I am gratified to have your permission to dedicate this volume to your Lordship. It is the fruit of some two years’ leisure labour. Every man’s occupation spares to him some λείψανα χρόνου; and thirty years ago you taught me, at Oxford, how to husband these opportunities in the pleasant studies of Biblical and Theological Science. For that and many other kindnesses I cannot cease to be thankful to you.
But, besides this private motive, I have in your Lordship’s own past course an additional incentive for resorting to you on this occasion. You, until lately, presided over the theological studies of our great University; and you have given great encouragement to patristic literature by your excellent edition of the Apostolic Fathers.1 To whom could I more becomingly present this humble effort to make more generally known the great merits of perhaps the greatest work of the first of the Latin Fathers than to yourself?
I remain, with much respect,
My dear Lord,
Very faithfully yours,
Peter Holmes.
Mannamead, Plymouth,2
March, 1868.
Preface by the Translator.3
The reader has, in this volume a translation (attempted for the first time in English) of the largest of the extant works of the earliest Latin Fathers. The most important of Tertullian’s writings have always been highly valued in the church, although, as was natural from their varied character, for different reasons. Thus his two best-known treatises, The Apology and The Prescription against Heretics, have divided between them for more than sixteen centuries the admiration of all intelligent readers, - the one for its masterly defence of the Christian religion against its heathen persecutors, and the other for its lucid vindication of the church’s rule of faith against its heretical assailants. The present work has equal claims on the reader’s appreciation, in respect of those qualities of vigorous thought, close reasoning, terse expression, and earnest purpose, enlivened by sparkling wit and impassioned eloquence, which have always secured for Tertullian, in spite of many drawbacks, the esteem which is given to a great and favourite author. If these books against Marcion have received, as indeed it must be allowed they have, less attention from the general reader than their intrinsic merit deserves, the neglect is mainly due to the fact that the interesting character of their contents is concealed by the usual title-page, which points only to a heresy supposed to be extinct and inapplicable, whether in the materials of its defence or confutation, to any modern circumstances. But many treatises of great authors, which have outlived their literal occasion, retain a value from their collateral arguments, which is not inferior to that effected by their primary subject, Such is the case with the work before us. If Marcionism is in the letter obsolete, there is its spirit still left in the church, which in more ways than one develops its ancient 270 characteristics. What these were, the reader will soon discover in this volume; but reference may be made even here, in passing, to that prominent aim of the heresy which gave Tertullian his opportunity of proving the essential coherence of the Old and the New Testaments, and of exhibiting both his great knowledge of the details of Holy Scripture, and his fine intelligence of the progressive nature of God’s revelation as a whole. This constitutes the charm of the present volume, which might almost be designated a Treatise on the Connection between the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures. How interesting this subject is to earnest men of the present age, is proved by the frequent treatment of it in our religious literature.4 In order to assist the reader to a more efficient use of this volume, in reference to its copiousness of Scripture illustration, a full Index of Scriptural Passages has been drawn up. Another satisfactory result will, it is believed, accompany the reading of this volume, in the evidence which it affords of the venerable catholicity of that system of biblical and dogmatic truth which constitutes the belief of what is called the “orthodox” Christian of the present day. Orthodoxy has been impugned of late, as if it had suffered much deterioration in its transmission to us; and an advanced school of thinkers has demanded its reform by a manipulation which they have called “free handling.” To such readers, then, as prize the deposit of the Christian creed which they have received, in the light of St. Jude’s description, as “the faith once for all delivered to the saints,” it cannot but prove satisfactory to be able to trace in Tertullian, writing more than sixteen centuries ago, the outlines of their own cherished convictions - held by one who cannot be charged with too great an obsequiousness to traditional authority, and who at the same time possessed honesty, earnestness, and intelligence enough to make him an unexceptionable witness to facts of such a kind. The translator would only add, that he has, in compliance with the wise canon laid down by the editors of this series, endeavoured always to present to the reader the meaning of the author in readable English, keeping as near as idiomatic rules allowed to the sense and even style of the original. Amidst the many well-known difficulties of Tertullian’s writings (and his Anti-Marcion is not exempt from any of these difficulties,5) the translator cannot hope that he has accomplished his labour without mistakes, for which he would beg the reader’s indulgence. He has, however, endeavoured to obviate the inconvenience of faulty translation by quoting in foot-notes all words, phrases, and passages which appeared to him difficult.6 He has also added such notes as seemed necessary to illustrate the author’s argument, or to explain any obscure allusions. The translation has been made always from Oehler’s edition, with the aid of his scholary Index Verborum. Use has also been made of Semler’s edition, and the variorum reprint of the Abbé Migne, the chief result of which recension has been to convince the translator of the great superiority and general excellence of Oehler’s edition. When he had completed two-thirds of his work, he happened to meet with the French translation of Tertullian by Monr. Denain, in Genoude’s series, Les Pères de l’Eglise, published some twenty-five years ago. This version, which runs in fluent language always, is very unequal in its relation to the original: sometimes it has the brevity of an abridgment, sometimes the fulness of a paraphrase. Often does it miss the author’s point, and never does it keep his style. The Abbé Migne correctly describes it: “Elegans potius quam fidissimus interpres, qui Africanæ loquelæ asperitatem splendenti ornavit sermone, egregiaque interdum et ad vivum expressa interpretatione recreavit.”
