Chapter XVI.—The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. An Absurd Erasure of Marcion; Its Object Transparent. The Final Judgment on the Heathen as Well as the Jews Could Not Be Administered by Marcion’s Christ. The Man of Sin—What? Inconsistency of Marcion’s View. The Antichrist. The Great Events of the Last Apostasy Within the Providence and Intention of the Creator, Whose are All Things from the Beginning. Similarity of the Pauline Precepts with Those of the Creator.

We are obliged from time to time to recur to certain topics in order to affirm truths which are connected with them. We repeat then here, that as the Lord is by the apostle proclaimed3597    Circumferri. as the awarder of both weal and woe,3598    Utriusque meriti: “of both the eternal sentences.” He must be either the Creator, or (as Marcion would be loth to admit) One like the Creator—“with whom it is a righteous thing to recompense tribulation to them who afflict us, and to ourselves, who are afflicted, rest, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed as coming from heaven with the angels of His might and in flaming fire.”3599    2 Thess. i. 6–8. The heretic, however, has erased the flaming fire, no doubt that he might extinguish all traces herein of our own God.  But the folly of the obliteration is clearly seen. For as the apostle declares that the Lord will come “to take vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel, who,” he says, “shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power”3600    2 Thess. i. 8, 9.—it follows that, as He comes to inflict punishment, He must require “the flaming fire.” Thus on this consideration too we must, notwithstanding Marcion’s opposition, conclude that Christ belongs to a God who kindles the flames3601    Crematoris Dei. (of vengeance), and therefore to the Creator, inasmuch as He takes vengeance on such as know not the Lord, that is, on the heathen. For he has mentioned separately “those who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,”3602    2 Thess. i. 8. whether they be sinners among Christians or among Jews. Now, to inflict punishment on the heathen, who very likely have never heard of the Gospel, is not the function of that God who is naturally unknown, and who is revealed nowhere else than in the Gospel, and therefore cannot be known by all men.3603    Non omnibus scibilis. The Creator, however, ought to be known even by (the light of) nature, for He may be understood from His works, and may thereby become the object of a more widely spread knowledge. To Him, therefore, does it appertain to punish such as know not God, for none ought to be ignorant of Him. In the (apostle’s) phrase, “From the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power,”3604    2 Thess. i. 9. he uses the words of Isaiah who for the express reason makes the self-same Lord “arise to shake terribly the earth.”3605    Isa. ii. 19. The whole verse is to the point. Well, but who is the man of sin, the son of perdition,” who must first be revealed before the Lord comes; “who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; who is to sit in the temple of God, and boast himself as being God?”3606    2 Thess. ii. 3, 4. According indeed to our view, he is Antichrist; as it is taught us in both the ancient and the new prophecies,3607    The prophets of the Old and the New Testament. and especially by the Apostle John, who says that “already many false prophets are gone out into the world,” the fore-runners of Antichrist, who deny that Christ is come in the flesh,3608    1 John iv. 1–3. and do not acknowledge3609    Solventes Jesum. This expression receives some explanation from the Vulgate version of 1 John iv. 3: “Et omnis spiritus qui solvit Jesum Christum ex Deo non est.” From Irenæus, Vol. I., 443 (Harvey, ii. 89), we learn that the Gnostics divided Jesus from Christ: “Alterum quidem Jesum intelligunt, alterum autem Christum,”—an error which was met in the clause of the creed expressing faith in “One Lord Jesus Christ.” Grabe, after Socrates, Hist. Eccles. vii. 32, says that the oldest mss. of St. John’s epistle read πᾶν πνεῦμα ὅ λύει τὸν ᾽Ιησοῦν. If so, Tertullian must be regarded as combining the two readings, viz., that which we find in the received text and this just quoted. Thus Grabe. It would be better to say that T. read ver. 2 as we have it, only omitting ᾽Ιησοῦν; and in ver. 3 read the old lection to which Socrates refers instead of πᾶν πνεῦμα ὅ μὴ ὁμολογεὶ. Jesus (to be the Christ), meaning in God the Creator. According, however, to Marcion’s view, it is really hard to know whether He might not be (after all) the Creator’s Christ; because according to him He is not yet come. But whichsoever of the two it is, I want to know why he comes “in all power, and with lying signs and wonders?”3610    2 Thess. ii. 9. “Because,” he says, “they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved; for which cause God shall send them an instinct of delusion3611    Instinctum fallaciæ. (to believe a lie), that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”3612    2 Thess. ii. 10–12. If therefore he be Antichrist, (as we hold), and comes according to the Creator’s purpose, it must be God the Creator who sends him to fasten in their error those who did not believe the truth, that they might be saved; His likewise must be the truth and the salvation, who avenges (the contempt of) them by sending error as their substitute3613    Summissu erroris.—that is, the Creator, to whom that very wrath is a fitting attribute, which deceives with a lie those who are not captivated with truth. If, however, he is not Antichrist, as we suppose (him to be) then He is the Christ of the Creator, as Marcion will have it. In this case how happens it that he3614    Marcion, or rather his Christ, who on the hypothesis absurdly employs the Creator’s Christ on the flagrantly inconsistent mission of avenging his truth, i.e. Marcionism. can suborn the Creator’s Christ to avenge his truth? But should he after all agree with us, that Antichrist is here meant, I must then likewise ask how it is that he finds Satan, an angel of the Creator, necessary to his purpose? Why, too, should Antichrist be slain by Him, whilst commissioned by the Creator to execute the function3615    Habens fungi…Creatori. of inspiring men with their love of untruth?  In short, it is incontestable that the emissary,3616    Angelum: the Antichrist sent by the Creator. and the truth, and the salvation belong to Him to whom also appertain the wrath, and the jealousy,3617    Æmulatio. and “the sending of the strong delusion,”3618    2 Thess. ii. 11. on those who despise and mock, as well as upon those who are ignorant of Him; and therefore even Marcion will now have to come down a step, and concede to us that his god is “a jealous god.” (This being then an unquestionable position, I ask) which God has the greater right to be angry? He, as I suppose, who from the beginning of all things has given to man, as primary witnesses for the knowledge of Himself, nature in her (manifold) works, kindly providences, plagues,3619    Plagis: “heavy strokes,” in opposition to the previous “beneficiis.” and indications (of His divinity),3620    Prædicationibus: see Rom. i. 20. but who in spite of all this evidence has not been acknowledged; or he who has been brought out to view3621    Productus est. once for all in one only copy of the gospel—and even that without any sure authority—which actually makes no secret of proclaiming another god? Now He who has the right of inflicting the vengeance, has also sole claim to that which occasions3622    Materia. the vengeance, I mean the Gospel; (in other words,) both the truth and (its accompanying) salvation. The charge, that “if any would not work, neither should he eat,”3623    2 Thess. iii. 10. is in strict accordance with the precept of Him who ordered that “the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn should not be muzzled.”3624    Deut. xxv. 4.

