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WHEREIN IS DESCRIBED THE GOD OF MARCION. HE IS SHOWN TO BE UTTERLY WANTING IN ALL THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE TRUE GOD.
WHATEVER in times past(1) we have wrought in opposition to
Marcion, is from the present moment no longer to be accounted of.(3) It
is a new work which we are undertaking in lieu of the old one.(4) My
original tract, as too hurriedly composed, I had subsequently
superseded by a fuller treatise. This latter I lost, before it was
completely published, by the fraud of a person who was then a
brother,(5) but became afterwards an apostate. He, as it happened, had
transcribed a portion of it, full of mistakes, and then published it.
The necessity thus arose for an amended work; and the occasion of the
new edition induced me to make a considerable addition to the treatise.
This present text,(6) therefore, of my work—which is the third as
superseding(7) the second, but henceforward to be considered the first
instead of the third—renders a preface necessary to this issue of the
tract itself that no reader may be perplexed, if he should by chance
fall in with the various forms of it which are scattered about.
The Euxine Sea, as it is called, is self-contradictory in its
nature, and deceptive in its name.(8) As you would not account it
hospitable from its situation, so is it severed from
our more civilised waters by a certain stigma which attaches to its barbarous character. The fiercest nations inhabit it, if indeed it can be called habitation, when life is passed in waggons. They have no fixed abode; their life has(9) no germ of civilisation; they indulge their libidinous desires without restraint, and for the most part naked. Moreover, when they gratify secret lust, they hang up their quivers on their car-yokes,(10) to warn off the curious and rash observer. Thus without a blush do they prostitute their weapons of war. The dead bodies of their parents they cut up with their sheep, and devour at their feasts. They who have not died so as to become food for others, are thought to have died an accursed death. Their women are not by their sex softened to modesty. They uncover the breast, from which they suspend their battle-axes, and prefer warfare to marriage. In their climate, too, there is the same rude nature.(11) The day-time is never clear, the sun never cheerful;(12) the sky is uniformly cloudy; the whole year is wintry; the only wind that blows is the angry North. Waters melt only by fires; their rivers flow not by reason of the ice; their mountains are covered(13) with heaps of snow. All things are torpid, all stiff with cold. Nothing there has the glow(14) of life, but that ferocity which has given to scenic plays their stories of the sacrifices(15) of the Taurians, and the loves(16) of the Colchians, and the torments(17) of the Caucasus. Nothing, however, in Pontus is so barbarous and sad as the fact that Marcion was born there, fouler than any Scythian, more roving than the waggon-life(1) of the Sarmatian, more inhuman than the Massagete, more audacious than an Amazon, darker than the cloud,(2) (of Pontus) colder than its winter, more brittle than its ice, more deceitful than the Ister, more craggy than Caucasus. Nay(3) more, the true Prometheus, Almighty God, is mangled(4) by Marcion's blasphemies. Marcion is more savage than even the beasts of that barbarous region. For what beaver was ever a greater emasculator(5) than he who has abolished the nuptial bond? What Pontic mouse ever had such gnawing powers as he who has gnawed the Gospels to pieces? Verily, O Euxine, thou hast produced a monster more credible to philosophers than to Christians. For the cynic Diogenes used to go about, lantern in hand, at mid-day to find a man; whereas Marcion has quenched the light of his faith, and so lost the God whom he had found. His disciples will not deny that his first faith he held along with ourselves; a letter of his own (6) proves this; so that for the future(7) a heretic may from his case(8) be designated as one who, forsaking that which was prior, afterwards chose out for himself that which was not in times past.(9) For in as far as what was delivered in times past and from the beginning will be held as truth, in so far will that be accounted heresy which is brought in later. But another brief treatise(10) will maintain this position against heretics, who ought to be refuted even without a consideration of their doctrines, on the ground that they are heretical by reason of the novelty of their opinions. Now, so far as any controversy is to be admitted, I will for the time(11) (lest our compendious principle of novelty, being called in on all occasions to our aid, should be imputed to want of confidence) begin with setting forth our adversary's rule of belief, that it may escape no one what our main contention is to be.
The heretic of Pontus introduces two Gods, like the twin
Symplegades of his own shipwreck: One whom it was impossible to deny,
i.e. our Creator; and one whom he will never be able to prove, i.e. his
own god. The unhappy man gained(12) the first idea(13) of his conceit
from the simple passage of our Lord's saying, which has reference to
human beings and not divine ones, wherein He disposes of those examples
of a good tree and a corrupt one;(14) how that "the good tree bringeth
not forth corrupt fruit, neither the corrupt tree good fruit." Which
means, that an honest mind and good faith cannot produce evil deeds,
any more than an evil disposition can produce good deeds. Now (like
many other persons now-a-days, especially those who have an heretical
proclivity), while morbidly brooding(15) over the question of the
origin of evil, his perception became blunted by the very irregularity
of his researches; and when he found the Creator declaring, "I am He
that createth evil,"(16) inasmuch as he had already concluded from
other arguments, which are satisfactory to every perverted mind, that
God is the author of evil, so he now applied to the Creator the figure
of the corrupt tree bringing forth evil fruit, that is, moral evil,(17)
and then presumed that there ought to be another god, after the analogy
of the good tree producing its good fruit. Accordingly, finding in
Christ a different disposition, as it were—one of a simple and pure
benevolence(18)—differing from the Creator, he readily argued that in
his Christ had been revealed a new and strange(19) divinity; and then
with a little leaven he leavened the whole lump of the faith,
flavouring it with the acidity of his own heresy.
He had, moreover, in one(20) Cerdon an abettor of this
blasphemy,—a circumstance which made them the more readily think that
they saw most clearly their two gods, blind though they were; for, in
truth, they had not seen the one God with soundness of faith.(21) To
men of diseased vision even one lamp looks like many. One of his gods,
therefore, whom he was obliged to acknowledge, he destroyed by defaming
his attributes in the matter of evil; the other, whom he laboured so
hard to devise, he constructed, laying his foundation(1) in the
principle of good. In what articles(2) he arranged these natures, we
show by our own refutations of them.
The principal, and indeed(3) the whole, contention lies in the
point of number: whether two Gods may be admitted, by poetic licence
(if they must be),(4) or pictorial fancy, or by the third process, as
we must now add,(5) of heretical pravity. But the Christian verity has
distinctly declared this principle, "God is not, if He is not one;"
because we more properly believe that that has no existence which is
not as it ought to be. In order, however, that you may know that God is
one, ask what God is, and you will find Him to be not otherwise than
one. So far as a human being can form a definition of God, I adduce one
which the conscience of all men will also acknowledge,—that God is the
great Supreme existing in eternity, unbegotten, unmade without
beginning, without end. For such a condition as this must needs be
ascribed to that eternity which makes God to be the great Supreme,
because for such a purpose as this is this very attribute(6) in God;
and so on as to the other qualities: so that God is the great Supreme
in form and in reason, and in might and in power.(7) Now, since all are
agreed on. this point (because nobody will deny that God is in some
sense(8) the great Supreme, except the man who shall be able to
pronounce the opposite opinion, that God is but some inferior being, in
order that he may deny God by robbing Him of an attribute of God), what
must be the condition of the great Supreme Himself? Surely it must be
that nothing is equal to Him, i.e. that there is no other great
supreme; because, if there were, He would have an equal; and if He had
an equal, He would be no longer the great Supreme, now that the
condition and (so to say) our law, which permits nothing to be equal to
the great Supreme, is subverted. That Being, then, which is the great
Supreme, must needs be unique,(9) by having no equal, and so not
ceasing to be the great Supreme. Therefore He will not otherwise exist
than by the condition whereby He has His being; that is, by His
absolute uniqueness. Since, then, God is the great Supreme, our
Christian verity has rightly declared,(10) "God is not, if He is not
one." Not as if we doubted His being God, by saying, He is not, if He
is not one; but because we define Him, in whose being we thoroughly
believe, to be that without which He is not God; that is to say, the
great Supreme. But then(11)` the great Supreme must needs be unique.
This Unique Being, therefore, will be God—not otherwise God than as
the great Supreme; and not otherwise the great Supreme than as having
no equal; and not otherwise having no equal than as being Unique.
Whatever other god, then, you may introduce, you will at least be
unable to maintain his divinity under any other guise,(12) than by
ascribing to him too the property of Godhead—both eternity and
supremacy over all. How, therefore, can two great Supremes co-exist,
when this is the attribute of the Supreme Being, to have no equal,—an
attribute which belongs to One alone, and can by no means exist in two?
But some one may contend that two great Supremes may exist,
distinct and separate in their own departments; and may even adduce, as
an example, the kingdoms of the world, which, though they are so many
in number, are yet supreme in their several regions. Such a man will
suppose that human circumstances are always comparable with divine
ones. Now, if this mode of reasoning be at all tolerable, what is to
prevent our introducing, I will not say a third god or a fourth, but as
many as there are kings of the earth? Now it is God that is in
question, whose main property it is to admit of no comparison with
Himself. Nature itself, therefore, if not an Isaiah, or rather God
speaking by Isaiah, will deprecatingly ask, "To whom will ye liken
me?"(13) Human circumstances may perhaps be compared with divine ones,
but they may not be with God. God is one thing, and what belongs to God
is another thing. Once more:(14) you who apply the example of a king,
as a great supreme, take care that you can use it properly. For
although a king is supreme on his throne next to God, he is still
inferior to God; and when he is compared with God, he will be
dislodged(2) from that great supremacy which is transferred to God.
Now, this being the case, how will you employ in a comparison with God
an object as your example, which fails(2) in all the purposes which
belong to a comparison? Why, when supreme power among kings cannot
evidently be multifarious, but only unique and singular, is an
exception made in the case of Him (of all others)(3) who is King of
kings, and (from the exceeding greatness of His power, and the
subjection of all other ranks(4) to Him) the very summit,(5) as it
were, of dominion? But even in the case of rulers of that other form of
government, where they one by one preside in a union of authority, if
with their petty(6) prerogatives of royalty, so to say, they be brought
on all points(7) into such a comparison with one another as shall make
it clear which of them is superior in the essential features(8) and
powers of royalty, it must needs follow that the supreme majesty will
redound(9) to one alone,—all the others being gradually, by the issue
of the comparison, removed and excluded from the supreme authority.
