first introduced this god to notice in the time of Antoninus, the matter becomes at once clear, if you are a shrewd observer. The dates already decide the case, that he who came to light for the first time ' in the reign of Antoni- nus, did not appear in that of Tiberius; in other words, that the God of the Antonine period was not the God of the Tiberian; and consequently, that he whom Marcion has plainly preached for the first time, was not revealed by Christ (who announced His revela- tion as early as the reign of Tiberius). Now, to prove clearly what remains of the argument, I shall draw materials from my very adversa- ries. Marcion's special and principal work is the separation of the law and the gospel; and his disciples will not deny that in this point they have their very best pretext for initiating and confirming themselves in his heresy. These are Marcion's Antitheses, or contradic- tory propositions, which aim at committing the gospel to a variance with the law, in order that from the diversity of the two documents which contain them,^ they may contend for a diversity of gods also. Since, therefore, it is this very opposition between the law and the gospel which has suggested that the God of the gospel is different from the God of the law, it is clear that, before the said separation, that god could not have been known who be- came known ^ from the argument of the sepa- ration itself. He therefore could not have been revealed by Christ, who came before the separation, but must have been devised by Marcion, the author of the breach of peace between the gospel and the law. Now this peace, which had remained unhurt and un- shaken from Christ's appearance to the time of Marcion's audacious doctrine, was no doubt maintained by that way of thinking, which firmly held that the God of both law and gos- pel was none other than the Creator, against whom after so long a time a separation has been introduced by the heretic of Pontus.
CHAP. XX. — MARCION, JUSTIFYING HIS ANTITH- ESIS BETWEEN THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL BY THE CONTENTION OF ST. PAUL WITH ST. PETER, SHOWN TO HAVE MISTAKEN ST. PAUL's POSITION AND ARGUMENT. MARCION'S DOC- TRINE CONFUTED OUT OF ST. PAUl's TEACH- ING, WHICH AGREES WHOLLY WITH THE CRE- ATOR'S DECREES.
This most patent conclusion requires to be defended by us against the clamours of the opposite side. For they allege that Marcion 'Primura processit. ^Utriusque instrumenti. 3 Innotuit.
did not so much innovate on the rule (of faith) by his separation of the law and the gospel, as restore it after it had been previously adulter- ated. O Christ,^ most enduring Lord, who didst bear so many years with this interference with Thy revelation, until Marcion forsooth came to Thy rescue! Now they adduce the case of Peter himself, and the others, who were pillars of the apostolate, as having been blamed by Paul for not walking uprightly, ac- cording to the truth of the gospel — that very Paul indeed, who, being yet in the mere rudi- ments of grace, and trembling, in short, lest he should have run or were still running in vain, then for the first time held intercourse with those who were apostles before himself. Therefore because, in the eagerness of his zeal against Judaism as a neophyte, bethought that there was something to be blamed in their conduct — even the promiscuousness of their conversation ^ — but afterwards was himself to become in his practice all things to all men, that he might gain all, — to the Jews, as a Jew, and to them that were under the law, as under the law, — you would have his censure, which was merely directed against conduct destined to become acceptable even to their accuser, suspected of prevarication against God on a point of public doctrine.* Touching their public doctrine, however, they had, as we have already said, joined hands in perfect concord, and had agreed also in the division of their labour in their fellowship of the gospel, as they had indeed in all other respects:' "Whether jt were I or they, so we preach."® When, again, he mentioned "certain false brethren as having crept in unawares," who wished to remove the Galatians into another gospel, ' he himself shows that that adulteration of the gospel was not meant to transfer them to the faith of another god and christ, but rather to perpetuate the teaching of the law; because he blames them for maintaining circumcision, and observing times, and days, and months, and years, according to those Jewish cere- monies which they ought to have known were now abrogated, according to the new dispensation purposed by the Creator Him- self, who of old foretold this very thing by His prophets. Thus He says by Isaiah: Old things have passed away. "Behold, I will do a new thing." '° And in another passage: " I will make a new covenant, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, when I brought them out of the land of * Tertullian's indignant reply.
5 Passivum scilicet convictuni.
6 Praedicationis. [Largely ad Aominem, this argument.]
7 Et alibi.
'olsa. xliii. 19.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book I.
