Hence, finally, a kingdom; Lord from Lord;
Stream from perennial Fount! He, He it was
Who to the holy fathers (whosoe'er
Among them doth profess to have "seen God" [1689] )--
280 God is our witness--since the origin
Of this our world, [1690] appearing, opened up
The Father's words of promise and of charge
From heaven high: He led the People out;
Smote through th'iniquitous nation; was Himself
285 The column both of light and of cloud's shade;
And dried the sea; and bids the People go
Right through the waves, the foe therein involved
And covered with the flood and surge: a way
Through deserts made He for the followers
290 Of His high biddings; sent down bread in showers [1691]
From heaven for the People; brake the rock;
Bedewed with wave the thirsty; [1692] and from God
The mandate of the Law to Moses spake
With thunder, trumpet-sound, and flamey column
295 Terrible to the sight, while men's hearts shook.
After twice twenty years, with months complete,
Jordan was parted; a way oped; the wave
Stood in a mass; and the tribes shared the land,
Their fathers' promised boons! The Father's word,
300 Speaking Himself by prophets' mouth, that He [1693]
Would come to earth and be a man, He did
Predict; Christ manifestly to the earth
Foretelling.
Then, expected for our aid,
Life's only Hope, the Cleanser of our flesh, [1694]
305 Death's Router, from th' Almighty Sire's empire
At length He came, and with our human limbs
He clothed Him. Adam--virgin--dragon--tree, [1695]
The cause of ruin, and the way whereby
Rash death us all had vanquisht! by the same
310 Our Shepherd treading, seeking to regain
His sheep--with angel--virgin--His own flesh--
And the "tree's" remedy; [1696] whence vanquisht man
And doomed to perish was aye wont to go
To meet his vanquisht peers; hence, interposed,
315 One in all captives' room, He did sustain
In body the unfriendly penalty
With patience; by His own death spoiling death;
Becomes salvation's cause; and, having paid
Throughly our debts by throughly suffering
320 On earth, in holy body, everything,
Seeks the infern! here souls, bound for their crime,
Which shut up all together by Law's weight,
Without a guard, [1697] were asking for the boons
Promised of old, hoped for, and tardy, He
325 To the saints'rest admitted, and, with light,
Brought back. For on the third day mounting up, [1698]
A victor, with His body by His Sire's
Virtue immense, (salvation's pathway made,)
And bearing God and man is form create,
330 He clomb the heavens, leading back with Him
Captivity's first-fruits (a welcome gift
And a dear figure [1699] to the Lord), and took
His seat beside light's Father, and resumed
The virtue and the glory of which, while
335 He was engaged in vanquishing the foe
He had been stripped; [1700] conjoined with Spirit; bound
With flesh, on our part. Him, Lord, Christ, King, God,
Judgment and kingdom given to His hand,
The father is to send unto the orb.
------------------------
[1625] I make no apology for the ruggedness of the versification and the obscurity of the sense in this book, further than to say that the state of the Latin text is such as to render it almost impossible to find any sense at all in many places, while the grammar and metre are not reducible to any known laws. It is about the hardest and most uninteresting book of the five.
[1626] Or, "consecrated by seers and patriarchs."
[1627] i.e., all the number of Thy disciples.
[1628] Tempora lustri, i.e., apparently the times during which these "elders" (i.e., the bishops, of whom a list is given at the end of book iii.) held office. "Lustrum" is used of other periods than it strictly implies, and this seems to give some sense to this difficult passage.
[1629] i.e., Marcion.
[1630] i.e., excommunicated.
[1631] Complexu vario.
[1632] Ancipiti quamquam cum crimine. The last word seems almost ="discrimine;" just as our author uses "cerno" ="discerno."
[1633] Mundo.
[1634] Cf. John i. 11, and see the Greek.
[1635] Whether this be the sense I know not. The passage is a mass of confusion.
[1636] i.e., according to Marcion's view.
[1637] i.e., as spirits, like himself.
[1638] Mundum.
[1639] i.e., Marcionite.
[1640] See book ii. 3.
[1641] i.e., apparently on the day of Christ's resurrection.
[1642] Replesset, i.e., replevisset. If this be the right reading, the meaning would seem to be, "would have taken away all further desire for" them, as satiety or repletion takes away all appetite for food. One is almost inclined to hazard the suggestion "represset," i.e., repressisset, "he would have repressed," but that such a contraction would be irregular. Yet, with an author who takes such liberties as the present one, perhaps that might not be a decisive objection.
