Book 1

Whatever I have written against Marcion in the past may now be left aside. We are undertaking a new work out of an old one. My first little treatise I cancelled, as too hastily put together, in favour of a fuller composition made afterwards. This too, before I had supplied it with copies, I lost through the treachery of a man then a brother, afterwards an apostate, who had by chance transcribed some of it most inaccurately and made it public. The necessity of correction arose; and the occasion of this fresh revision persuaded me to add something. So this pen, now passing from a second draft to a third, and from the third again to a first, must of necessity preface this issue of its little work, lest the variety of it, found scattered abroad, confuse anyone. The Pontus which is called Euxine is denied its nature and mocked by its name. For the rest, do not judge the Pontus to be hospitable by its situation; so far has it withdrawn from our more civilized waters, as if out of some shame at its own barbarism. The fiercest tribes inhabit it, if indeed there is any inhabiting in a wagon. Their dwelling is unfixed, their life is raw, their lust promiscuous and for the most part open; and even when they conceal it, they hang their quivers on the yoke as a sign, so that no one may casually intrude. So not even of their weapons are they ashamed. They devour at their banquets the corpses of their parents cut up together with cattle. Those who have not died in such a way as to be fit for eating are reckoned to have met an accursed death. Nor are the women softened by their sex into any modesty: they bare their breasts, they do their spinning with axes, they would rather make war than marry. There is hardness in the sky too. The day is never open, the sun never willing, the whole air is one fog, the entire year is winter, and whatever blows is the north wind. Liquids return to their state only by fire; rivers are denied by ice; mountains are heaped high with frost. Everything is numb, everything is stiff; nothing there has any warmth except savagery — that savagery, of course, which gave the stage its fables of the sacrifices of the Tauri, the loves of the Colchians, and the crosses of the Caucasus. But there is nothing among the people of Pontus so barbarous and so dismal as that Marcion was born there: more foul than any Scythian, more unsettled than the wagon-dweller, more inhuman than the Massagetes, more audacious than an Amazon, darker than the fog, colder than winter, more brittle than the ice, more treacherous than the Danube, more precipitous than the Caucasus. How not? — when in his hands the true Prometheus, almighty God, is torn to pieces by blasphemies. And by now Marcion is more savage even than the beasts of that barbarous land. For what beaver is so great a self-mutilator of the flesh as the man who has abolished marriage? What Pontic mouse so great a gnawer as the man who has nibbled away the Gospels? Truly, O Euxine, you have brought forth a beast more acceptable to philosophers than to Christians. For that cynic Diogenes wanted to find a man, carrying his lantern about at midday; but Marcion, having put out the light of his own faith, lost the God he had found. His disciples will not deny that his first faith was with us, his own letters being witnesses, so that from this point on he can be marked out as a heretic — one who, abandoning what was first, afterwards chose for himself what previously was not. For just so far will a thing be reckoned heresy as it is brought in afterwards, just so far will it be held truth as it was handed down before and from the beginning. But another little book will sustain this argument against heretics — that they may be refuted even without examining their doctrines, on the ground that they are what they are by the very fact of their novelty. Now, in so far as the engagement is to be allowed — and that the brief plea of prescription, everywhere invoked, may not for once be reckoned to diffidence — I will first set out the rule of my adversary, that it may be plain to all in what the principal question is to be fought out.