FOOTNOTES
1 [The name of Bishop Jacobson was often introduced in our first volume, in notes to the Apostolic Fathers. He has recently “fallen asleep,” after a life of exemplary labour “with good report of all men and of the Truth itself.” His learning and piety were adorned by a profound humility, which gave a primitive cast to his character. At the Lambeth Conference, having the honour to sit at his side, I observed his extreme modesty. He rarely rose to speak, though he sometimes honoured me with words in a whisper, which the whole assembly would have rejoiced to hear. Like his great predecessor, Pearson, in many respects, the mere filings and clippings of his thought were gold-dust.]
2 [Dr. Holmes is described, in the Edinburgh Edition, as “Domestic Chaplain to the Rt. Hon. the Countess of Rothes.” He was B.A. (Oxon.) in 1840, and took orders that year. Was Headmaster of Plymouth Grammar School at one time, and among his very valuable and learned works should be mentioned, as very useful to the reader of this series, his Translation of Bull’s Defensio Fidei Nicænæ (two vols. 8vo. Oxford 1851), and of the same great author’s Jusicium Ecclesiæ Catholicæ, 8vo. Oxford, 1855.]
3 [This preface and the frequent annotations of our author relieve the American editor, save very sparingly, from adding notes of his own.]
4 Two works are worth mentioning in connection with this topic for their succinct and handy form, as well as satisfactory treatment of their argument: Mr. Perowne’s Norrisian prize essay, entitled The Essential Coherence of the Old and New Testaments (1858), and Sir William Page Wood’s recent work, The Continuity of Scripture, as declared by the testimony of our Lord, and of the evangelists and apostles.
5 Bishop Kaye says of Tertullian (p. 62): “He is indeed the harshest and most obscure of writers, and the least capable of being accurately represented in a translation;” and he quotes the learned Ruhnken’s sentence of our author: “Latinitatis certè pessimum auctorem esse aio et confirmo.” This is surely much too sweeping. To the careful student Tertullian’s style commends itself, by and by, as suited exactly to his subject - as the terse and vigorous expression of terse and vigorous thought. Bishop Butler has often been censured for an awkward style; whereas it is a fairer criticism to say, that the arguments of the Analogy and the Sermons on Human Nature have been delivered in the language best suited to their character. This adaptation of style to matter is probably in all great authors a real characteristic of genius. A more just and favourable view is taken of Tertullian’s Latin by Niebuhr, Hist. Rom. (Schmitz), vol. v. p. 271, and his Lectures on Ancient Hist. (Schmitz), vol. ii. p. 54.
6 He has also, as the reader will observe, endeavoured to distinguish, by the help of type, between the true God and Marcion’s god, printing the initials of the former, and of the pronouns referring to Him, in capitals, and those of the latter in small letters. To do this was not always an easy matter, for in many passages the argument amalgamates the two. Moreover, in the earlier portion of the work the translator fears that he may have occasionally neglected to make the distinction.
Book I.1, Wherein Is Described the God of Marcion. He Is Shown to Be Utterly Wanting in All the Attributes of the True God.
Chap. I. - Preface. Reason for a New Work Pontus Lends Its Rough Character to the Heretic Marcion, a Native. His Heresy Characterized in a Brief Invective.
Whatever in times past2 we have wrought in opposition to Marcion, is from the present moment no longer to be accounted of.3 It is a new work which we are undertaking in lieu of the old one.4 My original tract, as too hurriedly composed, I had subsequently superseded by a fuller treatise. This latter I lost, before it was completely published, by the fraud of a person who was then a brother,5 but became afterwards an apostate. He, as it happened, had transcribed a portion of it, full of mistakes, and then published it. The necessity thus arose for an amended work; and the occasion of the new edition induced me to make a considerable addition to the treatise. This present text,6 therefore, of my work - which is the third as superseding7 the second, but henceforward to be considered the first instead of the third - renders a preface necessary to this issue of the tract itself that no reader may be perplexed, if he should by chance fall in with the various forms of it which are scattered about.
