Chap. XXV. - Christ Thanks the Father for Revealing to Babes what He Had Concealed from the Wise. This Concealment Judiciously Effected by the Creator. Other Points in St. Luke’s Luk_10:1-42. Shown to Be Only Possible to the Creator’s Christ.
Who shall be invoked as the Lord of heaven, that does not first show Himself688 to have been the maker thereof? For He says, “I thank thee, (O Father,) and own Thee, Lord of heaven, because those things which had been hidden from the wise and prudent, Thou has revealed unto babes.” (Luk_10:21) What things are these? And whose? And by whom hidden? And by whom revealed? If it was by Marcion’s god that they were hidden and revealed, it was an extremely iniquitous proceeding;689 for nothing at all had he ever produced690 in which anything could have been hidden - no prophecies, no parables, no visions, no evidences691 of things, or words, or names, obscured by allegories and figures, or cloudy enigmas, but he had concealed the greatness even of himself, which he was with all his might revealing by his Christ. Now in what respect had the wise and prudent done wrong,692 that God should be hidden from them, when their wisdom and prudence had been insufficient to come to the knowledge of Him? No way had been provided by himself,693 by any declaration of his works, or any vestiges whereby they might become694 wise and prudent. However, if they had even failed in any duty towards a god whom they knew not, suppose him now at last to be known still they ought not to have found a jealous god in him who is introduced as unlike the Creator. Therefore, since he had neither provided any materials in which he could have hidden anything, nor had any offenders from whom he could have hidden himself: since, again, even if he had had any, he ought not to have hidden himself from them, he will not now be himself the revealer, who was not previously the concealer; so neither will any be the Lord of heaven nor the Father of Christ but He in whom all these attributes consistently meet.695 For He conceals by His preparatory apparatus of prophetic obscurity, the understanding of which is open to faith (for “if ye will not believe, ye shall not understand” (Isa_7:9)); and He had offenders in those wise and prudent ones who would not seek after God, although He was to be discovered in His so many and mighty works, (Rom_1:20-23) or who rashly philosophized about Him, and thereby furnished to heretics their arts;696 and lastly, He is a jealous God. Accordingly,697 that which Christ thanks God for doing, He long ago698 announced by Isaiah: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent will I hide.” (Isaiah 24:3, LXX) So in another passage He intimates both that He has concealed, and that He will also reveal: “I will give unto them treasures that have been hidden, and secret ones will I discover to them.” (Isaiah 45:3, LXX) And again: “Who else shall scatter the tokens of ventriloquists,699 and the devices of those who divine out of their own heart; turning wise men backward, and making their counsels foolish?” (Isaiah 44:25, LXX) Now, if He has designated His Christ as an enlightener of the Gentiles, saying, “I have set thee for a light of the Gentiles;” (Isa_42:6; Isa_49:6) and if we understand these to be meant in the word babes (Luk_10:21) - as having been once dwarfs in knowledge and infants in prudence, and even now also babes in their lowliness of faith - we shall of course more easily understand how He who had once hidden “these things,” and promised a revelation of them through Christ, was the same God as He who had now revealed them unto babes. Else, if it was Marcion’s god who revealed the things which had been formerly hidden by the Creator, it follows700 that he did the Creator’s work by setting forth His deeds.701 But he did it, say you, for His destruction, that he might refute them.702 Therefore he ought to have refuted them to those from whom the Creator had hidden them, even the wise and prudent. For if he had a kind intention in what he did, the gift of knowledge was due to those from whom the Creator had detained it, instead of the babes, to whom the Creator had grudged no gift. But after all, it is, I presume, the edification703 390 rather than the demolition704 of the law and the prophets which we have thus far found effected in Christ. “All things,” He says, “are delivered unto me of my Father.” (Luk_10:22) you may believe Him, if He is the Christ of the Creator to whom all things belong; because the Creator has not delivered to a Son who is less than Himself all things, which He created by705 Him, that is to say, by His Word. If, on the contrary, he is the notorious stranger,706 what are the “all things” which have been delivered to him by the Father? Are they the Creator’s? Then the things which the Father delivered to the Son are good and the Creator is therefore good, since all His “things” are good; whereas he707 is no longer good who has invaded another’s good (domains) to deliver it to his son, thus teaching robbery708 of another’s goods. Surely he must be a most mendacious being, who had no other means of enriching his son than by helping himself to another’s property! Or else,709 if nothing of the Creator’s has been delivered to him by the Father, by what right710 does he claim for himself (authority over) man? Or again, if man has been delivered to him, and man alone, then man is not “all things.” But Scripture clearly says that a transfer of all things has been made to the Son. If, however, you should interpret this “all” of the whole human race, that is, all nations, then the delivery of even these to the Son is within the purpose of the Creator:711 “I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.” (Psa_2:8) If, indeed, he has some things of his own, the whole of which he might give to his son, along with the man of the Creator, then show some one thing of them all, as a sample, that I may believe; lest I should have as much reason not to believe that all things belong to him, of whom I see nothing, as I have ground for believing that even the things which I see not are His, to whom belongs the