Against Marcion 1.22
Summary: Real goodness in God must be natural and eternal, acting as soon as there is need; a god who let the human race suffer and perish for ages before helping would be malicious, like a doctor who lets a disease worsen to earn a bigger fee.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:318–320
Sed quomodo funditus euertetur antichristus, nisi ceteris quoque iniectionibus eius elidendis locus detur. relaxata praescriptionum defensione? accedamus igitur iam hinc ad ipsam dei personam, uel potius umbram et phantasma secundum Christum ipsius. per idque examinetur, per quod creatori praefertur. et utique erunt regulae certae ad examinandam dei bonitatem. sed prius est, ut inueniam illam et adprehendam. et ita ad regulas perducam. cum enim circumspicio tempora, nusquam est a primordio materiarum et introitu causarum. cum quibus debuerat inueniri, exinde agens, quo agere habuit. erat enim iam et mors et aculeus mortis, delictum, et ipsa malitia creatoris. aduersus quam subuenire deberet alterius dei bonitas, t primae huic regulae diuinae bonitatis occurrens, si se naturalem probaret, statim succurrens, ut causa coepit. omnia enim in deo naturalia et ingenita esse debebunt, ut sint aeterna, secundum statum ipsius, ne obuenticia et extranea reputentur ac per hoc temporalia et aeternitatis aliena. ita et bonitas perennis et iugis exigetur in deo, quae in thesauris naturalium proprietatum reposita et parata antecederet causas et materias suas, et primam quamque susciperet, non despiceret et destitueret, si antecedebat. denique non minus et hic quaeram, cur non a primordio operata sit bonitas eius, quam de ipso quaesiuimus, cur non a primordio sit reuelatus? quidni? qui per bonitatem reuelari haberet, si qui fuisset. non posse quid deo non licet, nedum naturalibus suis fungi. quae si continentur, quo minus currant, naturalia non erunt. et otium enim sui natura non nouit; hinc censetur, si agat. sic nec noluisse uidebitur exercere bonitatem, interim naturae nomine. natura enim se non potest nolle, quae se ita dirigit, ut, si cessauerit, non sit. sed cessauit aliquando in deo Marcionis de opere bonitas: ergo non fuit naturalis bonitas, quae potuit aliquando cessasse, quod naturalibus non licet. et si non erit naturalis, iam nec aeterna credenda nec deo par. quia non aeterna, dum non naturalis, quae denique nullam sui perpetuitatem aut de praeterito constituat aut de futuro repromittat. nam ut a primordio non fuit, et in finem sine dubio non erit. potest enim et non esse quandoque, sicut non fuit aliquando. igitur cum constet in primordio cessasse bonitatem dei illius — (non) enim a primordio liberauit hominem — et uoluntate potius eam quam infirmitate cessasse, iam uoluntas subpressae bonitatis finis inuenietur malignitatis. quid enim tam malignum quam nolle prodesse cum possis, quam utilitatem cruciare, quam iniuriam sinere? totum denique creatoris elogium in illum rescribetur, qui saeuitias eius bonitatis suae mora iuuit. nam in cuius manu est quid ne fiat, eius iam deputatur, cum fit. homo damnatur in mortem ob unius arbusculae delibationem, et exinde proficiunt delicta cum poenis et pereunt iam omnes, qui paradisi nullum caespitem norunt. et hoc melior aliqui deus aut nescit aut sustinet? si ut ex hoc melior inueniretur, quanto creator deterior haberetur. satis et in isto consilio malitiosus, qui et illum uoluit oneratum, operationibus eius admissis, et saeculum in uexatione detinuit. quid de tali medico iudicabis, qui nutriat morbum mora praesidii et periculum extendat dilatione remedii, quo pretiosius aut famosius curet? talis et in deum Marcionis dicenda sententia est, mali permissorem, iniuriae fautorem, gratiae lenocinatorem, benignitatis praeuaricatorem, quam non statim causae suae exhibuit; plane exhibiturus, si natura bonus et non accessione, si ingenio optimus et non disciplina, si ab aeuo deus et non a Tiberio, immo, quod uerius, a Cerdone et Marcione. Tiberio nunc deus ille praestiterit, ut imperio eius diuina bonitas in terris dedicaretur,
English · Claude translation