The Euxine Sea, as it is called, is self-contradictory in its nature, and deceptive in its name.8 As you would not account it hospitable from its situation, so is it severed from our more civilised waters by a certain stigma which attaches to its barbarous character. The fiercest nations inhabit it, if indeed it can be called habitation, when life is passed in waggons. They have no fixed abode; their life has9 no germ of civilisation; they indulge their libidinous desires without restraint, and for the most part naked. Moreover, when they gratify secret lust, they hang up their quivers on their car-yokes,10 to warn off the curious and rash observer. Thus without a blush do they prostitute their weapons of war. The dead bodies of their parents they cut up with their sheep, and devour at their feasts. They who have not died so as to become food for others, are thought to have died an accursed death. Their women are not by their sex softened to modesty. They uncover the breast, from which they suspend their battle-axes, and prefer warfare to marriage. In their climate, too, there is the same rude nature.11 The day-time is never clear, the sun never cheerful;12 the sky is uniformly cloudy; the whole year is wintry; the only wind that blows is the angry North. Waters melt only by fires; their rivers flow not by reason of the ice; their mountains are covered13 with heaps of snow. All things are torpid, all stiff with cold. Nothing there has the glow14 of life, but that ferocity which has given to scenic plays their stories of the sacrifices15 of the Taurians, and the loves16 of the Colchians, and the torments17 of the Caucasus. Nothing, however, in Pontus is so barbarous 272 and sad as the fact that Marcion was born there, fouler than any Scythian, more roving than the waggon-life18 of the Sarmatian, more inhuman than the Massagete, more audacious than an Amazon, darker than the cloud,19 (of Pontus) colder than its winter, more brittle than its ice, more deceitful than the Ister, more craggy than Caucasus. Nay20 more, the true Prometheus, Almighty God, is mangled21 by Marcion’s blasphemies. Marcion is more savage than even the beasts of that barbarous region. For what beaver was ever a greater emasculator22 than he who has abolished the nuptial bond? What Pontic mouse ever had such gnawing powers as he who has gnawed the Gospels to pieces? Verily, O Euxine, thou hast produced a monster more credible to philosophers than to Christians. For the cynic Diogenes used to go about, lantern in hand, at mid-day to find a man; whereas Marcion has quenched the light of his faith, and so lost the God whom he had found. His disciples will not deny that his first faith he held along with ourselves; a letter of his own23 proves this; so that for the future24 a heretic may from his case25 be designated as one who, forsaking that which was prior, afterwards chose out for himself that which was not in times past.26 For in as far as what was delivered in times past and from the beginning will be held as truth, in so far will that be accounted heresy which is brought in later. But another brief treatise27 will maintain this position against heretics, who ought to be refuted even without a consideration of their doctrines, on the ground that they are heretical by reason of the novelty of their opinions. Now, so far as any controversy is to be admitted, I will for the time28 (lest our compendious principle of novelty, being called in on all occasions to our aid, should be imputed to want of confidence) begin with setting forth our adversary’s rule of belief, that it may escape no one what our main contention is to be.
Chap. II. - Marcion, Aided by Cerdon, Teaches a Duality of Gods; How He Constructed This Heresy of an Evil and a Good God.
The heretic of Pontus introduces two Gods, like the twin Symplegades of his own shipwreck: One whom it was impossible to deny, i.e., our Creator; and one whom he will never be able to prove, i.e., his own god. The unhappy man gained29 the first idea30 of his conceit from the simple passage of our Lord’s saying, which has reference to human beings and not divine ones, wherein He disposes of those examples of a good tree and a corrupt one; (Luk_6:43) how that “the good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, neither the corrupt tree good fruit.” Which means, that an honest mind and good faith cannot produce evil deeds, any more than an evil disposition can produce good deeds. Now (like many other persons now-a-days, especially those who have an heretical proclivity), while morbidly brooding31 over the question of the origin of evil, his perception became blunted by the very irregularity of his researches; and when he found the Creator declaring, “I am He that createth evil,” (Isa_45:7) inasmuch as he had already concluded from other arguments, which are satisfactory to every perverted mind, that God is the author of evil, so he now applied to the Creator the figure of the corrupt tree bringing forth evil fruit, that is, moral evil,b and then presumed that there ought to be another god, after the analogy of the good tree producing its good fruit. Accordingly, finding in Christ a different disposition, as it were - one of a simple and pure benevolence33 - differing from the Creator, he readily argued that in his Christ had been revealed a new and strange34 divinity; and then with a little leaven he leavened the whole lump of the faith, flavouring it with the acidity of his own heresy.
He had, moreover, in one35 Cerdon an abettor of this blasphemy, - a circumstance which made them the more readily think that they saw most clearly their two gods, blind though they were; for, in truth, they had not seen the one God with soundness of faith.36 To men of diseased vision even one lamp looks like many. One of his gods, therefore, whom he was obliged to acknowledge, he destroyed by defaming his attributes in the 273 matter of evil; the other, whom he laboured so hard to devise, he constructed, laying his foundation37 in the principle of good. In what articles38 he arranged these natures, we show by our own refutations of them.
Chap. III. - The Unity of God. He Is the Supreme Being, and There Cannot Be a Second Supreme.
