Against Praxeas; Against Marcion; On Baptism; Apology

These considerations show that the entire order of God as Judge is an operative one, and (that I may express myself in worthier words) protective of His Catholic¹ and supreme goodness, which, removed as it is from judiciary emotions, and pure in its own condition, the Marcionites refuse to acknowledge to be in one and the same Deity, "raining on the just and on the unjust, and making His sun to rise on the evil and on the good,"² —a bounty which no other god at all exercises. It is true that Marcion has been bold enough to erase from the gospel this testimony of Christ to the Creator; but yet the world itself is inscribed with the goodness of its Maker, and the inscription is read by each man's conscience. Nay, this very long-suffering of the Creator will tend to the condemnation of Marcion; that patience, (I mean,) which waits for the sinner's repentance rather than his death, which prefers mercy to sacrifice,³ averting from the Ninevites the ruin which had been already denounced against them,⁴ and vouchsafing to Hezekiah's tears an extension of his life,⁵ and restoring his kingly state to the monarch of Babylon after his complete repentance;⁶ that mercy, too, which conceded to the devotion of the people the son of Saul when about to die,⁷ and gave free forgiveness to David on his confessing his sins against the house of Uriah;⁸ which also restored the house of Israel as often as it condemned it, and addressed to it consolation no less frequently than reproof. Do not therefore look at God simply as Judge, but turn your attention also to examples of His conduct as the Most Good.⁹ Noting Him, as you do, when He takes vengeance, consider Him likewise when He shows mercy.¹⁰ In the scale, against His severity place His gentleness. When you shall have discovered both qualities to co-exist in the Creator, you will find in Him that very circumstance which induces you to think there is another God. Lastly, come and examine into His doctrine, discipline, precepts, and counsels. You will perhaps say that there are equally good prescriptions in human laws. But Moses and God existed before all your Lycurguses and Solons. There is not one after-age¹¹ which does not take from primitive sources. At any rate, my Creator did not learn from your God to issue such commandments as: Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not covet what is thy neighbour's; honour thy father and thy mother; and, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. To these prime counsels of innocence, chastity, and justice, and piety, are also added prescriptions of humanity, as when every seventh year slaves are released for liberty;¹² when at the same period the land is spared from tillage; a place is also granted to the needy; and from the treading ox's mouth the muzzle is removed, for the enjoyment of the fruit of his labour before him, in order that kindness first shown in the case of animals might be raised from such rudiments¹³ to the refreshment¹⁴ of men.

But what parts of the law can I defend as good with a greater confidence than those which heresy has shown such a longing for?—as the statute of retaliation, requiring eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and stripe for stripe.¹⁵ Now there is not here any smack of a permission to mutual injury; but rather, on the whole, a provision for restraining violence. To a people which was very obdurate, and wanting in faith towards God, it might seem tedious, and even incredible, to expect from God that vengeance which was subsequently to be declared by the prophet: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."¹⁶ Therefore, in the meanwhile, the commission of wrong was to be checked¹⁷ by the fear of a retribution immediately to happen; and so the permission of this retribution was to be the prohibition of provocation, that a stop might thus be put to all hot-blooded¹⁸ injury, whilst by the permission of the second the first is prevented by fear, and by this deterring of the first the second fails to be committed. By the same law another result is also obtained,¹⁹ even the more ready kindling of the fear of retaliation by reason of the very savour of passion which is in it. There is no more bitter thing, than to endure the very suffering which you have inflicted upon others. When, again, the law took somewhat away from men's food, by pronouncing unclean certain animals which were once blessed, you should understand this to be a measure for encouraging continence, and recognise in it a bridle imposed on that appetite which, while eating angels' food, craved after the cucumbers and melons of the Egyptians. Recognise also therein a precaution against those companions of the appetite, even lust and luxury, which are usually chilled by the chastening of the appetite.²⁰ For "the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play."²¹ Furthermore, that an eager wish for money might be restrained, so far as it is caused by the need of food, the desire for costly meat and drink was taken out of their power. Lastly, in order that man might be more readily educated by God for fasting, he was accustomed to such articles of food as were neither plentiful nor sumptuous, and not likely to pamper the appetite of the luxurious. Of course the Creator deserved all the greater blame, because it was from His own people that He took away food, rather than from the more ungrateful Marcionites. As for the burdensome sacrifices also, and the troublesome scrupulousness of their ceremonies²² and oblations, no one should blame them, as if God specially required them for Himself: for He plainly asks, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?" and, "Who hath required them at your hand?"²³ But he should see herein a careful provision²⁴ on God's part, which showed His wish to bind to His own religion a people who were prone to idolatry and transgression by that kind of services wherein consisted the superstition of that period; that He might call them away therefrom, while requesting it to be performed to Himself, as if He desired that no sin should be committed in making idols.

