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| Introductory; A Brief Statement of the Preceding Argument in Connection with the Subject of This Book.
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Book III.
Wherein Christ is shown to be the Son
of God, Who created the world; to have been predicted by the prophets;
to have taken human flesh like our own, by a real
incarnation.
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Chapter I.—Introductory; A Brief
Statement of the Preceding Argument in Connection with the Subject of
This Book.
Following the track of my
original treatise, the loss of which we are steadily
proceeding3092
to restore, we come
now, in the order of our subject, to treat of Christ, although this be
a work of supererogation,3093
after the proof
which we have gone through that there is but one only God. For no doubt
it has been already ruled with sufficient clearness, that Christ must
be regarded as pertaining to3094
| 3094 i.e., “as the
Son of, or sent by, no other God.” | no other God than
the Creator, when it has been determined that no other God but the
Creator should be the object of our faith. Him did Christ so expressly
preach, whilst the apostles one after the other also so clearly
affirmed that Christ belonged to3095
| 3095 i.e., “was the
Son of, or sent by, no other God.” | no other God
than Him whom He Himself preached—that is, the Creator—that
no mention of a second God (nor, accordingly, of a second Christ) was
ever agitated previous to Marcion’s scandal. This is most
easily proved by an examination3096
of both the
apostolic and the heretical churches,3097
| 3097 [Surely Tertullian,
when he wrote this, imagined himself not separated formally from the
Apostolic churches. Of which see De Præscriptione,
(p. 258) supra.] |
from which we are forced to declare that there is undoubtedly a
subversion of the rule (of faith), where any opinion is found of later
date,3098
| 3098 Ubi
posteritas invenitur. Compare De Præscript.
Hæret. 34, where Tertullian refers to “that definite
rule, before laid down, touching ‘the later date’
(illo fine supra dicto posteritatis), whereby they
(i.e., certain novel opinions) would at once be condemned on the ground
of their age alone.” In 31 of the same work he contrasts
“posteritatem mendacitatis” with
“principalitatem veritatis”—“the latter
date of falsehood” with “the primary date of
truth.” [pp. 258, 260, supra.] | —a point which I have inserted in my
first book.3099
| 3099 See book i. chap.
1. | A discussion of it
would unquestionably be of value even now, when we are about to make a
separate examination into (the subject of) Christ; because, whilst
proving Christ to be the Creator’s Son, we are effectually
shutting out the God of Marcion. Truth should employ all her available
resources, and in no limping way.3100
| 3100 Non ut laborantem.
“Qui enim laborant non totis sed fractis utuntur viribus.”
Πανστρατιᾷ
πανσυδίῃ; Anglice,
“with all her might.” | In our
compendious rules of faith, however, she has it all her own
way.3101
| 3101 In præscript.
compendiis vincit. | But I have resolved, like an earnest
man,3102
to meet my adversary every way and
everywhere in the madness of his heresy, which is so great, that he has
found it easier to assume that that Christ has come who was never heard
of, than He who has always been predicted.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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