Chapter XVIII.—Another Foolish Erasure of Marcion’s Exposed. Certain Figurative Expressions of the Apostle, Suggested by the Language of the Old Testament. Collation of Many Passages of This Epistle, with Precepts and Statements in the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Prophets. All Alike Teach Us the Will and Purpose of the Creator.

As our heretic is so fond of his pruning-knife, I do not wonder when syllables are expunged by his hand, seeing that entire pages are usually the matter on which he practises his effacing process. The apostle declares that to himself, “less than the least of all saints, was the grace given” of enlightening all men as to “what was the fellowship of the mystery, which during the ages had been hid in God, who created all things.”3680    Eph. iii. 8, 9. The heretic erased the preposition in, and made the clause run thus: (“what is the fellowship of the mystery) which hath for ages been hidden from the God who created all things.”3681    The passage of St. Paul, as Tertullian expresses it, “Quæ dispensatio sacramenti occulti ab ævis in Deo, qui omnia condidit.” According to Marcion’s alteration, the latter part runs, “Occulti ab ævis Deo, qui omnia condidit.” The original is, Τίς ἡ οἰκονομία τοῦ μυστηρίου τοῦ ἀποκεκρυμμένου ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων ἐν τῷ Θεῷ (compare Col. iii. 3) τῷ τὰ πάντα κτίσαντι. Marcion’s removal of the ἐν has no warrant of ms. authority; it upsets St. Paul’s doctrine, as attested in other passages, and destroys the grammatical structure. The falsification, however, is flagrantly3682    Emicat. absurd. For the apostle goes on to infer (from his own statement): “in order that unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might become known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”3683    Eph. iii. 10.Whose principalities and powers does he mean?  If the Creator’s, how does it come to pass that such a God as He could have meant His wisdom to be displayed to the principalities and powers, but not to Himself? For surely no principalities could possibly have understood anything without their sovereign Lord. Or if (the apostle) did not mention God in this passage, on the ground that He (as their chief) is Himself reckoned among these (principalities), then he would have plainly said that the mystery had been hidden from the principalities and powers of Him who had created all things, including Him amongst them. But if he states that it was hidden from them, he must needs be understood3684    Debebat. as having meant that it was manifest to Him.  From God, therefore, the mystery was not hidden; but it was hidden in God, the Creator of all things, from His principalities and powers. For “who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?”3685    Isa. xl. 13. Caught in this trap, the heretic probably changed the passage, with the view of saying that his god wished to make known to his principalities and powers the fellowship of his own mystery, of which God, who created all things, had been ignorant. But what was the use of his obtruding this ignorance of the Creator, who was a stranger to the superior god,3686    Marcion’s god, of course. and far enough removed from him, when even his own servants had known nothing about him? To the Creator, however, the future was well known. Then why was not that also known to Him, which had to be revealed beneath His heaven, and on His earth? From this, therefore, there arises a confirmation of what we have already laid down. For since the Creator was sure to know, some time or other, that hidden mystery of the superior god, even on the supposition that the true reading was (as Marcion has it)—“hidden from the God who created all things”—he ought then to have expressed the conclusion thus: “in order that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to Him, and then to the principalities and powers of God, whosoever He might be, with whom the Creator was destined to share their knowledge.” So palpable is the erasure in this passage, when thus read, consistently with its own true bearing. I, on my part, now wish to engage with you in a discussion on the allegorical expressions of the apostle. What figures of speech could the novel god have found in the prophets (fit for himself)?  “He led captivity captive,” says the apostle.3687    Eph. iv. 8 and Ps. lxviii. 