Chapter XXVII.—Christ’s Reprehension of the Pharisees Seeking a Sign.  His Censure of Their Love of Outward Show Rather Than Inward Holiness. Scripture Abounds with Admonitions of a Similar Purport. Proofs of His Mission from the Creator.

I prefer elsewhere refuting2254    Purgare. the faults which the Marcionites find in the Creator. It is here enough that they are also found in Christ.2255    From the Marcionite point of view. Behold how unequal, inconsistent, and capricious he is! Teaching one thing and doing another, he enjoins “giving to every one that seeks;” and yet he himself refuses to give to those “who seek a sign.”2256    Luke xi. 29. For a vast age he hides his own light from men, and yet says that a candle must not be hidden, but affirms that it ought to be set upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all.2257    Luke xi. 33. He forbids cursing again, and cursing much more of course; and yet he heaps his woe upon the Pharisees and doctors of the law.2258    Luke vi. 28, also xi. 37–52. Who so closely resembles my God as His own Christ? We have often already laid it down for certain,2259    Fiximus. that He could not have been branded2260    Denotari. as the destroyer of the law if He had promulged another god. Therefore even the Pharisee, who invited Him to dinner in the passage before us,2261    Tunc. expressed some surprise2262    Retractabat. in His presence that He had not washed before He sat down to meat, in accordance with the law, since it was the God of the law that He was proclaiming.2263    Circumferret. Jesus also interpreted the law to him when He told him that they “made clean the outside of the cup and the platter, whereas their inward part was full of ravening and wickedness.” This He said, to signify that by the cleansing of vessels was to be understood before God the purification of men, inasmuch as it was about a man, and not about an unwashed vessel, that even this Pharisee had been treating in His presence. He therefore said: “You wash the outside of the cup,” that is, the flesh, “but you do not cleanse your inside part,”2264    Luke xi. 39. that is, the soul; adding: “Did not He that made the outside,” that is, the flesh, “also make the inward part,” that is to say, the soul?—by which assertion He expressly declared that to the same God belongs the cleansing of a man’s external and internal nature, both alike being in the power of Him who prefers mercy not only to man’s washing,2265    Lavacro. but even to sacrifice.2266    Matt. ix. 13, xii. 7; comp. Hos. viii. 6. For He subjoins the command: “Give what ye possess as alms, and all things shall be clean unto you.”2267    Luke xi. 41. Even if another god could have enjoined mercy, he could not have done so previous to his becoming known. Furthermore, it is in this passage evident that they2268    The Pharisees and lawyers. were not reproved concerning their God, but concerning a point of His instruction to them, when He prescribed to them figuratively the cleansing of their vessels, but really the works of merciful dispositions. In like manner, He upbraids them for tithing paltry herbs,2269    Holuscula. but at the same time “passing over hospitality2270    Marcion’s gospel had κλῆσιν (vocationem, perhaps a general word for hospitality) instead of κρίσιν, judgment,—a quality which M. did not allow in his god. See Epiphanius, Hæres. xlii., Schol. 26 (Oehler and Fr. Junius). and the love of God.”2271    Luke xi. 42. The vocation and the love of what God, but Him by whose law of tithes they used to offer their rue and mint? For the whole point of the rebuke lay in this, that they cared about small matters in His service of course, to whom they failed to exhibit their weightier duties when He commanded them: “Thou shalt love with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, the Lord thy God, who hath called thee out of Egypt.”2272    Deut. vi. 5. Besides, time enough had not yet passed to admit of Christ’s requiring so premature—nay, as yet so distasteful2273    Amaxam.