you that prophets have not seen the things which ye see," '' you will find that they follow from the sense above, that no man indeed had come to the knowledge of God as he ought to have done,^ since even the prophets had not seen the things which were being seen under Christ. Now if He had not been my Christ, He would not have made any mention of the prophets in this passage. For what was there to wonder at, if they had not seen the things of a god who had been unknown to them, and was only revealed a long time after them? What blessedness, however, could theirs have been, who were then seeing what others were naturally'" unable to see, since it was of things which they had never predicted that they had not obtained the sight; ^^ if it were not because they might just- ly ^^ have seen the things pertaining to their God, which they had even predicted, but which they at the same time '* had not seen? This, however, will be the blessedness of others, even of such as were seeing the things which '4 This passage it is not easy to identify. [See Is. Ixiii. 3.] The books point to Isa. Ixv. 5, but there is iAfre no trace of it. 15 Isa. xl. 15. [Compare Is. Ixiii. 3. Sept.] '*.Speculam.
»7When the vintage was gathered, Isa. i. 8. ■8 Qua; competere possunt. 20 Ut decuit. 2' Merito.
CHAP. XXVI.]
lEKlULLlAN AGAINST MARCION.
others had only foretold. We shall by and by show, nay, we have already shown, that in Christ those things were seen which had been foretold, but yet had been hidden from the very prophets who foretold them, in order that they might be hidden also from the wise and the prudent. In the true Gospel, a cer- tain doctor of the law comes to the Lord and asks, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life? " In the heretical gospel life only is mentioned, without the attribute eternal; so that the lawyer seems to have consulted Christ simply about the life which the Creator in the law promises to prolong,' and the Lord to have therefore answered him according to the law, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength,"' since the question was con- cerning the conditions of inere life. But the lawyer of course knew very well in what way the life which the law meant ^ was to be ob- tained, so that his question could have had no relation to the life whose rules he was him- self in the habit of teaching. But seeing that even the dead were now raised by Christ, and being himself excited to the hope of an eter- nal life by these examples of a restored ■» one, he would lose no more time in merely look- ing on (at the wonderful things which had made him) so high in hope.s He therefore consulted him about the attainment of eternal life. Accordingly, the Lord, being Himself the same,^ and introducing no new precept other than that which relates above all others ^ to (man's) entire salvation, even including the present and the future life,^ places before him 9 the very essence" of the law — that he should in every possible way love the Lord his God. If, indeed, it were only about a lengthened life, such as is at the Creator's disposal, that he inquired and Christ an- swered, and not about the eternal life, which is at the disposal of Marcion's god, how is he to obtain the eternal one? Surely not in the same manner as the prolonged life. For in proportion to the difference of the reward must be supposed to be also the diversity of the services. Therefore your disciple, Marcion," will not obtain his eternal life in consequence of loving your God, in the same way as the man who loves the Creator will secure the lengthened life. But how happens it that, if 3 Legalem.
4 Recidivae.
5 This is perhaps the meaning of " ne plus aliquid observationis ieeret sublirnior spe."
° Nee alius. 7 Principaliter. 8Et utramque vitam. 9 Ei opponit.
. Marcionites.
0 Caput. " Dei tui He is to be loved who promises the prolonged life. He is not much more to be loved who offers the eternal life? Therefore both one and the other life will be at the disposal of one and the same Lord; because one and the same discipline is to be followed" for one and the other life. What the Creator teaches to be loved, that must He necessarily maintain '^ also by Christ, '•» for that rule holds good here, which prescribes that greater things ought to be believed of Him who has first lesser proofs to show, than of him for whom no preceding smaller presumptions have secured a claim to be believed in things of higher import. It matters not'^ then, whether the word eternal has been interpolated by us.'* It is enough for me, that the Christ who invited men to the eternal — not the lengthened — life, when con- sulted about the temporal life which he was destroying, did not choose to exhort the man rather to that eternal life which he was intro- ducing. Pray, what would the Creator's Christ have done, if He who had made man for lov- ing the Creator did not belong to the Creator? I suppose He would have said that the Creator was not to be loved!
