BOOK IV

1. Every sentence, indeed the whole structure, arising from Mar-
cion's impiety and profanity, I now challenge in terms of that
gospel which he has by manipulation made his own. Besides that,
to work up credence for it he has contrived a sort of dowry, a
work entitled Antitheses because of its juxtaposition of opposites,
a work strained into making such a division between the Law and
the Gospel as thereby to make two separate gods, opposite to each
other, one belonging to one instrument (or, as it is more usual to
say, testament), one to the other, and thus lend its patronage to
faith in another gospel, that according to the Antitheses. Now I
might have demolished those antitheses by a specially directed
hand-to-hand attack, taking each of the statements of the man
of Pontus one by one, except that it was much more convenient
to refute them both in and along with that gospel which they
serve: although it is perfectly easy to take action against them
by counter-claim,¹ even accepting them as admissible, account-
ing them valid, and alleging that they support my argument,
that so they may be put to shame for the blindness of their author,
having now become my antitheses against Marcion. So then I
do admit that there was a different course followed in the old
dispensation under the Creator, from that in the new dispensation
under Christ. I do not deny a difference in records of things
spoken, in precepts for good behaviour, and in rules of law, pro-
vided that all these differences have reference to one and the same
God, that God by whom it is acknowledged that they were or-
dained and also foretold. Long ago did Isaiah proclaim that the
law will go forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem—
another law, he means, and another word. In fact, he says, he
shall judge among the gentiles, and shall convict many people,^a meaning
not of the one nation of the Jews, but of the gentiles who by the
new law of the gospel and the new word of the apostles are being
judged and convicted in their own sight in respect of their ancient

1. ¹ Action by counterclaim. By the forensic device of exceptio peremptaria, the
defendant, arguing that even on his own evidence the claimant must be non-
suited, obtains the right to speak first, and becomes in effect the complainant.

error, as soon as they have believed, and thereupon beat their
swords into ploughshares, and their zibynae (which is a sort of
hunting-spear) into pruning-hooks—that is, they are converting
their formerly fierce and savage minds into honest thoughts
productive of a good result. And again: Hearken to me, hearken to
me, my people; and ye kings incline your ears to me: because a law will
go forth from me, my judgement also for a light of the gentiles^b—
that by which he had judged and decreed that the gentiles also
should be enlightened by the law and word of the gospel. This
will be the law also in David, an unassailable law, because it is
perfect, converting the soul,^c from idols unto God. This also will be
the word, of which Isaiah says again, Because the Lord will make
a decisive word upon the earth:^d for the new testament is made very
concise, and is disentangled from the intricate burdens of the law.
What need of more, when more openly and more clearly than
light itself the Creator by the same prophet foretells of the new-
ness? Remember not the former things, neither consider ye the things of
old: old things have passed away, new things are arising: behold, I make
new things, which shall now arise.^e Also by Jeremiah: Renew for your-
selves a new fallow, and sow not among thorns, and be circumcised in the
foreskin of your heart.^f And in another place: Behold, the days will
come, saith the Lord, when I will make for the house of Jacob and the
house of Judah a new testament, not according to the testament which I
ordained for their fathers in the day upon which I took to me the ordaining
of them, so as to bring them out from the land of Egypt.^g Thus he indi-
cates that the original testament was temporary, since he declares
it changeable, at the same time as he promises an eternal testa-
ment for the future. For by Isaiah he says: Hearken to me and ye
shall live, and I will ordain for you an eternal testament,^h adding also
the holy and faithful things of David, so as to point out that that
testament would become current in Christ. That Christ would be
of the family of David, in accordance with Mary's genealogy, he
prophesied also figuratively in the rod which was to come forth
out of the root of Jesse.ⁱ If therefore he has said that other laws
and other words and new ordainings of testaments would come
from the Creator, so that his intention is that there shall be other
and better offerings of the sacrifices as well, and that among the
gentiles—as Malachi says, I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord,
neither will I accept your sacrifices at your hands, because from the rising
of the sun even to its going down my name is glorified among the gentiles,

and in every place sacrifice is offered to my name, even a pure offering,^j
which means simple prayer out of a pure conscience—it follows
that every change which results from renewal must lead to dif-
ference from those things of which it is <the renewal>, and to
opposition as a result of difference. For as nothing that suffers
change escapes being different, so nothing different avoids being
contrary. So then, the contrariety which results from difference
will pertain to the same one to whom was due the change which
resulted from renewal. He who ordained the change, also estab-
lished the difference: he who foretold of the renewal, also told
beforehand of the contrariety. Why need you explain a difference
of facts as an opposition of authorities? Why need you distort
against the Creator those antitheses in the evidences, which you
can recognize also in his own thoughts and affections? I will smite,
he says, and I will heal:^k I will slay, he says, and also make alive, by
establishing evil things and making peace:^l because of which it
is your custom even to censure him on account of fickleness and
inconstancy, in forbidding what he commands and commanding
what he forbids. Why then have you not also thought out some
antitheses for the essential attributes of a Creator always at vari-
ance with himself? Not even among your men of Pontus, if I
mistake not, have you been able to realize that the world is con-
structed out of the diversities of substances in mutual hostility.
And so you ought first to have laid it down that there was one
god of light and another of darkness: then you could have affirmed
that there was one god of the law and another of the gospel. For
all that, judgement is already given, and that by manifest proofs,
that he whose works and ways are consistently antithetic, has
also his mysteries <of revelation> consistently of that same pattern.

2. You have there my short and sharp answer to the Antitheses.
I pass on next to show how his gospel—certainly not Judaic but
Pontic—is in places adulterated: and this shall form the basis of
my order of approach. I lay it down to begin with that the docu-
ments of the gospel have the apostles for their authors, and that
this task of promulgating the gospel was imposed upon them by
our Lord himself. If they also have for their authors apostolic
men, yet these stand not alone, but as companions of apostles or
followers of apostles: because the preaching of disciples might be
made suspect of the desire of vainglory, unless there stood by it

the authority of their teachers, or rather the authority of Christ,
which made the apostles teachers. In short, from among the
apostles the faith is introduced to us by John and by Matthew,
while from among apostolic men Luke and Mark give it renewal,
<all of them> beginning with the same rules <of belief>, as far as
relates to the one only God, the Creator, and to his Christ, born
of a virgin, the fulfilment of the law and the prophets. It matters
not that the arrangement of their narratives varies, so long as
there is agreement on the essentials of the faith—and on these
they show no agreement with Marcion. Marcion, on the other
hand, attaches to his gospel no author's name,¹—as though he to
whom it was no crime to overturn the whole body, might not
assume permission to invent a title for it as well. At this point I
might have made a stand, arguing that no recognition is due to
a work which cannot lift up its head, which makes no show of
courage, which gives no promise of credibility by having a fully
descriptive title and the requisite indication of the author's name.
But I prefer to join issue on all points, nor am I leaving unmen-
tioned anything that can be taken as being in my favour. For out
of those authors whom we possess, Marcion is seen to have chosen
Luke as the one to mutilate.² Now Luke was not an apostle
but an apostolic man, not a master but a disciple, in any case less
than his master, and assuredly even more of lesser account as
being the follower of a later apostle, Paul, to be sure: so that even
if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul in
person, that one single document would not be adequate for our
faith, if destitute of the support of his predecessors. For we should
demand the production of that gospel also which Paul found <in
existence>, that to which he gave his assent, that with which
shortly afterwards he was anxious that his own should agree: for
his intention in going up to Jerusalem to know and to consult the
apostles, was lest perchance he had run in vain ^a—that is, lest
perchance he had not believed as they did, or were not preaching
the gospel in their manner. At length, when he had conferred
with the original <apostles>, and there was agreement concerning
the rule of the faith, they joined the right hands <of fellowship>,
and from thenceforth divided their spheres of preaching, so that
the others should go to the Jews, but Paul to Jews and gentiles.

2. ¹ No author's name: so Adamantius i. 5.
² For Marcion's treatment of Luke see Appendix 2.

If he therefore who gave the light to Luke chose to have his pre-
decessors' authority for his faith as well as his preaching, much
more must I require for Luke's gospel the authority which was
necessary for the gospel of his master.

3. It is another matter if in Marcion's opinion the Christian
religion, with its sacred content, begins with the discipleship of
Luke. However, as it was on its course even before that, it cer-
tainly possessed an authoritative structure by means of which it
reached even to Luke: and so with the support of its evidence
Luke also can find acceptance. But Marcion has got hold of Paul's
epistle to the Galatians, in which he rebukes even the apostles
themselves for not walking uprightly according to the truth of the
gospel,^a and accuses also certain false apostles of perverting the
gospel of Christ: and on this ground Marcion strives hard to
overthrow the credit of those gospels which are the apostles' own
and are published under their names, or even the names of aposto-
lic men, with the intention no doubt of conferring on his own
gospel the repute which he takes away from those others. And
yet, even if there is censure of Peter and John and James, who
were esteemed as pillars,^b the reason is evident. It was that they
appeared to be altering their manner of life through respect of
persons. Yet since Paul himself made himself all things to all men
so that he might gain them all,^c Peter too may well have had this
in mind in acting in some respect differently from his manner of
teaching. And besides, if false apostles also had crept in, their
character too is indicated: they were insisting on circumcision,
and the Jewish calendar. So it was not for their preaching but for
their forms of activity that they were marked down as wrong by
Paul, though he would no less have marked them wrong if they
had been in any error on the subject of God the Creator, or of
his Christ. Therefore we have to distinguish between the two cases.
If Marcion's complaint is that the apostles are held suspect of
dissimulation or pretence, even to the debasing of the gospel, he
is now accusing Christ, by thus accusing those whom Christ has
chosen. If however the gospel which the apostles compared with
Paul's was beyond reproach, and they were rebuked only for

inconsistency of conduct, and yet false apostles have falsified the
truth of their gospels, and from them our copies are derived, what
can have become of that genuine apostles' document which has
suffered from adulterators—that document which gave light to
Paul, and from him to Luke? Or if it has been completely de-
stroyed, so wiped out by a flood of falsifiers as though by some
deluge, then not even Marcion has a true one. Or if that is to be
the true one, if that is the apostles', which Marcion alone possesses,
then how is it that that which is not of the apostles, but is ascribed
to Luke, is in agreement with ours? Or if that which Marcion
has in use is not at once to be attributed to Luke because it does
agree with ours—though they allege ours is falsified in respect of
its title—then it does belong to the apostles. And in that case
ours too, which is in agreement with that other, no less belongs
to the apostles, even if it too is falsified in its title.

