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WHEREIN TERTULLIAN SHOWS THAT THE CREATOR, OR DEMIURGE, WHOM MARCION CALUMNIATED, IS THE TRUE AND GOOD GOD.
THE Occasion of reproducing this little work, the fortunes of
which we noticed in the preface of our first book, has furnished us
with the opportunity of distinguishing, in our treatment of the subject
of two Gods in opposition to Marcion, each of them with a description
and section of his own, according to the division of the
subject-matter, defining one of the gods to have no existence at all,
and maintaining of the Other that He is rightly(2) God; thus far
keeping pace with the heretic of Pontus, who has been pleased to admit
one unto, and exclude the other.(3) For he could not build up his
mendacious scheme without pulling down the system of truth. He found it
necessary to demolish(4) some other thing, in order to build up the
theory which he wished. This process, however, is like constructing a
house without preparing suitable materials.(5) The discussion ought to
have been directed to this point alone, that he is no god who
supersedes the Creator. Then, when the false god had been excluded by
certain rules which prescriptively settle what is the character of the
One only perfect Divinity, there could have remained no longer any
question as to the true God. The proof of His existence would have been
clear, and that, too, amid the failure of all evidence in support of
any other god; and still clearer(6) would have seemed the point as to
the honour in which He ought without controversy to be held: that He
ought to be worshipped rather than judged; served reverentially rather
than handled critically, or even dreaded for His severity. For what was
more fully needed by man than a careful estimate of(7) the true God, on
whom, so to speak, he had alighted,(8) because there was no other god?
We have now, then, cleared our way to the contemplation of the
Almighty God, the Lord and Maker of the universe. His greatness, as I
think, is shown in this, that from the beginning He made Himself known:
He never hid Himself, but always shone out brightly, even before the
time of Romulus, to say nothing of that of Tiberius; with the exception
indeed that the heretics, and they alone, know Him not, although they
take such pains about Him. They on this account suppose that another
god must be assumed to exist, because they are more able to censure
than deny Him whose existence is so evident, deriving all their
thoughts about God from the deductions of sense; just as if some blind
man, or a man of imperfect vision,(9) chose to assume some other sun of
milder and healthier ray, because he sees not that which is the object
of sight.(10) There is, O man, but one sun which rules(1) this world
and even when you think otherwise of him, he is best and useful; and
although to you he may seem too fierce and baneful, or else, it may be,
too sordid and corrupt, he yet is true to the laws of his own
existence. Unable as you are to see through those laws, you would be
equally impotent to bear the rays of any other sun, were there one,
however great and good. Now, you whose sight is defective(2) in respect
of the inferior god, what is your view of the sublimer One? Really you
are too lenient(3) to your weakness; and set not yourself to the
proof(4) of things, holding God to be certainly, undoubtedly, and
therefore sufficiently known, the very moment you have discovered Him
to exist, though you know Him not except on the side where He has
willed His proofs to lie. But you do not even deny God
intelligently,(5) you treat of Him ignorantly;(6) nay, you accuse Him
with a semblance of intelligence,(7) whom if you did but know Him, you
would never accuse, nay, never treat of.(8) You give Him His name
indeed, but you deny the essential truth of that name, that is, the
greatness which is called God; not acknowledging it to be such as, were
it possible for it to have been known to man in every respect,(9) would
not be greatness. Isaiah even so early, with the clearness of an
apostle, foreseeing the thoughts of heretical hearts, asked, "Who hath
known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? With whom
took He counsel? ... or who taught Him knowledge, and showed to Him the
way of understanding?"(10) With whom the apostle agreeing exclaims, "Oh
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how
unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!"(11)
"His judgments unsearchable," as being those of God the Judge; and "His
ways past finding out," as comprising an understanding and knowledge
which no man has ever shown to Him, except it may be those critics of
the Divine Being, who say, God ought not to have been this,(12) and He
ought rather to have been that; as if any one knew what is in God,
except the Spirit of God.(13) Moreover, having the spirit of the world,
and "in the wisdom of God by wisdom knowing not God,"(14) they seem to
themselves to be wiser(15) than God; because, as the wisdom of the
world is foolishness with God, so also the wisdom of God is folly in
the world's esteem. We, however, know that "the foolishness of God is
wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."(16)
Accordingly, God is then especially great, when He is small(17) to man;
then especially good, when not good in man's judgment; then especially
unique, when He seems to man to be two or more. Now, if from the very
first "the natural man, not receiving the things of the Spirit of
God,"(18) has deemed God's law to be foolishness, and has therefore
neglected to observe it; and as a further consequence, by his not
having faith, "even that which he seemeth to have hath been taken from
him"(19)—such as the grace of paradise and the friendship of God, by
means of which he might have known all things of God, if he had
continued in his obedience—what wonder is it, if he,(20) reduced to
his material nature, and banished to the toil of tilling the ground,
has in his very labour, downcast and earth-gravitating as it was,
handed on that earth-derived spirit of the world to his entire race,
wholly natural(21) and heretical as it is, and not receiving the things
which belong to God? Or who will hesitate to declare the great sin of
Adam to have been heresy, when he committed it by the choice(22) of his
own will rather than of God's? Except that Adam never said to his
fig-tree, Why hast thou made me thus? He confessed that he was led
astray; and he did not conceal the seducer. He was a very rude heretic.
He was disobedient; but yet he did not blaspheme his Creator, nor blame
that Author of his being, Whom from the beginning of his life he had
found to be so good and excellent, and Whom he had perhaps(23) made his
own judge from the very first.
It will therefore be right for us, as we enter on the examination
of the known God, when the question arises, in what condition He is
known to us, to begin with His works, which are prior to man; so that
His goodness, being discovered immediately along with Himself, and then
constituted and prescriptively settled, may suggest to us some sense
whereby we may understand how the subsequent order of things came
about. The disciples of Marcion, moreover, may possibly be able, while
recognising the goodness of our God, to learn how worthy it is likewise
of the Divine Being, on those very grounds whereby we have proved it to
be unworthy in the case of their god. Now this very point,(1) which is
a material one in their scheme,(2) Marcion did not find in any other
god, but eliminated it for himself out of his own god. The first
goodness, then,(3) was that of the Creator, whereby God was unwilling
to remain hidden for ever; in other words, (unwilling) that there
should not be a something by which God should become known. For what,
indeed, is so good as the knowledge and fruition(4) of God? Now,
although it did not transpires that this was good, because as yet there
existed nothing to which it could transpire, yet God foreknew what good
would eventually transpire, and therefore He set Himself about
developing(6) His own perfect goodness, for the accomplishment of the
good which was to transpire; not, indeed, a sudden goodness issuing m
some accidental boon(7) or in some excited impulse,(8) such as must be
dated simply from the moment when it began to operate. For if it did
itself produce its own beginning when it began to operate, it had not,
in fact, a beginning itself when it acted. When, however, an initial
act had been once done by it, the scheme of temporal seasons began, for
distinguishing and noting which, the stars and luminaries of heaven
were arranged in their order. "Let them be," says God, "for seasons,
and for days, and years."(9) Previous, then, to this temporal course,
(the goodness) which created time had not time; nor before that
beginning which the same goodness originated, had it a beginning. Being
therefore without aIl order of a beginning, and all mode of time, it
will be reckoned to possess an age, measureless in extent(10) and
endless in duration;(11) nor will it be possible to regard it as a
sudden or adventitious or impulsive emotion, because it has nothing to
occasion such an estimate of itself; in other words, no sort of
temporal sequence. It must therefore be accounted an eternal attribute,
inbred in God,(12) and everlasting,(13) and on this account worthy of
the Divine Being, putting to shame for ever(14) the benevolence of
Marcion's god, subsequent as he is to (I will not say) all beginnings
and times, but to the very malignity of the Creator, if indeed
malignity could possibly have been found in goodness.
The goodness of God having, therefore, provided man for the
pursuit of the knowledge of Himself, added this to its original
notification,(15) that it first prepared a habitation for him, the vast
fabric (of the world) to begin with, and then afterwards(16) the vaster
one(of a higher world,(17)) that he might on a great as well as on a
smaller stage practise and advance in his probation, and so be promoted
from the good which God had given him, that is, from his high position,
to God's best; that is, to some higher abode.(18) In this good work God
employs a most excellent minister, even His own Word. "My heart" He
says, "hath emitted my most excellent Word."(19) Let Marcion take hence
his first lesson on the noble fruit of this truly most excellent tree.
But, like a most clumsy clown, he has grafted a good branch on a bad
stock. The sapling, however, of his blasphemy shall be never strong: it
shall wither with its planter, and thus shall be manifested the nature
of the good tree. Look at the total result: how fruitful was the Word!
God issued His fiat, and it was done: God also saw that it was good;(1)
not as if He were ignorant of the good until He saw it; but because it
was good, He therefore saw it, and honoured it, and set His seal upon
it; and consummated(2) the goodness of His works by His vouchsafing to
them that contemplation. Thus God blessed what He made good, in order
that He might commend Himself to you as whole and perfect, good both in
word and act.(3) As yet the Word knew no malediction, because He was a
stranger to malefaction.(4) We shall see what reasons required this
also of God. Meanwhile the world consisted of all things good, plainly
foreshowing how much good was preparing for him for whom all this was
provided. Who indeed was so worthy of dwelling amongst the works of
God, as he who was His own image and likeness? That image was wrought
out by a goodness even more operative than its wont,(5) with no
imperious word, but with friendly hand preceded by an almost affable(6)
utterance: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."(7)
Goodness spake the word; Goodness formed man of the dust of the ground
into so great a substance of the flesh, built up out of one material
with so many qualities; Goodness breathed into him a soul, not dead but
living. Goodness gave him dominion(8) over all things, which he was to
enjoy and rule over, and even give names to. In addition to this,
Goodness annexed pleasures(9) to man so that, while master of the whole
world,(10) he might tarry among higher delights, being translated into
paradise, out of the world into the Church.(11) The self-same Goodness
provided also a help meet for him, that there might be nothing in his
lot that was not good. For, said He, that the man be alone is not
good.(12) He knew full well what a blessing to him would be the sex of
Mary,(13) and also of the Church. The law, however, which you find
fault with,(14) and wrest into a subject of contention, was imposed on
man by Goodness, aiming at his happiness, that he might cleave to God,
and so not show himself an abject creature rather than a free one, nor
reduce himself to the level of the other animals, his subjects, which
were free from God, and exempt from all tedious subjection;(15) but
might, as the sole human being, boast that he alone was worthy of
receiving laws from God; and as a rational being, capable of
intelligence and knowledge, be restrained within the bounds of rational
liberty, subject to Him who had subjected all things unto him. To
secure the observance of this law, Goodness likewise took counsel by
help of this sanction: "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shall
surely die."(16) For it was a most benignant act of His thus to point
out the issues of transgression, lest ignorance of the danger should
encourage a neglect of obedience. Now, since(17) it was given as a
reason previous to the imposition of the law, it also amounted to a
motive for subsequently observing it, that a penalty was annexed to its
transgression; a penalty, indeed, which He who proposed it was still
unwilling that it should be incurred. Learn then the goodness of our
God amidst these things and up to this point; learn it from His
excellent works, from His kindly blessings, from His indulgent
bounties, from His gracious providences, from His laws and warnings, so
good and merciful.
Now then, ye dogs, whom the apostle puts outside,(18) and who
yelp at the God of truth, let us come to your various questions. These
are the bones of contention, which you are perpetually gnawing! If God
is good, and prescient of the future, and able to avert evil, why did
He permit man, the very image and likeness of Himself, and, by the
origin of his soul, His own substance too, to be deceived by the devil,
and fall from obedience of the law into death? For if He had been good,
and so unwilling that such a catastrophe should happen, and prescient,
so as not to be ignorant of what was to come to pass, and powerful
enough to hinder its occurrence, that issue would never have come
about, which should be impossible under these three conditions of the
divine greatness. Since, however, it has occurred, the contrary
proposition is most certainly true, that God must be deemed neither
good, nor prescient, nor powerful. For as no such issue could have
happened had God been such as He is reputed—good, and prescient, and
mighty—so has this issue actually happened, because He is not such a
God. In reply, we must first vindicate those attributes in the Creator
which are called in question—namely, His goodness and foreknowledge,
and power. But I shall not linger long over this point(1) for Christ's
own definition(2) comes to our aid at once. From works must proofs be
obtained. The Creator's works testify at once to His goodness, since
they are good, as we have shown, and to His power, since they are
mighty, and spring indeed out of nothing. And even if they were made
out of some (previous) matter, as some(3) will have it, they are even
thus out of nothing, because they were not what they are. In short,
both they are great because they are good; and(4) God is likewise
mighty, because all things are His own, whence He is almighty. But what
shall I say of His prescience, which has for its witnesses as many
prophets as it inspired? After all,(5) what title to prescience do we
look for in the Author of the universe, since it was by this very
attribute that He foreknew all things when He appointed them their
places, and appointed them their places when He fore knew them? There
is sin itself. If He had not foreknown this, He would not have
proclaimed a caution against it under the penalty of death. Now if
there were in God such attributes as must have rendered it both
impossible and improper for any evil to have happened to man,(6) and
yet evil did occur, let us consider man's condition also—whether it
were not, in fact, rather the cause why that came to pass which could
not have happened through God. I find, then, that man was by God
constituted free, master of his own will and power; indicating the
presence of God's image and likeness in him by nothing so well as by
this constitution of his nature. For it was not by his face, and by the
lineaments of his body, though they were so varied in his human nature,
that he expressed his likeness to the form of God; but he showed his
stamp(7) in that essence which he derived from God Himself (that is,
the spiritual,(8) which answered to the form of God), and in the
freedom and power of his will. This his state was confirmed even by the
very law which God then imposed upon him. For a law would not be
imposed upon one who had it not in his power to render that obedience
which is due to law; nor again, would the penalty of death be
threatened against sin, if a contempt of the law were impossible to man
in the liberty of his will. So in the Creator's subsequent laws also
you will find, when He sets before man good and evil, life and death,
that the entire course of discipline is arranged in precepts by God's
calling men from sin, and threatening and exhorting them; and this on
no other ground than(9) that man is free, with a will either for
obedience or resistance.
But although we shall be understood, from our argument, to be
only so affirming man's unshackled power over his will, that what
happens to him should be laid to his own charge, and not to God's, yet
that you may not object, even now, that he ought not to have been so
constituted, since his liberty and power of will might turn out to be
injurious, I will first of all maintain that he was rightly so
constituted, that I may with the greater confidence commend both his
actual constitution, and the additional fact of its being worthy of the
Divine Being; the cause which led to man's being created with such a
constitution being shown to be the better one. Moreover, man thus
constituted will be protected by both the goodness of God and by His
purpose,(10) both of which are always found in concert in our God. For
His purpose is no purpose without goodness; nor is His goodness
goodness without a purpose, except forsooth in the case of Marcion's
god, who is purposelessly (11) good, as we have shown.(12) Well, then,
it was proper that God should be known; it was no doubt(13) a good and
reasonable(14) thing. Proper also was it that there should be something
worthy of knowing God. What could be found so worthy as the image and
likeness of God? This also was undoubtedly good and reasonable.
Therefore it was proper that (he who is) the image and likeness of God
should be formed with a free will and a mastery of him- self;(1) so
that this very thing—namely, freedom of will and self-command—might
be reckoned as the image and likeness of God in him. For this purpose
such an essence(2) was adapted(3) to man as suited this character,(4)
even the afflatus of the Deity, Himself free and uncontrolled.(5) But
if you will take some other view of the case,(6) how came it to pass
(7) that man, when in possession of the whole world, did not above all
things reign in self-possession(8)—a master over others, a slave to
himself? The goodness of God, then, you can learn from His gracious
gift(9) to man, and His purpose from His disposal of all things.(10) At
present, let God's goodness alone occupy our attention, that which gave
so large a gift to man, even the liberty of his will. God's purpose
claims some other opportunity of treatment, offering as it does
instruction of like import. Now, God alone is good by nature. For He,
who has that which is without beginning, has it not by creation,(11)
but by nature. Man, however, who exists entirely by creation, having a
beginning, along with that beginning obtained the form in which he
exists; and thus he is not by nature disposed to good, but by creation,
not having it as his own attribute to be good, because, (as we have
said,) it is not by nature, but by creation, that he is disposed to
good, according to the appointment of his good Creator, even the Author
of all good. In order, therefore, that man might have a goodness of his
own,(12) bestowed(13) on him by God, and there might be henceforth in
man a property, and in a certain sense a natural attribute of goodness,
there was assigned to him in the constitution of his nature, as a
formal witness(14) of the goodness which God bestowed upon him, freedom
and power of the will, such as should cause good to be performed
spontaneously by man, as a property of his own, on the ground that no
less than this(15) would be required in the matter of a goodness which
was to be voluntarily exercised by him, that is to say, by the liberty
of his will, without either favour or servility to the constitution of
his nature, so that man should be good(16) just up to this point,(17)
if he should display his goodness in accordance with his natural
constitution indeed, but still as the result of his will, as a property
of his nature; and, by a similar exercise of volition,(18) should show
himself to be too strong(19) in defence against evil also (for even
this God, of course, foresaw), being free, and master of himself;
because, if he were wanting in this prerogative of self-mastery, so as
to perform even good by necessity and not will, he would, in the
helplessness of his servitude, become subject to the usurpation of
evil, a slave as much to evil as to good. Entire freedom of will,
therefore, was conferred upon him in both tendencies; so that, as
master of himself, he might constantly encounter good by spontaneous
observance of it, and evil by its spontaneous avoidance; because, were
man even otherwise circumstanced, it was yet his bounden duty, in the
judgment of God, to do justice according to the motions(20) of his will
regarded, of course, as free. But the reward neither of good nor of
evil could be paid to the man who should be found to have been either
good or evil through necessity and not choice. In this really lay(21)
the law which did not exclude, but rather prove, human liberty by a
spontaneous rendering of obedience, or a spontaneous commission of
iniquity; so patent was the liberty of man's will for either issue.
Since, therefore, both the goodness and purpose of God are(22)
discovered in the gift to man of freedom in his will, it is not right,
after ignoring the original definition of goodness and purpose which it
was necessary to determine previous to any discussion of the subject,
on subsequent facts to presume to say that God ought not in such a way
to have formed man, because the issue was other than what was assumed
to be(23) proper for God. We ought rather,(24) after duly considering
that it behoved God so to create man, to leave this consideration
unimpaired, and to survey the other aspects of the case. It is, no
doubt, an easy process for persons who take offence at the fall of man,
before they have looked into the facts of his creation, to impute the
blame of what happened to the Creator, without any examination of His
purpose. To conclude: the goodness of God, then fully considered from
the beginning of His works, will be enough to convince us that nothing
evil could possibly have come forth from God; and the liberty of man
will, after a second thought,(1) show us that it alone is chargeable
with the fault which itself committed.
By such a conclusion all is reserved(2) unimpaired to God; both
His natural goodness, and the purposes of His governance and
foreknowledge, and the abundance of His power. You ought, however, to
deduct from God's attributes both His supreme earnestness of purpose(3)
and most excellent truth in His whole creation, if you would cease to
inquire whether anything could have happened against the will of God.
