Tertullian: Against Marcion, Books I–V

Egentia experimentis fidei victricis vetustatis.

i.e., through God’s announcement by prophecy.

Your God.

Ipse.

Ejus (i.e. Marcionis) Dominum, meaning Marcion’s God, who had not yet been revealed.

The Creator and His Christ, as rivals of Marcion’s.

He twits Marcion with introducing his Christ on the scene too soon . He ought to have waited until the Creator’s Christ (prophesied of through the Old Testament) had come. Why allow him to be predicted, and then forbid His actual coming, by his own arrival on the scene first? Of course, M. must be understood to deny that the Christ of the New Testament is the subject of the Old Testament prophecies at all. Hence T.’s anxiety to adduce prophecy as the main evidence of our Lord as being really the Creator’s Christ.

Atquin.

Vanus.

The reader will remember that Tertullian is here arguing on Marcion’s ground, according to whom the Creator’s Christ, the Christ predicted through the O.T., was yet to come. Marcion’s Christ, however, had proved himself so weak to stem the Creator’s course, that he had no means really of checking the Creator’s Christ from coming. It had been better, adds Tertullian, if Marcion’s Christ had waited for the Creator’s Christ to have first appeared.

Marcion’s Christ.

Emendare.

Revocare.

Aut si.

Posterior emendator futurus: an instance of Tertullian’s style in paradox.

Vero.

Redarguens.

Si forte.

Proluserim.

[An important principle, see Kaye, p. 325.]

Familiare.

Expunctum.

Ch. l. 6 , slightly altered.

Joel iii. 18 .

Ex. iii. 8, 17; Deut. xxvi. 9, 15 .

Isa. xli. 18, 19 , inexactly quoted.

Relaturus.

Hæreticorum apostolus. We have already referred to Marcion’s acceptance of St. Paul’s epistles. It has been suggested that Tertullian in the text uses hæreticorum apostolus as synonymous with ethnicorum apostolus ="apostle of the Gentiles,” in which case allusion to St. Paul would of course be equally clear. But this interpretation is unnecessary.

1 Cor. ix. 9 .

1 Cor. x. 4 ; compare below, book v., chap. vii.

Gal. iv. 22, 24 .

Eph. v. 31, 32 .

“Remember, O reader.”

Constitisse.

Sociari cum.

Marcion.

The model of wise naval legislation, much of which found its way into the Roman pandects.

Symbol of barbarism and ignorance—a heavy joke against the once seafaring heretic.

Ignoratus, “rejected of men.”

Isa. xxix. 14 .

Isa. vi. 9, 10 . Quoted with some verbal differences.

A supposed quotation of Amos iv. 13 . See Oehler’s marginal reference. If so, the reference to Joel is either a slip of Tertullian or a corruption of his text; more likely the former, for the best mss. insert Joel’s name. Amos iv. 13 , according to the LXX., runs, ᾽Απαγγέλλων εἰς ἀνθρώπους τὸν Χριστὸν αὐτοῦ , which exactly suits Tertullian’s quotation. Junius supports the reference to Joel, supposing that Tertullian has his ch. ii. 31 in view, as compared with Acts ii. 16–33 . This is too harsh an interpretation. It is simpler and better to suppose that Tertullian really meant to quote the LXX. of the passage in Amos, but in mistake named Joel as his prophet.

Isa. xlii. 19 , altered.

Isa. i. 2, 3 .

This seems to be a translation with a slight alteration of the LXX. version of Lam. iv. 20 , πνεῦμα προσώπου ἡμῶν Χριστὸς Κύριος .

Isa. i. 4 .

Retro.

Per ejusdem substantiæ conditionem.

He seems here to allude to such statements of God’s being as Col. ii. 9 .

Substantiam prædictationis.

Materiam.

Alterius, “the other,” i.e., Marcion’s rival God.

Planum in signis, cf. the Magnum in potestate of Apolog. 21.

Æmulum, “a rival,” i.e., to Moses.

Nec hominem ejus ut alienum judicaverunt, “His manhood they judged not to be different.”

Rationem.

Humilitate.

A reference to, rather than quotation from, Isa. liii. 7 .

Sicut puerulus, “like a little boy,” or, “a sorry slave.”

Isa. liii. 2, 3 , according to the Septuagint.

See Isa. lii. 14; liii. 3, 4 .

Isa. viii. 14 .

Ps. viii. 6 .

Ps. xxii. 7 .

Consummationem: an allusion to Zech. iv. 7 .

See Dan. ii. 34 .

Dan. vii. 13, 14 .

Ps. xlv. 2, 3 .

Ps. viii. 5, 6 .

Zech. xii. 10, 12 .

Isa. liii. 8 .

Joshua, i.e., Jesus.

Podere.

Cidari munda.

See Zech. iii .

