1 Parilitatem.
2 Formarn.
3 Alioquin. 4Certi (sumus). 5 Tantummodo. ^ Vindicet.
7 Injecta raanu detinens.
8 Praescribo.
9 Ex squo deoscoafessus.
obliged to acknowledge that the God whom he does not deny is the great Supreme, it is inadmissible that he should predicate of the Supreme Being such a diminution as should subject Him to another Supreme Being. For He ceases (to be Supreme), if He becomes subject to any. Besides, it is not the charac- teristic of God to cease from any attribute '° of His divinity — say, from His supremacy. For at this rate the supremacy would be endan- gered even in Marcion's more powerful god, if it were capable of depreciation in the Cre- ator. When, therefore, two gods are pro- nounced to be two great Supremes, it must needs follow that neither of them is greater or less than the other, neither of them loftier or lowlier than the other. If you deny " him to be God whom you call inferior, you deny " the supremacy of this inferior being. But when you confessed both gods to be divine, you confessed then both to be supreme. Nothing will you be able to take away from either of them; nothing will you be able to add. By allowing their divinity, you have denied their diversity.
CHAP. VII. OTHER BEINGS BESIDES GOD ARE IN SCRIPTURE CALLED GOD. THIS OBJECTION FRIVOLOUS, FOR IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF NAMES. THE DIVINE ESSENCE IS THE THING AT ISSUE. HERESY, IN ITS GENERAL TERMS, THUS FAR TREATED.
But this argument you will try to shake with an objection from the name of God, by alleging that that name is a vague '^ one, and applied to other beings also; as it is written, "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; '^ He judgeth among the gods. ' ' And again, "I have said. Ye are gods."'* As therefore the attribute of supremacy would be inappropriate to these, although they are called gods, so is it to the Creator. This is a foolish objection; and my answer to it is, that its au- thor fails to consider that quite as strong an objection might be urged against the (su- perior) god of Marcion: he too is called god, but is not on that account proved to be divine, as neither are angels nor men, the Creator's handiivork. If an identity of names affords a presumption in support of equality of con- dition, how often do worthless menials strut insolently in the names of kings — your Alex- anders, Caesars, and Pompeys! 's This fact, 10 De statu suo. " Nega. '2 Passive.
'3'7X"n"2?3- Tertullian's version is: In ecclesia cUorum.
The Vulgate: In synagoga deorutn.
'5 The HOW less obvious nicknames of " Alex. Darius and Olo* femes," are in the te,\t.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book I.
however, does not detract from the real attri- butes of the royal persons. Nay more, the very idols of the Gentiles are called gods. Yet not one of them is divine because he is called a god. It is not, therefore, for the name of god, for its sound or its written form, that I am claiming the supremacy in the Cre- ator, but for the essence ' to which the name belongs; and when I find that essence alone is unbegotten and unmade — alone eternal, and the maker of all things — it is not to its name, but its state, not to its designation, but its condition, that I ascribe and appropriate the attribute of the supremacy. And so, because the essence to which I ascribe it has come ' to be called god, you suppose that I ascribe it to the name, because I must needs use a name to express the essence, of which indeed that Being consists who is called God, and who is accounted the great Supreme because of His e'ssence, not from His name. In short, Mar- cion himself, when he imputes this character to his god, imputes it to the nature, ^ not to the word. That supremacy, then, which we ascribe to God in consideration of His essence, and not because of His name, ought, as we maintain, to be equal ^ in both the beings who consist of that substance for which the name of God is given; because, in as far as they are called gods {i.e. supreme beings, on the strength, of course, of their unbegotten and eternal, and therefore great and supreme es- sence), in so far the attribute of being the great Supreme cannot be regarded as less or worse in one than in another great Supreme. If the happiness, and sublimity, and perfec- tion s of the Supreme Being shall hold good of Marcion's god, it will equally so of ours; and if not of ours, it will equally not hold of Marcion's. Therefore two supreme beings will be neither equal nor unequal: not equal, because the principle which we have just ex- pounded, that the Surpeme Being admits of no comparison with Himself, forbids it; not unequal, because another principle meets us respecting the Supreme Being, that He is capable of no diminution. So, Marcion, you are caught^ in the midst of your own Pontic tide. The waves of truth overwhelm you on every side. You can neither set up equal gods nor unequal ones. For there are not two; so far as the question of number is properly concerned. Although the whole matter of the two gods is at issue, we have yet con- fined our discussion to certain bounds, within ' Substantiac.
