angels' (for he says, " They shall be like the angels "), why should not my God also have fitted on to angels the true substance of men, from whatever source derived? For not even vou will tell me, in reply, whence is obtained that angelic nature on your side; so that it is enough for me to define this as being fit and proper to God, even the verity of that thing uliich was objective to three senses — sight, touch, and hearing. It is more difificult for God to practise deception = than to produce real flesh from any material whatever, even without the means of birth. But for other heretics, also, who maintain that the flesh in the angels ought to have been born of flesh, if it had been really human, we have an an- swer on a sure principle, to the effect that it was truly humafi flesh, and yet tiot born. It was truly human, because of the truthfulness of God, who can neither lie nor deceive, and because (angelic beings) cannot be dealt with by men in a human way except in human sub- stance: it was withal unborn, because none ^ but Christ could become incarnate by being born of the flesh in order that by His own nativity He might regenerate ■♦ our birth, and might further bv His death also dissolve our death, by rising again in that flesh m which, that He might even die. He was born. Therefore on that occasion He did Himself appear with the angels to Abraham in the verity of the flesh, which had not as yet under- gone birth, because it was not yet going to die, although it was even now learning to hold intercourse amongst men. Still greater was the propriety in angels, who never re- ceived a dispensation to die for us, not hav- ing assumed even a brief experience = of flesh by being born, because they were not des- tined to lay it down again by dying; but from whatever quarter they obtained it, and by what means soever they afterwards entirely divested themselves of it, they yet never pre- tended it to be unreal flesh. Since the Cre- ator " maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire " — as truly spirits as also fire — so has He truly made them flesh likewise; wherefore we can now recall to our own minds, and remind the heretics also, that He has promised that He will one day form men into angels, who once formed angels into men.
CHAP. X. THE TRULY INCARNATE STATE MORE WORTHY OF GOD THAN MARCION'S FANTASTIC FLESH.
Therefore, since you are not permitted to - Mentiri.
3 i.e, among the angels.
* Reformaret.
5 Commeatum.
resort to any instances of the Creator, as alien from the subject, and possessing special causes of their own, I should like you to state yourself the design of your god, in ex- hibiting his Christ not in the reality of flesh. If he despised it as earthly, and (as you ex- press it) full of dung,* why did he not on that account include the likeness of it also in his contempt? For no honour is to be attributed to the image of anything which is itself un- worthy of honour. As the natural state is, so will the likeness be. But how could he hold converse with men except in the image of human substance V Why, then, not rather in the reality thereof, that his intercourse might be real, since he was under the neces- sity of holding it? And to how much better account would this necessity have been turned by ministering to faith rather than to a fraud! ^ The god whom you make is miserable enough, for this very reason that he was unable to dis- play his Christ except in the efifigy of an un- worthy, and indeed an alien, thing. In some instances, it will be convenient to use even unworthy things, if they be only our own, as it will also be quite improper to use things, be they ever so worthy, if they be not our own.' Why, then, did he not come in some other worthier substance, and especially his own, that he might not seem as if he could not have done without an unworthy and an alien one? Now, since my Creator held in- tercourse with man by means of even a bush and fire, and again afterwards by means of a cloud and column," and in representations of Himself used bodies composed of the ele- ments, these examples of divine power afford sufficient proof that God did not require the instrumentality of false or even of real flesh. But yet, if we look steadily into the subject, there is really no substance which is worthy of becoming a vestment for God. Whatso- ever He is pleased to clothe Himself withal, He makes worthy of Himself — only without untruth." Therefore how comes it to pass that he should have thought the verity of the flesh, rather than its unreality, a disgrace? Well, but he honoured it by his fiction of it. How great, then, is that flesh, the very phan- tasy of which was a necessity to the superior God!
CHAP. XI. — CHRIST WAS TRULY BORN; MAR- CION's absurd cavil in DEFENCE OF A PUTA- TIVE NATIVITY.
All these illusions of an imaginary coi po- ^Stercoribus infersam.
