Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| The Judicial Severity of Christ and the Tenderness of the Creator, Asserted in Contradiction to Marcion. The Cure of the Ten Lepers. Old Testament Analogies. The Kingdom of God Within You; This Teaching Similar to that of Moses. Christ, the Stone Rejected by the Builders. Indications of Severity in the Coming of Christ. Proofs that He is Not the Impassible Being Marcion Imagined.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
XXXV.—The Judicial Severity of Christ and the Tenderness of the
Creator, Asserted in Contradiction to Marcion. The Cure of the Ten
Lepers. Old Testament Analogies. The Kingdom of God Within You; This
Teaching Similar to that of Moses. Christ, the Stone Rejected by the
Builders. Indications of Severity in the Coming of Christ. Proofs
that He is Not the Impassible Being Marcion Imagined.
Then, turning to His disciples, He says:
“Woe unto him through whom offences come! It were better for him
if he had not been born, or if a millstone were hanged about his neck
and he were cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these
little ones,”4860
that is, one of His
disciples. Judge, then, what the sort of punishment is which He so
severely threatens. For it is no stranger who is to avenge the offence
done to His disciples. Recognise also in Him the Judge, and one too,
who expresses Himself on the safety of His followers with the same
tenderness as that which the Creator long ago exhibited: “He that
toucheth you toucheth the apple of my eye.”4861
Such identity of care proceeds from one and
the same Being. A trespassing brother He will have rebuked.4862
If one failed in this duty of reproof, he in
fact sinned, either because out of hatred he wished his brother to
continue in sin, or else spared him from mistaken friendship,4863
| 4863 Ex acceptione
personæ. The Greek προσωποληψία,
“respect of persons.” | although possessing the injunction in
Leviticus: “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart; thy
neighbor thou shalt seriously rebuke, and on his account shalt not
contract sin.”4864
| 4864 Lev. xix. 17. The last clause in A.V. runs,
“And not suffer sin upon him;” but the Sept gives this
reading, καὶ οὐ
λήψῃ δι᾽
αὐτὸν
ἁμαρτίαν; nor need the
Hebrew mean other than this. The prenominal particle וייֹע may be well rendered
δι᾽
αὐτόι on his account. | Nor is it to be
wondered at, if He thus teaches who forbids your refusing to
bring back even your brother’s cattle, if you find them astray in
the road; much more should you bring back your erring brother to
himself. He commands you to forgive your brother, should he trespass
against you even “seven times.”4865
But that surely, is a small matter; for with the Creator there is a
larger grace, when He sets no limits to forgiveness,
indefinitely charging you “not to bear any malice against your
brother,”4866
and to give not
merely to him who asks, but even to him who does not ask. For His will
is, not that you should forgive4867
an offence,
but forget it. The law about lepers had a profound meaning as
respects4868
the forms of the
disease itself, and of the inspection by the high priest.4869
| 4869 See Lev. xiii. and
xiv. | The interpretation of this sense it will be
our task to ascertain. Marcion’s labour, however, is to object to
us the strictness4870
of the law, with
the view of maintaining that here also Christ is its
enemy—forestalling4871
its enactments even
in His cure of the ten lepers. These He simply commanded to show
themselves to the priest; “and as they went, He cleansed
them”4872
—without a
touch, and without a word, by His silent power and simple will. Well,
but what necessity was there for Christ, who had been once for all
announced as the healer of our sicknesses and sins, and had proved
Himself such by His acts,4873
| 4873 Or, perhaps,
“had proved the prophecy true by His accomplishment of
it.” | to busy Himself
with inquiries4874
into the qualities
and details of cures; or for the Creator to be summoned to the
scrutiny of the law in the person of Christ? If any part of this
healing was effected by Him in a way different from the law, He
yet Himself did it to perfection; for surely the Lord may by
Himself, or by His Son, produce after one manner, and after another
manner by His servants the prophets, those proofs of His power and
might especially, which (as excelling in glory and strength, because
they are His own acts) rightly enough leave in the distance behind them
the works which are done by His servants. But enough
has been already said on this
point in a former passage.4875
| 4875 See above in chap.
