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| The Title Christ Suitable as a Name of the Creator's Son, But Unsuited to Marcion's Christ.
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Chapter XV.—The Title Christ Suitable as a Name of the
Creator’s Son, But Unsuited to Marcion’s Christ.
Touching then the discussion of His flesh, and
(through that) of His nativity, and incidentally3301
of His name Emmanuel, let this
suffice. Concerning His other names, however, and especially that
of Christ, what has the other side to say in reply? If the name of
Christ is as common with you as is the name of God—so that as the
Son of both Gods may be fitly called Christ, so each of the Fathers may
be called Lord—reason will certainly be opposed to this argument.
For the name of God, as being the natural designation of Deity, may be
ascribed to all those beings for whom a divine nature is
claimed,—as, for instance, even to idols. The apostle says:
“For there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in
earth.”3302
The name of Christ,
however, does not arise from nature, but from dispensation;3303
| 3303 Ex dispositione.
This word seems to mean what is implied in the phrases,
“Christian dispensation,” “Mosaic
dispensation,” etc. | and so becomes the proper name of Him to
whom it accrues in consequence of the dispensation. Nor is it subject
to be shared in by any other God, especially a rival, and one that has
a dispensation of His own, to whom it will be also necessary that He
should possess names apart from all others. For how happens it that,
after they have devised different dispensations for two
Gods they admit into this diversity of dispensation a community
of names; whereas no proof could be more useful of two Gods being rival
ones, than if there should be found coincident with their (diverse)
dispensations a diversity also of names? For that is not a state of
diverse qualities, which is not distinctly indicated3304
in the specific meanings3305
of their designations. Whenever these are
wanting, there occurs what the Greeks call the
katachresis3306
| 3306 Quintilian,
Inst. viii. 6, defines this as a figure “which lends a
name to things which have it not.” | of a term, by
its improper application to what does not belong to it.3307
In God, however, there ought, I suppose, to
be no defect, no setting up of His dispensations by
katachrestic abuse of words. Who is this god, that claims
for his son names from the Creator? I say not names which do not belong
to him, but ancient and well-known names, which even in this view of
them would be unsuitable for a novel and unknown god. How is it,
again, that he tells us that “a piece of new cloth is not sewed
on to an old garment,” or that “new wine is not trusted to
old bottles,”3308
when he is himself
patched and clad in an old suit3309
of names? How
is it he has rent off the gospel from the law, when he is wholly
invested with the law,—in the name, forsooth, of Christ? What
hindered his calling himself by some other name, seeing that he
preached another (gospel), came from another source, and refused to
take on him a real body, for the very purpose that he might not be
supposed to be the Creator’s Christ? Vain, however, was his
unwillingness to seem to be He whose name he was willing to assume;
since, even if he had been truly corporeal, he would more certainly
escape being taken for the Christ of the Creator, if he had not taken
on him His name. But, as it is, he rejects the substantial verity
of Him whose name he has assumed, even though he should give a proof of
that verity by his name. For Christ means anointed, and to be
anointed is certainly an affair3310
of the body.
He who had not a body, could not by any possibility have been anointed;
he who could not by any possibility have been anointed, could not in
any wise have been called Christ. It is a different thing (quite), if
he only assumed the phantom of a name too. But how, he asks, was he to
insinuate himself into being believed by the Jews, except through a
name which was usual and familiar amongst them? Then ’tis a
fickle and tricksty God whom you describe! To promote any plan by
deception, is the resource of either distrust or of maliciousness. Much
more frank and simple was the conduct of the false prophets against the
Creator, when they came in His name as their own God.3311
| 3311 Adversus Creatorem, in
sui Dei nomine venientes. | But I do not find that any good came of this
proceeding,3312
| 3312 i.e., to the
Marcionite position. | since they were
more apt to suppose either that Christ was their own, or rather was
some deceiver, than that He was the Christ of the other god; and this
the gospel will show.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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