1 MHab. ii. 4. 'S Apud.
18 The LXX. version of Deut. xxi. 23 is quoted by St. Paul m Gal. iii. 13.
CHAP. IV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINS'l" MARCION.
equally so — nay, much more so — in mine. For it would be more credible that that God had provided blessing for man, through the curse of Christ, who formerly set both a bless- ing and a curse before man, than that he had done so, who, according to you,' never at any time pronounced either. " We have received, therefore, the promise of the Spirit," as the apostle says, " through faith," even that faith by which the just man lives, in accordance with the Creator's purpose.- What I say, then, is this, that that God is the object of faith who prefigured the grace of faith. But when he also adds, " For ye are all the chil- dren of faith," ^ it becomes clear that what the heretic's industry erased was the mention of Abraham's name; for by faith the apostle declares us to be ^''children of Abraham,'' '^ and after mentioning him he expressly called us " children of faith " also. But how are we children of faith? and of whose faith, if not Abraham's? For since "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for right- eousness; "^ since, also, he deserved for that reason to be called " the father of many nations," whilst we, who are even more like him* in believing in God, are thereby justi- fied as Abraham was, and thereby also obtain life — since the just lives by his faith, — it therefore happens that, as he in the previous passage called us " sons of Abraham," since he is in faith our (common) father, ^ so here also he named us '* children of faith," for it was owing to his faith that it was promised that Abraham should be the father of (many) nations. As to the fact itself of his calling off faith from circumcision, did he not seek there- by to constitute us the children of Abraham, who had believed previous to his circumcision in the flesh?* In short, « faith in one of two gods cannot possibly admit us to the dispen- sation'" of the other," so that it should im- pute righteousness to those who believe in him, and make the just live through him, and declare the Gentiles to be his children through faith. Such a dispensation as this belongs wholly to Him through whose appointment it was already made known by the call of this self-same Abraham, as is conclusively shown " by the natural meaning. '^ ' Apud te.
= According to the promise of a prophet of the Creator. See 6 Magis proinde: as sharing in the faith he had, " being yet un- circumcised." See Rom. iv. 11.
7 Patris fidei.
8 In integritate carnis.
9Denique.
'o Formam: " plan " or " arrangement.' " Alterius dei...dei alterius. '- Revincatur. 13 Ipso sensu.
CHAP. IV. ANOTHER INSTANCE OF MARCION's TAMPERING WITH ST. PAUL's TEXT. THE FULNESS OF TIME, ANNOUNCED BY THE APOSTLE, FORETOLD BY THE PROPHETS. MOSAIC RITES ABROGATED BY THE CREATOR HIMSELF. MARCION's TRICKS ABOUT ABRA- HAM'S NAME, THE CREATOR, BY HIS CHRIST, THE FOUNTAIN OF THE GRACE AND THE LIB- ERTY WHICH ST. PAUL ANNOUNCED. MAR- CION's DOCETISM REFUTED.
"But," says he, " I speak after the manner of men: when we were children, we were placed in bondage under the elements of the world," "* This, however, was not said " after the manner of men," For there is no fig- ure '5 here, but literal truth. For (with re- spect to the latter clause of this passage), what child (in the sense, that is, in which the Gentiles are children) is not in bondage to the elements of the world, which he looks up to '* in the light of a god? With regard, however, to the former clause, there was a figure (as the apostle wrote it); because after he had said, " I speak after the manner of men," he adds), " Though it be but a man's covenant, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto." '^ For by the figure of the perma- nency of a human covenant he was defending the divine testament, " To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He said not ' to seeds,' as of many; but as of one, ' to thy seed,' which is Chrjst." '^ Fie on '« Mar- cion's sponge! But indeed it is superfluous to dwell on what he has erased, when he may be more effectually confuted from that which he has retained.^ " But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son" " — the God, of course, who is the Lord of that •4 This apparent quotation is m fact a patching together of two sentences from Gal. iii. 15 and iv. 3 (Fr. Junius). " If I may be allowed to guess from the manner m which Tertullian expresseth himself, I should imagine that Marcion erased the whole of chap, iii. after the word Aeyiu in ver. 15, and the beginning of chap, iv., until you come to the word ore m ver. 3. Then the words will be connected thus: ' Brethren, I speak after the manner of men...when we were children we were in bondage under the elements of the world; but when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son.' This is precisely what the argument of Tertullian re- quires, and they are the very words which he connects together '' (Lardner, Hist. 0/ He7-etics, x..j^). Dr. Lardner, touching IVIarcion's omissions in this chap. in. of the Epistle to the Ga- latians, says: " He omitted vers. 6, 7, 8, in order to get rid of the mention of Abraham, and of the gospel having been preached to him." This he said after St. Jerome, and then adds: " He ought also tahave omitted part of ver. 9, avv Tci tticttcu 'A/3paa/i, which seems to have been the case, according to T.'s manner of stating the argument against him " (Works, History oy Heretics, x. 43).
