Chapter XIII.—The Epistle to the Romans. St. Paul Cannot Help Using Phrases Which Bespeak the Justice of God, Even When He is Eulogizing the Mercies of the Gospel. Marcion Particularly Hard in Mutilation of This Epistle. Yet Our Author Argues on Common Ground. The Judgment at Last Will Be in Accordance with the Gospel. The Justified by Faith Exhorted to Have Peace with God. The Administration of the Old and the New Dispensations in One and the Same Hand.

Since my little work is approaching its termination,3462    Profligatur. I must treat but briefly the points which still occur, whilst those which have so often turned up must be put aside. I regret still to have to contend about the law—after I have so often proved that its replacement (by the gospel)3463    Concessionem. affords no argument for another god, predicted as it was indeed in Christ, and in the Creator’s own plans3464    Apud Creatorem. ordained for His Christ. (But I must revert to that discussion) so far as (the apostle leads me, for) this very epistle looks very much as if it abrogated3465    Excludere. the law. We have, however, often shown before now that God is declared by the apostle to be a Judge; and that in the Judge is implied an Avenger; and in the Avenger, the Creator. And so in the passage where he says: “I am not ashamed of the gospel (of Christ): for it is the power of god unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek; for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith,”3466    Rom. i. 16, 17. he undoubtedly ascribes both the gospel and salvation to Him whom (in accordance with our heretic’s own distinction) I have called the just God, not the good one. It is He who removes (men) from confidence in the law to faith in the gospel—that is to say,3467    Utique. His own law and His own gospel. When, again, he declares that “the wrath (of God) is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness,”3468    Rom. i. 18. (I ask) the wrath of what God? Of the Creator certainly. The truth, therefore, will be His, whose is also the wrath, which has to be revealed to avenge the truth. Likewise, when adding, “We are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth,”3469    Rom. ii. 2. he both vindicated that wrath from which comes this judgment for the truth, and at the same time afforded another proof that the truth emanates from the same God whose wrath he attested, by witnessing to His judgment. Marcion’s averment is quite a different matter, that3470    Aliud est si. the Creator in anger avenges Himself on the truth of the rival god which had been detained in unrighteousness. But what serious gaps Marcion has made in this epistle especially, by withdrawing whole passages at his will, will be clear from the unmutilated text of our own copy.3471    Nostri instrumenti. It is enough for my purpose to accept in evidence of its truth what he has seen fit to leave unerased, strange instances as they are also of his negligence and blindness. If, then, God will judge the secrets of men—both of those who have sinned in the law, and of those who have sinned without law (inasmuch as they who know not the law yet do by nature the things contained in the law)3472    Rom. ii. 12–16.—surely the God who shall judge is He to whom belong both the law, and that nature which is the rule3473    Instar legis: “which is as good as a law to them,” etc. to them who know not the law. But how will He conduct this judgment?  “According to my gospel,” says (the apostle), “by (Jesus) Christ.”3474    Rom. ii. 16. So that both the gospel and Christ must be His, to whom appertain the law and the nature which are to be vindicated by the gospel and Christ—even at that judgment of God which, as he previously said, was to be according to truth.3475    Rom. ii. 2. The wrath, therefore, which is to vindicate truth, can only be revealed from heaven by the God of wrath;3476    Rom. i. 18. so that this sentence, which is quite in accordance with that previous one wherein the judgment is declared to be the Creator’s,3477    See the remarks on verses 16 and 17 above. cannot possibly be ascribed to another god who is not a judge, and is incapable of wrath. It is only consistent in Him amongst whose attributes are found the judgment and the wrath of which I am speaking, and to whom of necessity must also appertain the media whereby these attributes are to be carried into effect, even the gospel and Christ. Hence his invective against the transgressors of the law, who teach that men should not steal, and yet practise theft themselves.3478    Rom. ii. 21. (This invective he utters) in perfect homage3479    Ut homo. to the law of God, not as if he meant to censure the Creator Himself with having commanded3480    Ex. iii. 22. a fraud to be practised against the Egyptians to get their gold and silver at the very time when He was forbidding men to steal,3481    Ex. xx. 15; see above, book iv. chap. xxiv. p. 387.