Chapter XXI.—Christ’s Connection with the Creator Shown from Several Incidents in the Old Testament, Compared with St. Luke’s Narrative of the Mission of the Disciples. The Feeding of the Multitude. The Confession of St. Peter. Being Ashamed of Christ. This Shame is Only Possible of the True Christ. Marcionite Pretensions Absurd.

He sends forth His disciples to preach the kingdom of God.1936    Luke ix. 1–6. Does He here say of what God? He forbids their taking anything for their journey, by way of either food or raiment.  Who would have given such a commandment as this, but He who feeds the ravens and clothes1937    Vestit. the flowers of the field? Who anciently enjoined for the treading ox an unmuzzled mouth,1938    Libertatem oris. that he might be at liberty to gather his fodder from his labour, on the principle that the worker is worthy of his hire?1939    Deut. xxv. 4. Marcion may expunge such precepts, but no matter, provided the sense of them survives.  But when He charges them to shake off the dust of their feet against such as should refuse to receive them, He also bids that this be done as a witness.  Now no one bears witness except in a case which is decided by judicial process; and whoever orders inhuman conduct to be submitted to the trial by testimony,1940    In testationem redigi. does really threaten as a judge. Again, that it was no new god which recommended1941    Probatum. by Christ, was clearly attested by the opinion of all men, because some maintained to Herod that Jesus was the Christ; others, that He was John; some, that He was Elias; and others, that He was one of the old prophets.1942    Luke ix. 7, 8. Now, whosoever of all these He might have been, He certainly was not raised up for the purpose of announcing another god after His resurrection. He feeds the multitude in the desert place;1943    Luke ix. 10–17. this, you must know1944    Scilicet. was after the manner of the Old Testament.1945    De pristino more. Or else,1946    Aut. if there was not the same grandeur, it follows that He is now inferior to the Creator. For He, not for one day, but during forty years, not on the inferior aliment of bread and fish, but with the manna of heaven, supported the lives1947    Protelavit. of not five thousand, but of six hundred thousand human beings. However, such was the greatness of His miracle, that He willed the slender supply of food, not only to be enough, but even to prove superabundant;1948    Exuberare. and herein He followed the ancient precedent.  For in like manner, during the famine in Elijah’s time, the scanty and final meal of the widow of Sarepta was multiplied1949    Redundaverant. by the blessing of the prophet throughout the period of the famine. You have the third book of the Kings.1950    1 Kings xvii. 7–16. If you also turn to the fourth book, you will discover all this conduct1951    Ordinem. of Christ pursued by that man of God, who ordered ten1952    I have no doubt that ten was the word written by our author; for some Greek copies read δέκα, and Ambrose in his Hexaëmeron, book vi. chap. ii., mentions the same number (Fr. Junius). barley loaves which had been given him to be distributed among the people; and when his servitor, after contrasting the large number of the persons with the small supply of the food, answered, “What, shall I set this before a hundred men?” he said again, “Give them, and they shall eat: for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof, according to the word of the Lord.”1953    2 Kings iv. 42–44. O Christ, even in Thy novelties Thou art old! Accordingly, when Peter, who had been an eye-witness of the miracle, and had compared it with the ancient precedents, and had discovered in them prophetic intimations of what should one day come to pass, answered (as the mouthpiece of them all) the Lord’s inquiry, “Whom say ye that I am?”1954    Luke ix. 20. in the words, “Thou art the Christ,” he could not but have perceived that He was that Christ, beside whom he knew of none else in the Scriptures, and whom he was now surveying1955    Recensebat. in His wonderful deeds. This conclusion He even Himself confirms by thus far bearing with it, nay, even enjoining silence respecting it.1956    Luke ix. 21. For if Peter was unable to acknowledge Him to be any other than the Creator’s Christ, while He commanded them “to tell no man that saying,” surely1957    Utique. He was unwilling to have the conclusion promulged which Peter had drawn. No doubt of that,1958    Immo. you say; but as Peter’s conclusion was a wrong one, therefore He was unwilling to have a lie disseminated. It was, however, a different reason which He assigned for the silence, even because “the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and scribes, and priests, and be slain, and be raised again the third day.”1959    Luke ix. 22. Now, inasmuch as these sufferings were actually foretold for the Creator’s Christ (as we shall fully show in the proper place1960    See below, chaps. xl.