inactivity and lack of works he' is guilty both of impudence and malignity: of impudence, in aspiring after a belief which is not due to him, and for which he has provided no foun- dation;® of malignity, in having brought many persons under the charge of unbelief by fur- nishing to them no groundwork for their faith.
CHAP. XIII. — THE MARCIONITES DEPRECIATE THE CREATION, WHICH, HOWEVER, IS A WOR- THY WITNESS OF GOD. THIS WORTHINESS ILLUSTRATED BY REFERENCES TO THE HEA- THEN PHILOSOPHERS, WHO WERE APT TO IN- VEST THE SEVERAL PARTS OF CREATION WITH DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.
While we are expelling from this rank (of Deity) a god who has no evidence to show for himself which is so proper and God-worthy as the testimony of the Creator, Marcion's most shameless followers with haughty imperti- nence fall upon the Creator's works to de- stroy them. To be sure, say they, the world is a grand work, worthy of a God.' Then is the Creator not at all a God? By all means ' The " tan<)uam sit," in its subjunctive form, seems to refer to the concession mdicated at the outset of the chapter. ^'Oranino sine causa. 3 Ilium, i.e., Marcion's god. 4Captare. S Deum ex operum auctoritate formatum.
* Non statim ratione, on a priori grounds. 7 i.e., Marcion's god.
* Compare Rom. i- 20, a passage which is quite subversiy* of Marcion's theory.
9 This is an ironical concession from the Marcionite side He is God.'° Therefore " the world is not un- worthy of God, for God has made nothing unworthy of Himself; although it was for man, and not for Himself, that He made the world, (and) although every work is less than its maker. And yet, if to have been the author of our creation, such as it is, be unworthy of God, how much more unworthy of Him is it to have created absolutely nothing at all! — not even a production which, although un- worthy, might yet have encouraged the hope of some better attempt. To say somewhat, then, concerning the alleged " unworthiness of this world's fabric, to which among the Greeks also is assigned a name of ornament and grace, '3 not of sordidness, those very profess- ors of wisdom,'" from whose genius every heresy derives its spirit, '^ called the said un- worthy elements divine; as Thales did water, Heraclitus fire, Anaximenes air, Anaximander all the heavenly bodies, Strato the sky and earth, Zeno the air and ether, and Plato the stars, which he calls a fiery kind of gods; whilst concerning the world, when they con- sidered indeed its magnitude, and strength, and power, and honour, and glory, — the abun- dance, too, the regularity, and law of those individual elements which contribute to the production, the nourishment, the ripening, and the reproduction of all things, — the majority of the philosophers hesitated '* to assign a be- ginning and an end to the said world, lest its constituent elements,'' great as they un- doubtedly are, should fail to be regarded as divine,'^ which are objects of worshsip with the Persian magi, the Egyptian hierophants, and the Indian gymnosophists. The very superstition of the crowd, inspired by the common idolatry, when ashamed of the names and fables of their ancient dead borne by their idols, has recourse to fhe interpretation of natural objects, and so with much ingenuity cloaks its own disgrace, figuratively reducing Jupiter to a heated substance, and Juno to an aerial one (according to the literal sense of the Greek words);" Vesta, in like manner, to fire, and the Muses to waters, and the Great Mother ''° to the earth, mowed as to its crops, ploughed up with lusty arms, and watered 'o Another concession.
1= De isto.
'3 They called it Koay-o^.
14 By sapientiieprofessores he means the heathen philosophers; see De Prcrscript. Herret. c. 7.
»5 In his book adv. Hermogenem, c. 8, TertuUiaa calls the philosophers " haereticorum patriarchae."
'6 Formidaverint.
'7 Substantia;.
»8Dei.
'9 The Greek name of Jupiter, Z«u?, is here derived Ixovaiiio, ferveo, l glow: Juno's name,'Hpa, TertuUian connects with o-ifp, the air; iropa to arjp Koff viripOeartv'Hpa. These nanxes of the two great deities suggest a connection with fire and air.
»>i.e., Cybele.
CHAP. XV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
with baths.' Thus Osiris also, whenever he is buried, and looked for to come to life again, and with joy recovered, is an emblem of the regularity wherewith the fruits of the ground return, and the elements recover life, and the year comes round; as also the lions of Mithras = are philosophical sacraments of arid and scorched nature. It is, indeed, enough for me that natural elements, foremost in site and state, should have been more readily re- garded as divine than as unworthy of God. I will, however, come down to' humbler ob- jects. A single floweret from the hedgerow, I say not from the meadows; a single little shell- fish from any sea, I say not from the Red Sea; a single stray wing of a moorfowl, I say nothing of the peacock, — will, I presume, prove to you that the Creator was but a sorry ■* artificer!
