Anf-03 v.iv.iv.xv Pg 10
Matt. ix. 16, 17.
when he is himself patched and clad in an old suit3309 3309 Senio.
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 3310 Passio.
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.
