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Anti-Marcion
We have it on the true tradition[5948] of the Church, that this epistle was sent to the Ephesians, not to the Laodiceans. Marcion, however, was very desirous of giving it the new title (of Laodicean),[5949] as if he were extremely accurate in investigating such a point. But of what consequence are the titles, since in writing to a certain church the apostle did in fact write to all? It is certain that, whoever they were to whom he wrote,[5950] he declared Him to be God in Christ with whom all things agree which are predicted.[5951] Now, to what god will most suitably belong all those things which relate to “that good pleasure, which God hath purposed in the mystery of His will, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might recapitulate” (if I may so say, according to the exact meaning of the Greek word[5952]) “all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth,”[5953] but to Him whose are all things from their beginning, yea the beginning itself too; from whom issue the times and the dispensation of the fulness of times, according to which all things up to the very first are gathered up in Christ? What beginning, however, has the other god; that is to say, how can anything proceed from him, who has no work to show? And if there be no beginning, how can there be times? If no times, what fulness of times can there be? And if no fulness, what dispensation? Indeed, what has he ever done on earth, that any long dispensation of times to be fulfilled can be put to his account, for the accomplishment of all things in Christ, even of things in heaven? Nor can we possibly suppose that any things whatever have been at any time done in heaven by any other God than Him by whom, as all men allow, all things have been done on earth. Now, if it is impossible for all these things from the beginning to be reckoned to any other God than the Creator, who will believe that an alien god has recapitulated them in an alien Christ, instead of their own proper Author in His own Christ? If, again, they belong to the Creator, they must needs be separate from the other god; and if separate, then opposed to him. But then how can opposites be gathered together into him by whom they are in short destroyed? Again, what Christ do the following words announce, when the apostle says: “That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ?”[5954] Now who could have first trusted—i.e. previously trusted[5955]—in God, before His advent, except the Jews to whom Christ was previously announced, from the beginning? He who was thus foretold, was also foretrusted. Hence the apostle refers the statement to himself, that is, to the Jews, in order that he may draw a distinction with respect to the Gentiles, (when he goes on to say:) “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel (of your salvation); in whom ye believed, and were sealed with His Holy Spirit of promise.”[5956] Of what promise? That which was made through Joel: “In the last days will I pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh,”[5957] that is, on all nations. Therefore the Spirit and the Gospel will be found in the Christ, who was foretrusted, because foretold. Again, “the Father of glory”[5958] is He whose Christ, when ascending to heaven, is celebrated as “the King of Glory” in the Psalm: “Who is this King of Glory? the Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory.”[5959] From Him also is besought “the spirit of wisdom,”[5960] at whose disposal is enumerated that sevenfold distribution of the spirit of grace by Isaiah.[5961] He likewise will grant “the enlightenment of the eyes of the understanding,”[5962] who has also enriched our natural eyes with light; to whom, moreover, the blindness of the people is offensive: “And who is blind, but my servants?…yea, the servants of God have become blind.”[5963] In His gift, too, are “the riches (of the glory) of His inheritance in the saints,”[5964] who promised such an inheritance in the call of the Gentiles: “Ask of me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance.”[5965] It was He who “wrought in Christ His mighty power, by raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at His own right hand, and putting all things under His feet”[5966]—even the same who said: “Sit Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.”[5967] For in another passage the Spirit says to the Father concerning the Son: “Thou hast put all things under His feet.”[5968] Now, if from all these facts which are found in the Creator there is yet to be deduced[5969] another god and another Christ, let us go in quest of the Creator. I suppose, forsooth,[5970] we find Him, when he speaks of such as “were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein they had walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, who worketh in the children of disobedience.”[5971] But Marcion must not here interpret the world as meaning the God of the world.