infants of the Hebrews'* which were in peril from Pharaoh's command.'" Christ therefore shares this kindness with the Creator. As indeed for Marcion's god, who is an enemy to marriage, how can he possibly seem to be a lover of little children, Which are simply the issue of marriage? He who hates the seed, must needs also detest the fruit. Yea, he ought to be deemed more ruthless than the king of Egypt." For whereas Pharaoh for- bade infants to be brought up, he will not allow them even to be born, depriving them of their ten months' existence in the womb. And how much more credible it is, that kind- ness to little children should be attributed to Him who blessed matrimony for the procrea- tion of mankind, and in such benediction in- cluded also the promise of connubial fruit itself, the first of which is that of infancy! " The Creator, at the request of Elias, inflicts the blow '3 of fire from heaven in the case of • Nisi quod nee ille. This ilU^ of course, means the Creator's Christ.
2 Diligit: or, loves.
< Autem.
^ Committit. 7 Parvulos.
* Pueros: [young lads). 9 Partus Hebraeos.
" See a like comparison in book i. chap. xxix. p. 394. "Quide infantia primus est: i.e., cujus qui de infantia, etc. [Elucidation VIII. 1 '3 Rcprasentat plagam.
that false prophet (of Baalzebub).'" I recog- nise herein the severity of the Judge. And I, on the contrary, the severe rebuke '^ of Christ on His disciples, when they were for inflicting'* a like visitation on that obscure village of the Samaritans. '^ The heretic, too, may discover that this gentleness of Christ was promised by the selfsame severest Judge. " He shall not contend," says He, " nor shall His voice be heard in the street; a bruised reed shall He not crush, and smoking flax shall He not quench."'^ Being of such a character. He was of course much the less disposed to burn men. For even at that time the Lord said to Elias,'' " He was not in the fire, but in the still smalll voice. "=" Well, but why does this most humane and merciful God reject the man who offers himself to Him as an inseparable companion?^' If it were from pride or from hypocrisy that he had said, " I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest, * then, by judicially reproving an act of either pride or hypocrisy as worthy of re- jection. He performed the office of a Judge. And, of course, him whom He rejected He condemned to the loss of not following the Saviour. ^^ For as He calls to salvation him whom He does not reject, or him whom He voluntarily invites, so does He consign to perdition him whom He rejects. When, how- ever, He answers the man, who alleged as an excuse his father's burial, " Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the king- dom of God," ^3 He gave a clear confirmation to those two laws of the Creator — that in Le- viticus, which concerns the sacerdotal office, and forbids the priests to be present at the funerals even of their parents. " The priest," says He, " shall not enter where there is any dead person;^* and for his father he shall not be defiled " ^5j as well as that in Numbers, which relates to the (Nazarite) vow of separa- tion; for there he who devotes himself to God, among other things, is bidden " not to come at any dead body," not even of his father, or his mother, or his brother.^ Now it was, I suppose, for the Nazarite and the priestly office that He intended this man whom •5 I translate after Oehler's text, which is supported by the old- est authorities. Pamelius and Rigaltius, however, read " Christi lenitatem Increpantis eandein animadversionem," etc. ("On the contrary, I recognize the gentleness of Christ, who rebuked His disciples when they," etc.) This reading is only conjectural, sug- gested by the "Christi lenitatem" of the context.
'^Destinantes.
'9 Compare De Patientia, chap. xv.
" Salutem: i.e. " Christ, who is our salvation " (Fr. Junius).
-^ Animam defunctam.
25 Lev. xxi. I, according to our author's reading.
CHAP. XXIV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
He had been inspiring' to preach the king- dom of God. Or else, if it be not so, he must be pronounced impious enough who, without the intervention of any precept of the law, commanded that burials of parents should be neglected by their sons. When, indeed, in the third case before us, (Christ) forbids the man "to look back" who wanted first " to bid bis family farewell," He only follows out the rule^ of the Creator. For this (retro- spection) He had been against their making, whom He had rescued out of Sodom. ^ CHAP. XXIV. ON THE MISSION OF THE SEVENTY DISCIPLES, AND CHRIST's CHARGE TO THEM. PRECEDENTS DRAWN FROM THE OLD TESTA- MENT. ABSURDITY OF SUPPOSING THAT MAR- CION's CHRIST COULD HAVE GIVEN THE POWER OF TREADING ON SERPENTS AND SCORPIONS.