For, while holding this earnestness and truth of the good God, which
are indeed(4) capable of proof from the rational creation, you will not
wonder at the fact that God did not interfere to prevent the occurrence
of what He wished not to happen, in order that He might keep from harm
what He wished. For, since He had once for all allowed (and, as we have
shown, worthily allowed) to man freedom of will and mastery of himself,
surely He from His very authority in creation permitted these gifts to
be enjoyed: to be enjoyed, too, so far as lay in Himself, according to
His own character as God, that is, for good (for who would permit
anything hostile to himself?); and, so far as lay in man, according to
the impulses of his liberty (for who does not, when giving anything to
any one to enjoy, accompany the gift with a permission to enjoy it with
all his heart and will?). The necessary consequence,(5) therefore, was,
that God must separate from the liberty which He had once for all
bestowed upon man (in other words, keep within Himself), both His
foreknowledge and power, through which He might have prevented man's
falling into danger when attempting wrongly to enjoy his liberty. Now,
if He had interposed, He would have rescinded the liberty of man's
will, which He had permitted with set purpose, and in goodness. But,
suppose God had interposed; suppose Him to have abrogated man's
liberty, by warning him from the tree, and keeping off the subtle
serpent from his interview with the woman; would not Marcion then
exclaim, What a frivolous, unstable, and faithless Lord, cancelling the
gifts He had bestowed! Why did He allow any liberty of will, if He
afterwards withdrew it? Why withdraw it after allowing it? Let Him
choose where to brand Himself with error, either in His original
constitution of man, or in His subsequent abrogation thereof! If He had
checked (man's freedom), would He not then seem to have been rather
deceived, through want of foresight into the future? But in giving it
full scope, who would not say that He did so in ignorance of the issue
of things? God, however, did fore-know that man would make a bad use of
his created constitution; and yet what can be so worthy of God as His
earnestness of purpose, and the truth of His created works, be they
what they may? Man must see, if he failed to make the most of(6) the
good gift he had received, how that he was himself guilty in respect of
the law which he did not choose to keep, and not that the Lawgiver was
committing a fraud against His own law, by not permitting its
injunctions to be fulfilled. Whenever you are inclined to indulge in
such censure(7) (and it is the most becoming for you) against the
Creator, recall gently to your mind in His behalf(8) His earnestness,
and endurance, and truth, in having given completeness(9) to His
creatures both as rational and good.
For it was not merely that he might live the natural life that
God had produced man, but(10) that he should live virtuously, that is,
in relation to God and to His law. Accordingly, God gave him to live
when he was formed into a living soul; but He charged him to live
virtuously when he was required to obey a law. So also God shows that
man was not constituted for death, by now wishing that he should be
restored to life, preferring the sinner's repentance to his death.(11)
As, therefore, God designed for man a condition of life, so man brought
on himself a state of death; and this, too, neither through infirmity
nor through ignorance, so that no blame can be imputed to the Creator.
No doubt it was an angel who was the seducer; but then the victim of
that seduction was free, and master of himself; and as being the image
and likeness of God, was stronger than any angel; and as being, too,
the afflatus of the Divine Being, was nobler than that material spirit
of which angels were made. Who maketh, says he, His angels spirits, and
His ministers a flame of fire.(1) He would not have made all things
subject to man, if he had been too weak for the dominion, and inferior
to the angels, to whom He assigned no such subjects; nor would He have
put the burden of law upon him, if he had been incapable of sustaining
so great a weight; nor, again, would He have threatened with the
penalty of death a creature whom He knew to be guiltless on the score
of his helplessness: in short, if He had made him infirm, it would not
have been by liberty and independence of will, but rather by the
withholding from him these endowments. And thus it comes to pass, that
even now also, the same human being, the same substance of his soul,
the same condition as Adam's, is made conqueror over the same devil by
the self-same liberty and power of his will, when it moves in obedience
to the laws of God.(2)
But, you say, in what way soever the substance of the Creator is
found to be susceptible of fault, when the afflatus of God, that is to
say, the soul,(3) offends in man, it cannot but be that that fault of
the portion is referrible to the original whole. Now, to meet this
objection, we must explain the nature(4) of the soul. We must at the
outset hold fast the meaning of the Greek scripture, which has
afflatus, not spirit.(5) Some interpreters of the Greek, without
reflecting on the difference of the words, and careless about their
exact meaning, put spirit for afflatus; they thus afford to heretics an
opportunity of tarnishing(6) the Spirit of God, that is to say, God
Himself, with default. And now comes the question. Afflatus, observe
then, is less than spirit, although it comes from spirit; it is the
spirit's gentle breeze,(7) but it is not the spirit. Now a breeze is
rarer than the wind; and although it proceeds from wind, yet a breeze
is not the wind. One may call a breeze the image of the spirit. In the
same manner, man is the image of God, that is, of spirit; for God is
spirit. Afflatus is therefore the image of the spirit. Now the image is
not in any case equal to the very thing.(8) It is one thing to be like
the reality, and another thing to be the reality itself. So, although
the afflatus is the image of the spirit, it is yet not possible to
compare the image of God in such a way, that, because the reality—that
is, the spirit, or in other words, the Divine Being—is faultless,
therefore the afflatus also, that is to say, the image, ought not by
any possibility to have done wrong. In this respect will the image be
less than the reality, and the afflatus inferior to the spirit, in
that, while it possesses beyond doubt the true lineaments of divinity,
such as an immortal soul, freedom and its own mastery over itself,
foreknowledge in a great degree,(9) reasonableness, capacity of
understanding and knowledge, it is even in these respects an image
still, and never amounts to the actual power of Deity, nor to absolute
exemption from fault,—a property which is only conceded to God, that
is, to the reality, and which is simply incompatible with an image. An
image, although it may express all the lineaments of the reality, is
yet wanting in its intrinsic power; it is destitute of motion. In like
manner, the soul, the image of the spirit, is unable to express the
simple power thereof, that is to say, its happy exemption from
sinning.(10) Were it otherwise,(11) it would not be soul, but spirit;
not man, who received a soul, but God. Besides, to take another view of
the matter,(12) not everything which pertains to God will be regarded
as God, so that you would not maintain that His afflatus was God, that
is, exempt from fault, because it is the breath of God. And in an act
of your own, such as blowing into a flute, you would not thereby make
the flute human, although it was your own human breath which you
breathed into it, precisely as God breathed of His own Spirit, In
fact,(13) the Scripture, by expressly saying(14) that God breathed into
man's nostrils the breath of life, and that man became thereby a living
soul, not a life-giving spirit, has distinguished that soul from the
condition of the Creator. The work must necessarily be distinct from
the workman, and it is inferior to him. The pitcher will not be the
potter, although made by the potter; nor in like manner, will the
afflatus, because made by the spirit, be on that account the spirit.
The soul has often been called by the same name as the breath. You
should also take care that no descent be made from the breath to a
still lower quality. So you have granted (you say) the infirmity of the
soul, which you denied before! Undoubtedly, when you demand for it an
equality with God, that is, a freedom from fault, I contend that it is
infirm. But when the comparison is challenged with an angel, I am
compelled to maintain that the head over all things is the stronger of
the two, to whom the angels are ministers,(1) who is destined to be the
judge of angels,(2) if he shall stand fast in the law of God—an
obedience which he refused at first. Now this disobedience(3) it was
possible for the afflatus of God to commit: it was possible, but it was
not proper. The possibility lay in its slenderness of nature, as being
the breath and not the spirit; the impropriety, however, arose from its
power of will, as being free, and not a slave. It was furthermore
assisted by the warning against committing sin under the threat of
incurring death, which was meant to be a support for its slender
nature, and a direction for its liberty of choice. So that the soul can
no longer appear to have sinned, because it has an affinity with God,
that is to say, through the afflatus, but rather through that which was
an addition to its nature, that is, through its free-will, which was
indeed given to it by God in accordance with His purpose and reason,
but recklessly employed(4) by man according as he chose. This, then,
being the case, the entire course(5) of God's action is purged from all
imputation to evil. For the liberty of the will will not retort its own
wrong on Him by whom it was bestowed, but on him by whom it was
improperly used. What is the evil, then, which you want to impute to
the Creator? If it is man's sin, it will not be God's fault, because it
is man's doing; nor is that Being to be regarded as the author of the
sin, who turns out to be its forbidder, nay, its condemner. If death is
the evil, death will not give the reproach of being its own author to
Him who threatened it, but to him who despised it. For by his contempt
he introduced it, which assuredly(6) would not have appeared had man
not despised it.
If, however, you choose to transfer the account(7) of evil from
man to the devil as the instigator of sin, and in this way, too, throw
the blame on the Creator, inasmuch as He created the devil,—for He
maketh those spirtual beings, the angels—then it will follow that(8)
what was made, that is to say, the angel, will belong to Him who made
it; while that which was not made by God, even the devil, or
accuser,(9) cannot but have been made by itself; and this by false
detraction(10) from God: first, how that God had forbidden them to eat
of every tree; then, with the pretence that they should not die if they
ate; thirdly, as if God grudged them the property of divinity. Now,
whence originated this malice of lying and deceit towards man, and
slandering of God? Most certainly not from God, who made the angel good
after the fashion of His good works. Indeed, before he became the
devil, he stands forth the wisest of creatures; and(11) wisdom is
no(11) evil. if you turn to the prophecy of Ezekiel, you will at once
perceive that this angel was both by creation good and by choice
corrupt. For in the person of the prince of Tyre it is said in
reference to the devil: "Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me,
saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and
say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God: Thou sealest up the sum, full of
wisdom, perfect in beauty" (this belongs to him as the highest of the
angels, the archangel, the wisest of all); "amidst the delights of the
paradise of thy God wast thou born" (for it was there, where God had
made the angels in a shape which resembled the figure of animals).
"Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the
diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the
emerald, and the carbuncle; and with gold hast thou filled thy barns
and thy treasuries. From the day when thou wast created, when I set
thee, a cherub, upon the holy mountain of God, thou wast in the midst
of stones of fire, thou wast irreproachable in thy days, from the day
of thy creation, until thine iniquities were discovered. By the
abundance of thy merchandise thou hast filled thy storehouses, and thou
hast sinned," etc.(1) This description, it is manifest, properly
belongs to the transgression of the angel, and not to the prince's: for
none among human beings was either born in the paradise of God, not
even Adam himself, who was rather translated thither; nor placed with a
cherub upon God's holy mountain, that is to say, in the heights of
heaven, from which the Lord testifies that Satan fell; nor detained
amongst the stones of fire, and the flashing rays of burning
conStellations, whence Satan was cast down like lightning.(2) No, it is
none else than the very author of sin who was denoted in the person of
a sinful man: he was once irreproachable, at the time of his creation,
formed for good by God, as by the good Creator of irreproachable
creatures, and adorned with every angelic glory, and associated with
God, good with the Good; but afterwards of his own accord removed to
evil. From the day when thine iniquities,(3) says he, were
discovered,—attributing to him those injuries wherewith he injured man
when he was expelled from his allegiance to God,—even from that time
did he sin, when he propagated his sin, and thereby plied "the
abundance of his merchandise," that is, of his Wickedness, even the
tale(4) of his transgressions, because he was himself as a spirit no
less (than man) created, with the faculty of free-will. For God would
in nothing fail to endow a being who was to be next to Himself with a
liberty of this kind. Nevertheless, by precondemning him, God testified
that he had departed from the condition(5) of his created nature,
through his own lusting after the wickedness which was spontaneously
conceived within him; and at the same time, by conceding a permission
for the operation of his designs, He acted consistently with the
purpose of His own goodness, deferring the devil's destruction for the
self-same reason as He postponed the restitution of man. For He
afforded room for a conflict, wherein man might crush his enemy with
the same freedom of his will as had made him succumb to him (proving
that the fault was all his own, not God's), and so worthily recover his
salvation by a victory; wherein also the devil might receive a more
bitter punishment, through being vanquished by him whom he had
previously injured; and wherein God might be discovered to be so much
the more good, as waiting(6) for man to return from his present life to
a more glorious paradise, with a right to pluck of the tree of life.(7)
Up to the fall of man, therefore, from the beginning God was
simply good; after that He became a judge both severe and, as the
Marcionites will have it, cruel. Woman is at once condemned to bring
forth in sorrow, and to serve her husband,(8) although before she had
heard without pain the increase of her race proclaimed with the
blessing, Increase and multiply, and although she had been destined to
be a help and not a slave to her male partner. Immediately the earth is
also cursed,(9) which before was blessed. Immediately spring up briers
and thorns, where once had grown grass, and herbs, and fruitful trees.
Immediately arise sweat and labour for bread, where previously on every
tree was yielded spontaneous food and untilled(10) nourishment.
Thenceforth it is "man to the ground," and not as before, "from the
ground; to death thenceforth, but before, to life; thenceforth with
coats of skins, but before, nakedness without a blush. Thus God's prior
goodness was from(11) nature, His subsequent severity from(11) a cause.
The one was innate, the other accidental; the one His own, the other
adapted;(12) the one issuing from Him, the other admitted by Him. But
then nature could not have rightly permitted His goodness to have gone
on inoperative, nor the cause have allowed His severity to have escaped
in disguise or concealment. God provided the one for Himself, the other
for the occasion.(13) You should now set about showing also that the
position of a judge is allied with evil, who have been dreaming of
another god as a purely good one—solely because you cannot understand
the Deity to be a judge; although we have proved God to be also a
judge. Or if not a judge, at any rate a perverse and useless originator
of a discipline which is not to be vindicated—in other words, not to
be judged. You do not, however, disprove God's being a judge, who have
no proof to show that He is a judge. You will undoubtedly have to
accuse justice herself, which provides the judge, or else to reckon her
among the species of evil, that is, to add injustice to the titles of
goodness. But then justice is an evil, if injustice is a good. And yet
you are forced to declare injustice to be one of the worst of things,
and by the same rule are constrained to class justice amongst the most
excellent. Since there is nothing hostile(1) to evil which is not good,
and no enemy of good which is not evil. It follows, then, that as
injustice is an evil, so in the same degree is justice a good. Nor
should it be regarded as simply a species of goodness, but as the
practical observance(2) of it, because goodness (unless justice be so
controlled as to be just) will not be goodness, if it be unjust. For
nothing is good which is unjust; while everything, on the other hand,
which is just is good.
Since, therefore, there is this union and agreement between
goodness and justice, you cannot prescribes their separation. With what
face will you determine the separation of your two Gods, regarding in
their separate condition one as distinctively the good God, and the
other as distinctively the just God? Where the just is, there also
exists the good. in short, from the very first the Creator was both
good and also just. And both His attributes advanced together. His
goodness created, His justice arranged, the world; and in this process
it even then decreed that the world should be formed of good materials,
because it took counsel with goodness. The work of justice is apparent,
in the separation which was pronounced between light and darkness,
between day and night, between heaven and earth, between the water
above and the water beneath, between the gathering together of the sea
and the mass of the dry land, between the greater lights and the
lesser, between the luminaries of the day and those of the night,
between male and female, between the tree of knowledge of death and of
life, between the world and paradise, between the aqueous and the
earth-born animals. As goodness conceived all things, so did justice
discriminate them. With the determination of the latter, everything was
arranged and set in order. Every site and quality(4) of the elements,
their effect, motion, and state, the rise and setting of each, are the
judicial determinations of the Creator. Do not suppose that His
function as a judge must be defined as beginning I when evil began, and
so tarnish His justice i with the cause of evil. By such
considerations, then, do we show that this attribute advanced in
company with goodness, the author s of all things,—worthy of being
herself, too, deemed innate and natural, and not as accidentally
accruing(6) to God, inasmuch as she was found to be in Him, her Lord,
the arbiter of His works.
But yet, when evil afterwards broke out, and the goodness of God
began now to have an adversary to contend against, God's justice also
acquired another function, even that of directing His goodness
according to men's application for it.(7) And this is the result: the
divine goodness, being interrupted in that free course whereby God was
spontaneously good, is now dispensed according to the deserts of every
man; it is offered to the worthy, denied to the unworthy, taken away
from the unthankful, and also avenged on all its enemies. Thus the
entire office of justice in this respect becomes an agency(8) for
goodness: whatever it condemns by its judgment, whatever it chastises
by its condemnation, whatever (to use your phrase) it ruthlessly
pursues,(9) it, in fact, benefits with good instead of injuring.
Indeed, the fear of judgment contributes to good, not to evil. For
good, now contending with an enemy, was not strong enough to recommend
itself(10) by itself alone. At all events, if it could do so much, it
could not keep its ground; for it had lost its impregnability through
the foe, unless some power of fear supervened, such as might compel the
very unwilling to seek after good, and take care of it. But who, when
so many incentives to evil were assailing him, would desire that good,
which he could despise with impunity? Who, again, would take care of
what he could lose without danger? You read bow broad is the road to
evil,(11) how thronged in comparison with the opposite: would not all
glide down that road were there nothing in it to fear? We dread the
Creator's tremendous threats, and yet scarcely turn away from evil.
What, if He threatened not? Will you call this justice an evil, when it
is all unfavourable to evil? Will you deny it to be a good, when it has
its eye towards(1) good? What sort of being ought you to wish God to
be? Would it be right to prefer that He should be such, that sins might
flourish under Him, and the devil make mock at Him? Would you suppose
Him to be a good God, who should be able to make a man worse by
security in sin? Who is the author of good, but He who also requires
it? In like manner who is a stranger to evil, except Him who is its
enemy? Who its enemy, besides Him who is its conqueror? Who else its
conqueror, than He who is its punisher? Thus God is wholly good,
because in all things He is on the side of good. In fact, He is
omnipotent, because able both to help and to hurt. Merely to profit is
a comparatively small matter, because it can do nothing else than a
good turn. From such a conduct(2) with what confidence can I hope for
good, if this is its only ability? How can I follow after the reward of
innocence, if I have no regard to the requital of wrong-doing? I must
needs have my doubts whether he might not fail in recompensing one or
other alternative, who was unequal in his resources to meet both. Thus
far, then, justice is the very fulness of the Deity Himself,
manifesting God as both a perfect father and a perfect master: a father
in His mercy, a master in His discipline; a father in the mildness of
His power, a master in its severity; a father who must be loved with
dutiful affection, a master who must needs be feared; be loved, because
He prefers mercy to sacrifice;(3) be feared because He dislikes sin; be
loved, because He prefers the sinner,s repentance to his death;(4) be
feared, because He dislikes the sinners who do not repent. Accordingly,
the divine law enjoins duties in respect of both these attributes: Thou
shalt love God, and, Thou shalt fear God. It proposed one for the
obedient man, the other for the transgressor.(5)
On all occasions does God meet you: it is He who smites, but also
heals; who kills, but also makes alive; who humbles, and yet exalts;
who "creates(6) evil," but also "makes peace;"(7)—so that from these
very (contrasts Of HiS providence) I may get an answer to the heretics.
Behold, they say, how He acknowledges Himself to be the creator of evil
in the passage, "It is I who create evil." They take a word whose one
form reduces to confusion and ambiguity two kinds of evils (because
both sins and punishments are called evils), and will have Him in every
passage to be understood as the creator of all evil things, in order
that He may be designated the author of evil. We, on the contrary,
distinguish between the two meanings of the word in question, and, by
separating evils of sin from penal evils, mala culpoe from mala poenoe,
confine to each of the two classes its own author,—the devil as the
author of the sinful evils (culpoe), and God as the creator of penal
evils (poenoe); so that the one class shall be accounted as morally
bad, and the other be classed as the operations of justice passing
penal sentences against the evils of sin. Of the latter class of evils
which are compatible with justice, God is therefore avowedly the
creator. They are, no doubt, evil to those by whom they are endured,
but still on their own account good, as being just and defensive of
good and hostile to sin. In this respect they are, moreover, worthy of
God. Else prove them to be unjust, in order to show them deserving of a
place in the sinful class, that is to say, evils of injustice; because
if they turn out to belong to justice, they will be no longer evil
things, but good—evil only to the bad, by whom even directly good
things are condemned as evil. In this case, you must decide that man,
although the wilful contemner of the divine law, unjustly bore the doom
which he would like to have escaped; that the wickedness of those days
was unjustly smitten by the deluge, afterwards by the fire (of Sodom);
that Egypt, although most depraved and superstititious, and, worse
still, the harasser of its guest-population,(8) was unjustly stricken
with the chastisement of its ten plagues. God hardens the heart of
Pharaoh. He deserved, however, to be influenced(9) to his destruction,
who had already denied God, already in his pride so often rejected His
ambassadors, accumulated heavy burdens on His people, and (to sum up
all) as an Egyptian, had long been guilty before God of Gentile
idolatry, worshipping the ibis and the crocodile in preference to the
living God. Even His own people did God visit in their ingratitude.(10)
Against young lads, too, did He send forth bears, for their irreverence
to the prophet.(1)
Consider well,(2) then, before all things the justice of the
Judge; and if its purpose(3) be clear, then the severity thereof, and
the operations of the severity in its course, will appear compatible
with reason and justice. Now, that we may not linger too long on the
point, (I would challenge you to) assert the other reasons also, that
you may condemn the Judge's sentences; extenuate the delinquencies of
the sinner, that you may blame his judicial conviction. Never mind
censuring the Judge; rather prove Him to be an unjust one. Well, then,
even though(4) He required the sins of the fathers at the hands of the
children, the hardness of the people made such remedial measures
necessary s for them, in order that, having their posterity in view,
they might obey the divine law. For who is there that feels not a
greater care for his children than for himself? Again, if the blessing
of the fathers was destined likewise for their offspring, previous
to(6) any merit on the part of these, why might not the guilt of the
fathers also redound to their children? As was the grace, so was the
offence; so that the grace and the offence equally ran down through the
whole race, with the reservation, indeed, of that subsequent ordinance
by which it became possible to refrain from saying, that "the fathers
had eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth were set on edge:"(7)
in other words, that the father should not bear the iniquity of the
son, nor the son the iniquity of the father, but that every man should
be chargeable with his own sin; so that the harshness of the law having
been reduced(8) after the hardness of the people, justice was no longer
to judge the race, but individuals. If, however, you accept the gospel
of truth, you will discover on whom recoils the sentence of the Judge,
when requiting on sons the sins of their fathers, even on those who had
been (hardened enough) to imprecate spontaneously on themselves this
condemnation: "His blood be on us, and on our children."(9) This,
therefore, the providence of God has ordered throughout its course,(10)
even as it had heard it.
