Although they call it invisible, they imagine it to be corporeal, but it has the property of invisibility. For how can that be called invisible that which has nothing invisible in it? But it cannot exist without having that by which it exists. But since it exists, it necessarily possesses that by which it exists. And if it has something by which it exists, it will be its body. Everything that exists is a kind of body; only that which does not exist is incorporeal [102]. Therefore, since the soul has an invisible body, He who decided to make it visible would undoubtedly have acted more worthily in making visible in it that which was considered invisible, for here also neither deceit nor weakness befits God; but there was deception, if He did not represent the soul as it is, and there was weakness, if He could not show the soul for what it is.

No one, wishing to show a person, puts a helmet or mask on him. And this is exactly what happened to the soul, if, having turned into flesh, it took on someone else's form. But even if the soul were considered incorporeal, so that it were a kind of mysterious power of the mind, and all that is the soul were not a body, this would not be impossible for God in the same way, and would be more consistent with His intention to represent the soul in a new, corporeal form, different from the generally known one, and requiring a different conception; He would have had some reason for making the soul visible from invisible, such that it would give rise to such questions, for human flesh would be preserved in it. But Christ could not be visible among men if He was not a man. Therefore, return to Christ His honesty: if He wished to appear as a man, He also revealed the soul of a human quality, not making it carnal, but putting on it with flesh.

12. Let us now suppose that the soul is revealed through the flesh, if the assertion is retained that it must have been revealed in any way at all, without being known either to itself or to us. In the latter case, however, the distinction is in vain—one might think that we exist apart from the soul, while all that we are is the soul. In a word, without a soul we are nothing, not even people in name, but just corpses. Therefore, if we do not know the soul, then it does not know itself. It remains, then, to investigate whether the soul really did not know itself to such an extent that it wished to become known in any way.

The nature of the soul, I believe, is endowed with sensation (sensualis). Therefore there is nothing soulful without sensual sensation (sine sensu), and nothing sentient without a soul. And, to put it briefly, sensation is the soul of the soul. Since, then, the mind communicates sensation to everything, and feels not only the qualities (qualitates) but also the sensations of everything, who thinks it probable that it is not endowed with a sense of itself (sensus sui) from the very beginning? Where does it get the knowledge of what it needs by natural necessity, if it does not know its own property to judge what is necessary? This, I mean the knowledge of oneself (notitia sui), without which no soul could govern itself, can be recognized in every soul. First of all, this applies to man, the only rational being, the most capable and destined to possess the soul, which makes him a rational being, because it itself is first of all rational. Further, how could the soul be rational if it itself, making man a rational being, does not know its own reason (ratio) and does not know about itself? But it knows precisely because it knows its Creator, its Judge, and its own position. Not yet learning about God, she pronounces the name of God; not yet knowing anything about His Judgment, she declares that she entrusts herself to God. Hearing only that with death all hope disappears, she commemorates the deceased with a good or evil word. This is more fully described in the small book "On the Testimony of the Soul", written by us.

However, if the soul had been ignorant of itself from the beginning, it would have to learn from Christ only what it is. Now she learned from Christ not her own appearance, but her own salvation. The Son of God descended and took on a soul, not so that the soul might know itself in Christ, but that it might know Christ in itself. For the danger threatens it not from ignorance of itself, but from ignorance of the Word of God: "In Him," says the Apostle, "the life has been revealed to you" (1 John 1:2), and not the soul, and so on. I came, He says, to save the soul (Luke 9:56), but He did not say "show." Of course, if we consider the soul to be invisible, we could not know how it is born and dies, if it did not appear to us bodily (corporaliter). This will be what Christ has revealed to us. But even this He revealed in Himself no other way than in a certain Lazarus, whose flesh was not natural, and whose soul was not carnal. So, what have we become better aware of about the state of a previously unknown soul? What was there in her that was so invisible that she needed to be manifested through the flesh?

13–15. His flesh is human, not angelic

13. The soul became flesh in order to open up. But did not the flesh also become a soul, so that the flesh might be revealed? If the soul has become flesh, it is no longer a soul, but flesh; If the flesh has become a soul, it is no longer flesh, but a soul. Therefore, where there is flesh and where there is soul, there they are mutually transformed into each other. But if they are neither one nor the other, for each of them is transformed into another, then it is a terrible absurdity: when we speak of the flesh, we must understand the soul, and when we point to the soul, we must consider it to be flesh. Everything is then in danger of being mistaken for what it is, and of losing what it is, if it is perceived differently and if it is not called what it is. The fidelity of names is identical with the preservation of proper properties (proprietates). And when qualities change, objects] acquire new names. For example, baked clay is called a potsherd (testae) and no longer participates in the name of the former genus, because it no longer belongs to this genus. Therefore, the soul of Christ, having become flesh, cannot but be what it has become, and cannot remain what it was, precisely because it has become something else. And since we have given a very clear example, we will use it further. Of course, a potsherd of clay represents only one object (corpus) and one name, that is, the name of this one object. It cannot be called either a potsherd or clay, for it is not what it was; and what he is not, no longer belongs to him. The same applies to the soul. Consequently, the soul, having become flesh, is a substance of one form and solidity, that is, completely whole and indivisible. In Christ we find the soul and the flesh, which are denoted by simple and undisguised names, the soul is called the soul, and the flesh is called the flesh. Never is the soul called flesh, nor the flesh the soul, for they ought to be so called if such a perverse state of affairs existed; on the contrary, He Himself named each substance separately, and everywhere, of course, according to the difference between the two properties, separately the soul and separately the flesh. In particular, He says: "My soul is sorrowful unto death" (Matt. 26:38) and again: "The bread which I will give for the salvation of the world is My flesh" (John 6:51). Further, if the soul were flesh, then there would be only one thing in Christ: the carnal soul, and it is also the natural flesh. But since He separates them, He evidently shows that they are two species, flesh and soul. But if there are two, then not one; and if not one, then there can be neither a carnal soul nor a natural flesh. After all, the carnal soul and the natural flesh are one and the same. Then He would have to have another special soul besides the one that was flesh, and declare another flesh besides the one that was the soul. But if He had one flesh and one soul, and this was sorrowful to death, and the other was bread for the salvation of the world, then there is a number of two substances, different in kind and excluding the only kind of carnal soul.

14. But Christ, they say, was also an angel. On what grounds? On the same thing as a person. Therefore, the reason why Christ represented man is the same, and this reason is the salvation of man. Namely, He did it to restore what was lost. A person died, and it was necessary to restore the person. But there was no such reason for Christ to assume the appearance of angels. For even if the angels are condemned to perdition, to the fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41), they were never promised restoration. Christ did not receive any command from the Father to deliver the angels. And what the Father did not promise or command, Christ could not fulfill. Why, then, did He take on the angelic nature, if not in order to contribute to the liberation of man with the help of this powerful ally? But could not the Son of God alone free man who had been seduced by a single serpent? This means that we no longer have one God and not one Savior, if salvation is accomplished by two and moreover, one needs the other. But is it the point that He should set man free with the help of an angel? Why, then, did He condescend to do what He intended to accomplish through an angel? If through an angel, what did He Himself do? And if He Himself, then what is left for the angel? He is called the angel of the great plan, that is, the messenger: but this is the name of His duty, not of nature. For He was to proclaim to the world the great plan of the Father, namely, the restoration of man. That is why we should not consider Him to be the same angel as Gabriel and Michael. For even the owner of the vineyard sends his son to the cultivators, as well as the servants, to demand the fruit; However, the son should not be considered one of the acolytes for the reason that he assumes the duty of ministers. Therefore I would probably prefer to say that the Son Himself is an angel, that is, the messenger of the Father, rather than that the angel dwells in the Son. But since it is also proclaimed of the Son Himself: "Thou hast not made Him much less before the angels" (Psalm 8:6), how can He be represented as an angel, so humiliated before the angels that He becomes man, like the Son of man, both flesh and soul? He is the Spirit of God and the power of the Most High (Luke 1:35), and therefore He cannot be considered inferior to the angels, for He is God and the Son of God. Consequently, as much as He became inferior to the angels, having taken on human nature, He was not inferior to them, being an angel. This might be consistent with Ebion's view that Jesus is simply a man, of the same seed of David, that is, not the Son of God; of course, in some ways He is more glorious than the prophets, for in Him, Ebion believes, an angel dwelt, just as in Zechariah. But Christ never said, "And the angel that speaketh in me saith unto me" (cf. Zech. 1:14), nor did He even repeat the usual words of the prophets: "Thus saith the Lord." He Himself was the Lord, personally, from His own authority, saying: I say unto you. What more words for? Listen to Isaiah exclaim: "Not an angel, nor a messenger, but the Lord Himself saved them" (cf. Isaiah 63:8-9).