Egypt."' In like manner by Jeremiah: Make to yourselves a new covenant, " circum- cise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart." ^ It is this circum- cision, therefore, and this renewal, which the apostle insisted on, when he forbade those an- cient ceremonies concerning which their very founder announced that they were one day to cease; thus by Hosea: " I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast-days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts." 3 So likewise by Isaiah: " The new moons, and Sabbaths, the calling of assem- blies, I cannot away with; your holy days, and fasts, and feast-days, my soul hateth."* Now, if even the Creator had so long before discarded all these things, and the apostle was now proclaiming them to be worthy of renun- ciation, the very agreement of the apostle's meaning with the decrees of the Creator proves that none other God was preached by the apostle than He whose purposes he now wished to have recognised, branding as false both apostles and brethren, for the express reason that they were pushing back the gospel of Christ the Creator from the new condition which the Creator had foretold, to the old one which He had discarded.
CHAP. XXI. — ST. PAUL PREACHED NO NEW GOD, WHEN HE ANNOUNCED THE REPEAL OF SOME OE god's ANCIENT ORDINANCES. NEVER ANY HESITATION ABOUT BELIEF IN THE CREATOR, AS THE GOD WHOM CHRIST REVEALED, UNTIL MARCION's HERESY.
Now if it was with the view of preaching a new god that he was eager to abrogate the law of the old God, how is it that he prescribes no rule about ^ the new god, but solely about the old law, if it be not because faith in the Creator* was still to continue, and His law alone was to come to an end?' — just as the Psalmist had declared: " Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against His Anointed."^ And, indeed, if another god were preached by Paul, there could be no doubt about the law, whether it were to be kept or not, because of course it would not belong to the new lord, the enemy ^ of the law. The very newness and difference of the god * This quotation, however, is from Jer. xxxi. 32, 3 Hos. ii. II.
4 Slightly altered from Isa. i. 13, 14.
5 Nihil prsescribit de.
* i.e., " the old God," as he has just called Him. 7Concessare debebat.
9 /Emulum.
would take away not only all question about the old and alien law, but even all mention of it. But the whole question, as it then stood, was this, that although the God of the law was the same as was preached in Christ, yet there was a disparagement '° of His law. Per- manent still, therefore, stood faith in the Creator and in His Christ; manner of life and discipline alone fluctuated." Some disputed about eating idol sacrifices, others about the veiled dress of women, others again about marriage and divorce, and some even about the hope of the resurrection; but about God no one disputed. Now, if this question also had entered into dispute, surely it would be found in the apostle, and that too as a great and vital point. No doubt, after the time of the apostles, the truth respecting the belief of God suffered corruption, but it is equally certain that during the life of the apostles their teaching on this great article did not suffer at all; so that no other teaching will have the right of being received as apostolie than that which is at the present day pro- claimed in the churches of apostolic founda- tion. You will, however, find no church of apostolic origin '^ but such as reposes its Chris- tian faith in the Creator. '3 But if the churches shall prove to have been corrupt from the be- ginning, where shall the pure ones be found? Will it be amongst the adversaries of the Creator? Show us, then, one of your churches, tracing its descent from an apostle, and you will have gained the day."* Forasmuch then as it is on all accounts evident that there was from Christ down to Marcion's time no other God in the rule of sacred truth 's than the Creator, the proof of our argument is suffi- ciently established, in which we have shown that the god of our heretic first became known by his separation of the gospel and the law. Our previous position '* is accordingly made good, that no god is to be believed whom any man has devised out of his own conceits; ex- cept indeed the man be a prophet, '^ and then his own conceits would not be concerned in the matter. If Marcion, however, shall be able to lay claim to this inspired character, it will be necessary for it to be shown. There must be no doubt or paltering.'^ For all heresy is thrust out by this wedge of the truth, that Christ is proved to be the revealer of no God else but the Creator. '« '0 Derogaretur. " Nutabat. " Census.
■3 In Creatore christianizet.
'4 Obduxeris. For this sense of the word, see Apol. i. sub inii, " sed obducimur," etc. '5 Sacramenti. '6 Definitio. «7That is, " inspired." '8 Nihil retractare oportebat, CHAP. XXII.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
CHAP. XXII. GOD S ATTRIBUTE OF GOODNESS CONSIDERED AS NATURAL; THE GOD OF MAR- CION FOUND WANTING HEREIN. IT CAME NOT TO man's RESCUE WHEN FIRST WANTED.
