Traduction Masquer
De la chair de Jesus-Christ

XVI.

Mais voilà qu'Alexandre se fait jour, entraîné par sa passion pour la dispute, selon le caractère de l'hérésie, comme si nous affirmions que le Christ a revêtu une chair d'origine terrestre, afin d'anéantir en lui-même la chair du péché. Quand même nous le soutiendrions, nous aurions de quoi défendre notre sentiment, mais sans tomber dans, l'extravagance de cet hérétique qui nous fait dire que la chair du Christ a été anéantie dans sa personne en qualité de pécheresse: il nous souvient qu'elle règne dans les cieux, à la droite du Père, et nous enseignons qu'elle en descendra un jour, dans tout l'appareil de la majesté paternelle. Ainsi, comme nous ne pouvons dire qu'elle ait été anéantie. nous ne pouvons dire qu'elle était pécheresse, ni qu'elle ait été jamais anéantie, « puisqu'elle n'a jamais péché. » Ce que nous soutenons, le voici: c'est, non pas la chair du péché, mais le péché de la chair qui est anéanti dans le Christ; non pas la matière, mais la |419 nature; non pas la substance, mais la faute, conformément au témoignage de l'Apôtre, qui dit: « Il a détruit le péché dans la chair. » Car il dit ailleurs: « Jésus-Christ fut dans la ressemblance de la chair du péché; » non pas qu'il ait pris la ressemblance de la chair, c'est-à-dire l'image du corps au lieu de sa réalité, mais il faut entendre par là la ressemblance de la chair qui a péché, parce que la chair du Christ, qui ne péchait pas, fut pareille à celle qui pèche, pareille par la nature, mais non, par la corruption d'Adam. De là nous concluons que la chair fut dans Jésus-Christ la moine que celle dont la nature pèche dans l'homme, et que le péché a détruit en elle, en ce sens qu'elle était sans péché dans Jésus-Christ, tandis qu'elle n'était pas dans l'homme sans péché. En effet, le Christ n'eût rien fait pour le dessein qu'il avait conçu d'anéantir le péché de la chair, s'il ne l'eût pas anéanti dans la chair où résidait la nature du péché. Il n'eût pas travaillé davantage pour sa gloire, Qu'eût-il opéré dé merveilleux en rachetant la souillure du péché dans une chair meilleure et d'une nature différente, c'est-à-dire qui ne péchât point.

---- Donc, si le Christ a revêtu notre chair, me dis-tu, à chair du Christ fut une chair pécheresse.

---- Ne va point arrêter un sens qui sort de lui-même. En revêtant notre chair, il se l'est appropriée; en se l'appropriant, il ne l'a point faite chair pécheresse. Au resté et ceci s'applique à tous ceux qui ne peuvent croire que notre chair ait été en Jésus-Christ, parce qu'elle est née sans le concours de l'homme), qu'on se rappelle que la chair d'Adam naquit sans le concours de l'homme. De même que la terre fut convertie en cette chair sans le concours de l'homme, ainsi le Verbe de Dieu a pu passer dans la substance de cette même chair, sans que l'homme en fournît les éléments.

Traduction Masquer
On the Flesh of Christ

Chapter XVI.--Christ's Flesh in Nature, the Same as Ours, Only Sinless. The Difference Between Carnem Peccati and Peccatum Carnis: It is the Latter Which Christ Abolished. The Flesh of the First Adam, No Less Than that of the Second Adam, Not Received from Human Seed, Although as Entirely Human as Our Own, Which is Derived from It.

The famous Alexander, ¹ too, instigated by his love of disputation in the true fashion of heretical temper, has made himself conspicuous against us; he will have us say that Christ put on flesh of an earthly origin, ² in order that He might in His own person abolish sinful flesh. ³ Now, even if we did assert this as our opinion, we should be able to defend it in such a way as completely to avoid the extravagant folly which he ascribes to us in making us suppose that the very flesh of Christ was in Himself abolished as being sinful; because we mention our belief (in public), ⁴ that it is sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven; and we further declare that it will come again from thence in all the pomp ⁵ of the Father's glory: it is therefore just as impossible for us to say that it is abolished, as it is for us to maintain that it is sinful, and so made void, since in it there has been no fault. We maintain, moreover, that what has been abolished in Christ is not carnem peccati, "sinful flesh," but peccatum carnis, "sin in the flesh,"--not the material thing, but its condition; ⁶ not the substance, but its flaw; ⁷ and (this we aver) on the authority of the apostle, who says, "He abolished sin in the flesh." ⁸ Now in another sentence he says that Christ was "in the likeness of sinful flesh," ⁹ not, however, as if He had taken on Him "the likeness of the flesh," in the sense of a semblance of body instead of its reality; but he means us to understand likeness to the flesh which sinned, ¹⁰ because the flesh of Christ, which committed no sin itself, resembled that which had sinned,--resembled it in its nature, but not in the corruption it received from Adam; whence we also affirm that there was in Christ the same flesh as that whose nature in man is sinful. In the flesh, therefore, we say that sin has been abolished, because in Christ that same flesh is maintained without sin, which in man was not maintained without sin. Now, it would not contribute to the purpose of Christ's abolishing sin in the flesh, if He did not abolish it in that flesh in which was the nature of sin, nor (would it conduce) to His glory. For surely it would have been no strange thing if He had removed the stain of sin in some better flesh, and one which should possess a different, even a sinless, nature! 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, ¹¹ 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 ¹² the substance of the selfsame flesh, without a human father's agency. ¹³