Thus, although, when spread out in several hands, supreme authority
seems to be multifarious, yet in its own powers, nature, and condition,
it is unique. It follows, then, that if two gods are compared, as two
kings and two supreme authorities, the concentration of authority must
necessarily, according to the meaning of the comparison, be conceded to
one of the two; because it is clear from his own superiority that he is
the supreme, his rival being now vanquished, and proved to be not the
greater, however great. Now, from this failure of his rival, the other
is unique in power, possessing a certain solitude, as it were, in his
singular pre-eminence. The inevitable conclusion at which we arrive,
then, on this point is this: either we must deny that God is the great
Supreme, which no wise man will allow himself to do; or say that God
has no one else with whom to share His power.
But on what principle did Marcion confine his supreme powers to
two? I would first ask, If there be two, why not more? Because if
number be compatible with the substance of Deity, the richer you make
it in number the better. Valentinus was more consistent and more
liberal; for he, having once imagined two deities, Bythos and Sige,(10)
poured forth a swarm of divine essences, a brood of no less than thirty
AEgons, like the sow of AEneas.(11) Now, whatever principle refuses to
admit several supreme begins, the same must reject even two, for there
is plurality in the very lowest number after one. After unity, number
commences. So, again, the same principle which could admit two could
admit more. After two, multitude begins, now that one is exceeded. In
short, we feel that reason herself expressly(12) forbids the belief in
more gods than one, because the self-same rule lays down one God and
not two, which declares that God must be a Being to which, as the great
Supreme, nothing is equal; and that Being to which nothing is equal
must, moreover, be unique. But further, what can be the use or
advantage in supposing two supreme beings, two co-ordinate(13) powers?
What numerical difference could there be when two equals differ not
from one? For that thing which is the same in two is one. Even if there
were several equals, all would be just as much one, because, as equals,
they would not differ one from another. So, if of two beings neither
differs from the other, since both of them are on the supposition(14)
supreme, both being gods, neither of them is more excellent than the
other; and so, having no pre-eminence, their numerical distinction(16)
has no reason in it. Number, moreover, in the Deity ought to be
consistent with the highest reason, or else His worship would be
brought into doubt. For consider(16) now, if, when I saw two Gods
before me (who, being both Supreme Beings, were equal to each other), I
were to worship them both, what should I be doing? I should be much
afraid that the abundance of my homage would be deemed superstition
rather than piety. Because, as both of them are so equal and are both
included in either of the two, I might serve them both acceptably in
only one; and by this very means I should attest their equality and
unity, provided that I worshipped them mutually the one in the other,
because in the one both are present to me. If I were to worship one of
the two, I should be equally conscious of seeming to pour contempt on
the uselessness of a numerical distinction, which was superfluous,
because it indicated no difference; in other words, I should think it
the safer course to worship neither of these two Gods than one of them
with some scruple of conscience, or both of them to none effect.
Thus far our discussion seems to imply that Marcion makes his two
gods equal. For while we have been maintaining that God ought to be
believed as the one only great Supreme Being, excluding from Him every
possibility(1) of equality, we have treated of these topics on the
assumption of two equal Gods; but nevertheless, by teaching that no
equals can exist according to the law(2) of the Supreme Being, we have
sufficiently affirmed the impossibility that two equals should exist.
For the rest, however,(3) we know full well (4) that Marcion makes his
gods unequal: one judicial, harsh, mighty in war; the other mild,
placid, and simply(5) good and excellent. Let us with similar care
consider also this aspect of the question, whether diversity (in the
Godhead) can at any rate contain two, since equality therein failed to
do so. Here again the same rule about the great Supreme will protect
us, inasmuch as it settles(6) the entire condition of the Godhead. Now,
challenging, and in a certain sense arresting(7) the meaning of our
adversary, who does not deny that the Creator is God, I most fairly
object(8) against him that he has no room for any diversity in his
gods, because, having once confessed that they are on a par,(9) he
cannot now pronounce them different; not indeed that human beings may
not be very different under the same designation, be because the Divine
Being can be neither said nor believed to be God, except as the great
Supreme. Since, therefore, he is obliged to acknowledge that the God
whom he does not deny is the great Supreme, it is inadmissible that he
should predicate of the Supreme Being such a diminution as should
subject Him to another Supreme Being. For He ceases (to be Supreme), if
He becomes subject to any. Besides, it is not the characteristic of God
to cease from any attribute(10) of His divinity—say, from His
supremacy. For at this rate the supremacy would be endangered even in
Marcion's more powerful god, if it were capable of depreciation in the
Creator. When, therefore, two gods are pronounced to be two great
Supremes, it must needs follow that neither of them is greater or less
than the other, neither of them loftier or lowlier than the other. If
you deny(11) him to be God whom you call inferior, you deny(11) the
supremacy of this inferior being. But when you confessed both gods to
be divine, you confessed then both to be supreme. Nothing will you be
able to take away from either of them; nothing will you be able to add.
By allowing their divinity, you have denied their diversity.
But this argument you will try to shake with an objection from
the name of God, by alleging that that name is a vague(12) one, and
applied to other beings also; as it is written, "God standeth in the
congregation of the mighty;(13) He judgeth among the gods." And again,
"I have said, Ye are gods."(14) As therefore the attribute of supremacy
would be inappropriate to these, although they are called gods, so is
it to the Creator. This is a foolish objection; and my answer to it is,
that its author fails to consider that quite as strong an objection
might be urged against the (superior) god of Marcion: he too is called
god, but is not on that account proved to be divine, as neither are
angels nor men, the Creator's handwork. If an identity of names affords
a presumption in support of equality of condition, how often do
worthless menials strut insolently in the names of kings—your
Alexanders, Caesars, and Pompeys!(15) This fact, however, does not
detract from the real attributes of the royal persons, Nay more, the
very idols of the Gentiles are called gods. Yet not one of them is
divine because he is called a god. It is not, therefore, for the name
of god, for its sound or its written form, that I am claiming the
supremacy in the Creator, but for the essence(1) to which the name
belongs; and when I find that essence alone is unbegotten and
unmade—alone eternal, and the maker of all things—it is not to its
name, but its state, not to its designation, but its condition, that I
ascribe and appropriate the attribute of the supremacy. And so, because
the essence to which I ascribe it has come(2) to be called god, you
suppose that I ascribe it to the name, because I must needs use a name
to express the essence, of which indeed that Being consists who is
called God, and who is accounted the great Supreme because of His
essence, not from His name. In short, Marcion himself, when he imputes
this character to his god, imputes it to the nature,(3) not to the
word. That supremacy, then, which we ascribe to God in consideration of
His essence, and not because of His name, ought, as we maintain, to be
equal(4) in both the beings who consist of that substance for which the
name of God is given; because, in as far as they are called gods (i.e.
supreme beings, on the strength, of course, of their unbegotten and
eternal, and therefore great and supreme essence), in so far the
attribute of being the great Supreme cannot be regarded as less or
worse in one than in another great Supreme. If the happiness, and
sublimity, and perfection(5) of the Supreme Being shall hold good of
Marcion's god, it will equally so of ours; and if not of ours, it will
equally not hold of Marcion's. Therefore two supreme beings will be
neither equal nor unequal: not equal, because the principle which we
have just expounded, that the Surpeme Being admits of no comparison
with Himself, forbids it; not unequal, because another principle meets
us respecting the Supreme Being, that He is capable of no diminution.
So, Marcion, you are caught(6) in the midst of your own Pontic tide.
The waves of truth overwhelm you on every side. You can neither set up
equal gods nor unequal ones. For there are not two; so far as the
question of number is properly concerned. Although the whole matter of
the two gods is at issue, we have yet confined our discussion to
certain bounds, within which we shall now have to contend about
separate peculiarities.
In the first place, how arrogantly do the Marcionites build up
their stupid system,(7) bringing forward a new god, as if we were
ashamed of the old one! So schoolboys are proud of their new shoes, but
their old master beats their strutting vanity out of them. Now when I
hear of a new god,(8) who, in the old world and in the old time and
under the old god was unknown and unheard of; whom, (accounted as no
one through such long centuries back, and ancient in men's very
ignorance of him),(9) a certain "Jesus Christ," and none else revealed;
whom Christ revealed, they say—Christ himself new, according to them,
even, in ancient names—I feel grateful for this conceit(10) of theirs.
For by its help I shall at once be able to prove the heresy of their
tenet of a new deity. It will turn out to be such a novelty "as has
made gods even for the heathen by some new and yet again and ever new
title(12) for each several deification. What new god is there, except a
false one? Not even Saturn will be proved to be a god by all his
ancient fame, because it was a novel pretence which some time or other
produced even him, when it first gave him godship.(13) On the contrary,
living and perfect(14) Deity has its origin(15) neither in novelty nor
in antiquity, but in its own true nature. Eternity has no time. It is
itself all time. It acts; it cannot then suffer. It cannot be born,
therefore it lacks age. God, if old, forfeits the eternity that is to
come; if new, the eternity which is past.(16) The newness bears witness
to a beginning; the oldness threatens an end. God, moreover, is as
independent of beginning and end as He is of time, which is only the
arbiter and measurer of a beginning and an end.
Now I know full well by what perceptive faculty they boast of
their new god; even their knowledge.(1) It is, however, this very
discovery of a novel thing—so striking to common minds—as well as the
natural gratification which is inherent in novelty, that I wanted to
refute, and thence further to challenge a proof of this unknown god.
