Against Marcion 2.16
Summary: Anger and jealousy in God are the just instruments of a good judge, like a surgeon's tools; God's feelings share names with ours but, like his “hands” and “eyes,” exist in him in a divine, incorruptible way.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:356–358
Bona igitur et seueritas quia iusta, si bonus iudex, id est iustus. item cetera bona, per quae opus bonum currit bonae seueritatis, siue ira siue aemulatio sine saeuitia. debita enim omnia haec sunt seueritatis, sicut seueritas debitum est iustitiae. atque ita non poterunt iudici exprobrari quae iudici accidunt, carentia et ipsa culpa sicut et iudex. quid enim. si medicum quidem dicas esse debere, ferramenta uero eius accuses quod secent et inurant et amputent et constrictent. quando sine instrumento artis medicus esse non possit? sed accusa male secantem, importune amputantem, temere inurentem, atque ita ferramenta quoque eius ut mala ministeria reprehende. proinde est enim, cum deum quidem iudicem admittis, eos uero motus et sensus, per quos iudicat, destruis. deum nos a prophetis et a Christo, non a philosophis nec ab Epicuro erudimur. qui credimus deum etiam in terris egisse et humani habitus humilitatem suscepisse ex causa humanae salutis, longe sumus a sententia eorum, qui nolunt deum curare quicquam. inde uenit ad haereticos quoque definitio eiusmodi: si deus irascitur et aemulatur et extollitur et exacerbatur, ergo et corrumpetur, ergo et morietur. bene autem, quod Christianorum est etiam mortuum deum credere et tamen uiuentem in aeua aeuorum. stultissimi, qui de humanis diuina praeiudicant, ut, quoniam in homine corruptoriae condicionis habentur huiusmodi passiones, idcirco et in deo eiusdem status existimentur. discerne substantias et suos eis distribue sensus, tam diuersos quam substantiae exigunt, licet uocabulis communicare uideantur, — nam et dexteram et oculos et pedes dei legimus, nec ideo tamen humanis comparabuntur. quia de appellatione sociantur — quanta erit diuersitas diuini corporis et humani sub eisdem nominibus membrorum. tanta erit et animi diuini et humani differentia sub eisdem licet uocabulis sensuum, quos tam corruptorios efficit in homine corruptibilitas substantiae humanae quam incorruptorios in deo efficit incorruptibilitas substantiae diuinae. certe deum confiteris creatorem. certe, inquis. quomodo ergo in deo humanum aliquid existimas, et non diuinum omne? quem deum non negas confiteris non humanum, siquidem deum confitendo praeiudicasti utique illum ab omni humanarum condicionum qualitate diuersum. porro cum pariter agnoscas hominem a deo inflatum in animam uiuam, non deum ab homine, satis peruersum est, ut in deo potius humana constituas quam in homine diuina, et hominis imaginem deo induas potius quam dei homini. et haec ergo imago censenda est dei in homine, quod eosdem motus et sensus habeat animus humanus quos et deus, licet non tales, quales deus; pro substantia enim et status eorum et exitus distant. denique contrarios eorum sensus, lenitatem dico patientiam misericordiam ipsamque matricem earum bonitatem, cur diuina praesumitis? nec tamen perfecte ea obtinemus, quia solus deus perfectus. ita et illas species, irae dico et exasperationis, non tam feliciter patimur, quia solus deus de incorruptibilitatis proprietate felix. irascetur enim, sed non *, exacerbabitur, sed non periclitabitur, mouebitur, sed non euertetur. omnia necesse est adhibeat propter omnia, tot sensus quot et causas: et iram propter scelestos et bilem propter ingratos et aemulationem propter superbos et quicquid non expedit malis. sic et misericordiam propter errantes et patientiam propter t non respicientes et praestantiam propter merentes et quicquid bonis opus est. quae omnia patitur suo more, quo eum pati condecet, propter quem homo eadem patitur, aeque suo more.
English · Claude translation
Severity, then, is good because it is just, if the judge is good, that is, just. Likewise the other things are good through which the good work of good severity runs its course, whether anger or jealousy, without cruelty. For all these are owed to severity, as severity is owed to justice. And so the things that belong to a judge cannot be made a reproach to the judge, since they too are without fault, as the judge is. For what if you were to say that there must be a physician, but were to accuse his instruments of cutting and burning and amputating and binding, when a physician cannot exist without the instruments of his art? No — accuse the one who cuts badly, amputates at the wrong time, burns rashly, and so censure his instruments too as bad servants. It is just the same when you admit God as judge but destroy those movements and feelings through which he judges.
We learn about God from the prophets and from Christ, not from the philosophers nor from Epicurus. We who believe that God even lived on earth and took on the humility of human condition for the sake of human salvation are far from the opinion of those who hold that God cares about nothing. It is from there that a definition of this kind has come to the heretics too: “If God is angry and jealous and lifted up and embittered, then he will also be corrupted, then he will also die.” Well, it belongs to Christians to believe even that God died, and yet that he lives for ages of ages. Most foolish are those who prejudge divine things from human, so that, because passions of this kind are held in man to belong to a corruptible condition, they suppose them to be of the same state in God as well. Distinguish the substances and assign them their own feelings, as different as the substances require, though they seem to share names. For we read of God's right hand and eyes and feet, and yet they will not for that reason be compared with human ones because they share a name. As great as the difference will be between the divine body and the human under the same names of members, so great will be the difference between the divine mind and the human, even under the same names of feelings — feelings which the corruptibility of human substance makes corruptible in man, just as the incorruptibility of divine substance makes them incorruptible in God.
You certainly confess the Creator to be God? “Certainly,” you say. How, then, do you suppose anything human in God, and not everything divine? The one you do not deny to be God you confess not to be human, since by confessing him God you have surely prejudged that he differs from every quality of human conditions. Further, since you equally acknowledge that man was breathed by God into a living soul, not God by man, it is quite perverse to set human things in God rather than divine things in man, and to clothe God with man's image rather than man with God's. And so this must be reckoned the image of God in man: that the human mind has the same movements and feelings as God, though not such as God has; for according to their substance both their state and their outcome differ. In short, the opposite feelings — I mean gentleness, patience, mercy, and their very mother, goodness — why do you presume them to be divine? And yet we do not possess them perfectly, because God alone is perfect. So too those other kinds — I mean anger and exasperation — we do not undergo with the same happiness, because God alone is happy, by the property of incorruptibility. He will be angry, but not …; he will be embittered, but not endangered; he will be moved, but not overthrown. He must employ all things for the sake of all things, as many feelings as there are causes: anger because of the wicked, bile because of the ungrateful, jealousy because of the proud, and whatever is to the disadvantage of the wicked; so also mercy because of those who go astray, patience because of those who do not yet look back, generosity because of the deserving, and whatever the good need. All these he undergoes in his own manner, in which it befits him to undergo them — he on whose account man undergoes the same things, equally in his own manner.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The Epicurean view is that the gods care about nothing. “The living soul” is Gen 2:7; “God alone is perfect” echoes Matt 5:48. The asterisk after “sed non” marks a lacuna, rendered “…”; the “t” before “non respicientes” is probably the editor's crux mark (†); it is not translated. Correction: stray hyphen removed in “deum- ab”.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (Stray hyphen in the digital text.; Stray semicolon in the digital text.): quae iudici; accidunt → quae iudici accidunt; non deum- ab → non deum ab.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 2.16 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/16/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 2.16 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/16/).
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