universe, which I see. But “no man knoweth who the Father is, but the Son; and who the Son is, but the Father, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him.” (Luk_10:22) And so it was an unknown god that Christ preached! And other heretics, too, prop themselves up by this passage; alleging in opposition to it that the Creator was known to all, both to lsrael by familiar intercourse, and to the Gentiles by nature. Well, how is it He Himself testifies that He was not known to lsrael? “But Israel cloth not know me, and my people doth not consider me;” (Isa_1:3) nor to the Gentiles: “For, behold,” says He, “of the nations I have no man.”712 Therefore He reckoned them “as the drop of a bucket,” (Isa_40:15) [compare Isaiah 63:3, LXX] while “Sion He left as a look-out713 in a vineyard.” (when the vintage was gathered, Isa_1:8) See, then, whether there be not here a confirmation of the prophet’s word, when he rebukes that ignorance of man toward God which continued to the days of the Son of man. For it was on this account that he inserted the clause that the Father is known by him to whom the Son has revealed Him, because it was even He who was announced as set by the Father to be a light to the Gentiles, who of course required to be enlightened concerning God, as well as to Israel, even by imparting to it a fuller knowledge of God. Arguments, therefore, will be of no use for belief in the rival god which may be suitable714 for the Creator, because it is only such as are unfit for the Creator which will be able to advance belief in His rival. If you look also into the next words, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see, for I tell you that prophets have not seen the things which ye see,” (Luk_10:23-24) you will find that they follow from the sense above, that no man indeed had come to the knowledge of God as he ought to have done,715 since even the prophets had not seen the things which were being seen under Christ. Now if He had not been my Christ, He would not have made any mention of the prophets in this passage. For what was there to wonder at, if they had not seen the things of a god who had been unknown to them, and was only revealed a long time after them? What blessedness, however, could theirs have been, who were then seeing what others were naturally716 unable to see, since it was of things which they had never predicted that they had not obtained the sight;717 if it were not because they might justly718 have seen the things pertaining to their God, which they had even predicted, but which they at the same time719 had not seen? This, however, will be the blessedness of others, even of such as were seeing the things which 391 others had only foretold. We shall by and by show, nay, we have already shown, that in Christ those things were seen which had been foretold, but yet had been hidden from the very prophets who foretold them, in order that they might be hidden also from the wise and the prudent. In the true Gospel, a certain doctor of the law comes to the Lord and asks, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” In the heretical gospel life only is mentioned, without the attribute eternal; so that the lawyer seems to have consulted Christ simply about the life which the Creator in the law promises to prolong, (Exo_20:12 and Deu_6:2) and the Lord to have therefore answered him according to the law, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength,” (Luk_10:27) since the question was concerning the conditions of mere life. But the lawyer of course knew very well in what way the life which the law meant720 was to be obtained, so that his question could have had no relation to the life whose rules he was himself in the habit of teaching. But seeing that even the dead were now raised by Christ, and being himself excited to the hope of an eternal life by these examples of a restored721 one, he would lose no more time in merely looking on (at the wonderful things which had made him) so high in hope.722 He therefore consulted him about the attainment of eternal life. Accordingly, the Lord, being Himself the same,723 and introducing no new precept other than that which relates above all others724 to (man’s) entire salvation, even including the present and the future life,725 places before him726 the very essence727 of the law - that he should in every possible way love the Lord his God. If, indeed, it were only about a lengthened life, such as is at the Creator’s disposal, that he inquired and Christ answered, and not about the eternal life, which is at the disposal of Marcion’s god, how is he to obtain the eternal one? Surely not in the same manner as the prolonged life. For in proportion to the difference of the reward must be supposed to be also the diversity of the services. Therefore your disciple, Marcion,728 will not obtain his eternal life in consequence of loving your God, in the same way as the man who loves the Creator will secure the lengthened life. But how happens it that, if He is to be loved who promises the prolonged I life, He is not much more to be loved who offers the eternal life? Therefore both one and the other life will be at the disposal of one and the same Lord; because one and the same discipline is to be followed729 for one and the other life. What the Creator teaches to be loved, that must He necessarily maintain730 also by Christ,731 for that rule holds good here, which prescribes that greater things ought to be believed of Him who has first lesser proofs to show, than of him for whom no preceding smaller presumptions have secured a claim to be believed in things of higher import. It matters not732 then, whether the word eternal has been interpolated by us.733 It is enough for me, that the Christ who invited men to the eternal - not the lengthened - life, when consuited about the temporal life which he was destroying, did not choose to exhort the man rather to that eternal life which he was introducing. Pray, what would the Creator’s Christ have done if He who had made man for loving the Creator did not belong to the Creator? I suppose He would have said that the Creator was not to be loved!