For him whom by their knowledge(2) they present to us as new, they
prove to have been unknown previous to that knowledge. Let us keep,
within the strict limits and measure of our argument. Convince me there
could have been an unknown god. I find, no doubt,(3) that altars have
been lavished on unknown gods; that, however, is the idolatry of
Athens. And on uncertain gods; but that, too, is only Roman
superstition. Furthermore, uncertain gods are not well known, because
no certainty about them exists; and because of this uncertainty they
are therefore unknown. Now, which of these two titles shall we carve
for Marcion's god? Both, I suppose, as for a being who is still
uncertain, and was formerly unknown. For inasmuch as the Creator, being
a known God, caused him to be unknown; so, as being a certain God, he
made him to be uncertain. But I will not go so far out of my way, as to
say:(4) If God was unknown and concealed, He was overshadowed in such a
region of darkness, as must have been itself new and unknown, and be
even now likewise uncertain—some immense region indeed, one
undoubtedly greater than the God whom it concealed. But I will briefly
state my subject, and afterwards most fully pursue it, promising that
God neither could have been, nor ought to have been, unknown. Could not
have been, because of His greatness; ought not to have been, because of
His goodness, especially as He is (supposed, by Marcion) more excellent
in both these attributes than our Creator. Since, however, I observe
that in some points the proof of every new and heretofore unknown god
ought, for its test,(5) to be compared to the form of the Creator, it
will be my duty(6) first of all to show that this very course is
adopted by me in a settled plan,(7) such as I might with greater
confidence(8) use in support of my argument. Before every other
consideration, (let me ask) how it happens that you,(9) who
acknowledge(10) the Creator to be God, and from your knowledge confess
Him to be prior in existence, do not know that the other god should be
examined by you in exactly the same course of investigation which has
taught you how to find out a god in the first case? Every prior thing
has furnished the rule for the latter. In the present question two gods
are propounded, the unknown and the known. Concerning the known there
is no(11) question. It is plain that He exists, else He would not be
known. The dispute is concerning the unknown god. Possibly he has no
existence; because, if he had, he would have been known. Now that
which, so long as it is unknown, is an object to be questioned, is an
uncertainty so long as it remains thus questionable; and all the while
it is in this state of uncertainty, it possibly has no existence at
all. You have a god who is so far certain, as he is known; and
uncertain, as unknown. This being the case, does it appear to you to be
justly defensible, that uncertain- ties should be submitted for proof
to the rule, and form, and standard of certainties? Now, if to the
subject before us, which is in itself full of uncertainty thus far,
there be applied also arguments(12) derived from uncertainties, we
shall be involved in such a series of questions arising out of our
treatment of these same uncertain arguments, as shall by reason of
their uncertainty be dangerous to the faith, and we shall drift into
those insoluble questions which the apostle has no affection for. If,
again,(13) in things wherein there is found a diversity of condition,
they shall prejudge, as no doubt they will,(14) uncertain, doubtful,
and intricate points, by the certain, undoubted, and clear sides(15) of
their rule, it will probably happen that(16) (those points) will not be
submitted to the standard of certainties for determination, as being
freed by the diversity of their essential condition(17) from the
application of such a standard in all other respects. As, therefore, it
is two gods which are the subject of our proposition, their essential
condition must be the same in both. For, as concerns their divinity,
they are both unbegotten, unmade, eternal. This will be their essential
condition. All other points Marcion himself seems to have made, light
of,(1) for he has placed them in a different(2) category. They are
subsequent in the order of treatment; indeed, they will not have to be
brought into the discussion,(3) since on the essential condition there
is no dispute. Now there is this absence of our dispute, because they
are both of them gods. Those things, therefore, whose community of
condition is evident, will, when brought to a test on the ground of
that common condition,(4) have to be submitted, although they are
uncertain, to the standard(5) of those certainties with which they are
classed in the community of their essential condition, so as on this
account to share also in their manner of proof. I shall therefore
contend(6) with the greatest confidence that he is not God who is
to-day uncertain, because he has been hitherto unknown; for of
whomsoever it is evident that he is God, from this very fact it is
(equally) evident, that he never has been unknown, and therefore never
uncertain.
For indeed, as the Creator of all things, He was from the
beginning discovered equally with them, they having been themselves
manifested that He might become known as God. For although Moses, some
long while afterwards, seems to have been the first to introduce the
knowledge of(7) the God of the universe in the temple of his writings,
yet the birthday of that knowledge must not on that account be reckoned
from the Pentateuch. For the volume of Moses does not at all
initiate(8) the knowledge of the Creator, but from the first gives out
that it is to be traced from Paradise and Adam, not from Egypt and
Moses. The greater part, therefore,(9) of the human race, although they
knew not even the name of Moses, much less his writings, yet knew the
God of Moses; and even when idolatry overshadowed the world with its
extreme prevalence, men still spoke of Him separately by His own name
as God, and the God of gods, and said, "If God grant," and, "As God
pleases," and, "I commend you to God."(10) Reflect, then, whether they
knew Him, of whom they testify that He can do all things. To none of
the writings of Moses do they owe this. The soul was before
prophecy.(11) From the beginning the knowledge of God is the dowry of
the soul, one and the same amongst the Egyptians, and the Syrians, and
the tribes of Pontus. For their souls call the God of the Jews their
God. Do not, O barbarian heretic, put Abraham before the world. Even if
the Creator had been the God of one family, He was yet not later than
your god; even in Pontus was He known before him. Take then your
standard from Him who came first: from the Certain (must be judged) the
uncertain; from the Known the unknown. Never shall God be hidden, never
shall God be wanting. Always shall He be understood, always be heard,
nay even seen, in whatsoever way He shall wish. God has for His
witnesses this whole being of ours, and this universe wherein we dwell.
He is thus, because not unknown, proved to be both God and the only
One, although another still tries hard to make out his claim.
And justly so, they say. For who is there that is less well known
by his own (inherent) qualities than by strange(12) ones? No one. Well,
I keep to this statement. How could anything be strange.(13) to God, to
whom, if He were personally existent, nothing would be strange? For
this is the attribute of God, that all things are His, and all things
belong to Him; or else this question would not so readily be heard from
us: What has He to do with things strange to Him?—a point which will
be more fully noticed in its proper place. It is now sufficient to
observe, that no one is proved to exist to whom nothing is proved to
belong. For as the Creator is shown to be God, God without any doubt,
from the fact that all things are His, and nothing is strange to Him;
so the rival(14) god is seen to be no god, from the circumstance that
nothing is his, and all things are therefore strange to him. Since,
then, the universe belongs to the Creator, I see no room for any other
god. All things are full of their Author, and occupied by Him. If in
created beings there be any portion of space anywhere void of Deity,
the void will be of a false deity clearly.(1) By falsehood the truth is
made clear. Why cannot the vast crowd of false gods somewhere find room
for Marcion's god? This, therefore, I insist upon, from the
character(2) of the Creator, that God must have been known from the
works of some world peculiarly His own, both in its human constituents,
and the rest of its organic life;(3) when even the error of the world
has presumed to call gods those men whom it sometimes acknowledges, on
the ground that in every such case something is. seen which provides
for the uses and advantages of life.(4) Accordingly, this also was
believed from the character of God to be a divine function; namely, to
teach or point out what is convenient and needful in human concerns. So
completely has the authority which has given influence to a false
divinity been borrowed from that source, whence it had previously
flowed forth to the true one. One stray vegetable s at least Marcion's
god ought to have produced as his own; so might he be preached up as a
new Triptolemus.(6) Or else state some reason which shall be worthy of
a God, why he, supposing him to exist, created nothing; because he
must, on supposition of his existence, have been a creator, on that
very principle on which it is clear to us thai our God is no otherwise
existent, than as having been the Creator of this universe of ours.
For, once for all, the rule(7) will hold good, that they cannot both
acknowledge the Creator to be God, and also prove him divine whom they
wish to be equally believed in as God, except they adjust him to the
standard of Him whom they and all men hold to be God; which is this,
that whereas no one doubts the Creator to be God on the express ground
of His having made the universe, so, on the selfsame ground, no one
ought to believe that he also is God who has made nothing—except,
indeed, some good reason be forthcoming. And this must needs be limited
to one of two: he was either unwilling to create, or else unable. There
is no third reason.(8) Now, that he was unable, is a reason unworthy of
God. Whether to have been unwilling to be a worthy one, I want to
inquire. Tell me, Marcion, did your god wish himself to be recognised
at any time or not? With what other purpose did he come down from
heaven, and preach, and having suffered rise again from the dead, if it
were not that he might be acknowledged? And, doubtless, since he was
acknowledged, he willed it. For no circumstance could have happened to
him, if he had been unwilling. What indeed tended so greatly to the
knowledge of himself, as his appearing in the humiliation of the
flesh,—a degradation all the lower indeed if the flesh were only
illusory?(9) For it was all the more shameful if he, who brought on
himself the Creator's curse by hanging on a tree, only pretended the
assumption of a bodily substance. A far nobler foundation might he have
laid for the knowledge of himself in some evidences of a creation of
his own, especially when he had to become known in opposition to Him in
whose territory(10) he had remained unknown by any works from the
beginning. For how happens it that the Creator, although unaware, as
the Marcionites aver, of any god being above Himself, and who used to
declare even with an oath that He existed alone, should have guarded by
such mighty works the knowledge of Himself, about which, on the
assumption of His being alone without a rival, He might have spared
Himself all care; while the Superior God, knowing all the while how
well furnished in power His inferior rival was, should have made no
provision at all towards getting Himself acknowledged? Whereas He ought
to have produced works more illustrious and exalted still, in order
that He might, after the Creator's standard, both be acknowledged as
God from His works, and even by nobler deeds show Himself to be more
potent and more gracious than the Creator.
But even if we were able to allow that he exists, we should yet
be bound to argue that he is without a cause.(11) For he who had
nothing (to show for himself as proof of his existence),would be
without a cause, since (such) proof(12) is the whole cause that there
exists some person to whom the proof belongs. Now, in as far as nothing
ought to be without a cause, that is, without a proof (because if it be
without a cause, it is all one as if it be not, not having the very
proof which is the cause of a thing), in so far shall I more worthily
believe that God does not exist, than that He exists without a cause.
For he is without a cause who has not a cause by reason of not having a
proof. God, however, ought not to be without a cause, that is to say,
without a proof. Thus, as often as I show that He exists without a
cause, although (I allow(1) that) He exists, I do really determine
this, that He does not exist; because, if He had existed, He could not
have existed altogether without a cause.(2) So, too, even in regard to
faith itself, I say that he(3) seeks to obtain it(4) with out cause
from man, who is otherwise accustomed to believe in God from the idea
he gets of Him from the testimony of His works:(5) (without cause, I
repeat,) because he has provided no such proof as that whereby man has
acquired the knowledge of God. For although most persons believe in
Him, they do not believe at once by unaided reason,(6) without having
some token of Deity in works worthy of God. And so upon this ground of
inactivity and lack of works he(7) is guilty both of impudence and
malignity: of impudence, in aspiring after a belief which is not due to
him, and for which he has provided no foundation;(8) of malignity, in
having brought many persons under the charge of unbelief by furnishing
to them no groundwork for their faith.
