Chap. XVI. - The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. An Absurd Erasure of Marcion; Its Object Transparent. The Final Judgment on the Heathen as Well as the Jews Could Not Be Administered by Marcion’s Christ. The Man of Sin - What? Inconsistency of Marcion’s View. The Antichrist. The Great Events of the Last Apostasy Within the Providence and Intention of the Creator, Whose Are All Things from the Beginning. Similarity of the Pauline Precepts with Those of the Creator.
We are obliged from time to time to recur to certain topics in order to affirm truths which are connected with them We repeat then here, that as the Lord is by the apostle proclaimed365 as the awarder of both weal and woe,366 He must be either the Creator, or (as Marcion would be loth to admit) One like the Creator - “with whom it is a righteous thing to recompense tribulation to them who afflict us, and to ourselves, who are afflicted, rest, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed as coming from heaven with the angels of His might and in flaming fire.” (2Th_1:6-8) The heretic, however, has erased the flaming fire, no doubt that he might extinguish all traces herein of our own God. But the folly of the obliteration is clearly seen. For as the apostle declares that the Lord will come “to take vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel, who,” he says, “shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (2Th_1:8-9) - it follows that, as He comes to inflict punishment, He must require “the flaming fire.” Thus on this consideration too we must, notwithstanding Marcion’s opposition, conclude that Christ belongs to a God who kindles the flames367 (of vengeance), and therefore to the Creator, inasmuch as He takes vengeance on such as know not the Lord, that is, on the heathen. For he has mentioned separately “those who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (2Th_1:8) whether they be sinners among Christians or among Jews. Now, to inflict punishment on the heathen, who very likely have never heard of the Gospel, is not the function of that God who is naturally unknown, and who is revealed nowhere else than in the Gospel, and therefore cannot be known by all men.368 The Creator, however, ought to be known even by (the light of) nature, for He may be understood from His works, and may thereby become the object of a more widely spread knowledge. To Him, therefore, does it appertain to punish such as know not God, for none ought to be ignorant of Him. In the (apostle’s) phrase, “From the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power,” (2Th_1:9) he uses the words of Isaiah who for the express reason makes the self-same Lord “arise to shake terribly the earth.” (Isa_2:19. The whole verse is to the point.) Well, but who is the man of sin, the son of perdition,” who must first be revealed before the Lord comes; “who opposeth and exalteth 464 himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; who is to sit in the temple of God, and boast himself as being God?” (2Th_2:3-4) According indeed to our view, he is Antichrist; as it is taught us in both the ancient and the new prophecies,369 and especially by the Apostle John, who says that “already many false prophets are gone out into the world,” the fore-runners of Antichrist, who deny that Christ is come in the flesh, (1Jo_4:1-3) and do not acknowledge370 Jesus (to be the Christ), meaning in God the Creator. According, however, to Marcion’s view, it is really hard to know whether He might not be (after all) the Creator’s Christ; because according to him He is not yet come. But whichsoever of the two it is, I want to know why he comes “in all power, and with lying signs and wonders?” (2Th_2:9) “Because,” he says, “they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved; for which cause God shall send them an instinct of delusion371 (to believe a lie), that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2Th_2:10-12) If therefore he be Antichrist, (as we hold), and comes according to the Creator’s purpose, it must be God the Creator who sends him to fasten in their error those who did not believe the truth, that they might be saved; His likewise must be the truth and the salvation, who avenges (the contempt of) them by sending error as their substitute372 - that is, the Creator, to whom that very wrath is a fitting attribute, which deceives with a lie those who are not captivated with truth. If, however, he is not Antichrist, as we suppose (him to be) then He is the Christ of the Creator, as Marcion will have it. In this case how happens it that he373 can suborn the Creator’s Christ to avenge his truth? But should he after all agree with us, that Antichrist is here meant, I must then likewise ask how it is that he finds Satan, an angel of the Creator, necessary to his purpose? Why, too, should Antichrist be slain by Him, whilst commissioned by the Creator to execute the function374 of inspiring men with their love of untruth? In short, it is incontestable that the emissary,375 and the truth, and the salvation belong to Him to whom also appertain the wrath, and the jealousy,376 and “the sending of the strong delusion,” (2Th_2:11) on those who despise and mock, as well as upon those who are ignorant of Him; and therefore even Marcion will now have to come down a step, and concede to us that his god is “a jealous god.” (This being then an unquestionable position, I ask) which God has the greater right to be angry? He, as I suppose, who from the beginning of all things has given to man, as primary witnesses for the knowledge of Himself, nature in her (manifold) works, kindly providences, plagues,377 and indications (of His divinity),378 but who in spite of all this evidence has not been acknowledged; or he who has been brought out to view379 once for all in one only copy of the gospel - and even that without any sure authority - which actually makes no secret of proclaiming another god? Now He who has the right of inflicting the vengeance, has also sole claim to that which occasions380 the vengeance, I mean the Gospel; (in other words,) both the truth and (its accompanying) salvation. The charge, that “if any would not work, neither should he eat,” (2Th_3:10) is in strict accordance with the precept of Him who ordered that “the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn should not be muzzled.” (Deu_25:4)
Chap. XVII. - The Epistle to the Laodiceans. The Proper Designation Is to the Ephesians. Recapitulation of All Things in Christ from the Beginning of the Creation. No Room for Marcion’s Christ Here. Numerous Parallels Between This Epistle and Passages in the Old Testament. The Prince of the Power of the Air, and the God of This World - Who Creation and Regeneration the Work of One God. How Christ Has Made the Law Obsolete. A Vain Erasure of Marcion’s. The Apostles as Well as the Prophets from the Creator.
