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| Marcion Untrue to His Theory. He Pretends that His Gods are Equal, But He Really Makes Them Diverse. Then, Allowing Their Divinity, Denies This Diversity. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter VI.—Marcion
Untrue to His Theory. He Pretends that His Gods are Equal, But He
Really Makes Them Diverse. Then, Allowing Their Divinity, Denies
This Diversity.
Thus far our discussion seems to imply that
Marcion makes his two gods equal. For while we have been maintaining
that God ought to be believed as the one only great Supreme Being,
excluding from Him every possibility2388 of equality,
we have treated of these topics on the assumption of two equal
Gods; but nevertheless, by teaching that no equals can
exist according to the law2389 of the Supreme
Being, we have sufficiently affirmed the impossibility that two
equals should exist. For the rest, however,2390 we
know full well2391 that Marcion makes
his gods unequal: one judicial, harsh, mighty in war; the other mild,
placid, and simply2392 good and excellent.
Let us with similar care consider also this aspect of the question,
whether diversity (in the Godhead) can at any rate contain two,
since equality therein failed to do so. Here again the same rule
about the great Supreme will protect us, inasmuch as it
settles2393 the entire
condition of the Godhead. Now, challenging, and in a certain
sense arresting2394
2394 Injecta manu
detinens. | the meaning of our
adversary, who does not deny that the Creator is God, I most fairly
object2395 against him that he
has no room for any diversity in his gods, because, having once
confessed that they are on a par,2396
2396 Ex æquo deos
confessus. | he cannot now
pronounce them different; not indeed that human beings may not be very
different under the same designation, but because the Divine Being can
be neither said nor believed to be God, except as the great Supreme.
Since, therefore, he is obliged to acknowledge that the God whom he
does not deny is the great Supreme, it is inadmissible that he should
predicate of the Supreme Being such a diminution as should subject Him
to another Supreme Being. For He ceases (to be Supreme), if He
becomes subject to any. Besides, it is not the characteristic of God to
cease from any attribute2397 of His
divinity—say, from His supremacy. For at this rate the
supremacy would be endangered even in Marcion’s more powerful
god, if it were capable of depreciation in the Creator. When,
therefore, two gods are pronounced to be two great Supremes, it must
needs follow that neither of them is greater or less than the other,
neither of them loftier or lowlier than the other. If you deny2398 him to be God whom you call inferior, you
deny2399 the supremacy of this inferior being.
But when you confessed both gods to be divine, you confessed them both
to be supreme. Nothing will you be able to take away from either of
them; nothing will you be able to add. By allowing their divinity, you
have denied their diversity.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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