Christ of another god, whose mysteries the Creator could not possibly have veiled — un- known mysteries, as they were of an un- known god? So he says that "we now with open face " (meaning the catidour of the heart, which in thejews had been covered with a veil), " beholding Christ, are changed into the same image, from that glory " (wherewith Moses was transfigured as by the glory of the Lord) " to another glory." " By thus setting forth the glory which illumined the person of Moses from his interview with God, and the veil which concealed the same from the infirmity of the people, and by superinducing thereupon the revelation and the glory of the Spirit in the person of Christ — " even as," to use his words, " by the Spirit of the Lord " " — he testifies that the whole Mosaic system " was a figure of Christ, of whom the Jews indeed were ignorant, but who is known to us Chris- tians. We are quite aware that some passages are open to ambiguity, from the way in which they are read, or else from their punctuation, when there is room for these two causes of ambiguity. The latter method has been adopted by Marcion, by reading the passage which follows, "in whom the God of this world," '3 as if it described the Creator as the God of this world, in order that he may, by these words, imply that there is another God for the other world. We, however, say that the passage ought to be punctuated with a comma after God, to this effect: " In whom God hath blinded the eyes of the unbelievers of this world.""* "In whom" means the Jewish unbelievers, from some of whom the gospel is still hidden under Moses' veil. Now it is these whom God had threatened for " loving Him indeed with the lip, whilst their heart was far from Him,"'^ in these angry words: " Ye shall hear with your ears, and not understand; and see with your eyes, but not perceive;"'^ and, " If ye will not believe, ye shall not understand;"''' and again, "I will take away the wisdom of their wise men.
" 2 Cor. iii. 18, but T.'s reading is " tanquam a domino spirituum" (" even as by the Lord of the Spirits," probably the sevenfold Spirit). The original is, Ka.86.-nep a-nh Kvpiov Hvcv/jliito';, " by the Lord the Spirit."
'2 Moysi ordinem totum.
'4 He would stop off the phrase toO aitovoi tovtov from o ©«bs, and remove it to the end of the sentence as a qualification of riov iniaTiov. He adds another interpretation just afterwards, which, we need not say, is both more consistent with the sense of the pas- sage and with the consensus of Christian writers of all ages, al- though " it is historically curious" (as Dean Alford has remarked) " that Irenaeus (Hcrrcs. iv. 48, Origen, TertuUian (v. 11, contra Marcion), Chrysostom, CEcumenius, Theodoret, Theophylact, all repudiate, in their zeal against the Marcinnites and the Manich- sans, the grammatical rendering, and take Tdv airi<TTu>v tov aiitvoi TOVTOV together" (Greek Testament, in loc). [I have corrected Alford's reference to TertuUian which he makes B. iv. it.]
■'> Isa. vi. 10 (only adapted).
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book V, and bring to nought' the understanding of their prudent ones. " But these words, of course, He did not pronounce against them for concealing the gospel of the unknown God. At any rate, if there is a God of this world, ^ He blinds the heart of the unbelievers of this world, because they have not of their own accord recognised His Christ, who ought to be understood from His Scriptures. ^ Con- tent with my advantage, I can willingly refrain from noticing to any greater length * this point of ambiguous punctuation, so as not to give my adversary any advantage, ^ indeed, I might have wholly omitted the discussion. A simpler answer I shall find ready to hand in interpreting " the god of this world " of the devil, who once said, as the prophet describes him: "I will be like the Most High; I will exalt my throne in the clouds."^ The whole superstition, indeed, of this world has got into his hands,7 so that he blinds effectually the hearts of unbelievers, and of none more than the apostate Marcion's. Now he did not ob- serve how much this clause of the sentence made against him: " For God, who com- manded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to (give) the light of the knowledge (of His glory) in the face of (Jesus) Christ." ^ Now who was it that said, ' ' Let there be light? " ^ And who was it that said to Christ concerning giving light to the world: "I have set Thee as a light to the Gentiles"" — to them, that is, "who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death? " " (None else, surely, than He), to whom the Spirit in the Psalm answers, in His foresight of the future, saying, "The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, hath been displayed upon us." " Now the countenance (or per- son '3 ) of the Lord here is Christ. Wherefore the apostle said above: Christ, who is the image of God. " '* Since Christ, then, is the person of the Creator, who said, " Let there be light," it follows that Christ and the apostles, and the gospel, and the veil, and Moses — nay, the whole of the dispensations — belong to the God who is the Creator of this world, accord- ing to the testimony of the clause (above » Sept. Kpixjiot, " will hide."
