2 Ex. xxxiii. 20.
3 Penes nos. Christians, not Marcionites. [Could our author have regarded himself as formally at war with the church, at this time?]
4 Ex squo agebat.
mediocrity of man's estate. He pleases you not, whether great or little, neither as your judge nor as your friend! What if the same features should be discovered in your God? That He too is a judge, we have already shown in the proper section:5 that from being a judge He must needs be severe; and from being severe He must also be cruel, if indeed cruel. ^ CHAP. XXVni. THE TABLES TURNED UPON MARCION, BY CONTRASTS, IN FAVOUR OF THE TRUE GOD.
Now, touching the weaknesses and maligni- ties, and the other (alleged), notes (of the Creator), I too shall advance antitheses in ri- valry to Marcion's. If my God knew not of any other superior to Himself, your god also was utterly unaware that there was any be- neath himself. It is just what Heraclitus "the obscure " 7 said; whether it be up or down,^ it comes to the same thing. If, in- deed, he was not ignorant (of his position), it must have occurred to Him from the begin- ning. Sin and death, and the author of sin too — the devil — and all the evil which my God permitted to be, this also, did your god permit; for he allowed Him to permit it. Our God changed His purposes;' in like manner yours did also. For he who cast his look so late in the human race, changed that purpose, which for so long a period had refused to cast that look. Our God repented Him of the evil in a given case; so also did yours. For by the fact that he at last had regard to the salvation of man, he showed such a repent- ance of his previous disregard ''° as was due for a wrong deed. But neglect of man's sal- vation will be accounted a wrong deed, simply because it has been remedied " by his repen- tance in the conduct of your god. Our God you say commanded a fraudulent act, but in a matter of gold and silver. Now, inasmuch as man is more precious than -gold and silver, in so far is your god more**fraudulent still, because he robs man of his Lord and Cre- ator. Eye for eye does our God require; but your god does even a greater injury, (in your ideas,) when he prevents an act of retaliation. For what man will not return a blow, without waiting to be struck a second time." Our 5 In the ist book, 25th and following chapters.
6 Saevum.
7 Tenebrosus. Cicero, De Jiniius, ii. says: " Heraclitus qui cognomento SKoreirb? perhibetur, quia de natura nimis obscure memoravit."
8 Sursum et deorsum. An allusion to Heraclitus' doctrine of constant change, flux and reflux, out of which all things came. Kat TT)i/ y.eTa^oKr\v ofibf o»'<i» Kara), t6v re k6(thov yivttrSai Kara TauTTjv, K.T.A. " Change is the way «/ and down: the world comes mto being thus,' etc. (Diogenes Laertius, ix, 8).
9 Sententias.
10 Dissimulationes. " Non nisi emendata. '2Non repercussus.
TERTULIJAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book il God (you say) knows not whom He ought to choose. Nor does your god, for if he had foreknown the issue, he would not have chosen the traitor Judas. If you allege that the Creator practised deception ' in any instance, there was a far greater mendacity in your Christ, whose very body was unreal." Many were consumed by the severity of my God. Those also who were not saved by your god are verily disposed by him to ruin. My God ordered a man to be slain. Your god willed himself to be put to death; not less a homi- cide against himself than in respect of him by whom he meant to be slain. I will more- over prove to Marcion that they were many who were slain by his god; for he made every one a homicide: in other words, he doomed him to perish, except when people failed in no duty towards Christ. ^ But the straight- forward virtue of truth is contented with few resources.* Many things will be necessary for falsehood.
CHAP. XXIX. MARCION's OWN ANTITHESES, IF ONLY THE TITLE AND OBJECT OF THE WORK BE EXCEPTED, AFFORD PROOFS OF THE CON- SISTENT ATTRIBUTES OF THE TRUE GOD.
But I would have attacked Marcion 's own Antitheses in closer and fuller combat, if a more elaborate demolition of them were required in maintaining for the Cre- ator the character of a good God and a Judge, after 5 the examples of both points, which we have shown to be so worthy of God. Since, however, these two attributes of goodness and justice do together make up the proper fulness of the Divine Being as omnipo- tent, I am able to content myself with having now compendiously refuted his Antitheses, which aim at drawing distinctions out of the qualities of the (Creator's) artifices,* or of His laws, or of His great works; and thus sundering Christ from the Creator, as the most Good from the Judge, as One who is merciful from Him who is ruthless, and One who brings salvation from Him who causes ruin. The truth is,' they* rather unite the two Beings whom they arrange in those di- versities (of attribute), which yet are compat- ible in God. For only take away the title of Marcion' s book,' and the intention and • Mentitum.
