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  • Man the Image of the Creator, and Christ the Head of the Man. Spiritual Gifts. The Sevenfold Spirit Described by Isaiah. The Apostle and the Prophet Compared. Marcion Challenged to Produce Anything Like These Gifts of the Spirit Foretold in Prophecy in His God.
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    Chapter VIII.—Man the Image of the Creator, and Christ the Head of the Man.  Spiritual Gifts. The Sevenfold Spirit Described by Isaiah. The Apostle and the Prophet Compared. Marcion Challenged to Produce Anything Like These Gifts of the Spirit Foretold in Prophecy in His God.

    “The head of every man is Christ.”5529

    5529 1 Cor. xi. 3.

    What Christ, if He is not the author of man? The head he has here put for authority; now “authority” will accrue to none else than the “author.” Of what man indeed is He the head? Surely of him concerning whom he adds soon afterwards: “The man ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image of God.”5530

    5530 1 Cor. xi. 7.

    Since then he is the image of the Creator (for He, when looking on Christ His Word, who was to become man, said, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness”5531

    5531 Gen. i. 26.

    ), how can I possibly have another head but Him whose image I am? For if I am the image of the Creator there is no room in me for another head. But wherefore “ought the woman to have power over her head, because of the angels?”5532

    5532 1 Cor. xi. 10.

    If it is because “she was created for the man,”5533

    5533 1 Cor. xi. 9.

    and taken out of the man, according to the Creator’s purpose, then in this way too has the apostle maintained the discipline of that God from whose institution he explains the reasons of His discipline. He adds:  “Because of the angels.”5534

    5534 1 Cor. xi. 10.

    What angels?  In other words, whose angels? If he means the fallen angels of the Creator,5535

    5535 See more concerning these in chap. xviii. of this book.  Comp. Gen. vi. 1–4.

    there is great propriety in his meaning.  It is right that that face which was a snare to them should wear some mark of a humble guise and obscured beauty.  If, however, the angels of the rival god are referred to, what fear is there for them? for not even Marcion’s disciples, (to say nothing of his angels,) have any desire for women. We have often shown before now, that the apostle classes heresies as evil5536

    5536 1 Cor. xi. 18, 19.

    among “works of the flesh,” and that he would have those persons accounted estimable5537

    5537 Probabiles: “approved.”

    who shun heresies as an evil thing. In like manner, when treating of the gospel,5538

    5538 See above, in book iv. chap. xl.

    we have proved from the sacrament of the bread and the cup5539

    5539 Luke xxii. 15–20 and 1 Cor. xi. 23–; 29.

    the verity of the Lord’s body and blood in opposition to Marcion’s phantom; whilst throughout almost the whole of my work it has been contended that all mention of judicial attributes points conclusively to the Creator as to a God who judges. Now, on the subject of “spiritual gifts,”5540

    5540 1 Cor. xii. 1.

    I have to remark that these also were promised by the Creator through Christ; and I think that we may derive from this a very just conclusion that the bestowal of a gift is not the work of a god other than Him who is proved to have given the promise. Here is a prophecy of Isaiah: “There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a flower5541

    5541 Flos: Sept. ἂνθος.

    shall spring up from his root; and upon Him shall rest the Spirit of the Lord.” After which he enumerates the special gifts of the same: “The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of religion.5542

    5542 Religionis: Sept. εὐσεβείας.

    And with the fear of the Lord5543

    5543 Timor Dei: Sept. φόβος Θεοῦ.

    shall the Spirit fill Him.”5544

    5544 Isa. xi. 1–3.

    In this figure of a flower he shows that Christ was to arise out of the rod which sprang from the stem of Jesse; in other words, from the virgin of the race of David, the son of Jesse. In this Christ the whole substantia of the Spirit would have to rest, not meaning that it would be as it were some subsequent acquisition accruing to Him who was always, even before His incarnation, the Spirit of God;5545

    5545 We have more than once shown that by Tertullian and other ancient fathers, the divine nature of Christ was frequently designated “Spirit.”

    so that you cannot argue from this that the prophecy has reference to that Christ who (as mere man of the race only of David) was to obtain the Spirit of his God. (The prophet says,) on the contrary, that from the time when (the true Christ) should appear in the flesh as the flower predicted,5546

    5546 Floruisset in carne.

    rising from the root of Jesse, there would have to rest upon Him the entire operation of the Spirit of grace, which, so far as the Jews were concerned, would cease and come to an end. This result the case itself shows; for after this time the Spirit of the Creator never breathed amongst them. From Judah were taken away “the wise man, and the cunning artificer, and the counsellor, and the prophet;”5547

    5547 See Isa. iii. 2, 3.

    that so it might prove true that “the law and the prophets were until John.”5548

    5548 Luke xvi. 16.

    Now hear how he declared that by Christ Himself, when returned to heaven, these spiritual gifts were to be sent: “He ascended up on high,” that is, into heaven; “He led captivity captive,” meaning death or slavery of man; “He gave gifts to the sons of men,”5549

    5549 1 Cor. xii. 4–11; Eph. iv. 8, and Ps. lxviii. 18.

    that is, the gratuities, which we call charismata. He says specifically “sons of men,”5550

    5550 He argues from his own reading, filiis hominum.

    and not men promiscuously; thus exhibiting to us those who were the children of men truly so called, choice men, apostles.  “For,” says he, “I have begotten you through the gospel;”5551

