Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] If the Father sent him "in the likeness of sinful flesh," the flesh seen in him is not therefore to be called a phantom. For he had earlier assigned sin to the flesh, and made it "the law of sin" residing among its members and battling against the mind's own law. The Son, then, was dispatched bearing a likeness to flesh of sin for this reason: that he might redeem the flesh of sin by a substance like it — that is, fleshly — a substance resembling sinful flesh, though not itself sinful. For this too will be the power of God: to accomplish salvation in a matching substance. [2] It would be no great thing if a spirit of God healed flesh — the great thing is that flesh like sinful flesh, while being flesh, is not flesh of sin. So the "likeness" pertains to the label of sin, not to a lie about the substance. Had he meant the likeness of the substance itself — meaning to deny its reality — he would not have added "of sin"; he would simply have said "flesh," not "of sin" as well. But since he framed it as "flesh of sin," he confirmed the substance — namely, the flesh — and applied the term "likeness" to that substance's flaw, namely, sin. [3] Suppose, for argument, that "likeness" were said of the substance itself — even then the substance's reality would not thereby be denied. How, then, can a "likeness" be real? Because it is real indeed, but not from the seed: in condition it is like and real; in origin, not unreal but unlike. Besides, there is no "likeness" between opposites. Spirit would not be called a likeness of flesh, since flesh could not take on a likeness of spirit; it would rather be called a phantom, if what was seen was not what it appeared to be. "Likeness," however, is said where the thing itself exists. A thing is, so long as it matches another. A phantom, by contrast, being only that — appearance — is no likeness at all. [4] And when he himself explains that he does not want us "in the flesh," though we are in the flesh — meaning, not amid fleshly deeds — he reveals that he composed this on the principle: "Flesh and blood cannot obtain the kingdom of God," condemning not the substance but its works; and since these works can be excluded even by us who are still placed in the flesh, they belong not to the substance's guilt but to conduct's manner. So too, granted that "the body is indeed dead on account of sin" — then it is precisely the body's death, not the soul's; while "the spirit is life because of righteousness," death having come upon that which sinned, namely, the body. [5] For nothing is restored to anyone except what he has lost; and so there will be a resurrection of the dead only insofar as it is a resurrection of bodies. For he adds: "He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies." Thus he confirmed the flesh's resurrection — apart from which nothing else could be termed a body, nothing else understood as mortal — and he proved the bodily substance of Christ; for our mortal bodies will be made alive in just the same way that he was raised, and in no other way than because it happened in a body. [6] Here too I leap over a vast breach in the text he has cut, but I seize on the apostle's testimony concerning Israel, that they have a zeal for God — for their own God, certainly — but not according to knowledge. "For not knowing God," he says, "and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God's own righteousness; for Christ stands as the law's culmination, bringing righteousness to every believer." [7] Here will be the heretic's argument — as though the Jews were ignorant of the higher god, setting up their own righteousness (that is, the law's) against him, refusing Christ, the end of the law. But then why does he attest their fervor toward their own God, if he is not also charging them with ignorance regarding that very same God? For they were driven by zeal for God, yes, but not according to knowledge — that is, they were ignorant of him precisely in being ignorant, in Christ, of the arrangements by which he was to bring the law to its consummation; and so they defended their own righteousness against him. [8] And indeed the Creator himself testifies to their ignorance of him: "Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood me"; and that they preferred to establish their own righteousness, "teaching as doctrines the precepts of men," and moreover "assembled in opposition to the Lord and to his Anointed" — out of ignorance, precisely. Nothing, then, can be applied to another god that fits the Creator so exactly, since otherwise the apostle would have unjustly reproached the Jews with ignorance of an unknown god. [9] For what had they done wrong, if they were erecting their own god's righteousness against one they failed to know? Yet he cries out: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom of God, and how unsearchable are his ways!" Where does that outburst come from? From his recollection of the scriptures he had been turning over, from his contemplation of the mysteries he had discussed above, of the faith in Christ arising out of the law. If Marcion deliberately erased all this, why does his apostle cry out — seeing no riches of a god so poor and destitute, one who founded nothing, proclaimed nothing, indeed possessed nothing, coming down as he did into another's estate? But the wealth and riches of the Creator were once hidden, now unlocked. For so he had promised: "And I will give them hidden treasures, I will open to them things unseen." [10] It was from that, then, that the cry went up: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom of God!" — whose treasures already lay open. That is Isaiah's; and what follows too is from that same prophet's book: "For who has grasped the Lord's intent, or who has served as his adviser? Who has given to him first, that repayment should be owed him?" You, who tore so much away from scripture — why preserve these lines, as though they too did not belong to the Creator? [11] Well then, let us look at the precepts of this "new god." "Hating what is evil," he says, "and cleaving to what is good." Is that not the very thing the Creator says: "Put away evil from among you," and "Turn from evil and do good"? "Affectionate to one another in brotherly love" — is that not the same as "You shall love your neighbor as yourself"? "Rejoicing in hope" — hope in whom but God? "It is good to hope in the Lord rather than to hope in rulers." "Enduring in tribulation": "for the Lord will hear you in the day of tribulation" — there's your psalm. "Bless, and do not curse": who could teach that but the one who made everything with blessings? [12] "Not haughty in mind, but agreeing with the humble; do not be wise in your own estimation" — for through Isaiah they hear a "Woe!" for that very thing. "Render to no one evil for evil": "and do not remember the wrong of your brother." "Not avenging yourselves": "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." [13] "Have peace with all men": so too the law's principle of retaliation was never meant to license repayment of injury, but to check the very starting of it, through fear of that repayment. Rightly, then, he summed up the Creator's whole discipline in his chief precept: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." If this "supplement" of the law comes from the law itself, then I no longer know whose god is the god of the law — I'm afraid it may be Marcion's! But if the gospel of Christ is fulfilled by this very precept, and Christ is not the Creator's — then what exactly have we been arguing about all this time? [14] Whether or not Christ declared, "I did not arrive to abolish the law, but rather to complete it," the man from Pontus has labored in vain trying to deny that saying. If the gospel did not fulfill the law, well then — the law has fulfilled the gospel! And it is well done that in his closing he threatens the "judgment-seat of Christ" — the seat, that is, of a judge and an avenger, that is, of the Creator — thereby establishing as one to be earned the very one he presents as one to be feared, even while preaching him as another god.
15. ON THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS.