Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 27/82

But since he himself says, 'I did not command,' and yet he himself, in the Law, says to Moses that each of the sons of Israel, if he offers a sacrifice from the herd or the flock, should offer a male without blemish; and again, 'if anyone sins and falls into some trespass, let him bring a sheep'; and again, 'if the people sin, let them offer a calf' -- he showed thereby that he graciously accepted the sacrifices once performed for the salvation of the people, not because he needed them, nor because he willed them for their own sake, but because he was condescending to their weakness and to the preconceptions ingrained in humanity, so that he might transfer the minds of men from polytheism to the knowledge of the one God.

For since their minds had been firmly grounded in sacrifice as though it were piety itself -- the sacrifice that used to be offered to idols for their own atonement and salvation -- and since he saw that they could not bear all at once, because of habit, to be turned away from doing this, he was willing to bear with it for a time, [turning them] toward his own name away from their polytheistic delusion; he willed to transform into worship of himself the very things they were accustomed to doing, so that afterward, having come to know the One and having securely believed in the One, they might hear from him: 'Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Did you offer me sacrifice forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?'

And yet, although many sacrifices were offered at that time -- to show that they were not, in truth, offering them to him, even though he accepted them and they offered them in his name, but did so on account of the custom that had grown up among them in such matters -- he tolerated it until he should draw them up out of it, leading them down from the custom of many gods to the One, so that thereafter, from the One, they might learn that he neither needed nor needs sacrifice, and that at last, through the incarnate coming of his own Christ, he might cut off the whole foundation of sacrifices -- the one sacrifice having brought to completion all those that had previously existed, which is the sacrifice of Christ, because 'our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed,' according to what is written.

Of this sacrifice, this Passover, and this teaching, the Law became the tutor, guiding by means of the type and leading men on to the more complete teaching.

A man ought not to wear his hair long, since he is the glory and image of God.

The apostle defines man as being not only the image of God but also his glory.

But by positing that the hair is bodily, belonging properly to the body and not to the soul, he thereby defines the creation as not alien to the good God, through his confessing that the things of old are being fulfilled in the New Testament.

But God has tempered the body together.

If God tempered the body together, and the apostle preaches no other god but the one who truly is, and he confesses that God has tempered the body together with its members, then he knows no other god than the Creator himself -- good, and maker, and just, the maker of all things -- of all of which man is one work, having been well tempered together in his members by him.

Erroneously, Marcion, after the words 'but in church I would rather speak five words with my understanding,' added 'because of the Law.'

So then, tongues too are from the gift of the Spirit.

And he confessed that it was a spiritual gift both to use Hebrew expressions and to teach the Law; moreover, casting down also the other boastful pretensions of the Greek tongue, he declared that he spoke in tongues even more than they did, because he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel -- the letters of the Hebrews which he sets forth for praise, being gifts belonging to the gift of the Spirit.

Therefore, writing about these same things to Timothy also, he said, 'From your youth you have known the sacred writings.'

Furthermore, adding a word against those who set out from the Greek poets and orators and make the same claims, he likewise said, 'I speak in tongues more than all of you,' so as to show that he too had come to surpass others in his experience of Greek education.

For indeed his very style of writing shows that he was versed in preliminary education -- [an education] which the Epicureans and Stoics were unable to withstand, being overturned by the inscription on the altar which he read out with such eloquence, the inscription written 'To the Unknown God,' which he read out expressly and immediately rendered in translation: 'Him whom you worship in ignorance, this one I proclaim to you'; and again, having spoken, he said, 'A certain prophet of their own has said:'

'Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies' -- [Paul says this] so as to point to Epimenides, an ancient philosopher and the founder of the idol among the Cretans.

For indeed, O lord, the Cretans fashioned a tomb for you, yet you did not die.

And you see how the holy apostle discourses concerning tongues: 'but I would rather speak five words in church with my understanding' -- that is, by means of interpretation.

Just as the prophet, bringing to light through prophecy the things beforehand supplied to his mind by the Holy Spirit, benefits his hearers, so also I wish, he says, to speak for the hearing and edification of the church, and not, through the ostentation of the Greek or the Hebrew tongue, to edify myself -- who understand it -- and not the church, by means of the tongue that I know.

But you, O Marcion, added 'because of the Law,' as though the apostle had said, 'I would rather speak five words in church because of the Law.'

Be ashamed, you second Babylon, you new manifold confusion of Sodom!

How long will you confuse the tongues? How long will you dare to act against those who have done you no wrong whatever? For you seek to do violence to angelic powers, casting the words of truth out of the church, saying to holy Lot, 'Bring out the men.'

And whatever you attempt, you attempt against yourself; you will not cast out the words of truth, but you strike yourself with blindness, and you pass your life in a darkened night, groping for the door and not finding it, until the sun rises and you see the day of judgment;

on which day the fire also shall confront your lying speech.

For this is what awaits you, as you can see.

For 'because of the Law' does not stand at all in the apostle's text; this has been fabricated by you.

But even if the apostle had said 'because of the Law,' he would have been speaking in harmony with his own Lord, who said, 'not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it.'

It is written in the Law, 'With other tongues and with other lips I will speak to this people.'

If the Lord had not fulfilled what had been foretold in the Law, what need would there have been for the apostle to remind them of the things from the Law being fulfilled in the New Testament? Even as the Savior himself showed that he was the very one who had spoken then in the Law and had determined, by way of warning, saying to them, 'Therefore I was provoked with this generation, and I said, they always go astray in heart; and I swore that they shall not enter into my rest.'

Therefore he also promised to speak to them in other tongues, as indeed he did speak, and they did not enter in.

For this is what he is found saying to his disciples: 'To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but to those others it is given in parables, so that seeing they may not see' -- and so on.

Everywhere, then, in the New Testament, the fulfillment of the things from the Old makes it plain to everyone that the two Testaments consist not of one god and another god, but of the same God.

Let the women keep silence in the churches;

for they are not permitted to speak, but let them be in subjection, as the Law also says.

If the holy apostle of God ordains good order according to the Law for the holy church of God, then the Law is not disorderly -- the very Law from which he transfers this good order -- nor does it belong to an alien god, this Law which subjected the woman to the man.

For this too is agreeable to the apostle in the legislation of the church, as he says:

But where did the Law say this? Was it not indeed when God said directly to Eve, 'Your turning shall be toward your husband, and he shall rule over you'? For even if it is found in other places too, still it is from here that it begins.

If, then, from that time the woman was subjected to the man by the ordinance of God, and the apostle accordingly subjects her likewise, then he -- in so commanding -- shows in every way that he does not act contrary to the God who made man and woman, and that the apostle is a lawgiver belonging to the same God whose the Law was, and the whole Old Testament, and whose also is the New Testament -- that is, the two Testaments, which both then and now have subjected the woman to the man through a pious and mutually corresponding good order.

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you.

and that if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain -- and so on.

So we preach, and so you believed, that Christ died, and was buried, and was raised on the third day.

But when this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you.

If he preached it and now once again makes it known, there is no other gospel nor any other knowledge apart from the one and the same, which one thing happens to be conveyed through the four Gospels and the apostles -- so as to refute Marcion, who came so many years afterward, after the time of the man called Hyginus, bishop of the Romans, who was ninth in succession from the passing of the apostles Peter and Paul.

Therefore, safeguarding against this, the same apostle said, 'Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed' -- knowing by the Holy Spirit that Marcion and those like him would in time to come pervert the way that had been so well established.

Hence he no longer said, 'I preach the gospel to you,' but 'I make known to you the gospel' -- not a different one, but the one I already preached to you, of which I am now making a reminder to you.

I make known to you by what word I preached the gospel to you, if you hold it fast -- unless you believed in vain.

For if you do not hold it fast as I preached it to you, then apart from it you believed in vain.

For I preached the gospel to you that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures -- and not according to a myth, nor according to the teaching of those who would in the future speak of their own accord things that are not written.

For the Jews, of their own accord, say that he has not been raised; but Marcion and the others say, of their own accord, that he suffered and was buried only in appearance; but I, according to the Scriptures, give you assurance.

For immediately he adds, saying, 'So we preach, and so you believed, that Christ died and was buried and was raised on the third day'; and immediately again, 'If the dead are not raised, then neither has Christ been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is vain.'

This mortal must put on immortality, and this corruptible must put on incorruption.

And he did not say that this mortal should 'contain' immortality, or that this corruptible should 'contain' incorruption, but that the mortal and the corruptible should 'put on' immortality and incorruption.

But what is mortal, if not the body -- the body which does not merely contain immortality within itself, but also makes it its own and is about to put it on; not by the body being cast off and the soul, which does not die, putting on immortality, but by the mortal itself putting on immortality, and the corruptible putting on incorruption, that is, the body? For it is the body that has both death and temporary corruption, on account of the dissolution brought upon it through Adam's disobedience.