4. So we must pull away at the rope of contention, swaying with
equal effort to the one side or the other. I say that mine is true:
Marcion makes that claim for his. I say that Marcion's is falsi-
fied: Marcion says the same of mine. Who shall decide between
us? Only such a reckoning of dates, as will assume that authority
belongs to that which is found to be older, and will prejudge as
corrupt that which is convicted of having come later. For in so
far as the false is a corruption of the true, to that extent must the
truth have preceded that which is false. An object must have been
in existence before anything is done to it, as what it is in itself
must be prior to any opposition to it. Otherwise how preposterous
it would be that when we have proved ours the older, and that
Marcion's has emerged later, ours should be taken to have been
false before it had from the truth material <for falsehood to work
on>, and Marcion's be believed to have suffered hostility from
ours before it was even published: and in the end <how ridiculous>
that that which is later should be reckoned more true, even after
the publication to the world of all those great works and evidences
of the Christian religion which surely could never have been pro-
duced except for the truth of the gospel—even before the gospel
was true. So then meanwhile, as concerns the gospel of Luke,
seeing that the use of it shared between us and Marcion becomes
an arbiter of the truth, our version of it is to such an extent older
than Marcion that Marcion himself once believed it. That was

when in the first warmth of faith he presented the catholic church
with that money which was before long cast out along with him
after he had diverged from our truth into his own heresy. What
now, if the Marcionites are going to deny that his faith at first
was with us—even against the evidence of his own letter? What
if they refuse to acknowledge that letter? Certainly Marcion's
own Antitheses not only admit this, but even make a show of it.
Proof taken from them is good enough for me. If that gospel
which among us is ascribed to Luke—we shall see <later> whether
it is <accepted by> Marcion—if that is the same that Marcion by
his Antitheses accuses of having been falsified by the upholders of
Judaism with a view to its being so combined in one body with
the law and the prophets that they might also pretend that Christ
had that origin, evidently he could only have brought accusation
against something he had found there already. No one passes
censure on things afterwards to be, when he does not know they
are afterwards to be. Correction does not come before fault. As
corrector apparently of a gospel which from the times of Tiberius
to those of Antoninus had suffered subversion, Marcion comes to
light, first and alone, after Christ had waited for him all that time,
repenting of having been in a hurry to send forth apostles without
Marcion to protect them. And yet heresy, which is always in this
manner correcting the gospels, and so corrupting them, is the
effect of human temerity, not of divine authority: for even if
Marcion were a disciple, he is not above his master: and if Mar-
cion were an apostle, Whether it were I, says Paul, or they, so we
preach:^a and if Marcion were a prophet, even the spirits of the
prophets have to be subject to the prophets,^b for they are not
<prophets> of subversion but of peace: even if Marcion were an
angel, he is more likely to be called anathema than gospel-maker,
seeing he has preached a different gospel.^c And so, by making
these corrections, he assures us of two things—that ours came
first, for he is correcting what he has found there already, and
that that other came later which he has put together out of his
corrections of ours, and so made into a new thing of his own.

5. To sum up: if it is agreed that that has the greater claim to
truth which has the earlier priority, and that has the priority

which has been so since the beginning, and that has been since
the beginning which was from the apostles, there will be no less
agreement that that was handed down by the apostles which is
held sacred and inviolate in the churches the apostles founded.
Let us consider what milk it was that Paul gave the Corinthians
to drink,^a by the line of what rule the Galatians were again made
to walk straight,^b what the Philippians, the Thessalonians, and
the Ephesians are given to read, what words are spoken also by
our near neighbours the Romans, to whom Peter and Paul left
as legacy the gospel, sealed moreover with their own blood. We
have also churches which are nurselings of John's: for although
Marcion disallows his Apocalypse, yet the succession of their
bishops, when traced back to its origin, will be found to rest in
John as originator. In the same way also the legitimacy of the
other churches is to be tested. So I affirm that among them—
and I am not now speaking only of apostolic churches, but of all
those which are in alliance with them in the fellowship of the
mystery^c—that gospel of Luke which we at this moment retain
has stood firm since its earliest publication, whereas Marcion's
is to most people not even known, and by those to whom it is
known is also by the same reason condemned. Admittedly that
gospel too has its churches; but they are its own, of late arrival
and spurious: if you search out their ancestry you are more likely
to find it apostatic than apostolic, having for founder either Mar-
cion or someone from Marcion's hive. Even wasps make combs,
and Marcionites make churches. That same authority of the
apostolic churches will stand as witness also for the other gospels,
which no less <than Luke's> we possess by their agency and accord-
ing to their text—I mean John's and Matthew's, though that
which Mark produced is stated to be Peter's, whose interpreter
Mark was. Luke's narrative also they usually attribute to Paul.
It is permissible for the works which disciples published to be
regarded as belonging to their masters. And so concerning these
also Marcion must be called to account, how it is that he has
passed them over, and preferred to take his stand upon Luke's, as
though these too, no less than Luke's, have not been in the churches
since the beginning—indeed it is to be supposed that they have
even greater claim to have been since the beginning, since they
were earlier, as written by apostles, and established along with

the churches. Otherwise, if the apostles published nothing, how
can it have come about that their disciples published things in-
stead, when they could not even have existed as disciples apart
from some instruction by their masters? So then, since it is evi-
dent that these too existed in the churches, how is it that Marcion
has not laid hands on them as well, either to correct if falsified, or
to acknowledge if correct? For it is conceivable that any who were
engaged in corrupting one gospel might have taken even greater
interest in the corruption of gospels whose authenticity they knew
had wider acceptance—false apostles for this very reason, that
it was apostles they would be counterfeiting by this forgery. The
more then Marcion might have corrected things which would
have needed correction if they had been corrupt, the more he
has in fact certified that those have not been corrupted which he
has not thought it necessary to correct. So he did correct the
one he thought was corrupt. Yet even this he had no right to
correct: because it was not corrupt. For if the apostolic gospels
have come down to us in their integrity, while the gospel of Luke,
in the form in which we have it, is in such agreement with the
standard of those others that it is retained in the churches along
with them, it is at once evident that Luke's also came down in
integrity until Marcion's act of sacrilege. In fact it was only when
Marcion laid hands upon it, that it became different from the
apostolic gospels, and in opposition to them. So I should recom-
mend his disciples either to convert those others, late though it
be, into the shape of their own, so that they may have the appear-
ance of being in agreement with apostolic gospels—for they are
every day reshaping this of theirs, as they are every day brought
to account by us—or else to take shame of their master, who
stands convicted on both accounts, while at one time he bypasses
the truth of the gospel through bad conscience, and at another
time overturns it through effrontery. These are the sort of sum-
mary arguments I use when skirmishing light-armed against
heretics on behalf of the faith of the gospel, arguments which
claim the support of that succession of times which pleads the
previous question against the late emergence of falsifiers, as well
as that authority of the churches which gives expert witness to
the tradition of the apostles: because the truth must of necessity
precede the false, and proceed from those from whom its tradition
began.

6. I now advance a step further, while I call to account, as I
have promised, Marcion's gospel in his own version of it, with
the design, even so, of proving it adulterated. Certainly the whole
of the work he has done, including the prefixing of his Antitheses,
he directs to the one purpose of setting up opposition between
the Old Testament and the New, and thereby putting his Christ
in separation from the Creator, as belonging to another god, and
having no connection with the law and the prophets. Certainly
that is why he has expunged all the things that oppose his view,
that are in accord with the Creator, on the plea that they have
been woven in by his partisans; but has retained those that
accord with his opinion. These it is we shall call to account, with
these we shall grapple, to see if they will favour my case, not his,
to see if they will put a check on Marcion's pretensions. Then
it will become clear that these things have been expunged by the
same disease of heretical blindness by which the others have been
retained. Such will be the purpose and plan of my treatise, on
those precise terms which have been agreed by both parties. Mar-
cion lays it down that there is one Christ who in the time of
Tiberius was revealed by a god formerly unknown, for the salva-
tion of all the nations; and another Christ who is destined by
God the Creator to come at some time still future for the re--
establishment of the Jewish kingdom. Between these he sets up
a great and absolute opposition, such as that between justice and
kindness, between law and gospel, between Judaism and Chris-
tianity. From this will also derive my statement of claim, by
which I lay it down that the Christ of a different god has no right
to have anything in common with the Creator; and again, that
Christ must be adjudged to be the Creator's if he is found to
have administered the Creator's ordinances, fulfilled his pro-
phecies, supported his laws, given actuality to his promises, re-
vived his miracles, given new expression to his judgements, and
reproduced the lineaments of his character and attributes. I
request you, my reader, always to bear in mind this undertaking,
this statement of my case, and begin to be aware that Christ
belongs either to Marcion or the Creator, <but not to both>.

7. [Luke 4: 31-7.] Marcion premises that in the fifteenth year of
the principate of Tiberius he came down into Capernaum, a city
of Galilee—from the Creator's heaven, of course, into which he

had first come down out of his own.¹ Did not then due order de-
mand that it should first be explained how he came down from
his own heaven into the Creator's? For why should I not pass
censure on such matters as do not satisfy the claims of orderly
narrative, <but let it> always tail off in falsehood? So let us ask
once for all a question I have already discussed elsewhere,²
whether, while coming down through the Creator's territory and
in opposition to him, he could have expected the Creator to let
him in, and allow him to pass on from thence into the earth, which
no less is the Creator's. Next however, admitting that he came
down, I demand to know the rest of the order of that descent. It is
no matter if somewhere the word 'appeared' is used. 'Appear' sug-
gests a sudden and unexpected sight, <by one> who at some instant
has cast his eyes on a thing which has at that instant appeared.
To have come down, however—when that takes place the fact
is in view and comes beneath the eye: it also puts the event into
sequence, and enforces the inquiry in what sort of aspect, in what
sort of array, with how much speed or moderation, as also at
what time of day, or of night, he came down: and besides that,
who saw him coming down, who reported it, and who gave
assurance of a fact not easily credible even to him who gives as-
surance. It is quite wrong in fact, that Romulus should have had
Proculus to vouch for his ascent into heaven,³ yet that Christ
should not have provided himself with a reporter of his god's
descent from heaven—though that one must have gone up by
the same ladder of lies by which this one came down. Also what
had he to do with Galilee, if he was not the Creator's Christ, for
whom that province was predestined <as the place> for him to
enter on his preaching? For Isaiah says: Drink this first, do it
quickly, province of Zebulon and land of Naphtali, and ye others who
<dwell between> the sea-coast and Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles, ye
people who sit in darkness, behold a great light: ye who inhabit the land,
sitting in the shadow of death, a light has arisen upon you.^a It is indeed
to the good that Marcion's god too should be cited as one who
gives light to the gentiles, for so there was the greater need for
him to come down from heaven—though, if so, he ought to have
come down into Pontus rather than Galilee. Yet since both that

7. ¹ Rejection of the infancy narrative, above, I. 19; Irenaeus, AM. I. xxv. i;
Adamantius i. 3. ² I. 23 above.
³ Romulus: Livy I. 16.

