Chapter XXIV.—On the Mission of the Seventy Disciples, and Christ’s Charge to Them.  Precedents Drawn from the Old Testament.  Absurdity of Supposing that Marcion’s Christ Could Have Given the Power of Treading on Serpents and Scorpions.

He chose also seventy other missionaries2094    Apostolos: Luke x. i. besides the twelve. Now why, if the twelve followed the number of the twelve fountains of Elim,2095    Compare above, book iv. chap. xiii. p. 364. should not the seventy correspond to the like number of the palms of that place?2096    Ex. xv. 27 and Num. xxxiii. 9. Whatever be the Antitheses of the comparison, it is a diversity in the causes, not in the powers, which has mainly produced them.  But if one does not keep in view the diversity of the causes,2097    Causarum: “occasions” or circumstances. he is very apt to infer a difference of powers.2098    Potestatum. In Marcionite terms, “The Gods of the Old and the New Testaments.” When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, the Creator brought them forth laden with their spoils of gold and silver vessels, and with loads besides of raiment and unleavened dough;2099    Consparsionum. [Punic Latin.] Ex. xii. 34, 35. whereas Christ commanded His disciples not to carry even a staff2100    Virgam, Luke x. 4, and Matt x. 10. for their journey. The former were thrust forth into a desert, but the latter were sent into cities. Consider the difference presented in the occasions,2101    Causarum offerentiam. and you will understand how it was one and the same power which arranged the mission2102    Expeditionem, with the sense also of “supplies” in the next clause. of His people according to their poverty in the one case, and their plenty in the other. He cut down2103    Circumcidens. their supplies when they could be replenished through the cities, just as He had accumulated2104    Struxerat. them when exposed to the scantiness of the desert. Even shoes He forbade them to carry. For it was He under whose very protection the people wore not out a shoe,2105    Deut. xxix. 5. even in the wilderness for the space of so many years. “No one,” says He, “shall ye salute by the way.”2106    Luke x. 4. What a destroyer of the prophets, forsooth, is Christ, seeing it is from them that He received his precept also! When Elisha sent on his servant Gehazi before him to raise the Shunammite’s son from death, I rather think he gave him these instructions:2107    See 2 Kings iv. 29. “Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way: if thou meet any man, salute him not;2108    Literally, “bless him not, i.e., salute him not.” and if any salute thee, answer him not again.”2109    Literally, “answer him not, i.e., return not his salvation.” For what is a wayside blessing but a mutual salutation as men meet? So also the Lord commands: “Into whatsoever house they enter, let them say, Peace be to it.”2110    Luke x. 5. Herein He follows the very same example. For Elisha enjoined upon his servant the same salutation when he met the Shunammite; he was to say to her: “Peace to thine husband, peace to thy child.”2111    2 Kings iv. 26. He reads the optative instead of the indicative. Such will be rather our Antitheses; they compare Christ with, instead of sundering Him from, the Creator. “The labourer is worthy of his hire.”2112    Luke x. 7. Who could better pronounce such a sentence than the Judge? For to decide that the workman deserves his wages, is in itself a judicial act. There is no award which consists not in a process of judgment. The law of the Creator on this point also presents us with a corroboration, for He judges that labouring oxen are as labourers worthy of their hire: “Thou shalt not muzzle,” says He, “the ox when he treadeth out the corn.”2113    Deut. xxv. 4. Now, who is so good to man2114    Compare above, book ii. chap. 17, p. 311. as He who is also merciful to cattle?  Now, when Christ pronounced labourers to be worthy of their hire, He, in fact, exonerated from blame that precept of the Creator about depriving the Egyptians of their gold and silver vessels.2115    See this argued at length above, in book ii. chap. 20, p. 313. For they who had built for the Egyptians their houses and cities, were surely workmen worthy of their hire, and were not instructed in a fraudulent act, but only set to claim compensation for their hire, which they were unable in any other way to exact from their masters.2116    Dominatoribus. That the kingdom of God was neither new nor unheard of, He in this way affirmed, whilst at the same time He bids them announce that it was near at hand.2117    Luke x. 9. Now it is that which was once far off, which can be properly said to have become near.  If, however, a thing had never existed previous to its becoming near, it could never have been said to have approached, because it had never existed at a distance. Everything which is new and unknown is also sudden.2118    Subitum. Everything which is sudden, then, first receives the accident of time2119    Accipit tempus. when it is announced, for it then first puts on appearance of form.2120    Inducens speciem. Besides it will be impossible for a thing either to have been tardy2121    Tardasse. all the while it remained unannounced,2122    The announcement (according to the definition) defining the beginning of its existence in time. or to have approached2123    Appropinquasse. from the time it shall begin to be announced.

