Against Marcion 3.7

Now let the heretic learn, along with the Jew himself (it will be more than enough), the reason for the Jew's errors too, from whom he borrowed his leadership in this argument and, the blind led by the blind, has fallen into the same pit. We say that the prophets, by showing two conditions of Christ, marked out beforehand the same number of comings. The one in humility, the first of course, when he was to be led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb voiceless before the shearer, so not opening his mouth; not even comely in appearance. “For we have announced concerning him,” it says, “as a little child, as a root in a thirsty land; and he has no form or glory; and we saw him, and he had no form or beauty, but his form was without honor, falling short of the sons of men; a man under the stroke, and knowing how to bear weakness”; as one set by the Father as a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; made by him a little lower than the angels; declaring himself a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and the scorn of the people. These marks of lowliness befit the first coming, as those of sublimity befit the second, when he will no longer be a stone of stumbling or a rock of offense, but the chief cornerstone, taken up after rejection and raised to complete the temple, that is, the church; and indeed that stone in Daniel cut from the mountain, which will shatter and grind the image of the kingdoms of the world. Of this coming the same prophet says: “And behold, one coming as a son of man with the clouds of heaven came as far as the Ancient of Days. He stood in his sight, and those who stood by brought him near. And there was given to him royal power, and all the nations of the earth according to their kinds, and all glory serving him. And his power is for ever, which will not be taken away, and his kingdom, which will not be corrupted.” Then, clearly, he will have a form full of honor and a beauty unfailing beyond the sons of men: “For you are in the bloom of beauty,” it says, “beyond the sons of men; grace is poured out on your lips; therefore God has blessed you for ever. Gird your sword upon your thigh, mighty in your bloom and your beauty”; when also the Father, after he made him a little lower than the angels, will crown him with glory and honor and put all things under his feet. Then too those who pierced him will know him, and will beat their breasts, tribe by tribe, because in the past they did not recognize him in the lowliness of the human condition: “He is a man too,” says Jeremiah, “and who will know him?” For also: “His generation,” says Isaiah, “who will declare?” So too in Zechariah, in the person of Jesus, and indeed in the very mystery of the name, the true high priest of the Father, Christ Jesus, is sketched in a twofold condition for the two comings. First he is clothed in filthy garments, that is, in the indignity of passible and mortal flesh, when the devil also opposed him (the instigator, that is, of Judas the betrayer, not to mention his tempter after his baptism too); then he is stripped of his former filth and adorned with a full-length robe, a miter, and a clean turban, that is, with the glory and honor of the second coming. For if I also interpret the two goats that were offered at the fast, do they not also figure both stages of Christ? They were equal and alike, because of the Lord's one appearance, since he will not come in another form, as one who is to be recognized by those by whom he was wounded. But one of them, surrounded with scarlet, cursed, spat upon, torn, and pierced, was cast out by the people outside the city to perdition, marked with the plain signs of the Lord's passion; while the other, offered for sins and given to the priests of the temple for food, set its seal on the proofs of the second appearing, in which, when all sins have been expiated, the priests of the spiritual temple, that is, of the church, would enjoy as it were a public distribution of meat from the Lord's grace, while the rest go fasting from salvation. Since, then, the first coming was foretold as both much obscured by figures and cast down by every indignity, and the second as both manifest and worthy of God, therefore, fixing their eyes on the one alone which they could easily both understand and believe, that is, the second, they were not undeservedly deceived about the more obscure, certainly the less worthy, that is, the first. And so to this day they deny that their Christ has come, because he did not come in sublimity, not knowing that he was to come in humility as well.