CHAP. XIV. — ALL PORTIONS OF CREATION AT- TEST THE EXCELLENCE OF THE CREATOR, WHOM MARCION VILIFIES. HIS INCONSISTENCY HEREIN EXPOSED. MARCION's OWN GOD DID NOT HESITATE TO USE THE CREATOR'S WORKS IN INSTITUTING HIS OWN RELIGION.
Now, when you make merry with those minuter animals, which their glorious Maker has purposely endued with a profusion of in- stincts and resources, 5 — thereby teaching us that greatness has its proofs in lowliness, just as (according to the apostle) there is power even in infirmity,^ — imitate, if you can, the cells of the bee, the hills of the ant, the webs of the spider, and the threads of the silk- worm; endure, too, if you know how, those very creatures ^ which infest your couch and house, the poisonous ejections of the blister- beetle,* the spikes of the fly, and the gnat's sheath and sting. What of the greater ani- mals, when the small ones so affect you with pleasure or pain, that you cannot even in their case despise their Creator? Finally, take a circuit round your own self; survey man with- in and without. Even this handiwork of our God will be pleasing to you, inasmuch as your own lord, that better god, loved it so well,' and for your sake was at the pains'" of descend- ing from the third heaven to these poverty- • The earth's irrigations, and the washings of the image of Cy- be!e every year in the river Ahno by her priests, are here con- fusedly alluded to. For references to the pagan custom, see White and Riddle's large Lat. Diet. s.?'. Almo.
2 Mithras, the Persian sun-god, was symbolized by the image of a lion. The sun entering the zodiacal sign '^{^eo amidst summer heat may be glanced at.
3Deficiam ad.
4Sordidum. [Well and nobly said.]
5 De industria ingeniis aut viribus ampliavit.
7 TertuUian, it should be remembered, lived in Africa. ^Cantharidis.
9 Adamavit. 1° Laboravit.
stricken " elements, and for the same reason was actually crucified in this sorry " apartment of the Creator. Indeed, up to the present time, he has not disdained the water which the Creator made wherewith he washes his people; nor the oil with which he anoints them; nor that union of honey and milk wherewithal he gives them the nourishment '^ of children; nor the bread by which he represents his own proper body, thus requiring in his very sacra- ments the "beggarly'* elements" of the Creator. You, however, are a disciple above his master, and a servant above his lord; you have a higher reach of discernment than his; you destroy what he requires. I wish to ex- amine whether you are at least honest in this, so as to have no longing for those things which you destroy. You are an enemy to the sky, and yet you are glad to catch its freshness in your houses. You disparage the earth, al- though the elemental parent '^ of your own flesh, as if it were your undoubted enemy, and yet you extract from it all its fatness '* for your food. The sea, too, you reprobate, but are continually using its produce, which you account the more sacred diet.'^ If I should offer you a rose, you will not disdain its Maker. You hypocrite, however much of abstinence you use to show yourself a Marcionite, that is, a repudiator of your Maker (for if the world displeased you, such abstinence ought to have been affected by you as a mar- tyrdom), you will have to associate yourself with'* the Creator's material production, into what element soever you shall be dissolved. How hard is this obstinacy of yours! You vilify the things in which you both live and die.
CHAP. XV. — THE LATENESS OF THE REVELATION OF MARCION's GOD. THE QUESTION OF THE PLACE OCCUPIED BY THE RIVAL DEITIES. INSTEAD OF TWO GODS, MARCION REALLY (ALTHOUGH, AS IT WOULD SEEM, UNCON- SCIOUSLY) HAD NINE GODS IN HIS SYSTEM.
After all, or, if you like," before all, since you have said that he has a creation =" of his own, and his own world, and his own sky; we shall see,^' indeed, about that third heaven, when we come to discuss even your own apos- " Paupertina. This and all such phrases are, of course, in imi- tation of Marcion's contemptuous view of the Creator's work.
12 Cellula.
13 Infantat.
'■> Mendicitatibus. '5 Matricem. 16 Medullas.