He likewise adds, that they should say to such as would not receive them: “Notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.”2124    Luke x. 11. If He does not enjoin this by way of a commination, the injunction is a most useless one.  For what mattered it to them that the kingdom was at hand, unless its approach was accompanied with judgment?—even for the salvation of such as received the announcement thereof. How, if there can be a threat without its accomplishment, can you have in a threatening god, one that executes also, and in both, one that is a judicial being?2125    Et judicem in utroque. So, again, He commands that the dust be shaken off against them, as a testimony,—the very particles of their ground which might cleave2126    Hærentia. to the sandal, not to mention2127    Nedum. any other sort of communication with them.2128    Luke x. 11. But if their churlishness2129    Inhumanitas. and inhospitality were to receive no vengeance from Him, for what purpose does He premise a testimony, which surely forbodes some threats? Furthermore, when the Creator also, in the book of Deuteronomy, forbids the reception of the Ammonites and the Moabites into the church,2130    Ecclesiam. There is force in thus using Christian terms for Jewish ordinances, full as he is of the identity of the God of the old with Him of the new covenant. because, when His people came from Egypt, they fraudulently withheld provisions from them with inhumanity and inhospitality,2131    Deut. xxiii. 3. it will be manifest that the prohibition of intercourse descended to Christ from Him. The form of it which He uses—“He that despiseth you, despiseth me”2132    Luke x. 16.—the Creator had also addressed to Moses:  “Not against thee have they murmured, but against me.”2133    Num. xiv. 27. Moses, indeed, was as much an apostle as the apostles were prophets. The authority of both offices will have to be equally divided, as it proceeds from one and the same Lord, (the God) of apostles and prophets.  Who is He that shall bestow “the power of treading on serpents and scorpions?”2134    Luke x. 19. Shall it be He who is the Lord of all living creatures or he who is not god over a single lizard? Happily the Creator has promised by Isaiah to give this power even to little children, of putting their hand in the cockatrice den and on the hole of the young asps without at all receiving hurt.2135    Isa. xi. 8, 9. And, indeed, we are aware (without doing violence to the literal sense of the passage, since even these noxious animals have actually been unable to do hurt where there has been faith) that under the figure of scorpions and serpents are portended evil spirits, whose very prince is described2136    Deputetur. by the name of serpent, dragon, and every other most conspicuous beast in the power of the Creator.2137    Penes Creatorem. This power the Creator conferred first of all upon His Christ, even as the ninetieth Psalm says to Him: “Upon the asp and the basilisk shalt Thou tread; the lion and the dragon shalt Thou trample under foot.”2138    Ps. xci. 13. So also Isaiah: “In that day the Lord God shall draw His sacred, great, and strong sword” (even His Christ) “against that dragon, that great and tortuous serpent; and He shall slay him in that day.”2139    Isa. xxvii. 1, Sept. But when the same prophet says, “The way shall be called a clean and holy way; over it the unclean thing shall not pass, nor shall be there any unclean way; but the dispersed shall pass over it, and they shall not err therein; no lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon; it shall not be found there,”2140    Isa. xxxv. 8, 9, Sept. he points out the way of faith, by which we shall reach to God; and then to this way of faith he promises this utter crippling2141    Evacuationem. and subjugation of all noxious animals.  Lastly, you may discover the suitable times of the promise, if you read what precedes the passage: “Be strong, ye weak hands and ye feeble knees: then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be articulate.”2142    Isa. xxxv. 3, 5, 6, Sept. When, therefore, He proclaimed the benefits of His cures, then also did He put the scorpions and the serpents under the feet of His saints—even He who had first received this power from the Father, in order to bestow it upon others and then manifested it forth conformably to the order of prophecy.2143    Secundum ordinem prædicationis.

CAPUT XXIV.

0418C Allegit et alios septuaginta apostolos super duodecim (Luc. X). Quo enim duodecim secundum totidem fontes in Elim, si non et septuaginta, secundum totidem arbusta palmarum? Antitheses plurimum caussarum diversitas fecit, non potestatum. Sed qui diversitatem caussarum non respexit, facile eam potestatem existimavit. Profectionem filiorum Israelis, Creator, etiam illis spoliis aureorum et argenteorum vasculorum, et vestium, praeter oneribus consparsionum offarcinatam eduxit de Aegypto: Christus 0419A autem nec virgam discipulis in viam ferre praescripsit. Illi enim in solitudinem promovebantur; hi autem in civitates mittebantur. Considera caussarum offerentiam, et intelliges unam et eamdem potestatem, quae secundum penuriam et copiam expeditionem suorum disposuit; proinde per civitates abundaturam circumcidens, sicut et egituram per solitudinem struxerat . Etiam