out of one who so completely promotes it.^ "For to create^ in Himself of twain," for He who had made is also the same who creates (just as we have found it stated above: " For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus"),^ "one new man, making peace" (really new, and really man — no phantom — but new, and newly born of a virgin by the Spirit of God), " that He might reconcile both unto God " '° (even the God whom both races had offended — both Jew and Gentile), "in one body," says he, " having in it slain the enmity by the cross." " Thus we find from this passage also, that there was in Christ a fleshly body, such as was able to endure the cross. "When, therefore, He came and preached peace to them that were near and to them which were afar off," we both ob- tained "access to the Father," being " now no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow- citizens with the saints, and of the household "Thou "Thou » This is rather an allusion to, than a quotation of, Isa. xlvi. 12, 13 •4 " The law of commandments contained in ordinances."
5 He expresses the proverbial adage very tersely, " non Marru- cine, sed Pontice."
* Vacuam fecit.
7 Ex adjutore.
^Conderet: "create," to keep up the distinction between this mc\d/acere, " to make."
of God " (even of Him from whom, as we have shown above, we were aliens, and placed far off), " built upon the foundation of the apos- tles " " — (the apostle added), " and the proph- ets; " these words, however, the heretic erased, forgetting that the Lord had set in His Church not only apostles, but prophets also. He feared, no doubt, that our building was to stand in Christ upon the foundation of the ancient prophets, '3 since the apostle himself never fails to build us up everywhere with (the words of) the prophets. For whence did he learn to call Christ "the chief corner-stone,"'* but from the figure given him in the Psalm: " The stone which the builders rejected is become the head (stone) of the corner ' " 's CHAP. XVIII. — ANOTHER FOOLISH ERASURE OF MARCION 'S EXPOSED. CERTAIN FIGURATIVE EXPRESSIONS OF THE APOSTLE, SUGGESTED BY THE LANGUAGE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. COLLATION OF MANY PASSAGES OF THIS EPIS- TLE, WITH PRECEPTS AND STATEMENTS IN THE PENTATEUCH, THE PSALMS, AND THE PROPHETS. ALL ALIKE TEACH US THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF THE CREATOR.
As our heretic is so fond of his pruning- knife, I do not wonder when syllables are ex- punged by his hand, seeing that entire pages are usually the matter on which he practises his effacing process. The apostle declares that to himself, " less than the least of all saints, was the grace given " of enlightening all men as to " what was the fellowship of the mystery, which during the ages had been hid in God, who created all things." '* The here- tic erased the preposition in, and made the clause run thus: ("what is the fellowship of the mystery) which hath for ages been hidden from the God who created all things." '^ The falsification, however, is flagrantly'^ absurd. For the apostle goes on to infer (from his own statement): "in order that unto the princi- palities and powers in heavenly places might become known through the church the mani- fold wisdom of God." '9 IVhose principalities and powers does he mean? If the Creator's, '3" Because, if our building as Christians rested in part upon that foundation, our God and the God of the Jews must be the same, which Marcion denied " (Lardner).
'7 The passage of St. Paul, as TertuUian expresses it, Quae dispensatio sacramenti occulti ab a;vis in Deo, qui omnia condidit." According to Marcion's alteration, the latter part runs, ''''Occulti ab avis Deo, qui omnia condidit." The original is, Ti? 17 o'ikov- Ofiia Tov ixvaTTjpiov toO an-OKeKpv/u/nevov iin'o tooi' acujfuv iv t<u 0e<j> (compare Col. iii. }) tiC ra navra KTia-avTi. Marcion's removal of the ey has no warrant of M.s. authority; it upsets St. Paul's doct- rine, as attested in other passages, and destroys the grammatical structure.
'8 Emicat.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book v.