'7 [The use of fish for fasting-days has ao better warrant than Marcion's example.] '>*;Uteris. «9Vel.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book I.
tie.' Meanwhile, whatever is the (created) substance, it ought at any rate to have made its appearance in company with its own god. But now, how happens it that the Lord has been revealed since the twelfth year of Tiberius Caesar, while no creation of His at all has been discovered up to the fifteenth of the Emperor Severus;^ although, as being more excellent than the paltry works ^ of the Creator, it should certainly have ceased to conceal itself, when its lord and author no longer lies hid? I ask, therefore,^ if it was unable to manifest itself in this world, how did its Lord appear in this world ^ If this world received its Lord, why was it not able to receive the created sub- stance, unless perchance it was greater than its Lord? But now there arises a question about place, having reference both to the world above and to the God thereof. For, behold, if he ^ has his own world beneath him, above the Creator, he has certainly fixed it in a position, the space of which was empty be- tween his own feet and the Creator's head. Therefore God both Himself occupied local space, and caused the world to occupy local space; and this local space, too, will be greater than God and the world together. For in no case is that which contains not greater than that which is contained. And indeed we must look well to it that no small patches * be left here and there vacant, in which some third god also may be able with a world of his own to foist himself in.^ Now, begin to reckon up your gods. There will be local space for a god, not only as being greater than God, but as being also unbegotten and unmade, and there- fore eternal, and equal to God, in which God has ever been. Then, inasmuch as He too has fabricated * a world out of some underlying material which is unbegotten, and unmade, and contemporaneous with God, just as Mar- cion holds of the Creator, you reduce this like- wise to the dignity of that local space which has enclosed two gods, both God and matter. For matter also is a god according to the rule of Deity, being (to be sure) unbegotten, and unmade, and eternal. If, however, it was out of nothing that he made his world, this also I For Marcion's exclusive use, and consequent abuse, of St. Paul, see Neander's Antignostikus (Bohn), vol. ii. pp. 491, 505, * [This date not merely settles the time of our author's work against Marcion, but supplies us with evidence that his total lapse must have been very late in life. For the five books, written at intervals and marked by progressive tokens of his spiritual decline, are as a whole, only slightly offensive to Orthodoxy. 'I'liis should be borne in mind.]
3 Frivolis. Again in reference to Marcion undervaluing the creation as the work of the Demiurge.
4 Et ideo.
5 In this and the following sentences, the reader will observe the distinction which is drawn between the Supreme and good God of Marcion and his " Creator," or Demiurge.
*Subsiciva. 7 Stipare se. " Molitus est.
(our heretic) will be obliged to predicate' of the Creator, to whom he subordinates '" matter in the substance of the world. But it will be only right that he " too should have made his world out of matter, because the sam.e process occurred to him as God which lay before the Creator as equally God. And thus you may, if you please, reckon up so far,'3 three gods as Marcion's,— the Maker, local space, and matter. Furthermore, '^ he in like manner makes the Creator a god in local space, which is itself to be appraised on a precisely identical scale of dignity; and to Him as its lord he subordinates matter, which is notwith- standing unbegotten, and unmade, and by reason hereof eternal. With this matter he further associates evil, an unbegotten princi- ple with an unbegotten object, an unmade with an unmade, and an eternal with an eternal; so here he makes a fourth God. Accordingly you have three substances of Deity in the higher instances, and in the lower ones four. When to these are added their Christs — the one which appeared in the time of Tiberius, the other which is promised by the Creator — Marcion suffers a manifest wrong from those persons who assume that he holds two gods, whereas he implies '•* no less than nine,'s though he knows it not.
CHAP. XVI. — MARCION ASSUMES THE EXISTENCE OF TWO GODS FROM THE ANTITHESIS BETWEEN THINGS VISIBLE AND THINGS INVISIBLE. THIS ANTITHETICAL PRINCIPLE IN FACT CHARAC- TERISTIC OF THE WORKS OF THE CREATOR, THE ONE GOD — MAKER OF ALL THINGS VISI- BLE AND INVISIBLE.
Since, then, that other world does not ap- pear, nor its god either, the only resource left '^ to them is to divide things into the two classes of visible and invisible, with two gods for their authors, and so to claim '' the invisible for their own, (the supreme) God. But who, except an heretical spirit, could ever bring his mind to believe that the invisible part of creation be- longs to him who had previously displayed no visible thing, rather than to Him who, by His operation on the visible world, produced a belief in the invisible also, since it is far more 9 Sentire.
'o Subicit.
" The Supreme and good God. TertuUian here gives it as one of Marcion's tenets, that the Demiurge createtl the World out of pre-existent matter.
'2 Interim.
'3 Proinde et.
'4 Assignet.
'5 Namely, (i) the supreme and good God; (2) His Christ; (3) the space in which He dwells; (4) the matter of His creation; (5) the Demiurge (or Marcion's " Creator "); (6) his promised Christ; (7) the space viy\ch contains him; (8) this world, his creation; (9) evil, inherent in it.
'*Consequens est ut.
«7 Defendant.
