Against Marcion 4.13
Summary: Christ's preaching on the mountain, his night of prayer, the choice of twelve apostles, the renaming of Peter, and the crowds from Tyre all correspond to the Creator's prophecies and figures.
Latin text · CSEL 47:456–459
Certe euangelizat Sion et Hierusalem pacem et bona omnia, certe ascendit in montem et illic pernoctat in oratione et utique auditur a patre. euolue igitur prophetas et ordinem totum recognosce: in montem, inquit, excelsum, Esaias, ascende, qui euangelizas Sion, extolle cum uigore uocem tuam, qui euangelizas Hierusalem: adhuc in uigore obstupescebant in doctrina eius; erat enim docens tamquam uirtutem habens. et rursus: propterea cognoscet populus nomen meum in illa die, — quod nomen, nisi Christi? — quod ego sim ipse qui loquor: tunc enim ipse erat, qui in prophetis loquebatur, sermo filius creatoris. adsum, dum hora est, in montibus, ut euangelizans auditionem pacis, ut euangelizans bona; item Naum ex duodecim: quoniam ecce ueloces pedes in monte euangelizantis pacem. de uoce autem nocturnae orationis ad patrem manifeste psalmus: deus meus, clamabo per diem, et (non) exaudies, et nocte, et non in uanitatem mihi. et alibi de loco et uoce eadem psalmus: uoce mea ad dominum exclamaui, et exaudiuit me de monte sancto suo. habes nominis repraesentationem, habes actum euangelizantis, habes locum montis et tempus noctis et sonum uocis et auditum patris, habes Christum prophetarum. Cur autem duodecim apostolos elegit et non alium quemlibet numerum? ne (non)et ex hoc meum Christum interpretari possem, non tantum uocibus prophetarum, sed et argumentis rerum praedicatum. huius enim numeri figuras apud creatorem deprehendo: duodecim fontes Elim, et duodecim gemmas in tunica sacerdotali Aaronis, et duodecim lapides ab Iesu de Iordane electos et in arcam testamenti conditos. totidem enim apostoli portendebantur, proinde ut fontes et amnes rigaturi aridum retro et desertum a notitia (dei) orbem nationum, — sicut et per Esaiam: ponam in terra inaquosa flumina — proinde ut gemmae inluminaturi sacram ecclesiae uestem, quam induit Christus, pontifex patris, proinde ut et lapides solidi fide, quos de lauacro Iordanis Iesus uerus elegit et in sacrarium testamenti sui recepit. quid tale de numeri defensione competit Christo Marcionis? non potest simpliciter factum ab illo quid uideri, quod potest uideri non simpliciter factum a meo. eius erit res, apud quem inuenitur rei praeparatura. Mutat et Petro nomen de Simone, quia et creator Abrahae et Sarrae et Ausae nomina reformauit, hunc uocando Iesum, illis syllabas adiciendo. sed cur et Petrum? si ob uigorem fidei, multae materiae, solidae aeque, nomen de suo accommodarent. an quia et petra et lapis Christus? siquidem et legimus positum eum in lapidem offendiculi et in petram scandali. omitto cetera. itaque adfectauit carissimo discipulorum de figuris suis peculiariter nomen communicare, puto propius quam de non suis. Conueniunt a Tyro et ex aliis regionibus multitudo, etiam transmarina. hoc spectabat psalmus: et ecce allophyli et Tyrus et populus Aethiopum, isti fuerunt illic. mater Sion, dicet homo, et homo natus est in illa — quoniam deus homo natus est — et aedificauit eam — uoluntate patris —, ut scias ad eum tunc gentiles conuenisse, qui deus homo erat natus, aedificaturus ecclesiam ex uoluntate patris ex allophylis quoque. sic et Esaias: ecce isti ueniunt de longinquo, isti autem ueniunt ab aquilone et mari, alii autem de terra Persarum. de quibus et rursus: attolle per circuitum oculos tuos et uide: omnes congregati sunt; de quibus et infra, uidens ignotos et extraneos: et dices cordi tuo: quis istos genuit mihi? porro: hos quis mihi educauit? at hi mihi ubi fuerunt? hic erit Christus non prophetarum? et quis erit Christus Marcionitarum? si peruersitas placet: qui non fuerit prophetarum.