[5972] For a creature bears no resemblance to the Creator; the thing made, none to its Maker; the world, none to God. He, moreover, who is the Prince of the power of the ages must not be thought to be called the prince of the power of the air; for He who is chief over the higher powers derives no title from the lower powers, although these, too, may be ascribed to Him. Nor, again, can He possibly seem to be the instigator[5973] of that unbelief which He Himself had rather to endure at the hand of the Jews and the Gentiles alike. We may therefore simply conclude that[5974] these designations are unsuited to the Creator. There is another being to whom they are more applicable—and the apostle knew very well who that was. Who then is he? Undoubtedly he who has raised up “children of disobedience” against the Creator Himself ever since he took possession of that “air” of His; even as the prophet makes him say: “I will set my throne above the stars;…I will go up above the clouds; I will be like the Most High.”[5975] This must mean the devil, whom in another passage (since such will they there have the apostle’s meaning to be) we shall recognize in the appellation the god of this world.[5976] For he has filled the whole world with the lying pretence of his own divinity. To be sure,[5977] if he had not existed, we might then possibly have applied these descriptions to the Creator. But the apostle, too, had lived in Judaism; and when he parenthetically observed of the sins (of that period of his life), “in which also we all had our conversation in times past,”[5978] he must not be understood to indicate that the Creator was the lord of sinful men, and the prince of this air; but as meaning that in his Judaism he had been one of the children of disobedience, having the devil as his instigator—when he persecuted the church and the Christ of the Creator. Therefore he says: “We also were the children of wrath,” but “by nature.”[5979] Let the heretic, however, not contend that, because the Creator called the Jews children, therefore the Creator is the lord of wrath.[5980] For when (the apostle) says, “We were by nature the children of wrath,” inasmuch as the Jews were not the Creator’s children by nature, but by the election of their fathers, he (must have) referred their being children of wrath to nature, and not to the Creator, adding this at last, “even as others,”[5981] who, of course, were not children of God. It is manifest that sins, and lusts of the flesh, and unbelief, and anger, are ascribed to the common nature of all mankind, the devil however leading that nature astray,[5982] which he has already infected with the implanted germ of sin. “We,” says he, “are His workmanship, created in Christ.”[5983] It is one thing to make (as a workman), another thing to create. But he assigns both to One. Man is the workmanship of the Creator. He therefore who made man (at first), created him also in Christ. As touching the substance of nature, He “made” him; as touching the work of grace, He “created” him. Look also at what follows in connection with these words: “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which has the name of circumcision in the flesh made by the hand—that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise,[5984] having no hope, and without God in the world.”[5985] Now, without what God and without what Christ were these Gentiles? Surely, without Him to whom the commonwealth[5986] of Israel belonged, and the covenants and the promise. “But now in Christ,” says he, “ye who were sometimes far off are made nigh by His blood.”[5987] From whom were they far off before? From the (privileges) whereof he speaks above, even from the Christ of the Creator, from the commonwealth of Israel, from the covenants, from the hope of the promise, from God Himself. Since this is the case, the Gentiles are consequently now in Christ made nigh to these (blessings), from which they were once far off. But if we are in Christ brought so very nigh to the commonwealth of Israel, which comprises the religion of the divine Creator, and to the covenants and to the promise, yea to their very God Himself, it is quite ridiculous (to suppose that) the Christ of the other god has brought us to this proximity to the Creator from afar. The apostle had in mind that it had been predicted concerning the call of the Gentiles from their distant alienation in words like these: “They who were far off from me have come to my righteousness.”[5988] For the Creator’s righteousness no less than His peace was announced in Christ, as we have often shown already. Therefore he says: “He is our peace, who hath made both one”[5989]—that is, the Jewish nation and the Gentile world. What is near, and what was far off now that “the middle wall has been broken down” of their “enmity,” (are made one) “in His flesh.”[5990] But Marcion erased the pronoun His, that he might make the enmity refer to flesh, as if (the apostle spoke) of a carnal enmity, instead of the enmity which was a rival to Christ.[5991] And thus you have (as I have said elsewhere) exhibited the stupidity of Pontus, rather than the adroitness of a Marrucinian,[5992] for you here deny him flesh to whom in the verse above you allowed blood! Since, however, He has made the law obsolete[5993] by His own precepts, even by Himself fulfilling the law (for superfluous is, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” when He says, “Thou shalt not look on a woman to lust after her;” superfluous also is, “Thou shalt do no murder,” when He says, “Thou shalt not speak evil of thy neighbour,”) it is impossible to make an adversary of the law out of one who so completely promotes it.