Even His severity then is good, because just: when the judge is
good, that is just. Other. qualities likewise are good, by means of
which the good work of a good severity runs out its course, whether
wrath, or jealousy,(11) or sternness.(12) For all these are as
indispensable(13) to severity as severity is to justice. The
shamelessness of an age, which ought to have been reverent, had to be
avenged. Accordingly, qualities which pertain to the judge, when they
are actually free from blame, as the judge himself is, will never be
able to be charged upon him as a fault.(14) What would be said, if,
when you thought the doctor necessary, you were to find fault with his
instruments, because they cut, or cauterize, or amputate, or tighten;
whereas there could be no doctor of any value without his professional
tools? Censure, if you please, the practitioner who cuts badly,
amputates clumsily, is rash in his cautery; and even blame his
implements as rough tools of his art. Your conduct is equally
unreasonable,(15) when you allow indeed that God is a judge, but at the
same time destroy those operations and dispositions by which He
discharges His judicial functions. We are taught(16) God by the
prophets, and by Christ, not by the philosophers nor by Epicurus. We
who believe that God really lived on earth, and took upon Him the low
estate of human form,(17) for the purpose of man's salvation, are very
far from thinking as those do who refuse to believe that God cares
for(18) anything. Whence has found its way to the heretics an argument
of this kind: If God is angry, and jealous, and roused, and grieved, He
must therefore be corrupted, and must therefore die. Fortunately,
however, it is a part of the creed of Christians even to believe that
God did die,(19) and yet that He is alive for evermore. Superlative is
their folly, who prejudge divine things from human; so that, because in
man's corrupt condition there are found passions of this description,
therefore there must be deemed to exist in God also sensations(1) of
the same kind. Discriminate between the natures, and assign to them
their respective senses, which are as diverse as their natures require,
although they seem to have a community of designations. We read,
indeed, of God's right hand, and eyes, and feet: these must not,
however, be compared with those of human beings, because they are
associated in one and the same name. Now, as great as shall be the
difference between the divine and the human body, although their
members pass under identical names, so great will also be the diversity
between the divine and the human soul, notwithstanding that their
sensations are designated by the same names. These sensations in the
human being are rendered just as corrupt by the corruptibility of man's
substance, as in God they are rendered incorruptible by the
incorruption of the divine essence. Do you really believe the Creator
to be God? By all means, is your reply. How then do you suppose that in
God there is anything human, and not that all is divine? Him whom you
do not deny to be God, you confess to be not human; because, when you
confess Him to be God, you have, in fact, already determind that He is
undoubtedly diverse from every sort of human conditions. Furthermore,
although you allow, with others,(2) that man was inbreathed by God into
a living soul, not God by man, it is yet palpably absurd of you to be
placing human characteristics in God rather than divine ones in man,
and clothing God in the likeness of man, instead of man in the image of
God. And this, therefore, is to be deemed the likeness of God in man,
that the human soul have the same emotions and sensations as God,
although they are not of the same kind; differing as they do both in
their conditions and their issues according to their nature. Then,
again, with respect to the opposite sensations,—I mean meekness,
patience, mercy, and the very parent of them all, goodness,—why do you
form your opinion of(3) the divine displays of these (from the human
qualities)? For we indeed do not possess them in perfection, because it
is God alone who is perfect. So also in regard to those
others,—namely, anger and irritation. we are not affected by them in
so happy a manner, because God alone is truly happy, by reason of His
property of incorruptibility. Angry He will possibly be, but not
irritated, nor dangerously tempted;(4) He will be moved, but not
subverted.(5) All appliances He must needs use, because of all
contingencies; as many sensations as there are causes: anger because of
the wicked, and indignation because of the ungrateful, and jealousy
because of the proud, and whatsoever else is a hinderance to the evil.
So, again, mercy on account of the erring, and patience on account of
the impenitent, and pre-eminent resources(6) on account of the
meritorious, and whatsoever is necessary to the good. All these
affections He is moved by in that peculiar manner of His own, in which
it is profoundly fit(7) that He should be affected; and it is owing to
Him that man is also similarly affected in a way which is equally his
own.
These considerations show that the entire order of God as Judge
is an operative one, and (that I may express myself in worthier words)
protective of His Catholic(8) and supreme goodness, which, removed as
it is from judiciary emotions, and pure in its own condition, the
Marcionites refuse to acknowledge to be in one and the same Deity,
"raining on the just and on the unjust, and making His sun to rise on
the evil and on the good,"(9)—a bounty which no other god at all
exercises. It is true that Marcion has been bold enough to erase from
the gospel this testimony of Christ to the Creator; but yet the world
itself is inscribed with the goodness of its Maker, and the inscription
is read by each man's conscience. Nay, this very long-suffering of the
Creator will tend to the condemnation of Marcion; that patience, (I
mean,) which waits for the sinner's repentance rather than his death,
which prefers mercy to sacrifice,(10) averting from the Ninevites the
ruin which had been already denounced against them,(11) and vouchsafing
to Hezekiah's tears an extension of his life,(12) and restoring his
kingly state to the monarch of Babylon after his complete
repentance;(13) that mercy, too, which conceded to the devotion of the
people the son of Saul when about to die,(14) and gave free forgiveness
to David on his confessing his sins against the house of Uriah;(1)
which also restored the house of Israel as often as it condemned it,
and addressed to it consolation no less frequently than reproof. Do not
therefore look at God simply as Judge, but turn your attention also to
examples of His conduct as the Most Good.(2) Noting Him, as you do,
when He takes vengeance, consider Him likewise When He shows mercy.(3)
In the scale, against His severity place His gentleness. When you shall
have discovered both qualities to co-exist in the Creator, you will
find in Him that very circumstance which induces you to think there is
another God. Lastly, come and examine into His doctrine, discipline,
precepts, and counsels. You will perhaps say that there are equally
good prescriptions in human laws. But Moses and God existed before all
your Lycurguses and Solons. There is not one after-age(4) which does
not take from primitive sources. At any rate, my Creator did not learn
from your God to issue such commandments as: Thou shalt not kill; thou
shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear
false witness; thou shalt not covet what is thy neighbour's; honour thy
father and thy mother; and, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
To these prime counsels of innocence, chastity, and justice, and piety,
are also added prescriptions of humanity, as when every seventh year
slaves are released for liberty;(5) when at the same period the land is
spared from tillage; a place is also granted to the needy; and from the
treading ox's mouth the muzzle is removed, for the enjoyment of the
fruit of his labour before him, in order that kindness first shown in
the case of animals might be raised from such rudiments(6) to the
refreshment(7) of men.
But what parts of the law can I defend as good with a greater
confidence than those which heresy has shown such a longing for?—as
the statute of retaliation, requiring eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and
stripe for stripe.(8) Now there is not here any smack of a permission
to mutual injury; but rather, on the whole, a provision for restraining
violence. To a people which was very obdurate, and wanting in faith
towards God, it might seem tedious, and even incredible, to expect from
God that vengeance which was subsequently to be declared by the
prophet: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."(9)
Therefore, in the meanwhile, the commission of wrong was to be
checked(10) by the fear of a retribution immediately to happen; and so
the permission of this retribution was to be the prohibition of
provocation, that a stop might thus be put to all hot-blooded(11)
injury, whilst by the permission of the second the first is prevented
by fear, and by this deterring of the first the second fails to be
committed. By the same law another result is also obtained,(12) even
the more ready kindling of the fear of retaliation by reason of the
very savour of passion which is in it. There is no more bitter thing,
than to endure the very suffering which you have inflicted upon others.
When, again, the law took somewhat away from men's food, by pronouncing
unclean certain animals which were once blessed, you should understand
this to be a measure for encouraging continence, and recognise in it a
bridle imposed on that appetite which, while eating angels' food,
craved after the cucumbers and melons of the Egyptians. Recognise also
therein a precaution against those companions of the appetite, even
lust and luxury, which are usually chilled by the chastening of the
appetite.(13) For "the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up
to play."(14) Furthermore, that an eager wish for money might be
restrained, so far as it is caused by the need of food, the desire for
costly meat and drink was taken out of their power. Lastly, in order
that man might be more readily educated by God for fasting, he was
accustomed to such articles of food as were neither plentiful nor
sumptuous, and not likely to pamper the appetite of the luxurious. Of
course the Creator deserved all the greater blame, because it was from
His own people that He took away food, rather than from the more
ungrateful Marcionites. As for the burdensome sacrifices also, and the
troublesome scrupulousness of their ceremonies(15) and oblations, no
one should blame them, as if God specially required them for Himself:
for He plainly asks, "To what purpose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto me?" and, "Who hath required them at your hand?"(1) But
he should see herein a careful provision on God's part, which showed
His wish to bind to His own religion a people who were prone to
idolatry and transgression by that kind of services wherein consisted
the superstition of that period; that He might call them away
therefrom, while requesting it to be performed to Himself, as if He
desired that no sin should be committed in making idols.
