' Luke xvii. ig.
3 Una sententia.
4 Excelsum: Sept. utrepoyxo?. SDeut. XXX. 11-13.
6 Luke xvii. 21.
7 Luke xvii. 25.
8 Substantialiter.
9 Assumi.
where, under the figure of a stone, His twofold manifestation was celebrated by David — the first in rejection, the second in honour: " The stone," says He, "which the builders re- jected, is become the head-stone of the cor- ner. This is the Lord's doing."'" Now it would be idle, if we believed that God had predicted the humiliation, or even the glory, of any Christ at all, that He could have de- signed His prophecy for any but Him whom He had foretold under the figure of a stone, and a rock, and a Dioimtain." If, however. He speaks of His own coming, why does He compare it with the days of Noe and of Lot,'"" which were dark and terrible — a mild and gentle God as He is? Why does He bid us " remember Lot's wife," '^ who despised the Creator's command, and was punished for her contempt, if He does not come with judgment to avenge the infraction of His pre- cepts? If He really does punish, like the Creator,'" if He is my Judge, He ought not to have adduced examples for the purpose of instructing me from Him whom He yet de- stroys, thatZr<?'5 might not seem to be my instructor. But if He does not even here speak of His own coming, but of the coming of the Hebrew Christ,'^ let us still wait in ex- pectation that He will vouchsafe to us some prophecy of His own advent; meanwhile we will continue to believe that He is none other than He whom He reminds us of in every passage.
CHAP. XXXVI. THE PARABLES OF THE IMPOR- TUNATE WIDOW, AND OF THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. CHRIST's ANSWER TO THE RICH RULER. THE CURE OF THE BLIND MAN. HIS SALUTATION — SON OF DAVID. ALL PROOFS OF Christ's relation to the creator.
MARCION'S antithesis between DAVID AND CHRIST CONFUTED.
When He recommends perseverance and earnestness in prayer. He sets before us the parable of the judge who was compelled to listen to the widow, owing to the earnestness and importunity of her requests. '7 He show us that it is God the judge whom we must im- portune with prayer, and not Himself, if He is not Himself the judge. But He added, that " God would avenge His own elect."" Since, then. He who judges will also Himself be the avenger. He proved that the Creator 'oPs. cxviii. 21.
'■ See Isa. viii. 14 and i Cor. x. 4. >3 Luke xvii. 32. 14 Ut ille. '5 Ille: emphatic.
'6 That is, the Creator's Christ from the Marcionite point ol view.
•7 Luke xviii. i-o 4IO TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book i\v is on that account the specially good God/ whom He represented as the avenger of His own elect, who cry day and night to Him. And yet, when He introduces to our vietv the Creator's temple, and describes two men wor- shipping therein with diverse feelings — the Pharisee in pride, the publican in humility — and shows us how they accordingly went down to their homes, one rejected,^ the other justi- fied,' He surely, by thus teaching us the proper discipline of prayer, has determined that that God must be prayed to from whom men were to receive this discipline of prayer — whether condemnatory of pride, or justify- ing in humility.* I do not find from Christ any temple, any suppliants, any sentence (of approval or condemnation) belonging to any other god than the Creator. Him does He enjoin us to worship in humility, as the lifter- up of the humble, not in pride, because He brings down s the proud. What other god has He manifested to me to receive my supplica- tions? With what formula of worship, with what hope (shall I approach him?) I trow, none. For the prayer which He has taught us suits, as we have proved,* none but the Creator. It is, of course, another matter if He does not wish to be prayed to, because He is the supremely and spontaneously good God! But who is this good God? There is, He says, "none but one. "^ It is not as if He had shown us that one of two gods was the supremely good; but He expressly asserts that there is one only good God, who is the only good, because He is the only God. Now, undoubtedly,® He is the good God who " sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust, and maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good; "9 sustaining and nourishing and assisting even Marcionites themselves! When afterwards " a certain man asked him, ' Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? ' " (Jesus) inquired whether he hieiv (that is, in other words, whether he kept) the commandments of the Creator, in order to testify '° that it was by the Creator's pre- cepts that eternal life is acquired." Then, when he affirmed that from his youth up he had kept all the principal commandments, (Jesus) said to him: "One thing thou yet lackest: sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in ' Meliorem Deum.
'Reprobatum.
4Sive reprobatricem superbiae,sive justificatricem humilitatis.
5 Destructorem.
* See above, chap. xxvi. p. 391.