CHAP. XXVI. FROM ST. LUKE's ELEVENTH CHAPTER OTHER EVIDENCE THAT CHRIST COMES FROM THE CREATOR. THE LORD'S PRAYER AND OTHER WORDS OF CHRIST. THE DUMB SPIRIT AND CHRIST's DISCOURSE ON OCCASION OF THE EXPULSION. THE EXCLAM- ATION OF THE WOMAN IN THE CROWD.
When in a certain place he had been pray- ing to that Father above, '^ looking up with in- solent and audacious eyes to the heaven of the Creator, by whom in His rough and cruel nature he might have been crushed with hail and lightning — just as it was by Him con- trived that he was (afterwards) attached to a cross '^ at Jerusalem — one of his disciples came to him and said, " Master, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." This he said, forsooth, because he thought that differ- ent prayers were required for different gods! Now, he who had advanced such a conjecture as this should first show that another god had been proclaimed by Christ. For nobody would have wanted to know how to pray, be- fore he had learned whom he was to pray to. If, however, he had already learned this, prove it. If you find nowhere any proof, let me tell you '9 that it was to the Creator that he asked '2 Captanda.
>3Pra;stet.
•4 i.e., he must needs have it taught and recommended by Christ.
15 Viderit.
j6As Marcion pretended.
'7 Luke xi. i.
18 Suffigi.
19 Scito.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book IV.
for instruction in prayer, to whom John's dis- ciples also used to pray. But, inasmuch as John had introduced some new order of prayer, this disciple had not improperly presumed to think that he ought also to ask of Christ whether they too must not (according to some special rule of their Master) pray, not indeed to another god, but in another manner. Christ accordingly' would not have taught His dis- ciple prayer before He had given him the knowledge of God Himself. Therefore what He actually taught was prayer to Him whom the disciple had already known. In short, you may discover in the import ^ of the prayer what God is addressed therein. To whom can I say, " Father?"3 To him who had nothing to do with making me, from whom I do not derive my origin? Or to Him, who, by mak- ing and fashioning me, became my parent?" Of whom can I ask for His Holy Spirit? Of him who gives not even the mundane spirit; ^ or of Him "who maketh His angels spirits," and whose Spirit it was which in the beginning hovered upon the waters.* Whose kingdom shall I wish to come — his, of whom I never heard as the king of glory; or His, in whose hand are even the hearts of kings? Who shall give me my daily ^ bread? Shall it be he who produces for me not a grain of millet-seed;^ or He who even from heaven gave to His people day by day the bread of angels?' Who shall forgive me my trespasses? '° He who, by refusing to judge them, does not re- tain them; or He who, unless He forgives them, will retain them, even to His judgment? Who shall suffer us not to be led into tempta- tion? He before whom the tempter will never be able to tremble; or He who from the be- ginning has beforehand condemned " the angel tempter? If any one, with such a form," in- vokes another god and not the Creator, he does not pray; he only blasphemes. '^ In like manner, from whom must I ask that I may receive? Of whom seek, that I may find? To whom knock, that it may be opened to me? ^ Who has to give to him that asks, but He to whom all things belong, and whose am I also that am the asker? What, however, have I lost before that other god, that I should seek of him and find it. If it be wisdom and ' Proinde.
2 Sensum.
4 Generavit.
5 Mundialis spiritus: perhaps " the breath of life," 8 Milium.
9 Ps. Ixviii. 25.
" Praedamnavit. '2 Hoc ordine. >3 Infamat.
