. The text as printed, with this punctuation, seems to me best to account for the variants: but there is little to choose between them.
67 fuerit, omitted by the MSS. of the Cluny group, seems to be necessary as introducing the following sentence, which modifies the preceding: it admits a point scored by a supposed interruption in court from the opposite party. But, though we make this admission, non tamen infringitur etc.—the point scored, and in fact the whole question of the theophanies, has no bearing on the case: for at the Incarnation the circumstances (condicio) and purposes (causa) were entirely different, in that, as Christ was to die, he must of necessity be born, and his flesh must needs be veritable human flesh.
CHAPTER VII
Whenever this subject is discussed, a suggestion is advanced that our Lord's question, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?' constitutes a repudiation of those relationships and (by implication) a denial of his human birth and his possession of human flesh. Our answer is:
(1) Evidently the person who made the announcement was convinced that the mother and brethren were really who he said they were.
(2) The suggestion that the announcement was made for the purpose of tempting cannot be sustained:
(a) because the text of the Gospel does not say so, although elsewhere when persons ask questions 'tempting him' the fact is remarked upon:
(b) this was not a suitable occasion for tempting him in respect of his nativity:
(a) because such a question had never been raised, and there is nothing in the context to lead up to it:
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(b) because a denial of one's present possession of a mother
and brethren is not necessarily a denial of nativity—the
mother might be dead, and the brethren never have existed:
(c) they would have been more likely to be testing his divine
knowledge by making a false statement—though even this will
not serve, for apart from divine insight he might have had private
information which assured him that they could not possibly be
there.
(3) The true explanation of his answer is that he denies them because of their unbelief, giving preference to others who were interested in the work he was doing. For a denial of human relationships a different occasion would have been required. Moreover, he is here doing what he instructs his disciples to do, giving the kingdom of God preference over earthly ties.
(4) The episode is also an allegory of the rejection of the Synagogue and the acceptance of the Church.
(5) Our Lord's answer to the exclamation of a woman from among the multitude is to be interpreted on the same lines.
The reference is to Matthew 12. 46-50, Mark 3. 31-35: Luke 8. 19-21 omits the question, 'Who is my mother and my brethren?' but retains' My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and keep it.' The passage is also discussed Adv. Marc. iv. 19, for which see a note below: at Adv. Marc. iii. 11 the woman's exclamation (Luke ii. 27) and the announcement of our Lord's mother and brethren (Luke 8. 19) are cited by Tertullian himself as proof that qui homo videbatur natus utique credebatur, with a promise of further discussion, which is given at iv. 19 and 26.
3 negare esse se natum. I have ventured to insert se, which could easily have fallen out after esse. Kroymann, improving on A, has negasse se, which comes to the same thing, except that the present tense seems more natural: so Adv. Marc. iv. 19, ipse, inquiunt, contestatur se non esse natum. But in view of Adv. Marc. iv. 26 (quoted below) possibly we should read, with T, negare natum.
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4 audiat igitur etc. The reference is to Adv. Marc. iv. 19, where the argument follows the same lines as here, with some verbal coincidences but with sufficient difference to indicate that Tertullian is not here transcribing his earlier work but rehearsing such of it as he carries in mind. This is, he says, the constantissimum argumentum of those who question our Lord's nativity. Heretics make a practice of either complicating the meaning of plain
statements, or else of the overdue simplifying of statements conditioned by their context or by the thought behind them (condicionales et rationales).
The latter is what they are doing here. Our answer is: (1) The announcement that his mother and brethren stood without could only have been made on the assumption that he had a mother and brethren, quos utique norat qui annuntiarat vel retro notos vel tunc ibidem compertos dum eum videre desiderant vel dum ipsi nuntium mandant. (2) The common response to this proposition is that the announcement was made temptandi gratia: but (a) the Scripture does not say this, though it is accustomed to remark on such occasions. This reply would have been sufficient, but (b) ex abundanti causas temptationis expostulo: if (a) for the
purpose of ascertaining whether he had been born or not, I object that the question had never arisen: his human characteristics made it perfectly evident that he had been born, and they found it easier to see in him a man and a prophet than God and Son of God. Again (b) even supposing there were need for this enquiry quodcumque aliud argumentum temptationi competisset quam per earum personarum mentionem quas potuit etiam natus non habere. More- over (g) they could have settled that question by consulting the census roll. Consequently, the suggestion of temptation falls to the ground, and we conclude that his mother and brethren were really there. (3) Then what was in his mind when he asked the question? He asked it non simpliciter, but ex causae necessitate et condicione rationali, being rightly indignant that, while strangers were within intent upon his words, these close relations should stand without and even seek to divert him from his task: non tam abnegavit quam abdicavit, as he explains by adding nisi qui audiunt verba mea et faciunt ea (Luke 8. 21), thus transferring to others those terms of relationship. But there could have been no transference
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if there had not been those from whom (as well as to whom) to transfer. The substitution of others then was meritorum condicione, non ex proximorum negatione,
and he was giving an example in himself of what he said to others elsewhere, qui patrem aut matrem aut fratres praeponeret verbo dei non esse dignum discipulum (Luke 14. 26). Thus his denial of his mother and his brethren is itself an acknowledgement of their existence: quod alios adoptabat, confirmabat quos ex offensa negavit, quibus non ut veriores substituit sed ut digniores. Finally, there would be no significance in his
preferring adherents to blood relations, if he had had no blood relations, si fidem sanguini praeposuit quem non habebat.1
6 materiam pronuntiationis. Below (twice) materia temptationis seems to mean the raw material out of which a temptation could be constructed. So here it seems likely that the meaning is 'the circumstances which gave ground for that remark'.
11 ista: Matthew 13. 55, 56: Mark 6. 3: John 6. 42. Luke has nothing parallel to this. Creditum is of course Tertullian's
insertion, safeguarding the truth which was unknown to those whose words he is quoting.
18 quod nemo etc. The sentence is admittedly awkward. The easiest way out would be to punctuate after significari, omitting temptandi gratia factum as being a marginal explanation of quod. But this would leave the end of a hexameter, a clausula which Tertullian avoids. Kroymann's eo quod, with a comma after factum, makes the beginning of the sentence ugly and breaks the force of non recipio etc.
21 putaverint (A) seems the correct form: 'what can they have thought a fit subject of temptation in him?' I have marked the following sentence as the Apelleasts' supposed answer to this question: logically, of course, it is a petitio principii.
23 eius de quo stands for eius rei de qua: so Adv. Prax. 30, de isto = hac de re: and frequently.
32 adhuc potest quis etc. I have ventured to insert quis: though possis would have served, except that it is too far from the
1 With this interpretation the alteration by Fr. Junius of quem to quam becomes unnecessary.
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MSS. Kroymann's potes is too abrupt. Possibly female mortality was at such a high rate that a man was more likely to have his father living than his mother: but I can conceive of no reason why a man was more likely to have maternal uncles than brothers.
33 adeo stands for ideo or quapropter: so in §16, q.v.
41 nota ei iam, Kroymann's excellent correction of AT.
44 simplicitas here means 'honesty', or what our grandfathers called 'candour': the person meant what he said. So also Adv. Val. 2, simplices notamur apud illos, 'guileless', 'simpletons'. Frequently the adjective and its derivatives indicate the literal, as distinguished from the allegorical, sense of scripture: e.g. Ad Uxor. i. 2, ut tamen simpliciter interpretemur, as opposed to figuraliter.
44 nuntiatoris seems to have the better MS. testimony: the following subjunctive is of indirect narration dependent on it (as in quia dixerit above).
44 vere is not so much Tertullian's comment on this, as what he supposes to have been in the messenger's mind, that certainty which would have fortified his reaffirmation if challenged.
46 ad praesens seems to mean 'for that occasion only'.
48 mater aeque etc. This is apparently intended to suggest more than it says, namely, that there is no direct evidence in the Gospels that our Lord's mother was in sympathy with his work. It might be added that there is equally no evidence that she was not. The statement about the brethren is made at John 7. 5: at Acts i. 14 they are shown to have changed their minds. Martha et Mariae aliae is my reading: the MSS. vary. There was in fact one Martha and several Marys.
52 tam, proximi may conceivably be emphatic for tam propinqui: so Adv. Marc. iv. 19, tam proximas personas...magis proximos. But possibly Tertullian has forgotten that the word is a superlative.
57 si forte tabula ludens etc. This kind of ill-mannered innuendo is almost a commonplace of the rhetoric of the schools. It is imitated from Cicero (e.g. Philippic ii. 17. 42 seqq.—the
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admitted model of all speeches), who however had the excuse that his strictures were true.
63 alius fuisset etc. Oehler (followed by Kroymann) is insistent that alius is a genitive, to be construed with sermonis. In view of eius following they may be right, though this makes a very awkward sentence. I should prefer to place a comma after tempus and remove that after sermonis: 'He could have found a different place and occasion, and a turn of phrase such as could not have been used even by one who had a mother and brethren.'
74 sed et alias etc. This reference to the synagogue is omitted Adv. Marc. iv. 19, no doubt because it might have led to further argument as to why this is not a point in Marcion's favour.
79 eodem sensu etc. Cf. Luke 11. 27, 28: Adv. Marc. iv. 26, exclamat mulier de turba beatum uterum qui illum portasset et ubera quae illum educassent: et dominus, Immo beati qui sermonem dei audiunt et faciunt. quia et retro sic reiecerat matrem aut fratres dum auditores et obsecutores dei praefert... adeo nec retro negaverat natum. I had thought perhaps we should insert mulieris cuiusdam after illi: but illi exclamationi means 'that much canvassed remark', and the addition is unnecessary.
CHAPTER VIII
A further suggestion they make is that as the created world was the result of the sinful act of an errant angel, it would have been unseemly for Christ to become contaminated with earthly flesh, which is the product of sin: and so he must be supposed to have taken to himself not earthly flesh, but a celestial substance from the stars. We answer that this leaves us where we were: for the sky itself is part of creation, and if creation was a sin the matter which composes the stars is no less sinful than earthly matter. Moreover the text, 'The second man is from heaven', when rightly
interpreted, supports our case, not theirs. The subject the apostle has under discussion is not the creation nor the constitution of Christ's human nature, but the contrast between man's earthly origin and the celestial attributes he receives from Christ. Consequently, since redeemed man is in Christ at once terrestrial and celestial,
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it follows that Christ, with whom he is equated, was not only celestial in his godhead but also became truly terrestrial in his manhood.
5 quam volunt etc. Cf. De Praesc. Haer. 34, facilius de filio quam de patre haesitabatur donec ... Apelles creatorem angelum nescioquem gloriosum superioris dei faceret deum legis et Israelis, illum igneum affirmans:
also De Res. Carn. 5, frivolum istud corpusculum . . . ignei alicuius exstructio angeli, ut Apelles docet : and De Anima 23, Apelles sollicitatas refert animas terrenis escis de supercaelestibus sedibus ab igneo angelo deo Israelis et nostro, qui exinde illis peccatricem circumfinxerit carnem.
Thus what Tertullian reports here is not that the seduced souls were transmuted into flesh, but that sinful flesh was constructed for them: the material of which it was constructed is left unspecified.
9 nominant. The name was actually mentioned, but is suppressed by Tertullian. Apparently it was the divine tetragrammaton in its triliteral Greek form
IAW, for which see Adv. Val. 14 ( = Irenaeus, Haer. i. 1. 7).
11 The libellus is not one of Tertullian's extant works. This seems to be the only reference to it.
13 de figura erraticae ovis. According to Irenaeus, Haer. i. 1. 17, the Valentinians interpreted this of the transgression of Achamoth, and her recovery by Soter. Tertullian refers to the parable Adv. Marc. iv. 32, remarking that evidently the person who seeks for a sheep or a coin must be the one who has lost it, and consequently we must conclude that the world already belonged to God who sent his Christ to recover it.
20 de peccatorio censu, 'by reason of its sinful origin ' — almost
'ancestry ' : cf. Adv. Prax. 5 , imago et similitude censeris, and my note.
22 Christo dedignantur inducere: so AT: the other, a much weaker, reading seems to be an attempt to smooth out the difficulties of this : strictly speaking it would require dedignetur. Inducere here means 'clothe', but with a secondary sense of 'veil' or 'becloud': at De Praesc. Haer. 6 (quoted above on §6), if the
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text is correct inductus means 'misled' and induxit means 'introduced' or 'imported'.
25 legimus plane indicates that the Apelleasts quoted 1 Corinthians 15. 47 in favour of their own views. At De Res. Carn. 49 Tertullian has Primus, inquit, homo de terra choicus, id est limaceus, id est Adam, secundus homo de caelo, id est sermo dei, id est Christus, non alias tamen homo, licet de caelo, nisi quia et ipse caro atque anima, quod homo, quod Adam: at Adv. Marc. v. 10 he reads Primus, inquit, homo de humo terrenus, secundus dominus de caelo. On this we observe (1) that it does not appear what was the origin of the form de terrae limo, as quoted here: (2) that whether or not Tertullian has the interpolation
o( ku&rioj, he takes that to be the meaning of St Paul's words, and not (as some modern
commentators suggest) some supposed 'resurrection body' of heavenly origin: and (3) that as he reads dominus de caelo only in
controverting Marcion, there is a possibility that he is refuting Marcion from Marcion's own text—that is, that the interpolated word is due to Marcion. Both versions of the text were known to Origen: it appears not to be quoted by Irenaeus or by any earlier writer.
29 ad spiritum, i.e. Christ's divine substance, by virtue of which, even in hac carne terrena (meaning, apparently, both in this present life and after the resurrection), Christians are caelestes.
33 qualis et Christus. Et has stronger MS. authority than est. The sense really requires est, to contrast with fiunt, which is possibly why some copyists wrote it.
CHAPTER IX
A further argument against the celestial origin of Christ's flesh is that everything derived from some previously existent material retains traces of the quality of that from which it was drawn. Thus the human body has manifest affinities with the earth from which it was moulded. All these earthly and human attributes were plainly observable in the flesh of Christ, and it was these alone which gave rise to the short-sighted view that he was a man
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and nothing more. In no respect did his body show signs of celestial origin. It was in his words and works alone that men found anything to marvel at, though they would certainly have remarked upon it if they had observed anything unusual in his physical constitution. It was solely because his manhood was not miraculous that they were astonished at his doctrine and his miracles. Moreover his form was of even less than ordinary comeliness, as the prophets testify, and as the indignities to which he was subjected bear witness. There is thus no reason for
regarding his flesh as celestial, and every reason for knowing it to be terrestrial. It was terrestrial for the express purpose that it might be the object of contumely and reproach.
1 praetendimus adhuc, a further argument to the same effect. Oehler, in a note on De Pud. 17, observes: 'praetendere castrense verbum est, significans praesidio esse.' He gives a number of examples from late authors which serve to prove it a military term, but its meaning in all of them is not 'defend' but 'contend'. So also Tertullian, De Pud. 17, apostoli...pro sanctitate praetendunt: Adv. Marc. ii. 6, ut et contra malum homo fortior praetenderet: ibid, iii. 13, et Iudas praetendet apud Hierusalem (quoted from Zechariah 14. 14,
parata&cetai, [Hebrew] R.V. 'fight'). So here, 'we assert'. Ut is concessive, and equivalent to quamvis.
4 in novam proprietatem. Proprietas rarely, or perhaps never, in Tertullian means property or quality, but the fact that a thing is what it is and not something else. See my notes on Adv. Prax. 7 and 11, and ibid. 27, secundum utramque substantiam in sua proprietate distantem...salva est utriusque proprietas substantiae.
So here 'a new identity'.
5 de limo figulatum: Genesis 2. 7: LXX e1plasen: Lat. vg. formavit. Tertullian regularly uses figulare in this connexion: e.g. De Exhort. Cast. 5, cum hominem figulasset. At De Bapt. 3 we have hominis figurandi opus, where apparently none of the editors has suggested figulandi. Tertullian could hardly have used formare here: it would have meant 'made into a pattern or rule': cf. De Exhort. Cast. 5, contestans quid deus in primordio constituent
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informant posteritati recensendam, 'a rule (sc. of monogamy) which was to need to be re-enacted for future generations'.
