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| God's Attribute of Goodness Considered as Rational. Marcion's God Defective Here Also; His Goodness Irrational and Misapplied. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
XXIII.—God’s Attribute of Goodness Considered as Rational.
Marcion’s God Defective Here Also; His Goodness Irrational and
Misapplied.
Here is another rule for him. All the properties
of God ought to be as rational as they are natural. I require reason in
His goodness, because nothing else can properly be accounted good than
that which is rationally good; much less can goodness itself be
detected in any irrationality. More easily will an evil thing which has
something rational belonging to it be accounted good, than that a good
thing bereft of all reasonable quality should escape being regarded as
evil. Now I deny that the goodness of Marcion’s god is rational,
on this account first, because it proceeded to the salvation of a human
creature which was alien to him. I am aware of the plea which they will
adduce, that that is rather2600 a primary and
perfect goodness which is shed voluntarily and freely upon strangers
without any obligation of friendship,2601 on
the principle that we are bidden to love even our enemies, such as are
also on that very account strangers to us. Now, inasmuch as from
the first he had no regard for man, a stranger to him from the first,
he settled beforehand, by this neglect of his, that he had nothing to
do with an alien creature. Besides, the rule of loving a stranger
or enemy is preceded by the precept of your loving your neighbour as
yourself; and this precept, although coming from the Creator’s
law, even you ought to receive, because, so far from being abrogated by
Christ, it has rather been confirmed by Him. For you are bidden to love
your enemy and the stranger, in order that you may love your neighbour
the better. The requirement of the undue is an augmentation of the due
benevolence. But the due precedes the undue, as the principal quality,
and more worthy of the other, for its attendant and companion.2602
2602 This is the sense of
the passage as read by Oehler: “Antecedit autem debita indebitam,
ut principalis, ut dignior ministra et comite sua, id est
indebita.” Fr. Junius, however, added the word
“prior” which begins the next sentence to these words,
making the last clause run thus: “ut dignior ministra, et comite
sua, id est indebita, prior”—“as being more worthy of
an attendant, and as being prior to its companion, that is, the undue
benevolence.” It is difficult to find any good use of the
“prior” in the next sentence, “Prior igitur cum prima
bonitatis ratio sit,” etc., as Oehler and others point it. | Since, therefore, the first step in the
reasonableness of the divine goodness is that it displays itself on its
proper object2603 in righteousness,
and only at its second stage on an alien object by a redundant
righteousness over and above that of scribes and Pharisees, how comes
it to pass that the second is attributed to him who fails in the first,
not having man for his proper object, and who makes his goodness on
this very account defective? Moreover, how could a defective
benevolence, which had no proper object whereon to expend itself,
overflow2604 on an alien one?
Clear up the first step, and then vindicate the next. Nothing can
be claimed as rational without order, much less can reason
itself2605
2605 Ratio ipsa, i.e.,
rationality, or the character of reasonableness, which he is now
vindicating. | dispense with order
in any one. Suppose now the divine goodness begin at the second
stage of its rational operation, that is to say, on the stranger, this
second stage will not be consistent in rationality if it be impaired in
any way else.2606
2606 Alio modo
destructus. | For only then will
even the second stage of goodness, that which is displayed towards the
stranger, be accounted rational, when it operates without wrong to him
who has the first claim.2607 It is
righteousness2608
2608 Justitia,
right as opposed to the wrong (injuria) of the
preceding sentence. | which before
everything else makes all goodness rational. It will thus be rational
in its principal stage, when manifested on its proper object, if it be
righteous. And thus, in like manner, it will be able to appear
rational, when displayed towards the stranger, if it be not
unrighteous. But what sort of goodness is that which is manifested in
wrong, and that in behalf of an alien creature? For
peradventure a benevolence, even when operating injuriously, might be
deemed to some extent rational, if exerted for one of our own house and
home.2609
2609 Pro domestico, opposed
to the pro extraneo, the alien or stranger of the preceding and
succeeding context. | By what rule, however, can an unjust
benevolence, displayed on behalf of a stranger, to whom not even an
honest one is legitimately due, be defended as a rational one? For what
is more unrighteous, more unjust, more dishonest, than so to benefit an
alien slave as to take him away from his master, claim him as the
property of another, and suborn him against his master’s life;
and all this, to make the matter more iniquitous still whilst he is yet
living in his master’s house and on his master’s garner,
and still trembling beneath his stripes? Such a deliverer,2610 I had almost said2611
kidnapper,2612 would even meet
with condemnation in the world. Now, no other than this is the
character of Marcion’s god, swooping upon an alien world,
snatching away man from his God,2613 the son from
his father, the pupil from his tutor, the servant from his
master—to make him impious to his God, undutiful to his father,
ungrateful to his tutor, worthless to his master. If, now, the rational
benevolence makes man such, what sort of being prithee2614 would the irrational make of him? None I
should think more shameless than him who is baptized to his2615
2615 Alii Deo. The strength
of this phrase is remarkable by the side of the oft-repeated
aliena. | god in water which belongs to another, who
stretches out his hands2616
2616 Therefore
Christians used to lift their hands and arms towards heaven in prayer.
Compare The Apology, chap. 30, (where the manibus
expansis betokens the open hand, not merely as the heathen
tendens ad sidera palmas). See also De Orat. c. 13,
and other passages from different writers referred to in the
“Tertullian” of the Oxford Library of the Fathers,
p. 70. [See the figures in the Catacombs as represented by
Parker, Marriott and others.] | to his god towards
a heaven which is another’s, who kneels to his god on ground
which is another’s, offers his thanksgivings to his god over
bread which belongs to another,2617
2617 To the same
effect Irenæus had said: “How will it be consistent in them
to hold that the bread on which thanks are given is the body of their
Lord, and that the cup is His blood, if they do not acknowledge that He
is the Son of the Creator of the world, that is, the Word of
God?” (Rigalt.) [The consecrated bread is still
bread, in Patristic theology.] | and
distributes2618
2618 Operatur, a not
unfrequent use of the word. Thus Prudentius (Psychom. 572)
opposes operatio to avaritia. | by way of alms and
charity, for the sake of his god, gifts which belong to another God.
Who, then, is that so good a god of theirs, that man through him
becomes evil; so propitious, too, as to incense against man that other
God who is, indeed, his own proper Lord?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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