overtook both Jews and Greeks proves that God is both a jealous God and a Judge, inas- much as He infatuated the world's wisdom by an angry''* and a judicial retribution. Since, then, the causes 's are in the hands of Him who gave us the Scriptures which we use, it follows that the apostle, when treating of the Creator, (as Him whom both Jew and Gentile as yet have) not known, means undoubtedly to teach us, that the God who is to become known (in Christ) is the Creator. The very " stumbling-block " which he declares Christ to be" to the Jews," '^ points unmistakeably '^ to the Creator's prophecy respecting Him, when by Isaiah He says: "Behold I lay in Sion a stone of stumbling and a rock of of- fence."'^ This rock or stone is Christ. '» This stumbling-stone Marcion retains still."
'2 That is, " man who lives in the world, not God who made the world."
M^Emula.
»5 Causx: the reasons of His retributive providence.
17 Consignat.
'o Isa. xxviii. 16 =0 " Etiain Marcon servat." These words cannot mean, as they have been translated, that " Marcion even retains these words " of prophecy; for whenever Marcion fell in with any traces of this prophecy of Christ, he seems to have expunged them. In Luke ii. 34 holy Simeon referred to it, but Marcion rejected this chapter of the evangelist; and although he admitted much of chap, xx., it is remarkable that he erased the ten verses thereof from the end of the eighth to the end of the eighteenth. Now in vers. 17, i3, Ma.-- cion found the prophecy again referred to. See Epiphanius, A dv. Uteres, xlii. Schol. 55, TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book v.
Now, what is that " fooUshness of God which is wiser than men," but the cross and death of Christ? What is that "weakness of God which is stronger than men,"' but the na- tivity and incarnation = of God? If, how- ever, Christ was not born of the Virgin, was not constituted of human flesh, and thereby really suffered neither death nor the cross, there was nothing in Him either of foolish- ness or weakness; nor is it any longer true, that " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;" nor, again, hath *' God chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty;" nor "the base things" and the least things "in the world, and things which are despised, which are even as nothing" (that is, things which really 3 are not), "to bring to nothing things which are" (that is, which really are).* For nothing in the dispensation of God is found to be mean, and ignoble, and contemptible. Such only occurs in man's arrangement. The very Old Testament of the Creator s it- self, it is possible, no doubt, to charge with foolishness, and weakness, and dishonour, and meanness, and contempt. What is more foolish and more weak than God's require- ment of bloody sacrifices and of savoury holo- causts? What is weaker than the cleansing of vessels and of beds?* What more dis- honourable than the discoloration of the red- dening skin?^ What so mean as the statute of retaliation? What so contemptible as the exception in meats and drinks? The whole of the Old Testament, the heretic, to the best of my belief, holds in derision. For God has chosen the foolish things of the world to con- found its wisdom. Marcion's god has no such discipline, because he does not take after ^ (the Creator) in the process of confusing op- posites by their opposites, so that " no flesh shall glory; but, as it is written. He that glori- eth, let him glory in the Lord."^ In what Lord? Surely in Him who gave this pre- cept." Unless, forsooth, the Creator en- joined us to glory in the god of Marcion ' 2Caro. 3 Vere.
5 Apud Creatorem etiam Vetera: (vetera, i.e.) " vetens testa- inenti institutiones " (Oehler).
6 Lex. XV. passim.
8 iEmulatur.
'f By Jeremiah, chap. ix. 23, 24, '- Infatuavit. «i Isa. xlii. 6. ■4 Isa. xlv. 3 (Septuagint) '5 Nedum. ■* Sacramenta, ■7 Palam decurrentia. "* Delitescebat. «>Gen. i. 14, inexactly quoted.
