Five Books Against Marcion - Book II - Tertullian
[2676]
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Translated by the Rev. S. Thelwall, Late Scholar of Christ's
College, Cantab.
Text edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson and
first published by T&T Clark in Edinburgh in 1867. Additional
introductionary material and notes provided for the American
edition by A. Cleveland Coxe, 1886.
Wherein Tertullian shows that the creator, or demiurge, whom Marcion
calumniated, is the true and good God.
Chapter I. The Methods of Marcion's Argument Incorrect and Absurd. The
Proper Course of the Argument.
The Occasion of reproducing this little work, the fortunes of which we
noticed in the preface of our first book, has furnished us with the
opportunity of distinguishing, in our treatment of the subject of two Gods
in opposition to Marcion, each of them with a description and section of his
own, according to the division of the subject-matter, defining one of the
gods to have no existence at all, and maintaining of the Other that He is
rightly [2677] God; thus far keeping pace with the heretic of Pontus, who
has been pleased to admit one unto, and exclude the other. [2678] For he
could not build up his mendacious scheme without pulling down the system of
truth. He found it necessary to demolish [2679] some other thing, in order
to build up the theory which he wished. This process, however, is like
constructing a house without preparing suitable materials. [2680] The
discussion ought to have been directed to this point alone, that he is no
god who supersedes the Creator. Then, when the false god had been excluded
by certain rules which prescriptively settle what is the character of the
One only perfect Divinity, there could have remained no longer any question
as to the true God. The proof of His existence would have been clear, and
that, too, amid the failure of all evidence in support of any other god; and
still clearer [2681] would have seemed the point as to the honour in which
He ought without controversy to be held: that He ought to be worshipped
rather than judged; served reverentially rather than handled critically, or
even dreaded for His severity. For what was more fully needed by man than a
careful estimate of [2682] the true God, on whom, so to speak, he had
alighted, [2683] because there was no other god?
Chapter II. The True Doctrine of God the Creator. The Heretics Pretended to
a Knowledge of the Divine Being, Opposed to and Subversive of Revelation.
God's Nature and Ways Past Human Discovery. Adam's Heresy.
We have now, then, cleared our way to the contemplation of the Almighty God,
the Lord and Maker of the universe. His greatness, as I think, is shown in
this, that from the beginning He made Himself known: He never hid Himself,
but always shone out brightly, even before the time of Romulus, to say
nothing of that of Tiberius; with the exception indeed that the heretics,
and they alone, know Him not, although they take such pains about Him. They
on this account suppose that another god must be assumed to exist, because
they are more able to censure than deny Him whose existence is so evident,
deriving all their thoughts about God from the deductions of sense; just as
if some blind man, or a man of imperfect vision, [2684] chose to assume some
other sun of milder and healthier ray, because he sees not that which is the
object of sight. [2685] There is, O man, but one sun which rules [2686]
this world and even when you think otherwise of him, he is best and useful;
and although to you he may seem too fierce and baneful, or else, it may be,
too sordid and corrupt, he yet is true to the laws of his own existence.
Unable as you are to see through those laws, you would be equally impotent
to bear the rays of any other sun, were there one, however great and good.
Now, you whose sight is defective [2687] in respect of the inferior god,
what is your view of the sublimer One? Really you are too lenient [2688]
to your weakness; and set not yourself to the proof [2689] of things,
holding God to be certainly, undoubtedly, and therefore sufficiently known,
the very moment you have discovered Him to exist, though you know Him not
except on the side where He has willed His proofs to lie. But you do not
even deny God intelligently, [2690] you treat of Him ignorantly; [2691]
nay, you accuse Him with a semblance of intelligence, [2692] whom if you
did but know Him, you would never accuse, nay, never treat of. [2693] You
give Him His name indeed, but you deny the essential truth of that name,
that is, the greatness which is called God; not acknowledging it to be such
as, were it possible for it to have been known to man in every respect,
[2694] would not be greatness. Isaiah even so early, with the clearness of
an apostle, foreseeing the thoughts of heretical hearts, asked, "Who hath
known the mind of the Lord? For who hath been His counsellor? With whom took
He counsel? or who taught Him knowledge, and showed to Him the way of
understanding? " [2695] With whom the apostle agreeing exclaims, "Oh the
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how
unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" [2696]
"His judgments unsearchable," as being those of God the Judge; and "His ways
past finding out," as comprising an understanding and knowledge which no man
has ever shown to Him, except it may be those critics of the Divine Being,
who say, God ought not to have been this, [2697] and He ought rather to
have been that; as if any one knew what is in God, except the Spirit of
God. [2698] Moreover, having the spirit of the world, and "in the wisdom
of God by wisdom knowing not God," [2699] they seem to themselves to be
wiser [2700] than God; because, as the wisdom of the world is foolishness
with God, so also the wisdom of God is folly in the world's esteem. We,
however, know that "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the
weakness of God is stronger than men." [2701] Accordingly, God is then
especially great, when He is small [2702] to man; then especially good,
when not good in man's judgment; then especially unique, when He seems to
man to be two or more. Now, if from the very first "the natural man, not
receiving the things of the Spirit of God," [2703] has deemed God's law to
be foolishness, and has therefore neglected to observe it; and as a further
consequence, by his not having faith, "even that which he seemeth to have
hath been taken from him" [2704] 'such as the grace of paradise and the
friendship of God, by means of which he might have known all things of God,
if he had continued in his obedience'what wonder is it, if he, [2705]
reduced to his material nature, and banished to the toil of tilling the
ground, has in his very labour, downcast and earth-gravitating as it was,
handed on that earth-derived spirit of the world to his entire race, wholly
natural [2706] and heretical as it is, and not receiving the things which
belong to God? Or who will hesitate to declare the great sin of Adam to have
been heresy, when he committed it by the choice [2707] of his own will
rather than of God's? Except that Adam never said to his fig-tree, Why hast
thou made me thus? He confessed that he was led astray; and he did not
conceal the seducer. He was a very rude heretic. He was disobedient; but yet
he did not blaspheme his Creator, nor blame that Author of his being, Whom
from the beginning of his life he had found to be so good and excellent, and
Whom he had perhaps [2708] made his own judge from the very first.
Chapter III. God Known by His Works. His Goodness Shown in His Creative
Energy; But Everlasting in Its Nature; Inherent in God, Previous to All
Exhibition of It. The First Stage of This Goodness Prior to Man.
It will therefore be right for us, as we enter on the examination of the
known God, when the question arises, in what condition He is known to us, to
begin with His works, which are prior to man; so that His goodness, being
discovered immediately along with Himself, and then constituted and
prescriptively settled, may suggest to us some sense whereby we may
understand how the subsequent order of things came about. The disciples of
Marcion, moreover, may possibly be able, while recognising the goodness of
our God, to learn how worthy it is likewise of the Divine Being, on those
very grounds whereby we have proved it to be unworthy in the case of their
god. Now this very point, [2709] which is a material one in their
scheme, [2710] Marcion did not find in any other god, but eliminated it
for himself out of his own god. The first goodness, then, [2711] was that
of the Creator, whereby God was unwilling to remain hidden for ever; in
other words, (unwilling) that there should not be a something by which God
should become known. For what, indeed, is so good as the knowledge and
fruition [2712] of God? Now, although it did not transpires that this was
good, because as yet there existed nothing to which it could transpire,
[2713] yet God foreknew what good would eventually transpire, and therefore
He set Himself about developing [2714] His own perfect goodness, for the
accomplishment of the good which was to transpire; not, indeed, a sudden
goodness issuing in some accidental boon [2715] or in some excited
impulse, [2716] such as must be dated simply from the moment when it began
to operate. For if it did itself produce its own beginning when it began to
operate, it had not, in fact, a beginning itself when it acted. When,
however, an initial act had been once done by it, the scheme of temporal
seasons began, for distinguishing and noting which, the stars and luminaries
of heaven were arranged in their order. "Let them be," says God, "for
seasons, and for days, and years." [2717] Previous, then, to this temporal
course, (the goodness) which created time had not time; nor before that
beginning which the same goodness originated, had it a beginning. Being
therefore without aIl order of a beginning, and all mode of time, it will be
reckoned to possess an age, measureless in extent [2718] and endless in
duration; [2719] nor will it be possible to regard it as a sudden or
adventitious or impulsive emotion, because it has nothing to occasion such
an estimate of itself; in other words, no sort of temporal sequence. It must
therefore be accounted an eternal attribute, inbred in God, [2720] and
everlasting, [2721] and on this account worthy of the Divine Being,
putting to shame for ever [2722] the benevolence of Marcion's god,
subsequent as he is to (I will not say) all beginnings and times, but to the
very malignity of the Creator, if indeed malignity could possibly have been
found in goodness.
Chapter IV. The Next Stage Occurs in the Creation of Man by the Eternal
Word. Spiritual as Well as Physical Gifts to Man. The Blessings of Man's
Free-Will.
The goodness of God having, therefore, provided man for the pursuit of the
knowledge of Himself, added this to its original notification, [2723] that
it first prepared a habitation for him, the vast fabric (of the world) to
begin with, and then afterwards [2724] the vaster one (of a higher
world, [2725] ) that he might on a great as well as on a smaller stage
practise and advance in his probation, and so be promoted from the good
which God had given him, that is, from his high position, to God's best;
that is, to some higher abode. [2726] In this good work God employs a most
excellent minister, even His own Word. "My heart" He says, "hath emitted my
most excellent Word." [2727] Let Marcion take hence his first lesson on
the noble fruit of this truly most excellent tree. But, like a most clumsy
clown, he has grafted a good branch on a bad stock. The sapling, however, of
his blasphemy shall be never strong: it shall wither with its planter, and
thus shall be manifested the nature of the good tree. Look at the total
result: how fruitful was the Word! God issued His fiat, and it was done: God
also saw that it was good; [2728] not as if He were ignorant of the good
until He saw it; but because it was good, He therefore saw it, and honoured
it, and set His seal upon it; and consummated [2729] the goodness of His
works by His vouchsafing to them that contemplation. Thus God blessed what
He made good, in order that He might commend Himself to you as whole and
perfect, good both in word and act. [2730] As yet the Word knew no
malediction, because He was a stranger to malefaction. [2731] We shall see
what reasons required this also of God. Meanwhile the world consisted of all
things good, plainly foreshowing how much good was preparing for him for
whom all this was provided. Who indeed was so worthy of dwelling amongst the
works of God, as he who was His own image and likeness? That image was
wrought out by a goodness even more operative than its wont, [2732] with
no imperious word, but with friendly hand preceded by an almost affable
[2733] utterance: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
[2734] Goodness spake the word; Goodness formed man of the dust of the
ground into so great a substance of the flesh, built up out of one material
with so many qualities; Goodness breathed into him a soul, not dead but
living. Goodness gave him dominion [2735] over all things, which he was to
enjoy and rule over, and even give names to. In addition to this, Goodness
annexed pleasures [2736] to man so that, while master of the whole
world, [2737] he might tarry among higher delights, being translated into
paradise, out of the world into the Church. [2738] The self-same Goodness
provided also a help meet for him, that there might be nothing in his lot
that was not good. For, said He, that the man be alone is not good. [2739]
He knew full well what a blessing to him would be the sex of Mary, [2740]
and also of the Church. The law, however, which you find fault with,
[2741] and wrest into a subject of contention, was imposed on man by
Goodness, aiming at his happiness, that he might cleave to God, and so not
show himself an abject creature rather than a free one, nor reduce himself
to the level of the other animals, his subjects, which were free from God,
and exempt from all tedious subjection; [2742] but might, as the sole
human being, boast that he alone was worthy of receiving laws from God; and
as a rational being, capable of intelligence and knowledge, be restrained
within the bounds of rational liberty, subject to Him who had subjected all
things unto him. To secure the observance of this law, Goodness likewise
took counsel by help of this sanction: "In the day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shall surely die." [2743] For it was a most benignant act of His thus
to point out the issues of transgression, lest ignorance of the danger
should encourage a neglect of obedience. Now, since [2744] it was given as
a reason previous to the imposition of the law, it also amounted to a motive
for subsequently observing it, that a penalty was annexed to its
transgression; a penalty, indeed, which He who proposed it was still
unwilling that it should be incurred. Learn then the goodness of our God
amidst these things and up to this point; learn it from His excellent works,
from His kindly blessings, from His indulgent bounties, from His gracious
providences, from His laws and warnings, so good and merciful.
Chapter V. Marcion's Cavils Considered. His Objection Refuted, I.e., Man's
Fall Showed Failure in God. The Perfection of Man's Being Lay in His
Liberty, Which God Purposely Bestowed on Him. The Fall Imputable to Man's
Own Choice.
Now then, ye dogs, whom the apostle puts outside, [2745] and who yelp at
the God of truth, let us come to your various questions. These are the bones
of contention, which you are perpetually gnawing! If God is good, and
prescient of the future, and able to avert evil, why did He permit man, the
very image and likeness of Himself, and, by the origin of his soul, His own
substance too, to be deceived by the devil, and fall from obedience of the
law into death? For if He had been good, and so unwilling that such a
catastrophe should happen, and prescient, so as not to be ignorant of what
was to come to pass, and powerful enough to hinder its occurrence, that
issue would never have come about, which should be impossible under these
three conditions of the divine greatness. Since, however, it has occurred,
the contrary proposition is most certainly true, that God must be deemed
neither good, nor prescient, nor powerful. For as no such issue could have
happened had God been such as He is reputed'good, and prescient, and
mighty'so has this issue actually happened, because He is not such a God. In
reply, we must first vindicate those attributes in the Creator which are
called in question'namely, His goodness and foreknowledge, and power. But I
shall not linger long over this point [2746] for Christ's own definition
[2747] comes to our aid at once. From works must proofs be obtained. The
Creator's works testify at once to His goodness, since they are good, as we
have shown, and to His power, since they are mighty, and spring indeed out
of nothing. And even if they were made out of some (previous) matter, as
some [2748] will have it, they are even thus out of nothing, because they
were not what they are. In short, both they are great because they are good;
and [2749] God is likewise mighty, because all things are His own, whence
He is almighty. But what shall I say of His prescience, which has for its
witnesses as many prophets as it inspired? After all, [2750] what title to
prescience do we look for in the Author of the universe, since it was by
this very attribute that He foreknew all things when He appointed them their
places, and appointed them their places when He fore knew them? There is sin
itself. If He had not foreknown this, He would not have proclaimed a caution
against it under the penalty of death. Now if there were in God such
attributes as must have rendered it both impossible and improper for any
evil to have happened to man, [2751] and yet evil did occur, let us
consider man's condition also'whether it were not, in fact, rather the cause
why that came to pass which could not have happened through God. I find,
then, that man was by God constituted free, master of his own will and
power; indicating the presence of God's image and likeness in him by nothing
so well as by this constitution of his nature. For it was not by his face,
and by the lineaments of his body, though they were so varied in his human
nature, that he expressed his likeness to the form of God; but he showed his
stamp [2752] in that essence which he derived from God Himself (that is,
the spiritual, [2753] which answered to the form of God), and in the
freedom and power of his will. This his state was confirmed even by the very
law which God then imposed upon him. For a law would not be imposed upon one
who had it not in his power to render that obedience which is due to law;
nor again, would the penalty of death be threatened against sin, if a
contempt of the law were impossible to man in the liberty of his will. So in
the Creator's subsequent laws also you will find, when He sets before man
good and evil, life and death, that the entire course of discipline is
arranged in precepts by God's calling men from sin, and threatening and
exhorting them; and this on no other ground than [2754] that man is free,
with a will either for obedience or resistance.
Chapter VI. This Liberty Vindicated in Respect of Its Original Creation;
Suitable Also for Exhibiting the Goodness and the Purpose of God. Reward and
Punishment Impossible If Man Were Good or Evil Through Necessity and Not
Choice.
But although we shall be understood, from our argument, to be only so
affirming man's unshackled power over his will, that what happens to him
should be laid to his own charge, and not to God's, yet that you may not
object, even now, that he ought not to have been so constituted, since his
liberty and power of will might turn out to be injurious, I will first of
all maintain that he was rightly so constituted, that I may with the greater
confidence commend both his actual constitution, and the additional fact of
its being worthy of the Divine Being; the cause which led to man's being
created with such a constitution being shown to be the better one. Moreover,
man thus constituted will be protected by both the goodness of God and by
His purpose, [2755] both of which are always found in concert in our God.
For His purpose is no purpose without goodness; nor is His goodness goodness
without a purpose, except forsooth in the case of Marcion's god, who is
purposelessly [2756] good, as we have shown. [2757] Well, then, it was
proper that God should be known; it was no doubt [2758] a good and
reasonable [2759] thing. Proper also was it that there should be something
worthy of knowing God. What could be found so worthy as the image and
likeness of God? This also was undoubtedly good and reasonable. Therefore it
was proper that (he who is) the image and likeness of God should be formed
with a free will and a mastery of himself; [2760] so that this very
thing'namely, freedom of will and self-command'might be reckoned as the
image and likeness of God in him. For this purpose such an essence [2761]
was adapted [2762] to man as suited this character, [2763] even the
afflatus of the Deity, Himself free and uncontrolled. [2764] But if you
will take some other view of the case, [2765] how came it to pass [2766]
that man, when in possession of the whole world, did not above all things
reign in self-possession [2767] 'a master over others, a slave to himself?
The goodness of God, then, you can learn from His gracious gift [2768] to
man, and His purpose from His disposal of all things. [2769] At present,
let God's goodness alone occupy our attention, that which gave so large a
gift to man, even the liberty of his will. God's purpose claims some other
opportunity of treatment, offering as it does instruction of like import.
Now, God alone is good by nature. For He, who has that which is without
beginning, has it not by creation, [2770] but by nature. Man, however, who
exists entirely by creation, having a beginning, along with that beginning
obtained the form in which he exists; and thus he is not by nature disposed
to good, but by creation, not having it as his own attribute to be good,
because, (as we have said, ) it is not by nature, but by creation, that he
is disposed to good, according to the appointment of his good Creator, even
the Author of all good. In order, therefore, that man might have a goodness
of his own, [2771] bestowed [2772] on him by God, and there might be
henceforth in man a property, and in a certain sense a natural attribute of
goodness, there was assigned to him in the constitution of his nature, as a
formal witness [2773] of the goodness which God bestowed upon him, freedom
and power of the will, such as should cause good to be performed
spontaneously by man, as a property of his own, on the ground that no less
than this [2774] would be required in the matter of a goodness which was
to be voluntarily exercised by him, that is to say, by the liberty of his
will, without either favour or servility to the constitution of his nature,
so that man should be good [2775] just up to this point, [2776] if he
should display his goodness in accordance with his natural constitution
indeed, but still as the result of his will, as a property of his nature;
and, by a similar exercise of volition, [2777] should show himself to be
too strong [2778] in defence against evil also (for even this God, of
course, foresaw), being free, and master of himself; because, if he were
wanting in this prerogative of self-mastery, so as to perform even good by
necessity and not will, he would, in the helplessness of his servitude,
become subject to the usurpation of evil, a slave as much to evil as to
good. Entire freedom of will, therefore, was conferred upon him in both
tendencies; so that, as master of himself, he might constantly encounter
good by spontaneous observance of it, and evil by its spontaneous avoidance;
because, were man even otherwise circumstanced, it was yet his bounden duty,
in the judgment of God, to do justice according to the motions [2779] of
his will regarded, of course, as free. But the reward neither of good nor of
evil could be paid to the man who should be found to have been either good
or evil through necessity and not choice. In this really lay [2780] the
law which did not exclude, but rather prove, human liberty by a spontaneous
rendering of obedience, or a spontaneous commission of iniquity; so patent
was the liberty of man's will for either issue. Since, therefore, both the
goodness and purpose of God are [2781] discovered in the gift to man of
freedom in his will, it is not right, after ignoring the original definition
of goodness and purpose which it was necessary to determine previous to any
discussion of the subject, on subsequent facts to presume to say that God
ought not in such a way to have formed man, because the issue was other than
what was assumed to be [2782] proper for God. We ought rather, [2783]
after duly considering that it behoved God so to create man, to leave this
consideration unimpaired, and to survey the other aspects of the case. It
is, no doubt, an easy process for persons who take offence at the fall of
man, before they have looked into the facts of his creation, to impute the
blame of what happened to the Creator, without any examination of His
purpose. To conclude: the goodness of God, then fully considered from the
beginning of His works, will be enough to convince us that nothing evil
could possibly have come forth from God; and the liberty of man will, after
a second thought, [2784] show us that it alone is chargeable with the
fault which itself committed.
Chapter VII. If God Had Anyhow Checked Man's Liberty, Marcion Would Have
Been Ready with Another and Opposite Cavil. Man's Fall Foreseen by God.
Provision Made for It Remedially and Consistently with His Truth and
Goodness.
By such a conclusion all is reserved [2785] unimpaired to God; both His
natural goodness, and the purposes of His governance and foreknowledge, and
the abundance of His power. You ought, however, to deduct from God's
attributes both His supreme earnestness of purpose [2786] and most
excellent truth in His whole creation, if you would cease to inquire whether
anything could have happened against the will of God. For, while holding
this earnestness and truth of the good God, which are indeed [2787]
capable of proof from the rational creation, you will not wonder at the fact
that God did not interfere to prevent the occurrence of what He wished not
to happen, in order that He might keep from harm what He wished. For, since
He had once for all allowed (and, as we have shown, worthily allowed) to man
freedom of will and mastery of himself, surely He from His very authority in
creation permitted these gifts to be enjoyed: to be enjoyed, too, so far as
lay in Himself, according to His own character as God, that is, for good
(for who would permit anything hostile to himself? ); and, so far as lay in
man, according to the impulses of his liberty (for who does not, when giving
anything to any one to enjoy, accompany the gift with a permission to enjoy
it with all his heart and will? ). The necessary consequence, [2788]
therefore, was, that God must separate from the liberty which He had once
for all bestowed upon man (in other words, keep within Himself), both His
foreknowledge and power, through which He might have prevented man's falling
into danger when attempting wrongly to enjoy his liberty. Now, if He had
interposed, He would have rescinded the liberty of man's will, which He had
permitted with set purpose, and in goodness. But, suppose God had
interposed; suppose Him to have abrogated man's liberty, by warning him from
the tree, and keeping off the subtle serpent from his interview with the
woman; would not Marcion then exclaim, What a frivolous, unstable, and
faithless Lord, cancelling the gifts He had bestowed! Why did He allow any
liberty of will, if He afterwards withdrew it? Why withdraw it after
allowing it? Let Him choose where to brand Himself with error, either in His
original constitution of man, or in His subsequent abrogation thereof! If He
had checked (man's freedom), would He not then seem to have been rather
deceived, through want of foresight into the future? But in giving it full
scope, who would not say that He did so in ignorance of the issue of things?
God, however, did fore-know that man would make a bad use of his created
constitution; and yet what can be so worthy of God as His earnestness of
purpose, and the truth of His created works, be they what they may? Man must
see, if he failed to make the most of [2789] the good gift he had
received, how that he was himself guilty in respect of the law which he did
not choose to keep, and not that the Lawgiver was committing a fraud against
His own law, by not permitting its injunctions to be fulfilled. Whenever you
are inclined to indulge in such censure [2790] (and it is the most
becoming for you) against the Creator, recall gently to your mind in His
behalf [2791] His earnestness, and endurance, and truth, in having given
completeness [2792] to His creatures both as rational and good.
Chapter VIII. Man, Endued with Liberty, Superior to the Angels. Overcomes
Even the Angel Which Lured Him to His Fall, When Repentant and Resuming
Obedience to God.
For it was not merely that he might live the natural life that God had
produced man, but [2793] that he should live virtuously, that is, in
relation to God and to His law. Accordingly, God gave him to live when he
was formed into a living soul; but He charged him to live virtuously when he
was required to obey a law. So also God shows that man was not constituted
for death, by now wishing that he should be restored to life, preferring the
sinner's repentance to his death. [2794] As, therefore, God designed for
man a condition of life, so man brought on himself a state of death; and
this, too, neither through infirmity nor through ignorance, so that no blame
can be imputed to the Creator. No doubt it was an angel who was the seducer;
but then the victim of that seduction was free, and master of himself; and
as being the image and likeness of God, was stronger than any angel; and as
being, too, the afflatus of the Divine Being, was nobler than that material
spirit of which angels were made. Who maketh, says he, His angels spirits,
and His ministers a flame of fire. [2795] He would not have made all
things subject to man, if he had been too weak for the dominion, and
inferior to the angels, to whom He assigned no such subjects; nor would He
have put the burden of law upon him, if he had been incapable of sustaining
so great a weight; nor, again, would He have threatened with the penalty of
death a creature whom He knew to be guiltless on the score of his
helplessness: in short, if He had made him infirm, it would not have been by
liberty and independence of will, but rather by the withholding from him
these endowments. And thus it comes to pass, that even now also, the same
human being, the same substance of his soul, the same condition as Adam's,
is made conqueror over the same devil by the self-same liberty and power of
his will, when it moves in obedience to the laws of God. [2796]
Chapter IX. Another Cavil Answered, I.e., the Fall Imputable to God, Because
Man's Soul is a Portion of the Spiritual Essence of the Creator. The Divine
Afflatus Not in Fault in the Sin of Man, But the Human Will Which Was
Additional to It.
But, you say, in what way soever the substance of the Creator is found to be
susceptible of fault, when the afflatus of God, that is to say, the soul,
[2797] offends in man, it cannot but be that that fault of the portion is
refferible to the original whole. Now, to meet this objection, we must
explain the nature [2798] of the soul. We must at the outset hold fast
the meaning of the Greek scripture, which has afflatus, not spirit.
