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| Some Considerations in Reply Eulogistic of the Flesh. It Was Created by God. The Body of Man Was, in Fact, Previous to His Soul.
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Chapter V.—Some
Considerations in Reply Eulogistic of the Flesh. It Was Created by God.
The Body of Man Was, in Fact, Previous to His Soul.
Inasmuch as all uneducated men, therefore, still form
their opinions after these common-sense views, and as the falterers and
the weak-minded have a renewal of their perplexities occasioned by the
selfsame views; and as the first battering-ram which is directed
against ourselves is that which shatters the condition of the flesh, we
must on our side necessarily so manage our defences, as to guard, first
of all, the condition of the flesh, their disparagement of it being
repulsed by our own eulogy. The heretics, therefore, challenged us to
use our rhetoric no less than our philosophy. Respecting, then, this
frail and poor, worthless body, which they do not indeed hesitate to
call evil, even if it had been the work of angels, as Menander and
Marcus are pleased to think, or the formation of some fiery being, an
angel, as Apelles teaches, it would be quite enough for securing
respect for the body, that it had the support and protection of even a
secondary deity. The angels, we know, rank next to God.
Now, whatever be the supreme God of each heretic, I should not unfairly
derive the dignity of the flesh likewise from Him to whom was present
the will for its production. For, of course, if He had not willed its
production, He would have prohibited it, when He knew it was in
progress. It follows, then, that even on their principle the flesh is
equally the work of God. There is no work but belongs to Him who has
permitted it to exist. It is indeed a happy circumstance, that most of
their doctrines, including even the harshest, accord to our God the
entire formation of man. How mighty He is, you know full well who
believe that He is the only God. Let, then, the flesh begin to give you
pleasure, since the Creator thereof is so great. But, you say, even the
world is the work of God, and yet “the fashion of this
world passeth
away,”7316
as the apostle
himself testifies; nor must it be predetermined that the world will be
restored, simply because it is the work of God. And surely if the
universe, after its ruin, is not to be formed again, why should a
portion of it be? You are right, if a portion is on an equality with
the whole. But we maintain that there is a difference. In the first
place, because all things were made by the Word of God, and without Him
was nothing made.7317
Now the flesh, too,
had its existence from the Word of God, because of the
principle,7318
that here should be
nothing without that Word. “Let us make
man,”7319
said He, before He
created him, and added, “with our hand,” for the sake of
his pre-eminence, that so he might not be compared with the rest of
creation.7320
And
“God,” says (the Scripture), “formed
man.”7321
There is
undoubtedly a great difference in the procedure, springing of course
from the nature of the case. For the creatures which were made were
inferior to him for whom they were made; and they were made for man, to
whom they were afterwards made subject by God. Rightly,
therefore, had the creatures which were thus intended for subjection,
come forth into being at the bidding and command and sole power of the
divine voice; whilst man, on the contrary, destined to be their
lord, was formed by God Himself, to the intent that he might be able to
exercise his mastery, being created by the Master the Lord
Himself. Remember, too, that man is properly called flesh,
which had a prior occupation in man’s designation: “And God
formed man the clay of the ground.”7322
He
now became man, who was hitherto clay. “And He breathed upon his
face the breath of life, and man (that is, the clay) became a living
soul; and God placed the man whom He had formed in the
garden.”7323
So that man was
clay at first, and only afterwards man entire. I wish to impress
this on your attention, with a view to your knowing, that whatever God
has at all purposed or promised to man, is due not to the soul simply,
but to the flesh also; if not arising out of any community in their
origin, yet at all events by the privilege possessed by the
latter in its name.7324
| 7324 It having just
been said that flesh was man’s prior
designation. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