7 A Marcionite argument.
8 Stropham, a player's trick; so in Spectac. 29.
9 Alienis. '0 Globum. " Mendacio.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book III.
reity' in (his) Clirist, Marcion adopted with this view, that his nativity also might not be furnished with any evidence from his human substance, and that thus the Christ of the Cre- ator might be free to have assigned to Him all predictions which treated of Him as one capable of human birth, and therefore fleshly. But most foolishly did our Pontic heresiarch act in this too. As if it would not be more readily believed that flesh in the Divine Being should rather be unborn than untrue, this belief having in fact had the way mainly prepared for it by the Creator's angels when they conversed in flesh which was real, al- though unborn. For indeed the notorious Philumena^ persuaded Apelles and the other seceders from Marcion rather to believe that Christ did really carry about a body of flesh; not derived to Him, however, from birth, but one which He borrowed from the elements. Now, as Marcion was apprehensive that a be- lief of the fleshly body would also involve a belief of birth, undoubtedly He who seemed to be man was believed to be verily and indeed born. For a certain woman had exclaimed " Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked!" 3 And how else could they have said that His mother and His brethren were standing without? * But we shall see more of this in the proper place. ^ Surely, when He also proclaimed Himself as the Son of man. He, without doubt, confessed that He had been bom. Now I would rather refer all these points to an examination of the gospel; but still, as I have already stated, if he, who seemed to be man, had by all means to pass as having been born, it was vain for him to suppose that faith in his nativity was to be perfected^ by the device of an imaginary flesh. For what advantage was there in that being not true which was held to be true, whether it were his flesh or his birth? Or if you should say, let human opinion go for nothing; 7 you are then honouring your god under the shelter of a deception, since he knew himself to be something different from what he had made men to think of him. In that case you might possibly have assigned to him a putative nativity even, and so not have hung the question on this point. For ' Corpulentiae.
2 This woman is called in De Prascr. Haret. 6, " an angel of deceit," and (in 30) "a virgin, but afterwards a monstrous prosti- tute." Our author adds: "Induced by her tricks and miracles, Apelles introduced a new heresy." See also Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. y. 13; Augustin, De Hares. 42; Hieronymus, Epist. adv. Ctes- iph. p. 477, tom. iv. ed. Benedictin.
4 Luke viii. 20.
5 Below, iv. 26: also in De came Christie cap. vii.
' Expungendam, " consummated," a frequent use of the word in our auihor.
7 Viderit opinio humana.
silly women fancy themselves pregnant some- times, when they are corpulent^ either from their natural flux ^ or from some other malady. And, no doubt, it had become his duty, since he had put on the mere mask of his substance, to act out from its earliest scene the play of his phantasy, lest he should have failed in his part at the beginning of the flesh. You have, of course,'" rejected the sham of a nativity, and have produced true flesh itself. And, no doubt, even the real nativity of a God is a most mean thing." Come then, wind up your cavils " against the most sacred and reverend works of nature; inveigh against all that you are; destroy the origin of flesh and life; call the womb a sewer of the illustrious animal — in other words, the manufactory for the pro- duction of man; dilate on the impure arid shameful tortures of parturition, and then on the filthy, troublesome, contemptible issues of the puerperal labour itself! But yet, after you have pulled all these things down to in- famy, that you may affirm them to be un- worthy of God, birth will not be worse for Him than death, infancy than the cross, pun- ishment than nature, condemnation than the flesh. If Christ truly suffered all this, to be born was a less thing for Him. If Christ suffered evasively,'^ as a phantom; evasively, too, might He have been born. Such are Marcion' s chief arguments by which he makes out another Christ; and I think that we show plainly enough that they are utterly irrele- vant, when we teach how much more truly consistent with God is the reality rather than the falsehood of that condition'" in which He manifested His Christ. Since He was "the truth," He was flesh; since He was flesh, He was born. For the points which this heresy assaults are confirmed, when the means of the assault are destroyed. Therefore if He is to be considered in the flesh, '^ because He was born; and born, because He is in the flesh, and because He is no phantom, — it follows that He must be acknowledged as Himself the very Christ of the Creator, who was by the Creator's prophets foretold as about to come in the flesh, and by the process of human birth.'* CHAP. xn. — Isaiah's prophecy of emmanuel.
CHRIST entitled TO THAT NAME.
And challenge us first, as is your wont, to consider Isaiah's description of Christ, while SInflatse.
9 Sanguinis tribute. >° Plane, ironically said. " Turpissimum. •= Perora. »3 Mendacio. ■4 Habitus. 'SCarneus. '* Ex nativitate.