15. And Valentinus, by virtue of his privilege as a heretic, was able to invent the spiritual flesh of Christ. Whoever did not want to believe that it was human could imagine it as anything. For (this must be stated against all such opinions): if the flesh of Christ is not human and not of man, then I do not see in what substance Christ Himself dwelt and declared Himself to be a man and the Son of man: "But now you want to kill the man who told you the truth" (John 8:40), and "The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath also" (Luke 6:5; Matt. 12:8). This is what Isaiah says about Him: "A man of sorrows, and able to endure infirmities" (53:3); and Jeremiah: He is a man, and who has known Him? (17:9); and Daniel: And He is above the cloud, as the Son of man (7:13). Likewise, the Apostle Paul says: "The Mediator of God and of men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5). And then Peter in the Acts of the Apostles: Jesus of Nazareth, a man established for you by God (2:22), and, of course, a man. This alone, by way of judicial objection (vice praescriptionis), if heresies could abandon their love of disputes and cunning tricks, should have been quite sufficient to admit that His flesh is human and descended from man, and not spiritual, nor natural, nor stellar, nor imaginary. For, as I have read in some of Valentine's gang, they do not admit that Christ was endowed with earthly and human substance, lest the Lord should be inferior to the angels, who had no earthly flesh. Then, they assert that flesh like ours must have been born in a similar way, not of the Spirit, not of God, but of the will of a man (cf. John 1:13). And why not from the perishable, but from the incorruptible? And why is not our flesh, equal to His flesh, which was resurrected and taken to heaven, immediately taken into the same place? Or why is not His flesh, equal to ours, equally scattered into the earth? Similar questions were asked by the pagans [105]. Is the Son of God humiliated to such an extent? And if He is resurrected in the image of our hope, why doesn't this happen to us? These questions are understandable among the pagans; but they are also understandable among heretics. For what difference is there between them, if not that the pagans believe and do not believe, and the heretics do not believe and believe? For example, they read: "Thou hast not humbled Him much before the angels," and deny the lesser substance of Christ, although He calls Himself a worm and not a man (Psalm 21:7), having neither form nor beauty (Isaiah 53:2); His appearance is inconspicuous, more contemptible than that of all people, a man of sorrows and able to endure infirmities. They recognize man as united with God and reject man. They believe in mortal things, and assert that mortal things were born of incorruptible, as if corruption were something other than death. "But our flesh also had to be immediately resurrected." "Wait: Christ has not yet suppressed His enemies, in order to triumph over His enemies together with His friends.

16–17. The flesh of Christ is of human nature, but it does not have original sin on it. Symbolic images of the first and last Adam, Eve and the Virgin Mary.