CHAP. XVII.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
28 reasonable to give one's assent after some samples (of a work) than after none? We shall see to what author even (your favourite) apostle attributes ' the invisible creation, when we come to examine him. At present (we withhold his testimony), for^" we are for the most part engaged in preparing the way, by means of common sense and fair arguments, for a belief in the future support of the Scrip- tures also. We affirm, then, that this diversity of things visible and invisible must on this ground be attributed to the Creator, even be- cause the whole of His work consists of di- versities— of things corporeal and incorporeal; of animate and inanimate; of vocal and mute; of moveable and stationary; of productive and sterile; of arid and moist; of hot and cold. Man, too, is himself similarly tempered with diversity, both in his body and in his sensa- tion. Some of hi.' members are strong, others weak; some comely, others uncomely; some twofold, others unique; some like, others un- like. In like manner there is diversity also in his sensation: now joy, then anxiety; now love, then hatred; now anger, then calmness. Since this is the case, inasmuch as the whole of this creation of ours has been fashioned ^ with a reciprocal rivalry amongst its several parts, the invisible ones are due to the visible, and not to be ascribed to any other author than Him to whom their counterparts are im- puted, marking as they do diversity in the Creator Himself, who orders what He forbade, and forbids what He ordered; who also strikes and heals. Why do they take Him to be uni- form in one class of things alone, as the Cre- ator of visible things, and only them; whereas He ought to be believed to have created both the visible and the invisible, in just the same way as life and death, or as evil things and peace?♦ And verily, if the invisible creatures are greater than the visible, which are in their own sphere great, so also is it fitting that the greater should be His to whom the great be- long; because neither the great, nor indeed the greater, can be suitable property for one who seems to possess not even the smallest things.
CHAP. XVII. — NOT ENOUGH, AS THE MARCION- ITES PRETEND, THAT THE SUPREME GOD SHOULD RESCUE MAN; HE MUST ALSO HAVE CREATED HIM. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD PROVED BY HIS CREATION, A PRIOR CONSID- ERATION TO HIS CHARACTER.
Pressed by these arguments, they exclaim: One work is sufficient for our god; he has de- » Nunc enim. The elliptical vvv yap of Greek argumentation.
3 Modulata.
4" I make peace, and create evil," Isa. xlv. 7, livered man by his supreme and most excel- lent goodness, which is preferable to (the creation of) all the locusts. ^ What superior god is this, of whom it has not been possible to find any work so great as f/ie man of the lesser god! Now without doubt the first thing you have to do is to prove that he exists, after the same manner that the existence of God must ordinarily be proved — by his works; and only after that by his good deeds. For the first question is, Whether he exists? and then, What is his character? The former is to be tested* by his works, the other by the benefi- cence of them. It does not simply follow that he exists, because he is said to have wrought deliverance for man; but only after it shall have been settled that he exists, will there be room for saying that he has affected this lib- eration. And even this point also must have its own evidence, because it may be quite possible both that he has existence, and yet has not wrought the alleged deliverance. Now in that section of our work which concerned the question of the unknown god, two points were made clear enough — both that he had created nothing, and that he ought to have been a creator, in order to be known by his works; because, if he had existed, he ought to have been known, and that too from the beginning of things; for it was not fit that God should have lain hid. It will be necessary that I should revert to the very trunk of that question of the unknown god, that I may strike off into some of its other branches also. For it will be first of all proper to inquire. Why he, who afterwards brought himself into notice, did so — so late, and not at the very first? From creatures, with which as God he was indeed so closely connected (and the closer this connection was,' the greater was his goodness), he ought never to have been hidden. For it cannot be pretended that there was not either any means of arriving at the knowledge of God, or a good reason for it, when from the beginning man was in the world, for whom the deliverance is now come; as was also that malevolence of the Creator, in opposition to which the good God has wrought the deliverance. He was therefore either ig- norant of the good reason for and means of his own necessary manifestation, or doubted them; or else was either unable or unwilling to encounter them. All these alternatives are unworthy of God, especially the supreme 5 To depreciate the Creator's work the more, Marcion (and Valentinus too) used to attribute to Him the formation of all the lower creatures— worms, locusts, etc. — reserving the mightier things to the good and supreme God. See St. Jerome's Proem, in Epist. ad PhiUtn. [See, Stier, Words o/Jesns^ Vol. vi. p. 81.]
6 Dinoscetur.
7 Quo necessarior.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[dook I.
and best. This topic,' however, we shall afterwards ^ more fully treat, with a condemna- tion of the tardy manifestation; we at present simply point it out.
