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| Source of Marcionism; Empedocles Reasserted as the Suggester of the Heresy.
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Chapter XVIII.—Source
of Marcionism; Empedocles Reasserted as the Suggester of the
Heresy.
When, therefore, Marcion or some one of his hounds
barks against the Demiurge, and adduces reasons from a comparison of
what is good and bad, we ought to say to them, that neither Paul the
apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger,873
| 873
ὁ κολοβοδάκτυλος. Bunsen [more suo, vol. i., p. 89] considers this a
corrupt reading, and suggests καλῶν λόγων
διδάσκαλος, i.e., “a teacher of good words,” i.e., an evangelist,
which word, as just used, he does not wish to repeat. The Abbe
Cruice denies the necessity for any such emendation, and refers us to
an article in the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology
(Cambridge, March, 1855), the writer of which maintains, on the
authority of St. Jerome, that St. Mark had amputated his thumb, in
order that he might be considered disqualified for the
priesthood. | announced such (tenets). For
none of these (doctrines) has been written in the Gospel according to
Mark. But (the real author of the system) is Empedocles, son of
Meto, a native of Agrigentum. And (Marcion) despoiled this
(philosopher), and imagined that up to the present would pass
undetected his transference, under the same expressions, of the
arrangement of his entire heresy from Sicily into the evangelical
narratives. For bear with me, O Marcion: as you have
instituted a comparison of what is good and evil, I also to-day will
institute a comparison following up your own tenets, as you suppose
them to be. You affirm that the Demiurge of the world is
evil—why not hide your countenance in shame, (as thus) teaching
to the Church the doctrines of Empedocles? You say that there is
a good Deity who destroys the works of the Demiurge: then do not
you plainly preach to your pupils, as the good Deity, the Friendship of
Empedocles. You forbid marriage, the procreation of children,
(and) the abstaining from meats which God has created for participation
by the faithful, and those that know the truth.874
(Thinkest thou, then,) that thou
canst escape detection, (while thus) enjoining the purificatory rites
of Empedocles? For in point of fact you follow in every respect
this (philosopher of paganism), while you instruct your own disciples
to refuse meats, in order not to eat any body (that might be) a remnant
of a soul which has been punished by the Demiurge. You dissolve
marriages that have been cemented by the Deity. And here again
you conform to the tenets of Empedocles, in order that for you the work
of Friendship may be perpetuated as one (and) indivisible. For,
according to Empedocles, matrimony separates unity, and makes (out of
it) plurality, as we have proved.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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