Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 25/82

This is refuted even more excellently by such a saying as the following:

For he says, 'If a son asks for a fish, will his father hand him a serpent instead, or a scorpion instead of an egg?' And afterward he says, 'If then you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more your Father who is in heaven?' If, then, he has called fish and egg 'good gifts,' then that which is received with thanksgiving, having been granted by God, is not evil -- and your wicked disposition has been refuted on every side.

The passage concerning the prophet Jonah has been falsified.

For it had read: 'this generation -- a sign shall not be given to it.'

But it did not have the part concerning Nineveh, and the queen of the south, and Solomon.

And even in the very passages which you think you have falsified, O Marcion, you are not able to escape the notice of the truth.

For even if you remove the passage about the prophet Jonah, which signifies the dispensation of the Savior, and if you also remove the matter concerning the queen of the south and Solomon, and the salvific case of Nineveh, and the preaching of Jonah, the very saying of the Savior that is left standing still refutes you.

For he says, 'This generation seeks a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it' -- implying that the generations before this one had been deemed worthy of signs from God out of heaven.

As, for instance, Elijah performed a sign through the fire that came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice; and Moses divided the sea, and struck the rock and poured forth water, and brought down manna from heaven; and Joshua the son of Nun made the sun and the moon stand still.

And in every respect, even if the deceiver hides what is written, he will do no harm to the truth, but will only alienate himself from the truth.

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

How could you not be refuted? How could the testimony not be gathered together against you? For the earlier statements are in harmony with the later ones, and your knavery stands exposed.

For if he says, 'You hold fast the traditions of your elders, and you pass by the mercy and the judgment of God,' find out at what time he charges them with doing this, and when the tradition of the elders arose among them, and you will discover that the tradition of Addas came after the return from Babylon, that of Akiba arose even before the Babylonian captivity, and that of the sons of Hasmonaeus arose in the times of Alexander and Antiochus, a hundred and ninety years before the coming of Christ into the world.

So then, even from that time, judgment came through the law, and mercy through the prophets, and your charlatan's argument fails on every side.

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

If he takes such care for the prophets, reproaching those who killed them, then the prophets were not foreign to him, but were servants sent beforehand by him, and by the Father, and by the Holy Spirit, forerunners preparing the way for his coming in the flesh, who also bore witness to the New Testament.

Moses says, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brethren, like me'; and before him Jacob said, 'From a shoot, my son Judah, you have arisen; you have crouched down, you have lain to rest.'

And much more could be said, including the Savior himself saying, 'If you believed Moses, you would believe me also.'

It did not have 'Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I send unto them prophets,' nor the part concerning the blood of Zachariah and Abel and of the prophets, that it shall be required of this generation.

And in this, O Marcion, there is great shame for you, since the true character of the truth is preserved, and the excision made by your thefts is exposed from the very copy of the Gospel according to Luke, the passages being recovered and the things removed by you being brought under refutation.

I say to my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, but fear him who, after killing, has authority to cast into Gehenna.

But it did not have: 'Are not five sparrows sold for two assaria, and not one of them is forgotten before God?' Refutation 29.

The saying, 'I say to you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, but fear him who has authority, after killing the body, to cast the soul into Gehenna,' compels you, O Marcion, to acknowledge also what follows in the parable.

For without God nothing comes to pass, even if you strike out the saying concerning the sparrows.

Give an account, then, O Marcion, of what you have left standing in this saying, and answer us what you suppose concerning the one who has authority.

For if you should say that he is the Father of Christ, the god who by you is called good -- even though you divide things wrongly -- nevertheless, since he has the authority, you have thereby granted that he is a judge, and one who apportions to each according to his desert.

But if you do not mean this one, but rather the Demiurge, whom you celebrate as judge by nature, then tell me: who gave him this authority? For if he has it of himself, then he is great, and possesses authority in his own right.

But if he has authority to judge, he has authority also to save.

For he who is able to judge is also able to acquit.

If, when the judge casts souls into Gehenna, the good God -- he who everywhere cares for these very souls -- does not rescue them, how could he be good? For either it is because the judge is stronger than he and he cannot rescue them from his hand, or it is that he is able but is unwilling.

