Chapter IV.—Each Side Claims to Possess the True Gospel. Antiquity the Criterion of Truth in Such a Matter. Marcion’s Pretensions as an Amender of the Gospel.

We must follow, then, the clue1240    Funis ducendus est.    Præstructio. of our discussion, meeting every effort of our opponents with reciprocal vigor. I say that my Gospel is the true one; Marcion, that his is. I affirm that Marcion’s Gospel is adulterated; Marcion, that mine is. Now what is to settle the point for us, except it be that principle1241    Ratio.    Titulo. of time, which rules that the authority lies with that which shall be found to be more ancient; and assumes as an elemental truth,1242    Præjudicans.    1 Cor. i. 3. that corruption (of doctrine) belongs to the side which shall be convicted of comparative lateness in its origin.1243    Posterius revincetur. See De Præscriptione Hæret., which goes on this principle of time. Compare especially chapters xxix. and xxx. [p. 256, supra.]    Appellant. For, inasmuch as error1244    Falsum.    Officio. is falsification of truth, it must needs be that truth therefore precede error. A thing must exist prior to its suffering any casualty;1245    Passione.    Isa. lii. 7. and an object1246    Materia.    Pacem quam præferendam. must precede all rivalry to itself. Else how absurd it would be, that, when we have proved our position to be the older one, and Marcion’s the later, ours should yet appear to be the false one, before it had even received from truth its objective existence;1247    De veritate materiam.    1 Cor. i. 3. and Marcion’s should also be supposed to have experienced rivalry at our hands, even before its publication; and, in fine, that that should be thought to be the truer position which is the later one—a century1248    Sæculo post.    Competentibus nostro quoque sacramento. later than the publication of all the many and great facts and records of the Christian religion, which certainly could not have been published without, that is to say, before, the truth of the gospel. With regard, then, to the pending1249    Interim.    Nisi ex accedentibus cui magis competant. question, of Luke’s Gospel (so far as its being the common property1250    Communio ejus.    Disciplinæ. of ourselves and Marcion enables it to be decisive of the truth,1251    De veritate disceptat.    Per naturæ dissimulationem. This Fr. Junius explains by τὴν φύσεως ἀφοσίωσιν, in the sense of “original sin” (ἀφοσιοῦσθαι seems to point to sin requiring expiation).) that portion of it which we alone receive1252    Quod est secundum nos. [A note of T.’s position.]    1 Cor. i. 18. is so much older than Marcion, that Marcion himself once believed it, when in the first warmth of faith he contributed money to the Catholic church, which along with himself was afterwards rejected,1253    Projectam. [Catholic = Primitive.]    1 Cor. i. 19, from Isa. xxix. 14. when he fell away from our truth into his own heresy. What if the Marcionites have denied that he held the primitive faith amongst ourselves, in the face even of his own letter? What, if they do not acknowledge the letter? They, at any rate, receive his Antitheses; and more than that, they make ostentatious use1254    Præferunt.    Causam. of them. Proof out of these is enough for me. For if the Gospel, said to be Luke’s which is current amongst us1255    Penes nos.    Aut si: introducing a Marcionite cavil. (we shall see whether it be also current with Marcion), is the very one which, as Marcion argues in his Antitheses, was interpolated by the defenders of Judaism, for the purpose of such a conglomeration with it of the law and the prophets as should enable them out of it to fashion their Christ, surely he could not have so argued about it, unless he had found it (in such a form). No one censures things before they exist,1256    Post futura.    Apud dominum. when he knows not whether they will come to pass. Emendation never precedes the fault. To be sure,1257    Sane.    1 Cor. i. 20. an amender of that Gospel, which had been all topsy-turvy1258    Eversi.    Boni duxit Deus, εὐδόκησεν ὁ Θεός. from the days of Tiberius to those of Antoninus, first presented himself in Marcion alone—so long looked for by Christ, who was all along regretting that he had been in so great a hurry to send out his apostles without the support of Marcion! But for all that,1259    Nisi quod.    1 Cor. i. 21. heresy, which is for ever mending the Gospels, and corrupting them in the act, is an affair of man’s audacity, not of God’s authority; and if Marcion be even a disciple, he is yet not “above his master;”1260    Matt. x. 24.    Hic vel maxime. if Marcion be an apostle, still as Paul says, “Whether it be I or they, so we preach;”1261    1 Cor. xv. 11.    That is, “man who lives in the world, not God who made the world.” if Marcion be a prophet, even “the spirits of the prophets will be subject to the prophets,”1262    1 Cor. xiv. 32.    1 Cor. i. 22. for they are not the authors of confusion, but of peace; or if Marcion be actually an angel, he must rather be designated “as anathema than as a preacher of the gospel,”1263    Gal. i. 8.    Æmula. because it is a strange gospel which he has preached. So that, whilst he amends, he only confirms both positions: both that our Gospel is the prior one, for he amends that which he has previously fallen in with; and that that is the later one, which, by putting it together out of the emendations of ours, he has made his own Gospel, and a novel one too.

