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| Marcion, Who Would Blot Out the Record of Christ's Nativity, is Rebuked for So Startling a Heresy.
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Chapter
II.—Marcion, Who Would Blot Out the Record of Christ’s
Nativity, is Rebuked for So Startling a Heresy.
Clearly enough is the nativity announced by
Gabriel.6947
But what has he to
do with the Creator’s angel?6948
| 6948 This is said in
opposition to Marcion, who held the Creator’s angel, and
everything else pertaining to him, to be evil. | The conception
in the virgin’s womb is also set plainly before us. But what
concern has he with the Creator’s prophet, Isaiah?6949
He6950
will not brook
delay, since suddenly (without any prophetic announcement) did
he bring down Christ from heaven.6951
| 6951 See also our
Anti-Marcion, iv. 7. |
“Away,” says he, “with that eternal plaguey taxing of
Cæsar, and the scanty inn, and the squalid swaddling-clothes, and
the hard stable.6952
We do not care a
jot for6953
that multitude of
the heavenly host which praised their Lord at night.6954
Let the shepherds take better care of their
flock,6955
and let the wise
men spare their legs so long a journey;6956
let them keep their gold to themselves.6957
Let Herod, too, mend his manners, so that Jeremy may not glory over
him.6958
Spare also the babe from circumcision, that
he may escape the pain thereof; nor let him be brought into the temple,
lest he burden his parents with the expense of the offering;6959
nor let him be handed to Simeon, lest the
old man be saddened at the point of death.6960
Let that old woman also hold her tongue, lest she should bewitch the
child.”6961
After such a
fashion as this, I suppose you have had, O Marcion, the hardihood of
blotting out the original records (of the history) of Christ, that His
flesh may lose the proofs of its reality. But, prithee, on what grounds
(do you do this)? Show me your authority. If you are a prophet,
foretell us a thing; if you are an apostle, open your message in
public; if a follower of apostles,6962
side with
apostles in thought; if you are only a (private) Christian, believe
what has been handed down to us: if, however, you are nothing of all
this, then (as I have the best reason to say) cease to live.6963
For indeed you are already dead, since you
are no Christian, because you do not believe that which by being
believed makes men Christian,—nay, you are the more dead, the
more you are not a Christian; having fallen away, after you had been
one, by rejecting6964
what you formerly
believed, even as you yourself acknowledge in a certain letter of
yours, and as your followers do not deny, whilst our (brethren) can
prove it.6965
| 6965 Compare our
Anti-Marcion, i. 1, iv. 4 and de Præscr.
Hær. c. xxx. | Rejecting,
therefore, what you once believed, you have completed the act of
rejection, by now no longer believing: the fact, however, of your
having ceased to believe has not made your rejection of the faith right
and proper; nay, rather,6966
by your act of
rejection you prove that what you believed previous to the said act was
of a different character.6967
What you believed
to be of a different character, had been handed down just as you
believed it. Now6968
that which had been
handed down was true, inasmuch as it had been transmitted by those
whose duty it was to hand it down. Therefore, when rejecting that
which had been handed down, you rejected that which was true. You had
no authority for what you did. However, we have already in another
treatise availed ourselves more fully of these prescriptive rules
against all heresies. Our repetition of them hereafter that large
(treatise) is superfluous,6969
| 6969 Ex abundanti. [Dr.
Holmes, in this sentence actually uses the word lengthy,
for which I have said large.] | when we ask the
reason why you have formed the opinion that Christ was not
born.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