5 ad fabulas nationum veritas transmisit. Ovid, Metam. i. 80, has a kindred word to Tertullian's figulare, and something approaching 'in his own image' : '. . . sive recens tellus seductaque nuper ab alto | aethere cognati retinebat semina cadi, | quam satus Iapeto mixtam fluvialibus undis | finxit in effigiem moderantum cuncta deorum : | . . . sic modo quae fuerat rudis et sine imagine tellus | induit ignotas hominum conversa figuras.' Veritas, not truth in the abstract, but the Truth of divine revelation: so Adv. Prax. 8, viderit haeresis si quid de veritate imitata est. It was common form among the
apologists to allege that any correspondences between Christian and pagan ideas were due to borrowing by the pagans : cf. Theophilus, Ad Autol. I. 14,
w{n timwriw~n proeirhme/nwn u(po_ tw~n profhtw~n metagene/steroi geno&menoi oi9 poihtai\ kai\ filo&sofoi e1kleyan e0k tw~n a(gi/wn grafw~n, where Otto gives references to Justin, Apol. I. 44, Tatian, Orat. 40, Athenagoras, Suppl. 9 : so also Tertullian, Apol. 47, quis poetarum, quis sophistarum, qui non omnino de prophetarum fonte potaverit? inde igitur philosophi sitim ingenii sui rigaverunt: and (in greater detail) Ad Nat. ii. 2.
6 utrumque originis elementum, now that it has the support of T, is the better attested reading : but the other is attractive, as being logically less accurate and thus more likely to have provoked the editorial hand.
7 nam licet alia etc. The punctuation of this and the following sentence is mine. If (as Oehler and Kroymann seem to think) hoc est etc. were a parenthetic explanation of the preceding clause, we should need to read fiat: with fit, these seven words must be its apodosis. In any case, ceterum introduces a further step in the argument, and the question it introduces cannot (by its subject- matter) be the apodosis of nam licet etc.
17 humana extantem substantia. So I have ventured to write, this arrangement of the words seeming best to account for extantem (A alone), and the position of the not very apposite tantum (T alone). But it is tempting to read, with the Cluny
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group, ex humana substantia : for though exstare, equivalent to esse, 'exist', is classical and sufficiently common, and may easily enough come to mean 'consist' (as here), in Tertullian's usage a thing does not 'consist' of substance, but rather it 'is' substance: so that possibly extantem is wrong, and tantum could have crept in from tantummodo, three words back.
26 despicientium formam eius. Forma here is a reminiscence of 'form or comeliness' (LXX
ei]doj ou)de\ do&ca) at Isaiah 53. 2, a text frequently quoted, but usually to make the contrast between human weakness and heavenly glory: so Adv. Marc. iii. 7, where Isaiah 53. 2-14, 8. 14, Psalm 8. 6 and 22. 7 are brought into
contrast with Daniel 2. 34, 7. 13 seqq. and other such texts: the same set of texts, on both sides, are rehearsed at Adv. Iud. 14. At Adv. Marc. iii. 17 Isaiah 52. 14 is quoted in the form, Quemadmodum expavescent multi super te, sic sine gloria erit ab hominibus forma tua, and Tertullian proceeds, Certainly David says, Thou art fairer than the children of men, but that is in an allegoric sense: ceterum habitu incorporabili (i.e. eo habitu quem cum corpore induturus erat) apud eundem prophetam vermis etiam et non homo, ignominia hominis et nullificamen populi (Psalm 22. 7): cf. De Idol. 18, vultu denique et aspectu inglorius, sicut et Esaias pronuntiaverat. The present is apparently the only place in which Tertullian, led away by his argument, suggests definite ugliness: so below, nisi merentem. At De Pat. 3, sed contumeliosus insuper sibi est, Oehler has a long note, with citations from Tertullian (as above), Origen, Augustine, and some moderns, in the last four lines of which he gives his own, evidently correct, interpretation of that phrase.
28 apud vos quoque, i.e. Apelles and his followers, as well as Marcion, rejected the prophets. Nos (FB Oeh.) seems insufficiently attested: if it is accepted the meaning is 'even though we, like you, were to reject the prophets'.
30 probaverunt is not in AT: if it is rejected we shall need to extract affirmant out of the preceding loquuntur—which does not seem very natural.
37 opinor is evidently ironical: see the note on maluit, credo, nasci (§5).
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37 inquam is evidently correct: inquitis would require an answer, and moreover the question is not one which the opponents would ask.
38 sicut et dixit: Matthew 16. 21 ( = Mark 8. 31, Luke 9. 22), and elsewhere.
CHAPTER X
The suggestion of some others, that Christ's flesh was made out of soul, equally breaks down on examination. Christ's purpose in assuming to himself a human soul was to save human soul, which cannot be saved except in him: but there is no reason for supposing that soul only becomes capable of salvation if turned into flesh. Christ saves our souls while they not only remain souls, but even when (in death) they are disjoined from the flesh: even less did that soul which he took to himself need to become flesh so that it might obtain salvation. Further, since these people assume that Christ came to save the soul alone, and not the flesh, why should he be supposed to change that which he was saving into that which he was not saving? If it was his purpose to deliver our souls by the agency of his soul, then his soul must needs have been of the same fashion as ours—and whatever that fashion is, it is not a fleshly one. It follows that if his soul was a fleshly one it was none of ours, and as it did not save ours it is of no concern to us. Moreover, soul that was not ours stood in no need of salvation. But as it is common ground among us that soul was saved, it follows that it was our sort of soul that Christ had, and not one turned into flesh. So then, as Christ's soul was not turned into flesh, neither was his flesh made out of soul.
This is clever debating, but of more than dubious theological import. There seems to be an underlying suggestion that the soul and flesh assumed by Christ needed to be brought to a state of salvation so that ours could be saved through them. This is a form of adoptionism of which there are traces in Hernias (e.g. Similitude V. 6), who could not be expected to know any better, and it might have pleased Nestorius: but the suggestion is not one which Tertullian would really regard as tolerable. Elsewhere he
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affirms that Christ's soul and flesh, though of the stock of Adam (on which he insists most strongly), because they were not
conceived by the ordinary process of human generation are exempt from the consequences of Adam's sin (see especially § 16). So we must surmise that in the present instance he has been carried away by the implications of his opponents' supposition, which he is content to controvert without sufficiently safeguarding his own view of the truth.
It is not clearly indicated who these opponents were. That they were gnostics of some sort seems probable, since it appears from §12 that they introduced the concept of salvation by knowledge. If they were, it is likely enough that when they said 'soul ' they did not mean soul in the ordinary sense, but some sort of semi- celestial 'matter', a kind of substantification of the 'passion' of Achamoth. Tertullian was no doubt aware of this equivocation, but preferred to argue on simpler grounds.
In this translation animalis is represented by 'composed of soul', carnalis by 'turned into flesh', carneus by 'fleshly'. Evidently the terms have taken on a special meaning from their context. Carneus appears to differ from carnalis as referring to attributes rather than constitution: so that anima carnalis will mean soul turned into flesh, while anima cornea will be soul which has acquired fleshly characteristics.
1 convertor ad alios etc. Cf. Adv. Val. 26, in hoc ( =
ei0j
tou~to) et Soterem in mundo repraesentatum, in salutem scilicet animalis (sc. substantiae). alia autem compositione monstruosum volunt illum (i.e. that 'Christ' composed of four elements) prosicias ( =porricias: Irenaeus
ta_j a)parxa&j) earum substantiarum induisse quarum summam saluti esset redacturus, ut spiritalem quidem susceperit ab Achamoth, animalem vero quem mox a Demiurgo induit Christum, ceterum corporalem ex animali substantia, sed miro et inenarrabili rationis ingenio constructam administrationis causa ideo tulisse
[incontulisse, A : quaero an legendum circumtulisse] quo congressui et conspectui et contactui et defunctui ingratis (=frustra) subiaceret: materiale autem nihil in illo fuisse, utpote salutis alienum. The exposition is continued ibid. 27. Sibi prudentes, Romans 11. 25, 12. 16
par' e(autoi=j fro&nimoi.
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4 causas require. Evidently throughout this context causa means the final cause or purpose: see a note on §6.
8 animas...a carne disiunctas. Cf. De Anima 58, omnes ergo animae penes inferos, inquis? velis ac nolis et supplida iam illic et refrigeria, which are anticipations of those which will follow the final judgement.
10 item cum praesumant. Praesumere and praesumptio invariably in Tertullian refer to opinions formed without any foundation of evidence or reasoning: 'assume' and 'assumption' usually give the proper sense. See a note by Heraldus (quoted by Oehler on Apol. 49) who observes that the same word is used by Appuleius, Metam. ix. 14, of Christian belief in one God: spretis atque calcatis divinis numinibus, in vicem certae religionis mentita sacrilega praesumptione dei quem praedicaret unicum, confictis observationibus vacuis, fallens omnes homines et miserum maritum decipiens etc. So Apol. 16, atque ita inde praesumptum opinor nos quoque ut Iudaicae religionis propinquos eidem simulacro initiari, where Souter has 'presumed' (a Scoticism for 'assumed'): ibid. 21, quasi sub umbraculo insignissimae religionis... aliquid propriae praesumptionis abscondat (Souter, 'some of its own arrogance'—better, 'some assumptions of its own'): ibid., neque aliter de deo praesumimus (Souter,
correctly, 'nor is our idea of God different from that of the Jews'): ibid. 25, illa praesumptio dicentium Romanos pro merito religiositatis diligentissimae in tantum sublimitatis elatos (Souter, 'prejudiced assertion'—better, 'unfounded statement'): ibid. 49, hae sunt quae in nobis solis praesumptiones vocantur (Souter, 'vain assumptions'— 'assumptions' would be enough): ibid., quae expedit vera praesumi ...in vobis itaque praesumptio est haec ipsa quae damnat utilia (Souter, 'presumed to be true', again meaning 'assumed': 'this very prejudice', better, 'is neither more nor less than an assumption'): ibid. 50, nec praesumptio perdita nec persuasio desperata (Souter, 'neither reckless prejudice nor desperate persuasion'—perhaps, 'reckless assumption', 'criminal conspiracy'). In the passage before us the point is that the gnostic and Marcionite doctrine that the flesh, being material, is incapable of salvation, is a mere assumption, based neither on scriptural evidence nor on natural
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reason or observed facts: it is mere guesswork or surmise, erected into a dogma. At sed animae nostrae Codex Agobardinus ends.
15 illam quoque etc. The reading of T (followed by Kroymann) makes a sentence which will just construe but has no apparent bearing on the words that follow. Kroymann's
punctuation here is impossible. Forma in this context has its original meaning 'shape'. Evidently soul, being corpus sui generis, has some sort of shape, though this is in occulto, not visible to the eye. At De Anima 9 it is alleged that when God breathed soul into Adam the fluid 'set' like a jelly in a mould, taking its shape from the body, omni intus linea expressum esse (sc. flatum vitae) quam densatus impleverat et velut in forma gelasse.
22 non carnea is evidently equivalent to the preceding nostra, not to non nostra.
24 iam ergo etc. clinches the first part of Tertullian's reply to the postulate of an animal flesh. In it he assumes by simple
conversion that animal flesh implies carnal soul, which, on the ground of the doctrine of the Atonement, he shows to be
inconceivable. The adversaries are now supposed to accept this argument by conversion and to suggest the causa demanded earlier in the chapter, 'for the purpose of making soul visible'—a suggestion dealt with in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XI
When we point out that the supposition that Christ's flesh was made out of soul involves the consequence that his soul was changed into flesh, our opponents offer as a reason for this latter, that it was God's intention that soul, of whose existence and attributes the impediment of the flesh had caused some uncertainty, should now be made visible in Christ: and
consequently, they allege, in Christ soul was turned into body so that we might see it being born and dying and rising again. This is as much as to say that soul was made dark so that it might have power to shine. Moreover, the statement that soul was invisible implies that it already possessed body, an invisible one: so that,
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supposing it to have been God's purpose to make it visible, he could with greater veracity have made it visible in its own body than in the body of something else. Also, to make soul visible in the guise of flesh is not to display it but to hide it. Even if (per impossible) soul, as invisible, did exist without body of its own, it would have been more fitting, as well as less embarrassing, for God to make it visible in a new kind of body than in one which was already appropriated to something else. 'To be visible among men', they say, 'Christ had to be man': quite so, and so he must have had the same sort of soul as any other man.
1 sed aliam argumentationem etc. This sentence, in connexion with what follows, is somewhat difficult. The solution seems to lie in the meaning of convenimus. Oehler's index (s.v.) gives these meanings: deprehendere, invenire, petere, iudicio aggredi, between which no distinction is made. His note at Apol. 10, to which he makes frequent reference elsewhere, says that convenire is a juristic term. This is true: and the most natural meaning to expect is iudicio oppetere, 'join issue with', 'tackle', as the following citations show: Apol. 10, maiestatis rei convenimur: ibid. 31, de quorum maiestate convenimur in crimen: ibid. 35, in hac quoque religione secundae maiestatis de qua in secundum sacrilegium convenimur: De Res. Carn.
18, resurrectio carnis, duo verba expedita decisa detersa: ipsa conveniam, ipsa discutiam, cui se substantiae addicant: Ad Nat. i.1, scio plane qua responsione soletis redundantiae nostrae testimonium convenire. But if this is the most natural, it is not the only
meaning: cf. De Res. Carn. 12, quodcunque conveneris,fuit, 'whatever you come across, has already existed': De Ieiunio 13, convenio vos et praeter pascha ieiunantes, 'I find you keeping other fasts besides the Easter vigil': De Cor. 10, illorum deputatur (sc. habitus iste) in quorum et antiquitatibus et sollemnitatibus et officiis convenitur, 'is found in use': Adv. Hermog. 45, atquin magis apparere coepit et unique conveniri deus ex quo factus est mundus. Transitional between this meaning and the other is Adv. Marc. I. 6, conveniens enim et quodammodo iniecta manu detinens adversarii sensum. At Adv. Marc. iv. 6 the meaning seems to be 'welcome' (unless perchance the sentence is chiastic): haec conveniemus, haec amplectemur, si nobiscum
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magis fuerint, si Marcionis praesumptionem percusserint. Our suggestion then is that in the passage before us the meaning is not 'we join issue with' but 'we meet with another argument of theirs in answer to our inquiry why etc.'
1 exigentes cur etc. This also is difficult, through excessive brevity. The argument of the preceding chapter is compressed into one sentence and made the ground of a further interrogation. The original suggestion was Christum animalem carnem subisse, that Christ assumed flesh made out of soul. Tertullian has shown that this involves the admission Christum animam carnalem habuisse, that Christ had a soul that was turned into flesh. Assuming that his adversaries acquiesce in this deduction by simple inversion, he asks what reason they can suggest for Christ having had a soul of that sort. Their answer follows, that it was for the purpose of making evident certain facts about soul which until then had been concealed through the hindrance of the flesh. The suggestion has a Platonic sound, and it was no doubt from Platonic sources (though not apparently immediately from Plato) that the
Valentinians derived it: indeed the whole gnostic theory of salvation by knowledge has a Platonic background, though the knowledge on which Plato would have made salvation contingent would not have been of particular facts such as the true nature of the soul, but of the ideal and transcendent Good. That the suggestion is ridiculous is summarily shown in the sentence et hoc autem quale erit etc., after which the argument becomes more detailed.
11 dum id fit cui latebat. The sentence as punctuated gives a perfectly good sense. Kroymann's cur latebat might perhaps be right if cur could mean ob quod, and if ob quod could mean per quod: the former seems unlikely, the latter is of no concern here.
12 denique ad hoc etc. This sentence also is difficult, and the text must be regarded as doubtful. If prius and dehinc are correct, Tertullian outlines a course of argument which he does not
proceed to follow. Also we must either read an in totum as equivalent to si in totum, or else take utrum ...an as meaning sive... sive, either of which is difficult, though neither is quite impossible.
