The Five Books Against Marcion

The Five Books Against Marcion

continued

Chapter XVIII.-Concerning the Centurion's Faith. The Raising of the Widow's Son. John Baptist, and His Message to Christ; And the Woman Who Was a Sinner. Proofs Extracted from All of the Relation of Christ to the Creator.

1 Likewise, when extolling the centurion's faith, how incredible a thing it is, that He should confess that He had "found so great a faith not even in Israel. to whom Israel's faith was in no way interesting! But not from the fact (here stated by Christ) could it have been of any interest to Him to approve and compare what was hitherto crude, nay, I might say, hitherto naught. Why, however, might He not have used the example of faith in another god? Because, if He had done so, He would have said that no such faith had ever had existence in Israel; but as the case stands, He intimates that He ought to have found so great a faith in Israel, inasmuch as He had indeed come for the purpose of finding it, being in truth the God and Christ of Israel, and had now stigmatized it, only as one who would enforce and Uphold it. If, indeed, He had been its antagonist, He would have preferred finding it to be such faith, having come to weaken and destroy it rather than to approve of it. He raised also the widow's son from death. This was not a strange miracle. The Creator's prophets had wrought such; then why not His Son much rather? Now, so evidently had the Lord Christ introduced no other god for the working of so momentous a miracle as this, that all who were present gave glory to the Creator, saying: "A great prophet is risen up among us, and God hath visited His people.

2 What God? He, of course, whose people they were, and from whom had come their prophets. But if they glorified the Creator, and Christ (on hearing them, and knowing their meaning) refrained from correcting them even in their very act of invoking the Creator in that vast manifestation of His glory in this raising of the dead, undoubtedly He either announced no other God but Him, whom He thus permitted to be honoured in His own beneficent acts and miracles, or else how happens it that He quietly permitted these persons to remain so long in their error, especially as He came for the very purpose to cure them of their error? But John is offended when he hears of the miracles of Christ, as of an alien god. Well, I on my side will first explain the reason of his offence, that I may the more easily explode the scandal of our heretic. Now, that the very Lord Himself of all might, the Word and Spirit of the Father, was operating and preaching on earth, it was necessary that the portion of the Holy Spirit which, in the form of the prophetic gift, had been through John preparing the ways of the Lord, should now depart from John, and return back again of course to the Lord, as to its all-embracing original.

3 Therefore John, being now an ordinary person, and only one of the many, was offended indeed as a man, but not because he expected or thought of another Christ as teaching or doing nothing new, for he was not even expecting such a one. Nobody will entertain doubts about any one whom (since he knows him not to exist) he has no expectation or thought of. Now John was quite sure that there was no other God but the Creator, even as a Jew, especially as a prophet. Whatever doubt he felt was evidently rather entertained about Him whom he knew indeed to exist but knew not whether He were the very Christ. With this fear, therefore, even John asks the question, "Art thou He that should come, or look we for another? " -simply inquiring whether He was come as He whom he was looking for. "Art thou He that should come? "i.e. Art thou the coming One? "or look we for another? "i.e. Is He whom we are expecting some other than Thou, if Thou art not He whom we expect to come? For he was supposing, as all men then thought, from the similarity of the miraculous evidences, that a prophet might possibly have been meanwhile sent, from whom the Lord Himself, whose coming was then expected, was different, and to whom He was superior. And there lay John's difficulty. He was in doubt whether He was actually come whom all men were looking for;

4 whom, moreover, they ought to have recognised by His predicted works, even as the Lord sent word to John, that it was by means of these very works that He was to be recognised. Now, inasmuch as these predictions evidently related to the Creator's Christ-as we have proved in the examination of each of them-it was perverse enough, if he gave himself out to be not the Christ of the Creator, and rested the proof of his statement on those very evidences whereby he was urging his claims to be received as the Creator's Christ. Far greater still is his perverseness when, not being the Christ of John, he yet bestows on John his testimony, affirming him to be a prophet, nay more, his messenger, applying to him the Scripture, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. He graciously adduced the prophecy in the superior sense of the alternative mentioned by the perplexed John, in order that, by affirming that His own precursor was already come in the person of John, He might quench the doubt which lurked in his question: "Art thou He that, should come, or look we for another? "Now that the forerunner had fulfilled his mission, and the way of the Lord was prepared, He ought now to be acknowledged as that (Christ) for whom the forerunner had made ready the way. That forerunner was indeed "greater than all of women born;

5 " but for all that, He who was least in the kingdom of God was not subject to him; as if the kingdom in which the least person was greater than John belonged to one God, while John, who was greater than all of women born, belonged himself to another God. For whether He speaks of any "least person" by reason of his humble position, or of Himself, as being thought to be less than John-since all were running into the wilderness after John rather than after Christ ("What went ye out into the wilderness to see? " )-the Creator has equal right to claim as His own both John, greater than any born of women, and Christ, or every "least person in the kingdom of heaven," who was destined to be greater than John in that kingdom, although equally pertaining to the Creator, and who would be so much greater than the prophet, because he would not have been offended at Christ, an infirmity which then lessened the greatness of John.We have already spoken of the forgiveness of sins. The behaviour of "the woman which was a sinner," when she covered the Lord's feet with her kisses, bathed them with her tears, wiped them with the hairs of her head, anointed them with ointment, produced an evidence that what she handled was not an empty phantom, but a really solid body, and that her repentance as a sinner deserved forgiveness according to the mind of the Creator, who is accustomed to prefer mercy to sacrifice.

6 But even if the stimulus of her repentance proceeded from her faith, she heard her justification by faith through her repentance pronounced in the words, "Thy faith hath saved thee," by Him who had declared by Habakkuk, "The just shall live by his faith."

Chapter XIX.-The Rich Women of Piety Who Followed Jesus Christ's Teaching by Parables. The Marcionite Cavil Derived from Christ's Remark, When Told of His Mother and His Brethren. Explanation of Christ's Apparent Rejection Them.

1 The fact that certain rich women clave to Christ, "which ministered unto Him of their substance," amongst whom was the wife of the king's steward, is a subject of prophecy. By Isaiah the Lord called these wealthy ladies-"Rise up, ye women that are at ease, and hear my voice" -that He might prove them first as disciples, and then as assistants and helpers: "Daughters, hear my words in hope; this day of the year cherish the memory of, in labour with hope. For it was "in labour" that they followed Him, and "with hope" did they minister to Him. On the subject of parables, let it suffice that it has been once for all shown that this kind of language was with equal distinctness promised by the Creator. But there is that direct mode of His speaking to the people"Ye shall hear with the ear, but ye shall not understand" -which now claims notice as having furnished to Christ that frequent form of His earnest instruction: "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Not as if Christ, actuated with a diverse spirit, permitted a hearing which the Creator had refused; but because the exhortation followed the threatening. First came, "Ye shall hear with the ear, but shall not understand; "then followed, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. For they wilfully refused to hear, although they had ears. He, however, was teaching them that it was the ears of the heart which were necessary; and with these the Creator had said that they would not hear.

2 Therefore it is that He adds by His Christ, "Take heed how ye hear," and hear not,-meaning, of course, with the hearing of the heart, not of the ear. If you only attach a proper, sense to the Creator's admonition suitable to the meaning of Him who was rousing the people to hear by the words, "Take heed how ye hear," it amounted to a menace to such as would not hear. In fact, that most merciful god of yours, who judges not, neither is angry, is minatory. This is proved even by the sentence which immediately follows: "Whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have. What shall be given? The increase of faith, or understanding, or even salvation. What shall be taken away? That, of course, which shall be, given. By whom shall the gift and the deprivation be made? If by the Creator it be taken away, by Him also shall it be given. If by Marcion's god it be given, by Marcion's god also will it be taken away. Now, for whatever reason He threatens the "deprivation," it will not be the work of a god who knows not how to threaten, because incapable of anger. I am, moreover, astonished when he says that "a candle is not usually hidden," who had hidden himself-a greater and more needful light-during so long a time;

3 and when he promises that "everything shall be brought out of its secrecy and made manifest," who hitherto has kept his god in obscurity, waiting (I suppose) until Marcion be born. We now come to the most strenuously-plied argument of all those who call in question the Lord's nativity. They say that He testifies Himself to His not having been born, when He asks, "Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? " In this manner heretics either wrest plain and simple words to any sense they choose by their conjectures, or else they violently resolve by a literal interpretation words which imply a conditional sense and are incapable of a simple solution, as in this passage. We, for our part, say in reply, first, that it could not possibly have been told Him that His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to see Him, if He had had no mother and no brethren. They must have been known to him who announced them, either some time previously, or then at that very time, when they desired to see Him, or sent Him their message. To this our first position this answer is usually given by the other side. But suppose they sent Him the message for the purpose of tempting Him? Well, but the Scripture does not say so; and inasmuch as it is usual for it to indicate what is done in the way of temptation ("Behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted Him;

4 " again, when inquiring about tribute, the Pharisees came to Him, tempting Him ), so, when it makes no mention of temptation, it does not admit the interpretation of temptation. However, although I do not allow this sense, I may as well ask, by way of a superfluous refutation, for the reasons of the alleged temptation, To what purpose could they have tempted Him by naming His mother and His brethren? If it was to ascertain whether He had been born or not-when was a question raised on this point, which they must resolve by tempting Him in this way? Who could doubt His having been born, when they saw Him before them a veritable man?-whom they had heard call Himself "Son of man? "-of whom they doubted whether He were God or Son of God, from seeing Him, as they did, in the perfect garb of human quality?-supposing Him rather to be a prophet, a great one indeed, but still one who had been born as man? Even if it had been necessary that He should thus be tried in the investigation of His birth, surely any other proof would have better answered the trial than that to be obtained from mentioning those relatives which it was quite possible for Him, in spite of His true nativity, not at that moment to have had. For tell me now, does a mother live on contemporaneously with her sons in every case? Have all sons brothers born for them?

5 May a man rather not have fathers and sisters (living), or even no relatives at all? But there is historical proof that at this very time a census had been taken in Judµa by Sentius Saturninus, which might have satisfied their inquiry respecting the family and descent of Christ. Such a method of testing the point had therefore no consistency whatever in it and they "who were standing without" were really "His mother and His brethren. It remains for us to examine His meaning when He resorts to non-literal words, saying "Who is my mother or my brethren? "It seems as if His language amounted to a denial of His family and His birth; but it arose actually from the absolute nature of the case, and the conditional sense in which His words were to be explained. He was justly indignant, that persons so very near to Him" stood without," while strangers were within hanging on His words, especially as they wanted to call Him away from the solemn work He had in hand. He did not so much deny as disavow them. And therefore, when to the previous question, "Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? He added the answer "None but they who hear my words and do them," He transferred the names of blood-relationship to others, whom He judged to be more closely related to Him by reason of their faith. Now no one transfers a thing except from him who possesses that which is transferred.

6 If, therefore, He made them "His mother and His brethren" who were not so, how could He deny them these relationships who really had them? Surely only on the condition of their deserts, and not by any disavowal of His near relatives; teaching them by His own actual example, that "whosoever preferred father or mother or brethren to the Word of God, was not a disciple worthy of Him. Besides, His admission of His mother and His brethren was the more express, from the fact of His unwillingness to acknowledge them. That He adopted others only confirmed those in their relationship to Him whom He refused because of their offence, and for whom He substituted the others, not as being truer relatives, but worthier ones. Finally, it was no great matter if He did prefer to kindred (that) faith which it did not possess. 7 Chapter XX.-Comparison of Christ's Power Over Winds and Waves with Moses' Command of the Waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan. Christ's Power Over Unclean Spirits. The Case of the Legion. The Cure of the Issue of Blood. The Mosaic Uncleanness on This Point Explained.

8 But "what manner of man is this? for He commandeth even the winds and water! Of course He is the new master and proprietor of the elements, now that the Creator is deposed, and excluded from their possession! Nothing of the kind. But the elements own their own Maker, just as they had been accustomed to obey His servants also. Examine well the Exodus, Marcion; look at the rod of Moses, as it waves His command to the Red Sea, ampler than all the lakes of Judµa. How the sea yawns from its very depths, then fixes itself in two solidified masses, and so, out of the interval between them, makes a way for the people to pass dry-shod across; again does the same rod vibrate, the sea returns in its strength, and in the concourse of its waters the chivalry of Egypt is engulphed! To that consummation the very winds subserved! Read, too, how that the Jordan was as a sword, to hinder the emigrant nation in their passage across its stream; how that its waters from above stood still, and its current below wholly ceased to run at the bidding of Joshua, when his priests began to pass over! What will you say to this? If it be your Christ that is meant above, he will not be more potent than the servants of the Creator. But I should have been content with the examples I have adduced without addition, if a prediction of His present passage on the sea had not preceded Christ's coming.

9 As psalm is, in fact, accomplished by this crossing over the lake. "The Lord," says the psalmist, "is upon many waters. When He disperses its waves, Habakkuk's words are fulfilled, where he says, "Scattering the waters in His passage. When at His rebuke the sea is calmed, Nahum is also verified: He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry," including the winds indeed, whereby it was disquieted. With what evidence would you have my Christ vindicated? Shall it come from the examples, or from the prophecies, of the Creator? You suppose that He is predicted as a military and armed warrior, instead of one who in a figurative and allegorical sense was to wage a spiritual warfare against spiritual enemies, in spiritual campaigns, and with spiritual weapons: come now, when in one man alone you discover a multitude of demons calling itself Legion, of course comprised of spirits, you should learn that Christ also must be understood to be an exterminator of spiritual foes, who wields spiritual arms and fights in spiritual strife; and that it was none other than He, who now had to contend with even a legion of demons. Therefore it is of such a war as this that the Psalm may evidently have spoken: "The Lord is strong, The Lord is mighty in battle. For with the last enemy death did He fight, and through the trophy of the cross He triumphed. Now of what God did the Legion testify that Jesus was the Son?

10 No doubt, of that God whose torments and abyss they knew and dreaded. It seems impossible for them to have remained up to this time in ignorance of what the power of the recent and unknown god was working in the world, because it is very unlikely that the Creator was ignorant thereof. For if He had been at any time ignorant that there was another god above Himself, He had by this time at all events discovered that there was one at work below His heaven. Now, what their Lord had discovered had by this time become notorious to His entire family within the same world and the same circuit of heaven, in which the strange deity dwelt and acted. As therefore both the Creator and His creatures must have had knowledge of him, if he had been in existence, so, inasmuch as he had no existence, the demons really knew none other than the Christ of their own God. They do not ask of the strange god, what they recollected they must beg of the Creator-not to be plunged into the Creator's abyss. They at last had their request granted. On what ground? Because they had lied? Because they had proclaimed Him to be the Son of a ruthless God? And what sort of god will that be who helped the lying, and upheld his detractors?

11 However, no need of this thought, for, inasmuch as they had not lied, inasmuch as they had acknowledged that the God of the abyss was also their God, so did He actually Himself affirm that He was the same whom these demons acknowledged-Jesus, the Judge and Son of the avenging God. Now, behold an inkling of the Creator's failings and infirmities in Christ; for I on my side mean to impute to Him ignorance. Allow me some indulgence in my effort against the heretic. Jesus is touched by the woman who had an issue of blood, He knew not by whom. "Who touched me? "He asks, when His disciples alleged an excuse. He even persists in His assertion of ignorance: "Somebody hath touched me," He says, and advances some proof: "For I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. What says our heretic? Could Christ have known the person? And why did He speak as if He were ignorant? Why? Surely it was to challenge her faith, and to try her fear. Precisely as He had once questioned Adam, as if in ignorance: Adam, where art thou? " Thus you have both the Creator excused in the same way as Christ, and Christ acting similarly to the Creator. But in this case He acted as an adversary of the law; and therefore, as the law forbids contact with a woman with an issue, He desired not only that this woman should touch Him, but that He should heal her.