But that he is speaking of the benefits that are to be brought to completion in it in the future, he signifies through the promise, indicating what is yet to be fulfilled, saying: 'then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death has been swallowed up in victory' -- so as to signify the resurrection of the dead that was then going to take place.

Since death was swallowed up in part in the resurrection of Christ and of those who rose together with him -- for many bodies of the saints rose, as the Gospel says, and entered together with him into the holy city -- but it will be swallowed up in victory then, when it is universally made to vanish from all.

This epistle stands third with Marcion, though displaced from its order, because he had placed the Epistle to the Galatians first among his own.

For as many as are the promises of God, in him is the 'Yes.'

Therefore also through him is the Amen, to God.

But if you can no longer answer -- for you have died -- let those who were deceived by you open their eyes and flee from you as from a fearsome serpent that injures those who draw near it.

For if, as many as are the promises of God, in him is the Yes, and the apostle knows the promises of God through the Law and the Prophets, then indeed in Christ the Yes of the fulfillment of the promises was confirmed.

Christ, therefore, is not alien to the old Law and the Prophets, nor to the God who spoke in the Law and has fulfilled his promises in Christ.

But neither is Christ opposed to the God who gave the Law and the Prophets.

For because in him the promised pledges become Yes, therefore, he says, also through him is the Amen, to God.

God the Father made the promise, while Christ both confirms it and (†) secures the Amen of the Lord through himself, in those who through him have been confirmed in the promise and have come to recognize his Father as having spoken in the Law and, in the Gospel, to those who have believed -- having granted the things pertaining to salvation -- to those who say, through Christ speaking in them: Yes, Father, for so it was well-pleasing before you.

For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake, because God, who said--

The apostles do not preach themselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord.

Therefore there is no heresy, nor is there any church, named after the apostles.

For we have never heard of 'Petrians' or 'Paulians' or 'Bartholomeans' or 'Thaddeans,' but from the beginning there was one proclamation of all the apostles, not proclaiming themselves but Christ Jesus as Lord.

Therefore they all together gave the church one name -- not their own, but that of their Lord Jesus Christ -- the disciples having begun to be called Christians at Antioch.

This is the one catholic Church, having no other name than that of Christ, being the Church of Christians -- not of 'Christs' but of Christians -- there being one Christ, and those who come from that one being called Christians.

But after this Church and its heralds, all the others no longer appear of the same character, on account of the added names of Manichaeans and Simonians and Valentinians and Ebionites.

as though you had preached yourself and not Christ

Then he says: 'because God, who said--'

But which God is this, but the one who, in the prophet, showed light out of darkness -- that is, light and knowledge that shone in Christ in our hearts, we who were once Gentiles worshiping idols out of unbelief and ignorance, but who have now come to know God, who at that time, in the prophet, had already promised beforehand that his light would shine in the world -- showing that he is not a stranger to the Old and New Testaments.

as has become our custom, to persuade you, O Marcion, from the very remnants of the Gospel that you still have in writing, and not to be deceived by you

But having the same spirit of faith, we also believe, and therefore we also speak.

But he cut out the phrase 'according to what is written.'

No ground will be given you for whatever you may dare to do.

For even if you cut out the phrase 'according to what is written,' the sequence of the previously written words is still apparent.

For from 'I believed, therefore I also spoke,' the apostle immediately went on to bring forward the same thing, saying: 'having the same spirit of faith, we also believe, and therefore we also speak.'

Whence the apostle also took up this saying and likewise said, 'therefore we also believe and speak,' being one of the number of the apostles.

For this reason he does not say, 'therefore I believed and I spoke,' but 'we believe, therefore we also speak,' in order to join himself together with the other apostles.

Great indeed, one might say, is the injustice and greed of his notions.

For since the apostle affirms one and the same Spirit, how does Marcion's folly, while acknowledging that the holy apostle spoke this word, dare to say that the Spirit was one thing then and another in the apostles? From the fourth epistle, to the Romans:

for it is thus arranged in Marcion's text, so that nothing correct might be found in him.

As many as have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and as many as have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.

For it is not the hearers of the Law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the Law who will be justified.

If as many as have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, then the Law, when kept, is the cause of salvation, and does not allow those who keep it to perish.

And if those who sinned under the Law will be judged through the Law, then the Law is a judge of transgressions, being a cause not of destruction but of righteous judgment, holily judging those who have transgressed.