prudence, it is the Creator who has hidden them. Shall I resort to him, then, in quest of them? If it be health '= and life, they are at the disposal of the Creator. Nor must anything be sought and found anywhere else than there, where it is kept in secret that it may come to light. So, again, at no other door will I knock than at that out of which my privilege has reached me."* In fine, if to receive, and to find, and to be admitted, is the fruit of labour and earnestness to him who has asked, and sought, and knocked, under- stand that these duties have been enjoined, and results promised, by the Creator. As for that most excellent god of yours, coming as he professes gratuitously to help man, who was not his (creature),'' he could not have imposed upon him any labour, or (endowed him with) any earnestness. For he would by this time cease to be the most excellent god, were he not spontaneously to give to every one who does not ask, and permit every one who seeks not to find, and open to every one who does not knock. The Creator, on the contrary,'^ was able to proclaim these duties and rewards by Christ, in order that man, v/ho by sinning had offended his God, might toil on (in his probation), and by his perseverance in asking might receive, and in seeking might find, and in knocking might enter. Accord- ingly, the preceding similitude '' represents the man who went at night and begged for the loaves, in the light of a friend and not a stranger, and makes him knock at a friend's house and not at a stranger's. But even if he has offended, man is more of a friend with the Creator than with the god of Marcion. At His door, therefore, does he knock to whom he had the right of access; whose gate he had found; whom he knew to possess bread; in bed now with His children, whom He had willed to be born.^° Even though the knocking is late in the day, it is yet the Creator's time. To Him belongs the latest hour who owns an entire age =" and the end thereof. As for the new god, however, no one could have knocked at his door late, for he has hardly yet " seen the light of morning. It is the Creator, who once shut the door to the Gentiles, which was then knocked at by the Jews, that both rises and gives, if not now to man as a friend, yet not as a stranger, but, as He says, "because 'S Salutem: perhaps salvation.
•6 Unde sum functus. This obscure clause may mean " the right of praying," or " the right of access, and boldness to knoclc."
»7 Ad praestandum non suo homini.
'8 Autem.
20 A sarcastic allusion to the anU-tiuftial error of Marcion, which he has exposed more than once (see book i. chap. xxix. aaa book iv. chap, xxiii. p. 386.).
-' Saeculum.
^ Tantum quod = vixdum (Oehler).
CHAP. XXVII.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
of his importunity." ' Importunate, however, the recent god could not have permitted any one to be in the short time (since his appear- ance).=■ Him, therefore, whom you call the Creator recognise also as "Father." It is even He who knows what His children require. For when they asked for bread, He gave them manna from heaven; and when they wanted Mesh, He sent them abundance of quails — not a serpent for a fish, nor for an egg a scor- pion.' It v/ill, however, appertain to Him not to give evil instead of good, who has both one and the other in His power. Marcion's god, on the contrary, not having a scorpion, was unable to refuse to give what he did not possess; only He (could do so), who, having a scorpion, yet gives it not. In like manner, it is He who will give the Holy Spirit, at whose command '• is also the unholy spirit. When He cast out the " demon which was dumb " ^ (and by a cure of this sort verified Isaiah),^ and having been charged with casting out de- mons by Beelzebub, He said, " If I by Beel- zebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?"'' By such a question what does He otherwise mean, than tliat He ejects the spirits by the same power by which their sons also did — that is, by the power of the Creator? For if you suppose the meaning to be, "If I by Beelzebub, etc., by whom your sons?" — as if He would reproach them with having the power of Beelzebub, — you are met at once by the preceding sentence, that " Satan cannot be divided against himself."^ So that it was not by Beelzebub that even they were casting out demons, but (as we have said) by the power of the Creator; and that He might make this understood, He adds: " But if I with the finger of God cast out de- mons, is not the kingdom of God come near unto you? "5 For the magicians who stood before Pharaoh and resisted Moses called the power of the Creator " the finger of God.'' '° It was the finger of God, because it was a sign " that even a thing of weakness was yet abun- dant in strength. This Christ also showed, when, recalling to notice (and not obliterating) those ancient wonders which were really His own," He said that the power of God must be understood to be the finger of none other God than Him, under '^ whom it had received this 2 Tarn cito.
4 Apud quem.
" Sign ifi caret.
12 Vetustatum scilicet suarum. '3 Apud.
appellation. His kingdom, therefore, was come near to them, whose power was called His "finger." Well, therefore, did He con- nect'-' with the parable of "the strong man armed," whom "a stronger man still over- came," '5 the prince of the demons, whom He had already called Beelzebub and Satan; sig- nifying that it was he who was overcome by the finger of God, and not that the Creator had been subdued by another god. Besides,'* how could His kingdom be still standing, with its boundaries, and laws, and functions, whom, even if the whole world were left entire to Him, Marcion's god could possibly seem to have overcome as "the stronger than He," if it were not in consequence of His law that even Marcionites were constantly dying, by returning in their dissolution '^ to the ground, and were so often admonished by even a scor- pion, that the Creator had by no means been overcome?'^ "A (certain) mother of the company exclaims, ' Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked;' but the Lord said, 'Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.'"" Now He had in precisely similar terms rejected His mother or His brethren, whilst preferring those who heard and obeyed God.^ His mother, however, was not here present with Him. On that for- mer occasion, therefore. He had not denied that He was her son by birth. ^' On hearing this (salutation) the second time, He the second time transferred, as He had done be- fore,-^ the " blessedness " to His disciples from the womb and the paps of His mother, from whom, however, unless He had in her (a real mother) He could not have transferred it.
CHAP. XXVII. — Christ's reprehension of the PHARISEES SEEKING A SIGN. HIS CENSURE OF their love of OUTWARD SHOW RATHER THAN INWARD HOLINESS. SCRIPTURE ABOUNDS WITH ADMONITIONS OF A SIMILAR PURPORT. PROOFS OF HIS MISSION FROM THE CREATOR.
I prefer elsewhere refuting ^nhe faults which the Marcionites find in the Creator. It is here enough that they are also found in Christ.-* Behold how unequal, inconsistent, and capricious he is! Teaching one thing '4 Applicuit.
•*Ceterum.
'7 Defluendo.
18 The scorpion here represents any class of the lowest animals, especially such as stung. The Marcionites impiously made it a re- proach to the Creator, that He had formed such worthless and offensive creatures. Compare book i. chap. 17, note 5.^.283.
20 See above, on Luke viii. ai. " Natura.
" Proinde. 23 Purgare. 34 From the Marcionite point of view.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book IV.
and doing another, he enjoins "giving to every one that seeks; " and yet he himself re- fuses to give to those "who seek a sign."' For a vast age he hides his own Hght from men, and yet says that a candle must not be hidden, but affirms that it ought to be set upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all.^ He forbids cursing again, and cursing much more of course; and yet he heaps his 7voe upon the Pharisees and doctors of the law. 3 Who so closely resembles my God as His own Christ? We have often already laid it down for certain, ■♦ that He could not have been branded ^ as the destroyer of the law if He had promulged another god. Therefore even the Pharisee, who invited Him to dinner in the passage before us,^ expressed some surprise ^ in His presence that He had not washed before He sat down to meat, in ac- cordance with the law, since it was the God of the law that He was proclaiming.^ Jesus also interpreted the law to him when He told him that they " made clean the outside of the cup and the platter, whereas their inward part was full of ravening and wickedness." This He said, to signify that by the cleansing of vessels was to be understood before God the purification of men, inasmuch as it was about a man, and not about an unwashed vessel, that even this Pharisee had been treating in His presence. He therefore said: "You wash the outside of the cup," that is, the flesh, "but you do not cleanse your inside part," » that is, the soul; adding: " Did not He that made the outside," that is, the flesh, "also make the inward part," that is to say, the soul? — by which assertion He expressly de- clared that to the same God belongs the cleans- ing of a man's external and internal nature, both alike being in the power of Him who pre- fers mercy not only to man's washing,'" but even to sacrifice." For He subjoins the com- mand: " Give what ye possess as alms, and all things shall be clean unto you." " Even if another god could have enjoined mercy, he could not have done so previous to his becom- ing known. Furthermore, it is in this pas- sage evident that they'^ were not reproved concerning their God, but concerning a point of His instruction to them, when He pre- scribed to them figuratively the cleansing of 4 Fiximus.
5 Denotari.
6 Tunc.
7 Retractabat.
8 Circumferret.
■o I^vacro.
" Matt. ix. 13, xii. 7; comp. Hos. viii^.
'3 Th« Pharisees and lawyers.
