working without any restraint." Of this he boasted, and suffered no man to rob him of such glory '^ — certainly with no view of de- stroying the law, which he proved that another man might use. For behold Marcion, in his blindness, stumbled at the rock whereof our. fathers drank in the wilderness. For since "that rock was Christ,"'* it was, of course, the Creator's, to whom also belonged the people. But why resort to the figure of a sacred sign given by an extraneous god? *« Was it to teach the very truth, that ancient things prefigured the Christ who was to be educed '* out of them? For, being about to take a cursory view of what befell the people (of Israel) he begins with saying: " Now these things happened as examples for us." '^ Now, tell me, were these examples given by the Creator to men belonging to a rival god? Or did one god borrow examples from another, and a hostile one too? He withdraws me to himself in alarm '^ from Him from whom he transfers my allegiance. Will his antagonist make me better disposed to him? Should I now commit the same sins as the people, shall I have to suffer the same penalties, or not? '' But if not the same, how vainly does he propose to me terrors which I shall not have to endure!
From whom, again, shall I have to endure them? If from the Creator, what evils does it appertain to Him to inflict? And how will it happen that, jealous God as He is. He shall punish the man who offends His rival, instead of rather encouraging'"' him. If, how- ever, from the other god — but /le knows not how to punish. So that the whole declaration of the apostle lacks a reasonable basis, if it is not meant to relate to the Creator's discipline. But the fact is, the apostle's conclusion corre- sponds to the beginning: " Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."^' What a Creator! how prescient already, and considerate in warning Christians who belong to another god! Whenever cavils occur the like to those which have been already dealt with, I pass them by; certain others I de- spatch briefly. A great argument for another god is the permission to eat of all kinds of meats, contrary to the law."^ Just as if we did not ourselves allow that the burdensome 12 Gratis.
'5 Figuram extranei sacramenti.
>6 Recensendum.
>8 Me terret sibi.
^ Magis quam foveat.
CHAP. VIII.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
ordinances of the law were abrogated — but by Him who imposed them, who also promised the new condition of things.' The same, therefore, who prohibited meats, also restored the use of them, just as He had indeed al- lowed them from the beginning. If, however, some strange god had come to destroy our God, his foremost prohibition would certainly have been, that his own votaries should ab- stain from supporting their lives on the re- sources of his adversary.
CHAP. VIII. MAN THE IMAGE OF THE CREATOR, AND CHRIST THE HEAD OF THE MAN. SPIRIT- UAL GIFTS. THE SEVENFOLD SPIRIT DE- SCRIBED BY ISAIAH. THE APOSTLE AND THE PROPHET COMPARED. MARCION CHALLENGED TO PRODUCE ANYTHING LIKE THESE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT FORETOLD IN PROPHECY IN HIS GOD.
"The head of every man is Christ."'' What Christ, if He is not the author of man? The head he has here put for authority; now " authority " will accrue to none else than the "author." Of what man indeed is He the head? Surely of him concerning whom he adds soon afterwards: "The man ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image of God." ^ Since then he is the im- age of the Creator (for He^ when looking on Christ His Word, who was to become man, said, " Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness"''), how can I possibly have another head but Him whose image I am? For if I am the image of the Creator, there is no room in me for another head. But wherefore "ought the woman to have power over her head, because of the an- gels?"s If it is because "she was created for the rnan,"*and taken out of the man, according to the Creator's purpose, then in this way too has the apostle maintained the discipline of that God from whose institution he explains the reasons of His discipline. He adds: " Because of the angels." ^ What an- gels? In other words, whose angels? If he means the fallen angels of the Creator,^ there is great propriety in his meaning. It is right that that face which was a snare to them should wear some mark of a humble guise and obscured beauty. If, however, the angels of the rival god are referred to, what fear is there for them? for not even Marcion's disciples, (to say nothing of his angels,) have ' Novationera.
* See more concerning these in chap, xviii. of this book. Comp.
any desire for women. We have often shown before now, that the apostle classes heresies as evil 9 among "works of the flesh," and that he would have those persons accounted estimable" who shun heresies as an evil thing. In like manner, when treating of the gospel," we have proved from the sacrament of the bread and the cup '^ the verity of the Lord's body and blood in opposition to Mar- cion's phantom; whilst throughout almost the whole of my work it has been contended that all mention of judicial attributes points con- clusively to the Creator as to a God who judges. Now, on the subject of " spiritual gifts," '3 I have to remark that these also were promised by the Creator through Christ; and I think that we may derive from this a very just conclusion that the bestowal of a gift is not the work of a god other than Him who is proved to have given the promise. Here is a prophecy of Isaiah "There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a flower'" shall spring up from his root; and upon Him shall rest the Spirit of the Lord." After which he enumerates the special gifts of the same "The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of re- ligion.'s And with the fear of the Lord '^ shall the Spirit fill Him." '^ In this figure of a flmver he shows that Christ was to arise out of the rod which sprang from the stem of Jesse; in other words, from the virgin of the race of David, the son of Jesse. In this Christ the whole substantia of the Spirit would have to rest, not meaning that it would be as it were some subsequent acquisition accruing to Him who was always, even before His in- carnation, the Spirit of God;'^ so that you cannot argue from this that the prophecy has reference to that Christ who (as mere man of the race only of David) was to obtain the Spirit of his God. (The prophet says,) on the contrary, that from the time when (the true Christ) should appear in the flesh as the flower predicted, ^"^ rising from the root of Jesse, there would have to rest upon Him the entire operation of the Spirit of grace, which, so far as the Jews were concerned, would cease and come to an end. This result the case itself shows; for after this time the Spirit 10 Probabiles: " approved."
»• See above, in book iv. chap. xl.
'2 Luke xxii. 15-20 and i Cor. xi. 23-29.
'S Religionis: Sept. euo-e^eias.
»6 Timor Dei: Sept. ^6^a% 6eoO.
»8 We have more than once shown that by Tertullian and other ancient fathers, the divine nature of Christ was frequently desig- nated " Spirit."
19 Floruisset in carne.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book Vof the Creator never breathed amongst them. From Judah were taken away " the wise man, and the cunning artificer, and the counsellor, and the prophet;"' that so it might prove true that " the law and the prophets were until John."^ Now hear how he declared that by Christ Himself, when returned to heaven, these spiritual gifts were to be sent: " He ascended up on high," that is, into heaven; " He led captivity captive," meaning death or slavery of man; " He gave gifts to the sons of men," ^ that is, the gratuities, which we call charismata. He says specifically ^^ sons of men," * and not men promiscuously; thus ex- hibiting to us those who were the children of men truly so called, choice men, apostles. *'For," says he, "I have begotten you through the gospel; "^ and " Ye are my chil- dren, of whom I travail again in birth." ^ Now was absolutely fulfilled that promise of the Spirit which was given by the word of Joel: " In the last days will I pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and their daughters shall prophesy; and upon my ser- vants and upon my handmaids will I pour out of my Spirit." 7 Since, then, the Creator promised the gift of His Spirit in the latter days; and since Christ has in these last days appeared as the dispenser of spiritual gifts (as the apostle says, "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son;"® and again, "This I say, brethren, that the time is short ' ''), it evidently fol- lows in connection with this prediction of the last days, that this gift of the Spirit belongs to Him who is the Christ of the predicters. Now compare the Spirit's specific graces, as they are described by the apostle, and prom- ised by the prophet Isaiah. "To one is given," says he, "by the Spirit the word of wisdom;" this we see at once is what Isaiah declared to be " the spirit of wisdom." " To another, the word of knowledge;" this will be " the (prophet's) spirit of understanding and counsel." "To another, faith by the same Spirit; " this will be " the spirit of relig- ion and the fear of the Lord." "To an- other, the gifts of healing, and to another the working of miracles; " this will be " the spirit of might." "To another prophecy, to an- other discerning of spirits, to another divers kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues;" this will be " the spirit of knowl- * He argues from his own rending, Jliii's hominum.
7 Joel ii. 28, 29, applied by St. Peter, Acts ii. 17, 18.
9 1 Cor. vii. 29. [The verse filled out by the translator.] '0 Corap. I Cor. xii. 8-1 1 and Isa, xi. 1-3.
edge."'° See how the apostle agrees with the prophet both in making the distribution of the one Spirit, and in interpreting His special graces. This, too, I may confidently say: he who has likened the unity of our body throughout its manifold and divers members to the compacting together of the various gifts of the Spirit," shows also that there is but one Lord of the human body and of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit, (according to the apostle's showing,)" meant not'^ that the service '•* of these gifts should be in the body,'s nor did He place them in the human body); and on the subject of the superiority of love'* above all these gifts. He even taught the apostle that it was the chief command- ment,'^ just as Christ has shown it to be: "Thou shalt love the Lord with all thine heart and soul,'® with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thine own self." '' When he mentions the fact that " // iswrittc7i in the law" ^° how that the Cre- ator would speak with other tongues and other lips, whilst confirming indeed the gift of ton- gues by such a mention, he yet cannot be thought to have affirmed that the gift was that of another god by his reference to the Creator's prediction.^' In precisely the same manner," when enjoining on women silence in the church, that they speak not for the mere sake ^ of learning ^* (although that even they have the right of prophesying, he has already shown -^ when he covers the woman that prophesies with a veil), he goes to the law for his sanction that woman should be un- der obedience. =* Now this law, let me say once for all, he ought to have made no other acquaintance with, than to destroy it. But that we may now leave the subject of spiritual gifts, facts themselves will be enough to prove which of us acts rashly in claiming them for his God, and whether it is possible that they are opposed to our side, even if "^ the Creator promised them for His Christ who is not yet revealed, as being destined only for the Jews, to have their operations in His time, in His Christ, and among His people. Let Marcion " I Cor. xii. 12-30, compared with Eph. iv. 16.
"2 This seems to be the force of the subjunctive verb noluerit.
'3 Noluerit.
'4 Meritum.
'5 They are spiritual gifts, not endowments of body.
'* De dilectione praeferenda.
'8 Totis praecordiis.
20 " Here, as in John x. 34, xii. 34, xv. 25, ' the law ' is used for the Old Testament generally, instead of being, as usual, confined to the Pentateuch. The passage is from Isa. xxviii. n " (Dean Stanley, On the Corinthians, in loc).
»iEque.
■«3 Duntaxat gratia.
26 I Cor. xiv. 34, where Gen. iii. 16 is referred to.
27 Et si: These words introduce the Marcionite theory.
CHAP, IX.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some prophets, such as have not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God, such as have both pre- dicted things to come, and have made mani- fest' the secrets of the heart;- let him pro- duce a psalm, a vision, a prayer ^ — only let it be by the Spirit,-* in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture,s whenever an interpretation of ton- gues has occurred to him; let him show to me also, that any woman of boastful tongue * in his community has ever prophesied from amongst those specially holy sisters of his. Now all these signs (of spiritual gifts) are forth- coming from my side without any diiificulty, and they agree, too, with the rules, and the dispensations, and the instructions of the Cre- ator; therefore without doubt the Christ, and the Spirit, and the apostle, belong severally ^ to my God. Here, then, is my frank avowal for any one who cares to require it.
CHAP. IX. — THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURREC- TION. THE BODY WILL RISE AGAIN. CHRIST' S JUDICIAL CHARACTER. JEWISH PERVERSIONS OF PROPHECY EXPOSED AND CONFUTED. MESSIANIC PSALMS VINDICATED. JEWISH AND RATIONALISTIC INTERPRETATIONS ON THIS POINT SIMILAR. JESUS NOT HEZEKIAH OR SOLOMON THE SUBJECT OF THESE PROPHE- CIES IN THE PSALMS. NONE BUT HE IS THE CHRIST OF THE OLD AND THE NEW TESTA- MENTS.
Meanwhile the Marcionite will exhibit noth- ing of this kind; he is by this time afraid to say which side has the better right to a Christ who is not yet revealed. Just as my Christ is to be expected,* who was predicted from the beginning, so his Christ therefore has no existence, as not having been announced from the beginning. Ours is a better faith, which believes in a future Christ, than the heretic's, which has none at all to believe in. Touch- ing the resurrection of the dead,' let us first inquire how some persons then denied it. No doubt in the same way in which it is even now denied, since the resurrection of the flesh has at all times men to deny it. But many wise men claim for the soul a divine nature, and are confident of its undying destiny, and even the multitude worship the dead '° in the ' Traduxerint.
' Traduxerint.
♦ Duntaxa*, spiritalem: These words refer to the previous ones, " not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God." [Of course here is a touch of his fanaticism; but, he bases it on (i Cor. xiv.) a mere question of fact: had these charisfnata ceased?]
5 Amentia.
* He here argues, as it will be readily observed, from the Mar- cionite theory alluded to, near the end of the last chapter.
•oSee his treatise, De Resur. Carnis, chap. i. (Oehler). " Ad allusion to the deaths of martyrs.
presumption which they boldly entertain that their souls survive. As for our bodies, how- ever, it is manifest that they perish either at once by fire or the wild beasts," or even when most carefully kept by length of time. When, therefore, the apostle refutes those who deny the resurrection of the flesh, he indeed de- fends, in opposition to them, the precise mat- ter of their denial, that is, the resurrection of the body. You have the whole answer wrapped up in this.'= All the rest is superfluous. Now in this very point, which is called the resurrection of the dead, it is requisite that the proper force of the words should be ac- curately maintained. '3 The word dead ex- presses simply what has lost the vital princi- ple,'* by means of which it used to live. Now the body is that which loses life, and as the result of losing it becomes dead. To the body, therefore, the term dead is only suitable. More- over, as resurrection accrues to what is dead, and dead is a term applicable only to a body, therefore the body alone has a resurrection incidental to it. So again the word Resurrec- tion, or {rising again), embraces only that which has fallen down. "To rise," indeed, can be predicated of that which has never fallen down, but had already been always lying down. But " to rise again" is predicable only of that which has fallen down; because it is by rising again, in consequence of its having fallen down, that it is said to have r<?-risen.'5 For the syllable RE always implies iteration (or happening again). We say, therefore, that the body falls to the ground by death, as indeed facts themselves show, in accordance with the law of God. For to the body it was said, (" Till thou return to the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for) dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."'^ That, there- fore, which came from the ground shall return to the ground. Now that falls down which returns to the ground; and that rises again which falls down. " Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection." '^ Here in the word ma?i, who consists of bodily sub- stance, as we have often shown already, is presented to me the body of Christ. But if we are all so made alive in Christ, as we die in Adam, it follows of necessity that we are made alive in Christ as a bodily substance, since we died in Adam as a bodily substance. The similarity, indeed, is not complete, un- less our revival '* in Christ concur in identity «2 Compendio.
•3 Defendi.
'4 Animam.
»5 The reader will readily see how the English fails to complete the illustration with the ease of the Latin, '■'■surgere^^ " iterum surzere" " resur^re" 'oGen. iii. 19. [* Was not said unto the Soul — says our own Long^fellow, in corresponding words.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
BOOK V.
of substance with our mortality ' in Adam. But at this point ^ (the apostle) has made a parenthetical statement ^ concerning Christ, which, bearing as it does on our present dis- cussion, must not pass unnoticed. For the resurrection of the body will receive all the better proof, in proportion as I shall succeed in showing that Christ belongs to that God who is believed to have provided this resur- rection of the flesh in His dispensation. When he says, " For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet," " we can see at once ^ from this statement that he speaks of a God of vengeance, and therefore of Him who made the following promise to Christ: " Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool. The rod of Thy strength shall the Lord send forth from Sion, and He shall rule along with Thee in the midst of Thine enemies."* It is neces- sary for me to lay claim to those Scriptures which the Jews endeavour to deprive us of, and to show that they sustain my view. Now they say that this Psalm ^ was a chant in honour of Hezekiah,^ because "he went up to the house of the Lord,"^ and God turned back and removed his enemies. Therefore, (as they further hold,) those other words, " Before the morning star did I beget thee from the womb," '° are applicable to Heze- kiah, and to the birth of Hezekiah. We on our side" have published Gospels (to the credibility of which we have to thank '^ them '3 ' Mortificatio.
2 Adhuc.
3 Interposuit aliquid.
5 Jam quidem.
8 In Ezechiam cecinisse.
9 2 Kings xix.i4; but the words are, " quia is sederit ad dex- teram templi," a sentence which occurs neither in the LXX. nor the original.
'oTertuUian, as usual, argues from the Septuagint, which in the latter clause of Ps. ex. 3 has Ik ya<TTp'oi; npb eia<r^6po« iyivvy](ra <Te; and so the Vuigate version has it. This Psalm has been vari- ously applied by the Jews. Raschi (or Rabbi Sol. Jarchi) thinks it is most suitable to Abraham^ and possibly to David, in which latter view D. Kimchi agrees with him. Others find in Solomon the best application; but more frequently is Hezekiah thought to be the subject of the Psalm, as Tertullian observes. Justin Mar- tyr (in Dial, cum Tryph.) also notices this apphcation of the Psalm. But Tertullian in the next sentence appears to recognize the sounder opinion of the older Jews, who saw m this Ps. c.\. a prediction of Messiah. This opmion occurs in the Jerusalem Talmud, in the tract Berachoik, 5. Amongst the tnore recent Jews who also hold the sounder view, may be mentioned Rabbi Saadias Gaon, on Dan. vii. 13, and R. Moses Hadarsan (singularly enough quoted by Raschi in another part of his commentary (Gen. XXXV. 8), with others who are mentioned by Wetstein, On the New Testament, Matt. xxii. 44. Modern Jews, such as Moses Mendelsohn, reject the Messianic sense; and they are followed by the commentators of the Rationalist school amongst ourselves and in Germany. J. Olshausen, after Hitzig, comes down in his inter- pretation of the Psalm as late as the Maccabees, and sees a suitable accomplishment of its words in the honours heaped upon Jonathan by Alexander son of Antiochts Epiphanes (see i Mace. x. 20). For the refutation of so inadeqi'ate a commentary, the reader is referred to Delitzsch on Ps. ex. The variations of opinion, how- ever, in this school, are as remarkable as the fluctuations of the Jew- ish writers. The latest work on the P.salms which has appeared amongst us {Psalms, chronologically Hrranged, by four Friends), after Ewald, places the accomplishment of Ps. ex. in what may be allowed to have been its occasion — David's victories over the neigh- boring heathen. '• Nos.
for having given some confirmation, indeed, already in so great a subject '4); and these declare that the Lord was born at flight, that so it might be " before the morning star," as is evident both from the star especially, and from the testimony of the angel, who at night announced to the shepherds that Christ had at that moment been born,'s and again from the place of the birth, for it is towards night that persons arrive at the (eastern) " inn." Perhaps, too, there was a mystic purpose in Christ's being born at night, destined, as He was, to be the light of the truth amidst tht, dark shadows of ignorance. Nor, again, would God have said, " I have begotten Thee," except to His true Son. For although He says of all the people (Israel), " I have begotten'* children," '^ yet He added not " from the womb." Now, why should He have added so superfluously this phrase " from the womb" (as if there could be any doubt about any one's having been born from the womb), unless the Holy Ghost had wished the words to be with especial care '® under- stood of Christ? "I have begotten Thee from the womb," that is to sa.y,jFrofn a womb only, without a man's seed, making it a con- dition of a fleshly body '« that it should come out of a womb. What is here added (in the Psalm), "Thou art a priest for ever," ^ re- lates to (Christ) Himself. Hezekiah was no priest; and even if he had been one, he would not have been a priest for ever. "After the order," says He, "of Melchizedek." Now what had Hezekiah to do with Melchizedek, the priest of the most high God, and him un- circumcised too, who blessed the circumcised Abraham, after receiving from him the offer- ing of tithes? To Christ, however, "the order of Melchizedek " will be very suitable; for Christ is the proper and legitimate High Priest of God. He is the Pontiff of the priest- hood of the uncircumcision, constituted such, even then, for the Gentiles, by whom He was to be more fully received, although at His last coming He will favour with His accept- ance and blessing the circumcision also, even the race of Abraham, which by and by is to acknowledge Him. Well, then, there is also another Psalm, which begins with these words: " Give Thy judgments, O God, to the King,'' that is, to Christ who was to come as King, "and Thy righteousness unto the King's