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| The Epistle to the Philippians. The Variances Amongst the Preachers of Christ No Argument that There Was More Than One Only Christ. St. Paul's Phrases--Form of a Servant, Likeness, and Fashion of a Man--No Sanction of Docetism. No Antithesis (Such as Marcion Alleged) in the God of Judaism and the God of the Gospel Deducible from Certain Contrasts Mentioned in This Epistle. A Parallel with a Passage in Genesis. The Resurrection of the Body, and the Change Thereof.
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Chapter XX.—The
Epistle to the Philippians. The Variances Amongst the Preachers of
Christ No Argument that There Was More Than One Only Christ. St.
Paul’s Phrases—Form of a Servant, Likeness, and Fashion of
a Man—No Sanction of Docetism. No Antithesis (Such as Marcion
Alleged) in the God of Judaism and the God of the Gospel Deducible from
Certain Contrasts Mentioned in This Epistle. A Parallel with a Passage
in Genesis. The Resurrection of the Body, and the Change
Thereof.
When (the apostle) mentions the several motives of
those who were preaching the gospel, how that some, “waxing
confident by his bonds, were more fearless in speaking the word,”
while others “preached Christ even out of envy and strife, and
again others out of good-will,” many also “out of
love,” and certain “out of contention,” and some
“in rivalry to himself,”6096
he had a
favourable opportunity, no doubt,6097
of taxing what
they preached with a diversity of doctrine, as if it were no less than
this which caused so great a variance in their tempers. But while he
exposes these tempers as the sole cause of the diversity, he avoids
inculpating the regular mysteries of the faith,6098
| 6098 Regulas
sacramentorum. |
and affirms that there is, notwithstanding, but one Christ and His one
God, whatever motives men had in preaching Him. Therefore, says
he, it matters not to me “whether it be in pretence or in truth
that Christ is preached,”6099
because one
Christ alone was announced, whether in their “pretentious”
or their “truthful” faith. For it was to the faithfulness
of their preaching that he applied the word truth, not to the
rightness of the rule itself, because there was indeed but one rule;
whereas the conduct of the preachers varied: in some of them it was
true, i.e. single-minded, while in others it was sophisticated
with over-much learning. This being the case, it is manifest that
that Christ was the subject of their preaching who was always the theme
of the prophets. Now, if it were a completely different Christ that was
being introduced by the apostle, the novelty of the thing would have
produced a diversity (in belief.). For there would not have been
wanting, in spite of the novel teaching,6100
men to interpret the preached gospel of the Creator’s Christ,
since the majority of persons everywhere now-a-days are of our way of
thinking, rather than on the heretical side. So that the apostle would
not in such a passage as the present one have refrained from remarking
and censuring the diversity. Since, however, there is no blame of
a diversity, there is no proof of a novelty. Of course6101
the Marcionites suppose that they have the
apostle on their side in the following passage in the matter of
Christ’s substance—that in Him there was nothing but a
phantom of flesh. For he says of Christ, that, “being in the form
of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God;6102
| 6102 Compare the treatise,
De Resur. Carnis, c. vi. (Oehler). | but emptied6103
Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant,” not
the reality, “and was made in the likeness of
man,” not a man, “and was found in fashion as
a man,”6104
not in his
substance, that is to say, his flesh; just as if to a
substance there did
not accrue both form and likeness and fashion. It
is well for us that in another passage (the apostle) calls Christ
“the image of the invisible God.”6105
For will it not follow with equal force from that passage, that Christ
is not truly God, because the apostle places Him in the image of
God, if, (as Marcion contends,) He is not truly man because of His
having taken on Him the form or image of a man? For in
both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image
(or “fashion”) and likeness and form shall be
claimed for a phantom. But since he is truly God, as the Son of the
Father, in His fashion and image, He has been already by the force of
this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man,
“found in the fashion” and image “of a
man.” For when he propounded6106
Him as thus “found” in the manner6107
of a man, he in fact affirmed Him to
be most certainly human. For what is found, manifestly possesses
existence. Therefore, as He was found to be God by His mighty power, so
was He found to be man by reason of His flesh, because the apostle
could not have pronounced Him to have “become obedient unto
death,”6108
if He had not been
constituted of a mortal substance. Still more plainly does this appear
from the apostle’s additional words, “even the death of the
cross.”6109
For he could hardly
mean this to be a climax6110
| 6110 Non enim
exaggeraret. | to the human
suffering, to extol the virtue6111
| 6111 Virtutem:
perhaps the power. | of His obedience,
if he had known it all to be the imaginary process of a phantom, which
rather eluded the cross than experienced it, and which displayed no
virtue6112
| 6112 See the preceding
note. | in the suffering,
but only illusion. But “those things which he had once accounted
gain,” and which he enumerates in the preceding
verse—“trust in the flesh,” the sign of
“circumcision,” his origin as “an Hebrew of the
Hebrews,” his descent from “the tribe of Benjamin,”
his dignity in the honours of the Pharisee6113
—he now reckons to be only
“loss” to himself;6114
(in other words,)
it was not the God of the Jews, but their stupid obduracy, which he
repudiates. These are also the things “which he counts but dung
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ”6115
(but by no means for the rejection of God
the Creator); “whilst he has not his own righteousness, which is
of the law, but that which is through Him,” i.e. Christ,
“the righteousness which is of God.”6116
Then, say you, according to this distinction
the law did not proceed from the God of Christ. Subtle enough!
But here is something still more subtle for you. For when (the apostle)
says, “Not (the righteousness) which is of the law, but that
which is through Him,” he would not have used the phrase
through Him of any other than Him to whom the law belonged.
“Our conversation,” says he, “is in
heaven.”6117
I here recognise
the Creator’s ancient promise to Abraham: “I will multiply
thy seed as the stars of heaven.”6118
Therefore “one star differeth from another star in
glory.”6119
If, again, Christ
in His advent from heaven “shall change the body of our
humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious
body,”6120
| 6120 Phil. iii. 21. [I have adhered to the original Greek,
by a trifling verbal change, because Tertullian’s argument
requires it.] | it follows that
this body of ours shall rise again, which is now in a state of
humiliation in its sufferings and according to the law of mortality
drops into the ground. But how shall it be changed, if it shall have no
real existence? If, however, this is only said of those who shall be
found in the flesh6121
at the advent of
God, and who shall have to be changed,”6122
| 6122 Deputari, which
is an old reading, should certainly be demutari, and so say the
best authorities. Oehler reads the former, but contends for the
latter. |
what shall they do who will rise first? They will have no
substance from which to undergo a change. But he says (elsewhere),
“We shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet
the Lord (in the air).”6123
Then, if we are to
be caught up alone with them, surely we shall likewise be changed
together with them.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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