tion, it is fanned into a voluptuous flame. . There is a great difference between a cause and a fault, ^ between a state and its excess. Consequently it is not an institution of this nature that is to be blamed, but the extrava- gant use of it; according to the judgment of its founder Himself, who not only said, " Be fruitful, and multiply,"* but also, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," and, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife; " ' and who threatened with death the unchaste, sac- rilegious, and monstrous abomination both of adultery and unnatural sin with man and beast. ^ Now, if any limitation is set to mar- rying— such as the spiritual rule,' which pre- scribes but one marriage under the Christian obedience,'" maintained by the authority of the Paraclete," — it will be His prerogative to fix the limit Who had once been diffuse in His permission; His to gather. Who once scat- tered; His to cut down the tree. Who planted ' TertuUian's Montanism appears here.
*i.e., abstinence from marriage.
3 Sectando. [This, indeed, seems to be a fair statement of Patristic doctrine concerning marriage. As to our author's vari- ations see Kaye, p. 378.]
4Universum conditionis.
5 Causa in its proper sense is, " that through which anything takes place;" its just and normal state, therefore. Culpa is the derangement of the causa; some flaw in it.
9 Ratio.
'o In fide. TertuUian uses {De Pud. 18) " ante fidem " as sy- nonymous with aute baptismum; similarly " post fidem."
^' [Bad as this is, does it argue the lapse of our author as at this time complete?]
it; His to reap the harvest. Who sowed the seed; His to declare, " It remaineth that they who have wives be as though they had none," '- Who once said, " Be fruitful, and multiply; " His the end to Whom belonged the begin- ning. Nevertheless, the tree is not cut down as if it deserved blame; nor is the corn reaped, as if it were to be condemned, — but simply because their time is come. So likewise the state of matrimony does not require the hook and scythe of sanctity, as if it were evil; but as being ripe for its discharge, and in readi- ness for that sanctity which will in the long run bring it a plenteous crop by its reaping. For this leads me to remark of Marcion's god, that in reproaching marriage as an evil and un- chaste thing, he is really prejudicing the cause of that very sanctity which he seems to serve. For he destroys the material on which it sub- sists; If there is to be no marriage, there is no sanctity. All proof of abstinence is lost when excess is impossible; for sundry things have thus their evidence in their contraries. Just as " strength is made perfect in weak- ness," '3 so likewise is continence made mani- fest by the permission to marry. Who indeed will be called continent, if that be taken away which gives him the opportunity of pursuing a life of continence? What room for tem- perance in appetite does famine give? What repudiation of ambitious projects does poverty afford? What bridling of lust can the eunuch merit? To put a complete stop, however, to the sowing of the human race, may, for aught I know, be quite consistent for Marcion's most good and excellent god. For how could he desire the salvation of man, whom he for- bids to be born, when he takes away that in- stitution from which his birth arises? How will he find any one on whom to set the mark of his goodness, when he suffers him not to come into existence? How is it possible to love him whose origin he hates? Perhaps he is afraid of a redundant population, lest he should be weary in liberating so many; lest he should have to make many heretics; lest Marcionite parents should produce too many noble disciples of Marcion. The cruelty of Pharaoh, which slew its victims at their birth, will not prove to be more inhuman in com- parison.'" For while he destroyed lives, our heretic's god refuses to give them: the one removes from life, the other admits none to it. There is no difference in either as to their homicide — man is slain by both of them; by the former just after birth, by the latter as yet unborn. Thanks should we owe thee, thou M This is the force of the erit instead of the past tense.
CHAP. XXIX.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
god of our heretic, hadst thou only checked ' the dispensation of the Creator in uniting male and female; for from such a union indeed has thy Marcion been born! Enough, however, of Marcion's god, who is shown to have abso- lutely no existence at all, both by our defini- tions' of the one only Godhead, and the con- ' Isses in, i.e., obstitisses, check or resist, for then Marcion would, of course, not have been born: the common text has esses in.
dition of his attributes.^ The whole course, however, of this little work aims directly at this conclusion. If, therefore, we seem to anybody to have achieved but little result as yet, let him reserve his expectations, until we examine the very Scripture which Marcion quotes.
' TertuUian has discussed these " definitions " in chap. ii. vii., and the " conditions" from chap. viii. onward. He will '' exam- ine the Scripture " passages in books iv. and v. Fr. Junius.
3 Statuum.
THE FIVE BOOKS AGAINST MARCION.
Book II.'
WHEREIN TERTULLIAN SHOWS THAT THE CREATOR, OR DEMIURGE, WHOM MARCION CALUMNIATED, IS THE TRUE AND GOOD GOD.