'Non verum. An allusion to the Docetism of Marcion."
3 Nihil deliquit in Christum, that is, Marcion's Christ.
4 Pauois amat.
5 Secundum.
<> Ingeniorum.
7 Enim.
<> Antitheses so ca\\e.& because Marcion in it had set psssages out of the O. T. and the N. T. in opposition to each other, intend- ing his readers to infer from the apparent disajfreement tha», the law and the gospel were not from the same author (Bp. Kaye on Tertullian, p. 468).
purpose of the work itself, and you could get no better demonstration that the self-same God was both very good and a Judge, inas- much as these two characters are only com- petently found in God. Indeed, the very effort which is made in the selected exam- ples to oppose Christ to the Creator, conduces all the more to their union. For so entirely one and the same was the nature of the Di- vine Beings, the good and the severe, as shown both by the same examples and in similar proofs, that It willed to display Its goodness to those on whom It had first in- flicted Its severity. The difference in time was no matter of surprise, when the same God was afterwards merciful in presence of evils which had been subdued,'" who had once been so austere whilst they were as yet unsubdued. Thus, by help of the Atitithescs, the dispensation of the Creator can be more readily shown to have been reformed by Christ, rather than destroyed; " restored, rather than abolished;^' especially as you sever your own god from everything like acrimonious con- duct,'^ even from all rivalry whatsoever with the Creator. Now, since this is the case, how comes it to pass that the Antitheses dem- onstrate Him to have been the Creator's rival in every disputed cause?"* Well, even here, too, I will allow that in these causes my God has been a jealous God, who has in His own right taken especial care that all things done by Him, should be in their beginning of a robuster growth; '5 and this in the way of a good, because rational '* emulation, which tends to maturity. In this sense the world itself will acknowledge His "antitheses," from the contrariety of its own elements, al- though it has been regulated with the very highest reason.'^ Wherefore, most thought- less Marcion, it was your duty to have shown that one (of the two Gods you teach) was a God of light, and the other a God of darkness; and then you would have found it an easier task to persuade us that one was a God of goodness, the other a God of severity. How- ever, the " antithesis " (or variety of adminis- tration) will rightly be His property, to whom it actually belongs in (the government of) the world.
'o Pro rebus edomitis. See chap. xv. and xix., where he refers to the law as the subduing instrument.
" Repercussus: perhaps " refuted."
'= Exclusus.
•3 Ab omni motu amariore.
■4 Singulas species, a law term.
'5 Arbustiores. A figurative word, taken from vines more firmly supported on trees instead of on frames. He has used the word iii- domitis above to express his meaning.
'6 Rationali. Compare chap. vi. of this book, where the " r^tio." or purpose of God, is shown to be consistent with His g<x)dness ia providmg for its highest development in man's interest.
'7 Ratione: in reference to God's ratio or purpose in creation. See chap. vi. note 10. [p. 301, su^ra.1 THE FIVE BOOKS AGAINST MARCION.
Book III.
WHEREIN CHRIST IS SHOWN TO BE THE SON OF GOD, WHO CREATED THE WORLD; TO HAVE BEEN PREDICTED BY THE PROPHETS; TO HAVE TAKEN HUMAN FLESH LIKE OUR OWN, BY A REAL INCARNA- TION.
CHAP. I. — introductory: a brief statement OF THE PRECEDING ARGUMENT IN CONNEC- TION WITH THE SUBJECT OF THIS BOOK, Following the track of my original treatise, the loss of which we are steadily proceeding' to restore, we come now, in the order of our subject, to treat of Christ, although this be a work of supererogation,'' after the proof which we have gone through that there is but one only God. For no doubt it has been already ruled with sufficient clearness, that Christ must be regarded as pertaining to ^ no other God than the Creator, when it has been de- termined that no other God but the Creator should be the object of our faith. Him did Christ so expressly preach, whilst the apostles one after the other also so clearly affirmed that Christ belonged to* no other God than Him whom He Himself preached — that is, the Creator — that no mention of a second God (nor, accordingly, of a second Christ) was ever agitated previous to Marcion's scandal. This is most easily proved by an examination ^ of both the apostolic and the heretical churches,* from which we are forced to declare that there is undoubtedly a subversion of the rule (of faith), where any opinion is found of later date,' — a point which I have inserted in my » Perseveramus.
