3. Tertullian, Against Marcion, 5.11, 5.17 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •epistle to the laodiceans, Found in books: Huttner (2013), Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley, 93 | 5.11. If, owing to the fault of human error, the word God has become a common name (since in the world there are said and believed to be gods many 1 Corinthians 8:5), yet the blessed God, (who is the Father) of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 1:3 will be understood to be no other God than the Creator, who both blessed all things (that He had made), as you find in Genesis, Genesis 1:22 and is Himself blessed by all things, as Daniel tells us. Now, if the title of Father may be claimed for (Marcion's) sterile god, how much more for the Creator? To none other than Him is it suitable, who is also the Father of mercies, 2 Corinthians 1:3 and (in the prophets) has been described as full of compassion, and gracious, and plenteous in mercy. In Jonah you find the signal act of His mercy, which He showed to the praying Ninevites. Jonah 3:8 How inflexible was He at the tears of Hezekiah! How ready to forgive Ahab, the husband of Jezebel, the blood of Naboth, when he deprecated His anger. How prompt in pardoning David on his confession of his sin 2 Samuel 12:13 - preferring, indeed, the sinner's repentance to his death, of course because of His gracious attribute of mercy. Ezekiel 33:11 Now, if Marcion's god has exhibited or proclaimed any such thing as this, I will allow him to be the Father of mercies. Since, however, he ascribes to him this title only from the time he has been revealed, as if he were the father of mercies from the time only when he began to liberate the human race, then we on our side, too, adopt the same precise date of his alleged revelation; but it is that we may deny him! It is then not competent to him to ascribe any quality to his god, whom indeed he only promulged by the fact of such an ascription; for only if it were previously evident that his god had an existence, could he be permitted to ascribe an attribute to him. The ascribed attribute is only an accident; but accidents are preceded by the statement of the thing itself of which they are predicated, especially when another claims the attribute which is ascribed to him who has not been previously shown to exist. Our denial of his existence will be all the more peremptory, because of the fact that the attribute which is alleged in proof of it belongs to that God who has been already revealed. Therefore the New Testament will appertain to none other than Him who promised it - if not its letter, yet its spirit; 2 Corinthians 3:6 and herein will lie its newness. Indeed, He who had engraved its letter in stones is the same as He who had said of its spirit, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh. Joel 2:28 Even if the letter kills, yet the Spirit gives life; 2 Corinthians 3:6 and both belong to Him who says: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal. Deuteronomy 32:39 We have already made good the Creator's claim to this twofold character of judgment and goodness - killing in the letter through the law, and quickening in the Spirit through the Gospel. Now these attributes, however different they be, cannot possibly make two gods; for they have already (in the prevenient dispensation of the Old Testament) been found to meet in One. He alludes to Moses' veil, covered with which his face could not be steadfastly seen by the children of Israel. 2 Corinthians 3:7, 13 Since he did this to maintain the superiority of the glory of the New Testament, which is permanent in its glory, over that of the Old, which was to be done away, 2 Corinthians 3:7-8 this fact gives support to my belief which exalts the Gospel above the law and you must look well to it that it does not even more than this. For only there is superiority possible where was previously the thing over which superiority can be affirmed. But then he says, But their minds were blinded - of the world; certainly not the Creator's mind, but the minds of the people which are in the world. of Israel he says, Even unto this day the same veil is upon their heart; 2 Corinthians 3:15 showing that the veil which was on the face of Moses was a figure of the veil which is on the heart of the nation still; because even now Moses is not seen by them in heart, just as he was not then seen by them in eye. But what concern has Paul with the veil which still obscures Moses from their view, if the Christ of the Creator, whom Moses predicted, is not yet come? How are the hearts of the Jews represented as still covered and veiled, if the predictions of Moses relating to Christ, in whom it was their duty to believe through him, are as yet unfulfilled? What had the apostle of a strange Christ to complain of, if the Jews failed in understanding the mysterious announcements of their own God, unless the veil which was upon their hearts had reference to that blindness which concealed from their eyes the Christ of Moses? Then, again, the words which follow, But when it shall turn to the Lord, the evil shall be taken away, 2 Corinthians 3:16 properly refer to the Jew, over whose gaze Moses' veil is spread, to the effect that, when he is turned to the faith of Christ, he will understand how Moses spoke of Christ. But how shall the veil of the Creator be taken away by the Christ of another god, whose mysteries the Creator could not possibly have veiled - unknown mysteries, as they were of an unknown god? So he says that we now with open face (meaning the candour of the heart, which in the Jews 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. 2 Corinthians 3:18 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 Christians. 