[5994] “For to create[5995] in Himself of twain,” for He who had made is also the same who creates (just as we have found it stated above: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus”),[5996] “one new man, making peace” (really new, and really man—no phantom—but new, and newly born of a virgin by the Spirit of God), “that He might reconcile both unto God”[5997] (even the God whom both races had offended—both Jew and Gentile), “in one body,” says he, “having in it slain the enmity by the cross.”[5998] Thus we find from this passage also, that there was in Christ a fleshly body, such as was able to endure the cross. “When, therefore, He came and preached peace to them that were near and to them which were afar off,” we both obtained “access to the Father,” being “now no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (even of Him from whom, as we have shown above, we were aliens, and placed far off), “built upon the foundation of the apostles”[5999]—(the apostle added), “and the prophets;” these words, however, the heretic erased, forgetting that the Lord had set in His Church not only apostles, but prophets also. He feared, no doubt, that our building was to stand in Christ upon the foundation of the ancient prophets,[6000] since the apostle himself never fails to build us up everywhere with (the words of) the prophets. For whence did he learn to call Christ “the chief corner-stone,”[6001] but from the figure given him in the Psalm: “The stone which the builders rejected is become the head (stone) of the corner?”[6002]
As our heretic is so fond of his pruning-knife, I do not wonder when syllables are expunged by his hand, seeing that entire pages are usually the matter on which he practises his effacing process. The apostle declares that to himself, “less than the least of all saints, was the grace given” of enlightening all men as to “what was the fellowship of the mystery, which during the ages had been hid in God, who created all things.”[6003] The heretic erased the preposition in, and made the clause run thus: (“what is the fellowship of the mystery) which hath for ages been hidden from the God who created all things.”[6004] The falsification, however, is flagrantly[6005] absurd. For the apostle goes on to infer (from his own statement): “in order that unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might become known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”[6006] Whose principalities and powers does he mean? If the Creator’s, how does it come to pass that such a God as He could have meant His wisdom to be displayed to the principalities and powers, but not to Himself? For surely no principalities could possibly have understood anything without their sovereign Lord. Or if (the apostle) did not mention God in this passage, on the ground that He (as their chief) is Himself reckoned among these (principalities), then he would have plainly said that the mystery had been hidden from the principalities and powers of Him who had created all things, including Him amongst them. But if he states that it was hidden from them, he must needs be understood[6007] as having meant that it was manifest to Him. From God, therefore, the mystery was not hidden; but it was hidden in God, the Creator of all things, from His principalities and powers. For “who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?”[6008] Caught in this trap, the heretic probably changed the passage, with the view of saying that his god wished to make known to his principalities and powers the fellowship of his own mystery, of which God, who created all things, had been ignorant. But what was the use of his obtruding this ignorance of the Creator, who was a stranger to the superior god,[6009] and far enough removed from him, when even his own servants had known nothing about him? To the Creator, however, the future was well known. Then why was not that also known to Him, which had to be revealed beneath His heaven, and on His earth? From this, therefore, there arises a confirmation of what we have already laid down. For since the Creator was sure to know, some time or other, that hidden mystery of the superior god, even on the supposition that the true reading was (as Marcion has it)—“hidden from the God who created all things”—he ought then to have expressed the conclusion thus: “in order that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to Him, and then to the principalities and powers of God, whosoever He might be, with whom the Creator was destined to share their knowledge.” So palpable is the erasure in this passage, when thus read, consistently with its own true bearing. I, on my part, now wish to engage with you in a discussion on the allegorical expressions of the apostle. What figures of speech could the novel god have found in the prophets (fit for himself)? “He led captivity captive,” says the apostle.[6010] With what arms? In what conflicts? From the devastation of what country? From the overthrow of what city? What women, what children, what princes did the Conqueror throw into chains? For when by David Christ is sung as “girded with His sword upon His thigh,”[6011] or by Isaiah as “taking away the spoils of Samaria and the power of Damascus,”[6012] you make Him out to be[6013] really and truly a warrior confest to the eye.