12 Here, then, is a God who is not merciful by nature, but in hostility! Yet, if we find that such was the merit of this woman's faith, that He said unto her, Thy faith hath saved thee. what are you, that you should detect an hostility to the law in that act, which the Lord Himself shows us to have been done as a reward of faith? But will you have it that this faith of the woman consisted in the contempt which she had acquired for the law? Who can suppose, that a woman who had been. hitherto unconscious of any God, uninitiated as yet in any new law, should violently infringe that law by which she was up to this time bound? On what faith, indeed, was such an infringement hazarded? In what God believing? Whom despising? The Creator? Her touch at least was an act of faith. And if of faith in the Creator, how could she have violated His law, when she was ignorant of any other God? Whatever her infringement of the law amounted to, it proceeded from and was proportionate to her faith in the Creator. But how can these two things be compatible? That she violated the law, and violated it in faith, which ought to have restrained her from such violation? I will tell you how her faith was this above all: it made her believe that her God preferred mercy even to sacrifice; she was certain that her God was working in Christ;

13 she touched Him, therefore, nor as a holy man simply, nor as a prophet, whom she knew to be capable of contamination by reason of his human nature, but as very God, whom she assumed to be beyond all possibility of pollution by any uncleanness. She therefore, not without reason, interpreted for herself the law, as meaning that such things as are susceptible of defilement become defiled, but not so God, whom she knew for certain to be in Christ. But she recollected this also, that what came under the prohibition of the law was that ordinary and usual issue of blood which proceeds from natural functions every month, and in childbirth, not that which was the result of disordered health. Her case, however, was one of long abounding ill health, for which she knew that the succour of God's mercy was needed, and not the natural relief of time. And thus she may: evidently be regarded as having discerned the law, instead of breaking it. This will prove to be the faith which was to confer intelligence likewise. "If ye will not believe," says (the prophet), "ye shall not understand. When Christ approved of the faith of this woman, which simply rested in the Creator, He declared by His answer to her, that He was Himself the divine object of the faith of which He approved. Nor can I overlook the fact that His garment, by being touched, demonstrated also the truth of His body;

14 for of course" it was a body, and not a phantom, which the garment clothed. This indeed is not our point now; but the remark has a natural bearing on the question we are discussing. For if it were not a veritable body, but only a fantastic one, it could not for certain have received contamination, as being an unsubstantial thing. He therefore, who, by reason of this vacuity of his substance, was incapable of contamination, how could he possibly have desired this touch? As an adversary of the law, his conduct was deceitful, for he was not susceptible of a real pollution. 15 Chapter XXI.-Christ's Connection with the Creator Shown from Several Incidents in the Old Testament, Compared with St. Luke's Narrative of the Mission of the Disciples. The Feeding of the Multitude. The Confession of St. Peter. Being Ashamed of Christ. This Shame is Only Possible of the True Christ. Marcionite Pretensions Absurd.

16 He sends forth His disciples to preach the kingdom of God. Does He here say of what God? He forbids their taking anything for their journey, by way of either food or raiment. Who would have given such a commandment as this, but He who feeds the ravens and clothes the flowers of the field? Who anciently enjoined for the treading ox an unmuzzled mouth, that he might be at liberty to gather his fodder from his labour, on the principle that the worker is worthy of his hire? Marcion may expunge such precepts, but no matter, provided the sense of them survives. But when He charges them to shake off the dust of their feet against such as should refuse to receive them, He also bids that this be done as a witness. Now no one bears witness except in a case which is decided by judicial process; and whoever orders inhuman conduct to be submitted to the trial by testimony, does really threaten as a judge. Again, that it was no new god which recommended by Christ, was dearly attested by the opinion of all men, because some maintained to Herod that Jesus was the Christ; others, that He was John; some, that He was Elias; and others, that He was one of the old prophetess. Now, whosoever of all these He might have been, He certainly was not raised up for the purpose of announcing another god after His resurrection. He feeds the multitude in the desert place;

17 this, you must know was after the manner of the Old Testament. Or else, if there was not the same grandeur, it follows that He is now inferior to the Creator. For He, not for one day, but during forty years, not on the inferior aliment of bread and fish, but with the manna of heaven, supported the lives of not five thousand, but of six hundred thousand human beings. However, such was the greatness of His miracle, that He willed the slender supply of food, not only to be enough, but even to prove superabundant; and herein He followed the ancient precedent. For in like manner, during the famine in Elijah's time, the scanty and final meal of the widow of Sarepta was multiplied by the blessing of the prophet throughout the period of the famine. You have the third book of the Kings. If you also turn to the fourth book, you will discover all this conduct of Christ pursued by that man of God, who ordered ten barley loaves which had been given him to be distributed among the people; and when his servitor, after contrasting the large number of the persons with the small supply of the food, answered, "What, shall I set this before a hundred men? "he said again, "Give them, and they shall eat: for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof, according to the word of the Lord. O Christ, even in Thy novelties Thou art old!

18 Accordingly, when Peter, who had been an eye-witness of the miracle, and had compared it with the ancient precedents, and had discovered in them prophetic intimations of what should one day come to pass, answered (as the mouthpiece of them all) the Lord's inquiry, "Whom say ye that I am? " in the words, "Thou art the Christ," he could not but have perceived that He was that Christ, beside whom he knew of none else in the Scriptures, and whom he was now surveying in His wonderful deeds. This conclusion He even Himself confirms by thus far bearing with it, nay, even enjoining silence respecting it. For if Peter was unable to acknowledge Him to be any other than the Creator's Christ, while He commanded them "to tell no man that saying," surely He was unwilling to have the conclusion promulged which Peter had drawn. No doubt of that, you say; but as Peter's conclusion was a wrong one, therefore He was unwilling to have a lie disseminated. It was, however, a different reason which He assigned for the silence, even because "the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and scribes, and priests, and be slain, and be raised again the third day. Now, inasmuch as these sufferings were actually foretold for the Creator's Christ (as we shall fully show in the proper place ), so by this application of them to His own case does He prove that it is He Himself of whom they were predicted.

19 At all events, even if they had not been predicted, the reason which He alleged for imposing silence (on the disciples) was such as made it clear enough that Peter had made no mistake, that reason being the necessity of His undergoing these sufferings. "Whosoever," says He, "will save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. Surely it is the Son of man who uttered this sentence. Look carefully, then, along with the king of Babylon, into his burning fiery furnace, and there you will discover one "like the Son of man" (for He was not yet really Son of man, because not yet born of man), even as early as then appointing issues such as these. He saved the lives of the three brethren, who had agreed to lose them for God's sake; but He destroyed those of the Chaldµans, when they had preferred to save them by the means of their idolatry. Where is that novelty, which you pretend in a doctrine which possesses these ancient proofs? But all the predictions have been fulfilled concerning martyrdoms which were to happen, and were to receive the recompenses of their reward from God. "See," says Isaiah, "how the righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and just men are taken away, and no man considereth. When does this more frequently happen than in the persecution of His saints? This, indeed, is no ordinary matter, no common casualty of the law of nature;

20 but it is that illustrious devotion, that fighting for the faith, wherein whosoever loses his life for God saves it, so that you may here again recognize the Judge who recompenses the evil gain of life with its destruction, and the good loss thereof with its salvation. It is, however, a jealous God whom He here presents to me one who returns evil for evil. "For whosoever," says He, "shall be ashamed of me, of him will I also be ashamed. Now to none but my Christ can be assigned the occasion of such a shame as this. His whole course was so exposed to shame as to open a way for even the taunts of heretics, declaiming with all the bitterness in their power against the utter disgrace of His birth and bringing-up, and the unworthiness of His very flesh. But how can that Christ of yours be liable to a shame, which it is impossible for him to experience? Since he was never condensed into human flesh in the womb of a woman, although a virgin; never grew from human seed, although only after the law of corporeal substance, from the fluids of a woman; was never deemed flesh before shaped in the womb; never called f£tus after such shaping; was never delivered from a ten months' writhing in the womb;

21 was never shed forth upon the ground, amidst the sudden pains of parturition, with the unclean issue which flows at such a time through the sewerage of the body, forthwith to inaugurate the light of life with tears, and with that primal wound which severs the child from her who bears him; never received the copious ablution, nor the meditation of salt and honey; nor did he initiate a shroud with swaddling clothes; nor afterwards did he ever wallow in his own uncleanness, in his mother's lap; nibbling at her breast; long an infant; gradually a boy; by slow degrees a man. But he was revealed from heaven, full-grown at once, at once complete; immediately Christ; simply spirit, and power, and god. But as withal he was not true, because not visible; therefore he was no object to be ashamed of from the curse of the cross, the real endurance of which he escaped, because wanting in bodily substance. Never, therefore, could he have said, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me. But as for our Christ, He could do no otherwise than make such a declaration; "made" by the Father "a little lower than the angels," "a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people; " seeing that it was His will that "with His stripes we should be healed," that by His humiliation our salvation should be established.

