Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 23/82

And when the gentle and most holy elders and teachers of the holy church of God heard this, rendering an account of its sequence and coherence, and explaining it to him with gentleness, they said:

'Child, this is what the old wineskins mean: the hearts of the Pharisees and scribes, grown old in sins and unwilling to receive the preaching of the gospel;'

'and the old garment is like Judas: grown old in love of money, he did not receive the preaching of hope belonging to the new, holy, and heavenly mystery, even though he had been joined to the eleven apostles and called by the Lord himself. He created a schism greater than any other through himself, with no one else being the cause, because his mind did not agree with the hope from above and the heavenly calling of the good things to come, choosing instead the money of this world, and vainglory, and friendship, and a fleeting hope and pleasure.'

'Not so,' Marcion objected, 'but there is something else besides this.'

But since they were unwilling to receive him, he then said to them openly:

'Why were you unwilling to receive me?' And when they said, 'We cannot do this without the permission of your honored father,'

'for the faith is one, and the concord is one, and we cannot oppose our good fellow-minister, your father' — then, seized with jealousy and roused to great wrath and pride, such a man works out the schism, setting up the heresy for himself and saying, 'I will split your church, and I will cast a schism into it forever' — so that in truth he did cast no small schism, not splitting the church, but himself and those who were persuaded by him.

For while Cerdo himself preaches two principles, Marcion, adding to that man's teaching — I mean Cerdo's — sets forth something else beyond it, saying there are three principles: one, the one above, unnameable and invisible, whom he wishes to call the good God, who created none of the things in the world;

and another is a visible god, both creator and demiurge;

and a third, so to speak, is the devil, in between these two, the visible and the invisible.

And the creator, demiurge, and visible god is the god of the Jews, and he is also the judge.

Among Marcion's own followers, virginity is also preached, and he preaches fasting on the Sabbath.

And their mysteries are, allegedly, performed while the catechumens look on;

and this man uses water in the mysteries.

And he gives the following reason for fasting on the Sabbath:

'Since,' he says, 'rest belongs to the God of the Jews, who made the world and rested on the seventh day, let us fast on this day, so that we do not do what is fitting for the God of the Jews.'

And he rejects the resurrection of the flesh, as do many of the heresies;

and he says that resurrection, life, and salvation belong to the soul alone.

And not only is one washing given among them, but among them it is permitted to give up to three washings, and even more, to whoever wishes, as I have heard from many.

And it came about that he desired that three or even more washings be given, on account of the mockery he suffered from his own disciples who knew him, because of the transgression and corruption committed against the virgin.

For since he had corrupted the virgin in his own city and, having fled, was found to be in a great transgression, this charlatan devised for himself a second washing, claiming that it is permitted to give up to three washings, that is, three baptisms, for the remission of sins, so that if anyone fell into the first transgression, he might receive a second baptism after repenting, and likewise a third, should he fall into transgression after the second.

And, allegedly, in order to redeem his own disgrace, he brings forward, in support of himself, the claim that after his transgression he was cleansed again and thereafter counts among the innocent, falsely alleging a testimony about this as plausible and capable of deceiving, but which does not signify what he himself says;

for, he says, the Lord, having been baptized by John, said to the disciples:

'I have a baptism to be baptized with, and what do I want, if I have already accomplished it? And again, I have a cup to drink, and what do I want, if I have already emptied it?' And in this way he laid down as doctrine the giving of multiple baptisms.

And not only this, but he also rejects the law and all the prophets, saying that they prophesied on behalf of the ruler who made the world.

And he says that Christ came down from above, from the invisible and unnameable Father, for the salvation of souls and for the refutation of the god of the Jews and the law and the prophets and such things.

And he also gives women the authority to administer baptism.

For among them everything is full of absurdity and nothing else, since they even dare to perform the mysteries in the presence of catechumens.

And, as I have said, this man speaks of a resurrection not of bodies, but of souls, and it is to these that he assigns salvation, not to the bodies.

And likewise he asserts transmigrations of souls, and reincarnations from one body into another.

For how will the soul that has not fallen rise again? And how will there even be called a resurrection of it, of a soul that has not fallen? For everything that falls stands in need of resurrection;

but it is not the soul that falls, but the body.

Whence custom also rightly calls it a 'fallen thing' [corpse], and the Lord himself said, 'Where the corpse is, there will the eagles be gathered.'