Chap. XXVI. - From St. Luke’s Eleventh Chapter (Luk_11:1-54) Other Evidence that Christ Comes from the Creator. The Lord’s Prayer and Other Words of Christ. The Dumb Spirit and Christ’s Discourse on Occasion of the Expulsion. The Exclamation of the Woman in the Crowd.
When in a certain place he had been praying to that Father above, (Luk_11:1) looking up with insolent and audacious eyes to the heaven of the Creator, by whom in His rough and cruel nature he might have been crushed with hail and lightning - just as it was by Him contrived that he was (afterwards) attached to a cross734 at Jerusalem - one of his disciples came to him and said, “Master, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” This he said, forsooth, because he thought that different prayers were required for different gods! Now, he who had advanced such a conjecture as this should first show that another god had been proclaimed by Christ. For nobody would have wanted to know how to pray, before he had learned whom he was to pray to. If, however, he had already learned this, prove it. If you find nowhere any proof, let me tell you735 that it was to the Creator that he asked 392 for instruction in prayer, to whom John’s disciples also used to pray. But, inasmuch as John had introduced some new order of prayer, this disciple had not improperly presumed to think that he ought also to ask of Christ whether they too must not (according to some special rule of their Master) pray, not indeed to another god, but in another manner. Christ accordingly736 would not have taught His disciple prayer before He had given him the knowledge of God Himself. Therefore what He actually taught was prayer to Him whom the disciple had already known. In short, you may discover in the import737 of the prayer what God is addressed therein. To whom can I say, “Father?” (Luk_11:2) To him who had nothing to do with making me, from whom I do not derive my origin? Or to Him, who, by making and fashioning me, became my parent?738 Of whom can I ask for His Holy Spirit? Of him who gives not even the mundane spirit;739 or of Him “who maketh His angels spirits,” and whose Spirit it was which in the beginning hovered upon the waters. (Gen_1:2) Whose kingdom shall I wish to come - his, of whom I never heard as the king of glory; or His, in whose hand are even the hearts of kings? Who shall give me my daily (Luk_11:3) bread? Shall it be he who produces for me not a grain of millet-seed;740 or He who even from heaven gave to His people day by day the bread of angels? (Psa_68:25) Who shall forgive me my trespasses? (Luk_11:4) He who, by refusing to judge them, does not retain them; or He who, unless He forgives them, will retain them, even to His judgment? Who shall suffer us not to be led into temptation? He before whom the tempter will never be able to tremble; or He who from the beginning has beforehand condemned741 the angel tempter? If any one, with such a form,742 invokes another god and not the Creator, he does not pray; he only blasphemes.743 In like manner, from whom must I ask that I may receive? Of whom seek, that I may find? To whom knock, that it may be opened to me? (Luk_11:9) Who has to give to him that asks, but He to whom all things belong, and whose am I also that am the asker? What, however, have I lost before that other god, that I should seek of him and find it. If it be wisdom and prudence, it is the Creator who has hidden them. Shall I resort to him, then, in quest of them? If it be health744 and life, they are at the disposal of the Creator. Nor must anything be sought and found anywhere else than there, where it is kept in secret that it may come to light. So, again, at no other door will I knock than at that out of which my privilege has reached me.745 In fine, if to receive, and to find, and to be admitted, is the fruit of labour and earnestness to him who has asked, and sought, and knocked, understand that these duties have been enjoined, and results promised, by the Creator. As for that most excellent god of yours, coming as he professes gratuitously to help man, who was not his (creature),746 he could not have imposed upon him any labour, or (endowed him with) any earnestness. For he would by this time cease to be the most excellent god, were he not spontaneously to give to every one who does not ask, and permit every one who seeks not to find, and open to every one who does not knock. The Creator, on the contrary,747 was able to proclaim these duties and rewards by Christ, in order that man, who by sinning had offended his God, might toil on (in his probation), and by his perseverance in asking might receive, and in seeking might find, and in knocking might enter. Accordingly, the preceding similitude (see Luk_11:5-8) represents the man who went at night and begged for the loaves, in the light of a friend and not a stranger, and makes him knock at a friend’s house and not at a stranger’s. But even if he has