The Five Books Against Marcion — Book 4, Chapter 16

Opening the library…

Notes

2 Esdras xv. 1 and comp. Luke vi. 27, 28.

Benedicite. St. Luke’s word, however, is καλῶς ποιεῖτε, “do good.”

Calumniantur. St. Luke’s word applies to injury of speech as well as of act.

“We have here the sense of Marcion’s objection. I do not suppose Tertullian quotes his very words.”—Le Prieur.

Le Prieur refers to a similar passage in Tertullian’s De Patientia, chap. vi. Oehler quotes an eloquent passage in illustration from Valerianus Episc. Hom. xiii.

Ex. xxi. 24.

Luke vi. 29.

Renuntiandum est.

Penes.

Zech. vii. 10.

Zech. viii. 17.

Deut. xxxii. 35; comp. Rom. xii. 19 and Heb. x. 30.

Fidem non capit.

Talione, opposito.

Leges talionis. [Judicial, not personal, reprisals.]

Voluntatem.

Compotem facit. That is, says Oehler, intellectus sui.

Prophetia.

Disciplinas: or, “lessons.”

Denique.

Considerem, or, as some of the editions have it, consideremus.

Alioquin.

In vacuum.

Præstare, i.e., debuerat præstare.

Passim.

Excitatura.

Luke vi. 30.

Datori.

The author’s reading of Deut. xv. 4.

Cura ultro ne sit.

Præjudicat.

Deut. xv. 7, 8.

De fenore.

Below, in the next chapter.

This obscure passage runs thus: “Immo unum erit ex his per quæ lex Creatoris erit in Christo.”

Prior ea.

This is the idea, apparently, of Tertullian’s question: “Quis enim poterit diligere extraneos?” But a different turn is given to the sense in the older reading of the passage: Quis enim non diligens proximos poterit diligere extraneos? “For who that loveth not his neighbours will be able to love strangers?” The inserted words, however, were inserted conjecturally by Fulvius Ursinus without ms. authority.

Gradus.

Cujus non extitit primus.

In proximos.

Sacramentum.

The sense rather than the words of Hos. i. 6, 9.

Luke vi. 31.

Passivitatem sententiæ meæ.

Parem factum.

Possim.

Præstare.

Hac inconvenientia voluntatis et facti. Will and action.

Non agitur.

Strictum.

Pro meo arbitrio.

At enim. The Greek ἀλλὰ γάρ.

Isa. lviii. 7.

Ezek. xviii. 7.

Ex. xx. 13–16.

Merito.

“Recisum sermonem facturus in terris Dominus.” This reading of Isa. x. 23 is very unlike the original, but (as frequently happens in Tertullian) is close upon the Septuagint version: ῞Οτι λόγον συντετμημένον Κύριος ποιήσει ἐν τῇ οἰκουμένῃ ὅλῃ. [Rom. ix. 28.]

Book 4 · Chapter 16

Notes