7 Luke xviii. 19.
*Utique.
'oAd contestandum.
heaven; and come, follow me." '= Well now, Marcion, and all ye who are companions in misery, and associates in hatred '^ with that heretic, what will you dare say to this? Did Christ rescind the forementioned command- ments: " Do not kill, Do not commit adul- tery, Do not steal. Do not beai false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother? '' Or did He both keep them, and then add "* what was wanting to them? This very precept, how- ever, about giving to the poor, was very largely '^ diffused through the pages of the law and the prophets. This vainglorious ob- server of the commandments was therefore convicted '^ of holding money in much higher estimation (than charity). This verity of the gospel then stands unimpaired: "I am not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but rather to fulfil them."'' He also dissipated other doubts, when He declared that the name of God and of the Good belonged to one and the same being, at whose disposal were also the everlasting life and the treasure in heaven and Himself too — whose command- ments He both maintained and augmented with His own supplementary precepts. He may likewise be discovered in the following passage of Micah, saying: " He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to be ready to follow the Lord thy God? " '® Now Christ is the man who tells us what is good, even the knowledge of the law. " Thou knowest," says He, " the commandments." " To do justly" — "Sell all that thou hast; " "to love mercy " — "Give to the poor: " " and to be ready to walk with God"— "And come," says He, "follow me." '9 The Jewish nation was from its be- ginning so carefully divided into tribes and clans, and families and houses, that no man could very well have been ignorant of his de- scent— even from the recent assessments of Augustus, which were still probably extant at this time.=° But the Jesus of Marcion (al- though there could be no doubt of a person's having been born, who was seen to be a man), as being unborn, could not, of course, have possessed any public testimonial =" of his de- scent, but was to be regarded as one of that obscure class of whom nothing was in anyway >3 See above, chap, ix., near the beginning.
'4Adjecit quod deerat.
■5 Ubique.
■6 Traduceretur.
>8Mic. vi. 8. The last clause agrees with the Septuagirt: (cot iTOi.y.ov cirai toO TToatvtaOai. fifja. Kvpt'ou 0eoO <tov.
^9 The clauses ot Christ's words, which are here adapted to Micah's, are in erery case broken with an inquit.
20 Tunc pendentibus: i.e., at the time mentioned in the story of the blind man.
2' Notitiam.
CHAP. XXXVII.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
known. Why then did the blind man, on hearing.hat He was passing by, exclaim, " Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me?"' unless he was considered, in no un- certain manner,^ to be the Son of David (in other words, to belong to David's family) through his mother and his brethren, who at some time or other had been made known to him by public notoriety? " Those, however, who went before rebuked the blind man, that he should hold his peace." ^ And properly enough; because he was very noisy, not be- cause he was wrong about the son of David. Else you must show me, that those who re- buked him were aware that Jesus was not the Son of David, in order that they may be sup- posed to have had this reason for imposing silence on the blind man. But even if you could show me this, still (the blind man) would more readily have presumed that they were ignorant, than that the Lord could possi- bly have permitted an untrue exclamation about Himself. But the Lord " stood pa- tient."* Yes; but not as confirming the error, for, on the contrary, He rather dis- played the Creator. Surely He could not have first removed this man's blindness, in order that he might afterwards cease to re- gard Him as the Son of David! However, ^ that you may not slander* His patience, nor fasten on Him any charge of dissimulation, nor deny Him to be the Son of David, He very pointedly confirmed the exclamation of the blind man — both by the actual gift of healing, and by bearing testimony to his faith: " Thy faith," say Christ, " hath made thee whole."' What would you have the blind man's faith to have been? That Jesus was descended from that (alien) god (of Mar- cion), to subvert the Creator and overthrow the law and the prophets? That He was not the destined offshoot from the root of Jesse, and the fruit of David's loins, the restorer^ also of the blind? But I apprehend there were at that time no such stone-blind persons as Marcion, that an opinion like this could have constituted the faith of the blind man, and have induced him to confide in the mere name,^ of Jesus, the Son of David. He, who knew all this of Himself,'" and wished others to know it also, endowed the faith of this man — although it was already gifted with a better sight, and although it was in possession of the 7 Luke xviii. 42.