CHAP. 1. THE METHODS OF MARCION's ARGU- MENT INCORRECT AND ABSURD. THE PROPER COURSE OF THE ARGUMENT.
The occasion of reproducing this little work, the fortunes of which we noticed in the preface of our first book, has furnished us with the opportunity of distinguishing, in our treatment of the subject of two Gods in oppo- sition to Marcion, each of them with a descrip- tion and section of his own, according to the division of the subject-matter, defining one of the gods to have no existence at all, and maintaining of the Other that He is rightly = God; thus far keeping pace with the heretic of Pontus, who has been pleased to admit one unto, and exclude the other. ^ For he could not build up his mendacious scheme without pulling down the system of truth. He found it necessary to demolish-* some other thing, in order to build up the theory which he wished. This process, however, is like constructing a house without preparing suitable materials. ^ The discussion ought to have been directed to this point alone, that he is no god who supersedes the Creator. Then, when the false god had been excluded by cer- tain rules which prescriptively settle what is the character of the One only perfect Divinity, there could have remained no longer any question as to the true God. The proof of His existence would have been clear, and that, too, amid the failure of all evidence in support of any other god; and still clearer^ ■ [Contains no marks of Montanism of a decisive nature. Kaye, - Digne.
3 From the dignity of the supreme Godhead.
4 Snbruere.
5 Propria paratura.
6 With the tanto (answering to the previous qiianto) should be tinderstood magis^ a frequent omission in our author.
would have seemed the point as to the hon- our in which He ought without controversy to be held: that He ought to be worshipped rather than judged; served reverentially rather than handled critically, or even dreaded for His severity. For what was more fully needed by man than a careful estimate of' the true God, on whom, so to speak, he had alighted," because there was no other god?
CHAP. II. — the true doctrine OF GOD THE CREATOR. THE HERETICS PRETENDED TO A KNOWLEDGE OF THE DIVINE BEING, OPPOSED TO AND SUBVERSIVE OF REVELATION. GOD'S NATURE AND WAYS PAST HUMAN DISCOVERY. ADAM'S HERESY.
We have now, then, cleared our way to the contemplation of the Almighty God, the Lord and Maker of the universe. His great- ness, as I think, is shown in this, that from the beginning He made Himself known: He never hid Himself, but always shone out brightly, even before the time of Romulus, to say nothing of that of Tiberius; with the exception indeed that the heretics, and they alone, know Him not, although they take such pains about Him. They on this account suppose that another god must be assumed to exist, because they are more able to cen- sure than deny Him whose existence is so evident, deriving all their thoughts about God from the deductions of sense; just as if some blind man, or a man of imperfect vis- ion,' chose to assume some other sun of milder and healthier ray, because he sees not that which is the object of sight." There is, O 7 Cura in.
8 Inciderat.
9 Fluitantibus oculis.
■o Quern videat non videt.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book II.
man, but one sun which rules' this world; and even when you think otherwise of him, he is best and useful; and although to you he may seem too fierce and baneful, or else, it may be, too sordid and corrupt, he yet is true to the laws of his own existence. Un- able as you are to see through those laws, you would be equally impotent to bear the rays of any other sun, were there one, how- ever great and good. Now, 5^ou whose sight is defective "^ in respect of the inferior god, what is your view of the sublimer One? Really you are too lenient "■ to your weakness; and set not yourself to the proof" of things, holding God to be certainly, undoubtedly, and therefore sufficiently known, the very moment you have discovered Him to exist, though you know Him not except on the side where He has willed His proofs to lie. But you do not even deny God intelligently, ^ you treat of Him ignorantly;* nay, you accuse Him with a semblance of intelligence,' whom if you did but know Him, you would never accuse, nay, never treat of.^ You give Him His name indeed, but you deny the essential truth of that name, that is, the greatness which is called God; not acknowledging it to be such as, were it possible for it to have been known to man in every respect,^ would not be greatness. Isaiah even so early, with the clearness of an apostle, foreseeing the thoughts of heretical hearts, asked, "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? With whom took He counsel?...or who taught Him knowledge, and showed to Him the way of understanding?"'" With whom the apostle agreeing exclaims, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! " " " His judg- ments unsearchable," as being those of God the Judge; and " His ways past finding out," as comprising an understanding and knowl- edge which no man has ever shown to Him, except it may be those critics of the Divine Being, who say, God ought not to have been this,'= and He ought rather to have been that; as if any one knew what is in God, except the Spirit of God.'^ Moreover, having the 3 Quin potius parcis.
