Tertullian — Commentary on Scripture

John 2:19

As to the word resurrectio, whenever I hear of its impending over a human being, I am forced to inquire what part of him has been destined to fall, since nothing can be expected to rise again, unless it has first been prostrated. It is only the man who is ignorant of the fact that the flesh falls by death, that can fail to discover that it stands erect by means of life. Nature pronounces God's sentence: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return." Even the man who has not heard the sentence, sees the fact. No death but is the ruin of our limbs. This destiny of the body the Lord also described, when, clothed as He was in its very substance, He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." For He showed to what belongs (the incidents of) being destroyed, thrown down, and kept down-even to that to which it also appertains to be lifted and raised up again; although He was at the same time bearing about with Him "a soul that was trembling even unto death," but which did not fall through death, because even the Scripture informs us that "He spoke of His body…

As to the word resurrectio, whenever I hear of its impending over a human being, I am forced to inquire what part of him has been destined to fall, since nothing can be expected to rise again, unless it has first been prostrated. It is only the man who is ignorant of the fact that the flesh falls by death, that can fail to discover that it stands erect by means of life. Nature pronounces God's sentence: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return." Even the man who has not heard the sentence, sees the fact. No death but is the ruin of our limbs. This destiny of the body the Lord also described, when, clothed as He was in its very substance, He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." For He showed to what belongs (the incidents of) being destroyed, thrown down, and kept down-even to that to which it also appertains to be lifted and raised up again; although He was at the same time bearing about with Him "a soul that was trembling even unto death," but which did not fall through death, because even the Scripture informs us that "He spoke of His body." So that it is the flesh which falls by death; and accordingly it derives its name, cadaver, from cadendo. The soul, however, has no trace of a fall in its designation, as indeed there is no mortality in its condition. Nay it is the soul which communicates its ruin to the body when it is breathed out of it, just as it is also destined to raise it up again from the earth when it shall re-enter it. That cannot fall which by its entrance raises; nor can that droop which by its departure causes ruin.

On the Resurrection of the Flesh

John 2:19

"The Lord for the body:" yes; for "the Word was made flesh." "Moreover, God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us through His own power;" on account, to wit, of the union of our body with Him. And accordingly, "Know ye not your bodies (to be) members of Christ?" because Christ, too, is God's temple. "Overturn this temple, and I will in three days' space resuscitate it." "Taking away the members of Christ, shall I make (them) members of an harlot? Know ye not, that whoever is agglutinated to an harlot is made one body? (for the two shall be (made) into one flesh): but whoever is agglutinated to the Lord is one spirit? Flee fornication." If revocable by pardon, in what sense am I to flee it, to turn adulterer anew? I shall gain nothing if I do flee it: I shall be "one body," to which by communion I shall be agglutinated. "Every sin which a human being may have committed is extraneous to the body; but whoever fornicateth, sinneth against his own body." And, for fear you should fly to that statement for a licence to fornication, on the ground that you will be sinning against a th…

"The Lord for the body:" yes; for "the Word was made flesh." "Moreover, God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us through His own power;" on account, to wit, of the union of our body with Him. And accordingly, "Know ye not your bodies (to be) members of Christ?" because Christ, too, is God's temple. "Overturn this temple, and I will in three days' space resuscitate it." "Taking away the members of Christ, shall I make (them) members of an harlot? Know ye not, that whoever is agglutinated to an harlot is made one body? (for the two shall be (made) into one flesh): but whoever is agglutinated to the Lord is one spirit? Flee fornication." If revocable by pardon, in what sense am I to flee it, to turn adulterer anew? I shall gain nothing if I do flee it: I shall be "one body," to which by communion I shall be agglutinated. "Every sin which a human being may have committed is extraneous to the body; but whoever fornicateth, sinneth against his own body." And, for fear you should fly to that statement for a licence to fornication, on the ground that you will be sinning against a thing which is yours, not the Lord's, he takes you away from yourself, and awards you, according to his previous disposition, to Christ: "And ye are not your own;" immediately opposing (thereto), "for bought ye are with a price"—the blood, to wit, of the Lord: "glorify and extol the Lord in your body."

On Modesty

John 2:21

For He showed to what belongs (the incidents of) being destroyed, thrown down, and kept down-even to that to which it also appertains to be lifted and raised up again; although He was at the same time bearing about with Him "a soul that was trembling even unto death," but which did not fall through death, because even the Scripture informs us that "He spoke of His body." So that it is the flesh which falls by death; and accordingly it derives its name, cadaver, from cadendo.

On the Resurrection of the Flesh

John 3:5

Besides, he had certainly not forgotten what the Lord had so definitively stated: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God; " in other words, he cannot be holy.

A Treatise on the Soul

John 3:5

For the law of baptizing has been imposed and the formula prescribed: “Go,” he says, “teach the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The comparison with this law of that definition, “Unless one has been reborn of water and Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens,” has tied faith to the necessity of baptism. Accordingly, all thereafter who became believers used to be baptized.

ON BAPTISM 13

John 3:5

When, however, the prescript is laid down that "without baptism, salvation is attainable by none" (chiefly on the ground of that declaration of the Lord, who says, "Unless one be born of water, he hath not life" ), there arise immediately scrupulous, nay rather audacious, doubts on the part of some, "how, in accordance with that prescript, salvation is attainable by the apostles, whom-Paul excepted-we do not find baptized in the Lord? Nay, since Paul is the only one of them who has put on the garment of Christ's baptism, either the peril of all the others who lack the water of Christ is prejudged, that the prescript may be maintained, or else the prescript is rescinded if salvation has been ordained even for the unbaptized.