CHAr. xm.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
v?J you contend that in no point does it suit. For, to begin with, you say that Isaiah's Christ will have to be called P^mmanuel;' then, that He takes the riches of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of Assy- ria." But yet He who is come was neither born under such a name, nor ever engaged in any warlike enterprise. I must, however, remind you that you ought to look into the contexts ^ of the two passages. For there is immediately added the interpretation of Emmanuel, " God with us; " so that you have to consider not merely the name as it is ut- tered, but also its meaning. The utterance is Hebrew, Emmamiel, of the prophet's own nation; but the meaning of the word, God with us, is by the interpretation made com- mon property. Inquire, then, whether this name, God-with-us, which is Emmanuel, be not often used for the name of Christ,* from the fact that Christ has enlightened the world. And I suppose you will not deny it, inasmuch as you do yourself admit that He is called God-with-us, that is, Emmanuel. Else if you are so foolish, that, because with you He gets the designation God-with-us, not Emmanuel, you therefore are unwilling to grant that He is come whose property it is to be called Emmanuel, as if this were not the same name as God-with-us, you will find among the He- brew Christians, and amongst Marcionites too, that they name Him Emmanuel when they mean Him to be called God-with-us; just indeed as every nation, by whatever word they would express God-with-us, has called Him Emmanuel, completing the sound in its sense. Now since Emmanuel is God-with- us, and God-with-us is Christ, who is in us (for "as many of you as are baptized into Christ, have put on Christ " 5), Christ is as properly implied in the meaning of the name, which is God-with-us, as He is in the pronun- ciation of the name, which is Emmanuel. And thus it is evident that He is now come who was foretold as Emmanuel, because what Emmanuel signifies is come, that is to say, God-with-us.
CHAP. XIII. — ISAIAH's prophecies CONSIDERED. THE VIRGINITY OF CHRIST's MOTHER A SIGN. OTHER PROPHECIES ALSO SIGNS. METAPHOR- ICAL SENSE OF PROPER NAMES IN SUNDRY PASSAGES OF THE PROPHETS.
You are equally led away by the sound of names,* when you so understand the riches of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria, and 2lsa. viii. 4. Compare adv. Judeeos, 9.
3 Cohaerentia.
4 Agitetur in Christo.
* Compare with this chapter, T.'s adv. Judaos, g.
the king of Assyria, as if they portended that the Creator's Christ was a warrior, not attend- ing to the promise contained in the passage, *' For before the Child shall have knowledge to cry. My father and My mother. He shall take away the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria before the king of Assyria." ' You should first examine the point of age, whether it can be taken to represent Christ as even yet a man,^ much less a warrior. Al- though, to be sure. He might be about to call to arms by His cry as an infant; might be about to sound the alarm of war not with a trumpet, but with a little rattle; might be about to seek His foe, not on horseback, or in chariot, or from parapet, but from nurse's neck or nursemaid's back, and so be des- tined to subjugate Damascus and Samaria from His mother's breasts! It is a different matter, of course, when the babes of your barbarian Pontus spring forth to the fight. They are, I ween, taught to lance before they lacerate;' swathed at first in sunshine and ointment, '"afterwards armed with the satchel," and rationed on bread and butter! " Now, since nature, certainly, nowhere grants to man to learn warfare before life, to pillage the wealth of a Damascus before he knows his father and mother's name, it follows that the passage in question must be deemed to be a figurative one. Well, but nature, says he, does not permit "a virgin to conceive," and still the prophet is believed. And indeed very properly; for he has paved the way for the incredible thing being believed, by giving a reason for its occurrence, in that it was to be for a sign. "Therefore," says he, "the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son."'^ Now a sign from God would not have been a sign,"* unless it had been some novel and pro- digious thing. Then, again, Jewish cavillers, in order to disconcert us, boldly pretend that Scripture does not hold 's that a virgin, but only a young woman,** is to conceive and bring 8 Jam horainem, jam virum in Adv. Judieos, "at man's estate.
9 Lanceare ante qiiam lancinare. This play on the words points to the very early training of the barbarian boys to war. Lancinare perhaps means, " to nibble the nipple with the gum."
10 He alludes to the suppling of their young joints with oil, and then drying them in the sun. " Pannis.
12 Butyro.
M The ^aw/ dignum of this place is "jam signum " in adv. Judipos.