calciamenta portare vetuit illos. Ipse enim erat, sub quo nec in solitudine per tot annos populus calciamenta detriverat. Neminem, inquit, per viam salutaveris. O Christum destructorem Prophetarum, a quibus hoc quoque accepit! Helisaeus, cum Giezin puerum suum mitteret in viam ad filium Sunamitidis resuscitandum de morte, puto, sic ei praecepit (IV Reg., IV, 29): Accinge 0419B lumbos tuos, et sume bacillum meum in manum, et vade: quemcumque conveneris in via, ne benedixeris eum; id est, ne salutaveris: et qui te benedixerit, ne responderis ei, id est, ne resalutaveris. Quae est enim inter vias benedictio, nisi ex occursu mutua salutatio? Sic et Dominus, in quam introissent domum, pacem ei dicere , exemplo eodem est. Mandavit enim et hoc Helisaeus, cum introisset ad Sunamitin, diceret ei: Pax viro tuo, pax filio tuo . Haec erunt potius nostrae antitheses, quae comparant, non quae separant Christum. Dignus est autem operarius mercede sua, quis magis pronuntiarit quam Deus judex? Quia et hoc ipsum judicare est, dignum facere mercede operarium. Nulla retributio non ex judicatione constitit. Jam nunc et hic lex consignatur Creatoris, etiam 0419C boves operantes dignos operarios mercede judicantis; Bovi, inquit (Deuter., XXV, 4), terenti os non colligabis. Quis tam praestans in homines, nisi qui et in pecudes? Quod si et Christus dignos mercede pronuntiat operarios, excusavit praeceptum illud Creatoris, de vasis aureis et argenteis Aegyptiorum auferendis. Qui enim villas et urbes operati fuerant Aegyptiis, digni utique operarii mercede, non ad fraudem sunt instructi , sed ad mercedis compensationem, quam alias a dominatoribus exigere non poterant. Regnum Dei, neque novum neque inauditum, 0420A sic quoque confirmavit, dum illud jubet adnuntiari appropinquasse. Quod enim longe fuerit aliquando, id potest dici appropinquasse. Si autem numquam retro fuisset, antequam appropinquasset, nec dici potuisset appropinquasse, quod numquam longe fuisset. Omne quod novum et incognitum est, subitum est. Omne quod subitum est, cum annuntiatur, tunc primum speciem inducens, tunc primum accipit tempus. Caeterum, nec retrotardasse poterit, quamdiu non annuntiabatur; nec ex quo annuntiari coeperit, appropinquasse. Etiam adjicit , ut eis qui illos non recepissent, dicerent: Scitote tamen appropinquasse regnum Dei. Si hoc non et comminationis gratia mandat, vanissime mandat. Quid enim ad illos si appropinquaret regnum, nisi quia cum 0420B judicio appropinquat? in salutem scilicet eorum, qui annuntiationem ejus recepissent. Quomodo? si comminatio non potest sine executione, habes Deum executorem in comminatore, et judicem in utroque? Sic et pulverem jubet excuti in illos, in testificationem, et haerentiam terrae eorum, nedum communicationis reliquae. Si enim inhumanitas et inhospitalitas nullam ab eo relaturae sunt ultionem, cui rei praemittit testificationem, minas utique portendentem? Porro, cum etiam Creator in Deuteronomio (Deut., XXIII, 3), Ammonitas et Moabitas prohibeat recipi in Ecclesiam, quod populum Aegypto profectum inhumane et inhospitaliter copiis defraudassent; ergo in Christum inde manasse constabit communicationis interdictum; ubi habet 0420C formam: Qui vos spernit, me spernit. Hoc et Moysi Creator Num., XIV, 27): Non te contempserunt, sed me. Tam enim apostolus Moyses, quam et Apostoli prophetae. Aequanda erit auctoritas utriusque officii, ab uno eodemque domino Apostolorum et Prophetarum. Quis nunc dabit potestatem calcandi super colubros et scorpios? Utrumne omnium animalium Dominus, an nec unius lacertae Deus? Sed bene quod Creator hanc potestatem parvulis pueris per Isaiam (Is., XI, 8) repromisit, conjicere manum in cavernam aspidum, et in cubile natorum aspidum, nec 0421A omnino laedi. Et utique scimus (salva simplicitate Scripturae; nam nec et ipsae bestiae nocere poterunt, ubi fides fuerit) figurate scorpios et colubros portendi spiritalia malitiae, quorum ipse quoque princeps in serpentis, et draconis, et immanissimae cujusque bestiae nomine deputetur penes Creatorem, largitum hanc potestatem priori Christo suo; sicut nonagesimus Psalmus ad eum (Ps. XC, 13): Super aspidem et basiliscum incedes, et conculcabis leonem et draconem; sicut etiam Isaias (Is., XXVII, 1): Illa die superducet Dominus Deus machaeram sanctam, magnam et fortem, Christum scilicet suum, in draconem illum colubrum magnum et tortuosum, et interficiet eum illa die. Sed cum idem (Is., XXXV, 8): Via munda et via sancta vocabitur, et non transibit illic immundum, nec erit illic 0421B via immunda: qui autem dispersi erunt, vadent in ea, et non errabunt; et non erit jam illic leo, nec ex bestiis pessimis quicquam ascendet in eam, nec invenietur illic. Cum via fidem demonstret, per quam ad Deum perveniemus, jam tunc eidem viae, id est fidei, hanc erogationem et subjectionem bestiarum pollicetur. Denique et tempora promissionis congruere invenias, si quae antecedunt, legas (Is., XXXV, 3): Invalescite, manus dimissae, et genua resoluta. Tunc patefient oculi caecorum, et aures exaudient surdorum. Tunc saliet claudus ut cervus, et clara erit lingua mutorum. Igitur ubi medicinarum edidit beneficia, tunc et scorpios et serpentes sanctis suis subdidit, ille scilicet qui hanc potestatem, ut et allis praestaret, prior acceperat a Patre, et secundum ordinem praedicationis exhibuit.