–xliii.), so by this application of them to His own case1961    Sic quoque. does He prove that it is He Himself of whom they were predicted. At all events, even if they had not been predicted, the reason which He alleged for imposing silence (on the disciples) was such as made it clear enough that Peter had made no mistake, that reason being the necessity of His undergoing these sufferings. “Whosoever,” says He, “will save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.”1962    Luke ix. 24. Surely1963    Certe. it is the Son of man1964    Compare above, chap. x., towards the end. who uttered this sentence. Look carefully, then, along with the king of Babylon, into his burning fiery furnace, and there you will discover one “like the Son of man” (for He was not yet really Son of man, because not yet born of man), even as early as then1965    Jam tunc. appointing issues such as these. He saved the lives of the three brethren,1966    Dan. iii. 25, 26. who had agreed to lose them for God’s sake; but He destroyed those of the Chaldæans, when they had preferred to save them by the means of their idolatry. Where is that novelty, which you pretend1967    Ista. in a doctrine which possesses these ancient proofs? But all the predictions have been fulfilled1968    Decucurrerunt. concerning martyrdoms which were to happen, and were to receive the recompenses of their reward from God. “See,” says Isaiah, “how the righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and just men are taken away, and no man considereth.”1969    Isa. lvii. i. When does this more frequently happen than in the persecution of His saints? This, indeed, is no ordinary matter,1970    We have, by understanding res, treated these adjectives as nouns. Rigalt. applies them to the doctrina of the sentence just previous. Perhaps, however, “persecutione” is the noun. no common casualty of the law of nature; but it is that illustrious devotion, that fighting for the faith, wherein whosoever loses his life for God saves it, so that you may here again recognize the Judge who recompenses the evil gain of life with its destruction, and the good loss thereof with its salvation. It is, however, a jealous God whom He here presents to me; one who returns evil for evil.  “For whosoever,” says He, “shall be ashamed of me, of him will I also be ashamed.”1971    Luke ix. 26. Now to none but my Christ can be assigned the occasion1972    Materia conveniat. of such a shame as this. His whole course1973    Ordo. was so exposed to shame as to open a way for even the taunts of heretics, declaiming1974    Perorantibus. with all the bitterness in their power against the utter disgrace1975    Fœditatem. of His birth and bringing-up, and the unworthiness of His very flesh.1976    Ipsius etiam carnis indignitatem; because His flesh, being capable of suffering and subject to death, seemed to them unworthy of God. So Adv. Judæos, chap. xiv., he says: “Primo sordidis indutus est, id est carnis passibilis et mortalis indignitate.” Or His “indignity” may have been εἶδος οὐκ ἄξιον τυραννίδος, His “unkingly aspect” (as Origen expresses it, Contra Celsum, 6); His “form of a servant,” or slave, as St. Paul says. See also Tertullian’s De Patientia, iii. (Rigalt.) But how can that Christ of yours be liable to a shame, which it is impossible for him to experience? Since he was never condensed1977    Coagulatur. [Job x. 10.] into human flesh in the womb of a woman, although a virgin; never grew from human seed, although only after the law of corporeal substance, from the fluids1978    Ex feminæ humore. of a woman; was never deemed flesh before shaped in the womb; never called fœtus1979    Pecus. Julius Firmicus, iii. 1, uses the word in the same way: “Pecus intra viscera matris artuatim concisum a medicis proferetur.” [Jul. Firmicus Maternus, floruit circa, a.d. 340.] after such shaping; was never delivered from a ten months’ writhing in the womb;1980    Such is probably the meaning of “non decem mensium cruciatu deliberatus.” For such is the situation of the infant in the womb, that it seems to writhe (cruciari) all curved and contracted (Rigalt.). Latinius read delibratus instead of deliberatus, which means, “suspended or poised in the womb as in a scale.” This has my approbation. I would compare De Carne Christi, chap. iv. (Fr. Junius). Oehler reads deliberatus in the sense of liberatus. was never shed forth upon the ground, amidst the sudden pains of parturition, with the unclean issue which flows at such a time through the sewerage of the body, forthwith to inaugurate the light1981    Statim lucem lacrimis auspicatus. of life with tears, and with that primal wound which severs the child from her who bears him;1982    Primo retinaculi sui vulnere: the cutting of the umbilical nerve. [Contrast Jer. Taylor, on the Nativity, Opp. I. p. 34.] never received the copious ablution, nor the meditation of salt and honey;1983    Nec sale ac melle medicatus. Of this application in the case of a recent childbirth we know nothing; it seems to have been meant for the skin. See Pliny, in his Hist. Nat. xxii. 25. nor did he initiate a shroud with swaddling clothes;1984    Nec pannis jam sepulturæ involucrum initiatus. nor afterwards did he ever wallow1985    Volutatus per immunditias. in his own uncleanness, in his mother’s lap; nibbling at her breast; long an infant; gradually1986    Vix. a boy; by slow degrees1987    Tarde. a man.1988    Expositus. But he was revealed1989    i.e., he never passed through stages like these. from heaven, full-grown at once, at once complete; immediately Christ; simply spirit, and power, and god. But as withal he was not true, because not visible; therefore he was no object to be ashamed of from the curse of the cross, the real endurance1990    Veritate. of which he escaped, because wanting in bodily substance. Never, therefore, could he have said, “Whosoever shall be ashamed of me.” But as for our Christ, He could do no otherwise than make such a declaration;1991    Debuit pronuntiasse. “made” by the Father “a little lower than the angels,”1992    Ps. viii. 6. “a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people;”1993    Ps. xxii. 6. seeing that it was His will that “with His stripes we should be healed,”1994    Isa. liii. 5. that by His humiliation our salvation should be established. And justly did He humble Himself1995    Se deposuit. for His own creature man, for the image and likeness of Himself, and not of another, in order that man, since he had not felt ashamed when bowing down to a stone or a stock, might with similar courage give satisfaction to God for the shamelessness of his idolatry, by displaying an equal degree of shamelessness in his faith, in not being ashamed of Christ.  Now, Marcion, which of these courses is better suited to your Christ, in respect of a meritorious shame?1996    Ad meritum confusionis. Plainly, you ought yourself to blush with shame for having given him a fictitious existence.1997    Quod illum finxisti.

CAPUT XXI.

Dimittit discipulos ad praedicandum Dei regnum (Luc. IX). Numquid vel hic edidit, cujus? Prohibet eos victui aut vestitui quid in viam ferre? Quis hoc mandasset? nisi qui et corvos alit , et flores agri vestit, 0409B qui bovi quoque terenti libertatem oris (Deut. XXV, 4) ad veniam pabuli ex opere submovendi ante praecedit: quia dignus operarius mercede sua. Haec Marcion deleat, dum sensui salva sint. At cum jubet pulverem excutere de pedibus in eos a quibus excepti non fuissent, et hoc in testimonium mandat fieri; nemo testatur, quod non judicio destinatur; inhumanitatem qui in testationem redigi jubet, judicem comminatur. Nullum deum novum a Christo probatum illa etiam opinio omnium declaravit, quia Christum Jesum, alii Joannem, alii Heliam, alii unum aliquem ex veteribus prophetis Herodi asseverabant. Ex quibus quicumque fuisset, non utique ob hoc est suscitatus, ut alium deum post resurrectionem praedicaret. Pascit populum in solitudine, de 0409C pristino scilicet more. Aut si non eadem est majestas, ergo jam minor est Creatore, qui non uno die, sed annis quadraginta, nec de inferioribus materiis panis et piscis, sed de manna coelesti, nec quinque circiter, sed sexcenta millia hominum protelavit. Adeo autem ea fuit majestas, ut et pabuli exiguitatem non tantum sufficere, verum etiam exuberare, de pristino voluerit exemplo. Sic enim et in tempore famis sub Helia viduae Sareptensi modica et suprema 0410A alimenta ex prophetae benedictione, per totum famis tempus redundaverant (III Reg. XVII). Habes tertiam Basiliarum. Si et quartam resolvas , invenies (IV Reg., IV, 42 et seqq.) totum hunc ordinem Christi circa illum Dei hominem, qui oblatos sibi viginti hordeaceos