[2799] Some interpreters of the Greek, without reflecting on the difference
of the words, and careless about their exact meaning, put spirit for
afflatus; they thus afford to heretics an opportunity of tarnishing
[2800] the Spirit of God, that is to say, God Himself, with default. And now
comes the question. Afflatus, observe then, is less than spirit, although it
comes from spirit; it is the spirit's gentle breeze, [2801] but it is not
the spirit. Now a breeze is rarer than the wind; and although it proceeds
from wind, yet a breeze is not the wind. One may call a breeze the image of
the spirit. In the same manner, man is the image of God, that is, of spirit;
for God is spirit. Afflatus is therefore the image of the spirit. Now the
image is not in any case equal to the very thing. [2802] It is one thing
to be like the reality, and another thing to be the reality itself. So,
although the afflatus is the image of the spirit, it is yet not possible to
compare the image of God in such a way, that, because the reality'that is,
the spirit, or in other words, the Divine Being'is faultless, therefore the
afflatus also, that is to say, the image, ought not by any possibility to
have done wrong. In this respect will the image be less than the reality,
and the afflatus inferior to the spirit, in that, while it possesses beyond
doubt the true lineaments of divinity, such as an immortal soul, freedom and
its own mastery over itself, foreknowledge in a great degree, [2803]
reasonableness, capacity of understanding and knowledge, it is even in these
respects an image still, and never amounts to the actual power of Deity, nor
to absolute exemption from fault,'a property which is only conceded to God,
that is, to the reality, and which is simply incompatible with an image. An
image, although it may express all the lineaments of the reality, is yet
wanting in its intrinsic power; it is destitute of motion. In like manner,
the soul, the image of the spirit, is unable to express the simple power
thereof, that is to say, its happy exemption from sinning. [2804] Were it
otherwise, [2805] it would not be soul, but spirit; not man, who received
a soul, but God. Besides, to take another view of the matter, [2806] not
everything which pertains to God will be regarded as God, so that you would
not maintain that His afflatus was God, that is, exempt from fault, because
it is the breath of God. And in an act of your own, such as blowing into a
flute, you would not thereby make the flute human, although it was your own
human breath which you breathed into it, precisely as God breathed of His
own Spirit, In fact, [2807] the Scripture, by expressly saying [2808]
that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and that man
became thereby a living soul, not a life-giving spirit, has distinguished
that soul from the condition of the Creator. The work must necessarily be
distinct from the workman, and it is inferior to him. The pitcher will not
be the potter, although made by the potter; nor in like manner, will the
afflatus, because made by the spirit, be on that account the spirit. The
soul has often been called by the same name as the breath. You should also
take care that no descent be made from the breath to a still lower quality.
So you have granted (you say) the infirmity of the soul, which you denied
before! Undoubtedly, when you demand for it an equality with God, that is, a
freedom from fault, I contend that it is infirm. But when the comparison is
challenged with an angel, I am compelled to maintain that the head over all
things is the stronger of the two, to whom the angels are ministers,
[2809] who is destined to be the judge of angels, [2810] if he shall
stand fast in the law of God'an obedience which he refused at first. Now
this disobedience [2811] it was possible for the afflatus of God to
commit: it was possible, but it was not proper. The possibility lay in its
slenderness of nature, as being the breath and not the spirit; the
impropriety, however, arose from its power of will, as being free, and not a
slave. It was furthermore assisted by the warning against committing sin
under the threat of incurring death, which was meant to be a support for its
slender nature, and a direction for its liberty of choice. So that the soul
can no longer appear to have sinned, because it has an affinity with God,
that is to say, through the afflatus, but rather through that which was an
addition to its nature, that is, through its free-will, which was indeed
given to it by God in accordance with His purpose and reason, but recklessly
employed [2812] by man according as he chose. This, then, being the case,
the entire course [2813] of God's action is purged from all imputation to
evil. For the liberty of the will will not retort its own wrong on Him by
whom it was bestowed, but on him by whom it was improperly used. What is the
evil, then, which you want to impute to the Creator? If it is man's sin, it
will not be God's fault, because it is man's doing; nor is that Being to be
regarded as the author of the sin, who turns out to be its forbidder, nay,
its condemner. If death is the evil, death will not give the reproach of
being its own author to Him who threatened it, but to him who despised it.
For by his contempt he introduced it, which assuredly [2814] would not
have appeared had man not despised it.
Chapter X. Another Cavil Met, I.e., the Devil Who Instigated Man to Sin
Himself the Creature of God. Nay, the Primeval Cherub Only Was God's Work.
The Devilish Nature Superadded by Wilfulness. In Man's Recovery the Devil is
Vanquished in a Conflict on His Own Ground.
If, however, you choose to transfer the account [2815] of evil from man
to the devil as the instigator of sin, and in this way, too, throw the blame
on the Creator, inasmuch as He created the devil,'for He maketh those
spiritual beings, the angels'then it will follow that [2816] what was
made, that is to say, the angel, will belong to Him who made it; while that
which was not made by God, even the devil, or accuser, [2817] cannot but
have been made by itself; and this by false detraction [2818] from God:
first, how that God had forbidden them to eat of every tree; then, with the
pretence that they should not die if they ate; thirdly, as if God grudged
them the property of divinity. Now, whence originated this malice of lying
and deceit towards man, and slandering of God? Most certainly not from God,
who made the angel good after the fashion of His good works. Indeed, before
he became the devil, he stands forth the wisest of creatures; and [2819]
wisdom is no [2820] evil. if you turn to the prophecy of Ezekiel, you
will at once perceive that this angel was both by creation good and by
choice corrupt. For in the person of the prince of Tyre it is said in
reference to the devil: "Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me,
saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say
unto him, Thus saith the Lord God: Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom,
perfect in beauty" (this belongs to him as the highest of the angels, the
archangel, the wisest of all); "amidst the delights of the paradise of thy
God wast thou born" (for it was there, where God had made the angels in a
shape which resembled the figure of animals). "Every precious stone was thy
covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and
the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle; and with gold hast
thou filled thy barns and thy treasuries. From the day when thou wast
created, when I set thee, a cherub, upon the holy mountain of God, thou wast
in the midst of stones of fire, thou wast irreproachable in thy days, from
the day of thy creation, until thine iniquities were discovered. By the
abundance of thy merchandise thou hast filled thy storehouses, and thou hast
sinned," etc. [2821] This description, it is manifest, properly belongs
to the transgression of the angel, and not to the prince's: for none among
human beings was either born in the paradise of God, not even Adam himself,
who was rather translated thither; nor placed with a cherub upon God's holy
mountain, that is to say, in the heights of heaven, from which the Lord
testifies that Satan fell; nor detained amongst the stones of fire, and the
flashing rays of burning conStellations, whence Satan was cast down like
lightning. [2822] No, it is none else than the very author of sin who was
denoted in the person of a sinful man: he was once irreproachable, at the
time of his creation, formed for good by God, as by the good Creator of
irreproachable creatures, and adorned with every angelic glory, and
associated with God, good with the Good; but afterwards of his own accord
removed to evil. From the day when thine iniquities, [2823] says he, were
discovered,'attributing to him those injuries wherewith he injured man when
he was expelled from his allegiance to God,'even from that time did he sin,
when he propagated his sin, and thereby plied "the abundance of his
merchandise," that is, of his Wickedness, even the tale [2824] of his
transgressions, because he was himself as a spirit no less (than man)
created, with the faculty of free-will. For God would in nothing fail to
endow a being who was to be next to Himself with a liberty of this kind.
Nevertheless, by precondemning him, God testified that he had departed from
the condition [2825] of his created nature, through his own lusting after
the wickedness which was spontaneously conceived within him; and at the same
time, by conceding a permission for the operation of his designs, He acted
consistently with the purpose of His own goodness, deferring the devil's
destruction for the self-same reason as He postponed the restitution of man.
For He afforded room for a conflict, wherein man might crush his enemy with
the same freedom of his will as had made him succumb to him (proving that
the fault was all his own, not God's), and so worthily recover his salvation
by a victory; wherein also the devil might receive a more bitter punishment,
through being vanquished by him whom he had previously injured; and wherein
God might be discovered to be so much the more good, as waiting [2826]
for man to return from his present life to a more glorious paradise, with a
right to pluck of the tree of life. [2827]
Chapter XI. If, After Man's Sin, God Exercised His Attribute of Justice and
Judgment, This Was Compatible with His Goodness, and Enhances the True Idea
of the Perfection of God's Character.
Up to the fall of man, therefore, from the beginning God was simply good;
after that He became a judge both severe and, as the Marcionites will have
it, cruel. Woman is at once condemned to bring forth in sorrow, and to serve
her husband, [2828] although before she had heard without pain the
increase of her race proclaimed with the blessing, Increase and multiply,
and although she had been destined to be a help and not a slave to her male
partner. Immediately the earth is also cursed, [2829] which before was
blessed. Immediately spring up briers and thorns, where once had grown
grass, and herbs, and fruitful trees. Immediately arise sweat and labour for
bread, where previously on every tree was yielded spontaneous food and
untilled [2830] nourishment. Thenceforth it is "man to the ground," and
not as before, "from the ground; to death thenceforth, but before, to life;
thenceforth with coats of skins, but before, nakedness without a blush. Thus
God's prior goodness was from [2831] nature, His subsequent severity
from [2832] a cause. The one was innate, the other accidental; the one
His own, the other adapted; [2833] the one issuing from Him, the other
admitted by Him. But then nature could not have rightly permitted His
goodness to have gone on inoperative, nor the cause have allowed His
severity to have escaped in disguise or concealment. God provided the one
for Himself, the other for the occasion. [2834] You should now set about
showing also that the position of a judge is allied with evil, who have been
dreaming of another god as a purely good one'solely because you cannot
understand the Deity to be a judge; although we have proved God to be also a
judge. Or if not a judge, at any rate a perverse and useless originator of a
discipline which is not to be vindicated'in other words, not to be judged.
You do not, however, disprove God's being a judge, who have no proof to show
that He is a judge. You will undoubtedly have to accuse justice herself,
which provides the judge, or else to reckon her among the species of evil,
that is, to add injustice to the titles of goodness. But then justice is an
evil, if injustice is a good. And yet you are forced to declare injustice to
be one of the worst of things, and by the same rule are constrained to class
justice amongst the most excellent. Since there is nothing hostile [2835]
to evil which is not good, and no enemy of good which is not evil. It
follows, then, that as injustice is an evil, so in the same degree is
justice a good. Nor should it be regarded as simply a species of goodness,
but as the practical observance [2836] of it, because goodness (unless
justice be so controlled as to be just) will not be goodness, if it be
unjust. For nothing is good which is unjust; while everything, on the other
hand, which is just is good.
Chapter XII. The Attributes of Goodness and Justice Should Not Be Separated.
They are Compatible in the True God. The Function of Justice in the Divine
Being Described.
Since, therefore, there is this union and agreement between goodness and
justice, you cannot prescribe [2837] their separation. With what face
will you determine the separation of your two Gods, regarding in their
separate condition one as distinctively the good God, and the other as
distinctively the just God? Where the just is, there also exists the good.
in short, from the very first the Creator was both good and also just. And
both His attributes advanced together. His goodness created, His justice
arranged, the world; and in this process it even then decreed that the world
should be formed of good materials, because it took counsel with goodness.
The work of justice is apparent, in the separation which was pronounced
between light and darkness, between day and night, between heaven and earth,
between the water above and the water beneath, between the gathering
together of the sea and the mass of the dry land, between the greater lights
and the lesser, between the luminaries of the day and those of the night,
between male and female, between the tree of knowledge of death and of life,
between the world and paradise, between the aqueous and the earth-born
animals. As goodness conceived all things, so did justice discriminate them.
With the determination of the latter, everything was arranged and set in
order. Every site and quality [2838] of the elements, their effect,
motion, and state, the rise and setting of each, are the judicial
determinations of the Creator. Do not suppose that His function as a judge
must be defined as beginning I when evil began, and so tarnish His justice i
with the cause of evil. By such considerations, then, do we show that this
attribute advanced in company with goodness, the author [2839] of all
things,'worthy of being herself, too, deemed innate and natural, and not as
accidentally accruing [2840] to God, inasmuch as she was found to be in
Him, her Lord, the arbiter of His works.
Chapter XIII. Further Description of the Divine Justice; Since the Fall of
Man It Has Regulated the Divine Goodness, God's Claims on Our Love and Our
Fear Reconciled.
But yet, when evil afterwards broke out, and the goodness of God began now
to have an adversary to contend against, God's justice also acquired another
function, even that of directing His goodness according to men's application
for it. [2841] And this is the result: the divine goodness, being
interrupted in that free course whereby God was spontaneously good, is now
dispensed according to the deserts of every man; it is offered to the
worthy, denied to the unworthy, taken away from the unthankful, and also
avenged on all its enemies. Thus the entire office of justice in this
respect becomes an agency [2842] for goodness: whatever it condemns by
its judgment, whatever it chastises by its condemnation, whatever (to use
your phrase) it ruthlessly pursues, [2843] it, in fact, benefits with
good instead of injuring. Indeed, the fear of judgment contributes to good,
not to evil. For good, now contending with an enemy, was not strong enough
to recommend itself [2844] by itself alone. At all events, if it could do
so much, it could not keep its ground; for it had lost its impregnability
through the foe, unless some power of fear supervened, such as might compel
the very unwilling to seek after good, and take care of it. But who, when so
many incentives to evil were assailing him, would desire that good, which he
could despise with impunity? Who, again, would take care of what he could
lose without danger? You read bow broad is the road to evil, [2845] how
thronged in comparison with the opposite: would not all glide down that road
were there nothing in it to fear? We dread the Creator's tremendous threats,
and yet scarcely turn away from evil. What, if He threatened not? Will you
call this justice an evil, when it is all unfavourable to evil? Will you
deny it to be a good, when it has its eye towards [2846] good? What sort
of being ought you to wish God to be? Would it be right to prefer that He
should be such, that sins might flourish under Him, and the devil make mock
at Him? Would you suppose Him to be a good God, who should be able to make a
man worse by security in sin? Who is the author of good, but He who also
requires it? In like manner who is a stranger to evil, except Him who is its
enemy? Who its enemy, besides Him who is its conqueror? Who else its
conqueror, than He who is its punisher? Thus God is wholly good, because in
all things He is on the side of good. In fact, He is omnipotent, because
able both to help and to hurt. Merely to profit is a comparatively small
matter, because it can do nothing else than a good turn. From such a
conduct [2847] with what confidence can I hope for good, if this is its
only ability? How can I follow after the reward of innocence, if I have no
regard to the requital of wrong-doing? I must needs have my doubts whether
he might not fail in recompensing one or other alternative, who was unequal
in his resources to meet both. Thus far, then, justice is the very fulness
of the Deity Himself, manifesting God as both a perfect father and a perfect
master: a father in His mercy, a master in His discipline; a father in the
mildness of His power, a master in its severity; a father who must be loved
with dutiful affection, a master who must needs be feared; be loved, because
He prefers mercy to sacrifice; [2848] be feared because He dislikes sin;
be loved, because He prefers the sinner, s repentance to his death;
[2849] be feared, because He dislikes the sinners who do not repent.