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, 2 Corinthians 4:4 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 has 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, while their heart was far from Him, Isaiah 29:13 in these angry words: You shall hear with your ears, and not understand; and see with your eyes, but not perceive; and, If you will not believe, you shall not understand; and again, I will take away the wisdom of their wise men, 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. Content 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. Isaiah 14:14 The whole superstition, indeed, of this world has got into his hands, so that he blinds effectually the hearts of unbelievers, and of none more than the apostate Marcion's. Now he did not observe how much this clause of the sentence made against him: For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to (give) the light of the knowledge (of His glory) in the face of (Jesus) Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6 Now who was it that said; Let there be light? Genesis 1:3 And who was it that said to Christ concerning giving light to the world: I have set You 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 Your countece, O Lord, has been displayed upon us. Now the countece (or person ) of the Lord here is Christ. Wherefore the apostle said above: Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Corinthians 4:4 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, according to the testimony of the clause (above 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 them to remember, that at the time when they were Gentiles they were without Christ, aliens from (the commonwealth of) Israel, without intercourse, without the covets and any hope of promise, nay, without God, even in his own world, Ephesians 2:12 as the Creator thereof. Since therefore he said, that the Gentiles were without God, while 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 2 Corinthians 4:7 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 accrue 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, 2 Corinthians 4:8-12 in which we bear about with us the very dying of God, (Marcion's) god is really ungrateful and unjust, 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. 2 Corinthians 4:10 For he gives prominence to the statement, That the life also of Christ may be manifested in our body, 2 Corinthians 4:10 as a contrast to the preceding, that His death is borne about in our body. Now of what 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 which are seen and are temporal, but to those which are not seen and are eternal 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 - 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, 2 Corinthians 4:11 then he has clearly predicted the resurrection of the flesh. 2 Corinthians 4:14 He says, too, that our outward man perishes, 2 Corinthians 4:16 not meaning by an eternal perdition after death, but by labours and sufferings, in reference to which he previously said, For which cause we will not faint. 2 Corinthians 4:16 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. 5.17. We have it on the true tradition of the Church, that this epistle was sent to the Ephesians, not to the Laodiceans. Marcion, however, was very desirous of giving it the new title (of Laodicean), as if he were extremely accurate in investigating such a point. But of what consequence are the titles, since in writing to a certain church the apostle did in fact write to all? It is certain that, whoever they were to whom he wrote, he declared Him to be God in Christ with whom all things agree which are predicted. Now, to what god will most suitably belong all those things which relate to that good pleasure, which God has purposed in the mystery of His will, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might recapitulate (if I may so say, according to the exact meaning of the Greek word ) all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, Ephesians 1:9-10 but to Him whose are all things from their beginning, yea the beginning itself too; from whom issue the times and the dispensation of the fullness of times, according to which all things up to the very first are gathered up in Christ? What beginning, however, has the other god; that is to say, how can anything proceed from him, who has no work to show? And if there be no beginning, how can there be times? If no times, what fullness of times can there be? And if no fullness, what dispensation? Indeed, what has he ever done on earth, that any long dispensation of times to be fulfilled can be put to his account, for the accomplishment of all things in Christ, even of things in heaven? Nor can we possibly suppose that any things whatever have been at any time done in heaven by any other God than Him by whom, as all men allow, all things have been done on earth. Now, if it is impossible for all these things from the beginning to be reckoned to any other God than the Creator, who will believe that an alien god has recapitulated them in an alien Christ, instead of their own proper Author in His own Christ? If, again, they belong to the Creator, they must needs be separate from the other god; and if separate, then opposed to him. But then how can opposites be gathered together into him by whom they are in short destroyed? Again, what Christ do the following words announce, when the apostle says: That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ? Ephesians 1:12 Now who could have first trusted - i.e. previously trusted - in God, before His advent, except the Jews to whom Christ was previously announced, from the beginning? He who was thus foretold, was also foretrusted. Hence the apostle refers the statement to himself, that is, to the Jews, in order that he may draw a distinction with respect to the Gentiles, (when he goes on to say:) In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel (of your salvation); in whom you believed, and were sealed with His Holy Spirit of promise. Ephesians 1:13 of what promise? That which was made through Joel: In the last days will I pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, Joel 2:28 that is, on all nations. Therefore the Spirit and the Gospel will be found in the Christ, who was foretrusted, because foretold. Again, the Father of glory Ephesians 2:17 is He whose Christ, when ascending to heaven, is celebrated as the King of Glory in the Psalm: Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory. From Him also is besought the spirit of wisdom, Ephesians 1:17 at whose disposal is enumerated that sevenfold distribution of the spirit of grace by Isaiah. Isaiah 11:2 He likewise will grant the enlightenment of the eyes of the understanding, Ephesians 1:18 who has also enriched our natural eyes with light; to whom, moreover, the blindness of the people is offensive: And who is blind, but my servants?...yea, the servants of God have become blind. In His gift, too, are the riches (of the glory) of His inheritance in the saints, Ephesians 1:18 who promised such an inheritance in the call of the Gentiles: Ask of me, and I will give You the heathen for Your inheritance. It was He who wrought in Christ His mighty power, by raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at His own right hand, and putting all things under His feet Ephesians 1:19-22 - even the same who said: Sit on my right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool. For in another passage the Spirit says to the Father concerning the Son: You have put all things under His feet. Now, if from all these facts which are found in the Creator there is yet to be deduced another god and another Christ, let us go in quest of the Creator. I suppose, forsooth, we find Him, when he speaks of such as were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein they had walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, who works in the children of disobedience. Ephesians 2:1-2 But Marcion must not here interpret the world as meaning the God of the world. For a creature bears no resemblance to the Creator; the thing made, none to its Maker; the world, none to God. He, moreover, who is the Prince of the power of the ages must not be thought to be called the prince of the power of the air; for He who is chief over the higher powers derives no title from the lower powers, although these, too, may be ascribed to Him. Nor, again, can He possibly seem to be the instigator of that unbelief which He Himself had rather to endure at the hand of the Jews and the Gentiles alike. We may therefore simply conclude that these designations are unsuited to the Creator. There is another being to whom they are more applicable - and the apostle knew very well who that was. Who then is he? Undoubtedly he who has raised up children of disobedience against the Creator Himself ever since he took possession of that air of His; even as the prophet makes him say: I will set my throne above the stars;... I will go up above the clouds; I will be like the Most High. This must mean the devil, whom in another passage (since such will they there have the apostle's meaning to be) we shall recognize in the appellation the god of this world. For he has filled the whole world with the lying pretence of his own divinity. To be sure, if he had not existed, we might then possibly have applied these descriptions to the Creator. But the apostle, too, had lived in Judaism; and when he parenthetically observed of the sins (of that period of his life), in which also we all had our conversation in times past, Ephesians 2:3 he must not be understood to indicate that the Creator was the lord of sinful men, and the prince of this air; but as meaning that in his Judaism he had been one of the children of disobedience, having the devil as his instigator - when he persecuted the church and the Christ of the Creator. Therefore he says: We also were the children of wrath, but by nature. Ephesians 2:3 Let the heretic, however, not contend that, because the Creator called the Jews children, therefore the Creator is the lord of wrath. For when (the apostle) says, We were by nature the children of wrath, inasmuch as the Jews were not the Creator's children by nature, but by the election of their fathers, he (must have) referred their being children of wrath to nature, and not to the Creator, adding this at last, even as others, Ephesians 2:3 who, of course, were not children of God. It is manifest that sins, and lusts of the flesh, and unbelief, and anger, are ascribed to the common nature of all mankind, the devil however leading that nature astray, which he has already infected with the implanted germ of sin. We, says he, are His workmanship, created in Christ. Ephesians 2:10 It is one thing to make (as a workman), another thing to create. But he assigns both to One. Man is the workmanship of the Creator. He therefore who made man (at first), created him also in Christ. As touching the substance of nature, He made him; as touching the work of grace, He created him. Look also at what follows in connection with these words: Wherefore remember, that you being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which has the name of circumcision in the flesh made by the hand - that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covets of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. Ephesians 2:11-12 Now, without what God and without what Christ were these Gentiles? Surely, without Him to whom the commonwealth of Israel belonged, and the covets and the promise. But now in Christ, says he, you who were sometimes far off are made near by His blood. Ephesians 2:13 From whom were they far off before? From the (privileges) whereof he speaks above, even from the Christ of the Creator, from the commonwealth of Israel, from the covets, from the hope of the promise, from God Himself. Since this is the case, the Gentiles are consequently now in Christ made near to these (blessings), from which they were once far off. But if we are in Christ brought so very near to the commonwealth of Israel, which comprises the religion of the divine Creator, and to the covets and to the promise, yea to their very God Himself, it is quite ridiculous (to suppose that) the Christ of the other god has brought us to this proximity to the Creator from afar. The apostle had in mind that it had been predicted concerning the call of the Gentiles from their distant alienation in words like these: They who were far off from me have come to my righteousness. For the Creator's righteousness no less than His peace was announced in Christ, as we have often shown already. Therefore he says: He is our peace, who has made both one Ephesians 2:14 - that is, the Jewish nation and the Gentile world. What is near, and what was far off now that the middle wall has been broken down of their enmity, (are made one) in His flesh. Ephesians 2:15 But Marcion erased the pronoun His, that he might make the enmity refer to flesh, as if (the apostle spoke) of a carnal enmity, instead of the enmity which was a rival to Christ. And thus you have (as I have said elsewhere) exhibited the stupidity of Pontus, rather than the adroitness of a Marrucinian, for you here deny him flesh to whom in the verse above you allowed blood! Since, however, He has made the law obsolete by His own precepts, even by Himself fulfilling the law (for superfluous is, You shall not commit adultery, when He says, You shall not look on a woman to lust after her; superfluous also is, You shall do no murder, when He says, You shall not speak evil of your neighbour,) it is impossible to make an adversary of the law out of one who so completely promotes it. For to create in Himself of two, 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), Ephesians 2:10 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 Ephesians 2:15-16 (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. Ephesians 2:16 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 obtained access to the Father, being now no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household 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 apostles Ephesians 2:17-20 - (the apostle added), and the prophets; 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, 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, Ephesians 2:20 but from the figure given him in the Psalm: The stone which the builders rejected has become the head (stone) of the corner? |
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