On Baptism

John 3:6

And if not from itself, but from something else, from what can we more suitably suppose that the Word became flesh than from that flesh in which it submitted to the dispensation? And (we have a proof of the same conclusion in the fact) that the Lord Himself sententiously and distinctly pronounced, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," even because it is born of the flesh.

On the Flesh of Christ

John 3:6

But if He here spoke of a human being simply, and not of Himself, (as you maintain) then you must deny absolutely that Christ is man, and must maintain that human nature was not suitable to Him. And then He adds, "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit," because God is a Spirit, and He was born of God.

On the Flesh of Christ

John 3:6

Learn then, together with Nicodemus, that "that which is born in the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit." Neither the flesh becomes Spirit, nor the Spirit flesh.

Against Praxeas

John 3:6

The Lord himself axiomatically and distinctly pronounced, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” because it is born from the flesh. But if he here spoke simply of a human being and not of himself, then you must deny absolutely that Christ is man and must maintain that human nature was not suitable to him. And then he adds, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” because God is a Spirit, and he was born of God. Now this description is certainly even more applicable to him than it is to those who believe in him. But if this passage indeed applies to him, then why does not the preceding one also? For you cannot divide their relation and adapt this to him and the previous clause to all other people, especially as you do not deny that Christ possesses the two substances, both of the flesh and of the Spirit. Besides, as he was in possession both of flesh and of Spirit, he cannot possibly—when speaking of the condition of the two substances that he himself bears—be supposed to have determined that the Spirit indeed was his own but that the flesh was not his own. Forasmuch, theref…

The Lord himself axiomatically and distinctly pronounced, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” because it is born from the flesh. But if he here spoke simply of a human being and not of himself, then you must deny absolutely that Christ is man and must maintain that human nature was not suitable to him. And then he adds, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” because God is a Spirit, and he was born of God. Now this description is certainly even more applicable to him than it is to those who believe in him. But if this passage indeed applies to him, then why does not the preceding one also? For you cannot divide their relation and adapt this to him and the previous clause to all other people, especially as you do not deny that Christ possesses the two substances, both of the flesh and of the Spirit. Besides, as he was in possession both of flesh and of Spirit, he cannot possibly—when speaking of the condition of the two substances that he himself bears—be supposed to have determined that the Spirit indeed was his own but that the flesh was not his own. Forasmuch, therefore, as he is of the Spirit, he is God the Spirit and is born of God; just as he is also born of the flesh of man, being generated in the flesh as man.

ON THE FLESH OF CHRIST 18.5-7

John 3:13

It is the Son, too, who ascends to the heights of heaven, [John 3:13] and also descends to the inner parts of the earth. [Ephesians 4:9]

Against Praxeas, Chapter 30

John 3:13

It is the Son, too, who ascends to the heights of heaven, and also descends to the inner parts of the earth.

Against Praxeas

John 3:14

I say nothing of what was figured by this cure. Thus, too, the golden Cherubim and Seraphim were purely an ornament in the figured fashion of the ark; adapted to ornamentation for reasons totally remote from all condition of idolatry, on account of which the making a likeness is prohibited; and they are evidently not at variance with this law of prohibition, because they are not found in that form of similitude, in reference to which the prohibition is given.

Against Marcion Book II

John 3:14

Christ Himself (they say further) in His gospel imitates Moses' serpent's sacred power, in saying: "And as Moses upreared the serpent in the desert, so it behoveth the Son of man to be upreared." Him they introduce to bless their eucharistic (elements).

Pseudo-Tertullian Against All Heresies

John 3:16

In His address to Nicodemus He says: "So God loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And again: "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

Against Praxeas

John 3:17

He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." Moreover, when John (the Baptist) was asked what he happened to know of Jesus, he said: "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.

Against Praxeas

John 3:21

The things that make us luminaries of the world are these—our good works. What is good, moreover (provided it is true and full), does not love darkness: it rejoices in being seen and exults over the very recognition it receives. To Christian modesty it is not enough to be so but to also appear so. For its fullness should be so great that it flows out from the mind to the clothing and bursts out from the conscience to the outward appearance.

ON THE DRESS OF WOMEN 2.13

John 3:21

What is good, moreover, provided it be true and full, loves not darkness: it joys in being seen, and exults over the very pointings which are made at it.

On the Apparel of Women Book II

John 3:30

John himself professes that the celestial things are not his, but Christ's, by saying, "He who is from the earth speaketh concerning the earth; He who comes from the realms above is above all; " and again, by saying that he "baptized in repentance only, but that One would shortly come who would baptize in the Spirit and fire; " -of course because true and stable faith is baptized with water, unto salvation; pretended and weak faith is baptized with fire, unto judgment.

On Baptism

John 3:30

In speech, by which prayer is enunciated, in spirit, by which alone it prevails, even John had taught his disciples to pray, but all John's doings were laid as groundwork for Christ, until, when "He had increased "-just as the same John used to fore-announce "that it was needful" that "He should increase and himself decrease" -the whole work of the forerunner passed over, together with his spirit itself, unto the Lord.

On Prayer