offended, man is more of a friend with the Creator than with the god of Marcion. At His door, therefore, does he knock to whom he had the right of access; whose gate he had found; whom he knew to possess bread; in bed now with His children, whom He had willed to be born.748 Even though the knocking is late in the day, it is yet the Creator’s time. To Him belongs the latest hour who owns an entire age749 and the end thereof. As for the new god, however, no one could have knocked at his door late, for he has hardly yet750 seen the light of morning. It is the Creator, who once shut the door to the Gentiles, which was then knocked at by the Jews, that both rises and gives, if not now to man as a friend, yet not as a stranger, but, as He says, “because 393 of his importunity.” (Luk_11:8) Importunate, however, the recent god could not have permitted any one to be in the short time (since his appearance).751 Him, therefore, whom you call the Creator recognise also as “Father.” It is even He who knows what His children require. For when they asked for bread, He gave them manna from heaven; and when they wanted flesh, He sent them abundance of quails - not a serpent for a fish, nor for an egg a scorpion. (Luk_11:11-13) It will, however, appertain to Him not to give evil instead of good, who has both one and the other in His power. Marcion’s god, on the contrary, not having a scorpion, was unable to refuse to give what he did not possess; only He (could do so), who, having a scorpion, yet gives it not. In like manner, it is He who will give the Holy Spirit, at whose command752 is also the unholy spirit. When He cast out the “demon which was dumb” (Luk_11:14) (and by a cure of this sort verified Isaiah), (Isa_24:18) and having been charged with casting out demons by Beelzebub, He said, “If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?” (Luk_11:19) By such a question what does He otherwise mean, than that He ejects the spirits by the same power by which their sons also did - that is, by the power of the Creator? For if you suppose the meaning to be, “If I by Beelzebub, etc., by whom your sons?” - as if He would reproach them with having the power of Beelzebub, - you are met at once by the preceding sentence, that “Satan cannot be divided against himself.” (Luk_11:18) So that it was not by Beelzebub that even they were casting out demons, but (as we have said) by the power of the Creator; and that He might make this understood, He adds: “But if I with the finger of God cast out demons, is not the kingdom of God come near unto you?” (Luk_11:20) For the magicians who stood before Pharaoh and resisted Moses called the power of the Creator” the finger of God.” (Exo_8:19) It was the finger of God, because it was a sign753 that even a thing of weakness was yet abundant in strength. This Christ also showed, when, recalling to notice (and not obliterating) those ancient wonders which were really His own,754 He said that the power of God must be understood to be the finger of none other God than Him, under755 whom it had received this appellation. His kingdom, therefore, was come near to them, whose power was called His “finger.” Well, therefore, did He connect756 with the parable of “the strong man armed,” whom “a stronger man still overcame, (Luk_11:21-22) the prince of the demons, whom He had already called Beelzebub and Satan; signifying that it was he who was overcome by the finger of God, and not that the Creator had been subdued by another god. Besides,757 how could His kingdom be still standing, with its boundaries, and laws, and functions, whom, even if the whole world were left entire to Him, Marcion’s god could possibly seem to have overcome as “the stronger than He,” if it were not in consequence of His law that even Marcionites were constantly dying, by returning in their dissolution758 to the ground, and were so often admonished by even a scorpion, that the Creator had by no means been overcome?759 “A (certain) mother of the company exclaims, ‘Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked;’ but the Lord said, ‘Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.’” (Luk_11:27-28) Now He had in precisely similar terms rejected His mother or His brethren, whilst preferring those who heard and obeyed God. (see above, on Luk_8:21) His mother, however, was not here present with Him. On that former occasion, therefore, He had not denied that He was her son by birth.760 On hearing this (salutation) the second time, He the second time transferred, as He had done before,761 the “blessedness” to His disciples from the womb and the paps of His mother, from whom, however, unless He had in her (a real mother) He could not have transferred it.
Chap. XXVII. - Christ’s Reprehension of the Pharisees Seeking a Sign. His Censure of Their Love of Outward Show Rather than Inward Holiness. Scripture Abounds with Admonitions of a Similar Purport, Proofs of His Mission from the Creator.