locality and that function of enlightenment do according to the
prophecy have their bearing upon Christ, we at once begin to
discern that it was he of whom the prophecy was made, when he
makes it clear on his first appearance that he is come not to
destroy the law and the prophets, but rather to fulfil them.^b For
Marcion has blotted this out as an interpolation. But in vain will
he deny that Christ said in words a thing which he at once partly
accomplished in act. For in the meanwhile he fulfilled the pro-
phecy in respect of place. From heaven straightway into the
synagogue. As the saying goes, let us get down to it: to your task,
Marcion: remove even this from the gospel, I am not sent but
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and, It is not <meet> to take away
the children's bread and give it to dogs:^c for this gives the impression
that Christ belongs to Israel. I have plenty of acts, if you take
away his words. Take away Christ's sayings, and the facts will
speak; See how he enters into the synagogue: surely to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. See how he offers the bread of his
doctrine to the Israelites first: surely he is giving them preference
as sons. See how as yet he gives others no share of it: surely he is
passing them by, like dogs. Yet on whom would he have been
more ready to bestow it than on strangers to the Creator, if he
himself had not above all else belonged to the Creator? Yet again
how can he have obtained admittance into the synagogue, appear-
ing so suddenly, so unknown, no one as yet having certain know-
ledge of his tribe, of his nation, of his house, or even of Caesar's
census, which the Roman registry still has in keeping,⁴ a most
faithful witness to our Lord's nativity? They remembered, surely,
that unless they knew he was circumcised he must not be ad-
mitted into the most holy places. Or again, even if there were un-
limited access to the synagogue, there was no permission to teach,
except for one excellently well known, and tried, and approved,
and already either for this occasion or by commendation from
elsewhere invested with that function. 'But they were all astonished
at his doctrine.' Quite so. Because, it says, his word was with power,
not because his teaching was directed against the law and the
prophets. For in fact his divine manner of speaking did afford
both power and grace, building up, much more than pulling

7. ⁴ The census records are referred to again Ch. 19. 10. There seems to be no
non-Christian evidence that they were preserved in Rome or would be available
to inquirers.

down, the substance of the law and the prophets. Otherwise they
would not have been astonished but horrified; would not have
marvelled at, but immediately shrunk from, a destroyer of the
law and the prophets—and above all else the preacher of a
different god, because he could not have given teaching contrary
to the law and the prophets, and, by that token, contrary to the
Creator, without some previous profession of belief in an alien
and hostile deity. As then the scripture gives no indication of
this kind, but only that the power and authority of his speech were
a matter of wonder, it more readily indicates that his teaching
was in accordance with the Creator, since it does not deny that,
than that it was opposed to the Creator, since it has not said so.
It follows that he must either be acknowledged to belong to him
in accordance with whom his teaching was given, or else judged
a turn-coat if his teaching was in accordance with him whom he
had come to oppose. On the same occasion the spirit of the demon
cries out, What have we to do with thee, Jesus? Thou art come to destroy
us. I know who thou art, the Holy One of God. Here I shall not discuss
whether even this appellation was at all appropriate to one who
had no right even to the name of Christ unless he belonged to
the Creator. I have fully discussed his titles in another place.⁵ At
present I require to know how the demon knew that he had this
name, when no prediction referring to him had ever been made
in the past by a god unknown and until that time dumb, a god
as whose holy one he had no means of invoking him, a god un-
known even to the demon's Creator. <I ask also> what sort of
indication he now gave of a new divinity, that by it he could be
taken for the holy one of a different god. Merely that he had gone
inside the synagogue and not even in word had taken any sort
of action against the Creator? As then he had no means of recog-
nizing that one whom he had no knowledge of was Jesus and the
Holy One of God, it follows that this recognition was of one whom
he did know: for he remembered <two things>, that the prophet
had prophesied of the Holy One of God, and that Jesus was God's
name in the son of Nun. He had had these names given by an
angel, our gospel relates: Therefore that which shall be born in thee
shall be called holy, the Son of God:^d and, Thou shalt call his name Jesus.^e
Also, though he was only a demon, he had in fact some sense of
the Lord's purpose, more than if it had been a stranger's and not

7. ⁵ The names, or titles: Emmanuel, III. 12; Christ, III. 15; Jesus, III. 16.

yet well enough known. For he began by asking, What have we
to do with thee, Jesus?, not as though addressing a stranger, but
as one whose concern the Creator's spirits are. For his words were
not, What hast thou to do with us?, but, What have we to do with
thee?, in sorrow for himself and in regret at his own case: and as
he now sees what this is he adds, Thou art come to destroy us. To that
extent he had recognized Jesus as the Son of the judge, the aven-
ger, and <if I may say so> the severe God, not of that perfectly
good god who knows nothing of destruction and punishment.
With what purpose have I begun with this episode? To show you
that Jesus was acknowledged by the demon, and affirmed by
himself, to belong to none other than the Creator. But still, you
object, Jesus rebuked him. Of course he did: he was an embarrass-
ment: even in that acknowledgement he was impertinent, and
submissive in the wrong way, giving the impression that it would
be the sum total of Christ's glory to have come for the destruction
of demons and not rather for the salvation of men: for it was he
who would have his disciples rejoice not because the spirits were
subject to them but because of their election to salvation.^f Else
why did he rebuke him? If because he was wholly a liar, then he
himself was neither Jesus nor in any sense holy: if because he was
partly a liar, in having rightly thought him to be Jesus and the
Holy One of God, but to belong to the Creator, it was most un-
just of him to rebuke one who took the view which he knew he
must take, and did not entertain the idea which he did not know
he needed to entertain, that he was a different Jesus, and the
holy one of a different god. But if his rebuke has no more likely
ground than the interpretation we put upon it, in that case the
demon told no lie, and was not rebuked for lying: for Jesus was
Jesus himself, and the demon had no means of affording recogni-
tion to any besides him: and Jesus gave assurance of being that
one whom the devil had recognized, seeing that his rebuke to
the demon was not on account of a lie.

8. [Luke 4: 16-43.] According to the prophecy, the Creator's
Christ was to be called a Nazarene.^a For that reason, and on his
account, the Jews call us by that very name, Nazarenes. For we
are also those of whom it is written, The Nazarenes were made
whiter than snow,^b having previously of course been darkened with
the stains of sin, and blackened with the darkness of ignorance. But

to Christ the appellation of Nazarene was to apply because of his
hiding-place in infancy, for which he went down to Nazareth, to
escape from Archelaus, the son of Herod.^c My reason for not
leaving this out is that Marcion's Christ ought by rights to have
forsworn all association even with the places frequented by the
Creator's Christ, since he had all those towns of Judaea, which
were not in the same way conveyed over to the Creator's Christ
by the prophets. But Christ has to be the Christ of the prophets,
wherever it is that he is found to accord with the prophets. Even
at Nazareth there is no indication that his preaching was of any-
thing new, though for all that, by reason of one single proverb,
we are told that he was cast out. Here, as I for the first time ob-
serve that hands were laid upon him, I am called upon to say
something definite about his corporal substance; that he who
admitted of contact, contact even full of violence, in being seized
and captured and dragged even to the brow of the hill, cannot
be thought of as a phantasm. It is true that he slipped away
through the midst of them, but this was when he had experienced
their violence, and had afterwards been let go: for, as often
happens, the crowd gave way, or was even broken up: there is
no question of its being deceived by invisibility, for this, if it had
been such, would never have submitted to contact at all.

Touch or be touched nothing but body may,

is a worthy sentence even of this world's philosophy.^d In fine, he
did himself before long touch others, and by laying his hands
upon them—hands evidently meant to be felt—conveyed the
benefits of healing, benefits no less true, no less free from pretence,
than the hands by which they were conveyed. Consequently he
is the Christ of Isaiah, a healer of sicknesses: He himself, he says,
takes away our weaknesses and carries our sicknesses.^e For the Greeks
are accustomed to write 'carry' as equivalent to 'take away'. That
promise in general terms is enough for me at present. Whatever
it was that Jesus healed, he is mine. We shall however come to
specific instances of healing. Moreover even to deliver from
demons is a healing of sickness. And so the wicked spirits, as if
following the precedent of the previous instance, bore witness to
him as they went out, by crying aloud, Thou art the Son of God.
Which God, let it even here be evident. 'But they were rebuked,
and ordered to be silent.' Quite so: because Christ wished himself

to be acknowledged as the Son of God by men, not by unclean
spirits—that Christ at all events who had the right to expect this,
because he had sent before him those preachers, worthier preachers
beyond question, through whose agency recognition might be
possible. To reject the commendation of an unclean spirit was
within the rights of him who had at his disposal abundant com-
mendations of the Holy Spirit. One however of whom there had
been no announcement—if of course he wished to be recognized,
for his coming was to no purpose if he did not—would not have
rejected the testimony of an alien substance of any sort whatever,
if he had no testimony of any substance of his own, and had come
down on to another's property. One thing more: as a destroyer
of the Creator his greatest desire would have been to be recognized
by the Creator's spirits and have them spread his name abroad,
through the fear they had of him: except that Marcion says that
his god is not an object of fear, claiming that the object of fear is
not the kind god but the judge, with whom are to be found the
materials of fear, which are wrath, severity, judgements, ven-
geance, and condemnation. But the demons did in fact submit
through fear. So then their confession was that he was the Son
of the God who is to be feared: for if there had been no fear in-
volved, they could have taken this as an occasion when submission
might be refused. But in driving them out by command and re-
buke, not by persuasion as a kind one would have done, he dis-
closed himself as one to be feared. Or perhaps he rebuked them
just because they were afraid of him, being unwilling to be an
object of fear? Yet how did he expect them to come out—a thing
they would not have done except from fear? So then he fell under
the necessity of having to conduct himself contrary to his own
nature, though he might, as being kind, have pardoned them
once for all. He fell also under another bad mark, that of changing
sides, when he allowed himself to be feared by the demons as the
son of the Creator, so as now to drive the demons out not by any
power of his own but by the Creator's authority. He goes forth
into a desert place. This kind of country the Creator often made
use of. It was right and proper that the Word should also be
visible in a body in the place where of old time he had been active
also in a cloud. The gospel was well suited by that type of place
which had been found satisfactory for the law. So let the wilder-
ness rejoice—for so Isaiah had promised.^f When the multitudes

detained him he said, I must proclaim the kingdom of God to other cities
also. Had he anywhere yet shown who this god of his was? Not
even yet, I think. But was he speaking of people who knew there
was another god besides? This too I do not believe. So then, if
neither he himself had said anything about another god, nor did
they know of any god besides the Creator, the kingdom he looked
forward to was the kingdom of precisely that God whom he knew
to be the only God known to those who heard him.

