Against Praxeas; Against Marcion; On Baptism; Apology

As to the house of this our earthly dwelling-place, when he says that "we have an eternal home in heaven, not made with hands,"¹ he by no means would imply that, because it was built by the Creator's hand, it must perish in a perpetual dissolution after death.² He treats of this subject in order to offer consolation against the fear of death and the dread of this very dissolution, as is even more manifest from what follows, when he adds, that "in this tabernacle of our earthly body we do groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with the vesture which is from heaven,³ if so be, that having been unclothed,⁴ we shall not be found naked;" in other words, shall regain that of which we have been divested, even our body. And again he says: "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, not as if we were oppressed⁵ with an unwillingness to be unclothed, but (we wish) to be clothed upon."⁶ He here says expressly, what he touched but lightly⁷ in his first epistle, where he wrote:) "The dead shall be raised incorruptible (meaning those who had undergone mortality), "and we shall be changed" (whom God shall find to be yet in the flesh).⁸ Both those shall be raised incorruptible, because they shall regain their body—and that a renewed one, from which shall come their incorruptibility; and these also shall, in the crisis of the last moment, and from their instantaneous death, whilst encountering the oppressions of anti-christ, undergo a change, obtaining therein not so much a divestiture of body as "a clothing upon" with the vesture which is from heaven.⁹ So that whilst these shall put on over their (changed) body this, heavenly raiment, the dead also shall for their part¹⁰ recover their body, over which they too have a supervesture to put on, even the incorruption of heaven;¹¹ because of these it was that he said: "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."¹² The one put on this (heavenly) apparel,¹³ when they recover their bodies; the others put it on as a supervesture,¹⁴ when they indeed hardly lose them (in the suddenness of their change). It was accordingly not without good reason that he described them as "not wishing indeed to be unclothed," but (rather as wanting) "to be clothed upon;"¹⁵ in other words, as wishing not to undergo death, but to be surprised into life,¹⁶ "that this moral (body) might be swallowed up of life,"¹⁷ by being rescued from death in the supervesture of its changed state. This is why he shows us how much better it is for us not to be sorry, if we should be surprised by death, and tells us that we even hold of God "the earnest of His Spirit"¹⁸ (pledged as it were thereby to have "the clothing upon," which is the object of our hope), and that "so long as we are in the flesh, we are absent from the Lord;"¹⁹ moreover, that we ought on this account to prefer²⁰ "rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord,"²¹ and so to be ready to meet even death with joy. In this view it is that he informs us how "we must all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according as he hath done either good or bad."²² Since, however, there is then to be a retribution according to men's merits, how will any be able to reckon with²³ God? But by mentioning both the judgment-seat and the distinction between works good and bad, he sets before us a Judge who is to award both sentences,²⁴ and has thereby affirmed that all will have to be present at the tribunal in their bodies. For it will be impossible to pass sentence except on the body, for what has been done in the body. God would be unjust, if any one were not punished or else rewarded in that very condition,²⁵ wherein the merit was itself achieved. "If therefore any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new;"²⁶ and so is accomplished the prophecy of Isaiah.²⁷ When also he (in a later passage) enjoins us "to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and blood"²⁸ (since this substance enters not the kingdom of God²⁹); when, again, he "espouses the church as a chaste virgin to Christ,"³⁰ a spouse to a spouse in very deed,³¹ an image cannot be combined and compared with what is opposed to the real nature of the thing (with which it is compared). So when he designates "false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves" into likenesses of himself,³² of course by their hypocrisy, he charges them with the guilt of disorderly conversation, rather than of false doctrine.³³ The contrariety, therefore, was one of conduct, not of gods.³⁴ If "Satan himself, too, is transformed into an angel of light,"³⁵ such an assertion must not be used to the prejudice of the Creator. The Creator is not an angel, but God. Into a god of light, and not an angel of light, must Satan then have been said to be transformed, if he did not mean to call him "the angel," which both we and Marcion know him to be. On Paradise is the title of a treatise of ours, in which is discussed all that the subject admits of.³⁶ I shall here simply wonder, in connection with this matter, whether a god who has no dispensation of any kind on earth could possibly have a paradise to call his own—without perchance availing himself of the paradise of the Creator, to use it as he does His world—much in the character of a mendicant.³⁷ And yet of the removal of a man from earth to heaven we have an instance afforded us by the Creator in Elijah.³⁸ But what will excite my surprise still more is the case (next supposed by Marcion), that a God so good and gracious, and so averse to blows and cruelty, should have suborned the angel Satan—not his own either, but the Creator's—"to buffet" the apostle,³⁹ and then to have refused his request, when thrice entreated to liberate him! It would seem, therefore, that Marcion's god imitates the Creator's conduct, who is an enemy to the proud, even "putting down the mighty from their seats."⁴⁰ Is he then the same God as He who gave Satan power over the person of Job that his "strength might be made perfect in weakness?"⁴¹ How is it that the censurer of the Galatians⁴² still retains the very formula of the law: "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established?"⁴³ How again is it that he threatens sinners "that he will not spare" them⁴⁴ —he, the preacher of a most gentle god? Yea, he even declares that "the Lord hath given to him the power of using sharpness in their presence!"⁴⁵ Deny now, O heretic, (at your cost,) that your god is an object to be feared, when his apostle was for making himself so formidable!

Since my little work is approaching its termination,⁴⁶ I must treat but briefly the points which still occur, whilst those which have so often turned up must be put aside. I regret still to have to contend about the law—after I have so often proved that its replacement (by the gospel)⁴⁷ affords no argument for another god, predicted as it was indeed in Christ, and in the Creator's own plans⁴⁸ ordained for His Christ. (But I must revert to that discussion) so far as (the apostle leads me, for) this very epistle looks very much as if it abrogated⁴⁹ the law. We have, however, often shown before now that God is declared by the apostle to be a Judge; and that in the Judge is implied an Avenger; and in the Avenger, the Creator. And so in the passage where he says: "I am not ashamed of the gospel (of Christ): for it is the power of god unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek; for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith,"⁵⁰ he undoubtedly ascribes both the gospel and salvation to Him whom (in accordance with our heretic's own distinction) I have called the just God, not the good one. It is He who removes (men) from confidence in the law to faith in the gospel—that is to say,⁵¹ His own law and His own gospel. When, again, he declares that "the wrath (of God) is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness,"⁵² (I ask) the wrath of what God? Of the Creator certainly. The truth, therefore, will be His, whose is also the wrath, which has to be revealed to avenge the truth. Likewise, when adding, "We are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth,"⁵³ he both vindicated that wrath from which comes this judgment for the truth, and at the same time afforded another proof that the truth emanates from the same God whose wrath he attested, by witnessing to His judgment. Marcion's averment is quite a different matter, that⁵⁴ the Creator in anger avenges Himself on the truth of the rival god which had been detained in unrighteousness. But what serious gaps Marcion has made in this epistle especially, by withdrawing whole passages at his will, will be clear from the unmutilated text of our own copy.⁵⁵ It is enough for my purpose to accept in evidence of its truth what he has seen fit to leave unerased, strange instances as they are also of his negligence and blindness. If, then, God will judge the secrets of men—both of those who have sinned in the law, and of those who have sinned without law (inasmuch as they who know not the law yet do by nature the things contained in the law)⁵⁶ —surely the God who shall judge is He to whom belong both the law, and that nature which is the rule⁵⁷ to them who know not the law. But how will He conduct this judgment? "According to my gospel," says (the apostle), "by (Jesus) Christ."⁵⁸ So that both the gospel and Christ must be His, to whom appertain the law and the nature which are to be vindicated by the gospel and Christ—even at that judgment of God which, as he previously said, was to be according to truth.⁵⁹ The wrath, therefore, which is to vindicate truth, can only be revealed from heaven by the God of wrath;⁶⁰ so that this sentence, which is quite in accordance with that previous one wherein the judgment is declared to be the Creator's,⁶¹ cannot possibly be ascribed to another god who is not a judge, and is incapable of wrath. It is only consistent in Him amongst whose attributes are found the judgment and the wrath of which I am speaking, and to whom of necessity must also appertain the media whereby these attributes are to be carried into effect, even the gospel and Christ. Hence his invective against the transgressors of the law, who teach that men should not steal, and yet practise theft themselves.⁶² (This invective he utters) in perfect homage⁶³ to the law of God, not as if he meant to censure the Creator Himself with having commanded⁶⁴ a fraud to be practised against the Egyptians to get their gold and silver at the very time when He was forbidding men to steal,⁶⁵ —adopting such methods as they are apt (shamelessly) to charge upon Him in other particulars also. Are we then to suppose⁶⁶ that the apostle abstained through fear from openly calumniating God, from whom notwithstanding He did not hesitate to withdraw men? Well, but he had gone so far in his censure of the Jews, as to point against them the denunciation of the prophet, "Through you the name of God is blasphemed (among the Gentiles)."⁶⁷ But how absurd, that he should himself blaspheme Him for blaspheming whom he upbraids them as evil-doers! He prefers even circumcision of heart to neglect of it in the flesh. Now it is quite within the purpose of the God of the law that circumcision should be that of the heart, not in the flesh; in the spirit, and not in the letter.⁶⁸ Since this is the circumcision recommended by Jeremiah: "Circumcise (yourselves to the Lord, and take away) the foreskins of your heart;"⁶⁹ and even of Moses: "Circumcise, therefore, the hardness of your heart,"⁷⁰ —the Spirit which circumcises the heart will proceed from Him who prescribed the letter also which clips⁷¹ the flesh; and "the Jew which is one inwardly" will be a subject of the self-same God as he also is who is "a Jew outwardly;"⁷² because the apostle would have preferred not to have mentioned a Jew at all, unless he were a servant of the God of the Jews. It was once⁷³ the law; now it is "the righteousness of God which is by the faith of (Jesus) Christ."⁷⁴ What means this distinction? Has your god been subserving the interests of the Creator's dispensation, by affording time to Him and to His law? Is the "Now" in the hands of Him to whom belonged the "Then"? Surely, then, the law was His, whose is now the righteousness of God. It is a distinction of dispensations, not of gods. He enjoins those who are justified by faith in Christ and not by the law to have peace with God.⁷⁵ With what God? Him whose enemies we have never, in any dispensation,⁷⁶ been? Or Him against whom we have rebelled, both in relation to His written law and His law of nature? Now, as peace is only possible towards Him with whom there once was war, we shall be both justified by Him, and to Him also will belong the Christ, in whom we are justified by faith, and through whom alone God's⁷⁷ enemies can ever be reduced to peace. "Moreover," says he, "the law entered, that the offence might abound."⁷⁸ And wherefore this? "In order," he says, "that (where sin abounded), grace might much more abound."⁷⁹ Whose grace, if not of that God from whom also came the law? Unless it be, forsooth, that⁸⁰ the Creator intercalated His law for the mere purpose of⁸¹ producing some employment for the grace of a rival god, an enemy to Himself (I had almost said, a god unknown to Him), "that as sin had" in His own dispensation⁸² "reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto (eternal) life by Jesus Christ,"⁸³ His own antagonist! For this (I suppose it was, that) the law of the Creator had "concluded all under sin,"⁸⁴ and had brought in "all the world as guilty (before God)," and had "stopped every mouth,"⁸⁵ so that none could glory through it, in order that grace might be maintained to the glory of the Christ, not of the Creator, but of Marcion! I may here anticipate a remark about the substance of Christ, in the prospect of a question which will now turn up. For he says that "we are dead to the law."⁸⁶ It may be contended that Christ's body is indeed a body, but not exactly⁸⁷ flesh. Now, whatever may be the substance, since he mentions "the body of Christ,"⁸⁸ whom he immediately after states to have been "raised from the dead,"⁸⁹ none other body can be understood than that of the flesh,⁹⁰ in respect of which the law was called (the law) of death.⁹¹ But, behold, he bears testimony to the law, and excuses it on the ground of sin: "What shall we say, therefore? Is the law sin? God forbid."⁹² Fie on you, Marcion. "God forbid!" (See how) the apostle recoils from all impeachment of the law. I, however, have no acquaintance with sin except through the law.⁹³ But how high an encomium of the law (do we obtain) from this fact, that by it there comes to light the latent presence of sin!⁹⁴ It was not the law, therefore, which led me astray, but "sin, taking occasion by the commandment."⁹⁵ Why then do you, (O Marcion,) impute to the God of the law what His apostle dares not impute even to the law itself? Nay, he adds a climax: "The law is holy, and its commandment just and good."⁹⁶ Now if he thus reverences the Creator's law, I am at a loss to know how he can destroy the Creator Himself. Who can draw a distinction, and say that there are two gods, one just and the other good, when He ought to be believed to be both one and the other, whose commandment is both "just and good?" Then, again, when affirming the law to be "spiritual"⁹⁷ he thereby implies that it is prophetic, and that it is figurative. Now from even this circumstance I am bound to conclude that Christ was predicted by the law but figuratively, so that indeed He could not be recognised by all the Jews.

If the Father "sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,"⁹⁸ it must not therefore be said that the flesh which He seemed to have was but a phantom. For he in a previous verse ascribed sin to the flesh, and made it out to be "the law of sin dwelling in his members," and "warring against the law of the mind."⁹⁹ On this account, therefore, (does he mean to say that) the Son was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, that He might redeem this sinful flesh by a like substance, even a fleshly one, which bare a resemblance to sinful flesh, although it was itself free from sin. Now this will be the very perfection of divine power to effect the salvation (of man) in a nature like his own.¹⁰⁰ For it would be no great matter if the Spirit of God remedied the flesh; but when a flesh, which is the very copy¹⁰¹ of the sinning substance—itself flesh also—only without sin, (effects the remedy, then doubtless it is a great thing). The likeness, therefore, will have reference to the quality¹⁰² of the sinfulness, and not to any falsity¹⁰³ of the substance. Because he would not have added the attribute "sinful,"¹⁰⁴ if he meant the "likeness" to be so predicated of the substance as to deny the verity thereof; in that case he would only have used the word "flesh," and omitted the "sinful." But inasmuch as he has put the two together, and said "sinful flesh," (or "flesh of sin,")¹⁰⁵ he has both affirmed the substance, that is, the flesh and referred the likeness to the fault of the substance, that is, to its sin. But even suppose¹⁰⁶ that the likeness was predicated of the substance, the truth of the said substance will not be thereby denied. Why then call the true substance like? Because it is indeed true, only not of a seed of like condition¹⁰⁷ with our own; but true still, as being of a nature¹⁰⁸ not really unlike ours.¹⁰⁹ And again, in contrary things there is no likeness. Thus the likeness of flesh would not be called spirit, because flesh is not susceptible of any likeness to spirit; but it would be called phantom, if it seemed to be that which it really was not. It is, however, called likeness, since it is what it seems to be. Now it is (what it seems to be), because it is on a par with the other thing (with which it is compared).¹¹⁰ But a phantom, which is merely such and nothing else,¹¹¹ is not a likeness. The apostle, however, himself here comes to our aid; for, while explaining in what sense he would not have us "live in the flesh," although in the flesh—even by not living in the works of the flesh¹¹² —he shows that when he wrote the words, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,"¹¹³ it was not with the view of condemning the substance (of the flesh), but the works thereof; and because it is possible for these not to be committed by us whilst we are still in the flesh, they will therefore be properly chargeable,¹¹⁴ not on the substance of the flesh, but on its conduct. Likewise, if "the body indeed is dead because of sin" (from which statement we see that not the death of the soul is meant, but that of the body), "but the spirit is life because of righteousness,"¹¹⁵ it follows that this life accrues to that which incurred death because of sin, that is, as we have just seen, the body. Now the body¹¹⁶ is only restored to him who had lost it; so that the resurrection of the dead implies the resurrection of their bodies. He accordingly subjoins: "He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies."¹¹⁷ In these words he both affirmed the resurrection of the flesh (without which nothing can rightly be called¹¹⁸ body, nor can anything be properly regarded as mortal), and proved the bodily substance of Christ; inasmuch as our own mortal bodies will be quickened in precisely the same way as He was raised; and that was in no other way than in the body. I have here a very wide gulf of expunged Scripture to leap across;¹¹⁹ however, I alight on the place where the apostle bears record of Israel "that they have a zeal of God"—their own God, of course—"but not according to knowledge. For," says he, "being ignorant of (the righteousness of) God, and going about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God; for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."¹²⁰ Hereupon we shall be confronted with an argument of the heretic, that the Jews were ignorant of the superior God,¹²¹ since, in opposition to him, they set up their own righteousness—that is, the righteousness of their law—not receiving Christ, the end (or finisher) of the law. But how then is it that he bears testimony to their zeal for their own God, if it is not in respect of the same God that he upbraids them for their ignorance? They were affected indeed with zeal for God, but it was not an intelligent zeal: they were, in fact, ignorant of Him, because they were ignorant of His dispensations by Christ, who was to bring about the consummation of the law; and in this way did they maintain their own righteousness in opposition to Him. But so does the Creator Himself testify to their ignorance concerning Him: "Israel hath not known me; my people have not understood me;"¹²² and as to their preferring the establishment of their own righteousness, (the Creator again describes them as) "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men;"¹²³ moreover, as "having gathered themselves together against the Lord and against His Christ"¹²⁴ —from ignorance of Him, of course. Now nothing can be expounded of another god which is applicable to the Creator; otherwise the apostle would not have been just in reproaching the Jews with ignorance in respect of a god of whom they knew nothing. For where had been their sin, if they only maintained the righteousness of their own God against one of whom they were ignorant? But he exclaims: "O the depth of the riches and the wisdom of God; how unsearchable also are His ways!"¹²⁵ Whence this outburst of feeling? Surely from the recollection of the Scriptures, which he had been previously turning over, as well as from his contemplation of the mysteries which he had been setting forth above, in relation to the faith of Christ coming from the law.¹²⁶ If Marcion had an object in his erasures,¹²⁷ why does his apostle utter such an exclamation, because his god has no riches for him to contemplate? So poor and indigent was he, that he created nothing, predicted nothing—in short, possessed nothing; for it was into the world of another God that he descended. The truth is, the Creator's resources and riches, which once had been hidden, were now disclosed. For so had He promised: "I will give to them treasures which have been hidden, and which men have not seen will I open to them."¹²⁸ Hence, then, came the exclamation, "O the depth of the riches and the wisdom of God!" For His treasures were now opening out. This is the purport of what Isaiah said, and of (the apostle's own) subsequent quotation of the self-same passage, of the prophet: "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him again?"¹²⁹ Now, (Marcion,) since you have expunged so much from the Scriptures, why did you retain these words, as if they too were not the Creator's words? But come now, let us see without mistake¹³⁰ the precepts of your new god: "Abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good."¹³¹ Well, is the precept different in the Creator's teaching? "Take away the evil from you, depart from it, and be doing good."¹³² Then again: "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love."¹³³ Now is not this of the same import as: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self?"¹³⁴ (Again, your apostle says:) "Rejoicing in hope;"¹³⁵ that is, of God. So says the Creator's Psalmist: "It is better to hope in the Lord, than to hope even in princes."¹³⁶ "Patient in tribulation."¹³⁷ You have (this in) the Psalm: "The Lord hear thee in the day of tribulation."¹³⁸ "Bless, and curse not,"¹³⁹ (says your apostle.) But what better teacher of this will you find than Him who created all things, and blessed them? "Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits."¹⁴⁰ For against such a disposition Isaiah pronounces a woe.¹⁴¹ "Recompense to no man evil for evil."¹⁴² (Like unto which is the Creator's precept:) "Thou shalt not remember thy brother's evil against thee."¹⁴³ (Again:) "Avenge not yourselves;"¹⁴⁴ for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord."¹⁴⁵ "Live peaceably with all men."¹⁴⁶ The retaliation of the law, therefore, permitted not retribution for an injury; it rather repressed any attempt thereat by the fear of a recompense. Very properly, then, did he sum up the entire teaching of the Creator in this precept of His: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."¹⁴⁷ Now, if this is the recapitulation of the law from the very law itself, I am at a loss to know who is the God of the law. I fear He must be Marcion's god (after all).¹⁴⁸ If also the gospel of Christ is fulfilled in this same precept, but not the Creator's Christ, what is the use of our contending any longer whether Christ did or did not say, "I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it?"¹⁴⁹ In vain has (our man of) Pontus laboured to deny this statement.¹⁵⁰ If the gospel has not fulfilled the law, then all I can say is,¹⁵¹ the law has fulfilled the gospel. But it is well that in a later verse he threatens us with "the judgment-seat of Christ,"—the Judge, of course, and the Avenger, and therefore the Creator's (Christ). This Creator, too, however much he may preach up another god, he certainly sets forth for us as a Being to be served,¹⁵² if he holds Him thus up as an object to be feared.

I shall not be sorry to bestow attention on the shorter epistles also. Even in brief works there is much pungency.¹⁵³ The Jews had slain their prophets.¹⁵⁴ I may ask, What has this to do with the apostle of the rival god, one so amiable withal, who could hardly be said to condemn even the failings of his own people; and who, moreover, has himself some hand in making away with the same prophets whom he is destroying? What injury did Israel commit against him in slaying those whom he too has reprobated, since he was the first to pass a hostile sentence on them? But Israel sinned against their own God. He upbraided their iniquity to whom the injured God pertains; and certainly he is anything but the adversary of the injured Deity. Else he would not have burdened them with the charge of killing even the Lord, in the words, "Who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets," although (the pronoun) their own be an addition of the heretics.¹⁵⁵ Now, what was there so very acrimonious¹⁵⁶ in their killing Christ the proclaimer of the new god, after they had put to death also the prophets of their own god? The fact, however, of their having slain the Lord and His servants, is put as a case of climax.¹⁵⁷ Now, if it were the Christ of one god and the prophets of another god whom they slew, he would certainly have placed the impious crimes on the same level, instead of mentioning them in the way of a climax; but they did not admit of being put on the same level: the climax, therefore, was only possible¹⁵⁸ by the sin having been in fact committed against one and the same Lord in the two respective circumstances.¹⁵⁹ To one and the same Lord, then, belonged Christ and the prophets. What that "sanctification of ours" is, which he declares to be "the will of God," you may discover from the opposite conduct which he forbids. That we should "abstain from fornication," not from marriage; that every one "should know how to possess his vessel in honour."¹⁶⁰ In what way? "Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles."¹⁶¹ Concupiscence, however, is not ascribed to marriage even among the Gentiles, but to extravagant, unnatural, and enormous sins.¹⁶² The law of nature¹⁶³ is opposed to luxury as well as to grossness and uncleanness;¹⁶⁴ it does not forbid connubial intercourse, but concupiscence; and it takes care of¹⁶⁵ our vessel by the honourable estate of matrimony. This passage (of the apostle) I would treat in such a way as to maintain the superiority of the other and higher sanctity, preferring continence and virginity to marriage, but by no means prohibiting the latter. For my hostility is directed against¹⁶⁶ those who are for destroying the God of marriage, not those who follow after chastity. He says that those who "remain unto the coming of Christ," along with "the dead in Christ, shall rise first," being "caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."¹⁶⁷ I find it was in their foresight of all this, that the heavenly intelligences gazed with admiration on "the Jerusalem which is above,"¹⁶⁸ and by the mouth of Isaiah said long ago: "Who are these that fly as clouds, and as doves with their young ones, unto me?"¹⁶⁹ Now, as Christ has prepared for us this ascension into heaven, He must be the Christ of whom Amos¹⁷⁰ spoke: "It is He who builds His ascent up to the heavens,"¹⁷¹ even for Himself and His people. Now, from whom shall I expect (the fulfilment of) all this, except from Him whom I have heard give the promise thereof? What "spirit" does he forbid us to "quench," and what "prophesyings" to "despise?"¹⁷² Not the Creator's spirit, nor the Creator's prophesyings, Marcion of course replies. For he has already quenched and despised the thing which he destroys, and is unable to forbid what he has despised.¹⁷³ It is then incumbent on Marcion now to display in his church that spirit of his god which must not be quenched, and the prophesyings which must not be despised. And since he has made such a display as he thinks fit, let him know that we shall challenge it whatever it may be to the rule¹⁷⁴ of the grace and power of the Spirit and the prophets—namely, to foretell the future, to reveal the secrets of the heart, and to explain mysteries. And when he shall have failed to produce and give proof of any such criterion, we will then on our side bring out both the Spirit and the prophecies of the Creator, which utter predictions according to His will. Thus it will be clearly seen of what the apostle spoke, even of those things which were to happen in the church of his God; and as long as He endures, so long also does His Spirit work, and so long are His promises repeated.¹⁷⁵ Come now, you who deny the salvation of the flesh, and who, whenever there occurs the specific mention of body in a case of this sort,¹⁷⁶ interpret it as meaning anything rather than the substance of the flesh, (tell me) how is it that the apostle has given certain distinct names to all (our faculties), and has comprised them all in one prayer for their safety, desiring that our "spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord and Saviour (Jesus) Christ?"¹⁷⁷ Now he has here propounded the soul and the body as two several and distinct things.¹⁷⁸ For although the soul has a kind of body of a quality of its own,¹⁷⁹ just as the spirit has, yet as the soul and the body are distinctly named, the soul has its own peculiar appellation, not requiring the common designation of body. This is left for "the flesh," which having no proper name (in this passage), necessarily makes use of the common designation. Indeed, I see no other substance in man, after spirit and soul, to which the term body can be applied except "the flesh." This, therefore, I understand to be meant by the word "body"—as often as the latter is not specifically named. Much more do I so understand it in the present passage, where the flesh¹⁸⁰ is expressly called by the name "body."