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| The Marcionites Charged God with Having Instigated the Hebrews to Spoil the Egyptians. Defence of the Divine Dispensation in that Matter.
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Chapter XX.—The
Marcionites Charged God with Having Instigated the Hebrews to Spoil the
Egyptians. Defence of the Divine Dispensation in that
Matter.
But these “saucy cuttles”2944
| 2944 Sepiæ
isti. Pliny, in his Nat. Hist. ix. 29, says:
“The males of the cuttles kind are spotted with sundry colours
more dark and blackish, yes, and more firme and steady, than the
female. If the female be smitted with the trout-speare, they will come
to succour her; but she again is not so kind to them: for if the male
be stricken, she will not stand to it, but runs away. But both of them,
if they perceive that they be taken in such streights that they cannot
escape, shed from them a certain black humor like to ink; and when the
water therewith is troubled and made duskish, therein they hide
themselves, and are no more seen” (Holland’s
Translation, p. 250). Our epithet “saucy
cuttle” comes from Shakespeare, 2 Henry iv 2, 4, where, however, the word seems employed in a
different sense. | (of heretics) under the figure of whom the law about
things to be eaten2945
prohibited this
very kind of piscatory aliment, as soon as they find themselves
confuted, eject the black venom of their blasphemy, and so spread about
in all directions the object which (as is now plain) they severally
have in view, when they put forth such assertions and protestations as
shall obscure and tarnish the rekindled light2946
| 2946 Relucentem,
“rekindled” by the confutation. | of
the Creator’s bounty. We will, however, follow their wicked
design, even through these black clouds, and drag to light their tricks
of dark calumny, laying to the Creator’s charge with especial
emphasis the fraud and theft of gold and silver which the Hebrews were
commanded by Him to practise against the Egyptians. Come, unhappy
heretic, I cite even you as a witness; first look at the case of the
two nations, and then you will form a judgment of the Author of the
command. The Egyptians put in a claim on the Hebrews for these
gold and silver vessels.2947
The Hebrews assert
a counter claim, alleging that by the bond2948
| 2948 Nomine. [Here our
author exhibits his tact as a jurisconsult.] | of
their respective fathers, attested by the written engagement of both
parties, there were due to them the arrears of that laborious slavery
of theirs, for the bricks they had so painfully made, and the cities
and palaces2949
which they had
built. What shall be your verdict, you discoverer2950
of the most good God? That the Hebrews must
admit the fraud, or the Egyptians the compensation? For they maintain
that thus has the question been settled by the advocates on both
sides,2951
| 2951 For a discussion
of the spoiling of the Egyptians by the Israelites, the reader is
referred to Calmet’s Commentary, on Ex. iii. 22, where he
adduces, besides this passage of Tertullian, the opinions of
Irenæus, adv. Hæres. iv. 49; Augustine,
contra Faust. ii. 71; Theodoret, Quæst. in
Exod. xxiii.; Clement of Alex. Stromat. i. 1; of
Philo, De Vita Moysis, i.; Josephus, Antiqq.
ii. 8, who says that “the Egyptians freely gave all to the
Israelites;” of Melchior Canus, Loc. Theoll. i. 4. He also
refers to the book of Wisdom, x. 17–20. These all substantially
agree with our author. See also a full discussion in Selden,
De Jure Nat. et Gentium, vii. 8, who quotes from the
Gemara, Sanhedrin, c. ii. f. 91a; and Bereshith Rabba,
par. 61 f., 68, col. 2, where such a tribunal as Tertullian refers to
is mentioned as convened by Alexander the Great, who, after hearing the
pleadings, gave his assent to the claims of the advocates of
Israel. | of the Egyptians
demanding their vessels, and the Hebrews claiming the requital of their
labours. But for all they say,2952
the Egyptians
justly renounced their restitution-claim then and there; while the
Hebrews to this day, in spite of the Marcionites, re-assert their
demand for even greater damages,2953
insisting
that, however large was their loan of the gold and silver, it would not
be compensation enough, even if the labour of six hundred thousand men
should be valued at only “a farthing”2954
| 2954 Singulis nummis.
[Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 23. Vol. II., p. 336,
supra.] | a day a piece. Which, however, were the more
in number—those who claimed the vessel, or those who dwelt in the
palaces and cities? Which, too, the greater—the grievance of the
Egyptians against the Hebrews, or “the favour”2955
| 2955 Gratia Hebræorum,
either a reference to Ex. iii. 21, or meaning, perhaps, “the
unpaid services of the Hebrews.” | which they displayed towards them? Were free
men reduced to servile labour, in order that the Hebrews might simply
proceed against the Egyptians by action at law for injuries; or in
order that their officers might on their benches sit and exhibit their
backs and shoulders shamefully mangled by the fierce application of the
scourge? It was not by a few plates and cup—in all cases the
property, no doubt, of still fewer rich men—that any one would
pronounce that compensation should have been awarded to the Hebrews,
but both by all the resources of these and by the contributions of all
the people.2956
If, therefore, the
case of the Hebrews be a good one, the Creator’s case must
likewise be a good one; that is to say, his command, when He both made
the Egyptians unconsciously grateful, and also gave His own people
their discharge in full2957
at the time of
their migration by the scanty comfort of a tacit requital of their
long servitude. It was plainly less than their due which He
commanded to be exacted. The Egyptians ought to have given back their
men-children2958
| 2958 Ex. i. 18; 22. [An ingenious and eloquent
defence.] | also to the
Hebrews.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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