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| Christ's Human Nature. The Flesh and the Soul Both Fully and Unconfusedly Contained in It. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
XIII.—Christ’s Human Nature. The Flesh and the Soul
Both Fully and Unconfusedly Contained in It.
The soul became flesh that the soul might become
visible.7123
7123 Ostenderetur: or,
“that it might prove itself soul.” | Well, then, did the
flesh likewise become soul that the flesh might be manifested?7124
7124 Or, “that it
might show itself flesh.” | If the soul is flesh, it is no longer soul,
but flesh. If the flesh is soul, it is no longer flesh, but soul.
Where, then, there is flesh, and where there is soul, it has become
both one and the other.7125
7125 Alterutrum: “no
matter which.” | Now, if they are
neither in particular, although they become both one and the other, it
is, to say the least, very absurd, that we should understand the soul
when we name the flesh, and when we indicate the soul, explain
ourselves as meaning the flesh. All things will be in danger of being
taken in a sense different from their own proper sense, and, whilst
taken in that different sense, of losing their proper one, if they are
called by a name which differs from their natural designation.
Fidelity in names secures the safe appreciation of properties. When
these properties undergo a change, they are considered to possess such
qualities as their names indicate. Baked clay, for instance, receives
the name of brick.7126 It retains not the
name which designated its former state,7127
because it has no longer a share in that state. Therefore, also,
the soul of Christ having become flesh,7128
7128 Tertullian quotes his
opponent’s opinion here. |
cannot be anything else than that which it has become nor can it be any
longer that which it once was, having become indeed7129
7129 Silicet: in
reference to the alleged doctrine. | something else. And since we have just had
recourse to an illustration, we will put it to further use. Our
pitcher, then, which was formed of the clay, is one body, and has one
name indicative, of course, of that one body; nor can the pitcher be
also called clay, because what it once was, it is no longer. Now that
which is no longer (what it was) is also not an inseparable
property.7130 And the soul is not
an inseparable property. Since, therefore, it has become flesh, the
soul is a uniform solid body; it is also a wholly incomplex
being,7131 and an indivisible
substance. But in Christ we find the soul and the flesh expressed in
simple unfigurative7132 terms; that is to
say, the soul is called soul, and the flesh, flesh; nowhere is the soul
termed flesh, or the flesh, soul; and yet they ought to have been thus
(confusedly) named if such had been their condition. The fact,
however, is that even by Christ Himself each substance has
been separately mentioned by itself, conformably of course, to the
distinction which exists between the properties of both, the soul by
itself, and the flesh by itself. “My soul,”
says He, “is exceeding sorrowful, even unto
death;”7133 and “the
bread that I will give is my flesh, (which I will give) for the
life7134
7134 “The
salvation” (salute) is Tertullian’s word. | of the world.”7135
Now, if the soul had been flesh, there would have only been in Christ
the soul composed of flesh, or else the flesh composed of
soul.7136
7136 Above, beginning of
chap. x. | Since, however, He keeps the species
distinct, the flesh and the soul, He shows them to be two. If two, then
they are no longer one; if not one, then the soul is not composed of
flesh, nor the flesh of soul. For the soul-flesh, or the flesh-soul, is
but one; unless indeed He even had some other soul apart from that
which was flesh, and bare about another flesh besides that which was
soul. But since He had but one flesh and one soul,—that
“soul which was sorrowful, even unto death,” and that
flesh which was the “bread given for the life of the
world,”—the number is unimpaired7137 of
two substances distinct in kind, thus excluding the unique species of
the flesh-comprised soul.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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