22 And justly did He humble Himself for His own creature man, for the image and likeness of Himself, and not of another, in order that man, since he had not felt ashamed when bowing down to a stone or a stock, might with similar courage give satisfaction to God for the shamelessness of his idolatry, by displaying an equal degree of shamelessness in his faith, in not being ashamed of Christ. Now, Marcion, which of these courses is better suited to your Christ, in respect of a meritorious shame? Plainly, you ought yourself to blush with shame for having given him a fictitious existence.

Chapter XXII.-The Same Conclusion Supported by the Transfiguration. Marcion Inconsistent in Associating with Christ in Glory Two Such Eminent Servants of the Creator as Moses and Elijah. St. Peter's Ignorance Accounted for on Montanist Principle.

1 You ought to be very much ashamed of yourself on this account too, for permitting him to appear on the retired mountain in the company of Moses and Elias, whom he had come to destroy. This, to be sure, was what he wished to be understood as the meaning of that voice from heaven: "This is my beloved Son, hear Him" -Him, that is, not Moses or Elias any longer. The voice alone, therefore, was enough, without the display of Moses and Elias; for, by expressly mentioning whom they were to hear, he must have forbidden all others from being heard. Or else, did he mean that Isaiah and Jeremiah and the others whom he did not exhibit were to be heard, since he prohibited those whom he did display? Now, even if their presence was necessary, they surely should not be represented as conversing together, which is a sign of familiarity; nor as associated in glory with him, for this indicates respect and graciousness; but they should be shown in some slough as a sure token of their ruin, or even in that darkness of the Creator which Christ was sent to disperse, far removed from the glory of Him who was about to sever their words and writings from His gospel. This, then, is the way how he demonstrates them to be aliens, even by keeping them in his own company! This is how he shows they ought to be relinquished: he associates them with himself instead! This is how he destroys them:

2 he irradiates them with his glory! How would their own Christ act? I suppose He would have imitated the frowardness (of heresy), and revealed them just as Marcion's Christ was bound to do, or at least as having with Him any others rather than His own prophets! But what could so well befit the Creator's Christ, as to manifest Him in the company of His own foreannouncers? -to let Him be seen with those to whom He had appeared in revelations?-to let Him be speaking with those who had spoken of Him?-to share His glory with those by whom He used to be called the Lord of glory; even with those chief servants of His, one of whom was once the moulder of His people, the other afterwards the reformer thereof; one the initiator of the Old Testament, the other the consummator of the New? Well therefore does Peter, when recognizing the companions of his Christ in their indissoluble connection with Him, suggest an expedient: "It is good for us to be here" (good: that evidently means to be where Moses and Elias are); "and let us make three tabernacles, one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. But he knew not what he said. How knew not? Was his ignorance the result of simple error? Or was it on the principle which we maintain in the cause of the new prophecy, that to grace ecstasy or rapture is incident.

3 For when a man is rapt in the Spirit, especially when he beholds the glory of God, or when God speaks through him, he necessarily loses his sensation, because he is overshadowed with the power of God,-a point concerning which there is a question between us and the carnally-minded. Now, it is no difficult matter to prove the rapture of Peter. For how could he have known Moses and Elias, except (by being) in the Spirit? People could not have had their images, or statues, or likenesses; for that the law forbade. How, if it were not that he had seen them in the Spirit? And therefore, because it was in the Spirit that he had now spoken, and not in his natural senses, he could not know what he had said. But if, on the other hand, he was thus ignorant, because he erroneously supposed that (Jesus) was their Christ, it is then evident that Peter, when previously asked by Christ, "Whom they thought Him to be," meant the Creator's Christ, when he answered, "Thou art the Christ; "because if he had been then aware that He belonged to the rival god, he would not have made a mistake here. But if he was in error here because of his previous erroneous opinion, then you may be sure that up to that very day no new divinity had been revealed by Christ, and that Peter had so far made no mistake, because hitherto Christ had revealed nothing of the kind;

4 and that Christ accordingly was not to be regarded as belonging to any other than the Creator, whose entire dispensation he, in fact, here described. He selects from His disciples three witnesses of the impending vision and voice. And this is just the way of the Creator. "In the mouth of three witnesses," says He, "shall every word be established. He withdraws to a mountain. In the nature of the place I see much meaning. For the Creator had originally formed His ancient people on a mountain both with visible glory and His voice. It was only tight that the New Testament should be attested on such an elevated spot as that whereon the Old Testament had been composed; under a like covering of cloud also, which nobody will doubt, was condensed out of the Creator's air. Unless, indeed, he had brought down his own clouds thither, because he had himself forced his way through the Creator's heaven; or else it was only a precarious cloud, as it were, of the Creator which he used. On the present (as also on the former) occasion, therefore, the cloud was not silent; but there was the accustomed voice from heaven, and the Father's testimony to the Son; precisely as in the first Psalm He had said, "Thou art my Son, today have I begotten thee. By the mouth of Isaiah also He had asked concerning Him, "Who is there among you that feareth God? Let him hear the voice of His Son.

5 When therefore He here presents Him with the words, "This is my (beloved) Son," this clause is of course understood, "whom I have promised. For if He once promised, and then afterwards says, "This is He," it is suitable conduct for one who accomplishes His purpose that He should utter His voice in proof of the promise which He had formerly made; but unsuitable in one who is amenable to the retort, Can you, indeed, have a right to say, "This is my son," concerning whom you have given us no previous information, any more than you have favoured us with a revelation about your own prior existence? "Hear ye Him," therefore, whom from the beginning (the Creator) had declared entitled to be heard in the name of a prophet, since it was as a prophet that He had to be regarded by the people. "A prophet," says Moses, "shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, of your sons" (that is, of course, after a carnal descent ); "unto Him shall ye hearken, as unto me. "Every one who will not hearken unto Him, his soul shall be cut off from amongst his people." , So also Isaiah: "Who is there among you that feareth God? Let him hear the voice of His Son. This voice the Father was going Himself to recommend. For, says he, He establishes the words of His Son, when He says, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him.

6 Therefore, even if there be made a transfer of the obedient "heating" from Moses and Elias to Christ, it is still not from another God, or to another Christ; but from" the Creator to His Christ, in consequence of the departure of the old covenant and the supervening of the new. "Not an ambassador, nor an angel, but He Himself," says Isaiah, "shall save them; " for it is He Himself who is now declaring and fulfilling the law and the prophets. The Father gave to the Son new disciples, after that Moses and Elias had been exhibited along with Him in the honour of His glory, and had then been dismissed as having fully discharged their duty and office, for the express purpose of affirming for Marcion's information the fact that Moses and Elias had a share in even the glory of Christ. But we have the entire structure of this same vision in Habakkuk also, where the Spirit in the person of some of the apostles says, "O Lord, I have heard Thy speech, and was afraid. What speech was this, other than the words of the voice from heaven, This is my beloved Son, hear ye, Him? "I considered thy works, and was astonished. When could this have better happened than when Peter, on seeing His glory, knew not what he was saying? "In the midst of the two Thou shalt be known"-even Moses and Elias. These likewise did Zechariah see under the figure of the two olive trees and olive branches.

7 For these are they of whom he says, "They are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth. And again Habakkuk says, "His glory covered the heavens" (that is, with that cloud), "and His splendour shall be like the light-even the light, wherewith His very raiment glistened. And if we would make mention of the promise to Moses, we shall find it accomplished here. For when Moses desired to see the Lord, saying, "If therefore I have found grace in Thy sight, manifest Thyself to me, that I may see Thee distinctly," the sight which he desired to have was of that condition which he was to assume as man, and which as a prophet he knew was to occur. Respecting the face of God, however, he had already heard, "No man shall see me, and live. "This thing," said He, "which thou hast spoken, will I do unto thee. Then Moses said, "Show me Thy glory. And the Lord, with like reference to the future, replied, "I will pass before thee in my glory," etc. Then at the last He says, "And then thou shall see my back. Not loins, or calves of the legs, did he want to behold, but the glory which was to be revealed in the latter days.

8 He had promised that He would make Himself thus face to face visible to him, when He said to Aaron, "If there shall be a prophet among you, I will make myself known to him by vision, and by vision will I speak with him; but not so is my manner to Moses; with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently" (that is to say, in the form of man which He was to assume), "and not in dark speeches. Now, although Marcion has denied that he is here represented as speaking with the Lord, but only as standing, yet, inasmuch as he stood "mouth to mouth," he must also have stood "face to face" with him, to use his words, not far from him, in His very glory-not to say, in His presence. And with this glory he went away enlightened from Christ, just as he used to do from the Creator; as then to dazzle the eyes of the children of Israel, so now to smite those of the blinded Marcion, who has failed to see how this argument also makes against him.

