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| Another Instance of Marcion's Tampering with St. Paul's Text. The Fulness of Time, Announced by the Apostle, Foretold by the Prophets. Mosaic Rites Abrogated by the Creator Himself. Marcion's Tricks About Abraham's Name. The Creator, by His Christ, the Fountain of the Grace and the Liberty Which St. Paul Announced. Marcion's Docetism Refuted.
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Chapter
IV.—Another Instance of Marcion’s Tampering with St.
Paul’s Text. The Fulness of Time, Announced by the Apostle,
Foretold by the Prophets. Mosaic Rites Abrogated by the Creator
Himself. Marcion’s Tricks About Abraham’s Name. The
Creator, by His Christ, the Fountain of the Grace and the Liberty Which
St. Paul Announced. Marcion’s Docetism Refuted.
“But,” says he, “I speak after
the manner of men: when we were children, we were placed in bondage
under the elements of the world.”5322
| 5322 This apparent
quotation is in fact a patching together of two sentences from
Gal. iii. 15 and iv. 3 (Fr. Junius). “If I may be allowed
to guess from the manner in which Tertullian expresseth himself, I
should imagine that Marcion erased the whole of chap. iii. after the
word λέγω in
ver. 15, and the beginning of chap. iv.,
until you come to the word ὅτε in
ver. 3. Then the words
will be connected thus: ‘Brethren, I speak after the manner of
men…when we were children we were in bondage under the elements
of the world; but when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His
Son.’ This is precisely what the argument of Tertullian requires,
and they are the very words which he connects together” (Lardner,
Hist. of Heretics, x. 43). Dr. Lardner, touching Marcion’s
omissions in this chap. iii. of the Epistle to the Galatians, says:
“He omitted vers. 6, 7, 8, in order to get rid of the mention of
Abraham, and of the gospel having been preached to him.” This he
said after St. Jerome, and then adds: “He ought also to have
omitted part of ver. 9,
σὺν τῷ
πιστῷ
᾽Αβραάμ, which seems
to have been the case, according to T.’s manner of stating the
argument against him” (Works, History of Heretics, x.
43). |
This, however, was not said “after the manner of men.” For
there is no figure5323
here, but literal
truth. For (with respect to the latter clause of this passage), what
child (in the sense, that is, in which the Gentiles are children) is
not in bondage to the elements of the world, which he looks up
to5324
in the light of a god? With regard, however,
to the former clause, there was a figure (as the apostle wrote
it); because after he had said, “I speak after the manner of
men,” he adds), “Though it be but a man’s covenant,
no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.”5325
| 5325 Gal. iii. 15. This, of course, is consistent in
St. Paul’s argument. Marcion, however, by erasing all the
intervening verses, and affixing the phrase “after the manner
of men” to the plain assertion of Gal. iv. 3, reduces the whole statement to an
absurdity. |
For by the figure of the permanency of a human covenant he was
defending the divine testament. “To Abraham were the promises
made, and to his seed. He said not ‘to seeds,’ as of many;
but as of one, ‘to thy seed,’ which is
Christ.”5326
Fie on5327
Marcion’s sponge! But indeed it is
superfluous to dwell on what he has erased, when he may be more
effectually confuted from that which he has retained.5328
| 5328 So, instead of
pursuing the contents of chap. iii., he proceeds to such of chap.
iv. as Marcion reserved. | “But when the fulness of time was
come, God sent forth His Son”5329
—the God,
of course, who is the Lord of that very succession of times which
constitutes an age; who also ordained, as
“signs” of time, suns and moons and constellations
and stars; who furthermore both predetermined and predicted that the
revelation of His Son should be postponed to the end of the
times.5330
| 5330 In extremitatem
temporum. | “It shall
come to pass in the last days, that the mountain (of the house)
of the Lord shall be manifested”;5331
“and in the last days I will pour out of my Spirit upon
all flesh”5332
as Joel says. It
was characteristic of Him (only)5333
to wait
patiently for the fulness of time, to whom belonged the end of time no
less than the beginning. But as for that idle god, who has neither any
work nor any prophecy, nor accordingly any time, to show for himself,
what has he ever done to bring about the fulness of time, or to
wait patiently its completion? If nothing, what an impotent state to
have to wait for the Creator’s time, in servility to the Creator!