19. With what arms? In what conflicts? From the devastation of what country? From the overthrow of what city? What women, what children, what princes did the Conqueror throw into chains? For when by David Christ is sung as “girded with His sword upon His thigh,”3688    Ps. xlv. 3. or by Isaiah as “taking away the spoils of Samaria and the power of Damascus,”3689    Isa. viii. 4. you make Him out to be3690    Extundis. really and truly a warrior confest to the eye.3691    See above, book iii. chap. xiii. and xiv. p. 332. Learn then now, that His is a spiritual armour and warfare, since you have already discovered that the captivity is spiritual, in order that you may further learn that this also belongs to Him, even because the apostle derived the mention of the captivity from the same prophets as suggested to him his precepts likewise: “Putting away lying,” (says he,) “speak every man truth with his neighbour;”3692    Eph. iv. 25. and again, using the very words in which the Psalm3693    Ps. iv. 4. expresses his meaning, (he says,) “Be ye angry, and sin not;”3694    Eph. iv. 26. “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”3695    Eph. iv. 26. “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness;”3696    Eph. v. 11. for (in the Psalm it is written,) “With the holy man thou shalt be holy, and with the perverse thou shalt be perverse;”3697    Ps. xviii. 26. and, “Thou shalt put away evil from among you.”3698    Deut. xxi. 21, quoted also in 1 Cor. v. 13. Again, “Go ye out from the midst of them; touch not the unclean thing; separate yourselves, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.”3699    Isa. lii. 11, quoted in 2 Cor. vi. 17. (The apostle says further:) “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess,”3700    Eph. v. 18.—a precept which is suggested by the passage (of the prophet), where the seducers of the consecrated (Nazarites) to drunkenness are rebuked: “Ye gave wine to my holy ones to drink.”3701    Amos ii. 12. This prohibition from drink was given also to the high priest Aaron and his sons, “when they went into the holy place.”3702    Lev. x. 9. The command, to “sing to the Lord with psalms and hymns,”3703    Eph. v. 19. comes suitably from him who knew that those who “drank wine with drums and psalteries” were blamed by God.3704    Isa. v. 11, 12. Now, when I find to what God belong these precepts, whether in their germ or their development, I have no difficulty in knowing to whom the apostle also belongs.  But he declares that “wives ought to be in subjection to their husbands:”3705    Eph. v. 22, 24. what reason does he give for this? “Because,” says he, “the husband is the head of the wife.”3706    Eph. v. 23. Pray tell me, Marcion, does your god build up the authority of his law on the work of the Creator? This, however, is a comparative trifle; for he actually derives from the same source the condition of his Christ and his Church; for he says: “even as Christ is the head of the Church;”3707    Eph. v. 23. and again, in like manner: “He who loveth his wife, loveth his own flesh, even as Christ loved the Church.”3708    Eph. v. 25, 28. You see how your Christ and your Church are put in comparison with the work of the Creator.  How much honour is given to the flesh in the name of the church! “No man,” says the apostle, “ever yet hated his own flesh” (except, of course, Marcion alone), “but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord doth the Church.”3709    Eph. v. 29. But you are the only man that hates his flesh, for you rob it of its resurrection.  It will be only right that you should hate the Church also, because it is loved by Christ on the same principle.3710    Proinde. Yea, Christ loved the flesh even as the Church. For no man will love the picture of his wife without taking care of it, and honouring it and crowning it. The likeness partakes with the reality in the privileged honour. I shall now endeavour, from my point of view,3711    Ego. to prove that the same God is (the God) of the man3712    Masculi. and of Christ, of the woman and of the Church, of the flesh and the spirit, by the apostle’s help who applies the Creator’s injunction, and adds even a comment on it: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, (and shall be joined unto his wife), and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery.”3713    Eph. v. 31, 32. In passing,3714    Inter ista. (I would say that) it is enough for me that the works of the Creator are great