Five Books in Reply to Marcion
Tertullian
Book 4 · Introduction
About this work
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- Tertullian
Book IV.—Of Marcion’s Antitheses.
What the Inviolable Power bids
The youthful people, which
Opening the library…
Opening the library…
Five Books in Reply to Marcion
Tertullian
What the Inviolable Power bids
The youthful people, which
Possesses an eternal hope of praise
(By right assigned) is this: that with great zeal
5 Burning, armed with the love of peace—yet not
As teachers (Christ alone doth all things teach),
But as Christ’s household—servants—o’er the earth
They should conduct a massive war; should raze
The wicked’s lofty towers, savage walls,
10 And threats which ’gainst the holy people’s bands
Rise, and dissolve such empty sounds in air.
Wherefore we, justly speaking emulous words,
Out of his own words even strive to express
The meaning of salvation’s records, which
15 Large grace hath poured profusely; and to ope
To the saints’ eyes the Bandit’s covert plague:
Lest any untrained, daring, ignorant,
Fall therein unawares, and (being caught)
Forfeit celestial gifts.
God, then, is One
20 To mortals all and everywhere; a Realm
Eternal, Origin of light profound;
Life’s Fount; a Draught fraught with all wisdom. He
Produced the orb whose bosom all things girds;
Him not a region, not a place, includes as
25 In circuit: matter none perennial is,
So as to be self-made, or to have been
Ever, created by no Maker: heaven’s,
Earth’s, sea’s, and the abyss’s Settler is
The Spirit; air’s Divider, Builder, Author,
30 Sole God perpetual, Power immense, is He.
Him had the Law the People shown to be
One God, whose mighty voice to Moses spake
Upon the mount. Him this His Virtue, too,
His Wisdom, Glory, Word, and Son, this Light
35 Begotten from the Light immense, proclaims
Through the seers’ voices, to be One: and Paul,
Taking the theme in order up, thus too
Himself delivers; “Father there is One
Through whom were all things made: Christ One, through whom
40 God all things made;” to whom he plainly owns
That every knee doth bow itself; of whom
Is every fatherhood in heaven and earth
Called: who is zealous with the highest love
Of parent-care His people-ward; and wills
45 All flesh to live in holy wise, and wills
His people to appear before Him pure
Without a crime. With such zeal, by a law
Guards He our safety; warns us loyal be;
Chastens; is instant. So, too, has the same
50 Apostle (when Galatian brethren
Chiding)—Paul—written that such zeal hath he.
The fathers’sins God freely rendered, then,
Slaying in whelming deluge utterly Parents alike with progeny, and e’en
55 Grandchildren in “fourth generation” now
Descended from the parent-stock, when He
Has then for nearly these nine hundred years
Assisted them. Hard does the judgment seem?
The sentence savage? And in Sodom, too,
60 That the still guiltless little one unarmed
And tender should lose life: for what had e’er
The infant sinned? What cruel thou mayst think,
Is parent-care’s true duty. Lest misdeed
Should further grow, crime’s authors He did quench,
65 And sinful parents’ brood. But, with his sires,
The harmless infant pays not penalties
Perpetual, ignorant and not advanced
In crime: but lest he partner should become
Of adult age’s guilt, death immature
70 Undid spontaneous future ills.
Why, then,
Bids God libation to be poured to Him
With blood of sheep? and takes so stringent means
By Law, that, in the People, none transgress
Erringly, threatening them with instant death
75 By stoning? and why reprobates, again,
These gifts of theirs, and says they are to Him
Unwelcome, while He chides a People prest
With swarm of sin? Does He, the truthful, bid,
And He, the just, at the same time repel?
80 The causes if thou seekst, cease to be moved
Erringly: for faith’s cause is weightier
Than fancied reason. Through a mirror—shade
Of fulgent light!—behold what the calf’s blood,
The heifer’s ashes, and each goat, do mean:
85 The one dismissed goes off, the other falls
A victim at the temple.
With calf’s blood
With water mixt the seer (thus from on high
Bidden) besprinkled People, vessels all,
Priests, and the written volumes of the Law.
90 See here not their true hope, nor yet a mere
Semblance devoid of virtue: but behold
In the calf’s type Christ destined bodily
To suffer; who upon His shoulders bare
The plough-beam’s hard yokes, and with fortitude
95 Brake His own heart with the steel share, and poured
Into the furrows water of His own
Life’s blood. For these “temple-vessels” do
See the preceding book.
I have changed the unintelligible “daret” of the edd. into “docet.” The reference seems to be to Matt. xxiii. 8; Jas. iii. 1; 1 Pet. v. 2, 3.
Molem belli deducere terræ.
Æmulamenta. Migne seems to think the word refers to Marcion’s “Antitheses.”
i.e., apparently Marcion’s.
Monumenta.
See the opening of the preceding book.
“Conditus;” i.e., probably (in violation of quantity) the past part. of “condio” = flavoured, seasoned.
I have altered the punctuation here.
Inferni.
Locator.
These lines are capable, according to their punctuation, of various renderings, which for brevity’s sake I must be content to omit.
i.e., the People of Israel. See the de Idol., p. 148, c. v. note 1.
See Deut. vi. 3, 4, quoted in Mark xii. 29, 30.
This savours of the Nicene Creed.
Migne’s pointing is followed, in preference to Oehler’s.
“Unum hunc esse Patrem;” i.e., “that this One (God) is the Father.” But I rather incline to read, “unumque esse;” or we may render, “This One is the Sire.”
See 1 Cor. viii. 5, 6 (but notice the prepositions in the Greek; our author is not accurate in rendering them); Eph. iv. 4, 5, 6.
Ad quem se curvare genu plane omne fatetur. The reference is to Phil. ii. 10; but our author is careless in using the present tense, “se curvare.”
The reference is to Eph. iii. 14, 15; but here again our author seems in error, as he refers the words to Christ, whereas the meaning of the apostle appears clearly to refer them tothe Father.
Legitimos. See book iv. 91.
See Gal. iii. 20. But here, again, “Galatas” seems rather like an error; for in speaking to the Corinthians St. Paul uses an expression more like our author’s: see 2 Cor. xi. 2. The Latin, too, is faulty: “Talem se Paulus zelum se scripsit habere,” where, perhaps, for the first “se” we should read “sic.”
Comp. Ex. xx. 5; Deut. v. 9.
See Isa. i. 10–15; Jer. vi. 20.
Causa etenim fidei rationis imagine major.
Comp. 1 Cor. xiii. 12; Heb. x. 1.
Moses. See Heb. ix. 19–22, and the references there.
Comp. Heb. ix. 13.
Alluding probably to our Lord’s bearing of the cross-beam of His cross—the beam being the “yokes,” and the upright stem of the cross the “plough-beam”—on His shoulders.—See John xix. 17.