Against Praxeas; Against Marcion; On Baptism; Apology

But we now advance a step further on, and challenge (as we promised to do) the very Gospel of Marcion, with the intention of thus proving that it has been adulterated. For it is certain¹ that the whole aim at which he has strenuously laboured even in the drawing up of his Antitheses, centres in this, that he may establish a diversity between the Old and the New Testaments, so that his own Christ may be separate from the Creator, as belonging to this rival god, and as alien from the law and the prophets. It is certain, also, that with this view² he has erased everything that was contrary to his own opinion and made for the Creator, as if it had been interpolated by His advocates, whilst everything which agreed with his own opinion he has retained. The latter statements we shall strictly examine;³ and if they shall turn out rather for our side, and shatter the assumption of Marcion, we shall embrace them. It will then become evident, that in retaining them he has shown no less of the defect of blindness, which characterizes heresy, than he displayed when he erased all the former class of subjects. Such, then, is to be⁴ the drift and form of my little treatise; subject, of course, to whatever condition may have become requisite on both sides of the question.⁵ Marcion has laid down the position, that Christ who in the days of Tiberius was, by a previously unknown god, revealed for the salvation of all nations, is a different being from Him who was ordained by God the Creator for the restoration of the Jewish state, and who is yet to come. Between these he interposes the separation of⁶ a great and absolute difference—as great as lies between what is just and what is good;⁷ as great as lies between the law and the gospel; as great, (in short,) as is the difference between Judaism and Christianity. Hence will arise also our rule,⁸ by which we determine⁹ that there ought to be nothing in common between the Christ of the rival god and the Creator; but that (Christ) must be pronounced to belong to the Creator,¹⁰ if He has administered His dispensations, fulfilled His prophecies, promoted¹¹ His laws, given reality to¹² His promises, revived His mighty power,¹³ remoulded His determinations,¹⁴ expressed His attributes, His properties. This law and this rule I earnestly request the reader to have ever in his mind, and so let him begin to investigate whether Christ be Marcion's or the Creator's.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius¹⁵ (for such is Marcion's proposition) he "came down to the Galilean city of Capernaum," of course meaning¹⁶ from the heaven of the Creator, to which he had previously descended from his own. What then had been his course,¹⁷ for him to be described as first descending from his own heaven to the Creator's? For why should I abstain from censuring those parts of the statement which do not satisfy the requirement of an ordinary narrative, but always end in a falsehood? To be sure, our censure has been once for all expressed in the question, which we have already¹⁸ suggested: Whether, when descending through the Creator's domain, and indeed in hostility to him, he could possibly have been admitted by him, and by him been transmitted to the earth, which was equally his territory? Now, however, I want also to know the remainder of his course down, assuming that he came down. For we must not be too nice in inquiring¹⁹ whether it is supposed that he was seen in any place. To come into view²⁰ indicates²¹ a sudden unexpected glance, which for a moment fixed²² the eye upon the object that passed before the view, without staying. But when it happens that a descent has been effected, it is apparent, and comes under the notice of the eyes.²³ Moreover, it takes account of fact, and thus obliges one to examine in what condition with what preparation,²⁴ with how much violence or moderation, and further, at what time of the day or night, the descent was made; who, again, saw the descent, who reported it, who seriously avouched the fact, which certainly was not easy to be believed, even after the asseveration. It is, in short, too bad²⁵ that Romulus should have had in Proculus an avoucher of his ascent to heaven, when the Christ of (this) god could not find any one to announce his descent from heaven; just as if the ascent of the one and the descent of the other were not effected on one and the same ladder of falsehood! Then, what had he to do with Galilee, if he did not belong to the Creator by whom²⁶ that region was destined (for His Christ) when about to enter on His ministry?