[1643] "Junctus," for the edd.'s "junctis," which, if retained, will mean "in the case of beings still joined with (or to) blood."
[1644] "Docetur," for the edd.'s "docentur." The sense seems to be, if there be any, exceedingly obscure; but for the idea of a half-salvation--the salvation of the "inner man" without the outer--being no salvation at all, and unworthy of "the Good Shepherd" and His work, we may compare the very difficult passage in the de Pudic., c. xiii. ad fin.
[1645] This sense, which I deduce from a transposition of one line and the supplying of the words "he did exhort," which are not expressed, but seem necessary, in the original, agrees well with 1 Cor. vii., which is plainly the passage referred to.
[1646] "Causa;" or perhaps "means." It is, of course, the French "chose."
[1647] i.e., you and your like, through whom sin, and in consequence death, is disseminated.
[1648] Here, again, for the sake of the sense, I have transposed a line.
[1649] i.e., "the other," the "inner man," or spirit.
[1650] i.e., through flesh.
[1651] i.e., in His own person.
[1652] I hope I have succeeded in giving some intelligible sense; but the passage as it stands in the Latin is nearly hopeless.
[1653] I read "legem" for "leges."
[1654] I read "valle" for "calle."
[1655] Alios.
[1656] Altera.
[1657] i.e., "the gifts of baptism."
[1658] This seems to give sense to a very obscure passage, in which I have been guided more by Migne's pointing than by Oehler's.
[1659] I read here "quid" for "quod."
[1660] i.e., to make men live by recognising that. Comp. the Psalmist's prayer: "Give me understanding and I shall live" (Ps. cxix. 144; in LXX., Ps. cxviii. 144).
[1661] The "furentes" of Pam. and Rig. is preferred to Oehler's "ferentes."
[1662] "Complexis," lit. "embracing."
[1663] i.e., both Jews and Gentile heretics, the "senseless frantic men" just referred to probably: or possibly the "ambo" may mean "both sects," viz., the Marcionites and Manichees, against whom the writer whom Oehler supposes to be the probable author of these "Five Books," Victorinus, a rhetorician of Marseilles, directed his efforts. But it may again be the acc. neut. pl., and mean "let them"--i.e., the "senseless frantic men"--"learn to believe as to both facts," i.e., the incarnation and the resurrection; (see vers. 179, 180;) "the testimony at least of human reason."
[1664] I would suggest here, for "...quia summa voluntas In cujus manu regnantis cor legibus esset," something like this, "...quia summa voluntas, In cujus manu regnantis cor regis, egisset," which would only add one more to our author's false quantities. "Regum egisset" would avoid even that, while it would give some sense. Comp. Prov. xxi. 1.
[1665] Maria cum conjuge feta. What follows seems to decide the meaning of "feta," as a child could hardly be included in a census before birth.
[1666] Again I have had to attempt to amend the text of the Latin in order to extract any sense, and am far from sure that I have extracted the right one.
[1667] "Fatentur," unless our author use it passively ="are confessed."
[1668] "Possunt," i.e., probably "have the hardihood."
[1669] Because Christ plainly, as they understood Him, "made Himself the Son of God;" and hence, if they confessed that He had said the truth, and yet that they hanged Him on a tree, they would be pronouncing their own condemnation.
[1670] "Vinctam" for "victam" I read here.
[1671] i.e., you and the Jews. See above on 185.
[1672] Quod qui præsumpsit mergentes spargitis ambo. What the meaning is I know not, unless it be this: if any one hints to you that you are in an error which is sinking you into perdition, you both join in trying to sink him (if "mergentes" be active; or "while you are sinking," if neuter), and in sprinkling him with your doctrine (or besprinkling him with abuse).
[1673] Mundus.
[1674] "Dum carnis membra requirit," i.e., seeking to regain for God all the limbs of the flesh as His instruments. Comp. Rom. vi. 13, 19.
[1675] Ligno.
[1676] "Scriblita," a curious word.
[1677] Fel miscetur aceto. The reading may have arisen--and it is not confined to our author--from confounding oxos with oinos. Comp. Matt. xxvii. 33 with Mark xv. 23.
