Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 26/82

For even though he himself cut it off, we know the signs of God.

for after the ear was cut off, the Lord took it and healed it again, so that it might be shown that he is God and performed the work of God.

'Those who held him mocked him, beating and striking him, and saying...'

'Prophesy, who is it that struck you?' Refutation 68.

That the 'holding,' and the 'mocking,' and the 'beating,' and the 'striking,' and the 'Prophesy, who is it that struck you?' — this was not mere appearance, but is indicative of bodily touch and of a substance truly in the flesh, and this is evident to everyone, even though you, Marcion, having been blinded, refuse to confess the manifest truth of God.

He added, after 'We found this man perverting the nation,' the words 'and destroying the Law and the Prophets.'

How will you not be found out, how will you not be convicted of perverting the way of the Lord? For when here you add what is not written, slandering yourself — for I would not say slandering the Lord — and saying, 'We found this man destroying the Law and the Prophets,' the counterweight to this will convict you, O vain laborer, since the Savior himself says, 'I did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them.'

Therefore the same one who says, 'I did not come to destroy,' cannot be accused of destroying.

For the text did not read thus, but:

'We found this man perverting the people, saying that he himself is Christ, a king.'

An addition after this: 'forbidding to give tribute, and turning away wives and children.'

Who brings a precipice upon himself, fulfilling what is written:

'He who is evil to himself, to whom will he be good?' For it is an example of all rashness and wickedness, and of a perilous journey, to falsify what is written and to add what is not written, especially in the Gospel, which is indestructible unto the ages.

And moreover, the very content of the addition has neither warrant nor hidden meaning.

For Jesus did not turn away wives or children;

for he himself said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and, 'What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.'

But even if he says, 'If anyone does not leave father and mother and brothers and wife and children,' and so on, 'he is not my disciple' — this is not that we should hate our fathers, but that we should not be led away by the command of fathers and mothers into another faith, or into a manner of life contrary to the Savior's teaching.

'And when they came to the place called The Skull, they crucified him and divided his garments, and the sun was darkened.'

For though you make pretexts about everything else, here you will have no pretext.

For he who does not have flesh cannot even be crucified.

How did you not escape this great saying? How did you not attempt to hide this great affair, which has undone your whole scheme of wickedness devised from the beginning? For if he was crucified at all, how do you not see that the crucified one had tangibility, and had his hands and feet fixed with nails? This could not be mere appearance or a phantasm, as you say, but truly a body, which the Lord took from Mary — flesh of our own nature, and bones, and the rest — since it is confessed even by you that the Lord was fastened to the cross.

He cut out: 'Today you shall be with me in Paradise.'

Well and fittingly did you cut this out, O Marcion;

for you have taken away from yourself the entrance into Paradise.

For neither will you enter yourself, nor will you allow those with you to enter.

For those who deceive and those who are deceived truly hate the good by nature.

'And having cried out with a loud voice, he breathed his last.'

If he breathed his last, O Marcion, and gave forth a loud cry, from what did he breathe, or what was it that was breathed out? It is clear, even though you will not say it:

the soul, together with the deity, went forth from the body, while the body remained without breath, as the truth has it.

'And behold, a man named Joseph, taking down the body, wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid it in a tomb hewn out of rock.'

If the taking down, and the wrapping, and the laying in a rock-hewn tomb do not persuade you, O Marcion, who could be more foolish than you? What else could Scripture have shown more clearly, since it displayed both the tomb and the place and its appearance, and the three-day placement of the body, and the wrapping of the linen cloth, in order to show the whole truth? Scholion 75.

'And the women, having returned, rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.'

Whence did the women return? And why also is it written that they 'rested,' unless Scripture meant to show their testimony, refuting your folly, O Marcion? For behold, both women bear witness, and apostles, and Jews, and angels, and Joseph, who took down and wrapped a body that was truly tangible.

But who will adorn one who, as it is written, is self-condemned and perverts himself?

'Those in shining garments said...'

'Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is risen; remember how he spoke to you while he was still with you, that the Son of Man must suffer and be delivered up.'

Not even these holy angels persuade you, O Marcion — they who confess that for three days he was among the dead, but that thereafter he was living and no longer dead: ever living in his deity and not at all made dead, yet made dead according to the flesh for the three days, and living again.

And what does 'he rose' mean, if not that he had also fallen asleep? For they relate it more clearly:

'For remember,' it says, 'that while he was still alive he told you these things, that the Son of Man must suffer.'

He cut out what was said to Cleopas and the other, when he met them: 'O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.'

