Against Marcion 5.17
Summary: Ephesians, which Marcion called Laodiceans, speaks of summing up all things in Christ, of the Spirit promised by Joel, of the nations brought near to Israel's God, and of Christ's real flesh and the prophets' foundation, all of which belong to the Creator.
Latin text · CSEL 47:632–638
Ecclesiae quidem ueritate epistolam istam ad Ephesios habemus emissam, non ad Laodicenos; sed Marcion et titulum aliquando interpolare gestit, quasi et in isto diligentissimus explorator. nihil autem de titulis interest, cum ad omnes apostolus scripserit dum ad quosdam, certe tamen eum deum praedicans in Christo, cui competunt quae praedicantur. cui ergo competet secundum boni existimationem, quam proposuerit in sacramento uoluntatis suae, in dispensationem adimpletionis temporum — ut ita dixerim, sicut uerbum illud in Graeco sonat — recapitulare — id est ad initium redigere uel ab initio recensere — omnia in Christum, quae in caelis et quae in terris, nisi cuius erunt omnia ab initio, etiam ipsum initium, a quo et tempora et temporum adimple(tio et adimple)tionis dispensatio, ob quam omnia ad initium recensentur in Christo? alterius autem dei quod initium, id est unde, cuius opus nullum? quae tempora sine initio? quae adimpletio sine temporibus? quae dispensatio sine adimpletione? denique quid in terris egit iam olim, ut longa aliqua temporum adimplendorum dispensatio reputetur ad recensenda omnia in Christo, etiam quae in caelis? nec in caelis autem res ab altero actas existimabimus, quaecumque sunt, quam ab eo, a quo et in terris actas omnibus constat. quodsi non capit alterius <omnia) ista deputari ab initio quam creatoris, quis credet ab alio ea recenseri in Christum alium, et non a suo auctore et in suum Christum? si creatoris sunt, diuersa sint necesse est a diuerso deo; si diuersa, utique contraria. quomodo ergo contraria recenseantur in eum, a quo denique destruuntur? nam et sequentia quem renuntiant Christum, cum dicit: ut simus in laudem gloriae (eius) nos, qui praesperauimus in Christum? qui enim praesperasse potuerunt, id est ante sperasse in deum quam uenisset, nisi Iudaei, quibus Christus praenuntiabatur ab initio? qui ergo praenuntiabatur, ille et praesperabatur. atque adeo hoc ad se, id est ad Iudaeos, refert, ut distinctionem faciat conuersus ad nationes: in quo et uos, cum audissetis sermonem ueritatis, euangelium, in quo credidistis et signati estis spiritu promissionis eius sancto. cuius promissionis? factae per Iohelem: in nouissimis diebus effundam de meo spiritu in omnem carnem, id est et in nationes. ita (et) spiritus et euangelium in eo erit Christo, qui praesperabatur, dum praedicabatur. Sed et pater gloriae ille est, cuius Christus rex gloriae canitur in psalmo ascendens: quis est iste rex gloriae? dominus uirtutum ipse est rex gloriae; ab illo spiritus sapientiae optatur, apud quem haec quoque spiritalium species enumeratur inter septem spiritus per Esaiam; ille dabit (inluminatos cordis oculos, qui etiam exteriores oculos luce ditauit, cui displicet caecitas populi: et quis caecus nisi pueri mei? et excaecati sunt famuli dei; apud illum sunt et diuitiae hereditatis in sanctis. qui eam hereditatem ex uocatione nationum repromisit: postula de me, et dabo tibi gentes hereditatem tuam; ille inoperatus est in Christum ualentiam suam suscitando eum a mortuis et collocando eum ad dexteram suam subiciendo omnia, qui et dixit: sede ad dexteram meam, donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum; quia et alibi spiritus ad patrem de filio: omnia subiecisti sub pedibus eius. si ex his alius deus et alius Christus infertur, quae recognoscuntur in creatore, quaeramus iam creatorem. plane, puto, inuenimus, cum dicit illos delictis mortuos, [non] in quibus ingressi erant secundum aeuum mundi huius, secundum principem potestatis aeris, qui operatur in filiis incredulitatis. sed mundum non potest et hic pro deo mundi Marcion interpretari. non enim simile est creatum creatori, factum factori, mundus deo. sed nec princeps potestatis aeris dicetur qui est princeps potestatis saeculorum. numquam enim praeses superiorum de inferioribus notatur, licet et inferiora ipsi deputentur. sed nec incredulitatis operator uideri potest, quam ipse potius et a Iudaeis et a nationibus patitur. sufficit igitur, si haec non cadunt in creatorem. si autem et est, in quem magis competant, utique magis hoc apostolus sciit. quis iste? sine dubio ille, qui ipsi creatori filios incredulitatis obstruit, aere isto potitus, sicut dicere eum propheta refert: ponam in nubibus thronum meum: ero similis altissimo. hic erit diabolus, quem et alibi, si tamen ita et apostolum legi uolunt, deum aeui huius agnoscemus. ita enim totum saeculum mendacio diuinitatis impleuit. qui plane si non fuisset, tunc haec in creatorem spectasse potuissent. sed et (si) in Iudaismo conuersatus fuerat apostolus, non quia interposuit de delictis: in quibus et nos omnes conuersati sumus, ideo delictorum dominum et principem aeris huius creatorem praestat intellegi, sed quia in Iudaismo unus fuerat de filiis incredulitatis diabolum habens operatorem, cum persequeretur ecclesiam et Christum creatoris, propter quod et: incredulitatis fuimus, inquit. sed natura, ne, quia filios appellauit Iudaeos creator, argumentetur haereticus dominum irae creatorem. cum enim dicit: fuimus natura filii iracundiae creatoris autem non natura sunt filii Iudaei, sed adlectione patrum, irae filios ad naturam retulit, non ad creatorem. ad summam subiungens: sicut et ceteri, qui utique filii dei non sunt, apparet communi naturae omnium hominum et delicta et concupiscentias carnis et incredulitatem et iracundiam reputans, diabolo tamen captante naturam, quam et ipse iam (in)fecit delicti semine inlato. Ipsius, inquit, sumus factura, conditi in Christo. aliud est enim facere, aliud condere. sed utrumque uni dedit. homo autem factura creatoris est: idem ergo condidit in Christo, qui et fecit. quantum enim ad substantiam, fecit, quantum ad gratiam, condidit. Inspice et cohaerentia: memores uos, aliquando nationes in carne, qui appellamini praeputiatio ab ea quae dicitur circumcisio in carne manu facta, quod essetis illo in tempore sine Christo, alienati a conuersatione Israhelis et peregrini testamentorum et promissionis eorum spem non habentes et sine deo in mundo. sine quo autem deo fuerunt nationes et sine quo Christo? utique eo, cuius erat conuersatio Israhelis et testamenta et promissio. at nunc, inquit, in Christo uos, qui eratis longe, facti estis prope in sanguine eius. a quibus erant retro longe? a quibus supra dicit: a Christo creatoris, a conuersatione Israhelis, a testamentis, a spe promissionis, a deo ipso. si haec ita sunt, ergo his prope fiunt nunc nationes in Christo, a quibus tunc longe fuerunt. si autem conuersationi Israhelis, quae est in religione dei creatoris, et testamentis et promissioni et ipsi deo eorum proximi sumus facti in Christo, ridiculum satis, si nos alterius dei Christus de longinquo admouit creatori. meminerat apostolus ita praedicatum de nationum uocatione ex longinquo uocandarum: qui longe erant a me adpropinquauerunt iustitiae meae. tam enim iustitia quam et pax creatoris in Christo adnuntiabatur, ut saepe iam ostendimus. itaque ipse est, inquit, pax nostra, qui fecit duo unum — Iudaicum scilicet et gentile, quod prope et quod longe — soluto medio pariete inimicitiae in carne sua. sed Marcion abstulit (sua), ut inimicitiae daret carne, quasi carnali uitio [non] Christo aemulae. sicubi alibi dixi, et hic, non Marrucine, sed Pontice: cuius supra sanguinem confessus es, hic negas carnem? Si legem praeceptorum sententiis uacuam fecit, — adimplendo certe legem; uacat enim iam: non adulterabis, cum dicitur: (nec uidebis ad concupiscendum, uacat: non occides, cum dicitur: (nec maledices); aduersarium legis de adiutore non potes facere — ut duos conderet in semetipso — qui fecerat idem condens, secundum quod et supra: ipsius enim factura sumus conditi in Christo — in unum nouum hominem, faciens pacem — si uere nouum, uere et hominem, non phantasma, nouum autem, ut noue natum ex uirgine dei spiritu — ut reconciliet ambos deo — et deo, quem utrumque genus offenderat, et Iudaicum et gentile — in uno corpore, inquit, cum interfecisset inimicitiam in eo per crucem: ita et hic caro corpus in Christo, quod crucem pati potuit. hoc itaque adnuntiante pacem eis qui prope et eis qui longe, accessum consecuti simul ad patrem iam non sumus peregrini et aduenae, sed conciues sanctorum, sed domestici dei, — utique eius, a quo supra ostendimus alienos fuisse nos et longe constitutos — superaedificati super fundamentum apostolorum. abstulit haereticus: et prophetarum, oblitus dominum posuisse in ecclesia sicut apostolos ita et prophetas, si non timuit, ne et super ueterum prophetarum fundamentum aedificatio nostra constaret in Christo, cum ipse apostolus ubique nos de prophetis exstruere non cesset unde enim accepit summum angularem dicere Christum, nisi de psalmi significatione: lapis, quem reprobauerunt aedificantes, iste factus est in summo anguli?