Accordingly, the divine law enjoins duties in respect of both these
attributes: Thou shalt love God, and, Thou shalt fear God. It proposed one
for the obedient man, the other for the transgressor. [2850]
Chapter XIV. Evil of Two Kinds, Penal and Criminal. It is Not of the Latter
Sort that God is the Author, But Only of the Former, Which are Penal, and
Included in His Justice.
On all occasions does God meet you: it is He who smites, but also heals; who
kills, but also makes alive; who humbles, and yet exalts; who "creates
[2851] evil," but also "makes peace; " [2852] 'so that from these very
(contrasts Of His providence) I may get an answer to the heretics. Behold,
they say, how He acknowledges Himself to be the creator of evil in the
passage, "It is I who create evil." They take a word whose one form reduces
to confusion and ambiguity two kinds of evils (because both sins and
punishments are called evils), and will have Him in every passage to be
understood as the creator of all evil things, in order that He may be
designated the author of evil. We, on the contrary, distinguish between the
two meanings of the word in question, and, by separating evils of sin from
penal evils, mala culpµ from mala p£nµ, confine to each of the two classes
its own author,'the devil as the author of the sinful evils (culpµ), and God
as the creator of penal evils (p£nµ); so that the one class shall be
accounted as morally bad, and the other be classed as the operations of
justice passing penal sentences against the evils of sin. Of the latter
class of evils which are compatible with justice, God is therefore avowedly
the creator. They are, no doubt, evil to those by whom they are endured, but
still on their own account good, as being just and defensive of good and
hostile to sin. In this respect they are, moreover, worthy of God. Else
prove them to be unjust, in order to show them deserving of a place in the
sinful class, that is to say, evils of injustice; because if they turn out
to belong to justice, they will be no longer evil things, but good'evil only
to the bad, by whom even directly good things are condemned as evil. In this
case, you must decide that man, although the wilful contemner of the divine
law, unjustly bore the doom which he would like to have escaped; that the
wickedness of those days was unjustly smitten by the deluge, afterwards by
the fire (of Sodom); that Egypt, although most depraved and superstitious,
and, worse still, the harasser of its guest-population, [2853] was
unjustly stricken with the chastisement of its ten plagues. God hardens the
heart of Pharaoh. He deserved, however, to be influenced [2854] to his
destruction, who had already denied God, already in his pride so often
rejected His ambassadors, accumulated heavy burdens on His people, and (to
sum up all) as an Egyptian, had long been guilty before God of Gentile
idolatry, worshipping the ibis and the crocodile in preference to the living
God. Even His own people did God visit in their ingratitude. [2855]
Against young lads, too, did He send forth bears, for their irreverence to
the prophet. [2856]
Chapter XV. The Severity of God Compatible with Reason and Justice. When
Inflicted, Not Meant to Be Arbitrary, But Remedial.
Consider well, [2857] then, before all things the justice of the Judge;
and if its purpose [2858] be clear, then the severity thereof, and the
operations of the severity in its course, will appear compatible with reason
and justice. Now, that we may not linger too long on the point, (I would
challenge you to) assert the other reasons also, that you may condemn the
Judge's sentences; extenuate the delinquencies of the sinner, that you may
blame his judicial conviction. Never mind censuring the Judge; rather prove
Him to be an unjust one. Well, then, even though [2859] He required the
sins of the fathers at the hands of the children, the hardness of the people
made such remedial measures necessary [2860] for them, in order that,
having their posterity in view, they might obey the divine law. For who is
there that feels not a greater care for his children than for himself?
Again, if the blessing of the fathers was destined likewise for their
offspring, previous to [2861] any merit on the part of these, why might
not the guilt of the fathers also redound to their children? As was the
grace, so was the offence; so that the grace and the offence equally ran
down through the whole race, with the reservation, indeed, of that
subsequent ordinance by which it became possible to refrain from saying,
that "the fathers had eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth were set
on edge: " [2862] in other words, that the father should not bear the
iniquity of the son, nor the son the iniquity of the father, but that every
man should be chargeable with his own sin; so that the harshness of the law
having been reduced [2863] after the hardness of the people, justice was
no longer to judge the race, but individuals. If, however, you accept the
gospel of truth, you will discover on whom recoils the sentence of the
Judge, when requiting on sons the sins of their fathers, even on those who
had been (hardened enough) to imprecate spontaneously on themselves this
condemnation: "His blood be on us, and on our children." [2864] This,
therefore, the providence of God has ordered throughout its course,
[2865] even as it had heard it.
Chapter XVI. To the Severity of God There Belong Accessory Qualities,
Compatible with Justice. If Human Passions are Predicated of God, They Must
Not Be Measured on the Scale of Human Imperfection.
Even His severity then is good, because just: when the judge is good, that
is just. Other. qualities likewise are good, by means of which the good work
of a good severity runs out its course, whether wrath, or jealousy,
[2866] or sternness. [2867] For all these are as indispensable [2868]
to severity as severity is to justice. The shamelessness of an age, which
ought to have been reverent, had to be avenged. Accordingly, qualities which
pertain to the judge, when they are actually free from blame, as the judge
himself is, will never be able to be charged upon him as a fault. [2869]
What would be said, if, when you thought the doctor necessary, you were to
find fault with his instruments, because they cut, or cauterize, or
amputate, or tighten; whereas there could be no doctor of any value without
his professional tools? Censure, if you please, the practitioner who cuts
badly, amputates clumsily, is rash in his cautery; and even blame his
implements as rough tools of his art. Your conduct is equally
unreasonable, [2870] when you allow indeed that God is a judge, but at
the same time destroy those operations and dispositions by which He
discharges His judicial functions. We are taught [2871] God by the
prophets, and by Christ, not by the philosophers nor by Epicurus. We who
believe that God really lived on earth, and took upon Him the low estate of
human form, [2872] for the purpose of man's salvation, are very far from
thinking as those do who refuse to believe that God cares for [2873]
anything. Whence has found its way to the heretics an argument of this kind:
If God is angry, and jealous, and roused, and grieved, He must therefore be
corrupted, and must therefore die. Fortunately, however, it is a part of the
creed of Christians even to believe that God did die, [2874] and yet that
He is alive for evermore. Superlative is their folly, who prejudge divine
things from human; so that, because in man's corrupt condition there are
found passions of this description, therefore there must be deemed to exist
in God also sensations [2875] of the same kind. Discriminate between the
natures, and assign to them their respective senses, which are as diverse as
their natures require, although they seem to have a community of
designations. We read, indeed, of God's right hand, and eyes, and feet:
these must not, however, be compared with those of human beings, because
they are associated in one and the same name. Now, as great as shall be the
difference between the divine and the human body, although their members
pass under identical names, so great will also be the diversity between the
divine and the human soul, notwithstanding that their sensations are
designated by the same names. These sensations in the human being are
rendered just as corrupt by the corruptibility of man's substance, as in God
they are rendered incorruptible by the incorruption of the divine essence.
Do you really believe the Creator to be God? By all means, is your reply.
How then do you suppose that in God there is anything human, and not that
all is divine? Him whom you do not deny to be God, you confess to be not
human; because, when you confess Him to be God, you have, in fact, already
determined that He is undoubtedly diverse from every sort of human
conditions. Furthermore, although you allow, with others, [2876] that man
was inbreathed by God into a living soul, not God by man, it is yet palpably
absurd of you to be placing human characteristics in God rather than divine
ones in man, and clothing God in the likeness of man, instead of man in the
image of God. And this, therefore, is to be deemed the likeness of God in
man, that the human soul have the same emotions and sensations as God,
although they are not of the same kind; differing as they do both in their
conditions and their issues according to their nature. Then, again, with
respect to the opposite sensations,'I mean meekness, patience, mercy, and
the very parent of them all, goodness,'why do you form your opinion of
[2877] the divine displays of these (from the human qualities)? For we
indeed do not possess them in perfection, because it is God alone who is
perfect. So also in regard to those others,'namely, anger and irritation. we
are not affected by them in so happy a manner, because God alone is truly
happy, by reason of His property of incorruptibility. Angry He will possibly
be, but not irritated, nor dangerously tempted; [2878] He will be moved,
but not subverted. [2879] All appliances He must needs use, because of
all contingencies; as many sensations as there are causes: anger because of
the wicked, and indignation because of the ungrateful, and jealousy because
of the proud, and whatsoever else is a hinderance to the evil. So, again,
mercy on account of the erring, and patience on account of the impenitent,
and pre-eminent resources [2880] on account of the meritorious, and
whatsoever is necessary to the good. All these affections He is moved by in
that peculiar manner of His own, in which it is profoundly fit [2881]
that He should be affected; and it is owing to Him that man is also
similarly affected in a way which is equally his own.
Chapter XVII. Trace God's Government in History and in His Precepts, and You
Will Find It Full of His Goodness.
These considerations show that the entire order of God as Judge is an
operative one, and (that I may express myself in worthier words) protective
of His Catholic [2882] and supreme goodness, which, removed as it is from
judiciary emotions, and pure in its own condition, the Marcionites refuse to
acknowledge to be in one and the same Deity, "raining on the just and on the
unjust, and making His sun to rise on the evil and on the good," [2883]
'a bounty which no other god at all exercises. It is true that Marcion has
been bold enough to erase from the gospel this testimony of Christ to the
Creator; but yet the world itself is inscribed with the goodness of its
Maker, and the inscription is read by each man's conscience. Nay, this very
long-suffering of the Creator will tend to the condemnation of Marcion; that
patience, (I mean, ) which waits for the sinner's repentance rather than his
death, which prefers mercy to sacrifice, [2884] averting from the
Ninevites the ruin which had been already denounced against them, [2885]
and vouchsafing to Hezekiah's tears an extension of his life, [2886] and
restoring his kingly state to the monarch of Babylon after his complete
repentance; [2887] that mercy, too, which conceded to the devotion of the
people the son of Saul when about to die, [2888] and gave free
forgiveness to David on his confessing his sins against the house of
Uriah; [2889] which also restored the house of Isreal as often as it
condemned it, and addressed to it consolation no less frequently than
reproof. Do not therefore look at God simply as Judge, but turn your
attention also to examples of His conduct as the Most Good. [2890] Noting
Him, as you do, when He takes vengeance, consider Him likewise When He shows
mercy. [2891] In the scale, against His severity place His gentleness.
When you shall have discovered both qualities to co-exist in the Creator,
you will find in Him that very circumstance which induces you to think there
is another God. Lastly, come and examine into His doctrine, discipline,
precepts, and counsels. You will perhaps say that there are equally good
prescriptions in human laws. But Moses and God existed before all your
Lycurguses and Solons. There is not one after-age [2892] which does not
take from primitive sources. At any rate, my Creator did not learn from your
God to issue such commandments as: Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not
commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness;
thou shalt not covet what is thy neighbour's; honour thy father and thy
mother; and, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. To these prime
counsels of innocence, chastity, and justice, and piety, are also added
prescriptions of humanity, as when every seventh year slaves are released
for liberty; [2893] when at the same period the land is spared from
tillage; a place is also granted to the needy; and from the treading ox's
mouth the muzzle is removed, for the enjoyment of the fruit of his labour
before him, in order that kindness first shown in the case of animals might
be raised from such rudiments [2894] to the refreshment [2895] of men.
Chapter XVIII. Some of God's Laws Defended as Good, Which the Marcionites
Impeached, Such as the Lex Talionis. Useful Purposes in a Social and Moral
Point of View of This, and Sundry Other Enactments.
But what parts of the law can I defend as good with a greater confidence
than those which heresy has shown such a longing for?'as the statute of
retaliation, requiring eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and stripe for
stripe. [2896] Now there is not here any smack of a permission to mutual
injury; but rather, on the whole, a provision for restraining violence. To a
people which was very obdurate, and wanting in faith towards God, it might
seem tedious, and even incredible, to expect from God that vengeance which
was subsequently to be declared by the prophet: "Vengeance is mine; I will
repay, saith the Lord." [2897] Therefore, in the meanwhile, the
commission of wrong was to be checked [2898] by the fear of a retribution
immediately to happen; and so the permission of this retribution was to be
the prohibition of provocation, that a stop might thus be put to all
hot-blooded [2899] injury, whilst by the permission of the second the
first is prevented by fear, and by this deterring of the first the second
fails to be committed. By the same law another result is also obtained,
[2900] even the more ready kindling of the fear of retaliation by reason of
the very savour of passion which is in it. There is no more bitter thing,
than to endure the very suffering which you have inflicted upon others.
When, again, the law took somewhat away from men's food, by pronouncing
unclean certain animals which were once blessed, you should understand this
to be a measure for encouraging continence, and recognise in it a bridle
imposed on that appetite which, while eating angels' food, craved after the
cucumbers and melons of the Egyptians. Recognise also therein a precaution
against those companions of the appetite, even lust and luxury, which are
usually chilled by the chastening of the appetite. [2901] For "the people
sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." [2902] Furthermore,
that an eager wish for money might be restrained, so far as it is caused by
the need of food, the desire for costly meat and drink was taken out of
their power. Lastly, in order that man might be more readily educated by God
for fasting, he was accustomed to such articles of food as were neither
plentiful nor sumptuous, and not likely to pamper the appetite of the
luxurious. Of course the Creator deserved all the greater blame, because it
was from His own people that He took away food, rather than from the more
ungrateful Marcionites. As for the burdensome sacrifices also, and the
troublesome scrupulousness of their ceremonies [2903] and oblations, no
one should blame them, as if God specially required them for Himself: for He
plainly asks, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?
