Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Archelaus/Acts of Disputation/Chapter IL

by Archelaus

49. But in addition to all that has been said already, I wish to adduce still further proof, so that all may understand what impiety is contained in this assertion of yours. For if your allegation is true, that He was not born, then it will follow undoubtedly that He did not suffer; for it is not possible for one to suffer who was not also born. But if He did not suffer, then the name of the cross is done away with. And if the cross was not endured, then Jesus did not rise from the dead. And if Jesus rose not from the dead, then no other person will rise again. And if no one shall rise again, then there will be no judgment. For it is certain that, if I am not to rise again, I cannot be judged. But if there is to be no judgment, then the keeping of God’s commandments will be to no purpose, and there will be no occasion for abstinence: nay, we may say, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die.”^[1] For all these consequences follow when you deny that He was born of Mary. But if you acknowledge that He was born of Mary, then His passion will necessarily follow, and His resurrection will be consequent on His passion, and the judgment on His resurrection: and thus the injunctions of Scripture will have their proper value^[2] for us. This is not therefore an idle question, but there are the mightiest issues involved in this word. For just as all the law and the prophets are summed up in two words, so also all our hope is made to depend on the birth by the blessed Mary. Give me therefore an answer to these several questions which I shall address to you. How shall we get rid of these many words of the apostle, so important and so precise, which are expressed in terms like the following: “But when the good pleasure of God was with us, He sent His Son, made of a woman;”^[3] and again, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us;”^[4] and once more, “God hath both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us together with Him by His own power?”^[5] And there are many other passages of a similar import; as, for example, this which follows: “How say some among you,^[6] that there is no resurrection of the dead? For if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not Christ risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain. Yea, and we shall be found false witnesses of God; who have testified against God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ risen: and if Christ be not raised, your^[7] faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are more miserable than all men. But now is Christ risen from the dead, the beginning^[8] of them that sleep;”^[9] and so on. Who, then, I ask, can be found so rash and audacious as not to make his faith fit in with these sacred words, in which there is no qualification^[10] nor any dubiety? Who, I ask you, O foolish Galatian, has bewitched you, as those were bewitched “before whose eyes Jesus Christ was evidently set forth, crucified?”^[11] From all this I think that these testimonies should suffice in proof of the judgment, and the resurrection, and the passion; and the birth by Mary is also shown to be involved naturally and at once in these facts. And what matters it though you refuse to acquiesce in this, when the Scripture proclaims the fact most unmistakeably? Nevertheless I shall again put a question to you, and let it please you to give me an answer. When Jesus gave His testimony concerning John, and said, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding, he that is less^[12] in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he,”^[13] tell me what is meant by there being a greater than he in the kingdom of heaven. Was Jesus less in the kingdom of heaven than John? I say, God forbid! Tell me, then, how this is to be explained, and you will certainly surpass yourself. Without doubt the meaning is, that Jesus was less than John among those that are born of woman; but in the kingdom of heaven He is greater than he.^[14] Wherefore tell me this too, O Manichæus: If you say that Christ was not born of Mary, but that He only appeared like a man, while yet He was not really a man, the appearance being effected and produced by the power that is in Him, tell me, I repeat, on whom then was it that the Spirit descended like a dove? Who is this that was baptized by John? If He was perfect, if He was the Son, if He was the Power, the Spirit could not have entered into Him;^[15] just as a kingdom cannot enter within a kingdom. And whose, too, was that voice which was sent forth out of heaven, and which gave Him this testimony, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased?”^[16] Come, tell me; make no delay; who is this that acquires^[17] all these things, that does all these things? Answer me: Will you thus audaciously adduce blasphemy for reason, and will you attempt to find a place for it?^[18]

Footnotes

1. 1 Cor. xv. 32.
2. Salva.
3. Gal. iv. 4. The reading is, “cum autem fuit Dei voluntas in nobis.” The Vulgate, following the ordinary Greek text, gives, “at ubi venit plenitudo temporis.” And so Irenæus, Tertullian, Cyprian, etc. [This should have been in the margin of the Revised Version.]
4. 1 Cor. v. 7.
5. 1 Cor. vi. 14. The text here inserts the words cum illo, which are found neither in the Greek, nor in the Vulgate, nor in Irenæus, Adv. Hæres., v. 6, 7 [vol. i. pp. 530, 532, this series], nor in Tertullian, Adv. Marc., v. 7, etc. [vol. iii. p. 443, this series]. According to Sabatier, however, they are found in Jerome, Ep. ad Amand.
6. Reading in vobis. But the Codex Casinensis seems to give in nobis, amongst us.
7. But the Codex Casinensis seems to make it fides nostra, our faith.
8. Initium.
9. 1 Cor. xv. 12–20.
10. Distinctio.
11. Gal. iii. 1. The word in the text is rescriptus est. The Vulgate gives præscriptus est. The Vetus Itala proscriptus est.
12. Minor.
13. Matt. xi. 11.
14. It would seem that Archelaus read the passage in Matthew as meaning, notwithstanding, he that is less, is, in the kingdom of heaven, greater than he. Thus, he that is less is understood to be Jesus in His natural relations. [A very lean and hungry proculdubio of the author.]
15. Routh appends a note here which may be given. It is to this effect: I am afraid that Archelaus has not expressed with sufficient correctness the mystery of the Divine Incarnation, in this passage as well as in what follows; although elsewhere he has taught that the Lord Jesus was conceived by divine power, and in ch. xxxiv. has called the Virgin Mary Dei genetrix, Θεοτόκος. For at the time of the Saviour’s baptism the Holy Spirit was not given in His first communication with the Word of God (which Word, indeed, had been united with the human nature from the time of the conception itself), but was only received by the Christ ἀνΘρωπίνως and οἰκονομικῶς, and for the sake of men. See Cyril of Alexandria, De Rectâ Fide, xxxiv. vol. v. 2, p. 153, editio Auberti.[Routh, R.S., vol. v. p. 178.]
16. Matt. iii. 17.
17. Parat.
18. Inferre coneris.