Chapter VIII.—Specific Points.  The Novelty of Marcion’s God Fatal to His Pretensions. God is from Everlasting, He Cannot Be in Any Wise New.

In the first place, how arrogantly do the Marcionites build up their stupid system,90    Stuporem suum. bringing forward a new god, as if we were ashamed of the old one! So schoolboys are proud of their new shoes, but their old master beats their strutting vanity out of them. Now when I hear of a new god,91    [Cap. xix. infra.] who, in the old world and in the old time and under the old god was unknown and unheard of; whom, (accounted as no one through such long centuries back, and ancient in men’s very ignorance of him),92    The original of this obscure passage is: “Novum igitur audiens deum, in vetere mundo et in vetere ævo et sub vetere deo inauditum quem tantis retro seculis neminem, et ipsa ignorantia antiquum, quidam Jesus Christus, et ille in veteribus nominibus novus, revelaverit, nec alius antehac.” The harsh expression, “quidam Jesus Christus,” bears, of course, a sarcastic reference to the capricious and inconsistent novelty which Marcion broached in his heresy about Christ. [By some slight chance in punctuation and arrangement, I have endeavoured to make it a little clearer.] a certain “Jesus Christ,” and none else revealed; whom Christ revealed, they say—Christ himself new, according to them, even, in ancient names—I feel grateful for this conceit93    Gloriæ. [Qu. boast?] of theirs. For by its help I shall at once be able to prove the heresy of their tenet of a new deity. It will turn out to be such a novelty94    Hæc erit novitas quæ. as has made gods even for the heathen by some new and yet again and ever new title95    Novo semper ac novo titulo. for each several deification. What new god is there, except a false one? Not even Saturn will be proved to be a god by all his ancient fame, because it was a novel pretence which some time or other produced even him, when it first gave him godship.96    Consecravit. On the contrary, living and perfect97    Germana. Deity has its origin98    Censetur. A frequent meaning in Tertullian. See Apol. 7 and 12. neither in novelty nor in antiquity, but in its own true nature. Eternity has no time. It is itself all time. It acts; it cannot then suffer. It cannot be born, therefore it lacks age. God, if old, forfeits the eternity that is to come; if new, the eternity which is past.99    We cannot preserve the terseness of the Latin: Deus, si est vetus, non erit; si est novus, non fuit. The newness bears witness to a beginning; the oldness threatens an end. God, moreover, is as independent of beginning and end as He is of time, which is only the arbiter and measurer of a beginning and an end.

CAPUT VIII.

Primo, supercilio stuporem suum aedificant Marcionistae, quod novum deum proferant, quasi nos veteris Dei pudeat. Inflantur et pueri novis calceis; sed a vetere paedagogo calceati mox vanam gloriam vapulabunt. Novum igitur audiens deum in 0255A vetere mundo et in vetere aevo, et sub vetere Deo ignotum, inauditum, quem tantis retro saeculis neminem, et ipsa ignorantia antiquum, quidam Jesus Christus , et ille in veteribus nominibus novus revelaverit, nec alius antehac; gratias ago huic gloriae eorum, maximo adjutorio ejus hinc jam haeresim probaturus, novae scilicet divinitatis professionem. Haec erit novitas, quae etiam ethnicis deos peperit, novo semper ac novo titulo consecrationis cujusque. Quis deus novus, nisi falsus? Ne Saturnum quidem tanta hodie antiquitas deum probabit, quia et illum novitas aliquando produxerit, cum primum consecravit. At enim viva et germana divinitas, nec de novitate, nec de vetustate, sed de sua veritate censetur. Non habet tempus aeternitas; omne 0255B enim tempus ipsa est. Quod facit, pati non potest. Caret aetate, quod non licet nasci. Deus, si est vetus, non erit: si est novus, non fuit. Novitas initium testificatur, vetustas finem comminatur. Deus autem tam alienus ab initio et fine est, quam a tempore, arbitro et metatore initii et finis.