CAPUT IV.

Funis ergo ducendus est contentionis, pari hinc inde nisu fluctuante. Ego meum dico verum, Marcion suum; ego Marcionis affirmo adulteratum, Marcion meum. Quis inter nos determinabit, nisi temporis ratio, ei praescribens auctoritatem, quod antiquius reperietur; et ei praejudicans vitiationem, quod posterius revincetur ? In quantum enim falsum corruptio est veri, in tantum praecedat necesse 0365C est veritas falsum. Prior erit res passione, et materia aemulatione. Alioquin, quam absurdum ut si nostrum antiquius probaverimus, Marcionis vero posterius; et nostrum ante videatur falsum quam habuerit de veritate materiam, et Marcionis ante credatur aemulationem a nostro expertum quam est editum? Et postremo id verius existimetur, quod est serius, post tot ac tanta jam opera atque documenta christianae religionis saeculo edita, quae edi utique non potuissent sine Evangelii veritate, id est ante Evangelii veritatem? Quod ergo pertinet ad Evangelium interim Lucae, quatenus communio ejus inter nos et Marcionem de veritate disceptat, adeo antiquius Marcione est, quod est secundum nos, ut et ipse illi Marcion aliquando crediderit; cum et pecuniam 0365D in primo calore fidei catholicae Ecclesiae contulit, projectam mox cum ipso postea quam in haeresim suam a nostra veritate descivit. Quid nunc si negaverint 0366A Marcionitae, primam apud nos fidem ejus, adversus epistolam quoque ipsius. Quid, si nec epistolam agnoverint? Certe antitheses non modo fatentur Marcionis, sed et praeferunt . Ex his mihi probatio sufficit. Si enim id Evangelium quod Lucae refertur penes nos (viderimus an et penes Marcionem) ipsum est quod Marcion per antitheses suas arguit, ut interpolatum a protectoribus judaismi ad concorporationem Legis et Prophetarum, qua etiam Christum inde configerent , utique non potuisset arguere, nisi quod invenerat. Nemo post futura reprehendit quae ignorat futura: emendatio culpam non antecedit. Emendator sane Evangelii, a Tiberianis usque ad Antoniani tempora eversi, Marcion solus et primus obvenit, exspectatus tamdiu a Christo poenitentem 0366B jam quod apostolos praemisisse properasset sine praesidio Marcionis; nisi quod humanae temeritatis, non divinae auctoritatis negotium est haeresis, quae sic semper emendat Evangelia, dum vitiat: cum etsi discipulus Marcion, non tamen super magistrum (Matt. X, 24); et si apostolus Marcion, Sive ego, inquit Paulus (I Cor. XV, 11), sive illi, sic praedicamus. Et si prophetes Marcion: et spiritus prophetarum prophetis erunt subditi (I Cor., XIV, 32); non enim eversionis, sed pacis. Etiam si angelus Marcion, citius (Gal. I, 8) anathema dicendus quam evangelizator, quia aliter evangelizavit. Itaque dum emendat, utrumque confirmat; et nostrum anterius, id emendans quod invenit; et id posterius, quod de nostri emendatione constituens, suum et novum fecit.