Chapter XXII.—God’s Attribute of Goodness Considered as Natural; The God of Marcion Found Wanting Herein. It Came Not to Man’s Rescue When First Wanted.

But how shall (this) Antichrist be fully overthrown unless we relax our defence by mere prescription,259    In his book, De Præscrip. Hæret., [cap. xv.] Tertullian had enjoined that heretics ought not to be argued with, but to be met with the authoritative rule of the faith.  He here proposes to forego that course. and give ourselves scope for rebutting all his other attacks? Let us therefore next take the very person of God Himself, or rather His shadow or phantom,260    Marcion’s Docetic doctrine of Christ as having only appeared in human shape, without an actual incarnation, is indignantly confuted by Tertullian in his De Carne Christi, c.v. as we have it in Christ, and let Him be examined by that condition which makes Him superior to the Creator. And undoubtedly there will come to hand unmistakeable rules for examining God’s goodness. My first point, however, is to discover and apprehend the attribute, and then to draw it out into rules. Now, when I survey the subject in its aspects of time, I nowhere descry it261    That is, the principle in question—the bonitas Dei. from the beginning of material existences, or at the commencement of those causes, with which it ought to have been found, proceeding thence to do262    Exinde agens. whatever had to be done. For there was death already, and sin the sting of death, and that malignity too of the Creator, against which the goodness of the other god should have been ready to bring relief; falling in with this as the primary rule of the divine goodness (if it were to prove itself a natural agency), at once coming as a succour when the cause for it began. For in God all things should be natural and inbred, just like His own condition indeed, in order that they may be eternal, and so not be accounted casual263    Obvenientia. and extraneous, and thereby temporary and wanting in eternity. In God, therefore, goodness is required to be both perpetual and unbroken,264    Jugis. such as, being stored up and kept ready in the treasures of His natural properties, might precede its own causes and material developments; and if thus preceding, might underlie265    Susciperet. every first material cause, instead of looking at it from a distance,266    Despiceret. and standing aloof from it.267    Destitueret. In short, here too I must inquire, Why his268    That is, Marcion’s god’s. goodness did not operate from the beginning? no less pointedly than when we inquired concerning himself, Why he was not revealed from the very first? Why, then, did it not? since he had to be revealed by his goodness if he had any existence. That God should at all fail in power must not be thought, much less that He should not discharge all His natural functions; for if these were restrained from running their course, they would cease to be natural. Moreover, the nature of God Himself knows nothing of inactivity.  Hence (His goodness) is reckoned as having a beginning,269    Censetur. if it acts. It will thus be evident that He had no unwillingness to exercise His goodness at any time on account of His nature. Indeed, it is impossible that He should be unwilling because of His nature, since that so directs itself that it would no longer exist if it ceased to act.  In Marcion’s god, however, goodness ceased from operation at some time or other. A goodness, therefore, which could thus at any time have ceased its action was not natural, because with natural properties such cessation is incompatible. And if it shall not prove to be natural, it must no longer be believed to be eternal nor competent to Deity; because it cannot be eternal so long as, failing to be natural, it neither provides from the past nor guarantees for the future any means of perpetuating itself. Now as a fact it existed not from the beginning, and, doubtless, will not endure to the end. For it is possible for it to fail in existence some future270    Quandoque. time or other, as it has failed in some past271    Aliquando. period. Forasmuch, then, as the goodness of Marcion’s god failed in the beginning (for he did not from the first deliver man), this failure must have been the effect of will rather than of infirmity. Now a wilful suppression of goodness will be found to have a malignant end in view.  For what malignity is so great as to be unwilling to do good when one can, or to thwart272    Cruciare. what is useful, or to permit injury? The whole description, therefore, of Marcion’s Creator will have to be transferred273    Rescribetur. to his new god, who helped on the ruthless274    Sævitias. proceedings of the former by the retardation of his own goodness. For whosoever has it in his power to prevent the happening of a thing, is accounted responsible for it if it should occur. Man is condemned to death for tasting the fruit of one poor tree,275    Arbusculæ. and thence proceed sins with their penalties; and now all are perishing who yet never saw a single sod of Paradise. And all this your better god either is ignorant of, or else brooks. Is it that276    Si ut? he might on this account be deemed the better, and the Creator be regarded as all that the worse? Even if this were his purpose he would be malicious enough, for both wishing to aggravate his rival’s obloquy by permitting His (evil) works to be done, and by keeping the world harrassed by the wrong. What would you think of a physician who should encourage a disease by withholding the remedy, and prolong the danger by delaying his prescription, in order that his cure might be more costly and more renowned? Such must be the sentence to be pronounced against Marcion’s god: tolerant of evil, encouraging wrong, wheedling about his grace, prevaricating in his goodness, which he did not exhibit simply on its own account, but which he must mean to exhibit purely, if he is good by nature and not by acquisition,277    Accessione. if he is supremely good in attribute278    Ingenio. and not by discipline, if he is God from eternity and not from Tiberius, nay (to speak more truly), from Cerdon only and Marcion. As the case now stands,279    Nunc. [Comp. chapter xv. supra, p. 282.] however, such a god as we are considering would have been more fit for Tiberius, that the goodness of the Divine Being might be inaugurated in the world under his imperial sway!