panes cum populo distribui jussisset, et minister ejus proinde comparata multitudine et pabuli mediocritate, respondisset: Quid ergo hoc dem in conspectu centum hominum? Da, inquit, et manducabunt, quoniam haec dicit Dominus: Et manducaverunt, et reliquerunt reliquias, secundum dictum Domini. O Christum et in novis veterem! Haec itaque quae viderat Petrus, et cum pristinis compararat, et non tantum retro facta, sed et in futurum jam tunc prophetantia recognoverat, 0410B interroganti Domino quisnam illis videretur, cum pro omnibus responderet: Tu es Christus, non potest non eum sensisse Christum, nisi quem noverat in Scripturis, quem jam rescensebat in factis. Hoc et ipse confirmat usque adhuc patiens, imo et silentium indicens. Si enim Petrus quidem non poterat alium eum confiteri, quam Creatoris: ille autem praecepit, ne cui hoc diceret; utique id noluit provulgari , quod Petrus senserat. Imo, inquis, quia non recte senserat, noluit mendacium disseminari. Sed aliam silentii caussam edixit: Quia oporteret filium hominis multa pati, et reprobari a presbyteris et scribis et sacerdotibus, et interfici, et post tertium diem resurgere. Quae cum praedicata sint et ipsa in Christum Creatoris, sicut suis locis implebimus, sic quoque 0410C ipsum se ostendit esse, in quem praedicabantur. Certe etsi non essent praedicata, eam caussam indicti silentii protulit quae non Petri errorem demonstraret, obeundarum passionum necessitatem. Qui voluerit, inquit, animam suam salvam facere, perdet illam; et qui perdiderit eam propter me, salvam faciet eam. Certe Filius hominis hanc sententiam emisit. Perspice igitur et tu cum rege Babylonio, fornacem ejus ardentem (Dan., III), et invenies illic tamquam Filium hominis 0411A (nondum enim vere erat, nondum scilicet natus ex homine), jam tunc istos exitus constituentem. Salvas facit animas trium fratrum, qui eas pro Deo perdere conspiraverant; Chaldaeorum vero perdidit, quas illi per idololatriam salvas facere maluerant. Quae est ista nova doctrina, cujus vetera documenta sunt? Quamquam et praedicationes martyriorum, tam futurorum, quam a Deo mercedem relaturorum decucurrerunt. Vide, inquit Isaias (Is., LVIII, 1), quomodo perit justus, et nemo excipit corde; et viri justi auferuntur, et nemo considerat. Quando magis hoc fit, quam in persecutione sanctorum ejus? Utique non simplex, nec de naturae lege communis, sed illa insignis et pro fide militaris; in qua qui animam suam propter Deum perdit, servat illam: ut et hic tamen 0411B judicem adcognoscas , qui malum animae lucrum perditione ejus, et bonum animae detrimentum, salute ejus remuneraturus . Sed et zelotem Deum mihi exhibet, malum malo reddentem: Qui confusus, inquit, mei fuerit, et ego confundar ejus . Quando nec confusionis materia conveniat, nisi meo Christo: cujus ordo magis pudendus, ut etiam haereticorum convitiis pateat, omnem nativitatis et educationis foeditatem, ipsius etiam carnis indignitatem, quanta amaritudine possunt perorantibus . Caeterum, quomodo ille erit obnoxius confusioni, qui eam non capit? non vulva, licet virginis, tamen foeminae, coagulatus; et si non semine, tamen ex lege substantiae corporalis, ex foeminae humore: non caro habitus ante formam: non pecus dictus 0411C post figuram: non decem mensim cruciatu 0412A deliberatus : non subita dolorum concussione cum tanti temporis coeno per corporis cloacam effusus ad terram: nec statim lucem lacrymis auspicatus, et primo retinaculi sui vulnere: nec multum ablutus: nec sale et melle medicatus: nec pannis jam sepulturae involucrum initiatus: nec exinde per immunditias inter sinus volutatus, molestus uberibus, diu infans, vix puer, tarde homo: sed de coelo expositus, semel grandis, semel totus, statim Christus, spiritus et virtus, et Deus tantum. Caeterum, ut non verus, qui non videbatur, ita nec de crucis maledicto erubescendus, cujus carebat veritate, carens corpore. Non poterat itaque dixisse: Qui mei confusus fuerit. Noster hoc debuit pronuntiasse: Minoratus (Ps. VIII, 6) a Patre modico citra angelos; vermis (Ps. XXI, 6), 0412B et non homo; ignominia hominis, et nullificamen populi; quatenus ita voluit, ut (Is., LIII, 5) livore ejus sanaremur, ut dedecore ejus salus nostra constaret. Et merito se pro suo homine deposuit, pro imagine et similitudine sua, non aliena ; ut, quoniam homo non erubuerat lapidem et lignum adorans, eadem constantia non confusus de Christo, pro impudentia idololatriae, satis Deo faceret per impudentiam fidei. Quid horum christo tuo competit, Marcion, ad meritum confusionis? Plane pudere te debet, quod illum ipse finxisti.