But how shall (this) Antichrist be fully over- thrown unless we relax our defence by mere prescription,' and give ourselves scope for rebutting all his other attacks? Let us there- fore next take the very person of God Him- self, or rather His shadow or phantom,^ as we have it in Christ, and let Him be examined by that condition which makes Him superior to the Creator. And undoubtedly there will come to hand unmistakeable rules for examin- ing God's goodness. My first point, however, is to discover and apprehend the attribute, and then to draw it'out into rules. Now, when I survey the subject in its aspects of time, I nowhere descry it^ from the beginning of material existences, or at the commencement of those causes, with which it ought to have been found, proceeding thence to do ■* what- ever had to be done. For there was death already, and sin the sting of death, and that malignity too of the Creator, against which the goodness of the other god should have been ready to bring relief; falling in with this as the primary rule of the divine goodness (if it were to prove itself a natural agency), at once coming as a succour when the cause for it began. For in God all things should be natural and inbred, just like His own condition indeed, in order that they may be eter- nal, and so not be accounted casual s and ex- traneous, and thereby temporary and wanting in eternity. In God, therefore, goodness is required to be both perpetual and unbroken,* such as, being stored up and kept ready in the treasures of His natural properties, might precede its own causes and material develop- ments; and if thus preceding, might underlie'' every first material cause, instead of looking at it from a distance,^ and standing aloof from it.» In short, here too I must inquire. Why his '° goodness did not operate from the begin- ning? no less pointedly than when we inquired concerning himself, Why he was not revealed from the very first? Why, then, did it not? since he had to be revealed by his goodness 'In his book, De Pmscrip. Heeret., [cap. xv.] Tertullian had enjoined that heretics ought not to be argued with, but to be met with the authoritative rule of the faith. He here proposes to fore- go that course.
2 Marcion's Docetic doctrine of Christ as having only appeared in human shape, without an actual incarnation, is indignantly confuted by Tertullian in his De Came Christi, c. v.
3 That is, the principle in question — the bonitas Dei.
4 Exinde agens.
5 Obvenientia. ^ Jugis.
if he had any existence. That God should at all fail in power must not be thought, much less that He should not discharge all His natu- ral functions; for if these were restrained from running their course, they would cease to be natural. Moreover, the nature of God Him- self knows nothing of inactivity. Hence (His goodness) is reckoned as having a beginning," if it acts. It will thus be evident that He had no unwillingness to exercise His goodness at anytime on account of His nature. Indeed, it is impossible that He should be unwilling because of His nature, since that so directs itself that it would no longer exist if it ceased to act. In Marcion's god, however, goodness ceased from operation at some time or other. A goodness, therefore, which could thus at any time have ceased its action was not natu- ral, because with natural properties such ces- sation is incompatible. And if it shall not prove to be natural, it must no longer be be- lieved to be eternal nor competent to Deity; because it cannot be eternal so long as, fail- ing to be natural, it neither provides from the past nor guarantees for the future any means of perpetuating itself. Now as a fact it ex- isted not from the beginning, and, doubtless, will not endure to the end. For it is possible for it to fail in existence some future "^ time or other, as it has failed in some past'^ period. Forasmuch, then, as the goodness of Mar- cion's god failed in the beginning (for he did not from the first deliver man), this failure must have been the effect of will rather than of infirmity. Now a wilful suppression of goodness will be found to have a malignant end in view. For what malignity is so great as to be unwilling to do good when one can, or to thwart'* what is useful, or to permit in- jury? The whole description, therefore, of Marcion's Creator will have to be transferred 's to his new god, who helped on the ruthless'* proceedings of the former by the retardation of his own goodness. For whosoever has it in his power to prevent the happening of a thing, is accounted responsible for it if it should occur. Man is condemned to death for tasting the fruit of one poor tree,'' and thence proceed sins with their penalties; and now all are perishing who yet never saw a single sod of Paradise. And all this your better god either is ignorant of, or else brooks. Is it that'* he might on this account be deemed the better, and the Creator be re- " Censetur. 12 Quandoque. '3 Aliquando. '4 Cruciare. 15 Rescribetur, I* Saevitias. '7 Arbusculx.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book I.
