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| Notwithstanding Their Conceits, the God of the Marcionites Fails in the Vouchers Both of Created Evidence and of Adequate Revelation. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
XVIII.—Notwithstanding Their Conceits, the God of the Marcionites
Fails in the Vouchers Both of Created Evidence and of Adequate
Revelation.
Well, then,2531 he has now
advanced into notice, just when he willed, when he could, when the
destined hour arrived. For perhaps he was hindered hitherto by his
leading star,2532
2532 Anabibazon. The
ἀναβιβάζων
was the most critical point in the ecliptic, in the old astrology, for
the calculation of stellar influences. | or some weird
malignants, or Saturn in quadrature,2533 or Mars at the
trine.2534
2534 Trigonus. Saturn
and Mars were supposed to be malignant planets. See Smith, Greek and
Rom. Ant. p. 144, c. 2. | The Marcionites are
very strongly addicted to astrology; nor do they blush to get their
livelihood by help of the very stars which were made by the Creator
(whom they depreciate). We must here also treat of the quality2535 of the (new) revelation; whether
Marcion’s supreme god has become known in a way worthy of
him, so as to secure the proof of his existence: and in the way
of truth, so that he may be believed to be the very being who had
been already proved to have been revealed in a manner worthy of his
character. For things which are worthy of God will prove the existence
of God. We maintain2536 that God must first
be known2537 from nature,
and afterwards authenticated2538 by
instruction: from nature by His works; by instruction,2539 through His revealed announcements.2540 Now, in a case where nature is excluded, no
natural means (of knowledge) are furnished. He ought, therefore,
to have carefully supplied2541 a revelation of
himself, even by announcements, especially as he had to be revealed in
opposition to One who, after so many and so great works, both of
creation and revealed announcement, had with difficulty succeeded in
satisfying2542 men’s faith.
In what manner, therefore, has the revelation been made? If by
man’s conjectural guesses, do not say that God can possibly
become known in any other way than by Himself, and appeal not only to
the standard of the Creator, but to the conditions both of God’s
greatness and man’s littleness; so that man seem not by any
possibility to be greater than God, by having somehow drawn Him out
into public recognition, when He was Himself unwilling to become known
by His own energies, although man’s littleness has been able,
according to experiments all over the world, more easily to fashion for
itself gods, than to follow the true God whom men now understand by
nature. As for the rest,2543 if man shall be
thus able to devise a god,—as Romulus did Consus, and Tatius
Cloacina, and Hostilius Fear, and Metellus Alburnus, and a certain
authority2544
2544 He means the Emperor
Hadrian; comp. Apolog. c. 13. | some time since
Antinous,—the same accomplishment may be allowed to others. As
for us, we have found our pilot in Marcion, although not a king nor an
emperor.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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