Against Marcion 2.15
Summary: Punishing children for their fathers' sins was a remedy for a hard-hearted people, later replaced by individual responsibility; and the Jews who cried “His blood be on us and on our children” brought that sentence on themselves.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:355–356
Iustitiam ergo primo iudicis dispice; cuius si ratio constiterit, tunc et seueritas et per quae seueritas decurrit rationi et iustitiae reputabuntur. ac ne pluribus inmoremur, adserite causas [ceteras] quoque, ut sententias condemnetis, excusate delicta, ut iudicia reprobetis. nolite reprehendere iudicem, sed reuincite malum iudicem. nam et si patrum delicta de filiis exigebat, duritia populi talia remedia compulerat, ut uel posteritatibus suis prospicientes legi diuinae oboedirent. quis enim non magis filiorum salutem quam suam curet? sed et si benedictio patrum semini quoque eorum destinabatur, sine ullo adhuc merito eius, cur non et reatus patrum in filios quoque redundaret, [sicut gratia, ita et offensa] ut per totum genus et gratia decurreret et offensa? saluo eo, quod postea decerni habebat: non dicturos acidam uuam patres manducasse et filiorum dentes obstipuisse, id est non sumpturum patrem delictum filii nec filium delictum patris, sed unumquemque delicti sui reum futurum, ut post duritiam populi duritia legis edomita iustitia iam non genus, sed personas iudicaret. quamquam si euangelium ueritatis accipias, ad quos pertineat sententia reddentis in filios patrum delicta cognosces, ad illos scilicet, qui hanc ultro sibi sententiam fuerant inrogaturi: sanguis illius super capita nostra et filiorum nostrorum. hoc itaque homini prouidentia dei censuit, quod iam audierat.
English · Claude translation
First, then, look at the judge's justice; if its reason is established, then his severity too, and the means by which his severity runs its course, will be credited to reason and justice. And not to linger over more, plead the causes as well, if you would condemn the sentences; excuse the sins, if you would reject the judgments. Do not censure the judge; convict him of being a bad judge. For even if he exacted the sins of the fathers from the sons, the hardness of the people had compelled such remedies, so that, looking out at least for their descendants, they might obey the divine law. For who does not care more for his children's welfare than for his own? And if the blessing of the fathers was destined for their seed too, without any merit of the seed as yet, why should not the guilt of the fathers overflow onto the sons as well, so that both grace and offence might run through the whole race? — saving what was later to be decreed: that they would no longer say that the fathers had eaten a sour grape and the sons' teeth were set on edge; that is, that the father would not bear the son's sin nor the son the father's, but each would be guilty of his own sin; so that, once the hardness of the people had been tamed by the hardness of the law, justice would then judge not the race but persons. And yet, if you accept the true Gospel, you will learn to whom the sentence of him who repays the fathers' sins on the sons applies: to those, namely, who were of their own accord to call this sentence down on themselves: “His blood be upon our heads and on our children's.” So God's providence decreed for man what it had already heard.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The sins of the fathers are Exod 20:5; the sour grapes, Ezek 18:2–4 and Jer 31:29–30; the cry of the crowd, Matt 27:25. The “true Gospel” is Matthew as against Marcion's shortened Luke. The editor deletes “sicut gratia, ita et offensa” (“as grace, so offence”) as spurious; it is left out of the translation. The last sentence probably means that God, foreseeing the crowd's cry, had long before fixed the sentence it would call down on itself.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 2.15 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/15/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 2.15 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/15/).
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