CHAP. VI. — THE DIVINE WAY OF WISDOM, AND GREATNESS, AND MIGHT. GOD's HIDING OF HIMSELF, AND SUBSEQUENT REVELATION. TO marcion's god SUCH A CONCEALMENT AND MANIFESTATION IMPOSSIBLE. GOD's PREDESTINATION. NO SUCH PRIOR SYSTEM OF INTENTION POSSIBLE TO A GOD PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN AS WAS MARCION 'S. THE POWERS OF THE WORLD WHICH CRUCIFIED CHRIST. ST. PAUL, AS A WISE MASTER-BUILDER, ASSO- CIATED WITH PROPHECY. SUNDRY INJUNC- TIONS OF THE APOSTLE PARALLEL WITH THE TEACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
By all these statements, therefore, does he show us what God he means, when he says, "We speak the wisdom of God among them that are perfect." " It is that God who has confounded the wisdom of the wise, who has brought to nought the understanding of the prudent, who has reduced to folly" the world's wisdom, by choosing its foolish things, and disposing them to the attainment of sal- vation. This wisdom, he says, once lay hid- den in things that were foolish, weak, and lacking in honour; once also was latent under figures, allegories, and enigmatical types; but it was afterwards to be revealed in Christ, who was set " as a light to the Gentiles," '3 by the Creator who promised through the mouth of Isaiah that He would discover " the hidden treasures, which eye had not seen."'* Now, that that god should have ever hidden any- thing who had never made a covert wherein to practise concealment, is in itself a wholly incredible idea. If he existed, concealment of himself was out of the question — to say nothing '5 of any of his religious ordinances.'^ The Creator, on the contrary, was as well known in Himself as His ordinances were. These, we know, were publicly instituted '^ in Israel; but they lay overshadowed with latent meanings, in which the wisdom of God was concealed,'^ to be brought to light by and by amongst " the perfect," when the time should come, but " pre-ordained in the counsels of God before the ages."'' But whose ages, if not the Creator's? For because ages consist of times, and times are made up of days, and months, and years; since also days, and months, and years are measured by suns, and moons, and stars, which He ordained for this purpose (for "they shall be," says He, " for signs of the months and the years ")," it clearly follows that the ages belong to the Creator, and that nothing of what was fore- ordained before the ages can be said to be the property of any other being than Him who claims the ages also as His own. Else let Mar- cion show that the ages belong to his god. He must then also claim the world itself for CHAP.
VI.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
him; for it is in it that the ages are reckoned, the vessel as it were' of the times, as well as the signs thereof, or their order. But he has no such demonstration to show us. I go back therefore to the point, and ask him this question: Why did (his god) fore-ordain our glory before the ages of the Creator? I could understand his having predetermined it before the ages, if he had revealed it at the com- mencement of time.- But when he does this almost at the very expiration of all the ages ^ of the Creator, his predestination before the ages, and not rather within the ages, was in vain, because he did not mean to make any revelation of his purpose until the ages had almost run out their course. For it is wholly inconsistent in him to be so forward in plan- ning purposes, who is so backward in reveal- ing them. In the Creator, however, the two courses were perfectly compatible — both the predestination before the ages and the revela- tion at the end thereof, because that which He both fore-ordained and revealed He also in the intermediate space of time announced by the pre-ministration of figures, and sym- bols, and allegories. But because (the apos- tle) subjoins, on the subject of our glory, that " none of the princes of this world knew it, for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory,"'* the heretic argues that the princes of this world crucified the Lord (that is, the Christ of the rival god) in order that this blow might even recoil s on the Creator Himself. Any one, however, who has seen from what we have already said how our glory must be regarded as issuing from the Creator, will already have come to the conclusion that, inasmuch as the Creator settled it in His own secret purpose, it properly enough was unknown to all the princes^ and powers of the Creator, on the principle that servants are not permitted to know their mas- ters' plans, much less the fallen angels and the leader of transgression himself, the devil; for I should contend that these, on account of their fall, were greater strangers still to any knowledge of the Creator's dispensations. But it is no longer open to me ^ even to in- terpret the princes and powers of this world as the Creator's, since the apostle imputes ignorance to them, whereas even the devil according to our Gospel recognised Jesus in the temptation,^ and, according to the record which is common to both (Marcionites and ' Quodammodo.
2 Introductione saeculi.
3 Paene jam totis sxculis prodactis.
S Ut et hoc recidat ^Virtutibus.