8 Remunerator.
9 That is, in the sound only, and phantom of the word; an al- lusion to the Docetic absurdity of ^Ia^cion.
•0 That is, that He was ".Son of David," etc.
true light — with the external vision likewise, in order that we too might learn the rule of faith, and at the same time find its recom- pense. Whosoever wishes to see Jesus the Son of David must believe in Him through the Virgin's birth." He who will not believe this will not hear from Him the salutation, "Thy faith hath saved thee." And so he will remain blind, falling into Antithesis after Antithesis, which mutually destroy each other," just as "the blind man leads the blind down into the ditch." '^ For (here is one of Marcion's A?ititheses): whereas David in old time, in the capture of Sion, was of- fended by the blind who opposed his admis- sion (into the stronghold) ''' — in which respect (I should rather say) that they were a type of people equally blind, 's vvho in after-times would not admit Christ to be the son of David — so, on the contrary, Christ succoured the blind man, to show by this act that He was not David's son, and how different in disposi- tion He was, kind to the blind, while David ordered them to be slain.'* If all this were so, why did Marcioti allege that the blind man's faith was of so worthless"' a stamp? The fact is,'® the Son of David so acted,'' that the Antithesis must lose its point by its own absurdity.^ Those persons who offended David were blind, and the man who now pre- sents himself as a suppliant to David's son is afflicted with the same infirmity." Therefore the Son of David was appeased with some sort of satisfaction by the blind man when He restored him to sight, and added His ap- proval of the faith which had led him to be- lieve the very truth, that he must win to his help^^ the Son of David by earnest entreaty. But, after all, I suspect that it was the au- dacity (of the old Jebusites) which offended David, and not their malady.
CHAP. XXXVII. — CHRIST AND ZACCHiEUS. THE SALVATION OF THE BODY AS DENIED BY MAR- CION. THE PARABLE OF THE TEN SERVANTS ENTRUSTED WITH TEN POUNDS. CHRIST A JUDGE, WHO IS TO ADMINISTER THE WILL OF THE AUSTERE MAN, I.E. THE CREATOR.
"Salvation comes to the house" of Zac- " Censum: that is, must believe Him bom of her.
'=This, perhaps, is the meaning in a clause which is itself more antithetical than clear: " Ruens in antithesim, ruentem et ipsam antithesim."
'3 In book iii. chap. vii. (at the beginning), occurs the same pro- verb of Marcion and the Jews. See p. 327 '5 The Marcionites.
'7 Fidei equidera pravae: see preceding page, note 3.
'8 Atquin.
'9Et hoc filius David: i.e.,prtest}tit, "showed Himself good," perhaps.
20 De suo retundendam. Instead of contrast, he shows the similarity of the cases, 2' Ejusdem camis: i.e., in/lrma (Oehlcr).
» Exorandum sibi.
41 TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book I\'.
chaeus even.' For what reason? Was it be- cause he also believed that Christ came by Marcion? But the blind man's cry was still sounding in the ears of all: "Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me." And " all the people gave praise unto God " — not Marcion's, but David's. Now, although Zac- chieus was probably a Gentile,^ he yet from his intercourse with Jews had obtained a smattering 3 of their Scriptures, and, more than this, had, without knowing it, fulfilled the precepts of Isaiah: "Deal thy bread," said the prophet, "to the hungry, and bring the poor that are cast out into thine house." ^ This he did in the best possible way, by re- ceiving the Lord, and entertaining Him in his house. "When thou seest the naked, cover him." s This he promised to do, in an equally satisfactory way, when he offered the half of his goods for all works of mercy. ^ So also "he loosened the bands of wickedness, undid the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, and broke every yoke,"'' when he said, " If I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four- fold." « Therefore the Lord said, "This day is salvation come to this house." ' Thus did He give His testimony, that the precepts of the Creator spoken by the prophet tended to salvation. '° But when He adds, " For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost,"" my present contention is not whether He was come to save what was lost, ^0 whom it had once belonged, and /rofn whom what He came to save had fallen away; but I approach a different question, Man, there can be no doubt of it, is here the sub- ject of consideration. Now, since he consists of two parts, "^ body and soul, the point to be inquired into is, in which of these two man would seem to have been lost? If in his body, then it is his body, not his soul, which is lost. What, however, is lost, the Son of man saves. The body,'^ therefore, has the salvation. If, (on the other hand,) it is in his soul that man is lost, salvation is designed for the lost soul; and the body which is not » I^ike xix. 9.
2 The older reading, which we here follow, is: " Enimvero Zac- chacus etsi allophylus fortasse," etc. Oehler, however, points the passage thus: " Knimvero Zacchseus etsi allophylus, fortasse," etc., removing the doubt, and making Zacchjeus "of another race " than the Jewish, for certain. This is probably more than Tertullian meant to say.