—adopting such methods as they are apt (shamelessly) to charge upon Him in other particulars also. Are we then to suppose3482    Scilicet verebatur. that the apostle abstained through fear from openly calumniating God, from whom notwithstanding He did not hesitate to withdraw men? Well, but he had gone so far in his censure of the Jews, as to point against them the denunciation of the prophet, “Through you the name of God is blasphemed (among the Gentiles).”3483    Rom. ii. 24. But how absurd, that he should himself blaspheme Him for blaspheming whom he upbraids them as evil-doers! He prefers even circumcision of heart to neglect of it in the flesh. Now it is quite within the purpose of the God of the law that circumcision should be that of the heart, not in the flesh; in the spirit, and not in the letter.3484    Rom. ii. 29. Since this is the circumcision recommended by Jeremiah: “Circumcise (yourselves to the Lord, and take away) the foreskins of your heart;”3485    Jer. iv. 4. and even of Moses: “Circumcise, therefore, the hardness of your heart,”3486    Deut. x. 16 (Sept.).—the Spirit which circumcises the heart will proceed from Him who prescribed the letter also which clips3487    Metens. the flesh; and “the Jew which is one inwardly” will be a subject of the self-same God as he also is who is “a Jew outwardly;”3488    Rom. ii. 28. because the apostle would have preferred not to have mentioned a Jew at all, unless he were a servant of the God of the Jews. It was once3489    Tunc. the law; now it is “the righteousness of God which is by the faith of (Jesus) Christ.”3490    Rom. iii. 21, 22. What means this distinction? Has your god been subserving the interests of the Creator’s dispensation, by affording time to Him and to His law? Is the “Now” in the hands of Him to whom belonged the “Then”? Surely, then, the law was His, whose is now the righteousness of God. It is a distinction of dispensations, not of gods.  He enjoins those who are justified by faith in Christ and not by the law to have peace with God.3491    Tertullian, by the word “enjoins” (monet), seems to have read the passage in Rom. v. 1 in the hortatory sense with ἔχωμεν, “let us have peace with God.” If so, his authority must be added to that exceedingly strong ms. authority which Dean Alford (Greek Test. in loc.) regrets to find overpowering the received reading of ἔχομεν, “we have,” etc. We subjoin Alford’s critical note in support of the ἔχωμεν, which (with Lachmann) he yet admits into his more recent text: “AB (originally) CDKLfh (originally) m 17 latt (including F-lat); of the versions the older Syriac (Peschito) (and Copt;of the fathers, Chrysostom, Cyril, Theodoret, Damascene, Thephylact, Œcumenius, Rufinus, Pelagius, Orosius, Augustine, Cassiodorus,” before whom I would insert Tertullian, and the Codex Sinaiticus, in its original state; although, like its great rival in authority, the Codex Vaticanus, it afterwards received the reading ἔχομεν. These second readings of these mss., and the later Syriac (Philoxenian), with Epiphanius, Didymus, and Sedulius, are the almost only authorities quoted for the received text.  [Dr. H. over-estimates the “rival” Codices.] With what God? Him whose enemies we have never, in any dispensation,3492    Nusquam. been? Or Him against whom we have rebelled, both in relation to His written law and His law of nature? Now, as peace is only possible towards Him with whom there once was war, we shall be both justified by Him, and to Him also will belong the Christ, in whom we are justified by faith, and through whom alone God’s3493    Ejus. enemies can ever be reduced to peace.  “Moreover,” says he, “the law entered, that the offence might abound.”3494    Rom. v. 20. And wherefore this? “In order,” he says, “that (where sin abounded), grace might much more abound.”3495    Rom. v. 20. Whose grace, if not of that God from whom also came the law? Unless it be, forsooth, that3496    Nisi si: an ironical particle. the Creator intercalated His law for the mere purpose of3497    Ideo ut. producing some employment for the grace of a rival god, an enemy to Himself (I had almost said, a god unknown to Him), “that as sin had” in His own dispensation3498    Apud ipsum. “reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto (eternal) life by Jesus Christ,”3499    Rom. v. 21. His own antagonist! For this (I suppose it was, that) the law of the Creator had “concluded