But even in the common transactions of life, and of human intercourse at home and in public, even to the care of the smallest vessels, He in every possible manner made distinct arrangement; in order that, when they everywhere encountered these legal instructions, they might not be at any moment out of the sight of God. For what could better tend to make a man happy, than having "his delight in the law of the Lord?" "In that law would he meditate day and night."²⁵ It was not in severity that its Author promulgated this law, but in the interest of the highest benevolence, which rather aimed at subduing²⁶ the nation's hardness of heart, and by laborious services hewing out a fealty which was (as yet) untried in obedience: for I purposely abstain from touching on the mysterious senses of the law, considered in its spiritual and prophetic relation, and as abounding in types of almost every variety and sort. It is enough at present, that it simply bound a man to God, so that no one ought to find fault with it, except him who does not choose to serve God. To help forward this beneficent, not onerous, purpose of the law, the prophets were also ordained by the self-same goodness of God, teaching precepts worthy of God, how that men should "cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment, judge the fatherless,²⁷ and plead for the widow:"²⁸ be fond of the divine expostulations:²⁹ avoid contact with the wicked:³⁰ "let the oppressed go free:"³¹ dismiss the unjust sentence,³² "deal their bread to the hungry; bring the outcast into their house; cover the naked, when they see him; nor hide themselves from their own flesh and kin:"³³ "keep their tongue from evil, and their lips from speaking guile: depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it:"³⁴ be angry, and sin not; that is, not persevere in anger, or be enraged:³⁵ "walk not in the counsel of the ungodly; nor stand in the way of sinners; nor sit in the seat of the scornful."³⁶ Where then? "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity;"³⁷ meditating (as they do) day and night in the law of the Lord, because "it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man; better to hope in the Lord than in man."³⁸ For what recompense shall man receive from God? "He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."³⁹ "He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not taken God's name in vain, nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour, he shall receive blessing from the Lord, and mercy from the God of his salvation."⁴⁰ "For the eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy, to deliver their souls from death," even eternal death, "and to nourish them in their hunger," that is, after eternal life.⁴¹ "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth them out of them all."⁴² "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."⁴³ "The Lord keepeth all their bones; not one of them shall be broken."⁴⁴ The Lord will redeem the souls of His servants.⁴⁵ We have adduced these few quotations from a mass of the Creator's Scriptures; and no more, I suppose, are wanted to prove Him to be a most good God, for they sufficiently indicate both the precepts of His goodness and the first-fruits⁴⁶ thereof.