their vessels, but really the works of merciful dispositions. In like manner, He upbraids them for tithing paltry herbs,'* but at the same time " passing over hospitality '^ and the love of God." '^ The vocation and the love of what God, but Him by whose law of tithes they used to offer their rue and mint? For the whole point of the rebuke lay in this, that they cared about small matters in His service of course, to whom they failed to exhibit their weightier duties when He commanded them: " Thou shalt love with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, the Lord thy God, who hath called thee out of Egypt." '7 Besides, time enough had not yet passed to admit of Christ's requiring so premature — nay, as yet so distasteful '^ — a love towards a new and recent, not to say a hardly yet developed," deity. When, again, He up- braids those who caught at the uppermost places and the honour of public salutations. He only follows out the Creator's course,^" who calls ambitious persons of this character " rulers of Sodom," =' who forbids us "to put confidence even in princes,"- and pronounces him to be altogether wretched who places his confidence in man. But whoever ^^ aims at high position, because he would glory in the officious attentions ^'^ of other people, (in every such case,) inasmuch as He forbade such attentions (in the shape) of placing hope and confidence in man. He at the same time ^^ cen- sured all who were ambitious of high posi- tions. He also inveighs against the doctors of the law themselves, because they were " lading men with burdens grievous to be borne, which they did not venture to touch with even a finger of their own; " ^ but not as if He made a mock of ^' the burdens of the law with any feeling of detestation towards it. For how could He have felt aversion to the law, who used with so much earnestness to up- braid them for passing over its weightier mat- ters, alms-giving, hospitality,''^ and the love of God? Nor, indeed, was it only these great things (which He recognized), but even ^ the tithes of rue and the cleansing of cups. But, u Holuscula.
'5 Marcion's gospel had KXriaiv (vocationem, perhaps a general word for hospitality) instead of KpiffH', judgment, — a quality which M. did not allow in his god. See Epipjianius, Hceres. xlii., Schol. 26 (Oehler and Fr. Junius).
18 Amaxam.
19 Nondum palam facto.
20 Sectam administrat.
24 OfTiciis.
25 Idem.
27 Suggillans.
CHAP. XXVIII.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
in truth, He would rather have deemed them excusable for being unable to carry burdens which could not be borne. What, then, are the burdens which He censures? ' None but those which they were accumulating of their own accord, when they taught for command- ments the doctrines of men; for the sake of private advantage joining house to house, so as to deprive their neighbour of his own; cajoling^ the people, loving gifts, pursuing rewards, robbing the poor of the rights of judgment, that they might have the widow for a prey and the fatherless for a spoil. ^ Of these Isaiah also says, "Woe unto them that are strong in Jerusalem! " " and again, " They that demand you shall rule over you." ^ And who did this more than the lawyers?^ Now, if these offended Christ, it was as belonging to Him that they offended Him. He would have aimed no blow at the teachers of an alien law. But why is a " woe " pronounced against them for "building the sepulchres of the prophets whom their fathers had killed? " ' They rather deserved praise, because by such an act of piety they seemed to show that they did not allow the deeds of their fathers. Was it not because (Christ) was jealous^ of such a disposition as the Marcionites denounce,^ visit- ing the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the fourth generation? What "key," indeed, was it which these lawyers had,'° but the interpretation of the law? Into the per- ception of this they neither entered themselves, even because they did not believe (for " un- less ye believe, ye shall not understand"); nor did they permit others to enter, because they preferred to teach them for command- ments even the doctrines of men. When, therefore. He reproached those who did not themselves enter in, and also shut the door against others, must He be regarded as a dis- parager of the law, or as a supporter of it? If a disparager, those who were hindering the law ought to have been pleased; if a supporter. He is no longer an enemy of the law." But all these imprecations He uttered in order to tarnish the Creator as a cruel Being,'- against whom such as offended were destined to have a "woe." And who would not rather have feared to provoke a cruel Being,'^ by withdraw- 1 Taxat.
2 Claraantes.
4 Isa. xxviii. 14.
5 The books point to Isa. iii. 3, 4 for this; but there is only a sh'ght similarity in the latter clause, even in the Septuagint.
6 Legis doctores: the voixikoC of the Gospels.
* Zelotes.
9 Arguunt.
" As Marcion held Him to be. '2 A Marcionite position. '3 Saevum.
ing allegiance "• from Him? Therefore the more He represented the Creator to be an ob- ject of fear, the more earnestly would He teach that He ought to be served. Thus would it behove the Creator's Christ to act.
CHAP. XXVIII. — EXAMPLES FROM THE OLD TES- TAMENT, BALAAM, MOSES, AND HEZEKIAH, TO SHOW HOW COMPLETELY THE INSTRUCTION AND CONDUCT OF CHRIST '= ARE IN KEEPING WITH THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF THE CREA- TOR.