—a love towards a new and recent, not to say a hardly yet developed,2274    Nondum palam facto. deity. When, again, He upbraids those who caught at the uppermost places and the honour of public salutations, He only follows out the Creator’s course,2275    Sectam administrat. who calls ambitious persons of this character “rulers of Sodom,”2276    Isa. i. 10. who forbids us “to put confidence even in princes,”2277    Ps. cxviii. 9. and pronounces him to be altogether wretched who places his confidence in man. But whoever2278    Quodsiquis. aims at high position, because he would glory in the officious attentions2279    Officiis. of other people, (in every such case,) inasmuch as He forbade such attentions (in the shape) of placing hope and confidence in man, He at the same time2280    Idem. censured all who were ambitious of high positions. He also inveighs against the doctors of the law themselves, because they were “lading men with burdens grievous to be borne, which they did not venture to touch with even a finger of their own;”2281    Luke xi. 46. but not as if He made a mock of2282    Suggillans. the burdens of the law with any feeling of detestation towards it. For how could He have felt aversion to the law, who used with so much earnestness to upbraid them for passing over its weightier matters, alms—giving, hospitality,2283    Vocationem: Marcion’s κλῆσιν. and the love of God? Nor, indeed, was it only these great things (which He recognized), but even2284    Nedum. the tithes of rue and the cleansing of cups.  But, in truth, He would rather have deemed them excusable for being unable to carry burdens which could not be borne.  What, then, are the burdens which He censures?2285    Taxat. None but those which they were accumulating of their own accord, when they taught for commandments the doctrines of men; for the sake of private advantage joining house to house, so as to deprive their neighbour of his own; cajoling2286    Clamantes. the people, loving gifts, pursuing rewards, robbing the poor of the rights of judgment, that they might have the widow for a prey and the fatherless for a spoil.2287    See Isa. v. 5, 23, and x. 2. Of these Isaiah also says, “Woe unto them that are strong in Jerusalem!”2288    Isa. xxviii. 14. and again, “They that demand you shall rule over you.”2289    The books point to Isa. iii. 3, 4 for this; but there is only a slight similarity in the latter clause, even in the Septuagint. And who did this more than the lawyers?2290    Legis doctores: the νομικοί of the Gospels. Now, if these offended Christ, it was as belonging to Him that they offended Him.  He would have aimed no blow at the teachers of an alien law. But why is a “woe” pronounced against them for “building the sepulchres of the prophets whom their fathers had killed?”2291    Luke xi. 47. They rather deserved praise, because by such an act of piety they seemed to show that they did not allow the deeds of their fathers. Was it not because (Christ) was jealous2292    Zelotes. of such a disposition as the Marcionites denounce,2293    Arguunt. visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the fourth generation? What “key,” indeed, was it which these lawyers had,2294    Luke xi. 52. but the interpretation of the law? Into the perception of this they neither entered themselves, even because they did not believe (for “unless ye believe, ye shall not understand”); nor did they permit others to enter, because they preferred to teach them for commandments even the doctrines of men. When, therefore, He reproached those who did not themselves enter in, and also shut the door against others, must He be regarded as a disparager of the law, or as a supporter of it? If a disparager, those who were hindering the law ought to have been pleased; if a supporter, He is no longer an enemy of the law.2295    As Marcion held Him to be. But all these imprecations He uttered in order to tarnish the Creator as a cruel Being,2296    A Marcionite position. against whom such as offended were destined to have a “woe.” And who would not rather have feared to provoke a cruel Being,2297    Sævum. by withdrawing allegiance2298    Deficiendo. from Him? Therefore the more He represented the Creator to be an object of fear, the more earnestly would He teach that He ought to be served. Thus would it behove the Creator’s Christ to act.

CAPUT XXVII.