²⁷ As Isaiah says: "Drink in this first, and be prompt, O region of Zabulon and land of Nephthalim, and ye others who (inhabit) the sea-coast, and that of Jordan, Galilee of the nations, ye people who sit in darkness, behold a great light; upon you, who inhabit (that) land, sitting in the shadow of death, the light hath arisen."²⁸ It is, however, well that Marcion's god does claim to be the enlightener of the nations, that so he might have the better reason for coming down from heaven; only, if it must needs be,²⁹ he should rather have made Pontus his place of descent than Galilee. But since both the place and the work of illumination according to the prophecy are compatible with Christ, we begin to discern³⁰ that He is the subject of the prophecy, which shows that at the very outset of His ministry, He came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but rather to fulfil them;³¹ for Marcion has erased the passage as an interpolation.³² It will, however, be vain for him to deny that Christ uttered in word what He forthwith did partially indeed. For the prophecy about place He at once fulfilled. From heaven straight to the synagogue. As the adage runs: "The business on which we are come, do at once." Marcion must even expunge from the Gospel, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel;"³³ and, "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs,"³⁴ —in order, forsooth, that Christ may not appear to be an Israelite. But facts will satisfy me instead of words. Withdraw all the sayings of my Christ, His acts shall speak. Lo, He enters the synagogue; surely (this is going) to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Behold, it is to Israelites first that He offers the "bread" of His doctrine; surely it is because they are "children" that He shows them this priority.³⁵ Observe, He does not yet impart it to others; surely He passes them by as "dogs." For to whom else could He better have imparted it, than to such as were strangers to the Creator, if He especially belonged not to the Creator? And yet how could He have been admitted into the synagogue—one so abruptly appearing,³⁶ so unknown; one, of whom no one had as yet been apprised of His tribe, His nation, His family, and lastly, His enrolment in the census of Augustus—that most faithful witness of the Lord's nativity, kept in the archives of Rome? They certainly would have remembered, if they did not know Him to be circumcised, that He must not be admitted into their most holy places. And even if He had the general right of entering³⁷ the synagogue (like other Jews), yet the function of giving instruction was allowed only to a man who was extremely well known, and examined and tried, and for some time invested with the privilege after experience duly attested elsewhere. But "they were all astonished at His doctrine." Of course they were; "for, says (St. Luke), "His word was with power³⁸ —not because He taught in opposition to the law and the prophets. No doubt, His divine discourse³⁹ gave forth both power and grace, building up rather than pulling down the substance of the law and the prophets. Otherwise, instead of "astonishment, they would feel horror. It would not be admiration, but aversion, prompt and sure, which they would bestow on one who was the destroyer of law and prophets, and the especial propounder as a natural consequence of a rival god; for he would have been unable to teach anything to the disparagement of the law and the prophets, and so far of the Creator also, without premising the doctrine of a different and rival divinity. Inasmuch, then, as the Scripture makes no other statement on the matter than that the simple force and power of His word produced astonishment, it more naturally⁴⁰ shows that His teaching was in accordance with the Creator by not denying (that it was so), than that it was in opposition to the Creator, by not asserting (such a fact). And thus He will either have to be acknowledged as belonging to Him,⁴¹ in accordance with whom He taught; or else will have to be adjudged a deceiver since He taught in accordance with One whom He had come to oppose. In the same passage, "the spirit of an unclean devil" exclaims: "What have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus? Art Thou come to destroy us? I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God."⁴² I do not here raise the question whether this appellation was suitable to one who ought not to be called Christ, unless he were sent by the Creator.⁴³ Elsewhere⁴⁴ there has been already given a full consideration of His titles.