'Ought he not to have suffered these things?' And instead of 'concerning what the prophets have spoken,' he made it 'concerning what I have spoken to you.'

'...their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.'

Whence did the breaking of the bread come about? Tell me, O Marcion.

From a phantasm, or from a truly substantial body acting in reality? For having risen from the dead, he rose in truth in that very holy body.

But you, O Marcion, made it — instead of 'Are not these the things which the prophets spoke?' — 'Are not these the things which I spoke to you?' But if he said to them, 'I spoke to you,' then surely they would have recognized him from the very word 'I spoke to you.'

How then does it say that at the breaking of the bread 'their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he became invisible'? For it was fitting that he, being God, and transforming his body into a spiritual one, should show it to be a true body, yet become invisible whenever he willed, since all things are possible to him.

For Elisha too, being a prophet and having received grace from God, asked of God that those seeking him be struck with blindness; and they were struck, and did not see him as he truly was.

Moreover, in Sodom too the angels hid the door of Lot, and the Sodomites could not see it.

Was Lot's door then also a mere appearance, O Marcion? No objection at all is left to you.

For he clearly broke the bread and distributed it to his disciples.

'Why are you troubled? See my hands and my feet, that a spirit does not have bones, as you see me having.'

Who would not laugh at such nonsense, at a man who in his folly has dragged down his own soul and the souls of others into Hades? For if these words had not been acknowledged by him, his error might have been plausible, and those deceived by him would have had an excuse;

but now, since he acknowledged these very words and did not remove them, and his followers still read them, his sin and theirs remains, and their fire is inescapable, since they are without excuse — the Savior having plainly taught that even after the resurrection he has bones and flesh, as he himself testified, saying, 'as you see me having.'

This, then, is the case against him drawn from the remnants of the Gospel that have survived among his own followers, constituting the treatise we have composed on his account — a treatise which, in my judgment, is sufficient to refute his deception.

I shall now proceed to what follows: the apostolic sayings still preserved among his followers, which we shall likewise examine one by one, beginning first, and in due sequence throughout, with those from the Epistle to the Galatians —

for this stands first in his collection.

We, however, made the comparison on that former occasion not according to the order in which it stands with him, but according to that of the (true) Apostolikon, placing the Epistle to the Romans first;

but here we shall set them forth according to his own arrangement.

From the Epistle to the Galatians

'Know that the righteous shall live by faith.'

'For as many as are under the law are under a curse;'

'but the one who does them shall live by them.'

The words 'know that the righteous shall live by faith', according to what has been said by the apostle, are demonstrative of the Old Scripture — words spoken by the apostle out of the Law and the Prophets for our life, concerning the New Covenant, and joined as consort to our hope.

And as for the words 'they are under a curse', he says that in the Law there was a threat pronounced against Adam's disobedience, until he came who came from above and, clothing himself with a body from the lump of Adam, changed the curse into a blessing.

'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.'

'but he of the promise was born through the free woman' —

this coming to pass; and that this had been written beforehand in the Law and prophesied as something to come, and then was fulfilled in the Savior, he has plainly shown that the Law is not alien to the Savior.

For it prophesied and bore witness to the things that were to come to pass through him.

'And I testify again that every man who is circumcised is obligated to keep the whole Law.'

The phrase 'is obligated' speaks no longer of something forbidden, but of a heavier burden that is able to be lightened, there being one and the same Master who is able both to make it heavier and to make it lighter, according to the choice of those who have not refused to accept the salvation offered through his grace at his incarnate coming.

Instead of 'a little leaven leavens the whole lump', he made it 'corrupts the whole lump'.

So that nothing true might be found with him, he has scarcely anywhere approached the Scriptures without tampering with them.

But from the very sequence of the passage itself, the true meaning of the word becomes manifest;

for leaven is that which produces the appearance of a lump, and 'to be leavened' derives from 'lump'; and he who wisely constructed this parabolic figure would not have obliterated its original form.

'For the whole Law has been fulfilled for you:'

'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

What need would the holy apostle have to make use of the Law, if the New Covenant were estranged from the legislation of the Old? But it is in order to show that the two covenants belong to the one God, and that their harmony — according to the fulfilling of the Law through love of neighbor — is recognized in equal measure in both covenants, working out the perfect good, that he said love is the fulfillment of the Law.

'Now the works of the flesh are evident: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing — of which I forewarn you, as I have also told you before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.'

O wondrous mysteries, and God's paradoxical illustrations!