For indeed, we do not shut souls up in tombs, but we lay bodies to rest, burying them in the earth — bodies whose resurrection the preaching holds forth in hope, just as with the grain of wheat;

just as the holy apostle also brought forward testimony concerning the grain of wheat and the other seeds, and the Lord himself likewise, in the gospel, [said] that unless the grain of wheat falls and dies, it remains alone.

And the holy apostle says, 'Fool' — for he calls the unbeliever who doubts entirely, and says, 'How does the resurrection come about? And with what body do they come?' a fool — and immediately he says to such people, 'Fool, that which you sow is not brought to life unless it dies.'

And Scripture has thus shown altogether that the resurrection is of the fallen grain, that is, of the body that is buried, and not of the soul.

And how will the soul come alone? And how will it reign alone, the soul that together with the body wrought what is righteous or base? For the judgment would then be contrary and unjust.

And how will the doctrine of the three principles held by Marcion himself be sustained? For how will the good [god] be found doing a work of salvation, or anything else, in the domains of the base [god]? For if the world does not belong to him, yet he sent his only-begotten Son into the world to take, from an alien world, things which he himself neither sowed nor made, he will be found either coveting what belongs to another, or subject to poverty and possessing nothing of his own, giving himself over to what belongs to another so as to procure for himself what he did not have before.

And how will the demiurge become judge between the two of them? Then whom does he have to judge? For if he sits in judgment over the vessels belonging to the one above, he has power over the one above, since he brings into the midst of his own tribunal what belongs to the one above, as Marcion supposed.

And if he is a judge at all, he is righteous.

And we shall show, from the name 'righteous,' that the good and the righteous are the same thing.

For everything that is righteous is also good.

For because he is good, he grants the good rightly and truthfully to the one who has done good, and he will no longer be opposed to the good; in accordance with justice he gives the good to the good, and to the base the penalty of punishment.

Nor, again, would he be good who, at the end, gives the good reward to the wicked man who does not repent, even if in the present he makes his sun rise on the good and the base, and gives his rain, on account of the free will presently granted to both wicked and good men.

For a nature will no longer be good and righteous if it grants the reward of salvation to the wicked man in the age to come, and does not rather hate what is wicked and base.

And the third principle, found according to him to be evil, if he has the power to work evils and to prevail over the things in the world, or over the good things from above, or over the just one in the middle, will be found stronger than the two gods spoken of by Marcion, since he has the authority to seize what belongs to others;

and then the two will be condemned as powerless in comparison with the one evil one, being unable to hold their ground and to rescue what is theirs from the one who seizes it and turns it to wickedness.

But let us consider it again in another way, so that we may expose the absurdity of this charlatan's vain-mindedness.

For if the evil one is altogether evil, yet he seizes the good things from the good [god] and the just things from the just [god], and does not seize only what is his own, the evil one will be found no longer evil, since he desires good things and claims them for himself as being better.

He who exists as judge of the wicked will himself be wicked.

And in every way his hypothesis will be found to overturn itself.

Again tell [me]: from where have the three principles derived their existence?

And who is it that established the boundary for them? For if each is confined within its own place, the three will no longer be found to be perfect, being bounded within certain containing places; and the container of each will be found greater than what it contains, and the thing contained could no longer be called god, but rather the containing boundary itself would be.

But if, coming together into the same [realm], each was allotted its own place by division, and each, remaining in its own place, neither rubs against nor encroaches upon the other, then the principles will no longer be found opposed to one another, nor will any of them be found base, on account of tending to their own affairs justly, quietly, and steadily, and not attempting to overstep [their bounds].

But if the evil one is overpowered, coerced, and worn down by the one above, though he is set apart and exists in his own place — a place to which the good one above has no claim, nor has he created anything here, I mean in the place of the evil one — then the one above will be found rather more tyrannical, and no longer good, for having sent his own Son, that is, Christ, in order to seize what belongs to another.

And where is the boundary that divides the three principles, according to the reasoning of this charlatan's hypothesis? For a fourth [being] will need to be sought, most equitable and wiser than the three, one skilled in setting boundaries and knowledgeable, who allotted the measures to each and made peace among the three, so that they would not rise up against one another, nor one send [forces] into the domain of another.

And this one, having persuaded the three principles, will be found to be a fourth, and wiser and more equitable [than they].