He chose also seventy other missionaries " besides the twelve. Now why, if the twelve followed the number of the twelve fountains of Elim,^ should not the seventy correspond to the like number of the palms of that place? * AVhatever be the Antitheses of the comparison, it is a diversity in the causes, not in the powers, v/hich has mainly produced them. But if one does not keep in view the diversity of the causes ^ he is very apt to infer a dilifer- ence oi pozvers} When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, the Creator brought them forth laden with their spoils of gold and silver vessels, and with loads besides of raiment and unleavened dough;' whereas Christ com- manded His disciples not to carry even a staff" for their journey. The former were thrust forth into a desert, but the latter were sent into cities. Consider the difference pre- sented in the occasions," and you will under- stand how it was one and the same power which arranged the mission '^ of His people according to their poverty in the one case, and their plenty in the other. He cut down '^ their supplies when they could be replenished through the cities, just as He had accumu- lated '" them when exposed to the scantiness of the desert. Even shoes He forbade them to carry. For it was He under whose very ' Imbuerat.
2 Sectam.
5 Compare above, book iv. chap. xiii. p. 364.
6 Ex. XV. 27 and Num. xxxiii. 9.
7 Causarum: " occasions " or circumstances. sPotestatum. In Marcionite terms, " The Cods of the Old and the New Testaments."
9 Consparsionum. [Punic Latin.] Ex. xii. 34, 35.
" Causarum offerentiam.
'2 Expeditionem, with the sense also of " supplies " in the next clause.
'3 Circumcidens.
MStruxerat.
protection the people wore not out a shoe,'^ even in the wilderness for the space of so many years. "No one," says He, "shall ye salute by the way."'* What a destroyer of the prophets, forsooth, is Christ, seeing it is from them that He received his precept also! When Elisha sent on his servant Gehazi before him to raise the Shunammite's son from death, I rather think he gave him these instructions:'' " Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way: if thou meet any man, salute him not;'' and if any salute thee, answer him not again."'' For what is a wayside blessing but a mutual salutation as men meet? So also the Lord commands: " Into whatsoever house they enter, let them say, Peace be to it." ^ Here- in He follows the very same example. For Elisha enjoined upon his servant the same salutation when he met the Shunammite; he was to say to her: " Peace to thine husband, peace to thy child. " "' Such will be rather our Afitithesesj they compare Christ with, instead of sundering Him from, the Creator. "The labourer is worthy of his hire." ^ Who could better pronounce such a sentence than God the Judge? For to decide that the workman deserves his wages, is in itself a judicial act. There is no award which consists not in g process of judgment. The law of the Croatoi on this point also presents us with a coriobo. ration, for He judges that labouring oxen are as labourers worthy of their hire: "Thou shalt not muzzle," says He, "the ox when he treadeth out the corn."^3 iSfow, who is so good to man ^^ as He who is also mercifui to cattle? Now, when Christ pronounced labourers to be worthy of their hire. He, in fact, exonerated from blame that precept of the Creator about depriving the Egyptians of their gold and silver vessels. ^s por they who had built for the Egyptians their houses and cities, were surely workmen worthy of their hire, and were not instructed in a fraudulent act, but only set to claim compensation for their hire, which they were unable in any other way to exact from their masters. "* That the kingdom of God was neither new nor un- heard of. He in this way affirmed, whilst at the same time He bids them announce that it was near at hand.'^ Now it is that which 'SDeut. xxix. 5.
18 Literally, " bless him not, i.e., salute him not."
19 Literally, " answer him not, i.e., return not his salutation."
21 2 Kings iv. 26. He reads the optative instead of the indic- ative.
23Deut. XXV. 4.
24 Compare above, book ii. chap. 17, p. 311.
25 See this argued at length above, in book ii. chap. jo. p. 313.
26 Dominatoribus.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book IV.
was once far off, which can be properly said to have become near. If, however, a thing had never existed previous to its becoming near, it could never have been said to have approached, because it had never existed at a distance. Everything which is new and un- known is also sudden.' Everything which is sudden, then, first receives the accident of time^ when it is announced, for it then first puts on appearance of form.^ Besides it will be impossible for a thing either to have been tardy* all the while it remained unan- nounced,^ or to have approached^ from the time it shall begin to be announced. . He likewise adds, that they should say to such as would not receive them: " Notwith- standing be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you." ' If He does not enjoin this by way of a commination, the injunction is a most useless one. For what mattered it to them that the kingdom was at hand, unless its approach was accompanied with judgment? — even for the salvation of such as received the announcement thereof. How, if there can be a threat without its ac- complishment, can you have in a threatening god, one that executes also, and in both, one that is a judicial being?^ So, again. He commands that the dust be shaken off against them, as a testimony, — the very particles of their ground which might cleave ' to the san- dal, not to mention '° any other sort of com- munication with them." But if their churlish- ness " and inhospitality were to receive no vengeance from Him, for what purpose does He premise a testimony, which surely for- bodes some threats? Furthermore, when the Creator also, in the book of Deuteronomy, forbids the reception of the Ammonites and the Moabites into the church, '^ because, when His people came from Egypt, they fraudu- lently withheld provisions from them with inhumanity and inhospitality, '■» it will be manifest that the prohibition of intercourse descended to Christ from Him. The form of it which He uses — " He that despiseth you, despiseth me " '^ — the Creator had also addressed to Moses: " Not against thee have » Subitum. 2;Accipit tempus, 3 Inducens speciem.
4 Tardasse.
5 The announcement (according to the definition) defining the beginning of its existence in time.
* Appropinquasse.
7 Luke X. II.
8 Et judicem in utroque. 9Haerentia.
10 Nedum.
" Luke X. II.
" Inhumanitas.
»3 Ecclesiam. There is force in thus using Christian terms for Jewish ordinances, full as he is of the identity of the God of the old with Him of the new covenant.
'4 Deut. xxiii. 3.
they murmured, but against me."'* Moses,, indeed, was as much an apostle as the apostles were prophets. The authority of both offices will have to be equally divided, as it proceeds from one and the same Lord, (the God) of apostles and prophets. Who is He that shall bestow "the power of treading on serpents and scorpions? " '^ Shall it be He who is the Lord of all living creatures or he who is not god over a single lizard? Happily the Crea- tor has promised by Isaiah to give this power even to little children, of putting their hand in the cockatrice den and on the hole of the young asps without at all receiving hurt.'^ And, indeed, we are aware (without doing violence to the literal sense of the passage, since even these noxious animals have actually been unable to do hurt where there has been faith) that under the figure of scorpions and serpents are portended evil spirits, whose very prince is described '' by the name of serpent, dragon, and every other most conspicuous beast in the power of the Creator.^ This power the Creator conferred first of all upon His Christ, even as the ninetieth Psalm says to Him: " Upon the asp and the basilisk shalt Thou tread; the lion and the dragon shalt Thou trample under foot." ^' So also Isaiah: " In that day the Lord God shall draw His sacred, great, and strong sword" (even His Christ) "against that dragon, that great and tortuous serpent; and He shall slay him in that day."^^ But when the same prophet says, "The way shall be called a clean and holy way; over it the unclean thing shall not pass, nor shall be there any unclean way; but the dispersed shall pass over it, and they shall not err therein; no lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon; it shall not be found there," -^ he points out the way of faith, by which we shall reach to God; and then to this way of faith he promises this utter crippling^'* and subjugation oi all nox- ious animals. Lastly, you may discover the suitable times of the promise, if you read what precedes the passage: " Be strong, ye weak hands and ye feeble knees: then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be articulate." 's When, therefore. He proclaimed the benefits of His cures, then also did He put the scorpions and the '9 Deputetur.
«> Penes Creatorem.
*2 Isa. xxvii. i, Sept.
24 Evacuationem.
CHAF. XXV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
serpents under the feet of His saints — even He who had first received this power from the Father, in order to bestow it upon others, and then manfested it forth conformably to the order of prophecy.'
CHAP. XXV. — CHRIST THANKS THE FATHER FOR REVEALING TO BABES WHAT HE HAD CON- CEALED FROM THE WISE. THIS CONCEALMENT JUDICIOUSLY EFFECTED BY THE CREATOR. OTHER POINTS IN ST. LUKe'S CHAP. X. SHOWN TO BE ONLY POSSIBLE TO THE CREATOR'S CHRIST.
Who shall be invoked as the Lord of heaven, that does not first show Himself^ to luwe been the maker thereof? For He says, "I thank thee, (O Father,) and own Thee, Lord of heaven, because those things which had been hidden from the wise and prudent, Thou has revealed unto babes." ^ What things are these? And whose? And by whom hidden? And by whom revealed? If it was by Marcion's god that they were hidden and revealed, it was an extremely iniquitous pro- ceeding/ for nothing at all had he ever pro- duced s in which anything could have been hidden — no prophecies, no parables, no vis- ions, no evidences* of things, or words, or names, obscured by allegories and figures, or cloudy enigmas, but he had concealed the greatness even of himself, which he was with all his might revealing by his Christ. Now in what respect had the wise and prudent done wrong,7 that God should be hidden from them, when their wisdom and prudence had been insufficient to come to the knowledge of Him? No way had been provided by him- self,® by any declaration of his works, or any vestiges whereby they might become ^ wise and prudent. However, if they had even failed in any duty towards a god whom they knew not, suppose him now at last to be known, still they ought not to have found a jealous god in him who is introduced as unlike the Creator. Therefore, since he had neither provided any materials in which he could have hidden anything, nor had any offenders from whom he could have hidden himself; since, again, even if he had had any, he ought not to have hidden himself from them, he will not now be himself the revealer, who was not previously the concealer; so neither will any be the Lord of heaven nor the Father of ' Secundum ordinetn prsedicationis.
2 Ostenditur.
4 Satis inique.
5 Praeniiserat. * Argumenta.
7 Deliquerant.
8 On the Marcionite hypothesis. 9Deducerentur.
Christ but He in whom all these attributes consistently meet. '° For He conceals by His preparatory apparatus of prophetic obscurity, the understanding of which is open to faith (for " if ye will not believe, ye shall not un- derstand " "); and He had offenders in those wise and prudent ones who would not seek after God, although He was to be discovered in His so many and mighty works," or who rashly philosophized about Him, and thereby furnished to heretics their arts;'^ and lastly, He is a jealous God. Accordingly,'* that which Christ thanks God for doing, He long ago 's announced by Isaiah: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understand- ing of the prudent will I hide."'* So in another passage He intimates both that He has concealed, and that He will also reveal: " I will give unto them treasures that have been hidden, and secret ones will I discover to them." '^ And again: " Who else shall scat- ter the tokens of ventriloquists,'® and the de- vices of those who divine out of their own heart; turning wise men backward, and mak- ing their counsels foolish?" '' Now, if He has designated His Christ as an enlightener of the Gentiles, saying, " I have set thee for a light of the Gentiles;"^ and if we under- stand these to be meant in the word babes ^' — as having been once dwarfs in knowledge and infants in prudence, and even now also babes in their lowliness of faith — we shall of course more easily understand how He who had once hidden " these things," and promised a reve- lation of them through Christ, was the same God as He who had now revealed them unto babes. Else, if it was Marcion's god who re- vealed the things which had been formerly hidden by the Creator, it follows ^^ that he did the Creator's work by setting forth His deeds. "^3 gut he did it, say you, for His de- struction, that he might refute them.^"* There- fore he ought to have refuted them to those from whom the Creator had hidden them, even the wise and prudent. For if he had a kind intention in what he did, the gift of knowledge was due to those from whom the Creator had detained it, instead of the babes, to whom the Creator had grudged no gift. But after all, it is, I presume, the edifica- «o In quern competunt omnia.
'3 Ingenia.
i4Denique.
'5 Olim.
'6 Isa. xxix. 14, Sept.
'7 Isa. xlv. 3, Sept.
'8 Ventriloquorum, Greek eyya<TTpi.ij.v9<ar, '9 Isa. xliv. 25, Sept.
20 Isa. xlii. 6 and xlix. 6.
22 Ergo.
23 Res ejus edisserens. =4 Uti traduceret eas.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book IV.
tion ' rather than the demolition " of the law and the prophets which we have thus far found effected in Christ. "All things," He says, " are delivered unto me of my Father." ^ You may believe Him, if He is the Christ of the Creator to whom all things belong; be- cause the Creator has not delivered to a Son who is less than Himself all things, which He created by* Him, that is to say, by His Word. If, on the contrary, he is the notori- ous stranger, 5 what are the " all things " which. have been delivered to him by the Father? Are they the Creator's? Then the things which the Father delivered to the Son are good, and the Creator is therefore good, since all His " things " are good; whereas he* is no longer good who has invaded another's good (domains) to deliver it to his son, thus teach- mg robbery 7 of another's goods. Surely he must be a most mendacious being, who had no other means of enriching his son than by helping himself to another's property! Or else,^ if nothing of the Creator's has been de- livered to him by the Father, by what right » does he claim for himself (authority over) man? Or again, if man has been delivered to him, and man alone, then man is not " all things." But Scripture clearly says that a transfer of all things has been made to the Son. If, however, you should interpret this ^^all" of the whole human race, that is, all nations, then the delivery of even these to the Son is within the purpose of the Creator:'" " I will give Thee the heathen for Thine in- heritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession."" If, indeed, he has some things of his own, the whole of which he might give to his son, along with the man of the Creator, then show some one thing of them all, as a sample, that I may believe; lest I should have as much reason not to believe that all things belong to him, of whom I see nothing, as I have ground for believing that even the things which I see not are His, to whom belongs the universe, which I see. But " no man knoweth who the Father is, but the Son; and who the Son is, but the Father, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him." " And so it was an unknown god that Christ preached! And other heretics, too, prop themselves up by this passage; alleging in opposition to it that the Creator was known to * Constructionem. " Destructionem.
4 Per.
5 iittpxpti.fvo<; ille: on which see above, chap, xjciii. p. 385 * Marcion's god.
7 Alicno abstinere.
* Aut si.
9 Ecquomodo. ""Creatoris est.
all, both to Israel by familiar intercourse, and to the Gentiles by nature. Well, how is it He Himself testifies that He was not known to Israel? " But Israel doth not know me, and my people doth not consider me; " " nor to the Gentiles: "For, behold," says He, "of the nations I have no man." '* Therefore He reckoned them " as the drop of a bucket," 's while " Sion He left as a look-out '* in a vine- yard. ' ' " See, then, whether there be not here a confirmation of the prophet's word, when he rebukes that ignorance of man toward God which continued to the days of the Son of man. For it was on this account that he in- serted the clause that the Father is known by him to whom the Son has revealed Him, be- cause it was even He who was announced as set by the Father to be a light to the Gen- tiles, who of course required to be enlightened concerning God, as well as to Israel, even by imparting to it a fuller knowledge of God. Arguments, therefore, will be of no use for belief in the rival god which may be suitable'* for the Creator, because it is only such as are unfit for the Creator which will be able to advance belief in His rival. If you look also into the next words, " Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see, for I tell