2 Vocari obtinuit.
sStatum.
4 Ex pari.
which we shall now have to contend about separate peculiarities.
CHAP. VIII. — SPECIFIC POINTS. THE NOVELTY OF marcion's god fatal TO HIS PRETEN- SIONS. GOD IS FROM EVERLASTING, HE CAN- NOT BE IN ANY WISE NEW.
In the first place, how arrogantly do the Marcionites build up their stupid system,' bringing forward a new god, as if we were ashamed of the old one! So schoolboys are proud of their new shoes, but their old master beats their strutting vanity out of them. Now when I hear of a new god,^ who, in the old world and in the old time and under the old god was unknown and unheard of; whom, {ac- counted as no one through such long centu- ries back, and ancient in men's very ignorance of him),' a certain " Jesus Christ," and none else revealed; whom Christ xext^Xtd, (hey say — Christ himself new, according to thefn, even, in ancient names — I feel grateful for this con- ceit '° of theirs. For by its help I shall at once be able to prove the heresy of their tenet of a new deity. It will turn out to be such a novelty " as has made gods even for the hea- then by some new and yet again and ever new title" for each several deification. What new god is there, except a false one? Not even Saturn will be proved to be a god by all his ancient fame, because it was a novel pretence which some time or other produced even him, when it first gave him godship.'' On the con- trary, living and perfect '* Deity has its origin '» neither in novelty nor in antiquity, but in its own true nature. Eternity has no time. It is itself all time. It acts; it cannot then suf- fer. It cannot be born, therefore it lacks age. God, if old, forfeits the eternity that is to come; if new, the eternity which is past.'* The newness bears witness to a beginning; the oldness threatens an end. God, moreover, is as independent of beginning and end as He is of time, which is only the arbiter and measurer of a beginning and an end.
7 Stuporem suum.
8 [Cap. xix. in/ra.']
9 The original of this obscure passage is: " Novum igitur au- diens deum, in vetere niundo et in vetere aevo et sub vetere deo inauditum quern tantis retro seculis neminem, et ipsa ignorantia antiquum, quidam Jesus Christus, et ille in veteribus noniinibus novus, revelaverit, nee alius antehac." The harsh expression, " quidam Jesus Christus," bears, of course, a sarcastic reference to the capricious and inconsistent novelty which Mircion broached in his heresj- about Christ. [By some slight change in punctuation and arrangement, I have endeavoured to make it a little clearer.]
" Hxc erit novitas quse.
'=Novo semper ac novotitulo.
'3Consecravit.
u Gcrmana.
'S Censetur. A frequent meaning in TertuUian. See Apol. 7 '6 We cannot preserve the terseness of the Latin • Deus, si est vctiis, noil erit; si est novus, nun fiiil.
cirAP. IX.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
CHAP. IX. — MARCION S GNOSTIC PRETENSIONS VAIN, FOR THE TRUE GOD IS NEITHER UN- KNOWN NOR UNCERTAIN. THE CREATOR, WHOM HE OWNS TO BE GOD, ALONE SUPPLIES AN INDUCTION, BY WHICH TO JUDGE OK THE TRUE GOD, Now I know full well by what perceptive faculty they boast of their new god; even their knowledge.' It is, however, this very discovery of a novel thing — so striking to common minds — as well as the natural grati- fication which is inherent in novelty, that I wanted to refute, and thence further to chal- lenge a proof of this unknown god. For him whom by their knowledge^ they present to us as new, they prove to have been unknown previous to that knowledge. Let us keep within the strict limits and measure of our argument. Convince me there could have been an unknown god. I find, no doubt, ^ that altars have been lavished on unknown gods; that, however, is the idolatry of Athens. And on uncertain gods; but that, too, is only Roman superstition. Furthermore, uncertain gods are not well known, because no certainty about them exists; and because of this un- certainty they are therefore unknown. Now, which of these two titles shall we carve for Marcion's god? Both, I suppose, as for a being who is still tmcertam, and was formerly unknoum. For inasmuch as the Creator, being a known God, caused him to be unknown; so, as being a certain God, he made him to be uncertain. But I will not go so far out of my way, as to say:* If God was unknown and concealed, He was overshadowed in such a region of darkness, as must have been itself new and unknown, and be even now likewise uncertain — some immense region indeed, one undoubtedly greater than the God whom it concealed. But I will briefly state my sub- ject, and afterwards most fully pursue it, pre- mising that God neither could have been, nor ought to have been, unknown. Could not have been, because of His greatness; ought not to have been, because of His goodness, especially as He is (supposed, by Marcion) more excellent in both these attributes than our Creator. Since, however, I observe that in some points the proof of every new and heretofore unknown god ought, for its test,^ to be compared to the form of the Creator, it will be my duty^ first of all to show that this very course is adopted by me in a settled « Agnitione. The distinctive term of the Gnostic pretension Was the Greek equivalent lV<i<ri«.