My present discussion is, how the evil spirit could have known that He was called by such a name, when there had never at any time been uttered about Him a single prophecy by a god who was unknown, and up to that time silent, of whom it was not possible for Him to be attested as "the Holy One," as (of a god) unknown even to his own Creator. What similar event could he then have published⁴⁵ of a new deity, whereby he might betoken for "the holy one" of the rival god? Simply that he went into the synagogue, and did nothing even in word against the Creator? As therefore he could not by any means acknowledge him, whom he was ignorant of, to be Jesus and the Holy One of God; so did he acknowledge Him whom he knew (to be both). For he remembered how that the prophet had prophesied⁴⁶ of "the Holy One" of God, and how that God's name of "Jesus" was in the son of Nun.⁴⁷ These facts he had also received⁴⁸ from the angel, according to our Gospel: "Wherefore that which shall be born of thee shall be called the Holy One, the Son of God;"⁴⁹ and, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus."⁵⁰ Thus he actually had (although only an evil spirit) some idea of the Lord's dispensation, rather than of any strange and heretofore imperfectly understood one. Because he also premised this question: "What have we to do with Thee?"—not as if referring to a strange Jesus, to whom pertain the evil spirits of the Creator. Nor did he say, What hast Thou to do with us? but, "What have we to do with Thee?" as if deploring himself, and deprecating his own calamity; at the prospect of which he adds: "Art Thou come to destroy us?" So completely did he acknowledge in Jesus the Son of that God who was judicial and avenging, and (so to speak) severe,⁵¹ and not of him who was simply good,⁵² and knew not how to destroy or how to punish! Now for what purpose have we adduced his passage first?⁵³ In order to show that Jesus was neither acknowledged by the evil spirit, nor affirmed by Himself, to be any other than the Creator's. Well, but Jesus rebuked him, you say. To be sure he did, as being an envious (spirit), and in his very confession only petulant, and evil in adulation—just as if it had been Christ's highest glory to have come for the destruction of demons, and not for the salvation of mankind; whereas His wish really was that His disciples should not glory in the subjection of evil spirits but in the fair beauty of salvation.⁵⁴ Why else⁵⁵ did He rebuke him? If it was because he was entirely wrong (in his invocation), then He was neither Jesus nor the Holy One of God; if it was because he was partially wrong—for having supposed him to be, rightly enough,⁵⁶ Jesus and the Holy One of God, but also as belonging to the Creator—most unjustly would He have rebuked him for thinking what he knew he ought to think (about Him), and for not supposing that of Him which he knew not that he ought to suppose—that he was another Jesus, and the holy one of the other god. If, however, the rebuke has not a more probable meaning⁵⁷ than that which we ascribe to it, it follows that the evil spirit made no mistake, and was not rebuked for lying; for it was Jesus Himself, besides whom it was impossible for the evil spirit to have acknowledged any other, whilst Jesus affirmed that He was He whom the evil spirit had acknowledged, by not rebuking him for uttering a lie.

The Christ of the Creator had⁵⁸ to be called a Nazarene according to prophecy; whence the Jews also designate us, on that very account,⁵⁹ Nazerenes⁶⁰ after Him. For we are they of whom it is written, "Her Nazarites were whiter than snow;"⁶¹ even they who were once defiled with the stains of sin, and darkened with the clouds of ignorance. But to Christ the title Nazarene was destined to become a suitable one, from the hiding-place of His infancy, for which He went down and dwelt at Nazareth,⁶² to escape from Archelaus the son of Herod. This fact I have not refrained from mentioning on this account, because it behoved Marcion's Christ to have forborne all connection whatever with the domestic localities of the Creator's Christ, when he had so many towns in Judæa which had not been by the prophets thus assigned⁶³ to the Creator's Christ. But Christ will be (the Christ) of the prophets, wheresoever He is found in accordance with the prophets. And yet even at Nazareth He is not remarked as having preached anything new,⁶⁴ whilst in another verse He is said to have been rejected⁶⁵ by reason of a simple proverb.⁶⁶ Here at once, when I observe that they laid their hands on Him, I cannot help drawing a conclusion respecting His bodily substance, which cannot be believed to have been a phantom,⁶⁷ since it was capable of being touched and even violently handled, when He was seized and taken and led to the very brink of a precipice. For although He escaped through the midst of them, He had already experienced their rough treatment, and afterwards went His way, no doubt⁶⁸ because the crowd (as usually happens) gave way, or was even broken through; but not because it was eluded as by an impalpable disguise,⁶⁹ which, if there had been such, would not at all have submitted to any touch.