But for what end did He send His Son? “To redeem them that were
under the law,”5334
in other words, to
“make the crooked ways straight, and the rough places
smooth,” as Isaiah says5335
—in order that
old things might pass away, and a new course begin, even “the new
law out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem,”5336
and “that we
might receive the adoption of sons,”5337
that is, the Gentiles, who once were not sons. For He is to be
“the light of the Gentiles,” and “in His name shall
the Gentiles trust.”5338
That we may have,
therefore the assurance that we are the children of God, “He hath
sent forth His Spirit into our hearts, crying, Abba,
Father.”5339
For “in the
last days,” saith He, “I will pour out of my Spirit upon
all flesh.”5340
Now, from whom comes this grace, but from Him who
proclaimed the promise thereof? Who is (our) Father, but He who is also
our Maker? Therefore, after such affluence (of grace), they
should not have returned “to weak and beggarly
elements.”5341
By the Romans,
however, the rudiments of learning are wont to be called
elements. He did not therefore seek, by any depreciation of the
mundane elements, to turn them away from their god, although, when he
said just before, “Howbeit, then, ye serve them which by nature
are no gods,”5342
he censured the
error of that physical or natural superstition which holds the elements
to be god; but at the God of those elements he aimed not in this
censure.5343
He tells us himself
clearly enough what he means by “elements,” even the
rudiments of the law: “Ye observe days, and months, and times,
and years”5344
—the sabbaths,
I suppose, and “the preparations,”5345
| 5345 Cœnas puras:
probably the παρασκευαί
mentioned in John xix.
31. |
and the fasts, and the “high days.”5346
For the cessation of even these, no less than of circumcision, was
appointed by the Creator’s decrees, who had said by Isaiah,
“Your new moons, and your sabbaths, and your high days I cannot
bear; your fasting, and feasts, and ceremonies my soul
hateth;”5347
also by Amos,
“I hate, I despise your feast-days, and I will not smell in your
solemn assemblies;”5348
and again by Hosea,
“I will cause to cease all her mirth, and her feast-days, and her
sabbaths, and her new moons, and all her solemn
assemblies.”5349
The institutions
which He set up Himself, you ask, did He then destroy? Yes, rather than
any other. Or if another destroyed them, he only helped on the purpose
of the Creator, by removing what even He had condemned. But this is not
the place to discuss the question why the Creator abolished His own
laws. It is enough for us to have proved that He intended such an
abolition, that so it may be affirmed that the apostle determined
nothing to the prejudice of the Creator, since the abolition itself
proceeds from the Creator. But as, in the case of thieves, something of
the stolen goods is apt to drop by the way, as a clue to their
detection; so, as it seems to me, it has happened to Marcion: the last
mention of Abraham’s name he has left untouched (in the epistle),
although no passage required his erasure more than this, even his
partial alteration of the text.5350
| 5350 In other words,
Marcion has indeed tampered with the passage, omitting some things; but
(strange to say) he has left untouched the statement which, from his
point of view, most required suppression. | “For (it
is written) that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond maid, the
other by a free woman; but he who was of the bond maid was born after
the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise: which things are
allegorized”5351
| 5351 Allegorica: on the
importance of rendering ἀλληγορούμενα
by this participle rather than by the noun “an
allegory,” as in A.V., see Bp. Marsh’s Lectures on the
Interpretation of the Bible, pp. 351–354. | (that is to say,
they presaged something besides the literal history); “for
these are the two
covenants,” or the two exhibitions (of the divine
plans),5352
| 5352 Ostensiones:
revelationes perhaps. | as we have found
the word interpreted, “the one from the Mount Sinai,” in
relation to the synagogue of the Jews, according to the law,
“which gendereth to bondage”—“the other
gendereth” (to liberty, being raised) above all principality, and
power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this
world, but in that which is to come, “which is the mother of us
all,” in which we have the promise of (Christ’s) holy
church; by reason of which he adds in conclusion: “So then,
brethren, we are not children of the bond woman, but of the
free.”5353
In this passage he
has undoubtedly shown that Christianity had a noble birth, being
sprung, as the mystery of the allegory indicates, from that son of
Abraham who was born of the free woman; whereas from the son of the
bond maid came the legal bondage of Judaism. Both dispensations,
therefore, emanate from that same God by whom,5354
as
we have found, they were both sketched out beforehand. When he speaks
of “the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us
free,”5355
does not the very
phrase indicate that He is the Liberator who was once the Master? For
Galba himself never liberated slaves which were not his own, even when
about to restore free men to their liberty.5356
| 5356 Tertullian, in his
terse style, takes the case of the emperor, as the highest potentate,
who, if any, might make free with his power. He seizes the moment when
Galba was saluted emperor on Nero’s death, and was the means of
delivering so many out of the hands of the tyrant, in order to sharpen
the point of his illustration. | By
Him, therefore, will liberty be bestowed, at whose command lay the
enslaving power of the law. And very properly. It was not meet that
those who had received liberty should be “entangled again with
the yoke of bondage”5357
—that is, of
the law; now that the Psalm had its prophecy accomplished: “Let
us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us, since
the rulers have gathered themselves together against the Lord and
against His Christ.”5358
All those,
therefore, who had been delivered from the yoke of slavery he would
earnestly have to obliterate the very mark of slavery—even
circumcision, on the authority of the prophet’s prediction. He
remembered how that Jeremiah had said, “Circumcise the foreskins
of your heart;”5359
as Moses likewise
had enjoined, “Circumcise your hard hearts”5360
—not the literal flesh. If, now,
he were for excluding circumcision, as the messenger of a new god, why
does he say that “in Christ neither circumcision availeth
anything, nor uncircumcision?”5361
For it was his
duty to prefer the rival principle of that which he was abolishing, if
he had a mission from the god who was the enemy of
circumcision.