Kroymann, besides several other quite unnecessary alterations of the
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text, reads adhuc pressius for ad hoc prius, and dicant qui for dehinc an. This simplifies the sentence, and may conceivably (though not, I think, probably) be what Tertullian wrote: adhuc is certainly not impossible. Kroymann further suggests that et hoc autem (above, line 9) has begun the second part of the refutation, the first part having got displaced and now appearing as §13 and its appendix §14. In this he seems to be mistaken, for the order of the
refutation is (1) that if it were necessary to make soul visible, that would be better done by making it visible as itself and not as something else (§11): (2) soul is of its own nature competent to be cognisant of itself, so that it was unnecessary for it to be made visible either as flesh or as itself (§ 12): (3) soul is one thing and flesh is another, and the terms cannot be interchanged: moreover our Lord
himself speaks of his soul and his flesh as two distinct things and not as one thing confused (§13). This concludes the argument, in
Tertullian's usual style, with an appeal to scriptural facts: §14, an appendix to the main theme, treats of a suggestion advanced in answer to a further consequence of Tertullian's argument, that on the theory just criticized Christ would be left without an effective human soul at all.
20 omne quod est corpus est. See a previous note, on § 6 line 50: and on the corporeal nature of soul see the curious narrative at De Anima 9.
23 quia nec hic etc., a back reference to §3, plane interest illud ut falsum non patiatur quod vere non est.
27 in carne conversa: whether or not it is worth while to read carnem, the accusative is certainly to be understood. Conversa (TR3) is evidently correct.
33 alterius iam notitiae, 'already known as something else'. Kroymann's notae in this context could only mean 'brand', and has no particular point. Sine causa here means frustra, 'to no effective purpose'.
34 istis scilicet quaestionibus etc. Kroymann, at first sight plausibly, reads iustis. But there is a reference back to the 'rackings' suggested in §1. The last clause of the present sentence
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means 'so as to establish the case of human flesh against it', and racking of some sort might be supposed to be necessary for the extraction of evidence.
35 sed non poterat etc. This I regard as a supposed objection by the adversaries, whose 'Christ', being of 'animal' nature, needed to become 'carnal' so as to be visible to men. Tertullian here disregards their supposition of a semi-divine 'Christ' and concentrates on the matter in hand. See previous notes.
CHAPTER XII
We might admit that soul was revealed through flesh, if we first agreed that it stood in need of revelation, either to itself or to us— though soul is not distinguishable from us, our whole existence being soul: for without soul we are not men but corpses. Was soul then in need of knowing itself? Soul is by nature perceptive, and perception is so to speak the soul of soul. Since then soul gives perception to things perceptive, is it reasonable to suppose it was ever without perception of itself? Rather is it characteristic of soul to be cognisant of itself: without such cognisance it could not function as itself. And especially is this the case in man, who is rational because he possesses a rational (and not merely a
vegetative) soul: if soul were ignorant of itself, it could not make man rational. And the facts show that it was not ignorant: even apart from revelation it is conscious of its maker, its judge, and its own permanence. Further, if it had been true that soul was ignorant of itself, we might have expected Christ to give it instruction about itself. But the instruction we do find him giving is not of the soul's attributes but of its salvation: for the purpose of his coming was not that soul should know itself <by seeing itself visible> in Christ, but that it should know Christ <by being conscious of his grace> in itself: and its salvation was in danger through ignorance not of itself but of the Word of God. It was the Life that was made manifest, not the soul: and Christ came to save the soul, not to reveal it. We were in no ignorance of the soul's birth and death, but only of its rising again. This Christ did reveal, in
himself as in Lazarus and others; and it follows that, as their flesh was
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not composed of soul, neither was his. Is there anything else about itself that soul needed to learn?
4 cum totum quod sumus anima sit is a deliberately one- sided statement or exaggeration for the purpose of the present argument, and not necessarily in contradiction with De Res. Carn. 40, porro nec anima per semetipsam homo, quae figmento iam homini appellato postea inserta est, nec caro sine anima homo, quae post exilium animae cadaver inscribitur: cf. ibid. 17, habet enim de suo solummodo cogitare, velle, cupere, disponere: ad perficiendum autem operam carnis expectat.
7 fieret evidently stands for fieri deberet.
8 sensualis. Sensus can mean either perception of things without, or consciousness of thoughts within: here the emphasis is on the latter. Cf. De Anima 38, where the natural attributes of the soul are enumerated as immortalitas, rationalitas, sensualitas, intellectualitas, arbitrii libertas.
13 ex naturalium necessitate, 'from the necessity imposed by, or arising from, its natural attributes and relationships'. Cf. De Anima 38: auferenda est enim argumentatoris occasio, qui quod anima desiderare videatur alimenta, hinc quoque mortalem eam intelligi cupit, quae cibis sustineatur, denique derogatis eis evigescat, postremo subtractis intercidat. porro non solum proponendum est quisnam ea desideret, sed et cui: et si propter se, sed et cur et quando et quonam usque: tum quod aliud natura desideret, aliud necessitate, aliud secundum proprietatem, aliud in causam. desiderabit igitur cibos anima sibi quidem ex causa necessitatis, carni vero ex natura proprietatis. certe enim domus animae caro est, et inquilinus carnis anima. desiderabit itaque inquilinus ex causa et necessitate huius nominis profutura domui toto inquilinatus sui tempore, non ut ipse substruendus nec ut ipse loricandus nec ut ipse tibicinandus sed tantummodo continendus, quia non aliter contineri possit quam domo fulta.
16 se ministrare: 'cause itself to function': so almost, Apol. 2, ne qua vis lateat in occulto (i.e. some diabolic power) quae vos... contra ipsas quoque leges ministret.
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17 compotem et animam etc. will just construe with the following relative clause. Should compotem require a dependent genitive, this would be rationis, which could easily have fallen out after rationale.
21 statum suum must have the meaning required by the explanatory clause nihil magis audiens etc., i.e. 'its own
permanence', though not excluding the other four natural attributes enumerated at De Anima 38 (quoted above): so, perhaps, as a more inclusive phrase, 'its own estate'.
21 nihil adhuc etc. These observations first appear at Apol. 17, cum tamen (anima) resipiscit, ut ex crapula, ut ex somno, ut ex aliqua valetudine, et sanitatem suam patitur, 'deum' nominat, hoc solo, quia proprie verus hic unus. 'deus bonus et magnus' et 'quod deus dederit' omnium vox est. iudicem quoque contestatur ilium: 'deus videt' et 'deo commendo' et 'deus mihi reddet'. o testimonium animae naturaliter Christianae! They are expanded De Test. Anim. 2 (of the one God, the judge), 3 (of the existence of the devil), 4 (of the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the flesh). The object of deo commendare, as appears from Apol. 17 (above), is either 'itself' or 'its cause', i.e. not amicum peregrinaturum or anything of that nature.
25 imprecari in a good sense is uncommon: so Lewis and Short, who quote Appuleius, Metam. 9. 25, salutem ei fuerat imprecatus
(after sneezing): Petronius, Sat. 78, ut totus mihi populus bene imprecetur, is hardly in point, for Trimalchio was not an authority on Latin usage. Here the verb takes its tone from both adverbs.
27 nihil...nisi seems to stand for nihil . . . potius quam.
28 effigiem. This instance should be noted as an exception to my general statement (Adv. Prax., pages 234, 236) that Tertullian commonly uses effigies for what is appearance and not fact.
29 non ut ipsa etc. Gnostics and others, both ancient and modern, are prone to regard the gospel not as a gospel but as a system of information, which if not given to their satisfaction
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leaves them complaining of its uselessness. Tertullian may condescend to argue with such on their own ground: but he cannot in the long run forget that Christianity is a gospel of salvation and not a source of occult knowledge, and that salvation depends not on knowledge of facts but on the knowledge of Christ.
33 ignorabamus nimirum etc. The text must be regarded as doubtful, the authorities differing among themselves. That given here is the reading of the Cluny group, and makes a
satisfactory sense, provided it is observed that nimirum marks the sentence as not Tertullian's own view but that imputed by him to his adversaries: otherwise et mori will be wrong. Failure to observe this may account for the editorial variations of the other authorities. Ignoravimus plane marks Tertullian's own comment on his adversaries' supposed view. A little lower, erit must be correct: 'this it must be that Christ did make evident', the future tense (as frequently) marking a necessary deduction.
38 dispositione refers to the same set of facts as status, natura, qualitas, and possibly also condicio, but from the point of view not of what they are in themselves but of God who ordained that so they should be.
CHAPTER XIII
It is inconceivable that soul should have been revealed as soul by being turned into flesh, for the two things, if they are the same thing, are neither the one nor the other. All understanding and all discourse become impossible if names do not remain attached to the things to which they belong. Even when one thing is turned into another, as clay into pottery, it loses its old name and assumes another. So the soul of Christ, if turned into flesh, will be flesh and not soul, and must be so named, and there will result one uniform substance in which the two elements cannot be discerned. But in fact we find Christ himself referring in set terms to his soul and to his flesh, not as one indiscrete thing but as two distinct things: and that being so, neither has he a soul turned into flesh nor flesh composed of soul. For no one will suggest that the texts
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quoted refer to another soul and other flesh besides that which, being both, is neither. Thus he himself safeguards the duality of the two substances each in its own species, excluding the idea of both together appearing under one single form.
1 caro facta est etc. The sentence is a summary and interpretation of the adversaries' answer to the question at the
beginning of §11. Such lemmata are a common enough rhetorical device, and there is no need for Kroymann's observation that there is no formula of transition: the repetition itself is such a formula.
2 si caro anima est etc. The variations of T (see critical note) are a misguided attempt to clarify the structure of the clauses, the copyist (or his authority) being unaware that the most natural Latin order is predicate before subject, as below, line 28, porro si anima caro fuisset. Kroymann follows T.
4 ubi ergo caro etc. The text of this sentence here printed is that of T. That of the other authorities, given by Oehler, is neither grammatical nor comprehensible. Even so, this use of alterutro alterutmm, 'each made into the other out of the other', is difficult to defend. The word usually means' one or the other, no matter which': but Lewis and Short quote it from Columella in the sense of utrumque, and that may be the meaning here, in which case alterutro in both cases will be due to scribal attempts at correction, and should be omitted.
9 fides nominum etc. Cf. Adv. Marc. I. 7, where Tertullian admits that names, such as 'god', are sometimes equivocal, and contends that what we must discuss is not the names or terms but the substantiae represented by them.
11 vocabulorum possessiones. Kroymann marks a lacuna and suggests that aliorum has fallen out. If any alteration were needed we should perhaps insert novas before accipiunt. But in fact possessiones in Latin are 'new possessions', obtained by squatter's right.
18 quod autem etc. I have ventured to insert nomen, which could easily have dropped out through confusion with non:
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in that case quod autem must be construed as equivalent to eius autem quod—a kind of ellipsis of which there are several examples.
19 ergo et anima etc. On soliditas see a note on § 6: here the meaning seems to be 'completeness', though 'solidity' is not impossible. Singularitas occurs at De Exhort. Cast. 1 meaning bachelordom or widowhood: here it is 'singleness' as opposed to duality : cf. § 14, hominem a solo et singulari serpente deiectum.
23 animam-carnem etc. The hyphens here are mine. I imagine previous editors have seen the point, but I have preferred to make it plain.
25 duarutn qualitatum. Qualitas is not 'a quality' in the sense of one among many attributes, but the whole set of
attributes which constitute the natura of each object.
26 quid is evidently no part of the text Anxia est etc., and it is surprising that the editors, including Oehler and Kroymann, have printed it so. Matthew 26. 38 ( = Mark 14. 34)
peri/lupo&j e0stin
h( yuxh& mou e3wj qana&tou.
36 in suo genere... unicam speciem. Genus and species are here apparently not used in any technical sense: 'each in its own kind'...'one single form': so also above, dividit species, 'distinguishes the two forms'. At De
Bapt. 4, water (the whole of the earth's water) is genus unum, but there are species complures: quod autem generi attributum est etiam in species redundat, i.e. the possibility of its becoming a vehicle of the Spirit, indicated in the narrative of the creation, becomes true of all or any water, whether sea or pond, river or spring, lake or river bed: so that genus means species, and species the individual instances.
CHAPTER XIV
We have proved that to suggest that Christ's body was made out of soul is tantamount to saying that in his case soul was changed into flesh. When we point out that this would leave him without an effective soul, our adversaries reply that in addition to soul he had also assumed to himself an angel who discharged the soul's
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functions. Here again we ask for what purpose, (1) Certainly not for the purpose of saving angels in the same way as his assumption of humanity was for the purpose of saving man: for though there are angels for whom the fire of damnation is
prepared, it is nowhere on record that restoration has been promised to them or that Christ has received from the Father any mandate concerning their salvation. (2) Could it be then that he assumed an angel as an attendant or assistant in the work of man's salvation? Certainly not: for (a) the Son of God was by himself competent without assistance to deliver those whom the devil without assistance had enslaved: and (b) such a view would suggest that there is not one God and one Saviour, but two saviours each
ineffective without the other. Or (3) could it be that the angel was not his assistant but his agent? In that case why did he need to come himself? (4) Certainly he is described as the angel of great counsel: but in this case 'angel' means messenger, being a term of office, not of nature, for the Son is the angel or messenger of the Father, and yet is not on that account reduced to equal terms with other messengers. (5) The Psalm says that as man Christ is not the equal of the angels, but is a little lower than they—though as spirit of God and power of the Most High he is far above them: but if he were possessed of an angel he would not be lower, and the Psalm would be falsified. (6) This theory about an angel is Ebionite in principle, for it makes Christ a mere man, inspired as the prophets were inspired, as Zechariah ascribes his inspiration to
'the angel that spake in me'. But Christ, who speaks of himself in higher terms than the prophets, never uses this expression, nor even the common prophetic formula 'Thus saith the Lord', but 'I say unto you.' Finally (7) scripture explicitly rules out the suggestion, when Isaiah says,' Neither an angel nor a deputy, but the Lord himself hath saved us.'
In this chapter codex T presents an unusually large number of variations from the traditional text, most of which are at least interesting and not to be rejected without careful consideration. In general they seem to give the impression of being due to editing, not indeed by the actual writer of the codex but by someone farther
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back who was no mean Latinist. A possibility, but not (I think) a probability, is that the editor or reviser was Tertullian himself, as Hoppe has suggested was the case with the Apology. In the event, I have produced an eclectic text, which I submit with much deference to the judgement of the learned.
1-4 sed et angelum etc. The punctuation of these sentences is that which I wrote in my copy of Oehler thirty years ago: in placing a period after causa it agrees with Kroymann's.
Qua ratione could mean 'on what principle', ratio referring to the antecedent or formal cause, as below §17 ratio quae praefuit: cf. De Cor. 4, rationem traditioni et consuetudini et fidei patrocinaturam aut ipse perspides etc., and consuetudo autem etiam in civilibus rebus pro lege suscipitur cum deficit lex, nec differt scriptura an ratione consistat, quando et legem ratio commendet,
and the whole chapter: or the meaning may be 'in what manner', as at Scorp. 1, The scorpion's tail hamatile spiculum in summo tormenti ratione stringit, 'after the manner of a catapulted javelin'. In either case qua et hominem, the adversaries' supposed answer, must mean qua et hominem vos eum profitemini gestasse, for the adversaries did not admit the manhood.
2 eadem ergo etc. Between est and sit there is not much to choose: but ergo as a rule introduces a deduction of fact, rather than of requirement, and it seems more likely that Tertullian wrote est, meaning, 'In that case there is the same purpose and intention.' Causa once more refers to the final cause: see a note on § 10, to which add De Anima 24, si tempus in causa est oblivionis, where the efficient cause is indicated: and Adv. Marc. v. 20, where causatio (twice) is a translation of
pro&fasij at Philippians 1. 18, 'pretence'. Below, nihil tale de causa est is perfectly good Latin, and (in spite of Kroymann's rejection) the last three words should be retained.
7 nullum mandatum etc. A reminiscence of John 10. 18, tau&thn th_n e0ntolh_n e1labon para_ tou~ patro&j mou, and Hebrews 2. 16,
ou) ga_r dh&pou a)gge/lwn e0pilamba&netai, which latter might (if its authority had been acknowledged on all hands) have settled the question under discussion.