'5 Exemplum.
'^Suspicit.
'7 Gal. iii. 15. This, of course, is consistent in St. Paul's argu- ment. Marcion, however, by erasing all the intervening verses, and affixing the phrase " after the manner 0/ meii " to the plain assertion of Gal. iv. 3, reduces the whole statement to an absur- dity.
•9 Erubescat.
=oSo, instead of pursuing the contents of chap, iii., he proceeds to such of chap. iv. as Marcion reser\-ed.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book v.
very succession of times which constitutes an age; who also ordained, as " sig?is " of time, suns and moons and constellations and stars; who furthermore both predetermined and pre- dicted that the revelation of His Son should be postponed to the end of the times.' " It shali come to pass in the last days, that the mountain (of the house) of the Lord shall be manifested";'' "and in the last days I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh" 3 as Joel says. It was characteristic of Him (only) '' to wait patiently for the fulness of time, to whom belonged the end of time no less than the beginning. But as for that idle god, who has neither any work nor any prophecy, nor accordingly any time, to show for himself, what has he ever done to bring about the ful- ness of time, or to wait patiently its comple- tion? If nothing, what an impotent state to have to wait for the Creator's time, in servil- ity to the Creator! But for what end did He send His Son? " To redeem them that were under the law,"^ in other words, to "make the crooked ways straight, and the rough places smooth," as Isaiah says* — in order that old things might pass away, and a new course begin, even " the new law out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem," ^ and " that we might receive the adoption of sons,"* that is, the Gentiles, who once were not sons. For He is to be " the light of the Gentiles," and " in His name shall the Gen- tiles trust. "^ That \Vt may have, therefore, the assurance that we are the children of God, " He hath sent forth His Spirit into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father."'" For "in the last days," saith He," I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh."" Now, from whom comes this grace, but from Him who pro- claimed the promise thereof? Who is (our) Father, but He who is also our Maker? Therefore, after such affluence (of grace), they should not have returned " to weak and beggarly elements." " By the Romans, how- ever, the rudiments of learning are wont to be called elements. He did not therefore seek, by any depreciation of the mundane elements, to turn them away from their god, although, when he said just before, " How- beit, then, ye serve them which by nature are ' In ejttremitatem temporum.
^Isa. ii. 2 (Sept).
3 loel hi. 28, as quoted by St. Peter, Acts ii. 17.
4lpsius.
sGal. iv. 5.
"Joel iii. 28, as given in Acts ii, 17.
no gods," '3 he censured the error of that physical or natural superstition which holds the elements to be god; but at the God of those elements he aimed not in this censure.'* He tells us himself clearly enough what he means by ''''elements,'" even the rudiments of the law: " Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years" '^ — the sabbaths, I suppose, and " the preparations," '* and the fasts, and the "high days."" For the cessation of even these, no less than of circumcision, was appointed by the Creator's decrees, who had said by Isaiah, " Your new moons, and your sabbaths, and your high days I cannot bear; your fasting, and feasts, and ceremonies my soul hateth; " '^ also by Amos, " I hate, I de- spise your feast-days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies;"'' and again by Hosea, " I will cause to cease all her mirth, and her feast-days, and her sabbaths, and her new moons, and all her solemn assemblies." ^° The institutions which He set up Himself, you ask, did He then destroy? Yes, rather than any other. Or if another destroyed them, he only helped on the purpose of the Creator, by removing what even He had con- demned. But this is not the place to discuss the question why the Creator abolished His own laws. It is enough for us to have proved that He intended such an abolition, that so it may be affirmed that the apostle determined nothing to the prejudice of the Creator, since the abolition itself proceeds from the Creator. But as, in the case of thieves, something of the stolen goods is apt to drop by the way, as a clue to their detection; so, as it seems to me, it has happened to Marcion: the last mention of Abraham's name he has left untouched (in the epistle), although no passage required his erasure more than this, even in his partial alteration of the text.^' " For (it is written) that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond maid, the other by a free woman; but he who was of the bond maid was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise: which things are allegorized"*^ (that is to say, they presaged something be- sides the literal history); " for these are the 14 Nee sic taxans.
