THE WRITINGS OF TERTULLIAN
The Five Books Against Marcion.
BOOK I
Chap. XXIX
"Meats and drinks are not on this account to be condemned, because, when served up with too exquisite a daintiness, they conduce to gluttony; nor is raiment to be blamed, because, when too costlily adorned, it becomes inflated with vanity and pride."
"There is a great difference between a cause and a fault,339 between a state and its excess"
Book IV.
Chap. XXIV
"'The labourer is worthy of his hire.' (Luk_10:7) Who could better pronounce such a sentence than the Judge? For to decide that the workman deserves his wages, is in itself a judicial act. There is no award which consists not in process of judgment. The law of the Creator on this point also presents us with a corroboration, for He judges that labouring oxen are as labourers worthy of their hire: 'Thou shall not muzzle,' says He. 'the ox when he treadeth out the corn.' (Deu_25:4) Now, who so good to man (compare above, book ii. chap. 17, p. 311) as He who is also merciful to cattle?
Chap. XXVII.
"He expressly declared that to the same God belongs the cleansing of a man's external and internal nature, both alike being in the power of Him who prefers mercy not only to man's washing, but even to sacrifice. (Mat_9:13; Mat_12:7; compare Hos_8:6) For He subjoins the command:'Give what ye possess as alms, and all things shall be clean unto you.'(Luk_11:41)"
"For the whole point of the rebuke lay in this, that they cared about small matters in His service of course, to whom they failed to exhibit their weightier duties when He commanded them:'Thou shalt love with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, the Lord thy God, who hath called thee out of Egypt.'"
"But, in truth, He would rather have deemed them excusable for being unable to carry burdens which could not be borne. What, then, are the burdens which He censures? None but those which they were accumulating of their own accord, when they taught for commandments the doctrines of men;"
"What 'key', indeed, was it which these lawyers had, (Luk_11:52) but the interpretation of the law? Into the perception of this they neither entered themselves, even because they did not believe (for 'unless ye believe, ye shall not understand'); nor did they permit others to enter, because they preferred to teach them for commandments even the doctrines of men. When, therefore, He reproached those who did not themselves enter in, and also shut the door against others, must He be regarded as a disparager of the law, or as a supporter of it? If a disparager, those who were hindering the law ought to have been pleased; if a supporter, He is no longer an enemy of the law."
Chap. XXVIII
"Since, then, He had censured their hypocrisy, which covered the secrets of the heart, and obscured with superficial offices the mysteries of unbelief, because (while holding the key of knowledge) it would neither enter in itself, nor permit others to enter in, He therefore adds, 'There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid, which shall not be known,' (Luk_12:2) in order that no one should suppose that He was attempting the revelation and the recognition of an hitherto unknown and hidden god. When He remarks also on their murmurs and taunts, in saying of Him, 'This man casteth out devils only through Beelzebub,' He means that all these imputations would come forth to the light of day, and be in the mouths of men in consequence of the promulgation of the Gospel. He then turns to His disciples with these words, 'I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them which can only kill the body, and after that have no more power over you.' (Luk_12:4 They will, however, find Isaiah had already said, 'See how the just man is taken away, and no man layeth it to heart.' (Isa_57:1) 'But I will show you whom ye shall fear: fear Him who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell' (meaning, of course, the Creator); 'yea, I say unto you, fear Him.' (Luk_12:5)"
"In short, he approved of the excuse, although a bad one, by his use of it; and of the act, although a bad one, by his refusal to make peace between brothers. Or rather, would He not show His resentment805 at the rejection of Moses with such a word? And therefore did He not wish in a similar case of contentious brothers, to confound them with the recollection of so harsh a word? Clearly so. For He had Himself been present in Moses, who heard such a rejection - even He, the Spirit of the Creator."
BOOK V
Chap. VII.
"'to us there is but one God, the Father.' (1Co_8:6) Now, from whom do all things come to us, but from Him to whom all things belong? And pray, what things are these? You have them in a preceding part of the epistle: 'All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come.' (1Co_3:21-22) He makes the Creator, then the God of all things, from whom proceed both the world and life and death, which cannot possibly belong to the other god. From Him, therefore, amongst the 'all things' comes also Christ. (1Co_3:23) When he teaches that every man ought to live of his own industry, (1Co_9:13) he begins with a copious induction of examples - of soldiers, and shepherds, and husbandmen. (1Co_9:7) But he wanted divine authority. What was the use, however, of adducing the Creator's, which he was destroying? It was vain to do so; for his god had no such authority! (The apostle) says: 'Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn,' (1Co_9:9; Deu_25:4) and adds: 'Doth God take care of oxen?' Yes, of oxen, for the sake of men! For, says he, 'it is written for our sakes.' (1Co_11:10) Thus he showed that the law had a symbolic reference to ourselves, and that it gives its sanction in favour of those who live of the gospel. (He showed) also, that those who preach the gospel are on this account sent by no other god but Him to whom belongs the law, which made provision for them, when he says: 'For our sakes was this written.'(compare 1Co_9:13; Deu_18:1-2)'
"The same, therefore, who prohibited meats, also restored the use of them, just as He had indeed allowed them from the beginning. If, however, some strange god had come to destroy our God, his foremost prohibition would certainly have been, that his own votaries should abstain from supporting their lives on the resources of his adversary."