4 In periculum extenderis. SUt sciens.
* Ut nesciens.
7 Quasi sciens.
8 Retractares.
5 Omnifariam.
»o Comp. Isa. xl. 13, 14, with Rom. xi, 34.
»» Sic non debuit Deus. This perhaps may mean, God ought not to have done this, etc.
spirit of the world, and "in the wisdom of God by wisdom knowing not God,"'"* they seem to themselves to be wiser 's than God; because, as the wisdom of the world is fool- ishness with God, so also the wisdom of God is folly in the world's esteem. We, how- ever, know that " the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."'* Accordingly, God is then especially great, when He is small '' to man; then especially good, when not good in man's judgment; then especially unique, when He seems to man to be two or more. Now, if from the very first " the natural man, not receiving the things of the Spirit of God," '^ has deemed God's law to be foolish- ness, and has therefore neglected to observe it; and as a further consequence, by his not having faith, "even that which he seemeth to have hath been taken from him " " — such as the grace of paradise and the friendship of God, by means of which he might have known all things of God, if he had continued in his obedience — what wonder is it, if he,^ reduced to his material nature, and banished to the toil of tilling the ground, has in his very labour, downcast and earth-gravitating as it was, handed on that earth-derived spirit of the world to his entire race, wholly natural =" and heretical as it is, and not receiving the things which belong to God? Or who will hesitate to declare the great sin of Adam to have been heresy, when he committed it by the choice =^ of his own will rather than of God's? Except that Adam never said to his fig-tree. Why hast thou made me thus? He confessed that he was led astray; and he did not conceal the seducer. He was a very rude heretic. He was disobedient; but yet he did not blaspheme his Creator, nor blame that Author of his being. Whom from the begin- ning of his life he had found to be so good and excellent, and W"hom he had perhaps ^^ made his own judge from the very first.
CHAP. III. — GOD KNOWN BY HIS WORKS. HIS GOODNESS SHOWN IN HIS CREATIVE ENERGY; BUT EVERLASTING IN ITS NATURE; INHERENT IN GOD, PREVIOUS TO ALL EXHIBITION OF IT. THE FIRST STAGE OF THIS GOODNESS PRIOR TO MAN.
It will therefore be right for us, as we enter on the examination of the known God, when 15 Consultiores.
«7 Pusillus.
'9 Luke viii. 18; comp. Matt. xiii. 12.
20 That is, the natural man, the t^vxitot.
'■'- Elettionem. By this word our author translates the Greek a'tpeci;. Comp. De Prascr. Her. 6, p. 245, supra. ^iSi forte.
CHAP, IV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINS'l' MARCION.
the question arises, in what condition He is known to us, to begin with His works, which are prior to man; so that His goodness, being discovered immediately along with Himself, and then constituted and prescriptively set- tled, may suggest to us some sense whereby we may understand how the subsequent order of things came about. The disciples of Mar- cion, moreover, may possibly be able, while recognising the goodness of our God, to learn how worthy it is likewise of the Divine Being, on those very grounds whereby we have proved it to be unworthy in the case of their god. Now this very point,' which is a material one in their scheme,^ Marcion did not find in any other god, but eliminated it for himself out of his own god. The first goodness, then,^ was that of the Creator, whereby God was unwilling to remain hidden for ever; in other words, (unwilling) that there should not be a something by which God should become known. For what, indeed, is so good as the knowledge and fruition " of God? Now, al- though it did not transpire s that this was good, because as yet there existed nothing to which it could transpire, yet God foreknew what good would eventually transpire, and therefore He set Himself about developing*^ His own perfect goodness, for the accomplish- ment of the good which was to transpire; not, indeed, a sudden goodness issuing in some accidental boon ^ or in some excited impulse,^ such as must be dated simply from the mo- ment when it began to operate. For if it did itself produce its own beginning when it began to operate, it had not, in fact, a beginning itself when it acted. When, however, an initial act had been once done by it, the scheme of temporal seasons began, for dis- tinguishing and noting which, the stars and luminaries of heaven were arranged in their order. " Let them be," says God, " for sea- sons, and for days, and years."' Previous, then, to this temporal course, (the goodness) which created time had not time; nor before that beginning which the same goodness orig- inated, had it a beginning. Being therefore without all order of a beginning, and all mode of time, it will be reckoned to possess an age, measureless in extent '° and endless in dura- tion;" nor will it be possible to regard it as a sudden or adventitious or impulsive emotion.
1 That is, " the goodness " of God.
2 Agnitionis, their Gnostic scheme.
3 Denique. This particle refers back to the argument previous to its interruption by the allusion to Marcion and his followers.