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10 cui igitur rei etc. Here, for the reason suggested above, igitur seems the right word. Both forte (T) and fortem (XRB) make good sense and it is difficult to choose between them: the sentence naturally requires gestaverit, and possibly forte supplies the suggestion of contingency which the indicative verb lacks. Cum quo is in some slight contrast with per angelum, below: first Tertullian rejects the idea of the angel as a partner or attendant, then that of an agent for an absent principal.
13 salutificator. Oehler's index gives these references: in every case there is a scriptural text in the background, and in each case a variant reading: De Res. Carn. 47 = Philippians 3.20 (swth&r): Adv. Marc. ii. 19 = Psalm 24 (23). 4 (
pata_ qeou~ swth~roj au)tou~): De Ieiunio 6= Deuteronomy 32. 15 (
a)po_ qeou~ swth~roj au)tou~): De Pud. 2 = 1 Timothy 4. 10 (swth_r pa&ntwn a)nqrw&pwn). The last reference, with
e0pi\ qew~| zw~nti in the context, suggests that here deus is right and dominus (T) due to editing.
15 cur ergo descendit. ipse is in T alone; without it the emphasis of the sentence is on descendit, where it ought to be, for this word (and concept) here appears for the first time.
17 magni consilii angelus. T has angelus magni cogitatus, here as below. Kroymann suggests that magni consilii angelus is an editorial alteration based on
mega&lhj boulh~j a!ggeloj (Isaiah 9. 5 LXX). It seems equally possible that (certainly with that text in mind) Tertullian wrote magni consilii angelus, and in the next half- sentence proceeded to interpret this as magnum cogitatum, equating boulh&
with bou&leuma. In that case it is T which has the edited text. Also, the explanation id est nuntius comes more naturally if angelus has just preceded: as below. Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 17. 3, has magni consilii patris nuntius. LXX makes heavy weather of the whole verse, so that the 'Prince of the Five Names' does not appear. Tertullian quotes the earlier part of the verse Adv. Marc. iii. 19.
21 nam et filius etc. Luke 20. 9-18. Deo vineae (T) is mani- festly wrong. Vinitores (T) is attractive, though the word means 'vine-dressers' (Virgil, Ecl. x. 36), not 'vine-growers': and why
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should XRB have altered it to cultores? If Tertullian wrote viticultores
both readings are accounted for.
27 quomodo videbitur angelum induisse seems to give the required sense. The contestants did not say that the Son became an angel, or was an angel, but that an angel occupied the place of the soul which had ceased to be soul by turning into flesh: angelum induisse is the way that would be expressed. If we read with T we must remove the comma which Kroymann puts after angelus, and translate, 'How shall it have come about that an angel has been, in the manner indicated, made lower than angels by becoming man etc.?' It is possible that Tertullian wrote angelum, leaving induisse or gestasse, or some such word, to be understood, and that T's prototype short-sightedly altered this to the nominative.
29 qua autem spiritus dei etc. Luke 1. 35: cf. Adv. Prax. 26, 27, and my Introduction, pp. 65-70. Kroymann suggests the deletion of this sentence on the ground that it has nothing to do with the present argument, and that the required safeguard against the misunderstanding of the previous sentence comes a few lines lower in the remarks on the Ebionites. This is misconceived, it being quite in Tertullian's style to interrupt his argument with a passing caution (as an orator would interject an 'aside' in making a speech): and in fact there is no anticipation of the remarks on the Ebionites.
31 tanto non, dum etc. All the authorities are at fault here: tanto (TB) is evidently right: non, dum is from Gelenius. It does not appear that, for the second gestat, any editor has suggested gestet, though that is the mood required: for in fact the Son did not take to himself an angel—a mere supposition of Tertullian's opponent.
32 poterit haec opinio etc. If sequence of tenses is of any account, poterit is the correct form, with edicat following: poterat could be the correction of one who recollected that Ebion (if there ever was such a person) had long been dead when Tertullian wrote. According to Irenaeus, from whom our other authorities copy the information, the Ebionite doctrine of Christ was in
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agreement with that of Cerinthus and Carpocrates, namely, that Jesus was nudus homo ( =
yilo_j a!nqrwpoj), the son of Joseph and Mary, and that Christ (apparently a kind of semi-divine
personage) came upon him at his baptism and left him before his crucifixion. Tertullian's other references to the Ebionites mention only their observance of the Mosaic law, and say nothing about their doctrine of Christ. In the present passage we seem to have
indications of a doctrine somewhat different from that described by Irenaeus, namely that Jesus was a mere man, not exactly possessed by any semi-divine 'power', but inspired in the same manner as the prophets were inspired. Prophetis aliquo gloriosiorem must be taken as one of Tertullian's ironical interjections, meaning that if it were the case that Jesus was a mere man, then he was
somewhat less reticent about his own importance and greatness than the prophets were about theirs: which of course is true, as
Tertullian shows in the following sentence, and as is evident from the Gospels in which our Lord is recorded as having from the
beginning made himself the subject of his own preaching and as having represented himself as the indispensable and only Mediator and way of access to the Father. Gloriosior is an intentionally offensive word, indicating that if the Ebionite doctrine of Christ were true, then we should have to regard him as having said too much about himself: but the odium of the offensive term is thrown back upon the heretics who provoke it. Whether we read aliquo or aliquid, it makes no difference to the meaning: Kroymann's aliquot could only mean 'more boastful than a certain number of prophets'— though it is unlikely that that was the meaning intended.
34 ut ita in illo angelum fuisse dicat (or edicat, or even dicatur) is apparently the right reading. Ut introduces a
consecutive clause dependent on constituit (plane...gloriosiorem being parenthetic): ita is balanced by quemadmodum, below. This is in some slight contradiction with angelum gestavit, angelum induisse, above: but Tertullian is not now concerned with the main theme of this chapter, his answer to sed et angelum gestavit, but with a supposed parallel with the inspiration of Zechariah which he
suggests that the Ebionite doctrine amounts to. In nonnullis (TB
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Kroymann) will not do: Zechariah is the only prophet of whom such a statement is made, and moreover the sentence in this form is pointless. Between dicatur (TB) and edicat (XR) there is not much to choose, though the latter seems too strong a word and I suspect the prefix has been borrowed from fuisse: the passive of dicere commonly introduces scriptural references, which is not the case here.
39 quid ultra etc. It is difficult to imagine how audi got into the text unless it (and the accusatives) were original. Quid ultra etc. seems to expect something new, which the text from Isaiah in fact provides, returning from the digression about the Ebionites and summarizing the argument of the whole chapter (as often) in a scriptural quotation. If the preliminary et (T) has any authority at all, perhaps we should read ecquid: certainly not sed (Kroymann).
CHAPTER XV
The Valentinian theory that Christ's flesh was spiritual is, no less than the theories we have examined, discountenanced by the express statements of our Lord himself, as of the prophets and apostles, that he is truly Man. One of the Valentinians objects (a) that if Christ did possess earthly and human substance, that would make him inferior to the angels: and (b) that truly human flesh would need to be born, as we are, of the will of a man. He quotes texts which he thinks prove his case, and asks (c) why, if our flesh is like his, we do not rise again the third day, or alternatively, why his flesh did not see corruption. These are the sort of questions the heathen raise, though with better excuse. We answer (a) that there is good scriptural authority for saying that in some sense Christ was made inferior to the angels: (b) that the heretics are inconsistent, professing a sort of incarnation while denying Christ's humanity: and (c) that the time for our
resurrection has not come, and will not, until Christ has put all his enemies (including these heretics) beneath his feet.
1 licuit etc. It is surprising that someone with an itch for correcting Latin prose has not suggested libuit: but cf. §3, hoc putas
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arbitrio tuo licuisse. On ex privilegio haeretico cf. §1, licentia haeretica, and the note there: it appears that the presumption which has assumed a permission which has not been granted has now become so inveterate as to be the basis of a claim for privilegium, the right to take the initiative on any subject of discussion.
1 carnem Christi spiritalem comminisci. Again, why has not someone suggested Christo? Caro spiritalis is evidently, in this context, flesh constructed of, or condensed from, spirit. But 'spirit' to the Valentinians had a special meaning. The lower Wisdom, Achamoth, despite her fall, retained some traces of the divine or spiritual essence of her mother Sophia. These, without being conscious of it, she in part communicated to her son Craftsman, the non-divine creator of the world: he in turn,
himself unknowing, passed on, in part, this semen spiritale to his creation. It is this seed, breathed with the breath into Adam, which when ripened (adultum) becomes competent to receive (suscipere, i.e. physically assimilate) the sermo perfectus. Cf. Adv. Val. 25, and passim. Spirit, in this context of thought, does not mean (as elsewhere in Tertullian) the divine Word, but a kind of rather less than divine substance, which (presumably) the divine Christ collected from Achamoth on his way down to earth, and converted into the semblance of flesh.
4 ex qua substantia could conceivably mean 'with what confidence or assurance': cf. Adv. Prax. 31, and my note. But, if this seems too far-fetched, it may be better to take it as 'in view of what substance', seeing that the Valentinians held Christ to be divine and his flesh 'spiritual', and so left him with nothing in any sense human. Se, supplied by Ursinus after ipse, now appears in T in a less suitable place: its omission altogether is not un- paralleled.
8 et homo est etc. At Jeremiah 17. 9 LXX has baqei=a h( kardi/a para_ pa&nta kai\ a!nqrwpo&j e0stin kai\ ti/j gnw&setai au)to&n;
misreading [Hebrew] (weak or sickly) as [Hebrew] (man, or mankind): English R.V. 'The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?' Lat. vg. Pravum est cor omnium et inscrutabile: quis cognoscet illud? The text is quoted (also from
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LXX) by Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 18. 2, quis est autem qui communicavit nobis de escis (1 Cor. 10. 16)? utrum is qui ab illis affigitur sursum Christus superextensus Horo, id est fini, et formavit eorum Matrem: an vero qui ex virgine est Immanuel qui butyrum et mel manducavit, de quo ait propheta, Et homo est et quis cognoscet eum? Cf. also ibid, iii. 20. 2 where the text is quoted against those who allege that Joseph was his father: and ibid. iv. 55. 2 among a long series of prophetic testimonies to Christ. Tertullian, Adv. Marc. iii. 7 in reference to the day of judgement, and in illustration of Zechariah 12. 12, cognoscent eum qui compugerunt: so also Adv. Jud. 14.
12 virum vobis a deo destinatum: so De Pud. 21. At Acts 2. 22 a)podedeigme/non appears to mean 'shown to be what we claim him to be', or 'approved' (in the older sense of that word): Tertullian seems to take it to mean 'appointed' or 'predestined', which will not suit its original context. Lat. vg. approbatum.
13 vice does not mean 'instead of but 'as equivalent to': cf. Apol. 17, the demons vice rebellantium ergastulorum sive carcerum vel metallorum vel hoc genus poenalis servitutis, 'after the manner of rebellious slaves etc.': ibid. 48, mundi species temporalis, quae illi dispositioni aeternitatis aulaei vice oppansa est, 'after the manner of a drop-curtain'. The texts quoted ought to serve as a praescriptio and preclude all further argument, and would do so if it were possible for heretics to be unprejudiced, and so forth.
15 imaginariae, XRB: the double reading of T, putative imaginarie, only means that the copyist wrote down the wrong word out of his head and immediately referred to his copy and wrote the right one as well.
15 sine studio etc. Studium is prejudice in favour of a person or opinion: so Tacitus, Ann. I.1 sine ira et studio, 'without rancour or partiality'. Artificium contentionis hints that the discussion or conflict was by far-fetched devices kept alive long after the question ought to have been settled: at Adv. Marc. v. 20 per in- vidiam et contentionem translates Philippians 1. 15
dia_ fqo&non kai\ e1rin, to which there is also a veiled reference here.
16 quendam ex Valentini factiuncula will be the Alexander dismissed briefly in §17. Factiuncula comes from Bmg. T: the
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difficulty is that the Valentinianism was not a small faction, but a wide-spread and influential movement. There is just a possibility that ratione (XRB) may be right: if via can mean the Christian religion, it is conceivable that ratio may mean a school of thought.
18 informatam can hardly mean indutam, as Oehler's index suggests, but more probably 'was brought into shape', 'was given organic form', namely, by the spiritus dei (in Tertullian's sense of that term), which (or who) formed and brought into organic shape that which was conceived in the virgin's womb.
20 similem nostri carnem is only intelligible if nostri stands for nostrae, the feminine dative singular: if not, we should read nostrae, as below, par nostrae.
21-24 et cur... dissoluta est? I assign these three sentences to a supposed objector. The last two, which form a dilemma, are perfectly clear. The first seems to have troubled the editors, including Kroymann, who has altered the text into something quite unintelligible. The objector is supposed to say, 'If Christ had true human flesh, how do you account for the text, "Not of corruption but of incorruption"?' The fact that I Peter 1. 23, a)nagegennhme/noi ou)k e0k spora~j fqarth~j a)lla_ a)fqa&rtou, has no bearing on the subject, would not trouble a controversialist, any more than Jeremiah 17. 9 (above) troubled Tertullian.
25 exhaustus is evidently correct, as a reference to Philippians 2. 7 exhausit semetipsum accepta effigie servi (so quoted Adv. Marc. v. 20). Exhibitus (T) is meaningless in this context: its true sense is to be observed De Pat. 1, uti pudor non exhibendi quod aliis suggestum imus exhibendi fiat magisterium
('exemplifying' or 'displaying'): Adv. Marc. ii. 23, exhibe bonum semper ('put in evidence a man who is always good'—if you can): De Res. Carn. 17, haec erit ratio in ultimum finem destinati iudicii, ut exhibitione carnis omnis divina censura perfici possit (what is elsewhere called repraesentatio, almost 'bringing into court').
28 non credendo credunt seems to mean that the heathen, though they do not assent to the faith, at least know what it is
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that Christians believe, whereas heretics credendo non credunt, profess to believe, while refusing to accept the faith as we know it.
29 minorasti etc. Psalm 8. 5 is often quoted, as is Psalm 22. 6, always in conjunction with these texts from Isaiah 52, 53: e.g. Adv. Marc. iii. 7, 17; iv. 21.
34 hominem deo mixtum: see the Introduction, page viii.
CHAPTER XVI
Alexander argues that since, as he supposes, our belief is that Christ's purpose in taking flesh of human origin was to bring to nought sinful flesh, the implication is that Christ's flesh was sinful —a conclusion abhorrent both to him and to us. 'Bring to nought in himself the flesh of sin' is not precisely the expression we use, and even if it were, his conclusion would not follow: for evidently Christ's flesh, since it is now in heaven and is to come again in glory, has not been brought to nought: and as in it there was no guile it was not sinful. Our position in fact is, not that sinful flesh was brought to nought in Christ, but that the sin of the flesh was—the guilt of it, not the substance. When the apostle says that Christ was in the likeness of sinful flesh he does not mean the mere likeness of flesh and not its reality, but that Christ's flesh, itself sinless, was in the likeness of ours which is sinful, being like ours in natural kind but not like ours in defect. Thus sin was brought to nought in Christ's flesh in that it, being sinless, was the same flesh as in us is sinful. Moreover there would have been nothing noteworthy in his bringing to nought the sin of the flesh in flesh of a different kind from that which in us is sinful: nor would it have been feasible for him to do it. So then, it was our flesh he assumed; though in assuming it he made it his own, that is, sinless. As for the suggestion (§15) that Christ's flesh cannot have been our sort of flesh, because it was conceived without male seed, the case of Adam is our answer: for his flesh was constructed out of earth, also without the usual act of procreation.
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This chapter completes Tertullian's answer to the cavils noted in the previous chapter, mentioning first a further objection raised by Alexander, based on the Pauline phrase, 'in the likeness of sinful flesh', and 'condemned sin in the flesh', and then
reverting to a previous allegation that there could have been no truly human flesh apart from the act of a human father.