For he attached all these terrible things to the flesh;

yet the flesh did not always exist, but came into being on the sixth day of the creation of the world, when Adam was formed;

from that time it had its beginning — I mean, from the moment of its formation — so that those may be refuted who say that evil has always existed and from the beginning.

For neither did the flesh sin from the moment it was formed — lest the Maker be thought to be the cause of sin by having formed sinful flesh — nor did evil pre-exist the creature.

But after some time, Adam, having fallen into disobedience, since he possessed free will, of his own choice and by himself conceived sin and committed it against himself — I mean, having made a rejection of his own Master through disobedience.

Where, then, was evil before the flesh existed? And how is it that, having just been formed, it did not immediately do evil, but only after some time? Therefore the doctrine of evil as a first principle is utterly refuted.

For it cannot claim antiquity, since it is in the flesh — which came later — that evil has the possibility of coming to be or not coming to be; nor, on the other hand, is the flesh itself disinherited from the things of heaven.

And let no one seize upon the holy apostle's saying, 'flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God,'

for he does not condemn all flesh.

For how could flesh that has not committed the aforesaid deeds be condemned? And I shall establish the point in question by other proofs as well.

which are fornication, idolatry, and things like these.

And so your contrivance has been utterly refuted, O erring Marcion, since the truth has everywhere taken precedence and secured the solid foundation of the preaching of life.

'But those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its'

'passions and desires.'

If, then, those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh as well, O Marcion, it is clear that the servants of Christ, along with their desires and passions, have shown the flesh to be pure, and have imitated Christ, thereby demonstrating that he himself had crucified flesh.

Therefore they too, being minded the same as their Master, crucified the flesh.

And if they crucified the flesh, it is impossible that the flesh, having suffered for Christ's sake, should not reign together with Christ, just as the holy apostle also shows in another saying, when he says: 'as you are partakers of the sufferings of Christ, so also shall you be of the glory.'

'For not even those who are circumcised themselves keep the Law.'

The earlier circumcision, then, was not forbidden in its own proper time, provided one kept the Law.

But the Law was proclaiming that Christ was coming to bring forth a law of freedom, and in the time of Christ circumcision in the flesh would no longer be of service;

for the true circumcision through Christ had come, of which that former one was but a type.

But those who are still sealed with that former circumcision, even if they keep the whole Law, their keeping of the Law shall no longer be reckoned to them;

for since the Law said concerning Christ, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from your brothers, like me; him you shall hear,'

and since they did not hearken to Christ, their circumcision becomes uncircumcision to them, and their keeping of the Law is no longer a keeping of it.

The Law, then, is good, and circumcision is good, since it was from the one and from the other that we came to know Christ and his more perfect law and his more perfect circumcision.

From the First Epistle to the Corinthians:

for this stands second both among them and among us.

'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will set aside.'

If the apostle gathers testimonies from what is written in the prophets to establish the truth and good teaching, then the prophets are not alien to the truth, nor to the good God, nor to his good teaching.

'that, as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.'

If he who boasts in the Lord is praiseworthy according to the prophet, and the prophet knows as Lord the God of the Law — the very one who among you, O Marcion, is called Judge and Demiurge and Just —

then this one is none other than the Father of Christ, whose disciple Paul is;

since Paul, appointed by Christ as the teacher of the Gentiles, drawing from the teaching of the prophet, from these same and like teachings, as though drawing pure water, waters the church that has been entrusted to him.

'of the rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing.'

If the rulers of this age are many, and such rulers are being brought to nothing, you will be forced, O Marcion, no longer to seek the roots of three first principles, but to devise for yourself another myth of many first principles, many roots, and much tragedy.

And whenever, out of malicious pretense, you fabricate one — for you will not really find one — you will run up against the word 'being brought to nothing';

and by the word that says 'being brought to nothing', that unbegun root of first principles which you imagine will be utterly destroyed.

For everything that comes to an end is not eternal; rather, if something had a beginning of its existence, it will also undergo an end.

seeing that it exists now, though it began to exist.

But that which truly Is, is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit;

and that which is not [in this absolute sense] is all created things, which have had a beginning of their existence — among which is also what is called evil and is indeed evil, having taken its beginning from human beings who came into being, they themselves not having existed at some time;

And since evil had a beginning, dating from the time when man too, who once did not exist, came to be, evil will thereafter no longer exist.

For it will undoubtedly be abolished, because the One who truly Is does not consent together with that which had a beginning and has established itself among base things;

For it will cease after the resurrection — and not only then, but also from the proclamation of the Law, and even before the Law, [it ceased] among the many who conducted themselves according to the natural law, and still more from the incarnate coming of Christ, and most perfectly of all from the resurrection of the dead, since 'they are sown in corruption, they are raised in incorruption,' no longer working evil, no longer dying.

