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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
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
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
), 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
If it is because
“she was created for the man,”5533
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
that so it might prove true that “the
law and the prophets were until John.”5548
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
and “Ye are my children, of whom I
travail again in birth.”5552
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
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
and again,
“This I say, brethren, that the time is short”5555
), 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
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
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
that the
service5560
of these gifts
should be in the body,5561
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
with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thine own
self.”5565
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
In precisely the
same manner,5568
when enjoining on
women silence in the church, that they speak not for the mere
sake5569
of learning5570
(although that even they have the right of prophesying, he has already
shown5571
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
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
the secrets of the
heart;5575
let him produce a
psalm, a vision, a prayer5576
—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
whenever an
interpretation of tongues has occurred to him; let him show to me also,
that any woman of boastful tongue5579
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
to my God. Here,
then, is my frank avowal for any one who cares to require
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