{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030454.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030454.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030454.htm","text":"Chapter VIII.\u2014Man the Image of the Creator, and Christ the Head of the Man. Spiritual Gifts. The Sevenfold Spirit Described by Isaiah. The Apostle and the Prophet Compared. Marcion Challenged to Produce Anything Like These Gifts of the Spirit Foretold in Prophecy in His God.\n\u201cThe head of every man is Christ.\u201d 5529 What Christ, if He is not the author of man? The head he has here put for authority; now \u201cauthority\u201d will accrue to none else than the \u201cauthor.\u201d Of what man indeed is He the head? Surely of him concerning whom he adds soon afterwards: \u201cThe man ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image of God.\u201d 5530 Since then he is the image of the Creator (for He, when looking on Christ His Word, who was to become man, said, \u201cLet us make man in our own image, after our likeness\u201d 5531 ), how can I possibly have another head but Him whose image I am? For if I am the image of the Creator there is no room in me for another head. But wherefore \u201cought the woman to have power over her head, because of the angels?\u201d 5532 If it is because \u201cshe was created for the man,\u201d 5533 and taken out of the man, according to the Creator\u2019s purpose, then in this way too has the apostle maintained the discipline of that God from whose institution he explains the reasons of His discipline. He adds: \u201cBecause of the angels.\u201d 5534 What angels? In other words, whose angels? If he means the fallen angels of the Creator, 5535 there is great propriety in his meaning. It is right that that face which was a snare to them should wear some mark of a humble guise and obscured beauty. If, however, the angels of the rival god are referred to, what fear is there for them? for not even Marcion\u2019s disciples, (to say nothing of his angels,) have any desire for women. We have often shown before now, that the apostle classes heresies as evil 5536 among \u201cworks of the flesh,\u201d and that he would have those persons accounted estimable 5537 who shun heresies as an evil thing. In like manner, when treating of the gospel, 5538 we have proved from the sacrament of the bread and the cup 5539 the verity of the Lord\u2019s body and blood in opposition to Marcion\u2019s phantom; whilst throughout almost the whole of my work it has been contended that all mention of judicial attributes points conclusively to the Creator as to a God who judges. Now, on the subject of \u201cspiritual gifts,\u201d 5540 I have to remark that these also were promised by the Creator through Christ; and I think that we may derive from this a very just conclusion that the bestowal of a gift is not the work of a god other than Him who is proved to have given the promise. Here is a prophecy of Isaiah: \u201cThere shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a flower 5541 shall spring up from his root; and upon Him shall rest the Spirit of the Lord.\u201d After which he enumerates the special gifts of the same: \u201cThe spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of religion. 5542 And with the fear of the Lord 5543 shall the Spirit fill Him.\u201d 5544 In this figure of a flower he shows that Christ was to arise out of the rod which sprang from the stem of Jesse; in other words, from the virgin of the race of David, the son of Jesse. In this Christ the whole substantia of the Spirit would have to rest, not meaning that it would be as it were some subsequent acquisition accruing to Him who was always, even before His incarnation, the Spirit of God; 5545 so that you cannot argue from this that the prophecy has reference to that Christ who (as mere man of the race only of David) was to obtain the Spirit of his God. (The prophet says,) on the contrary, that from the time when (the true Christ) should appear in the flesh as the flower predicted, 5546 rising from the root of Jesse, there would have to rest upon Him the entire operation of the Spirit of grace, which, so far as the Jews were concerned, would cease and come to an end. This result the case itself shows; for after this time the Spirit p. 446 of the Creator never breathed amongst them. From Judah were taken away \u201cthe wise man, and the cunning artificer, and the counsellor, and the prophet;\u201d 5547 that so it might prove true that \u201cthe law and the prophets were until John.\u201d 5548 Now hear how he declared that by Christ Himself, when returned to heaven, these spiritual gifts were to be sent: \u201cHe ascended up on high,\u201d that is, into heaven; \u201cHe led captivity captive,\u201d meaning death or slavery of man; \u201cHe gave gifts to the sons of men,\u201d 5549 that is, the gratuities, which we call charismata. He says specifically \u201csons of men,\u201d 5550 and not men promiscuously; thus exhibiting to us those who were the children of men truly so called, choice men, apostles. \u201cFor,\u201d says he, \u201cI have begotten you through the gospel;\u201d 5551 and \u201cYe are my children, of whom I travail again in birth.\u201d 5552 Now was absolutely fulfilled that promise of the Spirit which was given by the word of Joel: \u201cIn the last days will I pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and their daughters shall prophesy; and upon my servants and upon my handmaids will I pour out of my Spirit.\u201d 5553 Since, then, the Creator promised the gift of His Spirit in the latter days; and since Christ has in these last days appeared as the dispenser of spiritual gifts (as the apostle says, \u201cWhen the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son;\u201d 5554 and again, \u201cThis I say, brethren, that the time is short\u201d 5555 ), it evidently follows in connection with this prediction of the last days, that this gift of the Spirit belongs to Him who is the Christ of the predicters. Now compare the Spirit\u2019s specific graces, as they are described by the apostle, and promised by the prophet Isaiah. \u201cTo one is given,\u201d says he, \u201cby the Spirit the word of wisdom;\u201d this we see at once is what Isaiah declared to be \u201cthe spirit of wisdom.