2 Agnitione.
3 Plane.
4 Non evagabor, ut dicam.
5 Provocari. * Debebo.
plan, 7 such as I might with greater confidence ' use in support of my argument. Before every other consideration, Het me ask) how it hap- pens that you,' who aclcnowledge '" the Creator to be God, and from your knowledge confess Him to be prior in existence, do not know that the other ^^(/ should be examined by you in exactly the same course of investigation which has taught you how to find out a god in the first case? Every prior thing has fur- nished the rule for the latter. In the present question two gods are propounded, the un- known and the known. Concerning the known there is no " question. It is plain that He ex- ists, else He would not be known. The dis- pute is concerning the unknown god. Possi- bly he has no existence; because, if he had, he would have been known. Now that which, so long as it is unknown, is an object to be questioned, is an uncertainty so long as it re- mains thus questionable; and all the while it is in this state of uncertainty, it possibly has no existence at all. You have a god who is so far certain, as he is known; and uncertain, as un- known. This being the case, does it appear to you to be justly defensible, that uncertain- ties should be submitted for proof to the rule, and form, and standard of certainties? Now, if to the subject before us, which is in itself full of uncertainty thus far, there be applied also arguments '^ derived from uncertainties, we shall be involved in such a series of ques- tions arising out of our treatment of these same uncertain arguments, as shall by reason of their uncertainty be dangerous to the faith, and we shall drift into those insoluble ques- tions which the apostle has no affection for. If, again, '3 in things wherein there is found a diversity of condition, they shall prejudge, as no doubt they will,'" uncertain, doubtful, and intricate points, by the certain, undoubt- ed, and clear sides '= of their rule, it will prob- ably happen that'* (those points) will not be submitted to the standard of certainties for determination, as being freed by the diversity of their essential condition '^ from the applica- tion of such a standard in all other respects. 'As, therefore, it is two gods which are the subject of our proposition, their essential condition must be the same in both. For, as concerns their divinity, they are both unbe- gotten, unmade, eternal. This will be their essential condition. All other points Marcion 7 Ratione.
SConstantius.
9 Quale est ut. •' Agnoscis. " Vacat.
■5 Regula; partibus. '6 Kortasse an. '7 Status principalis.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book I.
himself seems to have made light of,' for he has placed them in a different'' category. They are subsequent in the order of treat- ment; indeed, they will not have to be brought into the discussion, ^ since on the essential condition there is no dispute. Now there is ihis absence of our dispute, because they are both of them gods. Those things, therefore, whose community of condition is evident, will, when brought to a test on the ground of that common condition,* have to be submitted, although they are uncertain, to the standard ^ of those certainties with which they are classed in the community of their essential condition, BO as on this account to share also in their manner of proof. I shall therefore contend * with the greatest confidence that he is not God who is to-day uncertain, because he has been hitherto unknown; for of whomsoever it Is evident that he is God, from this very fact it is (equally) evident, that he never has been unknown, and therefore never uncertain.
CHAP. X. THE CREATOR WAS KNOWN AS THE TRUE GOD FROM THE FIRST BY HIS CREATION. ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE SOUL AND CON- SCIENCE OF MAN BEFORE HE WAS REVEALED BY MOSES.
For indeed, as the Creator of all things, He was from the beginning discovered equally with them, they having been themselves mani- fested that He might become known as God. For although Moses, some long while after- wards, seems to have been the first to intro- duce the knowledge of' the God of the uni- verse in the temple of his writings, yet the birthday of that knowledge must not on that account be reckoned from the Pentateuch. For the volume of Moses does not at all ini- tiate * the knowledge of the Creator, but from the first gives out that it is to be traced from Paradise and Adam, not from Egypt and Moses. The greater part, therefore,' of the human race, although they knew not even the name of Moses, much less his writings, yet knew the God of Moses; and even when idol- atry overshadowed the world with its extreme prevalence, men still spoke of Him separately by His own name as God, and the God of gods, and said, "If God grant," and, "As God pleases," and, "I commend you to God."" Reflect, then, whether they knew ' Viderit.
