Against Marcion 4.43

The one who buried the Lord had to be foretold too, and even then deservedly blessed, if prophecy did not pass over even the service of those women who came together at the tomb before dawn with the spices they had prepared. For of this he speaks through Hosea: “And they will seek my face; before dawn they will watch for me, saying: Let us go and return to the Lord, for he has torn and he will heal us; he has struck and he will have mercy on us; he will heal us after two days; on the third day we shall rise again.” For who would not believe that these words were turning over in the minds of those women, between the grief of their present bereavement, by which they seemed to themselves to have been struck by the Lord, and the hope of his resurrection, by which they thought they would be restored? But since the body was not found, his burial had been taken away from the midst, according to Isaiah. And two angels also appeared there. God's word, which stands on two witnesses, used generally to employ about that many attendants. The women too returning from the tomb and from that vision of angels Isaiah foresaw: “Women,” he says, “coming from the vision, come,” namely to announce the Lord's resurrection.

And it is well that the disciples' unbelief persisted, so that our defense might stand firm to the end: that Christ Jesus revealed himself to the disciples as no other than the Christ of the prophets. For when two of them were on a journey and the Lord had joined them, without its being apparent that it was he, and even feigning ignorance of what had happened, they said: “But we thought that he was the redeemer of Israel,” surely meaning their own Christ, that is, the Creator's. So far had he been from revealing himself to them as another. Otherwise they would not have thought him the Creator's; and when he was thought to be the Creator's, he would not have tolerated this opinion of himself if he were not the one he was thought to be. Or he himself will be the author of error and a betrayer of the truth, contrary to the title of the most good god. But neither after the resurrection did he show himself to them as other than the one they had told him they thought he was. He plainly inveighed against them: “O foolish and slow of heart in not believing all that he spoke to you.” What had he spoken? That he belonged to another god? Prove it, and I surrender. Or the same things the angels said to the women: “Remember what he said to you in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be betrayed and crucified and rise on the third day”? And why “must,” unless because it had been so written by God the Creator? So he rebuked them as men offended at the passion alone and doubtful about the resurrection announced to them by the women, and because of this they had not believed that he was the one they had thought him to be. So, wishing them to believe what they had thought, he confirmed that he was the one they had thought him to be, namely the Creator's Christ, the redeemer of Israel.

And as for the reality of his body, what could be clearer? When they hesitated whether he might be a phantom, or rather believed him to be a phantom, he says: “Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; for a spirit does not have bones, as you see that I have.” And Marcion was unwilling to erase from his gospel certain things that tell against him — deliberately, I suppose — so that, from what he could have erased and did not, it might either be denied that he erased what he did erase, or be said that he had good reason to erase it; and he spares only those passages which he subverts no less by misinterpreting than he would by deleting. So he wants it to have been said thus: “A spirit does not have bones, as you see me having,” as though “as you see me having” referred to the spirit, that is, not having bones, like a spirit. And what is the reason for this contortion, when he could simply have said: “Because a spirit does not have bones, as you see me not having”? And why does he offer to their inspection his hands and feet, which are members made of bones, if he did not have bones? Why does he add, “And know that it is I,” whom, of course, they had known before as having a body? Or if he was a phantom through and through, why did he rebuke them for believing him a phantom? But in fact, when they still did not believe, he asked for food, so as to show that he had teeth too.

We have fulfilled our undertaking, I think. We have exhibited Jesus Christ, in his teachings, sayings, affections, thoughts, mighty works, sufferings, and even his resurrection, as the Christ of the prophets and none other than the Creator's, since also, in sending the apostles to preach to all nations, he commanded them in fulfillment of the psalm: that their sound should go out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the earth. I pity you, Marcion: you have labored in vain. For the Christ Jesus in your gospel is mine.