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| Christ, as to His Divine Nature, as the Word of God, Became Flesh, Not by Carnal Conception, Nor by the Will of the Flesh and of Man, But by the Will of God. Christ's Divine Nature, of Its Own Accord, Descended into the Virgin's Womb.
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Chapter
XIX.—Christ, as to His Divine Nature, as the Word of God, Became
Flesh, Not by Carnal Conception, Nor by the Will of the Flesh and of
Man, But by the Will of God. Christ’s Divine Nature, of Its Own
Accord, Descended into the Virgin’s Womb.
What, then, is the meaning of this passage,
“Born7200
| 7200 Tertullian reads this
in the singular number, “natus est.” | not of blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God?”7201
I shall make more
use of this passage after I have confuted those who have tampered with
it. They maintain that it was written thus (in the
plural)7202
| 7202 We need not say that
the mass of critical authority is against Tertullian, and with his
opponents, in their reading of this passage. | “Who were
born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God,” as if designating those who were before
mentioned as “believing in His name,” in order to point out
the existence of that mysterious seed of the elect and spiritual which
they appropriate to themselves.7203
| 7203 He refers to the
Valentinians. See our translation of this tract against them, chap.
xxv., etc., p. 515, supra. | But how can
this be, when all who believe in the name of the Lord are, by
reason of the common principle of the human race, born of blood, and of
the will of the flesh, and of man, as indeed is Valentinus himself? The
expression is in the singular number, as referring to the Lord,
“He was born of God.” And very properly, because
Christ is the Word of God, and with the Word the Spirit of God, and by
the Spirit the Power of God, and whatsoever else appertains to God. As
flesh, however, He is not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor
of man, because it was by the will of God that the Word was made
flesh. To the flesh, indeed, and not to the Word, accrues the
denial of the nativity which is natural to us all as men,7204
| 7204 Formalis nostræ
nativitatis. | because it was as flesh that He had thus to
be born, and not as the Word. Now, whilst the passage actually denies
that He was born of the will of the flesh, how is it that it did not
also deny (that He was born) of the substance of the flesh? For
it did not disavow the substance of the flesh when it denied His being
“born of blood” but only the matter of the seed, which, as
all know, is the warm blood as convected by ebullition7205
into the coagulum of the
woman’s blood. In the cheese, it is from the coagulation that the
milky substance acquires that consistency,7206
which is condensed by infusing the rennet.7207
| 7207 Medicando. [This is
based on Job x. 10, a favourite passage with the Fathers in
expounding the generative process.] | We
thus understand that what is denied is the Lord’s birth after
sexual intercourse (as is suggested by the phrase, “the will of
man and of the flesh”), not His nativity from a
woman’s womb. Why, too, is it insisted on with such an
accumulation of emphasis that He was not born of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor (of the will) of man, if it were not that His flesh
was such that no man could have any doubt on the point of its being
born from sexual intercourse? Again, although denying His birth
from such cohabitation, the passage did not deny that He was born of
real flesh; it rather affirmed this, by the very fact that it
did not deny His birth in the flesh in the same way that it denied His
birth from sexual intercourse. Pray, tell me, why the Spirit of
God7208
| 7208 i.e., The Son of
God. | descended into a woman’s womb at all,
if He did not do so for the purpose of partaking of flesh from the
womb. For He could have become spiritual flesh7209
| 7209 Which is all that the
heretics assign to Him. | without such a process,—much more
simply, indeed, without the womb than in it. He had no reason for
enclosing Himself within one, if He was to bear forth nothing from it.
Not without reason, however, did He descend into a womb. Therefore He
received (flesh) therefrom; else, if He received nothing therefrom, His
descent into it would have been without a reason, especially if He
meant to become flesh of that sort which was not derived from a womb,
that is to say, a spiritual one.7210
| 7210 Such as Valentinus
ascribed to Him. See above, c. xv. p. 511. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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