Against Marcion 2.29
Summary: Marcion's Antitheses, which set Christ's mercy against the Creator's severity, actually show one God who is both good and just, gentler once his people had been trained; the world itself is built of harmonized opposites made by one Creator.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:375–377
Ceterum ipsas quoque antithesis Marcionis comminus cecidissem, si operosiore destructione earum egeret defensio creatoris, tam boni quam et iudicis secundum utriusque partis exempla congruentia deo, ut ostendimus. quodsi utraque pars. bonitatis atque iustitiae, dignam plenitudinem diuinitatis efficiunt omnia potentis, compendio interim possum antithesis retudisse, gestientes ex qualitatibus ingeniorum siue legum siue uirtutum discernere atque ita alienare Christum a creatore, ut optimum a iudice et mitem a fero et salutarem ab exitioso. magis enim eos coniungunt, quos in eis diuersitatibus ponunt, quae deo congruunt. aufer titulum Marcionis et intentionem atque propositum operis ipsius, et nihil aliud praestare * quam demonstrationem eiusdem dei, optimi et iudicis, quia haec duo in solum deum competunt. nam et ipsum studium in eis exemplis opponendi Christum creatori ad unitatem magis spectat. adeo enim ipsa et una erat substantia diuinitatis, bona et seuera, ut eisdem exemplis et in similibus argumentis et bonitatem suam uoluerit ostendere, in quibus praemiserat seueritatem, quia nec mirum erit diuersitas temporalis, si postea deus mitior pro rebus edomitis, qui retro austerior pro indomitis. ita per antithesis facilius ostendi potest ordo creatoris a Christo reformatus quam repercussus, et redditus potius quam exclusus, praesertim (cum) deum tuum ab omni motu amariore secernas, utique et ab aemulatione creatoris scilicet. nam si ita est, quomodo eum antithesis singulas species creatoris aemulatum demonstrant? agnoscam igitur et in hoc per illas deum meum zeloten, qui res suas arbustiores in primordiis bona, ut rationali, aemulatione maturitati praecurauerit suo iure, cuius antithesis etiam ipse mundus eius agnoscet, ex contrarietatibus elementorum, summa tamen ratione, modulatus. quam ob rem, inconsiderantissime Marcion, alium deum lucis ostendisse debueras alium uero tenebrarum, quo facilius alium bonitatis alium seueritatis persuasisses. ceterum eius erit antithesis. cuius est et in mundo.
English · Claude translation
For the rest, I would have cut down Marcion's Antitheses themselves at close quarters, if the defence of the Creator needed a more laborious demolition of them — the Creator who is both good and judge, according to examples of each aspect that befit God, as we have shown. But if both aspects, goodness and justice, make up the worthy fullness of the divinity of the Almighty, I can meanwhile beat back in brief the Antitheses, which are eager to distinguish Christ from the Creator by the qualities of their characters, or of their laws, or of their mighty works, and so to estrange them, as the supremely good from the judge, the gentle from the fierce, the saving from the destroying. For they rather join together those whom they set in differences that befit God. Take away Marcion's title and the aim and purpose of his work itself, and it … nothing other than a demonstration of one and the same God, supremely good and judge, since these two belong to God alone. For the very effort to set Christ against the Creator in those examples points rather to their unity. For so truly was the substance of divinity one and the same, good and severe, that by the same examples and in similar matters it chose to show its goodness where it had first shown its severity; and the difference of times will be no wonder, if God is afterwards milder because things have been tamed, who before was more austere because they were untamed. So by means of the Antitheses it can more easily be shown that the Creator's order was reformed by Christ rather than struck down, restored rather than excluded — especially since you set your god apart from every harsher emotion, and so surely from rivalry with the Creator too. For if so, how do the Antitheses show him rivalling the Creator in each particular? I shall recognize, then, in this also, through them, my jealous God, who by his own right, with a good because rational jealousy, took care to bring to ripeness his works that at the beginning were still rough and woody; whose antitheses even his world itself will acknowledge, regulated as it is out of contrary elements, yet by the highest reason. Therefore, most thoughtless Marcion, you ought to have shown one god of light and another of darkness, so that you might more easily have persuaded us of one god of goodness and another of severity. But the antitheses will belong to him to whom they belong in the world too.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The jealous God is Exod 20:5. The asterisk after “praestare” marks a lacuna, rendered “…”. The word “arbustiores” (rendered “still rough and woody”) is uncertain.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 2.29 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/29/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 2.29 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/29/).
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