While we are expelling from this rank (of Deity) a god who has no
evidence to show for himself which is so proper and God-worthy as the
testimony of the Creator, Marcion's most shameless followers with
haughty impertinence fall upon the Creator's works to destroy them. To
be sure, say they, the world is a grand work, worthy of a God. (90 Then
is the Creator not at all a God? By all means He is God.(10)
Therefore(11) the world is not unworthy of God, for God has made
nothing unworthy of Himself; although it was for man, and not for
Himself, that He made the world, (and) although every work is less than
its maker. And yet, if to have been the author of our creation, such as
it is, be unworthy of God, how much more unworthy of Him is it to have
created absolutely nothing at all!—not even a production which,
although unworthy, might yet have encouraged the hope of some better
attempt. To say somewhat, then, concerning the alleged(12) unworthiness
of this world's fabric, to which among the Greeks also is assigned a
name of ornament and grace,(13) not of sordidness, those very
professors of wisdom,(14) from whose genius every heresy derives its
spirit,(15) called the said unworthy elements divine; as Thales did
water, Heraclitus fire, Anaximenes air, Anaximander all the heavenly
bodies, Strato the sky and earth, Zeno the air and ether, and Plato the
stars, which he calls a fiery kind of gods; whilst concerning the
world, when they considered indeed its magnitude, and strength, and
power, and honour, and glory,—the abundance, too, the regularity, and
law of those individual elements which contribute to the production,
the nourishment, the ripening, and the reproduction of all things,—the
majority of the philosophers hesitated(16) to assign a beginning and an
end to the said world, lest its constituent elements,(17) great as they
undoubtedly are, should fail to be regarded as divine,(18) which are
objects of worshsip with the Persian magi, the Egyptian hierophants,
and the Indian gymnosophists. The very superstition of the crowd,
inspired by the common idolatry, when ashamed of the names and fables
of their ancient dead borne by their idols, has recourse to the
interpretation of natural objects, and so with much ingenuity cloaks
its own disgrace, figuratively reducing Jupiter to a heated substance,
and Juno to an aerial one (according to the literal sense of the Greek
words);(19) Vesta, in like manner, to fire, and the Muses to waters,
and the Great Mother(20) to the earth, mowed as to its crops, ploughed
up with lusty arms, and watered with baths.(1) Thus Osiris also,
whenever he is buried, and looked for to come to life again, and with
joy recovered, is an emblem of the regularity wherewith the fruits of
the ground return, and the elements recover life, and the year comes
round; as also the lions of Mithras(2) are philosophical sacraments of
arid and scorched nature. It is, indeed, enough for me that natural
elements, foremost in site and state, should have been more readily
regarded as divine than as unworthy of God. I will, however, come down
to(3) humbler objects. A single floweret from the hedgerow, I say not
from the meadows; a single little shellfish from any sea, I say not
from the Red Sea; a single stray wing of a moorfowl, I say nothing of
the peacock,—will, I presume, prove to you that the Creator was but a
sorry(4) artificer!
Now, when you make merry with those minuter animals, which their
glorious Maker has purposely endued with a profusion. of instincts and
resources,(5)—thereby teaching us that greatness has its proofs in
lowliness, just as (according to the apostle)there is power even in
infirmity(6)—imitate, if you can, the cells of the bee, the hills of
the ant, the webs of the spider, and the threads of the silkworm;
endure, too, if you know how, those very creatures(7) which infest your
couch and house, the poisonous ejections of the blister-beetle,(8) the
spikes of the fly, and the gnat's Sheath and sting. What of the greater
animals, when the small ones so affect you with pleasure or pain, that
you cannot even in their case despise their Creator? Finally, take a
circuit round your own self; survey man within and without. Even this
handiwork of our God will be pleasing to you, inasmuch as your own
lord, that better god, loved it so well,(9) and for your sake was at
the pains(10) of descending from the third heaven to these
poverty-stricken(11) elements, and for the same reason was actually
crucified in this sorry(12) apartment of the Creator. Indeed, up to the
present time, he has not disdained the water which the Creator made
wherewith he washes his people; nor the oil with which he anoints them;
nor that union of honey and milk wherewithal he gives them the
nourishment(13) of children; nor the bread by which he represents his
own proper body, thus requiring in his very sacraments the
"beggarly(14) elements" of the Creator. You, however, are a disciple
above his master, and a servant above his lord; you have a higher reach
of discernment than his; you destroy what he requires. I wish to
examine whether you are at least honest in this, so as to have no
longing for those things which you destroy. You are an enemy to the
sky, and yet you are glad to catch its freshness in your houses. You
disparage the earth, although the elemental parent(15) of your own
flesh, as if it were your undoubted enemy, and yet you extract from it
all its fatness(16) for your food. The sea, too, you reprobate, but are
continually using its produce, which you account the more sacred
diet.(17) If I should offer you a rose, you will not disdain its Maker.
You hypocrite, however much of abstinence you use to show yourself a
Marcionite, that is, a repudiator of your Maker (for if the world
displeased you, such abstinence ought to have been affected by you as a
martyrdom), you will have to associate yourself with(18) the Creator's
material production, into what element soever you shall be dissolved.
How hard is this obstinacy of yours! You vilify the things in which you
both live and die.
After all, or, if you like,(19) before all, since you have said
that he has a creation(20) of his own, and his own world, and his own
sky; we shall see,(21) indeed, about that third heaven, when we come to
discuss even your own apos- tle.(1) Meanwhile, whatever is the
(created) substance, it ought at any rate to have made its appearance
in company with its own god. But now, how happens it that the Lord has
been revealed since the twelfth year of Tiberius Caesar, while no
creation of His at all has been discovered up to the fifteenth of the
Emperor Severus;(2) although, as being more excellent than the paltry
works(3) of the Creator, it should certainly have ceased to conceal
itself, when its lord and author no longer lies hid? I ask,
therefore,(4) if it was unable to manifest itself in this world, how
did its Lord appear in this world? If this world received its Lord, why
was it not able to receive the created substance, unless perchance it
was greater than its Lord? But now there arises a question about place,
having reference both to the world above and to the God thereof. For,
behold, if he(5) has his own world beneath him, above the Creator, he
has certainly fixed it in a position, the space of which was empty
between his own feet and the Creator's head. Therefore God both Himself
occupied local space, and caused the world to occupy local space; and
this local space, too, will be greater than God and the world together.
For in no case is that which contains not greater than that which is
contained. And indeed we must look well to it that no small patches(6)
be left here and there vacant, in which some third god also may be able
with a world of his own to foist himself in.(7) Now, begin to reckon up
your gods. There will be local space for a god, not only as being
greater than God, but as being also unbegotten and unmade, and
therefore eternal, and equal to God, in which God has ever been. Then,
inasmuch as He too has fabricated(8) a world out of some underlying
material which is unbegotten, and unmade, and contemporaneous with God,
just as Marcion holds of the Creator, you reduce this likewise to the
dignity of that local space which has enclosed two gods, both God and
matter. For matter also is a god according to the rule of Deity, being
(to be sure) unbegotten, and unmade, and eternal. If, however, it was
out of nothing that he made his world, this also (our heretic) will be
obliged to predicate(9) of the Creator, to whom he subordinates(10)
matter in the substance of the world. But it will be only right that
he(11) too should have made his world out of matter, because the same
process occurred to him as God which lay before the Creator as equally
God. And thus you may, if you please, reckon up so far,(13) three gods
as Marcion's,—the Maker, local space, and matter. Furthermore,(13) he
in like manner makes the Creator a god in local space, which is itself
to be appraised on a precisely identical scale of dignity; and to Him
as its lord he subordinates matter, which is notwithstanding
unbegotten, and unmade, and by reason hereof eternal. With this matter
he further associates evil, an unbegotten principle with an unbegotten
object, an unmade with an unmade, and an eternal with an eternal; so
here he makes a fourth God. Accordingly you have three substances of
Deity in the higher instances, and in the lower ones four. When to
these are added their Christs—the one which appeared in the time of
Tiberius, the other which is promised by the Creator—Marcion suffers a
manifest wrong from those persons who assume that he holds two gods,
whereas he implies(14) no less than nine.(15) though he knows it not.
Since, then, that other world does not appear, nor its god
either, the only resource left (16) to them is to divide things into
the two classes of visible and invisible, with two gods for their
authors, and so to claim(17) the invisible for their own, (the supreme)
God. But who, except an heretical spirit, could ever bring his mind to
believe that the invisible part of creation belongs to him who had
previously displayed no visible thing, rather than to Him who, by His
operation on the visible world, produced a belief in the invisible
also, since it is far more reasonable to give one's assent after some
samples (of a work) than after none? We shall see to what author even
(your favourite) apostle attributes(1) the invisible creation, when we
come to examine him. At present (we withhold his testimony), for(2) we
are for the most part engaged in preparing the way, by means of common
sense and fair arguments, for a belief in the future support of the
Scriptures also. We affirm, then, that this diversity of things visible
and invisible must on this ground be attributed to the Creator, even
because the whole of His work consists of diversities—of things
corporeal and incorporeal; of animate and inanimate; of vocal and mute
of moveable and stationary; of productive and sterile; of arid and
moist; of hot and cold. Man, too, is himself similarly tempered with
diversity, both in his body and in his sensation. Some of his members
are strong, others weak; some comely, others uncomely; some twofold,
others unique; some like, others unlike. In like manner there is
diversity also in his sensation: now joy, then anxiety; now love, then
hatred; now anger, then calmness. Since this is the case, inasmuch as
the whole of this creation of ours has been fashioned(3) with a
reciprocal rivalry amongst its several parts, the invisible ones are
due to the visible, and not to be ascribed to any other author than Him
to whom their counterparts are imputed, marking as they do diversity in
the Creator Himself, who orders what He forbade, and forbids what He
ordered; who also strikes and heals. Why do they take Him to be uniform
in one class of things alone, as the Creator of visible things, and
only them; whereas He ought to be believed to have created both the
visible and the invisible, in just the same way as life and death, or
as evil things and peace?(4) And verily, if the invisible creatures are
greater than the visible, which are in their own sphere great, so also
is it fitting that the greater should be His to whom the great belong;
because neither the great, nor indeed the greater, can be suitable
property for one who seems to possess not even the smallest things.
