Against Praxeas; Against Marcion; On Baptism; Apology

When (the apostle) mentions the several motives of those who were preaching the gospel, how that some, "waxing confident by his bonds, were more fearless in speaking the word," while others "preached Christ even out of envy and strife, and again others out of good-will," many also "out of love," and certain "out of contention," and some "in rivalry to himself,"¹ he had a favourable opportunity, no doubt,² of taxing what they preached with a diversity of doctrine, as if it were no less than this which caused so great a variance in their tempers. But while he exposes these tempers as the sole cause of the diversity, he avoids inculpating the regular mysteries of the faith,³ and affirms that there is, notwithstanding, but one Christ and His one God, whatever motives men had in preaching Him. Therefore, says he, it matters not to me "whether it be in pretence or in truth that Christ is preached,"⁴ because one Christ alone was announced, whether in their "pretentious" or their "truthful" faith. For it was to the faithfulness of their preaching that he applied the word truth, not to the rightness of the rule itself, because there was indeed but one rule; whereas the conduct of the preachers varied: in some of them it was true, i.e. single-minded, while in others it was sophisticated with over-much learning. This being the case, it is manifest that that Christ was the subject of their preaching who was always the theme of the prophets. Now, if it were a completely different Christ that was being introduced by the apostle, the novelty of the thing would have produced a diversity (in belief.). For there would not have been wanting, in spite of the novel teaching,⁵ men to interpret the preached gospel of the Creator's Christ, since the majority of persons everywhere now-a-days are of our way of thinking, rather than on the heretical side. So that the apostle would not in such a passage as the present one have refrained from remarking and censuring the diversity. Since, however, there is no blame of a diversity, there is no proof of a novelty. Of course⁶ the Marcionites suppose that they have the apostle on their side in the following passage in the matter of Christ's substance—that in Him there was nothing but a phantom of flesh. For he says of Christ, that, "being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God;⁷ but emptied⁸ Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant," not the reality, "and was made in the likeness of man," not a man, "and was found in fashion as a man,"⁹ not in his substance, that is to say, his flesh; just as if to a substance there did not accrue both form and likeness and fashion. It is well for us that in another passage (the apostle) calls Christ "the image of the invisible God."¹⁰ For will it not follow with equal force from that passage, that Christ is not truly God, because the apostle places Him in the image of God, if, (as Marcion contends,) He is not truly man because of His having taken on Him the form or image of a man? For in both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image (or "fashion") and likeness and form shall be claimed for a phantom. But since he is truly God, as the Son of the Father, in His fashion and image, He has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, "found in the fashion" and image "of a man." For when he propounded¹¹ Him as thus "found" in the manner¹² of a man, he in fact affirmed Him to be most certainly human. For what is found, manifestly possesses existence. Therefore, as He was found to be God by His mighty power, so was He found to be man by reason of His flesh, because the apostle could not have pronounced Him to have "become obedient unto death,"¹³ if He had not been constituted of a mortal substance. Still more plainly does this appear from the apostle's additional words, "even the death of the cross."¹⁴ For he could hardly mean this to be a climax¹⁵ to the human suffering, to extol the virtue¹⁶ of His obedience, if he had known it all to be the imaginary process of a phantom, which rather eluded the cross than experienced it, and which displayed no virtue¹⁷ in the suffering, but only illusion. But "those things which he had once accounted gain," and which he enumerates in the preceding verse—"trust in the flesh," the sign of "circumcision," his origin as "an Hebrew of the Hebrews," his descent from "the tribe of Benjamin," his dignity in the honours of the Pharisee¹⁸ —he now reckons to be only "loss" to himself;¹⁹ (in other words,) it was not the God of the Jews, but their stupid obduracy, which he repudiates. These are also the things "which he counts but dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ"²⁰ (but by no means for the rejection of God the Creator); "whilst he has not his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through Him," i.e. Christ, "the righteousness which is of God."²¹ Then, say you, according to this distinction the law did not proceed from the God of Christ. Subtle enough! But here is something still more subtle for you. For when (the apostle) says, "Not (the righteousness) which is of the law, but that which is through Him," he would not have used the phrase through Him of any other than Him to whom the law belonged. "Our conversation," says he, "is in heaven."²² I here recognise the Creator's ancient promise to Abraham: "I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven."²³ Therefore "one star differeth from another star in glory."²⁴ If, again, Christ in His advent from heaven "shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body,"²⁵ it follows that this body of ours shall rise again, which is now in a state of humiliation in its sufferings and according to the law of mortality drops into the ground. But how shall it be changed, if it shall have no real existence? If, however, this is only said of those who shall be found in the flesh²⁶ at the advent of God, and who shall have to be changed,"²⁷ what shall they do who will rise first? They will have no substance from which to undergo a change. But he says (elsewhere), "We shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord (in the air)."²⁸ Then, if we are to be caught up alone with them, surely we shall likewise be changed together with them.

To this epistle alone did its brevity avail to protect it against the falsifying hands of Marcion. I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man, that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline. His aim, was, I suppose, to carry out his interpolating process even to the number of (St. Paul's) epistles. And now, reader,²⁹ I beg you to remember that we have here adduced proofs out of the apostle, in support of the subjects which we previously³⁰ had to handle, and that we have now brought to a close³¹ the topics which we deferred to this (portion of our) work. (This favour I request of you,) that you may not think that any repetition here has been superfluous, for we have only fulfilled our former engagement to you; nor look with suspicion on any postponement there, where we merely set forth the essential points (of the argument).³² If you carefully examine the entire work, you will acquit us of either having been redundant here, or diffident there, in your own honest judgment.³³

We are accustomed, for the purpose of shortening argument,³⁴ to lay down the rule against heretics of the lateness of their date.³⁵ For in as far as by our rule, priority is given to the truth, which also foretold that there would be heresies, in so far must all later opinions be prejudged as heresies, being such as were, by the more ancient rule of truth, predicted as (one day) to happen. Now, the doctrine of Hermogenes has this³⁶ taint of novelty. He is, in short,³⁷ a man living in the world at the present time; by his very nature a heretic, and turbulent withal, who mistakes loquacity for eloquence, and supposes impudence to be firmness, and judges it to be the duty of a good conscience to speak ill of individuals.³⁸ Moreover, he despises God's law in his painting,³⁹ maintaining repeated marriages,⁴⁰ alleges the law of God in defence of lust,⁴¹ and yet despises it in respect of his art.⁴² He falsifies by a twofold process—with his cautery and his pen.⁴³ He is a thorough adulterer, both doctrinally and carnally, since he is rank indeed with the contagion of your marriage-hacks,⁴⁴ and has also failed in cleaving to the rule of faith as much as the apostle's own Hermogenes.⁴⁵ However, never mind the man, when it is his doctrine which I question. He does not appear to acknowledge any other Christ as Lord,⁴⁶ though he holds Him in a different way; but by this difference in his faith he really makes Him another being,—nay, he takes from Him everything which is God, since he will not have it that He made all things of nothing. For, turning away from Christians to the philosophers, from the Church to the Academy and the Porch, he learned there from the Stoics how to place Matter (on the same level) with the Lord, just as if it too had existed ever both unborn and unmade, having no beginning at all nor end, out of which, according to him,⁴⁷ the Lord afterwards created all things.

Our very bad painter has coloured this his primary shade absolutely without any light, with such arguments as these: He begins with laying down the premiss,⁴⁸ that the Lord made all things either out of Himself, or out of nothing, or out of something; in order that, after he has shown that it was impossible for Him to have made them either out of Himself or out of nothing, he might thence affirm the residuary proposition that He made them out of something, and therefore that that something was Matter. He could not have made all things, he says, of Himself; because whatever things the Lord made of Himself would have been parts of Himself; but⁴⁹ He is not dissoluble into parts,⁵⁰ because, being the Lord, He is indivisible, and unchangeable, and always the same. Besides, if He had made anything out of Himself, it would have been something of Himself. Everything, however, both which was made and which He made must be accounted imperfect, because it was made of a part, and He made it of a part; or if, again, it was a whole which He made, who is a whole Himself, He must in that case have been at once both a whole, and yet not a whole; because it behoved Him to be a whole, that He might produce Himself,⁵¹ and yet not a whole, that He might be produced out of Himself.⁵² But this is a most difficult position. For if He were in existence, He could not be made, for He was in existence already; if, however, he were not in existence He could not make, because He was a nonentity. He maintains, moreover, that He who always exists, does not come into existence,⁵³ but exists for ever and ever. He accordingly concludes that He made nothing out of Himself, since He never passed into such a condition⁵⁴ as made it possible for Him to make anything out of Himself. In like manner, he contends that He could not have made all things out of nothing—thus: He defines the Lord as a being who is good, nay, very good, who must will to make things as good and excellent as He is Himself; indeed it were impossible for Him either to will or to make anything which was not good, nay, very good itself. Therefore all things ought to have been made good and excellent by Him, after His own condition. Experience shows,⁵⁵ however, that things which are even evil were made by Him: not, of course, of His own will and pleasure; because, if it had been of His own will and pleasure, He would be sure to have made nothing unfitting or unworthy of Himself. That, therefore, which He made not of His own will must be understood to have been made from the fault of something, and that is from Matter, without a doubt.

He adds also another point: that as God was always God, there was never a time when God was not also Lord. But⁵⁶ it was in no way possible for Him to be regarded as always Lord, in the same manner as He had been always God, if there had not been always, in the previous eternity,⁵⁷ a something of which He could be regarded as evermore the Lord. So he concludes⁵⁸ that God always had Matter co-existent with Himself as the Lord thereof. Now, this tissue⁵⁹ of his I shall at once hasten to pull abroad. I have been willing to set it out in form to this length, for the information of those who are unacquainted with the subject, that they may know that his other arguments likewise need only be⁶⁰ understood to be refuted. We affirm, then, that the name of God always existed with Himself and in Himself—but not eternally so the Lord. Because the condition of the one is not the same as that of the other. God is the designation of the substance itself, that is, of the Divinity; but Lord is (the name) not of substance, but of power. I maintain that the substance existed always with its own name, which is God; the title Lord was afterwards added, as the indication indeed⁶¹ of something accruing. For from the moment when those things began to exist, over which the power of a Lord was to act, God, by the accession of that power, both became Lord and received the name thereof. Because God is in like manner a Father, and He is also a Judge; but He has not always been Father and Judge, merely on the ground of His having always been God. For He could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with Him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a Judge, and the latter a Father. In this way He was not Lord previous to those things of which He was to be the Lord. But He was only to become Lord at some future time: just as He became the Father by the Son, and a Judge by sin, so also did He become Lord by means of those things which He had made, in order that they might serve Him. Do I seem to you to be weaving arguments,⁶² Hermogenes? How neatly does Scripture lend us its aid,⁶³ when it applies the two titles to Him with a distinction, and reveals them each at its proper time! For (the title) God, indeed, which always belonged to Him, it names at the very first: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;"⁶⁴ and as long as He continued making, one after the other, those things of which He was to be the Lord, it merely mentions God. "And God said," "and God made," "and God saw;"⁶⁵ but nowhere do we yet find the Lord. But when He completed the whole creation, and especially man himself, who was destined to understand His sovereignty in a way of special propriety, He then is designated⁶⁶ Lord. Then also the Scripture added the name Lord: "And the Lord God, Deus Dominus, took the man, whom He had formed;"⁶⁷ "And the Lord God commanded Adam."⁶⁸ Thenceforth He, who was previously God only, is the Lord, from the time of His having something of which He might be the Lord. For to Himself He was always God, but to all things was He only then God, when He became also Lord. Therefore, in as far as (Hermogenes) shall suppose that Matter was eternal, on the ground that the Lord was eternal, in so far will it be evident that nothing existed, because it is plain that the Lord as such did not always exist. Now I mean also, on my own part,⁶⁹ to add a remark for the sake of ignorant persons, of whom Hermogenes is an extreme instance,⁷⁰ and actually to retort against him his own arguments.⁷¹ For when he denies that Matter was born or made, I find that, even on these terms, the title Lord is unsuitable to God in respect of Matter, because it must have been free,⁷² when by not having a beginning it had not an author. The fact of its past existence it owed to no one, so that it could be a subject to no one. Therefore ever since God exercised His power over it, by creating (all things) out of Matter, although it had all along experienced God as its Lord, yet Matter does, after all, demonstrate that God did not exist in the relation of Lord to it,⁷³ although all the while He was really so.⁷⁴

At this point, then, I shall begin to treat of Matter, how that, (according to Hermogenes,)⁷⁵ God compares it with Himself as equally unborn, equally unmade, equally eternal, set forth as being without a beginning, without an end. For what other estimate⁷⁶ of God is there than eternity? What other condition has eternity than to have ever existed, and to exist yet for evermore by virtue of its privilege of having neither beginning nor end? Now, since this is the property of God, it will belong to God alone, whose property it is—of course⁷⁷ on this ground, that if it can be ascribed to any other being, it will no longer be the property of God, but will belong, along with Him, to that being also to which it is ascribed. For "although there be that are called gods" in name, "whether in heaven or in earth, yet to us there is but one God the Father, of whom are all things;"⁷⁸ whence the greater reason why, in our view,⁷⁹ that which is the property⁸⁰ of God ought to be regarded as pertaining to God alone, and why (as I have already said) that should cease to be such a property, when it is shared by another being. Now, since He is God, it must necessarily be a unique mark of this quality,⁸¹ that it be confined to One. Else, what will be unique and singular, if that is not which has nothing equal to it? What will be principal, if that is not which is above all things, before all things, and from which all things proceed? By possessing these He is God alone, and by His sole possession of them He is One. If another also shared in the possession, there would then be as many gods as there were possessors of these attributes of God. Hermogenes, therefore, introduces two gods: he introduces Matter as God's equal. God, however, must be One, because that is God which is supreme; but nothing else can be supreme than that which is unique; and that cannot possibly be unique which has anything equal to it; and Matter will be equal with God when it is held to be⁸² eternal.

But God is God, and Matter is Matter. As if a mere difference in their names prevented equality,⁸³ when an identity of condition is claimed for them! Grant that their nature is different; assume, too, that their form is not identical,—what matters it so long as their absolute state have but one mode?⁸⁴ God is unborn; is not Matter also unborn? God ever exists; is not Matter, too, ever existent? Both are without beginning; both are without end; both are the authors of the universe—both He who created it, and the Matter of which He made it. For it is impossible that Matter should not be regarded as the author⁸⁵ of all things, when the universe is composed of it. What answer will he give? Will he say that Matter is not then comparable with God as soon as⁸⁶ it has something belonging to God; since, by not having total (divinity), it cannot correspond to the whole extent of the comparison? But what more has he reserved for God, that he should not seem to have accorded to Matter the full amount of the Deity?⁸⁷ He says in reply, that even though this is the prerogative of Matter, both the authority and the substance of God must remain intact, by virtue of which He is regarded as the sole and prime Author, as well as the Lord of all things. Truth, however, maintains the unity of God in such a way as to insist that whatever belongs to God Himself belongs to Him alone. For so will it belong to Himself if it belong to Him alone; and therefore it will be impossible that another god should be admitted, when it is permitted to no other being to possess anything of God. Well, then, you say, we ourselves at that rate possess nothing of God. But indeed we do, and shall continue to do—only it is from Him that we receive it, and not from ourselves. For we shall be even gods, if we, shall deserve to be among those of whom He declared, "I have said, Ye are gods,"⁸⁸ and, "God standeth in the congregation of the gods."⁸⁹ But this comes of His own grace, not from any property in us, because it is He alone who can make gods. The property of Matter, however, he⁹⁰ makes to be that which it has in common with God. Otherwise, if it received from God the property which belongs to God,—I mean its attribute⁹¹ of eternity—one might then even suppose that it both possesses an attribute in common with God, and yet at the same time is not God. But what inconsistency is it for him⁹² to allow that there is a conjoint possession of an attribute with God, and also to wish that what he does not refuse to Matter should be, after all, the exclusive privilege of God!

He declares that God's attribute is still safe to Him, of being the only God, and the First, and the Author of all things, and the Lord of all things, and being incomparable to any—qualities which he straightway ascribes to Matter also. He is God, to be sure. God shall also attest the same; but He has also sworn sometimes by Himself, that there is no other God like Him.⁹³ Hermogenes, however, will make Him a liar. For Matter will be such a God as He—being unmade, unborn, without beginning, and without end. God will say, "I am the first!"⁹⁴ Yet how is He the first, when Matter is co-eternal with Him? Between co-eternals and contemporaries there is no sequence of rank.⁹⁵ Is then, Matter also the first? "I," says the Lord, "have stretched out the heavens alone."⁹⁶ But indeed He was not alone, when that likewise stretched them out, of which He made the expanse. When he asserts the position that Matter was eternal, without any encroachment on the condition of God, let him see to it that we do not in ridicule turn the tables on him, that God similarly was eternal without any encroachment on the condition of Matter—the condition of Both being still common to Them. The position, therefore, remains unimpugned⁹⁷ both in the case of Matter, that it did itself exist, only along with God; and that God existed alone, but with Matter. It also was first with God, as God, too, was first with it; it, however, is not comparable with God, as God, too, is not to be compared with it; with God also it was the Author (of all things), and with God their Sovereign. In this way he proposes that God has something, and yet not the whole, of Matter. For Him, accordingly, Hermogenes has reserved nothing which he had not equally conferred on Matter, so that it is not Matter which is compared with God, but rather God who is compared with Matter. Now, inasmuch as those qualities which we claim as peculiar to God—to have always existed, without a beginning, without an end, and to have been the First, and Alone, and the Author of all things—are also compatible to Matter, I want to know what property Matter possesses different and alien from God, and hereby special to itself, by reason of which it is incapable of being compared with God? That Being, in which occur⁹⁸ all the properties of God, is sufficiently predetermined without any further comparison.

When he contends that matter is less than God, and inferior to Him, and therefore diverse from Him, and for the same reason not a fit subject of comparison with Him, who is a greater and superior Being, I meet him with this prescription, that what is eternal and unborn is incapable of any diminution and inferiority, because it is simply this which makes even God to be as great as He is, inferior and subject to none—nay, greater and higher than all. For, just as all things which are born, or which come to an end, and are therefore not eternal, do, by reason of their exposure at once to an end and a beginning, admit of qualities which are repugnant to God—I mean diminution and inferiority, because they are born and made—so likewise God, for this very reason, is unsusceptible of these accidents, because He is absolutely unborn,⁹⁹ and also unmade. And yet such also is the condition of Matter.¹⁰⁰ Therefore, of the two Beings which are eternal, as being unborn and unmade—God and Matter—by reason of the identical mode of their common condition (both of them equally possessing that which admits neither of diminution nor subjection—that is, the attribute of eternity), we affirm that neither of them is less or greater than the other, neither of them is inferior or superior to the other; but that they both stand on a par in greatness, on a par in sublimity, and on the same level of that complete and perfect felicity of which eternity is reckoned to consist. Now we must not resemble the heathen in our opinions; for they, when constrained to acknowledge God, insist on having other deities below Him. The Divinity, however, has no degrees, because it is unique; and if it shall be found in Matter—as being equally unborn and unmade and eternal—it must be resident in both alike,¹⁰¹ because in no case can it be inferior to itself. In what way, then, will Hermogenes have the courage to draw distinctions; and thus to subject matter to God, an eternal to the Eternal, an unborn to the Unborn, an author to the Author? seeing that it dares to say, I also am the first; I too am before all things; and I am that from which all things proceed; equal we have been, together we have been—both alike without beginning, without end; both alike without an Author, without a God.¹⁰² What God, then, is He who subjects me to a contemporaneous, co-eternal power? If it be He who is called God, then I myself, too, have my own (divine) name. Either I am God, or He is Matter, because we both are that which neither of us is. Do you suppose, therefore, that he¹⁰³ has not made Matter equal with God, although, forsooth, he pretends it to be inferior to Him?

Nay more,¹⁰⁴ he even prefers Matter to God, and rather subjects God to it, when he will have it that God made all things out of Matter. For if He drew His resources from it¹⁰⁵ for the creation of the world, Matter is already found to be the superior, inasmuch as it furnished Him with the means of effecting His works; and God is thereby clearly subjected to Matter, of which the substance was indispensable to Him. For there is no one but requires that which he makes use of;¹⁰⁶ no one but is subject to the thing which he requires, for the very purpose of being able to make use of it. So, again, there is no one who, from using what belongs to another, is not inferior to him of whose property he makes use; and there is no one who imparts¹⁰⁷ of his own for another's use, who is not in this respect superior to him to whose use he lends his property. On this principle,¹⁰⁸ Matter itself, no doubt,¹⁰⁹ was not in want of God, but rather lent itself to God, who was in want of it—rich and abundant and liberal as it was—to one who was, I suppose, too small, and too weak, and too unskilful, to form what He willed out of nothing. A grand service, verily,¹¹⁰ did it confer on God in giving Him means at the present time whereby He might be known to be God, and be called Almighty—only that He is no longer Almighty, since He is not powerful enough for this, to produce all things out of nothing. To be sure,¹¹¹ Matter bestowed somewhat on itself also—even to get its own self acknowledged with God as God's co-equal, nay more, as His helper; only there is this drawback, that Hermogenes is the only man that has found out this fact, besides the philosophers—those patriarchs of all heresy.¹¹² For the prophets knew nothing about it, nor the apostles thus far, nor, I suppose, even Christ.

He cannot say that it was as its Lord that God employed Matter for His creative works, for He could not have been the Lord of a substance which was co-equal with Himself. Well, but perhaps it was a title derived from the will of another,¹¹³ which he enjoyed—a precarious holding, and not a lordship,¹¹⁴ and that to such a degree, that¹¹⁵ although Matter was evil, He yet endured to make use of an evil substance, owing, of course, to the restraint of His own limited power,¹¹⁶ which made Him impotent to create out of nothing, not in consequence of His power; for if, as God, He had at all possessed power over Matter which He knew to be evil, He would first have converted it into good—as its Lord and the good God—that so He might have a good thing to make use of, instead of a bad one. But being undoubtedly good, only not the Lord withal, He, by using such power¹¹⁷ as He possessed, showed the necessity He was under of yielding to the condition of Matter, which He would have amended if He had been its Lord. Now this is the answer which must be given to Hermogenes when he maintains that it was by virtue of His Lordship that God used Matter—even of His non-possession of any right to it, on the ground, of course, of His not having Himself made it. Evil then, on your terms,¹¹⁸ must proceed from God Himself, since He is—I will not say the Author of evil, because He did not form it, but—the permitter thereof, as having dominion over it.¹¹⁹ If indeed Matter shall prove not even to belong to God at all, as being evil, it follows,¹²⁰ that when He made use of what belonged to another, He used it either on a precarious title¹²¹ because He was in need of it, or else by violent possession because He was stronger than it. For by three methods is the property of others obtained,—by right, by permission, by violence; in other words, by lordship, by a title derived from the will of another,¹²² by force. Now, as lordship is out of the question, Hermogenes must choose which (of the other methods) is suitable to God. Did He, then, make all things out of Matter, by permission, or by force? But, in truth, would not God have more wisely determined that nothing at all should be created, than that it should be created by the mere sufferance of another, or by violence, and that, too, with¹²³ a substance which was evil?