And where, then, is his goodness? But if, because he himself created them, he also has authority to judge, how then does the god above, whom you have fabricated in myth, save only some, and only in part? For if he saves by taking from what belongs to another, he covets, being enamored of what belongs to another.

But if you say that this is not covetousness, because the deed is done unto good and is salvific, then you make him a respecter of persons, since he does not do good to all alike, but only in part.

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

He is refuted on every side as one who does not walk according to God, even if he distorts the truth in the very smallest saying.

For he who dares to alter anything of what has been written from the beginning does not stand in the way of truth.

It does not have the saying, 'God clothes the grass.'

Even though you do not allow what was written -- as it was originally spoken by the Savior -- to stand, nevertheless the passages are preserved in the Gospel of the holy Church, even though you deny the God who made all things and who, by his word, cares for all things down even to the grass, and who is acknowledged as such even by the Savior himself.

But your Father knows that you need these things -- namely, the fleshly necessities.

The Father knows that the disciples need fleshly necessities, and he provides for such things.

But he provides not in another age, but here, in this world, exercising his providence for his own servants not in things belonging to another, but in the things created by himself.

If we are nourished by the things of another, and another god is the god of the kingdom of heaven, how will the argument still hold together? For either the things here belong to him, and the kingdom is also his --

Wherefore he adds all these things here as well, seeing that they are his own, for the sake of the labor spent in longing for his kingdom;

Or else, the kingdom and the age that is there belong to him, while the things here belong to the Demiurge, and the Demiurge concurs and is well pleased with the kingdom above, giving aid to those who seek the righteousness and the kingdom above.

But since there is one good pleasure, and it is not at variance with itself, there are no longer two principles, or three;

For in truth God is one, who made all things -- and made them well, and not contrary to one another.

But it is ours to sin and to err, both in willing and in not willing.

Instead of 'your father,' it had 'the father.'

And in this you will do us no wrong, but will rather confirm us the more.

For you have admitted that the Savior said his own Father takes providential care of the things here.

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

The brutish man has been exposed, having foolishly twisted the divine words to suit his own supposition.

For the watches are not of the day but of the night, extending in their progression from evening onward to the first watch, and not from morning to evening, as this man is caught having fraudulently tampered.

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

Who is it that cuts the servant in two? Tell me.

If it is the Demiurge and Judge, whom you call God, who is about to do this, then it is he to whom the faithful belong.

For in rebuking the servant who does not act well, he appoints his portion with the unbelievers.

But if it is the Father of Christ, or Christ himself, who is about to accomplish this, then you clearly preserve within your own text a testimony that stands against you.

For by confessing that either Christ or his Father is about to do this, you have without doubt confessed that the judge and the good one are the same, and that he is one, the same who provides for the things here and the things there.

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

You call the Demiurge 'judge,' and each of his angels 'officer,' as those who are about to exact from sinners an account of the things they have done.

But what could these be but the faults and sins which Jesus himself also abhors, which you yourself also say he forbids? If, then, the things which the good God abhors are the very things the Judge and Demiurge likewise abhors, he is one and the same, shown to be so by the deed and by the one good pleasure.

It had been cut away from 'there came some who told him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices,' up to where he speaks of the eighteen who died at Siloam when the tower fell, and 'unless you repent,' and what follows, as far as 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.'

All of this the plunderer removed, hiding the truth from himself, because the Lord had agreed with Pilate, who had rightly judged such men, and because those at Siloam had rightly died, being sinners thus punished by God.

But whenever some fraudulently tamper with royal decrees, the copies brought forth from the archives, being securely kept, expose the fools.

So too the Gospel, brought forth from the royal house, that is, the holy Church of God, exposes the moths that ruin the beautiful garments.

And this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound.

If the Lord, when he came, cared for the daughter of Abraham, then Abraham is not a stranger to him.

For by showing pity toward his daughter, he confesses that Abraham was well-pleasing to him.

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

And in its place he made it read, 'when you see all the righteous in the kingdom of God, but you being cast out'—he made it 'held fast'—'outside, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

How the traces of the truth appear.

For no one can hide a road.

For he can indeed lead people astray from it, and hide it from those who do not know it, but from those who have had experience of it, this is impossible.

For he cannot make the ground on which the road lay disappear.