Pressed by these arguments, they exclaim: One work is sufficient
for our god; he has delivered man by his supreme and most excellent
goodness, which is preferable to (the creation of) all the locusts.(5)
What superior god is this, of whom it has not been possible to find any
work so great as the man of the lesser god! Now without doubt the first
thing you have to do is to prove that he exists, after the same manner
that the existence of God must ordinarily be proved—by his works; and
only after that by his good deeds. For the first question is, Whether
he exists? and then, What is his character? The former is to be
tested(6) by his works, the other by the beneficence of them. It does
not simply follow that he exists, because he is said to have wrought
deliverance for man; but only after it shall have been settled that he
exists, will there be room for saying that he has affected this
liberation. And even this point also must have its own evidence,
because it may be quite possible both that he has existence, and yet
has not wrought the alleged deliverance. Now in that section of our
work which concerned the question of the unknown god, two points were
made clear enough—both that he had created nothing: and that he ought
to have been a creator, in order to be known by his works; because, if
he had existed, he ought to have been known, and that too from the
beginning of things; for it was not fit that God should have lain hid.
It will be necessary that I should revert to the very trunk of that
question of the unknown god, that I may strike off into some of its
other branches also. For it will be first of all proper to inquire, Why
he, who afterwards brought himself into notice, did so—so late, and
not at the very first? From creatures, with which as God he was indeed
so closely connected (and the closer this connection was,(7) the
greater was his goodness), he ought never to have been hidden. For it
cannot be pretended that there was not either any means of arriving at
the knowledge of God, or a good reason for it, when from the beginning
man was in the world, for whom the deliverance is now come; as was also
that malevolence of the Creator, in opposition to which the good God
has wrought the deliverance. He was therefore either ignorant of the
good reason for and means of his own necessary manifestation, or
doubted them; or else was either unable or unwilling to encounter them.
All these alternatives are unworthy of God, especially the supreme and
best. This topic,(1) however, we shall afterwards(2) more fully treat,
with a condemnation of the tardy manifestation; we at present simply
point it out.
Well, then,(3) he has now advanced into notice, just when he
willed, when he could, when the destined hour arrived. For perhaps he
was hindered hitherto by his leading star,(4) or some weird malignants,
or Saturn in quadrature,(5) or Mars at the trine.(6) The Marcionites
are very strongly addicted to astrology; nor do they blush to get their
livelihood by help of the very stars which were made by the Creator
(whom they depreciate). We must here also treat of the quality(7) of
the (new) revelation; whether Marcion's supreme god has become known in
a way worthy of him, so as to secure the proof of his existence: and in
the way of truth, so that he may be believed to be the very being who
had been already proved to have been revealed in a manner worthy of his
character. For things which are worthy of God will prove the existence
of God. We maintain(8) that God must first be known(9) from nature, and
afterwards authenticated(10) by instruction: from nature by His works;
by instruction,(11) through His revealed announcements.(12) Now, in a
case where nature is excluded, no natural means (of knowledge) are
furnished. He ought, therefore, to have carefully supplied(13) a
revelation of himself, even by announcements, especially as he had to
be revealed in opposition to One who, after so many and so great works,
both of creation and revealed announcement, had with difficulty
succeeded in satisfying(14) men's faith. In what manner, therefore, has
the revelation been made? If by man's conjectural guesses, do not say
that God can possibly become known in any other way than by Himself,
and appeal not only to the standard of the Creator, but to the
conditions both of God's greatness and man's littleness; so that man
seem not by any possibility to be greater than God, by having somehow
drawn Him out into public recognition, when He was Himself unwilling to
become known by His own energies, although man's littleness has been
able, according to experiments all over the world, more easily to
fashion for itself gods, than to follow the true God whom men now
understand by nature. As for the rest,(15) if man shall be thus able to
devise a god,—as Romulus did Consus, and Tatius Cloacina, and
Hostilius Fear, and Metellus Alburnus, and a certain authority(16) some
time since Antinous,—the same accomplishment may be allowed to others.
As for us, we have found our pilot in Marcion, although not a king nor
an emperor.
Well, but our god, say the Marcionites, although he did not
manifest himself from the beginning and by means of the creation, has
yet revealed himself in Christ Jesus. A book will be devoted(17) to
Christ, treating of His entire state; for it is desirable that these
subject-matters should be distinguished one from another, in order that
they may receive a fuller and more methodical treatment. Meanwhile it
will be sufficient if, at this stage of the question, I show—and that
but briefly—that Christ Jesus is the revealer(18) of none other god
but the Creator. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius,(19) Christ Jesus
vouchsafed to come down from heaven, as the spirit of saving
health.(20) I cared not to inquire, indeed, in what particular year of
the elder Antoninus. He who had so gracious a purpose did rather, like
a pestilential sirocco,(21) exhale this health or salvation, which
Marcion teaches from his Pontus. Of this teacher there is no doubt that
he is a heretic of the Antonine period, impious under the pious. Now,
from Tiberius to Antoninus Pius, there are about 115 years and 6 1/2
months. Just such an interval do they place between Christ and Marcion.
Inasmuch, then, as Marcion, as we have shown, first introduced this god
to notice in the time of Antoninus, the matter becomes at once clear,
if you are a shrewd observer. The dates already decide the case, that
he who came to light for the first time(1) in the reign of Antoninus,
did not appear in that of Tiberius; in other words, that the God of the
Antonine period was not the God of the Tiberian; and consequently, that
he whom Marcion has plainly preached for the first time, was not
revealed by Christ (who announced His revelation as early as the reign
of Tiberius). Now, to prove clearly what remains of the argument, I
shall draw materials from my very adversaries. Marcion's special and
principal work is the separation of the law and the gospel; and his
disciples will not deny that in this point they have their very best
pretext for initiating and confirming themselves in his heresy. These
are Marcion's Antitheses, or contradictory propositions, which aim at
committing the gospel to a variance with the law, in order that from
the diversity of the two documents which contain them,(2) they may
contend for a diversity of gods also. Since, therefore, it is this very
opposition between the law and the gospel which has suggested that the
God of the gospel is different from the God of the law, it is clear
that, before the said separation, that god could not have been known
who became known(3) from the argument of the separation itself. He
therefore could not have been revealed by Christ, who came before the
separation, but must have been devised by Marcion, the author of the
breach of peace between the gospel and the law. Now this peace, which
had remained unhurt and unshaken from Christ's appearance to the time
of Marcion's audacious doctrine, was no doubt maintained by that way of
thinking, which firmly held that the God of both law and gospel was
none other than the Creator, against whom after so long a time a
separation has been introduced by the heretic of Pontus.
This most patent conclusion requires to be defended by us against
the clamours of the opposite side. For they allege that Marcion did not
so much innovate on the rule (of faith) by his separation of the law
and the gospel, as restore it after it had been previously adulterated.
O Christ,(4) most enduring Lord, who didst bear so many years with this
interference with Thy revelation, until Marcion forsooth came to Thy
rescue! Now they adduce the case of Peter himself, and the others, who
were pillars of the apostolate, as having been blamed by Paul for not
walking uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel—that very Paul
indeed, who, being yet in the mere rudiments of grace, and trembling,
in short, lest he should have run or were still running in vain, then
for the first time held intercourse with those who were apostles before
himself. Therefore because, in the eagerness of his zeal against
Judaism as a neophyte, he thought that there was something to be blamed
in their conduct—even the promiscuousness of their
conversation(5)—but afterwards was himself to become in his practice
all things to all men, that he might gain all,—to the Jews, as a Jew,
and to them that were under the law, as under the law,—you would have
his censure, which was merely directed against conduct destined to
become acceptable even to their accuser, suspected of prevarication
against God on a point of public doctrine.(6) Touching their public
doctrine, however, they had, as we have already said, joined hands in
perfect concord, and had agreed also in the division of their labour in
their fellowship of the gospel, as they had indeed in all other
respects:(7) "Whether it were I or they, so we preach."(8) When, again,
he mentioned "certain false brethren as having crept in unawares," who
wished to remove the Galatians into another gospel,(9) he himself shows
that that adulteration of the gospel was not meant to transfer them to
the faith of another god and christ, but rather to perpetuate the
teaching of the law; because he blames them for maintaining
circumcision, and observing times, and days, and months, and years,
according to those Jewish ceremonies which they ought to have known
were now abrogated, according to the new dispensation purposed by the
Creator Himself, who of old foretold this very thing by His prophets.
Thus He says by Isaiah: Old things have passed away. "Behold, I will do
a new thing."(10) And in another passage: "I will make a new covenant,
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, when I
brought them out of the land of Egypt."(1) In like manner by Jeremiah:
Make to yourselves a new covenant, "circumcise yourselves to the Lord,
and take away the foreskins of your heart."(2) It is this circumcision,
therefore, and this renewal, which the apostle insisted on, when he
forbade those ancient ceremonies concerning which their very founder
announced that they were one day to cease; thus by Hosea: "I will also
cause all her mirth to cease, her feast-days, her new moons, and her
Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.''(3) So likewise by Isaiah: "The
new moons, and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with;
your holy days, and fasts, and feast-days, my soul hateth."(4) Now, if
even the Creator had so long before discarded all these things, and the
apostle was now proclaiming them to be worthy of renunciation, the very
agreement of the apostle's meaning with the decrees of the Creator
proves that none other God was preached by the apostle than He whose
purposes he now wished to have recognised, branding as false both
apostles and brethren, for the express reason that they were pushing
back the gospel of Christ the Creator from the new condition which the
Creator had foretold, to the old one which He had discarded.
Now if it was with the view of preaching a new god that he was
eager to abrogate the law of the old God, how is it that he prescribes
no rule about(5) the new god, but solely about the old law, if it be
not because faith in the Creator(6) was still to continue, and His law
alone was to come to an end?(7)—just as the Psalmist had declared:
"Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings
of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together against the
Lord, and against His Anointed."(8) And, indeed, if another god were
preached by Paul, there could be no doubt about the law, whether it
were to be kept or not, because of course it would not belong to the
new lord, the enemy(9) of the law. The very newness and difference of
the god would take away not only all question about the old and alien
law, but even all mention of it. But the whole question, as it then
stood, was this, that although the God of the law was the same as was
preached in Christ, yet there was a disparagement(10) of His law.