9. [Luke 5: 1-15.] Out of all possible lands of occupations why
had he such respect for that of fisherman that from it he took for
apostles Simon and the sons of Zebedee—a fact from which an
argument was to be drawn cannot be regarded as without signifi-
cance—when he said to Peter, amazed because of the abundant
draught of fishes, Fear not, for from henceforth thou shall catch men?
By this remark he suggested how they were to understand the pro-
phecy was fulfilled, and that he it was who had declared, through
Jeremiah, Behold I will send many fishers, and they shall fish them,^a
meaning men. Thereupon they left their boats and followed him,
with understanding of one who had begun to do in fact what he
had said in words. It is quite another thing if he made a pretence
of choosing them from the Association of Shipmasters, because
he was sometime going to have as his apostle Marcion the navi-
gator. Now I have already postulated, in opposition to the Anti-
theses, that Marcion's purpose is in no sense served by what he
supposes to be an opposition between the law and the gospel,
because this too was ordained by the Creator, and in fact was
foretold by that promise of a new law and a new word and a
new testament. But seeing that he argues with unusual insistence
in the presence of one whom he calls a kind of suntalai/pwroj,
companion in misery, and summisou&menoj, companion in hatred,¹
regarding the cleansing of the leper, I shall not think it amiss to
meet him, and first to show him the force of that figurative law:
for by the example of the leprous person who must not be touched
but must even be excluded from all communication with others,
it forbade association with any man defiled by sins—with whom
the apostle too says we must not even eat:^b for the stains of sins are
passed from one to another, as by contagion, if anyone makes
contact with a sinner. And so our Lord, who desired to suggest

9. ¹ Tertullian's Latin words seem to be a burlesque on the Greek words of
self-depreciation applied to himself by Marcion.

deeper understanding of that law which indicates spiritual things
by means of things carnal, and on that account was not pulling
down but rather building up that law which he wished men to
acknowledge as a matter of closer concern, touched the leper:
for although a man could have suffered defilement from such a
one, God could certainly not be defiled, being immune from
contamination. Thus there can be no injunction laid upon him
that he ought to have observed the law and not have touched the
unclean person, since contact with the unclean was not going to
defile him. That this is more in keeping with my Christ I show
you by this, that I prove it is not in keeping with yours. For if it
was in hostility to the law that he touched the leper, making the
commandment of the law of no account through contempt of
defilement—how could he possibly suffer defilement who possessed
no body which might be defiled? For a phantasm cannot suffer
defilement. He therefore who was incapable of defilement be-
cause he was a phantasm, will be found to be immune from con-
tamination not through divine power but by the phantasm's
inanity. Nor can he be supposed to have held in contempt that
defilement which he had no ground for: nor for that matter to
have destroyed the law, since he had escaped defilement through
the good fortune of the phantasm and not by any display of
power. But even though Elisha, the Creator's prophet, cleansed
no more than one leper, Naaman the Syrian, when there were all
those many lepers in Israel, even this does not indicate that Christ
was in some sense different, as though he were in this respect
superior, that being a stranger he cleansed an Israelite leper,
whom his own Lord had not had power to cleanse: because the
Syrian was more easily cleansed as a sign throughout the gentiles
of their cleansing in Christ the light of the gentiles, who were
marked with those seven stains of capital sins, idolatry, blasphemy,
homicide, adultery, fornication, false witness, fraud. Therefore
seven times over, as though once under each heading, did he
wash in Jordan, both with intent to prophesy the purging of the
whole seven, and because the force and fullness of one single
washing was reserved for Christ alone, who was to make upon
earth not only a determined word^c but also a determined washing.
Even in this Marcion sees an 'opposition', that whereas Elisha
needed a material help, and made use of water, seven times at
that, Christ by the act of his word alone, without repeating it,

immediately put the healing into effect—as though I were not
bold enough to claim even the word he used, as part of the
Creator's property. In any and every object the primary author
has the better claim to it. You regard it perhaps as incredible that
the Creator's power should with a word have performed the heal-
ing of one single sickness, though that power did with a word
produce at an instant this great fabric of the universe. How better
may one discern the Christ of the Creator than by the power of
his word? But perhaps he is another's Christ, because his action
is other than Elisha's, because any master is more powerful than
his own servant. By what right, Marcion, do you rule that servants'
activities are exactly like their masters' ? Are you not afraid of it
turning to your discredit if you claim that Christ is not the
Creator's, on the ground that he had greater powers than the
Creator's servant, when it is evident that he is greater by com-
parison with Elisha's littleness—if indeed he is greater? For the
healing is the same, though the method of working is different.
Has your Christ provided a greater gift than my Elisha gave?
What indeed was that great effect of your Christ's word, which
did just the same as the Creator's river had done?² The rest of
what he does follows the same course. As far as concerned avoid-
ance of human glory, he told him to tell no man: as concerned
the observance of the law, he ordered the proper course to be
followed: Go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses
commanded. Knowing that the law was in the form of prophecy,
he was safeguarding its figurative regulations even in his own
mirrored images of them, which indicated that a man who has
been a sinner, as soon as he is cleansed by the word of God, is
bound to offer in the temple a sacrifice to God, which means
prayer and giving of thanks in the church through Christ Jesus,
the universal high priest of the Father. This is why he added,
That it may be to you for a testimony—no doubt by which he testi-
fied that he did not destroy the law but fulfilled it, a testimony that
it was he and no other of whom it was foretold that he would take
upon him their diseases and sicknesses. This entirely adequate and
necessary interpretation of that testimony Marcion, in subser-
vience to his own Christ, seeks to discount under the pretence of

9. ² Tertullian's affectation of having surrendered to his opponents the Christ
of their mutilated gospel here causes him to forget that he is really discussing
the acts of the true Christ recorded in the authentic gospel.

consideration and gentleness. For, says he, being kind, and know-
ing besides that every man set free from leprosy would follow out
the observances of the law, he for that reason ordered him to
do so. What after that? Did he continue in kindness, that is, in
permission to observe the law, or did he not? If he continued
being kind, he can never become a destroyer of the law, nor can
he be taken to belong to that other god, since there is a cessation
of that destruction of the law on account of which it is claimed he
belongs to the other god. If he did not continue being kind, sub-
sequently destroying the law, then it was false witness that he
afterwards lodged with them at the healing of the leper: for he
became a renegade from goodness, in that he destroyed the law.
So he is now evil, as a subverter of the law, if he was kind while
allowing the law to be kept. Yet even by his act in once allowing
obedience to the law, he gave assurance that the law is good. For
no man gives permission for obedience to an evil thing. It follows
that in the one case he was bad, if he allowed obedience to a law
which was bad, and in the other case worse, if he came as the
destroyer of a law that was good. Moreover, if his command to
offer the gift was contingent on his knowledge that every man
freed from leprosy would make that offering, it was also in his
power to have issued no command for an act which he knew
would take place without it. Also in vain has he come down as with
intent to destroy the law, when he makes concessions to keepers
of the law. What is more, since he was aware of the habits of those
people, he ought to have taken precautionary action to turn them
away from it, if that was the reason for his coming. Why then
did he not keep silence, and let the man obey the law without
prompting? In that case he could be thought to have made some
concession to his tolerance. Instead of which he adds even his
own authority, strengthened by the weight of that testimony—
testimony of what, unless of enforcing the law? Truly it makes no
difference in what way he confirmed the law, whether as kind, or as
disinterested, or as tolerant, or as inconstant, provided, Marcion,
that I drive you from your position. So then he has commanded
the law to be fulfilled: in whatever sense he gave this command,
he can in the same sense have stated the principle, I am not come
to destroy the law but to fulfil it.^d What good then did it do you to
excise from the gospel a sentence which remains there still? You
have admitted that he did for kindness' sake something which you

deny that he said. So there is proof that he said it, because he
did do it, and that it is you that have excised the Lord's words
from the gospel, and not our people that have foisted them in.

10. [Luke 5: 18-26.] Also a palsied man is healed, and that amidst
a throng, with the people looking on. For, says Isaiah, the people
shall see the excellency of the Lord, and the glory of God. What excel-
lency, and what glory? Be strengthened, ye weak hands, and ye en-
feebled knees—which indicates paralysis. Be strengthened, fear not.^a
Not without purpose does he twice say Be strengthened, nor to no
effect does he add Fear not, because along with renewal of limbs
he was promising also a restoration of strength: Arise and take up
thy bed: as well as firmness of mind, so as not to be afraid of those
who would ask, Who shall forgive sins but God alone? Here then you
find fulfilled the prophecy of a particular form of healing, as well
as of matters consequent upon the healing. In the same prophet
likewise you may recognize Christ as one who forgives sins: Be-
cause, he says, among very many he shall forgive their sins, and, He
himself taketh away our sins.^b For <you will find it> also earlier on,
our Lord in person speaking: Though your sins be as scarlet, I will
make them white as snow: though they be as crimson, I will make them
white as wool,^c indicating by scarlet the blood of the prophets, and
by crimson the blood of our Lord, as more noble. Also Micah,
concerning forgiveness of sins, Who is a God like unto thee, who takest
away iniquities and passest over injustices for the residue of thine inheri-
tance? And he retained not his wrath for a testimony, because he desired
there should be mercy. He will turn back, he will have mercy upon us: he will
overwhelm our iniquities, and overwhelm our sins in the depth of the sea.^d
Yet even though nothing of this sort had been foretold in respect
of Christ, I should have in the Creator instances of this kindness,
such as promise me in the Son too the affections of the Father.
I see the men of Nineveh obtaining from the Creator the forgive-
ness of their crimes—or I should rather say 'from Christ', because
even from the beginning he has acted in the Father's name. I
read also that when David confessed his sin against Uriah,
Nathan the prophet said, Also the Lord hath cancelled out thy sin
and thou shall not die:^e also that king Ahab, the husband of Jezebel,
guilty of idolatry and of the blood of Naboth, earned pardon on
account of repentance:^f and that Jonathan the son of Saul wiped
out by deprecation the guilt of a broken fast.^g Why need I tell

of the nation itself so often restored by forgiveness of sins—by that
God who would rather have mercy than sacrifice, and a sinner's
repentance rather than his death?^h First then you have to deny
that the Creator ever forgave sins, and secondly you have to prove
that he never prophesied anything of that kind regarding his
Christ: only so will you prove the newness of the kindness of your
new Christ, if you succeed in proving that it is neither character-
istic of the Creator nor prophesied of by the Creator. But whether
the forgiving of sins can be in character with one who is said not
to notice them, or whether one can absolve who cannot if neces-
sary condemn, or whether there is any consistency in pardon being
granted by one against whom no offence has been committed,
this I have already discussed, and prefer now to draw attention
to that, and not to discuss it again. On the expression Son of man
my postulates are two: first that Christ was incapable of lying,
so as to declare himself the Son of man if he was not really so:
and that no one can be accepted as Son of man who is not of
human birth, either on the father's side or the mother's: and this
will call for discussion, on what side his human birth must be
taken to be, the father's or the mother's. Now if he is from God
as father, certainly his father is not a man: if his father is not a
man, the only thing left is for him to be of a human mother: and
if of a human <mother> it is already evident that she is a virgin.
For as there is ascribed to him no human father, neither can his
mother be reckoned to have a husband: and <this mother> to
whom no husband is reckoned, is a virgin. Otherwise there will
be two fathers involved, God and a man, if his mother is not a
virgin. For she has to have a husband, if she is not to be a virgin,
and by having a husband she will cause him who was to be the
Son of God and of man to have two fathers, God and a man.
That perhaps is the sort of nativity the old tales ascribe to Castor
and Hercules. But if the distinctions are made in this form, that is,
if on his mother's side he is the Son of man because he is not the
Son of man on his father's side, and if his mother is a virgin
because he has no man for his father, this must be Isaiah's Christ
whom he prophesies that a virgin will conceive. By what reason-
ing then, Marcion, you accept Son of man <into the text of your
gospel> I am unable to understand. If <you mean> son of a human
father, you deny that he is the Son of God: if <you mean> son of
God as well, you are making Christ into Hercules out of the old