We have it on the true tradition381 of the Church, that this epistle was sent to the Ephesians, 465 not to the Laodiceans. Marcion, however, was very desirous of giving it the new rifle (of Laodicean),382 as if he were extremely accurate in investigating such a point. But of what consequence are the titles, since in writing to a certain church the apostle did in fact write to all? It is certain that, whoever they were to whom he wrote,383 he declared Him to be God in Christ with whom all things agree which are predicted.384 Now, to what god will most suitably belong all those things which relate to “that good pleasure, which God hath purposed in the mystery of His will, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might recapitulate” (if I may so say, according to the exact meaning of the Greek word385) “all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth,” (Eph_1:9-10) but to Him whose are all things from their beginning, yea the beginning itself too; from whom issue the times and the dispensation of the fulness of times, according to which all things up to the very first are gathered up in Christ? What beginning, however, has the other god; that is to say, how can anything proceed from him, who has no work to show? And if there be no beginning, how can there be times? If no times, what fulness of times can there be? And if no fulness, what dispensation? Indeed, what has he ever done on earth, that any long dispensation of times to be fulfilled can be put to his account, for the accomplishment of all things in Christ, even of things in heaven? Nor can we possibly suppose that any things whatever have been at any time done in heaven by any other God than Him by whom, as all men allow, all things have been done on earth. Now, if it is impossible for all these things from the beginning to be reckoned to any other God than the Creator, who will believe that an alien god has recapitulated them in an alien Christ, instead of their own proper Author in His own Christ? If, again, they belong to the Creator, they must needs be separate from the other god; and if separate, then opposed to him. But then how can opposites be gathered together into him by whom they are in short destroyed? Again, what Christ do the following words announce, when the apostle says: “That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ?” (Eph_1:12) Now who could have first trusted - i.e., previously trusted386 - in God, before His advent, except the Jews to whom Christ was previously announced, from the beginning? He who was thus foretold, was also foretrusted. Hence the apostle refers the statement to himself, that is, to the Jews, in order that he may draw a distinction with respect to the Gentiles, (when he goes on to say:) “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel (of your salvation); in whom ye believed, and were sealed with His Holy Spirit of promise.” (Eph_1:13) Of what promise? That which was made through Joel: “In the last days will I pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh,” (Joe_2:28) that is, on all nations. Therefore the Spirit and the Gospel will be found in the Christ, who was foretrusted, because foretold. Again, “the Father of glory” (Eph_2:17) is He whose Christ, when ascending to heaven, is celebrated as “the King of Glory” in the Psalm: “Who is this King of Glory? the Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory.” (Psa_24:10) From Him also is besought “the spirit of wisdom,” (Eph_1:17) at whose disposal is enumerated that sevenfold distribution of the spirit of grace by Isaiah. (Isa_11:2) He likewise will grant “the enlightenment of the eyes of the understanding,” (Eph_1:18) who has also enriched our natural eyes with light; to whom, moreover, the blindness of the people is offensive: “And who is blind, but my servants?... yea, the servants of God have become blind.” (Isaiah 42:19, LXX) In His gift, too, are “the riches (of the glory) of His inheritance in the saints,” (Eph_1:18) who promised such an inheritance in the call of the Gentiles: “Ask of me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance.” (Psa_2:8) It was He who “wrought in Christ His mighty power, by raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at His own right hand, and putting all things under His feet” (Eph_1:19-22) - even the same who said: “Sit Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” (Psa_110:1) For in another passage the Spirit says to the Father concerning the Son: “Thou hast put all things under His feet.” (Psa_8:7) Now, if from all these facts which are found in the Creator there is yet to be deduced another god and another Christ, let us go in quest of the Creator. I suppose, forsooth, we find Him, when he speaks of such as “were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein they had walked 466 according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, who worketh in the children of disobedience.” (Eph_2:1-2) But Marcion must not here interpret the world as meaning the God of the world387 For a creature bears no resemblance to the Creator; the thing made, none to its Maker; the world, none to God. He, moreover, who is the Prince of the power of the ages must not be thought to be called the prince of the power of the air; for He who is chief over the higher powers derives no title from the lower powers, although these, too, may be ascribed to Him. Nor, again, can He possibly seem to be the instigator388 of that unbelief which He Himself had rather to endure at the hand of the Jews and the Gentiles alike. We may therefore simply conclude that389 these designations are