ix. | Now, although He
said in a preceding chapter,4876
that “there
were many lepers in Israel in the days of Eliseus the prophet, and none
of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian,” yet of course the
mere number proves nothing towards a difference in the gods, as tending
to the abasement4877
of the Creator in
curing only one, and the pre-eminence of Him who healed ten. For who
can doubt that many might have been cured by Him who cured one more
easily than ten by him who had never healed one before? But His main
purpose in this declaration was to strike at the unbelief or the pride
of Israel, in that (although there were many lepers amongst them, and a
prophet was not wanting to them) not one had been moved even by so
conspicuous an example to betake himself to God who was working in His
prophets. Forasmuch, then, as He was Himself the veritable4878
| 4878 Authenticus.
“He was the true, the original Priest, of whom the priests
under the Mosaic law were only copies” (Bp. Kaye, On the
Writings of Tertullian, pp. 293, 294, and note 8). | High Priest of God the Father, He inspected
them according to the hidden purport of the law, which signified that
Christ was the true distinguisher and extinguisher of the defilements
of mankind. However, what was obviously required by the law He
commanded should be done: “Go,” said He, “show
yourselves to the priests.”4879
Yet why this,
if He meant to cleanse them first? Was it as a despiser of the law, in
order to prove to them that, having been cured already on the road, the
law was now nothing to them, nor even the priests? Well, the
matter must of course pass as it best may,4880
if
anybody supposes that Christ had such views as these!4881
But there are certainly better
interpretations to be found of the passage, and more deserving of
belief: how that they were cleansed on this account, because4882
| 4882 Qua: “I should
prefer quia” (Oehler). | they were obedient, and went as the law
required, when they were commanded to go to the priests; and it is not
to be believed that persons who observed the law could have found a
cure from a god that was destroying the law. Why, however, did He not
give such a command to the leper who first returned?4883
| 4883 Pristino leproso: but
doubtful. | Because Elisha did not in the case of Naaman
the Syrian, and yet was not on that account less the Creator’s
agent? This is a sufficient answer. But the believer knows that there
is a profounder reason. Consider, therefore, the true motives.4884
The miracle was performed in the district of
Samaria, to which country also belonged one of the lepers.4885
Samaria, however, had revolted from Israel,
carrying with it the disaffected nine tribes,4886
| 4886 Schisma illud ex
novem tribubus. There is another reading which
substitutes the word decem. “It is, however,
immaterial; either number will do roundly. If ‘ten’
be the number, it must be understood that the tenth is divided,
accurately making nine and a half tribes. If ‘nine’ be
read, the same amount is still made up, for Simeon was reckoned
with Judah, and half of the tribe of Benjamin remained
loyal” (Fr. Junius). |
which, having been alienated4887
by the prophet
Ahijah,4888
Jeroboam settled in
Samaria. Besides, the Samaritans were always pleased with the mountains
and the wells of their ancestors. Thus, in the Gospel of John, the
woman of Samaria, when conversing with the Lord at the well, says,
“No doubt4889
Thou art
greater,” etc.; and again, “Our fathers worshipped in this
mountain; but ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to
worship.”4890
Accordingly, He who
said, “Woe unto them that trust in the mountain of
Samaria,”4891
vouchsafing now to
restore that very region, purposely requests the men “to go and
show themselves to the priests,” because these were to be found
only there where the temple was; submitting4892
| 4892 Subiciens: or
“subjecting.” |
the Samaritan to the Jew, inasmuch as “salvation was of the
Jews,”4893
whether to the
Israelite or the Samaritan. To the tribe of Judah, indeed, wholly
appertained the promised Christ,4894
| 4894 Tota promissio
Christus. | in order that
men might know that at Jerusalem were both the priests and the temple;
that there also was the womb4895
of religion, and
its living fountain, not its mere
“well.”4896
| 4896 Fontem non puteum
salutis. | Seeing, therefore,
that they recognised4897
the truth that at
Jerusalem the law was to be fulfilled, He healed them, whose salvation
was to come4898
of faith4899
without the ceremony of the law. Whence
also, astonished that one only out of the ten was thankful for his
release to the divine grace, He does not command him to offer a gift
according to the law, because he had already paid his tribute of
gratitude when “he glorified God”;4900
for thus did the Lord will that the law’s requirement should be
interpreted. And yet who was the God to whom the Samaritan gave thanks,
because thus far not even had an Israelite heard of another god? Who
else but He by whom all had hitherto been healed through Christ? And therefore it
was said to him, “Thy faith hath made thee whole,”4901
because he had discovered that it was his
duty to render the true oblation to Almighty God—even
thanksgiving—in His true temple, and before His true High Priest
Jesus Christ. But it is impossible either that the Pharisees
should seem to have inquired of the Lord about the coming of the
kingdom of the rival god, when no other god has ever yet been announced
by Christ; or that He should have answered them concerning the kingdom
of any other god than Him of whom they were in the habit of asking Him.