15 Contineat.
»6 This opinion of Jews and Judaizing heretics is mentioned by Irenaeus, Adv. Hteret. iii. 21 (Stieren's ed. i. 532); Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. V. 8; Jerome, Adv. Hclvid. (ed. Benedict), p. 132. Nor has the cavil ceased to be held, as is well known, to the present day. The n^STD of Isa. vii. 4 is supposed by the Jewish Fuerst to be Isaiah's "wife., and he. quotes Kimchi's authority; while the neologian Gesenius interprets the v.ord, a Oride, and rejects the Catholic notion of an unspotted virgin. To make way, however, for their view, both Fuerst and Gesenius have to reject the LXx! rendering, itapOivo^.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book hi.
forth. They are, however, refuted by this consideration, that nothing of the nature of a sign can possibly come out of what is a daily occurrence, the pregnancy and child-bearing of a young woman. A virgin mother is justly deemed to be proposed ' by God as a sign, but a warlike infant has no like claim to the distinction; for even in such a case ^ there does not occur the character of a sign. But after the sign of the strange and novel birth has been asserted, there is immediately after- wards declared as a sign the subsequent course of the Infant, ^ who was to eat butter and honey. Not that this indeed is of the nature of a sign, nor is His "refusing the evil;" for this, too, is only a characteristic of infancy.'' But His destined capture of the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria before the king of Assyria is fio doubt a u'07i- derfiil sign.^ Keep to the measure of His age, and seek the purport of the prophecy, and give back also to the truth of the gospel what you have taken away from it in the late- ness of your heresy,* and the prophecy at once becomes intelligible and declares its own ac- complishment. Let those eastern magi wait on the new-born Christ, presenting to Him, (although) in His infancy, their gifts of gold and frankincense; and surely an Infant will have received the riches of Damascus without a battle, and unarmed.
For besides the generally known fact, that the riches of the East, that is to say, its strength and resources, usually consist of gold and spices, it is certainly true of the Creator, that He makes gold the riches of the other ^ nations also. Thus He says by Zechariah: " And Judah shall also fight at Jerusalem, and shall gather together all the wealth of the nations round about, gold and silver."^ Moreover, respecting that gift of gold, David also says: " And there shall be given to Him of the gold of Arabia; "5 and again: "The kings of Arabia and Saba shall offer to Him gifts." '° For the East generally regarded the magi as kings; and Damascus was anciently deemed to belong to Arabia, before it was transferred to Syrophoenicia on the division of the Syrias (by Rome)." Its riches Christ then received, when He received the tokens thereof in the gold and spices; while the ' Disposita.
2 Kt hie.
3 Alius ordo jam infantis.
4 Infantia est. Better in adv. Judiros, " est infantix."
5 The italicised words we have added from adv. Jiidteos., " hoc est mirabile signum."
* Posterior. Posteritas is an attribute of heresy in T.'s view. 7 Ceterarum, other than the Jews, i.e., Gentiles.
«o Ps. Ixxii. 10.
spoils of Samaria were the magi themselves. These having discovered Him and honoured Him with their gifts, and on bended knee adored Him as their God and King, through the witness of the star which led their way and guided them, became the spoils of Samaria, that is to say, of idolatry, because, as it is easy enough to see,'- they believed in Christ. He designated idolatry under the name of Samaria, as that city was shameful for its idolatry, through which it had then revolted from God from the days of king Jeroboam. Nor is this an unusual manner for the Creator, (in His Scriptures '3) figuratively to employ names of places as a metaphor derived from the analogy of their sins. Thus He calls the chief men of the Jews "rulers of Sodom," and the nation itself ' ' people of Gomorrah. ' ' '* And in another passage He also says: " Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite,"'5 by reason of their kindred iniquity;'* although He had actually called them His sons: " I have nourished and brought up c/ii/dren." ^^ So likewise by Egypt is some- times understood, in His sense,'* the whole world as being marked out by superstition and a curse." By a similar usage Babylon also in our (St.) John is a figure of the city of Rome, as being like (Babylon) great and proud in royal power, and warring down the saints of God. Now it was in accordance with this style that He called the magi by the name of Samaritans, because (as we have said) they had practised idolatry as did the Samaritans. Moreover, by the phrase "before or against the king of Assyria," understand "against Herod;" against whom the magi then opposed themselves, when they refrained from carry- ing him back word concerning Christ, whom he was seeking to destroy.
CHAP. XIV. FIGURATIVE STYLE OF CERTAIN MESSIANIC PROPHECIES IN THE PSALMS. MILI- TARY METAPHORS APPLIED TO CHRIST.