That Tertullian has given the correct interpretation of' likeness of flesh of sin' will no doubt be generally admitted. What he says here is summarized from what he had already written Adv. Marc. v. 14:
Though it is true that the Father sent Christ into the likeness of flesh of sin, it will not follow that the flesh which was visible in him was a phantasm. St Paul has already (Romans 7. 18, 23) attributed sin to the flesh, and has described the flesh as the law of sin dwelling in our members, hostile to the law of the mind (legi sensus). So he means that the Son was sent into the likeness of sinful flesh for the purpose of redeeming sin with a like substance, a fleshly substance, which was like sinful flesh while itself not sinful. Nam et haec erit dei virtus, in substantia pari perficere salutem. It would have been nothing noteworthy for the Spirit of God (i.e. the divine Word) to bring remedy to the flesh: the great thing was for flesh like sinful flesh to do this, while it was indeed flesh but not flesh of sin. Thus 'likeness' will apply only to 'of sin' (similitude ad titulum peccati pertinebit), but will not extend to denial of the substance. He would not have added 'of sin' if his
intention had been to indicate only likeness of substance while denying its verity: he would have said merely 'likeness of flesh'. But the form he has used, 'of the flesh of sin', involves an affirmation of the substance, the flesh, while it relates the similitude to the defect (vitium) of the substance, the sin. But even supposing he had said 'likeness of the substance' there would still have been no denial of the verity of the substance. If you ask in what sense flesh which is 'like' is also 'true', this is because it is indeed veritable, though not conceived of seed of like status, yet veritable in descent and quality.1 There is no likeness or similitude in the case of opposites: spirit could not be referred to as
'the likeness of flesh', nor could flesh be in the likeness of spirit. If a thing were not what it was visible as, the right word for it would be
1 This sentence is difficult, as editorial attempts at emendation show: what is written above is a paraphrase.
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'phantasm'. 'Likeness' is the word used when a thing is what it is visible as: and it 'is' when it is equal to or like that other thing. A phantasm, if only a phantasm, is not a 'likeness'.
At De Res. Carn. 46, for a different purpose, the same method is employed: misso deus filio suo in simulacra carnis delinquentiae et per delinquentiam damnavit delinquentiam in carne, non carnem in delinquentia: neque enim domus cum habitatore damnabitur. habitare enim peccatum dixit in corpore nostro. damnata autem delinquentia caro absoluta est, sicut indemnata ea legi mortis et delinquentiae obstricta est. Something of the same kind had already appeared in Irenaeus, Haer. iii, 21. 2, quoniam et ipse in similitudine carnis peccati factus est, uti condemnaret peccatum et iam quasi condemnatum proiceret illud extra carnem: but Irenaeus, as a good pastor, proceeds, provocaret autem in similitudinem suam hominem, imitatorem eum assignans deo, and more to the same effect.
2 Alexander ille. Oehler observes, 'non constat de eo'. But ille identifies him with the individual ex Valentini factiuncula who wrote the book referred to in § 15. Locum sibi fecit may mean 'has made himself conspicuous', though his theory seems hardly significant enough for that: so possibly the meaning is 'has broached the topic', or something of that nature.
3 ut evacuaret etc. is inaccurately adapted (by Alexander, not by Tertullian) from Romans 6. 6,
o( palaio_j h(mw~n a!nqrwpoj sunestaurw&qh, i3na katarghqh|~ to_ sw~ma th~j a(marti/aj. Katargei=n, regularly represented by evacuare, need mean no more than 'bring into desuetude', though frequently it appears from its context to mean 'destroy'. Later in this chapter evacuavit peccatum in carne is an inaccurate rendering of Romans 8. 3,
kate/krine th_n a(marti/an e0n th~| sarki/. The substitution of evacuavit for condemnavit is accounted for by quotation from memory: apparently Tertullian thought this text belonged to the Romans 6 context, for
immediately afterwards, quoting the other half of Romans 8. 3 e0n o(moiw&mati sarko_j a(marti/aj, he says et alibi inquit—which causes Kroymann needless concern.
8 in suggestu. Oehler's index says the word means apparatus, ornatus, which appears to be the case in many of the places referred
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to. Here however it has its original meaning of the raised seat of a judge or king.
9 adeo, ut evacuatam etc. This is the punctuation I wrote in my copy of Oehler long ago: Kroymann agrees. Adeo once more stands for ideo: see a note on § 7 and Adv. Marc. v. 14, adeo et carnis resurrectionem confirmavit. The MSS. here are in some confusion. After non possumus dicere a relative clause is needed, to balance in qua dolus non fuit at the end of the sentence. Kroymann's quia non est evacuata, despite the partial support of T, is mere tautology. I long ago thought the lost words were quae in caelis est.
12 non materiam sed naturam. If, as previously suggested, natura indicates the essential attributes of an object, and since in this context natura is balanced by culpa, we must suppose that the vitium shortly to be referred to has taken such hold upon humanity as to be no fortuitous accident but to have become a factor in what St Augustine calls natura secunda: that is, Tertullian, with his usual sense of realities, is prepared to face the fact of original sin (vitium), and original guilt (culpa).
18 Adae aequanda was my own correction of Oehler's text. Adaequanda is now restored by Kroymann from T: but I still think the reference to Adam is necessary, (1) because aequare seems to require a secondary object in the dative, and (2) because the reference to Adam at the end of the chapter (an anticipation of what is to come later), along with ipsum, seems to have been suggested by the mention of his name here.
22 neque ad proposition etc. Christ's propositum, purpose, was to cleanse human nature from within itself, and not by some external act of divine power: his glory is to have done this in human weakness, by the hiding of his power.
25 naevum peccati peremit is a conflation of the MS. readings. T has vim peccati peremit, which is easy: the others either have or attest naevum peccati redemit. It is difficult to account for the unusual word naevus unless Tertullian wrote it, though redemit is hardly a suitable verb. Naevus is a birth-mark, a
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fault or disfiguration with which one is born, and is thus a fair enough metaphor for original sin: the way to remove it is not by paying a price but by submitting to a surgical operation, for which perimere is a more appropriate word than redimere.
30 quia non fuit. Fuerit (T) would be syntactically correct if the statement implied in the subordinate clause were merely a supposition or allegation of those who denied that Christ's flesh was human flesh: but in Tertullian's view it was no supposition of his adversaries but a fact drawn from Scripture and affirmed by himself—for which reason he would write fuit (so, for that matter, would Cicero).
31 sicut terra etc. See the passages from Irenaeus quoted on the following chapter.
CHAPTER XVII
Leaving these a priori arguments, we restate the crucial question as one of fact: Was the flesh that was Christ's derived from his mother, or not? If it was, then it was human flesh by virtue of its human origin—and this apart from further proofs, which also are matters of fact, namely, his being habitually described as man, as well as such human characteristics as that he could be touched and handled, and that his passion issued in death. But the first question of all is why it was requisite that he should be born of a virgin. It was because, as the author of the new birth, he must himself be born in a new manner, thus constituting the 'sign' of which Isaiah spoke. This new birth, by which man is born in God, begins at the point at which God was born in man, taking human flesh without the agency of human seed, so that having first cleansed it of its guilt he might reshape it of new and spiritual seed. This newness, in all its aspects, was prefigured in the old. It was virgin soil which brought forth the first Adam, a virgin mother who brought forth the second or last Adam: and observe in passing that the apostle's use of the term 'second Adam' is a proof of Christ's humanity. Moreover the Incarnation is a
reversal of the Fall: so that, as the word of temptation entering into
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Eve engendered death, so the Word of God entering into Mary engendered life: the evil effect of Eve's credulity is set right by Mary's faith: the offspring of Eve was the wicked brother, his brother's slayer, while the offspring of Mary was the good Brother, his brother's Saviour. Christ must needs be born of woman, so as to undo the evil wrought before the first woman conceived.
The subject of this chapter is also discussed Adv. Marc. iv. 10, where the argument takes a different form; briefly as follows:
We begin with two postulates, (1) that when Christ called himself the Son of Man he cannot have been lying, and (2) that no one can be a man without at least one human parent: consequently we must ask, in his case, whether this parent was father or mother. It is admitted that God is his father, and (since God is not a man) it follows that the human parent was his mother. Since God and not man is his father, it follows that his mother is a virgin: otherwise he will have two fathers, which is like the heathen stories of Castor and of Hercules. Since then he is Son of Man by descent from his mother, and since, because he has no human father, his mother is a virgin, we have the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy. If Marcion says a man was his father, he denies the divine sonship: if he says that God is the father of his manhood, the idea is heathenish: if that his manhood is from his mother, he agrees with me: if that it is from neither father nor mother, he makes Christ a liar. From this last result only one thing can save him, namely, to affirm that Marcion's god, the father of Marcion's Christ, is a man (as Valentinus did by putting Anthropos in the pleroma), or to allege that the Virgin is not human (which even Valentinus did not presume to do).
[What Tertullian means by this last alternative is not very clear: I suspect we should perhaps read et for aut both times—'to affirm, that Marcion's god is a man, while denying that the Virgin is human'. See a note on page 109.]
Much of what Tertullian says in this and the following chapters seems to have been borrowed from Irenaeus, as the following citations show: though perhaps by this time many things that Irenaeus had written had become the standard Christian expositions of the texts referred to.
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Iren. Haer. iii. 31. Si igitur primus Adam habuit patrem hominem et ex semine viri natus est, merito dicerent et secundum Adam ex Joseph esse generatum. si autem ille de terra quidem sumptus est et verbo dei plasmatus est, oportebat id ipsum verbum recapitulationem Adae in semetipsum faciens eiusdem generationis habere similitudinem. quare igitur non iterum sumpsit limum deus, sed ex Maria operatus est plasmationem fieri? ut non alia plasmatio fieret neque alia esset plasmatio quae salvaretur sed eadem ipsa recapitularetur, servata similitudine. errant igitur qui dicunt eum nihil ex virgine accepisse, ut abiciant carnis haereditatem, abiciant autem et similitudinem. si enim ille quidem de terra et manu et artificio dei plasmationem et substantiam habuit, hic autem non manu et artificio dei, iam non servavit similitudinem hominis qui factus est secundum imaginem ipsius et similitudinem, et inconstans artificium videbitur, non habens circa quod ostendat sapientiam suam. hoc autem dicere est et putative apparuisse eum, et tanquam hominem cum non esset homo, et factum eum hominem nihil assumentem de homine. si enim non accepit ab homine substantiam carnis, neque homo factus est, neque filius hominis: et si hoc non factus est quod nos eramus, non magnum faciebat quod passus est et sustinuit. nos autem quoniam corpus sumus de terra acceptum et anima accipiens a deo spiritum omnis quicunque confitebitur. hoc itaque factum est verbum dei, suum plasma in semetipsum recapitulans. et propter hoc filium hominis se confitetur et beatificat mites quoniam ipsi haereditabunt terram: et apostolus Paulus in epistula quae est ad Galatas manifeste ait, Misit deus filium suum factum de muliere [et Rom. i. 3, 4].
Iren. Haer. v. 21. Misit deus filium suum, factum de muliere. Neque enim iuste victus fuisset inimicus nisi ex muliere homo esset qui vicit eum. per mulierem enim homini dominatus est ab initio,
semetipsum contrarium statuens homini. propter hoc et dominus semetipsum filium hominis confitetur, principalem hominem ilium, ex quo ea quae secundum mulierem est plasmatio facta est, in semetipsum
recapitulans : uti quemadmodum per hominem victum descendit in mortem genus nostrum, sic iterum per hominem victorem ascendamus in vitam: et quemadmodum accepit palmam mors per hominem adversus nos, sic iterum nos adversus mortem per hominem accipiamus palmam.
On St Matt. 1. 20, the following observation is worth recording:
[Justin] Quaestt. et Responss. ad Orthod. [acc. to Bardenhewer, by an unknown author of the 5th century or later): resp. 133,
'Iwsh&f, fhsi/n,
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ui9o_j Daui/d, mh_ fobhqh~|j paralabei=n Maria_m th_n gunai=ka& sou. to_ ga_r e0k gunaiko&j tinoj xwri\j pornei/aj tikto&menon ui9o&j e0stin e0c a)na&gkhj tou~ a)ndro_j kai\ th~j gunaiko&j, w|{ tro&pw| bou&letai o( qeo_j dou~nai ui9o_n tw|~ a)ndri/, h2 dia_ sunafei/aj h2 xwri\j sunafei/aj. That is, 'pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant'.
1 remisso Alexandro etc. I suspect that Syllogismi was the title of the book written by Alexander. Tertullian's dislike of syllogisms stems from his general dislike of argumentation, for he seems never to use argumentari for argument of which he approves. He disapproved, in fact, of deductive argument altogether, for he regarded theology not as a deductive science deriving its
conclusions by syllogistic reasoning from one transcendental first principle or major premiss, but as bound to work by induction from the recorded facts of Scripture or from what was implied in the faith and practice of the Church. The Psalms of Valentinus are referred to again in §20, and not (apparently) elsewhere: Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 11. 12, says that the later Valentinians had compiled a 'Gospel of Truth', and, ibid, 1 praef., that they pos- sessed certain
u(pomnh&mata, 'Commentaries', which he had read. The subject of interserit is Alexander.
4 linea (like gradus) is used for a position taken up in
discussion. The primary reference would be to the line marked in the ring at a wrestling-match, congressio.
4 an carnem Christus ex virgine etc. There are two questions involved: (1) whether it was, or was not, human flesh which Christ derived from his virgin mother: (2) whether it was from his mother herself that he derived what he did derive, or whether what appeared to be his human flesh was not derived from her but merely passed through her without her contributing anything to it. The present chapter deals with the former question: the other is discussed in § 18. What was not in question by either party was the truth of the scriptural statement that Christ was conceived (or at least, appeared to be conceived) without the normal process of human procreation. The virginity of Mary was admitted (or even insisted on) by both parties: arguments may be drawn from it or
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explanations given of its reasonableness (as here), but, except in the presence of Ebionites, it was never necessary to argue to it.
6 licuit is from liquere, not from licere: liquuit (introduced by Mesnart) has no MS. authority, and is not Latin. It is already clear from the four considerations mentioned, without need of further discussion, that Christ's substantia is human: he was
referred to as 'Son of man', he 'was found in fashion as a man', he was touched and handled (Luke 24. 39, 1 John 1.1), and he died a human death.
8 commendanda, 'must be recommended for consideration': Kroymann, with greater felicity than usual, prints commentanda, 'must be discussed' or 'considered'. Ratio, once more, is the precedent cause, the thought in the mind of God which saw that this form of birth was necessary.
10 novae nativitatis dedicator. The meaning of nova nativitas, both here and below, depends on the correct reading in the latter context. If T is correct, with ex quo in homine, the new birth is that which is the beginning of the Christian life, or of the eternal life of which all Christians are heirs. If in quo homine is correct, the new birth, in the second mention of it, is the birth of Christ: the earlier reference (with dedicator) will still be to Christian regeneration: the sign (Isaiah 7. 14) is a sign concerning this precisely because it is itself the birth of Emmanuel, and it was his act which was to make this regeneration possible.
13 Emmanuelem, nobiscum deum. The reading of T looks like an editorial accommodation to the text of Matthew 1. 23.
14 ex quo in homine (T) seems to give the more satisfactory sense. It would hardly be true to imply, with the other authorities, that Christ was born in man already regenerate. But I wonder if Tertullian did not write quo in homine, using quo for quoniam as e.g. De Orat. 1 (several times).
15 ut illam novo semine etc. This clause states the purpose (not the manner) of the Incarnation, illam referring to caro antiqui seminis in general, and not to caro a Christo suscepta. It comprises three statements: (1) of the fact of regeneration through Christ,
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and of the new constitution built up from that new birth by the operation of spiritual seed (i.e. the divine Word): (2) of Christ's redemptive sacrifice by which previous guilt is removed: and (3), by the tense of the participle expiatam, of the logical precedence of the latter. With some hesitation I have accepted spiritali from T: semine spiritali, if it is the true reading, will be a reminiscence of 1 Peter 1. 23,
ou)k e0k spora~j fqarth~j a)lla_ a)fqa&rtou dia_ lo&gou zw~ntoj qeou~ kai\ me/nontoj, in the line of Tertullian's practice of using 'spirit' of all or any of the divine Persons.