7 Sed jam nee mihi competit.
8 Matt. iv. i-it.
ourselves) the evil spirit knew that Jesus was the Holy One of God, and that Jesus was His name, and that He was come to destroy them.' The paral)le also of the strong man armed, whom a stronger than he overcame and seized his goods, is admitted by Marcion to have reference to the Creator:'" therefore the Creator could not have been ignorant any longer of the God of glory, since He is over- come by him;" nor could He have crucified him whom He was unable to cope with. The inevitable inference, therefore, as it seems to me, is that we must believe that the princes and powers of the Creator did knowingly cru- cify the God of glory in His Christ, with that desperation and excessive malice with which the most abandoned slaves do not even hesi- tate to slay their masters. For it is written in my Gospel'- that "Satan entered into Judas." '=* According to Marcion, however, the apostle in the passage under considera- tion '^ does not allow the imputation of igno- rance, with respect to the Lord of glory, to the powers of the Creator; because, indeed, he will have it that these are not meant by "the princes of this world." But (the apos- tle) evidently '^ did not speak of spiritual princes; so that he meant secular ones, those of the princely people, (chief in the divine dispensation, although) not, of course, amongst the nations of the world, and their rulers, and king Herod, and even Pilate, and, as repre- sented by him,'* that power of Rome which was the greatest in the world, and then pre- sided over by him. Thus the arguments of the other side are pulled down, and our own proofs are thereby built up. But you still maintain that our glory comes from your god, with whom it also lay in secret. Then why does your god employ the self-same Scrip- ture '7 which the apostle also relies on? What has your god to do at all with the sayings of the prophets? "Who hath discovered the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?"'^ So says Isaiah. What has he also to do with illustrations from our God? For when (the apostle) calls himself " a wise master-builder," '» we find that the Creator by Isaiah designates the teacher who sketches "" out the divine discipline by the same title, " I will take away from Judah the c mining artifi- 'o In Creatoris accipitur apud Marcionem. " Considered, in the hypothesis, as Marcion's god. '2 Apud me. '3 Luke xxii. 3. 15 Videtur. ■6 Et quo. '7 Instrumento. »".Depalatorem.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book v.
cer,'' ' etc. And was it not Paul himself who was there foretold, destined "to be taken away from Judah " — that is, from Judaism — for the erection of Christianity, in order " to lay that only foundation, which is Christ? " ^ Of this work the Creator also by the same prophet says, " Behold, I lay in Sion for a foundation a precious stone and honourable; and he that resteth thereon shall not be con- founded." 3 Unless it be, that God professed Himself to be the builder up of an earthly work, that so He might not give any sign of His Christ, as destined to be the foundation of such as believe in Him, upon which every man should build at will the superstructure of either sound or worthless doctrine; forasmuch as it is the Creator's function, when a man's work shall be tried by fire, (or) when a re- ward shall be recompensed to him by fire; because it is by fire that the test is applied to the building which you erect upon the founda- tion which is laid by Him, that is, the founda- tion of His Christ.'* " Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? " ^ Now, since man is the property, and the work, and the image and likeness of the Creator, having his flesh formed by Him of the ground, and his soul of His afflatus, it follows that Marcion's god wholly dwells in a temple which belongs to another, if so be we are not the Creator's temple. But "if any man defile the temple of God, he shall be himself destroyed " * — of course, by the God of the temple.? If you threaten an avenger, you threaten us with the Creator. "Ye must become fools, that ye may be wise."^ Wherefore? " Because the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." 9 With what God? Even if the an- cient Scriptures have contributed nothing in support of our view thus far,'° an excellent testimony turns up in what (the apostle) here adjoins: "For it is written. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness; and again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that ' So the A. V. of Isa. iii. 3 -^ but the Septuagint and St, Paul use the self-same term, o'o<^6s af>\i.TiKTu>v.
3 Isa. xxviii. 16.
4 We add the original of this sentence: " Nisi si structorem se terreni opens Deus profitebatur, ut non de suo Christo significaret, qui futurus esset fundamentum credentium in eum, super quod prout quisque superstruxerit, dignam scilicet vel indignam doc- trinam si opus ejus per ignem probabitur, si merces illi per ignem rependetur, creatoris est, quia per ignem judicatur vestra super- sedificatio, utique sui fundamenti, id est sui Christi." 'I'ertullian is arguing upon an hypothesis suggested by Marcion's withdrawal of his Christ from everything " terrene." Such a process as is de- scribed by Bt. Paul in this passage, i Cor. i. 12-15, niust be left to the Creator and His Christ.