[6014] Learn then now, that His is a spiritual armour and warfare, since you have already discovered that the captivity is spiritual, in order that you may further learn that this also belongs to Him, even because the apostle derived the mention of the captivity from the same prophets as suggested to him his precepts likewise: “Putting away lying,” (says he,) “speak every man truth with his neighbour;”[6015] and again, using the very words in which the Psalm[6016] expresses his meaning, (he says,) “Be ye angry, and sin not;”[6017] “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”[6018] “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness;”[6019] for (in the Psalm it is written,) “With the holy man thou shalt be holy, and with the perverse thou shalt be perverse;”[6020] and, “Thou shalt put away evil from among you.”[6021] Again, “Go ye out from the midst of them; touch not the unclean thing; separate yourselves, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.”[6022] (The apostle says further:) “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess,”[6023]—a precept which is suggested by the passage (of the prophet), where the seducers of the consecrated (Nazarites) to drunkenness are rebuked: “Ye gave wine to my holy ones to drink.”[6024] This prohibition from drink was given also to the high priest Aaron and his sons, “when they went into the holy place.”[6025] The command, to “sing to the Lord with psalms and hymns,”[6026] comes suitably from him who knew that those who “drank wine with drums and psalteries” were blamed by God.[6027] Now, when I find to what God belong these precepts, whether in their germ or their development, I have no difficulty in knowing to whom the apostle also belongs. But he declares that “wives ought to be in subjection to their husbands:”[6028] what reason does he give for this? “Because,” says he, “the husband is the head of the wife.”[6029] Pray tell me, Marcion, does your god build up the authority of his law on the work of the Creator? This, however, is a comparative trifle; for he actually derives from the same source the condition of his Christ and his Church; for he says: “even as Christ is the head of the Church;”[6030] and again, in like manner: “He who loveth his wife, loveth his own flesh, even as Christ loved the Church.”[6031] You see how your Christ and your Church are put in comparison with the work of the Creator. How much honour is given to the flesh in the name of the church! “No man,” says the apostle, “ever yet hated his own flesh” (except, of course, Marcion alone), “but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord doth the Church.”[6032] But you are the only man that hates his flesh, for you rob it of its resurrection. It will be only right that you should hate the Church also, because it is loved by Christ on the same principle.[6033] Yea, Christ loved the flesh even as the Church. For no man will love the picture of his wife without taking care of it, and honouring it and crowning it. The likeness partakes with the reality in the privileged honour. I shall now endeavour, from my point of view,[6034] to prove that the same God is (the God) of the man[6035] and of Christ, of the woman and of the Church, of the flesh and the spirit, by the apostle’s help who applies the Creator’s injunction, and adds even a comment on it: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, (and shall be joined unto his wife), and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery.”[6036] In passing,[6037] (I would say that) it is enough for me that the works of the Creator are great mysteries[6038] in the estimation of the apostle, although they are so vilely esteemed by the heretics. “But I am speaking,” says he, “of Christ and the Church.”[6039] This he says in explanation of the mystery, not for its disruption. He shows us that the mystery was prefigured by Him who is also the author of the mystery. Now what is Marcion’s opinion? The Creator could not possibly have furnished figures to an unknown god, or, if a known one, an adversary to Himself. The superior god, in fact, ought to have borrowed nothing from the inferior; he was bound rather to annihilate Him. “Children should obey their parents.”[6040] Now, although Marcion has erased (the next clause), “which is the first commandment with promise,”[6041] still the law says plainly, “Honour thy father and thy mother.”[6042] Again, (the apostle writes:) “Parents, bring up your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.”[6043] For you have heard how it was said to them of old time: “Ye shall relate these things to your children; and your children in like manner to their children.”[6044] Of what use are two gods to me, when the discipline is but one? If there must be two, I mean to follow Him who was the first to teach the lesson. But as our struggle lies against “the rulers of this world,”[6045] what a host of Creator Gods there must be![6046] For why should I not insist upon this point here, that he ought to have mentioned but one “ruler of this world,” if he meant only the Creator to be the being to whom belonged all the powers which he previously mentioned? Again, when in the preceding verse he bids us “put on the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil,”[6047] does he not show that all the things which he mentions after the devil’s name really belong to the devil—“the principalities and the powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world,”[6048] which we also ascribe to the devil’s authority? Else, if “the devil” means the Creator, who will be the devil in the Creator’s dispensation?