who are justified by faith in Christ and not by the law to have peace with God.^ With what God? Him whose enemies we have never, in any dispensation,' been? Or Him against whom we have rebelled, both in re- lation to His written law and His law of nat- ure? Now, as peace is only possible towards Him with whom there once was war, we shall be both justified by Him, and to Him also will belong the Christ, in whom we are justified by faith, and through whom alone God's '° enemies can ever be reduced to peace. " Moreover," says he, " the law entered, that * Metens.
6 Tunc.
8 Tertullian, by the word "enjoins " (monet), seems to have read the passage in Rom. v. i in the hortatory sense with ixu>ixev^ " Ui us have peace with God." If so, his authority must be added to that exceedingly strong ms. authority which Dean Alford (Greek Test, in loc.) regrets to find overpowering the received reading of i\o\i.iv^ " tve have" etc. We subjoin Alford's critical note in support of the «x"/'^"'i which (with Lachmann) he yet admits into his more recent text: " AB (originally) CDKLfh (originally) m \^ latt (including F-lat); of the versions the older Syriac (Pes- < hito) and Copt; of the fathers, Chrysostom, Cyril, Theodoret, Damascene, Theophylact, Q^cumenius, Runnus, Pelagius, Oro- sius, Augustine, Cassiodorus," before whom I would insert Ter- tullian, and the Codex Sinaiticus, in its original state; although, Kke its great rival in authority, the Codex J 'a/iearties, it afterwards received the reading txoiiev. These second readings of these Mss., and the later Syriac (Philoxenian), with Epiphanius, Didymus, Bnd Sedulius, are the almost only authorities quoted for the re- ceived text. [Dr. H. over-estimate* the " rival Codices."]
9Nusquam. 'o Ejus.
the offence might abound." " And wherefore this? "In order," he says, "that (where sin abounded), grace might much more abound." " Whose grace, if not of that God from whom also came the law? Unless it be, forsooth, that '3 the Creator intercalated His law for the mere purpose of '•» producing some employment for the grace of a rival god, an enemy to Himself (I had almost said, a god unknown to Him), " that as sin had " in His own dispensation '^ " reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto (eternal) life by Jesus Christ,"'* His own antagonist! For this (I suppose it was, that) the law of the Creator had " concluded all under sin,"'' and had brought in "all the world as guilty (before God)," and had " stopped every mouth,'^ so that none could glory through it, in order that grace might be maintained to the glory of the Christ, not of the Creator, but of Marcion! I may here anticipate a remark about the substance of Christ, in the prospect of a question which will now turn up. For he says that "we are dead to the law."'' It may be contended that Christ's body is indeed a body, but not exactly^ flesh. Now, whatever may be the substance, since he mentions "the body of Christ,""' whom he immediately after states to have been " raised from the dead," -- none other body can be understood than that of the flesh, "3 in respect of which the law was called (the law) of death."* But, behold, he bears testimony to the law, and excuses it on the ground of sin: " What shall we say, therefore? Is the law sin? God forbid." "^ Fie on you, Marcion, "God forbid!" (See how) the apostle recoils from all impeachment of the law. I, however, have no acquaintance with sin except through the law."* But how high an encomium of the law (do we obtain) from »3 Nisi si: an ironical particle.
'4 Ideo ut.
15 Apud ipsum.
19 Rom. vii. 4, also Gal. ii. 19. This (although a quotation) is here a Marcionite argument; but there is no need to suppose, with Pamelius, that Marcion tampers with Rom. vi. 2. Oehler also supposes that this is the passage quoted. But no doubt it is a correct quotation from the seventh chapter^ as we have in- dicated.
20 Statim (or, perhaps, in respect of the derivation,) " firmly " or " stedfastly.^' 2' Ejus.
23 In this argument Tertullian applies with good effect the terms " flesh " and " body," making the first (which he elsewhere calls the '■ terrena materia " of our nature {ad Uxor. i. 4) ) the proof of the reality of the second, in opposition to Marcion"s Docetic error. " Sipf is not = ctwho, but as in John i. 14, the material of which man is in the body compounded " (Alford).
