Concerning the Sabbath also I have this to premise, that this question could not have arisen, if Christ did not publicly proclaim [3853] the Lord of the Sabbath. Nor could there be any discussion about His annulling [3854] the Sabbath, if He had a right [3855] to annul it. Moreover, He would have the right, if He belonged to the rival god; nor would it cause surprise to any one that He did what it was right for Him to do. Men's astonishment therefore arose from their opinion that it was improper for Him to proclaim the Creator to be God and yet to impugn His Sabbath. Now, that we may decide these several points first, lest we should be renewing them at every turn to meet each argument of our adversary which rests on some novel institution [3856] of Christ, let this stand as a settled point, that discussion concerning the novel character of each institution ensued on this account, because as nothing was as yet advanced by Christ touching any new deity, so discussion thereon was inadmissible; nor could it be retorted, that from the very novelty of each several institution another deity was clearly enough demonstrated by Christ, inasmuch as it was plain that novelty was not in itself a characteristic to be wondered at in Christ, because it had been foretold by the Creator. And it would have been, of course, but right that a new [3857] god should first be expounded, and his discipline be introduced afterwards; because it would be the god that would impart authority to the discipline, and not the discipline to the god; except that (to be sure) it has happened that Marcion acquired his very perverse opinions not from a master, but his master from his opinion! All other points respecting the Sabbath I thus rule. If Christ interfered with [3858] the Sabbath, He simply acted after the Creator's example; inasmuch as in the siege of the city of Jericho the carrying around the walls of the ark of the covenant for eight days running, and therefore on a Sabbath-day, actually [3859] annulled the Sabbath, by the Creator's command--according to the opinion of those who think this of Christ in this passage of St. Luke, in their ignorance that neither Christ nor the Creator violated the Sabbath, as we shall by and by show. And yet the Sabbath was actually then broken [3860] by Joshua, [3861] so that the present charge might be alleged also against Christ. But even if, as being not the Christ of the Jews, He displayed a hatred against the Jews' most solemn day, He was only professedly following [3862] the Creator, as being His Christ, in this very hatred of the Sabbath; for He exclaims by the mouth of Isaiah: "Your new moons and your Sabbaths my soul hateth." [3863] Now, in whatever sense these words were spoken, we know that an abrupt defence must, in a subject of this sort, be used in answer to an abrupt challenge. I shall now transfer the discussion to the very matter in which the teaching of Christ seemed to annul the Sabbath. The disciples had been hungry; on that the Sabbath day they had plucked some ears and rubbed them in their hands; by thus preparing their food, they had violated the holy day. Christ excuses them, and became their accomplice in breaking the Sabbath. The Pharisees bring the charge against Him. Marcion sophistically interprets the stages of the controversy (if I may call in the aid of the truth of my Lord to ridicule his arts), both in the scriptural record and in Christ's purpose. [3864] For from the Creator's Scripture, and from the purpose of Christ, there is derived a colourable precedent [3865] --as from the example of David, when he went into the temple on the Sabbath, and provided food by boldly breaking up the shew-bread. [3866] Even he remembered that this privilege (I mean the dispensation from fasting) was allowed to the Sabbath from the very beginning, when the Sabbath-day itself was instituted. For although the Creator had forbidden that the manna should be gathered for two days, He yet permitted it on the one occasion only of the day before the Sabbath, in order that the yesterday's provision of food might free from fasting the feast of the following Sabbath-day. Good reason, therefore, had the Lord for pursuing the same principle in the annulling of the Sabbath (since that is the word which men will use); good reason, too, for expressing the Creator's will, [3867] when He bestowed the privilege of not fasting on the Sabbath-day. In short, He would have then and there [3868] put an end to the Sabbath, nay, to the Creator Himself, if He had commanded His disciples to fast on the Sabbath-day, contrary to the intention [3869] of the Scripture and of the Creator's will. But because He did not directly defend [3870] His disciples, but excuses them; because He interposes human want, as if deprecating censure; because He maintains the honour of the Sabbath as a day which is to be free from gloom rather than