6 The text has viiiabitur, " shall be defiled' '"The older reading, '■'■ adhuc sensum pristina praeiudicave- runt," we have preferred to Oehler's " ad hunc sensum, etc.
they are vain." " For in general we may conclude for certain that he could not possi- bly have cited the authority of that God whom he was bound to destroy, since he would not teach for Him.'^ "Therefore," says he, " let no man glory in man;" '^ an injunction which is in accordance with the teaching of the Creator, "wretched is the man that trust- eth in man;""» again, "It is better to trust in the Lord than to confide in man;"'s and the same thing is said about glorying (in princes).'* CHAP. VII. — ST, Paul's phraseology often SUGGESTED BY THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. CHRIST OUR PASSOVER — A PHRASE WHICH INTRODUCES US TO THE VERY HEART OF THE ANCIENT DISPENSATION. CHRIST's TRUE CORPOREITY. MARRIED AND UNMAR- RIED STATES. MEANING OF THE TIME IS SHORT. IN HIS EXHORTATIONS AND DOC- TRINE, THE APOSTLE WHOLLY TEACHES AC- CORDING TO THE MIND AND PURPOSES OF THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. PROHIBITION OF MEATS AND DRINKS WITHDRAWN BY THE CREATOR, "And the hidden things of darkness He will Himself bring to light," '^ even by Christ; for He has promised Christ to be a Light,'^ and Himself He has declared to be a lamp, " searching the hearts and reins." '^ From Him also shall " praise be had by every man,"^ from whom proceeds, as from a judge, the opposite also of praise. But here, at least, you say he interprets the world to be the God thereof, when he says: "We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to an- gels, and to men."" For if by world he had meant the people thereof, he would not have afterwards specially mentioned " men." To prevent, however, your using such an argu- ment as this, the Holy Ghost has providenti- ally explained the meaning of the passage thus: "We are made a spectacle to the world," i.e. " both to angels," who minister therein, "and to men," who are the objects of their ministration.-^ Of course, ^^ a man of the noble courage of our apostle (to say noth- ing of the Holy Ghost) was afraid, when writ- ing to the children whom he had begotten in " I Cor. iii. 10, 20; Job v. 13; Ps, xciv. 11. '= Si non illi doceret.
M ler. XVII. 5.
22 Our author's version is no doubt right. The Greek does not admit the co-ordinate, triple conjunction of 'the A.V.: ©eaTpop iyivr)6r]ij.tv T<p Koafxif — koX oyye'Aon (tai dfdpwiroif.
23 Nimirum: introducing a stmng ironical sentence a>;aitist Marcion's conceit.
CHAP. VII.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
the gospel, to speak freely of the God of the world; for against Him he could not possibly seem to have a word to say, except only in a straightforward manner! ' I quite admit, that, according to the Creator's law,= the man was an offender " who had his father's wife."^ He followed, no doubt,* the principles of natural and public law. When, however, he condemns the man "to be delivered unto Satan," s he becomes the herald of an aveng- ing God. It does not matter*^ that he also said, " For the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord," 7 since both in the destruction of the flesh and in the saving of the spirit there is, on His part, judicial process; and when he bade " the wicked person be put away from the midst of them,"^ he only mentioned what is a very frequently recurring sentence of the Creator. "Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleav- ened."' The unleavened bread was there- fore, in the Creator's ordinance, a figure of us (Christians). " For even Christ our pass- over is sacrificed for us." '° But why is Christ our passover, if the passover be not a type of Christ, in the similitude of the blood which saves, and of the Lamb, which is Christ? " Why does (the apostle) clothe us and Christ with symbols of the Creator's sol- emn rites, unless they had relation to our- selves? When, again, he warns us against fornication, he reveals the resurrection of the flesh. "The body," says he, "is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body," '^ just as the temple is for God, and God for the temple. A temple will therefore pass away '^ with its god, and its god with the temple. You see, then, how that " He who raised up the Lord will also raise us up." '* In the body will He raise us, be- cause the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And suitably does he add the question: " Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?"'5 What has the heretic to say? That these members of Christ will not rise again, for they are no longer our own? "For," he says, "ye are bought with a price." '* A price! surely ' Nisi exserte.