Furthermore, since both circumcision and
uncircumcision were attributed to the same Deity, both lost their
power5362
in Christ, by reason of the excellency of
faith—of that faith concerning which it had been written,
“And in His name shall the Gentiles trust?”5363
—of that faith “which,” he
says “worketh by love.”5364
By this saying
he also shows that the Creator is the source of that grace. For whether
he speaks of the love which is due to God, or that which is due to
one’s neighbor—in either case, the Creator’s grace is
meant: for it is He who enjoins the first in these words, “Thou
shalt love God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy strength;”5365
and also the second
in another passage: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.”5366
“But he that
troubleth you shall have to bear judgment.”5367
From what God? From (Marcion’s) most
excellent god? But he does not execute judgment. From the Creator? But
neither will He condemn the maintainer of circumcision. Now, if none
other but the Creator shall be found to execute judgment, it follows
that only He, who has determined on the cessation of the law, shall be
able to condemn the defenders of the law; and what, if he also affirms
the law in that portion of it where it ought (to be permanent)?
“For,” says he, “all the law is fulfilled in you by
this: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.’”5368
If, indeed, he will
have it that by the words “it is fulfilled” it is
implied that the law no longer has to be fulfilled, then of
course he does not mean that I should any more love my neighbour as
myself, since this precept must have ceased together with the law. But
no! we must evermore continue to observe this commandment. The
Creator’s law, therefore, has received the approval of the rival
god, who has, in fact, bestowed upon it not the sentence of a summary
dismissal,5369
but the favour of a
compendious acceptance;5370
| 5370 Compendium: the
terseness of the original cannot be preserved in the translation. | the gist of it all being concentrated in
this one precept! But this condensation of the law is, in fact, only
possible to Him who is the Author of it. When, therefore, he
says, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the
law of Christ,”5371
since this cannot
be accomplished except a man love his neighbour as himself, it is
evident that the precept, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself” (which, in fact, underlies the injunction, “Bear
ye one another’s burdens”), is really “the law of
Christ,” though literally the law of the Creator. Christ,
therefore, is the Creator’s Christ, as Christ’s law is the
Creator’s law. “Be not deceived,5372
| 5372 Erratis: literally,
“ye are deceived.” | God is not mocked.”5373
But Marcion’s god can be
mocked; for he knows not how to be angry, or how to take vengeance.
“For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap.”5374
It is then the God
of recompense and judgment who threatens5375
this. “Let us not be weary in well-doing;”5376
and “as we have opportunity, let us do
good.”5377
Deny now that the
Creator has given a commandment to do good, and then a diversity of
precept may argue a difference of gods. If, however, He also announces
recompense, then from the same God must come the harvest both of
death5378
and of life. But “in due time we shall
reap;”5379
because in
Ecclesiastes it is said, “For everything there will be a
time.”5380
Moreover,
“the world is crucified unto me,” who am a servant of the
Creator—“the world,” (I say,) but not the God who
made the world—“and I unto the world,”5381
not unto the God who made the world. The
world, in the apostle’s sense, here means life and
conversation according to worldly principles; it is in renouncing these
that we and they are mutually crucified and mutually slain. He calls
them “persecutors of Christ.”5382
| 5382 See Gal. vi. 17, κόπους μοι
μηδεὶς
παρεχέτω, “let no
one harass me.” |
But when he adds, that “he bare in his body the
scars5383
of
Christ”—since scars, of course, are accidents of
body5384
—he therefore expressed the truth, that
the flesh of Christ is not putative, but real and substantial,5385
the scars of which he represents as borne
upon his body.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
