Tertullian: Against Marcion, Books I–V

Chapter XXXV.—The Judicial Severity of Christ and the Tenderness of the Creator, Asserted in Contradiction to Marcion. The Cure of the Ten Lepers. Old Testament Analogies. The Kingdom of God Within You; This Teaching Similar to that of Moses. Christ, the Stone Rejected by the Builders. Indications of Severity in the Coming of Christ. Proofs that He is Not the Impassible Being Marcion Imagined.

Then, turning to His disciples, He says:

that is, one of His disciples. Judge, then, what the sort of punishment is which He so severely threatens. For it is no stranger who is to avenge the offence done to His disciples. Recognise also in Him the Judge, and one too, who expresses Himself on the safety of His followers with the same tenderness as that which the Creator long ago exhibited: “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of my eye.” ^{Edition note 2} Such identity of care proceeds from one and the same Being.

A trespassing brother He will have rebuked. ^{Edition note 3} If one failed in this duty of reproof, he in fact sinned, either because out of hatred he wished his brother to continue in sin, or else spared him from mistaken friendship, ^{Edition note 4} although possessing the injunction in Leviticus: “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart; thy neighbor thou shalt seriously rebuke, and on his account shalt not contract sin.” ^{Edition note 5} Nor is it to be wondered at, if He thus teaches who forbids your refusing to bring back even your brother’s cattle, if you find them astray in the road; much more should you bring back your erring brother to himself.

He commands you to forgive your brother, should he trespass against you even “seven times.” ^{Edition note 6} But that surely, is a small matter; for with the Creator there is a larger grace, when He sets no limits to forgiveness, indefinitely charging you “not to bear any malice against your brother,” ^{Edition note 7} and to give not merely to him who asks, but even to him who does not ask. For His will is, not that you should forgive ^{Edition note 8} an offence, but forget it.

The law about lepers had a profound meaning as respects ^{Edition note 9} the forms of the disease itself, and of the inspection by the high priest. ^{Edition note 10} The interpretation of this sense it will be our task to ascertain. Marcion’s labour, however, is to object to us the strictness ^{Edition note 11} of the law, with the view of maintaining that here also Christ is its enemy—forestalling ^{Edition note 12} its enactments even in His cure of the ten lepers.

These He simply commanded to show themselves to the priest; “and as they went, He cleansed them” ^{Edition note 13} —without a touch, and without a word, by His silent power and simple will. Well, but what necessity was there for Christ, who had been once for all announced as the healer of our sicknesses and sins, and had proved Himself such by His acts, ^{Edition note 14} to busy Himself with inquiries ^{Edition note 15} into the qualities and details of cures; or for the Creator to be summoned to the scrutiny of the law in the person of Christ?

If any part of this healing was effected by Him in a way different from the law, He yet Himself did it to perfection; for surely the Lord may by Himself, or by His Son, produce after one manner, and after another manner by His servants the prophets, those proofs of His power and might especially, which (as excelling in glory and strength, because they are His own acts) rightly enough leave in the distance behind them the works which are done by His servants. But enough has been already said on this point in a former passage. ^{Edition note 16} Now, although He said in a preceding chapter, ^{Edition note 17} that “there were many lepers in Israel in the days of Eliseus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian,” yet of course the mere number proves nothing towards a difference in the gods, as tending to the abasement ^{Edition note 18} of the Creator in curing only one, and the pre-eminence of Him who healed ten.

For who can doubt that many might have been cured by Him who cured one more easily than ten by him who had never healed one before? But His main purpose in this declaration was to strike at the unbelief or the pride of Israel, in that (although there were many lepers amongst them, and a prophet was not wanting to them) not one had been moved even by so conspicuous an example to betake himself to God who was working in His prophets. Forasmuch, then, as He was Himself the veritable ^{Edition note 19} High Priest of God the Father, He inspected them according to the hidden purport of the law, which signified that Christ was the true distinguisher and extinguisher of the defilements of mankind.

However, what was obviously required by the law He commanded should be done: “Go,” said He, “show yourselves to the priests.” ^{Edition note 20} Yet why this, if He meant to cleanse them first? Was it as a despiser of the law, in order to prove to them that, having been cured already on the road, the law was now nothing to them, nor even the priests? Well, the matter must of course pass as it best may, ^{Edition note 21} if anybody supposes that Christ had such views as these! ^{Edition note 22} But there are certainly better interpretations to be found of the passage, and more deserving of belief: how that they were cleansed on this account, because ^{Edition note 23} they were obedient, and went as the law required, when they were commanded to go to the priests; and it is not to be believed that persons who observed the law could have found a cure from a god that was destroying the law.