'Said concessively, in reference to M.'s position above men- tioned.
3 Marcion's "God of this world " being the God of the Old Testament.
4 Hactenus: pro nan amplius (Oehler) tractasse.
5 " A fuller criticism on this slight matter might g^ve his oppo- nent the advantage, as apparently betraying a penury of weigotie. and more certain arguments" (Oehler).
7 Mancipata est illi.
•° Isa. xli.\, 6 (Sept. quoted in Acts xiii. 47).
>3 Persona: the np6(rmnov of the SeptuaginU adverted to), and certainly not to him who never said, " Let there be light. " I here pass over discussion about another epistle, which we hold to have been written to the Ephesians, but the heretics to the Laodiceans. In it he tells 's them to remember, that at the time when they were Gentiles they were with- out Christ, aliens from (the commonwealth of) Israel, without intercourse, without the cove- nants and any hope of promise, nay, without God, even in his own world, '* as the Creator thereof. Since therefore he said, that the Gentiles were without God, whilst their god was the devil, not the Creator, it is clear that he must be understood to be the lord of this world, whom the Gentiles received as their god — not the Creator, of whom they were in ignorance. But how does it happen, that " the treasure which we have in these earthen vessels of ours " ^^ should not be regarded as belonging to the God who owns the vessels? Now since God's glory is, that so great a treasure is contained in earthen vessels, and since these earthen vessels are of the Creator's make, it follows that the glory is the Creator's; nay, since these vessels of His smack so much of the excellency of the power of God, that power itself must be His also! Indeed, all these things have been consigned to the said "earthen vessels " for the very purpose that His excellence might be manifested forth. Henceforth, then, the rival god will have no claim to the glory, and consequently none to the power. Rather, dishonour and weakness will acrue to him, because the earthen vessels with which he had nothing to do have received all the excellency! Well, then, if it be in these very earthen vessels that he tells us we have to endure so great sufferings,'^ in which we bear about with us the very dying of God,'' (Marcion's) god is really ungrateful and un- just, if he does not mean to restore this same substance of ours at the resurrection, wherein so much has been endured in loyalty to him, in which Christ's very death is borne about, wherein too the excellency of his power is treasured.^" For he gives prominence to the statement, " That the life also of Christ may be manifested in our body,"^' as a contrast to the preceding, that His death is borne about in our body. Now of 7tf/iaf life of Christ does he here speak? Of that which we are now living? Then how is it, that in the words which follow he exhorts us not to the things '9 Oehler, after Fr. Junius, defends the reading " raortificationem del" instead of Domini, in reference to Marcion, whosaems to have so corrupted the reading.
CHAP. XII.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
which are seen and are temporal, but to those which are not seen and are eternal' — in other words, not to the present, but to the future? But if it be of the future life of Christ that he speaks, intimating that it is to be made manifest in our body,"" then he has clearly predicted the resurrection of the flesh. 3 He says, too, that " our outward man perishes,"* not meaning by an eternal per- dition after death, but by labours and suffer- ings, in reference to which he previously said, "For which cause we will not faint." ^ Now, when he adds of "the inward man" also, that it "is renewed day by day," he demonstrates both issues here — the wasting away of the body by the wear and tear * of its trials, and the renewal of the soul ' by its contemplation of the promises.
CHAP. XII. THE ETERNAL HOME IN HEAVEN.
BEAUTIFUL EXPOSITION BY TERTULLIAN OF THE apostle's CONSOLATORY TEACHING AGAINST THE FEAR OF DEATH, SO APT TO ARISE UNDER ANTI-CHRISTIAN OPPRESSION. THE JUDGMENT- SEAT OF CHRIST — THE IDEA, ANTI-MARCION- ITE. PARADISE. JUDICIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRIST WHICH ARE INCONSISTENT WITH THE HERETICAL VIEWS ABOUT HIM; THE APOS- TLE's SHARPNESS, OR SEVERITY, SHOWS HIM TO BE A FIT PREACHER OF THE CREATOR'S CHRIST.