And even if he obscures it, since the place of the road remains, the one who has fraudulently tampered with the road is exposed by those who know it.

Now observe the traces of the sequence.

For to whom else did he speak this word but to the Jews? And if to the Jews, he has already shown that they are within, and are being cast out from among the righteous.

But who could these righteous be but their own fathers, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and the prophets? For he did not say, 'you will see the righteous entering in and you not entering in,' but 'you will see the righteous in the kingdom, but you being cast out.'

And concerning those cast out he declared it in the future tense, but he showed the righteous to be already existing, strangers to these neither according to the flesh nor according to the calling, but called together with them, and already justified before his coming in the flesh.

And they are shown remaining outside as well, inasmuch as the fathers are within.

But whence comes the gnashing of teeth in the judgment, O fool, unless there is a resurrection of bodies? Scholion 41.

Again he cut out the words, 'they will come from the east and the west and recline at table in the kingdom,' and 'the last shall be first,' and 'the Pharisees came up, saying, Go away and depart from here, for Herod wants to kill you,' and the words 'he said.'

'Go and tell that fox'—up to where he said, 'it is not fitting for a prophet to perish outside Jerusalem,' and 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you,' and 'how often I wanted to gather your children as a bird gathers her brood,' and 'your house is left to you desolate,' and 'you shall not see me until the time comes when you say, Blessed.'

How great a removal he makes from the Gospel! It is as if someone took a living creature and cut away half its body, and with the remaining half tried to persuade those who do not know it, claiming that this is what the creature looks like, and that nothing has been removed from it.

Again he cut out the entire parable of the two sons, the one who took his share of the property and spent it wastefully, and the other.

The consequence of this fraud will differ in nothing from what he has previously dared to venture upon himself.

But he brings the loss upon himself, while the truth that is according to God remains unchanged.

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

If he ranks it as law and calls them prophets, and does not indicate that the law is lawlessness, nor call the prophets false prophets, it is clearly admitted that the Savior has borne witness to the prophets, and it is shown that they prophesied concerning him.

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

Abraham was numbered by the Lord among the living and the blessed, in the inheritance of rest, and Lazarus was deemed worthy to be in his bosom.

No longer, then, Marcion, blaspheme Abraham, who recognized his own Master and said to him, 'Lord, who judges all the earth.'

For behold, he was testified by the Lord himself to be righteous, and not a stranger to the life that is praised by the Savior.

But now this same Lazarus is comforted.

If Lazarus is comforted in the bosom of Abraham, then Abraham himself is not excluded from the comfort of that life.

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

Abraham bears witness to the law of Moses and the prophets not as one still in the world and as one deceived, nor as one who does not know what would result from these, but after he had come to experience the rest that is there.

For after death he is testified by the Savior in the parable to have obtained salvation through the precepts of the law and of the prophets, even though he did these things before the law existed.

And likewise also those who afterward kept the law and obeyed the prophets are in his bosom, and depart with him into life.

Of these Lazarus was one, who through the law and the prophets was deemed worthy of the life-giving bosom of Abraham's blessedness.

He cut out the words, 'Say, We are unprofitable servants.'

'We have done what we were obligated to do.'

And he does not accept the sure foundation of the Lord's teaching.

For, in order to secure his own disciples, so that they might not lose the reward of their labor through pride, he admonished them to be humble-minded.

For in all things he was puffed up with vain conceit, and not with truth.

When the ten lepers met him.

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

And here too the Lord calls Elisha a prophet, and shows himself fulfilling, in corresponding type, what had previously occurred through him, in order to refute Marcion and all who reject the prophets of God.

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

If he counts days and indicates a span of time, and calls himself Son of Man, then he has thereby shown both a measure of age and a pattern of the days of his preaching.

The Word, then, is not without flesh, but the good pleasure is realized in a body.

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

He added 'the Father'; and instead of 'You know the commandments,' he has it read, 'I know the commandments.'

So that he might not show that the commandments had already been written beforehand, he says, 'I know the commandments.'

But the whole point is made evident from the context.

And if he calls the Father good and names him God, he rightly teaches, from the law of his Father, the one who wishes to inherit life, and neither sets it aside nor rejects it, but rather bears witness that those who conducted their lives according to the law — Moses and the other prophets — have inherited eternal life.