2 Ex abundant!.
3 i.e., " as the Son of, or sent by, no otherGod."
•♦i.e., " was the Son of, or sent by, no other God."
S Recensu.
* [Surely TertuUian, when he wrote this, imagined himself not separated formally from the Apostolic churches. Of which see De Prascriptione, (p. 258) supra.'\ 7 \Jbi posieri'tas invenitur. Compare Dc Prcrscript. Haerct. 34, where TertuUian refers to " that definite rule, before laid down, touching ' the later date ' (illo fine supra dicto posieritatis), whereby they (i.e., certain novel opinions) would at once be con- demned on the ground of their age alone." In 31 of the same work he contrasts " poiteri/aiem mendacitatis " with " principal- itatem veritatis " — the latter date of falsehood " with " the primary date of truth." [pp. 258, 260, supra.'\ 21 21 first book.^ A discussion of it would unques- tionably be of value even now, when we are about to make a separate examination into (the subject of) Christ; because, whilst prov- ing Christ to be the Creator's Son, we are ef- fectually shutting out the God of Marcion. Truth should employ all her available re- sources, and in no limping way.^ In our compendious rules of faith, however, she has it all her own way.'° But I have resolved, like an earnest man," to meet my adversary every way and everywhere in the madness of his heresy, which is so great, that he has found it easier to assume that that Christ has come who was never heard of, than He who has always been predicted.
CHAP. II. — WHY Christ's coming should be previously announced.
Coming then at once to the point," I have to encounter the question. Whether Christ ought to have come so suddenly? '^ (i answer, No.) First, because He was the Son of God His Father. For this was a point of order, that the Father should announce '♦ the Son before the Son should the Father, and that the Father should testify of the Son before the Son should testify of the Father. Sec- ondly, because, in addition to the title of Son, He was the Sent. The authority,'* therefore, of the Sender must needs have first appeared 8 See book i. chap. i.
9 Non ut laborantem. " Qui enim laborant non totis sed frac- tis utuntur viribus." naco-rpoTta navwSifi; Anglice, " with a^ her might."
•o In praescript. compendiis vincit.
" Ut gestientem.
" Hinc denique.
>3 As Marcion makes Him., '4 Profiteretur.
'5^Patrocinium.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book III.
in a testimony of the Sent; because none who comes in the authority of another does himself set it forth ' for himself on his own assertion, but rather looks out for protection from it, for first comes the support - of him who gives him his authority. Now (Christ) will neither be acknowledged as Son if the Father never named Him, ncr be believed in as the Sent One if no Sender ^ gave Him a commission: the Father, if any, purposely naming Him; and the Sender, if any, purposely commis- sioning Him. Everything will be open to suspicion which transgresses a rule. Now the primary order of all things will not allow that the Father should come after the Son in recog- nition, or the Sender after the Sent, or God after Christ. Nothing can take precedence of its own original in being acknowledged, nor in like manner can it in its ordering.* Sud- denly a Son, suddenly Sent, and suddenly Christ! On the contrary, I should suppose that from God nothing comes suddenly, be- cause there is nothing which is not ordered and arranged by God. And if ordered, why not also foretold, that it may be proved to have been ordered by the prediction, and by the ordering to be divine? And indeed so great a work, which (we may be sure) required preparation, s as being for the salvation of man, could not have been on that very account a sudden thing, because it was through faith that it was to be of avail.* Inasmuch, then, as it had to be believed in order to be of use, so far did it require, for the securing of this faith, a preparation built upon the foundations of pre-arrangement and fore-announcement. Faith, when informed by such a process, might justly be required ^ of man by God, and by man be reposed in God; it being a duty, after that knowledge* has made it a possibility, to believe those things which a man had learned indeed to believe from the fore-announce- ment.'
CHAP. III. MIRACLES ALONE, WITHOUT PROPH- ECY, AN INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE OF CHRIST'S MISSION.
A procedure '° of this kind, you say, was not necessary, because He was forthwith to prove Himself the Son and the Sent One, and the Christ of God in very deed, by means of the evidence of His wonderful works." On ' Defendit, " insist on it." 'Suggestu.
3 Mandator.
4 Dispositione, " its being ordered or arranged."
5 Parabatur.
6 Per fidem profuturum.
7 Indiceretur. * Agnitione.
9 Praedicatione, "prophecy."' 'o Qrdo. " Virtutnm, " miracles."
my side, however, I have to deny that evidence simply of this sort was sufificient as a testimony to Him. He Himself afterwards deprived it of its authority,'^ because when He declared that many would come and " show great signs and wonders," '^ so as to turn aside the very elect, and yet for all that were not to be re- ceived. He showed how rash was belief in signs and wonders, which were so very easy of ac- complishment by even false christs. Else how happens it, if He meant Himself to be approved and understood, and received on a certain evidence — I mean that of miracles — that He forbade the recognition of those others who had the very same sort of proof to show, and whose coming was to be quite as sudden and unannounced by any authority? '" If, because He came before them, and was beforehand with them in displaying the signs of His mighty deeds. He therefore seized the first right to men's faith, — just as the first comers do the first place in the baths, — and so forestalled all who came after Him in that right, take care that He, too, be not caught in the condition of the later comers, if He be found to be behindhand with the Creator, who had already been made known, and had already worked miracles like Him,'^ and like Him had forewarned men not to believe in others, even such as should come after Him. If, there- fore, to have been the first to come and utter this warning, is to bar and limit faith,'* He will Himself have to be condemned, because He was later in being acknowledged; and au- thority to prescribe such a rule about later comers will belong to the Creator alone, who could have been posterior to none. And now, when I am about to prove that the Creator sometimes displayed by His servants of old, and in other cases reserved for His Christ to display, the self-same miracles which you claim as solely due to faith in your Christ, I may fairly even from this maintain that there was so much the greater reason wherefore Christ should not be believed in simply on account of His miracles, inasmuch as these would have shown Him to belong to none other (God) than the Creator, because an- swering to the mighty deeds of the Creator, both as performed by His servants and re- ser^^ed for'' His Christ; although, even if some other proofs should be found in your Christ — new ones, to wit — we should more readily believe that they, too, belong to the same God as do the old ones, rather than to him who " Exauctoravit.
'3 Matt, xxiv. 24. [See Kaye, p. 125.]
•4 Auctore.
'5 Proinde.
'* Cludet, ^uasi claudet.
'7 Repromissis in.
CHAI' IV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
has no other than new' proofs, such as are wanting in the evidences of that antiquity which wins the assent of faith, = so that even on this ground he ought to have come an- nounced as much by prophecies of his own, building up faith in him, as by miracles, es- pecially in opposition to the Creator's Christ, who was to come fortified by signs and proph- ets of His own, in order that he might shine forth as the rival of Christ by help of evidence of different kinds. But how was his Christ to be foretold by a god who was himself never predicted? This, therefore, is the unavoid- able inference, that neither your god nor your Christ is an object of faith, because God ought not to have been unknown, and Christ ought to have been made known through God.^ CHAP. IV. MARCIOn'S CHRIST NOT THE SUBJECT OF PROPHECY. THE ABSURD CONSEQUENCES OF THIS THEORY OF THE HERETIC.
He* disdained, I suppose, to imitate the order of our God, as one who was displeasing to him, and was by all means to be van- quished. He wished to come, as a new being in a new way — a son previous to his father's announcement, a sent one before the authority of the sender; so that he might in person ^ propagate a most monstrous faith, whereby it should come to be believed that Christ was come before it should be known that He had an existence. It is here convenient to me to treat that other point: Why he came not after Christ? For when I observe that, during so long a period, his lord * bore with the greatest patience the very ruthless Creator who was all the while announcing His Christ to men, I say, that whatever reason impelled him to do so, postponing thereby his own revelation and interposition, the self-same reason imposed on him the duty of bearing with the Creator (who had also in His Christ dispensations of His own to carry out); so that, after the com- pletion and accomplishment of the entire plan of the rival God and the rival Christ,^ he might then superinduce his own proper dispensation. But he grew weary of so long an endurance, and so failed to wait till the end of the Cre- ator's course. It was of no use, his enduring that his Christ should be predicted, when he refused to permit him to be manifested.^ • Tantummodo nova.
2 Egentia experimentis fidei victricis vetustatis.
3 i.e., through God's announcement by prophecy.
4 Your God.
5 Ipse.
*Ejus (i.e. Marcionis) Dominum, meaning Marcion's God, who had not yet been revealed.