Chapter XXIII.-Impossible that Marcion's Christ Should Reprove the Faithless Generation. Such Loving Consideration for Infants as the True Christ Was Apt to Shew, Also Impossible for the Other. On the Three Different Characters Confronted and Instructed by Christ Samaria.

1 I take on myself the character of Israel. Let Marcion's Christ stand forth, and exclaim, "O faithless generation! how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? " He will immediately have to submit to this remonstrance from me: "Whoever you are, O stranger, first tell us who you are, from whom you come, and what right you have over us. Thus far, all you possess belongs to the Creator. Of course, if you come from Him, and are acting for Him, we will bear your reproof. But if you come from some other god, I should wish you to tell us what you have ever committed to us belonging to yourself, which it was our duty to believe, seeing that you are upbraiding us with `faithlessness, 'who have never yet revealed to us your own self. How long ago did you begin to treat with us, that you should be complaining of the delay? On what points have you borne with us, that you should adduce your patience? Like ¦sop's ass, you are just come from the well, and are filling every place with your braying. I assume, besides, the person of the disciple, against whom he has inveighed: "O perverse nation! how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? "This outburst of his I might, of course, retort upon him most justly in such words as these: "Whoever you are, O stranger, first tell us who you are, from whom you come, what right you have over us.

2 Thus far, I suppose, you belong to the Creator, and so we have followed you, recognising in you all things which are His. Now, if you come from Him, we will bear your reproof. If, however, you are acting for another, pry thee tell us what you have ever conferred upon us that is simply your own, which it had become our duty to believe, seeing that you reproach us with `faithlessness, 'although up to this moment you show us no credentials. How long since did you begin to plead with us, that you are charging us with delay? Wherein have you borne with us, that you should even boast of your patience? The ass has only just arrived from ¦sop's well, and he is already braying. Now who would not thus have rebutted the unfairness of the rebuke, if he had supposed its author to belong to him who had had no right as yet to complain? Except that not even He would have inveighed against them, if He had not dwelt among them of old in the law and by the prophets, and with mighty deeds and many mercies, and had always experienced them to be "faithless. But, behold, Christ takes infants, and teaches how all ought to be like them, if they ever wish to be greater. The Creator, on the contrary, let loose bears against children, in order to avenge His prophet Elisha, who had been mocked by them.

3 This antithesis is impudent enough, since it throws together things so different as infants and children, -an age still innocent, and one already capable of discretion-able to mock, if not to blaspheme. As therefore God is a just God, He spared not impious children, exacting as He does honour for every time of life, and especially, of course, from youth. And as God is good, He so loves infants as to have blessed the midwives in Egypt, when they protected the infants of the Hebrews which were in peril from Pharaoh's command. Christ therefore shares this kindness with the Creator. As indeed for Marcion's god, who is an enemy to marriage, how can he possibly seem to be a lover of little children, which are simply the issue of marriage? He who hates the seed must needs also detest the fruit. Yea, he ought to be deemed more ruthless than the king of Egypt. For whereas Pharaoh forbade infants to be brought up, he will not allow them even to be born, depriving them of their ten months' existence in the womb. And how much more credible it is, that kindness to little children should be attributed to Him who blessed matrimony for the procreation of mankind, and in such benediction included also the promise of connubial fruit itself, the first of which is that of infancy! The Creator, at the request of Elias, inflicts the blow of fire from heaven in the case of that false prophet (of Baalzebub). I recognise herein the severity of the Judge.

4 And I, on the contrary, the severe rebuke of Christ on His disciples, when they were for inflicting a like visitation on that obscure village of the Samaritans. The heretic, too, may discover that this gentleness of Christ was promised by the selfsame severest Judge. "He shall not contend," says He, "nor shall His voice be heard in the street; a bruised reed shall He not crush, and smoking flax shall He not quench. Being of such a character, He was of course much the less disposed to burn men. For even at that time the Lord said to Elias, "He was not in the fire, but in the still small voice. Well, but why does this most humane and merciful God reject the man who offers himself to Him as an inseparable companion? If it were from pride or from hypocrisy that he had said, "I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest, ' then, by judicially reproving an act of either pride or hypocrisy as worthy of rejection, He performed the office of a Judge. And, of course, him whom He rejected He condemned to the loss of not following the Saviour. For as He calls to salvation him whom He does not reject, or him whom He voluntarily invites, so does He consign to perdition him whom He rejects.

5 When, however, He answers the man, who alleged as an excuse his father's burial, "Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God," He gave a clear confirmation to those two laws of the Creator-that in Leviticus, which concerns the sacerdotal office, and forbids the priests to be present at the funerals even of their parents. "The priest," says He, "shall not enter where there is any dead person; and for his father he shall not be defiled" ; as well as that in Numbers, which relates to the (Nazarite) vow of separation; for there he who devotes himself to God, among other things, is bidden "not to come at any dead body," not even of his father, or his mother, or his brother. Now it was, I suppose, for the Nazarite and the priestly office that He intended this man whom He had been inspiring to preach the kingdom of God. Or else, if it be not so, he must be pronounced impious enough who, without the intervention of any precept of the law, commanded that burials of parents should be neglected by their sons. When, indeed, in the third case before us, (Christ) forbids the man "to look back" who wanted first "to bid his family farewell," He only follows out the rule of the Creator. For this (retrospection) He had been against their making, whom He had rescued out of Sodom.

Chapter XXIV.-On the Mission of the Seventy Disciples, and Christ's Charge to Them. Precedents Drawn from the Old Testament. Absurdity of Supposing that Marcion's Christ Could Have Given the Power of Treading on Serpents and Scorpions.

1 He chose also seventy other missionaries besides the twelve. Now why, if the twelve followed the number of the twelve fountains of Elim, should not the seventy correspond to the like number of the palms of that place? Whatever be the Antitheses of the comparison, it is a diversity in the causes, not in the powers, which has mainly produced them. But if one does not keep in view the diversity of the causes, he is very apt to infer a difference of powers. When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, the Creator brought them forth laden with their spoils of gold and silver vessels, and with loads besides of raiment and unleavened dough; whereas Christ commanded His disciples not to carry even a staff for their journey. The former were thrust forth into a desert, but the latter were sent into cities. Consider the difference presented in the occasions, and you will understand how it was one and the same power which arranged the mission of His people according to their poverty in the one case, and their plenty in the other. He cut down their supplies when they could be replenished through the cities, just as He had accumulated them when exposed to the scantiness of the desert. Even shoes He forbade them to carry. For it was He under whose very protection the people wore not out a shoe, even in the wilderness for the space of so many years. "No one," says He, "shall ye salute by the way.

2 What a destroyer of the prophets, forsooth, is Christ, seeing it is from them that He received his precept also! When Elisha sent on his servant Gehazi before him to raise the Shunammite's son from death, I rather think he gave him these instructions: "Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way: if thou meet any man, salute him not; and if any salute thee, answer him not again. For what is a wayside blessing but a mutual salutation as men meet? So also the Lord commands: "Into whatsoever house they enter, let them say, Peace be to it. Herein He follows the very same example. For Elisha enjoined upon his servant the same salutation when he met the Shunammite; he was to say to her: "Peace to thine husband, peace to thy child. Such will be rather our Antitheses; they compare Christ with, instead of sundering Him from, the Creator. "The labourer is worthy of his hire. Who could better pronounce such a sentence than the Judge? For to decide that the workman deserves his wages, is in itself a judicial act. There is no award which consists not in a process of judgment. The law of the Creator on this point also presents us with a corroboration, for He judges that labouring oxen are as labourers worthy of their hire: "Thou shall not muzzle," says He. "the ox when he treadeth out the corn. Now, who is so good to man as He who is also merciful to cattle?

