{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030400.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030400.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030400.htm","text":"In Which Tertullian Pursues His Argument. Jesus is the Christ of the Creator. He Derives His Proofs from St. Luke\u2019s Gospel; That Being the Only Historical Portion of the New Testament Partially Accepted by Marcion. This Book May Also Be Regarded as a Commentary on St. Luke. It Gives Remarkable Proof of Tertullian\u2019s Grasp of Scripture, and Proves that \u201cThe Old Testament is Not Contrary to the New.\u201d It Also Abounds in Striking Expositions of Scriptural Passages, Embracing Profound Views of Revelation, in Connection with the Nature of Man.\nChapter I.\u2014Examination of the Antitheses of Marcion, Bringing Them to the Test of Marcion\u2019s Own Gospel. Certain True Antitheses in the Dispensations of the Old and the New Testaments. These Variations Quite Compatible with One and the Same God, Who Ordered Them.\nEvery opinion and the whole scheme 3481 of the impious and sacrilegious Marcion we now bring to the test 3482 of that very Gospel which, by his process of interpolation, he has made his own. To encourage a belief of this Gospel he has actually 3483 devised for it a sort of dower, 3484 in a work composed of contrary statements set in opposition, thence entitled Antitheses, and compiled with a view to such a severance of the law from the gospel as should divide the Deity into two, nay, diverse, gods\u2014one for each Instrument, or Testament 3485 as it is more usual to call it; that by such means he might also patronize 3486 belief in \u201cthe Gospel according to the Antitheses.\u201d These, however, I would have attacked in special combat, hand to hand; that is to say, I would have encountered singly the several devices of the Pontic heretic, if it were not much more convenient to refute them in and with that very gospel to which they contribute their support. Although it is so easy to meet them at once with a peremptory demurrer, 3487 yet, in order that I may both make them admissible in argument, and account them valid expressions of opinion, and even contend that they make for our side, that so there may be all the redder shame for the blindness of their author, we have now drawn out some antitheses of our own in opposition to Marcion. And indeed 3488 I do allow that one order did run its course in the old dispensation under the Creator, 3489 and that another is on its way in the new under Christ. I do not deny that there is a difference in the language of their documents, in their precepts of virtue, and in their p. 346 teachings of the law; but yet all this diversity is consistent with one and the same God, even Him by whom it was arranged and also foretold. Long ago 3490 did Isaiah declare that \u201cout of Sion should go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem\u201d 3491 \u2014some other law, that is, and another word. In short, says he, \u201cHe shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people;\u201d 3492 meaning not those of the Jewish people only, but of the nations which are judged by the new law of the gospel and the new word of the apostles, and are amongst themselves rebuked of their old error as soon as they have believed. And as the result of this, \u201cthey beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears (which are a kind of hunting instruments) into pruning-hooks;\u201d 3493 that is to say, minds, which once were fierce and cruel, are changed by them into good dispositions productive of good fruit. And again: \u201cHearken unto me, hearken unto me, my people, and ye kings, give ear unto me; for a law shall proceed from me, and my judgment for a light to the nations;\u201d 3494 wherefore He had determined and decreed that the nations also were to be enlightened by the law and the word of the gospel. This will be that law which (according to David also) is unblameable, because \u201cperfect, converting the soul\u201d 3495 from idols unto God. This likewise will be the word concerning which the same Isaiah says, \u201cFor the Lord will make a decisive word in the land.\u201d 3496 Because the New Testament is compendiously short, 3497 and freed from the minute and perplexing 3498 burdens of the law. But why enlarge, when the Creator by the same prophet foretells the renovation more manifestly and clearly than the light itself? \u201cRemember not the former things, neither consider the things of old\u201d (the old things have passed away, and new things are arising). \u201cBehold, I will do new things, which shall now spring forth.\u201d 3499 So by Jeremiah: \u201cBreak up for yourselves new pastures, 3500 and sow not among thorns, and circumcise yourselves in the foreskin of your heart.\u201d 3501 And in another passage: \u201cBehold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Jacob, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I arrested their dispensation, in order to bring them out of the land of Egypt.