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| Chapter XX.—The apocryphal and spurious Scriptures of the Marcosians, with passages of the Gospels which they pervert.
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Chapter XX.—The apocryphal and
spurious Scriptures of the Marcosians, with passages of the Gospels which they
pervert.
1. Besides the above
[misrepresentations], they adduce an unspeakable number of apocryphal and
spurious writings, which they themselves have forged, to bewilder the
minds of foolish men, and of such as are ignorant of the Scriptures of
truth. Among other things, they bring forward that false and wicked
story2911
| 2911 [From the
Protevangel of Thomas. Compare the curious work of Dominic
Deodati, De Christo Græce loquente, p. 95. London, 1843.]
| which
relates that our Lord, when He was a boy
learning His letters, on the teacher saying to Him, as is usual,
“Pronounce Alpha,” replied [as He was bid],
“Alpha.” But when, again, the teacher bade Him say,
“Beta,” the Lord replied, “Do thou first tell me what
Alpha is, and then I will tell thee what Beta is.” This they
expound as meaning that He alone knew the Unknown, which He revealed
under its type Alpha.
2. Some passages, also, which occur in the
Gospels, receive from them a colouring of the same kind, such as the
answer which He gave His mother when He was twelve years of age:
“Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s
business?”2912
Thus, they say, He
announced to them the Father of whom they were ignorant. On this account,
also, He sent forth the disciples to the twelve tribes, that they might
proclaim to them the unknown God. And to the person who said to Him,
“Good Master,”2913
He
confessed that God who is truly good, saying, “Why callest thou Me
good: there is One who is good, the Father in the heavens;”2914
and they assert that in this passage the Æons
receive the name of heavens. Moreover, by His not replying to those who
said to Him, “By what power doest Thou this?”2915
but by a question on His own side, put them to
utter confusion; by His thus not replying, according to their
interpretation, He showed the unutterable nature of the Father. Moreover,
when He said, “I have often desired to hear one of these words, and
I had no one who could utter it,”2916
| 2916 Taken from some apocryphal writing. | they
maintain, that by this expression “one” He set forth the one
true God whom they knew not. Further, when, as He drew nigh to Jerusalem,
He wept over it and said, “If thou hadst known, even thou, in this
thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace, but they are hidden from
thee,”2917
by this
word “hidden” He showed the abstruse nature of Bythus. And
again, when He said, “Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest, and learn of Me,”2918
He announced the Father of truth. For what they knew not, these
men say that He promised to teach them.
3. But they adduce the following passage as the highest
testimony,2919
| 2919 The
translator evidently read τῶν for τήν, in which case the
rendering will be “proof of those most high,” but the Greek
text seems preferable. | and, as it were, the very crown of
their system:—“I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
hast revealed them to babes. Even so, my Father; for so it seemed good in
Thy sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father; and no one
knoweth the Father but the Son, or the Son but the Father, and he to whom
the Son will reveal Him.”2920
In these words they affirm that He clearly showed that the Father of
truth, conjured into existence by them, was known to no one before His
advent. And they desire to construe the passage as if teaching that the
Maker and Framer [of the world] was always known by all, while the Lord
spoke these words concerning the Father unknown to all, whom they now
proclaim.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