But these "saucy cuttles"⁴⁷ (of heretics) under the figure of whom the law about things to be eaten⁴⁸ prohibited this very kind of piscatory aliment, as soon as they find themselves confuted, eject the black venom of their blasphemy, and so spread about in all directions the object which (as is now plain) they severally have in view, when they put forth such assertions and protestations as shall obscure and tarnish the rekindled light⁴⁹ of the Creator's bounty. We will, however, follow their wicked design, even through these black clouds, and drag to light their tricks of dark calumny, laying to the Creator's charge with especial emphasis the fraud and theft of gold and silver which the Hebrews were commanded by Him to practise against the Egyptians. Come, unhappy heretic, I cite even you as a witness; first look at the case of the two nations, and then you will form a judgment of the Author of the command. The Egyptians put in a claim on the Hebrews for these gold and silver vessels.⁵⁰ The Hebrews assert a counter claim, alleging that by the bond⁵¹ of their respective fathers, attested by the written engagement of both parties, there were due to them the arrears of that laborious slavery of theirs, for the bricks they had so painfully made, and the cities and palaces⁵² which they had built. What shall be your verdict, you discoverer⁵³ of the most good God? That the Hebrews must admit the fraud, or the Egyptians the compensation? For they maintain that thus has the question been settled by the advocates on both sides,⁵⁴ of the Egyptians demanding their vessels, and the Hebrews claiming the requital of their labours. But for all they say,⁵⁵ the Egyptians justly renounced their restitution-claim then and there; while the Hebrews to this day, in spite of the Marcionites, re-assert their demand for even greater damages,⁵⁶ insisting that, however large was their loan of the gold and silver, it would not be compensation enough, even if the labour of six hundred thousand men should be valued at only "a farthing"⁵⁷ a day a piece. Which, however, were the more in number—those who claimed the vessel, or those who dwelt in the palaces and cities? Which, too, the greater—the grievance of the Egyptians against the Hebrews, or "the favour"⁵⁸ which they displayed towards them? Were free men reduced to servile labour, in order that the Hebrews might simply proceed against the Egyptians by action at law for injuries; or in order that their officers might on their benches sit and exhibit their backs and shoulders shamefully mangled by the fierce application of the scourge? It was not by a few plates and cup—in all cases the property, no doubt, of still fewer rich men—that any one would pronounce that compensation should have been awarded to the Hebrews, but both by all the resources of these and by the contributions of all the people.⁵⁹ If, therefore, the case of the Hebrews be a good one, the Creator's case must likewise be a good one; that is to say, his command, when He both made the Egyptians unconsciously grateful, and also gave His own people their discharge in full⁶⁰ at the time of their migration by the scanty comfort of a tacit requital of their long servitude. It was plainly less than their due which He commanded to be exacted. The Egyptians ought to have given back their men-children⁶¹ also to the Hebrews.

Similarly on other points also, you reproach Him with fickleness and instability for contradictions in His commandments, such as that He forbade work to be done on Sabbath-days, and yet at the siege of Jericho ordered the ark to be carried round the walls during eight days; in other words, of course, actually on a Sabbath. You do not, however, consider the law of the Sabbath: they are human works, not divine, which it prohibits.⁶² For it says, "Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work." What work? Of course your own. The conclusion is, that from the Sabbath-day He removes those works which He had before enjoined for the six days, that is, your own works; in other words, human works of daily life. Now, the carrying around of the ark is evidently not an ordinary daily duty, nor yet a human one; but a rare and a sacred work, and, as being then ordered by the direct precept of God, a divine one. And I might fully explain what this signified, were it not a tedious process to open out the forms⁶³ of all the Creator's proofs, which you would, moreover, probably refuse to allow. It is more to the point, if you be confuted on plain matters⁶⁴ by the simplicity of truth rather than curious reasoning. Thus, in the present instance, there is a clear distinction respecting the Sabbath's prohibition of human labours, not divine ones. Accordingly, the man who went and gathered sticks on the Sabbath-day was punished with death. For it was his own work which he did; and this⁶⁵ the law forbade. They, however, who on the Sabbath carried the ark round Jericho, did it with impunity. For it was not their own work, but God's, which they executed, and that too, from His express commandment.