garded as all that the worse? Even if this were his purpose he would be malicious enough, for both wishing to aggravate his rival's obloquy by permitting His (evil) works to be done, and by keeping the world harrassed by the wrong. What would you think of a physician who should encourage a disease by withholding the remedy, and pro- long the danger by delaying his- prescription, in order that his cure might be more costly and more renowned? Such must be the sen- tence to be pronounced against Marcion's god: tolerant of evil, encouraging wrong, wheedling about his grace, prevaricating in his goodness, which he did not exhibit simply on its own account, but which he must mean to exhibit purely, if he is good by nature and not by acquisition,' if he is supremely good in attribute ' and not by discipline, if he is God from eternity and not from Tiberius, nay (to speak more truly), from Cerdon only and Marcion. As the case now stands, ^ however, such a god as we are considering would have been more fit for Tiberius, that the goodness of the Divine Being might be inaugurated in the world under his imperial sway!
CHAP. XXIII. god's attribute OF GOODNESS CONSIDERED AS RATIONAL. MARCION's GOD DEFECTIVE HERE ALSO; HIS GOODNESS IRRA- TIONAL AND MISAPPLIED.
Here is another rule for him. All the prop- erties of God ought to be as rational as they are natural. I require reason in His good ness, because nothing else can properly be accounted good than that which is rationally good; much less can goodness itself be de- tected in any irrationality. More easily will an evil thing which has something rational be- longing to it be accounted good, than that a good thing bereft of all reasonable quality should escape being regarded as evil. Now I deny that the goodness of Marcion's god is rational, on this account first, because it pro- ceeded to the salvation of a human creature which was alien to him. I am aware of the plea which they will adduce, that that is rather ■* a primary and perfect goodness which is shed voluntarily and freely upon strangers without any obligation of friendship, s on the principle that we are bidden to love even our enemies, such as are also on thatvery account strangers to us. Now, inasmuch as from the first he had no regard for man, a stranger to him from the first, he settled beforehand, by this neg- lect of his, that he had nothing to do with an 3 Nunc. [Comp. chapter xv. supra, p. 282.]
4 Atquin.
5 Kamiliaritatis.
alien creature. Besides, the rule of loving a stranger or enemy is preceded by the precept of your loving your neighbour as yourself; and this precept, although coming from the Creator's law, even you ought to receive, be- cause, so far from being abrogated by Christ, it has rather been confirmed by Him. For you are bidden to love your enemy and the stranger, in order that you may love your neighbour the better. The requirement of the undue is an augmentation of the due be- nevolence. But the due precedes the undue, as the principal quality, and more worthy of the other, for its attendant and companion.* Since, therefore, the first step in the reasonable- ness of the divine goodness is that it displays itself on its proper object Mn righteousness, and only at its second stage on an alien ob- ject by a redundant righteousness over and above that of scribes and Pharisees, how comes it to pass that the second is attributed to him who fails in the first, not having man for his proper object, and who makes his good- ness on this very account defective? More- over, how could a defective benevolence, which had no proper object whereon to ex- pend itself, overflow^ on an alien one? Clear* up the first step, and then vindicate the next. Nothing can be claimed as rational without order, much less can reason itself ' dispense with order in any one. Suppose now fhe divine goodness begin at the second stage of its rational operation, that is to say, on the stranger, this second stage will not be con- sistent in rationality if it be impaired in any way else.'° For only then will even the second stage of goodness, that which is displayed towards the stranger, be accounted raticmal, when it operates without wrong to him who has the first claim." It is righteousness " which before everything else makes all goodness rational. It will thus be rational in its prin- cipal stage, when manifested on its proper object, if it be righteous. And thus, in like manner, it will be able to appear rational, when displayed towards the stranger, if it be not unrighteous. But what sort of goodness is that which is manifested in wrong, and that * This is the sense of the passage as read by Oehler: " Ante- cedit autem debita indebitam, ut principalis, ut dignior ministra et comite sua, id est indebita." Fr. Junius, however, added the word "prior" which begins the next sentence to these words, making the last clause run thus: " ut dignior ministra, et comite sua, id est indebita, prior " — " as being more worthy of an atten- dant, and as being prior to its companion, that is, the undue be- nevolence." It is difficult to find any good use of the " prior " in the next sentence, " Prior igitur cum prima bonltatis ratio sit," etc., as Oehler and others point it.