But even in the common transactions of life, and of human
intercourse at home and in public, even to the care of the smallest
vessels, He in every possible manner made distinct arrangement; in
order that, when they everywhere encountered these legal instructions,
they might not be at any moment out of the sight of God. For what could
better tend to make a man happy, than having "his delight in the law of
the Lord?" "In that law would he meditate day and night.(3) It was not
in severity that its Author promulgated this law, but in the interest
of the highest benevolence, which rather aimed at subduing(4) the
nation's hardness of heart, and by laborious services hewing out a
fealty which was (as yet) untried in obedience: for I purposely abstain
from touching on the mysterious senses of the law, considered in its
spiritual and prophetic relation, and as abounding in types of almost
every variety and sort. It is enough at present, that it simply bound a
man to God, so that no one ought to find fault with it, except him who
does not choose to serve God. To help forward this beneficent, not
onerous, purpose of the law, the prophets were also ordained by the
self-same goodness of God, teaching precepts worthy of God, how that
men should "cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment, judge
the fatherless,(5) and plead for the widow:"(6) be fond of the divine
expostulations:(7) avoid contact with the wicked:(8) "let the oppressed
go free:"(9) dismiss the unjust sentence.(10) "deal their bread to the
hungry; bring the outcast into their house; cover the naked, when they
see him; nor hide themselves from their own flesh and kin:"(11) "keep
their tongue from evil, and their lips from speaking guile: depart from
evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it:"(12) be angry, and sin
not; that is, not persevere in anger, or be enraged:(13) "walk not in
the counsel of the ungodly; nor stand in the way of sinners; nor sit in
the seat of the scornful."(14) Where then? "Behold, how good and how
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity;"(15) meditating
(as they do) day and night in the law of the Lord, because "it is
better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man; better to
hope in the Lord than in man."(16) For what recompense shall man
receive from God? "He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of
water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall
not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."(17) "He that hath
clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not taken God's name in vain,
nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour, he shall receive blessing from
the Lord, and mercy from the God of his salvation."(18) "For the eyes
of the Lord are upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His
mercy, to deliver their souls from death," even eternal death, "and to
nourish them in their hunger," that is, after eternal life.(19) "Many
are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth them out
of them all."(20) "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of
His saints."(21) "The Lord keepeth all their bones; not one of them
shall be broken."(22) The Lord will redeem the souls of His
servants.(23) We have adduced these few quotations from a mass of the
Creator's Scriptures; and no more, I suppose, are wanted to prove Him
to be a most good God, for they sufficiently indicate both the precepts
of His goodness and the first-fruits(24) thereof.
But these "saucy cuttles"(25) (of heretics) under the figure of
whom the law about things to be eaten(1) prohibited this very kind of
piscatory ailment, as soon as they find themselves confuted, eject the
black venom of their blasphemy, and so spread about in all directions
the object which (as is now plain) they severally have in view, when
they put forth such assertions and protestations as shall obscure and
tarnish the rekindled light(2) of the Creator's bounty. We will,
however, follow their wicked design, even through these black clouds,
and drag to light their tricks of dark calumny, laying to the Creator's
charge with especial emphasis the fraud and theft of gold and silver
which the Hebrews were commanded by Him to practise against the
Egyptians. Come, unhappy heretic, I cite even you as a witness; first
look at the case of the two nations, and then you will form a judgment
of the Author of the command. The Egyptians put in a claim on the
Hebrews for these gold and silver vessels.(3) The Hebrews assert a
counter claim, alleging that by the bond(4) of their respective
fathers, attested by the written engagement of both parties, there were
due to them the arrears of that laborious slavery of theirs, for the
bricks they had so painfully made, and the cities and palaces s which
they had built. What shall be your verdict,you discoverer(6) of the
most good God? That the Hebrews must admit the fraud, or the Egyptians
the compensation? For they maintain that thus has the question been
settled by the advocates on both sides,(7) of the Egyptians demanding
their vessels, and the Hebrews claiming the requital of their labours.
But for all they say,(8) the Egyptians justly renounced their
restitution-claim then and there; while the Hebrews to this day, in
spite of the Marcionites, re-assert their demand for even greater
damages,(9) insisting that, however large was their loan of the gold
and silver, it would not be compensation enough, even if the labour of
six hundred thousand men should be valued at only "a farthing"(10) a
day a piece. Which, however, were the more in number—those who claimed
the vessel, or those who dwelt in the palaces and cities? Which, too,
the greater—the grievance of the Egyptians against the Hebrews, or
"the favour"(11) which they displayed towards them? Were free men
reduced to servile labour, in order that the Hebrews might simply
proceed against the Egyptians by action at law for injuries; or in
order that their officers might on their benches sit and exhibit their
backs and shoulders shamefully mangled by the fierce application of the
scourge? It was not by a few plates and cup—in all cases the property,
no doubt, of still fewer rich men—that any one would pronounce that
compensation should have been awarded to the Hebrews, but both by all
the resources of these and by the contributions of all the people.(12)
If, therefore, the case of the Hebrews be a good one, the Creator's
case must likewise be a good one; that is to say, his command, when He
both made the Egyptians unconsciously grateful, and also gave His own
people their discharge in full(13) at the time of their migration by
the scanty comfort of a tacit requital of their long servitude. It was
plainly less than their due which He commanded to be exacted. The
Egyptians ought to have given back their men-children(14) also to the
Hebrews.
Similarly on other points also, you reproach Him with fickleness
and instability for contradictions in His commandments, such as that He
forbade work to be done on Sabbath-days, and yet at the siege of
Jericho ordered the ark to be carried round the walls during eight
days; in other words, of course, actually on a Sabbath. You do not,
however, consider the law of the Sabbath: they are human works, not
divine, which it prohibits.(15) For it says, "Six days shalt thou
labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work." What work? Of course
your own. The conclusion is, that from the Sabbath-day He removes those
works which He had before enjoined for the six days, that is, your own
works; in other words, human works of daily life. Now, the carrying
around of the ark is evidently not an ordinary daily duty, nor yet a
human one; but a rare and a sacred work, and, as being then ordered by
the direct precept of God, a divine one. And t might fully explain what
this signified, were it not a tedious process to open out the forms(1)
of all the Creator's proofs, which you would, moreover, probably refuse
to allow. It is more to the point, if you be confuted on plain
matters(2) by the simplicity of truth rather than curious reasoning.
Thus, in the present instance, there is a clear distinction respecting
the Sabbath's prohibition of human labours, not divine ones.
Accordingly, the man who went and gathered sticks on the Sabbath-day
was punished with death. For it was his own work which he did; and
this(3) the law forbade. They, however, who on the Sabbath carried the
ark round Jericho, did it with impunity. For it was not their own work,
but God's, which they executed, and that too, from His express
commandment.
Likewise, when forbidding the similitude to be made of all things
which are in heaven, and in earth, and in the waters, He declared also
the reasons, as being prohibitory of all material exhibition(4) of a
latent(5) idolatry. For He adds: "Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor
serve them." The form, however, of the brazen serpent which the Lord
afterwards commanded Moses to make, afforded no pretext(6) for
idolatry, but was meant for the cure of those who were plagued with the
fiery serpents? I say nothing of what was figured by this cure.(8)
Thus, too, the golden Cherubim and Seraphim were purely an ornament in
the figured fashion(9) of the ark; adapted to ornamentation for reasons
totally remote from all condition of idolatry, on account of which the
making a likeness is prohibited; and they are evidently not at variance
with(10) this law of prohibition, because they are not found in that
form(11) of similitude, in reference to which the prohibition is given.
We have spoken(12) of the rational institution of the sacrifices, as
calling off their homage from idols to God; and if He afterwards
rejected this homage, saying, "To what purpose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto me?"(13)—He meant nothing else than this to be
understood, that He had never really required such homage for Himself.
For He says, "I will not eat the flesh of bulls;"(14) and in another
passage: "The everlasting God shall neither hunger nor thirst."(15)
Although He had respect to the offerings of Abel, and smelled a sweet
savour from the holocaust of Noah, yet what pleasure could He receive
from the flesh of sheep, or the odour of burning victims? And yet the
simple and God-fearing mind of those who offered what they were
receiving from God, both in the way of food and of a sweet smell, was
favourably accepted before God, in the sense of respectful homage(16)
to God, who did not so much want what was offered, as that which
prompted the offering. Suppose now, that some dependant were to offer
to a rich man or a king, who was in want of nothing, some very
insignificant gift, will the amount and quality of the gift bring
dishonour(17) to the rich man and the king; or will the
consideration(18) of the homage give them pleasure? Were, however, the
dependant, either of his own accord or even in compliance with a
command, to present to him gifts suitably to his rank, and were he to
observe the solemnities due to a king, only without faith and purity of
heart, and without any readiness for other acts of obedience, will not
that king or rich man consequently exclaim: "To what purpose is the
multitude of your sacrifices unto me? I am full of your solemnities,
your feast-days, and your Sabbaths."(19) By calling them yours, as
having been performed(20) after the giver's own will, and not according
to the religion of God (since he displayed them as his own, and not as
God's), the Almighty in this passage, demonstrated how suitable to the
conditions of the case, and how reasonable, was His rejection of those
very offerings which He had commanded to be made to Him.