17 sed tota novitas ista etc. The general meaning of this sentence is that there is a parallel, both in the fact itself and in various subsidiary respects (which are indicated in the sentences which follow) between the virginal birth of Christ and the
virginal birth of man as he was first born to the Lord (homine domino nascente) when God formed him of the dust of the earth. Rationali dispositione seems to mean, 'by an ordinance or act of God the reasons for which were pre-existent in God's mind'.
19 virgo erat etc. I wonder if Tertullian did not write nondum vomere compressa, in the sense familiar to readers of Terence. There follows a reference to 1 Corinthians 15. 45,
ei0j yuxh_n zw~san ... ei0j pneu~ma zwopoiou~n, which is St Paul's commentary on Genesis 2.7.
26 sed et hic etc. Ratio defendit, 'God's intention supplies the answer'—as an advocate answers a question raised in court. This sentence refers only to the main question, why the apostle calls Christ the second Adam, not to the qualification of that question, 'if his manhood was not of terrestrial origin'. Aemulus in
Tertullian invariably means 'opposite' or 'hostile'.
29 Kroymann's insertion of diaboli before verbum is unnecessary: Tertullian's readers did not need to have every point driven home with a sledge-hammer: and, if we must be precise, the word required is serpentis. The parallel and contrast here indicated between Eve and Mary is abbreviated somewhat from Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 32. 1.
33 haec credendo delevit. Between the two readings there is not much to choose, and it is not easy to see how the variation
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arose. Correxit gives a better balance with deliquit, but delevit makes a sort of assonance which is attractive.
34-35 ut abiecta pareret. Genesis 3. 16, 'Thy desire shall be to thine husband, and he shall rule over thee': et in dolorous pareret, 'in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children'. Cf. Adv. Marc. ii. 11, statim mulier in doloribus parere et viro servire damnatur, sed quae ante sine ulla contristatione per benedictionem incrementum generis audierat, Crescite tantum et multiplicamini, sed quae in adiutorium masculo, non in servitium, fuerat destinata.
40 quo homo iam damnatus intraverat. This seems to mean that Scripture does not make the statement Adam cognovit uxorem suam (Genesis 4. 1) until after their condemnation and expulsion from Paradise. See my Latin note at the end of the introduction to §23, page 179.
CHAPTER XVIII
If Christ had been conceived of human seed there would have been no room for divine sonship. Being already the Son of God, of the Father's seed (which is spirit), he needed only to take to himself human flesh, without the agency of man's seed. Before the Incarnation God was his Father and he had no mother: at the Incarnation the blessed virgin became his mother and no man was his father. From God he derived his divinity <and his
personality>, from his mother his humanity <without personality>. Consequently the body born of the virgin was of her substance. When it says that the Word was made flesh it certainly does not mean that the Word transmuted part of himself into flesh. As it only says 'what' the Word was made, and not 'out of what', it leaves us to understand that it means 'out of something else' and not out of himself: and 'out of what' more likely than out of that flesh within which he was made flesh? In the statement That which is born in the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit, both clauses alike apply both to him and to those who believe in him: for it cannot be supposed that the first part applies only to other men (for this would be a denial of Christ's manhood) and the second part both to him and to believers. So
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it does state that of the Spirit he was born of God, while of the flesh and within flesh he was conceived as man.
In this chapter Tertullian proposes (or assumes) a thesis which he cannot express clearly in the terminology at his disposal. This is that, whatever may be the contribution of the mother to the corporal constitution of her offspring, and whatever may be the joint contribution of father and mother to the constitution of the soul (these being questions he discusses elsewhere, e.g. De Anima 36), the origin of the personality is in the father alone. What he needed was some means of differentiating (no real distinction is possible) between 'personality' and 'person'. This the Greek theologians possessed, at least from the late fourth century
onward, in the two terms u(po&stasij and
pro&swpon, in the sense conventionally imposed upon them: for which the Latins had to be content with persona alone. Tertullian, having no term for 'personality', is forced back to its point of origin, the paternal semen: a term which, suitable or not in the case of human
generation, needs a great deal of interpretation when transferred by analogy to the divine. This interpretation he supplies by his explanation ex patris dei semine, id est spiritu. But the explanation, if pressed, is itself misleading. It appears, however, that it is not intended to be pressed, but rather that wherever semen appears in divine connexion it is immediately to be interpreted as spiritus: for (as he explains frequently elsewhere) the text deus est spiritus indicates that 'spirit' (in this conventionally defined sense of the word) is the kind of 'substance' God is. His meaning then is, if we may express it in later terminology, that as in 'substance' (i.e. what he is) the Son is identical with the Father, so in
u(po&stasij (i.e. 'personality', who he is) the Son, not being identical with the Father, is begotten by him spiritu, by the divine fact (into which we forbear to enquire) of eternal generation. So then, as the Son from all eternity is a Person, possessing a divine
u(po&stasij, there is no room at the Incarnation for human paternity: for this would have brought into being a second
u(po&stasij—which is impossible, since Christ is one Person and not two. And as he was to be the same Person incarnate as he was from all eternity
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(habentem dei semen), human paternity was not only impracticable (non competebat) but otiose (vacabat).
By parity of reasoning it is maintained that as the Son possesses his divine nature and his
u(po&stasij by spiritual generation from the Father, so that which he is as man and Son of Man must be derived from his mother, and consequently is flesh as real as that within which it was formed. There is of course no suggestion that at the Annunciation there took place any divine act analogous to the process of human generation: in fact, in connexion with the Incarnation the question of paternity does not arise in any form whatever (as St Augustine explains at some length, Enchiridion 38). That such a misunderstanding could arise is shown by Justin's care to deny it (Apol. i. 33), and (without expressly mentioning it) Tertullian here tacitly excludes it by the phrase caro sine semine ex homine.
There is some doubt about certain details of the text and its punctuation, and it seems impossible to follow either group of authorities consistently throughout. I have in a few places corrected (as I hope) the punctuation, and have at least succeeded in making a text which will construe. The best contribution of T is its confirmation (in three places) of Mesnart's in semetipso for in semine ipso.
1 simplicius, 'more literally': by contrast with the allegories of §17, we now proceed to deal with texts which directly bear on the subject.
3 ut de Hebionis opinione etc. See a note on §14, line 32. Oehler's suggestion of ut should probably be accepted: et would require esset for erat.
12 igitur si fuit etc. Dispositio rationis refers back to dispositio rationalis in § 17. Kroymann's objection to super filium.. .proferen- dum is hard to understand: it is equally possible (if we are going to use Greek illustrations) to say
u(pe\r tou~ ui9ou~ or peri\ tou~ ui9ou~, and what Luke 24. 49 and Hebrews 1. 3 have to do with it (or with each other) is not apparent. Cur non ex virgine etc.: it being admitted (by both parties, as it seems) that there was at least the apparent birth of a human body from the blessed Virgin, what
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reason can there be for supposing that this birth was no more than apparent? There is in fact every reason for acknowledging it to have been real: and in that case the body that was born took its substance from that body of which it was born, and must be presumed to be of the same nature with it. Quid aliud est etc., must go with what precedes, however awkward it makes the end of the sentence: if attached to what follows it makes nonsense, and throws inquiunt too far from the beginning. The point is, that we know what it was that Christ received from God: and it follows (as already observed) that he must have received the rest from his human mother.
14 quoniam, inquiunt etc. suggests the opponents' presumed answer: vox ista etc. is Tertullian's further reply—if we affirm that it was from human flesh that the Word took the flesh in which he 'was made flesh', it does not follow that it was not the Word, but something unspecified, that was made flesh.
18 cum scriptura non dicat etc. Here we may disagree with our author. Unless we had reasons both scriptural and rational for knowing better, at least a possible interpretation of verbum caro factum est might have been that the Word conversant est in carnem, i.e., ex semetipso. But such an explanation would be quite contrary to the whole of the rest of our data, and would reduce the Incarnation to unreality and thereby stultify the doctrine of the Atonement.
22 vel quia etc., 'for other reasons, and especially because etc.' Sententialiter et definitive, like a judge or a jurisconsult making an authoritative and determinative statement.
23 quod in carne etc. The text is incorrectly quoted, both here and Adv. Prax. 27: John 3. 6,
to_ gegennhme/non e0k th~j sarko_j sa&rc e0sti. Once again we disagree: the text undoubtedly refers, in both its contrasting clauses, to ordinary human generation and regeneration, and has no immediate bearing on the Incarnation. But Tertullian is right in his claim that if the second clause (quod de spiritu etc.) refers to Christ, so does the first: and he is right also in his further suggestion that the whole sentence can only be true of believers because it is already true of Christ.
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26 atquin subicit . . . credentes ipsius. The whole of this should apparently be assigned to an objector, who (1) finishes the sentence half quoted (John 3. 6), and (2) adds two more of like character (John 4. 24 and 1. 13) with a comment on all three. The awkward use of the participle credentes as a substantive apparently arose from the collecting together of several applications of the verb
pisteu&ein in this context: and cf. John 7. 39, peri\ tou~ pneu&matoj ou{ e1mellon lamba&nein oi9 pisteu&santej ei0j au)to&n.
31 utramque substantiam . . . non negas. Tertullian's adversaries did not flatly deny the flesh of Christ: they merely cast doubts upon its origin, and consequently upon its nature. His claim here is that if they quote the second half of John 3. 6 in their own favour, they must be consistent and quote the first half in his : in which case the whole text is on his side.
33 conditione here apparently means both 'origin' and attributes or quality as determined by origin. In semetipso is my own alteration, for in semet ipse.
35 I have revised the punctuation of the concluding sentence, giving an eclectic text, which seems to make sense — as that of the MSS. and editors does not. There seems to be no important difference intended between natus and generatus, but only a stylistic variation: otherwise generatus (if it means more than 'conceived') would imply paternity at the Incarnation — which has just been denied.
CHAPTER XIX
The text John 1.13 (already referred to in passing), when read in the singular number, which is its only authentic form, refers not (as the Valentinians claim) to 'those who believe on his name' but to Christ himself: with the result that 'born of God' refers to his divinity, while 'not of blood, etc.' is a denial of human paternity. This, however, does not constitute a denial of human substance: for it does not say 'not of the flesh' but 'not of the will of the flesh', which is precisely what we mean by a denial of human paternity. A consideration of the physiology of conception shows
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this to be a valid interpretation of the text: and moreover the piling up of the three negative phrases indicates that Christ's flesh was of such reality that, apart from these denials, one might have supposed it to have been naturally, not supernaturally,
conceived. And, besides this, there would have been no use in his being conceived in the womb unless it was his intention to receive from his mother something which he did not yet possess: and this can only have been human flesh, of the same quality as hers.
1 quid est ergo etc. This sentence must be ascribed to the same supposed interlocutor who quoted part of it in the preceding chapter: Tertullian gives him the credit of quoting (as he thinks) the correct form of the text: he is not one of the adulteratores mentioned below.
2 ex deo natus est. The text in this form seems to be quoted only by 'western' authorities, and by these only infrequently. (Souter's apparatus criticus to John 1.13 says it is found in Ambrose and Augustine: the Benedictine indexes to these fathers make no mention of it.) It occurs in one fragmentary MS. of the Old Latin. Its first appearance (but no earlier appearance would have been possible) is by implication in Justin, Dial. 63, commenting on Isaiah 53. 8:
th_n genea_n au)tou~ ti/j dihgh&setai;-ou) dokei= soi lele/xqai w(j ou)k e0c a)nqrw&pwn e1xontoj to_ ge/noj tou~ dia_ ta_j a)nomi/aj tou~ laou~ ei0j qa&naton paradedo&sqai ei0rhme/nou u(po_ tou~ qeou~; peri\ ou{ kai\ Mwush~j tou~ ai3matoj . . . ai3mati stafulh~j ... th_n stolh_n au)tou~ plunei=n e1fh, w(j tou~ ai1matoj au)tou~ ou)k e0c a)nqrwpei/ou spe/rmatoj gegennhme/nou a)ll' e0k qelh&matoj qeou~. This differs somewhat from Tertullian's explanation, for Justin, paraphrasing 'but of God' as 'but by the will of God' makes the whole text refer to the Incarnation. Irenaeus had this passage of Justin in mind (Adv. Haer. iii. 20. 2): propter hoc generationem eius
quis enarrabit? quoniam homo est et quis agnoscet eum? cognoscit autem illum is cui pater qui est in caelis revelavit, ut intellegat quoniam is qui non ex voluntate carnis neque ex voluntate viri natus est filius hominis, hic est Christus filius dei vivi. Irenaeus also agrees with Justin as to the bearing of the concluding phrase: ibid. v. 1. 3: et propter hoc in fine, non ex voluntate carnis neque ex voluntate viri
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sed ex placito patris manus eius vivum perfecerunt hominem uti fiat Adam secundum imaginem et similitudinem dei. Apparently both Justin and Irenaeus thought that
a)ll' e0k qeou~ stood for a0ll' e0k qelh&matoj qeou~. In a note on Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 17. 1, W. W. Harvey explains how the variant could most easily have arisen in a Syriac version by the omission of one letter: but we should still have to account for [Syriac] (or [Syriac]) at the beginning of the sentence.
3 obduxero: cf. Apol. 50, sed obducimur, certe, cum obtinuimus. ergo vicimus cum occidimur, denique evadimus cum obducimur, where Souter translates 'are convicted', and Mayor's note suggests that this meaning arose from the practice of blindfolding criminals led to execution.
6 ut ostendant etc. I suspect that Kroymann may be mistaken in his suggestion that esse means 'really exist': it seems more natural for the words to mean 'that these (sc. believers in his name) are that mystic seed'. Semen illud arcanum: cf. Adv. Val. 25: Achamoth, they said, had unwittingly derived from her mother, the errant Wisdom, a certain portion of spiritual seed, which (no less unwittingly) she communicated to her son Demiurge (the gnostic creator). He in his turn, also unwittingly, when he breathed into Adam's nostrils and gave him a soul, gave him with it a portion of this spiritual seed. This it is which alone is capable of receiving and welcoming the 'perfect Word', and this alone is capable of salvation. This spiritual seed is the church, the reflexion or antitype (speculum) of the syzygy Man and Church within the Pleroma. So man consists of four elements: the spiritual derived through Achamoth, the 'animal' (i.e. soul) contributed by Demiurge, the choic (a sort of semi-material matter), and the flesh (which is matter as we know it). 'Saviour' also, when he made his appearance, had the counterparts of each of these four elements—spiritual from Achamoth, animal (psychic, soul) from Demiurge, but a corporal substance constructed of soul, so that he might be visible, and so forth, but might not have contact with matter, which is of necessity incapable of salvation—et totum hoc (says Tertullian) ut carnis nostrae habitum alienando a Christo a spe etiam salutis expellant. Quod sibi imbuunt would naturally mean
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'which they baptize for themselves', and perhaps it does: but cf. Adv.
Iud. 3, circumcisio carnalis, quae temporalis erat, imbuta est in signum populo contumaci, where the meaning seems to be 'was instituted': so perhaps here, 'which they invent for themselves'.