The principal, and indeed39 the whole, contention lies in the point of number: whether two Gods may be admitted, by poetic licence (if they must be),40 or pictorial fancy, or by the third process, as we must now add,41 of heretical pravity. But the Christian verity has distinctly declared this principle, “God is not, if He is not one;” because we more properly believe that that has no existence which is not as it ought to be. In order, however, that you may know that God is one, ask what God is, and you will find Him to be not otherwise than one. So far as a human being can form a definition of God, I adduce one which the conscience of all men will also acknowledge, - that God is the great Supreme existing in eternity, unbegotten, unmade without beginning, without end. For such a condition as this must needs be ascribed to that eternity which makes God to be the great Supreme, because for such a purpose as this is this very attribute42 in God; and so on as to the other qualities: so that God is the great Supreme in form and in reason, and in might and in power.43 Now, since all are agreed on this point (because nobody will deny that God is in some sense44 the great Supreme, except the man who shall be able to pronounce the opposite opinion, that God is but some inferior being, in order that he may deny God by robbing Him of an attribute of God), what must be the condition of the great Supreme Himself? Surely it must be that nothing is equal to Him, i.e., that there is no other great supreme; because, if there were, He would have an equal; and if He had an equal, He would be no longer the great Supreme, now that the condition and (so to say) our law, which permits nothing to be equal to the great Supreme, is subverted. That Being, then, which is the great Supreme, must needs be unique,45 by having no equal, and so not ceasing to be the great Supreme. Therefore He will not otherwise exist than by the condition whereby He has His being; that is, by His absolute uniqueness. Since, then, God is the great Supreme, our Christian verity has rightly declared,46 “God is not, if He is not one.” Not as if we doubted His being God, by saying, He is not, if He is not one; but because we define Him, in whose being we thoroughly believe, to be that without which He is not God; that is to say, the great Supreme. But then47 the great Supreme must needs be unique. This Unique Being, therefore, will be God - not otherwise God than as the great Supreme; and not otherwise the great Supreme than as having no equal; and not otherwise having no equal than as being Unique. Whatever other god, then, you may introduce, you will at least be unable to maintain his divinity under any other guise,48 than by ascribing to him too the property of Godhead - both eternity and supremacy over all. How, therefore, can two great Supremes co-exist, when this is the attribute of the Supreme Being, to have no equal, - an attribute which belongs to One alone, and can by no means exist in two?
Chap. IV. - Defence of the Divine Unity Against Objection. No Analogy Between Human Powers and God’s Sovereignty. The Objection Otherwise Untenable, for Why Stop at Two Gods?
But some one may contend that two great Supremes may exist, distinct and separate in their own departments; and may even adduce, as an example, the kingdoms of the world, which, though they are so many in number, are yet supreme in their several regions. Such a man will suppose that human circumstances are always comparable with divine ones. Now, if this mode of reasoning be at all tolerable, what is to prevent our introducing, I will not say a third god or a fourth, but as many as there are kings of the earth? Now it is God that is in question, whose main property it is to admit of no comparison with Himself. Nature itself, therefore, if not an Isaiah, or rather God speaking by Isaiah, will deprecatingly ask, “To whom will ye liken me?” (Isa_40:18, Isa_40:25) Human circumstances may perhaps be compared with divine ones, but they may not be with God. God is one thing, and what belongs to God is another thing. Once more:49 you who apply the example of a king, as a great 274 supreme, take care that you can use it properly. For although a king is supreme on his throne next to God, he is still inferior to God; and when he is compared with God, he will be dislodged50 from that great supremacy which is transferred to God. Now, this being the case, how will you employ in a comparison with God an object as your example, which fails51 in all the purposes which belong to a comparison? Why, when supreme power among kings cannot evidently be multifarious, but only unique and singular, is an exception made in the case of Him (of all others)52 who is King of kings, and (from the exceeding greatness of His power, and the subjection of all other ranks53 to Him) the very summit,54 as it were, of dominion? But even in the case of rulers of that other form of government, where they one by one preside in a union of authority, if with their petty55 prerogatives of royalty, so to say, they be brought on all points56 into such a comparison with one another as shall make it clear which of them is superior in the essential features57 and powers of royalty, it must needs follow that the supreme majesty will redound58 to one alone, - all the others being gradually, by the issue of the comparison, removed and excluded from the supreme authority. Thus, although, when spread out in several hands, supreme authority seems to be multifarious, yet in its own powers, nature, and condition, it is unique. It follows, then, that if two gods are compared, as two kings and two supreme authorities, the concentration of authority must necessarily, according to the meaning of the comparison, be conceded to one of the two; because it is clear from his own superiority that he is the supreme, his rival being now vanquished, and proved to be not the greater, however great. Now, from this failure of his rival, the other is unique in power, possessing a certain solitude, as it were, in his singular pre-eminence. The inevitable conclusion at which we arrive, then, on this point is this: either we must deny that God is the great Supreme, which no wise man will allow himself to do; or say that God has no one else with whom to share His power.
Chap. V. - The Dual Principle Falls to the Ground; Plurality of Gods, of Whatever Number, More Consistent. Absurdity and Injury to Piety Resulting from Marcion’s Duality.