As to the house of this our earthly dwell- ing-place, when he says that "we have an eternal home in heaven, not made with hands," * he by no means would imply that, because it was built by the Creator's hand, it must perish in a perpetual dissolution after death. 9 He treats of this subject in order to offer consolation against the fear of death and the dread of this very dissolution, as is even more manifest from what follows, when he adds, that " in this tabernacle of our earthly body we do groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with the vesture which is from heaven," if so be, that having been un- clothed," we shall not be found naked; " in other words, shall regain that of which we have been divested, even our body. And again he says: " We that are in this taber- nacle do groan, not as if we were oppressed " with an unwillingness to be unclothed, but 6 Vexatione.
7 Animi.
9 As Marcion would have men beliere.
11 Despoliati. '* Gravemur.
(we wish) to be clothed upon."'^ He here says expressly, what he touched but lightly '♦ in his first epistle, (where he wrote:) "The dead shall be raised incorruptible " (meaning those who had undergone mortality), "and we shall be changed " (whom God shall find to be yet in the flesh). 's Both those shall be raised incorruptible, because they shall regain their body — and that a renewed one, from which shall come their incorruptibility; and these also shall, in the crisis of the last mo- ment, and from their instantaneous death, whilst encountering the oppressions of anti- christ, undergo a change, obtaining therein not so much a divestiture of body as " a clothing upon ' ' with the vesture which is from heaven.'* So that whilst these shall put on over their (changed) body this heavenly rai- ment, the dead also shall for their part'^ re- cover their body, over which they too have a supervesture to put on, even the incorrup- tion of heaven;'^ because of these it was that he said: "This corruptible must put on in- corruption, and this mortal must put on im- mortality. ' ' '9 The one put on this (heavenly) apparel,^ when they recover their bodies; the others put it on as a supervesture,-' when they indeed hardly lose them (in the suddenness of their change). It was accordingly not without good reason that he described them as "not wishing indeed to be unclothed," but (rather as wanting) "to be clothed upon;"=" in other words, as wishing not to undergo death, but to be surprised into life,^' " that this mortal (body) might be swallowed up of life,"^* by being rescued from death in the supervesture of its changed state. This is why he shows us how much better it is for us not to be sorry, if we should be sur- prised by death, and tells us that we even hold of God "the earnest of His Spirit " ^s (pledged as it were thereby to have " the clothing upon," which is the object of our hope), and that " so long as we are in the flesh, we are absent from the Lord; " =* more- over, that we ought on this account to prefer *'' "rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord,"^^ and so to be ready to meet even death with joy. In this MStrinxit.
•6 Superinduti magis quod de coelo quam ezuti corpus.
'7 Utique et mortui.
'8 De coelo.
20 Induunt.
-' Superinduunt.
*3 Vita prseveniri.
24 2 Cor. V. 4; and sec his treatise, De Resurrect. Carnis. cap. xlii.
27 Boni ducere.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book v.
view it is that he informs us how "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according as he hath done either good or b%d."* Since, however, there is then to be a retribution according to men's merits, how will any be able to reckon with^ God? But by mentioning both the judgment- seat and the distinction between works good and bad, he sets before us a Judge who is to award both sentences, ^ and has thereby af- firmed that all will have to be present at the tribunal in their bodies. For it will be im- possible to pass sentence except on the body, for what has been done in the body. God would be unjust, if any one were not punished or else rewarded in that very condition, '^ wherein the merit was itself achieved. " If therefore any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new;"^ and so is ac- complished the prophecy of Isaiah.* When also he (in a later passage) enjoins us "to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and blood "' (since this substance enters not the kingdom of God^); when, again, he " espouses the church as a chaste virgin to Christ," 5 a spouse to a spouse in very deed,'° an image cannot be combined and compared with what is opposed to the real nature of the thing (with which it is compared). So, when he designates " false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves" into like- nesses of himself," of course by their hypoc- risy, he charges them with the guilt of dis- orderly conversation, rather than of false doctrine." The contrariety, therefore, was one of conduct, not of gods.'^ If " Satan himself, too, is transformed into an angel of light," ^* such an assertion must not be used to the prejudice of the Creator. The Crea- tor is not an angel, but God. Into a god of light, and not an angel of light, must Satan then have been said to be transformed, if he did not mean to call him " the angel," which both we and Marcion know him to be. On Paradise is the title of a treatise of ours, in which is discussed all that the subject admits of. '5 I shall here simply wonder, in connec- ' Deputari cum.