■6 CcEnas puras: probably the napoaictuot mentioned in John xix. ^i.
'7 See also John xix. 31.
-"Hos. ii. n.
2' In other words, Marcion has indeed tampered with the pass- age, omitting some things; but (strange to say) he has left un- touched the statement which, from his point of view, most re- quired suppression.
-' Allegorica: on the importance of rendering oWijyopou/aei'o by this participle rather than by the noun " an allegory,' as in A. V., see Bp. Marsh's Ltctures on the I iitrrpyctaiion o/thc Bible, pp.
CHAP. IV.]
TI'.RITILLIAN AGAINST JNIARCION.
two covenants," or the two exhibitions (of the divine plans)/ as we have found the word in- terpreted," the one from the Mount Sinai," in relation to the synagogue of the Jews, accord- ing to the law, " which gendereth to bond- age"— "the other gendereth" (to liberty, being raised) above all principality, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come, "which is the mother of us all," in v/hich we have the promise of (Christ's) holy church; by reason of which he adds in conclusion: " So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond woman, but of the free."'' In this passage he has un- doubtedly shown that Christianity had a noble birth, being sprung, as the mystery of the allegory indicates, from that son of Abraham who was born of the free woman; whereas from the son of the bond maid came the legal bondage of Judaism. Both dispensa- tions, therefore, emanate from that same God by whom/ as we have found, they were both sketched out beforehand. When he speaks of " the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," * does not the very phrase indicate that He is the Liberator who was once the Master? For Galba himself never liberated slaves which were not his own, even when about to restore free men to their liberty. ^ By Him, therefore, will liberty be bestowed, at whose command lay the enslaving power of the law. And very properly. It was not meet that those who had received liberty should be " entangled again with the yoke of bondage " * — that is, of the law; now that the Psalm had its prophecy accomplished: "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us, since the rulers have gathered themselves together against the Lord and against His Christ." ' All those, therefore, who had been delivered from the yoke of slavery he would earnestly have to obliterate the very mark of slavery — even cir- cumcision, on the authority of the prophet's prediction. He remembered how that Jere- miah had said, " Circumcise the foreskins of your heart; "^ as Moses likewise had en- joined, " Circumcise your hard hearts" » — not ' Ostensiones: revclaiiones perhaps.
3 A pud quern.
5 TertuIUan, in his terse style, takes the case of the emperor, as the highest potentate, who, if any, might make free with his power. He seizes the moment when Galba was saluted emperor on Nero's death, and was the means of delivering so many out of the hands of the tyrant, in order to sharpen the point of his illus- tration.
the literal flesh. If, now, he were for exclud- ing circumcision, as the messenger of a new god, why does he say that " in Christ neither circumcisoin availeth anything, nor uncircum- cision?" '° For it was his duty to prefer the rival principle of that which he was abolishing, if he had a mission from the god who was the enemy of circumcision. Furthermore, since both circumcision and uncircumcision were attributed to the same Deity, both lost their power " in Christ, by reason of the excellency of faith — of that faith concerning which it had been written, "And in His name shall the Gentiles trust? " '=— of that faith "which," he says " worketh by love." '^ By this say- ing he also shows that the Creator is the source of that grace. For whether he speaks of the love which is due to God, or that which is due to one's neighbor — in either case, the Creator's grace is meant: for it is He who enjoins the first in these words, "Thou shalt love God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength;"'^ and also the second in another passage: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." '5 " But he that troubleth you shall have to bear judgment." '^ From what God? From (Marcion's) most excellent god? But he does not execute judgment. From the Creator? But neither will He condemn the maintainer of circumcision. Now, if none other but the Creator shall be found to execute judgment, it follows that only He, who has determined on the cessation of the law, shall be able to condemn the defenders of the law; and what, if he also affirms the law in that portion of it where it ought (to be permanent)? "For," says he, "all the law is fulfilled in you by this: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- self.' " '7 If, indeed, he will have it that by the words " it is fulfilled'' it is implied that the law no longer has to be fulfilled, then of course he does not mean that I should any more love my neighbour as myself, since this precept must have ceased together with the law. But no! we must evermore continue to observe this commandment. The Creator's law, therefore, has received the approval of the rival god, who has, in fact, bestowed upon it not the sentence of a summary dismissal,'* but the favour of a compendious acceptance; '» " Utraque vacabat.