how does it come to pass that such a God as He could have meant His wisdom to be dis- played to the principalities and powers, but not to Himself? For surely no principalities could possibly have understood anything with- out their sovereign Lord. Or if (the apostle) did not mention God in this passage, on the ground that He (as their chief) is Himself reckoned among these (principalities), then he would have plainly said that the mystery had been hidden from the principalities and powers of Him who had created all things, including Him amongst them. But if he states that it was hidden from them, he must needs be un- derstood ' as having meant that it was mani- fest to Him. From God, therefore, the mys- tery was not hidden; but it was hidden in God, the Creator of all things, from His principali- ties and powers. For "who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His coun- sellor P''^* Caught in this trap, the heretic probably changed the passage, with the view of saying that his god wished to make known to his principalities and powers the fellowship of his own mystery, of which God, who created all things, had been ignorant. But what was the use of his obtruding this ignorance of the Creator, who was a stranger to the superior god,3 and far enough removed from him, when even his own servants had krtown noth- ing about him? To the Creator, however, the future was well known. Then why was not that also known to Him, which had to be revealed beneath His heaven, and on His earth? From this, therefore, there arises a confirmation of what we have already laid down. For since the Creator was sure to know, some time or other, that hidden mystery of the superior god, even on the supposition that the true reading was (as Marcion has it) — " hidden from the God who created all things " — he ought then to have expressed the conclusion thus: " in order that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to Him, and then to the principalities and powers of God, whosoever He might be, with whom the Creator was destined to share their knowl- edge." So palpable is the erasure in this pas- sage, when thus read, consistenly with its own true bearing. I, on my part, now wish to en- gage with you in a discussion on the allegorical expressions of the apostle. W hat figures of speech could the novel god have found in the prophets (fit for himself)? " He led cap- tivity captive," says the apostle.'* With what arms? In what conflicts? From the devastation of what country? From the overthrow of what city? What women, what children, what princes did the Conqueror throw into chains? For when by David Christ is sung as "girded with His sword upon His thigh," ^ or by Isaiah as "taking away the spoils of Samaria and the power of Damascus,"* you make Him out to be ^ really and truly a war- rior confest to the eye.^ Learn then now, that His is a spiritual armour and warfare, since you have already discovered that the captivity is spiritual, in order that you may further learn that this also belongs to Him, even because the apostle derived the mention of the captivity from the same prophets as suggested to him his precepts likewise: " Put- ting away lying," (says he,) " speak every man truth with his neighbour; "^ and again, using the very words in which the Psalm "ex- presses his meaning, (he says,) "Be ye angry, and sin not;"" " Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."" "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness; " '^ for (in the Psalm it is ^v^itten,) "With the holy man thou shalt be holy, and with the perverse thou shalt be perverse;"'* and, "Thou shalt put away evil from among you."'s Again, "Go ye out from the midst of them; touch not the unclean thing; separate yourselves, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord."'^ (The apostle says further:) " Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess," '^ — a precept which is suggested by the passage (of the prophet), where the seducers of the consecrated (Nazarites) to drunkenness are rebuked: " Ye gave wine to my holy ones to drink." '^ This prohibition from drink was given also to the high priest Aaron and his sons, " when they went into the holy place." '^ The command, to " sing to the Lord with psalms antl hymns," ^° comes suitably from him who knew that those who "drank wine with drums and psalteries " were blamed by God.=^' Now, when I find to what God belong these pre- cepts, whether in their germ or their develop- ment, I have no difficulty in knowing to whom the apostle also belongs. But he declares that "wives ought to be in subjection to their ' Debebat.
3 IMarcion's god, of course.
4 Eph. iv. 8 and Ps. Ixviii. 19.
7 Extundis.
'■ See above, book iii. chap. xiii. and xiv. p. 332.
'J Eph. v. II.
'5 Deut. xxi. 21, quoted also in i Cor. v. 13. ■6 Isa. Hi. II, quoted in 2 Cor. vi. 17.
CHAP. XVIll.]
TKRTULLIAN AGAINST MARCIOX husbands:"' what reason does he give for this? 'Because," says he, "the husband is the head of the wife."' Pray tell me, Mar- cion, does your god build up the authority of his law on the work of the Creator? This, however, is a comparative trifle; for he actu- ally derives from the same source the condi- tion of his Christ and his Churcli; for he says: " even as Christ is the head of the Church; " ^ and again, in like manner: " He who loveth his wife, ioveth his own flesh, even as Christ loved the Church."* You see how your Christ and your Church are put in comparison with the work of the Creator. How much honour is given to the flesh in the name of the church! " No man," says the apostle, " ever yet hated his own flesh " (except, of course, Marcion alone), "but nourisheth and cherish- eth it, even as the Lord doth the Church." ^ But you are the only man that hates his flesh, for you rob it of its resurrection. It will be only right that you should hate the Church also, because it is loved by Christ on the same principle.® Yea, Christ loved the flesh even as the Church. For no man will love the picture of his wife without taking care of it, and honouring it and crown- ing it. The likeness partakes with the reality in the privileged honour. I shall now endeavour, from my point of view,'' to prove that the same God is (the God) of the man ^ and of Christ, of the woman and of the Church, of the flesh and the spirit, by the apostle's help who applies the Creator's in- junction, and adds even a comment on it: *' For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, (and shall be joined unto his wife), and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery."' In passing,'" (I would say that) it is enough for me that the works of the Creator are great mysteries " in the estimation of the apostle, although they are so vilely esteemed by the heretics. " But I am speaking," says he, "of Christ and the Church." " This he says in explanation of the mystery, not for its disruption. He shows us that the mystery was prefigured by Him who is also the author of the mystery. Now what is Marcion's opinion? The Creator could not possibly have furnished figures to an unknown god, or, if a known one, an adversary to Him- self. The superior god, in fact, ought to * Proinde.