For it is not the hearers of the Law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the Law who will be justified.

But if the Law, when practiced, justifies the one who practices it, then the Law is neither unjust nor worthless, since through it those who fulfill the Law are made righteous.

And from the Law also comes the faith in Christ that was prophesied, apart from which no one will be justified; and again, apart from believing in him whom the Law prophesied as a witness, likewise no one can be justified, since Christ is the fulfillment of the Law, according to what was said by the apostle, that 'Christ is the fulfillment of the Law unto righteousness' -- showing that without the Law and without Christ there is no righteousness.

For neither will the Jews be justified apart from Christ, if they do not receive Christ, nor will you, Marcion, be justified while you deny the Law.

For circumcision indeed profits, if you practice the Law.

But if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

...will profit -- who would find fault with the things that profit? Unless, then, he is to become like the serpent? For you resemble that serpent, O Marcion:

for that serpent also, twisting what had been said by God, deceived Eve, saying, 'You shall not surely die.'

For he bound the Law together with circumcision, and showed that circumcision fittingly agrees with the Law, and revealed that both are the commandment of the same God, who once gave circumcision and gave the Law for help -- from which, once Christ is believed in, he grants to those who believe both to speak and to do the things that are perfect.

having the form of knowledge and of truth in the Law

If knowledge has a form, and from the form its shape becomes visible, and the apostles who have knowledge and truth -- and their disciples -- know that they have acquired this shape from the form of the Law, that is, knowledge and truth, then the Law is not, after all, a stranger to knowledge and truth.

For it was through the form contained in it that the heralds of the truth came to know knowledge and truth.

For while we were still weak, Christ, at the appointed time, died for the ungodly.

The word 'still' and the word 'died' are indicative not of mere appearance but of reality.

For if it were mere appearance, what need would there be to say 'still,' since Christ could always, both then and now, appear in mere semblance, without its being said 'while we were still weak'? For by the word 'still' he assigned that death to that particular time, and made it valid by death, so that he who died once for sinners might no longer have need to die, and no longer dies for his own sake.

So then the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

He agrees that the Law itself is holy, and so is the commandment given in it, securing this with a threefold testimony, calling it holy and righteous and good, so as to refute you, Marcion, and to teach us that the Law belongs to the Holy One -- whose commandment is also holy -- and that he himself is both holy and good.

Therefore, being the commandment of the Good One, it is called good; being of the Holy One, it is holy; and being of the Righteous One, it is called a righteous commandment -- since he who was then and is now are one and the same, being holy and righteous and good.

Therefore his commandment, both from that time and now, in the Law and in the New Testament, is holy and righteous and good.

so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us

If the righteous requirement of the Law is fulfilled in the apostles and in us, how do you, Marcion, dare to say that the Law is alien to God's apostles, who are justified according to the fulfillment of the Law? Scholion 7 and 34.

For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

If Christ has come for righteousness to everyone who believes, and the Law is not brought to completion unless Christ perfects it by his own coming, then you, O Jews, will not be made perfect while remaining in the Law, unless you believe and receive Christ who has come to dwell among you.

But neither will you, Marcion, be able to be saved in Christ, if you cast away the beginning of the proclamation and its root, which is the Law -- from which, when Christ is known, he brings to perfection the one who does not abhor the Law as though it were alien to Christ.

For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the Law.

If the Law is fulfilled through loving one's neighbor, then the Law -- which commands us to love our neighbor -- is not alien to Christ, nor to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, nor to God.

because God is love, and all the things proclaimed by him are always proclaimed alike, both then and now, and in the Old and New Testaments.

Since Marcion has everything from this epistle in a perverted form, we have set forth nothing from it.

As for the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians -- placed sixth by Marcion, but ninth in the apostle's own order -- since it too has been distorted by Marcion himself, we have again set forth nothing from it.

From the Epistle to the Ephesians -- seventh in Marcion's order, but fifth in the apostle's own order -- the following:

Remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called 'the uncircumcision' by those who are called 'the circumcision' -- made in the flesh by hands -- were at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have become near by the blood of Christ.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one -- and so on.

The word 'remembering' signifies the character of the time; the phrase 'those called... by those called' signifies the types of the realities; and the phrase 'in the flesh' is used so as to show the type that, existing in the flesh, awaits the time of the Spirit, in order that he might show the more complete things by means of the type.