'*Gal. V. lo.
'8 Dispendium.
'9 Compendium: the terseness of the original cannot be prw served in the translation.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book v.
the gist of it all being concentrated in this one precept! But this condensation of the law is, in fact, only possible to Him who is the Author of it. When, therefore, he says, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so ful- fill the law of Christ,"' since this cannot be accomplished except a man love his neigh- bour as himself, it is evident that the precept, "Thou Shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (which, in fact, underlies the injunction, "Bear ye one another's burdens"), is really " the law of Christ," though literally the law of the Creator. Christ, therefore, is the Creator's Christ, as Christ's law is the Crea- tor's law. "Be not deceived,^ God is not mocked." 3 But Marcion's god can be mocked; for he knows not how to be angry, or how to take vengeance. " For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."" It is then the God of recompense and judgment who threatens 5 this. "Let us not be weary in well-doing;"^ and "as we have opportu- nity, let us do good." 7 Deny now that the Creator has given a commandment to do good, and then a diversity of precept may argue a difference of gods. If, however. He also an- nounces recompense, then from the same God must come the harvest both of death ^ and of life. But "in due time we shall reap;"^ because in Ecclesiastes it is said, " For every- thing there will be a time."'° Moreover, " the world is crucified unto me," who am a servant of the Creator—" the world," (I say,) but not the God who made the world — " and I unto the world," " not unto the God who made the world. The world, in the apostle's sense, here means life and conversation ac- cording to worldly principles; it is in renounc- ing these that we and they are mutually cru- cified and mutually slain. He calls them "persecutors of Christ.'"^ But when he adds, that " he bare in his body the scars ^^ of Christ " — since scars, of course, are acci- dents of body '* — he therefore expressed the truth, that the flesh of Christ is not putative, but real and substantial, 's the scars of which he represents as borne upon his body.
aErratis: literally, " ye are deceived.
5 Intentat.
8 Corruptionis.
»o Eccles. iii. 17.
1= See Gal. vi. 17, Koitovi fioi m1*"« jrop«x«To», let no one '3 Stigmata: the scars not of circumcision, but Of wounds suf- fered for His sake (Conybeare and Howson).
»4 Corporalia.
»S Solidam.
J6 PraestructiQ CHAP. v. THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTH- IANS. THE PAULINE SALUTATION OF GRACE AND PEACE SHOWN TO BE ANTI-MARCIONITE. THE CROSS OF CHRIST PURPOSED BY THE CRE- ATOR. MARCION ONLY PERPETUATES THE OFFENCE AND FOOLISHNESS OF CHRIST* S CROSS BY HIS IMPIOUS SEVERANCE OF THE GOSPEL FROM THE CREATOR. ANALOGIES BETWEEN THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL IN THE MATTER OF WEAK THINGS, AND FOOLISH THINGS AND BASE THINGS.
