Against Marcion 1.25

As regards the question of goodness, we have shown along these lines that it by no means befits God, being neither inborn nor rational nor perfect, but dishonest and unjust and unworthy of the very name of goodness; so that, in so far as it befits a god, it follows that he is no god who is preferred on the strength of such goodness — and not merely such goodness, but goodness alone. For now it is right to discuss this too: whether God is to be reckoned by goodness alone, the other attendant feelings and affections being denied — which the Marcionites drive away from their god onto the Creator. We, however, acknowledge them in the Creator as worthy of God, and on this ground too we shall deny that he is God in whom not everything worthy of God is found. If he aimed to entitle with the name of Christ some god of Epicurus's school — such that “what is blessed and incorruptible causes trouble neither to itself nor to another” (for Marcion, chewing over this maxim, removed from him all severity and judicial power) — he ought either to have conceived a god wholly unmoved and insensible (and then what has he to do with Christ, who was troublesome to the Jews by his teaching and to himself by his suffering?), or else to have acknowledged him in the other emotions too (and then what has he to do with Epicurus, who is of no use either to him or to Christians?).

For see: by the very fact that he who before was quiet, who meanwhile did not trouble to make himself known by any work, after so long an age has been moved for man's salvation — surely by an act of will — was he not then shaken by a new will, so that he appears subject to the other emotions as well? For what will is there without the spur of desire? And care too will attend will. For who will will something and desire it and not care about it? Since, then, he both willed and desired man's salvation, he has already made trouble both for himself and for others, against the wishes of Epicurus, Marcion's counsellor. For he has also set up an adversary for himself: that very thing against which he willed, desired, and cared — whether sin or death — and above all their arbiter and man's lord, the Creator. Moreover, nothing will proceed without rivalry that does not proceed without an adversary. In short, in willing, desiring, and caring to set man free, he is by that very fact already a rival both of the one from whom he frees him — freeing him, of course, for himself against him — and of the things from which he frees him, freeing him for other things. So rivalry must be attended by its officers against what it rivals: anger, discord, hatred, disdain, indignation, bile, ill will, offence. If all these attend rivalry, and rivalry works to free man, and the freeing of man is the work of goodness, that goodness cannot exist without its endowments — that is, without the feelings and affections through which it is carried on against the Creator — lest in this way too it be ruled irrational, if it lacks the feelings and affections that are its due. These things we shall defend much more fully in the Creator's case, where they are also made a reproach against him.