The Five Books Against Marcion — Book 4, Chapter 12

Opening the library…

Notes

Circumferret.

Cur destrueret.

Deberet.

Institutione: or, teaching, perhaps.

Alium.

Intervertit.

Operatione.

Concussum est sabbatum.

Per Jesum.

Professus…sequebatur.

Isa. i. 14.

This obscure passage runs thus in the original: “Marcion captat status controversiæ (ut aliquid ludam cum mei Domini veritate), scripti et voluntatis.” Status is a technical word in rhetoric. “Est quæstio quæ ex prima causarum conflictione nascitur.” See Cicero, Topic. c. 25, Part. c. 29; and Quinctilian, Instit. Rhetor. iii. 6. (Oehler).

Sumitur color.

Luke vi. 1–4; 1 Sam. xxi. 2–6.

Affectum.

Tunc demum.

Statum.

Non constanter tuebatur.

Non contristandi quam vacandi.

[This adoption of an Americanism is worthy of passing notice.]

Placet illi quia Creator indulsit.

Luke vi. 7.

That is, the Christ of another God.

Ex. xx. 16.

It is impossible to say where Tertullian got this reading. Perhaps his LXX. copy might have had (in Ex. xx. 10): Οὐ ποιήσεις ἐν αὐτῇ πᾶν ἔργον σου, instead of συ; every clause ending in σου, which follows in that verse. No critical authority, however, now known warrants such a reading. [It is probably based inferentially on verse 9, “all thy work.”]

Ex. xii. 16.

The LXX. of the latter clause of Ex. xii. 16 thus runs: πλὴν ὅσα ποιηθήσεται πάσῃ ψυχῇ. Tertullian probably got this reading from this clause, although the Hebrew is to this effect: “Save that which every man (or, every soul) must eat,” which the Vulgate renders: “Exceptis his, quæ ad vescendum pertinent.”

Liberandæ animæ: perhaps saving life.

In salutem animæ: or, for saving life.

Luke vi. 9.

Pro anima: or, for a life.

Animæ omni: or, any life.

Luke vi. 5.

Tuebatur.

Merito.

Destructum. We have, as has been most convenient, rendered this word by annul, destroy, break.

Et.

Isa. i. 13, 14.

Isa. xxix. 13.

Isa. lviii. 13 and lvi. 2.

Matt. v. 17.

Obstruxit.

“Destroy”…It was hardly necessary for Oehler to paraphrase our author’s characteristically strong sentence by, “since Marcion thought that he had gagged,” etc.

In other words, “permits to be done on the Sabbath.”

Præsidia.

Quod, not quæ, as if in apposition with præsidia.

See 2 Kings iv. 23.

Olim.

Forma.

Repræsentat.

Isa. xxxv. 3.

Book 4 · Chapter 12

Chapter XII.—Christ’s Authority Over the Sabbath. As Its Lord He Recalled It from Pharisaic Neglect to the Original Purpose of Its Institution by the Creator the Case of the Disciples Who Plucked the Ears of Corn on the Sabbath. The Withered Hand Healed on the Sabbath.

Notes