[6049] As there are two gods, must there also be two devils, and a plurality of powers and rulers of this world? But how is the Creator both a devil and a god at the same time, when the devil is not at once both god and devil? For either they are both of them gods, if both of them are devils; or else He who is God is not also devil, as neither is he god who is the devil. I want to know indeed by what perversion[6050] the word devil is at all applicable to the Creator. Perhaps he perverted some purpose of the superior god—conduct such as He experienced Himself from the archangel, who lied indeed for the purpose. For He did not forbid (our first parents) a taste of the miserable tree,[6051] from any apprehension that they would become gods; His prohibition was meant to prevent their dying after the transgression. But “the spiritual wickedness”[6052] did not signify the Creator, because of the apostle’s additional description, “in heavenly places;”[6053] for the apostle was quite aware that “spiritual wickedness” had been at work in heavenly places, when angels were entrapped into sin by the daughters of men.[6054] But how happened it that (the apostle) resorted to ambiguous descriptions, and I know not what obscure enigmas, for the purpose of disparaging[6055] the Creator, when he displayed to the Church such constancy and plainness of speech in “making known the mystery of the gospel for which he was an ambassador in bonds,” owing to his liberty in preaching—and actually requested (the Ephesians) to pray to God that this “open-mouthed utterance” might be continued to him?[6056]
I am accustomed in my prescription against all heresies, to fix my compendious criterion[6057] (of truth) in the testimony of time; claiming priority therein as our rule, and alleging lateness to be the characteristic of every heresy. This shall now be proved even by the apostle, when he says: “For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; which is come unto you, as it is unto all the world.”[6058] For if, even at that time, the tradition of the gospel had spread everywhere, how much more now! Now, if it is our gospel which has spread everywhere, rather than any heretical gospel, much less Marcion’s, which only dates from the reign of Antoninus,[6059] then ours will be the gospel of the apostles. But should Marcion’s gospel succeed in filling the whole world, it would not even in that case be entitled to the character of apostolic. For this quality, it will be evident, can only belong to that gospel which was the first to fill the world; in other words, to the gospel of that God who of old declared this of its promulgation: “Their sound is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”[6060] He calls Christ “the image of the invisible God.”[6061] We in like manner say that the Father of Christ is invisible, for we know that it was the Son who was seen in ancient times (whenever any appearance was vouchsafed to men in the name of God) as the image of (the Father) Himself. He must not be regarded, however, as making any difference between a visible and an invisible God; because long before he wrote this we find a description of our God to this effect: “No man can see the Lord, and live.”[6062] If Christ is not “the first-begotten before every creature,”[6063] as that “Word of God by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made;”[6064] if “all things were” not “in Him created, whether in heaven or on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers;” if “all things were” not “created by Him and for Him” (for these truths Marcion ought not to allow concerning Him), then the apostle could not have so positively laid it down, that “He is before all.”[6065] For how is He before all, if He is not before all things?[6066] How, again, is He before all things, if He is not “the first-born of every creature”—if He is not the Word of the Creator?[6067] Now how will he be proved to have been before all things, who appeared after all things? Who can tell whether he had a prior existence, when he has found no proof that he had any existence at all? In what way also could it have “pleased (the Father) that in Him should all fulness dwell?”[6068] For, to begin with, what fulness is that which is not comprised of the constituents which Marcion has removed from it,—even those that were “created in Christ, whether in heaven or on earth,” whether angels or men? which is not made of the things that are visible and invisible? which consists not of thrones and dominions and principalities and powers? If, on the other hand,[6069] our false apostles and Judaizing gospellers[6070] have introduced all these things out of their own stores, and Marcion has applied them to constitute the fulness of his own god, (this hypothesis, absurd though it be, alone would justify him;) for how, on any other supposition,[6071] could the rival and the destroyer of the Creator have been willing that His fulness should dwell in his Christ? To whom, again, does He “reconcile all things by Himself, making peace by the blood of His cross,”[6072] but to Him whom those very things had altogether[6073] offended, against whom they had rebelled by transgression, (but) to whom they had at last returned?