Likewise, when forbidding the similitude to be made of all things which are in heaven, and in earth, and in the waters, He declared also the reasons, as being prohibitory of all material exhibition⁶⁶ of a latent⁶⁷ idolatry. For He adds: "Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them." The form, however, of the brazen serpent which the Lord afterwards commanded Moses to make, afforded no pretext⁶⁸ for idolatry, but was meant for the cure of those who were plagued with the fiery serpents.⁶⁹ I say nothing of what was figured by this cure.⁷⁰ Thus, too, the golden Cherubim and Seraphim were purely an ornament in the figured fashion⁷¹ of the ark; adapted to ornamentation for reasons totally remote from all condition of idolatry, on account of which the making a likeness is prohibited; and they are evidently not at variance with⁷² this law of prohibition, because they are not found in that form⁷³ of similitude, in reference to which the prohibition is given. We have spoken⁷⁴ of the rational institution of the sacrifices, as calling off their homage from idols to God; and if He afterwards rejected this homage, saying, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?"⁷⁵ —He meant nothing else than this to be understood, that He had never really required such homage for Himself. For He says, "I will not eat the flesh of bulls;"⁷⁶ and in another passage: "The everlasting God shall neither hunger nor thirst."⁷⁷ Although He had respect to the offerings of Abel, and smelled a sweet savour from the holocaust of Noah, yet what pleasure could He receive from the flesh of sheep, or the odour of burning victims? And yet the simple and God-fearing mind of those who offered what they were receiving from God, both in the way of food and of a sweet smell, was favourably accepted before God, in the sense of respectful homage⁷⁸ to God, who did not so much want what was offered, as that which prompted the offering. Suppose now, that some dependant were to offer to a rich man or a king, who was in want of nothing, some very insignificant gift, will the amount and quality of the gift bring dishonour⁷⁹ to the rich man and the king; or will the consideration⁸⁰ of the homage give them pleasure? Were, however, the dependant, either of his own accord or even in compliance with a command, to present to him gifts suitably to his rank, and were he to observe the solemnities due to a king, only without faith and purity of heart, and without any readiness for other acts of obedience, will not that king or rich man consequently exclaim: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? I am full of your solemnities, your feast-days, and your Sabbaths."⁸¹ By calling them yours, as having been performed⁸² after the giver's own will, and not according to the religion of God (since he displayed them as his own, and not as God's), the Almighty in this passage, demonstrated how suitable to the conditions of the case, and how reasonable, was His rejection of those very offerings which He had commanded to be made to Him.

Now, although you will have it that He is inconstant⁸³ in respect of persons, sometimes disapproving where approbation is deserved; or else wanting in foresight, bestowing approbation on men who ought rather to be reprobated, as if He either censured⁸⁴ His own past judgments, or could not forecast His future ones; yet⁸⁵ nothing is so consistent for even a good judge⁸⁶ as both to reject and to choose on the merits of the present moment. Saul is chosen,⁸⁷ but he is not yet the despiser of the prophet Samuel.⁸⁸ Solomon is rejected; but he is now become a prey to foreign women, and a slave to the idols of Moab and Sidon. What must the Creator do, in order to escape the censure of the Marcionites? Must He prematurely condemn men, who are thus far correct in their conduct, because of future delinquencies? But it is not the mark of a good God to condemn beforehand persons who have not yet deserved condemnation. Must He then refuse to eject sinners, on account of their previous good deeds? But it is not the characteristic of a just judge to forgive sins in consideration of former virtues which are no longer practised. Now, who is so faultless among men, that God could always have him in His choice, and never be able to reject him? Or who, on the other hand, is so void of any good work, that God could reject him for ever, and never be able to choose him? Show me, then, the man who is always good, and he will not be rejected; show me, too, him who is always evil, and he will never be chosen. Should, however, the same man, being found on different occasions in the pursuit of both (good and evil) be recompensed⁸⁹ in both directions by God, who is both a good and judicial Being, He does not change His judgments through inconstancy or want of foresight, but dispenses reward according to the deserts of each case with a most unwavering and provident decision.⁹⁰

