Chapter XI.—The Evidence for God External to Him; But the External Creation Which Yields This Evidence is Really Not Extraneous, for All Things are God’s. Marcion’s God, Having Nothing to Show for Himself, No God at All.  Marcion’s Scheme Absurdly Defective, Not Furnishing Evidence for His New God’s Existence, Which Should at Least Be Able to Compete with the Full Evidence of the Creator.

And justly so, they say. For who is there that is less well known by his own (inherent) qualities than by strange128    Extraneous. ones? No one. Well, I keep to this statement. How could anything be strange129    Extraneum. to God, to whom, if He were personally existent, nothing would be strange? For this is the attribute of God, that all things are His, and all things belong to Him; or else this question would not so readily be heard from us: What has He to do with things strange to Him?—a point which will be more fully noticed in its proper place. It is now sufficient to observe, that no one is proved to exist to whom nothing is proved to belong. For as the Creator is shown to be God, God without any doubt, from the fact that all things are His, and nothing is strange to Him; so the rival130    Alius. god is seen to be no god, from the circumstance that nothing is his, and all things are therefore strange to him.  Since, then, the universe belongs to the Creator, I see no room for any other god. All things are full of their Author, and occupied by Him. If in created beings there be any portion of space anywhere void of Deity, the void will be of a false deity clearly.131    Plane falsæ vacabit. By falsehood the truth is made clear. Why cannot the vast crowd of false gods somewhere find room for Marcion’s god?  This, therefore, I insist upon, from the character132    Forma. of the Creator, that God must have been known from the works of some world peculiarly His own, both in its human constituents, and the rest of its organic life;133    Proprii sui mundi, et hominis et sæculi. when even the error of the world has presumed to call gods those men whom it sometimes acknowledges, on the ground that in every such case something is seen which provides for the uses and advantages of life.134    [Kaye, p. 206.] Accordingly, this also was believed from the character of God to be a divine function; namely, to teach or point out what is convenient and needful in human concerns.  So completely has the authority which has given influence to a false divinity been borrowed from that source, whence it had previously flowed forth to the true one. One stray vegetable135    Cicerculam. at least Marcion’s god ought to have produced as his own; so might he be preached up as a new Triptolemus.136    [—“uncique puer monstrator aratri,” Virg. Georg. i. 19, and see Heyne’s note.] Or else state some reason which shall be worthy of a God, why he, supposing him to exist, created nothing; because he must, on supposition of his existence, have been a creator, on that very principle on which it is clear to us that our God is no otherwise existent, than as having been the Creator of this universe of ours. For, once for all, the rule137    Præscriptio. will hold good, that they cannot both acknowledge the Creator to be God, and also prove him divine whom they wish to be equally believed in as God, except they adjust him to the standard of Him whom they and all men hold to be God; which is this, that whereas no one doubts the Creator to be God on the express ground of His having made the universe, so, on the selfsame ground, no one ought to believe that he also is God who has made nothing—except, indeed, some good reason be forthcoming. And this must needs be limited to one of two: he was either unwilling to create, or else unable. There is no third reason.138    Tertium cessat. Now, that he was unable, is a reason unworthy of God. Whether to have been unwilling to be a worthy one, I want to inquire.  Tell me, Marcion, did your god wish himself to be recognised at any time or not? With what other purpose did he come down from heaven, and preach, and having suffered rise again from the dead, if it were not that he might be acknowledged? And, doubtless, since he was acknowledged, he willed it. For no circumstance could have happened to him, if he had been unwilling.  What indeed tended so greatly to the knowledge of himself, as his appearing in the humiliation of the flesh,—a degradation all the lower indeed if the flesh were only illusory?139    Falsæ. An allusion to the Docetism of Marcion. For it was all the more shameful if he, who brought on himself the Creator’s curse by hanging on a tree, only pretended the assumption of a bodily substance. A far nobler foundation might he have laid for the knowledge of himself in some evidences of a creation of his own, especially when he had to become known in opposition to Him in whose territory140    Apud quem. he had remained unknown by any works from the beginning. For how happens it that the Creator, although unaware, as the Marcionites aver, of any god being above Himself, and who used to declare even with an oath that He existed alone, should have guarded by such mighty works the knowledge of Himself, about which, on the assumption of His being alone without a rival, He might have spared Himself all care; while the Superior God, knowing all the while how well furnished in power His inferior rival was, should have made no provision at all towards getting Himself acknowledged? Whereas He ought to have produced works more illustrious and exalted still, in order that He might, after the Creator’s standard, both be acknowledged as God from His works, and even by nobler deeds show Himself to be more potent and more gracious than the Creator.

CAPUT XI.

Et merito, inquiunt; quis enim non tam suis notus est, quam extraneis? Nemo. Teneo et hanc vocem. Quale est enim, ut aliquid extraneum Deo sit, cui nihil extraneum esset, si quis esset? quia Dei hoc est, omnia illius esse et omnia ad illum pertinere: vel ne statim audiret a nobis: Quid ergo illi cum extraneis? quod plenius suo loco audiet. At nunc satis est nullum probari cujus nihil probatur. Sicut enim Creator, ex hoc et Deus, et indubitatus Deus, quia omnia ipsius et nihil extraneum illi; ita et alius idcirco non deus, quia omnia non ejus, ideoque et 0258B extranea. Denique, si universitas Creatoris est, jam nec locum video dei alterius. Plena et occupata sunt omnia suo auctore. Si vacat aliquid spatii alicujus divinitati in creaturis, plane falsae vacabit. Patet mendacio veritas. Tanta vis idolorum, cur non recipiat alicubi deum Marcionis? Igitur et hoc ex forma Creatoris expostulo, Deum ex operibus cognosci debuisse, alicujus proprii sui mundi, et hominis, et saeculi: quando etiam error orbis proptereat deos praesumpserit, quos homines interdum confitetur, quoniam aliquid ab unoquoque prospectum videtur utilitatibus et commodis vitae: ita et hoc ex forma Dei creditum est, divinum esse instituere vel demonstrare quid aptum et necessarium sit rebus humanis. Adeo inde auctoritas accommodata 0258C falsae divinitati, unde praecesserat verae. Unam saltem cicerculam deus Marcionis propriam protulisse debuerat, ut novus aliquis Triptolemus praedicaretur. Aut exhibe rationem Deo dignam, cur nihil condiderit, si est; quia condidisset, si fuisset: illo scilicet praejudicio, quo et nostrum Deum non alias manifestum est esse, quam quia totum condidit hoc. Semel enim praescriptio stabit, non posse illos et Deum confiteri creatorem, et eum quem volunt aeque deum credi, non ad ejus formam probare, quem et ipsi et omnes Deum: ut quando hoc ipso nemo creatorem Deum dubitet, quia totum hoc condidit, hoc ipso nemo debeat credere Deum et illum qui nihil condidit, nisi ratio forte proferatur. Duplex ista videatur necesse est, ut aut noluerit condere quid, aut non potuerit: 0258D tertium cessat. Sed non potuisse, indignum Deo est; Noluisse, an dignum volo inquirere. Dic mihi, 0259A Marcion, voluit Deus tuus cognosci se quocumque in tempore? anne alio proposito et descendit, et praedicavit, et passus resurrexit, quam uti cognosceretur? Et sine dubio, si cognitus est, voluit: nihil enim circa eum fieret, nisi voluisset. Quid ergo tantopere notitiam sui procuravit, ut in dedecore carnis exhiberetur, et quidem majore, si falsae? Nam hoc turpius, si et mentitus est substantiam corporis, qui et maledictum in se Creatoris admisit, ligno suspensus. Quanto honestius per aliqua propriae molitionis indicia cognitionem sui praestruxisset? Maxime adversus eum cognosci habens, apud quem ex operibus ab initio cognitus non erat. Nam et quale est, ut Creator quidem ignorans esse alium super se deum, ut volunt Marcionistae, qui solum se etiam jurans (Is. 0259B XL, 8) adseverabat, tantis operibus notitiam sui armaverit, quam potuerat non ita curasse secundum singularitatis suae praesumptionem: ille autem sublimior, sciens inferiorem deum tam instructum, nullam sibi prospexerit agnoscendo paraturam? Quando etiam insigniora et superbiora opera debuisset condidisse, ut Deus ex operibus cognosceretur secundum Creatorem; et ex honestioribus, potior et generosior Creatore.