[1678] This is an error, if the "coat" be meant.
[1679] Perhaps for "in illa" we should read "in illam"--"on it," for "in it."
[1680] The Jews.
[1681] For "ante diem quam cum pateretur" I have read "qua tum."
[1682] Or, "deed"--"factum."
[1683] Or, "is being poured"--"funditur."
[1684] Mundi.
[1685] I read with Migne, "Patris sub imagine virtus," in preference to the conjecture which Oehler follows, "Christi sub imagine virtus." The reference seems clearly to be to Heb. i. 3.
[1686] Ævo. Perhaps here ="eternity."
[1687] i.e., "The All-Holder."
[1688] Capit.
[1689] Cf. Jacob's words in Gen. xxxii. 30; Manoah's in Judg. xiii. 22; etc.
[1690] Mundi.
[1691] For "dimisit in umbris" I read here "demisit in imbris." If we retain the former reading, it will then mean, "dispersed during the shades of night," during which it was that the manna seems always to have fallen.
[1692] "Sitientis" in Oehler must be a misprint for "sitientes."
[1693] There ought to be a "se" in the Latin if this be the meaning.
[1694] For "Mundator carnis seræ" ="the Cleanser of late flesh" (which would seem, if it mean anything, to mean that the flesh had to wait long for its cleansing), I have read "carnis nostræ."
[1695] Lignum.
[1696] I have followed the disjointed style of the Latin as closely as I could here.
[1697] Here we seem to see the idea of the "limbus patrum."
[1698] "Subiens" ="going beneath," i.e., apparently coming beneath the walls of heaven.
[1699] i.e., a figure of the future harvest.
[1700] I have hazarded the conjecture "minutus" here for the edd.'s "munitus." It adds one more, it is true, to our author's false quantities, but that is a minor difficulty, while it improves (to my mind) the sense vastly.
(N.B.--It has been impossible to note the changes which I have had to make in the text of the Latin. In some cases they will suggest themselves to any scholar who may compare the translation with the original; and in others I must be content to await a more fitting opportunity, if such ever arise, for discussing them.)
Elucidations.
------------------------
I.
(Appendix, p. 127.)
About these versifications, which are "poems" only as mules are horses, it is enough to say of them, with Dupin, "They are no more Tertullian's than they are Virgil's or Homer's. The poem called Genesis seems to be that which Gennadius attributes to Salvian, Bishop of Marseilles. That concerning the Judgment of God was, perhaps, composed by Verecundus, an African bishop. In the books Against Marcion there are some opinions different from those of Tertullian. There is likewise a poem To a Senator in Pamelius' edition, one of Sodom, and in the Bibliotheca Patrum one of Jonas and Nineve; the first of which is ancient, and the other two seem to be by the same author."
It is worth while to observe that this rhymester makes two bishops out of one. [1701] Cletus and Anacletus he supposes different persons, which brings Clement into the fourth place in the see of Rome. Our author elsewhere makes St. Clement the immediate successor of the apostles. [1702]
II.
(Or is there ought, etc., l. 136, p. 137.)
In taking leave of Tertullian, it may be well to say a word of his famous saying, Certum est quia impossibile est. It occurs in the tract De Carne Christi, [1703] and is one of those startling epigrammatic dicta of our author which is no more to be pressed in argument than any other bon-mot of a wit or a poet. It is evidently designed as a rhetorical climax, to enforce the same idea which we find in the hymn of Aquinas:--
"Et si sensus deficit,
Adfirmandum cor sincerum
Sola fides sufficit."
As Jeremy Taylor [1704] argues, the condition is, that holy Scripture affirms it. If that be the case, then "all things are possible with God:" I believe; but I do not argue, for it is impossible with men. This is the plain sense of the great Carthaginian doctor's pithy rhetoric. But Dr. Bunsen sets it on all-fours, and treats it as if it were soberly designed to defy reason,--that reason to which Tertullian constantly makes his appeal against Marcion, and in many of his sayings [1705] hardly less witty. Speaking of Hippolytus, that writer remarks, [1706] "He might have said on some points, Credibile licet ineptum: he would never have exclaimed with Tertullian, Credibile quia ineptum.'" Why attempt to prove the absurdity of such a reflection? As well attempt to defend St. John's hyperbole [1707] against a mind incapable of comprehending a figure of speech.