"Tangere enim et tangi, nisi corpus, nulla potest res,"⁷⁰

is even a sentence worthy of a place in the world's wisdom. In short, He did himself touch others, upon whom He laid His hands, which were capable of being felt, and conferred the blessings of healing,⁷¹ which were not less true, not less unimaginary, than were the hands wherewith He bestowed them. He was therefore the very Christ of Isaiah, the healer of our sicknesses.⁷² "Surely," says he, "He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." Now the Greeks are accustomed to use for carry a word which also signifies to take away. A general promise is enough for me in passing.⁷³ Whatever were the cures which Jesus effected, He is mine. We will come, however, to the kinds of cures. To liberate men, then, from evil spirits, is a cure of sickness. Accordingly, wicked spirits (just in the manner of our former example) used to go forth with a testimony, exclaiming, "Thou art the Son of God,"⁷⁴ —of what God, is clear enough from the case itself. But they were rebuked, and ordered not to speak; precisely because⁷⁵ Christ willed Himself to be proclaimed by men, not by unclean spirits, as the Son of God—even that Christ alone to whom this was befitting, because He had sent beforehand men through whom He might become known, and who were assuredly worthier preachers. It was natural to Him⁷⁶ to refuse the proclamation of an unclean spirit, at whose command there was an abundance of saints. He, however,⁷⁷ who had never been foretold (if, indeed, he wished to be acknowledged; for if he did not wish so much, his coming was in vain), would not have spurned the testimony of an alien or any sort of substance, who did not happen to have a substance of his own,⁷⁸ but had descended in an alien one. And now, too, as the destroyer also of the Creator, he would have desired nothing better than to be acknowledged by His spirits, and to be divulged for the sake of being feared:⁷⁹ only that Marcion says⁸⁰ that his god is not feared; maintaining that a good being is not an object of fear, but only a judicial being, in whom reside the grounds⁸¹ of fear—anger, severity, judgments, vengeance, condemnation. But it was from fear, undoubtedly, that the evil spirits were cowed.⁸² Therefore they confessed that (Christ) was the Son of a God who was to be feared, because they would have an occasion of not submitting if there were none for fearing. Besides, He showed that He was to be feared, because He drave them out, not by persuasion like a good being, but by command and reproof. Or else did he⁸³ reprove them, because they were making him an object of fear, when all the while he did not want to be feared? And in what manner did he wish them to go forth, when they could not do so except with fear? So that he fell into the dilemma⁸⁴ of having to conduct himself contrary to his nature, whereas he might in his simple goodness have at once treated them with leniency. He fell, too, into another false position⁸⁵ —of prevarication, when he permitted himself to be feared by the demons as the Son of the Creator, that he might drive them out, not indeed by his own power, but by the authority of the Creator. "He departed, and went into a desert place."⁸⁶ This was, indeed, the Creator's customary region. It was proper that the Word⁸⁷ should there appear in body, where He had aforetime, wrought in a cloud. To the gospel also was suitable that condition of place⁸⁸ which had once been determined on for the law.⁸⁹ "Let the wilderness and the solitary place, therefore, be glad and rejoice;" so had Isaiah promised.⁹⁰ When "stayed" by the crowds, He said, "I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also."⁹¹ Had He displayed His God anywhere yet? I suppose as yet nowhere. But was He speaking of those who knew of another god also? I do not believe so. If, therefore, neither He had preached, nor they had known, any other God but the Creator, He was announcing the kingdom of that God whom He knew to be the only God known to those who were listening to Him.