7 The Creator and His Christ, as rivals of Marcion's.
8 He twits Marcion with introducing his Christ on the scene too soon. He ought to have waited until the Creator^ s Christ (proph- esied of through the Old Testament) had come. Why allow Him to be predicted, and then forbid His actual coming, by his own Either it was without just cause that he in- terrupted the full course of his rival's time, or without just cause did he so long refrain from interrupting it. What held him back at first? Or what disturbed him a/ /a.y/? As the case now stands, however, ' he has com- mitted himself in respect of both, having re- vealed himself so tardily after the Creator, so hurriedly before His Christ; whereas he ought long ago to have encountered the one with a confutation, the other to have forborne en- countering as yet — not to have borne with the one so long in His ruthless hostility, nor to have disquieted the other, who was as yet quiescent! In the case of both, while depriv- ing them of their title to be considered the most good God, he showed himself at least capricious and uncertain; lukewarm (in his re- sentment) towards the Creator, but fervid against His Christ, and powerless'" in respect of them both! For he no more restrained the Creator than he resisted His Christ. The Creator still remains such as He really is. His Christ also will come," just as it is written of Him. Why did he" come after the Cre- ator, since he was unable to correct Him by punishment? '^ Why did he reveal himself before Christ, whom he could not hinder from appearing?'^ If, on the contrary,'^ he did chastise the Creator, he revealed himself, (I suppose,) after Him in order that things which require correction might come first. On which account also, (of course,) he ought to have waited for Christ to appear first, whom he was going to chastise in like manner; then he would be His punisher coming after Him,'* just as he had been in the case of the Creator. There is another consideration: since he will at his second advent come after Him, that as he at His first coming took hostile proceed- ings against the Creator, destroying the law and the prophets, which were His, so he may, to be sure,'^ at his second coming proceed in opposition to Christ, upsetting'^ His kingdom. Then, no doubt, he would terminate his arrival on the scene first? Of course, M. must be understood to deny that the Christ of the New Testament is the subject of the Old Testament prophecies at all. Hence T.'s anxiety to adduce prophecy as the main evidence of our Lord as being really the Creator s Christ. 9 Atquin.
10 Vanus.
" The reader will remember that Tertullian is here arguing on Marcion's ground, according to whom the Creator's Christ, the Christ predicted through the O. T., was not yet come. Marcion's Christ, however, had proved himself so weak to stem the Creator's course, that he had no means really of checking the Creator's Christ from coming. It had been better, adds Tertullian, if Mar- cion's Christ had waited for the Creator's Christ to have first ap- peared.
'3 Emendare.
■4 Revocare.
'5 Aut si.
»6 Posterior emendator finurus: an instance of Tertullian's style in paradox.
'7 Vero.
>8 Redarguens.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book III.
course, and then (if ever) ' be worthy of be- Hef; for else, if his work has been already perfected, it would be in vain for him to come, for there would indeed be nothing that he could further accomplish.
CHAP. V. SUNDRY FEATURES OF THE PRO- PHETIC style: principles of its interpre- tation.
These preliminary remarks I have ventured to make ^ at this first step of the discussion, and while the conflict is, as it were, from a distance. But inasmuch as I shall now from this point have to grapple with my opponent on a distinct issue and in close combat, I perceive that I must advance even here some lines, at which the battle will have to be delivered; they are the Scriptures of the Creator. For as I shall have to prove that Christ was from the Crea- tor, according to these (Scriptures), which were afterwards accomplished in the Creator's Christ, I find it necessary to set forth the form and, so to speak, the nature of the Scrip- tures themselves, that they may not distract the reader's attention by being called into controversy at the moment of their application to subjects of discussion, and by their proof being confounded with the proof of the sub- jects themselves. Now there are two condi- tions of prophetic announcement which I ad- duce, as requiring the assent of our adversaries in the future stages of the discussion. One, that future events are sometimes announced as if they were already passed. For it is ^ consistent with Deity to regard as accom- plished facts whatever It has determined on, because there is no difference of time with that Being in whom eternity itself directs a uniform condition of seasons. It is indeed more natural "* to the prophetic divination to represent as seen and already brought to pass, 5 even while forseeing it, that which it foresees; in other words, that which is by all means future. As for instance, in Isaiah: " I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks (I exposed) to their hands. I hid not my face from shame and spitting."* For whether it was Christ even then, as we hold, or the proph- et, as the Jews say, who pronounced these words concerning himself, in either case, that which as yet had not happened sounded as if it had been already accomplished. Another characteristic will be, that very many events are figuratively predicted by means of enigmas and allegories and parables, and that they » Si forte.
» Proluserim.
?rAn important principle, See Kaye, p. 325.]
4 Kamiliare.
5 Expunctiim.
eCh. 1. 6, slightly altered.