3 Aliqua notitia afflatus.
* Isa. Iviii. 7.
s In the same passage.
* For the history of Zacchseus, see Luke xix. i-io.
7 Isa. Iviii. 6.
8 Luke xix. 8 9 Luke xix. 9. •"Salutaria esse.
• " Luke xix. lo.
'^ Substantiis.
13 Caro: " the flesh," here a synonym with the corpus of the previous clauses.
lost is safe. If, (to take the only other sup- position,) man is wholly lost, in both his natures, then it necessarily follows that salva- tion is appointed for the entire man; and then the opinion of the heretics is shivered to pieces,'-* who say that there is no salvation of the flesh. And this affords a confirmation that Christ belongs to the Creator, who fol- lowed the Creator in promising the salvation of the whole man. The parable also of the (ten) servants, who received their several rec- ompenses according to the manner in which they had increased their lord's money by trading, '5 proves Him to be a God of judg- ment— even a God who, in strict account,'® not only bestows honour, but also takes away what a man seems to have."' Else, if it is the Creator whom He has here delineated as the " austere man," who " takes up what he laid not down, and reaps what he did not sow," '' my instructor even here is He, (whoever He may be,) to whom belongs the money He teaches me fruitfully to expend.''
CHAP. XXXVin. — CHRIST'S REFUTATIONS OF THE PHARISEES. RENDERING DUES TO C.^SAR AND TO GOD. NEXT OF THE SADDUCEES, RESPECT- ING MARRIAGE IN THE RESURRECTION. THESE PROVE HIM NOT TO BE MARCION'S BUT THE creator's CHRIST. MARCION'S TAMPERINGS IN ORDER TO MAKE ROOM FOR HIS SECOND GOD, EXPOSED AND CONFUTED.
Christ knew " the baptism of John, whence it was." ^ Then why did He ask them, as if He knew not? He knew that the Pharisees would not give Him an answer; then why did He ask in vain? Was it that He might judge them out of their own mouth, or their own heart? Suppose you refer these points to an excuse of the Creator, or to His comparison with Christ; then consider what would have happened if the Pharisees had replied to His question. Suppose their answer to have been, that John's baptism was "of men," they would have been immediately stoned to death. "" Some Marcion, in rivalry to Mar- cion, would have stood up" and said: O most excellent God; how different are his ways from the Creator's! Knowing that men would rush down headlong over it. He placed them '4 Elisa est.
•5 Secundum rationem feneratx.
'6 Ex parte severitatis.
17 This phrase comes not from the present passage, but from Luke viii. 18, where the words are b 6o<c£i i\ii.v\ here the expression is b 6x<i only.
'9 The origmal of this obscure sentence is as follows: " Aut si et hie Creatorem fmxerit austerum hie quoque me ille iustruit eujus pecuniam ut fenerera edocet.
--■ K.\isteret.
CHAP. XXXVIII.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
4' actually' on the very precipice. For thus do men treat of the Creator respecting His law of the tree.'-' But John's baptism was "from heaven." " Why, therefore," asks Christ, "did ye not believe him? " ^ He therefore who had wished men to believe John, purposing to censure" them because they had not believed him, belonged to Him whose sacrament John was administering. But, at any rate.^ when He actually met their refusal to say what they thought, with such reprisals as, " Neither tell I you iDy what au- thority I do these things,"^ He returned evil for evil! " Render unto Csesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's." ^ What will be "the things which are God's?" Such things as are like Caesar's dcnarms — that is to say, His image and similitude. That, therefore, which he commands to be "rendered unto God," the Creator, is man, who has been stamped with His image, likeness, name, and sub- stance.^ Let Marcion's god look after his own mint.^ Christ bids the denarius of man's imprint to be rendered to His Coesar, (His Caesar I say,) not the Ceesar of a strange god.'° The truth, however, must be confessed, this god has not a denarius to call his own! In every question the just and proper rule is, that the meaning of the answer ought to be adapted to the proposed inquiry. But it is nothing short of madness to return an answer altogether different from the question sub- mitted to you. God forbid, then, that we should expect from Christ" conduct which would be unfit even to an ordinary man! The Sadducees, who said there was no resur- rection, in a discussion on that subject, had proposed to the Lord a case of law touching a certain woman, who, in accordance with the legal prescription, had been married to seven brothers who had died one after the other. The question therefore was, to which husband must she be reckoned to belong in the resur- rection? " This, (observe,) was the gist of the inquiry, this was the sum and substance of the dispute. And to it Christ was obliged to return a direct answer. He had nobody to fear; that it should seem advisable '^ for Him either to evade their questions, or to make ' Ipse.