Alibi malo purgare quae reprehendunt Marcionitae in Creatore. Hic enim sufficit, si ea in Christo reperiuntur. 0428A Ecce inaequalis, et ipse inconstans, levis, aliud docens, aliud faciens: jubet omni petenti dare, et ipse signum petentibus non dat. Tanto aevo lucem suam ab hominibus abscondit, et negat lucernam abstruendam; sed confirmat super candelabrum proponendam, ut omnibus luceat. Vetat remaledicere, multo magis utique maledicere: et vae ingerit Pharisaeis et doctoribus legis. Quis est tam similis Dei mei Christus, nisi ipsius? Saepe jam fiximus , nullo modo potuisse illum destructorem legis denotari, si alium Deum promulgasset. Ideo et tunc Pharisaeus, qui illum vocarat ad prandium, retractabat penes se, cur non prius tinctus esset quam recubuisset secundum legem, qui Deum legis circumferret? Jesus autem etiam interpretatus est ei legem, dicens, illos calicis et catini exteriora 0428B emundare; interiora autem ipsorum plena esse rapina et iniquitate: ut significaret vasculorum munditias hominum esse intelligendas apud Deum: quia et Pharisaeus de homine, non de calice illoto, apud se tractaverat. Ideo exteriora, inquit, calicis lavatis, id est carnem, interiora autem vestra non emundatis, id est animam, adjiciens: Nonne qui exteriora fecit, id est carnem, et interiora fecit, id est animam? quo dicto aperte demonstravit, ad eumdem Deum pertinere munditias hominis exterioris et interioris, cujus uterque sit, praeponentis misericordiam non modo lavacro hominis, sed etiam sacrificio (Os. VI, 6). Subjungit enim: Date quae habetis eleemosynam, et omnia munda erunt vobis. Quod si et alius potest Deus misericordiam mandasse, non tamen antequam cognitus. Porro et hic apparet, illos 0428C non de Deo increpitos; sed de ejus disciplina, a quo illis et figurate vasculorum munditiae, et manifeste misericordiarum opera imperabantur. Sic et oluscula decimantes, vocationem autem et dilectionem Dei praetereuntes objurgat. Cujus Dei vocationem et dilectionem, nisi cujus et rutam et mentam, ex forma Legis de decimis offerebant? Totum enim exprobrationis hoc erat, quod modica curabant; ei utique, cui majora non exhibebant, dicenti (Deut., VI, 5): Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo et ex 0429A tota anima tua, et ex totis viribus tuis, qui te vocavit ex Aegypto. Caeterum, nec tempus admisisset, ut Christus tam praecoquam, imo tam acerbam adhuc dilectionem expostularet novo et recenti Deo, ne dixerim nondum palam facto. Primatum quoque captantes locorum, et honorem salutationum, cum incusat, sectam Creatoris administrat, ejusmodi principes Sodomorum archontas appellantis (Is., I, 23), prohibentis etiam confidere in praepositos, imo et in totum miserrimum hominem pronuntiantis, qui spem habet in homine (Ps. CXVII, 8, 9). Quod si propterea quis affectat principatum, ut de officiis aliorum glorietur, quia officia vetuit ejusmodi sperandi et confidendi in hominem (Jerem., XVII, 5), idem et affectatores principatuum increpuit. Invehitur et in doctores ipsos legis, quod onerarent alios importabilibus oneribus, 0429B quae ipsi ne digito quidem aggredi auderent: non Legis onera sugillans quasi detestator ejus; quomodo enim detestator, qui cum maxime potiora legis praetereuntes incusabat, eleemosynam et vocationem et dilectionem Dei, ne haec quidem gravia, nedum decimas rutarum, et munditias catinorum? Caeterum, excusandos potius censuisset, si importabilia portare non possent. Sed quae onera taxat? Quae ipsi de suo exaggerabant, docentes praecepta, doctrinas hominum, commodorum suorum caussa (Is., V, 23), jungentes domum ad domum, ut quae proximi sunt auferrent, clamantes populum, amantes munera, sectantes retributionem, diripientes judicata pauperum; uti esset illis vidua in rapinam, et pupillus in praedam. De quibus 0429C idem Esaias (Is., XXVIII, 14): Vae qui valent in Hierusalem , et rursus (Is., III, 3): Qui vos postulant, dominantur vestri. Qui magis, quam legis doctores? Hi si et Christo displicebant, ut sui displicebant. Alienae enim legis doctores non omnino pulsasset. Cur autem vae audiunt etiam, quod aedificarent prophetis monumenta interemptis a patribus eorum, laude potius digni, qui ex isto opere pietatis testabantur se non consentire factis patrum; si non erat zelotes, qualem arguunt Marcionitae, delicta patrum de filiis exigentem usque in quartam nativitatem? Quam vero clavem habebant legis doctores, nisi interpretationem legis? ad cujus intellectum neque ipsi adibant, non credentes scilicet: Nisi enim credideritis, non intelligetis; neque alios admittebant, 0429D utique docentes praecepta potius et doctrinas hominum. Qui ergo nec ipsos introeuntes, nec aliis aditum praestantes, increpabat, obtrectator habendus est legis, an fautor? Si obtrectator, placere debebant et 0430A praeclusores legis: si fautor, jam non et aemulus legis. Sed haec omnia ad infuscandum Creatorem ingerebat ut saevum, erga quem delinquentes, vae habituri essent. Et quis saevum non potius timeret provocare, deficiendo ab eo? Tanto magis ergo demerendum docebat, quem timendum ingerebat. Sic oportebat Christum Creatoris.