"and, "Who hath required them at your hand? " [2904] But he should see
herein a careful provision [2905] on God's part, which showed His wish to
bind to His own religion a people who were prone to idolatry and
transgression by that kind of services wherein consisted the superstition of
that period; that He might call them away therefrom, while requesting it to
be performed to Himself, as if He desired that no sin should be committed in
making idols.
Chapter XIX. The Minute Prescriptions of the Law Meant to Keep the People
Dependent on God. The Prophets Sent by God in Pursuance of His Goodness.
Many Beautiful Passages from Them Quoted in Illustration of This Attribute.
But even in the common transactions of life, and of human intercourse at
home and in public, even to the care of the smallest vessels, He in every
possible manner made distinct arrangement; in order that, when they
everywhere encountered these legal instructions, they might not be at any
moment out of the sight of God. For what could better tend to make a man
happy, than having "his delight in the law of the Lord? ""In that law would
he meditate day and night. [2906] It was not in severity that its Author
promulgated this law, but in the interest of the highest benevolence, which
rather aimed at subduing [2907] the nation's hardness of heart, and by
laborious services hewing out a fealty which was (as yet) untried in
obedience: for I purposely abstain from touching on the mysterious senses of
the law, considered in its spiritual and prophetic relation, and as
abounding in types of almost every variety and sort. It is enough at
present, that it simply bound a man to God, so that no one ought to find
fault with it, except him who does not choose to serve God. To help forward
this beneficent, not onerous, purpose of the law, the prophets were also
ordained by the self-same goodness of God, teaching precepts worthy of God,
how that men should "cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment,
judge the fatherless, [2908] and plead for the widow: " [2909] be fond
of the divine expostulations: [2910] avoid contact with the wicked:
[2911] "let the oppressed go free: " [2912] dismiss the unjust
sentence. [2913] "deal their bread to the hungry; bring the outcast into
their house; cover the naked, when they see him; nor hide themselves from
their own flesh and kin: " [2914] "keep their tongue from evil, and their
lips from speaking guile: depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and
pursue it: " [2915] be angry, and sin not; that is, not persevere in
anger, or be enraged: [2916] "walk not in the counsel of the ungodly; nor
stand in the way of sinners; nor sit in the seat of the scornful." [2917]
Where then? "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell
together in unity; " [2918] meditating (as they do) day and night in the
law of the Lord, because "it is better to trust in the Lord than to put
confidence in man; better to hope in the Lord than in man." [2919] For
what recompense shall man receive from God? "He shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his
leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."
[2920] "He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not taken God's
name in vain, nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour, he shall receive
blessing from the Lord, and mercy from the God of his salvation." [2921]
"For the eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope
in His mercy, to deliver their souls from death," even eternal death, "and
to nourish them in their hunger," that is, after eternal life. [2922]
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth them out
of them all." [2923] "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of
His saints." [2924] "The Lord keepeth all their bones; not one of them
shall be broken." [2925] The Lord will redeem the souls of His
servants. [2926] We have adduced these few quotations from a mass of the
Creator's Scriptures; and no more, I suppose, are wanted to prove Him to be
a most good God, for they sufficiently indicate both the precepts of His
goodness and the first-fruits [2927] thereof.
Chapter XX. The Marcionites Charged God with Having Instigated the Hebrews
to Spoil the Egyptians. Defence of the Divine Dispensation in that Matter.
But these "saucy cuttles" [2928] (of heretics) under the figure of whom
the law about things to be eaten [2929] prohibited this very kind of
piscatory aliment, as soon as they find themselves confuted, eject the black
venom of their blasphemy, and so spread about in all directions the object
which (as is now plain) they severally have in view, when they put forth
such assertions and protestations as shall obscure and tarnish the rekindled
light [2930] of the Creator's bounty. We will, however, follow their
wicked design, even through these black clouds, and drag to light their
tricks of dark calumny, laying to the Creator's charge with especial
emphasis the fraud and theft of gold and silver which the Hebrews were
commanded by Him to practise against the Egyptians. Come, unhappy heretic, I
cite even you as a witness; first look at the case of the two nations, and
then you will form a judgment of the Author of the command. The Egyptians
put in a claim on the Hebrews for these gold and silver vessels. [2931]
The Hebrews assert a counter claim, alleging that by the bond [2932] of
their respective fathers, attested by the written engagement of both
parties, there were due to them the arrears of that laborious slavery of
theirs, for the bricks they had so painfully made, and the cities and
palaces [2933] which they had built. What shall be your verdict, you
discoverer [2934] of the most good God? That the Hebrews must admit the
fraud, or the Egyptians the compensation? For they maintain that thus has
the question been settled by the advocates on both sides, [2935] of the
Egyptians demanding their vessels, and the Hebrews claiming the requital of
their labours. But for all they say, [2936] the Egyptians justly
renounced their restitution-claim then and there; while the Hebrews to this
day, in spite of the Marcionites, re-assert their demand for even greater
damages, [2937] insisting that, however large was their loan of the gold
and silver, it would not be compensation enough, even if the labour of six
hundred thousand men should be valued at only "a farthing" [2938] a day a
piece. Which, however, were the more in number'those who claimed the vessel,
or those who dwelt in the palaces and cities? Which, too, the greater'the
grievance of the Egyptians against the Hebrews, or "the favour" [2939]
which they displayed towards them? Were free men reduced to servile labour,
in order that the Hebrews might simply proceed against the Egyptians by
action at law for injuries; or in order that their officers might on their
benches sit and exhibit their backs and shoulders shamefully mangled by the
fierce application of the scourge? It was not by a few plates and cup'in all
cases the property, no doubt, of still fewer rich men'that any one would
pronounce that compensation should have been awarded to the Hebrews, but
both by all the resources of these and by the contributions of all the
people. [2940] If, therefore, the case of the Hebrews be a good one, the
Creator's case must likewise be a good one; that is to say, his command,
when He both made the Egyptians unconsciously grateful, and also gave His
own people their discharge in full [2941] at the time of their migration
by the scanty comfort of a tacit requital of their long servitude. It was
plainly less than their due which He commanded to be exacted. The Egyptians
ought to have given back their men-children [2942] also to the Hebrews.
Chapter XXI. The Law of the Sabbath-Day Explained. The Eight Days'
Procession Around Jericho. The Gathering of Sticks a Violation.
Similarly on other points also, you reproach Him with fickleness and
instability for contradictions in His commandments, such as that He forbade
work to be done on Sabbath-days, and yet at the siege of Jericho ordered the
ark to be carried round the walls during eight days; in other words, of
course, actually on a Sabbath. You do not, however, consider the law of the
Sabbath: they are human works, not divine, which it prohibits. [2943] For
it says, "Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh
day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work."
What work? Of course your own. The conclusion is, that from the Sabbath-day
He removes those works which He had before enjoined for the six days, that
is, your own works; in other words, human works of daily life. Now, the
carrying around of the ark is evidently not an ordinary daily duty, nor yet
a human one; but a rare and a sacred work, and, as being then ordered by the
direct precept of God, a divine one. And t might fully explain what this
signified, were it not a tedious process to open out the forms [2944] of
all the Creator's proofs, which you would, moreover, probably refuse to
allow. It is more to the point, if you be confuted on plain matters
[2945] by the simplicity of truth rather than curious reasoning. Thus, in
the present instance, there is a clear distinction respecting the Sabbath's
prohibition of human labours, not divine ones. Accordingly, the man who went
and gathered sticks on the Sabbath-day was punished with death. For it was
his own work which he did; and this [2946] the law forbade. They,
however, who on the Sabbath carried the ark round Jericho, did it with
impunity. For it was not their own work, but God's, which they executed, and
that too, from His express commandment.
Chapter XXII. The Brazen Serpent and the Golden Cherubim Were Not Violations
of the Second Commandment. Their Meaning.
Likewise, when forbidding the similitude to be made of all things which are
in heaven, and in earth, and in the waters, He declared also the reasons, as
being prohibitory of all material exhibition [2947] of a latent [2948]
idolatry. For He adds: "Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them."
The form, however, of the brazen serpent which the Lord afterwards commanded
Moses to make, afforded no pretext [2949] for idolatry, but was meant for
the cure of those who were plagued with the fiery serpents. [2950] I say
nothing of what was figured by this cure. [2951] Thus, too, the golden
Cherubim and Seraphim were purely an ornament in the figured fashion
[2952] of the ark; adapted to ornamentation for reasons totally remote from
all condition of idolatry, on account of which the making a likeness is
prohibited; and they are evidently not at variance with [2953] this law
of prohibition, because they are not found in that form [2954] of
similitude, in reference to which the prohibition is given. We have
spoken [2955] of the rational institution of the sacrifices, as calling
off their homage from idols to God; and if He afterwards rejected this
homage, saying, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto
me? " [2956] 'He meant nothing else than this to be understood, that He
had never really required such homage for Himself. For He says, "I will not
eat the flesh of bulls; " [2957] and in another passage: "The everlasting
God shall neither hunger nor thirst." [2958] Although He had respect to
the offerings of Abel, and smelled a sweet savour from the holocaust of
Noah, yet what pleasure could He receive from the flesh of sheep, or the
odour of burning victims? And yet the simple and God-fearing mind of those
who offered what they were receiving from God, both in the way of food and
of a sweet smell, was favourably accepted before God, in the sense of
respectful homage [2959] to God, who did not so much want what was
offered, as that which prompted the offering. Suppose now, that some
dependant were to offer to a rich man or a king, who was in want of nothing,
some very insignificant gift, will the amount and quality of the gift bring
dishonour [2960] to the rich man and the king; or will the
consideration [2961] of the homage give them pleasure? Were, however, the
dependant, either of his own accord or even in compliance with a command, to
present to him gifts suitably to his rank, and were he to observe the
solemnities due to a king, only without faith and purity of heart, and
without any readiness for other acts of obedience, will not that king or
rich man consequently exclaim: "To what purpose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto me? I am full of your solemnities, your feast-days, and your
Sabbaths." [2962] By calling them yours, as having been performed
[2963] after the giver's own will, and not according to the religion of God
(since he displayed them as his own, and not as God's), the Almighty in this
passage, demonstrated how suitable to the conditions of the case, and how
reasonable, was His rejection of those very offerings which He had commanded
to be made to Him.
Chapter XXIII. God's Purposes in Election and Rejection of the Same Men,
Such as King Saul, Explained, in Answer to the Marcionite Cavil.
Now, although you will have it that He is inconstant [2964] in respect of
persons, sometimes disapproving where approbation is deserved; or else
wanting in foresight, bestowing approbation on men who ought rather to be
reprobated, as if He either censured [2965] His own past judgments, or
could not forecast His future ones; yet [2966] nothing is so consistent
for even a good judge [2967] as both to reject and to choose on the
merits of the present moment. Saul is chosen, [2968] but he is not yet
the despiser of the prophet Samuel. [2969] Solomon is rejected; but he is
now become a prey to foreign women, and a slave to the idols of Moab and
Sidon. What must the Creator do, in order to escape the censure of the
Marcionites? Must He prematurely condemn men, who are thus far correct in
their conduct, because of future delinquencies? But it is not the mark of a
good God to condemn beforehand persons who have not yet deserved
condemnation. Must He then refuse to eject sinners, on account of their
previous good deeds? But it is not the characteristic of a just judge to
forgive sins in consideration of former virtues which are no longer
practised. Now, who is so faultless among men, that God could always have
him in His choice, and never be able to reject him? Or who, on the other
hand, is so void of any good work, that God could reject him for ever, and
never be able to choose him? Show me, then, the man who is always good, and
he will not be rejected; show me, too, him who is always evil, and he will
never be chosen. Should, however, the same man, being found on different
occasions in the pursuit of both (good and evil) be recompensed [2970] in
both directions by God, who is both a good and judicial Being, He does not
change His judgments through inconstancy or want of foresight, but dispenses
reward according to the deserts of each case with a most unwavering and
provident decision. [2971]
Chapter XXIV. Instances of God's Repentance, and Notably in the Case of the
Ninevites, Accounted for and Vindicated.
Furthermore, with respect to the repentance which occurs in His conduct?
[2972] you interpret it with similar perverseness just as if it were with
fickleness and improvidence that He repented, or on the recollection of some
wrong-doing; because He actually said, "It repenteth me that I have set up
Saul to be king, [2973] "very much as if He meant that His repentance
savoured of an acknowledgment of some evil work or error. Well, [2974]
this is not always implied. For there occurs even in good works a confession
of repentance, as a reproach and condemnation of the man who has proved
himself unthankful for a benefit. For instance, in this case of Saul, the
Creator, who had made no mistake in selecting him for the kingdom, and
endowing him with His Holy Spirit, makes a statement respecting the
goodliness of his person, how that He had most fitly chosen him as being at
that moment the choicest man, so that (as He says) there was not his fellow
among the children of Isreal. [2975] Neither was He ignorant how he would
afterwards turn out. For no one would bear you out in imputing lack of
foresight to that God whom, since you do not deny Him to be divine, you
allow to be also foreseeing; for this proper attribute of divinity exists in
Him. However, He did, as I have said, burden [2976] the guilt of Saul
with the confession of His own repentance; but as there is an absence of all
error and wrong in His choice of Saul, it follows that this repentance is to
be understood as upbraiding another [2977] rather than as
self-incriminating. [2978] Look here then, say you: I discover a
self-incriminating case in the matter of the Ninevites, when the book of
Jonah declares, "And God repented of the evil that He had said that He would
do unto them; and He did it not." [2979] In accordance with which Jonah
himself says unto the Lord, "Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish; for I
knew that Thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great
kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil." [2980] It is well, therefore,
that he premised the attribute [2981] of the most good God as most
patient over the wicked, and most abundant in mercy and kindness over such
as acknowledged and bewailed their sins, as the Ninevites were then doing.
