'o Refragari. n Statu.
'= In chap, xviii. towards the end. [p. 311. supra.l ■5 An inexact quotation of Isa. xl. 28. '* Honorem. •7 Infuscabit. •STitulus.
20 Fccerat seems the better reading; q.d. " which he had pep formed," etc. Oehler r&iA%/ecer,nit.
CHAP. XXIV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
CHAP. XXIII. — GOD S PURPOSES IN ELECTION AND REJECTION OF THE SAME MEN, SUCH AS KING SAUL, EXPLAINED, IN ANSWER TO THE MARCIONITE CAVIL.
Now, although you will have it that He is inconstant' in respect of persons, sometimes disapproving where approbation is deserved; or else wanting in foresight, bestowing approba- tion on men who ought rather to be reprobated, as if He either censured - His own past judg- ments, or could not forecast His future ones; yet 3 nothing is so consistent for even a good judge* as both to reject and to choose on the merits of the present moment. Saul is chosen, 5 but he is not yet the despiser of the prophet Samuel.* Solomon is rejected; but he is now become a prey to foreign women, and a slave to the idols of Moab and Sidon. What must the Creator do, in order to escape the censure of the Marcionites? Must He prematurely condemn men, who are thus far correct in their conduct, because of future de- linquencies? But it is not the mark of a good God to condemn beforehand persons who have not yet deserved condemnation. Must He then refuse to eji?ct sinners, on account of their previous good deeds? But it is not the characteristic of a just judge to forgive sins in consideration of former virtues which are no longer practised. Now, who is so faultless among men, that God could always have him in His choice, and never be able to reject him?
Or who, on the other hand, is so void of any good work, that God could reject him for ever, and never be able to choose him? Show me, then, the man who is always good, and he will not be rejected; show me, too, him who is always evil, and he will never be chosen. Should, however, the same man, being found on different occasions in the pursuit of both (good and evil) be recompensed ^ in both di- rections by God, who is both a good and judi- cial Being, He does not change His judgments through inconstancy or want of foresight, but dispenses reward according to the deserts of each case with a most unwavering and provi- dent decision.^ CHAP. XXIV. — INSTANCES OF GOD's REPENT- ANCE, AND NOTABLY IN THE CASE OF THE NINEVITES, ACCOUNTED FOR AND VINDI- CATED.
Furthermore, with respect to the repentance which occurs in His conduct,' you interpret it ' Levem. ' Damnet.
3 Atquin.
4 Or, " for one who is a good man and a judge."
* I Sara. xiii.
7 Dispungetur.
* Censura.
9 Apud ilium.
with similar perverseness just as if it were with fickleness and improvidence that He repented, or on the recollection of some wrong-doing; because He actually said, " It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king,"" "very much as if He meant that His repentance savoured of an acknowledgment of some evil work or error. Well," this is not always implied. For there occurs even in good works a confession of re- pentance, as a reproach and condemnation of the man who has proved himself unthankful for a benefit. For instance, in this case of Saul, the Creator, who had made no mistake in se- lecting him for the kingdom, and endowing him with His Holy Spirit, makes a statement respecting the goodliness of his person, how that He had most fitly chosen him as being at that moment the choicest man, so that (as He says) there was not his fellow among the chil- dren of Israel." Neither was He ignorant how he would afterwards turn out. For no one would bear you out in imputing lack of fore- sight to that God whom, since you do not deny Him to be divine, you allow to be also foreseeing; for this proper attribute of divinity exists in Him. However, He did, as I have said, burden '^ the guilt of Saul with the con- fession of His own repentance; but as there is an absence of all error and wrong in His choice of Saul, it follows that this repentance is to be understood as upbraiding another'* rather than as self-incriminating. '5 Look here then, say you: I discover a self-incriminating case in the matter of the Ninevites, when the book of Jonah declares, "And God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not." '* In accord- ance with which Jonah himself says unto the Lord, " Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil." '' It is well, therefore, that he premised the attribute '^ of the most good God as most patient over the wicked, and most abundant in mercy and kind- ness over such as acknowledged and bewailed their sins, as the Ninevites were then doing. For if He who has this attribute is the Most Good, you will have first to relinquish that position of yours, that the very contact with '' evil is incompatible with such a Being, that is, with the most good God. And because >o I Sara. XV. II.