7 quomodo autem etc. Tertullian will not admit that, even in a secondary sense, the text Non ex sanguine etc. applies to the faithful. He has already (§18) stated his preference for the
interpretation of John 3. 6 as applicable to the Incarnation, and not to believers only. For it appears from De Baptismo 5-8 that he had no strong conception of baptismal regeneration. He describes the ceremonies of baptism in three stages, as follows:
(1) There is a washing with water, which conveys forgiveness of sins and restitution to God, ad similitudinem eius qui retro ad imaginem dei fuerat.1 This, according to Tertullian, is a preparatory ceremony, and its effectiveness derives not from any direct action of the divine Spirit, but from an angel who descends upon the water: non quod in aqua spiritum sanctum consequamur, sed in aqua emendati [?emundati] sub angelo spiritui sancto praeparamur. This remission or cleansing is obtained in response to faith sealed with the threefold Name of God: angelus baptismi arbiter spiritui sancto vias dirigit abolitione delictorum quam fides impetrat obsignata in patre et filio et spiritu sancto.2
(2) The unction follows. This had its ancient precedent in the anointing of priests. On account of it we are called Christians, just as Christ receives his title because of his anointing by the Father. Also, as baptism (sc. the washing already described) is a carnalis actus with a spiritalis effectus, so the unction carnaliter currit sed spiritaliter proficit.3
1 It seems more likely that eius in this sentence means Adam, perhaps with no sharp distinction between the second Adam and the first Adam in that state in which he was created. Borleffs (wrongly, I suspect) thinks eius means dei. 2 This probably refers not to the baptismal formula as such, but to the Creed, apparently a four-clause creed, adding to the divine names the mention of the Church, quae trium corpus est. There are several points of doctrine here which later teachers thought it more prudent tacitly to drop.
3 Unctio seems to mean the oil, not the act of anointing: and currit stands for manat.
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(3) There follows an imposition of the hand per benedictionem, advocans et invitans spiritum sanctum. At this point the most holy Spirit descends from the Father upon bodies which have been cleansed and blessed. A parallel is suggested with the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove at our Lord's baptism, and reference is made to the presence of the dove of peace at the cessation of the waters of the Flood.
In all this there is no reference to any regeneration or new birth unto everlasting life. The original sacramental act is limited in its effect to the remission of sins, and that only as preparatory to what Tertullian regards as the more spiritually effective acts of unction (the grace of which is not precisely defined) and benediction (which ensures the descent of the Holy Spirit). Further, it seems to be Tertullian's view that this conveyance of the supreme spiritual gift or presence is not the conveyance of a gift already corporately held by the Church (for there is no reference at this point to Pentecost) but is a repetition in each individual case of what was done at our Lord's own baptism. Tertullian appears nowhere to make any direct quotation of 1 Peter 1. 23 or of John 3. 7.
11 quia verbum dei etc. As already observed, Tertullian equates Luke 1. 35 (where he read spiritus dei and virtus altissimi) with John 1. 14 (verbum dei). See my notes Adv. Prax. 26. His meaning here is that at John 1. 13 only the negatives apply to the Incarnation: ex deo natus est applies to the eternal generation. The Incarnation, he suggests, was not an act of generation but of creation (factum est), and that creation took place ex dei voluntate.
15 formalis apparently construes with nativitatis: 'a nativity after our fashion' or 'according to our precedent'.
16 negans autem etc. I assign this sentence to the interlocutor, and suggest that we should read negarit for negavit: 'But when he denies, among other things, that he was born of the will of the flesh, why should we not take him to have denied also that he was born of the substance of the flesh?' Kroymann can only make sense by omitting quoque and cur, an entirely
illegitimate treatment of the authorities.
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18 neque enim etc. The general meaning of the sentence is perfectly clear, and the statement is near enough to the physiological truth to be acceptable. Kroymann's suggestion of colatum humorem for calorem is attractive, though the parallels he cites in support of it prove nothing: what is needed is some quotation from the medical writers to justify constat, failing which, collatum humorem would be better. The second half of the sentence, as it stands, is a simile drawn from the dairy: Kroymann's incaseatio (which he admits he invented) would turn the simile into a metaphor, and thus demand the removal of id est lactis. Vis (restored by Gelenius) could easily have fallen out through confusion with eius: though (if we could account for its omission) materies would be better.
22 intellegimus ergo etc. Kroymann here, amending the text of T, reads: intellegimus ergo ex concubitu nativitatem domini negatam, quod sapit et <'non> ex voluntate viri et carnis', <id est> non ex vulvae participatione. This could only be right if the precise
distinction between uterus and vulva, noted on page 179, applied here also and were unduly emphasized. But it appears from what follows that in the present chapter, as Kroymann himself prints it, the words are synonymous.
28 quia non perinde etc.: i.e. the text of the Gospel does not say non ex carne but non ex voluntate carnis, denying the existence of a father but not of a mother.
30 cur descendit in vulvam?, omitted by T (Kroymann) is necessary to complete the sense: oro vos introduces a peremptory question, not a statement interrupted by a parenthesis, as
Kroymann reconstructs these sentences. Tertullian supposed that the divine Word descendit in vulvam to effect his own incarnation: which is true, though not perhaps in the sense he intended.
30 potuit enim etc. The text is in some disorder, and probably extra vulvam (at the end) must be removed: it could have crept in as a marginal note on extra eam. Possibly also fieret should go, unless we read ut intra vulvam (T), which is awkward. But the meaning of the sentence is quite clear: flesh of spiritual origin or constitution, if there were such a thing, could have been formed with much less to-do without any pretence of a nativity at all. Cf.
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Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 31. 2, e0pei\ perissh_ kai\ h( ei0j th_n Mari/an au)tou~ ka&qodoj. ti/ ga_r kai\ ei0j au)th_n kath|&ei ei) mhde\n e1melle lh&yesqai par' au)th~j;
32 sed non etc. In Kroymann's critical note read 37 for 38. The text as given by Oehler is that of the authorities (except T) and makes good sense. Maxime.. .futurus can only mean praesertim si...futurus esset.
CHAPTER XX
The attempt of our opponents to substitute 'by the virgin' for
'of the virgin' must fail, as must their suggestion that' conceived in her' (Matthew 1. 20) excludes 'born of her'. The two
statements are not inconsistent: and our interpretation of them is confirmed by St Paul, who says 'made of a woman'—where by using the word 'made' he brings himself into verbal conformity with 'the Word was made flesh'. Also the twenty-second psalm is in our favour, where it says 'thou didst rend me out of my mother's womb', for evidently that which is rent away carries with it something of that from which it is rent—which as a physiological fact does happen at childbirth. Also the psalm says 'I hanged yet upon my mother's breasts', and it is well known that the milk does not flow unless there has been a veritable birth —a fact for which there are obvious physical reasons. So we
conclude this discussion with the observation that the reason for Christ's being born of a virgin was not that this was to be less than a true birth, but that our regeneration in Christ was to be of virgin purity.
The expression natum ex Maria virgine may be supposed to be derived from Luke 1. 35
to_ gennw&menon e0k sou~ a3gion. It is however not quite certain that
e0k sou~ is part of the text: it is absent from most Greek MSS., but occurs in 'western' authorities from the second century onwards. Tertullian himself has ex te (Adv. Prax. 26), in te (Adv. Marc. iv. 7, in a conflate quotation), but at Adv. Prax. 27 (in a secondary quotation) omits the phrase entirely: Souter's apparatus criticus should be corrected on this point. By their substitution of per virginem Tertullian's adversaries meant
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that Christ was not born 'of the Virgin in such a manner as to be in any real sense her son, but merely passed 'through' her: certain Apollinarians in the fourth century are reported to have added, more explicitly, 'as through a pipe'. In that case his apparently human body was not really human and was not real flesh, but was supposed to be some 'psychical' or 'spiritual' substance transformed into the appearance of flesh. Tertullian insists that the word is ex, and not per, and that the preposition must be understood in all its full implications, which he proceeds to elucidate in detail. See also Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 31 (quoted above on § 17), and v. 21. i : here also Rom. 1.3, 4 and Gal. 4. 4
are referred to. Justin, Dial. 100, quotes Luke i. 35 obliquely, dio_ kai\ to_ gevvw&menon e0c au)th~j a#gio&n e0stin
[probably read a#gion e1stai] ui9o_j qeou~, and immediately, without any special emphasis on the change of preposition, comments,
kai\ dia_ tau&thj gege/nnhtai ou{toj. It seems unlikely that Tertullian's adversaries claimed Justin as their authority.
3 in hac specie : cf. infr. ad hanc speciem. Species being the particular application of a forma or rule of law, the phrase here will mean 'in this case' or 'on this particular subject'.
5 The punctuation given in the text seems the best way of treating what otherwise would be an awkward sentence. There is at least a pretence, throughout this and several other of
Tertullian's works, that they are speeches addressed to a court: in such a case, asides are quite in order. See also below, sine dubio quae hausit.
6 nempe tamen etc. This and the following sentence together mean that for the sake of our present argument the difference between in ea and ex ea is of no great significance: the phrases could be used indiscriminately without affecting our main contention. But the sentences are awkwardly expressed: their meaning would be clearer if the author had written diceret... dixisset...fuerat...erat, and again, quod in ea fuerat. Consonare as a transitive verb is unusual: its subject here is perhaps the evangelist, or the angel of God, who 'when he says "in her", at the same time gives expression to "of her"': or possibly the
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subject is the phrase ex ea—'When it says in ea, ex ea sounds along with it.'
11 nascitur must be retained: the fact that the Greek has e0gennh&qh
and the Latin vulgate natus est will have prompted T and N to make this alteration.
12 misit etc. Gal. 4. 4 is quoted De Virg. Vel. 6, with the remark that in this text, as in some others, mulier includes virgo. Strictly speaking, Tertullian says, a woman ceases to be virgo as soon as she is betrothed, but that in his instructions regarding the dress of women (1 Cor. 11. 5) St Paul is using the generic term to include the particular. See also De Orat. 23.
14 potius is only in TB; its omission would be almost but not quite in Tertullian's style.
20 se cecinit ipse Christus. Certain of the Messianic psalms (e.g. Ps. 2. 7-12) represent Christ as speaking of himself. Psalm 22. 9 and 10 does not seem to be quoted by Tertullian elsewhere. Justin quotes and comments on the whole psalm, Dial. 98-105, but with nothing bearing on the present subject. Colloquentem (TBmg.) may be what Tertullian wrote: actually the psalm is a monologue, not a colloquy between the Son and the Father.
28 si adhaesit etc. The general meaning of the sentence is clear, but its construction is difficult, and is not really improved by Kroymann's transference of ex utero to the end of the con- ditional clause. If the mood and tense of adhaesisset have any significance, it can only be 'how should we be aware of its adherence?' In the latter part of the sentence est is too far from avulsus to be naturally construed with it. At the risk of correcting the author himself, I should be disposed to write, quomodo
adhaesisset nisi, dum ex utero exit, per illum nervum umbilicarem quasi folliculi sui traducem adnexus adhaeret origini vulvae. Folliculus is a skin or bag: here it apparently means the caul: tradux is the horticultural term for a 'layer' or shoot.
30 etiam cum quid etc. The omission of aliquid and quasi, with some MSS., makes no difference to the meaning of this sentence, but greatly improves its form. Kroymann's alterations
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are no improvement. Produx apparently occurs only here: its natural meaning is 'aftermath', which suits the present theme: traducem, of some MSS., is obviously due to confusion with the previous sentence. Mutui coitus probably means nothing more recondite than 'interconnexion'. The point of the illustration is that if things originally unconnected cannot, after being cemented together, be taken apart again without force, and without one taking something away from the other, even more, in the case of those so closely connected as mother and child, must the child at birth take something from his mother, and that by force. Hence avulsisti in the psalm. But possibly avellere is too strong for the Hebrew: Driver translates 'caused me to burst forth': LXX, 6 e0kspa&saj.
37 suspendentibus seems here to mean 'paying over', sub- ministrantibus, but I know of no parallel case. At Scorp. 6, suspendere votum means 'attach one's hopes': at De Anima 18, suspendendae veritatis, 'holding back the truth'. The rest of this clause, as printed, is what Gelenius made of the various MS. readings: in mamillam, omitted by TBmg., may have originated as a marginal note, or its omission may be due to confusion with illam.
41 communicatione has an active sense: 'of that which the womb provided' or 'imparted to him': not 'of that which he borrowed from the womb'. Operata vulva, with the other two participles, is evidently nominative, not ablative. Quae nisi pariendo: I have presumed to write pariendo for the MS. habendo, which is meaningless, and could have been a copyist's anticipation of habere in the next sentence. Kroymann retains habendo, and writes quem for quae, leaving the sentence still meaningless.
45 quid fuerit etc. The meaning of the sentence is perfectly clear, though it would be difficult to explain the syntax of nascendi, except perhaps as a Graecism:
o#ti me\n ou}n a!n ei1n to_ kaino_n e0n Xristw|~ tou~ e0k parqe/nou gennhqh~nai pro&xeiro&n e0stin. Kroymann's punctuation makes nonsense of the sentence, and his
suggested alterations of the text are not Latin. If any alteration were needed it would be the insertion of et after esset. Novitatis looks
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back to §17, the beginning of this part of the discussion. Etiam carnaliter means 'even in physical origin and constitution, and apart from any suggestion (which God forbid!) of actual sin': for 'the flesh', that is, the animate body, is for the rest of mankind the breeding ground of sin, inheriting the corrupt nature of fallen humanity.
CHAPTER XXI
The 'newness' of Christ's birth admittedly consists in his having been conceived without the agency of a human father: but there is nothing in our authorities to suggest that his mother also was totally inactive in the matter—indeed there is very good evidence to the contrary. The prophecy of Isaiah certainly contemplates conception without human paternity: but this conception is stated to be for the purpose of child-bearing, and as the conception is the mother's act, so the child to be born is his mother's son. The alternative (an impossible one) is that the Word should conceive and bear himself, that is, should convert himself into flesh: in which case the mother's part is otiose, and the prophecy loses its point. So also do the words of the Annunciation to Mary, along with every other Scripture which refers to the mother of Christ: among which is the salutation of Elisabeth who addresses Mary as 'the mother of my Lord' and says 'Blessed is the fruit of thy womb'. Moreover (reverting to Isaiah) how can Christ be the flower of the stem which comes forth from the stock of Jesse unless he is in true physical descent from Jesse through David? He is the fruit of David's loins, which again postulates physical descent from David: and this can only be a fact if he is veritably the son of Mary, herself descended from David.
Of the scriptural texts quoted in this chapter, Luke I. 42, 43 appears not to be used elsewhere by Tertullian.
Isaiah 7. 14 has already been referred to in § 17 and will appear again in §23. At Adv. Marc. iii. 13 Tertullian writes: Sed et virginem, inquit (sc. Marcion), parere natura non patitur, et tamen creditur prophetae. et merito. praestruxit enim fidem incredibili rei, rationem edendo, quod in signo esset futura. Propterea, inquit, dabit
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vobis dominus signum: Ecce virgo concipiet in utero et pariet filium. signum autem a deo, nisi novitas aliqua monstruosa, tam dignum [iam signum, Latinius] nonfuisset. The Jews wish to read iuvenculam for virginem: but such an event would not constitute a sign, sed signo nativitatis novae adscripto exinde post signum alius ordo infantis edicitur etc. At Adv. Iud. 9 this is repeated, at greater length, and in a more controversial manner. At Adv. Marc. iv. 10, he says, si ex deo patre est, utique non est ex homine: si non et ex homine, superest ut ex homine sit matre: si ex homine, iam apparet quia ex virgine....ceterum duo iam patres habebuntur, deus et homo, si non virgo sit mater... .si ex matre filius est hominis quia ex patre non est, ex matre autem virgine quia non ex patre homine, hic erit Christus Esaiae quem concepturam virginem praedicat. All this is consistent with what is said in the present chapter, though it belongs to a previous stage of the
argument, and is designed to prove that the Christ of the New Testament is identical with the Christ promised in the Old. Our present purpose is the further one of proving that Christ belongs to our humanity in full reality and in no docetic sense.
Isaiah 11. 1 is referred to, Adv. Marc. iv. 1: eundem ex genere David secundum Mariae censum etiam in virga ex radice
Iesse processura figurate praedicabat. The text is quoted Adv. Marc. v. 8, and the seven gifts of the Spirit enumerated, the claim being made (a theme derived from Justin) quoniam exinde quo floruisset in carne sumpta ex stirpe David, requiescere in illo omnis haberet operatio gratiae spiritalis et concessare et finem facere quantum ad Iudaeos: sicut et res ipsa testatur etc. This also is repeated Adv. Iud. 9. The text is referred to, De Cor. 15: quid tibi cum flore morituro? habes florem ex virga Iesse, super quem tota divini spiritus gratia requievit, florem incorruptum immarcescibilem sempiternum. Here apparently requievit is taken in its more natural sense.