mysteries3715    Magna sacramenta. in the estimation of the apostle, although they are so vilely esteemed by the heretics. “But I am speaking,” says he, “of Christ and the Church.”3716    Eph. v. 32. This he says in explanation of the mystery, not for its disruption. He shows us that the mystery was prefigured by Him who is also the author of the mystery. Now what is Marcion’s opinion? The Creator could not possibly have furnished figures to an unknown god, or, if a known one, an adversary to Himself. The superior god, in fact, ought to have borrowed nothing from the inferior; he was bound rather to annihilate Him. “Children should obey their parents.”3717    Eph. vi. 1. Now, although Marcion has erased (the next clause), “which is the first commandment with promise,”3718    Eph. vi. 2. “He did this (says Lardner) in order that the Mosaic law might not be thought to be thus established.” still the law says plainly, “Honour thy father and thy mother.”3719    Ex. xx. 12. Again, (the apostle writes:) “Parents, bring up your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.”3720    Eph. vi. 4. For you have heard how it was said to them of old time: “Ye shall relate these things to your children; and your children in like manner to their children.”3721    Ex. x. 2. Of what use are two gods to me, when the discipline is but one? If there must be two, I mean to follow Him who was the first to teach the lesson. But as our struggle lies against “the rulers of this world,”3722    Eph. vi. 12. what a host of Creator Gods there must be!3723    An ironical allusion to Marcion’s interpretation, which he has considered in a former chapter, of the title God of this world. For why should I not insist upon this point here, that he ought to have mentioned but one “ruler of this world,” if he meant only the Creator to be the being to whom belonged all the powers which he previously mentioned? Again, when in the preceding verse he bids us “put on the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil,”3724    Eph. vi. 11. does he not show that all the things which he mentions after the devil’s name really belong to the devil—“the principalities and the powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world,”3725    Eph. vi. 12. which we also ascribe to the devil’s authority?  Else, if “the devil” means the Creator, who will be the devil in the Creator’s dispensation?3726    Apud Creatorem. As there are two gods, must there also be two devils, and a plurality of powers and rulers of this world? But how is the Creator both a devil and a god at the same time, when the devil is not at once both god and devil? For either they are both of them gods, if both of them are devils; or else He who is God is not also devil, as neither is he god who is the devil. I want to know indeed by what perversion3727    Ex qua delatura. the word devil is at all applicable to the Creator. Perhaps he perverted some purpose of the superior god—conduct such as He experienced Himself from the archangel, who lied indeed for the purpose.  For He did not forbid (our first parents) a taste of the miserable tree,3728    Illius arbusculæ. from any apprehension that they would become gods; His prohibition was meant to prevent their dying after the transgression.  But “the spiritual wickedness”3729    Spiritalia nequitiæ: “wicked spirits.” did not signify the Creator, because of the apostle’s additional description, “in heavenly places;”3730    Eph. vi. 12. for the apostle was quite aware that “spiritual wickedness” had been at work in heavenly places, when angels were entrapped into sin by the daughters of men.3731    Gen. vi. 1–4. See also Tertullian, De Idol. 9; De Habit. Mul. 2; De Cultu Femin. 10; De Vel. Virg. 7; Apolog. 22. See also Augustin, De Civit. Dei. xv. 23. But how happened it that (the apostle) resorted to ambiguous descriptions, and I know not what obscure enigmas, for the purpose of disparaging3732    Ut taxaret. Of course he alludes to Marcion’s absurd exposition of the 12th verse, in applying St. Paul’s description of wicked spirits to the Creator. the Creator, when he displayed to the Church such constancy and plainness of speech in “making known the mystery of the gospel for which he was an ambassador in bonds,” owing to his liberty in preaching—and actually requested (the Ephesians) to pray to God that this “open-mouthed utterance” might be continued to him?3733    Eph. vi. 19, 20.

CAPUT XVIII.