Furthermore, with respect to the repentance which occurs in His conduct,⁹¹ you interpret it with similar perverseness just as if it were with fickleness and improvidence that He repented, or on the recollection of some wrong-doing; because He actually said, "It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king,"⁹² very much as if He meant that His repentance savoured of an acknowledgment of some evil work or error. Well,⁹³ this is not always implied. For there occurs even in good works a confession of repentance, as a reproach and condemnation of the man who has proved himself unthankful for a benefit. For instance, in this case of Saul, the Creator, who had made no mistake in selecting him for the kingdom, and endowing him with His Holy Spirit, makes a statement respecting the goodliness of his person, how that He had most fitly chosen him as being at that moment the choicest man, so that (as He says) there was not his fellow among the children of Israel.⁹⁴ Neither was He ignorant how he would afterwards turn out. For no one would bear you out in imputing lack of foresight to that God whom, since you do not deny Him to be divine, you allow to be also foreseeing; for this proper attribute of divinity exists in Him. However, He did, as I have said, burden⁹⁵ the guilt of Saul with the confession of His own repentance; but as there is an absence of all error and wrong in His choice of Saul, it follows that this repentance is to be understood as upbraiding another⁹⁶ rather than as self-incriminating.⁹⁷ Look here then, say you: I discover a self-incriminating case in the matter of the Ninevites, when the book of Jonah declares, "And God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not."⁹⁸ In accordance with which Jonah himself says unto the Lord, "Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil."⁹⁹ It is well, therefore, that he premised the attribute¹⁰⁰ of the most good God as most patient over the wicked, and most abundant in mercy and kindness over such as acknowledged and bewailed their sins, as the Ninevites were then doing. For if He who has this attribute is the Most Good, you will have first to relinquish that position of yours, that the very contact with¹⁰¹ evil is incompatible with such a Being, that is, with the most good God. And because Marcion, too, maintains that a good tree ought not to produce bad fruit; but yet he has mentioned "evil" (in the passage under discussion), which the most good God is incapable of,¹⁰² is there forthcoming any explanation of these "evils," which may render them compatible with even the most Good? There is. We say, in short, that evil in the present case¹⁰³ means, not what may be attributed to the Creator's nature as an evil being, but what may be attributed to His power as a judge. In accordance with which He declared, "I create evil,"¹⁰⁴ and, "I frame evil against you;"¹⁰⁵ meaning not to sinful evils, but avenging ones. What sort of stigma¹⁰⁶ pertains to these, congruous as they are with God's judicial character, we have sufficiently explained.¹⁰⁷ Now although these are called "evils," they are yet not reprehensible in a judge; nor because of this their name do they show that the judge is evil: so in like manner will this particular evil¹⁰⁸ be understood to be one of this class of judiciary evils, and along with them to be compatible with (God as) a judge. The Greeks also sometimes¹⁰⁹ use the word "evils" for troubles and injuries (not malignant ones), as in this passage of yours¹¹⁰ is also meant. Therefore, if the Creator repented of such evil as this, as showing that the creature deserve decondemnation, and ought to be punished for his sin, then, in¹¹¹ the present instance no fault of a criminating nature will be imputed to the Creator, for having deservedly and worthily decreed the destruction of a city so full of iniquity. What therefore He had justly decreed, having no evil purpose in His decree, He decreed from the principle of justice,¹¹² not from malevolence. Yet He gave it the name of "evil," because of the evil and desert involved in the very suffering itself. Then, you will say, if you excuse the evil under name of justice, on the ground that He had justly determined destruction against the people of Nineveh, He must even on this argument be blameworthy, for having repented of an act of justice, which surely should not be repented of. Certainly not,¹¹³ my reply is; God will never repent of an act of justice. And it now remains that we should understand what God's repentance means. For although man repents most frequently on the recollection of a sin, and occasionally even from the unpleasantness¹¹⁴ of some good action, this is never the case with God. For, inasmuch as God neither commits sin nor condemns a good action, in so far is there no room in Him for repentance of either a good or an evil deed. Now this point is determined for you even in the scripture which we have quoted. Samuel says to Saul, "The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better than thou;"¹¹⁵ and into two parts shall Israel be divided: "for He will not turn Himself, nor repent; for He does not repent as a man does."¹¹⁶ According, therefore, to this definition, the divine repentance takes in all cases a different form from that of man, in that it is never regarded as the result of improvidence or of fickleness, or of any condemnation of a good or an evil work. What, then, will be the mode of God's repentance? It is already quite clear,¹¹⁷ if you avoid referring it to human conditions. For it will have no other meaning than a simple change of a prior purpose; and this is admissible without any blame even in a man, much more¹¹⁸ in God, whose every purpose is faultless. Now in Greek the word for repentance (metanoia) is formed, not from the confession of a sin, but from a change of mind, which in God we have shown to be regulated by the occurrence of varying circumstances.