7 Ego.
8 Masculi.
"^ Inter ista.
' ' Magna sacramenta.
have borrowed nothing from the inferior; he was bound rather to annihilate Him. " Chil- dren should obey their parents." '^ Now, al- though Marcion has erased (the next clause), "which is the first commandment with prom- ise," '* still the law says plainly, " Honour thy father and thy mother." '^ Again, (the apos- tle writes:) " Parents, bring up your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord."'* For you have heard how it was said to them of old time: "Ye shall relate these things to your children; and your children in like man- ner to their children." '^ Of what use are two gods to me, when the discipline is but one? If there must be two, I mean to follow Him who was the first to teach the lesson. But as our struggle lies against "the rulers of this world," '^ what a host of Creator Gods there must be! '' For why should I not insist upon this point here, that he ought to have men- tioned but one "ruler of this world," if he meant only the Creator to be the being to whom belonged all the powers which he pre- viously mentioned? Again, when in the pre- ceding verse he bids us " put on the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil," =° does he not show that all the things which he mentions after the devil's name really belong to the devil — " the principalities and the powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world," " which we also ascribe to the devil's authority? Else, if " the devil " means the Creator, who will be the devil in the Creator's dispensa- tion?" As there are two gods, must there also be two devils, and a plurality of powers and rulers of this world? But how is the Creator both a devil and a god at the same time, when the devil is not at once both god and devil? For either they are both of them gods, if both of them are devils; or else He who is God is not also devil, as neither is he god who is the devil. I want to know indeed by what perversion -^ the word dez>i7 is at all applicable to the Creator. Perhaps he per- verted some purpose of the superior god — conduct such as He experienced Himself from the archangel, who lied indeed for the pur- pose. For He did not forbid (our first parents) a taste of the miserable tree,''** from any ap- prehension that they would become gods; '4 Eph. vi. 2. "He did this (says Lardner) in order that tho Mosaic law might not be thought to be thus established."
■9 An ironical allusion to Marcion's interpretation, which he has considered in a former chapter, of the title God 0/ this 'world.
=oEph. vi. II.
" Apud Creatoreni.
=3 Ex qua delatura.
-4 lUius arbuscuIsK.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book v.
His prohibition was meant to prevent their dying after the transgression. But "the spiritual wickedness"' did not signify the Creator, because of the apostle's additional description, "in heavenly places;"^ for the apostle was quite aware that " spiritual wicked- ness " had been at work in heavenly places, when angels were entrapped into sin by the daughters of men.^ But how happened it that (the apostle) resorted to ambiguous de- scriptions, and I know not what obscure enigmas, for the purpose of disparaging'* the Creator, when he displayed to the Church such constancy and plainness of speech in "making known the mystery of the gospel for which he was an ambassador in bonds," owing to his liberty in preaching — and actually requested (the Ephesians) to pray to God that this "open-mouthed utterance" might be continued to him? s CHAP. XIX. — THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. TIME THE CRITERION OF TRUTH AND HERESY. APPLICATION OF THE CANON. THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD EXPLAINED. PRE-EXIST- ENCE OF OUR CHRIST IN THE CREATOR'S ANCIENT DISPENSATIONS. WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THE FULNESS OF CHRIST. THE EPICUREAN CHARACTER OF MARCION's GOD. THE CATH- OLIC TRUTH IN OPPOSITION THERETO. THE LAW IS TO CHRIST WHAT THE SHADOW IS TO THE SUBSTANCE.