from work; [3871] because he puts David and his companions on a level with His own disciples in their fault and their extenuation; because He is pleased to endorse [3872] the Creator's indulgence: [3873] because He is Himself good according to His example--is He therefore alien from the Creator? Then the Pharisees watch whether He would heal on the Sabbath-day, [3874] that they might accuse Him--surely as a violator of the Sabbath, not as the propounder of a new god; for perhaps I might be content with insisting on all occasions on this one point, that another Christ [3875] is nowhere proclaimed. The Pharisees, however, were in utter error concerning the law of the Sabbath, not observing that its terms were conditional, when it enjoined rest from labour, making certain distinctions of labour. For when it says of the Sabbath-day, "In it thou shalt not do any work of thine," [3876] by the word thine [3877] it restricts the prohibition to human work--which every one performs in his own employment or business--and not to divine work. Now the work of healing or preserving is not proper to man, but to God. So again, in the law it says, "Thou shalt not do any manner of work in it," [3878] except what is to be done for any soul, [3879] that is to say, in the matter of delivering the soul; [3880] because what is God's work may be done by human agency for the salvation of the soul. By God, however, would that be done which the man Christ was to do, for He was likewise God. [3881] Wishing, therefore, to initiate them into this meaning of the law by the restoration of the withered hand, He requires, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath-days to do good, or not? to save life, or to destroy it?" [3882] In order that He might, whilst allowing that amount of work which He was about to perform for a soul, [3883] remind them what works the law of the Sabbath forbade--even human works; and what it enjoined--even divine works, which might be done for the benefit of any soul, [3884] He was called "Lord of the Sabbath," [3885] because He maintained [3886] the Sabbath as His own institution. Now, even if He had annulled the Sabbath, He would have had the right to do so, [3887] as being its Lord, (and) still more as He who instituted it. But He did not utterly destroy it, although its Lord, in order that it might henceforth be plain that the Sabbath was not broken [3888] by the Creator, even at the time when the ark was carried around Jericho. For that was really [3889] God's work, which He commanded Himself, and which He had ordered for the sake of the lives of His servants when exposed to the perils of war. Now, although He has in a certain place expressed an aversion of Sabbaths, by calling them your Sabbaths, [3890] reckoning them as men's Sabbaths, not His own, because they were celebrated without the fear of God by a people full of iniquities, and loving God "with the lip, not the heart," [3891] He has yet put His own Sabbaths (those, that is, which were kept according to His prescription) in a different position; for by the same prophet, in a later passage, [3892] He declared them to be "true, and delightful, and inviolable." Thus Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath: He kept the law thereof, and both in the former case did a work which was beneficial to the life of His disciples, for He indulged them with the relief of food when they were hungry, and in the present instance cured the withered hand; in each case intimating by facts, "I came not to destroy, the law, but to fulfil it," [3893] although Marcion has gagged [3894] His mouth by this word. [3895] For even in the case before us He fulfilled the law, while interpreting its condition; moreover, He exhibits in a clear light the different kinds of work, while doing what the law excepts from the sacredness of the Sabbath [3896] and while imparting to the Sabbath-day itself, which from the beginning had been consecrated by the benediction of the Father, an additional sanctity by His own beneficent action. For He furnished to this day divine safeguards, [3897] --a course which [3898] His adversary would have pursued for some other days, to avoid honouring the Creator's Sabbath, and restoring to the Sabbath the works which were proper for it. Since, in like manner, the prophet Elisha on this day restored to life the dead son of the Shunammite woman, [3899] you see, O Pharisee, and you too, O Marcion, how that it was proper employment for the Creator's Sabbaths of old [3900] to do good, to save life, not to destroy it; how that Christ introduced nothing new, which was not after the example, [3901] the gentleness, the mercy, and the prediction also of the Creator. For in this very example He fulfils [3902] the prophetic announcement of a specific healing: "The weak hands are strengthened," as were also "the feeble knees" [3903] in the sick of the palsy.