But how is the antichrist to be overthrown from the foundation, unless, the defence by prescription being relaxed, room is also given for crushing his other insinuations? Let us come, then, from here to the very person of the god — or rather to his shadow and phantom, like his Christ — and let him be examined by that for which he is preferred to the Creator. And surely there will be sure rules for examining the goodness of a god. But first I must find it and lay hold of it, and so bring it to the rules. For when I look around at the times, it is nowhere to be found from the beginning of the materials and the entry of the causes with which it ought to have been found, acting from the moment it had occasion to act. For there already was death, and sin, the sting of death, and the very malice of the Creator, against which the other god's goodness ought to have brought help, meeting this first rule of divine goodness, if it would prove itself natural: helping at once, as soon as the cause arose. For everything in God must be natural and inborn, so as to be eternal according to his state, lest it be reckoned accidental and external and therefore temporal and foreign to eternity. So in God a goodness perpetual and unbroken will be required, which, stored and ready in the treasuries of his natural properties, would precede its causes and materials and take up each as it first arose — not despise and abandon it, if it was there before.
In short, I shall ask here no less why his goodness did not work from the beginning than we asked about him why he was not revealed from the beginning. Why not, indeed? He had to be revealed through his goodness, if he existed at all. What God may not do is to be unable, still less to fail to exercise his natural properties; for if these are held back from running their course, they will not be natural. Nature knows no idleness of its own; it is judged by its acting. So neither will he seem to have been unwilling for a while to exercise his goodness, if it is by nature; for nature cannot be unwilling to be itself, since it so directs itself that if it ceased it would not exist. But goodness in Marcion's god did at one time cease from its work: therefore it was not natural goodness, since it could at some time cease, which natural things may not. And if it is not natural, it must no longer be believed eternal or equal to God: not eternal, because not natural, and establishing no perpetuity for itself from the past nor promising it for the future. For as it was not from the beginning, so without doubt it will not be to the end; it can cease to exist at some time, as it once did not exist.
Since, then, it is established that the goodness of that god ceased at the beginning — for he did not set man free from the beginning — and that it ceased by will rather than by weakness, the will that suppressed goodness will now be found to be the height of malice. For what is so malicious as to refuse to help when you can, to torment what is useful, to allow injury? In short, the whole indictment against the Creator will be written back against the one who aided his cruelties by the delay of his own goodness. For whoever has it in his hand to keep a thing from happening is held responsible for it when it happens. Man is condemned to death for tasting of one little tree; from then on sins advance with their penalties, and all now perish who have never known a single sod of paradise. And does some better god either not know this or put up with it? If he did so in order to be found better by it, how much the worse would the Creator be held! He is malicious enough in this plan too, since he both wanted the Creator to be burdened, letting his workings go on, and kept the world in distress. What will you judge of a physician who feeds a disease by delaying aid and prolongs the danger by postponing the remedy, so that he may cure it at a higher fee or with greater fame? Such is the sentence that must be passed on Marcion's god too: permitter of evil, abettor of injury, pander of grace, betrayer of kindness, which he did not show at once to its cause — as he plainly would have shown it, if he were good by nature and not by addition, supremely good by disposition and not by training, God from eternity and not from Tiberius — or rather, to speak more truly, from Cerdo and Marcion. Suppose now that this god did Tiberius the favour of having divine goodness dedicated on earth in his reign:
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The sting of death is 1 Cor 15:56; the tasting of the tree, Gen 3. The sentence runs on into ch. 23. The “t” before “primae” in the digital text is probably the editor's crux mark (†) misread; the sense is clear and it is not translated.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (Doubled comma in the digital text.; Stray letter (line marker) in the digital text.): cum possis,, quam → cum possis, quam; saeuitias eius i bonitatis → saeuitias eius bonitatis.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 1.22 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/1/22/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 1.22 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/1/22/).
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