For if He who has this attribute is the Most Good, you will have first to
relinquish that position of yours, that the very contact with [2982] evil
is incompatible with such a Being, that is, with the most good God. And
because Marcion, too, maintains that a good tree ought not to produce bad
fruit; but yet he has mentioned "evil" (in the passage under discussion),
which the most good God is incapable of, [2983] is there forthcoming any
explanation of these "evils," which may render them compatible with even the
most Good? There is, We say, in short, that evil in the present case
[2984] means, not what may be attributed to the Creator's nature as an evil
being, but what may be attributed to His power as a judge. In accordance
with which He declared, "I create evil," [2985] and, "I frame evil
against you; " [2986] meaning not to sinful evils, but avenging ones.
What sort of stigma [2987] pertains to these, congruous as they are with
God's judicial character, we have sufficiently explained. [2988] Now
although these are called "evils," they are yet not reprehensible in a
judge; nor because of this their name do they show that the judge is evil:
so in like manner will this particular evil [2989] be understood to be
one of this class of judiciary evils, and along with them to be compatible
with (God as) a judge. The Greeks also sometimes [2990] use the word
"evils" for troubles and injuries (not malignant ones), as in this passage
of yours [2991] is also meant. Therefore, if the Creator repented of such
evil as this, as showing that the creature deserve decondemnation, and ought
to be punished for his sin, then, in [2992] the present instance no fault
of a criminating nature will be imputed to the Creator, for having
deservedly and worthily decreed the destruction of a city so full of
iniquity. What therefore He had justly decreed, having no evil purpose in
His decree, He decreed from the principle of justice, [2993] not from
malevolence. Yet He gave it the name of "evil," because of the evil and
desert involved in the very suffering itself. Then, you will say, if you
excuse the evil under name of justice, on the ground that He had justly
determined destruction against the people of Nineveh, He must even on this
argument be blameworthy, for having repented of an act of justice, which
surely should not be repented of. Certainly not, [2994] my reply is; God
will never repent of an act of justice. And it now remains that we should
understand what God's repentance means. For although man repents most
frequently on the recollection of a sin, and occasionally even from the
unpleasantness [2995] of some good action, this is never the case with
God. For, inasmuch as God neither commits sin nor condemns a good action, in
so far is there no room in Him for repentance of either a good or an evil
deed. Now this point is determined for you even in the scripture which we
have quoted. Samuel says to Saul, "The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Isreal
from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better
than thou; " [2996] and into two parts shall Isreal be divided: "for He
will not turn Himself, nor repent; for He does not repent as a man does."
[2997] According, therefore, to this definition, the divine repentance takes
in all cases a different form from that of man, in that it is never regarded
as the result of improvidence or of fickleness, or of any condemnation of a
good or an evil work. What, then, will be the mode of God's repentance? It
is already quite clear, [2998] if you avoid referring it to human
conditions. For it will have no other meaning than a simple change of a
prior purpose; and this is admissible without any blame even in a man, much
more [2999] in God, whose every purpose is faultless. Now in Greek the
word for repentance is formed, not from the confession of a sin,
but from a change of mind, which in God we have shown to be regulated by the
occurrence of varying circumstances.
Chapter XXV. God's Dealings with Adam at the Fall, and with Cain After His
Crime, Admirably Explained and Defended.
It is now high time that I should, in order to meet all [3000] objections
of this kind, proceed to the explanation and clearing up [3001] of the
other trifles, [3002] weak points, and inconsistencies, as you deemed
them. God calls out to Adam, [3003] Where art thou? as if ignorant where
he was; and when he alleged that the shame of his nakedness was the cause
(of his hiding himself), He inquired whether he had eaten of the tree, as if
He were in doubt. By no means; [3004] God was neither uncertain about the
commission of the sin, nor ignorant of Adam's whereabouts. It was certainly
proper to summon the offender, who was concealing himself from the
consciousness of his sin, and to bring him forth into the presence of his
Lord, not merely by the calling out of his name, but with a home-thrust
blow [3005] at the sin which he had at that moment committed. For the
question ought not to be read in a merely interrogative tone, Where art
thou, Adam? but with an impressive and earnest voice, and with an air of
imputation, Oh, Adam, where art thou?'as much as to intimate: thou art no
longer here, thou art in perdition'so that the voice is the utterance of One
who is at once rebuking and sorrowing. [3006] But of course some part of
paradise had escaped the eye of Him who holds the universe in His hand as if
it were a bird's nest, and to whom heaven is a throne and earth a footstool;
so that He could not see, before He summoned him forth, where Adam was, both
while lurking and when eating of the forbidden fruit! The wolf or the paltry
thief escapes not the notice of the keeper of your vineyard or your garden!
And God, I suppose, with His keener vision, [3007] from on high was
unable to miss the sight of [3008] aught which lay beneath Him! Foolish
heretic, who treat with scorn [3009] so fine an argument of God's
greatness and man's instruction! God put the question with an appearance of
uncertainty, in order that even here He might prove man to be the subject of
a free will in the alternative of either a denial or a confession, and give
to him the opportunity of freely acknowledging his transgression, and, so
far, [3010] of lightening it. [3011] In like manner He inquires of
Cain where his brother was, just as if He had not yet heard the blood of
Abel crying from the ground, in order that he too might have the opportunity
from the same power of the will of spontaneously denying, and to this degree
aggravating, his crime; and that thus there might be supplied to us examples
of confessing sins rather than of denying them: so that even then was
initiated the evangelic doctrine, "By thy words [3012] thou shall be
justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." [3013] Now,
although Adam was by reason of his condition under law [3014] subject to
death, yet was hope preserved to him by the Lord's saying, "Behold, Adam is
become as one of us; " [3015] that is, in consequence of the future
taking of the man into the divine nature. Then what follows? "And now, lest
he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, (and eat), and
live for ever." Inserting thus the particle of present time, "And now," He
shows that He had made for a time, and at present, a prolongation of man's
life. Therefore He did not actually [3016] curse Adam and Eve, for they
were candidates for restoration, and they had been relieved [3017] by
confession. Cain, however, He not only cursed; but when he wished to atone
for his sin by death, He even prohibited his dying, so that he had to bear
the load of this prohibition in addition to his crime. This, then, will
prove to be the ignorance of our God, which was simulated on this account,
that delinquent man should not be unaware of what he ought to do. Coming
down to the case of Sodom and Gomorrha, he says: "I will go down now, and
see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is
come unto me; and if not, I will know." [3018] Well, was He in this
instance also uncertain through ignorance, and desiring to know? Or was this
a necessary tone of utterance, as expressive of a minatory and not a dubious
sense, under the colour of an inquiry? If you make merry at God's "going
down," as if He could not except by the descent have accomplished His
judgment, take care that you do not strike your own God with as hard a blow.
For He also came down to accomplish what He wished.
Chapter XXVI. The Oath of God: Its Meaning. Moses, When Deprecating God's
Wrath Against Israel, a Type of Christ.
But God also swears. Well, is it, I wonder, by the God of Marcion? No, no,
he says; a much vainer oath'by Himself! [3019] What was He to do, when He
knew [3020] of no other God; especially when He was swearing to this very
point, that besides himself there was absolutely no God? Is it then of
swearing falsely that you convict [3021] Him, or of swearing a vain oath?
But it is not possible for him to appear to have sworn falsely, when he was
ignorant, as you say he was, that there was another God. For when he swore
by that which he knew, he really committed no perjury. But it was not a vain
oath for him to swear that there was no other God. It would indeed be a vain
oath, if there had been no persons who believed that there were other Gods,
like the worshippers of idols then, and the heretics of the present day.
Therefore He swears by Himself, in order that you may believe God, even when
He swears that there is besides Himself no other God at all. But you have
yourself, O Marcion, compelled God to do this. For even so early as then
were you foreseen. Hence, if He swears both in His promises and His
threatenings, and thus extorts [3022] faith which at first was difficult,
nothing is unworthy of God which causes men to believe in God. But (you say)
God was even then mean [3023] enough in His very fierceness, when, in His
wrath against the people for their consecration of the calf, He makes this
request of His servant Moses: "Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot
against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great
nation." [3024] Accordingly, you maintain that Moses is better than his
God, as the deprecator, nay the averter, of His anger. "For," said he, "Thou
shall not do this; or else destroy me along with them." [3025] Pitiable
are ye also, as well as the people, since you know not Christ, prefigured in
the person of Moses as the deprecator of the Father, and the offerer of His
own life for the salvation of the people. It is enough, however, that the
nation was at the instant really given to Moses. That which he, as a
servant, was able to ask of the Lord, the Lord required of Himself. For this
purpose did He say to His servant, "Let me alone, that I may consume
them," in order that by his entreaty, and by offering himself, he might
hinder [3026] (the threatened judgment), and that you might by such an
Instance learn how much privilege is vouchsafed [3027] with God to a
faithful man and a prophet.
Chapter XXVII. Other Objections Considered. God's Condescension in the
Incarnation Nothing Derogatory to the Divine Being in This Economy. The
Divine Majesty Worthily Sustained by the Almighty Father, Never Visible to
Man. Perverseness of the Marcionite Cavils.
And now, that I may briefly pass in review [3028] the other points which
you have thus far been engaged in collecting, as mean, weak, and unworthy,
for demolishing [3029] the Creator, I will propound them in a simple and
definite statement: [3030] that God would have been unable to hold any
intercourse with men, if He had not taken on Himself the emotions and
affections of man, by means of which He could temper the strength of His
majesty, which would no doubt have been incapable of endurance to the
moderate capacity of man, by such a humiliation as was indeed degrading
[3031] to Himself, but necessary for man, and such as on this very account
became worthy of God, because nothing is so worthy of God as the salvation
of man. If I were arguing with heathens, I should dwell more at length on
this point; although with heretics too the discussion does not stand on very
different grounds. Inasmuch as ye yourselves have now come to the belief
that God moved about [3032] in the form and all other circumstances of
man's nature, [3033] you will of course no longer require to be convinced
that God conformed Himself to humanity, but feel yourselves bound by your
own faith. For if the God (in whom ye believe, ) even from His higher
condition, prostrated the supreme dignity of His majesty to such a lowliness
as to undergo death, even the death of the cross, why can you not suppose
that some humiliations [3034] are becoming to our God also, only more
tolerable than Jewish contumelies, and crosses, [3035] and sepulchres?
Are these the humiliations which henceforth are to raise a prejudice against
Christ (the subject as He is of human passions [3036] ) being a partaker
of that Godhead [3037] against which you make the participation in human
qualities a reproach? Now we believe that Christ did ever act in the name of
God the Father; that He actually [3038] from the beginning held
intercourse with (men); actually [3039] communed with [3040]
patriarchs and prophets; was the Son of the Creator; was His Word; whom God
made His Son [3041] by emitting Him from His own self, [3042] and
thenceforth set Him over every dispensation and (administration of) His
will, [3043] making Him a little lower than the angels, as is written in
David. [3044] In which lowering of His condition He received from the
Father a dispensation in those very respects which you blame as human; from
the very beginning learning, [3045] even then, (that state of a) man
which He was destined in the end to become. [3046] It is He who descends,
He who interrogates, He who demands, He who swears. With regard, however, to
the Father, the very gospel which is common to us will testify that He was
never visible, according to the word of Christ: "No man knoweth the Father,
save the Son." [3047] For even in the Old Testament He had declared, "No
man shall see me, and live." [3048] He means that the Father is
invisible, in whose authority and in whose name was He God who appeared as
the Son of God. But with us [3049] Christ is received in the person of
Christ, because even in this manner is He our God. Whatever attributes
therefore you require as worthy of God, must be found in the Father, who is
invisible and unapproachable, and placid, and (so to speak) the God of the
philosophers; whereas those qualities which you censure as unworthy must be
supposed to be in the Son, who has been seen, and heard, and encountered,
the Witness and Servant of the Father, uniting in Himself man and God, God
in mighty deeds, in weak ones man, in order that He may give to man as much
as He takes from God. What in your esteem is the entire disgrace of my God,
Is in fact the sacrament of man's salvation God held converse with man, that
man might learn to act as God. God dealt on equal terms [3050] with man,
that man might be able to deal on equal terms with God. God was found
little, that man might become very great. You who disdain such a God, I
hardly know whether you ex fide believe that God was crucified. How great,
then, is your perversity in respect of the two characters of the Creator!
You designate Him as Judge, and reprobate as Cruelty that severity of the
Judge which only acts in accord with the merits of cases. You require God to
be very good, and yet despise as meanness that gentleness of His which
accorded with His kindness, (and) held lowly converse in proportion to the
mediocrity of man's estate. He pleases you not, whether great or little,
neither as your judge nor as your friend! What if the same features should
be discovered in your God? That He too is a judge, we have already shown in
the proper section: [3051] that from being a judge He must needs be
severe; and from being severe He must also be cruel, if indeed cruel.
[3052]
Chapter XXVIII. The Tables Turned Upon Marcion, by Contrasts, in Favour of
the True God.