The Pontic brings forward two gods, like the two Symplegades of his own shipwreck: the one he could not deny, that is, our Creator; and the one he will not be able to prove, that is, his own. He suffered, unhappy man, the prompting of this presumption from a simple clause of the Lord's pronouncement, which sets forth, with respect to men and not to gods, those examples of the good and the bad tree — that neither does the good tree bring forth bad fruits nor the bad good; that is, neither does a good mind or faith produce bad works, nor a bad one good. For sickening (as many do even now, and especially the heretics) over the question of evil — whence comes evil — and with his senses dulled by the very enormity of his curiosity, finding the Creator declaring, "I am he who creates evils," in proportion as he had already presumed the Creator to be the author of evil, both from this and from other arguments which so persuade every perverse mind, in the same proportion he interpreted the Creator to be the bad tree producing bad fruits, namely evils, and presumed that there must be another god to take the part of the good tree producing good fruits. And so, finding in Christ as it were another dispensation of mere and pure goodness, distinct from the Creator's, he readily argued for a new and alien divinity revealed in his Christ, and thereafter with a little leaven soured the whole mass of faith with a heretic's sourness. He had also a certain Cerdo as the deviser of this scandal, by whom these two blind men the more easily fancied they had perceived two gods. For they had not seen one whole. To bleared eyes even a single lamp looks many. The one god, then, whom he was compelled to confess, he pulled down by branding him with evil; the other, whom he was striving to invent, he built up by laying a foundation of goodness. By what articles he distributed these two natures we have shown in our own replies.

The principal question, then — and from it the whole engagement — is one of number: whether two gods may be introduced; or, by poetic and pictorial licence, even three; and now, by heretical licence, a third kind. But Christian truth has pronounced strictly: If God is not one, He is not at all — for we more worthily believe that whatever is not such as it ought to be does not exist. That you may know God ought to be one, ask what God is, and you will find no otherwise. As far as the human condition can define concerning God, I define what the conscience of all men also acknowledges: that God is the supreme great One, established in eternity, unborn, unmade, without beginning, without end. For this state must be reckoned to eternity, which makes God the supreme great One — since this is itself in God — and likewise the other attributes, so that God is the supreme great One in form and in reason and in might and in power. Since concerning this all men agree (for no one will deny that God is something supremely great, unless he be able to pronounce God on the contrary to be something lowest and slight, so as to deny God by taking away what belongs to God), what then will be the condition of this very supreme great One? Surely this: that nothing be made equal to Him — that is, that there be no other supreme great one; because if there were, it would be made equal, and if made equal, it would no longer be the supreme great One, the condition being overturned and (so to speak) the law which allows nothing to be made equal to the supreme great One. Therefore it must be the one and only thing that is the supreme great One, having no peer, lest it be not the supreme great One. Therefore it will not be otherwise than by that through which it has its being, that is, absolutely one and only. Accordingly, since God is the supreme great One, our truth has rightly pronounced: If God is not one, He is not at all. Not as if we doubted that God exists, in saying "If not one, He is not at all," but because the One we are confident exists, Him we define to be that which, if it is not, God is not — namely, the supreme great One. Further, the supreme great One must of necessity be one and only. Therefore God too will be one and only; not God otherwise than as the supreme great One, nor the supreme great One otherwise than as having no peer, nor having no peer otherwise than by being one and only. Certainly, whatever other god you bring in, you will not be able to maintain him a god under any other form than by ascribing to him also that which is proper to divinity — as eternity, so also supreme greatness. How then will two supreme great ones subsist, when this is the supreme great One, to have no peer; but to have no peer belongs to one alone and can in no way exist in two?