Permanent still, therefore, stood faith in the Creator and in His
Christ; manner of life and discipline alone fluctuated.(11) Some
disputed about eating idol sacrifices, others about the veiled dress of
women, others again about marriage and divorce, and some even about the
hope of the resurrection; but about God no one disputed. Now, if this
question also had entered into dispute, surely it would be found in the
apostle, and that too as a great and vital point. No doubt, after the
time of the apostles, the truth respecting the belief of God suffered
corruption, but it is equally certain that during the life of the
apostles their teaching on this great article did not suffer at all; so
that no other teaching will have the fight of being received as
apostolic than that which is at the present day proclaimed in the
churches of apostolic foundation. You will, however, find no church of
apostolic origin(12) but such as reposes its Christian faith in the
Creator.(13) But if the churches shall prove to have been corrupt from
the beginning, where shall the pure ones be found? Will it be amongst
the adversaries of the Creator? Show us, then, one of your churches,
tracing its descent from an apostle, and you will have gained the
day.(14) Forasmuch then as it is on all accounts evident that there was
from Christ down to Marcion's time no other God in the rule of sacred
truth's than the Creator, the proof of our argument is sufficiently
established, in which we have shown that the god of our heretic first
became known by his separation of the gospel and the law. Our previous
position(16) is accordingly made good, that no god is to be believed
whom any man has devised out of his own conceits; except indeed the man
be a prophet,(17) and then his own conceits would not be concerned in
the matter. If Marcion, however, shall be able to lay claim to this
inspired character, it will be necessary for it to be shown. There must
be no doubt or paltering.(18) For all heresy is thrust out by this
wedge of the truth, that Christ is proved to be the revealer of no God
else but the Creator.(19)
But how shall (this) Antichrist be fully overthrown unless we
relax our defence by mere prescription,(1) and give ourselves scope for
rebutting all his other attacks? Let us therefore next take the very
person of God Himself, or rather His shadow or phantom,(2) as we have
it in Christ, and let Him be examined by that condition which makes Him
superior to the Creator. And undoubtedly there will come to hand
unmistakeable rules for examining God's goodness. My first point,
however, iS to discover and apprehend the attribute, and then to draw
it out into rules. Now, when I survey the subject in its aspects of
time, I nowhere descry it(3) from the beginning of material existences,
or at the commencement of those causes, with which it ought to have
been found, proceeding thence to do(4) whatever had to be done. For
there was death already, and Sin the sting of death, and that malignity
too of the Creator, against which the goodness of the other god should
have been ready to bring relief; falling in with this as the primary
rule of the divine goodness (if it were to prove itself a natural
agency), at once coming as a succour when the cause for it began. For
in God all things should be natural and inbred, just like His own
condition indeed, in order that they may be eternal, and so not be
accounted casual(5) and extraneous, and thereby temporary and wanting
in eternity. In God, therefore, goodness is required to be both
perpetual and unbroken,(6) such as, being stored up and kept ready in
the treasures of His natural properties, might precede its own causes
and material developments; and if thus preceding, might underlie(7)
every first material cause, instead of looking at it from a
distance,(8) and standing aloof from it.(9) In short, here too I must
inquire, Why his(10) goodness did not operate from the beginning? no
less pointedly than when we inquired concerning himself, Why he was not
revealed from the very first? Why, then, did it not? since he had to be
revealed by his goodness
if he had any existence. That God should at all fail in power must not be thought, much less that He should not discharge all His natural functions; for if these were restrained from running their course, they would cease to be natural. Moreover, the .nature of God Him self knows nothing of inactivity. Hence (His goodness) is reckoned as having a beginning,(11) if it acts. It will thus be evident that He had no unwillingness to exercise His goodness at any time on account of His nature. Indeed, it is impossible that He should be unwilling because of His nature, since that so directs itself that it would no longer exist if it ceased to act. In Marcion's god, however, goodness ceased from operation at some time or other. A goodness, therefore, which could thus at any time have ceased its action was not natural, because with natural properties such cessation is incompatible. And if it shall not prove to be natural, it must no longer be believed to be eternal nor competent to Deity; because it cannot be eternal so long as, failing to be natural, it neither provides from the past nor guarantees for the future any means of perpetuating itself. Now as a fact it existed not from the beginning, and, doubtless, will not endure to the end. For it is possible for it to fail in existence some future(12) time or other, as it has failed in some past(13) period. Forasmuch, then, as the goodness of Marcion's god failed in the beginning (for he did not from the first deliver man), this failure must have been the effect of will rather than of infirmity. Now a wilful suppression of goodness will be found to have a malignant end in view. For what malignity is so great as to be unwilling to do good when one can, or to thwart(14) what is useful, or to permit injury? The whole description, therefore, of Marcion's Creator will have to be transferred(15) to his new god, who helped on the ruthless(16) proceedings of the former by the retardation of his own goodness. For whosoever has it in his power to prevent the happening of a thing, is accounted responsible for it if it should occur. Man is condemned to death for tasting the fruit of one poor tree,(17) and thence proceed sins with their penalties; and now all are perishing who yet never saw a single sod of Paradise. And all this your better god either is ignorant of, or else brooks. Is it that(18) he might on this account be deemed the better, and the Creator be re- garded as all that the worse? Even if this were his purpose he would be malicious enough, for both wishing to aggravate his rival's obloquy by permitting His (evil) works to be done, and by keeping the world harrassed by the wrong. What would you think of a physician who should encourage a disease by withholding the remedy, and prolong the danger by delaying his prescription, in order that his cure might be more costly and more renowned? Such must be the sentence to be pronounced against Marcion's god: tolerant of evil, encouraging wrong, wheedling about his grace, prevaricating in his goodness, which he did not exhibit simply on its own account, but which he must mean to exhibit purely, if he is good by nature and not by acquisition,(1) if he is supremely good in attribute(2) and not by discipline, if he is God from eternity and not from Tiberius, nay (to speak more truly), from Cerdon only and Marcion. As the case now stands,(3) however, such a god as we are considering would have been more fit for Tiberius, that the goodness of the Divine Being might be inaugurated in the world under his imperial sway!
Here is another rule for him. All the properties of God ought to
be as rational as they are natural. I require reason in His goodness,
because nothing else can properly be accounted good than that which is
rationally good; much less can goodness itself be detected in any
irrationality. More easily will an evil thing which has something
rational belonging to it be accounted good, than that a good thing
bereft of all reasonable quality should escape being regarded as evil.
Now I deny that the goodness of Marcion's god is rational, on this
account first, because it proceeded to the salvation of a human
creature which was alien to him. I am aware of the plea which they will
adduce, that that is rather (4) a primary and perfect goodness which is
shed voluntarily and freely upon strangers without any obligation of
friendship,(5) on the principle that we are bidden to love even our
enemies, such as are also on that very account strangers to us. Now,
inasmuch as from the first he had no regard for man, a stranger to him
from the first, he settled beforehand, by this neglect of his, that he
had nothing to do with an
alien creature. Besides, the rule of loving a stranger or enemy is preceded by the precept of your loving your neighbour as yourself; and this precept, although coming from the Creator's law, even you ought to receive, because, so far from being abrogated by Christ, it has rather been confirmed by Him. For you are bidden to love your enemy and the stranger, in order that you may love your neighbour the better. The requirement of the undue is an augmentation of the due benevolence. But the due precedes the undue, as the principal quality, and more worthy of the other, for its attendant and companion.(6) Since, therefore, the first step in the reasonableness of the divine goodness is that it displays itself on its proper object(7) in righteousness, and only at its second stage on an alien object by a redundant righteousness over and above that of scribes and Pharisees, how comes it to pass that the second is attributed to him who fails in the first, not having man for his proper object, and who makes his goodness on this very account defective? Moreover, how could a defective benevolence, which had no proper object whereon to expend itself, overflow(8) on an alien one? Clear up the first step, and then vindicate the next. Nothing can be claimed as rational without order, much less can reason itself(9) dispense with order in any one. Suppose now the divine goodness begin at the second stage of its rational operation, that is to say, on the stranger, this second stage will not be consistent in rationality if it be impaired in any way else.(10) For only then will even the second stage of goodness, that which is displayed towards the stranger, be accounted rational, when it operates without wrong to him who has the first claim.(11) It is righteousness (12) which before everything else makes all goodness rational. It will thus be rational in its principal stage, when manifested on its proper object, if it be righteous. And thus, in like manner, it will be able to appear rational, when displayed towards the stranger, if it be not unrighteous. But what sort of goodness is that which is manifested in wrong, and that in behalf of an alien creature? For peradventure a benevolence, even when operating injuriously, might be deemed to some extent rational, if exerted for one of our own house and home.(1) By what rule, however, can an unjust benevolence, displayed on behalf of a stranger, to whom not even an honest one is legitimately due, be defended as a rational one? For what is more unrighteous, more unjust, more dishonest, than so to benefit an alien slave as to take him away from his master, claim him as the property of another, and suborn him against his master's life; and all this, to make the matter more iniquitous still whilst he is yet living in his master's house and on his master's garner, and still trembling beneath his stripes? Such a deliverer,(2) I had almost said(3) kidnapper,(4) would even meet with condemnation in the world. Now, no other than this is the character of Marcion's god, swooping upon an alien world, snatching away man from his God,(5) the son from his father, the pupil from his tutor, the servant from his master—to make him impious to his God, undutiful to his father, ungrateful to his tutor, worthless to his master. If, now, the rational benevolence makes man such, what sort of being prithee(6) would the irrational make of him? None I should think more shameless than him who is baptized to his(7) god in water which belongs to another, who stretches out his hands(8) to his god towards a heaven which is another's, who kneels to his god on ground which is another's, offers his thanksgivings to his god over bread which belongs to another,(9) and distributes(10) by way of alms and charity, for the sake of his god, gifts which belong to another God. Who, then, is that so good a god of theirs, that man through him becomes evil; so propitious, too, as to incense against man that other God who is, indeed, his own proper Lord?
