Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] So much, for now, on the question of the flesh, and, through it, of the birth, and of the single name Emmanuel. But as for the other names, and above all the name "Christ" — what will the opposing side answer? If among you the name "Christ" is common in the way the name "God" is — so that just as it suits calling the son of both gods "Christ," so both may equally be called "Father" and "Lord" — then reason will certainly refute this line of argument. [2] For the name "God," being as it were the natural name of divinity, can be shared with all to whom divinity is ascribed — as with idols too, the apostle saying, "For indeed there are those who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth." But the name "Christ," coming not from nature but from a particular arrangement, becomes the property of the one to whom, upon investigation, that arrangement is found to belong. Nor is it subject to being shared with another god — least of all a rival god, one having his own dispensation, to whom, accordingly, private names of his own are owed. [3] For what sort of thing is it, that those who have devised two gods with distinct dispensations should nonetheless admit a partnership of names amid a discord of dispensations, when no proof would more clearly establish two rival gods than if a corresponding diversity of names were also found in their dispensation? For no state of distinctness is ever established except by properties of designation. [4] And when such proper names run short, it is now the Greek "catachresis" — the abuse of what belongs to another — that comes to the rescue. But with God, I take it, nothing ought to run short, nor should his dispensations need to be furnished from what belongs to someone else. Who is this god who claims for his own son as well names taken from the Creator — not, I say, foreign names, but old and common ones, which even so would hardly suit a new and unknown god? [5] How, then, does he teach that a new patch is not to be sewn onto an old garment, nor new wine trusted to old wineskins, when he himself is sewn on and clothed in the old age of names? How does he cut the gospel loose from the Law, while he is wholly clothed in the Law — namely, in the very name of "Christ"? Who kept him from being called something else, while preaching something else, coming from somewhere else — since it was for this very reason that he did not even take on a true body, so as not to be believed to be the Creator's Christ? [6] But it is pointless that he did not want to be seen as the one he wanted to be called; for even if he had truly had a body, he would all the more not be taken for the Creator's Christ if he were not so called. But as it now stands, he rejects the substance while accepting the name — a name that was meant to prove the substance as well! For if "Christ" means "anointed," then to be anointed is necessarily an affair of the body. One who had no body could not be anointed at all; and one who could not be anointed at all could in no way be called Christ. It is another matter if he laid claim even to a phantom of the name. [7] "But how," he says, "was he to creep into the faith of the Jews except through a name familiar and customary among them?" You are describing a god who is inconstant, or underhanded; and it is the counsel either of distrust or of malice to advance one's cause by deceiving. The false prophets acted far more freely and openly against the Creator, coming in the name of their own god. But I do not even find that this scheme achieved its purpose, since it was easier for people to believe him either their own promised Christ, or rather some impostor, than the Christ of another god — as the Gospel will show.
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