unsuited to the Creator. There is another being to whom they are more applicable - and the apostle knew very well who that was. Who then is he? Undoubtedly he who has raised up “children of disobedience” against the Creator Himself ever since he took possession of that “air” of His; even as the prophet makes him say: “I will set my throne above the stars; …I will go up above the clouds; I will be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:13-14, LXX) This must mean the devil, whom in another passage (since such will they there have the apostle’s meaning to be) we shall recognize in the appellation the god of this world.390 For he has filled the whole world with the lying pretence of his own divinity. To be sure,391 if he had not existed, we might then possibly have applied these descriptions to the Creator. But the apostle, too, had lived in Judaism; and when he parenthetically observed of the sins (of that period of his life), “in which also we all had our conversation in times past,” (Eph_2:3) he must not be understood to indicate that the Creator was the lord of sinful men, and the prince of this air; but as meaning that in his Judaism he had been one of the children of disobedience, having the devil as his instigator - when he persecuted the church and the Christ of the Creator. Therefore he says: “We also were the children of wrath,” but “by nature.” (Eph_2:3) Let the heretic, however, not contend that, because the Creator called the Jews children, therefore the Creator is the lord of wrath.392 For when (the apostle) says,” We were by nature the children of wrath,” inasmuch as the Jews were not the Creator’s children by nature, but by the election of their fathers, he (must have) referred their being children of wrath to nature, and not to the Creator, adding this at lasts” even as others,” (Eph_2:3) who, of course, were not children of God. It is manifest that sins, and lusts of the flesh, and unbelief, and anger, are ascribed to the common nature of all mankind, the devil [however leading that nature astray,393 which he has already infected with the implanted germ of sin. “We,” says he, “are His workmanship, created in Christ.” (Eph_2:10) It is one thing to make (as a workman), another thing to create. But he assigns both to One. Man is the workmanship of the Creator. He therefore who made man (at first), created him also in Christ. As touching the substance of nature, He “made” him; as touching the work of grace, He “created” him. Look also at what follows in connection with these words: “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which has the name of circumcision in the flesh made by the hand - that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise,394 having no hope, and without God in the world.” (Eph_2:11-12) Now, without what God and without what Christ were these Gentiles? Surely, without Him to whom the commonwealth395 of Israel belonged, and the covenants and the promise. “But now in Christ,” says he, “ye who were sometimes far off are made nigh by His blood.” (Eph_2:13) From whom were they far off before? From the privileges) whereof he speaks above, even from the Christ of the Creator, from the commonwealth of Israel, from the covenants, from the hope of the promise, from God Himself. Since this is the case, the Gentiles are consequently now in Christ made nigh to these (blessings), from which they were once far off. But if we are in Christ brought so very nigh to the commonwealth of Israel, which comprises the religion of the divine Creator, and to the covenants and to the promise, yea to their very God Himself, it is quite ridiculous (to suppose that) the Christ of the other god has brought us to this proximity to the Creator from afar. The apostle had in mind that it had been predicted concerning the call of 467 the Gentiles from their distant alienation in words like these: “They who were far off from me have come to my righteousness.” (this is an allusion to, rather than a quotation of, Isa_46:12-13) For the Creator’s righteousness no less than His peace was announced in Christ, as we have often shown already. Therefore he says: “He is our peace, who hath made both one” (Eph_2:14) - that is, the Jewish nation and the Gentile world. What is near, and what was far off now that “the middle wall has been broken down” of their “enmity,” (are made one) “in His flesh.” (Eph_2:15) But Marcion erased the pronoun His, that he might make the enmity refer to flesh, as if (the apostle spoke) of a carnal enmity, instead of the enmity which was a rival to Christ.396 And thus you have (as I have said elsewhere) exhibited the stupidity of Pontus, rather than the adroitness of a Marrucinian,397 for you here deny him flesh to whom in the verse above you allowed blood! Since, however, He has made the law obsolete398 by His own precepts, even by Himself fulfilling the law (for superfluous is, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” when He says, “Thou shalt not look on a woman to lust after her;” superfluous also is, “Thou shalt do no murder,” when He says, “Thou shalt not speak evil of thy neighbour,”) it is impossible to make an adversary of the law out of one who so completely promotes it.399 “For to create400 in Himself of twain,” for He who had made is also the same who creates (just as we have found it stated above: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus”), (Eph_2:10) “one new man, making peace” (really new, and really man - no phantom - but new, and newly born of a virgin by the Spirit of God), “that He might reconcile both unto God” (Eph_2:15-16) (even the God whom both races