But someone will argue that two supreme great ones can subsist, distinct and disjoined within their own bounds; and will of course call in the example of the kingdoms of the earth, so many in number and yet supremely great each in its own region; and will think that human things are everywhere to be compared with divine. Now if room be given to this argument, what prevents the introduction — I do not say of a third and a fourth god, but of as many in number as there are kings of the nations? The matter concerns God, whose principal property this is, to admit comparison with no example. This nature itself, if no Isaiah, then God Himself through Isaiah, will proclaim: "To whom will you liken me?" Perhaps human things may be compared with divine, but God not so. For God is one thing, the things of God another. Lastly, you who use the example of a king as of a supreme great one — beware lest you may no longer use it. For a king, though he be the supreme great one on his throne, up to God, is yet beneath God; and being compared to God, he will fall away from being the supreme great one, that title being transferred to God. If this be so, how will you use the example of a thing which, when it comes to the comparison, is lost? What now, if even among kings the supreme great one cannot be seen as manifold, but as one and singular — namely in him who, by reason of the height of his greatness and the subjection of all the other ranks, is received as the king of kings, the very summit, as it were, of dominion? But also kings of another form, who singly preside over a united empire, if they be everywhere compared with petty kingdoms (so to speak) in an examination to settle which of them excels in the substance and forces of his kingdom, the summit of greatness must of necessity be distilled into one, all the rest being by gradual comparison drawn off and excluded from the supreme greatness. So even though, when dispersed, the supreme great one seems manifold, yet in its own forces and its own nature and its own state it is one and only. Accordingly, when two gods are compared, as two kings and two supreme great ones, the unity of the supreme greatness must of necessity concede to one of them by the verdict of the comparison; for the supreme stands by its own victory, the rival, who is also great but not supreme, being overcome; and by the falling away of the rival it possesses a certain solitude out of the singularity of its own pre-eminence, and is one and only. This inescapable grip binds the verdict to this conclusion: either we must deny that God is the supreme great One, which no wise man will allow, or we must allow it to be shared with no other. Or what reason composed two supreme great ones? For first I will demand: why not more, if two — since the substance of divinity ought to be believed the more abundant, if number suited it? More honest and more generous was Valentinus, who at one stroke dared to conceive two, Bythos and Sige, until he poured forth the swarm of his divinity in a brood of thirty Aeons, like the sow of Aeneas. Whatever reason does not allow more supreme great ones to be admitted, the same allows neither two — since these are themselves "more" after one. For after one comes number. The reason that could admit two, the same could admit more. For after two comes multitude, once unity has been exceeded. In fine, with us the force of that reasoning does not, by its very limit, permit more gods to be believed — nor does that rule which establishes one God permit two; the rule by which God must be that to which nothing is made equal, as to the supreme great One, but which is one and only, to which nothing is made equal. Now then, two supreme great ones, two equals — to what use, to what profit would they be reckoned? What did number profit, when two equals differ not from one? For it is one thing that is the same in two. Even if there were more equals, all would have been as much one, differing in nothing among themselves, in so far as equal. Further, if neither of the two differs from the other, then since both are supreme great ones, both as gods, neither excels the other; they show no reason for their number, since they have no pre-eminence. But the number of divinity ought to stand on the supremest reason — if only because its worship too would be brought into a difficulty. For lo, beholding two gods as equal as two supreme great ones, what should I do if I worshipped both? I should fear lest, by an abundance of service, it should be thought superstition rather than religion; for two so equal, and both in either, I could oblige in one, by this very thing bearing testimony to their parity and unity, while I venerated the one in the other, while in one I had two for me. If I worshipped the one, I should likewise reflect that I might seem to confess the vanity of the number, superfluous because without difference; that is, I should reckon it safer to worship neither than to worship the one with scruple or both in vain.

So far we seem to dispute as though Marcion set up two equal gods. For while we defend that the supreme great God must be believed one and only, excluding parity from Him, we have, as it were, treated of these two as of two equals; nonetheless, in teaching that they cannot be equal according to the form of the supreme great One, we have sufficiently confirmed that there cannot be two — although it is certain that Marcion sets up gods unequal: the one a judge, fierce, mighty in war; the other mild, peaceable, and merely good and best. Let us examine this side too: whether diversity at least admits of two, if parity could not admit them. Yet here also the same rule of the supreme great One will plead for us, inasmuch as it claims the whole estate of divinity. For fittingly, and as it were laying hold of the adversary's mind with a detaining hand — since he does not deny the Creator to be God — I most justly lay it down as a prescription that there is no room for that diversity among those whom, having confessed gods on equal terms, he cannot make diverse: not because men too may not be most diverse under the same appellation, but because that One will not be called God, since neither will He be believed, unless as the supreme great One. Since, then, he is forced to acknowledge as the supreme great One Him whom he does not deny to be God, it cannot be allowed that he should ascribe to the supreme great One any diminution by which He would be made subject to another supreme great one. For He ceases to be such, if He be made subject. But it is not for God to cease from His own state, that is, from being the supreme great One. For in that more powerful god also the supreme greatness will be able to be imperilled, if it begins to be cheapened in the Creator. So when two gods are pronounced two supreme great ones, neither must of necessity be greater or less than the other, neither more sublime nor more abased than the other. Deny to be God the one you call worse; deny to be the supreme great One the one you believe lesser. But having confessed both to be God, you have confessed two supreme great ones. You will take nothing from the one or add nothing to the other. Acknowledging the divinity, you have denied the diversity.