[3853] Circumferret.
[3854] Cur destrueret.
[3855] Deberet.
[3856] Institutione: or, teaching, perhaps.
[3857] Alium.
[3858] Intervertit.
[3859] Operatione.
[3860] Concussum est sabbatum.
[3861] Per Jesum.
[3862] Professus...sequebatur.
[3863] Isa. i. 14.
[3864] This obscure passage runs thus in the original: "Marcion captat status controversiæ (ut aliquid ludam cum mei Domini veritate), scripti et voluntatis." Status is a technical word in rhetoric. "Est quæstio quæ ex prima causarum conflictione nascitur." See Cicero, Topic. c. 25, Part. c. 29; and Quinctilian, Instit. Rhetor. iii. 6. (Oehler).
[3865] Sumitur color.
[3866] Luke vi. 1-4; 1 Sam. xxi. 2-6.
[3867] Affectum.
[3868] Tunc demum.
[3869] Statum.
[3870] Non constanter tuebatur.
[3871] Non contristandi quam vacandi.
[3872] [This adoption of an Americanism is worthy of passing notice.]
[3873] Placet illi quia Creator indulsit.
[3874] Luke vi. 7.
[3875] That is, the Christ of another God.
[3876] Ex. xx. 16.
[3877] It is impossible to say where Tertullian got this reading. Perhaps his LXX. copy might have had (in Ex. xx. 10): Ou poieseis en aute pan ergon sou, instead of su; every clause ending in sou, which follows in that verse. No critical authority, however, now known warrants such a reading. [It is probably based inferentially on verse 9, "all thy work."]
[3878] Ex. xii. 16.
[3879] The LXX. of the latter clause of Ex. xii. 16 thus runs: plen hosa poiethesetai pase psuche. Tertullian probably got this reading from this clause, although the Hebrew is to this effect: "Save that which every man (or, every soul) must eat," which the Vulgate renders: "Exceptis his, quæ ad vescendum pertinent."
[3880] Liberandæ animæ: perhaps saving life.
[3881] In salutem animæ: or, for saving life.
[3882] Luke vi. 9.
[3883] Pro anima: or, for a life.
[3884] Animæ omni: or, any life.
[3885] Luke vi. 5.
[3886] Tuebatur.
[3887] Merito.
[3888] Destructum. We have, as has been most convenient, rendered this word by annul, destroy, break.
[3889] Et.
[3890] Isa. i. 13, 14.
[3891] Isa. xxix. 13.
[3892] Isa. lviii. 13 and lvi. 2.
[3893] Matt. v. 17.
[3894] Obstruxit.
[3895] "Destroy"...It was hardly necessary for Oehler to paraphrase our author's characteristically strong sentence by, "since Marcion thought that he had gagged," etc.
[3896] In other words, "permits to be done on the Sabbath."
[3897] Præsidia.
[3898] Quod, not quæ, as if in apposition with præsidia.
[3899] See 2 Kings iv. 23.
[3900] Olim.
[3901] Forma.
[3902] Repræsentat.
[3903] Isa. xxxv. 3.
Chapter XIII.--Christ's Connection with the Creator Shown. Many Quotations Out of the Old Testament Prophetically Bear on Certain Events of the Life of Jesus--Such as His Ascent to Praying on the Mountain; His Selection of Twelve Apostles; His Changing Simon's Name to Peter, and Gentiles from Tyre and Sidon Resorting to Him.