had offended - both Jew and Gentile), “in one body,” says he, “having in it slain the enmity by the cross.” (Eph_2:16) Thus we find from this passage also, that there was in Christ a fleshly body, such as was able to endure the cross. “When, therefore, He came and preached peace to them that were near and to them which were afar off,” we both obtained “access to the Father,” being “now no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (even of Him from whom, as we have shown above, we were aliens, and placed far off), “built upon the foundation of the apostles” (Eph_2:17-20) - (the apostle added), “and the prophets;” these words, however, the heretic erased, forgetting that the Lord had set in His Church not only apostles, but prophets also. He feared, no doubt, that our building was to stand in Christ upon the foundation of the ancient prophets,401 since the apostle himself never fails to build us up everywhere with (the words of) the prophets. For whence did he learn to call Christ “the chief corner-stone,” (Eph_2:20) but from the figure given him in the Psalm: “The stone which the builders rejected is become the head (stone) of the corner?” (Psa_118:22)
Chap. XVIII. - Another Foolish Erasure of Marcion’s Exposed. Certain Figurative Expressions of the Apostle, Suggested by the Language of the Old Testament. Collation of Many Passages of This Epistle, with Precepts and Statements in the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Prophets. All Alike Teach Us the Will and Purpose of the Creator.
As our heretic is so fond of his pruning-knife, I do not wonder when syllables are expunged by his hand, seeing that entire pages are usually the matter on which he practises his effacing process. The apostle declares that to himself, “less than the least of all saints, was the grace given” of enlightening all men as to “what was the fellowship of the mystery, which during the ages had been hid in God, who created all things.” (Eph_3:8-9) The heretic erased the preposition in, and made the clause run thus: (“what is the fellowship of the mystery) which hath for ages been hidden from the God who created all things.”402 The falsification, however, is flagrantly403 absurd. For the apostle goes on to infer (from his own statement): “in order that unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might become known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.” (Eph_3:10) Whose principalities and powers does he mean? If the Creator’s, 468 how does it come to pass that such a God as He could have meant His wisdom to be displayed to the principalities and powers, but not to Himself? For surely no principalities could possibly have understood anything without their sovereign Lord. Or if (the apostle) did not mention God in this passage, on the ground that He (as their chief) is Himself reckoned among these (principalities), then he would have plainly said that the mystery had been hidden from the principalities and powers of Him who had created all things, including Him amongst them. But if he states that it was hidden from them, he must needs be understood404 as having meant that it was manifest to Him. From God, therefore, the mystery was not hidden; but it was hidden in God, the Creator of all things, from His principalities and powers. For “who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?” (Isa_40:13) Caught in this trap, the heretic probably changed the passage, with the view of saying that his god wished to make known to his principalities and powers the fellowship of his own mystery, of which God, who created all things, had been ignorant. But what was the use of his obtruding this ignorance of the Creator, who was a stranger to the superior god,405 and far enough removed from him, when even his own servants had known nothing about him? To the Creator, however, the future was well known. Then why was not that also known to Him, which had to be revealed beneath His heaven, and on His earth? From this, therefore, there arises a confirmation of what we have already laid down. For since the Creator was sure to know, some time or other, that hidden mystery of the superior god, even on the supposition that the true reading was (as Marcion has it) - “hidden from the God who created all things” - he ought then to have expressed the conclusion thus: “in order that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to Him, and then to the principalities and powers of God, whosoever He might be, with whom the Creator was destined to share their knowledge.” So palpable is the erasure in this passage, when thus read, consistently with its own true bearing. I, on my part, now wish to engage with you in a discussion on the allegorical expressions of the apostle. What figures of speech could the novel god have found in the prophets (fit for himself)? “He led captivity captive,” says the apostle. (Eph_4:8; Psa_68:19) With what arms? In what conflicts? From the devastation of what Country? From the overthrow of what city? What women, what children, what princes did the Conqueror throw into chains? For when by David Christ is sung as “girded with His sword upon His thigh,” (Psa_45:3) or by Isaiah as “taking away the spoils of Samaria and the power of Damascus,” (Isa_8:4) you make Him out to be406 really and truly a warrior confest to the eye. (see above, book iii. chap. xiii. and xiv. p. 332) Learn then now, that His is a spiritual armour and warfare, since you have already discovered that the captivity is spiritual, in order that you may further learn that this also belongs to Him, even because the apostle derived the mention