Against this you will attempt to shake my treatment by means of the name of God, as though it were passive and granted to others also, because it is written: "The God of gods stood in the assembly of gods, and in the midst He shall judge the gods," and, "I have said, You are gods." Yet it does not for that reason belong to them to possess the supreme greatness because they are called gods; so neither to the Creator. I will answer even the fool, who has not even reflected on this — that just as much may be hurled back against Marcion's god, that he too is called a god, yet for all that not proved the supreme great One, just as neither are the angels or men of the Creator. If community of names prejudges conditions, how many worthless slaves insult the names of kings — Alexander and Darius and Holofernes? Yet not for that reason will what they are be taken from the kings. For even the idols of the nations are commonly "gods," but none is a god by that thing whereby it is called a god. So I do not, for the name of God nor for the sound nor for the mark of this name, defend the supreme greatness in the Creator, but for the very substance to which this name has fallen — finding this alone unborn, unmade, alone eternal and founder of the universe — and it is not to the name but to the state, not to the appellation but to His condition, that I both ascribe and vindicate the supreme greatness. And therefore, because the substance to which I ascribe it has now obtained to be called God, you think I ascribe it to the name, since I must of necessity through the name point out to what substance I ascribe it — namely, to that whereby He consists who is called God; and the supreme great One is reckoned from substance, not from name. Lastly, Marcion too, vindicating this for his own god, vindicates it according to state, not according to title. That supreme greatness, then, which we ascribe to God by the law of substance, not by the lot of name, we contend ought to belong equally to two who consist of that substance whereby God is named; because in so far as they are called gods, that is, supreme great ones — namely by merit of a substance unborn and eternal and thereby great and supreme — in so far the supreme great One cannot be held lesser and worse than another supreme great one. If the felicity and sublimity and integrity of the supreme great One will stand in Marcion's god, it will stand equally in ours too; if not in ours, equally not in Marcion's. Therefore the two supreme great ones will be neither equal — since the rule already laid down of the supreme great One, which does not sustain comparison, forbids it — nor unequal, since another rule of the supreme great One meets us, which admits no diminution. You are stuck, Marcion, in the midst of your own Pontic surge. On either side the waves of truth enfold you. You can establish gods neither equal nor unequal. For there are not two — and this belongs properly to the treatment of number. Although the whole matter is fought out concerning two gods, with these lines for the moment we have closed it in, within which we shall now engage concerning their individual properties.

First, with a lifted eyebrow the Marcionites build up their amazement, that they bring forward a new god, as though we were ashamed of an old one. Even children are puffed up by new shoes; but shod by an old schoolmaster, they shall soon be whipped for their empty boasting. Hearing, then, of a new god in an old world and in an old age and under an old god, unknown, unheard of, whom for so many past ages no one knew, and ancient by that very ignorance — one Jesus Christ, and he new under old names, who is said to have revealed Him, and no other before — I give thanks for this their boast, since by it I have a very great help here, being about to prove this heresy, namely the profession of a new divinity. This will be the novelty that has begotten gods even for the heathen, always with a new and new title of each consecration. What new god, except a false one? Not even Saturn will so great an antiquity today prove a god, since novelty once produced even him, when first it consecrated him. But living and genuine divinity is reckoned neither from novelty nor from antiquity, but from its own truth. Eternity has no time. For it is itself all time. What it makes, it cannot suffer. That is free of age which cannot be born. If God is old, He will not exist; if He is new, He has not existed. Novelty testifies a beginning; antiquity threatens an end. But God is as alien from beginning and end as from time, the arbiter and measurer of beginning and end.