\u201d 3502 He thus shows that the ancient covenant is temporary only, when He indicates its change; also when He promises that it shall be followed by an eternal one. For by Isaiah He says: \u201cHear me, and ye shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you,\u201d adding \u201cthe sure mercies of David,\u201d 3503 in order that He might show that that covenant was to run its course in Christ. That He was of the family of David, according to the genealogy of Mary, 3504 He declared in a figurative way even by the rod which was to proceed out of the stem of Jesse. 3505 Forasmuch then as he said, that from the Creator there would come other laws, and other words, and new dispensations of covenants, indicating also that the very sacrifices were to receive higher offices, and that amongst all nations, by Malachi when he says: \u201cI have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord, neither will I accept your sacrifices at your hands. For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place a sacrifice is offered unto my name, even a pure offering\u201d 3506 \u2014meaning simple prayer from a pure conscience,\u2014it is of necessity that every change which comes as the result of innovation, introduces a diversity in those things of which the change is made, from which diversity arises also a contrariety. For as there is nothing, after it has undergone a change, which does not become different, so there is nothing different which is not contrary. 3507 Of that very thing, therefore, there will be predicated a contrariety in consequence of its diversity, to which there accrued a change of condition after an innovation. He who brought about the change, the same instituted the diversity also; He who foretold the innovation, the same announced beforehand the contrariety likewise. Why, in your interpretation, do you impute a difference in the state of things to a difference of powers? Why do you wrest to the Creator\u2019s prejudice those examples from which you draw your antitheses, when you may recognise them all in His sensations and affections? \u201cI will wound,\u201d He says, \u201cand I will heal;\u201d \u201cI will kill,\u201d He says again, \u201cand I will make alive\u201d 3508 \u2014even p. 347 the same \u201cwho createth evil and maketh peace;\u201d 3509 from which you are used even to censure Him with the imputation of fickleness and inconstancy, as if He forbade what He commanded, and commanded what He forbade. Why, then, have you not reckoned up the Antitheses also which occur in the natural works of the Creator, who is for ever contrary to Himself? You have not been able, unless I am misinformed, to recognise the fact, 3510 that the world, at all events, 3511 even amongst your people of Pontus, is made up of a diversity of elements which are hostile to one another. 3512 It was therefore your bounden duty first to have determined that the god of the light was one being, and the god of darkness was another, in such wise that you might have been able to have distinctly asserted one of them to be the god of the law and the other the god of the gospel. It is, however, the settled conviction already 3513 of my mind from manifest proofs, that, as His works and plans 3514 exist in the way of Antitheses, so also by the same rule exist the mysteries of His religion. 3515\n[The remarks of Bishop Kaye on our author\u2019s Marcion are simply invaluable, and the student cannot dispense with what is said more particularly of this Book. See Kaye, pp. 450\u2013480.]\n345:3481 345:3482\nProvocamus ad. [Kaye, p. 469, refers to Schleiermacher\u2019s Critical Essay on St. Luke and to a learned note of Mr. Andrews Norton of Harvard (vol. iii. Appendix C.) for valuable remarks on Marcion\u2019s Gospel.]\n345:3483 345:3484 345:3485 345:3486 345:3487\nPr\u00e6scriptive occurere. This law term (the Greek \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae) seems to refer to the Church\u2019s \u201crule of faith\u201d (pr\u00e6scriptio), which he might at once put in against Marcion\u2019s heresy; only he prefers to refute him on his own ground.\n345:3488 345:3489 346:3490 346:3491 346:3492 346:3493 346:3494\nIsa. ii. 4, according to the Sept.\n346:3495 346:3496\nT.\u2019s version of Isa. x. 23. \u201cDecisus Sermo\u201d =\"determined\u201d of A.V.\n346:3497 346:3498 346:3499\nIsa. 43:18, 19.\n346:3500\nNovate novamen novum. Agricultural words.\n346:3501\nAltered version of Jer. 4:3, 4.\n346:3502\nJer. 31:31, 32, with slight change.\n346:3503 346:3504\nSecundum Mari\u00e6 censum. See Kitto\u2019s Cyclop\u00e6dia of Biblical Literature (third edition), in the article \u201cGenealogy of Jesus Christ,\u201d where the translator of this work has largely given reasons for believing that St. Luke in his genealogy, (chap. iii.) has traced the descent of the Virgin Mary. To the authorities there given may be added this passage of Tertullian, and a fuller one, Adversus Jud\u00e6os, ix., towards the end. [p. 164, supra.]\n346:3505 346:3506 346:3507 346:3508 347:3509 347:3510 347:3511 347:3512 347:3513 347:3514 347:3515","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: Chapter I","type":"page"}