This interpretation of ours will derive con- firmation, when, on your supposing that Christ is in any passage called a warrior, from the mention of certain arms and expressions of that sort, you weigh well the analogy of their other meanings, and draw your conclusions accord- ingly. "Gird on Thy.sword," says David, " upon Thy thigh." -° But what do you read about Christ just before? "Thou art fairer •2 Videlicet.
'3 The Creatpri here answers to the Scripturis divinis of the parallel passage in adv. Judtios. Of course there is a special force in this use of the Creator's name here against Marcion.
'6 To the sins of these nations.
CHAP. XV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
than the children of men; grace is poured forth upon Thy Hps." ' It amuses me to im- agine that blandishments of fair beauty and graceful lips are ascribed to one who had to gird on His sword for war! So likewise, when it is added, " Ride on prosperously in Thy majesty,"' the reason is subjoined: "Be- cause of truth, and meekness, and riglitetuis- ness."3 Lut who shall produce ///t'j.v results with the sword, and not their opposites rather — deceit, and harshness, and injury — which, it must be confessed, are the proper business of battles? Let us see, therefore, whether that is not some other sword, which has so different an action. Now the Apostle John, in the Apocalypse, describes a sword which proceeded from the mouth of God as "a doubly sharp, two-edged one."" This may be understood to be the Divine Word, who is doubly edged with the two testaments of the law and the gospel — sharpened with wisdom, hostile to the devil, arming us against the spiritual enemies of all wickedness and con- cupiscence, and cutting us off from the dear- est objects for the sake of God's holy name. If, however, you will not acknowledge John, you have our common master Paul, who "girds our loins about with truth, and puts on us the breastplate of righteousness, and shoes us with the preparation of the gospel of peace, not of war; who bids us take the shield of faith, wherewith we may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the devil, and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which (he says) is the word of God." ^ This sword the Lord Himself came to send on earth, and not peace.* If he is your Christ, then even he is a warrior. If he is not a warrior, and the sword he brandishes is an allegorical one, then the Creator's Christ in the psalm too may have been girded with the figurative sword of the Word, without any martial gear. The above-mentioned " fair- ness " of His beauty and " grace of His lips " would quite suit such a sword, girt as it even then was upon His thigh in the passage of David, and sent as it would one day be by Him on earth. For this is what He says: *' Ride on prosperously in Thy majesty' " — advancing His word into every land, so as to call all nations: destined to prosper in the success of that faith which received Him, and reignitig, from the fact that^ He conquered death by His resurrection. "Thy right 2 Literally, " Advance, and prosper, and reign."
7" Advance, and prosper, and reign-" 8 Exmde qua.
hand," says He, "shall wonderfully lead Thee forth," ' even the might of Thy spiritual grace, whereby the knowledge of Christ is spread. " Thine arrows are sharp;" '" every- where Thy precepts fly about. Thy threaten- ings also, and convictions " of heart, pricking and piercing each conscience. " The people shall fall under Thee," '- that is, in ndoration. Thus is the Creator's Christ mighty in war, and a bearer of arms; thus also does He now take the spoils, not of Samaria alone, but of all nations. Acknowledge, then, that His spoils are figurative, since you have learned that His arms are allegorical. Since, there- fore, both the Lord speaks and His apostle writes such things '^ in a figurative style, we are not rash in using His interpretations, the records '■♦ of which even our adversaries admit; and thus in so far will it be Isaiah's Christ who has come, in as far as He was not a warrior, because it is not of such a character that He is described by Isaiah.
CHAP. XV. — THE TITLE CHRIST SUITABLE AS A NAME OF THE CREATOR'S SON, BUT UNSUITED TO MARCION 'S CHRIST.
Touching then the discussion of His flesh, and (through that) of His nativity, and inci- dentally '5 of His name Emmanuel, let this suf- fice. Concerning His other names, however, and especially that of Christ, what has the other side to say in reply? If the name of Christ is as common with you as is the liame of God — so that as the Son of both Gods may be fitly called Christ, so each of the Fathers may be called Lord — reason will certainly be op- posed to this argument. For the name of God, as being the natural designation of Deity, may be ascribed to all those beings for whom a divine nature is claimed, — as, for instance, even to idols. The apostle says: " For there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth."'* The name of Christ, however, does not arise from nature, but from dispen- sation;'' and so becomes the proper name of Him to whom it accrues in consequence of the dispensation. Nor is it subject to I;e shared in by any other God, especially a rival, and one that has a dispensation of His own, to whom it will be also necessary tliat He should possess names apart from all others. For how happens it that, after they liave de-