Surely to Sion He brings good tidings, and to Jerusalem peace and all blessings; He goes up into a mountain, and there spends a night in prayer, [3904] and He is indeed heard by the Father. Accordingly turn over the prophets, and learn therefrom His entire course. [3905] "Into the high mountain," says Isaiah, "get Thee up, who bringest good tidings to Sion; lift up Thy voice with strength, who bringest good tidings to Jerusalem." [3906] "They were mightily [3907] astonished at His doctrine; for He was teaching as one who had power." [3908] And again: "Therefore, my people shall know my name in that day." What name does the prophet mean, but Christ's? "That I am He that doth speak--even I." [3909] For it was He who used to speak in the prophets--the Word, the Creator's Son. "I am present, while it is the hour, upon the mountains, as one that bringeth glad tidings of peace, as one that publisheth good tidings of good." [3910] So one of the twelve (minor prophets), Nahum: "For behold upon the mountain the swift feet of Him that bringeth glad tidings of peace." [3911] Moreover, concerning the voice of His prayer to the Father by night, the psalm manifestly says: "O my God, I will cry in the day-time, and Thou shalt hear; and in the night season, and it shall not be in vain to me." [3912] In another passage touching the same voice and place, the psalm says: "I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy mountain." [3913] You have a representation of the name; you have the action of the Evangelizer; you have a mountain for the site; and the night as the time; and the sound of a voice; and the audience of the Father: you have, (in short,) the Christ of the prophets. But why was it that He chose twelve apostles, [3914] and not some other number? In truth, [3915] I might from this very point conclude [3916] of my Christ, that He was foretold not only by the words of prophets, but by the indications of facts. For of this number I find figurative hints up and down the Creator's dispensation [3917] in the twelve springs of Elim; [3918] in the twelve gems of Aaron's priestly vestment; [3919] and in the twelve stones appointed by Joshua to be taken out of the Jordan, and set up for the ark of the covenant. Now, the same number of apostles was thus portended, as if they were to be fountains and rivers which should water the Gentile world, which was formerly dry and destitute of knowledge (as He says by Isaiah: "I will put streams in the unwatered ground" [3920] ); as if they were to be gems to shed lustre upon the church's sacred robe, which Christ, the High Priest of the Father, puts on; as if, also, they were to be stones massive in their faith, which the true Joshua took out of the laver of the Jordan, and placed in the sanctuary of His covenant. What equally good defence of such a number has Marcion's Christ to show? It is impossible that anything can be shown to have been done by him unconnectedly, [3921] which cannot be shown to have been done by my Christ in connection (with preceding types). [3922] To him will appertain the event [3923] in whom is discovered the preparation for the same. [3924] Again, He changes the name of Simon to Peter, [3925] inasmuch as the Creator also altered the names of Abram, and Sarai, and Oshea, by calling the latter Joshua, and adding a syllable to each of the former. But why Peter? If it was because of the vigour of his faith, there were many solid materials which might lend a name from their strength. Was it because Christ was both a rock and a stone? For we read of His being placed "for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence." [3926] I omit the rest of the passage. [3927] Therefore He would fain [3928] impart to the dearest of His disciples a name which was suggested by one of His own especial designations in figure; because it was, I suppose, more peculiarly fit than a name which might have been derived from no figurative description of Himself. [3929] There come to Him from Tyre, and from other districts even, a transmarine multitude. This fact the psalm had in view: "And behold tribes of foreign people, and Tyre, and the people of the Ethiopians; they were there. Sion is my mother, shall a man say; and in her was born a man" (forasmuch as the God-man was born), and He built her by the Father's will; that you may know how Gentiles then flocked to Him, because He was born the God-man who was to build the church according to the Father's will--even of other races also. [3930] So says Isaiah too: "Behold, these come from far; and these from the north and from the west; [3931] and these from the land of the Persians." [3932] Concerning whom He says again: "Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold, all these have gathered themselves together." [3933] And yet again: "Thou seest these unknown and strange ones; and thou wilt say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these? But who hath brought me up these? And these, where have they been?" [3934] Will such a Christ not be (the Christ) of the prophets? And what will be the Christ of the Marcionites? Since perversion of truth is their pleasure, he could not be (the Christ) of the prophets.