3 Now, when Christ pronounced labourers to be worthy of their hire, He, in fact, exonerated from blame that precept of the Creator about depriving the Egyptians of their gold and silver vessels. For they who had built for the Egyptians their houses and cities, were surely workmen worthy of their hire, and were not instructed in a fraudulent act, but only set to claim compensation for their hire, which they were unable in any other way to exact from their masters. That the kingdom of God was neither new nor unheard of, He in this way affirmed, whilst at the same time He bids them announce that it was near at hand. Now it is that which was once far off, which can be properly said to have become near. If, however, a thing had never existed previous to its becoming near, it could never have been said to have approached, because it had never existed at a distance. Everything which is new and unknown is also sudden. Everything which is sudden, then, first receives the accident of time when it is announced, for it then first puts on appearance of form. Besides it will be impossible for a thing either to have been tardy all the while it remained unannounced, or to have approached from the time it shall begin to be announced.

4 He likewise adds, that they should say to such as would not receive them: "Notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. If He does not enjoin this by way of a commination, the injunction is a most useless one. For what mattered it to them that the kingdom was at hand, unless its approach was accompanied with judgment?-even for the salvation of such as received the announcement thereof. How, if there can be a threat without its accomplishment, can you have in a threatening god, one that executes also, and in both, one that is a judicial being? So, again, He commands that the dust be shaken off against them, as a testimony,-the very particles of their ground which might cleave to the sandal, not to mention any other sort of communication with them. But if their churlishness and inhospitality were to receive no vengeance from Him, for what purpose does He premise a testimony, which surely forbodes some threats? Furthermore, when the Creator also, in the book of Deuteronomy, forbids the reception of the Ammonites and the Moabites into the church, because, when His people came from Egypt, they fraudulently withheld provisions from them with inhumanity and inhospitality, it will be manifest that the prohibition of intercourse descended to Christ from Him. The form of it which He uses-"He that despiseth you, despiseth me" -the Creator had also addressed to Moses: "Not against thee have they murmured, but against me.

5 Moses, indeed, was as much an apostle as the apostles were prophets. The authority of both offices will have to be equally divided, as it proceeds from one and the same Lord, (the God) of apostles and prophets. Who is He that shall bestow "the power of treading on serpents and scorpions? " Shall it be He who is the Lord of all living creatures or he who is not god over a single lizard? Happily the Creator has promised by Isaiah to give this power even to little children, of putting their hand in the cockatrice den and on the hole of the young asps without at all receiving hurt. And, indeed, we are aware (without doing violence to the literal sense of the passage, since even these noxious animals have actually been unable to do hurt where there has been faith) that under the figure of scorpions and serpents are portended evil spirits, whose very prince is described by the name of serpent, dragon, and every other most conspicuous beast in the power of the Creator. This power the Creator conferred first of all upon His Christ, even as the ninetieth Psalm says to Him: "Upon the asp and the basilisk shall Thou tread; the lion and the dragon shall Thou trample under foot. So also Isaiah: "In that day the Lord God shall draw His sacred, great, and strong sword" (even His Christ) "against that dragon, that great and tortuous serpent; and He shall slay him in that day.

6 But when the same prophet says, "The way shall be called a clean and holy way; over it the unclean thing shall not pass, nor shall be there any unclean way; but the dispersed shall pass over it, and they shall not err therein; no lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon; it shall not be found there," he points out the way of faith, by which we shall reach to God; and then to this way of faith he promises this utter crippling and subjugation of all noxious animals. Lastly, you may discover the suitable times of the promise, if you read what precedes the passage: "Be strong, ye weak hands and ye feeble knees: then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be articulate. When, therefore, He proclaimed the benefits of His cures, then also did He put the scorpions and the serpents under the feet of His saints-even He who had first received this power from the Father, in order to bestow it upon others and then manifested it forth conformably to the order of prophecy.

Chapter XXV.-Christ Thanks the Father for Revealing to Babes What He Had Concealed from the Wise. This Concealment Judiciously Effected by the Creator. Other Points in St. Luke's Chap. X. Shown to Be Only Possible to the Creator's Christ.

1 Who shall be invoked as the Lord of heaven, that does not first show Himself to have been the maker thereof? For He says, "I thank thee, (O Father, )and own Thee, Lord of heaven, because those things which had been hidden from the wise and prudent, Thou has revealed unto babes. What things are these? And whose? And by whom hidden? And by whom revealed? If it was by Marcion's god that they were hidden and revealed, it was an extremely iniquitous proceeding; for nothing at all had he ever produced in which anything could have been hidden-no prophecies, no parables, no visions, no evidences of things, or words, or names, obscured by allegories and figures, or cloudy enigmas, but he had concealed the greatness even of himself, which he was with all his might revealing by his Christ. Now in what respect had the wise and prudent done wrong, that God should be hidden from them, when their wisdom and prudence had been insufficient to come to the knowledge of Him? No way had been provided by himself, by any declaration of his works, or any vestiges whereby they might become wise and prudent. However, if they had even failed in any duty towards a god whom they knew not, suppose him now at last to be known still they ought not to have found a jealous god in him who is introduced as unlike the Creator.

2 Therefore, since he had neither provided any materials in which he could have hidden anything, nor had any offenders from whom he could have hidden himself: since, again, even if he had had any, he ought not to have hidden himself from them, he will not now be himself the revealer, who was not previously the concealer; so neither will any be the Lord of heaven nor the Father of Christ but He in whom all these attributes consistently meet. For He conceals by His preparatory apparatus of prophetic obscurity, the understanding of which is open to faith (for "if ye will not believe, ye shall not understand" ); and He had offenders in those wise and prudent ones who would not seek after God, although He was to be discovered in His so many and mighty works, or who rashly philosophized about Him, and thereby furnished to heretics their arts; and lastly, He is a jealous God. Accordingly, that which Christ thanks God for doing, He long ago announced by Isaiah: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent will I hide. So in another passage He intimates both that He has concealed, and that He will also reveal: "I will give unto them treasures that have been hidden, and secret ones will I discover to them. And again: "Who else shall scatter the tokens of ventriloquists, and the devices of those who divine out of their own heart; turning wise men backward, and making their counsels foolish?

3 " Now, if He has designated His Christ as an enlightener of the Gentiles, saying, "I have set thee for a light of the Gentiles; " and if we understand these to be meant in the word babes -as having been once dwarfs in knowledge and infants in prudence, and even now also babes in their lowliness of faith-we shall of course more easily understand how He who had once hidden "these things," and promised a revelation of them through Christ, was the same God as He who had now revealed them unto babes. Else, if it was Marcion's god who revealed the things which had been formerly hidden by the Creator, it follows that he did the Creator's work by setting forth His deeds. But he did it, say you, for His destruction, that he might refute them. Therefore he ought to have refuted them to those from whom the Creator had hidden them, even the wise and prudent. For if he had a kind intention in what he did, the gift of knowledge was due to those from whom the Creator had detained it, instead of the babes, to whom the Creator had grudged no gift. But after all, it is, I presume, the edification rather than the demolition of the law and the prophets which we have thus far found effected in Christ. "All things," He says, "are delivered unto me of my Father. You may believe Him, if He is the Christ of the Creator to whom all things belong;

4 because the Creator has not delivered to a Son who is less than Himself all things, which He created by Him, that is to say, by His Word. If, on the contrary, he is the notorious stranger, what are the" all things" which have been delivered to him by the Father? Are they the Creator's? Then the things which the Father delivered to the Son are good. and the Creator is therefore good, since all His "things" are good; whereas he is no longer good who has invaded another's good (domains) to deliver it to his son, thus teaching robbery of another's goods. Surely he must be a most mendacious being, who had no other means of enriching his son than by helping himself to another's property! Or else, if nothing of the Creator's has been delivered to him by the Father, by what right does he claim for himself (authority over) man? Or again, if man has been delivered to him, and man alone, then man is not "all things. But Scripture clearly says that a transfer of all things has been made to the Son. If, however, you should interpret this "all" of the whole human race, that is, all nations, then the delivery of even these to the Son is within the purpose of the Creator: "I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.

5 If, indeed, he has some things of his own, the whole of which he might give to his son, along with the man of the Creator, then show some one thing of them all, as a sample, that I may believe; lest I should have as much reason not to believe that all things belong to him, of whom I see nothing, as I have ground for believing that even the things which I see not are His, to whom belongs the universe, which I see. But "no man knoweth who the Father is, but the Son; and who the Son is, but the Father, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him. And so it was an unknown god that Christ preached! And other heretics, too, prop themselves up by this passage; alleging in opposition to it that the Creator was known to all, both to lsrµl by familiar intercourse, and to the Gentiles by nature. Well, how is it He Himself testifies that He was not known to lsrµl? "But Israel doth not know me, and my people doth not consider me; " nor to the Gentiles: "For, behold," says He, "of the nations I have no man. Therefore He reckoned them "as the drop of a bucket," while "Sion He left as a look-out in a vineyard. See, then, whether there be not here a confirmation of the prophet's word, when he rebukes that ignorance of man toward God which continued to the days of the Son of man.