\u201d \u201cTo another, the word of knowledge;\u201d this will be \u201cthe (prophet\u2019s) spirit of understanding and counsel.\u201d \u201cTo another, faith by the same Spirit;\u201d this will be \u201cthe spirit of religion and the fear of the Lord.\u201d \u201cTo another, the gifts of healing, and to another the working of miracles;\u201d this will be \u201cthe spirit of might.\u201d \u201cTo another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another divers kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues;\u201d this will be \u201cthe spirit of knowledge.\u201d 5556 See how the apostle agrees with the prophet both in making the distribution of the one Spirit, and in interpreting His special graces. This, too, I may confidently say: he who has likened the unity of our body throughout its manifold and divers members to the compacting together of the various gifts of the Spirit, 5557 shows also that there is but one Lord of the human body and of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit, (according to the apostle\u2019s showing,) 5558 meant not 5559 that the service 5560 of these gifts should be in the body, 5561 nor did He place them in the human body); and on the subject of the superiority of love 5562 above all these gifts, He even taught the apostle that it was the chief commandment, 5563 just as Christ has shown it to be: \u201cThou shalt love the Lord with all thine heart and soul, 5564 with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thine own self.\u201d 5565 When he mentions the fact that \u201cit is written in the law,\u201d 5566 how that the Creator would speak with other tongues and other lips, whilst confirming indeed the gift of tongues by such a mention, he yet cannot be thought to have affirmed that the gift was that of another god by his reference to the Creator\u2019s prediction. 5567 In precisely the same manner, 5568 when enjoining on women silence in the church, that they speak not for the mere sake 5569 of learning 5570 (although that even they have the right of prophesying, he has already shown 5571 when he covers the woman that prophesies with a veil), he goes to the law for his sanction that woman should be under obedience. 5572 Now this law, let me say once for all, he ought to have made no other acquaintance with, than to destroy it. But that we may now leave the subject of spiritual gifts, facts themselves will be enough to prove which of us acts rashly in claiming them for his God, and whether it is possible that they are opposed to our side, even if 5573 the Creator promised them for His Christ who is not yet revealed, as being destined only for the Jews, to have their operations in His time, in His Christ, and among His people. Let Marcion p. 447 then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some prophets, such as have not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God, such as have both predicted things to come, and have made manifest 5574 the secrets of the heart; 5575 let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayer 5576 \u2014only let it be by the Spirit, 5577 in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture, 5578 whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him; let him show to me also, that any woman of boastful tongue 5579 in his community has ever prophesied from amongst those specially holy sisters of his. Now all these signs (of spiritual gifts) are forthcoming from my side without any difficulty, and they agree, too, with the rules, and the dispensations, and the instructions of the Creator; therefore without doubt the Christ, and the Spirit, and the apostle, belong severally 5580 to my God. Here, then, is my frank avowal for any one who cares to require it.\nSee more concerning these in chap. xviii. of this book. Comp. Gen. vi. 1-4.\n445:5536 445:5537 445:5538\nSee above, in book iv. chap. xl.\n445:5539 445:5540 445:5541 445:5542 445:5543 445:5544 445:5545\nWe have more than once shown that by Tertullian and other ancient fathers, the divine nature of Christ was frequently designated \u201cSpirit.\u201d\n445:5546 446:5547 446:5548 446:5549\n1 Cor. 12:4, Eph. 4:8, Ps. 68:18.\n446:5550\nHe argues from his own reading, filiis hominum.\n446:5551 446:5552 446:5553\nJoel 2:28, 29, applied by St. Peter, Acts 2:17, 18.\n446:5554 446:5555\n1 Cor. vii. 29. [The verse filled out by the translator.]\n446:5556\nComp. 1 Cor. 12:8, Isa. 11:1.\n446:5557 446:5558\nThis seems to be the force of the subjunctive verb noluerit.\n446:5559 446:5560 446:5561\nThey are spiritual gifts, not endowments of body.\n446:5562 446:5563\nCompare 1 Cor. 12:31, 1 Cor. 13:1, 13.\n446:5564 446:5565 446:5566\n\u201cHere, as in John 10:34, John 12:34, John 15:25, \u2018the law\u2019 is used for the Old Testament generally, instead of being, as usual, confined to the Pentateuch. The passage is from Isa. xxviii. 11.\u201d (Dean Stanley, On the Corinthians, in loc.).\n446:5567 446:5568 446:5569 446:5570 446:5571\n1 Cor. 11:5, 6. [See Kaye, p. 228.]\n446:5572\n1 Cor. 14:34, Gen. 3:16 is referred to.\n446:5573\nEt si: These words introduce the Marcionite theory.\n447:5574 447:5575 447:5576 447:5577\nDuntaxat spiritalem: These words refer to the previous ones, \u201cnot spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God.\u201d [Of course here is a touch of his fanaticism; but, he bases it on (1 Cor. xiv.) a mere question of fact: had these charismata ceased?]\n447:5578 447:5579 447:5580","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: Man th...","type":"page"}