Five Books in Reply to Marcion
Tertullian
Book 3 · Introduction
About this work
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- Tertullian
Book III.—Of the Harmony of the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments.
Now hath the mother, formerly surnamed
Barren, giv’n
Opening the library…
Opening the library…
Five Books in Reply to Marcion
Tertullian
Now hath the mother, formerly surnamed
Barren, giv’n
From the free woman, joys: (the slave expelled,
Deservedly, with her proud progeny;
5 Who also leaves ungratefully behind
The waters of the living fount, and drinks—
Errant on heated plains—’neath glowing star:)
Now can the Gentiles as their parent claim
Abraham; who, the Lord’s voice following,
10 Like him, have all things left, life’s pilgrimage
To enter. “Be glad, barren one;” conceive
The promised people; “break thou out, and cry,”
Who with no progeny wert blest; of whom
Spake, through the seers, the Spirit of old time:
15 She hath borne, out of many nations, one;
With whose beginning are her pious limbs
Ever in labour.
Hers “just Abel” was,
A pastor and a cattle—master he;
Whom violence of brother’s right hand slew
20 Of old. Her Enoch, signal ornament,
Limb from her body sprung, by counsel strove
To recall peoples gone astray from God
And following misdeed, (while raves on earth
The horde of robber-renegades,) to flee
25 The giants’sacrilegious cruel race;
Faithful in all himself. With groaning deep
Did he please God, and by deserved toil
Translated is reserved as a pledge,
With honour high. Perfect in praise, and found
30 Faultless, and just—God witnessing the fact—
In an adulterous people, Noah (he
Who in twice fifty years the ark did weave)
By deeds and voice the coming ruin told.
Favour he won, snatched out of so great waves
35 Of death, and, with his progeny, preserved.
Then, in the generation following,
Is Abraham, whose sons ye do deny
Yourselves to be; who first—race, country, sire,
All left behind—at suasion of God’s voice
40 Withdrew to realms extern: such honours he
At God’s sublime hand worthily deserved
As to be father to believing tribes
And peoples. Jacob with the patriarchs
(Himself their patriarch) through all his own
45 Life’s space the gladdest times of Christ foresang
By words, act, virtue, toil.
Him follows—free
From foul youth’s stain—Joseph, by slander feigned,
Doomed to hard penalty and gaol: his groans
Glory succeeds, and the realm’s second crown, so
50 And in dearth’s time large power of furnishing
Bread: so appropriate a type of Christ,
So lightsome type of Light, is manifest
To all whose mind hath eyes, that they may see
In a face-mirror their sure hope.
Himself
55 The patriarch Judah, see; the origin
Of royal line, whence leaders rose, nor kings
Failed ever from his seed, until the Power
To come, by Gentiles looked for, promised long,
Came.
Moses, leader of the People, (he
60 Who, spurning briefly—blooming riches, left
The royal thresholds,) rather chose to bear
His people’s toils, afflicted, with bowed neck,
By no threats daunted, than to gain himself
Enjoyments, and of many penalties
65 Remission: admirable for such faith
And love, he, with God’s virtue armed, achieved
Great exploits: smote the nation through with plagues;
And left their land behind, and their hard king
Confounds, and leads the People back; trod waves;
70 Sunk the foes down in waters; through a “tree”
Made ever-bitter waters sweet; spake much
(Manifestly to the People) with the Christ,
From whose face light and brilliance in his own
Reflected shone; dashed on the ground the law
75 Accepted through some few,—implicit type,
And sure, of his own toils!—smote through the rock;
And, being bidden, shed forth streams; and stretched
His hands that, by a sign, he vanquish might
The foe; of Christ all severally, all
80 Combined through Christ, do speak. Great and approved,
He rests with praise and peace.
But Joshua,
The son of Nun, erst called Oshea—this man
The Holy Spirit to Himself did join
As partner in His name: hence did he cleave
85 The flood; constrained the People to pass o’er;
Freely distributed the land—the prize
Promised the fathers!—stayed both sun and moon
While vanquishing the foe; races extern
And giants’ progeny outdrave; razed groves;
90 Altars and temples levelled; and with mind
Loyal performed all due solemnities:
Type of Christ’s name; his virtue’s image.
What
Touching the People’s Judges shall I say
Isa. liv. 1; Gal. iv. 27.
Gal. iv. 19–31.
The Jewish people leaving Christ, “the fountain of living waters” (Jer. ii. 13; John vii. 37–39), is compared to Hagar leaving the well, which was, we may well believe, close to Abraham’s tent.
Et tepidis errans ardenti sidere potat. See Gen. xxi. 12–20.
See Matt. xix. 27; Mark x. 28; Luke xviii. 28.
See Matt. xxiii. 35.
i.e., apparently the “giants;” see Gen. vi. 4; but there is no mention of them in Enoch’s time (Migne).
i.e., over the general sinfulness.
I suggest “translatus” for “translatum” here.
See Gen. vii. 1.
Loosely; 120 years is the number in Gen. vi. 3.
Gente.
Speculo vultus. The two words seem to me to go together, and, unless the second be indeed redundant, to mean perhaps a small hand-mirror, which affords more facilities for minute examination of the face than a larger fixed one.
“Sortis;” lit. “lot,” here ="the line or family chosen by lot.” Compare the similar derivation of “clergy.”
Lignum.
I have ventured to substitute “Christo” for “Christi;” and thus, for “Cum Christi populo manifeste multa locutus,” read, “Cum Christo (populo manifeste) multa locutus.” The reference is to the fact, on which such special stress is laid, of the Lord’s “speaking to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh with his friend.” See especially Num. xii. 5–8, Deut. xxxiv. 9–12, with Deut. xviii. 17–19, Acts iii. 22, 23, vii. 37.
The Latin in Oehler and Migne is thus: “Acceptam legem per paucos fudit in orbem;” and the reference seems to me to be to Ex. xxxii. 15–20, though the use of “orbem” for “ground” is perhaps strange; but “humum” would have been against the metre, if that argument be of any weight in the case of a writer so prolific of false quantities. Possibly the lines may mean that “he diffused through some few”—i.e., through the Jews, “few” as compared with the total inhabitants of the orb—“the Law which he had received;” but then the following line seems rather to favour the former view, because the tables of the Law—called briefly “the Law”—broken by Moses so soon after he had received them, were typical of the inefficacy of all Moses’ own toils, which, after all, ended in disappointment, as he was forbidden, on account of a sin committed in the very last of the forty years, to lead the people into “the land,” as he had fondly hoped to do. Only I suspect some error in “per paucos;” unless it be lawful to supply “dies,” and take it to mean “received during but few days,” i.e., “within few days,” “only a few days before,” and “accepted” or “kept” by the People “during but a few days.” Would it be lawful to conjecture “perpaucis” as one word, with “ante diebus” to be understood?
i.e., the sign of the cross. See Tertullian, adv. Marc., l. iii. c. xviii. sub. fin.; also adv. Jud., c. x. med.
i.e., all the acts and the experiences of Moses.
Moses.
See Ex. xxiii. 20–23; and comp. adv. Marc., l. iii. c. xvi.
Legitima, i.e., reverent of law.