And that it will indeed cease, the very word of the Apostle will bear witness, when he speaks of 'the rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing.'

And thus your position, O Marcion, is refuted from every side, being a phantom notion, false, unstable, and irrational.

'He who catches the wise in their craftiness'

'The Lord knows the reasonings of men, that they are futile.'

The word 'it is written', put forward as a citation, and the acknowledged phrase 'the Lord knows', are not foreign to the one who chose out this saying — I mean the holy Apostle, in whose writing this quotation is found.

From this citation the character [of the text] appears not to be foreign to the Apostle's preaching, as coming from the Old Testament, whence his testimony was drawn.

'For indeed Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.'

If the Apostle confesses the Passover and does not deny that Christ was sacrificed, then the Passover is not alien to Christ — the Passover according to the Law truly sacrificing a sheep, and not in mere appearance; and of this sheep Christ, who was sacrificed not in appearance nor suffered apart from flesh, was the antitype.

For how could a spirit be sacrificed? Clearly it could not.

Since he could not be sacrificed apart from flesh, but was sacrificed in truth, as is confessed by the Apostle's undoubted testimony,

then it is clearly demonstrated in every way that the Law is not alien, being borne along in type through time until [the coming of] the more perfect and manifest sheep, Christ, who was sacrificed in truth, of whom the sensible sheep sacrificed in former times, at other times, was a forerunner and type.

'And our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed.'

'Do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body [with her]? For, it says, the two shall become one flesh.'

If the Law is not true, by what reasoning do those who speak the truth derive their testimonies from the Law? Of these, one is the holy Apostle of God, Paul, who took this testimony, along with many others, as a clear demonstration of the truth and of the proclamation of the good God.

For instead of saying 'in the Law', he says 'in the Law of Moses'.

And before this he says: 'Or does not the Law also say this?'

And even if, in the second statement, you should change the wording, O Marcion, and suppose that by having rendered it 'in the Law of Moses' you can, through [the name] Moses, alienate the Law from God, yet the connecting clause given above already refutes your folly, namely, 'Or does not the Law also say this?'

For it is written in the Law:

You have done us no injury at all, even if you add the name of Moses; rather, you have benefited us, while you have tightened the testimony against yourself, and have confessed, unwittingly, on every side, that the Law of Moses belongs to God — this from [Paul's] saying 'in the Law of Moses' and 'the Law also says'.

For the Apostle goes on, in agreement, to say afterward: 'Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Or does he say it entirely for our sake?'

But the Law spoke for the sake of the apostles; and so the God who spoke in the Law is indeed caring for the apostles of Christ, in commanding that they not be muzzled — whether as regards their speaking Christ's own teaching, or their having, without lack, their daily sustenance from the peoples.

Therefore he does not regard the apostles as strangers to his own godhead, nor do the apostles consider him to be an alien god.

From which the holy Apostle has given testimony concerning all things, saying, 'Is God concerned about oxen?' — but he said it for the sake of the apostles.

And if he said this for the sake of the apostles, and he is the creator of men and of cattle — among which are oxen and sparrows, reptiles and beasts, sea-creatures and the rest — then he cares about all things, each according to its own proportion.

And he cares about all things, as it is said, 'Man and beast You save, O Lord'; and as it is said, 'Who has given the raven its food?' and 'the young ravens cry out to the Lord,'

seeking their food; and, 'You give food to all in due season.'

but it was not with regard merely to oxen treading out the grain that he commanded, 'You shall not muzzle the ox that treads the grain,' as though he were showing that God could not otherwise feed his own creation, unless also through the sustenance supplied to cattle by human aid.

Rather, the holy Apostle showed that it is not for lack of food that God, through the treading of grain, takes care of oxen by commanding that such animals not be muzzled, but that through this riddle the relation concerning the apostles is signified.

For he exercises providence over all sensible things, and cares equally about all of them.

For the Apostle did not write in opposition to the Savior, so that many should take this as a pretext.

For sparrows are smaller than oxen, concerning which the Savior said, 'Are not five sparrows sold for two assaria?' and again, 'Are not two sparrows sold for one assarion?'

If then two sparrows are sold for one assarion, and not one of them falls into a snare apart from your Father who is in heaven — he provides for all alike, but he takes special care of the greater according to the greater rank in the spiritual order.

So then, it is confessed from every quarter that the same one is Maker, Creator, and Lawgiver of both the Old and the New Testament, being a good and just God and Lord of all.