of the captivity from the same prophets as suggested to him his precepts likewise: “Putting away lying,” (says he,) “speak every man truth with his neighbour;” (Eph_4:25) and again, using the very words in which the Psalm (Psa_4:4) expresses his meaning, (he says,) “Be ye angry, and sin not;” (Eph_4:26) “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” (Eph_4:26) “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness;” (Eph_5:11) for (in the Psalm it is written,) “With the holy man thou shalt be holy, and with the perverse thou shalt be perverse;” (Psa_18:26) and, “Thou shalt put away evil from among you.” (Deu_21:21, quoted also in 1Co_5:13) Again, “Go ye out from the midst of them; touch not the unclean thing; separate yourselves, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.” (Isa_52:11, quoted in 2Co_6:17) (The apostle says further:) “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess,” (Eph_5:18) - a precept which is suggested by the passage (of the prophet), where the seducers of the consecrated (Nazarites) to drunkenness are rebuked: “Ye gave wine to my holy ones to drink.” (Amo_2:12) This prohibition from drink was given also to the high priest Aaron and his sons, “when they went into the holy place.” (Lev_10:9) The command, to “sing to the Lord with psalms and hymns,” (Eph_5:19) comes suitably from him who knew that those who “drank wine with drums and psalteries” were blamed by God. (Isa_5:11-12) Now, when I find to what God belong these precepts, whether in their germ or their development, I have no difficulty in knowing to whom the apostle also belongs. But he declares that “wives ought to be in subjection to their 469 husbands:” (Eph_5:22, Eph_5:24) what reason does he give for this? “Because,” says he, “the husband is the head of the wife.” (Eph_5:23) Pray tell me, Marcion, does your god build up the authority of his law on the work of the Creator? This, however, is a comparative trifle; for he actually derives from the same source the condition of his Christ and his Church; for he says: “even as Christ is the head of the Church;” (Eph_5:23) and again, in like manner: “He who loveth his wife, loveth his own flesh, even as Christ loved the Church.” (Eph_5:25, Eph_5:28) You see how your Christ and your Church are put in comparison with the work of the Creator. How much honour is given to the flesh in the name of the church! “No man,” says the apostle, “ever yet hated his own flesh” (except, of course, Marcion alone), “but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord doth the Church.” (Eph_5:29) But you are the only man that hates his flesh, for you rob it of its resurrection. It will be only right that you should hate the Church also, because it is loved by Christ on the same principle.407 Yea, Christ loved the flesh even as the Church. For no man will love the picture of his wife without taking care of it, and honouring it and crowning it. The likeness partakes with the reality in the privileged honour. I shall now endeavour, from my point of view,408 to prove that the same God is (the God) of the man409 and of Christ, of the woman and of the Church, of the flesh and the spirit, by the apostle’s help who applies the Creator’s injunction, and adds even a comment on it: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, (and shall be joined unto his wife), and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery.” (Eph_5:31, Eph_5:32) In passing,410 (I would say that) it is enough for me that the works of the Creator are great mysteries411 in the estimation of the apostle, although they are so vilely esteemed by the heretics. “But I am speaking,” says he, “of Christ and the Church.” (Eph_5:32) This he says in explanation of the mystery, not for its disruption. He shows us that the mystery was prefigured by Him who is also the author of the mystery. Now what is Marcion’s opinion? The Creator could not possibly have furnished figures to an unknown god, or, if a known one, an adversary to Himself. The superior god, in fact, ought to have borrowed nothing from the inferior; he was bound rather to annihilate Him. “Children should obey their parents.” (Eph_6:1) Now, although Marcion has erased (the next clause), “which is the first commandment with promise,”412 still the law says plainly, “Honour thy father and thy mother.” (Exo_20:12) Again, (the apostle writes:) “Parents, bring up your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.” (Eph_6:4) For you have heard how it was said to them of old time: “Ye shall relate these things to your children; and your children in like manner to their children.” (Exo_10:2) Of what use are two gods to me, when the discipline is but one? If there must be two, I mean to follow Him who was the first to teach the lesson. But as our struggle lies against “the rulers of this world,” (Eph_6:12) what a host of Creator Gods there must be!413 For why should I not insist upon this point here, that he ought to have mentioned but one “ruler of this world,” if he meant only the Creator to be the being to whom belonged all the powers which he previously mentioned? Again, when in the preceding verse he bids us “put on the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil,” (Eph_6:11) does he not show that all the things which he mentions after the devil’s name really belong to the devil - “the principalities and the powers, and the tillers of the darkness of this world,” (Eph_6:12) which we also ascribe to the devil’s authority? Else, if “the devil” means the Creator, who will be the devil in the Creator’s dispensation?414 As there are two gods, must there also