But as God is eternal and rational, so, I think, He is perfect in
all things. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect."(11) Prove, then, that the goodness of your god also is a
perfect one. That it is indeed imperfect has been already sufficiently
shown, since it is found to be neither natural nor rational. The same
conclusion, however, shall now be made clear(12) by another method; it
is not simply(13) imperfect, but actually(14) feeble, weak, and
exhausted, failing to embrace the full number(15) of its material
objects, and not manifesting itself in them all. For all are not put
into a state of salvation(16) by it; but the Creator's subjects, both
Jew and Christian, are all excepted.(17) Now, when the greater part
thus perish, how can that goodness be defended as a perfect one which
is inoperative in most cases, is somewhat only in few, naught in many,
succumbs to perdition, and is a partner with destruction?(18) And if so
many shall miss salvation, it will not be with goodness, but with
malignity, that the greater perfection will lie. For as it is the
operation of goodness which brings salvation, so is it malevolence
which thwarts it.(19) Since, however, this goodness) saves but few, and
so rather leans to the alternative of not saving, it will show itself
to greater perfection by not interposing help than by helping. Now, you
will not be able to attribute goodness (to your god) in reference to
the Creator, (if accompanied with) failure towards all. For whomsoever
you call in to judge the question, it is as a dispenser of goodness, if
so be such a title can be made out,(20) and not as a squanderer
thereof, as you claim your god to be, that you must submit the divine
character for determination. So long, then, as you prefer your god to
the Creator on the simple ground of his goodness, and since he
professes to have this attribute as solely and wholly his own, he ought
not to have been wanting in it to any one. However, I do not now wish
to prove that Marcion's god is imperfect in goodness because of the
perdition of the greater number. I am content to illustrate this
imperfection by the fact that even those whom he saves are found to
possess but an imperfect salvation—that is, they are saved only so far
as the soul is concerned,(1) but lost in their body, which, according
to him, does not rise again. Now, whence comes this halving of
salvation, if not from a failure of goodness? What could have been a
better proof of a perfect goodness, than the recovery of the whole man
to salvation? Totally damned by the Creator, he should have been
totally restored by the most merciful god. I rather think that by
Marcion's rule the body is baptized, is deprived of marriage,(2) is
cruelly tortured in confession. But although sins are attributed to the
body, yet they are preceded by the guilty concupiscence of the soul;
nay, the first motion of sin must be ascribed to the soul, to which the
flesh acts in the capacity of a servant. By and by, when freed from
the soul, the flesh sins no more.(3) So that in this matter goodness
is unjust, and likewise imperfect, in that it leaves to destruction the
more harmless substance, which sins rather by compliance than in will.
Now, although Christ put not on the verity of the flesh, as your heresy
is pleased to assume, He still vouchsafed to take upon Him the
semblance thereof. Surely, therefore, some regard was due to it from
Him, because of this His reigned assumption of it. Besides, what else
is man than flesh, since no doubt it was the corporeal rather than the
spiritual(4) element from which the Author of man's nature gave him his
designation?(5) "And the LORD God made man of the dust of the ground,"
not of spiritual essence; this afterwards came from the divine
afflatus: "and man became a living soul." What, then, is man? Made, no
doubt of it, of the dust; and God placed him in paradise, because He
moulded him, not breathed him, into being—a fabric of flesh, not of
spirit. Now, this being the case, with what face will you contend for
the perfect character of that goodness which did not fail in some one
particular only of man's deliverance, but in its general capacity? If
that is a plenary grace and a substantial mercy which brings salvation
to the soul alone, this were the better life which we now enjoy whole
and entire; whereas to rise again but in part will be a chastisement,
not a liberation. The proof of the perfect goodness is, that man, after
his rescue, should be delivered from the domicile and power of the
malignant deity unto the protection of the most good and merciful God.
Poor dupe of Marcion, fever(6) is hard upon you; and your painful flesh
produces a crop of all sorts of briers and thorns. Nor is it only to
the Creator's thunderbolts that you lie exposed, or to wars, and
pestilences, and His other heavier strokes, but even to His creeping
insects. In what respect do you suppose yourself liberated from His
kingdom when His flies are still creeping upon your face? If your
deliverance lies in the future, why not also in the present, that it
may be perfectly wrought? Far different is our condition in the sight
of Him who is the Author, the Judge, the injured(7) Head of our race!
You display Him as a merely good God; but you are unable to prove that
He is perfectly good, because you are not by Him perfectly delivered.
As touching this question of goodness, we have in these outlines
of our argument shown it to be in no way compatible with Deity,—as
being neither natural,(8) nor rational, nor perfect, but wrong,(9) and
unjust, and unworthy of the very name of goodness,—because, as far as
the congruity of the divine character is concerned, it cannot indeed be
fitting that that Being should be regarded as God who is alleged to
have such a goodness, and that not in a modified way, but simply and
solely. For it is, furthermore, at this point quite open to discussion,
whether God ought to be regarded as a Being of simple goodness, to the
exclusion of all those other attributes,(10) sensations, and
affections, which the Marcionites indeed transfer from their god to the
Creator, and which we acknowledge to be worthy characteristics of the
Creator too, but only because we consider Him to be God. Well, then, on
this ground we shall deny him to be God in whom all things are not to
be found which befit the Divine Being. If (Marcion) chose(11) to take
any one of the school of Epicurus, and entitle him God in the name of
Christ, on the ground that what is happy and incorruptible can bring no
trouble either on itself or anything else (for Marcion, while poring
over(1) this opinion of the divine indifference, has removed from him
all the severity and energy of the judicial(2) character), it was his
duty to have developed his conceptions into some imperturbable and
listless god (and then what could he have had in common with Christ,
who occasioned trouble both to the Jews by what He taught, and to
Himself by what He felt?), or else to have admitted that he was
possessed of the same emotions as others(3) (and in such case what
would he have had to do with Epicurus, who was no friend(4) to either
him or Christians?). For that a being who in ages past(5) was in a
quiescent state, not caring to communicate any knowledge of himself by
any work all the while, should come after so long a time to entertain a
concern for man's salvation, of course by his own will,—did he not by
this very fact become susceptible of the impulse(6) of a new volition,
so as palpably to be open to all other emotions? But what volition is
unaccompanied with the spur of desire?(7) Who wishes for what he
desires not? Moreover, care will be another companion of the will. For
who will wish for any object and desire to have it, without also caring
to obtain it? When, therefore, (Marcion's god) felt both a will and a
desire for man's salvation, he certainly occasioned some concern and
trouble both to himself and others. This Marcion's theory suggests,
though Epicurus demurs. For he(8) raised up an adversary against
himself in that very thing against which his will and desire, and care
were directed,—whether it were sin or death,—and more especially in
their Tyrant and Lord, the Creator of man. Again,(9) nothing will ever
run its course without hostile rivalry,(10) which shall not (itself) be
without a hostile aspect. In fact,(11) when willing, desiring, and
caring to deliver man, (Marcion's god) already in the very act
encounters a rival, both in Him from whom He effects the deliverance
(for of course(12) he means the liberation to be an opposition to Him),
and also in those things from which the deliverance is wrought (the
intended liberation being to the advantage of some other things). For
it must needs be, that upon rivalry its own
ancillary passions(13) will be in attendance, against whatever objects its emulation is directed: anger, discord, hatred, disdain, indignation, spleen, loathing, displeasure. Now, since all these emotions are present to rivalry; since, moreover, the rivalry which arises in liberating man excites them; and since, again, this deliverance of man is an operation of goodness, it follows that this goodness avails nothing without its endowments,(14) that is to say, without those sensations and affections whereby it carries out its purpose(15) against the Creator; so that it cannot even in this be ruled(16) to be irrational, as if it were wanting in proper sensations and affections. These points we shall have to insist on(17) much more fully, when we come to plead the cause of the Creator, where they will also incur our condemnation.
But it is here sufficient that the extreme perversity of their
god is proved from the mere exposition of his lonely goodness, in which
they refuse to ascribe to him such emotions of mind as they censure in
the Creator. Now, if he is susceptible of no feeling of rivalry, or
anger, or damage, or injury, as one who refrains from exercising
judicial power, I cannot tell how any system of discipline—and that,
too, a plenary one—can be consistent in him. For how is it possible
that he should issue commands, if he does not mean to execute them; or
forbid sins, if he intends not to punish them, but rather to decline
the functions of the judge, as being a stranger to all notions of
severity and judicial chastisement? For why does he forbid the
commission of that which he punishes not when perpetrated? It would
have been far more right, if he had not forbidden what he meant not to
punish, than that he should punish what he had not forbidden. Nay, it
was his duty even to have permitted what he was about to prohibit in so
unreasonable a way, as to annex no penalty to the offence.(18) For even
now that is tacitly permitted which is forbidden without any infliction
of vengeance. Besides, he only forbids the commission of that which he
does not like to have done. Most listless, therefore, is he, since he
takes no offence at the doing of what he dislikes to be done, although
dis- pleasure ought to be the companion of his violated will. Now, if
he is offended, he ought to be angry; if angry, he ought to inflict
punishment. For such infliction is the just fruit of anger, and anger
is the debt of displeasure, and displeasure (as I have said) is the
companion of a violated will. However, he inflicts no punishment;
therefore he takes no offence.
He takes no offence, therefore his will is not wronged, although
that is done which he was unwilling to have done; and the transgression
is now committed with the acquiescence of(1) his will, because whatever
offends not the will is not committed against the will. Now, if this is
to be the principle of the divine virtue or goodness, to be unwilling
indeed that a thing be done and to prohibit it, and yet not be moved by
its commission, we then allege that he has been moved already when he
declared his unwillingness; and that it is vain for him not to be moved
by the accomplishment of a thing after being moved at the possibility
thereof, when he willed it not to be done. For he prohibited it by his
not willing it. Did he not therefore do a judicial act, when he
declared his unwillingness, and consequent prohibition of it? For he
judged that it ought not to be done, and he deliberately declared(2)
that it should be forbidden. Consequently by this time even he performs
the part of a judge. If it is unbecoming for God to discharge a
judicial function, or at least only so far becoming that He may merely
declare His unwillingness, and pronounce His prohibition, then He may
not even punish for an offence when it is committed. Now, nothing is so
unworthy of the Divine Being as not to execute retribution on what He
has disliked and forbidden. First, He owes the infliction of
chastisement to whatever sentence or law He promulges, for the
vindication of His authority and the maintenance of submission to it;
secondly, because hostile opposition is inevitable to what He has
disliked to be done, and by that dislike forbidden. Moreover, it would
be a more unworthy course for God to spare the evil-doer than to punish
him, especially in the most good and holy God, who is not otherwise
fully good than as the enemy of evil, and that to such a degree as to
display His love of good by the hatred of evil, and to fulfil His
defence of the former by the extirpation of the latter.