16. Moreover, the well-known Alexander,[106] out of a passion for philosophizing, from the temperament of a heretical mind, appears as if we were asserting that Christ clothed Himself in the flesh of earthly dignity, in order to abolish the flesh of sin in His own Person. If we were to say such a thing, we could support our judgment with any argument, but not with such folly as he supposes, that we regard as sinful the very flesh of Christ, which was abolished in Him. We remember that she sits in Heaven at the right hand of the Father, and we preach that she will come down from there in all the majesty of the Glory of the Father. Therefore we cannot call it abolished, any more than we can call it sinful; That in which there was no deception was not abolished was not abolished. But we insist that in Christ it was not the flesh of sin that was abolished, but the sin of the flesh, it was not matter that was abolished, but nature, and not substance but guilt, according to the authority of the Apostle, who says: "He abolished sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8:3; cf. 6:6). For in another place he says that Christ had the likeness of the flesh of sin (ibid.), and not that He took on the likeness of flesh, as a phantom of the body, but not a real body. By the likeness of sinful flesh he proposes to understand not that the flesh of Christ itself is sinful, but that it was identical with sinful flesh in its origin, and not in Adam's sin. On this basis we affirm that in Christ there was that flesh whose nature in man is sinful, and sin in it was abolished, so that in Christ that which is not sinless in man was sinless. For if Christ, in abolishing the sin of the flesh, wished to abolish it in a flesh other than that which was sinful by nature, this would not have been in accordance with His intention or glory. For what great is it to remove a birthmark in the flesh of a better and different, that is, not sinful nature?

So you say, if Christ put on our flesh, His flesh was sinful. Do not distort the meaning, which is quite clear. Having put on our flesh, Christ made it His own; and having made it His own, He made it sinless. Moreover (this must be said against all who do not believe that in Christ our flesh was, because it did not come from the seed of man), it must be borne in mind that Adam himself was clothed in this flesh, which did not come from the seed of man. Just as the earth was turned into this flesh without the seed of man, so the Word of God could pass into the matter of the same flesh without a binding principle (sine coagulo).

17. But now, leaving Alexander with his syllogisms, which he twists together in his arguments, even with the Psalms of Valentinus, which he quotes as impudently as if they were the work of a great author, let us turn our attention to one question: Did Christ receive His flesh from the Virgin, so that, if He received substance from a human source, her human nature might thereby be made especially clear? However, even by His human name, by the nature of His attributes (de statu qualitatis), by the meaning of His actions and the outcome of His sufferings, one could not doubt His human flesh. But first of all, it is necessary to set forth the reason by virtue of which the Son of God was born of a Virgin. The Author of the New Birth was to be born again, which, as Isaiah preached, the Lord wanted to give a sign. What is this sign? Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son" (Isaiah 7:14). And so the Virgin conceived and gave birth to Immanuel, God with us (Matt. 1:23). Man is born in God — this is the new birth; in this man God was born, taking on the flesh of the ancient seed, but without the participation of the seed itself, in order to transform it with a new seed, that is, spiritually, and redeem it by cleansing it from the ancient impurity. But this new, as in all cases, is endowed with an ancient appearance, for by virtue of a special plan the Lord was born a man from a Virgin.

The land was still virgin, not yet ploughed or sown; from it, as we have learned, man was made by the Lord a living soul (Gen. 2:7). And if it is said that the first Adam is from the earth, then the second, or the last Adam, as the Apostle said (cf. 1 Cor. 15:45), therefore it was also fitting to be born of God from the earth, that is, from the flesh not yet revealed for birth, into a life-giving spirit. And yet, in order to use the example of Adam's name to the end, why does the Apostle call Christ Adam, if His humanity was not of earthly dignity? But even here reason confirms that God freed from captivity His image and likeness, which had been taken captive by the devil, by performing a reciprocal action. For in Eve, hitherto a virgin, crept in a word that caused death; likewise the Word of God, which creates life, had to enter into the virgin, so that that which was destroyed through this sex would be directed to salvation through the same sex. Eve believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel. A sin that one committed by believing, the other, by believing, made amends. "But Eve did not then conceive in her womb because of the word of the devil." — No, I conceived. For from that time on, the word of the devil was a seed for her, so that she would bring forth what she had rejected and bring forth in tribulation (cf. Gen. 3:16). She even gave birth to a fratricide devil [108]. On the contrary, Mary brought into the world Him Who once had to save His bodily brother and destroyer, Israel. Therefore God sent down His Word, a good brother, into the womb, to erase the memory of the evil brother. And Christ, for the salvation of man, had to come out of there [from the sinful state of the flesh], into which man entered after his condemnation.