Five Books in Reply to Marcion
Tertullian
Book 2 · Introduction
About this work
- Author
- Tertullian
Book II.—Of the Harmony of the Old and New Laws.
After the faith was broken by the dint
Of the
Opening the library…
Opening the library…
Five Books in Reply to Marcion
Tertullian
After the faith was broken by the dint
Of the
With wiles the hidden pest emerged; with lies
Self-prompted, scornful of the Deity
5 That underlies the sense, he did his plagues
Concoct: skilled in guile’s path, he mixed his own
Words impious with the sayings of the saints.
And on the good seed sowed his wretched tares,
Thence willing that foul ruin’s every cause
10 Should grow combined; to wit, that with more speed
His own iniquitous deeds he may assign
To God clandestinely, and may impale
On penalties such as his suasion led;
False with true veiling, turning rough with smooth,
15 And, (masking his spear’s point with rosy wreaths,)
Slaying the unwary unforeseen with death
Supreme. His supreme wickedness is this:
That men, to such a depth of madness sunk!
Off-broken boughs! should into parts divide
20 The endlessly-dread Deity; Christ’s deeds
Sublime should follow with false praise, and blame
The former acts, God’s countless miracles,
Ne’er seen before, nor heard, nor in a heart
Conceived; and should so rashly frame in words
25 The impermissible impiety
Of wishing by “wide dissimilitude
Of sense” to prove that the two Testaments
Sound adverse each to other, and the Lord’s
Oppose the prophets’ words; of drawing down
30 All the Law’s cause to infamy; and eke
Of reprobating holy fathers’ life
Of old, whom into friendship, and to share
His gifts, God chose. Without beginning, one
Is, for its lesser part, accepted. Though
35 Of one are four, of four one, yet to them
One part is pleasing, three they (in a word)
Reprobate: and they seize, in many ways,
On Paul as their own author; yet was he
Urged by a frenzied impulse of his own
40 To his last words: all whatsoe’er he spake
Of the old covenant seems hard to them
Because, deservedly, “made gross in heart.”
Weight apostolic, grace of beaming word,
Dazzles their mind, nor can they possibly
45 Discern the Spirit’s drift. Dull as they are,
Seek they congenial animals!
But ye
Who have not yet, (false deity your guide,
Reprobate in your very mind,) to death’s
Inmost caves penetrated, learn there flows
50 A stream perennial from its fount, which feeds
A tree, (twice sixfold are the fruits, its grace!)
And into earth and to the orb’s four winds
Goes out: into so many parts doth flow
The fount’s one hue and savour. Thus, withal,
55 From apostolic word descends the Church,
Out of Christ’s womb, with glory of His Sire
All filled, to wash off filth, and vivify
Dead fates. The Gospel, four in number, one
In its diffusion ’mid the Gentiles, this,
60 By faith elect accepted, Paul hands down
(Excellent doctor!) pure, without a crime;
And from it he forbade Galatian saints
To turn aside withal; whom “brethren false,”
(Urging them on to circumcise themselves,
65 And follow “elements,” leaving behind
Their novel “freedom,”) to “a shadow old
Of things to be” were teaching to be slaves.
These were the causes which Paul had to write
To the Galatians: not that they took out
70 One small part of the Gospel, and held that
For the whole bulk, leaving the greater part
Behind. And hence ’tis no words of a book,
But Christ Himself, Christ sent into the orb,
Who is the gospel, if ye will discern;
75 Who from the Father came, sole Carrier
Of tidings good; whose glory vast completes
The early testimonies; by His work
Showing how great the orb’s Creator is:
Whose deeds, conjoined at the same time with words,
80 Those faithful ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Recorded unalloyed (not speaking words
External), sanctioned by God’s Spirit, ’neath
So great a Master’s eye!
This paschal Lamb
Is hung, a victim, on the tree: Him Paul,
85 Writing decrees to Corinth, with his torch,
Hands down as slain, the future life and God
Promised to the fathers, whom before
He had attracted.
See what virtue, see
What power, the paschal image has; ye thus
90 Will able be to see what power there is
In the true Passover.
Lest well-earned love
Should tempt the faithful sire and seer, to whom
His pledge and heir was dear, whom God by chance
Had given him, to offer him to God
95 (A mighty execution!), there is shown
The “foe,” as before, is Satan; his “breathing instruments” are the men whom he uses (cf. Shakespeare’s “no breather” = no man, in the dialogue between Orlando and Jacques, As you Like it, act iii. sc. 2); and they are called “renegades,” like the Evil One himself, because they have deserted from their allegiance to God in Christ.
Heresy.
Cf. John xv. 2, 4, 5, 6; Rom. xi. 17–20. The writer simply calls them “abruptos homines;” and he seems to mean excommunicated, like Marcion.
i.e., those recorded in the Old Testament.
I have followed Migne’s suggestion here, and transposed one line of the original. The reference seems to be to Isa. lxiv. 4, quoted in 1 Cor. ii. 9, where the Greek differs somewhat remarkably from the LXX.
Unless some line has dropped out here, the construction, harsh enough in my English, is yet harsher in the Latin. “Accipitur” has no subject of any kind, and one can only guess from what has gone before, and what follows, that it must mean “one Testament.”
Harsh still. It must refer to the four Gospels—the “coat without seam”—in their quadrate unity; Marcion receiving but one—St. Luke’s—and that without St. Luke’s name, and also in a mutilated and interpolated form.
This seems to be the sense. The allusion is to the fact that Marcion and his sect accepted but ten of St. Paul’s Epistles: leaving out entirely those to Timothy and Titus, and all the other books, except his one Gospel.
It seems to me that the reference here must evidently be to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which treats specially of the old covenant. If so, we have some indication as to the authorship, if not the date, of the book: for Tertullian himself, though he frequently cites the Epistle, appears to hesitate (to say the least) as to ascribing it to St. Paul.
Comp. Isa. vi. 9, 10, with Acts xxviii. 17–29.
The reference seems to be to Rom. i. 28; comp., too, Tit. i. 15, 16.
The reference is to Gen. ii. 9–14.
Fata mortua. This extraordinary expression appears to mean “dead men;” men who, through Adam, are fated, so to speak, to die, and are under the sad fate of being “dead in trespasses and sins.” See Eph. ii. 1. As far as quantity is concerned, it might as well be “facta mortua,” “dead works,” such as we read of in Heb. vi. 1; ix. 14. It is true these works cannot strictly be said to be ever vivified; but a very similar inaccuracy seems to be committed by our author lower down in this same book.
I have followed Oehler’s “face” for the common “phase;” but what the meaning is I will not venture to decide. It may probably mean one of two things: (a) that Paul wrote by torchlight; (b) that the light which Paul holds forth in his life and writings, is a torch to show the Corinthians and others Christ.
i.e., the legal passover, “image” or type of “the true Passover,” Christ. See 1 Cor. v. 6–9.
Abraham. See Gen. xxii. 1–19.
Isaac, a pledge to Abraham of all God’s other promises.
Forte. I suppose this means out of the ordinary course of nature; but it is a strange word to use.