story: if only his mother was human, you admit that he is mine:
if neither father nor mother was human, then he is not the son
of man at all, and we must conclude that he told a lie when he
called himself something that he was not. One thing alone can
get you out of these straits—if you are bold enough either to give
your god, the father of Christ, the name of Man, which is what
Valentinus did with the aeon,¹ or else to deny that the virgin is
human, which is a thing not even Valentinus has done. Next,
what if in Daniel Christ is dignified with this actual title, Son of
man ? ⁱ Is not this good enough proof that Christ is the subject of
prophecy? For when he calls himself by that title which was in
prophecy applied to the Christ of the Creator, without question
he offers himself for recognition as that one to whom the prophecy
applied. Joint possession of names, perhaps, can be regarded as
having no special significance—though even so I maintain that
persons possessed of opposite characteristics had no right to be
called either Christ or Jesus. But a title, such as 'Son of man',
arises from attendant circumstances, and to that extent it is not
easy for it to have any pertinence beyond the possession of the
same name. Arising from attendant circumstances, it is applicable
to one person alone, especially when there is no recurrence of
the same cause for which it could become a joint possession. So
then if Marcion's Christ too were reported to be of human birth,
in that case he also would be eligible for joint possession of the
title, and there would be two sons of man, as there would be two
named Christ and Jesus. Therefore since this title belongs to that
one alone to whom it has reason to apply, if it is also claimed for
another, one in whom there is joint possession of the name though
not of the title, the joint possession of the name too falls under
suspicion in the case of the one for whom without good reason
is claimed joint possession of the title. So it follows that we must
take it to be one and the same Person whom we believe more
capable of possessing both the name and the title, to the exclusion
of the other who, having no good reason for it, is not in joint
possession of the title. Nor can anyone be found more capable of
possessing both <name and title> than he who first came into pos-
session of the name of Christ and the title Son of man, namely

10. ¹ In the Valentinian system Man (Anthropos), with his consort Church,
was not a man but a supercelestial personage, in the second tetrad of emanations
from the original Depth and Silence. He was thus far higher than the Creator,
who was entirely excluded from the fullness of the godhead. Cf. adv. Val. 8.

the Creator's Jesus. He it was whom the Babylonian king saw
in the furnace, a fourth along with his martyrs, in form like a son
of man.^{2, j} He was also revealed expressly to Daniel himself as
the Son of man^k coming as judge with the clouds of heaven, as
scripture also shows him to be. I have affirmed that this could be
enough about the names the prophets give in reference to the
Son of man. But scripture provides me with still more, by our
Lord's own interpretation. When the Jews were taking account
only of his manhood, not yet aware that he was also God, as being
also God's Son, and were (as might be expected) arguing that
a man cannot forgive sins, but only God can, how is it that the
answer he gave them concerning man, that he has power to
forgive sins—when by using the expression 'Son of man' he im-
plied 'man' as well—was not in terms of their objection? Was it
not that it was his wish by this title Son of man from the book of
Daniel to turn their complaint back upon them in such form as
to prove that he who was forgiving sins was both God and Man—
that one and only Son of man in terms of Daniel's prophecy, who
had obtained power to judge, and by it of course the power to
forgive sins (for he who judges also acquits)—and so after that
cause of offence had been dispersed by his citation of scripture,
they might the more readily recognize from that very act of for-
giving sins that he and no other was the Son of man? Actually,
he had never before professed himself the Son of man, but on
this occasion first on which he first forgave sins—that is, on which
he first exercised judgement, by acquittal. On this subject take
note of what all the arguments amount to which our adversaries
allege. They cannot avoid arriving at such a pitch of madness
as to insist <that Christ is> the Son of man, so as not to make him
a liar, yet to deny that he is of human birth, to escape admitting
that he is the Virgin's son. But if both divine authority, and the
facts of nature, and common logic, do not admit of this hereti-
cal idiocy, we have even here occasion to insist, in the sharpest
possible terms, on the reality of <Christ's> body, in opposition to
Marcion's phantasms. If, being the Son of man, he is of human
birth, there is body derived from body. Evidently you could more
easily discover a man born without heart or brains, like Marcion,

10. ² The Babylonian king said 'one like a son of a god'. Tertullian was think-
ing of Dan. 7: 13 and 10: 16; he makes the same mistake adv.Prax. 16. Below,
Ch. 21. 8, he explains tanquam.

than without a body, like Marcion's Christ. Go and search then
for the heart, or the brains, of that man of Pontus.

11. [Luke 5: 27-39.] The publican chosen by our Lord for a
disciple is brought into the argument by Marcion with the sug-
gestion that because he was outside the law and regarded by the
Jews as unclean, he must have been chosen by one hostile to the
law. It has escaped his notice even concerning Peter, a man under
the law, who was for all that not only chosen but received com-
mendation for having knowledge granted him by the Father.^a He
had nowhere, <it appears>, seen it written that Christ is pro-
claimed as the light and hope and expectation of the gentiles.
Yet <Christ> expressed approval of Jews more than others when
he said that the whole have no need of a physician, but those that
are sick: for if by those in ill health he meant them to understand
those heathen men and publicans of whom he was making his
choice, this was an assurance that those Jews who he said had
no need of a physician, were in good health. If that is so, his
coming down to destroy the law was ill-conceived, if his purpose
was the remedy of that ill-health, when those who were living in
the law were in good health, and had no need of a physician.
What can have been the use of his setting out the parable of the
physician and not acting on it? For just as no one brings a physi-
cian to people in health, neither does he bring one to people so
alien as man is from Marcion's god, when that man has his own
author and protector, and from him for preference that physician
who is Christ. This the parable predetermines, that the physician
is more likely to be provided by him to whom the sick persons
belong. From what direction does John make his appearance?
Christ unexpected: John also unexpected. With Marcion all
things are like that: with the Creator they have their own com-
pact order. The rest about John later, since it is best to answer
each separate point as it arises. At present I shall make it my
purpose to show both that John is in accord with Christ and
Christ in accord with John, the Creator's Christ with the Creator's
prophet, that so the heretic may be put to shame at having to no
advantage made John's work of no advantage. For if John's work
had been utterly without effect when, as Isaiah says, he cried
aloud in the wilderness as preparer of the ways of the Lord by
the demanding and commending of repentance, and if he had

not along with the others baptized Christ himself, no one could
have challenged Christ's disciples for eating and drinking, or
referred them to the example of John's disciples who were assi-
dous in fasting and prayer: because if any opposition had stood
between Christ and John, and between the followers of each,
there could have been no demand for imitation, and the force
of the challenge would have been lost. For no one could think
it strange and no one be put to grief if the rival preachings of
hostile divinities were also discordant in their rules of conduct,
having begun by being discordant in the authorities imposing the
rules. Consequently Christ belonged to John and John to Christ,
and both to the Creator, both concerned with the law and the
prophets, as preachers and teachers. Otherwise Christ would have
repudiated John's rules, as pertaining to a different god, and
would have commended his disciples for quite rightly following
different practices, having been brought into the service of a
different divinity of opposite character. As things are, by sub-
missively offering the explanation that the sons of the bridegroom
could not fast so long as the bridegroom was with them, and by
promising that they would afterwards fast when the bridegroom
had been taken from them, he did not commend the disciples,
but rather found excuses for them, as though the rebuke was not
without cause, nor did he repudiate John's rule of conduct but
rather gave it approval: for the present he allowed it to John's
circumstances, for the future approving it for circumstances of
his own. Otherwise he would have repudiated it, and commended
its opponents, if the rule which then existed had not been a rule
of his own. I recognize my Christ also under that name of Bride-
groom, of whom the psalm speaks: He himself is as a bridegroom
coming forth out of his chamber: from the height of heaven is his going
forth, and his returning even unto the height of it.^b Also in Isaiah, re-
joicing in his father's presence, he says, Let my soul exult in the Lord,
for he hath clothed me with the garment of salvation and with the robe of
joyfulness, as for a bridegroom, and hath placed upon me a crown as for
a bride.^c He accounts the church as in himself, and concerning
it the same Spirit says to him: Thou shall clothe thee with them all,
as an ornament upon a bride.^d This bride Christ also summons to him-
self by the mouth of Solomon, if indeed you have found this
written, Come, my bride, from Lebanon,^e pleasantly introducing the
mention of Lebanon, the mountain, which among the Greeks is

the word for incense: for it was out of idolatry that he made the
church his bride. Now deny, if you can, your utter madness,
Marcion: you go so far as to assail the law of your own god. He
contracts no marriages, nor recognizes them when contracted,
refuses baptism except to the celibate or the eunuch, keeping it
back until death or divorce. How then can you call his Christ
a bridegroom? This title belongs to him who has joined together
male and female, not to one who has put them asunder. You
are in error also about that pronouncement of our Lord in which
he is seen to make a distinction between new things and old. You
are puffed up with old wineskins, and befuddled with new wine,
and consequently have sewn the patch of heretical newness upon
the old, which is the prior, gospel. In what respect, please tell
me, is the Creator other <than himself>? When he gave command
by Jeremiah, Renew for yourselves a new fallow,^f did he not turn
them away from things old? When by Isaiah he declares, The
old things are passed away, behold these are new things that I make,^g is
he not turning them round towards new things? I have long
since established the fact that this termination of the ancient
things was rather the Creator's own promise made actual in
Christ, under the authority of that one same God to whom be-
long both old things and new. For new wine is not put into old
bottles by one who has never had any old bottles, and no man
adds a new piece to an old garment unless he has an old garment
to add it to. The <only> person who abstains from doing a thing
if it ought not to be done, is the person who has the means of
doing it if it ought to be done. Consequently, if <Christ> was
applying the parable to this purpose, of indicating that he separa-
ted the newness of the gospel from the oldness of the law, he made
it clear that that from which he separated it was his own, and
ought not to have been stigmatized as evil by the separation
of things which did not belong: because no man combines his
own belongings with those of others just to make it possible to
separate them from those of the others. Separation is possible
because things are conjoined: and their conjunction brings it
about. So he made it plain that the things he was separating had
once been in unity, as they would have continued to be if he were
not separating them. In that sense we admit this separation, by
way of reformation, of enlargement, of progress, as fruit is sepa-
rated from seed, since fruit comes out of seed. So also the gospel is

separated from the law, because it is an advance from out of the
law, another thing than the law, though not an alien thing,
different, though not opposed. Nor is there in Christ any novel
style of discourse. When he sets forth similitudes, when he answers
questions, this comes from the seventy-seventh psalm: I will open
my mouth, he says, in a parable, which means a similitude: I will
utter dark sayings,^h which means, I will explain difficulties. If you
had wished to prove a man was of a foreign nation, perhaps you
would do so by his idiomatic use of his native speech.