And he too will in turn need to be sought in his own place, the place from which he came into the midst of the three and wisely determined the portion for each, so that they would not wrong one another.

But if, within the domain of the one — I mean the demiurge — the two other principles are dwelling as sojourners, both the evil one within the demiurge's regions and territories, and the Christ of the good one having sojourned there,

then the judge will no longer be found to be only judge and demiurge, but also good, since he permits the other two to do in his own domain whatever they wish;

or else he will be found powerless, unable to prevent the alien plunderers from seizing what is his own.

But if he is also inferior in power, creation will no longer be found to hold together, but will have perished long ago, being snatched away each day both by the evil one to his own portion and by the good one to the realms above.

And how then will creation still stand firm? But if you say that it will cease in time, and that it is possible for it to cease altogether through the care of the good one, then the good one will be the cause of the harm, since he did not do long ago what he later thought good to accomplish, nor did he do it from the very beginning, before the majority were wronged and came into the judge's possession and remained below.

Again, not understanding rightly the words of divine Scripture, he brings them forward and deceives the guileless, twisting the apostle's saying that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; and he says:

'If we had belonged to him, he would not have bought what was his own;'

'but having bought us, he came into a world belonging to another, to redeem us who did not belong to him.'

'for we were the handiwork of another, and for this reason he himself bought us into his own life.'

But the fool is entirely ignorant that Christ did not become a curse—far be it!—but rather took away the curse that came upon us for our sins, by crucifying himself and becoming, through death, death to death for our sins, himself becoming a curse to the curse.

Therefore Christ is not a curse, but the dissolution of the curse, and a blessing to all who have truly believed in him.

For he did not come into what belonged to another, either to seize it or to buy it.

For if he bought, he bought while having nothing, and like a poor man acquired what he did not have.

He has sold—driven, then, by some creditor.

For he did not say 'he bought,' but 'he redeemed.'

Similar to this, the same holy apostle says, 'redeeming the time, because the days are evil.'

And we do not buy days, nor do we pay a price for days, but he said this signifying the endurance through patience and the deliberate delay of longsuffering.

So then, 'he redeemed' indicates the undertaking of his assumption of suffering on our behalf, in the incarnate presence in the world, through which God, who is impassible, undertook to suffer for us, while remaining in the very impassibility proper to his divinity, even that very thing which he undertook to suffer for us—not buying us from strangers, but undertaking the matter of the cross on our behalf, by his own choice and not under compulsion.

Hence Marcion's argument has been refuted in every respect.

And there are many arguments, proceeding from pious reasoning and reasonable emphasis, for overturning his contrivance and theatrics, in the refutation directed against him.

But I shall now come to what has been written by him—or rather, tampered with by him.

For he has only the Gospel according to Luke, mutilated from the beginning because of the Savior's conception and his incarnate presence.

But he who has done harm to himself rather than to the Gospel did not cut off only the beginning; he also excised many of the words of truth from the end and the middle, and he added other things beside what is written, and he makes use only of this one type, the Gospel according to Luke.

He also has, in his possession, ten epistles of the holy apostle, which alone he uses, but not everything written in them; rather he cuts off some parts of them, and alters certain chapters.

He makes use of these two books.

But he has composed, of his own accord, other treatises for those led astray by him.

The epistles that are named among his writings are as follows:

First, to the Galatians; second, to the Corinthians; third, the second to the Corinthians; fourth, to the Romans; fifth, to the Thessalonians; sixth, the second to the Thessalonians; seventh, to the Ephesians; eighth, to the Colossians; ninth, to Philemon; tenth, to the Philippians.

He also has portions of the so-called Epistle to the Laodiceans.

From this very text preserved by him—both the Gospel and the epistles of the apostle—we are able, with God's help, to show him to be a deceiver and one who has been led astray, and to refute him most thoroughly.

For he will be overturned, without doubt, by the very things he himself acknowledges.

For from these very remnants still found among him, of both the Gospel and the epistles, it will be shown to the intelligent that Christ is not alien to the Old Testament, and that the prophets, too, are not alien to the Lord's sojourn among us; and that the apostle preaches the resurrection of the flesh, and calls the prophets righteous, and reckons Abraham and Isaac and Jacob among those who are saved—and all that belongs to the holy Church of God as things saving and holy and confirmed by God, both in faith and in knowledge and in hope and in teaching.

And I will now set forth the treatise I composed against him before I undertook, at the urging of you brothers, to compose this present work.

For a good many years now, investigating the fabricated falsehood and foolish teaching devised by this Marcion, I took into my hands the very books of the aforesaid man which he possesses—both the so-called Gospel of his and what is called among his followers the Apostle—and, gathering out and selecting in order from these two aforesaid books the passages capable of refuting him, I put together a certain groundwork of a composition, arranging the chapters in sequence and inscribing upon each saying the numbers one, two, three.

preserving the wording of the apostle.

For some of these passages have been tampered with by him and altered, so that he no longer has the true copy of the Gospel according to Luke, nor the true import of the apostolic text.

But other passages remain by nature just as the Gospel and the Apostle have them, not altered by him, and these are able to refute him, through which it is shown that the Old Testament agrees with the New, and the New with the Old Testament.

And again, other sayings from these same books indicate that Christ came in the flesh and became fully man among us.

And still others confess the resurrection of the dead, and that God is one, Lord of all, Almighty, himself the maker of heaven and earth and of all things that have come to be upon the earth, and these neither falsify the calling proclaimed by the Gospel, nor deny the maker and creator of all things, but plainly declare him who is clearly confessed by the wording of both the apostolic and the evangelic proclamation.

And what has been composed by us is set forth below, and it is as follows:

Preface concerning the subject-matter and refutation of Marcion's books.

Whoever is pleased to examine precisely the spurious notions of the deceiver Marcion, and to discern the contrived devices of this same beast, let him not hesitate to peruse this compiled work.

For from his own Gospel we have diligently set forth the material for refuting his crafty tampering, so that those who wish to peruse this work may have this as an exercise for sharpening their wits, toward the refutation of the strange sayings devised by him.

For the character of the Gospel according to Luke indicates the Gospel he uses.

But as it has been mutilated, having neither beginning nor middle nor end, it holds the character of a garment eaten through by many moths.

For right at the beginning, all that Luke composed from the start—that is, as he says, 'Forasmuch as many have taken in hand,' and what follows, and the account of Elizabeth and of the angel bringing good news to the virgin Mary, of John and Zachariah, and of the birth in Bethlehem, the genealogy, and the matter of the baptism—all this he cut off and leapt over, and he set the beginning of the Gospel at 'In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar,' and what follows.

From this point, then, he begins, and again does not proceed in due order, but, as I said before, he cuts some things out and adds others here and there, walking not straightforwardly but wandering through everything in a tampered manner; and it is as follows:

'Go and show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing, as Moses commanded.'

'that this may be a testimony to you'—instead of what the Savior said, 'for a testimony to them.'

'But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins...'

'The Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath.'

'Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.'

Instead of 'he came down with them,' he has 'he came down among them.'

'And all the crowd sought to touch him.'

'And he, lifting up his eyes,' and so on.

'Your fathers did the same things to the prophets.'

'But I tell you, I have not found so great a faith, not even in Israel.'

Altered is the saying, 'Blessed is he who is not offended in me.'

'This is he of whom it is written:'

'Behold, I send my messenger before your face.'

'And having entered the house of the Pharisee, he reclined at table.'

'And the woman, the sinner, standing behind at his feet, wet his feet with her tears, and anointed them, and kissed them repeatedly.'

'And again, this woman has wet my feet with her tears, and has anointed them, and has kissed them repeatedly.'

He did not have 'his mother and his brothers,' but only 'your mother and your brothers.'

'As they sailed, he fell asleep.'

'He rebuked the wind and the sea.'

'Now as they went, the crowds pressed upon him.'

'And a woman who touched him was healed of her flow of blood.'

'Who touched me?' And again:

'For I perceived power going out from me.'

'Looking up to heaven, he blessed over them.'

'Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be killed, and after three days rise again.'

'And behold, two men talked with him, Elijah and Moses, in glory.'

This is my beloved Son.

But contrary to the words 'they were not able to cast it out,' he also had 'and to them':

O faithless generation, how long shall I bear with you?

For the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.

He entered into the house of God.

I thank you, O Lord of heaven.

But he did not have 'and of the earth,' nor did he have 'Father.'

For further down he did have 'Yes, Father.'

He said to the lawyer, 'What is written in the law?' And after the lawyer's answer, in reply he said, 'You have answered rightly.'