[6074] Conciliated they might have been to a strange god; but reconciled they could not possibly have been to any other than their own God. Accordingly, ourselves “who were sometime alienated and enemies in our mind by wicked works”[6075] does He reconcile to the Creator, against whom we had committed offence—worshipping the creature to the prejudice of the Creator. As, however, he says elsewhere,[6076] that the Church is the body of Christ, so here also (the apostle) declares that he “fills up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for His body’s sake, which is the Church.”[6077] But you must not on this account suppose that on every mention of His body the term is only a metaphor, instead of meaning real flesh. For he says above that we are “reconciled in His body through death;”[6078] meaning, of course, that He died in that body wherein death was possible through the flesh: (therefore he adds,) not through the Church[6079] (per ecclesiam), but expressly for the sake of the Church (proper ecclesiam), exchanging body for body—one of flesh for a spiritual one. When, again, he warns them to “beware of subtle words and philosophy,” as being “a vain deceit,” such as is “after the rudiments of the world” (not understanding thereby the mundane fabric of sky and earth, but worldly learning, and “the tradition of men,” subtle in their speech and their philosophy),[6080] it would be tedious, and the proper subject of a separate work, to show how in this sentence (of the apostle’s) all heresies are condemned, on the ground of their consisting of the resources of subtle speech and the rules of philosophy. But (once for all) let Marcion know that the principle term of his creed comes from the school of Epicurus, implying that the Lord is stupid and indifferent;[6081] wherefore he refuses to say that He is an object to be feared. Moreover, from the porch of the Stoics he brings out matter, and places it on a par with the Divine Creator.[6082] He also denies the resurrection of the flesh,—a truth which none of the schools of philosophy agreed together to hold.[6083] But how remote is our (Catholic) verity from the artifices of this heretic, when it dreads to arouse the anger of God, and firmly believes that He produced all things out of nothing, and promises to us a restoration from the grave of the same flesh (that died) and holds without a blush that Christ was born of the virgin’s womb! At this, philosophers, and heretics, and the very heathen, laugh and jeer. For “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise”[6084]—that God, no doubt, who in reference to this very dispensation of His threatened long before that He would “destroy the wisdom of the wise.”[6085] Thanks to this simplicity of truth, so opposed to the subtlety and vain deceit of philosophy, we cannot possibly have any relish for such perverse opinions. Then, if God “quickens us together with Christ, forgiving us our trespasses,”[6086] we cannot suppose that sins are forgiven by Him against whom, as having been all along unknown, they could not have been committed. 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?”[6087] 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,”[6088] (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,”[6089] he refers to the conduct of those persons who “held not the Head,” even Him in whom all things are gathered together;[6090] for they are all recalled to Christ, and concentrated in Him as their initiating principle[6091]—even the meats and drinks which were indifferent in their nature. All the rest of his precepts,[6092] as we have shown sufficiently, when treating of them as they occurred in another epistle,[6093] emanated from the Creator, who, while predicting that “old things were to pass away,” and that He would “make all things new,”[6094] commanded men “to break up fresh ground for themselves,”[6095] and thereby taught them even then to put off the old man and put on the new.
When (the apostle) mentions the several motives of those who were preaching the gospel, how that some, “waxing confident by his bonds, were more fearless in speaking the word,” while others “preached Christ even out of envy and strife, and again others out of good-will,” many also “out of love,” and certain “out of contention,” and some “in rivalry to himself,”[6096] he had a favourable opportunity, no doubt,[6097] of taxing what they preached with a diversity of doctrine, as if it were no less than this which caused so great a variance in their tempers. But while he exposes these tempers as the sole cause of the diversity, he avoids inculpating the regular mysteries of the faith,[6098] and affirms that there is, notwithstanding, but one Christ and His one God, whatever motives men had in preaching Him. Therefore, says he, it matters not to me “whether it be in pretence or in truth that Christ is preached,”[6099] because one Christ alone was announced, whether in their “pretentious” or their “truthful” faith. For it was to the faithfulness of their preaching that he applied the word