" Porro.
'3 Onerabat.
»4 Invidiosam.
'5 Criminosam.
'6 Jonah iii. lo, 17 Jonah iv. a.
'8 Titulum.
19 Malitiae concursum.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book il Marcion, too, maintains that a good tree ought not to produce bad fruit; but yet he has mentioned " evil " (in the passage under discussion), which the most good God is in- capable of," is there forthcoming any explana- tion of these " evils," which may render them compatible with even the most Good? There is. We say, in short, that evil in the present case ^ means, not what may be attributed to the Crea- tor's nature as an evil being, but what may be attributed to His power as a judge. In ac- cordance with which He declared, " I create evil," 3 and, "I frame evil against you;"-* meaning not to sinful evils, but avenging ones. What sort of stigma s pertains to these, con- gruous as they are with God's judicial charac- ter, we have sufficiently explained.* Now, although these are called "evils," they are yet not reprehensible in a judge; nor because of this their name do they show that the judge is evil: so in like manner will this par- ticular evil^ be understood to be one of this class of judiciary evils, and along with them to be compatible with (God as) a judge. The Greeks also sometimes^ use the word "evils" for troubles and injuries (not malig- nant ones), as in this passage of yours ' is also meant. Therefore, if the Creator repented of such evil as this, as showing that the creat- ure deserve dcondemnation, and ought to be punished for his sin, then, in '° the present in- stance no fault of a criminating nature will be imputed to the Creator, for having deservedly and worthily decreed the destruction of a city so full of iniquity. What therefore He had justly decreed, having no evil purpose in His decree. He decreed from the principle of justice," not from malevolence. Yet He gave it the name of " evil," because of the evil and desert involved in the very suffering it- self. Then, you will say, if you excuse the evil under name of justice, on the ground that He had justly determined destruction against the people of Nineveh, He must even on this argument be blameworthy, for having repented of an act of justice, which surely should not be repented of. Certainly not,'- my reply is; God will never repent of an act of justice. And it no\y remains that we should understand what God's repentance means. For although ' Non capit.
4 Jer. xviii. 11.
5 tnfamiam.
7 Malitia, i.e., " the evil ' mentioned in the cited Jonah iii. 10.
8 Thus, according to St. Jerome, in Matt. vi. 34, Kaxia means kAkuihi^. ".Sufficient for the day is the ctH thereof " — the occur- rent adversities.
9 In isto articulo. '" \tqui hie.
" Or, " in his capacity as Judjire, " ex justitia. «2 [miio man repents most frequently on the recollec- tion of a sin, and occasionally even from the unpleasantness '^ of some good action, this is never the case with God. For, inasmuch as God neither commits sin nor condemns a good action, in so far is there no room in Him for repentance of either a good or an evil deed. Now this point is determined for you even in the scripture which we have quoted. Samuel says to Saul, " The Lord hath rent the king- dom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better than thou;"'" and into two parts shall Israel be divided: " for He will not turn Himself, nor repent; for He does not repent as a man does." '5 According, therefore, to this defi- nition, the divine repentance takes in all cases a different form from that of man, in that it is never regarded as the result of improvidence or of fickleness, or of any condemnation of a good or an evil work. What, then, will be the mode of God's repentance? It is already quite clear,'* if you avoid referring it to human conditions. For it will have no other meaning than a simple change of a prior purpose; and this is admissible without any blame even in a man, much more '' in God, whose every pur- pose is faultless. Now in Greek the word for repentance (/^erdwm) is formed, not from the confession of a sin, but from a change of mind, which in God we have shown to be regulated by the occurrence of varying circumstances.
CHAP. XXV. — god's dealings WITH ADAM AT THE FALL, AND WITH CAIN AFTER HIS CRIME, ADMIRABLY EXPLAINED AND DEFENDED.