English · Claude translation
By the truth of the church we hold that this letter was sent to the Ephesians, not to the Laodiceans; but Marcion was once eager to falsify its title too, as though he were a most diligent investigator in this too. But titles do not matter, since the apostle wrote to all when he wrote to some; certainly, however, preaching in Christ that God to whom the things preached belong. To whom, then, will it belong, according to the good pleasure which he purposed in the mystery of his will, for the arrangement of the fulfilment of the times (to put it as the word sounds in Greek), to “recapitulate” (that is, to bring back to the beginning, or to reckon up again from the beginning) all things in Christ, both those in the heavens and those on earth, if not to him to whom all things will belong from the beginning, even the beginning itself, from whom come both the times and the fulfilment of the times and the arrangement of the fulfilment, on account of which all things are reckoned back to the beginning in Christ? But what beginning has the other god, that is, what starting point, when he has no work? What times without a beginning? What fulfilment without times? What arrangement without fulfilment? In short, what did he ever do on earth long ago, that some long arrangement of times to be fulfilled should be reckoned for reckoning up all things in Christ, even those in the heavens? Nor shall we think that the things done in the heavens, whatever they are, were done by any other than the one by whom all agree the things on earth were done. And if it is not possible for all these things to be counted from the beginning as another's than the Creator's, who will believe that they are reckoned up by another into another Christ, and not by their own author into his own Christ? If they are the Creator's, they must be different from the different god; if different, then opposed. How, then, would opposed things be reckoned up into him by whom, in the end, they are destroyed? For what Christ does the sequel announce, when he says, “that we who hoped beforehand in Christ should be to the praise of his glory”? For who could have hoped beforehand, that is, hoped in God before he came, except the Jews, to whom Christ was foretold from the beginning? So he who was foretold was also hoped for beforehand. And so he refers this to himself, that is, to the Jews, in order to make a distinction when he turns to the nations: “in whom you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel, in which you believed, were sealed with his Holy Spirit of promise.” Of what promise? The one made through Joel: “In the last days I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh,” that is, on the nations too. So both the Spirit and the gospel will be in that Christ who was hoped for beforehand while he was being foretold. And the Father of glory is he whose Christ is sung in the psalm as the King of glory ascending: “Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.” From him the spirit of wisdom is prayed for, with whom this kind of spiritual gift too is listed among the seven spirits through Isaiah. He will give enlightened eyes of the heart who also enriched the outward eyes with light, who is displeased at the people's blindness: “And who is blind but my servants?” and, “The servants of God have been blinded.” With him are also the riches of the inheritance among the saints, he who promised that inheritance from the calling of the nations: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.” He worked his might in Christ by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand, subjecting all things to him, he who also said, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet”; since elsewhere too the Spirit says to the Father of the Son, “You have put all things under his feet.” If from these things, which are recognized in the Creator, another god and another Christ are inferred, let us now look for the Creator. Clearly, I think, we find him when he says that they were dead in the sins in which they had walked according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, who works in the sons of unbelief. But here too Marcion cannot take “the world” for the God of the world. For the created is not like the Creator, the made like the maker, the world like God. Nor will one who is the prince of the power of the ages be called the prince of the power of the air. For the ruler of higher things is never designated from the lower, even if the lower too are counted as his. Nor can he seem to be the worker of unbelief, which he himself rather suffers from both Jews and nations. It is enough, then, if these things do not fall upon the Creator. But if there is one to whom they apply better, the apostle surely knew this better. Who is he? Without doubt the one who hems in the sons of unbelief against the Creator himself, having taken possession of this air, as the prophet reports him saying: “I will set my throne in the clouds; I will be like the Most High.” This will be the devil, whom elsewhere too, if they want the apostle to be read so, we shall recognize as the god of this age. For so he has filled the whole world with the lie of deity. If he had not existed, these things could indeed have looked toward the Creator. And if the apostle had lived in Judaism, when he interposed about sins, “in which we too all once lived,” he does not thereby give us to understand that the lord of sins and prince of this air is the Creator; but because in Judaism he had been one of the sons of unbelief, with the devil working in him, when he was persecuting the church and the Creator's Christ, for this reason he says, “We were of unbelief.” But “by nature” he says, so that the heretic should not argue that the lord of wrath is the Creator because the Creator called the Jews sons. For when he says, “We were by nature children of wrath” (and the Jews are sons of the Creator not by nature but by his choice of the fathers), he referred the children of wrath to nature, not to the Creator. Finally, adding, “as the others too,” who are surely not sons of God, he plainly reckons sins and the lusts of the flesh and unbelief and wrath to the common nature of all men, the devil, however, laying hold of that nature, which he himself had already infected by sowing the seed of sin. “We are his workmanship,” he says, “created in Christ.” For making is one thing and creating another; but he gave both to one. Man is the workmanship of the Creator: so the same one who made him created him in Christ. As regards substance, he made him; as regards grace, he created him. Look also at what hangs together with this: “Remember that you, once the nations in the flesh, who are called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hand, were at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants and their promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Without what God were the nations, and without what Christ? Surely without him to whom belonged the commonwealth of Israel and the covenants and the promise. “But now,” he says, “in Christ you who were far off have been brought near in his blood.” From what had they been far off before? From what he says above: from the Creator's Christ, from the commonwealth of Israel, from the covenants, from the hope of the promise, from God himself. If this is so, then the nations are now brought near in Christ to those things from which they were then far off. But if we have been brought near in Christ to the commonwealth of Israel, which is in the worship of God the Creator, and to the covenants and the promise and to their very God, it is ridiculous enough that the Christ of another god has brought us from far off to the Creator. The apostle remembered that it had been foretold thus of the calling of the nations, who were to be called from far off: “Those who were far from me have drawn near to my righteousness.” For both the righteousness and the peace of the Creator were announced in Christ, as we have often shown. And so, he says, “He is our peace, who has made both one” (the Jewish, that is, and the Gentile, the near and the far), “having broken down the middle wall of enmity in his flesh.” But Marcion took away “his,” so as to make it “in the flesh” of the enmity, as though the rivalry were with fleshly vice, not with Christ. As I have said elsewhere, so here too, not man of the Marrucini but man of Pontus: why do you deny here the flesh of him whose blood you confessed above? If he made void the law of commandments by his decrees (by fulfilling the law, surely; for “You shall not commit adultery” is now void when it is said, “You shall not even look with lust”; “You shall not kill” is void when it is said, “You shall not even speak evil”; you cannot make a helper of the law into its adversary), “so as to create in himself the two” (he who had made them, creating them too, as also above: “for we are his workmanship, created in Christ”) “into one new man, making peace” (if truly new, then truly a man too, not a phantom; and new, as newly born of a virgin by the Spirit of God), “that he might reconcile both to God” (to the God whom both races had offended, both Jewish and Gentile) “in one body,” he says, “having killed the enmity in it through the cross”: so here too the body in Christ is flesh, which could suffer the cross. So, since he announced peace to those who were near and those who were far off, having together obtained access to the Father, we are no longer strangers and sojourners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (of him, surely, from whom we showed above that we had been aliens and far off), “built upon the foundation of the apostles.” The heretic took away “and of the prophets,” forgetting that the Lord placed prophets as well as apostles in the church; unless he feared that our building in Christ might also stand on the foundation of the old prophets, since the apostle himself never ceases everywhere to build us up from the prophets. For where did he get the idea of calling Christ the chief cornerstone, if not from the meaning of the psalm: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner”?
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are Eph 1:9–10, 12–14, 17–22; 2:2–3, 10–22; Joel 2:28; Ps 24:8–10 (23:8–10 Vulg.); Isa 11:2; Isa 42:19; Ps 2:8; Ps 110:1 (109:1 Vulg.); Ps 8:6 (8:7 Vulg.); Isa 14:14; Isa 46:13 (cf. 57:19); Matt 5:21–22, 27–28; 1 Cor 12:28; Ps 118:22 (117:22 Vulg.). “Recapitulate” renders the Greek ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι. Tertullian charges that Marcion removed “his” in Eph 2:15 and “and of the prophets” in Eph 2:20. “Not man of the Marrucini but man of Pontus” is a play on a phrase whose source is uncertain (the Marrucini were an Italian people).
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (OCR misreading of a bracket; split word in the digital text; stray quotation mark in the digital text; words run together in the digital text): terrisnisi → terris, nisi; Sed et 'pater → Sed et pater; [non J Christo → [non] Christo; cum inter fecisset → cum interfecisset.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 5.17 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/5/17/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 5.17 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/5/17/).
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