It is now high time that I should, in order to meet all¹¹⁹ objections of this kind, proceed to the explanation and clearing up¹²⁰ of the other trifles,¹²¹ weak points, and inconsistencies, as you deemed them. God calls out to Adam,¹²² Where art thou? as if ignorant where he was; and when he alleged that the shame of his nakedness was the cause (of his hiding himself), He inquired whether he had eaten of the tree, as if He were in doubt. By no means;¹²³ God was neither uncertain about the commission of the sin, nor ignorant of Adam's whereabouts. It was certainly proper to summon the offender, who was concealing himself from the consciousness of his sin, and to bring him forth into the presence of his Lord, not merely by the calling out of his name, but with a home-thrust blow¹²⁴ at the sin which he had at that moment committed. For the question ought not to be read in a merely interrogative tone, Where art thou, Adam? but with an impressive and earnest voice, and with an air of imputation, Oh, Adam, where art thou?—as much as to intimate: thou art no longer here, thou art in perdition—so that the voice is the utterance of One who is at once rebuking and sorrowing.¹²⁵ But of course some part of paradise had escaped the eye of Him who holds the universe in His hand as if it were a bird's nest, and to whom heaven is a throne and earth a footstool; so that He could not see, before He summoned him forth, where Adam was, both while lurking and when eating of the forbidden fruit! The wolf or the paltry thief escapes not the notice of the keeper of your vineyard or your garden! And God, I suppose, with His keener vision,¹²⁶ from on high was unable to miss the sight of¹²⁷ aught which lay beneath Him! Foolish heretic, who treat with scorn¹²⁸ so fine an argument of God's greatness and man's instruction! God put the question with an appearance of uncertainty, in order that even here He might prove man to be the subject of a free will in the alternative of either a denial or a confession, and give to him the opportunity of freely acknowledging his transgression, and, so far,¹²⁹ of lightening it.¹³⁰ In like manner He inquires of Cain where his brother was, just as if He had not yet heard the blood of Abel crying from the ground, in order that he too might have the opportunity from the same power of the will of spontaneously denying, and to this degree aggravating, his crime; and that thus there might be supplied to us examples of confessing sins rather than of denying them: so that even then was initiated the evangelic doctrine, "By thy words¹³¹ thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."¹³² Now, although Adam was by reason of his condition under law¹³³ subject to death, yet was hope preserved to him by the Lord's saying, "Behold, Adam is become as one of us;"¹³⁴ that is, in consequence of the future taking of the man into the divine nature. Then what follows? "And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, (and eat), and live for ever." Inserting thus the particle of present time, "And now," He shows that He had made for a time, and at present, a prolongation of man's life. Therefore He did not actually¹³⁵ curse Adam and Eve, for they were candidates for restoration, and they had been relieved¹³⁶ by confession. Cain, however, He not only cursed; but when he wished to atone for his sin by death, He even prohibited his dying, so that he had to bear the load of this prohibition in addition to his crime. This, then, will prove to be the ignorance of our God, which was simulated on this account, that delinquent man should not be unaware of what he ought to do. Coming down to the case of Sodom and Gomorrha, he says: "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto me; and if not, I will know."¹³⁷ Well, was He in this instance also uncertain through ignorance, and desiring to know? Or was this a necessary tone of utterance, as expressive of a minatory and not a dubious sense, under the colour of an inquiry? If you make merry at God's "going down," as if He could not except by the descent have accomplished His judgment, take care that you do not strike your own God with as hard a blow. For He also came down to accomplish what He wished.