12. [Luke 6: 1-11.] Concerning the sabbath also I make this
preliminary remark, that there could have been no ground for
this objection either, except that Christ represented himself as
Lord of the sabbath.¹ There could have been no discussion as to
why he was breaking the sabbath, if it had been his duty to break
it. And it would have been his duty to break it, if he had belonged
to that other god, and no one would have been surprised at his
doing what it was incumbent upon him to do. The reason for
their surprise then was that it was not his business both to repre-
sent God the Creator and to assail his sabbath. So then, that we
may have a decision on all these primary matters, so as not to have
to repeat ourselves at every quibble of our opponent which rests
upon some new aspect of Christ's teaching, this postulate shall
be taken as established, that the only reason why discussion arose
at the novelty of any of his teaching was that nothing had ever
yet been said about any novel deity, nor had there been any
discussion of it: nor can the retort be made that by the actual
novelty of each point of his teaching Christ gave sufficient proof
of a different deity, since it is perfectly clear that there is no room
for surprise at the existence in Christ of that novelty which the
Creator had actually promised. Surely the natural process would
have been for that other god to be first brought to notice, and
afterwards for his moral code to be introduced: because it is the
god that gives authority to the code, not the code that gives
authority to the god—unless of course Marcion did not obtain
his perverse writings from a teacher but learned of the teacher
through the writings. The other considerations regarding the
sabbath I set out as follows. If Christ did subvert the sabbath,
he acted after the Creator's example: for at the siege of the city

12. ¹ The sabbath: II. 21 and adv. Jud. 4.

of Jericho the carrying of the ark of the covenant round the walls
for eight days, including the sabbath, by the Creator's express
command, broke the sabbath by working—or so those people
think who have the same opinion also of Christ, being unaware
that neither did Christ break the sabbath nor did the Creator,
as I shall shortly show. Even so, the sabbath was on that occasion
broken by Joshua so that this too might be taken as referring to
Christ. Even if it was through hatred that he made an attack on
the Jews' most solemn day because <as Marcion alleges> he was
not the Jews' Christ, even by this hatred of the sabbath he, the
Creator's Christ, acknowledged the Creator, following up his cry
made by the mouth of Isaiah: Your new moons and sabbaths my soul
hateth.^a Now in whatever sense this was spoken we know that in
circumstances of this kind a sharp reproof has to be put in action
against a sharp provocation. Next I shall argue the case in refer-
ence to the actual subject in which Christ's rule of conduct has
been thought to destroy the sabbath. The disciples had been
hungry: on that very day they had plucked the ears of corn and
rubbed them in their hands: by preparing food they had made
a breach in the holy day. Christ holds them guiltless, and so be-
comes guilty of infringing the sabbath: the pharisees are his
accusers. Marcion takes exception to the heads² of the controversy
—if I may play about a bit with the truth of my Lord³—written
document and intention. A plausible answer² is based upon the
Creator's written document and on Christ's intention, as by
the precedent of David who on the sabbath day entered into the
temple^b and prepared food by boldly breaking up the loaves of
the shewbread.⁴ For he too remembered that even from the
beginning, since the sabbath day was first instituted, this privilege
was granted to it—I mean exemption from fasting. For when the
Creator forbade the gathering of two days' supply of manna, he
allowed it only on the day before the sabbath, so that by having
food prepared the day before he might make immune from
fasting the holy day of the sabbath that followed. Well it is then
that our Lord followed the same purpose in breaking down the
sabbath—if that is what they want it called: well it is also that he

12. ² Status and color as terms of rhetoric: Quintilian, inst. orat. in. vi sqq.
³ Holmes translates this: 'if I may call in aid the truth of my Lord to ridicule
his arts'. He may be right.
⁴ At 1 Sam. 21:3 the sabbath is not mentioned.

gave effect to the Creator's intention by the privilege of not
fasting on the sabbath. In fact he would have once and for all
broken the sabbath, and the Creator besides, if he had enjoined
his disciples to fast on the sabbath, in opposition to the fact of
scripture and of the Creator's intention. So then, as he did not
keep his disciples in close constraint, but now finds excuse for
them: as he puts in answer human necessity as begging for con-
siderate treatment: as he conserves the higher privilege of the
sabbath, of freedom from sorrow rather than abstention from
work: as he associates David and his followers with his own
disciples in fault and in permission: as he is in agreement with the
relaxation the Creator has given: as after the Creator's example
he himself is equally kind: is he on that account an alien from
the Creator? After that the pharisees watch if he will heal a man
on the sabbath, that they might accuse him—evidently <accuse him>
as a breaker of the sabbath, not as the setter forth of a strange
god: for perhaps I shall everywhere insist on this point alone, that
nowhere was there any prophecy of a different Christ. But the
pharisees were utterly in error about the law of the sabbath,
having failed to notice that it is under certain conditions that it
enjoins abstention from works, under a specific aspect of them. For
when it says of the sabbath day, No work of thine shall thou do in it,^c
by saying thine it has made a ruling concerning that human work
which any man performs by his craft or business, not divine work.
But the work of healing or of rescue is not properly man's
work but God's. So again in the law it says, In it thou shall do no
manner of work, save that which is to be done for every soul, that is, with
the purpose of setting a soul free: for the work of God can be done
even by the agency of a man, for the saving of a soul, yet God is
the doer of it: and this as Man Christ also was going to do, be-
cause he is also God. Because of his desire to lead them towards
this understanding of the law by the restoration of the withered
hand, he asks them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath, or not ? to
set a soul free, or to destroy it?: so that by giving approval to that
sort of work which he purposed to do for the soul, he might give
them warning of what works the law of the sabbath forbade,
human works, and what works it enjoined, divine works, which
were to be done for every soul. He called himself Lord of the
sabbath, because he was protecting the sabbath as belonging to
himself. Though even if he had broken it, he would have had the

right to, because he who has given a thing existence is even more
than lord of it. But he did not, as its Lord, wholly destroy it, and
so it can now become clear that not even of old at the carrying
of the ark at Jericho was the sabbath destroyed. For that too was
a work of God, which he himself had commanded, and which
he had ordained for the sake of the souls of his own men which
were exposed to the hazards of war. And even if he has in some
place expressed his hatred of sabbaths, by saying Your sabbaths,^d
he reckons as men's sabbaths, not his own, those which are cele-
brated without the fear of God by a people full of sins, who love
God with the lips and not with the heart: while to his own sabbaths,
all such as should be kept by his rules, he assigned a different
quality, and these he afterwards by that same prophet pro-
nounces true and delightsome^e and not to be profaned.^f Nor then
did Christ in any way revoke the sabbath, but retained the law
of it both just before in the case of the disciples when he performed
a work for their soul—for he granted to hungry men the comfort
of food—and just now when he heals the withered hand: on
each occasion he insists by his actions, I am not come to destroy the
law but to fulfil it,^g even if Marcion has closed his mouth with this
word. Even in this instance he fulfilled the law by explaining the
circumstances which condition it, by throwing light upon different
kinds of works, by doing the things which the law exempts from
the restraints of the sabbath, by making even more holy by his
own kind deeds that sabbath day which since the beginning had
been holy by the Father's kind words; for in it he made himself
the minister of those divine aids, <a ministry> which an adversary
would have provided for on other days to avoid doing honour to
the Creator's sabbath and giving back to the sabbath the works
which are proper to it. If on that day the prophet Elisha restored
to life^h the Shunamite woman's son that was dead,⁵ you observe,
O pharisee, and you too, Marcion, that of old it was the Creator's
practice to do good on sabbath days, to set a soul free, not to
destroy it, and that Christ introduced nothing new, nothing which
was not in line with the example, the gentleness, the mercy, even
the prophecies, of the Creator. For here too he puts into present
effect the prophecy of a particular kind of healing: weak hands
are strengthened,ⁱ as also were enfeebled knees in the sick of the
palsy.

12. ⁵ At 2 Kings 4: 23 the woman's husband says it is not the sabbath.

13. [Luke 6: 12-19.] You cannot deny that he brings to Sion and
Jerusalem good tidings of peace and of all good things, nor that
he goes up into the mountain and there spends all night in prayer,
and in effect is heard by his Father. Open then the prophets, and
you will find it all set in order there. Get thee up, says Isaiah, into
the high mountain, O thou that bringest good tidings to Sion, lift up thy
voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem.^a Even
now with strength were they astonished at his doctrine: for he
taught them as one that had power.^b And again: Therefore my
people shall know my name at that day—what name, unless it be
Christ's?—because it is I myself who speak:^c because it was he him-
self who was then speaking in the prophets, the Word, the Son
of the Creator. I am here, while the time is, upon the mountains, as one
that bringeth good tidings of the hearing of peace, as bringing good tidings
of good things.^d Also Nahum, one of the twelve, For behold, swift
upon the mountain are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings of peace:^e
But concerning the voice of prayer all night to the Father, the
psalm manifestly speaks: O my God, I will cry throughout the day,
and thou wilt hear, and at night, and it shall not be to me for vanity.^f And
in another place a psalm speaks of the same place and voice:
With my voice I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me from his holy moun-
tain.^g So you have his name made present, you have the action
of one who brings good tidings, you have his place on the moun-
tain, and the time at night, and the sound of the voice, and the
Father hearing him: you have the Christ of the prophets. But
why did he choose twelve apostles, and not some other number?
Nay but even from this I could find that my Christ is indicated,
one foretold not only by the voices of the prophets but also by
the evidences of facts. I find figurative indications of this number
in the Creator's scriptures, the twelve springs at Elim, the twelve
jewels on Aaron's priestly garment, and the twelve stones chosen
by Joshua out of Jordan and laid up in the ark of the covenant.^h
For this was a previous indication that apostles to that number
would like fountains and rivers irrigate the world of the gentiles
which had formerly been dried up and deserted of knowledge—
as he also says in Isaiah, I will place rivers in a waterless landⁱ—and
would like jewels shed light upon the holy vesture of the church,
that vesture which Christ the Father's high priest has put on,
and would be firm in the faith like stones which the true Joshua

has chosen out of the baptism of Jordan and received into the
holy place of his own covenant. Has Marcion's Christ anything
that justifies his retention of that number? It cannot be thought
that a thing was done by him without special meaning, which
can be seen to have been done by my Christ with special mean-
ing. The fact itself must belong to the one with whom is found
the preparation for the fact. Also he changes Simon's name to
Peter, because the Creator too had altered the names of Abraham
and Sarah and Auses, calling this last one Joshua [Jesus], adding
syllables to the other two. Also why Peter? If because of force-
fulness of faith, there were many firm and solid materials to lend
a name of their own. Or was it because Christ is both rock and
stone? For we do indeed find it written that he is set for a stone
of stumbling and a rock of offence.^j I leave out the rest. And so
he made a point of passing on to the dearest of his disciples a
name specially connected with the types of himself, a closer name,
I imagine, than one drawn from other types than his. There
come together from Tyre and Sidon, and from other countries, a
multitude even from over the sea. This the psalm had in mind:
And behold, the Philistines and Tyre and the people of the Morians, these
have been there: Mother Sion, a man will say, and he became man in her—
because God as man was born—and he hath builded her by the will
of the Father^k—that you may know that the reason why the gentiles
then came together to him was that God as Man had been born
and was to build up the church by the Father's will, even from
among the Philistines. So also Isaiah, Lo, these do come from far,
and these come from the north and from the sea, and others from the land
of the Persians.^l Of these he says again, Lift up thine eyes round about
and see, all these are gathered together.^m And of the same a little later,
when she sees the unknown and the strangers: And thou shall say
to thine heart, Who hath begotten me these? and who hath brought me up
these? and these, tell me, where have they been?ⁿ Must not this be the
Christ of the prophets? So who can the Christ of the Marcionites
be? If perversity is to their mind, the Christ who was not of the
prophets.