It is now high time that I should, in order to meet all '** objections of this kind, proceed to the explanation and clearing up '» of the other trifles, =° weak points, and inconsistencies, as you deemed them. God calls out to Adam,^' Where art thou? as if ignorant where he was; and when he alleged that the shame of his nakedness was the cause (of his hiding him- self). He inquired whether he had eaten of the tree, as if He were in doubt. By no means; ^ God was neither uncertain about the commis- sion of the sin, nor ignorant of Adam's where- abouts. It was certainly proper to summon the offender, who was concealing liimself from the consciousness of his sin, and to bring him forth into the presence of his Lord, not merely by the calling out of his name, but '3 Ingratia.
■5 Ver. 29, but inexactly quoted.
»<< Relucet.
■7 Nedum.
18 Ut omnia expediam.
'9 Purgandas.
20 Pusillitatts.
2» Imnio.
CHAT. XXVI. J TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
with a home-thrust blow' at the sin which he had at that moment committed. For the question ought not to be read in a merely interrogative tone, Where art thou, Adam? but with an impressive and earnest voice, and with an air of imputation. Oh, Adam, cohere art thou? — as much as to intimate: thou art no longer here, thou art in perdition — so that the voice is the utterance of One who is at once rebuking and sorrowing.^ But of course some part of paradise had escaped the eye of Him who holds the universe in His hand as if it were a bird's nest, and to whom heaven is a throne and earth a footstool; so that He could not see, before He summoned him forth, where Adam was, both while lurking and when eating of the forbidden fruit! The wolf or the paltry thief escapes not the notice of the keeper of your vineyard or your garden! And God, I suppose, with His keener vision, ^ from on high was unable to miss the sight of'' aught which lay beneath Him! Foolish heretic, who treat with scorn s so fine an argument of God's greatness and man's instruction! God put the question with an appearance of uncertainty, in order that even here He might prove man to be the subject of a free will in the alternative of either a denial or a confession, and give to him the opportunity of freely ackowledging his transgression, and, so far,^ of lightening it.^ In like manner He inquires of Cain where his brother was, just as if He had not yet heard the blood of Abel crying from the ground, in order that he too might have the opportunity from the same power of the will of sponta- neously denying, and to this degree aggravat- ing, his crime; and that thus there might be supplied to us examples of confessing sins rather than of denying them: so that even then was initiated the evangelic doctrine, " By thy words ^ thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." « Now, although Adam was by reason of his condition under law "subject to death, yet was hope preserved to him by the Lord's say- ing, " Behold, Adam is become as one of us;"" that is, in consequence of the future taking of the man into the divine nature. Then what follows? "And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, (and eat), and live for ever." Insert- 'Sugillatione. ^Dolendi.
3 Oculatiorem.
4 Praeterire.
5 Naso.
6 Hoc nomine.
7 Rclevandi.
8 Ex ore tuo, " out of thine own mouth."
'o Propter statum legis.
ing thus the particle of present time, " And now," He shows that He had made for a time, and at present, a prolongation of man's life. Therefore He did not actually " curse Adam and Eve, for they were candidates for restoration, and they had been relieved '^ by confession. Cain, however, He not only cursed; but when he wished to atone for his sin by death. He even prohibited his dying, so that he had to b'^ar the load of this prohi- bition in addition to his crime. This, then, will prove to be the ignorance of our God, which was simulated on this account, thjit delinquent man should not be unaware of what he ought to do. Coming down to the case of Sodom and Gomorrha, he says: " I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto me; and if not, I will know." '•* Well, was He in jthis instance also uncertain through ignorance, and desiring to know? Or was this a necessary tone of utter- ance, as expressive of a minatory and not a dubious sense, under the colour of an inquiry? If you make merry at God's "going down," as if He could not except by the descent have accomplished His judgment, take care that you do not strike your own God with as hard ? blow. For He also came down to accomplish what He wished.
CHAP. XXVI. THE OATH OF GOD: ITS MEANING.
MOSES, WHEN DEPRECATING GOD's WRATH AGAINST ISRAEL, A TYPE OF CHRIST.
