Chapter XIII.—The Marcionites Depreciate the Creation, Which, However, is a Worthy Witness of God. This Worthiness Illustrated by References to the Heathen Philosophers, Who Were Apt to Invest the Several Parts of Creation with Divine Attributes.

While we are expelling from this rank (of Deity) a god who has no evidence to show for himself which is so proper and God-worthy as the testimony of the Creator, Marcion’s most shameless followers with haughty impertinence fall upon the Creator’s works to destroy them. To be sure, say they, the world is a grand work, worthy of a God.152    This is an ironical concession from the Marcionite side. Then is the Creator not at all a God? By all means He is God.153    Another concession. Therefore154    Tertullian’s rejoinder. the world is not unworthy of God, for God has made nothing unworthy of Himself; although it was for man, and not for Himself, that He made the world, (and) although every work is less than its maker.  And yet, if to have been the author of our creation, such as it is, be unworthy of God, how much more unworthy of Him is it to have created absolutely nothing at all!—not even a production which, although unworthy, might yet have encouraged the hope of some better attempt.  To say somewhat, then, concerning the alleged155    De isto. unworthiness of this world’s fabric, to which among the Greeks also is assigned a name of ornament and grace,156    They called it κόσμος. not of sordidness, those very professors of wisdom,157    By sapientiæ professores he means the heathen philosophers; see De Præscript. Hæret. c. 7. from whose genius every heresy derives its spirit,158    In his book adv. Hermogenem, c. 8, Tertullian calls the philosophers “hæreticorum patriarchæ.” called the said unworthy elements divine; as Thales did water, Heraclitus fire, Anaximenes air, Anaximander all the heavenly bodies, Strato the sky and earth, Zeno the air and ether, and Plato the stars, which he calls a fiery kind of gods; whilst concerning the world, when they considered indeed its magnitude, and strength, and power, and honour, and glory,—the abundance, too, the regularity, and law of those individual elements which contribute to the production, the nourishment, the ripening, and the reproduction of all things,—the majority of the philosophers hesitated159    Formidaverint. to assign a beginning and an end to the said world, lest its constituent elements,160    Substantiæ. great as they undoubtedly are, should fail to be regarded as divine,161    Dei. which are objects of worship with the Persian magi, the Egyptian hierophants, and the Indian gymnosophists. The very superstition of the crowd, inspired by the common idolatry, when ashamed of the names and fables of their ancient dead borne by their idols, has recourse to the interpretation of natural objects, and so with much ingenuity cloaks its own disgrace, figuratively reducing Jupiter to a heated substance, and Juno to an aërial one (according to the literal sense of the Greek words);162    The Greek name of Jupiter, Ζεύς, is here derived from ζέω, ferveo, I glow. Juno’s name, ῞Ηρα, Tertullian connects with ἀήρ, the air; παρὰ τὸ ἀὴρ καθ᾽ ὑπέρθεσιν ῞Ηρα. These names of the two great deities suggest a connection with fire and air. Vesta, in like manner, to fire, and the Muses to waters, and the Great Mother163    i.e., Cybele. to the earth, mowed as to its crops, ploughed up with lusty arms, and watered with baths.164    The earth’s irrigations, and the washings of the image of Cybele every year in the river Almo by her priests, are here confusedly alluded to.  For references to the pagan custom, see White and Riddle’s large Lat. Dict. s. v. Almo. Thus Osiris also, whenever he is buried, and looked for to come to life again, and with joy recovered, is an emblem of the regularity wherewith the fruits of the ground return, and the elements recover life, and the year comes round; as also the lions of Mithras165    Mithras, the Persian sun-god, was symbolized by the image of a lion.  The sun entering the zodiacal sign Leo amidst summer heat may be glanced at. are philosophical sacraments of arid and scorched nature. It is, indeed, enough for me that natural elements, foremost in site and state, should have been more readily regarded as divine than as unworthy of God. I will, however, come down to166    Deficiam ad. humbler objects. A single floweret from the hedgerow, I say not from the meadows; a single little shellfish from any sea, I say not from the Red Sea; a single stray wing of a moorfowl, I say nothing of the peacock,—will, I presume, prove to you that the Creator was but a sorry167    Sordidum. [Well and nobly said.] artificer!

CAPUT XIII.

Cum deum hoc gradu expellimus, cui nulla conditio tam propria et Deo digna, quam Creatoris, testimonium praesignarit, narem contrahentes impudentissimi Marcionistae, convertuntur ad destructionem operum Creatoris. Nimirum, inquiunt, grande opus et dignum Deo, mundus, Numquid ergo Creator minime Deus? Plane Deus. Ergo nec mundus Deo 0260B indignus: nihil etenim Deus indignum se fecit; etsi mundum homini, non sibi fecit, etsi omne opus inferius est suo artifice. Et tamen, si quale quid fecisse indignum est Deo, quanto indignius Deo est, nihil eum omnino fecisse vel indignum, quo posset etiam digniorum auctor sperari! Ut ergo aliquid et de isto hujus mundi indigno loquar, cui et apud Graecos ornamenti et cultus, non sordium nomen est, indignas videlicet substantias ipsi illi sapientiae professores, de quorum ingeniis omnis haeresis animatur, deos pronuntiaverunt, ut Thales aquam, ut Heraclitus ignem, ut Anaximenes aerem, ut Anaximander universa coelestia, ut Strato coelum et terram, ut Zeno aerem et aetherem, ut Plato sidera; quae genus deorum igneum appellat, cum de mundo. Considerando 0260C scilicet et magnitudinem, et vim, et potestatem, et honorem, et decorem, opem, fidem, legem singulorum elementorum, quae omnibus gignendis, alendis, conficiendis reficiendisque conspirant, ut plerique physicorum, formidaverunt initium ac finem mundo dare, ne substantiae ejus, tantae scilicet, minus dii haberentur; quas colunt et Persarum Magi, et Aegyptiorum Hierophantae, Indorum Gymnosophistae. Ipsa quoque vulgaris superstitio communis idololatriae, cum in simulacris de nominibus et fabulis veterum mortuorum pudet, ad interpretationem naturalium refugit, et dedecus suum ingenio obumbrat, 0261A figurans Jovem in substantiam fervidam, et Junonem ejus in aeriam, secundum sonum graecorum vocabulorum; item Vestam in ignem et Camenas in aquam, et Magnam Matrem in terram seminalia demessam, lacertis aratam, lavacris rigatam. Sic et Osiris quod semper sepelitur, et in vivido quaeritur, et cum gaudio invenitur, reciprocarum frugum et vividorum elementorum, et recidivi anni fidem argumentantur: sicut aridae et ardentis naturae sacramenta leones Mithrae philosophantur. Et superiores quidem situ aut statu substantias sufficit facilius deos habitas, quam Deo indignas. Ad humilia deficiam. Unus, opinor, de sepibus flosculus, non dico de pratis; una cujuslibet maris conchula, non dico de Rubro; una tetraonis pinnula, taceo de pavo, 0261B sordidum artificem pronuntiabit tibi Creatorem?