Now, touching the weaknesses and malignities, and the other (alleged), notes
(of the Creator), I too shall advance antitheses in rivalry to Marcion's. If
my God knew not of any other superior to Himself, your god also was utterly
unaware that there was any beneath himself. It is just what Heraclitus "the
obscure" [3053] said; whether it be up or down, [3054] it comes to the
same thing. If, indeed, he was not ignorant (of his position), it must have
occurred to Him from the beginning. Sin and death, and the author of sin
too'the devil'and all the evil which my God permitted to be, this also, did
your god permit; for he allowed Him to permit it. Our God changed His
purposes; [3055] in like manner yours did also. For he who cast his look
so late in the human race, changed that purpose, which for so long a period
had refused to cast that look. Our God repented Him of the evil in a given
case; so also did yours. For by the fact that he at last had regard to the
salvation of man, he showed such a repentance of his previous disregard
[3056] as was due for a wrong deed. But neglect of man's salvation will be
accounted a wrong deed, simply because it has been remedied [3057] by his
repentance in the conduct of your god. Our God you say commanded a
fraudulent act, but in a matter of gold and silver. Now, inasmuch as man is
more precious than gold and silver, in so far is your god more fraudulent
still, because he robs man of his Lord and Creator. Eye for eye does our God
require; but your god does even a greater injury, (in your ideas, ) when he
prevents an act of retaliation. For what man will not return a blow, without
waiting to be struck a second time. [3058] Our God (you say) knows not
whom He ought to choose. Nor does your god, for if he had foreknown the
issue, he would not have chosen the traitor Judas. If you allege that the
Creator practised deception [3059] in any instance, there was a far
greater mendacity in your Christ, whose very body was unreal. [3060] Many
were consumed by the severity of my God. Those also who were not saved by
your god are verily disposed by him to ruin. My God ordered a man to be
slain. Your god willed himself to be put to death; not less a homicide
against himself than in respect of him by whom he meant to be slain. I will
moreover prove to Marcion that they were many who were slain by his god; for
he made every one a homicide: in other words, he doomed him to perish,
except when people failed in no duty towards Christ. [3061] But the
straightforward virtue of truth is contented with few resources. [3062]
Many things will be necessary for falsehood.
Chapter XXIX. Marcion's Own Antitheses, If Only the Title and Object of the
Work Be Excepted, Afford Proofs of the Consistent Attributes of the True
God.
But I would have attacked Marcion's own Antitheses in closer and fuller
combat, if a more elaborate demolition of them were required in maintaining
for the Creator the character of a good God and a Judge, after [3063] the
examples of both points, which we have shown to be so worthy of God. Since,
however, these two attributes of goodness and justice do together make up
the proper fulness of the Divine Being as omnipotent, I am able to content
myself with having now compendiously refuted his Antitheses, which aim at
drawing distinctions out of the qualities of the (Creator's) artifices,
[3064] or of His laws, or of His great works; and thus sundering Christ from
the Creator, as the most Good from the Judge, as One who is merciful from
Him who is ruthless, and One who brings salvation from Him who causes ruin.
The truth is, [3065] they [3066] rather unite the two Beings whom they
arrange in those diversities (of attribute), which yet are compatible in
God. For only take away the title of Marcion's book, [3067] and the
intention and purpose of the work itself, and you could get no better
demonstration that the self-same God was both very good and a Judge,
inasmuch as these two characters are only competently found in God. Indeed,
the very effort which is made in the selected examples to oppose Christ to
the Creator, conduces all the more to their union. For so entirely one and
the same was the nature of the Divine Beings, the good and the severe, as
shown both by the same examples and in similar proofs, that It willed to
display Its goodness to those on whom It had first inflicted Its severity.
The difference in time was no matter of surprise, when the same God was
afterwards merciful in presence of evils which had been subdued, [3068]
who had once been so austere whilst they were as yet unsubdued. Thus, by
help of the Antitheses, the dispensation of the Creator can be more readily
shown to have been reformed by Christ, rather than destroyed; [3069]
restored, rather than abolished; [3070] especially as you sever your own
god from everything like acrimonious conduct, [3071] even from all
rivalry whatsoever with the Creator. Now, since this is the case, how comes
it to pass that the Antitheses demonstrate Him to have been the Creator's
rival in every disputed cause? [3072] Well, even here, too, I will allow
that in these causes my God has been a jealous God, who has in His own right
taken especial care that all things done by Him should be in their beginning
of a robuster growth; [3073] and this in the way of a good, because
rational [3074] emulation, which tends to maturity. In this sense the
world itself will acknowledge His "antitheses," from the contrariety of its
own elements, although it has been regulated with the very highest
reason. [3075] Wherefore, most thoughtless Marcion, it was your duty to
have shown that one (of the two Gods you teach) was a God of light, and the
other a God of darkness; and then you would have found it an easier task to
persuade us that one was a God of goodness, the other a God of severity. How
ever, the "antithesis" (or variety of administration) will rightly be His
property, to whom it actually belongs in (the government of) the world.
Footnotes
[2676] [Contains no marks of Montanism of a decisive nature. Kaye, p. 54.]
[2677] Digne.
[2678] From the dignity of the supreme Godhead.
[2679] Snbruere.
[2680] Propria paratura.
[2681] With the tanto (answering to the previous quanto) should be
understood magis, a frequent omission in our author.
[2682] Cura in.
[2683] Inciderat.
[2684] Fluitantibus oculis.
[2685] Quem videat non videt.
[2686] Temperat.
[2687] Caecutis.
[2688] Quin potius parcis.
[2689] In periculum extenderis.
[2690] Ut sciens.
[2691] Ut nesciens.
[2692] Quasi sciens.
[2693] Retractares.
[2694] Omnifariam.
[2695] Comp. Isa. xl. 13,14, with Rom. xi. 34.
[2696] Rom. xi. 33.
[2697] Sic non debuit Deus. This perhaps may mean, God ought not to have
done this, etc.
[2698] 1 Cor. ii. 11.
[2699] Cor. i. 21.
[2700] Consultiores.
[2701] 1 Cor. i. 25.
[2702] Pusillus.
[2703] 1 Cor. ii. 14.
[2704] Luke viii. 18; comp. Matt. xiii. 12.
[2705] That is, the natural man, the .
[2706] Animali = .
[2707] Electionem. By this word our author translates the Greek airesis.
Comp. De Praescr. Her. 6, p. 245, supra.
[2708] Si forte.
[2709] That is, "the goodness" of God.
[2710] Agnitionis, their Gnostic scheme.
[2711] Denique. This particle refers back to the argument previous ot its
interruption by the allusion to Marcion and his followers.
[2712] Fructus, the enjoyment of God's works.
[2713] Apparebat. [Was not manifest.]
[2714] Commisit in.
[2715] Obventiciae bonitatis.
[2716] Provocaticiae animationis.
[2717] Gen. i. 14.
[2718] Immensa.
[2719] Interminabili.
[2720] Deo ingenita "Natural to," or "inherent in."
[2721] Perpetua. [Truly, a sunblime Theodicy.]
[2722] Suffundens jam hinc.
[2723] Praeconio suo.
[2724] Postmodum . . . postmodum.
[2725] See Bp. Bull on The State of Man before the Fall. Works, ii.
73-81.
[2726] Habitaculum majus.
[2727] "Eructavit cor. meum Sermonem optimum" Is Tertullian's reading of
Ps. xlv. i., "My heart is inditing a good matter," A.V., which the Vulgate,
Ps. xliv. 1, renders by "Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum," and the
Septuagint by . This is a
tolerably literal rendering of the original words, .
In these words the Fathers used to descry an adumbration of the mystery of
the Son's eternal generation from the Father, and His coming forth in time
to create the world. See Bellarmine, On the Psalms (Paris ed. 1861), vol. i.
292. The Psalm is no doubt eminently Messianic, as both Jewish and Christian
writers have ever held. See Perowne, The Psalms, vol. i. p. 216. Bishop Bull
reviews at length the theological opinions of Tertullian, and shows that he
held the eternity of the Son of God, whom he calls "Sermo" or "Verbum
Dei." See Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (translation in the Oxford Library of the
Fathers," by the translator of this work) vol. ii. 509-545. In the same
volume, p. 482, the passage from the Psalm before us is similarly applied by
Novatian: "Sic Dei Verbum processit, de quo dictum est, Eructavit cor meum
Verbum bonum." [See vol. ii. p. 98, this series: and Kaye, p. 515.]
[2728] Gen. i.
[2729] Dispungens, i.e., examinans et probans et ita quasi consummans
(Oehler).
[2730] This twofold virtue is very tersely expressed: "Sic et benedicebat
quae benefaciebat."
[2731] This, the translator fears, is only a clumsy way of representing
the terseness of our author's "maledicere" and "malefacere."
[2732] Bonitas et quidem operantior.
[2733] Blandiente.
[2734] Gen. i. 26.
[2735] Praefecit.
[2736] Delicias.
[2737] Totius orbis possidens.
[2738] There is a profound thought here; in his tract, De Paenit. 10, he
says, "Where one or two are, is the church, and the church is Christ." Hence
what he here calls Adam's "higher delights," even spiritual blessings in
Christ with Eve. [Important note in Kaye, p. 304.]
[2739] See Gen. ii. 18.
[2740] Sexum Mariae. For the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ, the
Saviour of men; and the virgin mother the Church, the spouse of Christ,
gives birth to Christians (Rigalt.).
[2741] Arguis.
[2742] Ex fastidio liberis.
[2743] Gen. ii. 17.
[2744] Porro si.
[2745] Rev. xxii. 15.
[2746] Articulo.
[2747] John x. 25.
[2748] He refers to Hermogenes see Adv. Hermog. chap. xxxii.
[2749] Vel . . . vel.
[2750] Quanquam.
[2751] As the Marcionites alleged.
[2752] Signatus est.
[2753] Animae.
[2754] Nec alias nisi.
[2755] Ratio, or, "His reason." We have used both words, which are
equally suitable to the Divine Being, as seemed most convenient.
[2756] Irrationaliter, or, "irrationally."
[2757] See above, book i. chap. xxiii. p. 288.
[2758] Utique.
[2759] Rationale, or, "consistent with His purpose."
[2760] Suae potestatis.
[2761] Substantia.
[2762] Accomodata.
[2763] Status.
[2764] Suae potestatis.
[2765] Sed et alias.
[2766] Quale erat.
[2767] Animi sui possessione.
[2768] Dignatione.
[2769] Ex dispositione. The same as the "universa disponendo" above.
[2770] Institutione.
[2771] Bonum jam suum, not bonitatem.
[2772] Emancipatum.
[2773] Libripens. The language here is full of legal technicalities,
derived from the Roman usage in conveyance of property. "Libripens quasi
arbiter mancipationis" (Rigalt.).
[2774] Quoniam (with a subj.) et hoc.
[2775] Bonus consisteret.
[2776] Ita demum.
[2777] Proinde.
[2778] Fortior.
[2779] Meritis.
[2780] Constituta est.
[2781] Our author's word invenitur (in the singular) combines the
bonitas and ratio in one view.
[2782] The verb is subj., "deceret.
[2783] Sed, with oportet understood.
[2784] Recogitata. [Again, a noble Theodicy.]
[2785] Salva.
[2786] Gravitatem.
[2787] Sed, for scilicet, not unfrequent with our author.
[2788] That is, from the Marcionite position referred to in the second
sentence of this Chapter, in opposition to that of Tertullian which follows.
[2789] Si non bene dispunxisset.
[2790] Peroraturus.
[2791] Tibi insusurra pro Creatore.
[2792] Functo.
[2793] Ut non, "as if he were not," etc.
[2794] Ezek. xviii. 23.
[2795] Ps. civ. 4.
[2796] [On capp. viii. and ix. See Kaye's references in notes p. 178 et
seqq.]
[2797] Anima, for animus. This meaning seems required throughout this
passage, where afterwards occurs the phrase immortalis anima.
[2798] Qualitas.
[2799] the Vulgate has spiraculum, not spiritum.
[Kaye (p. 247) again refers to Profr. Andrews Norton of Harvard for valuable
remarks concerning the use of the word spiritus by the ancients. Evidences,
Vol. III. p. 160, note 7.]
[2800] Infuscandi.
[2801] Aurulam.
[2802] Veritati.
[2803] Plerumque.
[2804] Non deliquendi felicitatem.
[2805] Ceterum.
[2806] Et alias autem.
[2807] Denique.
[2808] Gen. ii. 7.
[2809] Heb. i. 14.
[2810] 1 Cor. vi. 3.
[2811] Hoc ipsum, referring to the noluit of the preceding clause.
[2812] Agitatum.
[2813] Dispositio.
[2814] Utique.
[2815] Elogium.
[2816] Ergo.
[2817] Delator.
[2818] Deferendo, in reference to the word delator, our author's
synonyme for .
[2819] Nisi.
[2820] Nisi.
[2821] Ezek. xxviii. 11-16 (Sept.).
[2822] Luke x. 18.
[2823] Laesurae = "injuries." "Iniquitates in
te."'Hieron.
[2824] Censum.
[2825] Forma.
[2826] Sustinens.
[2827] [Kaye. p. 313.]
[2828] Gen. iii. 16.
[2829] Gen. iii. 18.
[2830] Secura.
[2831] Secundum.
[2832] Secundum.
[2833] Accommodata.
[2834] Rei.
[2835] Aemulum.
[2836] Tutela.
[2837] Cavere. This is Oehler's reading, and best suits the sense ofthe
passage and the style of our author.
[2838] Habitus.
[2839] Auctrice.
[2840] Obventiciam.
