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| The Mystery of the Assumption of Our Perfect Human Nature by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He is Here Called, as Often Elsewhere, the Spirit.
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Chapter
XVIII.—The Mystery of the Assumption of Our Perfect Human Nature
by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He is Here Called, as
Often Elsewhere, the Spirit.
Now, that we may give a simpler answer, it was not
fit that the Son of God should be born of a human father’s seed,
lest, if He were wholly the Son of a man, He should fail to be also the
Son of God, and have nothing more than “a Solomon” or
“a Jonas,”7186
—as
Ebion7187
| 7187 De Hebionis
opinione. | thought we ought to believe concerning
Him. In order, therefore, that He who was already the Son of
God—of God the Father’s seed, that is to say, the
Spirit—might also be the Son of man, He only wanted to assume
flesh, of the flesh of man7188
without the seed of
a man;7189
for the seed of a
man was unnecessary7190
for One who had the
seed of God. As, then, before His birth of the virgin, He was able to
have God for His Father without a human mother, so likewise, after He
was born of the virgin, He was able to have a woman for His mother
without a human father. He is thus man with God, in short, since He is
man’s flesh with God’s Spirit7191
| 7191 As we have often
observed, the term Spiritus is used by Tertullian to
express the Divine Nature in Christ. Anti-Marcion, p.
375, note 13. | —flesh (I say) without seed from
man, Spirit with seed from God. For as much, then, as the
dispensation of God’s purpose7192
| 7192 Dispositio
rationis. |
concerning His Son required that He should be born7193
of a virgin, why should He not have received
of the virgin the body which He bore from the virgin? Because,
(forsooth) it is something else which He took from God, for “the
Word” say they, “was made flesh.”7194
Now this very statement plainly shows what
it was that was made flesh; nor can it possibly be that7195
| 7195 Nec periclitatus
quasi. | anything else than the Word was made
flesh. Now, whether it was of the flesh that the Word was made
flesh, or whether it was so made of the (divine) seed itself, the
Scripture must tell us. As, however, the Scripture is silent about
everything except what it was that was made (flesh), and says nothing
of that from which it was so made, it must be held to suggest that from
something else, and not from itself, was the Word made flesh. And
if not from itself, but from something else, from what can we more
suitably suppose that the Word became flesh than from that flesh in
which it submitted to the dispensation?7196
| 7196 Literally,
“in which it became flesh.” |
And (we have a proof of the same conclusion in the fact) that the Lord
Himself sententiously and distinctly pronounced, “that which is
born of the flesh is flesh,”7197
even because
it is born of the flesh. But if He here spoke of a human being
simply, and not of Himself, (as you maintain) then you must deny
absolutely that Christ is man, and must maintain that human
nature was not suitable to Him. And then He adds, “That which
is born of the Spirit is spirit,”7198
because God is a Spirit, and He was born of God. Now this description
is certainly even more applicable to Him than it is to those who
believe in Him. But if this passage indeed apply to Him, then why does
not the preceding one also? For you cannot divide their relation, and
adapt this to Him, and the previous clause to all other men, especially
as you do not deny that Christ possesses the two substances, both of
the flesh and of the Spirit. Besides, as He was in possession both of
flesh and of Spirit, He cannot possibly, when speaking of the condition
of the two substances which He Himself bears, be supposed to have
determined that the Spirit indeed was His own, but that the flesh was
not His own. Forasmuch, therefore, as He is of the Spirit He is God the
Spirit, and is born of God; just as He is also born of the flesh of
man, being generated in the flesh as man.7199
| 7199 [A very perspicuous
statement of the Incarnation is set forth in this chapter.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
