This article explores the powerful efficacy of Tertullian's theological discourse in his treatise De came Christi. Departing from the conventional wisdom of evaluating early Christian theological texts according to their adherence to formal rhetorical models, which makes them vulnerable to postmodern criticism, this article advocates an alternative approach. It analyzes Tertullian's arguments by relating them directly to his central topic of discussion: the flesh of Christ. Tertullian's insistence on the physical concreteness of Christ's flesh, which connects Christ's human birth inseparably with his death and resurrection, serves to underscore what he calls "the law for our resurrection" (ch. 1). The article demonstrates that the physical concreteness of Christ's flesh so dominates Tertullian's theological discourse that it underlies even his well-known use of paradox. An example is found when Tertullian makes the truth of Christ's resurrection following his crucifixion dependent on how it mocks wordly wisdom (ch. 5). The article reveals specifically how a view of Tertullian's discourse as pivoting on the concreteness of Christ's flesh sheds light on his arguments regarding Christ's birth of a virgin (chs. 17-23). For Tertullian, Christ's flesh can only lay down the law for humanity's bodily resurrection if the divine Word heeds the "law of the opened body" (ch. 23) by undergoing a fully human birth. In his logic Christ's exit into this world, which opened his mother's womb, caused Mary to change from virgin to wife. Since Christ's birth is thus itself a signum contradicibile, Tertullian's discourse is stripped of its former dependence on paradoxes to describe its salvific novelty, gaining a new-found accuracy instead.
The development of medieval Christian thought reveals from its inception in foundational authors like Augustine and Boethius an inherent engagement with Neoplatonism. To their influence that of Pseudo-Dionysius was soon added, as the first speculative medieval author, the Carolingian thinker Johannes Scottus Eriugena (810–877ce), used all three seminal authors in his magisterial demonstration of the workings of procession and return. Rather than a stable ongoing trajectory, however, the development of medieval Christian (Neo)Platonism saw moments of flourishing alternate with moments of philosophical stagnation. The revival of theTimaeusand Platonic cosmogony in the twelfth century marks the achievement of the so-called Chartrian authors, even as theTimaeusnever acquired the authority of the biblical book of Genesis. Despite the dominance of scholastic and Aristotelian discourse in the thirteenth century, (Neo)Platonism continued to play an enduring role. The Franciscan Bonaventure follows the Victorine tradition in combining Augustinian and Dionysian themes, but Platonic influence underlies the pattern of procession and return — reflective of the Christian arc of creation and salvation — that frames the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Echoing the interrelation of macro- and microcosmos, the major themes of medieval Christian Platonic thought are, on the one hand, cosmos and creation and, on the other, soul and self. The Dominican friar Meister Eckhart and the beguine Marguerite Porete, finally, both Platonically inspired late-medieval Christian authors keen on accomplishing the return, whether the aim is to bring out its deep, abyss-like “ground” (Eckhart) or to give up reason altogether and surrender to the free state of “living without a why” (Marguerite), reveal the intellectual audacity involved in upending traditional theological modes of discourse.
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