Through this chapter Kroymann's alterations seem not to need particular consideration.
1 si ergo contendunt etc. This sentence summarizes the preceding discussion concerning novitas: with the next sentence the argument takes a new turn, suggested by the concluding words of this. Competisse usually means 'be appropriate' or 'be pertinent':
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here it seems to mean 'be essential'. I suspect that at the end of the sentence Tertullian wrote ut caro non ex semine nata ex carne semine nata processerit.
7 ergo ut ipsius etc. The text given is that of T. All the other authorities have Ergo ut ipsius fuit concepisse, ita ipsius est etc.
9 si verbum ex se etc.: that is, if the Word converted himself into flesh, a suggestion not yet discussed. But it was put forward in the fourth century by the second generation of Apollinarians, against whom is directed the sentence in Quicunque vult, Unus autem non conversione divinitatis in carnem, sed adsumptione humanitatis in deum.
14 quomodo enim etc. Kroymann's alterations of this sentence are not convincing. There does however seem to be
something wrong, and I should suggest reading, ... nisi quia in utero eius fuit? (ut quid in utero) si nihil ex utero etc.
19-28 tacebit igitur etc. The punctuation of these sentences, down to ipse erit et fructus?, is mine.
25 If et qui is right, qui is an adverb, standing for quomodo or qua ratione, and this seems to be the sense required. Ut quid, adopted by Kroymann from T, can only mean quem ad finem, which is not in keeping with the answer given in the next sentence.
31 suam (before radix) evidently construes with proprietatem: 'and thus make it impossible for the root, with the stem as intermediary, to establish its claim that that which grows from the stem, namely the flower and the fruit, are its own inalienable possession'. Whether this sentence is punctuated as a statement or as a question seems to make little difference: in the latter case we might have expected an answer, which in fact is not given.
33 Before siquidem it is necessary to supply, at least in thought, something like non recte (Adv. Prax. 3). Perhaps some such words have fallen out: in which case the preceding sentence was a question.
35 adhaerere is perhaps too 'close' a word for the present context : it is carried over from the previous part of the discussion. Pertinere would have been sufficient.
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35 adeo: so T Kroy. The MSS. and early editions had deo, which is meaningless. Pamelius wrote ideo, which gives the sense required. But Tertullian regularly says adeo for ideo: see notes on §§7, 16.
38 in lumbis (at the end of the chapter): cf. Heb. 7. 10. There was no need for T to change in to ex: even on stylistic grounds, complete uniformity is inadvisable.
CHAPTER XXII
If the witness which devils bore to Christ as the Son of David is not acceptable, there remain various testimonies of St Matthew and of St Paul that he is the son of David, and through David also of Abraham. All these link up with the fact that he is the son of Mary, through whom he is descended from these, and through these from Adam. Thus he is the Second Adam, and his flesh can no more have been of spiritual origin and constitution than was that of his forefathers.
The genealogies are not discussed by Tertullian elsewhere. Romans 1. 3, 4 is adduced Adv. Prax. 27: sic et apostolus de utraque eius substantia docet. Qui factus est, inquit, ex semine David: hic erit homo et filius hominis. Qui definitus est filius dei secundum spiritum: hic erit deus, et sermo dei filius. videmus duplicem statum, non confusum sed coniunctum in una persona, deum et hominem Iesum. Galatians 3. 8, 16 is referred to Adv. Marc. v. 4, but with no observations that bear on our present subject: the same is true of the reference at De Pat. 6.
1 deleant is concessive: the ellipsis of quamvis is sufficiently frequent to need no illustration. The testimonies that Jesus is the Son of David were in fact not given by devils, but by afflicted men asking for healing—Matthew 20. 30, Mark 10. 47, Luke 18. 38. Tertullian's memory has slipped, and confused these passages with such as Matt. 8. 29: Mark 1. 24, 3. 11, 5. 7: Luke 4. 34, 41, where the testimony of devils is that he is Christ, the Son of God.
1 proclamantia. The genitive plural (T alone) may safely be disregarded: it is an alteration even in T. Ad Iesum, in the majority of MSS., is more difficult—ad being grammatically
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impossible: I suspect we should read dominum Iesum, for ku&rie ui9o_j Dabi/d
occurs at Matt. 20. 30, and again, after 'Ihsou~ ui9e\ Dabi/d
at Luke 18. 38, we have ku&rie i3na a)nable/yw at verse 42.
4 commentator a rare word, quoted by Lewis and Short from Appuleius in the sense of inventor (omnium falsorum), which is obviously not the meaning here: and from the jurists in the sense of interpreter, which would serve here if by 'the gospel' Tertullian means not the written record but the whole act of God which the Gospel is. Or conceivably he means 'writer', with the title of Caesar's work at the back of his mind.
5 compotes evidently means 'acquainted with': cf. De Pall. 2, qui vero divinas lectitamus (sc. historias) ab ipsius mundi natalibus compotes sumus, 'are well informed': Adv. Hermog. 22, si tantam curam instructionis nostrae insumpsit spiritus sanctus ut sdremus quid unde processerit, nonne proinde nos et de caelo et de terra compotes reddidisset significando unde ea esset operatus, si de aliqua materia origo constaret illorum? At De Anima 45, si compotes somniaremus, there seems to be a recollection of the standing phrase compotes mentis, 'in full possession of our faculties'.
8 ad Christi nativitatem is what Tertullian ought to have written, and for that reason may perhaps be an editorial
correction. A Christi nativitate (all MSS. except T) would be true of St Luke's genealogy, but not of St Matthew's.
10 inferens Christum, the reading of all the MSS., must evidently stand: it should be construed closely with de virgine, the intervening words being a partial correction. The reason for the correction is that of course the flesh itself was not an active agent either during the line of descent or at the Incarnation itself, as the less than accurately expressed beginning of the sentence might have suggested: at the Incarnation at least the divine Word, who is Christ, was the agent of his own incarnation. For the views of Tertullian and others on this subject see my edition of Adv. Prax., Introduction, pages 63-74. Proditur, the reading of all MSS. except T, would be grammatically tolerable: producitur (TBmg.) is an obvious correction of some copyist who thought that
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proditur could only mean 'is betrayed'. For all that, proditur can hardly stand: an active verb is required, as Kroymann saw, though his proditurus is in the wrong tense and is out of syntax. If we could read prodit, 'comes forth', all would be well: the passive termination may have slipped in by confusion with describitur in the line above.
13 utique ipsius: i.e., when St Paul says' according to the flesh', he means Christ's flesh, not David's.
14 sed secundum etc. We gain nothing, and lose nothing, by following Kroymann in assigning this sentence to a supposed objector.
16 quod (bis) appears to be the relative pronoun.
21 semine (TBmg) should almost certainly be restored: there is nothing in Galatians 3. 8 seqq. to suggest nomine.
24 nihilominus (T alone) accentuates the fact (which would be clear in any case) that whereas Galatians 3. 15, 16 was cut out of the Marcionite Bible (cf. Adv. Marc. v. 14), we have retained it in ours.
32 eadem conditio substantiae here almost means 'the same created substance', for substance is not the same as materia, and the substance of Christ's flesh is the substance of the flesh of Adam, and of all humanity, and that flesh is a created thing. But probably Tertullian meant something more: 'the same substance, with all those characteristics which essentially constitute that nature in which it was created'.
CHAPTER XXIII
The prophecy of Simeon, that the Child would be 'for a sign that shall be spoken against', is come to effect in these persons who deny the truth of the sign. For the sign is that prophesied by Isaiah, of the virginal conception and child-bearing. These people have seized upon the expression 'She bare and bare not', alleging that it signifies the appearance of child-bearing without its reality. Even if the text meant what they think it means, our statement of the truth would be more in accordance with it, viz. that' she bare' in that she really was a mother, and 'bare not' in that she was
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never a wife. Actually however she did become a wife, not at the conception but at her delivery: that which remained closed at the conception was opened at the nativity. Hence the expression 'every male that openeth the womb'—an event which, in the sense really intended, actually took place only on this single occasion. Hence also St Paul's expression, 'born of a woman'. Thus it appears that the text from Ezekiel was not a prophecy of what actually was to happen, but was a warning against these people and the quibble they were going to invent. For the Holy Spirit does not indulge in that kind of ambiguity, but speaks clearly and directly, as in Isaiah, 'shall conceive and bear'.
The alleged quotation from Ezekiel is not from Ezekiel but apparently from some lost apocryphal writing. It was known to Clement of Alexandria, who writes as follows (Strom. vii. 93, 94):
It seems likely that the majority of people even now think that Mary is a puerpera, having become so through the birth of the Child: though she is not a puerpera, for there is a report current that after her
confinement she was examined by a midwife and found to be a virgin. Now the divine Scriptures we find are like that. They give birth to the truth while conserving their virginity, while they also conserve the mysteries of the truth under a veil. The scripture says, 'She bare and bare not', meaning that she conceived of her own initiative and not in
consequence of marital intercourse. This is why, for those who are gnostics, the scriptures are pregnant, whereas the heresies through lack of intelligence consider them barren and hold them of no account.
[It is to be observed that by 'gnostics' Clement does not mean Gnostics, but orthodox Christians of rather more than ordinary spiritual intelligence.]
The expression is also quoted by Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 30, where it appears that it was a heifer which bare and bare not: but in later Greek
da&malij can mean a girl. Apparently only Tertullian ascribes the phrase to Ezekiel.
Ex eis quae sub hoc capitulo permisit sibi Septimius, vulvam constabit haud ipsum uterum esse sed os eius externum: qua de re, si ita curiosus sis, conferas quae scripserunt Iuvenalis, Martialis, et alii profani.
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4 contradicitur. Contradicibile (T) seems to be an anticipation of what is written below. The Greek of Luke 2. 34 has the present tense (
a)ntilego&menon), Lat. vg. the future, cui contradicetur.
8 Philosophers of the Academic school made a profession of the uncertainty of all knowledge, and affected to avoid any direct affirmation or negation. Tertullian suggests that a statement in the form 'is and is not', 'did and did not', would be quite in their line. His opponents were not in fact adherents of that school: they would have repudiated any such connexion.
12 pepererit was a marginal suggestion in the first edition of Rhenanus, and has been adopted by all editors until Kroymann. It must almost certainly be retained. Kroymann attempts to escape the difficulty by writing non tamen, ut apud illos, ideo non peperit quae peperit quia etc. This removes the grammatical difficulty from the first part of the sentence, but introduces a new difficulty of meaning, as well as making sed apud nos syntactically impossible.
16 peperit quae peperit... resignavit. The meaning of the sentence is perfectly clear, and Kroymann's alterations are
uncalled for. No alterations can obliterate the appalling bad taste of Tertullian's observation in quo nihil interfuit etc. Illud evidently means corpus, and idem is masculine.
32 dubitative. Kroymann's dubitativam hardly improves the sentence, and his explanatory note explains nothing. The point is that the Holy Spirit is not accustomed to speak in ambiguous terms, so that if (through Ezekiel) he did say peperit quae non peperit he was referring beforehand not to a fact which was to be doubtful, but to these quibblers who were to doubt it.
CHAPTER XXIV
All these various forms of heresy were foreseen and censured by the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, who condemns, first, the common practice by which heretics refuse to employ or
understand scriptural language in its natural sense: then, the Marcionite postulate of another god besides God, and the Valentinian
invention
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of the genealogies of Aeons anterior to God, as well as the Ebionite denial of Christ's divinity, and the claim made by Apelles that his particular theories were revealed by an angel. Likewise St John strikes at these persons who deny that Christ came in the flesh, as well as all those who divide Christ into two persons of opposite or complementary characteristics. The
intention of these last, when they allege that Christ who rose again is not the same as Christ who died, is to find support for their further assumption that their own resurrection will be in a different flesh from this present. But, in fact, Christ who will come again is the same Christ that suffered, as they will find, to their cost, when he does come: and thus there is no truth in the idea that at the present time Christ's body, with or without the soul, is set aside like an empty scabbard with Christ himself withdrawn.
1 Kroymann is no doubt right in his suggestion that the subject of this sentence (and indeed of those that follow) is spiritus sanctus. So read et alias, with T. [Kroymann's apparatus is ambiguous regarding F.] Suggillatio is bruising: cf. Petronius 128, noli suggillare miserias, 'don't hit a man when he's down'. Whether we read the ablative or the accusative, it seems to be the accusative that is intended. The metaphors are slightly mixed: iaculari suggests a shooting match, suggillatio a boxing match. The
quotation of Isaiah 5. 20 was suggested by the reference to it above, §23: cf. Scorp. 1, vae autem qui dulce in amarum et lumen in tenebras convertunt.
3 qui nec vocabula etc: ista could mean anima, caro, deus; ipsa (T) is probably right. On heretical methods in general, cf. §1, licentia haeretica.
7 alio idipsum modo. This is what I make of the somewhat confused MS. testimony. It has at least the advantage of being good Latin and of being true.
10 The subject of respondit is still spiritus sanctus: the quotation is the direct object of the verb. So in the following sentence, with dirigit.
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13 filium probably got into the MSS. by confusion with Philumena, and is better away. Cf. De Praesc. Haer. 30 Apelles in alteram feminam impegit, illam virginem Philumenen...cuius energemate circumventus quae ab ea didicit Phaneroses scripsit.
At Diodorus iv. 51, e0nergh&mata are the effects of Medea's magic: Philumena's energema seems to be not the effect of her possession, but the evil spirit (reputed to be an angel) which possessed her.
13 Before qui negat we must supply in thought cum dicit or some such phrase, to balance sicut et definiens, below: but it may not be necessary (with Kroymann) to write it in the text. Disceptatores appears to mean here those who dispute or deny its existence: for the true sense of the word see Cicero De Part. Orat. 3. 10 quid habes igitur de causa dicere? auditorum eam genere distingui: nam aut auscultator est modo qui audit aut disceptator, id est rei sententiaeque moderator, ita ut aut delectetur aut statuat aliquid. In legal language a disceptator was a judge in a private suit.
16 ipsum Christum unum, a reference to 1 Corinthians 8. 6, and perhaps to the variant reading at 1 John 4. 3.
16 multiformis Christi argumentatores could be the Valentinians who conjectured a fourfold Christ. But the rest of the sentence describes opinions or interpretations which more properly belong to other forms of gnosticism, from Cerinthus onwards. All of them began, or ended, by despising the flesh and denying its resurrection.
20 ignobilem lacks anything to balance it: probably read alium nobilem alium ignobilem.
26 nec ipse esse etc., 'he can neither be, nor be seen to be, himself'.
28 Kroymann's insertion of inanem after vaginam is uncalled for. The note of Franciscus Junius, printed by Oehler, explains this sentence perfectly: and there is probably no need to ask precisely who were the persons responsible for the several suggestions, which are in any case outside the particular subject of the treatise, assuming as they do that the flesh of Christ exists, and that it is real. Junius wrote: There are three possible opinions regarding
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the flesh of Christ. The first, that it did not rise again, and consequently is not in heaven: which is the Valentinian view. The second, that Christ's flesh rose again, and is where Christ is, continuing in unity of person with his deity: which is the doctrine of the Church. The third, that Christ's flesh rose again, but with Christ abstracted from it—that is, out of union with the Word and his divine nature. Of this last view there are three possible ramifications, some imagining that the flesh abides alone in heaven without personal union, others that this is the case with flesh and soul together, and others again that the soul alone is in heaven.
CHAPTER XXV
Thus we dispose of the present subject. To have proved what Christ's flesh is, ought to have been enough to prove also what it is not: in spite of which, we have done more than was strictly necessary, controverting various erroneous opinions. Also, as we observed at the beginning, the present work will serve as preliminary matter for the discussion of our own resurrection, which is to follow: for as it was Christ's flesh that rose again, so also will it be ours.
3 citra...abundanti: I have marked this as parenthetic, so that ut cum eo etc. completes the sense of sufficere.
8 commonefaciat is Kroymann's excellent correction of the MS. text.
10 resurrexerit is on Ciceronian principles syntactically correct, and has better MS. support: resurrexit is what Tertullian would be more likely to have written.
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