I prefer elsewhere refuting762 the faults which the Marcionites find in the Creator. It is here enough that they are also found in Christ.763 Behold how unequal, inconsistent, and capricious he is! Teaching one thing 394 and doing another, he enjoins “giving to every one that seeks;” and yet he himself refuses to give to those “who seek a sign.” (Luk_11:29) For a vast age he hides his own light from men, and yet says that a candle must not be hidden, but affirms that it ought to be set upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all. (Luk_11:33) He forbids cursing again, and cursing much more of course; and yet he heaps his woe upon the Pharisees and doctors of the law. (Luk_6:28; Luk_11:37-52) Who so closely resembles my God as: His own Christ? We have often already laid it down for certain,764 that He could not have been branded765 as the destroyer of the law if He had promulged another god. Therefore even the Pharisee, who invited Him to dinner in the passage before us,766 expressed some surprise767 in His presence that He had not washed before He sat down to meat, in accordance with the law, since it was the God of the law that He was proclaiming.768 Jesus also interpreted the law to him when He told him that they “made clean the outside of the cup and the platter, whereas their inward part was full of ravening and wickedness.” This He said, to signify that by the cleansing of vessels was to be understood before God the purification of men, inasmuch as it was about a man, and not about an unwashed vessel, that even this Pharisee had been treating in His presence. He therefore said: “You wash the outside of the cup,” that is, the flesh, “but you do not cleanse your inside part,” (Luk_11:39) that is, the soul; adding: “Did not He that made the outside,” that is, the flesh, “also make the inward part,” that is to say, the soul? - by which assertion He expressly declared that to the same God belongs the cleansing of a man’s external and internal nature, both alike being in the power of Him who prefers mercy not only to man’s washing,769 but even to sacrifice. (Mat_9:13; Mat_12:7; compare Hos_8:6) For He subjoins the command: “Give what ye possess as alms, and all things shall be clean unto you.” (Luk_11:41) Even if another god could have enjoined mercy, he could not have done so previous to his becoming known. Furthermore, it is in this passage evident that they770 were not reproved concerning their God, but concerning a point of His instruction to them, when He prescribed to them figuratively the cleansing of their vessels, but really the works of merciful dispositions. In like manner, He upbraids them for tithing paltry herbs,771 but at the same time “passing over hospitality772 and the love of God.” (Luk_11:42) The vocation and the love of what God, but Him by whose law of tithes they used to offer their rue and mint? For the whole point of the rebuke lay in this, that they cared about small matters in His service of course, to whom they failed to exhibit their weightier duties when He commanded them: “Thou shalt love with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, the Lord thy God, who hath called thee out of Egypt.” (Deu_6:5) Besides, time enough had not yet passed to admit of Christ’s requiring so premature - nay, as yet so distasteful773 - a love towards a new and recent, not to say a hardly yet developed,774 deity. When, again, He upbraids those who caught at the uppermost places and the honour of public salutations, He only follows out the Creator’s course,775 who calls ambitious persons of this character “rulers of Sodom” (Isa_1:10) who forbids us “to put confidence even in princes,” (Psa_118:9) and pronounces him to be altogether wretched who places his confidence in man. But whoever776 aims at high position, because he would glory in the officious attentions777 of other people, (in every such case,) inasmuch as He forbade such attentions (in the shape) of placing hope and confidence in man, He at the same time778 censured all who were ambitious of high positions. He also inveighs against the doctors of the law themselves, because they were “lading men with burdens grievous to be borne, which they did not venture to touch with even a finger of their own;” (Luk_11:46) but not as if He made a mock of779 the burdens of the law with any feeling of detestation towards it. For how could He have felt aversion to the law, who used with so much earnestness to upbraid them for passing over its weightier matters, alms - giving, hospitality,780 and the love of God? Nor, indeed, was it only these great things (which He recognized), but even781 the tithes of rue and the cleansing of cups. But, 395 in truth, He would rather have deemed them excusable for being unable to carry burdens which could not be borne. What, then, are the burdens which He censures?782 None but those which they were accumulating of their own accord, when they taught for commandments the doctrines of men; for the sake of private advantage joining house to house, so as to deprive their neighbour of his own; cajoling783 the people, loving gifts, pursuing rewards, robbing the poor of the rights of judgment, that they might have the widow for a prey and the fatherless for a spoil. (see Isa_5:5, Isa_5:23; Isa_10:2) Of these Isaiah also says, “Woe unto them that are strong in Jerusalem!” (Isa_28:14) and again, “They that demand you shall rule over you.”784 And who did this more than the lawyers?785 Now, if these offended Christ, it was as belonging to Him that they offended Him. He would have aimed no blow at the teachers of an alien law. But why is a “woe” pronounced against them for “building the sepulchres of the prophets whom their fathers had killed?” (Luk_11:47) They rather deserved praise, because by such an act of piety they seemed to show that they did not allow the deeds of their fathers. Was it not because (Christ) was jealous786 of such a disposition as the Marcionites denounce,787 visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the fourth generation? What “key,” indeed, was it which these lawyers had, (Luk_11:52) but the interpretation of the law? Into the perception of this they neither entered themselves, even because they did not believe (for “unless ye believe, ye shall not understand”); nor did they permit others to enter, because they preferred to teach them for commandments even the doctrines of men. When, therefore, He reproached those who did not themselves enter in, and also shut the door against others, must He be regarded as a disparager of the law, or as a supporter of it? If a disparager, those who were hindering the law ought to have been pleased; if a supporter, He is no longer an enemy of the law.788 But all these imprecations He uttered in order to tarnish the Creator as a cruel Being,789 against whom such as offended were destined to have a “woe.” And who would not rather have feared to provoke a cruel Being,790 by withdrawing allegiance791 from Him? Therefore the more He represented the Creator to be an object of fear, the more earnestly would He teach that He ought to be served. Thus would it behove the Creator’s Christ to act.