2 In diversitate.
3 Nee admittentur.
* Sub eo.
S Formam.
* Dirigam.
7 Dedicasse.
8 Instituat.
9 Denique.
10 See also £>e test, /tnitn. 2, and Ve anima,- 41. [Bp. Kaye refers (p. 166.) to Profr. Andrews Norton of Harvard, with great pespect: specially to a Note on this usage of the Heathen, in his Evidences, etc. Vol. III.']
Him, of whom they testify that He can do all things. To none of the writings of Moses do they owe this. The soul was before proph- ecy." From the beginning the knowledge of God is the dowry of the soul, one and the same amongst the Egyptians, and the Syrians, and the tribes of Pontus. For their souls call the God of the Jews their God. Do not, O barbarian heretic, put Abraham before the world. Even if the Creator had been the God of one family, He was yet not later than your god; even in Pontus was He known be- fore him. Take then your standard from Him who came first: from the Certain (must be judged) the uncertain; from the Known the unknown. Never shall God be hidden, never shall God be wanting. Always shall He be understood, always be heard, nay even seen, in whatsoever way He shall^wish. God has for His witnesses this whole being of ours, and this universe wherein we dwell. He is thus, because not unknown, proved to be both God and the only One, although another still tries hard to make out his claim.
CHAP. XI. — THE EVIDENCE FOR GOD EXTERNAL TO him; but THE EXTERNAL CREATION WHICH YIELDS THIS EVIDENCE IS REALLY NOT EXTRANEOUS, FOR ALL THINGS ARE GOD's.^ MARCION's GOD, HAVING NOTHING TO SHOW FOR HIMSELF, NO GOD AT ALL. MARCION 's SCHEME ABSURDLY DEFECTIVE, NOT FURNISH- ING EVIDENCE FOR HIS NEW GOD'S EXISTENCE, WHICH SHOULD AT LEAST BE ABLE TO COM- PETE WITH THE FULL EVIDENCE OF THE CREATOR.
And justly so, they say. For who is there that is less well known by his own (inherent) qualities than by strange '"^ ones? No one. Well, I keep to this statement. How could anything be strange'- to God, to whom, if He were personally existent, nothing would be strange? For this is the attribute of God, that all things are His, and all things belong to Him; or else this question would not so readily be heard from us: What has He to do with things strange to Him? — a point which will be more fully noticed in its proper place. It is now sufficient to observe, that no one is proved to exist to whom nothing is proved to belong. For as the Creator is shown to be God, God without any doubt, from the fact that all things are His, and nothing is strange to Him; so the rival '* god is seen to be no god, from the circumstance that nothing is his, and all things are therefore strange to " Prophetia, inspired Scripture. " Extraneous. •3 Extraneura. •4 Alius.
tllAP. XII.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
79 him. Since, then, the universe belongs to the Creator, I see no room for any other god. All things are full of their Author, and occu- pied by Him. If in created beings there be any portion of space anywhere void of Deity, the void will be of a false deity clearly.' By falsehood the truth is made clear. Why can- not the vast crowd of false gods somewhere find room for Marcion's god? This, there- fore, I insist upon, from the character = of the Creator, that God must have been knowrf from the works of some world peculiarly His own, both in its human constituents, and the rest of its organic life;-'' when even the error of the world has presumed to call gods those men whom it sometimes acknowledges, on the ground that in every such case something is seen which provides for the uses and advan- tages of life.^ Accordingly, this also was be- lieved from the character of God to be a divine function; namely, to teach or point out what is convenient and needful in human concerns. So completely has the authority which has given influence to a false divinity been bor- rowed from that source, whence it had previ- ously flowed forth to the true one. One stray vegetable 5 at least Marcion's god ought to have produced as his own; so might he be preached up as a new Triptolemus.* Or else state some reason which shall be worthy of a God, why he, supposing him to exist, created nothing; because he must, on supposition of his existence, have been a creator, on that very principle on which it is clear to us that our God is no otherwise existent, than as hav- ing been the Creator of this universe of ours. For, once for all, the rule ^ will hold good, that they cannot both acknowledge the Creator to be God, and also prove him divine whom they wish to be equally believed in as God, except they adjust him to the standard of Him whom they and all men hold to be God; which is this, that whereas no one doubts the Creator to be God on the express ground of His having made the universe, so, on the self- same ground, no one ought to believe that he also is God who has made nothing — except, in- deed, some good reason be forthcoming. And this must needs be limited to one of two: he was either unwtllmg to create, or else unable. There is no third reason.^ Now, that he was unable, is a reason unworthy of God. Whether to have been unwilling to be a worthy one, I want to inquire. Tell me, Marcion, did your • Plane falsae vacabit.