But on what principle did Marcion confine his supreme powers to two? I would first ask, If there be two, why not more? Because if number be compatible with the substance of Deity, the richer you make it in number the better. Valentinus was more consistent and more liberal; for he, having once imagined two deities, Bythos and Sige,59 poured forth a swarm of divine essences, a brood of no less than thirty Aegons, like the sow of Aeneas.60 Now, whatever principle refuses to admit several supreme begins, the same must reject even two, for there is plurality in the very lowest number after one. After unity, number commences. So, again, the same principle which could admit two could admit more. After two, multitude begins, now that one is exceeded. In short, we feel that reason herself expressly61 forbids the belief in more gods than one, because the self-same rule lays down one God and not two, which declares that God must be a Being to which, as the great Supreme, nothing is equal; and that Being to which nothing is equal must, moreover, be unique. But further, what can be the use or advantage in supposing two supreme beings, two co-ordinate62 powers? What numerical difference could there be when two equals differ not from one? For that thing which is the same in two is one. Even if there were several equals, all would be just as much one, because, as equals, they would not differ one from another. So, if of two beings neither differs from the other, since both of them are on the supposition63 supreme, both being gods, neither of them is more excellent than the other; and so, having no pre-eminence, their numerical distinction64 has no reason in it. Number, moreover, in the Deity ought to be consistent with the highest reason, or else His worship would be brought into doubt. For consider65 now, if, when I saw two Gods before me (who, being both Supreme Beings, were equal to each other), I were to worship them both, what should I be doing? I should be much afraid that the abundance of my homage would be deemed superstition rather than piety. Because, as both of them are so equal and are both included in either of the 275 two, I might serve them both acceptably in only one; and by this very means I should attest their equality and unity, provided that I worshipped them mutually the one in the other, because in the one both are present to me. If I were to worship one of the two, I should be equally conscious of seeming to pour contempt on the uselessness of a numerical distinction, which was superfluous, because it indicated no difference; in other words, I should think it the safer course to worship neither of these two Gods than one of them with some scruple of conscience, or both of them to none effect.
Chap. VI. - Marcion Untrue to His Theory. He Pretends that His Gods Are Equal, but He Really Makes Them Diverse. Then, Allowing Their Divinity, Denies This Diversity.
Thus far our discussion seems to imply that Marcion makes his two gods equal. For while we have been maintaining that God ought to be believed as the one only great Supreme Being, excluding from Him every possibility66 of equality, we have treated of these topics on the assumption of two equal Gods; but nevertheless, by teaching that no equals can exist according to the law67 of the Supreme Being, we have sufficiently affirmed the impossibility that two equals should exist. For the rest, however,68 we know full well69 that Marcion makes his gods unequal: one judicial, harsh, mighty in war; the other mild, placid, and simply70 good and excellent. Let us with similar care consider also this aspect of the question, whether diversity (in the Godhead) can at any rate contain two, since equality therein failed to do so. Here again the same rule about the great Supreme will protect us, inasmuch as it settles71 the entire condition of the Godhead. Now, challenging, and in a certain sense arresting72 the meaning of our adversary, who does not deny that the Creator is God, I most fairly object73 against him that he has no room for any diversity in his gods, because, having once confessed that they are on a par,74 he cannot now pronounce them different; not indeed that human beings may not be very different under the same designation, be because the Divine Being can be neither said nor believed to be God, except as the great Supreme. Since, therefore, he is obliged to acknowledge that the God whom he does not deny is the great Supreme, it is inadmissible that he should predicate of the Supreme Being such a diminution as should subject Him to another Supreme Being. For He ceases (to be Supreme), if He becomes subject to any. Besides, it is not the characteristic of God to cease from any attribute75 of His divinity - say, from His supremacy. For at this rate the supremacy would be endangered even in Marcion’s more powerful god, if it were capable of depreciation in the Creator. When, therefore, two gods are pronounced to be two great Supremes, it must needs follow that neither of them is greater or less than the other, neither of them loftier or lowlier than the other. If you deny76 him to be God whom you call inferior, you deny76 the supremacy of this inferior being. But when you confessed both gods to be divine, you confessed then both to be supreme. Nothing will you be able to take away from either of them; nothing will you be able to add. By allowing their divinity, you have denied their diversity.
Chap. VII. - Other Beings Besides God Are in Scripture Called God. This Objection Frivolous, for It Is Not a Question of Names. The Divine Essence Is the Thing at Issue. Heresy, in Its General Terms, Thus Far Treated.