    5551 1 Cor. iv. 15.

    and “Ye are my children, of whom I travail again in birth.”5552

    5552 Gal. iv. 19.

    Now was absolutely fulfilled that promise of the Spirit which was given by the word of Joel:  “In the last days will I pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and their daughters shall prophesy; and upon my servants and upon my handmaids will I pour out of my Spirit.”5553

    5553 Joel ii. 28, 29, applied by St. Peter, Acts ii. 17, 18.

    Since, then, the Creator promised the gift of His Spirit in the latter days; and since Christ has in these last days appeared as the dispenser of spiritual gifts (as the apostle says, “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son;”5554

    5554 Gal. iv. 4.

    and again, “This I say, brethren, that the time is short”5555

    5555 1 Cor. vii. 29. [The verse filled out by the translator.]

    ), it evidently follows in connection with this prediction of the last days, that this gift of the Spirit belongs to Him who is the Christ of the predicters. Now compare the Spirit’s specific graces, as they are described by the apostle, and promised by the prophet Isaiah. “To one is given,” says he, “by the Spirit the word of wisdom;” this we see at once is what Isaiah declared to be “the spirit of wisdom.”  “To another, the word of knowledge;” this will be “the (prophet’s) spirit of understanding and counsel.” “To another, faith by the same Spirit;” this will be “the spirit of religion and the fear of the Lord.” “To another, the gifts of healing, and to another the working of miracles;” this will be “the spirit of might.” “To another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another divers kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues;” this will be “the spirit of knowledge.”5556

    5556 Comp. 1 Cor. xii. 8–11 and Isa. xi. 1–; 3.

    See how the apostle agrees with the prophet both in making the distribution of the one Spirit, and in interpreting His special graces. This, too, I may confidently say: he who has likened the unity of our body throughout its manifold and divers members to the compacting together of the various gifts of the Spirit,5557

    5557 1 Cor. xii. 12–; 30, compared with Eph. iv. 16.

    shows also that there is but one Lord of the human body and of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit, (according to the apostle’s showing,)5558

    5558 This seems to be the force of the subjunctive verb noluerit.

    meant not5559

    5559 Noluerit.

    that the service5560

    5560 Meritum.

    of these gifts should be in the body,5561

    5561 They are spiritual gifts, not endowments of body.

    nor did He place them in the human body); and on the subject of the superiority of love5562

    5562 De dilectione præferenda.

    above all these gifts, He even taught the apostle that it was the chief commandment,5563

    5563 Compare 1 Cor. xii. 31; xiii. 1, 13.

    just as Christ has shown it to be: “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thine heart and soul,5564

    5564 Totis præcordiis.

    with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thine own self.”5565

    5565 Luke x. 27.

    When he mentions the fact that “it is written in the law,”5566

    5566 “Here, as in John x. 34; xii. 34; xv. 25, ‘the law’ is used for the Old Testament generally, instead of being, as usual, confined to the Pentateuch.  The passage is from Isa. xxviii. 11.” (Dean Stanley, On the Corinthians, in loc.).

    how that the Creator would speak with other tongues and other lips, whilst confirming indeed the gift of tongues by such a mention, he yet cannot be thought to have affirmed that the gift was that of another god by his reference to the Creator’s prediction.5567

    5567 1 Cor. xiv. 21.

    In precisely the same manner,5568

    5568 Æque.

    when enjoining on women silence in the church, that they speak not for the mere sake5569

    5569 Duntaxat gratia.

    of learning5570

    5570 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35.

    (although that even they have the right of prophesying, he has already shown5571

    5571 1 Cor. xi. 5, 6. [See Kaye, p. 228.]

    when he covers the woman that prophesies with a veil), he goes to the law for his sanction that woman should be under obedience.5572

    5572 1 Cor. xiv. 34; where Gen. iii. 16 is referred to.

    Now this law, let me say once for all, he ought to have made no other acquaintance with, than to destroy it. But that we may now leave the subject of spiritual gifts, facts themselves will be enough to prove which of us acts rashly in claiming them for his God, and whether it is possible that they are opposed to our side, even if5573

    5573 Et si: These words introduce the Marcionite theory.

    the Creator promised them for His Christ who is not yet revealed, as being destined only for the Jews, to have their operations in His time, in His Christ, and among His people. Let Marcion then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some prophets, such as have not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God, such as have both predicted things to come, and have made manifest5574

    5574 Traduxerint.

    the secrets of the heart;5575

    5575 1 Cor. xiv. 25.

    let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayer5576

    5576 1 Cor. xiv. 26.

    —only let it be by the Spirit,5577

    5577 Duntaxat spiritalem: These words refer to the previous ones, “not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God.” [Of course here is a touch of his fanaticism; but, he bases it on (1 Cor. xiv.) a mere question of fact: had these charismata ceased?]

    in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture,5578

    5578 Amentia.

    whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him; let him show to me also, that any woman of boastful tongue5579

    5579 Magnidicam.

    in his community has ever prophesied from amongst those specially holy sisters of his. Now all these signs (of spiritual gifts) are forthcoming from my side without any difficulty, and they agree, too, with the rules, and the dispensations, and the instructions of the Creator; therefore without doubt the Christ, and the Spirit, and the apostle, belong severally5580

    5580 Erit.

    to my God. Here, then, is my frank avowal for any one who cares to require it.

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