{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030451.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030451.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030451.htm","text":"Chapter V.\u2014The First Epistle to the Corinthians. The Pauline Salutation of Grace and Peace Shown to Be Anti-Marcionite. The Cross of Christ Purposed by the Creator. Marcion Only Perpetuates the Offence and Foolishness of Christ\u2019s Cross by His Impious Severance of the Gospel from the Creator. Analogies Between the Law and the Gospel in the Matter of Weak Things, and Foolish Things and Base Things.\nMy preliminary remarks 5386 on the preceding epistle called me away from treating of its superscription, 5387 for I was sure that another opportunity would occur for considering the matter, it being of constant recurrence, and in the same form too, in every epistle. The point, then, is, that it is not (the usual) health which the apostle prescribes for those to whom he writes, but \u201cgrace and peace.\u201d 5388 I do not ask, indeed, what a destroyer of Judaism has to do with a formula which the Jews still use. For to this day they salute each other 5389 with the greeting of \u201cpeace,\u201d and formerly in their Scriptures they did the same. But I understand him by his practice 5390 plainly enough to have corroborated the declaration of the Creator: \u201cHow beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good, who preach the gospel of peace!\u201d 5391 For the herald of good, that is, of God\u2019s \u201cgrace\u201d was well aware that along with it \u201cpeace\u201d also was to be proclaimed. 5392 Now, when he announces these blessings as \u201cfrom God the Father and the Lord Jesus,\u201d 5393 he uses titles that are common to both, and which are also adapted to the mystery of our faith; 5394 and I suppose it to be impossible accurately to determine what God is declared to be the Father and the Lord Jesus, unless (we consider) which of their accruing attributes are more suited to them severally. 5395 First, then, I assert that none other than the Creator and Sustainer of both man and the universe can be acknowledged as Father and Lord; next, that to the Father also the title of Lord accrues by reason of His power, and that the Son too receives the same through the Father; then that \u201cgrace and peace\u201d are not only His who had them published, but His likewise to whom offence had been given. For neither does grace exist, except after offence; nor peace, except after war. Now, both the p. 439 people (of Israel) by their transgression of His laws, 5396 and the whole race of mankind by their neglect of natural duty, 5397 had both sinned and rebelled against the Creator. Marcion\u2019s god, however, could not have been offended, both because he was unknown to everybody, and because he is incapable of being irritated. What grace, therefore, can be had of a god who has not been offended? What peace from one who has never experienced rebellion? \u201cThe cross of Christ,\u201d he says, \u201cis to them that perish foolishness; but unto such as shall obtain salvation, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God.\u201d 5398 And then, that we may know from whence this comes, he adds: \u201cFor it is written, \u2018I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.\u2019\u201d 5399 Now, since these are the Creator\u2019s words, and since what pertains to the doctrine 5400 of the cross he accounts as foolishness, therefore both the cross, and also Christ by reason of the cross, will appertain to the Creator, by whom were predicted the incidents of the cross. But if 5401 the Creator, as an enemy, took away their wisdom in order that the cross of Christ, considered as his adversary, should be accounted foolishness, how by any possibility can the Creator have foretold anything about the cross of a Christ who is not His own, and of whom He knew nothing, when He published the prediction? But, again, how happens it, that in the system of a Lord 5402 who is so very good, and so profuse in mercy, some carry off salvation, when they believe the cross to be the wisdom and power of God, whilst others incur perdition, to whom the cross of Christ is accounted folly;\u2014(how happens it, I repeat,) unless it is in the Creator\u2019s dispensation to have punished both the people of Israel and the human race, for some great offence committed against Him, with the loss of wisdom and prudence? What follows will confirm this suggestion, when he asks, \u201cHath not God infatuated the wisdom of this world?\u201d 5403 and when he adds the reason why: \u201cFor after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God 5404 by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.