4 Fructus, the enjoyment of God's works.
5 Apparebat. [Was not manifest,] 6 Comraisit in.
7 Obventiciae bonitatis.
^ Provocaticiae animationis.
"o Immensa. " Interminabili.
because it has nothing to occasion such an estimate of itself; in other words, no sort of temporal sequence. It must therefore be ac- counted an eternal attribute, inbred in God," and everlasting, '3 and on this account worthy of the Divine Being, putting to shame for ever'" the benevolence of Marcion's god, sub- sequent as he is to (I will not say) all begin- nings and times, but to the very malignity of the Creator, if indeed malignity could pos- sibly have been found in goodness.
CHAP. IV. — THE NEXT STAGE OCCURS IN THE CREATION OF MAN BY THE ETERNAL WORD. SPIRITUAL AS WELL AS PHYSICAL GIFTS TO MAN. THE BLESSINGS OF MAN's FREE-WILL.
The goodness of God having, therefore, pro- vided man for the pursuit of the knowledge of Himself,added this to its original notification, '= that it first prepared a habitation for him, the vast fabric (of the world) to begin with, and then afterwards '* the vaster one (of a higher world, '7) that he might on a great as well as on a smaller stage practise and advance in his probation, and so be promoted from the good \j\i\Q}cv God had given him, that is, from his high position, to God's best; that is, to some higher abode. '^ In this good -^oxVCod employs a most excellent minister, even His own Word. "My heart" He says, "hath emitted my most excellent Word."'' Let Marcion take hence his first lesson on the noble fruit of this truly most excellent tree. But, like a most clumsy clown, he has grafted a good branch on a bad stock. The sapling, however, of his blasphemy shall be never strong: it shall wither with its planter, and thus shall be manifested the nature of the good tree. Look at the total result: how fruitful was the Word! God issued His fiat, and it was done: God also saw that it was '2 Deo ingenita " Natural to," or " inherent in."
i3Perpetua. [Truly, a sublime Theodicy.]
i4Suffundens jam hinc.
•5 Praeconio suo.
17 See Bp. Bull on The State 0/ Matt be/ore the Fall. Works, '8 Habitaculum majus.
19 " Eructavit cor. meum Sermonem optimum " is TertuUian's reading of Ps. xlv. i, " My heart is inditing a good matter," A. V., which the Vulgate, Ps. xliv. i, renders by " Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum," and the Septuagint by Efrjpeiif aro 17 xap&ia fiov \6yov ayaOov. This is a tolerably literal rendering of the original words, 2")t3 "J2"1 "'2'' ILTiT- In these words the Fathers used to descry an adumbration of the mystery of the Son's eternal gener- ation from the Father, and His coming forth in time to create the world. See Bellarmine, ()n the J'saiins (Paris ed. 1861), vol. i. 292. The Psalm is no doubt eminently Messianic, as both Jewish and Christian writers have ever held..See Perowne, '/Vie /'sa/ms, vol. i. p. 216. Bishop Hull reviews at length the theological opin- ions of Tertullian, and shows that he held the eternity of the Son of God, whom he calls " Sermo " or " Verbum Dei." See De- /ensio Fidei NiccBncf (translation in the ".Oxford Library of the Fathers," by the translator of this work) vol. ii. 509-545. In the same volume, p. 482, the passage from the Psalm before us is simi- larly applied by Novatian: " Sic Dei Verbum processit, de quo dictum est, Eructavit cor meum I'crbmn bonum." [See vol. ii. p. 98, this series: and Kaye, p. 515.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book ii.
good; ' not as if He were ignorant of the good until He saw it; but because it was good, He therefore saw it, and honoured it, and set His seal upon it; and consummated "" the goodness of His works by His vouchsafing to them that contemplation. Thus God blessed what He made good, in order that He might commend Himself to you as whole and perfect, good both in word and act.' As yet the Word knew no malediction, because He was a stranger to malefaction." We shall see what reasons re- quired this also of God. Meanwhile the world consisted of all things good, plainly foreshow- ing how much good was preparing for him for whom all this was provided. Who indeed was so worthy of dwelling amongst the works of God, as he who was His own image and likeness? That image was wrought out by a goodness even more operative than its wont,^ with no imperious word, but with friendly hand preceded by an almost affable ^ utterance: " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."' Goodness spake the word; Good- ness formed man of the dust of the ground into so great a substance of the flesh, built up out of one material with so many qualities; Goodness breathed into him a soul, not dead, but living. Goodness gave him dominion* over all things, which he was to enjoy and rule over, and even give names to. In addition to this. Goodness annexed pleasures' to man; so that, while master of the whole world, '° he might tarry among higher delights, being translated into paradise, out of the world into the Church." The self-same Goodness pro- vided also a help meet for him, that there might l)e nothing in his lot that was not good. For, said He, that the man be alone is not good.'- He knew full well what a blessing to him would be the sex of Mary,'' and also of tiie Church. The law, however, which 3^ou find fault with,''' and wrest into a subject of contention, was imposed on man by Goodness, aiming at his happiness, that he might cleave to God, and so not show himself an abject * Dispungens, i.e., exiiininans et pnibans et ita qu.i.si consuin- mans (C)ehler).