Again, he plainly judges evil by not willing
it, and condemns it by prohibiting it; while, on the other hand, he acquits it by not avenging it, and lets it go free by not punishing it. What a prevaricator of truth is such a god! What a dissembler with his own decision! Afraid to condemn what he really condemns, afraid to hate what he does not love, permitting that to be done which he does not allow, choosing to indicate what he dislikes rather than deeply examine it! This will turn out an imaginary goodness, a phantom of discipline, perfunctory in duty, careless in sin. Listen, ye sinners; and ye who have not yet come to this, hear, that you may attain to such a pass! A better god has been discovered, who never takes offence, is never angry, never inflicts punishment, who has prepared no fire in hell, no gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness! He is purely and simply good. He indeed forbids all delinquency, but only in word. He is in you, if you are willing to pay him homage,(3) for the sake of appearances, that you may seem to honour God; for your fear he does not want. And so satisfied are the Marcionites with such pretences, that they have no fear of their god at all. They say it is only a bad man who will be feared, a good man will be loved. Foolish man, do you say that he whom you call Lord ought not to be feared, whilst the very title you give him indicates a power which must itself be feared? But how are you going to love, without some fear that you do not love? Surely (such a god) is neither your Father, towards whom your love for duty's sake should be consistent with fear because of His power; nor your proper(4) Lord, whom you should love for His humanity and fear as your teacher.(5) Kidnappers(6) indeed are loved after this fashion, but they are not feared. For power will not be feared, except it be just and regular, although it may possibly be loved even when corrupt: for it is by allurement that it stands, not by authority; by flattery, not by proper influence. And what can be more direct flattery than not to punish sins? Come, then, if you do not fear God as being good, why do you not boil over into every kind of lust, and so realize that which is, I believe, the main enjoyment of life to all who fear not God? Why do you not frequent the customary pleasures of the maddening circus, the bloodthirsty arena, and the lascivious theatre?(1) Why in persecutions also do you not, when the censer is presented, at once redeem your life by the denial of your faith? God forbid, you say with redoubted(2) emphasis. So you do fear sin, and by your fear prove that He is an object of fear Who forbids the sin. This is quite a different matter from that obsequious homage you pay to the god whom you do not fear, which is identical in perversity indeed to is own conduct, in prohibiting a thing without annexing the sanction of punishment. Still more vainly do they act, who when asked, What is to become of every sinner in that great day? reply, that he is to be cast away out of sight. Is not even this a question of judicial determination? He is adjudged to deserve rejection, and that by a sentence of condemnation; unless the sinner is cast away forsooth for his salvation, that even a leniency like this may fall in consistently with the character of your most good and excellent god! And what will it be to be cast away, but to lose that which a man was in the way of obtaining, were it not for his rejection—that is, his salvation? Therefore his being cast away will involve the forfeiture of salvation; and this sentence cannot possibly be passed upon him, except by an angry and offended authority, who is also the punisher of sin—that is, by a judge.
And what will happen to him after he is cast away? He will, they
say, be thrown into the Creator's fire. Then has no remedial provision
been made (by their god) for the purpose of banishing those that sin
against him, without resorting to the cruel measure of delivering them
over to the Creator? And what will the Creator then do? I suppose He
will prepare for them a hell doubly charged with brimstone,(3) as for
blasphemers against Himself; except indeed their god in his zeal, as
perhaps might happen, should show clemency to his rival's revolted
subjects. Oh, what a god is this! everywhere perverse; nowhere
rational; in all cases vain; and therefore a nonentity!(4)—in whose
state, and condition, and nature, and every appointment, I see no
coherence and consistency; no, not even in the very sacrament of his
faith! For what end does baptism serve, according to him? If the
remission of sins, how will he make it evident that he remits sins,
when he affords no evidence that he retains them? Because he would
retain them, if he performed the functions of a judge. If deliverance
from death, how could he deliver from death, who has not delivered to
death? For he must have delivered the sinner to death, if he had from
the beginning condemned sin. If the regeneration of man, how can he
regenerate, who has never generated? For the repetition of an act is
impossible to him, by whom nothing any time has been ever done. If the
bestowal of the Holy Ghost, how will he bestow the Spirit, who did not
at first impart the life? For the life is in a sense the supplement(5)
of the Spirit. He therefore seals man, who had never been unsealed(6)
in respect of him;(7) washes man, who had never been defiled so far as
he was concerned;(7) and into this sacrament of salvation wholly
plunges that flesh which is beyond the pale of salvation!(8) No farmer
will irrigate ground that will yield him no fruit in return, except he
be as stupid as Marcion's god. Why then impose sanctity upon our most
infirm and most unworthy flesh, either as a burden or as a glory? What
shall I say, too, of the uselessness of a discipline which sanctifies
what is already sanctified? Why burden the infirm, or glorify the
unworthy? Why not remunerate with salvation what it burdens or else
glorifies? Why keep back from a work its due reward, by not
recompensing the flesh with salvation? Why even permit the honour of
sanctity in it to die?
The flesh is not, according to Marcion, immersed in the water of
the sacrament, unless it be(9) in virginity, widowhood, or celibacy, or
has purchased by divorce a title to baptism, as if even generative
impotents(10) did not all receive their flesh from nuptial union. Now,
such a scheme as this must no doubt involve the proscription of
marriage. Let us see, then, whether it be a just one: not as if we
aimed at destroying the happiness of sanctity, as do certain
Nicolaitans in their maintenance of lust and luxury, but as those who
have come to the knowledge of sanctity, and pursue it and prefer it,
without detriment, however, to marriage; not as if we superseded a bad
thing by a good, but only a good thing by a better. For we do not
reject marriage, but simply refrain from it.(1) Nor do we prescribe
sanctity(2) as the rule, but only recommend it, observing it as a good,
yea, even the better state, if each man uses it carefully(3) according
to his ability; but at the same time earnestly vindicating marriage,
whenever hostile attacks are made against it is a polluted thing, to
the disparagement of the Creator. For He bestowed His blessing on
matrimony also, as on an honourable estate, for the increase of the
human race; as He did indeed on the whole of His creation,(4) for
wholesome and good uses. Meats and drinks are not on this account to be
condemned, because, when served up with too exquisite a daintiness,
they conduce to gluttony; nor is raiment to be blamed, because, when
too costlily adorned, it becomes inflated with vanity and pride. So, on
the same principle, the estate of matrimony is not to be refused,
because, when enjoyed without moderation, it is fanned into a
voluptuous flame. There is a great difference between a cause and a
fault,(5) between a state and its excess. Consequently it is not an
institution of this nature that is to be blamed, but the extravagant
use of it; according to the judgment of its founder Himself, who not
only said, "Be fruitful, and multiply,"(6) but also, "Thou shalt not
commit adultery," and, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife;"(7)
and who threatened with death the unchaste, sacrilegious, and monstrous
abomination both of adultery and unnatural sin with man and beast.(8)
Now, if any limitation is set to marrying—such as the spiritual
rule,(9) which prescribes but one marriage under the Christian
obedience,(10) maintained by the authority of the Paraclete,(11)—it
will be His prerogative to fix the limit Who had once been diffuse in
His permission; His to gather, Who once scattered; His to cut down the
tree, Who planted it; His to reap the harvest, Who sowed the seed; His
to declare, "It remaineth that they who have wives be as though they
had none,"(12) Who once said, "Be fruitful, and multiply;" His the end
to Whom belonged the beginning. Nevertheless, the tree is not cut down
as if it deserved blame; nor is the corn reaped, as if it were to be
condemned,—but simply because their time is come. So likewise the
state of matrimony does not require the hook and scythe of sanctity, as
if it were evil; but as being ripe for its discharge, and in readiness
for that sanctity which will in the long run bring it a plenteous crop
by its reaping. For this leads me to remark of Marcion's god, that in
reproaching marriage as an evil and unchaste thing, he is really
prejudicing the cause of that very sanctity which he seems to serve.
For he destroys the material on which it subsists; if there is to be no
marriage, there is no sanctity. All proof of abstinence is lost when
excess is impossible; for sundry things have thus their evidence in
their contraries. Just as "strength is made perfect in weakness,"(13)
so likewise is continence made manifest by the permission to marry. Who
indeed will be called continent, if that be taken away which gives him
the opportunity of pursuing a life of continence? What room for
temperance in appetite does famine give? What repudiation of ambitious
projects does poverty afford? What bridling of lust can the eunuch
merit? To put a complete stop, however, to the sowing of the human
race, may, for aught I know, be quite consistent for Marcion's most
good and excellent god. For how could he desire the salvation of man,
whom he forbids to be born, when he takes away that institution from
which his birth arises? How will he find any one on whom to set the
mark of his goodness, when he suffers him not to come into existence?
How is it possible to love him whose origin he hates? Perhaps he is
afraid of a redundant population, lest he should be weary in liberating
so many; lest he should have to make many heretics; lest Marcionite
parents should produce too many noble disciples of Marcion. The cruelty
of Pharaoh, which slew its victims at their birth, will not prove to be
more inhuman in comparison.(14) For while he destroyed lives, our
heretic's god refuses to give them: the one removes from life, the
other admits none to it. There is no difference in either as to their
homicide—man is slain by both of them; by the former just after birth,
by the latter as yet unborn. Thanks should we owe thee, thou god of our
heretic, hadst thou only checked(1) the dispensation of the Creator in
uniting male and female; for from such a union indeed has thy Marcion
been born! Enough; however, of Marcion's god, who is shown to have
absolutely no existence at all, both by our definitions(2) of the one
only Godhead, and the condition of his attributes.(3) The whole course,
however, of this little work aims directly at this conclusion. If,
therefore, we seem to anybody to have achieved but little result as
yet, let him reserve his expectations, until we examine the very
Scripture which Marcion quotes.