Now, although you will have it that He is inconstant(1) in
respect of persons, sometimes disapproving where approbation is
deserved; or else wanting in foresight, bestowing approbation on men
who ought rather to be reprobated, as if He either censured(2) His own
past judgments, or could not forecast His future ones; yet s nothing is
so consistent for even a good judge(4) as both to reject and to choose
on the merits of the present moment. Saul is chosen,(5) but he is not
yet the despiser of the prophet Samuel.(6) Solomon is rejected; but he
is now become a prey to foreign women, and a slave to the idols of Moab
and Sidon. What must the Creator do, in order to escape the censure of
the Marcionites? Must He prematurely condemn men, who are thus far
correct in their conduct, because of future delinquencies? But it is
not the mark of a good God to condemn beforehand persons who have not
yet deserved condemnation. Must He then refuse to eject sinners, on
account of their previous good deeds? But it is not the characteristic
of a just judge to forgive sins in consideration of former virtues
which are no longer practised. Now, who is so faultless among men, that
God could always have him in His choice, and never be able to reject
him? Or who, on the other hand, is so void of any good work, that God
could reject him for ever, and never be able to choose him? Show me,
then, the man who is always good, and he will not be rejected; show me,
too, him who is always evil, and he will never be chosen. Should,
however, the same man, being found on different occasions in the
pursuit of both (good and evil) be recompensed(7) in both directions by
God, who is both a good and judicial Being, He does not change His
judgments through inconstancy or want of foresight, but dispenses
reward according to the deserts of each case with a most unwavering and
provident decision.(8)
Furthermore, with respect to the repentance which occurs in His
conduct?(9) you interpret it with similar perverseness just as if it
were with fickleness and improvidence that He repented, or on the
recollection of some wrong-doing; because He actually said, "It
repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king,(10) "very much as if
He meant that His repentance savoured of an acknowledgment of some evil
work or error. Well,(11) this is not always implied. For there occurs
even in good works a confession of repentance, as a reproach and
condemnation of the man who has proved himself unthankful for a
benefit. For instance, in this case of Saul, the Creator, who had made
no mistake in selecting him for the kingdom, and endowing him with His
Holy Spirit, makes a statement respecting the goodliness of his person,
how that He had most fitly chosen him as being at that moment the
choicest man, so that (as He says) there was not his fellow among the
children of Israel.(12) Neither was He ignorant how he would afterwards
turn out. For no one would bear you out in imputing lack of foresight
to that God whom, since you do not deny Him to be divine, you allow to
be also foreseeing; for this proper attribute of divinity exists in
Him. However, He did, as I have said, burden(13) the guilt of Saul with
the confession of His own repentance; but as there is an absence of all
error and wrong in His choice of Saul, it follows that this repentance
is to be understood as upbraiding another(14) rather than as
self-incriminating.(15) Look here then, say you: I discover a
self-incriminating case in the matter of the Ninevites, when the book
of Jonah declares, "And God repented of the evil that He had said that
He would do unto them; and He did it not."(16) In accordance with which
Jonah himself says unto the Lord, "Therefore I fled before unto
Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to
anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil."(17) It
is well, therefore, that he premised the attribute(18) of the most good
God as most patient over the wicked, and most abundant in mercy and
kindness over such as acknowledged and bewailed their sins, as the
Ninevites were then doing. For if He who has this attribute is the Most
Good, you will have first to relinquish that position of yours, that
the very contact with(19) evil is incompatible with such a Being, that
is, with the most good God. And because Marcion, too, maintains that a
good tree ought not to produce bad fruit; but yet he has mentioned
"evil" (in the passage under discussion), which the most good God is
incapable of,(1) is there forthcoming any explanation of these "evils,"
which may render them compatible with even the most Good? There is, We
say, in short, that evil in the present case(2) means, not what may be
attributed to the Creator's nature as an evil being, but what may be
attributed to His power as a judge. In accordance with which He
declared, "I create evil,"(3) and, "I frame evil against you;"(4)
meaning not to sinful evils, but avenging ones. What sort of stigmas
pertains to these, congruous as they are with God's judicial character,
we have sufficiently explained.(6) Now although these are called
"evils," they are yet not reprehensible in a judge; nor because of this
their name do they show that the judge is evil: so in like manner will
this particular evil(7) be understood to be one of this class of
judiciary evils, and along with them to be compatible with (God as) a
judge. The Greeks also sometimes(8) use the word "evils" for troubles
and injuries (not malignant ones), as in this passage of yours(9) is
also meant. Therefore, if the Creator repented of such evil as this, as
showing that the creature deserve dcondemnation, and ought to be
punished for his sin, then, in(10) the present instance no fault of a
criminating nature will be imputed to the Creator, for having
deservedly and worthily decreed the destruction of a city so full of
iniquity. What therefore He had justly decreed, having no evil purpose
in His decree, He decreed from the principle of justice,(11) not from
malevolence. Yet He gave it the name of "evil," because of the evil and
desert involved in the very suffering itself. Then, you will say, if
you excuse the evil under name of justice, on the ground that He had
justly determined destruction against the people of Nineveh, He must
even on this argument be blameworthy, for having repented of an act of
justice, which surely should not be repented of. Certainly not,(12) my
reply is; God will never repent of an act of justice. And it now
remains that we should understand what God's repentance means. For
although man repents most frequently on the recollection of a sin, and
occasionally even from the unpleasantness(13) of some good action, this
is never the case with God. For, inasmuch as God neither commits sin
nor condemns a good action, in so far is there no room in Him for
repentance of either a good or an evil deed. Now this point is
determined for you even in the scripture which we have quoted. Samuel
says to Saul, "The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this
day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better than
thou;"(14) and into two parts shall Israel be divided: "for He will not
turn Himself, nor repent; for He does not repent as a man does."(15)
According, therefore, to this definition, the divine repentance takes
in all cases a different form from that of man, in that it is never
regarded as the result of improvidence or of fickleness, or of any
condemnation of a good or an evil work. What, then, will be the mode of
God's repentance? It is already quite clear,(16) if you avoid referring
it to human conditions. For it will have no other meaning than a simple
change of a prior purpose; and this is admissible without any blame
even in a man, much more(17) in God, whose every purpose is faultless.
Now in Greek the word for repentance ( metanoia ) is formed, not from
the confession of a sin, but from a change of mind, which in God we
have shown to be regulated by the occurrence of varying circumstances.
It is now high time that I should, in order to meet all(18)
objections of this kind, proceed to the explanation and clearing up(19)
of the other trifles,(20) weak points, and inconsistencies, as you
deemed them. God calls out to Adam,(21) Where art thou? as if ignorant
where he was; and when he alleged that the shame of his nakedness was
the cause (of his hiding himself), He inquired whether he had eaten of
the tree, as if He were in doubt. By no means;(22) God was neither
uncertain about the commission of the sin, nor ignorant of Adam's
whereabouts. It was certainly proper to summon the offender, who was
concealing himself from the consciousness of his sin, and to bring him
forth into the presence of his Lord, not merely by the calling out of
his name, but with a home-thrust blow(1) at the sin which he had at
that moment committed. For the question ought not to be read in a
merely interrogative tone, Where art thou, Adam? but with an impressive
and earnest voice, and with an air of imputation, Oh, Adam, where art
thou?—as much as to intimate: thou art no longer here, thou art in
perdition—so that the voice is the utterance of One who is at once
rebuking and sorrowing.(2) But of course some part of paradise had
escaped the eye of Him who holds the universe in His hand as if it were
a bird's nest, and to whom heaven is a throne and earth a footstool; so
that He could not see, before He summoned him forth, where Adam was,
both while lurking and when eating of the forbidden fruit! The wolf or
the paltry thief escapes not the notice of the keeper of your vineyard
or your garden! And God, I suppose, with His keener vision,(3) from on
high was unable to miss the sight of(4) aught which lay beneath Him!
Foolish heretic, who treat with scorn(5) so fine an argument of God's
greatness and man's instruction! God put the question with an
appearance of uncertainty, in order that even here He might prove man
to be the subject of a free will in the alternative of either a denial
or a confession, and give to him the opportunity of freely ackowledging
his transgression, and, so far,(6) of lightening it.(7) In like manner
He inquires of Cain where his brother was, just as if He had not yet
heard the blood of Abel crying from the ground, in order that he too
might have the opportunity from the same power of the will of
spontaneously denying, and to this degree aggravating, his crime; and
that thus there might be supplied to us examples of confessing sins
rather than of denying them: so that even then was initiated the
evangelic doctrine, "By thy words(8) thou shall be justified, and by
thy words thou shalt be condemned."(9) Now, although Adam was by
reason of his condition under law(10) subject to death, yet was hope
preserved to him by the Lord's saying, "Behold, Adam is become as one
of us;"(11) that is, in consequence of the future taking of the man
into the divine nature. Then what follows? "And now, lest he put forth
his hand, and take also of the tree of life, (and eat), and live for
ever." Inserting thus the particle of present time, "And now," He shows
that He had made for a time, and at present, a prolongation of man's
life. Therefore He did not actually(12) curse Adam and Eve, for they
were candidates for restoration, and they had been relieved(13) by
confession. Cain, however, He not only cursed; but when he wished to
atone for his sin by death, He even prohibited his dying, so that he
had to bear the load of this prohibition in addition to his crime.
This, then, will prove to be the ignorance of our God, which was
simulated on this account, that delinquent man should not be unaware of
what he ought to do. Coming down to the case of Sodom and Gomorrha, he
says: "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether
according to the cry of it which is come unto me; and if not, I will
know."(14) Well, was He in this instance also uncertain through
ignorance, and desiring to know? Or was this a necessary tone of
utterance, as expressive of a minatory and not a dubious sense, under
the colour of an inquiry? If you make merry at God's "going down," as
if He could not except by the descent have accomplished His judgment,
take care that you do not strike your own God with as hard a blow. For
He also came down to accomplish what He wished.
But God also swears. Well, is it,I wonder, by the God of Marcion?
No,no, he says; a much vainer oath—by Himself!(15) What was He to do,
when He knew(16) of no other God; especially when He was swearing to
this very point, that besides himself there was absolutely no God? Is
it then of swearing falsely that you convict(17) Him, or of swearing a
vain oath? But it is not possible for him to appear to have sworn
falsely, when he was ignorant, as you say he was, that there was
another God. For when he swore by that which he knew, he really
committed no perjury. But it was not a vain oath for him to swear that
there was no other God. It would indeed be a vain oath, if there had
been no persons who believed that there were other Gods, like the
worshippers of idols then, and the heretics of the present day.