S This twofold virtue is very tersely expressed: " Sic et hcne- ilicetuit quae heiiL-facieluit."
4 This, the translator fears, is only a clumsy way of represent- ing the terseness of our author's " maledicere " and " malefacere."
5 P.onitas et quidem operantior.
* Blandiente.
8 Pracfecit.
9 Delicias.
'"Totius orbis possidens.
"There is a profound thought here; in his tract, De Pani't. 10, he says, " Where one or tivo are. is the church.and the church is Christ." Hence what he here calls Adam's " hijjher delights," even spiritual blessings in Christ with Kve. [Important note in ■iSexum Marix. For the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ, the Saviour of men; and the virgin mother the Church, the spouse of Christ, gives birth to Christians (Rigalt.).
" Arijuis.
creature rather than a free one, nor reduce himself to the level of the other animals, his subjects, which were free from God, and ex- empt from all tedious subjection; '^ but might, as the sole human being, boast that he alone was worthy of receiving laws from God; and as a rational being, capable of intelligence and knowledge, be restrained within the bounds of rational liberty, subject to Him who had subjected all things unto him. To secure the observance of this law, Goodness likewise took counsel by help of this sanction: " In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." "^ For it was a most benig- nant act of His thus to point out the issues of transgression, lest ignorance of the danger should encourage a neglect of obedience. Now, since '^ it was given as a reason previous to the imposition of the law, it also amounted to a motive for subsequently observing it, thac a penalty was annexed to its transgres- sion; a penalty, indeed, which He who pro- posed it was still unwilling that it should be incurred. Learn then the goodness of our God amidst these things and up to this point; learn it from His excellent works, from His kindly blessings, from His indulgent boun- ties, from His gracious providences, from His laws and warnings, so good and merciful.
CHAP. v. — MARCION's CAVILS CONSIDERED. HIS OBJECTION REFUTED, I.E., MAN's FALL SHOWED FAILURE IN GOD. THE PERFECTION OF man's BEING LAY IN HIS LIBERTY, WHICH GOD PURPOSELY BESTOWED ON HIM. THE FALL IMPUTABLE TO MAN'S OWN CHOICE.
Now then, ye dogs, whom the apostle puts outside,'* and who yelp at the God of truth, let us come to your various questions These are the bones of contention, which you are perpetually gnawing! If God is good, and prescient of the future, and able to avert evil, why did He permit man, the very image and likeness of Himself, and, by the origin of his soul. His own substance too, to be deceived by the devil, and fall from obedience of the law into death? For if He had been good, and so unwilling that such a catastrophe should happen, and prescient, so as not to be ignorant of what was to come to pass, and powerful enough to hinder its occurrence, that issue would never have come about, which should be impossible under these three conditions of the divine greatness. Since, however, it has occurred, the contrary prop- osition is most certainly true, that God must '5 Ex fastidio liberis.
'7 Porro si.
'* Rev. xxii. t{.
CHAP. VI.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
be deemed neither good, nor prescient, nor powerful. For (7S no such issue could have happened had God been such as He is re- puted— good, and prescient, and mighty — so has this issue actually happened, because Hf is not such a God. In reply, we must first vindicate those attributes in the Creator which are callcil in question — namely, Plis goodness and foreknowledge, and power. But I shall not linger long over this point' for Christ's own definition - comes to our aid at once. From works must proofs be obtained. The Creator's works testify at once to His good- ness, since they are good, as we have shown, and to His power, since they are mighty, and spring indeed out of Aothing. And even if they were made out of some (previous) matter, as some ^ will have it, they are even thus out of nothing, because they were not what they are. In short, both they are great because they are good; and'* God is likewise mighty, because all things are His own, whence He is almighty. But what shall I say of His pre- science, which has for its witnesses as many prophets as it inspired? After all, 5 what title to prescience do we look for in the Author of the universe, since it was by this very attri- bute that He foreknew all things when He ap-