0516A

(In Ep. ad Eph. III-VI) Datam inquit sibi Apostolus gratiam novissimo omnium, illuminandi omnes; quae dispensatio sacramenti occulti ab aevis in Deo, qui omnia condidit. Rapuit haereticus in praepositionem, et ita legi fecit: Occulti ab aevis Deo, qui omnia condidit. Sed emicat falsum. Infert enim Apostolus: Ut nota fiat principatibus et potestatibus, in supercoelestibus, per Ecclesiam, multifaria sapientia Dei. Cujus dicit principatibus et potestatibus? Si Creatoris, quale est ut principatibus et potestatibus ejus ostendi voluerit Deus ille sapientiam suam, ipsi autem non? quando nec potestates sine suo principe potuissent quid cognoscere. Aut si ideo Deum non nominavit hic, quasi in illis et princeps 0516B ipse reputetur, ergo et occultatum sacramentum principatibus et potestatibus ejus qui omnia condidit, pronuntiasset: proinde in illis deputans ipsum. Quod si illis dicit occultatum, illi debebat dixisse manifestum; ergo non Deo erat occultatum, sed in Deo omnium conditore; occultum autem principatibus et potestatibus ejus (Is., XL, 13): Quis enim cognovit sensum Domini, aut quis consiliarius ei fuit? Hic captus haereticus fortasse mutavit, ut dicat Deum suum suis potestatibus et principatibus notam facere voluisse dispensationem sui sacramenti, quam ignorasset Deus conditor omnium. Et quo competebat praetendere ignorantiam creatoris extranei, et longa separatione discreti, cum domestici quoque superioris Dei nescissent? Tamen et Creatori notum erat futurum. Annon utique notum, quod sub 0516C coelo in terra ejus habebat revelari? Ergo ex hoc confirmatur quod supra struximus. Si enim Creator cogniturus erat quandoque occultum illud Dei superioris sacramentum, et ita Scriptura habebat: Occulti Deo, qui omnia condidit; sic inferre debuerat: Ut nota fiat illis multifaria sapientia Dei, tunc et potestatibus et principatibus cujuscumque Dei, cum quibus sciturus esset Creator. Adeo subtractum constat, quod et sic veritati suae salvum est. Volo nunc et ego tibi de allegoriis Apostoli controversiam nectere. Quas novus in prophetis habuisset formas? Captivam, inquit, duxit captivitatem. Quibus armis? quibus praeliis? de cujus gentis vastatione? de cujus civitatis eversione? quas foeminas, quos pueros, quosve regulos catenis victor inseruit? Nam et cum 0516D apud David (Ps. XLIV, 4) Christus canitur succinctus gladio super femur, aut apud Esaiam (Is., VIII) spolia accipiens Samariae et virtutem Damasci, vere 0517A eum et visibilem excondis praeliatorem; agnosce igitur jam et armaturam et militiam ejus spiritalem, si jam didicisti esse captivitatem spiritalem, ut et hanc illius agnoscas: vel quia et captivitatis hujus mentionem de Prophetis Apostolus sumpsit, a quibus et mandata. Deponentes mendacium, loquimini veritatem ad proximum suumquisque. Et irascimini, et nolite delinquere, ipsis verbis quibus Psalmus (Ps., IV, 5) exponeret sensus ejus. Sol non occidat super iracundiam vestram. Nolite communicare operibus tenebrarum. Cum justo enim justus eris, et cum perverso perverteris (Ps. XVII, 27). Et, (I Cor. V, 13), Auferte malum de medio vestrum. Et (II Cor. VI, 17), Exite de medio eorum, et immundum ne attigeritis. Separamini, qui fertis vasa 0517BDomini (Is., LII, 11). Sic et, inebriari vino dedecori inde est, ubi sanctorum inebriatores increpantur: Et potum dabatis sanctis meis vinum (Amos II, 12), quod prohibitus erat potare et Aaron sacerdos, et filii ejus, cum adirent ad sancta (Deut. XXII). Et Psalmis et hymnis Deo canere docere illius est, qui cum tympanis potius et psalteriis vinum bibentes incusari a Deo (Is., XI, 12) norat. Ita, cujus invenio praecepta et semina praeceptorum vel augmenta, ejus apostolum agnosco. Caeterum, mulieres