Against Marcion 3.20

It is enough so far to have run through the course of Christ for the present on these points. Proved to be such as he was announced, he ought not to be held to be other than the one who was announced as such; so that now, from this agreement between his history and the Creator's Scriptures, belief ought also to be restored to those things, on the prejudgment of the greater part, which are either brought into doubt or denied by the opposing view. We now build further on this the equally matching things from the Creator's Scriptures which were foretold as to come after Christ. For this arrangement too would not be found fulfilled if he had not come, after whom it was to take place. Look at all the nations emerging from then on out of the whirlpool of human error to God the Creator, to God the Christ; and deny, if you dare, that it was prophesied. But at once the Father's promise in the psalms will meet you: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession.” You cannot claim that David is his son rather than Christ, or that the ends of the earth were promised to David, who reigned within the one nation of the Jews, rather than to Christ, who has now taken the whole world by the faith of his gospel. So too through Isaiah: “Behold, I have given you as a covenant of the race, as a light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind,” namely of those who wander, “to release the bound from their chains,” that is, to free them from their sins, “and from the prison cell,” that is, of death, “those who sit in darkness,” namely of ignorance. If these things come about through Christ, they will have been prophesied of none other than the one through whom they come about. Likewise elsewhere: “Behold, I have set him as a witness to the nations, a ruler and commander to the nations; nations which do not know you will call upon you, and peoples will flee to you.” Nor will you interpret this of David, because he said first: “And I will make with you an everlasting covenant, the holy and sure things of David.” On the contrary, from this you should rather understand Christ, reckoned from David by descent according to the flesh, because of the lineage of the virgin Mary. For it is about this promise that an oath is sworn to David in the psalm: “Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne.” What womb is this? David's own? Certainly not, for David was not going to give birth. Nor his wife's either; for he would not have said, “of the fruit of your womb,” but rather “of the fruit of your wife's womb.” But by speaking of his own womb, it remains that he pointed to someone of his line, of whose womb the fruit would be the flesh of Christ, which blossomed from Mary's womb. And that is why he named only the fruit of the womb, as properly of the womb, as though of the womb alone and not also of a husband; and he referred the womb itself to David, the head of the line and father of the family. For since he could not assign the virgin's womb to a husband, he assigned it to the forefather. So the new covenant which is found today in Christ will be the one which the Creator was then promising, calling “the holy and sure things of David” what belonged to Christ, since Christ is from David. For the prophet Nathan too, in the second book of Kingdoms, makes a promise to David for his seed, “which will be,” he says, “from his own womb.” If you explain this simply of Solomon, you will make me laugh: David will seem to have given birth to Solomon! Is not Christ signified here too, the seed of David from that womb which would be from David, that is, Mary's? For Christ was the one who would rather build the house of God, namely a holy humanity, a better temple, in which the Spirit of God would dwell; and Christ rather than Solomon, the son of David, was to be the Son of God. Finally, the throne for ever and the kingdom for ever fit Christ rather than Solomon, a king for a time. And from Christ the mercy of God did not depart, while upon Solomon even the wrath of God came, after his luxury and idolatry, for Satan raised up against him an Edomite enemy. Since, then, none of these things fits Solomon but Christ, the rationale of our interpretations will be sure, the very outcome of events proving that they were foretold of Christ. And so in him will be the holy and sure things of David; him God set as a witness to the nations, not David; as ruler and commander of the nations, not David, who ruled over Israel alone. It is Christ whom the nations that did not know him call upon today, and to Christ the peoples flee today, whom they formerly did not know. What you see happening cannot be called future.