Chap. XXVIII. - Examples from the Old Testament, Balaam, Moses, and Hezekiah, to Show How Completely the Instruction and Conduct of Christ792 Are in Keeping with the Will and Purpose of the Creator.
Justly, therefore, was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees displeasing to Him, loving God as they did with their lips, but not with their heart. “Beware,” He says to the disciples, “of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” not the proclamation of the Creator. The Son hates those who refused obedience793 to the Father; nor does He wish His disciples to show such a disposition towards Him - not (let it be observed) towards another god, against whom such hypocrisy indeed might have been admissible, as that which He wished to guard His disciples against. It is the example of the Pharisees which He forbids. It was in respect of Him against whom the Pharisees were sinning that (Christ) now forbade His disciples to offend. Since, then, He had censured their hypocrisy, which covered the secrets of the heart, and obscured with superficial offices the mysteries of unbelief, because (while holding the key of knowledge) it would neither enter in itself, nor permit others to enter in, He therefore adds, “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid, which shall not be known,” (Luk_12:2) in order that no one should suppose that He was attempting the revelation and the recognition of an hitherto unknown and hidden god. When He remarks also on their murmurs and taunts, in saying of Him, “This man casteth out devils only through Beelzebub,” He means that all these imputations would come forth to the light of day, and be in the mouths of men in consequence of the promulgation of the Gospel. He then turns to His disciples with these words, “I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them which can only kill the body, and after that have no more power over you.” (Luk_12:4) They will, however, find Isaiah had already said, “See how the just man is taken away, and no man layeth it to heart.” (Isa_57:1) “But I will show you whom ye shall fear: fear Him who, after 396 He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell” (meaning, of course, the Creator); “yea, I say unto you, fear Him.” (Luk_12:5) Now, it would here be enough for my purpose that He forbids offence being given to Him whom He orders to be feared; and that He orders Him to be respected794 whom He forbids to be offended; and that He who gives these commands belongs to that very God for whom He procures this fear, this absence of offence, and this respect. But this conclusion I can draw also from the following words: “For I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before God.” (Luk_12:8) Now they who shall confess Christ will have to be slain795 before men, but they will have nothing more to suffer after they have been put to death by them. These therefore will be they whom He forewarns above not to be afraid of being only killed; and this forewarning He offers, in order that He might subjoin a clause on the necessity of confessing Him: “Every one that denieth me before men shall be denied before God” (Luk_12:9) - by Him, of course, who would have confessed him, if he had only confessed God. Now, He who will confess the confessor is the very same God who will also deny the denier of Himself. Again, if it is the confessor who will have nothing to fear after his violent death,796 it is the denier to whom everything will become fearful after his natural death. Since, therefore, that which will have to be feared after death, even the punishment of hell, belongs to the Creator, the denier, too, belongs to the Creator. As with the denier, however, so with the confessor: if he should deny God, he will plainly have to suffer from God, although from men he had nothing more to suffer after they had put him to death. And so Christ is the Creator’s, because He shows that all those who deny Him ought to fear the Creator’s hell. After deterring His disciples from denial of Himself, He adds an admonition to fear blasphemy: “Whosoever shall speak against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him.” (Luk_12:10) Now, if both the remission and the retention of sin savour of a judicial God, the Holy Ghost, who is not to be blasphemed, will belong to Him, who will not forgive the blasphemy; just as He who, in the preceding passage, was not to be denied, belonged to, Him who would, after He had killed, also cast into hell. Now, since it is Christ who averts blasphemy from the Creator, I am at a loss to know in what manner His adversary.797 could have come. Else, if by these sayings He throws a black cloud of censure798 over the severity of Him who will not forgive blasphemy and will kill even to hell, it follows that the very spirit of that rival god may be blasphemed with impunity, and his Christ denied; and that there is no difference, in fact, between worshipping and despising him; but that, as there is no punishment for the contempt, so there is no reward for the worship, which men need expect. When “brought before magistrates,” and examined, He forbids them “to take thought how they shall answer;” “for,” says He, “the Holy Ghost shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say.” (Luk_12:11-12) If such an injunction799 as this comes from the Creator, the precept will only be His by whom an example was previously given. The prophet Balaam, in Numbers, when sent forth by king Balak to curse lsrael, with whom he was commencing war, was at the same moment800 filled with the Spirit. Instead of the curse which he was come to pronounce, he uttered the blessing which the Spirit at that very hour inspired him with; having previously declared to the king’s messengers, and then to the king himself, that he could only speak forth that which God should put into his mouth. (Numbers 22-24) The novel doctrines of the new Christ are such as the Creator’s servants initiated long before! But see how