Why, however, did He not give such a command to the leper who first returned? ^{Edition note 24} Because Elisha did not in the case of Naaman the Syrian, and yet was not on that account less the Creator’s agent? This is a sufficient answer. But the believer knows that there is a profounder reason. Consider, therefore, the true motives. ^{Edition note 25} The miracle was performed in the district of Samaria, to which country also belonged one of the lepers. ^{Edition note 26} Samaria, however, had revolted from Israel, carrying with it the disaffected nine tribes, ^{Edition note 27} which, having been alienated ^{Edition note 28} by the prophet Ahijah, ^{Edition note 29} Jeroboam settled in Samaria.

Besides, the Samaritans were always pleased with the mountains and the wells of their ancestors. Thus, in the Gospel of John, the woman of Samaria, when conversing with the Lord at the well, says, “No doubt ^{Edition note 30} Thou art greater,” etc.; and again, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; but ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” ^{Edition note 31} Accordingly, He who said, “Woe unto them that trust in the mountain of Samaria,” ^{Edition note 32} vouchsafing now to restore that very region, purposely requests the men “to go and show themselves to the priests,” because these were to be found only there where the temple was; submitting ^{Edition note 33} the Samaritan to the Jew, inasmuch as “salvation was of the Jews,” ^{Edition note 34} whether to the Israelite or the Samaritan.

To the tribe of Judah, indeed, wholly appertained the promised Christ, ^{Edition note 35} in order that men might know that at Jerusalem were both the priests and the temple; that there also was the womb ^{Edition note 36} of religion, and its living fountain, not its mere “well.” ^{Edition note 37} Seeing, therefore, that they recognised ^{Edition note 38} the truth that at Jerusalem the law was to be fulfilled, He healed them, whose salvation was to come ^{Edition note 39} of faith ^{Edition note 40} without the ceremony of the law.

Whence also, astonished that one only out of the ten was thankful for his release to the divine grace, He does not command him to offer a gift according to the law, because he had already paid his tribute of gratitude when “he glorified God”; ^{Edition note 41} for thus did the Lord will that the law’s requirement should be interpreted. And yet who was the God to whom the Samaritan gave thanks, because thus far not even had an Israelite heard of another god? Who else but He by whom all had hitherto been healed through Christ?

And therefore it was said to him, “Thy faith hath made thee whole,” ^{Edition note 42} because he had discovered that it was his duty to render the true oblation to Almighty God—even thanksgiving—in His true temple, and before His true High Priest Jesus Christ. But it is impossible either that the Pharisees should seem to have inquired of the Lord about the coming of the kingdom of the rival god, when no other god has ever yet been announced by Christ; or that He should have answered them concerning the kingdom of any other god than Him of whom they were in the habit of asking Him.

“The kingdom of God,” He says, “cometh not with observation; neither do they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” ^{Edition note 43} Now, who will not interpret the words “within you” to mean in your hand, within your power, if you hear, and do the commandment of God? If, however, the kingdom of God lies in His commandment, set before your mind Moses on the other side, according to our antitheses, and you will find the self-same view of the case. ^{Edition note 44}

This means, “Neither in this place nor that place is the kingdom of God; for, behold, it is within you.” ^{Edition note 47} And if the heretics, in their audacity, should contend that the Lord did not give an answer about His own kingdom, but only about the Creator’s kingdom, concerning which they had inquired, then the following words are against them. For He tells them that “the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected,” before His coming, ^{Edition note 48} at which His kingdom will be really ^{Edition note 49} revealed.

In this statement He shows that it was His own kingdom which His answer to them had contemplated, and which was now awaiting His own sufferings and rejection. But having to be rejected and afterwards to be acknowledged, and taken up ^{Edition note 50} and glorified, He borrowed the very word “rejected” from the passage, where, under the figure of a stone, His twofold manifestation was celebrated by David—the first in rejection, the second in honour: “The stone,” says He, “which the builders rejected, is become the head-stone of the corner.

This is the Lord’s doing.” ^{Edition note 51} Now it would be idle, if we believed that God had predicted the humiliation, or even the glory, of any Christ at all, that He could have signed His prophecy for any but Him whom He had foretold under the figure of a stone, and a rock, and a mountain. ^{Edition note 52} If, however, He speaks of His own coming, why does He compare it with the days of Noe and of Lot, ^{Edition note 53} which were dark and terrible—a mild and gentle God as He is?

Why does He bid us “remember Lot’s wife,” ^{Edition note 54} who despised the Creator’s command, and was punished for her contempt, if He does not come with judgment to avenge the infraction of His precepts? If He really does punish, like the Creator, ^{Edition note 55} if He is my Judge, He ought not to have adduced examples for the purpose of instructing me from Him whom He yet destroys, that He ^{Edition note 56} might not seem to be my instructor.

But if He does not even here speak of His own coming, but of the coming of the Hebrew Christ, ^{Edition note 57} let us still wait in expectation that He will vouchsafe to us some prophecy of His own advent; meanwhile we will continue to believe that He is none other than He whom He reminds us of in every passage.