14. [Luke 6: 20-2.] I come next to those customary judgements by
which he builds up his own special doctrine, what I may call the

magisterial edict of Christ.¹ Blessed are the indigent—for the transla-
tion of the word which is in the Greek requires it so—for theirs is
the kingdom of God. Now this very fact that he begins with blessings
is characteristic of the Creator, who with no other voice than of
benediction gave sanctity to the universe of things as soon as he
made them. For he says, My heart hath disgorged a supremely good
word.^a This must be that excellent Word, of benediction surely,
who by the precedent of the old covenant is recognized as the
initiator of the new covenant as well. What wonder is it then, if
he also by words of this kind begins his discourse with the Crea-
tor's affections, the Creator who always expresses his love for
the indigent, the poor, the humble, and the widows and orphans,
comforting, protecting, and avenging them—so that you may
take this (as it were) private bounty of Christ to be a stream from
the Saviour's fountains? Truly I do not know which way to turn
among so great a multitude of words such as these, as it might be
in a thicket or a meadow or an orchard of fruits. I must take up
each instance at random, as chance suggests it. The psalm calls
out, Judge for the fatherless and indigent, and treat with justice the
humble and poor: deliver the poor, and rend the indigent out of the hand
of the sinner.^b Also the seventy-first psalm, With righteousness shall
he judge the indigent of the people, and shall make safe the sons of the
poor. And in what follows, it refers to Christ: All the gentiles shall
serve him.^c Now David had power over the Jewish people only:
so let no one think it was said with reference to David that he
had taken to himself the humble and those who were borne down
by need and want. Because, he says, he hath delivered the indigent
from the mighty: he shall spare the indigent and poor, and shall make
safe the souls of the poor, and shall redeem their souls from usury and
injustice, and honoured shall their name be in his sight.^d Also: Let the
sinners be turned aside into hell, all the gentiles who forget God, because the
indigent man shall not for ever be kept for oblivion, the patient abiding
of poor men shall not for ever perish.^e Also, Who is like our God, who
hath his dwelling on high, and hath regard for humble things in heaven
and on earth: who lifteth up the indigent from the earth, and exalteth the

14. ¹ Tertullian suggests that the beatitudes and the woes, after the manner
of the praetor's perpetual edict, are Christ's statement of the principles on
which he will act when he comes to judge the world.

poor out of the dunghill, that he may make him to sit with the princes of
the people?^f—meaning, in God's own kingdom. Also, further back,
in Kingdoms, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, in the Spirit gives
glory to God and says, He lifteth up the poor from the earth, the indigent
also, that he may make him to sit with the mighty ones of the people,
evidently in his own kingdom, and upon thrones of glory,^g royal
thrones. And in Isaiah also how does he lash out against the
oppressors of the needy: Ye then, what mean ye that ye set fire to my
vineyard, and the spoil of the indigent is in your houses? Wherefore do
ye oppress my people, and shame the face of the indigent ?^h And again,
Woe to them that write down iniquity, for in writing they write down
wickedness, avoiding the judgements of the indigent, and ravaging the
rights of the poor of my people.ⁱ These judgements he also demands
on behalf of orphans and widows, these too being in need of
consolation: Do judgement for the orphan, and deal justly with the
widow, and come, let us be reconciled, saith the Lord.^j Whosoever has
that great affection which the Creator has for every rank of
humble estate, his also will be the kingdom promised by Christ,
whose affection all those already enjoy to whom the promise is
made. Even if you suppose the Creator's promises were earthly,
while Christ's are heavenly, it is well enough that until now there
is no indication of heaven belonging to any other god but the
God to whom earth belongs: it is well enough that the Creator
has made promises of even lesser things, because this makes it
easy for me to believe him in respect of greater things, rather than
one who has not previously on a foundation of lesser things built
up faith in his liberality. Blessed are they that hunger, for they shall
be filled. I should have been able to attach this clause to the one
before, because they that hunger are precisely the same as the
poor and the indigent, except that the Creator had particularly
designed this promise as preparatory work for that gospel which
in fact is his own: because by Isaiah he speaks thus of those,
meaning the gentiles, whom he would call to him from the end
of the earth: Behold swiftly, lightly, will they come^k—swiftly because
they are in haste, towards the end of the times, lightly because
they are free of the burdens of the ancient law. They shall not
hunger nor thirst—which means they will be filled, and a promise
like this is only made to such as are hungry and thirsty. And

again, Behold they that serve me shall be filed, but ye shall be hungry:
behold they that serve me shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty.^l We shall
ask ourselves whether even these contrasts are not preparatory
for Christ. For the moment, in that he promises the hungry they
will be filled, he belongs to the Creator. Blessed are they that weep,
for they shall laugh. Proceed with the statement of Isaiah: Behold
they that serve me shall exult in joyfulness, but ye shall be put to shame:
behold they that serve me shall be made glad, but ye shall cry aloud for
sorrow of heart.^m Take note of these contrasts also in Christ's words.
Undoubtedly gladness and exultation in joyfulness are promised
to those who are in opposite circumstances, the sad, the sorrowful,
and the distressed. In fact psalm one hundred and twenty-five
also says, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.ⁿ Certainly laughter
is quite as characteristic of those who exult and are in joyfulness,
as weeping is of those in sorrow and grief. Thus by his prophecy of
causes for laughter and of weeping the Creator was the first to
say that those who mourn will laugh. Consequently, when he
began his discourse with consolation to the poor and lowly, to
those who were hungry and in tears, <Christ> took immediate
steps to identify himself with that one of whom he had given
indications in Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he
hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.^o Blessed are the indigent,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven^p—He hath sent me to heal the broken
hearted.^o Blessed are they that are hungry, for they shall be filled—^pTo
comfort those that mourn.^o Blessed are they that weep, for they shall laugh^p—
To give to them that mourn the glory of Sion, and instead of ashes the
joyfulness of anointing, and the garment of glory for the spirit of heaviness.^o
If this is the ministry Christ fulfilled immediately on entering his
course, either he is the same who foretold that he would come for
this purpose, or else, if he who foretold it has not yet come, foolishly
perhaps, yet of necessity, I shall have to say, he must have given
his commission to Marcion's Christ. Blessed shall ye be when men
shall hate you and reproach you and shall cast out your name as evil for
the Son of man's sake. By this pronouncement he no doubt exhorts
them to endurance. What less did the Creator say by Isaiah?
Fear ye not reproach from men, neither be ye brought low by their reviling.^q
What reproach, what reviling? That which was to come for the
Son of man's sake. And who is this? The one who follows the
Creator's pattern. How shall I prove it? Because of the hatred

prophesied against him: as by Isaiah, addressing the Jews, the
instigators of hatred: For your sakes my name is blasphemed among the
gentiles:^r and in another place: Sanctify him who doth cut off his
own soul, who is held in scorn by the gentiles, the servants and the rulers.^s
For if hatred was foretold against that Son of man who follows
the Creator's pattern, while the gospel testifies that the name
of Christians, which evidently is derived from Christ, will be
hated for the Son of man's sake, and this is Christ, it indicates
as the reason for that hatred the Son of man who was after the
Creator's pattern, him against whom hatred was foretold. And
in fact, if he were not yet come, the hatred of the name, which is
today a present fact, could not have come into evidence before the
Person to whom the name belongs. For he is even now sanctified
among us, and does cut off his own soul by laying it down for
our sake, and is held in scorn by the gentiles. Also one who has
experienced human birth, he and no other must be that Son of
man for whose sake even our name is cast out as evil.

15. [Luke 6: 23-6.] In like manner, he says, did their fathers to the
prophets. See this turncoat Christ, first the destroyer of the pro-
phets, and next the vindicator of them: as their enemy destroying
them, by converting their disciples to himself: as a friend, vindi-
cating them, by casting reproach upon their persecutors. Now,
in so far as vindication of the prophets would have been out of
character with the Christ of Marcion who had come to destroy
them, to that same extent it is in character with the Creator's
Christ to cast reproach upon the persecutors of those prophets
whom in all points he was fulfilling—at least because to blame
the sons for the fathers' sins is more in keeping with the Creator
than it is with that god who does not even censure a man for his
own sins. But, you say, he was not necessarily acting in defence
of the prophets if it was his intention to insist on the iniquity of
the Jews in not treating with kindness even their own prophets.
Yes, but here there was no excuse for blaming the Jews for wrong-
doing: they should rather have been praised and commended, if
they took strong action against those to whose destruction after
all these ages your very good god has at last bestirred himself.
But, I imagine, he is no longer perfectly good: at length he shares
something of the Creator's character, and has ceased to be entirely