all under sin,”3500    Gal. iii. 22. and had brought in “all the world as guilty (before God),” and had “stopped every mouth,”3501    Rom. iii. 19. so that none could glory through it, in order that grace might be maintained to the glory of the Christ, not of the Creator, but of Marcion! I may here anticipate a remark about the substance of Christ, in the prospect of a question which will now turn up. For he says that “we are dead to the law.”3502    Rom. vii. 4, also Gal. ii. 19. This (although a quotation) is here a Marcionite argument; but there is no need to suppose, with Pamelius, that Marcion tampers with Rom. vi. 2. Oehler also supposes that this is the passage quoted. But no doubt it is a correct quotation from the seventh chapter, as we have indicated. It may be contended that Christ’s body is indeed a body, but not exactly3503    Statim (or, perhaps, in respect of the derivation), “firmly” or “stedfastly.” flesh. Now, whatever may be the substance, since he mentions “the body of Christ,”3504    Ejus. whom he immediately after states to have been “raised from the dead,”3505    Rom. vii. 4. none other body can be understood than that of the flesh,3506    In this argument Tertullian applies with good effect the terms “flesh” and “body,” making the first [which he elsewhere calls the “terrena materia” of our nature (ad Uxor. i. 4)] the proof of the reality of the second, in opposition to Marcion’s Docetic error. “Σὰρξ is not = σῶμα, but as in John i. 14, the material of which man is in the body compounded” (Alford). in respect of which the law was called (the law) of death.3507    Compare the first part of ver. 4 with vers. 5 and 6 and viii. 2, 3. But, behold, he bears testimony to the law, and excuses it on the ground of sin:  “What shall we say, therefore? Is the law sin? God forbid.”3508    Rom. vii. 7. Fie on you, Marcion. “God forbid!”  (See how) the apostle recoils from all impeachment of the law. I, however, have no acquaintance with sin except through the law.3509    This, which is really the second clause of Rom. vii. 7, seems to be here put as a Marcionite argument of disparagement to the law. But how high an encomium of the law (do we obtain) from this fact, that by it there comes to light the latent presence of sin!3510    Per quam liquuit delictum latere: a playful paradox, in the manner of our author, between liquere and latere. It was not the law, therefore, which led me astray, but “sin, taking occasion by the commandment.”3511    Rom. vii. 8. Why then do you, (O Marcion,) impute to the God of the law what His apostle dares not impute even to the law itself? Nay, he adds a climax: “The law is holy, and its commandment just and good.”3512    Rom. vii. 13. Now if he thus reverences the Creator’s law, I am at a loss to know how he can destroy the Creator Himself. Who can draw a distinction, and say that there are two gods, one just and the other good, when He ought to be believed to be both one and the other, whose commandment is both “just and good?” Then, again, when affirming the law to be “spiritual”3513    Rom. vii. 14. he thereby implies that it is prophetic, and that it is figurative. Now from even this circumstance I am bound to conclude that Christ was predicted by the law but figuratively, so that indeed He could not be recognised by all the Jews.

CAPUT XIII.

Quando opusculum profligatur, breviter jam retractanda sunt quae rursus occurrunt; quaedam vero tramittenda 0503B quae saepius occurrerunt. Piget de Lege adhuc congredi, qui toties probaverim concessionem ejus nullum argumentum praestare diversi Dei, in Christo praedicatam scilicet, et repromissam in Christum apud Creatorem, quatenus et ipse Apostolus legem plurimum videtur excludere (Rom, I, II, III, V, VI, VII). Sed et judicem Deum ab Apostolo circumferri saepe jam ostendimus, et in judice ultorem, et creatorem in ultore. Itaque et hic cum dicit: Non enim me pudet Evangelii; virtus enim Dei est in salutem omni credenti, Judaeo et Graeco, quia justitia Dei in eo revelatur, ex fide in fidem; sine dubio et Evangelium et salutem justo Deo deputat, non bono, ut ita dixerim, secundum haeretici distinctionem, transferenti ex fide Legis in fidem Evangelii; suae utique 0503C Legis, et sui Evangelii. Quoniam et iram dicit revelari de coelo super impietatem et injustitiam hominum, qui veritatem in injustitia detinent . Cujus Dei ira? utique Creatoris. Ergo et veritas ejus erit cujus et ira, quae revelari habet in ultionem veritatis. Etiam adjiciens: Scimus autem judicium Dei secundum veritatem esse; et iram ipsam probavit, ex qua venit judicium pro veritate, et veritatem rursus ejusdem Dei confirmavit, cujus iram probavit probando judicium. Aliud est, si veritatem Dei alterius in justitia detentam Creator iratus ulciscitur. Quantas autem foveas in ista vel maxime Epistola Marcion fecerit, auferendo quae voluit, de nostri Instrumenti integritate patebit. Mihi sufficit quae proinde eradenda non vidit, quasi negligentias et caecitates ejus accipere. 