be two devils, and a plurality of powers and rulers of this world? But how is the Creator both a devil and a god at the same time, when the devil is not at once both god and devil? For either they are both of them gods, if both of them are devils; or else He who is God is not also devil, as neither is he god who is the devil. I want to know indeed by what perversion415 the word devil is at all applicable to the Creator. Perhaps he perverted some purpose of the superior god - conduct such as He experienced Himself from the archangel, who lied indeed for the purpose. For He did not forbid (our first parents) a taste of the miserable tree,416 from any apprehension that they would become gods; 470 His prohibition was meant to prevent their dying after the transgression. But “the spiritual wickedness”417 did not signify the Creator, because of the apostle’s additional description, “in heavenly places;” (Eph_6:12) for the apostle was quite aware that “spiritual wickedness” had been at work in heavenly places, when angels were entrapped into sin by the daughters of men. (Gen_4:1-4. See also Tertullian, De Idol. 9; De Habit. Mul. 2; De cultu Femin. 10; De Vel. Virg. 7; Apolog. 22. See also Augustin, <Templink:ANF>De Civit. Dei xv. 23.) But how happened it that (the apostle) resorted to ambiguous descriptions, and I know not what obscure enigmas, for the purpose of disparaging418 the Creator, when he displayed to the Church such constancy and plainness of speech in “making known the mystery of the gospel for which he was an ambassador in bonds,” owing to his liberty in preaching - and actually requested (the Ephesians) to pray to God that this “open-mouthed utterance” might be continued to him? (Eph_6:19-20)
Chap. XIX. - The Epistle to the Colossians. Time the Criterion of Truth and Heresy. Application of the Canon. The Image of the Invisible God Explained. Pre-Existence of Our Christ in the Creator’s Ancient Dispensations. What Is Included in the Fulness of Christ. The Epicurean Character of Marcion’s God. The Catholic Truth in Opposition Thereto. The Law Is to Christ what the Shadow Is to the Substance.
I am accustomed in my prescription against all heresies, to fix my compendious criterion419 (of truth) in the testimony of time; claiming priority therein as our rule, and alleging lateness to be the characteristic of every heresy. This shall now be proved even by the apostle, when he says: “For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; which is come unto you, as it is unto all the world.” (Col_1:5-6) For if, even at that time, the tradition of the gospel had spread everywhere, how much more now! Now, if it is our gospel which has spread everywhere, rather than any heretical gospel, much less Marcion’s, which only dates from the reign of Antoninus,420 then ours will be the gospel of the apostles. But should Marcion’s gospel succeed in filling the whole world, it would not even in that case be entitled to the character of apostolic. For this quality, it will be evident, can only belong to that gospel which was the first to fill the world; in other words, to the gospel of that God who of old declared this of its promulgation: “Their sound is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” (Psa_19:4) He calls Christ “the image of the invisible God.” (Col_1:15) We in like manner say that the Father of Christ is invisible, for we know that it was the Son who was seen in ancient times (whenever any appearance was vouchsafed to men in the name of God) as the image of (the Father) Himself. He must not be regarded, however, as making any difference between a visible and an invisible God; because long before he wrote this we find a description of our God to this effect: “No man can see the Lord, and live.” (Exo_33:20) If Christ is not “the first-begotten before every creature,”421 as that “Word of God by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made;” (Joh_1:3) if “all things were” not “in Him created, whether in heaven or on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers;” if “all things were” not “created by Him and for Him” (for these truths Marcion ought not to allow concerning Him), then the apostle could not have so positively laid it down, that “He is before all.”422 For how is He before all, if He is not before all things?423 How, again, is He before all things, if He is not “the first-born of every creature” - if He is not the Word of the Creator?424 Now how will he be proved to have been before all things, who appeared after all things? Who can tell whether he had a prior existence, when he has found no proof that he had any existence at all? In what way also could it have “pleased (the Father) that in Him should all fulness dwell?” (Col_1:19) For, to begin with, what fulness is that which is not comprised of the constituents which Marcion has removed from it, - even those that were “created in Christ, whether in heaven or on earth,” whether angels or men? which is not made of the things that are visible and invisible? which consists not of thrones and dominions and principalities and powers? If, on the other hand,425 our false apostles and Judaizing gospellers426 have introduced 471 all these things out of their own stores, and Martian has applied them to constitute the fulness of his own god, (this hypothesis, absurd though it be, alone would justify him;) for how, on any other supposition,427 could the rival and the destroyer of the Creator have been willing that His fulness should dwell in his Christ? To whom, again, does He “reconcile all things by Himself, making peace by the blood of His cross,” (Col_1:20) but