My preliminary remarks '* on the preceding epistle called me away from treating of its superscription,'' for I was sure that another opportunity would occur for considering the matter, it being of constant recurrence, and in the same form too, in every epistle. The point, then, is, that it is not (the usual) health which the apostle prescribes for those to whom he writes, but " grace and peace." '* I do not ask, indeed, what a destroyer of Juda- ism has to do with a formula which the Jews still use. For to this day they salute each other '9 with the greeting of "peace," and formerly in their Scriptures they did the same. But I understand him by his prac- tice =° plainly enough to have corroborated the declaration of the Creator: " How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good, who preach the gospel oi peace.'" -'^ For the herald of good, that is, of God's "grace" was well aware that along with it " peace " also was to be proclaimed. ^^ Now, when he announces these blessings as " from God the Father and the Lord Jesus," ^^ he uses titles that are common to both, and whi<:h are also adapted to the mystery of our faith;=* and I suppose it to be impossible accurately to determine what God is declared to be the Father and the Lord Jesus, unless (we con- sider) which of their accruing attributes are more suited to them severally. -s First, then, I assert that none other than the Creator and Sustainer of both man and the universe can be acknowledged as Father and Lord; next, that to the Father also the title of Lord ac- crues by reason of His power, and that the Son too receives the same through the Father; then that "grace and peace" are not only His who had them published, but His likewise to whom offence had been given. For neither does grace exist, except after offence; nor peace, except after war. Now, both the >7 Titulo.
>9 Appellant.
» Officio.
2= Pacem quam praeferendam.
=4 Competentibus nostro quoque Sacramento.
35 Nisi ex accedentibiis ciii iiiacfis rcimpetant.
CHAP, v.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
people (of Israel) by their transgression of His laws,' and the whole race of mankind by their neglect of natural duty,' had both sinned and rebelled against the Creator. Marcion's god, however, could not have been offended, both because he was unknown to everybody, and because he is incapable of being irritated. What grace, therefore, can be had of a god who has not been offended? What peace from one who has never experienced rebellion? *' The cross of Christ," he says, " is to them that perish foolishness; but unto such as shall obtain salvation, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God."3 And then, that we may known from whence this comes, he adds: " For it is written, ' I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the un- derstanding of the prudent.' " ■* Now, since these are the Creator's words, and since what pertains to the doctrine s of the cross he ac- counts as foolishness, therefore both the cross, and also Christ by reason of the cross, will appertain to the Creator, by whom were pre- dicted the incidents of the cross. But if^ the Creator, as an enemy, took away their wisdom in order that the cross of Christ, con- sidered as his adversary, should be accounted foolishness, how by any possibility can the Creator have foretold anything about the cross of a Christ who is not His own, and of whom He knew nothing, when He published the prediction? But, again, how happens it, that in the system of a Lord'' who is so very good, and so profuse in mercy, some carry off salvation, when they believe the cross to be the wisdom and power of God, whilst others incur perdition, to whom the cross of Christ is accounted folly; — (how happens it, I re- peat,) unless it is in the Creator's dispensa- tion to have punished both the people of Is- rael and the human race, for some great of- fence committed against Him, with the loss of wisdom and prudence? What follows will confirm this suggestion, when he asks, " Hath not God infatuated the wisdom of this world? " ® and when he adds the reason why: " For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God ' by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." '° But first a word about the expression '"'' the world;'' because in this passage particularly," the heretics expend a I Disciplinae.
3 Per naturae dissimulationem. This Fr. Junius explains by ttjv ^vacwf d0O(ri«)(riv, in the sense of '^ original sin^^ (a.^ociova6ai. seems to point to sin requiring expiation).
5 Causam.
* Aut si: introducing a Marcionite cavil. 7 Apud dominum.
9 Boni duxit Deus, tvioKttctv 6 ©C05.
oi Cor. i. 21. " Hie vel raaxime.
great deal of their subtlety in showing that by world is meant the lord of the world. We, however, understand the term to apply to any person that is in the world, by a simple idiom of human language, which often substitutes that which contains for that which is con- tained. " The circus shouted," " The forum spoke," and "The basilica murmured," are well-known expressions, meaning that the people in these places did so. Since then the man, not the god, of the world " in his wis- dom knew not God, whom indeed he ought to have known (both the Jew by his knowl- edge of the Scriptures, and all the human race by their knowledge of God's works), therefore that God, who was not acknowl- edged in His wisdom, resolved to smite men's knowledge with His foolishness, by saving all those who believe in the folly of the preached cross. " Because the Jews re- quire signs," who ought to have already made up their minds about God, " and the Greeks seek after wisdom, "'^ who rely upon their own wisdom, and not upon God's. If, however, it was a new god that was being preached, what sin had the Jews committed, in seeking after signs to believe; or the Greeks, when they hunted after a wisdom which they would prefer to accept? Thus the very retribution which