The Five Books Against Marcion — Book 5, Chapter 14

Opening the library…

Notes

Sensus νοός in Rom. vii. 23.

Pari.

Consimilis.

Titulum.

Mendacium.

This vindication of these terms of the apostle from Docetism is important. The word which our A.V. has translated sinful is a stronger term in the original. It is not the adjective ἁμαρτωλοῦ, but the substantive ἁμαρτίας, amounting to “flesh of sin,” i.e. (as Dean Alford interprets it) “the flesh whose attribute and character is sin.” “The words ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας, De Wette observes, appear almost to border on Docetism, but in reality contain a perfectly true and consistent sentiment; σὰρξ ἁμαρτίας; is flesh, or human nature, possessed with sin.…The likeness, predicated in Rom. viii. 3, must be referred not only to σάρξ, but also to the epithet τῆς ἁμαρτίας” (Greek Testament, in loc.).

Carnis peccati.

Puta nunc.

Statu.

Censu: perhaps “birth.” This word, which originally means the censor’s registration, is by our author often used for origo and natura, because in the registers were inserted the birthdays and the parents’ names (Oehler).

It is better that we should give the original of this sentence. Its structure is characteristically difficult, although the general sense, as Oehler suggests, is clear enough: “Quia vera quidem, sed non ex semine de statu simili (similis, Latinius and Junius and Semler), sed vera de censu non vero dissimili (dissimilis, the older reading and Semler’s).” We add the note of Fr. Junius: “The meaning is, that Christ’s flesh is true indeed, in what they call the identity of its substance, although not of its origin (ortus) and qualities—not of its original, because not of a (father’s) seed, as in the case of ourselves; not of qualities, because these have not in Him the like condition which they have in us.”

Dum alterius par est.

Qua hoc tantum est.

See Rom. viii. 5–13.

1 Cor. xv. 50.

Non ad reatum substantiæ sed ad conversationis pertinebunt.

Rom. viii. 10.

Understand “corpus” (Oehler).

Rom. viii. 11.

Dici capit: capit, like the Greek ἐνδέχεται, means, “is capable or susceptible;” often so in Tertullian.

We do not know from either Tertullian or Epiphanius what mutilations Marcion made in this epistle. This particular gap did not extend further than from Rom. viii. 11 to x. 2. “However, we are informed by Origen (or rather Rufinus in his edition of Origen’s commentary on this epistle, on xiv. 23) that Marcion omitted the last two chapters as spurious, ending this epistle of his Apostolicon with the 23d verse of chap. xiv. It is also observable that Tertullian quotes no passage from chaps. xv., xvi. in his confutation of Marcion from this epistle” (Lardner).

Rom. x. 2–4.

The god of the New Testament, according to Marcion.

Isa. i. 3.

Isa. xxix. 13 (Sept.)

Ps. ii. 2.

Rom. xi. 33.

In fidem Christi ex lege venientem. By “the law” he means the Old Testament in general, and probably refers to Rom. x. 17.

Rigaltius (after Fulvius Ursinus) read “non erasit,” but with insufficient authority; besides, the context shows that he was referring to the large erasure which he had already mentioned, so that the non is inadmissible. Marcion must, of course, be understood to have retained Rom. xi. 33; hence the argument in this sentence.

Isa. xlv. 3.

Isa. xl. 13, quoted (according to the Sept.) by the apostle in Rom. xi. 34, 35.

Plane: ironically.

Rom. xii. 19, quoted from Deut. xxxii. 25.

Rom. xii. 18.

Rom. xiii. 9.

Ironically said. He has been quoting all along from Marcion’s text of St. Paul, turning its testimony against Marcion.

Matt. v. 17.

For although he rejected St. Matthew’s Gospel, which contains the statement, he retained St. Paul’s epistle, from which the statement is clearly proved.

Ecce.

Promerendum.

Book 5 · Chapter 14

Notes