to Him whom those very things had altogether428 offended, against whom they had rebelled by transgression, (but) to whom they had at last returned?429 Conciliated they might have been to a strange god; but reconciled they could not possibly have been to any other than their own God. Accordingly, ourselves “who were sometime alienated and enemies in our mind by wicked works” (Col_1:21) does He reconcile to the Creator, against whom we had committed offence - worshipping the creature to the prejudice of the Creator. As, however, he says elsewhere, (Eph_1:23) that the Church is the body of Christ, so here also (the apostle) declares that he “fills up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for His body’s sake, which is the Church.” (Col_1:24) But you must not on this account suppose that on every mention of His body the term is only a metaphor, instead of meaning real flesh. For he says above that we are “reconciled in His body through death;” (Col_1:22) meaning, of course, that He died in that body wherein death was possible through the flesh: (therefore he adds,) not through the Church430 (per ecclesiam), but expressly for the sake of the Church (proper ecclesiam), exchanging body for body - one of flesh for a spiritual one. When, again, he warns them to “beware of subtle words and philosophy,” as being “a vain deceit,” such as is “after the rudiments of the world” (not understanding thereby the mundane fabric of sky and earth, but worldly learning, and “the tradition of men,” subtle in their speech and their philosophy), (Col_2:8) it would be tedious, and the proper subject of a separate work, to show how in this sentence (of the apostle’s) all heresies are condemned, on the ground of their consisting of the resources of subtle speech and the rules of philosophy. But (once for all) let Marcion know that the principle term of his creed comes from the school of Epicurus, implying that the Lord is stupid and indifferent;431 wherefore he refuses to say that He is an object to be feared. Moreover, from the porch of the Stoics he brings out matter, and places it on a par with the Divine Creator.432 He also denies the resurrection of the flesh, - a truth which none of the schools of philosophy agreed together to hold.433 But how remote is our (Catholic) verity from the artifices of this heretic, when it dreads to arouse the anger of God, and firmly believes that He produced all things out of nothing, and promises to us a restoration from the grave of the same flesh (that died) and holds without a blush that Christ was born of the virgin’s womb! At this, philosophers, and heretics, and the very heathen, laugh and jeer. For “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise” (1Co_1:27) - that God, no doubt, who in reference to this very dispensation of His threatened long before that He would “destroy the wisdom of the wise.” (Isa_24:14, quoted in 1Co_1:19; compare Jer_8:9; Job_5:12-13) Thanks to this simplicity of truth, so opposed to the subtlety and vain deceit of philosophy, we cannot possibly have any relish for such perverse opinions. Then, if God “quickens us together with Christ, forgiving us our trespasses,” (Col_2:13) we cannot suppose that sins are forgiven by Him against whom, as having been all along unknown, they could not have been committed. Now tell me, Marcion, what is your opinion of the apostle’s language, when he says, “Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath, which is a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ?” (Col_2:16-17) We do not now treat of the law, further than (to remark) that the apostle here teaches clearly how it has been abolished, even by passing from shadow to substance - that is, from figurative types to the reality, which is Christ. The shadow, therefore, is His to whom belongs the body also; in other words, the law is His, and so is Christ. If you separate the law and Christ, assigning one to one god and the other to another, it is the same as if you were to attempt 472 to separate the shadow from the body of which it is the shadow. Manifestly Christ has relation to the law, if the body has to its shadow. But when he blames those who alleged visions of angels as their authority for saying that men must abstain from meats - “you must not touch, you must not taste”-in a voluntary humility, (at the same time) “vainly puffed up in the fleshly mind, and not holding the Head,” (Col_2:18-19, Col_2:21) (the apostle) does not in these terms attack the law or Moses, as if it was at the suggestion of superstitious angels that he had enacted his prohibition of sundry aliments. For Moses had evidently received the law from God. When, therefore, he speaks of their “following the commandments and doctrines of men,” (Col_2:22) he refers to the conduct of those persons who “held not the Head,” even Him in whom all things are gathered together;434 for they are all recalled to Christ, and concentrated in Him as their initiating principle435 - even the meats and drinks which were indifferent in their nature. All the rest of his precepts, (contained in Vol. iii. and iv.) as we have shown sufficiently, when treating of them as they occurred in another epistle,436 emanated from the Creator, who, while predicting that “old things were to pass away,” and that He would “make all things new,” (Isa_43:18-19, Isa_45:17; 2Co_5:17) commanded men “to break up fresh ground for themselves,” (Jer_4:3. This and the passage of Isaiah just quoted are also cited together above, book iv. chap. i. and ii. p. 345) and thereby taught them even then to put off the old man and put on the new.