I know indeed in what sense they vaunt a new god — in the sense of being recognized. But I wished to strike back at that very recognition of novelty, which strikes raw minds, and at that natural charm of novelty itself, and thence now to challenge them concerning an unknown god. For of course, the one they set up as new by recognition, they show to have been unknown before recognition. Come then, back to the lines and to the contest. Persuade me that a god could have been unknown. I do indeed find altars set out to unknown gods — but that is Attic idolatry. Likewise to uncertain gods — but that is Roman superstition. Further, uncertain gods are less known, as being less certain, and therefore unknown, in so far as less certain. Which title shall we cut for Marcion's god out of the two? Both, I think — now uncertain and formerly unknown. For just as the known Creator-God made him unknown, so the certain God made him uncertain. But I will not wander off, so as to say: If God was unknown and lay hid, the region of His hiding-places overshadowed Him — new, of course, and itself unknown too, and likewise now also uncertain, certainly some immense one and undoubtedly greater than Him whom it conceals. But I will briefly set it forth and most fully follow it out, laying it down by prescription that God could not have been unknown by reason of His greatness nor ought to have been by reason of His goodness, especially being in both more pre-eminent than our Creator. But since I observe that with some it is held necessary to challenge every proof of a new and formerly unknown god to the form of the Creator, I ought first to commend that this very thing is done by us with reason, that I may the more steadfastly use the patronage of the reason set forth. Before all, indeed, what sort of thing is it that you, who acknowledge God the Creator and confess Him prior in being known, should not test another by the same methods by which you have already learned to know God in another? Every prior thing has furnished the standard for the one that follows. Two gods now are set before us, the unknown and the known. Concerning the known there is no question. It is established that He exists, since He would not have been known unless He existed. Concerning the unknown the dispute presses. For he may even not exist, since if he existed he would have been known. What therefore is sought, so long as it is unknown, is uncertain so long as it is sought, and may not exist so long as it is in uncertainty. You have a god certain, in so far as known, and uncertain, in so far as unknown. If this is so, does it seem to you to be defended by just reason, that uncertain things be proved by the standard and form and rule of certain things? For the rest, if for this case, itself still uncertain, arguments drawn from uncertain things be also applied, a series of questions will be entangled out of the treatment of those arguments — themselves likewise uncertain — endangering faith through the uncertain; and we shall go off into those undeterminable questions which the apostle does not love. But if, out of the certain and undoubted and absolute parts of the rule, they will prejudge the uncertain and doubtful and unsettled parts — plainly in those points wherein a diversity of state is found — perhaps these are not to be challenged to the form of the certain, being freed from the rest of the comparison's challenge by the diversity of their principal state. But when two gods are set forth, their principal state is common to them. For in that they are God, both are unborn, unmade, eternal. This will be the principal state. The rest let Marcion see to, if he has arranged them in diversity. For those are matters that come later in the treatment — nay, will not even be admitted, if the principal state be settled. And it is settled that both are gods; and so, since concerning their state it is settled to be common, when under it they are called to proof, if they be uncertain, they will have to be challenged to the form of those certain ones with whom they are reckoned to share the principal state, so that accordingly they may share the proof too. Hence therefore I will most steadfastly direct that he is not God who is today uncertain because formerly unknown; since He whom it is settled exists, by this very fact it is settled that He never was unknown, and therefore not uncertain.