clear a difference there is between the example of Moses and of Christ.801 Moses voluntarily interferes with brothers802 who were quarrelling, and chides the offender: “Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?” He is, however, rejected by him: “Who made thee a prince or a judge over us?” (Exo_2:13-14) Christ, on the contrary, when requested by a certain man to compose a strife between him and his brother about dividing an inheritance, refused His assistance, although in so honest a cause. Well, then, my Moses is better than your Christ, aiming as he did at the peace of brethren, and obviating their wrong. But of course the case must be different with Christ, for he is the Christ of the simply good and non-judicial god. “Who,” says he, “made me a judge over you?” (Luk_12:13-14) No other word of excuse was he able to find, 397 without using803 that with which the wicked, man and impious brother had rejected804 the defender of probity and piety! In short, he approved of the excuse, although a bad one, by his use of it; and of the act, although a bad one, by his refusal to make peace between brothers. Or rather, would He not show His resentment805 at the rejection of Moses with such a word? And therefore did He not wish in a similar case of contentious brothers, to confound them with the recollection of so harsh a word? Clearly so. For He had Himself been present in Moses, who heard such a rejection - even He, the Spirit of the Creator.806 I think that we have already, in another passage, (above, chap. xv. of this book, p. 369, supra.) sufficiently shown that the glory of riches is condemned by our God, “who putteth down the mighty from their throne, and exalts the poor from the dunghill.” (compare 1Sa_2:8; Psa_113:7; Luk_1:52) From Him, therefore, will proceed the parable of the rich man, who flattered himself about the increase of his fields, and to Whom God said: “Thou fool, this night shall they require thy soul of thee; then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?” (Luk_12:16-20) It was just in the like manner that the king Hezekiah heard from Isaiah the sad doom of his kingdom, when he gloried, before the envoys of Babylon,807 in his treasures and the deposits of his precious things. (Isa_34:1-17)
Chap. XXIX. - Parallels from the Prophets to Illustrate Christ’s Teaching in the Rest of This Chapter of St. Luke.808 The Sterner Attributes of Christ, in His Judicial Capacity, Show Him to Have Come from the Creator. Incidental Rebukes of Marcion’s Doctrine of Celibacy, and of His Altering of the Text of the Gospel.
Who would be unwilling that we should distress ourselves809 about sustenance for our life, or clothing for our body,810 but He who has provided these things already for man; and who, therefore, while distributing them to us, prohibits all anxiety respecting them as an outrage811 against his liberality? - who has adapted the nature of “life” itself to a condition “better than meat,” and has fashioned the material of “the body,” so as to make it “more than raiment;” whose “ravens, too, neither sow nor reap, nor gather into storehouses, and are yet fed” by Himself; whose “lilies and grass also toil not, nor spin, and yet are clothed” by Him; whose “Solomon, moreover, was transcendent in glory, and yet was not arrayed like” the humble flower. (see Luk_12:24-27) Besides, nothing can be more abrupt than that one God should be distributing His bounty, while the other should bid us take no thought about (so kindly a) distribution - and that, too, with the intention of derogating (from his liberality). Whether, indeed, it is as depreciating the Creator that he does not wish such trifles to be thought of, concerning which neither the crows nor the lilies labour, because, forsooth, they come spontaneously to hand812 by reason of their very worthlessness,813 will appear a little further on. Meanwhile, how is it that He chides them as being “of little faith?” (Luk_12:28) What faith? Does He mean that faith which they were as yet unable to manifest perfectly in a god who has hardly yet revealed,814 and whom they were in process of learning as well as they could; or that faith which they for this express reason owed to the Creator, because they believed that He was of His own will supplying these wants of the human race, and therefore took no thought about them? Now, when He adds, “For all these things do the nations of the world seek after,” (Luk_12:30) even by their not believing in God as the Creator and Giver of all things, since He was unwilling that they should be like these nations, He therefore upbraided them as being defective of faith in the same God, in whom He remarked that the Gentiles were quite wanting in faith. When He further adds, “But your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things,” (Luk_12:30) I would first ask, what Father Christ would have to be here understood? If He points to their own Creator, He also affirms Him to be good, who knows what His children have need of; but if He refers to that other god, how does he know that food and raiment are necessary to man, seeing that he has made no such pro vision for him? For if he had known the want, he would have made the provision. If, however, he knows what things man has need of, and yet has failed to supply them, he is in the failure guilty of either malignity or weakness. But when he confessed that these things are necessary to man, he really affirmed that they are good. For nothing that is evil is necessary. So that he will not be any longer 398 a depreciator of the works and the indulgences of the Creator, that I may here complete the answer815 which I deferred giving above. Again, if it is another god who has foreseen man’s wants, and is supplying them, how is it that Marcion’s Christ himself promises them? (Luk_12:31) Is he liberal with another’s property?816 “Seek ye,” says he, “the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you” - by himself, of course. But if by