-4 Compare the first part of ver. 4 with vers. 5 and 6 and viii.
=* This, which is really the second clause of Rom. vii. 7, seems to be here put as a Marcionite argument of disparagement to the law.
CHAP. XIV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
this fact, that by it there comes to light the latent presence of sin! ' It was not the law, therefore, which led me astray, but "sin, taking occasion by the commandment." "^ Why then do you, (O Marcion,) impute to the God of the law what His apostle dares not impute even to the law itself? Nay, he adds a climax: " The law is holy, and its command- ment just and good." ^ Now if he thus rever- ences the Creator's law, I am at a loss to know how he can destroy the Creator Himself. Who can draw a distinction, and say that there are two gods, one just and the other good, when He ought to be believed to be both one and the other, whose commandment is both *'^ just and good! " Then, again, when affirm- ing the law to be "spiritual"'' he thereby implies that it is prophetic, and that it is fig- urative. Now from even this circumstance I am bound to conclude that Christ was pre- dicted by the law but figuratively, so that indeed He could not be recognised by all the Jews.
chap. xiv. — the divine power shown in Christ's incarnation. meaning of st. Paul's phrase, likeness of sinful flesh. NO docetism in it. resurrection of our real bodies. a WIDE CHASM MADE IN THE epistle by MARCION'S ERASURE. WHEN THE JEWS ARE UPBRAIDED BY THE APOSTLE FOR THEIR MISCONDUCT TO GODj INASMUCH AS THAT GOD WAS THE CREATOR, A PROOF IS IN FACT GIVEN THAT ST. PAUL'S GOD WAS THE CREATOR. THE PRECEPTS AT THE END OF THE EPISTLE, WHICH MARCION ALLOWED, SHOWN TO BE IN EXACT ACCORDANCE WITH THE creator's SCRIPTURES.
If the Father "sent His Son in the Uke- ness of sinful flesh," s it must not therefore be said that the flesh which He seemed to have was but a phantom. For he in a previous verse ascribed sin to the flesh, and made it out to be " the law of sin dwelHng in his members," and "warring against the law of the mind." * On this account, therefore, (does he mean to say that) the Son was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, that He might redeem this sinful flesh by a like substance, even a fleshly one, which bare a resemblance to sinful flesh, al- though it was itself free from sin. Now this will be the very perfection of divine power to effect the salvation (of man) in a nature like his own. 7 For it would be no great matter if the Spirit of God remedied the flesh; but when ■ Per quam liquuit delictum latere: a playful paradox, in the manner of our author, between liguere and latere.
6 Sensus voos in Rom. vii. 23.
7 Pari.
a flesh, which is the very copy* of the sinning substance — itself flesh also — only without sin, (effects the remedy, then doubtless it is a great thing). The likeness, therefore, will have reference to the quality ' of the sinful- ness, and not to any falsity '° of the substance. Because he would not have added the attribute "sinful,"" if he meant the " likeness " to be so predicated of the substance as to deny the verity thereof; in that case he would only have used the word " flesh," and omitted the "sinful." But inasmuch as he has put the two together, and said "sinful flesh," (or "flesh of sin,") "he has both affirmed the substance, that is, the flesh and referred the like- ness to the fault of the substance, that is, to its sin. But even suppose '^ that the likeness was predicated of the substance, the truth of the said substance will not be thereby denied. Why then call the true substance like? Be- cause it is indeed true, only not of a seed of like condition '" with our own; but true still, as being of a nature '^ not really unlike ours.'* And again, in contrary things there is no like- ness. Thus the likeness of flesh would not be called spirit, because flesh is not suscepti- ble of any likeness to spirit; but it would be called phantom, if it seemed to be that which it really was not. It is, however, called like- ness, since it is what it seems to be. Now it is (what it seems to be), because it is on a par with the other thing (with which it is com- pared).'' But a phantom, which is merely such and nothing else,'^ is not a likeness. The apostle, however, himself here comes to our aid; for, while explaining in what sense he would not have us " live in the flesh," 10 Mendacium.
" This vindication of these terms of the apostle from Docetism is important. The word which our A.V. has translated sinful is a stronger term in the original. It is not the adjective a/xapruAoC, but the substantive a/naprias, amounting to " flesh of sin," i.e. (as Dean Alford interprets it) " the flesh whose attribute and char- acter is sin.^' "The words iv o/uoiw/xaTi (rapKot a^iapTta?, De Wette observes, appear almost to border on Docetism, but in reality contain a perfectly true and consistent sentiment; <rdp| a/tiaprtas; is flesh, or human nature, possessed with sin...The likeness, predicated in Rom. viji. ^, must be referred not only to aip^, but also to the epithet t^s a/xapriaf " (Greek Testa- ment, in loc).
i^Carnis peccati.
13 Puta nunc.
u Statu.
15 Censu: perhaps " birth." This word, which originally means the censor s registration, is by our author often used for origo and natura, because in the registers were inserted the birthdays and the parents' names (Oehler).
"6 It is better that we should give the original of this sentence. Its structure is characteristically difficult, although the general sense, as Oehler suggests, is clear enough: " Quia vera quidem, sed non ex semine de statu simili (similis, Latinius and Junius and Sentler), sed vera de censu non vero dissimili (dissimilis, the older reading and Scmler's).'' We add the note of Fr. Junius: " The meaning is, that Christ's flesh is true indeed, in what they call the identity of its substance, although not of its origin (ortus) and qualities — not of its origin, because not of a (father's) seed, as in the case of ourselves; not of qualities, because these have not in Him the like condition which they have in us."
•7 Dum alterius par est.
»8 Qua hoc tantum est.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book v.
although in the flesh — even by not living in the works of the flesh ' — he shows that when he wrote the words, " Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,"^' it was not with the view of condemning the substance (of the flesh), but the works thereof; and be- cause it is possible for these not to be com- mitted by us whilst we are still in the flesh, they will therefore be properly chargeable, ^ not on the substance of the flesh, but on its conduct. Likewise, if "the body indeed is dead because of sin " (from which statement, we see that not the death of the soul is meant, but that of the body), "but the spirit is life because of righteousness,"* // y<?/^a:/j that this life accrues to that which incurred death because of sin, that is, as we have just seen, the body, '^o-^ the body ^ \% only restored to him who had lost it; so that the resurrection of the dead implies the resurrection of their bodies. He accordingly subjoins: " He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies."* In these words he both affirmed the resurrection of the flesh (without which nothing can rightly be called 7 body, nor can anything be properly regarded as mortal), and proved the bodily substance of Christ; inasmuch as our own mortal bodies will be quickened in precisely the same way as He was raised; and that was in no other way than in the body. I have here a very wide gulf of expunged Scripture to leap across;^ however, I alight on the place where the apostle bears record of Israel "that they have a zeal of God" — their own God, of course — "but not accord- ing to knowledge. For," says he, " being ignorant of (the righteousness of) God, and going about to establish their own righteous- ness, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God; for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." « Hereupon we shall be con- fronted with an argument of the heretic, that the Jews were ignorant of the superior God,'" since, in opposition to him, they set up their own righteousness — that is, the righteousness of their law — not receiving Christ, the end (or 3 Non ad reatum substantis sed ad conversationis pertinebunt.
5 Understand "corpus" (Oehler).
7 Dici capit: capif, like the Greek eV5«'x«Toi, means, " is capable or susceptible; '" often so in Tertullian.
8 We do not know from either Tertulhan or Epiphanius what mutilations Marcion made in this epistle. This particular gap did not extend further than from Rom. viii. 11 to x. 2. " How- ever, we are informed by Origen (or rather Rufinus in his edition of Origen's commentary on this epistle, on xiv. 23) that Marcion omitted the last two chapters as spurious, ending this epistle of his Apostolicon with the 23d verse of chap. xiv. It is also observable that Tertul'ian quotes no passage from chaps, xv. xvi. in his confutation of Marcion from this epistle "' ([.ardner).
'J The god of the New Testament, according to Marcion.
finisher) of the law. But how then is it that he bears testimony to their zeal for their own God, if it is not in respect of the same God that he upbraids them for their ignorance? They were affected indeed with zeal for God, but it was not an intelligent zeal: they were, in fact, ignorant of Him, because they were ignorant of His dispensations by Christ, who was to bring about the consummation of the law; and in this way did they maintain their own righteousness in opposition to Him. But so does the Creator Himself testify to their ignorance concerning Him: " Israel hath not known me; my people have not understood me; " " and as to their preferring the estab- lishment of their own righteousness, (the Cre- ator again describes them as) " teaching for doctrines the commandments of men;" '- moreover, as "having gathered themselves together against the Lord and against His Christ " '3 — from ignorance of Him, of course. Now nothing can be expounded of another god which is applicable to the Creator; other- wise the apostle would not have been just in reproaching the Jews with ignorance in respect of a god of whom they knew nothing. For where had been their sin, if they only main- tained the righteousness of their own God against one of whom they were ignorant?
But he exclaims: " O the depth of the riches and the wisdom of God; how unsearchable also are His ways! " '■* Whence this outburst of feeling? Surely from the recollection of the Scriptures, which he had been previously turning over, as well as from his contempla- tion of the mysteries which he had been set- ting forth above, in relation to the faith of Christ coming from the law.'^ If Marcion had an object in his erasures,"^ why does his apostle utter such an exclamation, because his god has no riches for him to contemplate? So poor and indigent was he, that he created nothing, predicted nothing — in short, pos- sessed nothing; for it was into the world of another God that he descended. The truth is, the Creator's resources and riches, which once had been hidden, were now disclosed. For so had He promised: "I will give to them treasures which have been hidden, and which men have not seen will I open to them."'' Hence, then, came the exclama- '5 In fidem Christi ex lege venientem. By " the law " he means the Old Testament in general, and probably refers to Rom. x. 17.
■6 Rigaltius (after Kulvius Ursinus) read " non erasit," but with insuflficient authority; besides, the context shows that he was re- ferring to the large erasure which he had already mentioned,.so that the non is inadmissible. Marcion must, of course, be under- stood to have retained Rom. xi. 33; hence the argument in this sentence.
CHAl". XV.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
tion, " O the depth of the riches and the wis- dom of God! " For His treasures were now opening out. This is the purport of what Isaiah said, and of (the apostle's. own) sub- sequent quotation of the self-same passage, of the prophet: " Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsel- lor? Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him again?"' Now, (Marcion,) since you have expunged so much from the Scriptures, why did you retain these words, as if they too were not the Creator's words? But come now, let us see without mistake^ the precepts of your new god: "Abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good." ^ Well, is the precept different in the Creator's teaching? " Take away the evil from you, depart from it, and be doing good." " Then again: " Be kindly affectioned one to another with broth- erly love."s Now is not this of the same import as: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self?"^ (Again, your apostle says:) "Rejoicing in hope;"'' that is, of God. So says the Creator s Psalmist: "It is better to hope in the Lord, than to hope even in princes."^ " Patient in tribulation." ^ You have (this in) the Psalm: "The Lord hear thee in the day of tribulation." '° "Bless, and curse not," " (says your apostle.) But what better teacher of this will you find than Him who created all things, and blessed them? "Mind not high things, but conde- scend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits."" For against such a disposition Isaiah pronounces a woe.'^ " Rec- ompense to no man evil for evil."''' (Like unto which is the Creator's precept:) " Thou shalt not remember thy brother's evil against thee." '^ (Again:) "Avenge not your- selves;"'^ for it is tvritten, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." '' " Live peaceably with all men."'^ The retaliation of the law, therefore, permitted not retribu- tion for an injury; it rather repressed any attempt thereat by the fear of a recompense. "Very properly, then, did he sum up the en- 1 Isa. xl. 13, quoted (according to the Sept.) by the apostle in 2 Plane: ironically.