7 In rem suam.
8 Redundavit.
9 Ratio ipsa, i.e., rationality, or the character of reasonableness, which he is now vindicating.
"> Alio modo destructus. " Cujus est res.
"Justitia,?-/i'^4/ as opposed to the wrong; (\u)Mnii) of the pre- ceding sentence.
,r CHAP. XXIV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
in behalf of an alien creature? For perad- venture a benevolence, even when operating injuriously, might be deemed to some extent rational, if exerted for one of our own house and home.' By what rule, however, can an unjust benevolence, displayed on behalf of a stranger, to whom not even an honest one is legitimately due, be defended as a rational one? For what is more unrighteous, more unjust, more dishonest, than so to benefit an alien slave as to take him away from his mas- ter, claim him as the property of another, and suborn him against his master's life; and all this, to make the matter more iniquitous still, whilst he is yet living in his master's house, and on his master's garner, and still trembling beneath his stripes? Such a deliverer,^ I had almost said ^ kidnapper,-* would even meet with condemnation in the world. Now, no other than this is the character of Marcion's god, swooping upon an alien world, snatching away man from his God,s thg son from his father, the pupil from his tutor, the servant from his master — to make him impious to his God, undutiful to his father, ungrateful to his tutor, worthless to his master. If, now, the rational benevolence makes man such, what sort of being prithee * would the irrational make of him? None I should think more shameless than him who is baptized to his' god in water which belongs to another, who stretches out his hands ^ to his god towards a heaven which is another's, who kneels to his god on ground which is another's, offers his thanksgivings to his god over bread which be- longs to another,' and distributes '° by way of alms and charity, for the sake of his god, gifts which belong to another God. Who, then, is that so good a god of theirs, that man through him becomes evil; so propitious, too, as to incense against man that other God who is, indeed, his own proper Lord?
' Pro domestico, opposed to the ^ro extraneo, the alien or stranger of the preceding and succeeding context.
2 Assertor.
3 Nedum.
4 Plagiator.
5 i.e., the Creator. * Oro te.
7 Alii Deo. The strength of this phrase is remarkable by the side of the oft-repeated aliena.
8 Therefore Christians used to lift their hands and arms to- wards heaven in prayer. Compare The Apology, chap. 30, (where the manibiis expansis betokens the open hand, not merely as the heathen tendens ad sidera pahnas). See also De Orat. c. 13, and other passages from different writers referred to in the " Tertul- lian " of the Oxford Library 0/ the Fathers, p. 70. [See the figures in the Catacombs as represented by Parker, Marriott and others.]
9 To the same effect Irenaeus had said: " How will it be con- sistent in them to hold that the bread on which thanks are given is the body of their Lord, and that the cup is His blood, if they do not acknowledge that He is the Son of the Creator of the world, that is, the Word of God? " (Rigalt.) [The consecrated bread is still bread, in Patristic theology.]
'o Operatur, a not unfrequent use of the word. Thus Prudentius 'Psychom. 573) opposes operatio to avaritia. 19 CHAP. XXIV. — THE GOODNESS OF MARCION's GOD ONLY IMPERFECTLY MANIFESTED; IT SAVES BUT FEW, AND THE SOULS MERELY OF THESE. MARCION's CONTEMPT OF THE BODY ABSURD.
But as God is eternal and rational, so, I think, He is perfect in all things. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." " Prove, then, that the goodness of your god also is a perfect one. That it is indeed i7nperfect has been already sufficiently shown, since it is found to be neither natural nor rational. The same conclusion, however, shall now be made clear '= by another method; it is not simply '^ imperfect, but actually '♦ fee- ble, weak, and exhausted, failing to embrace the full number 's of its material objects, and not manifesting itself in them all. For all are not put into a state of salvation'* by it; but the Creator's subjects, both Jew and Chris- tian, are all excepted. '^ Now, when the greater part thus perish, how can that goodness be defended as a perfect one which is inoperative in most cases, is somewhat only in few, naught in many, succumbs to perdition, and is a partner with destruction? '^ And if so many shall miss salvation, it will not be with good- ness, but with malignity, that the greater per- fection will lie. For as it is the operation of goodness which brings salvation, so is it ma- levolence which thwarts it.'' Since, however, this goodness) saves but few, and so rather