Against Marcion 4.30
Summary: Christ's defense of healing on the sabbath, the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, and the shut door of judgment all belong to the Creator, who both rules the kingdom and judges.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:524–526
Quaestionem rursus de curatione sabbatis facta quomodo discussit? unusquisque uestrum sabbatis non soluit asinum aut bouem suum a praesepi et ducit ad potum? ergo secundum condicionem legis operatus legem confirmauit, non dissoluit, iubentem nullum opus fieri, nisi quod fieret omni animae, quanto potius humanae? Parabolarum congruentiam ubique recognoscor exigere. simile est regnum dei, inquit, grano sinapis, quod accepit homo et seminauit in horto suo. quis in persona hominis intellegendus? utique Christus, qui, licet Marcionis, filius hominis est dictus, qui accepit a patre semen regni, sermonem scilicet euangelii, et seminauit in horto, isto utique in mundo. puta nunc in homine, sed cum in (suo) horto dixerit nec mundus autem nec homo illius sit, sed creatoris, ergo qui in suum seminarit creatoris ostenditur. aut si, ut hunc laqueum euadant, conuerterint hominis personam a Christo in hominem accipientem semen regni et seminantem in horto cordis sui, nec ipsa materia alii conueniet quam creatori. De sequenti plane similitudine uereor, ne forte alterius dei regnum portendat. fermento enim comparauit illud, non azymis, quae familiariora sunt creatori. congruit et haec coniectura mendicantibus argumenta. itaque et ego uanitatem uanitate depellam, fermentationem quoque congruere dicens regno creatoris, quia post illam clibanus uel furnus gehennae sequatur. quale est enim, ut (sit) lenissimi dei regnum quod etiam iudicii feruor lacrimosa austeritate subsequitur? Quotiens adhuc se iudicem ostendit et in iudice creatorem! quotiens utique reicit et damnat reiciendo! sicut hic quoque: cum surrexerit, inquit, pater familiae — quo? nisi quo dixit Esaias: cum surrexerit comminuere terram - et cluserit ostium — utique excludendis iniquis, quibus pulsantibus respondebit: nescio unde sitis, et rursus, enumerantibus quod coram illo ederint et biberint et in plateis eorum docuerit [adiciet]: recedite a me omnes, operarii iniquitatis —, illic erit fletus et dentium frendor, — ubi? foris scilicet, ubi erunt exclusi ostio cluso; ab eo ergo erit poena, a quo fit exclusio in poenam — cum uidebunt iustos introeuntes in regnum dei, se uero detineri foris. a quo? si a creatore, quis ergo erit intus recipiens iustos in regnum? deus bonus? quid ergo illic creatori? ut foris detineat in poenam quos aduersarius eius exclusit? suscipiendos a se, si utique, magis in aduersarii bilem. sed et ille, exclusurus iniquos, sciat utique creatorem illos detenturum in poenam aut non sciat oportet. ergo aut nolente eo detinebuntur, et minor est illo, qui detinet, cedens ei nolens, aut si uult ita fieri, ipse ita faciendum iudicauit. et non erit melior creatore ipse auctor infamiae creatoris. haec si nulla ratione consistunt, ut alius punire alius liberare credatur, unius erit tam iudicium quam et regnum, et dum unius est utrumque, qui et iudicat, creatoris est.
English · Claude translation
Again, how did he settle the question about the healing done on the sabbath? “Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ass or his ox from the manger and lead it to water?” So by acting according to the terms of the law he confirmed the law, not dissolved it, the law which commands that no work be done except what is to be done for every living soul — how much more a human one?
I demand everywhere that the parables fit. “The kingdom of God,” he says, “is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his garden.” Who is to be understood in the person of the man? Surely Christ, who, even if he is Marcion's, has been called the Son of Man; who received from the Father the seed of the kingdom, that is, the word of the gospel, and sowed it in the garden, surely in this world. Say now that it is in man; but since he said “in (his) garden,” and neither the world nor man is his but the Creator's, then he who sowed in his own ground is shown to be the Creator's. Or if, to escape this snare, they transfer the person of the man from Christ to the man who receives the seed of the kingdom and sows it in the garden of his heart, not even this material will fit anyone but the Creator.
As for the following similitude, I am really afraid that it may perhaps portend the kingdom of another god. For he compared it to leaven, not to unleavened bread, which is more familiar to the Creator. This is just the sort of conjecture that suits those who go begging for arguments. So I too will drive off vanity with vanity, saying that leavening too fits the Creator's kingdom, because after it comes the oven, or the furnace of Gehenna. For what sort of thing is it that the kingdom of the gentlest god should be one which even the heat of judgment follows with tearful harshness?
How often does he still show himself a judge, and in the judge the Creator! How often, surely, does he reject, and condemn by rejecting! As here too: “When the master of the house has risen” — to do what? what but what Isaiah said: “When he has risen to shatter the earth” — “and has shut the door” — surely to shut out the wicked, to whom, when they knock, he will answer, “I do not know where you are from,” and again, when they recount that they ate and drank in his presence and he taught in their streets: “Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity” — “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” — where? outside, of course, where those shut out will be once the door is shut; so the punishment will come from the one by whom the shutting out into punishment is done — “when they see the righteous entering into the kingdom of God, but themselves held outside.” Held by whom? If by the Creator, who then will be inside receiving the righteous into the kingdom? The good god? Then what is the Creator doing there, holding outside in punishment those whom his adversary has shut out, when he would rather receive them himself, if anything, to spite his adversary? But that other too, when he is about to shut out the wicked, must either know that the Creator will hold them in punishment, or not know it. So either they will be held against his will, and he is less than the one who holds them, yielding to him unwillingly; or, if he wishes it to happen so, he himself has judged that it must be done so. And then he who is the author of the Creator's disgrace will be no better than the Creator. If there is no reason in believing that one punishes and another sets free, then both the judgment and the kingdom will belong to one; and since both belong to one, the one who judges is the Creator.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations and allusions are Luke 13:10–30; Exod 12:16; Isa 2:19 (in the Greek form “when he rises to shatter the earth”). The mockery about leaven and the oven answers a Marcionite argument that leaven, which the law excluded from the Passover, points to a different god's kingdom. The editor deletes as spurious adiciet (“he will add”) before “Depart from me”; it is left out of the translation.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (stray letter in the digital text): non soluits → non soluit.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 4.30 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/4/30/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 4.30 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/4/30/).
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