0503D Si enim judicabit Deus occulta hominum, tam eorum qui in lege deliquerunt, quam eorum qui sine lege, quia et hi legem ignorant, et natura faciunt quae sunt legis; 0504A utique is Deus judicabit, cujus sunt et lex, et ipsa natura quae legis est instar ignorantibus legem. Judicabit autem quomodo? Secundum Evangelium, inquit, per Christum. Ergo et Evangelium et Christus illius sunt, cujus et lex et natura, quae per Evangelium et Christum vindicabuntur, adeo illo judicio Dei quod et supra, secundum veritatem. Ergo qua defendenda reveletur de coelo ira, nonnisi a Deo irae; ita et hic sensus pristino cohaerens, in quo judicium Creatoris edicitur, non potest in alium Deum referri, qui nec judicat, nec irascitur; sed in illum, cujus dum haec sunt, judicium dico et iram , etiam illa ipsius sint necesse est, per quem haec habent transigi, Evangelium et Christus, et ideo vehitur in transgressores Legis, docentes non furari, et furantes, ut homo 0504B Dei legis, non ut Creatorem ipsum his modis tangens, qui et furari vetans, fraudem mandaverit in Aegyptios auri et argenti, quemadmodum et caetera in illum retorquent. Scilicet Apostolus verebatur convicium Deo palam facere, a quo non verebatur divertisse? Adeo autem Judaeos incesserat, ut ingesserit propheticam increpationem. Propter vos nomen Dei blasphematur. Quam ergo perversum, ut ipse blasphemaret eum, cujus blasphemandi caussa malos exprobrat! Praefert et circumcisionem cordis praeputiationi: apud Deum Legis, est facta circumcisio cordis, non carnis; spiritu, non litera. Quod si haec est circumcisio Hieremiae (Jerem. IV, 4): Et circumcidemini praeputia cordis, sicut et Moysis (Deut. X, 16) : Circumcidemini duricordiam vestram; ejus erit spiritus 0504C circumcidens cor, cujus et litera metens carnem ejus; et Judaeos qui in occulto, cujus et Judaeus in aperto; quia nec Judaeum nominare vellet Apostolus, non Judaeorum Dei servum. Tunc lex, nunc justitia Dei per fidem Christi. Quae est ista distinctio? Servivit Deus tuus dispositioni Creatoris, dans ei tempus et Legi ejus: an ejus tunc, cujus et nunc? ejus lex, cujus et fides. Christi distinctio dispositionum est, non deorum. Monet justificatos ex fide Christi, non ex lege, pacem ad Deum habere. Ad quem? Cujus nusquam fuimus hostes, an cujus legi et naturae rebellavimus? Nam si in eum competit pax cum quo fuit bellum, ei et justificabimur, et ejus erit Christus, ex cujus fide justificabimur, ad cujus pacem competit redigi hostes ejus aliquando. Lex autem, 0504D inquit, subintroivit, ut abundaret delictum. Quare? Ut superabundaret, inquit, gratia. Cujus Dei gratia, si non cujus et lex? nisi si Creator ideo legem 0505A intercalavit, ut negotium procuraret gratiae Dei alterius, et quidem aemuli, ne dixerim ignoti; ut quemadmodum apud ipsum regnaverat peccatum in mortem, ita et gratia regnaret in justitia in vitam per Jesum Christum, adversarium ipsius. Propter hoc, omnia concluserat lex Creatoris sub delictum, et totum mundum deduxerat in reatum, et omne os obstruxerat, ne qui gloriaretur per illam; ut gratia servaretur in gloriam Christi, non Creatoris, sed Marcionis. Possum et hic de substantia Christi praestruere, ex prospectu quaestionis subsecuturae. Mortuos enim nos inquit Legi . Ergo corpus Christi; et potest corpus contendi, non statim caro. Sed et quaecumque substantia sit, cum ejus nominat corpus, quem subjicit ex mortuis resurrexisse, 0505B non potest aliud corpus intelligi, quam carnis, in quam lex mortis est dicta. Ecce autem et testimonium perhibet legi, et caussa delicti eam excusat. Quid ergo dicemus? Quia lex peccatum? Absit. Erubesce, Marcion. Absit. Abominatur Apostolus criminationem legis. Sed ego delictum non scio, nisi per legem. O summum ex hoc praeconium legis, per quam liquuit delictum latere ! Non ergo lex seduxit, sed peccatum per praecepti occasionem. Quid Deo imputas Legis, quod Legi ejus Apostolus imputare non audet? Atquin et accumulat: Lex sancta, et praeceptum ejus justum et bonum. Si taliter veneratur legem Creatoris, quomodo ipsum destruat nescio. Quis discernit duos deos, justum alium, bonum alium; cum is utrumque debeat credi: cujus praeceptum 0505C et bonum et justum est? Si autem et spiritalem confirmat legem, utique et propheticam, utique et figuratam. Debeo enim et hinc constituere Christum in lege figurate praedicatum, quo nec a Judaeis omnibus potuerit agnosci.