viris subjectas esse debere, unde confirmat? Quia vir, inquit, caput est mulieris. Dic mihi, Marcion, de opere Creatoris Deus tuus legi suae adstruit auctoritatem? Hoc jam plane minus est, cum et ipsi Christo suo et Ecclesiae ejus inde statum sumit: Sicut et Christus caput est 0517CEcclesiae. Similiter et cum dicit: Carnem suam diligit, qui uxorem suam diligit sicut et Christus Ecclesiam. Vides comparari operi Creatoris Christum tuum, et Ecclesiam tuam. Quantum honoris carnidatur in Ecclesiae nomine! Nemo, inquit, carnem suam odio habet, nisi plane Marcion solus: sed et nutrit et fovet eam, sicut et Christus Ecclesiam. At tu solus eam odisti, auferens illi resurrectionem. Odisse debebis et Ecclesiam, quia proinde diligitur a Christo. Atenim Christus 0518A iamavit et carnem sicut Ecclesiam. Nemo non diliget maginem quoque sponsae, imo et servabit illam, et honorabit, et coronabit. Habet similitudo cum veritate honoris consortium. Laborabo ego nunc eumdem Deum probare masculi et Christi, mulieris et Ecclesiae, carnis et spiritus; ipso Apostolo sententiam Creatoris adhibente, imo et disserente: Propter hocrelinquet homo patrem et matrem, et erunt duo in carnem unam . Sacramentum hoc magnum est. Sufficit inter ista, si Creatoris magna sunt apud Apostolum sacramenta, minima apud haereticos. Sed ego autem dico, inquit, in Christum et Ecclesiam. Habet interpretationem, non separationem sacramenti. Ostendit figuram sacramenti ab eo praeministratum, cujus erat utique sacramentum. 0518B Quid videtur Marcioni? Creator quidem ignoto Deo figuras praeministrare non potuit; etiam quia adversario. Si noto, Deus superior ab inferiore, et ad destruendum potius, mutuari nihil debuit. Obaudiant et parentibus filii. Nam et si Marcion abstulit, Hoc est enim primum in promissione praeceptum. Lex loquitur (Exod., XX); Honora patrem et matrem. Et: Parentes, enutrite filios in disciplina et correptione Domini. Audisti enim et veteribus dictum: Narrabitis haec in auribus filiorum vestrorum, et filii vestri aeque in auribusfiliorum suorum. Quo jam mihi duos Deos, si una est disciplina? et si duo sunt, illum sequar qui prior docuit. Sed adversus munditenentes luctatio si nobis, o quanti jam Dii creatores! Cur enim non et hoc vindicem, unum munditenentem 0518C nominari debuisse, si Creatorem significabat, cujus essent quas praemisit potestates? Porro, cum supra quidem induere nos jubeat armaturam, in qua stemus ad machinationes diaboli, jam ostendit diaboli esse, quae diabolo subjungit, potestates et munditenentes tenebrarum istarum, quae et nos diabolo deputamus. Aut si diabolus creator est, quis erit diabolus apud creatorem? An sicut duo Dei, ita et duo diaboli, et pluraliter potestates et munditenentes? 0519A Sed quomodo creator et diabolus et Deus idem? cum diabolus non idem et Deus et diabolus. Aut enim ambo et Dei, si ambo jam diaboli; aut qui Deus hic et non diabolus, sicut nec diabolus Deus. Ipsum vocabulum diaboli, quaero ex qua delatura competat Creatori? Fortasse detulit aliquam Dei superioris intentionem, quod ipse ab archangelo passus est, et quidem mentito. Non ideo enim interdixerat illius arbusculae gustum, ne Dei fierent, sed ne de transgressione morerentur. Nec spiritalia autem nequitiae ideo Creatorem significabant , quia adjecit, in coelis. Sciebat enim et Apostolus in coelis operata esse spiritalia nequitiae angelorum scandalizatorum in filias hominum (Gen. VI). Et quale erit , ut ambiguitatibus, et per aenigmata nescio quae, Creatorem 0519B taxaret: qui in catenis jam constitutus, ob libertatem praedicationis, constantiam manifestandi sacramenti in apertione oris, quam ibi expostulare a Deo mandabat, Ecclesiae utique praestabat?