“The kingdom of God,” He says, “cometh not with
observation; neither do they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold,
the kingdom of God is within you.”4902
Now, who will not interpret the words “within you”
to mean in your hand, within your power, if you hear, and do the
commandment of God? If, however, the kingdom of God lies in His
commandment, set before your mind Moses on the other side, according to
our antitheses, and you will find the self-same view of the
case.4903
“The commandment is not a lofty
one,4904
| 4904 Excelsum: Sept.
ὑπέρογχος. | neither is it far off from thee. It is not
in heaven, that thou shouldest say, ‘Who shall go up for us to
heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?’
nor is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, ‘Who shall go
over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do
it?’ But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in
thy heart, and in thy hands, to do it.”4905
This means, “Neither in this place nor that place is the kingdom
of God; for, behold, it is within you.”4906
And if the heretics, in their audacity, should contend that the Lord
did not give an answer about His own kingdom, but only about the
Creator’s kingdom, concerning which they had inquired, then the
following words are against them. For He tells them that “the Son
of man must suffer many things, and be rejected,” before His
coming,4907
at which His
kingdom will be really4908
revealed. In this
statement He shows that it was His own kingdom which His answer to them
had contemplated, and which was now awaiting His own sufferings and
rejection. But having to be rejected and afterwards to be acknowledged,
and taken up4909
and glorified, He
borrowed the very word “rejected” from the passage, where,
under the figure of a stone, His twofold manifestation was
celebrated by David—the first in rejection, the second in honour:
“The stone,” says He, “which the builders rejected,
is become the head-stone of the corner. This is the Lord’s
doing.”4910
Now it would be
idle, if we believed that God had predicted the humiliation, or even
the glory, of any Christ at all, that He could have signed His
prophecy for any but Him whom He had foretold under the figure of a
stone, and a rock, and a mountain.4911
| 4911 See Isa. viii. 14 and 1 Cor. x. 4. | If, however, He speaks of His own coming,
why does He compare it with the days of Noe and of Lot,4912
which were dark and terrible—a mild
and gentle God as He is? Why does He bid us “remember Lot’s
wife,”4913
who despised the
Creator’s command, and was punished for her contempt, if He does
not come with judgment to avenge the infraction of His precepts? If He
really does punish, like the Creator,4914
if
He is my Judge, He ought not to have adduced examples for the purpose
of instructing me from Him whom He yet destroys, that
He4915
might not seem to
be my instructor. But if He does not even here speak of His own coming,
but of the coming of the Hebrew Christ,4916
| 4916 That is, the
Creator’s Christ from the Marcionite point of
view. |
let us still wait in expectation that He will vouchsafe to us some
prophecy of His own advent; meanwhile we will continue to believe that
He is none other than He whom He reminds us of in every
passage.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
