Anf-03 v.iv.vi.xx Pg 15
Phil. ii. 8.
if He had not been constituted of a mortal substance. Still more plainly does this appear from the apostle’s additional words, “even the death of the cross.”6109 6109
Anf-03 v.iv.vi.xx Pg 16
Phil. ii. 8.
For he could hardly mean this to be a climax6110 6110 Non enim exaggeraret.
to the human suffering, to extol the virtue6111 6111 Virtutem: perhaps the power.
of His obedience, if he had known it all to be the imaginary process of a phantom, which rather eluded the cross than experienced it, and which displayed no virtue6112 6112 See the preceding note.
in the suffering, but only illusion. But “those things which he had once accounted gain,” and which he enumerates in the preceding verse—“trust in the flesh,” the sign of “circumcision,” his origin as “an Hebrew of the Hebrews,” his descent from “the tribe of Benjamin,” his dignity in the honours of the Pharisee6113 6113
Anf-03 v.vii.iv Pg 13
Phil. ii. 8.
He loved, of course, the being whom He redeemed at so great a cost. If Christ is the Creator’s Son, it was with justice that He loved His own (creature); if He comes from another god, His love was excessive, since He redeemed a being who belonged to another. Well, then, loving man He loved his nativity also, and his flesh as well. Nothing can be loved apart from that through which whatever exists has its existence. Either take away nativity, and then show us your man; or else withdraw the flesh, and then present to our view the being whom God has redeemed—since it is these very conditions6997 6997 Hæc: i.e. man’s nativity and his flesh.
which constitute the man whom God has redeemed. And are you for turning these conditions into occasions of blushing to the very creature whom He has redeemed, (censuring them), too, as unworthy of Him who certainly would not have redeemed them had He not loved them? Our birth He reforms from death by a second birth from heaven;6998 6998 Literally, “by a heavenly regeneration.”
our flesh He restores from every harassing malady; when leprous, He cleanses it of the stain; when blind, He rekindles its light; when palsied, He renews its strength; when possessed with devils, He exorcises it; when dead, He reanimates it,—then shall we blush to own it? If, to be sure,6999 6999 Revera. [I cannot let the words which follow, stand in the text; they are sufficiently rendered.]
He had chosen to be born of a mere animal, and were to preach the kingdom of heaven invested with the body of a beast either wild or tame, your censure (I imagine) would have instantly met Him with this demurrer: “This is disgraceful for God, and this is unworthy of the Son of God, and simply foolish.” For no other reason than because one thus judges. It is of course foolish, if we are to judge God by our own conceptions. But, Marcion, consider well this Scripture, if indeed you have not erased it: “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise.”7000 7000
Npnf-201 iii.xiii.xi Pg 5
Edersheim Bible History
Lifetimes x.xi Pg 119.1
Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge, Chapter 2
VERSE (8) - Mt 17:2 Mr 9:2,3 Lu 9:29