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

In faith there is no falsehood:

for if it lies, it is not faith

Therefore he who, through the invocation of the name, granted sight to the blind man is not without flesh

He cut out the passage: 'Taking the twelve, he said:'

'Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written in the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished'

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

So that he might walk straight in nothing, and, not walking straight, be exposed as one committing fraud in every way

for he hid these sayings, in order supposedly to deny the things concerning the Passion

but afterward, since he confesses that he was crucified, his labor of fraud will prove vain for him

He cut out the chapter about the donkey and Bethphage, and the one about the city and the temple, because it was written: 'My house shall be called a house of prayer, and you make it a den of robbers.'

Wickedness does not see its own refutation, for it is blind

and it thinks it can hide the way of truth, which is impossible

For he immediately leapt ahead, omitting all the aforementioned chapters, because of the well-attested location of the temple, which is his own and built in his name, and, leaving out from Jericho the whole sequence of the journey — how he came to Bethphage:

for by nature it was an ancient highway, leading to Jerusalem through the Mount of Olives, not unknown to those who have investigated the place

But that he may be refuted by his own mouth, it says: 'And it came to pass on one of the days, as he was teaching in the temple, they sought to lay hands on him and were afraid,' as the next chapter, 54, has it

How then he came from Jericho to be in the temple will be known from that same journey and the distance of the way:

but in order that the deceiver may be seen to have concealed the things that happened on the way and were spoken in the temple by the Savior himself before this saying — I mean the saying 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' and what follows, as the prophecy has it

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

This was examined and explained in the preceding refutation, together with the phrase, with fitting brevity

Again he cut out the passage about the vineyard let out to husbandmen, and the saying: 'What then is this:'

'the stone which the builders rejected'? Refutation 55

This will do us no injury

for even if he cuts it out, he has not cut it away from us, but has done harm to himself and his own followers:

for the refutation against him is sufficient through the many testimonies

He cut out: 'But that the dead are raised, Moses showed at the bush, as he calls him the Lord, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob'

and he is God not of the dead, but of the living

One may marvel at the folly of this vain-minded man, how he does not perceive that this testimony is equal to that of the poor Lazarus and to the parable of those not permitted to enter into the kingdom:

the remnants of these parables he left and did not cut out, but has left, to his own shame, the saying: 'There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth'

For a tongue being dipped in water after departure from this life, and a tongue being cooled with water — as the rich man said to Abraham concerning Lazarus — and gnashing of teeth and weeping occurring, is a sign of the resurrection of bodies, even though this brutish man cuts out what was truly spoken by the Lord concerning the resurrection of the dead

He did not have this: 'that the dead are raised even Moses showed, saying, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob' — the God of the living

but the counter-argument against his fraud has already been made in the refutation above

Again he cut out: 'a hair from your head shall by no means perish'

Again he cut out this: 'Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains,' and what follows, because of what is added in the saying: 'until all the things written are fulfilled'

Therefore nothing will prevent one who wishes from setting alongside these excised testimonies the things confessed by him

for it will be shown that they are in harmony with these very things cut out by him, in which Abraham said, after the man's death, that 'they have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them'

for the things which the prophets and Moses spoke were from God the Father, and from the Lord himself, the Son of God, and from the Holy Spirit — things which, being written, had to be fulfilled

He conferred with the captains as to how he might betray him to them

O the derangement of Marcion!

'He conferred' — who else but Judas? To do what else but to betray the Savior? But if the Savior was betrayed, then he who was betrayed is no longer an appearance, but reality

for if he were only a spirit, he would not have been delivered up to men of flesh:

but being man, he came under touch, and having put on flesh, he willingly delivered himself into the hands of human nature

but out of folly they utter things contrary to themselves

For indeed, once, when I was disputing with a certain disciple of his, a Marcionite, and saying that the Gospel has it that the Spirit took him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, I heard from him this objection: how could Satan tempt the one who is God, and who is greater than him and his lord, as you say — Jesus, his own master? But I, receiving understanding on the spot by the help of God, answered him, saying:

'Do you not believe that Christ was crucified?' And he said:

'Who then crucified him?' And he said:

'Who is more powerful, men or the devil?' And he said:

And when he said this, I answered:

'If the devil is stronger than men, and men, who are weaker, crucified Christ, it is no wonder if he was also tempted by the devil.'