Jejunio, see Lev. xvi. 5, 7 , etc.

Circumdatus.

Perhaps in reference to Heb. ix. 19 .

Civitatem, “city.”

In perditionem.

This treatment of the scape-goat was partly ceremonial, partly disorderly. The Mischna ( Yoma vi. 4–6) mentions the scarlet ribbon which was bound round the animal’s head between the horns, and the “pulling” (rather plucking out of its hair); but this latter was an indignity practised by scoffers and guarded against by Jews. Tertullian repeats the whole of this passage, Adv. Jud . xiv. Similar use is made of the type of the scape-goat by other fathers, as Justin Martyr ( Dial. cum Tryph .) and Cyril of Alex. ( Epist. ad Acacium ). In this book ix. Against Julian , he expressly says: “Christ was described by the two goats,—as dying for us in the flesh, and then (as shown by the scape-goat) overcoming death in His divine nature.” See Tertullian’s passages illustrated fully in Rabbi Chiga, Addit. ad Cod. de die Expiat . (in Ugolini, Thes . i. 88).

Quasi visceratione. [See Kaye’s important comment, p. 426.]

Jejunantibus.

So Epiphanius, adv. Hæres . l. 23. 7, quotes the same proverb, ὡς ἀσπὶς παρ᾽ ἐχίδνης ἰὸν δανιζομένη . [Tom. II. p. 144. Ed. Oehler.]

As in his Docetic views of the body of Christ.

2 Cor. vi. 14 .

Mendacio.

Congressus.

Convictus.

Demandat.

Tam impresse, “so strongly.”

1 Cor. xv. 3, 4, 14, 17, 18 .

Valebit.

Aufertur.

1 Cor. xv. 13–18 .

Sane.

Phantasmate forsitan.

Ista. [See Kaye, p. 205.]

[Pamelius attributes this doctrine to Appelles a disciple of Marcion, of whom see Kaye, pp. 479, 480.]

Luke xx. 36 .

Mentiri.

i.e., among the angels.

Reformaret.

Commeatum.

Stercoribus infersam.

A Marcionite argument.

Stropham, a player’s trick; so in Spectac . 29.

Alienis.

Globum.

Mendacio.

Corpulentiæ.

This woman is called in De Præscr. Hæret . 6, “an angel of deceit,” and (in 30) “a virgin, but afterwards a monstrous prostitute.” Our author adds: “Induced by her tricks and miracles, Apelles introduced a new heresy.” See also Eusebius, Hist. Eccl . v. 13; Augustin, De Hæres . 42; Hieronymus, Epist. adv. Ctesiph . p. 477, tom. iv. ed. Benedictin.

Luke xi. 27 .

Luke viii. 20 .

Below, iv. 26; also in De carne Christi , cap. vii.

Expungendam, “consummated,” a frequent use of the word in our author.

Viderit opinio humana.

Inflatæ.

Sanguinis tributo.

Plane, ironically said.

Turpissimum.

Perora.

Mendacio.

Habitus.

Carneus.

Ex nativitate.

Isa. vii. 14 .

Isa. viii. 4 . Compare adv. Judæos , 9.

Cohærentia.

Agitetur in Christo.

Gal. iii. 27 .

Compare with this chapter, T.’s adv. Judæos , 9.

Isa. viii. 4 .

Jam hominem, jam virum in Adv. Judæos , “at man’s estate.”

Lanceare ante quam lancinare. This play on words points to the very early training of the barbarian boys to war. Lancinare perhaps means, “to nibble the nipple with the gum.”

He alludes to the suppling of their young joints with oil, and then drying them in the sun.

Pannis.

Butyro.

Isa. vii. 14 .

The tam dignum of this place is “jam signum” in adv. Judæos .

Contineat.

This opinion of Jews and Judaizing heretics is mentioned by Irenæus, Adv. Hæret . iii. 21 (Stieren’s ed. i. 532); Eusebius, Hist. Eccles . v. 8; Jerome, Adv. Helvid . (ed. Benedict), p. 132. Nor has the cavil ceased to be held, as is well known, to the present day. The הָעַלְֹמָה of Isa. vii. 4 is supposed by the Jewish Fuerst to be Isaiah’s wife , and he quotes Kimchi’s authority; while the neologian Gesenius interprets the word, a bride , and rejects the Catholic notion of an unspotted virgin. To make way, however, for their view, both Fuerst and Gesenius have to reject the LXX. rendering, παρθένος .

Disposita.

Et hic.

Alius ordo jam infantis.

Infantia est. Better in adv. Judæos , “est infantiæ.”

The italicised words we have added from adv. Judæos , “hoc est mirabile signum.”

Posterior. Posteritas is an attribute of heresy in T.’s view.

Ceterarum, other than the Jews, i.e., Gentiles.

Zech. xiv. 14 .