Therefore He swears by Himself, in order that you may believe God, even
when He swears that there is besides Himself no other God at all. But
you have yourself, O Marcion, compelled God to do this. For even so
early as then were you foreseen. Hence, if He swears both in His
promises and His threatenings, and thus extorts(1) faith which at first
was difficult, nothing is unworthy of God which causes men to believe
in God. But (you say) God was even then mean(2) enough in His very
fierceness, when, in His wrath against the people for their
consecration of the calf, He makes this request of His servant Moses:
"Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may
consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation."(3) Accordingly,
you maintain that Moses is better than his God, as the deprecator, nay
the averter, of His anger. "For," said he, "Thou shall not do this; or
else destroy me along with them."(4) Pitiable are ye also, as well as
the people, since you know not Christ, prefigured in the person of
Moses as the deprecator of the Father, and the offerer of His own life
for the salvation of the people. It is enough, however, that the nation
was at the instant really given to Moses. That which he, as a servant,
was able to ask of the Lord, the Lord required of Himself. For this
purpose did He say to His servant, "Let me alone, that I may consume
them," in order that by his entreaty, and by offering himself, he might
hinder(5) (the threatened judgment), and that you might by such an
Instance learn how much privilege is vouch-safed(6) with God to a
faithful man and a prophet.
And now, that I may briefly pass in review(7) the other points
which you have thus far been engaged in collecting, as mean, weak, and
unworthy, for demolishing(8) the Creator, I will propound them in a
simple and definite statement:(9) that God would have been unable to
hold any intercourse with men, if He had not taken on Himself the
emotions and affections of man, by means of which He could temper the
strength of His majesty, which would no doubt have been incapable of
endurance to the moderate capacity of man, by such a humiliation as was
indeed degrading(10) to Himself, but necessary for man, and such as on
this very account became worthy of God, because nothing is so worthy of
God as the salvation of man. If I were arguing with heathens, I should
dwell more at length on this point; although with heretics too the
discussion does not stand on very different grounds. Inasmuch as ye
yourselves have now come to the belief that God moved about(11) in the
form and all other circumstances of man's nature,(12) you will of
course no longer require to be convinced that God conformed Himself to
humanity, but feel yourselves bound by your own faith. For if the God
(in whom ye believe,) even from His higher condition, prostrated the
supreme dignity of His majesty to such a lowliness as to undergo death,
even the death of the cross, why can you not suppose that some
humiliations(13) are becoming to our God also, only more tolerable than
Jewish contumelies, and crosses,(14) and sepulchres? Are these the
humiliations which henceforth are to raise a prejudice against Christ
(the subject as He is of human passions(15)) being a partaker of that
Godhead(16) against which you make the participation in human qualities
a reproach? Now we believe that Christ did ever act in the name of God
the Father; that He actually(17) from the beginning held intercourse
with (men); actually(18) communed with(19) patriarchs and prophets; was
the Son of the Creator; was His Word; whom God made His Son(20) by
emitting Him from His own self,(21) and thenceforth set Him over every
dispensation and (administration of) His will,(22) making Him a little
lower than the angels, as is written in David.(23) In which lowering of
His condition He received from the Father a dispensation in those very
respects which you blame as human; from the very beginning
learning,(24) even then, (that state of a) man which He was destined in
the end to become.(25) It is He who descends, He who interrogates, He
who demands, He who swears. With regard, however, to the Father, the
very gospel which is common to us will testify that He was never
visible, according to the word of Christ: "No man knoweth the Father,
save the Son."(1) For even in the Old Testament He had declared, "No
man shall see me, and live."(2) He means that the Father is invisible,
in whose authority and in whose name was He God who appeared as the Son
of God. But with us(3) Christ is received in the person of Christ,
because even in this manner is He our God. Whatever attributes
therefore you require as worthy of God, must be found in the Father,
who is invisible and unapproachable, and placid, and (so to speak) the
God of the philosophers; whereas those qualities which you censure as
unworthy must be supposed to be in the Son, who has been seen, and
heard, and encountered, the Witness and Servant of the Father, uniting
in Himself man and God, God in mighty deeds, in weak ones man, in order
that He may give to man as much as He takes from God. What in your
esteem is the entire disgrace of my God, Is in fact the sacrament of
man's salvation God held converse with man, that man might learn to act
as God. God dealt on equal terms(4) with man, that man might be able to
deal on equal terms with God. God was found little, that man might
become very great. You who disdain such a God, I hardly know whether
you ex fide believe that God was crucified. How great, then, is your
perversity in respect of the two characters of the Creator! You
designate Him as Judge, and reprobate as Cruelty that severity of the
Judge which only acts in accord with the merits of cases. You require
God to be very good, and yet despise as meanness that gentleness of His
which accorded with His kindness, (and) held lowly converse in
proportion to the mediocrity of man's estate. He pleases you not,
whether great or little, neither as your judge nor as your friend !
What if the same features should be discovered in your God? That He too
is a judge, we have already shown in the proper section:(5) that from
being a judge He must needs be severe; and from being severe He must
also be cruel, if indeed cruel.(6)
Now, touching the weaknesses and malignities, and the other
(alleged), notes (of the Creator), I too shall advance antitheses in
rivalry to Marcion's. If my God knew not of any other superior to
Himself, your god also was utterly unaware that there was any beneath
himself. It is just what Heraclitus "the obscure"(7) said; whether it
be up or down,(8) it comes to the same thing. If, indeed, he was not
ignorant (of his position), it must have occurred to Him from the
beginning. Sin and death, and the author of sin too—the devil—and all
the evil which my God permitted to be, this also, did your god permit;
for he allowed Him to permit it. Our God changed His purposes;(9) in
like manner yours did also. For he who cast his look so late in the
human race, changed that purpose, which for so long a period had
refused to cast that look. Our God repented Him of the evil in a given
case; so also did yours. For by the fact that he at last had regard to
the salvation of man, he showed such a repentance of his previous
disregard(10) as was due for a wrong deed. But neglect of man's
salvation will be accounted a wrong deed, simply because it has been
remedied(11) by his repentance in the conduct of your god. Our God you
say commanded a fraudulent act, but in a matter of gold and silver.
Now, inasmuch as man is more precious than gold and silver, in so far
is your god more fraudulent still, because he robs man of his Lord and
Creator. Eye for eye does our God require; but your god does even a
greater injury, (in your ideas,) when he prevents an act of
retaliation. For what man will not return a blow, without waiting to be
struck a second time.(12) Our God (you say) knows not whom He ought to
choose. Nor does your god, for if he had foreknown the issue, he would
not have chosen the traitor Judas. If you allege that the Creator
practised deception(1) in any instance, there was a far greater
mendacity in your Christ, whose very body was unreal.(2) Many were
consumed by the severity of my God. Those also who were not saved by
your god are verily disposed by him to ruin. My God ordered a man to be
slain. Your god willed himself to be put to death; not less a homicide
against himself than in respect of him by whom he meant to be slain. I
will moreover prove to Marcion that they were many who were slain by
his god; for he made every one a homicide: in other words, he doomed
him to perish, except when people failed in no duty towards Christ.(3)
But the straightforward virtue of truth is contented with few
resources.(4) Many things will be necessary for falsehood.
But I would have attacked Marcion's own Antitheses in closer and
fuller combat, if a more elaborate demolition of them were required in
maintaining for the Creator the character of a good God and a Judge,
alters the examples of both points, which we have shown to be so worthy
of God. Since, however, these two attributes of goodness and justice do
together make up the proper fulness of the Divine Being as omnipotent,
I am able to content myself with having now compendiously refuted his
Antitheses, which aim at drawing distinctions out of the qualities of
the (Creator's) artifices,(6) or of His laws, or of His great works;
and thus sundering Christ from the Creator, as the most Good from the
Judge, as One who is merciful from Him who is ruthless, and One who
brings salvation from Him who causes ruin. The truth is,(7) they(8)
rather unite the two Beings whom they arrange in those diversities (of
attribute), which yet are compatible in God. For only take away the
title of Marcion's book,(9) and the intention and purpose of the work
itself, and you could get no better demonstration that the self-same
God was both very good and a Judge, inasmuch as these two characters
are only competently found in God. Indeed, the very effort which is
made in the selected examples to oppose Christ to the Creator, conduces
all the more to their union. For so entirely one and the same was the
nature of the Divine Beings, the good and the severe, as shown both by
the same examples and in similar proofs, that It willed to display Its
goodness to those on whom It had first inflicted Its severity. The
difference in time was no matter of surprise, when the same God was
afterwards merciful in presence of evils which had been subdued,(10)
who had once been so austere whilst they were as yet unsubdued. Thus,
by help of the Antitheses, the dispensation of the Creator can be more
readily shown to have been reformed by Christ, rather than
destroyed;(11) restored, rather than abolished;(12) especially as you
sever your own god from everything like acrimonious conduct,(13) even
from all rivalry whatsoever with the Creator. Now, since this is the
case, how comes it to pass that the Antitheses demonstrate Him to have
been the Creator's rival in every disputed cause?(14) Well, even here,
too, I will allow that in these causes my God has been a jealous God,
who has in His own right taken especial care that all things done by
Him should be in their beginning of a robuster growth;(15) and this in
the way of a good, because rational(16) emulation, which tends to
maturity. In this sense the world itself will acknowledge His
"antitheses," from the contrariety of its own elements, although it has
been regulated with the very highest reason.(17) Wherefore, most
thoughtless Marcion, it was your duty to have shown that one (of the
two Gods you teach) was a God of light, and the other a God of
darkness; and then you would have found it an easier task to persuade
us that one was a God of goodness, the other a God of severity. How
ever, the "antithesis" (or variety of administration) will rightly be
His property, to whom it actually belongs in (the government of) the
world.
THE FIVE BOOKS AGAINST MARCION.