For in everything, willingly and not out of necessity, Christ gave himself for us, suffering in truth, not out of weakness but by choice, as an example for us also with respect to the devil, and for our salvation in the suffering of the cross, unto the condemnation of sin and the abolition of death

And he said to Peter and the rest:

'Prepare that we may eat the Passover.'

This one saying contains a cloud of arrows against you, O Marcion

For if he commands that the Passover be prepared for him to eat, and the Passover used to be celebrated before Christ's suffering, then certainly it had its institution from the Law

And since Christ conducted himself according to the Law, it was clear that he did not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it

But if a king does not abolish the law, then the ordinance in the law is not impious, nor forbidden even to the king

And since the Law is duly pious and its ordinance acknowledged, if a king should add something to the ordinance for a greater gift, the splendor of the addition comes about by his authority

And since the legislation and the gift added to it are of one and the same author, it is clear and evident to everyone that he who made the addition does not oppose the Law

It has therefore been demonstrated that the Old Testament is not at all contrary to the Gospel, nor to the sequence of the prophets

But you, O Marcion, have brought this refutation upon yourself in many ways, or rather, being compelled by truth itself

For the old Passover was nothing other than the sacrifice of a sheep and the eating of meat, the partaking of a living creature together with unleavened bread

And who compelled you not to erase completely the refutation against you, except, as I said, truth itself? For that eating of flesh which you abhor, the Lord Jesus ate with his own disciples, celebrating the Passover according to the Law

And do not say that what he was about to accomplish as a mystery, this he had already named beforehand, saying:

'I want to eat the Passover with you'

For in order that truth may put you to shame in every way, he does not perform the mystery at the beginning, lest you deny it, but it says:

'After supper he took this and that, and said, This is this and that,' and he left no room at all for fraud

for it showed that after having eaten the Passover according to the custom of the Jews, that is, after supper, he proceeded to the mystery

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

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

The Savior reclined at table, O Marcion, and the twelve apostles with him.

If he reclined, and they reclined together with him, one word cannot bear one meaning for the one and another meaning for the other, even though there might be a difference in dignity and manner.

For either you will grant that the twelve also reclined only in appearance, or that he too, having true flesh, truly reclined.

'And with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer' — that he might show that the Passover, before his Passion, was prefigured in the Law, and that it became the confirmation of his own Passion, while summoning us to a more perfect one.

and showing, as the holy apostle also says, that the Law became our tutor unto Christ.

But if the Law is a tutor unto Christ, then the Law is not alien to Christ.

He cut out the words: 'For I say to you, I will not eat it any more until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.'

This he excised and tampered with, so that, forsooth, he might make it appear that there is no food or drink in the kingdom of God;

the brutish man not knowing that spiritual and heavenly things can be a counterpart of earthly ones, partaken of in a manner which we do not know;

for the Savior again bears witness and says, 'You shall sit at my table, eating and drinking, in the kingdom of heaven.'

Or again he cut these out, so that, forsooth, he might make it appear that the things in the Law have no place in the kingdom of heaven.

Whence then did Elijah and Moses appear with him on the mountain in glory? But no one will be able to prevail against the truth.

He cut out 'When I sent you, did you lack anything?' and what follows, because of the words 'this also, which is written, must be fulfilled,' namely:

'And he was reckoned among the lawless.'

their places — the Law going before, and the prophets proclaiming beforehand, and the Lord fulfilling.

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

'Kneeling down' — this he did visibly, and performed it perceptibly.

But if perceptibly, then he performed the act of kneeling according to bodily form;

therefore the Only-begotten did not dwell among us without flesh.

for to him every knee shall bow — of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth: those in heaven spiritually, those on earth perceptibly, those under the earth in their own manner.

But here on earth he accomplished everything in truth, being seen and being found tangible by the disciples, and not merely appearing to be so.

'And Judas drew near to kiss him, and said...'

He drew near to the Master and God who existed in the flesh, who had taken a body, to kiss true lips that did not exist merely in appearance and were not a phantom.

He cut out what Peter did, when he struck and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest.