Tertullian on the flesh

Here is Tertullian, with Genesis 2:7 in his mind, writing against Gnostics who devalue the flesh:

"Let me then pursue my purpose, which is to do my best to claim for the flesh all that God conferred upon it in creating it, the flesh which then gloried in the fact that this poor clay had come into the hands of God, whatever they are, and was happy enough at the mere touch...  Think of God wholly occupied and absorbed in the task, with hand, sense, activity, forethought, wisdom, providence; and above all, that love of his which was tracing the features.  For in all the form which was moulded in the clay, Christ was in his thoughts as the man who was to be; for the Word was to be made clay and flesh, just as at that time earth was fashioned into man."

The emphasis is, of course, mine; the thought is beautiful, don't you think?