Ante-Nicene Fathers (Volume 3) - XXVI - On the flesh of Christ

Required reading
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Volume 3) (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read 'On the flesh of Christ'.

My summary
Today Tertullian tackles those who deny Christ's human flesh.

Tertullian sums up the problem at the beginning of his work: 'They who are so anxious to shake that belief in the resurrection which was firmly settled before the appearance of our modern Sadducees, as even to deny that the expectation thereof has any relation whatever to the flesh, have great cause for besetting the flesh of Christ also with doubtful questions, as if it either had no existence at all, or possessed a nature altogether different from human flesh. For they cannot but be apprehensive that, if it be once determined that Christ’s flesh was human, a presumption would immediately arise in opposition to them, that that flesh must by all means rise again, which has already risen in Christ. Therefore we shall have to guard our belief in the resurrection from the same armoury, whence they get their weapons of destruction. Let us examine our Lord’s bodily substance, for about His spiritual nature all are agreed.It is His flesh that is in question. Its verity and quality are the points in dispute. Did it ever exist? whence was it derived? and of what kind was it? If we succeed in demonstrating it, we shall lay down a law for our own resurrection. '

In order to defend Christ's full humanity, Tertullian discusses the relationship of the flesh to the soul and also brings in Scriptural proof regarding Christ's bodily:
(i) birth;
(ii) death;
(iii) resurrection;
(iv) temptation;
(v) status with the rest of mankind;
(vi) affirmation by others;
(vii) flesh;
(viii) blood;
(ix) ancestry.

What grabbed me
I appreciated Tertullian's work today, although the discussion of soul may have probed too deep into what we cannot know.

I liked his defence of Christ's sinlessness, even though Christ was fully human: 'Then, you say, if He took our flesh, Christ’s was a sinful one. Do not, however, fetter with mystery a sense which is quite intelligible. For in putting on our flesh, He made it His own; in making it His own, He made it sinless.  A word of caution, however, must be addressed to all who refuse to believe that our flesh was in Christ on the ground that it came not of the seed of a human father, let them remember that Adam himself received this flesh of ours without the seed of a human father. As earth was converted into this flesh of ours without the seed of a human father, so also was it quite possible for the Son of God to take to Himself the substance of the selfsame flesh, without a human father’s agency.'

If Adam was able to take on flesh and be sinless, then why can't Christ?

Next week's reading
Commence 'On the resurrection of the flesh' by reading Chapters 1 to 32.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.