'Is God concerned about oxen?' — Refutations 8 and 10

This has already been treated and expounded at length in the passage preceding it.

Therefore, considering it superfluous to speak of it again, I have been content with what has already been said.

'For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink;'

'for they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them;'

'but with most of them [God] was not well pleased.'

'Now these things became types for us, so that we might not be desirers of evil things, as they also desired.'

'Neither become idolaters, as some of them were, as it is written:'

'The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.'

'Neither let us tempt Christ' — down to where it says, 'Now these things happened to them typologically, and they were written for us' — and what follows.

The Apostle says that Christ was not well pleased with the majority of them, entirely on account of their lawless conduct.

But if he was not well pleased with those who acted lawlessly under the Law, then he is indignant at such people precisely as the one who had himself given the Law, and thereby teaches that the Law is his own, given in its proper time and justly serving its purpose until his incarnate coming.

For it is fitting for a master of the house, at each proper time, suitably to command his own servants in what is fitting.

And immediately he adds, saying, 'Now these things became types for us, so that we might not be desirers of evil things, as they also desired.'

'Neither become idolaters, as some of them were;'

not pronouncing his verdict against all of them.

And how do you know these things, O Apostle? He adds, saying, 'as it is written,' 'The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.'

Then indeed the Scripture is true, from which the Apostle also derives his refutation of the lawless.

Then again, 'let us not put the Lord to the test.'

But Marcion, instead of 'the Lord', made it 'Christ'.

But 'Lord' and 'Christ' are one and the same, even if it should not seem so to Marcion, since the title 'Christ' was already set forth beforehand, in the saying, 'the Rock was Christ';

'and with most of them he was not well pleased.'

And the holy Apostle, again setting forth the whole subject of the chapter, says, 'Now these things happened to them typologically, and they were written for our admonition.'

If, then, the things that happened to them typologically were written for our admonition, then he who caused what happened then to be written for our admonition was caring for those whom he was also admonishing, namely, that we should not become desirers of evil things.

And he who does not wish us to be desirers of evil things is therefore good and not evil.

For in whatever he himself is, in that he also urges us to be — being the same God, both good and just, the God of those written of beforehand and of those admonished afterward, being Creator and Maker and Lawgiver of all things, and giver of the Gospels, and guide of the apostles.

What then do I say? That a temple-offering is anything, or that an idol-offering is anything? Rather, that what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.

But Marcion added the word 'temple-offering'.

What then do I say? That an idol-offering is anything? Rather, that what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.

The Apostle did not, by saying that those who sacrifice to idols sacrifice to demons and not to God, condemn the ancient time of the fathers up to himself, and up to when Jerusalem still stood.

He did not therefore condemn those who sacrificed to God, when there was need of sacrifices.

But he condemns those who sacrifice to idols, not because of the sacrificing itself, but because they sacrifice to idols instead of to God.

For they do not sacrifice so as to procure for themselves, for their own consumption, food graciously given by God; rather, they sacrifice to demons, out of vain-mindedness.

But you, O Marcion, added the word 'sacrificed-to-a-temple,' supposing that, because the two terms 'temple' and 'idol' are mingled together, the relation between the two practices is thereby joined as one.

For if, after the coming of the New Testament, sacrifice were being offered to Christ in a special way, and animals were being brought up in his name, then the falsehood of your calumny might seem plausible to you -- as though those now sacrificing to God are sacrificing to Christ, while those who once sacrificed in the temple at Jerusalem are being lumped together with those sacrificing to idols, and so are held to be sacrificing to demons and not to God.

But since no one has sacrificed animals to Christ from the time of Christ's sojourn among us and of the New Testament, your addition is plain for all to see.

But even if the wording concerning 'temple-offered' and 'idol-offered' truly stood by nature in the apostle's text, it would nevertheless be judged one and the same thing by those endowed with sound reasoning, since the apostle used the word loosely, on account of the custom of men who invariably call the idol 'sacred.'

They sacrifice to demons and not to God;

but not those who once, according to the Law, sacrificed most righteously.

But now, since this is no longer taking place -- by his own will -- just as of old he had already said through the prophet Jeremiah, 'Why do you bring me frankincense from Sheba, and cinnamon from a distant land?' and again, 'Your sacrifices did not please me,' and elsewhere, 'Take away your sacrifices, O Israel, and eat the meat.'

For I did not command your fathers, on the day when I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, concerning sacrifices; but this I commanded them: that each one should do righteousness toward his neighbor.