I am accustomed in my prescription against all heresies, to fix my compendious criterion* (of truth) in the testimony of time; claiming priority therein as our rule, and alleging late- ness to be the characteristic of every heresy. This shall now be proved even by the apostle, when he says: " For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; which is come unto you, as it is unto all the world. " ' For if, even at that time, the tradition of the gospel had spread everywhere, how much more now! Now, if it is our gospel which has spread everywhere, rather than any heretical gospel, much less Marcion's, which only dates from the reign of Antoninus, * then ours will be the gospel of the apostles. But should Marcion's gospel succeed in filling the whole world, it would not even in that case be entitled ' Spiritalia nequitiae: " wicked spints."
3 Gen. vi. 1-4. See also Tertullian, De Idol. 9; De Habit. Miil. a; De cultu Feniin. 10; De I'd. I'irg. 7; Apolog. 22. See also Augustin, De Civit. Dei. xv. 23.
4 Ut taxaret. Of course he alludes to Marcion's absurd exposi- tion of the 12th verse, in applying St. Paul's description of wicked spirits to the Creator.
* Compendium figere.
* Antoniniani Marcionis: see above in book i. chap. xix.
to the character of apostolic. For this quality, it will be evident, can only belong to that gospel which was the first to fill the world; in other words, to the gospel of that God who of old declared this of its promulgation: "Their sound is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. " » He calls Christ " the image of the invisible God." '° We in like manner say that the Father of Christ is invisible, for we know that it was the Son who was seen in ancient times (whenever any appearance was vouchsafed to men in the name of God) as the image of (the Father) Himself. He must not be regarded, however, as making any difference between a visible and an invisible God; because long before he wrote this we find a description of our God to this effect: " No man can see the Lord, and live. "" If Christ is not "the first-begotten before every creature, " '^ as that " Word of God by whom all things were made, and with- out whom nothing was made;"'^ if "all things were" not "in Him created, whether in heaven or on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers;" if "all things were" not "created by Him and for Him " (for these truths Marcion ought not to allow concerning Him), then the apostle could not have so positively laid it down, that " He is before all."'-* For how is He before all, if He is not before all things? '^ How, again, is He before all things, if He is not " the first- born of every creature " — if He is not the Word of the Creator? '* Now how will he be proved to have been before all things, who appeared after all things? Who can tell whether he had a prior existence, when he has found no proof that he had any existence at all } In what way also could it have " pleased (the Father) that in Him should all fulness dwell?"'' For, to begin with, what fulness is that which is not comprised of the constitu- ents which Marcion has removed from it, — even those that were " created in Christ, whether in heaven or on earth," whether an- gels or men? which is not made of the things that are visible and invisible? which consists not of thrones and dominions and principalities and powers? If, on the other hand,'^ our false apostles and Judaizing gospellers'' have in- " Ex. xxxiii. 20.
1= Col. i. 15. Our author's " primogenitus conditioois" is St. Paul's irpujTOTOKot ird<r7;« KTiVttos, for the meaning of which sec Bp. ICllicott, in loc.
n John i. 3.
M Ante omnes.
'5 Ante amina.
'6 Creatoris is our author's word.
'i' Aut si.
'9 Evangelizatores.
-HAP. XIX. 1 TER'lULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
troduced all these things out of their own stores, and Marcion has applied them to con- stitute the fulness of his own god, (this hy- pothesis, absurd though it be, alone would justify him;) for how, on any other supposi- tion,' could the rival and the destroyer of the Creator have been willing that His fulness should dwell in his Christ? To whom, again, does He "reconcile all things by Himself, making peace by the blood of His cross," - but to Him whom those very things had alto- gether 3 offended, against whom they had re- belled by transgression, (but) to whom they had at last returned? * Conciliated they might have been to a strange god; but reconciled they could not possibly have been to any other than their own God. Accordingly, ourselves "who were sometime alienated and enemies in our mind by wicked works "s does He reconcile to the Creator, against whom we had committed offence — worshipping the creat- ure to the prejudice of the Creator. As, however, he says elsewhere,* that the Church is the body of Christ, so here also (the apos- tle) declares that he "fills up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for His body's sake, which is the Church." ' But you must not on this account suppose that on every mention of His body the term is only a metaphor, instead of meaning real flesh. For he says above that we are " recon- ciled in His body through death; "^ mean- ing, of course, that He died in that body wherein death was possible through the flesh: (therefore he adds,) not through the Church"^ {J>er ecclesiam), but expressly /(?/- the sake of the Church [propter ecclesia?n),Q-s.chdi\\g\ng body for body — one of flesh for a spiritual one. When, again, he warns them to "beware of subtle words and philosophy, " as being "a vain deceit, " such as is " after the rudiments of the world " (not understanding thereby the mundane fabric of sky and earth, but worldly learning, and " the tradition of men," subtle in their speech and their philosophy), '° it would be tedious, and the proper subject of a sepa- rate work, to show how in this sentence (of the apostle's) all heresies are condemned, on the ground of their consisting of the resources of subtle speech and the rules of philosophy. But (once for all) let Marcion know that the principle term of his creed comes from the » Ceterura quale.