Chap. XIX.
"Now tell me, Marcion, what is your opinion of the apostle's language, when he says, 'Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath, which is a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ?' (Col_2:16-17) We do not now treat of the law, further than (to remark) that the apostle here teaches clearly how it has been abolished, even by passing from shadow to substance - that is, from figurative types to the reality, which is Christ. The shadow, therefore, is His to whom belongs the body also; in other words, the law is His, and so is Christ. If you separate the law and Christ, assigning one to one god and the other to another, it is the same as if you were to attempt to separate the shadow from the body of which it is the shadow. Manifestly Christ has relation to the law, if the body has to its shadow. But when he blames those who alleged visions of angels as their authority for saying that men must abstain from meats - 'you must not touch, you must not taste'-in a voluntary humility, (at the same time) 'vainly puffed up in the fleshly mind, and not holding the Head,' (Col_2:18-19, Col_2:21) (the apostle) does not in these terms attack the law or Moses, as if it was at the suggestion of superstitious angels that he had enacted his prohibition of sundry aliments. For Moses had evidently received the law from God. When, therefore, he speaks of their 'following the commandments and doctrines of men,' (Col_2:22) he refers to the conduct of those persons who 'held not the Head,' even Him in whom all things are gathered together' for they are all recalled to Christ, and concentrated in Him as their initiating principle - even the meats and drinks which were indifferent in their nature. All the rest of his precepts, (contained in Vol. iii. and iv.) as we have shown sufficiently, when treating of them as they occurred in another epistle,436 emanated from the Creator, who, while predicting that 'old things were to pass away,' and that He would 'make all things new,' (Isa_43:18-19, Isa_45:17; 2Co_5:17) commanded men 'to break up fresh ground for themselves,' (Jer_4:3. This and the passage of Isaiah just quoted are also cited together above, book iv. chap. i. and ii. p. 345) and thereby taught them even then to put off the old man and put on the new.
THE WRITINGS OF TERTULLIAN
PART SECOND - ANTI-MARCION
The Prescription Against Heretics
Chap. XL. - No Difference in the Spirit of Idolatry and of Heresy. In the Rites of Idolatry, Satan Imitated and Distorted the Divine Institutions of the Older Scriptures. The Christian Scriptures Corrupted by Him in the Perversions of the Various Heretics.
The question will arise, By whom is to be interpreted the sense of the passages which make for heresies? By the devil, of course, to whom pertain those wiles which pervert the truth, and who, by the mystic rites of his idols, vies even with the essential portions of the sacraments of God. He, too, baptizes some - that is, his own believers and faithful followers; (compare Tertullian's treatises, de Bapt. v. and de Corona, last chapter.) he promises the putting away of sins by a layer (of his own); and if my memory still serves me, Mithra there, (in the kingdom of Satan,) sets his marks on the foreheads of his soldiers; celebrates also the oblation of bread, and introduces an image of a resurrection, and before a sword wreathes a crown. What also must we say to (Satan's) limiting his chief priest to a single marriage? He, too, has his virgins; he, too, has his proficients in continence. Suppose now we revolve in our minds the superstitions of Numa Pompilius, and consider his priestly offices and badges and privileges, his sacrificial services, too, and the instruments and vessels of the sacrifices themselves, and the curious rites of his expiations and vows: is it not clear to us that the devil imitated the well-known moroseness of the Jewish law? Since, therefore he has Shown such emulation in his great aim of expressing, in the concerns of his idolatry, those very things of which consists the administration of Christ's sacraments, it follows, of course, that the same being, possessing still the same genius, both set his heart upon, and succeeded in, adapting to his profane and rival creed the very documents of divine things and of the Christian saints- his interpretation from their interpretations, his words from their words, his parables from their parables. For this reason, then, no one ought to doubt, either that 'spiritual wickednesses,' from which also heresies come, have been introduced by the devil, or that there is any real difference between heresies and idolatry, seeing that they appertain both to the same author and the same work that idolatry does. They either pretend that there is another god in opposition to the Creator, or, even if they acknowledge that the Creator is the one only God, they treat of Him as a different being from what He is in truth. The consequence is, that every lie which they speak of God is in a certain sense a sort of idolatry.
