Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] Let them, then, cross out the testimonies of demons proclaiming Jesus "son of David" as well — but they will not be able to cross out the testimonies of the apostles, if the demons' are unworthy. Matthew himself first of all, the most faithful recorder of the gospel, as the Lord's companion, began his work for no other reason than to make us sharers in the carnal origin of Christ, thus: "The record of the lineage of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham." [2] With these springs of his origin flowing from his stock, as the line is traced step by step down to Christ's birth, what else is being traced out but the actual flesh belonging to Abraham and to David, passing generation by generation down into the virgin, and bringing in Christ — nay, Christ himself coming forth — from the virgin? [3] And Paul too, being both a disciple and a teacher of that same gospel, and a witness to it, because an apostle of that same Christ, declares Christ to be sprung from David's seed as far as the flesh is concerned — his very own flesh, that is. Therefore the flesh of Christ is of the seed of David. Yet it is precisely through Mary's flesh that he descends from David's seed: therefore he shares Mary's flesh, seeing that he shares David's seed. [4] Twist the statement however you like: either what is of David's seed is of Mary's flesh, or what is of Mary's flesh is of David's seed. The same apostle settles this whole controversy once and for all by defining him as the seed of Abraham himself — since if of Abraham's, then all the more of David's, as being the more recent line. [5] For, unfolding the promise of the blessing of the nations in the seed of Abraham — "And in your seed shall all nations be blessed" — he says: "He did not say 'seeds,' as of many, but 'seed,' as of one, which is Christ." [6] We who read and believe these things — what quality of flesh, then, must we and can we recognize in Christ? Assuredly no flesh but Abraham's, seeing Christ is Abraham's offspring; no flesh but Jesse's, seeing Christ is the bloom sprung from Jesse's root; no flesh but David's, seeing Christ is the yield borne of David's loins; no flesh but Mary's, seeing Christ came from Mary's womb; and tracing further back, no flesh but Adam's, seeing Christ stands as a second Adam. It follows, then, that either they must maintain that those men too had spiritual flesh, so that the same condition of substance may be carried down into Christ, or else they must concede that Christ's flesh was not spiritual, since it is not reckoned from a spiritual stock.