For from the very beginning of things their Founder was discovered together with them, since they were brought forth for this very purpose, that God might be known. For even though Moses, somewhat later, seems the first to have dedicated the God of the world in the temple of his own writings, the birthdays of His recognition are not therefore to be reckoned from the Pentateuch — since the whole pen of Moses does not establish the knowledge of the Creator, but, beginning from the very origin, recounts that He is to be reckoned from Paradise and Adam, not from Egypt and Moses. Indeed, the greater mass of the human race, possessed not even of the name of Moses, much less of his instrument, yet know the God of Moses; and even with idolatry overshadowing so great a dominion, they nevertheless set Him apart, as by His own proper name, as God and God of gods, and say, "If God grant it," and "What pleases God," and "I commend it to God." See whether they do not know Him whom they testify to be able to do all things. And this they owe to no books of Moses. The soul is before prophecy. For from the beginning the conscience of God is the dowry of the soul; the same and no other in Egyptians and in Syrians and in the people of Pontus. For they call Him the God of the Jews — the God of the soul. Do not, barbarous heretic, set Abraham before the world. Even if the Creator had been the God of one family only, yet He was not later than yours, being known even to the Pontians before him. Receive, then, from the predecessor the form: the uncertain from the certain, the unknown from the known. Never will God lie hid, never will God be wanting. He will always be understood, always be heard, even be seen, in whatever way He will. God has His witnesses — all this that we are and that we are in. Thus is proved both that God exists and that He is one, since He is not unknown, while the other still labours to be proved.

"And rightly so," they say. "For who is not as well known to his own as to strangers?" No one. I hold this saying too. For what sort of thing is it that anything should be a stranger to God, to whom nothing would be a stranger, if there were any such — since this is God's property, that all things be His and all things pertain to Him? — or else He would at once hear from us, "What then has He to do with strangers?" — which He shall hear more fully in its place. But for now it is enough that none is proved of whom nothing is proved. For as the Creator is from this very fact God, and undoubted God, because all things are His and nothing is a stranger to Him, so the other is for that reason not God, because all things are not his and therefore are even strangers to him. In fine, if the universe is the Creator's, I see no room left for another god. All things are full and occupied by their own Author. If any room of any space lies vacant for divinity among the creatures, plainly it will lie vacant for a false one. Truth lies open by the falsehood. Why does not so great a force of idols somewhere admit Marcion's god? Therefore this too I demand of the form of the Creator: that a god ought to be known from the works of some proper world and man and age of his own — since even the error of the world has on this very account presumed gods, whom it sometimes confesses to have been men, because something was seen to have been provided by each one for the uses and conveniences of life. So this too, from the form of God, has been believed to be divine: to institute or to demonstrate what is fit and necessary for human affairs. So far did authority pass over to false divinity from the source whence it had preceded in the true. At least one little pea Marcion's god ought to have brought forth as his own, that he might be proclaimed as some new Triptolemus. Or else show a reason worthy of God why he made nothing, if he exists; for he would have made something, if he had existed — by that prejudgement, of course, by which our God too is not otherwise manifest to exist than because He made this whole. For once the prescription will stand, that they cannot both confess the Creator to be God and have the one they wish believed equally a god, without proving him to the form of Him whom both they and all men hold God; so that, since by this very fact no one doubts the Creator to be God because He made this whole, by this very fact no one ought to believe him too God who made nothing — unless perchance a reason be brought forward. This must seem twofold: that either he was unwilling to make anything, or unable. A third falls away. But to have been unable is unworthy of God. Whether to have been unwilling is worthy, I wish to inquire. Tell me, Marcion: did your god wish to be known at some time or other, or not? For with no other purpose did he descend and preach and suffer and rise again, than to be known. And without doubt, if he was known, he wished it. For nothing would have been done concerning him, unless he had wished it. Why then did he so greatly procure knowledge of himself, that he was exhibited in the dishonour of the flesh — and that the greater, if a false flesh? For this is the more disgraceful, if he even lied the substance of a body, who also admitted upon himself the Creator's curse by hanging on a tree. How much more honourably might he have prepared the knowledge of himself beforehand by some signs of his own contriving — especially as he had to be known against Him from whose works he had not been known from the beginning. For what sort of thing is it that the Creator, who (as the Marcionites would have it) was ignorant that there was another god above himself, who even with an oath asserted himself alone, should have armed the knowledge of himself with such great works, which he might not have so cared for, according to the presumption of his own singularity; but that the loftier one, knowing the inferior god so equipped, should have provided for himself no apparatus of being recognized? — when he ought to have made even more remarkable and more magnificent works, that the god too might be known from his works, after the manner of the Creator, and from the more honourable works might be the more powerful and the more noble than the Creator.

