The Five Books Against Marcion — Book 5, Chapter 11

He seems to have read the clause as applying to the world, but St. Paul certainly refers only to the obdurate Jews. The text is: “Sed obtunsi sunt sensus mundi.

2 Cor. iii. 15.

2 Cor. iii. 16.

2 Cor. iii. 18.

2 Cor. iii. 18, but T.’s reading is “tanquam a domino spirituum” (“even as by the Lord of the Spirits,” probably the sevenfold Spirit.). The original is, καθάπερ ἀπὸ Κυρίου Πνεύματος, “by the Lord the Spirit.”

Moysi ordinem totum.

2 Cor. iv. 4.

He would stop off the phrase τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου from ὁ Θεὸς, and remove it to the end of the sentence as a qualification of τῶν ἀπίστων. He adds another interpretation just afterwards, which, we need not say, is both more consistent with the sense of the passage and with the consensus of Christian writers of all ages, although “it is historically curious” (as Dean Alford has remarked) “that Irenæus [Hæres. iv. 48, Origen, Tertullian (v. 11, contra Marcion)], Chrysostom, Œcumenius, Theodoret, Theophylact, all repudiate, in their zeal against the Manichæans, the grammatical rendering, and take τῶν ἀπίστων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου together” (Greek Testament, in loc.). [I have corrected Alford’s reference to Tertullian which he makes B. iv. 11.]

Isa. xxix. 13.

Isa. vi. 10 (only adapted).

Isa. vii. 9, Sept.

Sept. κρὐψω, “will hide.”

Said concessively, in reference to M.’s position above mentioned.

Marcion’s “God of this world” being the God of the Old Testament.

Hactenus: pro non amplius (Oehler) tractasse.

“A fuller criticism on this slight matter might give his opponent the advantage, as apparently betraying a penury of weightier and more certain arguments” (Oehler).

Isa. xiv. 14.

Mancipata est illi.

2 Cor. iv. 6.

Gen. i. 3.

Isa. xlix. 6 (Sept. quoted in Acts xiii. 47).

Isa. ix. 2 and Matt. iv. 16.

Ps. iv. 7 (Sept.).

Persona: the πρόσωπον of the Septuagint.

Ait.

Oehler, after Fr. Junius, defends the reading “mortificationem dei,” instead of Domini, in reference to Marcion, who seems to have so corrupted the reading.

Vexatione.

Animi.

Book 5 · Chapter 11

Notes