\u201d 5405 But first a word about the expression \u201cthe world;\u201d because in this passage particularly, 5406 the heretics expend a great deal of their subtlety in showing that by world is meant the lord of the world. We, however, understand the term to apply to any person that is in the world, by a simple idiom of human language, which often substitutes that which contains for that which is contained. \u201cThe circus shouted,\u201d \u201cThe forum spoke,\u201d and \u201cThe basilica murmured,\u201d are well-known expressions, meaning that the people in these places did so. Since then the man, not the god, of the world 5407 in his wisdom knew not God, whom indeed he ought to have known (both the Jew by his knowledge of the Scriptures, and all the human race by their knowledge of God\u2019s works), therefore that God, who was not acknowledged in His wisdom, resolved to smite men\u2019s knowledge with His foolishness, by saving all those who believe in the folly of the preached cross. \u201cBecause the Jews require signs,\u201d who ought to have already made up their minds about God, \u201cand the Greeks seek after wisdom,\u201d 5408 who rely upon their own wisdom, and not upon God\u2019s. If, however, it was a new god that was being preached, what sin had the Jews committed, in seeking after signs to believe; or the Greeks, when they hunted after a wisdom which they would prefer to accept? Thus the very retribution which overtook both Jews and Greeks proves that God is both a jealous God and a Judge, inasmuch as He infatuated the world\u2019s wisdom by an angry 5409 and a judicial retribution. Since, then, the causes 5410 are in the hands of Him who gave us the Scriptures which we use, it follows that the apostle, when treating of the Creator, (as Him whom both Jew and Gentile as yet have) not known, means undoubtedly to teach us, that the God who is to become known (in Christ) is the Creator. The very \u201cstumbling-block\u201d which he declares Christ to be \u201cto the Jews,\u201d 5411 points unmistakeably 5412 to the Creator\u2019s prophecy respecting Him, when by Isaiah He says: \u201cBehold I lay in Sion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.\u201d 5413 This rock or stone is Christ. 5414 This stumbling-stone Marcion retains still. 5415 p. 440 Now, what is that \u201cfoolishness of God which is wiser than men,\u201d but the cross and death of Christ? What is that \u201cweakness of God which is stronger than men,\u201d 5416 but the nativity and incarnation 5417 of God? If, however, Christ was not born of the Virgin, was not constituted of human flesh, and thereby really suffered neither death nor the cross, there was nothing in Him either of foolishness or weakness; nor is it any longer true, that \u201cGod hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;\u201d nor, again, hath \u201cGod chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty;\u201d nor \u201cthe base things\u201d and the least things \u201cin the world, and things which are despised, which are even as nothing\u201d (that is, things which really 5418 are not), \u201cto bring to nothing things which are\u201d (that is, which really are). 5419 For nothing in the dispensation of God is found to be mean, and ignoble, and contemptible. Such only occurs in man\u2019s arrangement. The very Old Testament of the Creator 5420 itself, it is possible, no doubt, to charge with foolishness, and weakness, and dishonour and meanness, and contempt. What is more foolish and more weak than God\u2019s requirement of bloody sacrifices and of savoury holocausts? What is weaker than the cleansing of vessels and of beds? 5421 What more dishonourable than the discoloration of the reddening skin? 5422 What so mean as the statute of retaliation? What so contemptible as the exception in meats and drinks? The whole of the Old Testament, the heretic, to the best of my belief, holds in derision. For God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound its wisdom. Marcion\u2019s god has no such discipline, because he does not take after 5423 (the Creator) in the process of confusing opposites by their opposites, so that \u201cno flesh shall glory; but, as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.\u201d 5424 In what Lord? Surely in Him who gave this precept. 5425 Unless, forsooth, the Creator enjoined us to glory in the god of Marcion.\nCompetentibus nostro quoque sacramento.\n438:5395\nNisi ex accedentibus cui magis competant.\n439:5396 439:5397\nPer natur\u00e6 dissimulationem. This Fr. Junius explains by \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c6\u03bf\u03c3\u03af\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, in the sense of \u201coriginal sin\u201d (\u1f00\u03c6\u03bf\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 seems to point to sin requiring expiation).\n439:5398 439:5399 439:5400 439:5401\nAut si: introducing a Marcionite cavil.\n439:5402 439:5403 439:5404\nBoni duxit Deus, \u03b5\u1f50\u03b4\u03cc\u03ba\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u1f41 \u0398\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2.\n439:5405 439:5406 439:5407\nThat is, \u201cman who lives in the world, not God who made the world.\u201d\n439:5408 439:5409 439:5410\nCaus\u00e6: the reasons of His retributive providence.\n439:5411 439:5412 439:5413 439:5414 439:5415\n\u201cEtiam Marcion servat.\u201d These words cannot mean, as they have been translated, that \u201cMarcion even retains these words\u201d of prophecy; for whenever Marcion fell in with any traces of this prophecy of Christ, he seems to have expunged them. In Luke ii. 34 holy Simeon referred to it, but Marcion rejected this chapter of the evangelist; and although he admitted much of chap. xx., it is remarkable that he erased the ten verses thereof from the end of the eighth to the end of the eighteenth. Now in vers. 17, 18, Marcion found the prophecy again referred to. See Epiphanius, Adv. H\u00e6res. xlii. Schol. 55.\n440:5416 440:5417 440:5418 440:5419 440:5420\nApud Creatorem etiam vetera: (vetera, i.e.) \u201cveteris testamenti institutiones\u201d (Oehler).\n440:5421\nLev. xv. passim.\n440:5422 440:5423 440:5424 440:5425","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: The Fi...","type":"page"}