3 Lev. xviii. 8, 4 Secutus sit, 6 Viderit.
" Ex. xii.
«3 Peribit.
none at all was paid, since Christ was a phan- tom, nor had He any corporeal substance which He could pay for our bodies! But, in truth, Christ had wherewithal to redeem us; and since He has redeemed, at a great price, these bodies of ours, against which fornica- tion must not be committed (because they are now members of Christ, and not our own), surely He will secure, on His own account, the safety of those whom He made His own at so much cost! Now, how shall we glorify, how shall we exalt, God in our body,'' which is doomed to perish? We must now en- counter the subject of marriage, which Mar- cion, more continent '^ than the apostle, pro- hibits. For the apostle, although preferring the grace of continence, '» yet permits the con- traction of marriage and the enjoyment of it,"° and advises the continuance therein rather than the dissolution thereof.-' Christ plainly forbids divorce, Moses unquestionably permits it.^- Now, when Marcion wholly pro- hibits all carnal intercourse to the faithful (for we will say nothing^ about his catechumens), and when he prescribes repudiation of all en- gagements before marriage, whose teaching does he follow, that of Moses or of Christ? Even Christ,''* however, when He here commands " the wife not to depart from her hus- band, or if she depart, to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband," '^ both per- mitted divorce, which indeed He never abso- lutely prohibited, and confirmed (the sanc- tity) of marriage, by first forbidding its dis- solution; and, if separation had taken place, by wishing the nuptial bond to be resumed by reconciliation. But what reasons does (the apostle) allege for continence? Because " the time is short." "* I had almost thought it was because in Christ there was another god! And yet He from whom emanates this shortness of the time, will also send what suits the said brevity. No one makes provision for the time which is another's. You degrade your god, O Marcion, when you make him circumscribed at all by the Creator's time. Assuredly also, when (the apostle) rules that marriage should be "only in the Lord,"^^ that no Christian should intermarry with a »8Constantior: irotjically predicated.
22 One of Marcion *s A ntitkeses.
23 Viderint.
24 Et Christus: Pantclins and Rigaltius here read " Christi apostolus.''^ Oehler defends the text as the author's phrase sug- gested (as Fr. Junius says) by the preceding words, " Moses ot Christ." To which we may add, that in this particular place St. Paul mentions his injunction as Christ's especially, ovk cyi*, aKX 6 Kvptov, I Cor. vii. 10.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book V, heathen, he maintains a law of the Creator, who everywhere prohibits marriage with strangers. But when he says, "although there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth,"' the meaning of his words is clear — not as if there were gods in reality, but as if there were some who are called gods, without being truly so. He in- troduces his discussion about meats offered to idols with a statement concerning idols (themselves): " We know that an idol is noth- ing in the world." ^ Marcion, however, does not say that the Creator is not God; so that the apostle can hardly be thought to have ranked the Creator amongst those who are called gods, without being so; since, even if they had been gods, " to us there is but one God, the Father. ' ' ^ Now, from whom do all things come to us, but from Him to whom all things belong? And pray, what things are these? You have them in a preceding part of the epistle: "All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come."" He makes the Creator then the God of all things, from whom pro- ceed both the world and life and death, which cannot possibly belong to the other god. From Him, therefore, amongst the ''''all things " comes also Christ. ^ When he teaches that every man ought to live of his own in- dustry,* he begins with a copious induction of examples — of soldiers, and shepherds, and husbandmen. 7 But he^ wanted divine au- thority. What was the use, however, of ad- ducing the Creator's, which he was destroy- ing? It was vain to do so; for his god had no such authority! (The apostle) says: " Thou Shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn," 9 and adds: "Doth God take care of oxen? " Yes, of oxen, for the sake of men! For, says he, "it is written for our sakes." '° Thus he showed that the law had a symbolic reference to ourselves, and that it gives its sanction in favour of those who live of the gospel. (He showed) also, that those who preach the gospel are on this account sent by no other god but Him to whom be- longs the law, which made provision for them, when he says: " For our sakes was this writ- ten."" Still he declined to use this power which the law gave him, because he preferred " He turns to Marclon's god.
9 I Cor. IX. 9 and Deut. xxv. 4. " Coinp. I Cor. ix. 13, 14, with Deac. xviii. i, 2.