Out of so many kinds of occupations, why indeed had He such respect for that of fishermen, as to select from it for apostles Simon and the sons of Zebedee (for it cannot seem to be the mere fact itself for which the narrative was meant to be drawn out⁹²), saying to Peter, when he trembled at the very large draught of the fishes, "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men?"⁹³ By saying this, He suggested to them the meaning of the fulfilled prophecy, that it was even He who by Jeremiah had foretold, "Behold, I will send many fishers; and they shall fish them,"⁹⁴ that is, men. Then at last they left their boats, and followed Him, understanding that it was He who had begun to accomplish what He had declared. It is quite another case, when he affected to choose from the college of shipmasters, intending one day to appoint the shipmaster Marcion his apostle. We have indeed already laid it down, in opposition to his Antitheses, that the position of Marcion derives no advantage from the diversity which he supposes to exist between the Law and the Gospel, inasmuch as even this was ordained by the Creator, and indeed predicted in the promise of the new Law, and the new Word, and the new Testament. Since, however, he quotes with especial care,⁹⁵ as a proof in his domain,⁹⁶ a certain companion in misery (suntalaiporon), and associate in hatred (summisoumenon), with himself, for the cure of leprosy,⁹⁷ I shall not be sorry to meet him, and before anything else to point out to him the force of the law figuratively interpreted, which, in this example of a leper (who was not to be touched, but was rather to be removed from all intercourse with others), prohibited any communication with a person who was defiled with sins, with whom the apostle also forbids us even to eat food,⁹⁸ forasmuch as the taint of sins would be communicated as if contagious, wherever a man should mix himself with the sinner. The Lord, therefore, wishing that the law should be more profoundly understood as signifying spiritual truths by carnal facts⁹⁹ —and thus¹⁰⁰ not destroying, but rather building up, that law which He wanted to have more earnestly acknowledged—touched the leper, by whom (even although as man He might have been defiled) He could not be defiled as God, being of course incorruptible. The prescription, therefore, could not be meant for Him, that He was bound to observe the law and not touch the unclean person, seeing that contact with the unclean would not cause defilement to Him. I thus teach that this (immunity) is consistent in my Christ, the rather when I show that it is not consistent in yours. Now, if it was as an enemy¹⁰¹ of the law that He touched the leper—disregarding the precept of the law by a contempt of the defilement—how could he be defiled, when he possessed not a body¹⁰² which could be defiled? For a phantom is not susceptible of defilement. He therefore, who could not be defiled, as being a phantom, will not have an immunity from pollution by any divine power, but owing to his fantastic vacuity; nor can he be regarded as having despised pollution, who had not in fact any material capacity¹⁰³ for it; nor, in like manner, as having destroyed the law, who had escaped defilement from the occasion of his phantom nature, not from any display of virtue. If, however, the Creator's prophet Elisha cleansed Naaman the Syrian alone,¹⁰⁴ to the exclusion of¹⁰⁵ so many lepers in Israel,¹⁰⁶ this fact contributes nothing to the distinction of Christ, as if he were in this way the better one for cleansing this Israelite leper, although a stranger to him, whom his own Lord had been unable to cleanse. The cleansing of the Syrian rather¹⁰⁷ was significant throughout the nations of the world¹⁰⁸ of their own cleansing in Christ their light,¹⁰⁹ steeped as they were in the stains of the seven deadly sins:¹¹⁰ idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, fornication, false-witness, and fraud.¹¹¹ Seven times, therefore, as if once for each,¹¹² did he wash in Jordan; both in order that he might celebrate the expiation of a perfect hebdomad;¹¹³ and because the virtue and fulness of the one baptism was thus solemnly imputed¹¹⁴ to Christ, alone, who was one day to establish on earth not only a revelation, but also a baptism, endued with compendious efficacy.¹¹⁵ Even Marcion finds here an antithesis:¹¹⁶ how that Elisha indeed required a material resource, applied water, and that seven times; whereas Christ, by the employment of a word only, and that but once for all, instantly effected¹¹⁷ the cure. And surely I might venture¹¹⁸ to claim¹¹⁹ the Very Word also as of the Creator's substance. There is nothing of which He who was the primitive Author is not also the more powerful one. Forsooth,¹²⁰ it is incredible that that power of the Creator should have, by a word, produced a remedy for a single malady, which once by a word brought into being so vast a fabric as the world! From what can the Christ of the Creator be better discerned, than from the power of His word? But Christ is on this account another (Christ), because He acted differently from Elisha—because, in fact, the master is more powerful than his servant! Why, Marcion, do you lay down the rule, that things are done by servants just as they are by their very masters? Are you not afraid that it will turn to your discredit, if you deny that Christ belongs to the Creator, on the ground that He was once more powerful than a servant of the Creator—since, in comparison with the weakness of Elisha, He is acknowledged to be the greater, if indeed greater!¹²¹ For the cure is the same, although there is a difference in the working of it. What has your Christ performed more than my Elisha? Nay, what great thing has the word of your Christ performed, when it has simply done that which a river of the Creator effected? On the same principle occurs all the rest. So far as renouncing all human glory went, He forbade the man to publish abroad the cure; but so far as the honour of the law was concerned, He requested that the usual course should be followed: "Go, show thyself to the priest, and present the offering which Moses commanded."¹²² For the figurative signs of the law in its types He still would have observed, because of their prophetic import.¹²³ These types signified that a man, once a sinner, but afterwards purified¹²⁴ from the stains thereof by the word of God, was bound to offer unto God in the temple a gift, even prayer and thanksgiving in the church through Christ Jesus, who is the Catholic Priest of the Father.¹²⁵ Accordingly He added: "that it may be for a testimony unto you"—one, no doubt, whereby He would testify that He was not destroying the law, but fulfilling it; whereby, too, He would testify that it was He Himself who was foretold as about to undertake¹²⁶ their sicknesses and infirmities. This very consistent and becoming explanation of "the testimony," that adulator of his own Christ, Marcion seeks to exclude under the cover of mercy and gentleness. For, being both good (such are his words), and knowing, besides, that every man who had been freed from leprosy would be sure to perform the solemnities of the law, therefore He gave this precept. Well, what then? Has He continued in his goodness (that is to say, in his permission of the law) or not? For if he has persevered in his goodness, he will never become a destroyer of the law; nor will he ever be accounted as belonging to another god, because there would not exist that destruction of the law which would constitute his claim to belong to the other god. If, however, he has not continued good, by a subsequent destruction of the law, it is a false testimony which he has since imposed upon them in his cure of the leper; because he has forsaken his goodness, in destroying the law. If, therefore, he was good whilst upholding the law,¹²⁷ he has now become evil as a destroyer of the law. However, by the support which he gave to the law, he affirmed that the law was good. For no one permits himself in the support of an evil thing. Therefore he is not only bad if he has permitted obedience to a bad law; but even worse still, if he has appeared¹²⁸ as the destroyer of a good law. So that if he commanded the offering of the gift because he knew that every cured leper would be sure to bring one; he possibly abstained from commanding what he knew would be spontaneously done. In vain, therefore, was his coming down, as if with the intention of destroying the law, when he makes concessions to the keepers of the law. And yet,¹²⁹ because he knew their disposition,¹³⁰ he ought the more earnestly to have prevented their neglect of the law,¹³¹ since he had come for this purpose. Why then did he not keep silent, that man might of his own simple will obey the law? For then might he have seemed to some extent¹³² to have persisted in his patience. But he adds also his own authority increased by the weight of this "testimony." Of what testimony, I ask,¹³³ if not that of the assertion of the law? Surely it matters not in what way he asserted the law—whether as good, or as supererogatory,¹³⁴ or as patient, or as inconstant—provided, Marcion, I drive you from your position.¹³⁵ Observe,¹³⁶ he commanded that the law should be fulfilled. In whatever way he commanded it, in the same way might he also have first uttered that sentiment:¹³⁷ "I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it."¹³⁸ What business, therefore, had you to erase out of the Gospel that which was quite consistent in it?¹³⁹ For you have confessed that, in his goodness, he did in act what you deny that he did in word.¹⁴⁰ We have therefore good proof that He uttered the word, in the fact that He did the deed; and that you have rather expunged the Lord's word, than that our (evangelists)¹⁴¹ have inserted it.

The sick of the palsy is healed,¹⁴² and that in public, in the sight of the people. For, says Isaiah, "they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God."¹⁴³ What glory, and what excellency? "Be strong, ye weak hands, and ye feeble knees:"¹⁴⁴ this refers to the palsy. "Be strong; fear not."¹⁴⁵ Be strong is not vainly repeated, nor is fear not vainly added; because with the renewal of the limbs there was to be, according to the promise, a restoration also of bodily energies: "Arise, and take up thy couch;" and likewise moral courage¹⁴⁶ not to be afraid of those who should say, "Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" So that you have here not only the fulfilment of the prophecy which promised a particular kind of healing, but also of the symptoms which followed the cure. In like manner, you should also recognise Christ in the same prophet as the forgiver of sins. "For," he says, "He shall remit to many their sins, and shall Himself take away our sins."¹⁴⁷ For in an earlier passage, speaking in the person of the Lord himself, he had said: "Even though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them as white as snow; even though they be like crimson, I will whiten them as wool."¹⁴⁸ In the scarlet colour He indicates the blood of the prophets; in the crimson, that of the Lord, as the brighter. Concerning the forgiveness of sins, Micah also says: "Who is a God like unto Thee? pardoning iniquity, and passing by the transgressions of the remnant of Thine heritage. He retaineth not His anger as a testimony against them, because He delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, and will have compassion upon us; He wipeth away our iniquities, and casteth our sins into the depths of the sea."¹⁴⁹ Now, if nothing of this sort had been predicted of Christ, I should find in the Creator examples of such a benignity as would hold out to me the promise of similar affections also in the Son of whom He is the Father. I see how the Ninevites obtained forgiveness of their sins from the Creator¹⁵⁰ —not to say from Christ, even then, because from the beginning He acted in the Father's name. I read, too, how that, when David acknowledged his sin against Uriah, the prophet Nathan said unto him, "The Lord hath cancelled¹⁵¹ thy sin, and thou shalt not die;"¹⁵² how king Ahab in like manner, the husband of Jezebel, guilty of idolatry and of the blood of Naboth, obtained pardon because of his repentance;¹⁵³ and how Jonathan the son of Saul blotted out by his deprecation the guilt of a violated fast.¹⁵⁴ Why should I recount the frequent restoration of the nation itself after the forgiveness of their sins?—by that God, indeed, who will have mercy rather than sacrifice, and a sinner's repentance rather than his death.¹⁵⁵ You will first have to deny that the Creator ever forgave sins; then you must in reason show¹⁵⁶ that He never ordained any such prerogative for His Christ; and so you will prove how novel is that boasted¹⁵⁷ benevolence of the, of course, novel Christ when you shall have proved that it is neither compatible with¹⁵⁸ the Creator nor predicted by the Creator. But whether to remit sins can appertain to one who is said to be unable to retain them, and whether to absolve can belong to him who is incompetent even to condemn, and whether to forgive is suitable to him against whom no offence can be committed, are questions which we have encountered elsewhere,¹⁵⁹ when we preferred to drop suggestions¹⁶⁰ rather than treat them anew.¹⁶¹ Concerning the Son of man our rule¹⁶² is a twofold one: that Christ cannot lie, so as to declare Himself the Son of man, if He be not truly so; nor can He be constituted the Son of man, unless He be born of a human parent, either father or mother. And then the discussion will turn on the point, of which human parent He ought to be accounted the son—of the father or the mother? Since He is (begotten) of God the Father, He is not, of course, (the son) of a human father. If He is not of a human father, it follows that He must be (the son) of a human mother. If of a human mother, it is evident that she must be a virgin. For to whom a human father is not ascribed, to his mother a husband will not be reckoned; and then to what mother a husband is not reckoned, the condition of virginity belongs.¹⁶³ But if His mother be not a virgin, two fathers will have to be reckoned to Him—a divine and a human one. For she must have a husband, not to be a virgin; and by having a husband, she would cause two fathers—one divine, the other human—to accrue to Him, who would thus be Son both of God and of a man. Such a nativity (if one may call it so)¹⁶⁴ the mythic stories assign to Castor or to Hercules. Now, if this distinction be observed, that is to say, if He be Son of man as born of His mother, because not begotten of a father, and His mother be a virgin, because His father is not human—He will be that Christ whom Isaiah foretold that a virgin should conceive,¹⁶⁵ on what principle you, Marcion, can admit Him Son of man, I cannot possibly see. If through a human father, then you deny him to be Son of God; if through a divine one also,¹⁶⁶ then you make Christ the Hercules of fable; if through a human mother only, then you concede my point; if not through a human father also,¹⁶⁷ then He is not the son of any man,¹⁶⁸ and He must have been guilty of a lie for having declared Himself to be what He was not. One thing alone can help you in your difficulty: boldness on your part either to surname your God as actually the human father of Christ, as Valentinus did¹⁶⁹ with his Æon; or else to deny that the Virgin was human, which even Valentinus did not do. What now, if Christ be described¹⁷⁰ in Daniel by this very title of "Son of man?" Is not this enough to prove that He is the Christ of prophecy? For if He gives Himself that appellation which was provided in the prophecy for the Christ of the Creator, He undoubtedly offers Himself to be understood as Him to whom (the appellation) was assigned by the prophet. But perhaps¹⁷¹ it can be regarded as a simple identity of names;¹⁷² and yet we have maintained¹⁷³ that neither Christ nor Jesus ought to have been called by these names, if they possessed any condition of diversity. But as regards the appellation "Son of man," in as far as it occurs by accident,¹⁷⁴ in so far there is a difficulty in its occurrence along with¹⁷⁵ a casual identity of names. For it is of pure¹⁷⁶ accident, especially when the same cause does not appear¹⁷⁷ whereby the identity may be occasioned. And therefore, if Marcion's Christ be also said to be born of man, then he too would receive an identical appellation, and there would be two Sons of man, as also two Christs and two Jesuses. Therefore, since the appellation is the sole right of Him in whom it has a suitable reason,¹⁷⁸ if it be claimed for another in whom there is an identity of name, but not of appellation,¹⁷⁹ then the identity of name even looks suspicious in him for whom is claimed without reason the identity of appellation. And it follows that He must be believed to be One and the Same, who is found to be the more fit to receive both the name and the appellation; while the other is excluded, who has no right to the appellation, because he has no reason to show for it. Nor will any other be better entitled to both than He who is the earlier, and has had allotted to Him the name of Christ and the appellation of Son of man, even the Jesus of the Creator. It was He who was seen by the king of Babylon in the furnace with His martyrs: "the fourth, who was like the Son of man."¹⁸⁰ He also was revealed to Daniel himself expressly as "the Son of man, coming in the clouds of heaven" as a Judge, as also the Scripture shows.¹⁸¹ What I have advanced might have been sufficient concerning the designation in prophecy of the Son of man. But the Scripture offers me further information, even in the interpretation of the Lord Himself. For when the Jews, who looked at Him as merely man, and were not yet sure that He was God also, as being likewise the Son of God, rightly enough said that a man could not forgive sins, but God alone, why did He not, following up their point¹⁸² about man, answer them, that He¹⁸³ had power to remit sins; inasmuch as, when He mentioned the Son of man, He also named a human being? except it were because He wanted, by help of the very designation "Son of man" from the book of Daniel, so to induce them to reflect¹⁸⁴ as to show them that He who remitted sins was God and man—that only Son of man, indeed, in the prophecy of Daniel, who had obtained the power of judging, and thereby, of course, of forgiving sins likewise (for He who judges also absolves); so that, when once that objection of theirs¹⁸⁵ was shattered to pieces by their recollection of Scripture, they might the more easily acknowledge Him to be the Son of man Himself by His own actual forgiveness of sins. I make one more observation,¹⁸⁶ how that He has nowhere as yet professed Himself to be the Son of God—but for the first time in this passage, in which for the first time He has remitted sins; that is, in which for the first time He has used His function of judgment, by the absolution. All that the opposite side has to allege in argument against these things, (I beg you) carefully weigh¹⁸⁷ what it amounts to. For it must needs strain itself to such a pitch of infatuation as, on the one hand, to maintain that (their Christ) is also Son of man, in order to save Him from the charge of falsehood; and, on the other hand, to deny that He was born of woman, lest they grant that He was the Virgin's son. Since, however, the divine authority and the nature of the case, and common sense, do not admit this insane position of the heretics, we have here the opportunity of putting in a veto¹⁸⁸ in the briefest possible terms, on the substance of Christ's body, against Marcion's phantoms. Since He is born of man, being the Son of man. He is body derived from body.¹⁸⁹ You may, I assure you,¹⁹⁰ more easily find a man born without a heart or without brains, like Marcion himself, than without a body, like Marcion's Christ. And let this be the limit to your examination of the heart, or, at any rate, the brains of the heretic of Pontus.¹⁹¹