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| The Valentinian Figment of Christ's Flesh Being of a Spiritual Nature, Examined and Refuted Out of Scripture.
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Chapter XV.—The
Valentinian Figment of Christ’s Flesh Being of a Spiritual
Nature, Examined and Refuted Out of Scripture.
Valentinus, indeed, on the strength of his
heretical system, might consistently devise a spiritual flesh for
Christ. Any one who refused to believe that that flesh was human might
pretend it to be anything he liked, forasmuch as (and this remark is
applicable to all heretics), if it was not human, and was not
born of man, I do not see of what substance Christ Himself spoke when
He called Himself man and the Son of man, saying: “But now
ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth;”7149
and “The Son of man is Lord of the
Sabbath-day.”7150
For it is of Him
that Isaiah writes: “A man of suffering, and acquainted with the
bearing of weakness;”7151
and Jeremiah:
“He is a man, and who hath known Him?”7152
and Daniel: “Upon the clouds (He came)
as the Son of man.”7153
The Apostle Paul
likewise says: “The man Christ Jesus is the one Mediator between
God and man.”7154
Also Peter, in the
Acts of the Apostles, speaks of Him as verily human (when he says),
“Jesus Christ was a man approved of God among
you.”7155
These passages
alone ought to suffice as a prescriptive7156
| 7156 Vice
præscriptionis. |
testimony in proof that Christ had human flesh derived from man, and
not spiritual, and that His flesh was not composed of soul,7157
nor of stellar substance, and that it was
not an imaginary flesh; (and no doubt they would be sufficient) if
heretics could only divest themselves of all their contentious warmth
and artifice. For, as I have read in some writer of Valentinus’
wretched faction,7158
they refuse at the
outset to believe that a human and earthly substance was
created7159
for Christ, lest
the Lord should be regarded as inferior to the angels, who are not
formed of earthly flesh; whence, too, it would be necessary that, if His flesh were like
ours, it should be similarly born, not of the Spirit, nor of God, but
of the will of man. Why, moreover, should it be born, not of
corruptible [seed], but of incorruptible? Why, again, since His flesh
has both risen and returned to heaven, is not ours, being like His,
also taken up at once? Or else, why does not His flesh, since it is
like ours, return in like manner to the ground, and suffer dissolution?
Such objections even the heathen used constantly to bandy
about.7160
| 7160 Volutabant: see
Lactantius, iv. 22. | Was the Son of God
reduced to such a depth of degradation? Again, if He rose again as a
precedent for our hope, how is it that nothing like it has been thought
desirable (to happen) to ourselves?7161
| 7161 De nobis probatum est:
or, perhaps, “has been proved to have happened in our own
case.” | Such views are
not improper for heathens and they are fit and natural for the heretics
too. For, indeed, what difference is there between them, except
it be that the heathen, in not believing, do believe; while the
heretics, in believing, do not believe? Then, again, they read:
“Thou madest Him a little less than angels;”7162
and they deny the lower nature of that
Christ who declares Himself to be, “not a man, but a
worm;”7163
who also had
“no form nor comeliness, but His form was ignoble, despised more
than all men, a man in suffering, and acquainted with the bearing of
weakness.”7164
Here they discover
a human being mingled with a divine one and so they deny the
manhood. They believe that He died, and maintain that a being
which has died was born of an incorruptible substance;7165
as if, forsooth, corruptibility7166
were something else than death! But our
flesh, too, ought immediately to have risen again. Wait a while.
Christ has not yet subdued His enemies, so as to be able to triumph
over them in company with His friends.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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