For the rest, even if we could confess that he exists, we should have to argue that he exists to no purpose. For he would be to no purpose who had no thing of his own — since every thing is a cause, namely that there be someone whose the thing is. Further, in so far as nothing ought to exist without cause, that is, without a thing — because if it exists without cause, it is just as if it did not exist, not having, by reason of having no thing, the cause of itself — in so far I shall more worthily believe God not to exist than to exist without cause. For he is without cause who, by not having a thing, has no cause. But God ought not to exist without cause, that is, without a thing. So as often as I show him to exist without cause, as though he existed, this I establish: that he does not exist; because if he had existed, he would by no means have existed without cause. So too I say that he captures from man even faith itself without cause — man being wont to believe God otherwise, namely God formed from the authority of His works — since he provided nothing of the kind whereby man might learn God. For even though very many believe in him, they do not straightway believe with reason, not having the pledge of God, His works worthy of God. So under this head of cessation and defect of works he is akin to impudence and malignity: to impudence, whereby he captures a faith not owed to him, for the preparing of which he provided nothing; to malignity, whereby he has made many guilty of unbelief by procuring nothing for faith.

When at this stage we expel God — He for whom no condition so proper and worthy of God has marked the way as the witness of being Creator — the most impudent Marcionites, wrinkling their noses, turn to the demolition of the Creator's works. "No doubt," they say, "the world is a great work and worthy of God." Is the Creator, then, not at all God? Plainly He is God. Therefore the world too is not unworthy of God; for God has made nothing unworthy of Himself, even though He made the world for man, not for Himself, even though every work is inferior to its maker. And yet, if to have made anything of any kind is unworthy of God, how much more unworthy of God it is to have made nothing at all — even unworthy — by which He might be hoped the author even of worthier things. To say something, then, even of this "unworthy" world — which among the Greeks too has the name of ornament and adornment, not of filth — those very professors of wisdom, from whose talents every heresy draws its life, have pronounced its substances, supposedly unworthy, to be gods: as Thales water, Heraclitus fire, Anaximenes air, Anaximander all the heavenly bodies, Strato heaven and earth, Zeno air and aether, Plato the stars (which kind of gods he calls fiery) — when, considering of the world its greatness and force and power and honour and beauty, the resource, the constancy, the law of the several elements, which conspire to the begetting, nourishing, completing, and renewing of all things, very many of the natural philosophers shrank from holding that the world had a beginning and an end, lest its substances — so great, of course — should be reckoned less than gods, which both the Magi of the Persians and the hierophants of the Egyptians and the gymnosophists of the Indians worship. The very common superstition too of ordinary idolatry, when in its images it is ashamed of the names and fables of the dead of old, flees to an interpretation of natural things, and overshadows its disgrace with ingenuity, figuring Jupiter into a fiery substance and his Juno into an airy one — according to the sound of the Greek words — likewise Vesta into fire, and the Camenae into waters, and the Great Mother into the earth, reaped of its seed, ploughed by arms, watered by bathings. So too Osiris, who is forever buried and sought in what is living and found with joy, they make an argument for the recurrence of crops and the renewal of the elements of life and the returning year; just as the lions of Mithras philosophize the mysteries of the parched and burning nature. And those substances superior in situation or state it is enough to say have more easily been held gods than unworthy of God. Let me come down to lowly things. One little flower, I think, from the hedgerows — I do not say from the meadows — one shell of any sea — I do not say of the Red — one feather of a moorfowl — I say nothing of the peacock — will pronounce to you the Creator a sordid craftsman?