But this argument you will try to shake with an objection from the name of God, by alleging that that name is a vague77 one, and applied to other beings also; as it is written, “God standeth in the congregation of the mighty;78 He judgeth among the gods.” And again, “I have said, Ye are gods.” (Psa_82:1, Psa_82:6) As therefore the attribute of supremacy would be inappropriate to these, although they are called gods, so is it to the Creator. This is a foolish objection; and my answer to it is, that its author fails to consider that quite as strong an objection might be urged against the (superior) god of Marcion: he too is called god, but is not on that account proved to be divine, as neither are angels nor men, the Creator’s handwork. If an identity of names affords a presumption in support of equality of condition, how often do worthless menials strut insolently in the names of kings - your Alexanders, Caesars, and Pompeys!79 This fact, 276 however, does not detract from the real attributes of the royal persons, Nay more, the very idols of the Gentiles are called gods. Yet not one of them is divine because he is called a god. It is not, therefore, for the name of god, for its sound or its written form, that I am claiming the supremacy in the Creator, but for the essence80 to which the name belongs; and when I find that essence alone is unbegotten and unmade - alone eternal, and the maker of all things - it is not to its name, but its state, not to its designation, but its condition, that I ascribe and appropriate the attribute of the supremacy. And so, because the essence to which I ascribe it has come81 to be called god, you suppose that I ascribe it to the name, because I must needs use a name to express the essence, of which indeed that Being consists who is called God, and who is accounted the great Supreme because of His essence, not from His name. In short, Marcion himself, when he imputes this character to his god, imputes it to the nature,82 not to the word. That supremacy, then, which we ascribe to God in consideration of His essence, and not because of His name, ought, as we maintain, to be equal83 in both the beings who consist of that substance for which the name of God is given; because, in as far as they are called gods (i.e., supreme beings, on the strength, of course, of their unbegotten and eternal, and therefore great and supreme essence), in so far the attribute of being the great Supreme cannot be regarded as less or worse in one than in another great Supreme. If the happiness, and sublimity, and perfection84 of the Supreme Being shall hold good of Marcion’s god, it will equally so of ours; and if not of ours, it will equally not hold of Marcion’s. Therefore two supreme beings will be neither equal nor unequal: not equal, because the principle which we have just expounded, that the Surpeme Being admits of no comparison with Himself, forbids it; not unequal, because another principle meets us respecting the Supreme Being, that He is capable of no diminution. So, Marcion, you are caught85 in the midst of your own Pontic tide. The waves of truth overwhelm you on every side. You can neither set up equal gods nor unequal ones. For there are not two; so far as the question of number is properly concerned. Although the whole matter of the two gods is at issue, we have yet confined our discussion to certain bounds, within which we shall now have to contend about separate peculiarities.
Chap. VIII. - Specific Points. The Novelty of Marcion’s God Fatal to His Pretensions. God Is from Everlasting, He Cannot Be in Any Wise New.
In the first place, how arrogantly do the Marcionites build up their stupid system,86 bringing forward a new god, as if we were ashamed of the old one! So schoolboys are proud of their new shoes, but their old master beats their strutting vanity out of them. Now when I hear of a new god, [cap. xix. infra.] who, in the old world and in the old time and under the old god was unknown and unheard of; whom, (accounted as no one through such long centuries back, and ancient in men’s very ignorance of him),87 a certain “Jesus Christ,” and none else revealed; whom Christ revealed, they say - Christ himself new, according to them, even, in ancient names - I feel grateful for this conceit88 of theirs. For by its help I shall at once be able to prove the heresy of their tenet of a new deity. It will turn out to be such a novelty89 as has made gods even for the heathen by some new and yet again and ever new title90 for each several deification. What new god is there, except a false one? Not even Saturn will be proved to be a god by all his ancient fame, because it was a novel pretence which some time or other produced even him, when it first gave him godship.91 On the contrary, living and perfect92 Deity has its origin93 neither in novelty nor in antiquity, but in its own true nature. Eternity has no time. It is itself all time. It acts; it cannot then suffer. It cannot be born, therefore it lacks age. God, if old, forfeits the eternity that is to come; if new, the eternity which is past.94 The newness bears witness to a beginning; the oldness threatens an end. God, moreover, is as independent of beginning and end as He is of time, which is only the arbiter and measurer of a beginning and an end.
277
Chap. IX. - Marcion’s Gnostic Pretensions Vain, for the True God Is Neither Unknown nor Uncertain. The Creator, whom He Owns to Be God, Alone Supplies an Induction, by Which to Judge of the True God.
Now I know full well by what perceptive faculty they boast of their new god; even their knowledge.95 It is, however, this very discovery of a novel thing - so striking to common minds - as well as the natural gratification which is inherent in novelty, that I wanted to refute, and thence further to challenge a proof of this unknown god. For him whom by their knowledge96 they present to us as new, they prove to have been unknown previous to that knowledge. Let us keep, within the strict limits and measure of our argument. Convince me there could have been an unknown god. I find, no doubt,97 that altars have been lavished on unknown gods; that, however, is the idolatry of Athens. And on uncertain gods; but that, too, is only Roman superstition. Furthermore, uncertain gods are not well known, because no certainty about them exists; and because of this uncertainty they are therefore unknown. Now, which of these two titles shall we carve for Marcion’s god? Both, I suppose, as for a being who is still uncertain, and was formerly unknown. For inasmuch as the Creator, being a known God, caused him to be unknown; so, as being a certain God, he made him to be uncertain. But I will not go so far out of my way, as to say:98 If God was unknown and concealed, He was overshadowed in such a region of darkness, as must have been itself new and unknown, and be even now likewise uncertain - some immense region indeed, one undoubtedly greater than the God whom it concealed. But I will briefly state my subject, and afterwards most fully pursue it, promising that God neither could have been, nor ought to have been, unknown. Could not have been, because of His greatness; ought not to have been, because of His goodness, especially as He is (supposed, by Marcion) more excellent in both these attributes than our Creator. Since, however, I observe that in some points the proof of every new and heretofore unknown god ought, for its test,99 to be compared to the form of the Creator, it will be my duty100 first of all to show that this very course is adopted by me in a settled plan,101 such as I might with greater confidence102 use in support of my argument. Before every other consideration, (let me ask) how it happens that you,103 who acknowledge104 the Creator to be God, and from your knowledge confess Him to be prior in existence, do not know that the other god should be examined by you in exactly the same course of investigation which has taught you how to find out a god in the first case? Every prior thing has furnished the rule for the latter. In the present question two gods are propounded, the unknown and the known. Concerning the known there is no105 question. It is plain that He exists, else He would not be known. The dispute is concerning the unknown god. Possibly he has no existence; because, if he had, he would have been known. Now that which, so long as it is unknown, is an object to be questioned, is an uncertainty so long as it remains thus questionable; and all the while it is in this state of uncertainty, it possibly has no existence at all. You have a god who is so far certain, as he is known; and uncertain, as unknown. This being the case, does it appear to you to be justly defensible, that uncertainties should be submitted for proof to the rule, and form, and standard of certainties? Now, if to the subject before us, which is in itself full of uncertainty thus far, there be applied also arguments106 derived from uncertainties, we shall be involved in such a series of questions arising out of our treatment of these same uncertain arguments, as shall by reason of their uncertainty be dangerous to the faith, and we shall drift into those insoluble questions which the apostle has no affection for. If, again,107 in things wherein there is found a diversity of condition, they shall prejudge, as no doubt they will,108 uncertain, doubtful, and intricate points, by the certain, undoubted, and clear sides109 of their rule, it will probably happen that110 (those points) will not be submitted to the standard of certainties for determination, as being freed by the diversity of their essential condition111 from the application of such a standard in all other respects. As, therefore, it is two gods which are the subject of our proposition, their essential condition must be the same in both. For, as concerns their divinity, they are both unbegotten, unmade, eternal. This will be their essential condition. All other points Marcion 278 himself seems to have made, light of,112 for he has placed them in a different113 category. They are subsequent in the order of treatment; indeed, they will not have to be brought into the discussion,114 since on the essential condition there is no dispute. Now there is this absence of our dispute, because they are both of them gods. Those things, therefore, whose community of condition is evident, will, when brought to a test on the ground of that common condition,115 have to be submitted, although they are uncertain, to the standard116 of those certainties with which they are classed in the community of their essential condition, so as on this account to share also in their manner of proof. I shall therefore contend117 with the greatest confidence that he is not God who is to-day uncertain, because he has been hitherto unknown; for of whomsoever it is evident that he is God, from this very fact it is (equally) evident, that he never has been unknown, and therefore never uncertain.
Chap. X. - The Creator Was Known as the True God from the First by His Creation. Acknowledged by the Soul and Conscience of Man Before He Was Revealed by Moses.
For indeed, as the Creator of all things, He was from the beginning discovered equally with them, they having been themselves manifested that He might become known as God. For although Moses, some long while afterwards, seems to have been the first to introduce the knowledge of118 the God of the universe in the temple of his writings, yet the birthday of that knowledge must not on that account be reckoned from the Pentateuch. For the volume of Moses does not at all initiate119 the knowledge of the Creator, but from the first gives out that it is to be traced from Paradise and Adam, not from Egypt and Moses. The greater part, therefore,120 of the human race, although they knew not even the name of Moses, much less his writings, yet knew the God of Moses; and even when idolatry overshadowed the world with its extreme prevalence, men still spoke of Him separately by His own name as God, and the God of gods, and said, “If God grant,” and, “As God pleases,” and, “I commend you to God.”121 Reflect, then, whether they knew Him, of whom they testify that He can do all things. To none of the writings of Moses do they owe this. The soul was before prophecy.122 From the beginning the knowledge of God is the dowry of the soul, one and the same amongst the Egyptians, and the Syrians, and the tribes of Pontus. For their souls call the God of the Jews their God. Do not, O barbarian heretic, put Abraham before the world. Even if the Creator had been the God of one family, He was yet not later than your god; even in Pontus was He known before him. Take then your standard from Him who came first: from the Certain (must be judged) the uncertain; from the Known the unknown. Never shall God be hidden, never shall God be wanting. Always shall He be understood, always be heard, nay even seen, in whatsoever way He shall wish. God has for His witnesses this whole being of ours, and this universe wherein we dwell. He is thus, because not unknown, proved to be both God and the only One, although another still tries hard to make out his claim.
Chap. XI. - The Evidence for God External to Him; but the External Creation Which Yields This Evidence Is Really Not Extraneous, for All Things Are God’s. Marcion’s God, Having Nothing to Show for Himself, No God at All. Marcion’s Scheme Absurdly Defective, Not Furnishing Evidence for His New God’s Existence, Which Should at Least Be Able to Compete with the Full Evidence of the Creator.
And justly so, they say. For who is there that is less well known by his own (inherent) qualities than by strange123 ones? No one. Well, I keep to this statement. How could anything be strange.124 to God, to whom, if He were personally existent, nothing would be strange? For this is the attribute of God, that all things are His, and all things belong to Him; or else this question would not so readily be heard from us: What has He to do with things strange to Him? - a point which will be more fully noticed in its proper place. It is now sufficient to observe, that no one is proved to exist to whom nothing is proved to belong. For as the Creator is shown to be God, God without any doubt, from the fact that all things are His, and nothing is strange to Him; so the rival125 god is seen to be no god, from the circumstance that nothing is his, and all things are therefore strange to 279 him. Since, then, the universe belongs to the Creator, I see no room for any other god. All things are full of their Author, and occupied by Him. If in created beings there be any portion of space anywhere void of Deity, the void will be of a false deity clearly.126 By falsehood the truth is made clear. Why cannot the vast crowd of false gods somewhere find room for Marcion’s god? This, therefore, I insist upon, from the character127 of the Creator, that God must have been known from the works of some world peculiarly His own, both in its human constituents, and the rest of its organic life;128 when even the error of the world has presumed to call gods those men whom it sometimes acknowledges, on the ground that in every such case something is seen which provides for the uses and advantages of life.129 Accordingly, this also was believed from the character of God to be a divine function; namely, to teach or point out what is convenient and needful in human concerns. So completely has the authority which has given influence to a false divinity been borrowed from that source, whence it had previously flowed forth to the true one. One stray vegetable130 at least Marcion’s god ought to have produced as his own; so might he be preached up as a new Triptolemus.131 Or else state some reason which shall be worthy of a God, why he, supposing him to exist, created nothing; because he must, on supposition of his existence, have been a creator, on that very principle on which it is clear to us that our God is no otherwise existent, than as having been the Creator of this universe of ours. For, once for all, the rule132 will hold good, that they cannot both acknowledge the Creator to be God, and also prove him divine whom they wish to be equally believed in as God, except they adjust him to the standard of Him whom they and all men hold to be God; which is this, that whereas no one doubts the Creator to be God on the express ground of His having made the universe, so, on the selfsame ground, no one ought to believe that he also is God who has made nothing - except, indeed, some good reason be forthcoming. And this must needs be limited to one of two: he was either unwilling to create, or else unable. There is no third reason.133 Now, that he was unable, is a reason unworthy of God. Whether to have been unwilling to be a worthy one, I want to inquire. Tell me, Marcion, did your god wish himself to be recognised at any time or not? With what other purpose did he come down from heaven, and preach, and having suffered rise again from the dead, if it were not that he might be acknowledged? And, doubtless, since he was acknowledged, he willed it. For no circumstance could have happened to him, if he had been unwilling. What indeed tended so greatly to the knowledge of himself, as his appearing in the humiliation of the flesh, - a degradation all the lower indeed if the flesh were only illusory?134 For it was all the more shameful if he, who brought on himself the Creator’s curse by hanging on a tree, only pretended the assumption of a bodily substance. A far nobler foundation might he have laid for the knowledge of himself in some evidences of a creation of his own, especially when he had to become known in opposition to Him in whose territory135 he had remained unknown by any works from the beginning. For how happens it that the Creator, although unaware, as the Marcionites aver, of any god being above Himself, and who used to declare even with an oath that He existed alone, should have guarded by such mighty works the knowledge of Himself, about which, on the assumption of His being alone without a rival, He might have spared Himself all care; while the Superior God, knowing all the while how well furnished in power His inferior rival was, should have made no provision at all towards getting Himself acknowledged? Whereas He ought to have produced works more illustrious and exalted still, in order that He might, after the Creator’s standard, both be acknowledged as God from His works, and even by nobler deeds show Himself to be more potent and more gracious than the Creator.
Chap. XII. - Impossibility of Acknowledging God Without This External Evidence136 of His Existence. Marcion’s Rejection of Such Evidence for His God Savours of Impudence and Malignity.
But even if we were able to allow that he exists, we should yet be bound to argue that he is without a cause.136 For he who had nothing (to show for himself as proof of his existence), would be without a cause, since (such) proof137 is the whole cause that there exists 280 some person to whom the proof belongs. Now, in as far as nothing ought to be without a cause, that is, without a proof (because if it be without a cause, it is all one as if it be not, not having the very proof which is the cause of a thing), in so far shall I more worthily believe that God does not exist, than that He exists without a cause. For he is without a cause who has not a cause by reason of not having a proof. God, however, ought not to be without a cause, that is to say, without a proof. Thus, as often as I show that He exists without a cause, although (I allow138 that) He exists, I do really determine this, that He does not exist; because, if He had existed, He could not have existed altogether without a cause.139 So, too, even in regard to faith itself, I say that he140 seeks to obtain it141 with out cause from man, who is otherwise accustomed to believe in God from the idea he gets of Him from the testimony of His works:142 (without cause, I repeat,) because he has provided no such proof as that whereby man has acquired the knowledge of God. For although most persons believe in Him, they do not believe at once by unaided reason,143 without having some token of Deity in works worthy of God. And so upon this ground of inactivity and lack of works he144 is guilty both of impudence and malignity: of impudence, in aspiring after a belief which is not due to him, and for which he has provided no foundation;145 of malignity, in having brought many persons under the charge of unbelief by furnishing to them no groundwork for their faith.
Chap. XIII. - The Marcionites Depreciate the Creation, Which, However, Is a Worthy Witness of God. This Worthiness Illustrated by References to the Heathen Philosophers, who