3 " Una ipsa " is Oehlei's reading instead of universa, 4 Cujus novissime fueranl.
9 As if only in a metaphorical body, in which stnse the Church is " His body."
school of Epicurus, implying that the Lord is stupid and indifferent;" wherefore he refuses to say that He is an object to be feared. More- over, from the porch of the Stoics he brings out matter, and places it on a par with the Divine Creator.'- He also denies the resur- rection of the flesh, — a trutli which none of the schools of philosophy agreed together to hold. '3 But how remote is our (Catholic) verity from the artifices of this heretic, when it dreads to arouse the anger of God, and firmly believes that He produced all things out of nothing, and promises to us a restoration from the grave of the same flesh (that died) and holds without a blush that Christ was born of the virgin's womb! At this, philosophers, and heretics, and the very heathen, laugh and jeer. For " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise " '* — that God, no doubt, who in reference to this very dispensation of His threatened long before that He would "destroy the wisdom of the wise. " '5 Thanks to this simplicity of truth, so opposed to the subtlety and vain deceit of philosophy, we cannot possibly have any relish for such perverse opinions. Then, if God "quickens us together with Christ, forgiving us our trespasses, " '* we cannot suppose that sins are forgiven by Him against whom, as having been all along unknown, they could not have been committed. Now tell me, Marcion, what is your opinion of the apostle's language, when he says, " Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sab- bath, which is a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ? " '' We do not now treat of the law, further than (to remark) that the apostle here teaches clearly how it has been abolished, even by passing from shadow to substance — that is, from figurative types to the reality, which is Christ. The shadow, therefore, is His to whom belongs the body also; in other words, the law is His, and so is Christ. If you separate the law and Christ, assigning one to one god and the other to another, it is the same as if you were to at- ""Dominum inferens hebetem;" with which may be com- pared Cicero {De Divin. ii. 50, 10^): '' Videsne Epicurum quem liebetem et rudem dicere solent btoici...qui negat, quid- quam deos nee alieni curare, nee sui." The otiose and iturt character of the god of Epicurus is referred to by Tertullian not unfrequently; see above, in book iv. chap. xv.; Apolog. 47, and Ad Nationes, ii. 2; whilst in De Anivia, 3, he characterizes the philosophy of Epicurus by a similar term: " Prout aut Platon'.s honor, aut Zenonis vigor, aut Aristotelis tenor, aut Epicuri stupor aut Heracliti maeror, aut Empedoclis furor persuaserunt.'"
12 The Stoical dogma of the eternity of matter and its equal- ity with God was also held by Hermogenes; see his Adv. Hernio- genem. c. 4, "Materiam parem Deo infert."
'SPhny, Nat. Hist. vii. 55, refers to the peculiar opinion of Democritus on this subject (Fr. Junius).
'5 Isa. xxix. 14, quoted i Cor. i. ig; comp. Jer. viii, 9 and Job r.
TERTULLIAN AGAINST MARCION.
[book r.
tempt to separate the shadow from the body of which it is the shadow. Manifestly Christ has relation to the law, if the body has to its shadow. But when he blames those who alleged visions of angels as their authority for saying that men must abstain from meats — " you must not touch, you must not taste" — in a voluntary humility, (at the same time) " vainly puffed up in the fleshly mind, and not holding the Head, " ' (the apostle) does not in these terms attack the law or Moses, as if it was at the suggestion of superstitious angels that he had enacted his prohibition of sundry aliments. For Moses had evidently received the law from God. When, therefore, he speaks of their " following the command- ments and doctrines of men, " * he refers to the conduct of those persons who "held not the Head," even Him in whom all things are gathered together; ^ for they are all recalled to Christ, and concentrated in Him as their initiating principle '' — even the meats and drinks which were indifferent in their nature. All the rest of his precepts, ^ as we have shown sufficiently, when treating of them as they occurred in another epistle, ' emanated from the Creator, who, while predicting that *' old things were to pass away, " and that He would " make all things new,"' commanded