7 Rom. xii. tz.
8 Ps. cxviii. 9.
>7 Rom. xii. 19, quoted from Deut. xxxii. *$, tire teaching of the Creator in this precept of His: " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- self." '' Now, if this is the recapitulation of the law from the very law itself, I am at a loss to know who is the God of the law. I fear He must be Marcion's god (after all).^ If also the gospel of Christ is fulfilled in this same precept, but not the Creator's Christ, what is the use of our contending any longer whether Christ did or did not say, " I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it?"=' In vain has (our man of) Pontus laboured to deny this statement." If the gospel has not fulfilled the law, then all I can say is,^' the law has fulfilled the gospel. But it is well that in a later verst he threatens us with " the judgment-seat of Christ," — the Judge, of course, and the Avenger, and therefore the Creator's (Christ). This Creator, too, how- ever much he may preach up another god, he certainly sets forth for us as a Being to be served, =* if he holds Him thus up as an object to be feared.
CHAP. XV. THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSA- LONIANS. THE SHORTER EPISTLES PUNGENT IN SENSE AND VERY VALUABLE. ST. PAUL UPBRAIDS THE JEWS FOR THE DEATH FIRST OF THEIR PROPHETS AND THEN OF CHRIST. THIS A PRESUMPTION THAT BOTH CHRIST AND THE PROPHETS PERTAINED TO THE SAME GOD. THE LAW OF NATURE, WHICH IS IN FACT THE creator's DISCIPLINE, AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST BOTH ENJOIN CHASTITY. THE RESURRECTION PROVIDED FOR IN THE OLD TESTAMENT BY CHRIST. MAN'S COM- POUND NATURE.
I shall not be sorry to bestow attention on the shorter epistles also. Even in brief works there is much pungency. ''s The Jews had slain their prophets.^ I may ask. What has this to do with the apostle of the rival god, one so amiable withal, who could hardly be said to condemn even the failings of his own people; and who, moreover, has himself some hand in making away with the same prophets 20 Ironically said. He has been quoting all along from Mar- cion's text of St. Paul, turning its testimony against Marcion.
22 For although he rejected St. Matthew's Gospel, which con- tains the statement, he retained St. Paul's epistle, from which the statement is clearly proved.
23 Ecce.
24 Promerendum.
25 Sapor. We have here a characteristic touch of his diligent and also intrepid spirit. Epiphanius says this short epistle " was so entirely corrupted by Marcion, that he had himself selected nothing from it whereon to found any refutations of him or of his doctrine." TertuUian, however, was of a different mind; for he has made it evident, that though there were alterations made by Marcion, yet sufficient was left untouched by him to show the ab- surdity of his opinions. Epiphanius and TertuUian entertained, respectively, similar opinions of Marcion's treatment of the second epistle, which the latter discusses in the next chapter (Lardner).
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book v.
whom he is destroying? What injury did Israel commit against him in slaying those whom he too has reprobated, since he was the first to pass a hostile sentence on them? But Israel sinned aginst their own God. He upbraided their iniquity to whom the injured God pertains; and certainly he is anything Imt the adversary of the injured Deity. Else he would not have burdened them with the charge of killing even the Lord, in the words, " Who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets," although (the pronoun) their 07vn be an addition of the heretics." Now, what was there so very acrimonious ^ in their killing Christ the proclaimer of the new god, after they had put to death also the prophets of their own god? The fact, however, of their having slain the Lord and His servants, is put as a case of climax. ^ Now, if it were the Christ of one god and the prophets of another god whom they slew, he would certainly have placed the impious crimes on the same level, instead of mentioning them in the way of a climax; but they did not admit of being put on the same level: the climax, therefore, was only possible * by the sin having been in fact committed against one and the same Lord in the two respective circumstances. ^ To one and the same Lord, then, belonged C'hrist and the prophets. What that " sanc- tification of ours " is, which he declares to be "the will of God," you may discover from the opposite conduct which he forbids. That we should "abstain from fornication," not from marriage; that every one " should know how to possess his vessel in honour."* In what way? " Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles." ^ Concupiscence, however, is not ascribed to marriage even among the Gentiles, but to extravagant, un- natural, and enormous sins.^ The law of nature 9 is opposed to luxury as well as to grossness and uncleanness; '° it does not for- bid connubial intercourse, but concupiscence; and it takes care of " our vessel by the hon- ourable estate of matrimony. This passage (of the apostle) I would treat in such a way as to maintain the superiority of the other and higher sanctity, preferring continence and virginity to marriage, but by no means pro- ' All the best mss., including the Codices Alex., Vat., and Stnaii., omit the iiiou?, as do TertuUian and Origen. Marcion has Chrysostom and the received text, followed by our A. V., with him.