" Forma.
sProprii sui mundi, et hominis et sxculi.
5 Cicerculam.
< [— " uncique puer monstrator aratri," Virg. Georg, i. 19, and see Heyne's note.] 7 Prsescriptio. s Tertium cessat.
god wish himself to be recognised at any time or not? With what other purpose did he come down from heaven, and preach, and having suffered rise again from the dead, if it were not that he might be acknowledged? And, doubtless, since he was acknowledged, he willed it. For no circumstance could have happened to him, if he had been unwilling. What indeed tended so greatly to the knowl- edge of himself, as his appearing in the hu- miliation of the flesh, — a degradation all the lower indeed if the flesh were only illusory?» For it was all the more shameful if he, who brought on himself the Creator's curse by hanging on a tree, only pretended the assump- tion of a bodily substance. A far nobler foun- dation might he have laid for the knowledge of himself in some evidences of a creation of his own, especially when he had to become known in opposition to Him in whose terri- tory '° he had remained unknown by any works from the beginning. For how happens it that the Creator, although unaware, as the Marcionites aver, of any god being above Himself, and who used to declare even with an oath that He existed alone, should have guarded by such mighty works the knowledge of Himself, about which, on the assumption of His being alone without a rival. He might have spared Himself all care; while the Supe- rior God, knowing ail tlie while how well fur- nished in power His inferior rival was, should have made no provision at all towards getting Himself acknowledged? Whereas He ought to have produced works more illustrious and exalted still, in order that He might, after the Creator's standard, both be acknowledged as God from His works, and even by nobler deeds show Himself to be more potent and more gracious than the Creator.
CHAP. XII. — IMPOSSIBILITY OF ACKNOWLEDGING GOD WITHOUT THIS EXTERNAL EVIDENCE " OF HIS EXISTENCE. MARCION's REJECTION OF SUCH EVIDENCE FOR HIS GOD SAVOURS OF IMPUDENCE AND MALIGNITY.
But even if we were able to allow that he exists, we should yet be bound to argue that he is without a cause." For he who had noth- ing (to show for himself as proof of his ex- istence),would be without a cause, since (such) proof" is the whole cause that there exists 9 Falspe. An allusion to the Docetistn of Marcion.
'oApudquem.
" The word cause throughout this chapter is used in the popu- lar, inaccurate sense, which almost confounds it with effect, the " causa cognoscendi," as distinguished from the " causa esseadi," the strict cause.
'2 The word " res " is throughout this argument used strictly by Tertullian; it refers to " t/te thing'' made by God— that product of His creative energy which affords to us evidence of His exist- ence. We have translated it "proof" for want of a better word- TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book I.
some person to whom the proof belongs. Now, in as far as nothing ought to be without a cause, that is, without a proof (because if it be without a cause, it is all one as if it be not, not having the very proof which is the cause of a thing), in so far shall I more worthily believe that God does not exist, than that He exists without a cause. For he is without a cause who has not a cause by reason of not having a proof. God, however, ought not to be without a cause, that is to say, without a proof. Thus, as often as I show that He ex- ists without a cause, although (I allow ' that) He exists, I do really determine this, that He does not exist; because, if He had existed, He could not have existed altogether without a cause. ^ So, too, even in regard to faith itself, I say that he ^ seeks to obtain it ■* with out cause from man, who is otherwise accus- tomed to believe in God from the idea he gets of Him from the testimony of His works:s (without cause, I repeat,) because he has pro- vided no such proof as that whereby man has acquired the knowledge of God. For although most persons believe in Him, they do not believe at once by unaided reason,* without having some token of Deity in works worthy of God. And so upon this ground of