FOOTNOTES
365 Circumferri.
366 Utriusque meriti: “of both the eternal sentences.”
367 Crematoris Dei.
368 Non omnibus scibilis.
369 The prophets of the Old and the New Testament.
370 Solventes Jesum. This expression receives some explanation from the Vulgate version of 1Jo_4:3: “Et omnis spiritus qui solvit Jesum Christum ex Deo non est.” From Irenæus, Vol. 1., p. 443 (Harvey, ii. 89), we learn that the Gnostics divided Jesus from Christ: “Alterum quidem Jesum intelligunt, alterum autem Christum,” - an error which was met in that clause of the creed expressing faith in “One Lord Jesus Christ.” Grabe, after Socrates, Hist. Eccles. vii. 32, says that the oldest mss of St. John’s epistle read πᾶν πνεῦμα ὅ λύει τὸν Ἰησοῦν. If so, Tertullian must be regarded as combining the two readings, viz., that which we find in the received text and this just quoted. Thus Grabe. It would be better to say that T. read ver. 2 as we have it, only omitting Ἰησοῦν; and in ver. 3 read the old lection to which Socrates refers instead of πᾶν πνεῦμα ὅ μὴ ὁμολογεὶ.
371 Instinctum fallaciæ.
372 Summissu erroris.
373 Marcion, or rather his Christ, who on the hypothesis absurdly employs the Creator’s Christ on the flagrantly inconsistent mission of avenging his truth, i.e., Marcionism.
374 Habens fungi…Creatori.
375 Angelum: the sent by the Creator.
376 Æmulatio.
377 Plagis: “heavy strokes,” in opposition to the previous “beneficiis.”
378 Prædicationibus: see Rom_1:20.
379 Productus est.
380 Materia.
381 Veriati.
382 Titulum interpolare gestiit: or, “of corrupting its title.”
383 Certe tamen.
384 For a discussion of the title of this epistle in a succinct shape, the reader is referred to Dean Alford’s Gr. Test. vol. iii. Prolegomena, chap. ii. sec. 2.
385 ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι, “to sum up in a head.”
386 He explains “præsperasse by ante sperasse.”
387 Deo mundi: i.e., the God who made the world.
388 Operator: in reference to the expression in ver. 2, “who now worketh,” etc.
389 Sufficit igitur si.
390 On this and another meaning given to the phrase in 2Co_4:4, see above, chap. xi.
391 Plane: an ironical particle here.
392 In Marcion’s sense.
393 Captante.
394 Literally, “the covenants and their promise.”
395 Conversatio: rather, “intercourse with Israel.”
396 “The law of commandments contained in ordinances.”
397 He expresses the proverbial adage very tersely, “non Marrucine, sed Pontice.”
398 Vacuam fecit.
399 Ex adjutore.
400 Conderet: “create,” to keep up on the distinction between this and facere, “to make.”
401 “Because, if our building as Christians rested in part upon that foundation, our God and the God of the Jews must be the same, which Marcion denied” (Lardner).
402 The passage of St. Paul, as Tertullian expresses it, “Quædispensio sacramenti occulti ab ævis in Deo, qui omnia condidit.” According to Marcion’s alteration, the latter part runs, “Occulti ab ævis Deo, qui omnia condidit.” The original is, Τίς ἡ οἰκονομία τοῦ μυστηρίου τοῦ ἀποκεκρυμμένου ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων ἐν τῷ Θεῷ (compare Col_3:3) τῷ τὰ πάντα κτίσαντι. Marcion’s removal of the ἐν has no warrant of ms. authority; it upsets St. Paul’s doctrine, as attested in other passages, and destroys the grammatical structure.
403 Emicat.
404 Debebat.
405 Marcion’s god, of course.
406 Extundis.
407 Proinde.
408 Ego.
409 Masculi.
410 Inter ista.
411 Magna sacramenta.
412 Eph_6:2 “He did this (says Lardner) in order that the Mosaic law might not be thought to be thus established.”
