Chapter XIX.--Passages of Scripture by which they attempt to prove that the Supreme Father was unknown before the coming of Christ.
1. I judge it necessary to add to these details also what, by garbling passages of Scripture, they try to persuade us concerning their Propator, who was unknown to all before the coming of Christ. Their object in this is to show that our Lord announced another Father than the Maker of this universe, whom, as we said before, they impiously declare to have been the fruit of a defect. For instance, when the prophet Isaiah says, "But Israel hath not known Me, and My people have not understood Me," [2906] they pervert his words to mean ignorance of the invisible Bythus. And that which is spoken by Hosea, "There is no truth in them, nor the knowledge of God," [2907] they strive to give the same reference. And, "There is none that understandeth, or that seeketh after God: they have all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable," [2908] they maintain to be said concerning ignorance of Bythus. Also that which is spoken by Moses, "No man shall see God and live," [2909] has, as they would persuade us, the same reference.
2. For they falsely hold, that the Creator was seen by the prophets. But this passage, "No man shall see God and live," they would interpret as spoken of His greatness unseen and unknown by all; and indeed that these words, "No man shall see God," are spoken concerning the invisible Father, the Maker of the universe, is evident to us all; but that they are not used concerning that Bythus whom they conjure into existence, but concerning the Creator (and He is the invisible God), shall be shown as we proceed. They maintain that Daniel also set forth the same thing when he begged of the angels explanations of the parables, as being himself ignorant of them. But the angel, hiding from him the great mystery of Bythus, said unto him, "Go thy way quickly, Daniel, for these sayings are closed up until those who have understanding do understand them, and those who are white be made white." [2910] Moreover, they vaunt themselves as being the white and the men of good understanding.
[2906] Isa. i. 3.
[2907] Hos. iv. 1.
[2908] Rom. iii. 11; Ps. xiv. 3.
[2909] Ex. xxxiii. 20.
[2910] Dan. xii. 9, 10. The words in the above quotation not occurring in the Hebrew text of the passage, seem to have been interpolated by these heretics.
Chapter XX.--The apocryphal and spurious Scriptures of the Marcosians, with passages of the Gospels which they pervert.
1. Besides the above [misrepresentations], they adduce an unspeakable number of apocryphal and spurious writings, which they themselves have forged, to bewilder the minds of foolish men, and of such as are ignorant of the Scriptures of truth. Among other things, they bring forward that false and wicked story [2911] which relates that our Lord, when He was a boy learning His letters, on the teacher saying to Him, as is usual, "Pronounce Alpha," replied [as He was bid], "Alpha." But when, again, the teacher bade Him say, "Beta," the Lord replied, "Do thou first tell me what Alpha is, and then I will tell thee what Beta is." This they expound as meaning that He alone knew the Unknown, which He revealed under its type Alpha.
2. Some passages, also, which occur in the Gospels, receive from them a colouring of the same kind, such as the answer which He gave His mother when He was twelve years of age: "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" [2912] Thus, they say, He announced to them the Father of whom they were ignorant. On this account, also, He sent forth the disciples to the twelve tribes, that they might proclaim to them the unknown God. And to the person who said to Him, "Good Master," [2913] He confessed that God who is truly good, saying, "Why callest thou Me good: there is One who is good, the Father in the heavens;" [2914] and they assert that in this passage the Æons receive the name of heavens. Moreover, by His not replying to those who said to Him, "By what power doest Thou this?" [2915] but by a question on His own side, put them to utter confusion; by His thus not replying, according to their interpretation, He showed the unutterable nature of the Father. Moreover, when He said, "I have often desired to hear one of these words, and I had no one who could utter it," [2916] they maintain, that by this expression "one" He set forth the one true God whom they knew not. Further, when, as He drew nigh to Jerusalem, He wept over it and said, "If thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace, but they are hidden from thee," [2917] by this word "hidden" He showed the abstruse nature of Bythus. And again, when He said, "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, and learn of Me," [2918] He announced the Father of truth. For what they knew not, these men say that He promised to teach them.
3. But they adduce the following passage as the highest testimony, [2919] and, as it were, the very crown of their system:--"I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes. Even so, my Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father; and no one knoweth the Father but the Son, or the Son but the Father, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him." [2920] In these words they affirm that He clearly showed that the Father of truth, conjured into existence by them, was known to no one before His advent. And they desire to construe the passage as if teaching that the Maker and Framer [of the world] was always known by all, while the Lord spoke these words concerning the Father unknown to all, whom they now proclaim.
[2911] [From the Protevangel of Thomas. Compare the curious work of Dominic Deodati, De Christo Græce loquente, p. 95. London, 1843.]
[2912] Luke ii. 49.
[2913] Mark x. 17.
[2914] Luke xviii. 18.
[2915] Matt. xxi. 23.
[2916] Taken from some apocryphal writing.
[2917] Luke xix. 42, loosely quoted.
[2918] Matt. xi. 28.
[2919] The translator evidently read ton for ten, in which case the rendering will be "proof of those most high," but the Greek text seems preferable.
[2920] Matt. xi. 25-27.