4 Per id, per quod, i. e., corpus.
* Isa. xliii. 19.
7 His reading of 2 Cor. vii. i.
'" Utique ut sponsam sponso.
»2 Pracdicationis adulteratse.
•3 A reference to Marcion's other god of the New Testament, of which he tortured the epistles (and this passage among them) to produce the evidence.
tion with this matter, whether a god who has no dispensation of any kind on earth could possibly have a paradise to call his own — • without perchance availing himself of the paradise of the Creator, to use it as he does His world — much in the character of a men- dicant.'' And yet of the removal of a man from earth to heaven we have an instance af- forded us by the Creator in Elijah. '^ But what will excite my surprise still more is the case (next supposed by Marcion), that a God so good and gracious, and so averse to blows and cruelty, should have suborned the angel Satan — not his own either, but the Creator's — " to buffet " the apostle,'^ and then to have refused his request, when thrice entreated to liberate him! It would seem, therefore, that Marcion's god imitates the Creator's con- duct, who is an enemy to the proud, even " putting down the mighty from their seats." '' Is he then the same God as He who gave Satan power over the person of Job that his " strength might be made perfect in weak- ness? " ^^ How is it that the censurer of the Galatians-' still retains the very formula of the law: " In the mouth of two or three wit- nesses shall every word be established?" ^- How again is it that he threatens sinners "that he will not spare" them^3 — he, the preacher of a most gentle god? Yea, he even declares that "the Lord hath given to him the power of using sharpness in their pres- ence!" ^^ Deny now, O heretic, (at your cost,) that your god is an object to be feared, when his apostle was for making himself so formidable!
CHAP. XIII. — THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. ST. PAUL CANNOT HELP USING PHRASES WHICH BESPEAK THE JUSTICE OF GOD, EVEN WHEN HE IS EULOGIZING THE MERCIES OF THE GOS- PEL. MARCION PARTICULARLY HARD IN HIS MUTILATION OF THIS EPISTLE. VET OUR AUTHOR ARGUES ON COMMON GROUND. THE JUDGMENT AT LAST WILL BE IN ACCORD- ANCE WITH THE GOSPEL. THE JUSTIFIED BY FAITH EXHORTED TO HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE OLD AND THE NEW DISPENSATIONS IN ONE AND THE SAME HAND.
Since my little work is approaching its ter- '5 Patitur. The work here referred to is not extant; it is, how- ever, referred to in the De Aniiiia, c. Iv.
■6 Precario: "that which one must beg for.".See, however, above, book iv. chap. xxii. p. 384, note 8, for a different turn to this word.
'7 2 Kings ii. II.
CItAP. XIII.]
TERTULLIAN ACxAINST MARCION.
inination,' I must treat but briefly the points wliich still occur, whilst those vvliich have so often turned up must be put aside. I regret still to have to contend about the law — after I have so often proved that its replacement (by the gospel) - affords no argument for an- other god, predicted as it was indeed in Christ, and in the Creator's own plans ^ ordained for His Christ. (But I must revert to that dis- cussion) so far as (the apostle leads me, for) this very epistle looks very much as if it abro- gated* the law. We have, however, often shown before now that God is declared by the apostle to be a Judge; and that in the Judge is implied an Avenger; and in the Avenger, the Creator. And so in the passage where he says: " I am not ashamed of the gospel (of Christ): for it is the power of God unto salva- tion to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek; for therein, is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith," s he undoubtedly ascribes both the gospel and salvation to Him whom (in ac- cordance with our heretic's ovm distinction) I have called the just God, not the good one. It is He who removes (men) from confidence in the law to faith in the gospel — that is to say,* His own law and His own gospel.