" Amarum.
3 Status exaggerationis.
* Ergo exaggerari non potuit nisi.
5 Ex utroque titulo.
8 Portentuosis.
» The rule of Gentile life.
«> We have here followed Oehler' s reading, which is more in- telligible than the four or five others given by him. " Tractet.
hibiting the latter. For my hostility is di- rected against '- those who are for destroying the God of marriage, not those who follow after chastity. He says that those who " re- main unto the coming of Christ," along with "the dead in Christ, shall rise first," being "caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." '^ I find it was in their foresight of all this, that the heavenly intelligences gazed with admiration on " the Jerusalem which is above," '* and by the mouth of Isaiah said long ago: "Who are these that fly as clouds, and as doves with their young ones, untome?"'s Now, as Christ has prepared for us this ascension into heaven, He must be the Christ of whom Amos '* spoke: "It is He who builds His ascent up to the heav- ens,"'^ even for Himself and His people. Now, from whom shall I expect (the fulfil- ment of) all this, except from Him whom I have heard give the promise thereof? What " spirit " does he forbid us to " quench," and what " prophesyings " to " despise? " '^ Not the Creator's spirit, nor the Creator's prophe- syings, Marcion of course replies. For he has already quenched and despised the thing which he destroys, and is unable to forbid what he has despised. '« It is then incum- bent on Marcion now to display in his church that spirit of his god which must not be quenched, and the prophesyings which must not be despised. And since he has made such a display as he thinks fit, let him know that we shall challenge it whatever it may be to the rule '" of the grace and power of the Spirit and the prophets — namely, to foretell the future, to reveal the secrets of the heart, and to explain mysteries. And when he shall have failed to produce and give proof of any such criterion, we will then on our side bring out both the Spirit and the prophecies of the Creator, which utter predictions according to His will. Thus it will be clearly seen of what the apostle spoke, even of those things which were to happen in the church of his God; and as long as He endures, so long also does His Spirit work, and so long are His promises repeated." Come now, you who deny the salvation of the flesh, and who, when- ever there occurs the specific mention of body in a case of this sort,''- interpret it as meaning " Retundo.
16 Oehler and Fr. Junius here read Amos, but all the other readings give Hosea; but see above, book iii. chap, xxiv., where Amos was read by all.
'9 Nihil fecit. This is precisely St. Paul's t^ovBtvtlv," to ai»> nihilate " (A.V. ''despise"), in i Thess. v. 20.
'•w Formam.
a« Celebratur.
'^^ Si quando corpus in hujus modi praenominatBr.
CHAP. XVI.]
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
anything rather than the substance of the flesh, (tell me) how is it that the apostle has given certain distinct names to all (our facul- ties), and has comprised them all in one prayer for their safety, desiring that our " spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord and Saviour (Jesus) Christ? " ' Now he has here pro- pounded the soul and the body as two several and distinct things. = For although the soul has a kind of body of a quality of its own,^ just as the spirit has, yet as the soul and the body are distinctly named, the soul has its own peculiar appellation, not requiring the common designation of body. This is left for "the fiesh," which having no proper name (in this passage), necessarily makes use of the common designation. Indeed, I see no other substance in man, after spirit and soul, to which the term body can be applied except "the flesh," This, therefore, I understand to be meant by the word "body" — as often as the latter is not specifically named. Much more do I so understand it in the present passage, where the flesh -* is expressly called by the name " body."