6 For it was on this account that he inserted the clause that the Father is known by him to whom the Son has revealed Him, because it was even He who was announced as set by the Father to be a light to the Gentiles, who of course required to be enlightened concerning God, as well as to Israel, even by imparting to it a fuller knowledge of God. Arguments, therefore, will be of no use for belief in the rival god which may be suitable for the Creator, because it is only such as are unfit for the Creator which will be able to advance belief in His rival. If you look also into the next words, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see, for I tell you that prophets have not seen the things which ye see," you will find that they follow from the sense above, that no man indeed had come to the knowledge of God as he ought to have done, since even the prophets had not seen the things which were being seen under Christ. Now if He had not been my Christ, He would not have made any mention of the prophets in this passage. For what was there to wonder at, if they had not seen the things of a god who had been unknown to them, and was only revealed a long time after them?

7 What blessedness, however, could theirs have been, who were then seeing what others were naturally unable to see, since it was of things which they had never predicted that they had not obtained the sight; if it were not because they might justly have seen the things pertaining to their God, which they had even predicted, but which they at the same time had not seen? This, however, will be the blessedness of others, even of such as were seeing the things which others had only foretold. We shall by and by show, nay, we have already shown, that in Christ those things were seen which had been foretold, but yet had been hidden from the very prophets who foretold them, in order that they might be hidden also from the wise and the prudent. In the true Gospel, a certain doctor of the law comes to the Lord and asks, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life? "In the heretical gospel life only is mentioned, without the attribute eternal; so that the lawyer seems to have consulted Christ simply about the life which the Creator in the law promises to prolong, and the Lord to have therefore answered him according to the law, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength," since the question was concerning the conditions of mere life.

8 But the lawyer of course knew very well in what way the life which the law meant was to be obtained, so that his question could have had no relation to the life whose rules he was himself in the habit of teaching. But seeing that even the dead were now raised by Christ, and being himself excited to the hope of an eternal life by these examples of a restored one, he would lose no more time in merely looking on (at the wonderful things which had made him) so high in hope. He therefore consulted him about the attainment of eternal life. Accordingly, the Lord, being Himself the same, and introducing no new precept other than that which relates above all others to (man's) entire salvation, even including the present and the future life, places before him the very essence of the law-that he should in every possible way love the Lord his God. If, indeed, it were only about a lengthened life, such as is at the Creator's disposal, that he inquired and Christ answered, and not about the eternal life, which is at the disposal of Marcion's god, how is he to obtain the eternal one? Surely not in the same manner as the prolonged life. For in proportion to the difference of the reward must be supposed to be also the diversity of the services.

9 Therefore your disciple, Marcion, will not obtain his eternal life in consequence of loving your God, in the same way as the man who loves the Creator will secure the lengthened life. But how happens it that, if He is to be loved who promises the prolonged I life, He is not much more to be loved who offers the eternal life? Therefore both one and the other life will be at the disposal of one and the same Lord; because one and the same discipline is to be followed for one and the other life. What the Creator teaches to be loved, that must He necessarily maintain also by Christ, for that rule holds good here, which prescribes that greater things ought to be believed of Him who has first lesser proofs to show, than of him for whom no preceding smaller presumptions have secured a claim to be believed in things of higher import. It matters not then, whether the word eternal has been interpolated by us. It is enough for me, that the Christ who invited men to the eternal-not the lengthened-life, when consuited about the temporal life which he was destroying, did not choose to exhort the man rather to that eternal life which he was introducing. Pray, what would the Creator's Christ have done. if He who had made man for loving the Creator did not belong to the Creator? I suppose He would have said that the Creator was not to be loved!

10 Chapter XXVI.-From St. Luke's Eleventh Chapter Other Evidence that Christ Comes from the Creator. The Lord's Prayer and Other Words of Christ. The Dumb Spirit and Christ's Discourse on Occasion of the Expulsion. The Exclamation of the Woman in the Crowd. 11 When in a certain place he had been praying to that Father above, looking up with insolent and audacious eyes to the heaven of the Creator, by whom in His rough and cruel nature he might have been crushed with hail and lightning-just as it was by Him contrived that he was (afterwards) attached to a cross at Jerusalem-one of his disciples came to him and said, "Master, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. This he said, forsooth, because he thought that different prayers were required for different gods! Now, he who had advanced such a conjecture as this should first show that another god had been proclaimed by Christ. For nobody would have wanted to know how to pray, before he had learned whom he was to pray to. If, however, he had already learned this, prove it. If you find nowhere any proof, let me tell you that it was to the Creator that he asked for instruction in prayer, to whom John's disciples also used to pray. But, inasmuch as John had introduced some new order of prayer, this disciple had not improperly presumed to think that he ought also to ask of Christ whether they too must not (according to some special rule of their Master) pray, not indeed to another god, but in another manner. Christ accordingly would not have taught His disciple prayer before He had given him the knowledge of God Himself. Therefore what He actually taught was prayer to Him whom the disciple had already known.

12 In short, you may discover in the import of the prayer what God is addressed therein. To whom can I say, "Father? " To him who had nothing to do with making me, from whom I do not derive my origin? Or to Him, who, by making and fashioning me, became my parent? Of whom can I ask for His Holy Spirit? Of him who gives not even the mundane spirit; or of Him "who maketh His angels spirits," and whose Spirit it was which in the beginning hovered upon the waters. Whose kingdom shall I wish to come-his, of whom I never heard as the king of glory; or His, in whose hand are even the hearts of kings? Who shall give me my daily bread? Shall it be he who produces for me not a grain of millet-seed; or He who even from heaven gave to His people day by day the bread of angels? Who shall forgive me my trespasses? He who, by refusing to judge them, does not retain them; or He who, unless He forgives them, will retain them, even to His judgment? Who shall suffer us not to be led into temptation? He before whom the tempter will never be able to tremble; or He who from the beginning has beforehand condemned the angel tempter? If any one, with such a form, invokes another god and not the Creator, he does not pray; he only blasphemes. In like manner, from whom must I ask that I may receive?

13 Of whom seek, that I may find? To whom knock, that it may be opened to me? Who has to give to him that asks, but He to whom all things belong, and whose am I also that am the asker? What, however, have I lost before that other god, that I should seek of him and find it. If it be wisdom and prudence, it is the Creator who has hidden them. Shall I resort to him, then, in quest of them? If it be health and life, they are at the disposal of the Creator. Nor must anything be sought and found anywhere else than there, where it is kept in secret that it may come to light. So, again, at no other door will I knock than at that out of which my privilege has reached me. In fine, if to receive, and to find, and to be admitted, is the fruit of labour and earnestness to him who has asked, and sought, and knocked, understand that these duties have been enjoined, and results promised, by the Creator. As for that most excellent god of yours, coming as he professes gratuitously to help man, who was not his (creature), he could not have imposed upon him any labour, or (endowed him with) any earnestness.

14 For he would by this time cease to be the most excellent god, were he not spontaneously to give to every one who does not ask, and permit every one who seeks not to find, and open to every one who does not knock. The Creator, on the contrary, was able to proclaim these duties and rewards by Christ, in order that man, who by sinning had offended his God, might toil on (in his probation), and by his perseverance in asking might receive, and in seeking might find, and in knocking might enter. Accordingly, the preceding similitude represents the man who went at night and begged for the loaves, in the light of a friend and not a stranger, and makes him knock at a friend's house and not at a stranger's. But even if he has offended, man is more of a friend with the Creator than with the god of Marcion. At His door, therefore, does he knock to whom he had the right of access; whose gate he had found; whom he knew to possess bread; in bed now with His children, whom He had willed to be born. Even though the knocking is late in the day, it is yet the Creator's time. To Him belongs the latest hour who owns an entire age and the end thereof. As for the new god, however, no one could have knocked at his door late, for he has hardly yet seen the light of morning.