English · Claude translation
Certainly he brings good news of peace and all good things to Zion and Jerusalem; certainly he goes up the mountain and spends the night there in prayer, and is surely heard by the Father. Unroll the prophets, then, and recognize the whole sequence. “Go up on a high mountain,” says Isaiah, “you who bring good news to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good news to Jerusalem.” (With strength still: they were amazed at his teaching, for he was teaching as one having power.) And again: “Therefore my people will know my name on that day” (what name, if not Christ's?) “that I am he who speaks”; for he it was then who spoke in the prophets, the Word, the Son of the Creator. “I am here while there is time, upon the mountains, as one bringing the good news of peace, as one bringing good news of good things.” Likewise Nahum, of the Twelve: “For behold the swift feet on the mountain of one bringing good news of peace.” Of the voice of prayer to the Father by night, the psalm plainly says: “My God, I will cry by day, and you will not hear; and by night, and it will not be in vain for me.” And elsewhere the psalm, of the same place and voice: “With my voice I cried to the Lord, and he heard me from his holy mountain.” You have the representation of the name; you have the act of one bringing good news; you have the place, the mountain, and the time, night, and the sound of the voice, and the Father's hearing: you have the Christ of the prophets. But why did he choose twelve apostles, and not some other number? So that I could interpret my Christ from this too, as foretold not only by the words of the prophets but also by the evidence of events. For I find figures of this number with the Creator: the twelve springs of Elim; the twelve gems on the priestly robe of Aaron; and the twelve stones chosen by Joshua from the Jordan and laid up in the ark of the covenant. For just so many apostles were portended: like springs and rivers, to water the world of the nations, formerly dry and deserted of the knowledge of God (as also through Isaiah: “I will put rivers in a waterless land”); like gems, to give light to the sacred robe of the church, which Christ, the Father's high priest, put on; and like stones, solid in faith, which the true Jesus chose out of the washing of the Jordan and received into the sanctuary of his covenant. What of this kind, by way of defending the number, fits Marcion's Christ? Nothing can be seen as done simply by him which can be seen as not done simply by mine. The thing will belong to him with whom the preparation for the thing is found. He changes Peter's name too from Simon, because the Creator also re-formed the names of Abraham, Sarah, and Hoshea, calling the last Joshua and adding syllables to the others. But why Peter in particular? If for the strength of his faith, many materials, equally solid, could have lent a name from their own. Or is it because Christ is both rock and stone? For we read that he was set as a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. I pass over the rest. So he chose to share a name especially with the dearest of his disciples from among his own figures, more appropriately, I think, than from figures not his own. A multitude comes together from Tyre and other regions, even from overseas. The psalm was looking to this: “And behold, the foreigners and Tyre and the people of the Ethiopians, these were there. Mother Zion, a man will say, and a man was born in her” (for God was born man) “and he has built her” (by the Father's will); so that you may know that the Gentiles then came together to him who, being God, had been born man, to build the church by the Father's will from foreigners too. So also Isaiah: “Behold, these come from far off, and these from the north and the sea, and others from the land of the Persians”; of whom again: “Lift up your eyes round about and see: they are all gathered together”; and of whom further on, seeing people unknown and strangers: “And you will say in your heart, Who has borne me these? … Who has brought these up for me? And where were these for me?” Will this be the Christ not of the prophets? And who will be the Christ of the Marcionites? If perversity pleases, one who did not belong to the prophets.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The gospel passages are Luke 6:12–17 and 4:32. The prophecies and figures are Isa 40:9; Isa 52:6–7; Nah 1:15 (2:1 LXX); Ps 22:2 (21:3 Vulg.); Ps 3:4 (3:5 Vulg.); Exod 15:27 (Elim); Exod 28:17–21; Josh 4:3–9 (Tertullian says the stones were laid in the ark); Isa 41:18; Gen 17:5, 15; Num 13:16; Isa 8:14; Ps 87:4–5 (86:4–5 Vulg.; Old Latin “mother Zion”); Isa 49:12, 18, 21. In Ps 22:2 the edition supplies “not” (“you will not hear”) from the psalm text; Tertullian's point, “the Father's hearing,” suggests his own text read “and you will hear.”
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (OCR slip; stray period): doctrina. eius → doctrina eius; Mutat at Petro → Mutat et Petro; syllabus → syllabas; aream testamenti → arcam testamenti.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 4.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/4/13/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 4.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/4/13/).
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