CAPUT XVI.

(In Ep. II ad Thess.) Cogimur quaedam identidem 0510C iterare, ut cohaerentia eis confirmemus. Dominum et hic retributorem utriusque meriti, dicimus circumferri ab Apostolo, aut Creatorem, aut (quod nolit Marcion) parem Creatoris, apud quem justum sit afflictatoribus nostris rependi afflictationem, et nobis qui afflictemur requietem, in revelatione Domini Jesu venientis a coelo cum angelis virtutis suae, et in flamma ignis. Sed flammam et ignem delendo haereticus exstinxit, ne scilicet nostratem Deum faceret. Lucet tamen vanitas liturae. Cum enim ad ultionem venturum scribat Apostolus Dominum exigendam de eis qui Deum ignorent, et qui non obaudiant Evangelio, quos ait poenam luituros, exitialem, aeternam a facie Domini, et a gloria valentiae ejus; sequitur ut flammam ignis inducat, scilicet veniens ad puniendum; ita et 0510D in hoc, nolente Marcione, crematoris Dei Christus 0511A est , et in illo Creatoris est, quod etiam de ignorantibus Dominum ulciscitur, id est de ethnicis. Seorsum enim posuit Evangelio non obaudientes, sive christianos peccatores, sive Judaeos. Porro de ethnicis exigere poenas, qui Evangelium forte non norint, non est Dei ejus qui naturaliter sit ignotus, nec usquam nisi in Evangelio sit revelatus, non omnibus scibilis. Creatori autem etiam naturali agnitio debetur ex operibus intelligendo, et exinde in pleniorem notitiam requirendo. Illius est ergo etiam ignorantes Deum plectere, quem non liceat ignorari . Ipsum quod ait: A facie Domini et a gloria valentiae ejus, verbis usus Esaiae (Is. II, 19): ex ipsa caussa eumdem sapit Dominum consurgentem, ut comminuat terram. Quis autem est homo delicti, filius perditionis, 0511B quem revelari prius oportet ante Domini adventum, extollens se super omne quod Deus dicitur, et omnem religionem; confessurus in templo Dei et Deum se jactaturus? Secundum nos quidem Antichristus, ut docent veteres et novae prophetiae; ut Joannes apostolus, qui jam antichristos dicit (I Joan. IV, 1, 2) processisse in mundum, praecursores Antichristi spiritus, negantes Christum in carne venisse, et solventes Jesum, scilicet in Deo Creatore. Secundum vero Marcionem, nescio, ne Christus sit Creatoris: nondum enim venit apud illum. Quisquis est autem ex duobus, quaero, cur veniat in omni virtute et signis et ostentis mendacii? Propterea, inquit, quod dilectionem veritatis non susceperint, ut salvi essent; et propter hoc erit eis instinctum fallaciae, ut judicentur 0511C omnes qui non crediderunt veritati, sed consenserunt iniquitati. Igitur si Antichristus est secundum Creatorem , Deus erit Creator, qui eum mittit ad impingendos eos in errorem, qui non crediderunt veritati ut salvi fierent, ejusdem erit veritas et salus, qui ex submissu erroris ulciscitur, id est Creatoris, cui et competit zelus ipse errore decipere quos veritate non cepit. Si vero non est antichristus secundum nos, ergo Christus est Creatoris secundum Marcionem. Et quale erit ut ad ulciscendam veritatem suam, Christum Creatori submittat? Sed et si de Antichristo consentit, proinde dixerim, 0512A quale est, ut illi Satanas angelus Creatoris sit necessarius, et occidatur ab eo, habens fallaciae operatione fungi Creatori? In summa, si indubitatum est ejus esse et angelum, et veritatem, et salutem, cujus et ira, et aemulatio, et fallaciae immissio adversus contemptores et desultores, etiam adversus ignorantes (ut jam et Marcion de gradu cedat, Deum quoque zeloten concedens), quis dignius irascetur? Puto, qui a primordio rerum naturam operibus, beneficiis, plagis, praedicationibus , testibus ad agnitionem sui praestruxit, nec tamen agnitus est; an qui semel unico Evangelii instrumento, et ipso incerto, nec palam alium Deum praedicante, productus est? Ita cui competit vindicta, et competet materia vindictae: Evangelium dico, et veritas, et salus. 0512B Jubere autem operari eum qui velit manducare, ejus disciplina est qui bovi trituranti os liberum jussit.