CAPUT XXII.

Sed quomodo funditus evertetur Antichristus, nisi caeteris quoque injectionibus ejus elidendis locus detur, relaxata praescriptionum defensione? Accedamus igitur jam hinc ad ipsam Dei personam, vel potius umbram et phantasma , secundum Christum 0271A ipsius, per idque examinetur per quod Creatori praefertur. Et utique erunt regulae certae ad examinandam Dei bonitatem. Sed prius est ut inveniam illam, et adprehendam, et ita ad regulas perducam. Cum enim circumspicio tempora, nusquam est a primordio materiarum, et introitu caussarum, cum quibus debuerat inveniri exinde agens quod agi habuit. Erat enim jam et mors, et aculeus mortis delictum, et ipsa malitia Creatoris; adversus quam subvenire deberet alterius dei bonitas, primae huic regulae divinae bonitatis occurrens, si se naturalem probaret, statim succurrens, ut caussa coepit. Omnia enim in Deo naturalia et ingenita esse debebunt, ut sint aeterna, secundum statum ipsius, ne obvenientia et extranea reputentur, ac per hoc, temporalia et aeternitatis 0271B aliena. Ita et bonitas perennis et jugis exigetur in Deo, quae, in thesauris naturalium proprietatum reposita et parata, antecederet caussas et materias suas; et primam quamque susciperet, non despiceret et destitueret, si antecedebat. Denique, non minus et hic quaeram cur non a primordio operata sit bonitas ejus, quam de ipso quaesivimus, cur non a primordio sit revelatus? Quidni? qui per bonitatem revelari haberet, si qui fuisset. Non posse quid Deo non licet, nedum naturalibus suis fungi: quae si continentur, quo minus currant, naturalia non erunt. Et otium enim sua natura non novit: hinc censetur, si agat , si nec noluisse videbitur exercere bonitatem interim naturae nomine. Natura enim se non potest nolle, quae se ita dirigit, ut si cessaverit, 0271C non sit. Sed cessavit aliquando in deo Marcionis de opere bonitas . Ergo non fuit naturalis bonitas, quae potuit aliquando cessasse, quod naturalibus non licet. Et si non erit naturalis, jam nec aeterna credenda, nec Deo par, quia non aeterna, dum non naturalis: quae denique nullam sui perpetuitatem, aut de praeterito constituat, aut de futuro repromittat. Nam et a primordio non fuit, et in finem sine dubio non erit. Potest enim et non esse quandoque, sicut non fuit aliquando. Igitur, cum constet in primordio cessasse bonitatem Dei illius (non enim a primordio liberavit hominem), et voluntate potius eam quam infirmitate cessasse, jam voluntas suppressae bonitatis finis invenietur malignitatis. Quid enim tam malignum, 0272A quam nolle prodesse cum possis? quam utilitate cruciari ? quam injuriam sinere? Totum denique Creatoris elogium in illum rescribetur, qui saevitias ejus bonitatis suae mora juvit. Nam in cujus manu est quid ne fiat, ejus jam deputatur cum fit. Homo damnatur in mortem , ob unius arbusculae delibationem, et exinde proficiunt delicta cum poenis, et pereunt jam omnes qui paradisi nullum cespitem norunt. Et hoc melior aliqui Deus aut nescit, aut sustinet? Si , ut ex hoc melior inveniretur quanto Creator deterior haberetur, satis et in isto consilio malitiosus, qui et illum voluit oneratum operationibus ejus admissis , et saeculum in vexatione detinuit. Quid de tali medico judicabis, qui nutriat morbum mora praesidii, et periculum extendat dilatione remedii, 0272B quo pretiosius aut famosius curet? Talis et in deum Marcionis dicenda sententia est, mali permissorem, injuriae fautorem, gratiae lenocinatorem, benignitatis praevaricatorem, quam non statim caussae suae exhibuit, plane, si natura bonus, exhibiturus, et non accessione, si ingenio optimus, et non disciplina, si ab aevo Deus, et non a Tiberio; imo, quod verius, a Cerdone et Marcione. Tiberio nunc deus ille praestiterit, ut imperio ejus divina bonitas in terris dedicaretur.