Against Marcion 5.14

If the Father sent him in the likeness of sinful flesh, the flesh that was seen in him is not therefore to be called a phantom. For above he ascribed sin to the flesh and made it the law of sin dwelling in his members and opposing the law of the mind. For this reason, then, the Son was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, to redeem the flesh of sin by a like substance, that is, by flesh which was like sinful flesh, though it was not itself sinful. For this too will be God's power: to accomplish salvation in a substance of the same kind. For it would be nothing great if the Spirit of God healed the flesh; but it is great if flesh does so, flesh altogether like sinful flesh in that it is flesh, but not flesh of sin. So the likeness will relate to the title of sin, not to a falsehood of substance. For he would not have added “of sin” if he wanted the likeness to be understood of the substance, so as to deny its reality; he would have put only “of flesh,” not also “of sin.” But since he framed it thus, “of sinful flesh,” he both affirmed the substance, that is, the flesh, and referred the likeness to the fault of the substance, that is, to sin. Suppose now that the likeness is said of the substance: not even so will the reality of the substance be denied. Why then “like,” if real? Because real indeed, but not from seed: like in its state and real, but unlike in its origin. Besides, there is no likeness between contraries. Spirit would not be called a likeness of flesh (since flesh would not admit a likeness of spirit either), but it would be called a phantom, if what was not there was seen. But a thing is called a likeness when what is seen really is; for it is, in being equal to another. A phantom, however, being only a phantom, is not a likeness. Here too, explaining how he does not want us to be in the flesh, though we are in the flesh, namely that we should not be in the works of the flesh, he shows that it was in this sense that he wrote, “Flesh and blood will not obtain the kingdom of God,” condemning not the substance but its works; and these, because they can be avoided by us while we are still placed in the flesh, will belong not to the guilt of the substance but to that of conduct. Again, if the body is indeed dead because of sin (so the death is not of the soul but of the body), but the spirit is life because of righteousness, … to that to which death came because of sin, that is, to the body. For a thing is restored to no one but to him who lost it, and so the resurrection of the dead will be the resurrection of bodies. For he also adds: “He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies.” So he both confirmed the resurrection of the flesh, without which neither can anything be called a body nor anything be understood as mortal, and proved that Christ's substance was bodily; since our mortal bodies will be given life in the same way as he too was raised, and in no other way the same, except because it was in the body. Here too I leap over a very large gap where the text has been cut away; but I seize on the apostle bearing witness to Israel that they have a zeal for God, their own God of course, yet not according to knowledge. “For,” he says, “not knowing God and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to the righteousness of God; for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Here the heretic's argument will be that the Jews did not know the higher God, since against him they set up their own righteousness, that is, that of their own law, not receiving Christ, the end of the law. Why then does he bear witness to their zeal for their own God, unless he is also reproaching them with ignorance toward that same God, that they were driven indeed by zeal for God but not according to knowledge, not knowing him, that is, since they did not know his arrangements in Christ, who was to bring the law to its completion, and so they defended their own righteousness against him? And so the Creator himself also testifies to their ignorance toward him: “Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood me,” and that they rather set up their own righteousness: “teaching the doctrines and precepts of men”; and that they had also gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ, out of ignorance, of course. So nothing that fits the Creator can be interpreted of another god, since otherwise the apostle would have wrongly taunted the Jews with ignorance toward an unknown god. For what wrong had they done if they were setting up the righteousness of their own God against one whom they did not know? And yet he cries out: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom of God, and how unsearchable are his ways!” Where does this outburst come from? From the recollection, of course, of the Scriptures which he had been unrolling before, from the contemplation of the mysteries which he had set out above concerning faith in Christ coming from the law. If Marcion erased these on purpose, why does his apostle cry out, beholding no riches of God, of a god as poor and needy as one who founded nothing, foretold nothing, in short had nothing, since he came down into another's property? But in fact both the apostle and the riches belong to the Creator, riches once hidden and now unlocked. For so he had promised: “And I will give them hidden treasures; I will open to them things unseen.” From this, then, came the cry, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom of God!” whose treasures now lay open. That is Isaiah's; and so is what follows, from the book of the same prophet: “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? Who has given to him, and it will be repaid him?” You who have taken so much away from the Scriptures, why did you keep these, as though they too were not the Creator's? Let us see, of course, the precepts of the new god. “Hating what is evil,” he says, “and cleaving to what is good”: is the Creator's precept any different, “Put away the evil from among you,” and, “Turn away from evil and do good”? “Loving one another with brotherly affection”: is this not the same as “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”? “Rejoicing in hope,” in God, of course: “For it is good to hope in the Lord rather than to hope in rulers.” “Enduring affliction”: “For the Lord will hear you in the day of affliction” (you have the psalm). “Bless, and do not curse”: who will teach this better than he who founded all things with blessings? “Not minding high things, but going along with the lowly; do not be wise in your own sight”: for they hear “woe” through Isaiah. “Repay no one evil for evil”: “and do not remember your brother's malice.” “Not avenging yourselves; for vengeance is mine, and I will repay, says the Lord.” “Have peace with all men.” So the law's retaliation did not permit repaying an injury, but checked its beginning by the fear of repayment. Rightly, then, he summed up the whole of the Creator's rule of life in his chief precept: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” If this completion of the law comes from the law itself, I no longer know who the God of the law is; I fear it may be Marcion's god! But if the gospel of Christ is fulfilled by this precept, and it is not the Creator's Christ, what are we still contending about? Whether Christ said it or not, “I have not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it,” the man from Pontus labored in vain at denying that saying: if the gospel has not fulfilled the law, then see, the law has fulfilled the gospel. And it is well that at the close he threatens the judgment seat of Christ, surely of a judge and avenger, surely the Creator's, certainly establishing that the one he holds out to be feared is the one whose favour must be won, even if he were preaching another.