But God also swears. Well, is it, I won- der, by the God of Marcion? No, no, he says; a much vainer oath — by Himself! '^ What was He to do, when He knew'* of no other God; especially when He was swearing to this very point, that besides himself there was absolutely no God? Is it then of swear- ing falsely that you convict '^ Him, or of swear- ing a vain oath? But it is not possible for him to appear t.o have sworn falsely, when he was ignorant, as you say he was, that there was an- other God. For when he swore by that which he knew, he really committed no perjury. But it was not a vain oath for him to swear that there was no other God. It would in- deed be a vain oath, if there had been no per- sons who believed that there were other Gods, like the worshippers of idols then, and the heretics of the present day. Therefore He swears by Himself, in order that you may believe God, even when He swears that there '- Ipsum. [Comp. Heb. ix. 8, and Rev. xxii. 14.] '3 Relevatos.
MGen. xviii. 21. [Marcion's god also "comes down." p. 284, supra.'\ '5 See Jer. xxii. 5. '7 Deprehendis.
i8 TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book II.
is besides Himself no other God at all. But you have yourself, O Marcion, compelled God to do this. For even so early as then were you foreseen. Hence, if He swears both in His promises and His threatenings, and thus extorts ' faith which at first was diffi- cult, nothing is unworthy of God which causes men to believe in God. But (you say) God was even then mean^ enough in His very fierceness, when, in His wrath against the people for their consecration of the calf. He makes this request of His servant Moses: " Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great na- tion. "^ Accordingly, you maintain that Moses is better than his God, as the depreca- tor, nay the averter, of His anger. "For," said he, 'Thou shalt not do this; or else destroy me along with them." ■» Pitiable are ye also, as well as the people, since you know not Christ, prefigured in the person of Moses, as the deprecator of the Father, and the of- ferer of His own life for the salvation of the people. It is enough, however, that the nation was at the instant really given to Moses. That which he, as a servant, was able to ask of the Lord, the Lord required of Himself. For this purpose did He say to His servant, " Let me alone, that I may consume them," in order that by his entreaty, and by offering himself, he might hinder ^ (the threatened judgment), and that you might by such an instance learn how much privilege is vouch- safed* with God to a faithful man and a prophet.
CHAP. XXVII. OTHER OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
god's CONDESCENSION IN THE INCARNATION. NOTHING DEROGATORY TO THE DIVINE BEING IN THIS ECONOMY. THE DIVINE MAJESTY WORTHILY SUSTAINED BY THE ALMIGHTY FATHER, NEVER VISIBLE TO MAN. PERVERSE- NESS OF THE MARCIONITE CAVILS.
And now, that I may briefly pass in review ' the other points which you have thus far been engaged in collecting, as mean, weak, and un- worthy, for demolishing^ the Creator, I will propound them in a simple and definite state- ment:' that God would have been unable to hold any intercourse with men, if He had not taken on Himself the emotions and affec- tions of man, by means of which He could temper the strength of His majesty, which would no doubt have been incapable of en- ' Extorquens.
2 Pusillus.
3 Ex. xxxii. lo.
4 An allusion to, rather than a quotation of, Ex. xxxii. 32.
5 Non sineret.
* Quantum licei>:. 7 Absolvam. ^ Ad destructionem. 9 Ratione.
durance to the moderate capacity of man, by such a humiliation as was indeed degrading" to Himself, but necessary for man, and such as on this very account became worthy of God, because nothing is so worthy of God as the salvation of man. If I were arguing with heathens, I should dwell more at length on this point; although with heretics too the discussion does not stand on very different grounds. Inasmuch as ye yourselves have now come to the belief that God moved about " in the form and all other circumstances of man's nature,'-' you will of course no longer require to be convinced that God conformed Himself to humanity, but feel yourselves bound by your own faith. For if the God (in whom ye believe,) even from His higher condition, prostrated the supreme dignity of His majesty to such a lowliness as to undergo death, even the death of the cross, why can you not suppose that some humiliations '^ are becoming to our God also, only more toler- able than Jewish contumelies, and crosses,'* and sepulchres? Are these the humiliations which henceforth are to raise a prejudice against Christ (the subject as He is of human passions 's) being a partaker of that Godhead '* against which you make the participation in human qualities a reproach? Now we believe that Christ did ever act in the name of God the Father; that He actually '^ from the be- ginning held intercourse with (men); actu- ally '^ communed with '^ patriarchs and proph- ets; was the Son of the Creator; was His Word; whom God made His Son^ by emit- ting Him from His own self,^' and thence- forth set Him over every dispensation and (administration of) His will,^"" making Him a little lower than the angels, as is written in David. ^ In which lowering of His condition He received from the Father a dispensation in those very respects which you blame as human; from the very beginning learning,"* even then, (that state of a) man which He was destined in the end to become. ^^ It is He 'o Indigna. " Diversatum. •2 Conditionis.
13 Pusillitates.
14 Patibulis.
'5 i.e., the sensations of our emotional nature.
'6 Ejus Dei.
'7 Ipsum.
'8 Ipsum.
'9 Congressnm.
20 On this mode of the eternal generation of the Son from the Father, as the Aoyos 7rpo<^opi(cds, the reader is referred for much patristic information to Bp. Bull's De/ensio Fid. Nic. (transl. in Anglo-Cat h. Library by the translator of this work).
=' Proferendo ex semet ipso.
" Voluntati.
24 Kdiscens, " practising " or " rehearsing."
25 This doctrine of theology is more fully expressed by our au- thor in a fine passage in his Treatise against Praxeas, xvi. (Oehler, vol. ii. p. 674), of which the translator gave this version in Bp. Bull's Def. Nic. Creed., vol. i. p. 18: " The Son hath exe- cuted judgment from the beginning, throwing down the haughty CHAP, xxvin.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
who descends, He who interrogates, He who demands, He who swears. With regard, how- ever, to the Father, the very gospel which is common to us will testify that He was never visible, according to the word of Christ: " No man knoweth the Father, save the Son."' For even in the Old Testament He had de- clared, "No man shall see me, and live."- He means that the Father is invisible, in whose authority and in whose name was He God who appeared as the Son of God. But with us 3 Christ is received in the person of Christ, because even in this manner is He our God Whatever attributes therefore you require as worthy of God, must be found in the Father, who is invisible and unapproach- able, and placid, and (so to speak) the God of the philosophers; whereas those qualities which you censure as unworthy must be sup- posed to be in the Son, who has been seen, and heard, and encountered, the Witness and Servant of the Father, uniting in Himself man and God, God in mighty deeds, in weak ones man, in order that He may give to man as much as He takes from God. What in your esteem is the entire disgrace of my God, IS in fact the sacrament of man's salvation. God held converse with man, that man might learn to act as God. God dealt on eqaal terms* with man, that man might be able to deal on equal terms with God. God was found little, that man might become very great. You who disdain such a God, I hardly know whether you ex fide believe that God was crucified. How great, then, is your per- versity in respect of the two characters of the Creator! You designate Him as Judge, and reprobate as cruelty that severity of the Judge which only acts in accord with the mer- its of cases. You require God to be very good, and yet despise as meanness that gentle- ness of His which accorded with His kindness, (and) held lowly converse in proportion to the tower, and dividing the tongues, punishing the whole world by the violence of waters, raining upon Sodom and Goraorrha fire and brimstone ' the Lord from the Lord.' For He it was who at all times came down to hold converse with men, from Adam on to the patriarchs and the prophets, in vision, in dream, in mirror, in dark saying; ever from the beginning laying the foundation of the course (of His dispensations), which He meant to follow out unto the end. Thus was He ever learning (practising or rehearsing); and the God who conversed with men upon earth could be no other than the Word, which was to be made flesh. But He was thus learning (or rehearsing, ediscehat) in order to level for us the way of faith, that we might the more readily believe that the Son of God had come down into the world, if we knew that in times past also something similar had been done." The original thus opens: " Filius itaque est qui ab initio yV/^/zV^i'/V." This the au- thor connects with John iii. 35, Matt, xxviii. 18, John v. 22. The ''^judgment" is dispensational from the first to the last. Every judicial function of God's providence from Eden to the judgment day is administered by the Son of God. This office of jud^e has been largely dealt with in its general view \jy Tertullian, in this book ii. against Marcion (see cEa'^ xi.vSVUi)i