When, again, he declares that " the wrath (of God) is revealed from heaven against all un- godliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness," ^ (I ask) the wrath of what God? Of the Creator cer- tainly. The truth, therefore, will be His, whose is also the wrath, which has to be re- vealed to avenge the truth. Likewise, when adding, "We are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth," ^ he both vindi- cated that wrath from which comes this judg- ment for the truth, and at the same time af- forded another proof that the truth emanates from the same God whose wrath he attested, by witnessing to His judgment. MarciorC s avertnetit is quite a different matter, that^ the Creator in anger avenges Himself on the truth of the rival god which had been detained in unrighteousness. But what serious gaps Marcion has made in this epistle especially, by withdrawing whole passages at his will, will be clear from the unmutilated text of our own copy.'° It is enough for my purpose to accept in evidence of its truth what he has seen fit to leave unerased, strange instances as they 3 Apud Creatorem.
4 Excludere.
^ Utique.
9 Aliud est si. 10 Nostri instrument!.
are also of his negligence and blindness. If, then, God will judge the secrets of men — both of those who have sinned in the law, and of those who have sinned without law (inasmuch as they who know not the law yet do by nat- ure the things contained in the law) " — surely the God who shall judge is He to whom be- long both the law, and that nature which is the rule" to them who know not the law. But how will He conduct this judgment? " According to my gospel," says (the apostle), " by {Jesus) <Z\iX\%\.r '3 So that both the gospel and Christ must be His, to whom appertain the law and the nature which are to be vindi- cated by the gospel and Christ — even at that judgment of God which, as he previously said, was to be according to truth.'* The wrath, therefore, which is to vindicate truth, can only be revealed from heaven by the God of wrath; '5 so that this sentence, which is quite in accordance with that previous one wherein the judgment is declared to be the Creator's,'* cannot possibly be ascribed to another god who is not a judge, and is incapa- ble of wrath. It is only consistent in Him amongst whose attributes are found the judg- ment and the wrath of which I am speaking, and to whom of necessity must also appertain the media whereby these attributes are to be carried into effect, even the gospel and Christ. Hence his invective against the transgressors of the law, who teach that men should not steal, and yet practise theft themselves.'^ (This invective he utters) in perfect homage'® to the law of God, not as if he meant to cen- sure the Creator Himself with having com- manded '' a fraud to be practised against the Egyptians to get their gold and silver at the very time when He was forbidding men to steal, ^ — adopting such methods as they are apt (shamelessly) to charge upon Him in other particulars also. Are we then to sup- pose" that the apostle abstained through fear from openly calumniating God, from whom notwithstanding He did not hesitate to with- draw men? Well, but he had gone so far in his censure of the Jews, as to point against them the denunciation of the prophet, "Through you the name of God is blas- phemed (among the Gentiles)."" But how absurd, that he should himself blaspheme Him for blaspheming whom he upbraids them 1= Instar legis: " which is as good as a law to them," etc.
•6 See the remarks on verses i6 and 17 above.
18 Ut homo.
20 Ex. XX. 15; see above, book iv. chap. xxiv. p. 387.
2' Scilicet verebatur, TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book v.
as evil-doers! He prefers even circumcision of heart to neglect of it in the flesh. Now it is quite within the purpose of the God of the law that circumcision should be that of the heart, not in the flesh; in the spirit, and not in the letter.' Since this is the circumcision recommended by Jeremiah: "Circumcise (yourselves to the Lord, and take away) the foreskins of your heart;"" and even of Moses: "Circumcise, therefore, the hardness oi your heart, ' ' ^ — the Spirit which circum- cises the heart will proceed from Him who prescribed the letter also which clips * the riesh; and "the Jew which is one inwardly" k\\\ be a subject of the self-same God as he also is who is " a Jew outwardly; " ^ because the apostle would have preferred not to have mentioned a Jew at all, unless he were a ser- vant of the God of the Jews. It was once* the law; now it is " the righteousness of God which is by the faith of (Jesus) Christ."'' What means this distinction? Has your god been subserving the interests of the Creator's dispensation, by affording time to Him and to His law? Is the " Now" in the hands of Him to whom belonged the " The7i "? Sure- ly, then, the law was His, whose is now the righteouness of God. It is a distinction of dispensations, not of gods. He enjoins those