truth, not to the rightness of the rule itself, because there was indeed but one rule; whereas the conduct of the preachers varied: in some of them it was true, i.e. single-minded, while in others it was sophisticated with over-much learning. This being the case, it is manifest that that Christ was the subject of their preaching who was always the theme of the prophets. Now, if it were a completely different Christ that was being introduced by the apostle, the novelty of the thing would have produced a diversity (in belief.). For there would not have been wanting, in spite of the novel teaching,[6100] men to interpret the preached gospel of the Creator’s Christ, since the majority of persons everywhere now-a-days are of our way of thinking, rather than on the heretical side. So that the apostle would not in such a passage as the present one have refrained from remarking and censuring the diversity. Since, however, there is no blame of a diversity, there is no proof of a novelty. Of course[6101] the Marcionites suppose that they have the apostle on their side in the following passage in the matter of Christ’s substance—that in Him there was nothing but a phantom of flesh. For he says of Christ, that, “being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God;[6102] but emptied[6103] Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant,” not the reality, “and was made in the likeness of man,” not a man, “and was found in fashion as a man,”[6104] not in his substance, that is to say, his flesh; just as if to a substance there did not accrue both form and likeness and fashion. It is well for us that in another passage (the apostle) calls Christ “the image of the invisible God.”[6105] For will it not follow with equal force from that passage, that Christ is not truly God, because the apostle places Him in the image of God, if, (as Marcion contends,) He is not truly man because of His having taken on Him the form or image of a man? For in both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image (or “fashion”) and likeness and form shall be claimed for a phantom. But since he is truly God, as the Son of the Father, in His fashion and image, He has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, “found in the fashion” and image “of a man.” For when he propounded[6106] Him as thus “found” in the manner[6107] of a man, he in fact affirmed Him to be most certainly human. For what is found, manifestly possesses existence. Therefore, as He was found to be God by His mighty power, so was He found to be man by reason of His flesh, because the apostle could not have pronounced Him to have “become obedient unto death,”[6108] if He had not been constituted of a mortal substance. Still more plainly does this appear from the apostle’s additional words, “even the death of the cross.”[6109] For he could hardly mean this to be a climax[6110] to the human suffering, to extol the virtue[6111] of His obedience, if he had known it all to be the imaginary process of a phantom, which rather eluded the cross than experienced it, and which displayed no virtue[6112] in the suffering, but only illusion. But “those things which he had once accounted gain,” and which he enumerates in the preceding verse—“trust in the flesh,” the sign of “circumcision,” his origin as “an Hebrew of the Hebrews,” his descent from “the tribe of Benjamin,” his dignity in the honours of the Pharisee[6113]—he now reckons to be only “loss” to himself;[6114] (in other words,) it was not the God of the Jews, but their stupid obduracy, which he repudiates. These are also the things “which he counts but dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ”[6115] (but by no means for the rejection of God the Creator); “whilst he has not his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through Him,” i.e. Christ, “the righteousness which is of God.”[6116] Then, say you, according to this distinction the law did not proceed from the God of Christ. Subtle enough! But here is something still more subtle for you. For when (the apostle) says, “Not (the righteousness) which is of the law, but that which is through Him,” he would not have used the phrase through Him of any other than Him to whom the law belonged. “Our conversation,” says he, “is in heaven.”[6117] I here recognise the Creator’s ancient promise to Abraham: “I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven.”[6118] Therefore “one star differeth from another star in glory.”[6119] If, again, Christ in His advent from heaven “shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body,”[6120] it follows that this body of ours shall rise again, which is now in a state of humiliation in its sufferings and according to the law of mortality drops into the ground. But how shall it be changed, if it shall have no real existence? If, however, this is only said of those who shall be found in the flesh[6121] at the advent of God, and who shall have to be changed,”[6122] what shall they do who will rise first? They will have no substance from which to undergo a change. But he says (elsewhere), “We shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord (in the air).”[6123] Then, if we are to be caught up alone with them, surely we shall likewise be changed together with them.
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