And he said, 'Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, asking for three loaves?' and then further, 'Ask, and it shall be given you.'

For which of you fathers, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a serpent instead of a fish, or a scorpion instead of an egg? If then you, being evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more the Father?

The passage about Jonah the prophet has been excised.

for he had, 'this generation—a sign shall not be given to it.'

But he did not have the passage about Nineveh, and the queen of the south, and Solomon.

Instead of 'you pass by the judgment of God,' he had 'you pass by the calling of God.'

Woe to you, because you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.

He did not have, 'therefore also the wisdom of God said:'

'I send to them prophets,' and concerning the blood of Zechariah and Abel and of the prophets, that it shall be required of this generation.

Do not fear those who kill the body, but fear him who, after killing, has authority to cast into Gehenna.

But he did not have, 'Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies, and not one of them is forgotten before God?'

Instead of 'he will confess before the angels of God,' he says 'before God.'

He does not have, 'God clothes the grass.'

'But your Father knows that you need these things'—that is, fleshly things.

'But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.'

Instead of 'your Father,' he had 'the Father.'

Instead of 'in the second or third watch,' he had 'in the evening watch.'

The lord of that servant will come and will cut him in two, and will appoint his portion with the unfaithful.

Lest he drag you before the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer.

The passage was excised, from 'there came some reporting to him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices,' up to where it speaks of the eighteen who died in the tower in Siloam, and 'unless you repent,' and so on, up to the parable of the fig tree, concerning which the vinedresser said, 'I dig around it and put on manure, and if it does not bear fruit, cut it down.'

'But this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound...'

Again he excised, 'then you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God.'

But instead of this he made it, 'when you shall see all the righteous in the kingdom of God, and yourselves cast out'—he made it 'held fast'—'outside, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

And 'they shall recline at table in the kingdom,' and 'the last shall be first,' and 'the Pharisees came, saying, Get out and go away, for Herod wants to kill you,' and 'he said:'

'Go and tell that fox,' up to where he said, 'It cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem,' and 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to you,' and 'How often I wanted to gather your children as a hen gathers her brood,' and 'your house is left to you,' and 'you shall not see me until you say:'

Again he excised the whole parable of the two sons, the one who took his portion of the property and spent it wastefully, and the other.

'The law and the prophets were until John, and everyone forces his way into it.'

Concerning the rich man and Lazarus the poor man, that he was carried by the angels into the bosom of Abraham.

'But now this same Lazarus is here comforted.'

Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them, since they will not even listen to one who rises from the dead.'

He excised, 'say, We are unworthy servants:'

'we have done what we ought to have done.'

When the ten lepers met him

But he cut out much, and made it, 'he sent them, saying, Show yourselves to the priests,' and made other things instead of others, saying that 'there were many lepers in the days of Elisha the prophet, and none was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.'

'The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man.'

'Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' And he:

That one added 'the Father,' and instead of 'you know the commandments,' he says 'I know the commandments.'

Now it happened, as he drew near to Jericho, a blind man cried out:

He excised, 'taking the twelve, he said:'

'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished.'

'for he will be delivered up and killed, and on the third day he will rise again.'

He excised the chapter about the donkey and Bethphage, and that about the city and the temple, that it was written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' and 'you make it a den of robbers.'

'And they sought to lay hands on him, and they were afraid.'

Again he cut out the passage about the vineyard let out to tenant farmers, and 'what then is this:'

'the stone which the builders rejected?'

He cut out, 'that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, as he says, the Lord, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.'

'And he is not the God of the dead but of the living.'

He did not have these words: 'that the dead are raised, Moses also showed, saying, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of the living.'

Again he excised, 'a hair from your head shall by no means perish.'

Again he excised this: 'then let those in Judea flee to the mountains,' and so on, because of what follows in the text, up to 'until all the things that are written are fulfilled.'

He conferred with the temple officers as to how he might deliver him to them.

And he said to Peter and the rest:

'Go and prepare, that we may eat the Passover.'

And he reclined at table, and the twelve apostles with him, and he said:

'With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.'

He excised, 'for I say to you, I will not eat it anymore until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.'

He excised, 'When I sent you, did you lack anything?' and so on, because of the words, 'for this also that is written must be fulfilled in me, namely:'

He was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and kneeling down he prayed.

And Judas drew near to kiss him, and he said