15 It is the Creator, who once shut the door to the Gentiles, which was then knocked at by the Jews, that both rises and gives, if not now to man as a friend, yet not as a stranger, but, as He says, "because of his importunity. Importunate, however, the recent god could not have permitted any one to be in the short time (since his appearance). Him, therefore, whom you call the Creator recognise also as "Father. It is even He who knows what His children require. For when they asked for bread, He gave them manna from heaven; and when they wanted flesh, He sent them abundance of quails-not a serpent for a fish, nor for an egg a scorpion. It will, however, appertain to Him not to give evil instead of good, who has both one and the other in His power. Marcion's god, on the contrary, not having a scorpion, was unable to refuse to give what he did not possess; only He (could do so), who, having a scorpion, yet gives it not. In like manner, it is He who will give the Holy Spirit, at whose command is also the unholy spirit. When He cast out the "demon which was dumb" (and by a cure of this sort verified Isaiah), and having been charged with casting out demons by Beelzebub, He said, "If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?

16 " By such a question what does He otherwise mean, than that He ejects the spirits by the same power by which their sons also did-that is, by the power of the Creator? For if you suppose the meaning to be, "If I by Beelzebub, etc., by whom your sons? "-as if He would reproach them with having the power of Beelzebub,-you are met at once by the preceding sentence, that "Satan cannot be divided against himself. So that it was not by Beelzebub that even they were casting out demons, but (as we have said) by the power of the Creator; and that He might make this understood, He adds: "But if I with the finger of God cast out demons, is not the kingdom of God come near unto you? " For the magicians who stood before Pharaoh and resisted Moses called the power of the Creator"the finger of God. It was the finger of God, because it was a sign that even a thing of weakness was yet abundant in strength. This Christ also showed, when, recalling to notice (and not obliterating) those ancient wonders which were really His own, He said that the power of God must be understood to be the finger of none other God than Him, under whom it had received this appellation. His kingdom, therefore, was come near to them, whose power was called His "finger.

17 Well, therefore, did He connect with the parable of "the strong man armed," whom "a stronger man still overcame," the prince of the demons, whom He had already called Beelzebub and Satan; signifying that it was he who was overcome by the finger of God, and not that the Creator had been subdued by another god. Besides, how could His kingdom be still standing, with its boundaries, and laws, and functions, whom, even if the whole world were left entire to Him, Marcion's god could possibly seem to have overcome as "the stronger than He," if it were not in consequence of His law that even Marcionites were constantly dying, by returning in their dissolution to the ground, and were so often admonished by even a scorpion, that the Creator had by no means been overcome? "A (certain) mother of the company exclaims, `Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked; 'but the Lord said, `Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.'" Now He had in precisely similar terms rejected His mother or His brethren, whilst preferring those who heard and obeyed God. His mother, however, was not here present with Him. On that former occasion, therefore, He had not denied that He was her son by birth.

18 On hearing this (salutation) the second time, He the second time transferred, as He had done before, the "blessedness" to His disciples from the womb and the paps of His mother, from whom, however, unless He had in her (a real mother) He could not have transferred it.

Chapter XXVII.-Christ's Reprehension of the Pharisees Seeking a Sign. His Censure of Their Love of Outward Show Rather Than Inward Holiness. Scripture Abounds with Admonitions of a Similar Purport. Proofs of His Mission from the Creator.

1 I prefer elsewhere refuting the faults which the Marcionites find in the Creator. It is here enough that they are also found in Christ. Behold how unequal, inconsistent, and capricious he is! Teaching one thing and doing another, he enjoins "giving to every one that seeks; "and yet he himself refuses to give to those "who seek a sign. For a vast age he hides his own light from men, and yet says that a candle must not be hidden, but affirms that it ought to be set upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all. He forbids cursing again, and cursing much more of course; and yet he heaps his woe upon the Pharisees and doctors of the law. Who so closely resembles my God as: His own Christ? We have often already laid it down for certain, that He could not have been branded as the destroyer of the law if He had promulged another god. Therefore even the Pharisee, who invited Him to dinner in the passage before us, expressed some surprise in His presence that He had not washed before He sat down to meat, in accordance with the law, since it was the God of the law that He was proclaiming. Jesus also interpreted the law to him when He told him that they "made clean the outside of the cup and the platter, whereas their inward part was full of ravening and wickedness.

2 This He said, to signify that by the cleansing of vessels was to be understood before God the purification of men, inasmuch as it was about a man, and not about an unwashed vessel, that even this Pharisee had been treating in His presence. He therefore said: "You wash the outside of the cup," that is, the flesh, "but you do not cleanse your inside part," that is, the soul; adding: "Did not He that made the outside," that is, the flesh, "also make the inward part," that is to say, the soul?-by which assertion He expressly declared that to the same God belongs the cleansing of a man's external and internal nature, both alike being in the power of Him who prefers mercy not only to man's washing, but even to sacrifice. For He subjoins the command: "Give what ye possess as alms, and all things shall be clean unto you. Even if another god could have enjoined mercy, he could not have done so previous to his becoming known. Furthermore, it is in this passage evident that they were not reproved concerning their God, but concerning a point of His instruction to them, when He prescribed to them figuratively the cleansing of their vessels, but really the works of merciful dispositions. In like manner, He upbraids them for tithing paltry herbs, but at the same time "passing over hospitality and the love of God. The vocation and the love of what God, but Him by whose law of tithes they used to offer their rue and mint?

3 For the whole point of the rebuke lay in this, that they cared about small matters in His service of course, to whom they failed to exhibit their weightier duties when He commanded them: "Thou shalt love with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, the Lord thy God, who hath called thee out of Egypt. Besides, time enough had not yet passed to admit of Christ's requiring so premature-nay, as yet so distasteful -a love towards a new and recent, not to say a hardly i yet developed, deity. When, again, He upbraids those who caught at the uppermost places and the honour of public salutations, He only follows out the Creator's course, who calls ambitious persons of this character "rulers of Sodom" who forbids us "to put confidence even in princes," and pronounces him to be altogether wretched who places his confidence in man. But whoever aims at high position, because he would glory in the officious attentions of other people, (in every such case, ) inasmuch as He forbade such attentions (in the shape) of placing hope and confidence in man, He at the same time censured all who were ambitious of high positions. He also inveighs against the doctors of the law themselves, because they were "lading men with burdens grievous to be borne, which they did not venture to touch with even a finger of their own; " but not as if He made a mock of the burdens of the law with any feeling of detestation towards it.

4 For how could He have felt aversion to the law, who used with so much earnestness to upbraid them for passing over its weightier matters, alms-giving, hospitality, and the love of God? Nor, indeed, was it only these great things (which He recognized), but even the tithes of rue and the cleansing of cups. But, in truth, He would rather have deemed them excusable for being unable to carry burdens which could not be borne. What, then, are the burdens which He censures? None but those which they were accumulating of their own accord, when they taught for commandments the doctrines of men; for the sake of private advantage joining house to house, so as to deprive their neighbour of his own; cajoling the people, loving gifts, pursuing rewards, robbing the poor of the rights of judgment, that they might have the widow for a prey and the fatherless for a spoil. Of these Isaiah also says, "Woe unto them that are strong in Jerusalem! and again, "They that demand you shall rule over you. And who did this more than the lawyers? Now, if these offended Christ, it was as belonging to Him that they offended Him. He would have aimed no blow at the teachers of an alien law. But why is a "woe" pronounced against them for "building the sepulchres of the prophets whom their fathers had killed? " They rather deserved praise, because by such an act of piety they seemed to show that they did not allow the deeds of their fathers.

5 Was it not because (Christ) was jealous of such a disposition as the Marcionites denounce, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the fourth generation? What "key," indeed, was it which these lawyers had, but the interpretation of the law? Into the perception of this they neither entered themselves, even because they did not believe (for "unless ye believe, ye shall not understand"); nor did they permit others to enter, because they preferred to teach them for commandments even the doctrines of men. When, therefore, He reproached those who did not themselves enter in, and also shut the door against others, must He be regarded as a disparager of the law, or as a supporter of it? If a disparager, those who were hindering the law ought to have been pleased; if a supporter, He is no longer an enemy of the law. But all these imprecations He uttered in order to tarnish the Creator as a cruel Being, against whom such as offended were destined to have a "woe. And who would not rather have feared to provoke a cruel Being, by withdrawing allegiance from Him? Therefore the more He represented the Creator to be an object of fear, the more earnestly would He teach that He ought to be served. Thus would it behove the Creator's Christ to act.