The Five Books Against Marcion — Book 5, Chapter 18

Opening the library…

Notes

The passage of St. Paul, as Tertullian expresses it, “Quæ dispensatio sacramenti occulti ab ævis in Deo, qui omnia condidit.” According to Marcion’s alteration, the latter part runs, “Occulti ab ævis Deo, qui omnia condidit.” The original is, Τίς ἡ οἰκονομία τοῦ μυστηρίου τοῦ ἀποκεκρυμμένου ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων ἐν τῷ Θεῷ (compare Col. iii. 3) τῷ τὰ πάντα κτίσαντι. Marcion’s removal of the ἐν has no warrant of ms. authority; it upsets St. Paul’s doctrine, as attested in other passages, and destroys the grammatical structure.

Emicat.

Eph. iii. 10.

Debebat.

Isa. xl. 13.

Marcion’s god, of course.

Eph. iv. 8 and Ps. lxviii. 19.

Ps. xlv. 3.

Isa. viii. 4.

Extundis.

See above, book iii. chap. xiii. and xiv. p. 332.

Deut. xxi. 21, quoted also in 1 Cor. v. 13.

Isa. lii. 11, quoted in 2 Cor. vi. 17.

Proinde.

Ego.

Masculi.

Eph. v. 31, 32.

Inter ista.

Magna sacramenta.

Eph. v. 32.

Eph. vi. 1.

Eph. vi. 2. “He did this (says Lardner) in order that the Mosaic law might not be thought to be thus established.”

An ironical allusion to Marcion’s interpretation, which he has considered in a former chapter, of the title God of this world.

Eph. vi. 11.

Eph. vi. 12.

Apud Creatorem.

Ex qua delatura.

Illius arbusculæ.

Spiritalia nequitiæ: “wicked spirits.”

Eph. vi. 12.

Gen. vi. 1–4. See also Tertullian, De Idol. 9; De Habit. Mul. 2; De Cultu Femin. 10; De Vel. Virg. 7; Apolog. 22. See also Augustin, De Civit. Dei. xv. 23.

Ut taxaret. Of course he alludes to Marcion’s absurd exposition of the 12th verse, in applying St. Paul’s description of wicked spirits to the Creator.

Eph. vi. 19, 20.

Book 5 · Chapter 18

Notes