2 " Of knowledge of good and eiHl." The " law " thereof oc- curs in Gen. iii. 3, 4 Increpaturus.
5 Certe. [The word sacrament not technical here.]
* Materia.
9 Monetam. '° Non alieno.
" Quo magis absit a Christo. '3 Ut videatur.
them the occasion of indirectly mooting'^ a subject which He was not in the habit (jf teaching publicly at any other time. He therefore gave His answer, that " the chil- dren of this world marry." '^ You see how pertinent it was to the case in point. Be- cause the question concerned the next world, and He was going to declare that no one marries there. He opens the way by laying down the principle, that here, where there is death, there is also marriage. "But they whom God shall account worthy of the pos- session of that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; forasmuch as they cannot die any more, since they become equal to the angels, being made the children of God and of the resurrection."'* If, then, the mean- ing of the answer must not turn on any other point than on the proposed question, and since the question proposed is fully under- stood from this sense of the answer, '^ then the Lord's reply admits of no other interpre- tation than that by which the question is clearly understood.'^ You have both the time in which marriage is permitted, and the time in which it is said to be unsuitable, laid before you, not on their own account, but in conse- quence of an inquiry about the resurrection.
You have likewise a confirmation of the resur- rection itself, and the whole question which the Sadducees mooted, who asked no ques- tion about another god, nor inquired about the proper law of marriage. Now, if you make Christ answer questions which were not submitted to Him, you, in fact, represent Him as having been unable to solve the points on which He was really consulted, and entrapped of course by the cunning of the Sadducees. I shall now proceed, by way of supereroga- tion,'^ and after the rule (I have laid down about questions and answers),^" to deal with the arguments which have any consistency in them.^' They procured then a copy of the Scripture, and made short work with its text, by reading it thus:=^ " Those whom the god of that 7vorld shall account worthy." They '•> Subostendisse.
17 Surely Oehler's responsio ought to be responsionis, as the older books have it. >8Absolvitur.
19 Kx abundanti.
20 We have translated here, post pro'scriptionem, according to the more frequent sense of the word, preescripii'o. But there is another meaning of the word, which is not unknown to our author, equivalent to our objection or demurrer, or (to quote Oehler's definition) " clausula qua reus adversarii intentionem oppugnat — the form by which the defendant rebuts the plaintiff's charge." According to this sense, we read: " I shall now proceed...and after putting in a demurrer (or taking exception) against the tactics of my opponent."
=' Cohaerentes.
=- Decucurreruut in legendo: or, " they ran through it, by thus reading."
4H TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book IV.
add the phrase '''' of that world'' to the word "^^^)" whereby they make another god — "the god of that world;" whereas the pas- sage ought to be read thus: "Those whom God shall account worthy of the possession of that world " (removing the distinguishing phrase '"'' of this 7vorld" to the end of the clause,' in other words, " Those whom God shall account worthy of obtaining and rising to that world." For the question submitted to Christ had nothing to do with the god, but only widi the state, of that world. It was: "Whose wife should this woman be in that world after the resurrection?"^ They thus subvert His answer respecting the essential question of marriage, and apply His words, "The children of this world marry and are given in marriage," as if they referred to the Creator's men, and His permission to them to marry; whilst they themselves whom the god of that world — that is, the rival god — ac- counted worthy of the resurrection, do not marry even here, because they are not chil- dren of this world. But the fact is, that, hav- ing been consulted about marriage in that world, not in this present one, He had simply declared the non-existence of that to which the question related. They, indeed, who had caught the very force of His voice, and pronunciation, and expression, discovered no other sense than what had reference to the matter of the question. Accordingly, the Scribes exclaimed, " Master, Thou hast well said." 3 For He had affirmed the resurrec- tion, by describing the form ^ thereof in op- position to the opinion of the Sadducees. Now, He did not reject the attestation of those who had assumed His answer to bear this meaning. If, however, the Scribes thought Christ was David's Son, whereas (David) him- self calls Him Lord,^ what relation has this to Christ? David did not literally confute^ an error of the Scribes, yet David asserted the honour of Christ, when he more prominently affirmed that He was his Lord than his Son, — an attribute which was hardly suitable to the destroyer of the Creator. But how con-