For apart from Christ, uncircumcision was alienated from the commonwealth of Israel; and being alienated, it was a stranger to promise and covenant, and those who came from it had no hope, but were without God in the world, as has been shown from the words of the apostle.

But you, Marcion, neither see nor hear; otherwise you would have understood of how many good things the holy apostle declares the Law to be the cause, for those who at that time conducted their lives under the Law.

For in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have now become near by his blood.

For he himself is our peace, who made the two one. But if he made the two one, and did not abolish the one while establishing the other, then neither is the former alien to him, nor did he separate the latter from the former, but he brought both together into one -- not merely, nor in mere semblance, but manifestly, in his blood, as the sure teaching of the apostle demonstrates.

"Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you."

Where does the Apostle get the words, "Therefore he says"? It is plain that this is from the Old Testament; indeed this very saying is found in [the book of] Elijah.

But from where did Elijah himself set out? He was one of the prophets who lived according to the Law, setting out from the Law and the Prophets.

But if he prophesied in Christ the words, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you," then indeed the archetype had already been fulfilled through Lazarus and the others — concerning whom the same women were in doubt, Martha and Mary saying, "He already stinks, he has been dead four days" — and [concerning] the people of the ruler of the synagogue saying, "Trouble the teacher no more," and him [Jesus] saying, "Do not be afraid."

"For she has not died, but sleeps."

For clearly from that time onward the preaching proclaimed that resurrection was to come through Christ, and it displayed the authoritative ease of it, so as to show forth the power of Christ: that just as it is easy for a man to raise by a word not one who has died but one who sleeps, so also for Christ it was most readily at hand to say:

"Lazarus, come out," and "Koumi, koumi, talitha," that is, "Arise, girl."

Through these clear proofs the Word signified our calling out of dead works and out of the heavy sleep of us who once slept, Christ both awakening [us] and, through the calling, illumining us —

and this became the second such relation.

But the perfect and universal [resurrection] that is awaited [will come] when the very one who says, "I am the resurrection," shall call all people and raise them in body and soul, and illumine them at his coming appearing.

It has been shown many times over that the things in the Law are not alien to what is taught by the Apostle, even though you, O Marcion, have cut out the words "to the woman."

For from the words "they shall become one flesh," your whole piece of trickery will be laid bare.

Of [the Epistle] to the Colossians, which stands as the eighth in Marcion's [list], but as the seventh in the Apostolikon:

"Let no one therefore judge you in food or in drink, or in respect of a feast or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of the things to come."

A shadow falls from nowhere else, O Marcion, but from a body; and there cannot be a body from which no shadow at all appears.

Hence those deceived by you ought to be persuaded, through the remnants of the truth of the divine Scriptures still preserved by you, that since good things to come were destined to be revealed, the ordinances of that former time were not alien to them — ordinances enjoined only for a season, concerning food and drink and the observance of feasts and new moons and sabbaths;

of which good things the aforesaid observances were shadows, and through those shadows we have laid hold of the body of the good things now present — which were sketched in outline by the Law, but brought to perfection in Christ.

For thus it stands in Marcion's [list], but in the Apostolikon it stands last:

though in some copies it is placed thirteenth, before Hebrews, which is fourteenth; while other copies place Hebrews tenth, before the two [epistles] to Timothy, and Titus, and Philemon.

But all the sound and true copies place [the Epistle] to the Romans first, not as you, Marcion, have placed [the Epistle] to the Galatians first.

Nevertheless, from this [Epistle] to Philemon we have cited nothing, because it lies entirely corrupted in his text.

For thus it stands in Marcion's [list], last and tenth, but in the Apostolikon it is sixth.

Likewise, from this one too, because it lies perverted in his text, we have selected nothing.

Thus is completed the arrangement of Marcion's compilation, drawn from the surviving remnants of texts and sayings from the Gospel according to Luke and from the Apostolikon:

from which, having gathered [our material], we have set forth the refutations against him drawn from what he himself has preserved.

He also added, in his own so-called Apostolikon, a marginal note on the so-called [Epistle] to the Laodiceans, [at] one and forty [places].

"One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all."

In agreement with [the Epistle] to the Ephesians, O Marcion, you have also gathered these testimonies against yourself from the so-called [Epistle] to the Laodiceans, so that at the end of the compilation, having read what stands in your text and having come to know the truth about you, we might learn to condemn the three unoriginate first principles — at variance with one another — which you have alien-mindedly devised.

For the teaching of the holy Apostle and his well-secured preaching is not so, but is otherwise than your fabrication.