himself, what sort of being is he, who shall bestow the things of another? If by the Creator, whose all things are, then who817 is he that promises what belongs to another? If these things are “additions” to the kingdom, they must be placed in the second rank;818 and the second rank belongs to Him to whom the first also does; His are the food and raiment, whose is the kingdom. Thus to the Creator belongs the entire promise, the full reality819 of its parables, the perfect equalization820 of its similitudes; for these have respect to none other than Him to whom they have a parity of relation in every point.821 We are servants because we have a Lord in our God. We ought “to have our loins girded:” (Luk_12:35) in other words, we are to be free from the embarrassments of a perplexed and much occupied life; “to have our lights burning,” (Luk_12:35) that is, our minds kindled by faith, and resplendent with the works of truth. And thus “to wait for our Lord,” (Luk_12:36) that is, Christ. Whence “returning?” If “from the wedding,” He is the Christ of the Creator, for the wedding is His. If He is not the Creator’s, not even Marcion himself would have gone to the wedding, although invited, for in his god he discovers one who hates the nuptial bed. The parable would therefore have failed in the person of the Lord, if He were not a Being to whom a wedding is consistent. In the next parable also he makes a flagrant mistake, when he assigns to the person of the Creator that “thief, whose hour, if the father of the family had only known, he would not have suffered his house to be broken through.” (Luk_12:39) How can the Creator wear in any way the aspect of a thief, Lord as He is of all mankind? No one pilfers or plunders his own property, but he822 rather acts the part of one who swoops down on the things of another, and alienates man from his Lord.823 Again, when He indicates to us that the devil is “the thief,” whose hour at the very beginning of the world, if man had known, he would never have been broken in upon824 by him, He warns us “to be ready,” for this reason, because “we know not the hour when the Son of man shall come” (Luk_11:40) - not as if He were Himself the thief, but rather as being the judge of those who prepared not themselves, and used no precaution against the thief. Since, then, He is the Son of man, I hold Him to be the Judge, and in the Judge I claim825 the Creator. If then in this passage he displays the Creator’s Christ under the title “Son of man,” that he may give us some presage826 of the thief, of the period of whose coming we are ignorant, you still have it ruled above, that no one is the thief of his own property; besides which, there is our principle also unimpaired827 - that in as far as He insists on the Creator as an object of fear, in so far does He belong to the Creator, and does the Creator’s work. When, therefore, Peter asked whether He had spoken the parable “unto them, or even to all,” (Luk_12:41) He sets forth for them, and for all who should bear rule in the churches, the similitude of stewards.828 That steward who should treat his fellow-servants well in his Lord’s absence, would on his return be set as ruler over all his property; but he who should act otherwise should be severed, and have his portion with the unbelievers, when his lord should return on the day when he looked not for him, at the hour when he was not aware (Luk_12:41-46) - even that Son of man, the Creator’s Christ, not a thief, but a Judge. He accordingly, in this passage, either presents to us the Lord as a Judge, and instructs us in His character,829 or else as the simply good god; if the latter, he now also affirms his judicial attribute, although the heretic refuses to admit it. For an attempt is made to modify this sense when it is applied to his god, - as if it were an act of serenity and mildness simply to sever the man off, and to assign him a portion with the unbelievers, under the idea that he was not summoned (before the judge), but only returned to his own state! As if this very process did not imply a judicial act! What folly! What will be the end of the severed ones? Will it not be the forfeiture of salvation, since their separation will be from those who shall attain salvation? What, again, will be the condition of the unbelievers? 399 Will it not be damnation? Else, if these severed and unfaithful ones shall have nothing to suffer, there will, on the other hand, be nothing for the accepted and the believers to obtain. If, however, the accepted and the believers shall attain salvation, it must needs be that the rejected and the unbelieving should incur the opposite issue, even the loss of salvation. Now here is a judgment, and He who holds it out before us belongs to the Creator. Whom else than the God of retribution can I understand by Him who shall “beat His servants with stripes,” either “few or many,” and shall exact from them what He had committed to them? Whom is it suitable830 for me to obey, but Him who remunerates? Your Christ proclaims, “I am come to send fire on the earth.” (Luk_12:49) That831 most lenient being, the lord who has no hell, not long before had restrained his disciples from demanding fire on the churlish village. Whereas He832 burnt up Sodom and Gomorrah with a tempest of fire. Of Him the psalmist sang, “A fire shall go out before Him, and burn up His enemies round about.” (Psa_97:3) By Hoses He uttered the threat, “I will send a fire upon the cities of Judah;” (Hos_8:14) and833 by Isaiah, “A fire has been kindled in mine anger.” He cannot lie. If it is not He who uttered His voice out of even the burning bush, it can be of no importance834 what fire you insist upon being understood. Even if it be but figurative fire, yet, from the very fact that he takes from my element illustrations for His own sense, He is mine, because He uses what is mine. The similitude of fire must belong to Him who owns the reality thereof. But He will Himself best explain the quali
