Against Marcion 5.5

The groundwork laid in the preceding letter led me not to discuss its heading, being sure that it could be discussed elsewhere as well, since it is common to all the letters and the same in each. That he prescribes for those to whom he writes not “health” but “grace and peace”: I do not ask what he, the destroyer of Judaism, has to do with a custom still Jewish (for even today the Jews greet one another in the name of peace, and formerly in the Scriptures they so saluted); but I understand that by his office he was upholding the Creator's preaching: “How ripe are the feet of those who bring good news of good things, who bring good news of peace.” For the good news of good things, that is, of God's grace, is proclaimed as peace, which he knew was to be preferred. When he announces these as “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus,” he uses common names that also suit our faith; and I do not think it can be discerned which God the Father and which Lord Jesus is proclaimed except from the attendant circumstances, as to which of the two they fit better. First, then, I lay down that God the Father is to be recognized as none other than the Creator and Founder both of man and of the universe; next, that the name of Lord is also added to the Father because of his power, which the Son too receives through the Father; then, that grace and peace belong not only to him by whom they were foretold but also to him who had been offended. For there is no grace except for an offence, and no peace except after war. And both the people, by transgressing the rule of life, and the whole human race, by ignoring nature, had both sinned and rebelled against the Creator. But Marcion's god could not be offended, both because he was unknown and because he does not know how to be angry. What grace, then, from one who was not offended? What peace from one who was not rebelled against? He says that the cross of Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing, but the power and wisdom of God to those who will attain salvation; and to show where this came from, he adds: “For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will bring to nothing.’” If these are the Creator's words and bear on the cross being counted foolishness, then both the cross and, through the cross, Christ will belong to the Creator, by whom what concerns the cross was foretold. Or if the Creator, as a rival, took away wisdom so that the cross of Christ, his adversary, should be counted foolishness, how could the Creator have declared anything about the cross of a Christ not his own, whom he did not know when he prophesied? And again, why is it that with the best god, of lavish mercy, some carry off salvation, believing the cross to be the power and wisdom of God, and others perdition, who count the cross of Christ foolishness? If this does not belong to him, it belongs to the Creator to have punished some offence of both the people and the human race by the loss of wisdom and prudence. What follows will confirm this, when he says, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” and when here too he adds why: “Since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.” But first I will discuss “the world.” Since the most subtle heretics here above all take “the world” to mean the lord of the world, we understand it of the man who is in the world, from the simple form of human speech in which we usually put the container for what it contains: “The circus shouted,” “The forum spoke,” and “The basilica murmured,” meaning those who were doing business in those places. So because man, not the God of the world, did not in wisdom know God, in which he ought to have known him (the Jew in the wisdom of the Scriptures, and every nation in the wisdom of his works), therefore the same God, who was not recognized in his wisdom, resolved to strike back at the wisdom of men with foolishness, by saving all who believe in the foolish preaching of the cross. “Since the Jews desire signs”: they who ought already to have been certain about God; “and the Greeks seek wisdom”: they who, of course, set up their own wisdom, not God's. But if a new god were being preached, what wrong had the Jews done in desiring signs by which to believe, or the Greeks in pursuing wisdom which they would rather believe? So the very recompense on Jews and Greeks confirms a jealous God and judge, who by a retribution both jealous and judicial made foolish the wisdom of the world. And if the reasons belong to him whose Scriptures are applied, then the apostle, in speaking of the Creator, teaches that the Creator, who had not been understood, is to be understood. Also, in preaching Christ as a stumbling block to the Jews, he seals the prophecy of the Creator about him, who says through Isaiah, “Behold, I have set in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.” And “the rock was Christ” even Marcion keeps. And what is “the foolishness of God that is wiser than men,” if not the cross and death of God? What is “the weakness of God that is stronger than men,” if not the birth and flesh of God? But if Christ was neither born of a virgin nor built up of flesh, and so suffered neither the cross nor death in truth, there was nothing foolish or weak in him; nor then did God choose “the foolish things of the world to confound the wise,” nor “the weak things of the world to confound the strong,” nor the dishonourable and least and despised things, “things that are not,” that is, that do not truly exist, “to confound the things that are,” that is, that truly exist. For nothing arranged by God is truly small and ignoble and despicable, but only what man arranges. Yet with the Creator the old things can indeed be reckoned as foolishness and weakness and dishonour and pettiness and contempt. What more foolish, what weaker, than God's demand for bloody sacrifices and reeking burnt offerings? What weaker than the purification of vessels and beds? What more dishonourable than the further disfigurement of flesh that already blushes? What so low as the imposing of retaliation? What so contemptible as the exclusion of foods? The whole Old Testament, as far as I know, every heretic ridicules. “For God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise” (Marcion's god does nothing of the kind, since he does not strive to refute opposites by opposites) “so that no flesh should boast,” in order that, as it is written, “Let him who boasts boast in God.” In what God? Surely in the one who gave this command; unless the Creator commanded us to boast in Marcion's god.