[2841] Secundum adversionem.
[2842] Procuratio.
[2843] Saevit.
[2844] Commendari.
[2845] Matt. vii. 13.
[2846] Prospicit.
[2847] De ejusmodi.
[2848] Hos. vi. 6.
[2849] Ezek. xxxiii. 11.
[2850] Matt. xxii. 37 f.
[2851] Condens.
[2852] See Isa. xlv. 7.
[2853] Hospitis populi conflictatricem.
[2854] Subministrari. In Apol. ii., the verb ministrare is used to
indicate Satan's power in influencing men. [The translator here corrects his
own word seduced and I have substituted his better word influenced. The Lord
gave him over to Satan's influence.]
[2855] Num. xi. and xxi.
[2856] 2 Kings ii. 23, 24. [See notes 4,5,9, following.]
[2857] Dispice.
[2858] Ratio.
[2859] Nam et si.
[2860] Compulerat.
[2861] Sine adhuc.
[2862] Jer. xxxi. 29.
[2863] Edomita, cf. chap. xix. sub init. and xxix.
[2864] Matt. xxvii. 25.
[2865] Omnis providentia.
[2866] Ae mulatio.
[2867] Saevitia.
[2868] Debita.
[2869] Exprobrari.
[2870] Proinde est enim.
[2871] Erudimur.
[2872] Habitus.
[2873] Curare.
[2874] [See Vol. II. p. 71 (this series), for an early example of this
Communicatio idiomatum.]
[2875] Status.
[2876] Pariter.
[2877] Praesumitis. [So of generation, Sonship, etc.]
[2878] Periclitabitur.
[2879] Evertetur.
[2880] Praestantiam, "Qua scilicet praestat praemia vel supplicia"
(Rigalt.).
[2881] Condecet.
[2882] Catholic, because diffused throughout creation (Pamelius).
[2883] Matt. v. 45. T. predicts this (by the word pluentem) strictly of
the "goodness" of God, the quam.
[2884] Hos. vi. 6.
[2885] Jonah iii. 10.
[2886] 2 Kings xx. i.
[2887] Dan. iv. 33.
[2888] 1 Sam. xiv. 45.
[2889] 2 Sam. xii. 13.
[2890] Optimi.
[2891] Indulget.
[2892] Posteritas.
[2893] Lev. xxv. 4, etc.
[2894] Erudiretur.
[2895] Refrigeria. [1 Cor. ix. 10.]
[2896] Ex. xxi. 24.
[2897] Deut. xxxii. 35; Rom. xii. 19.
[2898] Repastinaretur.
[2899] Aestuata.
[2900] Qua et alias.
[2901] Ventris.
[2902] Ex. xxxii. 6.
[2903] Operationes.
[2904] Isa. i. 11, 12.
[2905] Industriam.
[2906] Ps. i. 2.
[2907] Edomantis, cf. chap. xv. sub fin. and xxix.
[2908] Pupillo.
[2909] Isa. i. 16,17.
[2910] Quaestiones, alluding to Isa. i. 18:
[2911] Alluding to Isa. lvii. 6: "Loose the bands of wickedness."
[2912] Isa. lviii. 6.
[2913] A lax quotation, perhaps, of the next clause in the same verse:
"Break every yoke."
[2914] Isa. lviii. 7, slightly changed from the second to the third
person.
[2915] Ps. xxxiv. 13,14.
[2916] Comp. Ps. iv. 4.
[2917] Ps. i. 1.
[2918] Ps. cxxxiii. 1.
[2919] Ps. cxviii. 4.
[2920] Ps. i. 3.
[2921] Ps. xxiv. 4,5. He has slightly misquoted the passage.
[2922] Ps. xxxiii. 18,19, slightly altered.
[2923] Ps. xxxiv. 19.
[2924] Ps. cxvi. 15.
[2925] Ps. xxxiv. 20, modified.
[2926] Ps. xxxiv. 22.
[2927] Praemissa.
[2928] Sepiae isti. Pliny, in his Nat. Hist. ix. 29, says "The males of
the cuttles kind are spotted with sundry colours more dark and blackish,
yes, and more firme and steady, than the female. If the female be smitted
with the trout-speare, they will come to succour her; but she again is not
so kind to them: for if the male be stricken, she will not stand to it, but
runs away. But both of them, if they perceive that they be taken in such
streights that they cannot escape, shed from them a certain black humor like
to ink; and when the water therewith is troubled and made duskish, therein
they hide themselves, and are no more seen" (Holland's Translation, p. 250).
Our epithet "saucy cuttle" comes from Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV. 2, 4, where,
however, the word seems employed in a different sense.
[2929] Deut. xiv.
[2930] Relucentem, "Rekindled" by the confutation.
[2931] Vasa = the jewels and the raiment mentioned in Ex. iii. 22.
[2932] Nomine. [Here our author exhibits his tact as a jurisconsult.]
[2933] Villis.
[2934] Elector.
[2935] For a discussion of the spoiling of the Egyptians by the
Iraelites, the reader is referred to Calmet's Commentary, on Ex. iii. 22,
where he adduces, besides this passage of Tertullian, the opinions of
Irenaeus, adv. Hoeres. iv. 49; Augustine, contra Faust. ii. 71; Theodoret,
Quoest. in Exod. xxiii.; Clement of Alex. Stromat. i. 1; of Philo, De Vita
Moysis, i.; Josephus, Antiqq. ii. 8, who says that "the Egyptians freely
gave all to the Israelites:" of Melchior Canus, Loc. Theoll. i. 4. He also
refers to the book of Wisdom, x. 17-20. These all substantially agree with
our author. see also a full discussion in Selden, De Jure Nat. et Gentium,
vii. 8, who quotes from the Gemara, Sanhedrin, c. ii. f. 91a; and Bereshith
Rabba, par. 61 f., 68, col. 2, where such a tribunal as Tertullian refers to
is mentioned as convened by Alexander the Great, who, after hearing the
pleadings, gave his assent to the claims of the advocates of Israel.
[2936] Tamen.
[2937] Amplius.
[2938] Singulis nummis. [Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 23. Vol. II., p. 336,
supra.]
[2939] Gratia Hebraeorum, either a reference to Ex. iii. 21, or meaning,
perhaps, "the unpaid services of the Hebrews."
[2940] Popularium omnium.
[2941] Expunxit.
[2942] Ex. i. 18, 22. [An ingenious and eloquent defence.]
[2943] Ex. xx. 9, 10.
[2944] Figuras.
[2945] De absolutis.
[2946] [He was not punished for gathering sticks, but for setting an
example of contempt of the Divine Law.]
[2947] Substantiam.
[2948] Caecae.
[2949] Titulum. [See Vol. II. p. 477, this series.]
[2950] Num. xxi. 8,9.
[2951] See John iii. 14.
[2952] Exemplum.
[2953] Refragari.
[2954] Statu.
[2955] In chap. xviii. towards the end. [p. 311, supra.]
[2956] Isa. i. 11.
[2957] Ps. l. 13.
[2958] An inexact qutation of Isa. xl .28.
[2959] Honorem.
[2960] Infuscabit.
[2961] Titulus.
[2962] See Isa. i. 11-14.
[2963] Fecerat seems the better reading: q.d. "which he had
performed," etc. Oehler reads fecerant.
[2964] Levem.
[2965] Damnet.
[2966] Atquin.
[2967] Or, "for one who is a good man and a judge."
[2968] 1 Sam. ix.
[2969] 1 Sam. xiii.
[2970] Dispungetur.
[2971] Censura.
[2972] Apud illum.
[2973] 1 Sam. xv. 11.
[2974] Porro.
[2975] 1 Sam. ix. 2.
[2976] Onerabat.
[2977] Invidiosam.
[2978] Criminosam.
[2979] Jonah iii. 10.
[2980] Jonah iv. 2.
[2981] Titulum.
[2982] Malitiae concursum.
[2983] Non capit.
[2984] Nunc.
[2985] Isa. xlv. 7.
[2986] Jer. xviii. 11.
[2987] Infamiam.
[2988] See above, chap. xiv. [p. 308, supra.]
[2989] Malitia, i.e., "the evil" mentioned in the cited Jonah iii. 10.
[2990] Thus, according to St. Jerome, in Matt. vi. 34, . "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof"'the occurent
adversities.
[2991] In isto articulo.
[2992] Atqui hie.
[2993] Or, "in his capacity as Judge," ex justitia.
[2994] Immo.
[2995] Ingratia.
[2996] 1 Sam. xv. 28.
[2997] Ver. 29, but inexactly quoted.
[2998] Relucet.
[2999] Nedum.
[3000] Ut omnia expediam.
[3001] Purgandas.
[3002] Pusillitates.
[3003] Gen. ii. 9, 11.
[3004] Immo.
[3005] Sugillatione.
[3006] Dolendi.
[3007] Oculatiorem.
[3008] Praeterire.
[3009] Naso.
[3010] Hoc. nomine.
[3011] Relevandi.
[3012] Ex ore tuo, "out of thine own mouth."
[3013] Matt. xii. 37.
[3014] Propter statum legis.
[3015] Gen. iii. 22. [II. Peter, i. 4.]
[3016] Ipsum. [Comp. Heb. ix. 8, and Rev. xxii. 14.]
[3017] Relevatos.
[3018] Gen. xviii. 21. [Marcion's god also "Comes down." p. 284,
supra.]
[3019] See Jer. xxii. 5.
[3020] Isa. xliv. 8.
[3021] Deprehendis.
[3022] Extorquens.
[3023] Pusillus.
[3024] Ex. xxxii. 10.
[3025] An allusion to, rather than a quotation of, Ex. xxxii. 32.
[3026] Non sineret.
[3027] Quantum liceat.
[3028] Absolvam.
[3029] Ad destructionem.
[3030] Ratione.
[3031] Indigna.
[3032] Diversatum.
[3033] Conditionis.
[3034] Pusillitates.
[3035] Patibulis.
[3036] i.e., the sensations of our emotional nature.
[3037] Ejus Dei.
[3038] Ipsum.
[3039] Ipsum.
[3040] Congressum.
[3041] On this mode of the eternal generation of the Son from the
Father, as the , the reader is referred for much patristic
information to Bp. Bull's Defensio Fid. Nic. (trans. in Anglo-Cath. Library
by the translator of this work).
[3042] Proferendo ex semet ipso.
[3043] Voluntati.
[3044] Ps. viii. 6.
[3045] Ediscenes, "practising" or "Rehearsing."
[3046] This doctrine of theology is more fully expressed by our author
in a fine passage in his Treatise against Praxeas, xvi. (Oehler, vol. ii. p.
674), of which the translator gave this version in Bp. Bull's Def. Nic.
Creed, vol. i. p. 18: "The Son hath executed judgment from the beginning,
throwing down the haughty tower, and dividing the tongues, punishing the
whole world by the violence of waters, raining upon Sodom and Gomorrha fire
and brimstone 'the Lord from the Lord._0' For he it was who at all times
came down to hold converse with men, from Adam on to the patriarchs and the
prophets, in vision, in dream, in mirror, in dark saying; ever from the
beginning laying the foundation of the course (of His dispensations), which
He meant to follow out unto the end. Thus was He ever learning (practising
or rehearsing); and the God who conversed with men upon earth could be no
other than the Word, which was to be made flesh. But He was thus learning
(or rehearsing, ediscebat) in order to level for us the way of faith, that
we might the more readily believe that the Son of God had come down into the
world, if we knew that in times past also something similar had been
done." The original thus opens: "Filius itque est qui ab initio
judicavit." This the author connects with John iii. 35, Matt. xxviii. 18,
John v. 22. The "judgment" is dispensational from the first to the last.
Every judicial function of God's providence from Eden to the judgment day is
administered by the Son of God. This office of judge has been largely dealt
with in its general view by Tertullian, in this book ii. against Marcion
(see chap. xi. xvii.).
[3047] Matt. xi. 27.
[3048] Ex. xxxiii. 20.
[3049] Penes nos. Christians, not Marcionites. [Could our author have
regarded himself as formally at war with the church, at this time?]
[3050] Ex aequo agebat.
[3051] In the 1st book, 25th and following Chapters.
[3052] Saevum.
[3053] Tenebrosus. Cicero, De finibus, ii. says: "Heraclitus qui
cognomento perhibetur, quia de natura nimis obscure memoravit."
[3054] Sursam et deorsum. An allusion to Heraclitus' doctrine of
constant change, flux and reflux, out of which all things came.
k.t.l.. "Change is the way up and down; the world comes into being thus,"
etc. (Diogenes Laertius, ix. 8).
[3055] Sententias.
[3056] Dissimulationes.
[3057] Non nisi emendata.
[3058] Non repercussus.
[3059] Mentitum.
[3060] Non verum. An allusion to the Docetism of Marcion.
[3061] Nihil deliquit in Christum, that is, Marcion's Christ.
[3062] Paucis amat.
[3063] Secundum.
[3064] Ingeniorum.
[3065] Enim.
[3066] i.e., Marcion's Antitheses.
[3067] Antitheses so called because Marcion in it had set passages out
of the O.T. and the N.T. in opposition to each other, indending his readers
to infer from the apparent disagreement that the law and the gospel were not
from the same author (Bp. Kaye on Tertullian, p. 468).
[3068] Pro rebus edomitis. See chap. xv. and xix., where he refers to
the law as the subduing instrument.
[3069] Repercussus: perhaps "refuted."
[3070] Exclusus.
[3071] Ab omni motu amariore.
[3072] Singulas species, a law term.
[3073] Arbustiores. A figurative word, taken from vines more firmly
supported on trees instead of on frames. He has