Epicurus' god. For see, he betakes himself to cursing and shows
himself to be one who is capable of offence and anger. For he says
Woe. So we have the question raised of the import of this word,
with the suggestion that it implies not so much malediction as
admonition.¹ But what is the difference in intention, when even
an admonition is not given without the spur of commination,
especially when made more astringent by the word Woe? Also
both admonition and commination are in character with one
who is capable of being angry. For no one is going either by ad-
monition or by commination to forbid a person to do something,
unless he is going to inflict punishment if it is done. No one can
inflict punishment, but one who is capable of anger. There are
others indeed who admit the word involves cursing, but will have
it that Christ uttered the word Woe not as proceeding strictly
from his own judgement, but because the word woe comes from
the Creator, and he wished to set before them the Creator's
severity, and so give greater commendation to his own tolerance
previously in the beatitudes. As though this were not within the
Creator's competence, in that he presents himself in both aspects,
as the kind God and as the Judge, having given previous indica-
tion of his kindness in the benedictions, afterwards to append his
severity in the maledictions—the full extent of his moral law to
be built up in both directions, no less for men to seek after his
benediction than for them to take precaution against his maledic-
tion. For he had long ago set it down in that form: Behold I have
set before you blessing and cursing^a—which was also an early indica-
tion of this double aspect of the gospel. In any case what sort of
person is that who for the sake of suggesting his own kindness
begins by pointing the contrast of the Creator's sternness? A poor
sort of commendation is this, which props itself up by the running
down of someone else. But, you say, by pointing the contrast of
the Creator's sternness he did establish the fact that he is one to
be feared. <Yes: but> if one to be feared, one rather to be obeyed
than disregarded, and Marcion's Christ begins now to give teach-
ing on behalf of the Creator. Again, if that Woe which has the
rich in view is the Creator's, then it is not Christ who is angry
with the rich, but the Creator, and Christ sets his approval
on rich men's claims, that pride and glory, I mean, that devotion
to the world and neglect of God, for which they deserve that Woe

15. ¹ On blessing and cursing: Irenaeus, A.H. iv. xliv. 1-3.

from the Creator. And surely this disapproval of the rich must
proceed from the same <Christ> who has just now expressed
approval of the indigent. Any man disapproves of the contrary
of that of which he has expressed approval. So it follows that if
that curse against the rich is ascribed to the Creator, the blessing
of the indigent must also be claimed for him, and in that case
the whole work of Christ is the Creator's work. If the blessing
meant for the indigent is to be ascribed to Marcion's god, the
cursing meant for the rich must be set down to him too, and in
that case he will be exactly like the Creator, a kind god and also
a judge, and there will no longer be room for that distinction by
which there come to be two gods, and, as the distinction is
abolished, there will remain no other course than for the Creator
to be pronounced the only God there is. Therefore if Woe is a
term of malediction, or of some unusually severe reproof, and if
it is by Christ directed against the rich, I have to prove that the
Creator too disapproves of the rich, as I have already proved
that he is a comforter of the indigent, so that in this sentiment
too I may show that Christ is with the Creator. For if the Creator
made Solomon rich, this was because when given the opportunity
of choosing he thought it better to ask for things which he knew
were pleasing to God—wisdom and understanding—and thus
was worthy to obtain the riches also to which he had not given
the preference. And yet even to grant a man riches is not out of
character with God, for both by these the rich obtain ease and
comfort, and with them are performed many works of justice
and charity. But the faults incidental to riches, the woes in the
gospel impute these also to rich persons, Because, it says, ye have
received your comfort—meaning, from your riches, because of the
reputation they bring and the worldly benefits. And so in Deutero-
nomy Moses says, Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built
great houses, and thy sheep and thy oxen are multiplied, and thy silver and
gold, thy heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord thy God.^b So also
against Hezekiah the king, when he was puffed up for his treasures'
sake, and had boasted of them rather than of God in the presence
of the men who had come from Persia,² <the Creator> makes an
attack by Isaiah, Behold the days come, in which all things that are
in thy house shall be taken away, and the things which thy fathers have
heaped together shall be removed to Babylon.^c And by Jeremiah also

15. ² The messengers had come from Babylon: Isa. 39: 1; 2 Kings 20: 12.

he said, Let not the rich man glory in his riches, but he that glorieth^d—
let him in fact glory in the Lord. So also he attacks the daughters
of Sion by Isaiah when they are haughty through luxury and
abundance of riches, as he was also in another place to utter
threats against the high-born and the proud: Hell hath enlarged his
soul and opened his mouth, and the nobles and the great men and the
rich—here will be Christ's Woe over the rich—shall go down there,
and a man shall be brought low—evidently one exalted by riches—
and a mighty man shall be dishonoured^e—obviously one honoured for
his possessions' sake. And concerning these again: Behold the Lord
of hosts shall shatter the overweening with strength, and the high ones
shall be smitten down, and the haughty shall fall by the sword.^f And
who are these but the rich? For they have received their comfort,
glory and honour, their high estate from their riches. To warn
us away from these he says also in psalm forty-eight, Be not thou
afraid, though a man be made rich, even though his glory be increased,
because he shall take none of them when he dieth, neither shall his glory
go down <to the grave> with him.^g Also in psalm sixty-one, Desire not
riches, and if they are lustrous, set not your heart upon them.^h Lastly, that
same word woe is directed by Amos against rich men who abound
in delights: Woe, he says, to them that sleep on beds of ivory, and
flow with delights upon their couches, who eat the kids out of the flocks
of goats and the sucking calves out of the herds of cattle, who beat time
to the sound of instruments—they reckoned these as things that
abide, not as things that flee away—who drink their wine refined,
and anoint themselves with the chief ointments.ⁱ Therefore even if I
had done no more than show the Creator dissuading men from
riches, and not also condemning rich men in advance, and that
with the same word that Christ also used, no one could deny
that the threat added against the rich by that woe of Christ, came
from the same authority from whom the dissuasion from the
objects themselves, the riches, had already issued. For a threat is
something added to dissuasion. He utters a woe also against those
who are full, because they will be hungry; as also to those who
laugh now, for they shall mourn. With this correspond the things
already mentioned as set over against his benedictions by the
Creator: Behold, they that serve me shall be filled, but ye shall be hungry—
evidently because you have been filled: and behold, they that serve

me shall rejoice, but ye shall be put to shame^j—evidently, you will
weep who now laugh. For as it says in the psalm, They that sow
in tears shall reap in joy,^k so also in the gospel, they that sow in
laughter, that is, because of joy, shall reap in tears. Long ago
did the Creator set these things side by side: Christ, by not chang-
ing them but only giving them emphasis, has made them new.
Woe when men shall speak well of you. That is what their fathers used
to do to the false prophets. No less does the Creator, by Isaiah,
censure those who seek after the blessing and praise of men: O
my people, they that call you blessed do lead you astray and disturb the
paths of your feet.^l And in other terms he even forbids them to have
any confidence in a man, and consequently not in man's praise,
as by Jeremiah, Cursed is the man who hath hope in a man.^m For he
says also in psalm one hundred and seventeen, It is better to trust
in God than to put confidence in man, and it is better to hope in God
than to hope in princes.ⁿ So then everything that people try to ob-
tain from man, the Creator has given judgement against, in-
cluding their well-speaking. He it is who condemns their fathers
no less for praising and blessing the false prophets, than for
persecuting and rejecting the true prophets: just as the insults
done to the prophets could not have been acceptable to the God
of those prophets, even so the favours done to the false prophets
could have been displeasing only to the God of the true prophets.

16. [Luke 6: 27-31.] But, he says, to you I say who hear—proving
that this is a long-standing command of the Creator, Speak in the
ears of them that hear^a—Love your enemies, and bless them that hate you,
and pray for them that speak evil of you. All this the Creator has en-
closed in one sentence by Isaiah, Say to them that hate you, Ye are
our brethren.^b For if we have to address as brethren those who are
our enemies, who hate us and curse us and speak evil of us,
evidently he who gave instructions for them to be reckoned as
brethren is the one who has given the command to bless those
that hate us and pray for those who speak evil of us. Admittedly
Christ teaches a new degree of forbearance, when he puts restraint
on that retaliation for injury which the Creator permitted by
demanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: for he on
the contrary orders us rather to offer the other cheek, and in

addition to the coat to let go of the cloak also. Evidently Christ
will have added this as supplementary, yet in agreement with
the Creator's rules. So we need an immediate decision on this
question, whether the rule of forbearance is contained in the
Creator's teaching. When by Zechariah he gives the instruction,
Let not any one of you remember his brother's malice,^c that includes his
neighbour. For again he says, Let not any one of you think over his
neighbour's malice.^d He who has charged them to forget the injury
has even more than given them charge to bear with it. But again
when he says, Vengeance is mine and I will avenge,^e he inculcates
forbearance, as that which stands in expectation of vengeance.
So then, in so far as it is quite incredible that the demand of tooth
for tooth and eye for eye in return for an injury should proceed
from the same one who forbids not only retaliation, not only
vengeance, but even the remembrance and recollection of injury,
to that extent it becomes clear to us in what sense he decreed an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—not so as to permit
a second injury of retaliation, seeing he had forbidden this by
prohibiting vengeance, but so as to set restraint upon the first.
This he had forbidden by the interposition of retaliation, so that
every man, having regard to that permission for a second injury,
might abstain from committing the first. For he is aware that
violence is more readily restrained by the immediate application
of retaliation than by the promise of future revenge. Both of these
had to be provided for, to meet human nature and men's faith,
so that the man who believed God might expect God to exact
vengeance, while the man who was deficient in faith should have
respect for the laws of retaliation. This was the intention of that
law, but it was in difficulties through lack of understanding, until
Christ, as Lord both of the sabbath and of the law and of all his
Father's ordinances, both revealed <its purpose> and made it
capable <of comprehension> when he commanded the offering
even of the other cheek: for by so doing he put an end to those
reprisals for injury which the law had intended to check by
retaliation, reprisals which beyond doubt the prophecy had mani-
festly brought under restraint when it forbade the remembrance
of injury and referred vengeance back to God. Consequently,
whatever addition Christ made, he caused no destruction of the

Creator's rules: for the command he gave was not in opposition
but in furtherance of them. So then if I look for his actual reason
for enjoining forbearance, forbearance so full and complete, it
can only be convincing if it appertains to that Creator who
promises vengeance and presents himself as judge. Otherwise if
such a burden of forbearance, in not only not striking back but
even of presenting the other cheek, in not only not returning in-
sults but even of kindly speaking, in not only not holding on to
one's coat but even of letting go of one's cloak also, is imposed
upon me by one who is not going to be my defender, in vain does
he enjoin forbearance: for he sets before me no reward for <follow-
ing> his injunction, I mean, no fruit of my endurance: and this
is the revenge which he ought to have left in my discretion if he
himself does not provide it, or else, if he was not leaving it to me,
he ought to provide it for me: because it is in the interest of good
conduct, that injury should be avenged. For it is by fear of ven-
geance that all iniquity is kept in check. But for that, if indiscrimi-
nate liberty is accorded, iniquity will get the mastery, so as to
pluck out both eyes, and knock out all the teeth, because it is
convinced of impunity. But this is characteristic of that supremely
good god, who is kind and nothing more, to inflict injury upon for-
bearance, to open the door to violence, to abstain from defending
the righteous, and to leave the wicked unconstrained. Give to
everyone that asketh thee—evidently, to the man in need, or perhaps
so much the more to the man in need, if it includes the man with
abundance. So then to prevent any from being in need, you find
that in Deuteronomy there is imposed upon the giver the example
of the Creator, who says, The