Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: 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 prescriptive 7156 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 created 7159 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 p. 535 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 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 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, corruptibility 7166 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.