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| The Goodness of Marcion's God Only Imperfectly Manifested; It Saves But Few, and the Souls Merely of These. Marcion's Contempt of the Body Absurd.
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Chapter XXIV.—The
Goodness of Marcion’s God Only Imperfectly Manifested; It Saves
But Few, and the Souls Merely of These. Marcion’s Contempt of the
Body Absurd.
But as God is eternal and rational, so, I think,
He is perfect in all things. “Be ye perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect.”2619
Prove, then, that the goodness of your god also is a perfect one. That
it is indeed imperfect has been already sufficiently shown,
since it is found to be neither natural nor rational. The same
conclusion, however, shall now be made clear2620
by
another method; it is not simply2621
imperfect, but
actually2622
feeble, weak, and
exhausted, failing to embrace the full number2623
of
its material objects, and not manifesting itself in them all. For all
are not put into a state of salvation2624
| 2624 Non fiunt salvi.
[Kaye, p. 347.] | by
it; but the Creator’s subjects, both Jew and Christian, are all
excepted.2625
Now, when the
greater part thus perish, how can that goodness be defended as a
perfect one which is inoperative in most cases, is somewhat only in
few, naught in many, succumbs to perdition, and is a partner with
destruction?2626
And if so many
shall miss salvation, it will not be with goodness, but with malignity,
that the greater perfection will lie. For as it is the operation of
goodness which brings salvation, so is it malevolence which thwarts
it.2627
Since, however, this goodness) saves but
few, and so rather leans to the alternative of not saving, it will show
itself to greater perfection by not interposing help than by helping.
Now, you will not be able to attribute goodness (to your god) in
reference to the Creator, (if accompanied with) failure towards all.
For whomsoever you call in to judge the question, it is as a dispenser
of goodness, if so be such a title can be made out,2628
| 2628 Si forte (i.e.,
εἰ
τύχοι εἴπερ
ἄρα, with a touch of irony,— a frequent
phrase in Tertullian. | and not as a squanderer thereof, as you
claim your god to be, that you must submit the divine character for
determination. So long, then, as you prefer your god to the
Creator on the simple ground of his goodness, and since he professes to
have this attribute as solely and wholly his own, he ought not to have
been wanting in it to any one. However, I do not now wish to prove that
Marcion’s god is imperfect in goodness because of the perdition
of the greater number. I am content to illustrate this imperfection by the fact that even
those whom he saves are found to possess but an imperfect
salvation—that is, they are saved only so far as the soul is
concerned,2629
| 2629 Anima tenus.
Comp.De Præscr. Hær. 33, where Marcion, as well as
Apelles, Valentinus, and others, are charged with the Sadducean denial
of the resurrection of the flesh, which is censured by St. Paul,
1 Cor. xv. 12. | but lost in their
body, which, according to him, does not rise again. Now, whence comes
this halving of salvation, if not from a failure of goodness? What
could have been a better proof of a perfect goodness, than the recovery
of the whole man to salvation? Totally damned by the Creator, he should
have been totally restored by the most merciful god. I rather think
that by Marcion’s rule the body is baptized, is deprived of
marriage,2630
is cruelly tortured
in confession. But although sins are attributed to the body, yet they
are preceded by the guilty concupiscence of the soul; nay, the first
motion of sin must be ascribed to the soul, to which the flesh acts in
the capacity of a servant. By and by, when freed from the soul, the
flesh sins no more.2631
| 2631 Hactenus. [Kaye, p.
260.] | So that in this
matter goodness is unjust, and likewise imperfect, in that it leaves to
destruction the more harmless substance, which sins rather by
compliance than in will. Now, although Christ put not on the verity of
the flesh, as your heresy is pleased to assume, He still vouchsafed to
take upon Him the semblance thereof. Surely, therefore, some regard was
due to it from Him, because of this His feigned assumption of it.
Besides, what else is man than flesh, since no doubt it was the
corporeal rather than the spiritual2632
| 2632 Animalis (from
anima, the vital principle, “the breath of life”) is
here opposed to corporalis. | element from
which the Author of man’s nature gave him his
designation?2633
| 2633 םרָאָהָ,
homo, from המָרַאְַהָ,
humus, the ground; see the Hebrew of Gen. ii. 7. | “And the
Lord God made man of the dust of the
ground,” not of spiritual essence; this afterwards came from the
divine afflatus: “and man became a living
soul.” What, then, is man? Made, no doubt of it, of the
dust; and God placed him in paradise, because He moulded him, not
breathed him, into being—a fabric of flesh, not of spirit. Now,
this being the case, with what face will you contend for the perfect
character of that goodness which did not fail in some one particular
only of man’s deliverance, but in its general capacity? If that
is a plenary grace and a substantial mercy which brings salvation to
the soul alone, this were the better life which we now enjoy whole and
entire; whereas to rise again but in part will be a chastisement, not a
liberation. The proof of the perfect goodness is, that man, after
his rescue, should be delivered from the domicile and power of the
malignant deity unto the protection of the most good and merciful
God. Poor dupe of Marcion, fever2634
is
hard upon you; and your painful flesh produces a crop of all sorts of
briers and thorns. Nor is it only to the Creator’s thunderbolts
that you lie exposed, or to wars, and pestilences, and His other
heavier strokes, but even to His creeping insects. In what respect do
you suppose yourself liberated from His kingdom when His flies are
still creeping upon your face? If your deliverance lies in the future,
why not also in the present, that it may be perfectly wrought? Far
different is our condition in the sight of Him who is the Author, the
Judge, the injured2635
| 2635 Offensum, probably in
respect of the Marcionite treatment of His attributes. | Head of our race!
You display Him as a merely good God; but you are unable to prove that
He is perfectly good, because you are not by Him perfectly
delivered.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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