CH.\P. XVIII. NOTWITHSTANDING THEIR CON- CEITS, THE GOD OF THE MARCIONITES FAILS IN THE VOUCHERS BOTH OF CREATED EVIDENCE AND OF ADEQUATE REVELATION.
Well, then, 3 he has now advanced into notice, just when he willed, when he could, when the destined hour arrived. For perhaps he was hindered hitherto by his leading star," or some weird malignants, or Saturn in quadrature,5or Mars at the trine.* The Mar- cionites are very strongly addicted to as- trology; nor do they blush to get their liveli- /hood by help of the very stars which were 'made by the Creator (whom they depreciate). We must here also treat of the quality ' of the (new) revelation; whether Marcion's supreme god has become known in a way worthy of him, so as to secure the proof of his existence; and in the way of truth, so that he may be be- lieved to be the very being who had been al- ready proved to have been revealed in a manner worthy of his character. For things which are worthy of God will prove the exist- ence of God. We maintain^ that God must first be known 9 from tiature, and afterwards authenticated '° by instruction: from nature, by His works; by instruction," through His revealed announcements.'^ Now, in a case where nature is excluded, no natural means (of knowledge) are furnished. He ought, therefore, to have carefully supplied '^ a revela- tion of himself, even by announcements, es- pecially as he had to be revealed in opposition to One who, after so many and so great works, both of creation and revealed announcement, had with difficulty succeeded in satisfying'* men's faith. In what manner, therefore, has the revelation been made? If by man's con- jectural guesses, do not say that God can pos- sibly become known in any other way than by Himself, and appeal not only to the standard of the Creator, but to the conditions both of God's greatness and man's littleness; so that » Locum.
2 In chap. xxii.
3 Age.
4 Anabibazon. The afa^l^a^(l>t< was the most critical point in the ecliptic, in the old astrology, for the calculation of stellar influences.
5 Quadratus.
* Trigonus. Saturn and Mars were supposed to be malignant planets. See Smith, Greek and Rom. Ant. p. 144, c. 2.
7 Qualitate.
8 Definimus.
9 Cognoscendum.
'" Recognoscendum.
" Doctrina.
■- Ex prxdicatioaibus.
'lOperari.
'•t Vix impleverat.
man seem not by any possibility to be greater than God, by having somehow drawn Him out into public recognition, when He was Himself unwilling to become known by His own energies, although man's littleness has been able, according to experiments all over the world, more easily to fashion for itself gods, than to follow the true God whom men now understand by nature. As for the rest,'* if man shall be thus able to devise a god, — as Romulus did Consus, and Tatius Cloacina, and Hostilius Fear, and Metellus Alburnus, and a certain authority'* some time since An- tinous, — the same accomplishment may be allowed to others. As for us, we have found our pilot in Marcion, although not a king nor an emperor.
CHAP. XIX. — JESUS CHRIST, THE REVEALER OF THE CREATOR, COULD NOT BE THE SAME AS marcion's GOD, WHO WAS ONLY MADE KNOWN BY THE HERETIC SOME CXV. YEARS AFTER CHRIST, AND THAT, TOO, ON A PRIN- CIPLE UTTERLY UNSUITED TO THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST, I.E., THE OPPOSITION BE- TWEEN THE LAW AND THE GOSPELS.
Well, but our god, say the Marcionites, al- though he did not manifest himself from the beginning and by means of the creation, has yet revealed himself in Christ Jesus. A book will be devoted '' to Christ, treating of His entire state; for it is desirable that these sub- ject-matters should be distinguished one from another,- in order that they may receive a fuller and more methodical treatment. Mean- while it will be sufficient if, at this stage of the question, I show — and that but briefly — that Christ Jesus is the revealer '^ of none other god but the Creator. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius,'' Christ Jesus vouchsafed to come down from heaven, as the spirit of saving health.^ I cared not to inquire, indeed, in what particular year of the elder Antoninus. He who had so gracious a purpose did rather, like a pestilential sirocco,^' exhale this health or salvation, which Marcion teaches from his Pontus. Of this teacher there is no doubt that he is a heretic of the Antonine period, impious under the pious. Now, from Tiberius to Antoninus Pius, there are about 115 years and 6)4 months. Just such an interval do they place between Christ and Marcion. In- asmuch, then, as Marcion, as we have shown, «5 Alioquin.
•6 He means the Emperor Hadrian; comp. Apolog. c. 13.
'7 The third of these books against Marcion.
'8 Circumlatorem.
«9The author says this, not as his own, but as Marcion's 0|>iii- lon; as is clear from his own words in his fourth book againat Marcion, c. 7, (Pamelius).
20 Spiritus salutaris.
" Aura canicularis.
CliAl', xx.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.