But while you mock even the smaller animals, which the supreme Craftsman has on purpose enlarged in talents or in strength — thus teaching that greatness is proved in smallness, just as virtue in weakness, according to the apostle — imitate, if you can, the buildings of the bee, the stables of the ant, the nets of the spider, the threads of the silkworm; endure, if you can, those very beasts of your couch and your bedding, the poisons of the blister-beetle, the stings of the fly, the trumpet and the lance of the gnat. What will the greater things be, when by such small ones you are either helped or hurt, so that not even in small things may you despise the Creator? Finally, turn yourself about upon yourself; consider man within and without: even this work of our God will please you, which your lord, that better god, fell in love with — for whose sake he laboured to descend from the third heaven into these poor elements; for whose cause he was even crucified in this cell of the Creator. But up to now he has neither rejected the Creator's water, with which he washes his own, nor the oil with which he anoints them, nor the union of honey and milk with which he gives his own their first nourishment, nor the bread by which he represents his very body — even in his own sacraments needing the beggarly things of the Creator. But you, a disciple above your master, and a slave above your lord, are wiser than he, demolishing what he desires. I wish to inspect whether it be at least out of faith, that you yourself do not also crave what you demolish. You oppose heaven, and yet in your dwellings you seek the freedom of heaven. You despise the earth — plainly already the enemy of your own flesh's matrix — and yet you wring out all its marrow for your sustenance. You reject the sea too, but only as far as its plenty, which you reckon a holier food. If I offer you a rose, you will not disdain the Creator. Hypocrite, that you may prove yourself a Marcionite by starving — that is, a repudiator of the Creator (for this ought to have been affected among you in place of martyrdom, if the world displeased you) — into whatever matter you may dissolve, you use the substance of the Creator. How great the obstinacy of your hardness! You cheapen the things in which you both live and die.

After these things, or before these, when you have said that he too has his own creation and his own world and his own heaven — concerning that third heaven indeed we shall see, if we come also to the examination of your apostle — meanwhile, whatever substance it is, it ought certainly to have appeared together with its own god. But as it is, what sort of thing is it that the Lord was revealed in the twelfth year of Tiberius Caesar, while the substance, even up to the fifteenth year now of the emperor Severus, has not at all been discovered — which, surpassing the trifles of the Creator, would surely have ceased to lie hid, now that its lord and author lies hid no longer? And therefore, if it itself could not be manifested in this world, how did its lord appear in this world? If this world contained the lord, why could it not contain the substance, unless perchance it be greater than the lord? Now already there is a question of place, pertaining both to that higher world and to its very god. For lo, if he too has his own world beneath him, above the Creator, he made it of course in a place, the space of which lay vacant between his feet and the head of the Creator. Therefore the god himself too was in a place, and was making a world in a place; and that place will now be greater than both the god and the world. For there is nothing that is not greater — that which contains than that which is contained. And it must be seen whether some odd corners still lie vacant there, in which some third god too may pack himself together with his own world. Begin then now to count gods. For place too will be a god — not only in so far as greater than the god, but also in so far as unborn and unmade and thereby eternal and equal to the god, in which the god always was. Next, if he too contrived the world out of some underlying matter, unborn and unmade and coeternal with the god — as Marcion thinks concerning the Creator — you reduce this too to the majesty of place, which has enclosed both the god and the matter, two gods. For matter too is a god, according to the form of divinity, namely unborn and unmade and eternal. Or if he contrived the world out of nothing, he will be forced to think this of the Creator too, to whom he subjects matter in the substance of the world. But the other will have had to make out of matter too, the same reason meeting that god which was urged against the Creator, since he is equally a god. And thus reckon me for the moment three gods of Marcion: the maker, and place, and matter. Accordingly he sets the Creator too in a place, reckoning Him of course by the same condition, and subjects matter to Him — unborn, of course, and unmade, and on this score eternal, as the lord is. Further, reckoning evil also to matter — unborn to the unborn, unmade to the unmade, and eternal to the eternal — here he has now made a fourth god. You have therefore in the higher region three substances of divinity, in the lower four. When to these are added their Christs too — the one who appeared under Tiberius, the other who is promised by the Creator — Marcion now suffers a manifest fraud at the hands of those who presume to bring him in with two gods, when he assigns nine, though unwittingly.

Since, then, no other world appears, any more than its god, it follows that they divide the two kinds of things, the visible and the invisible, between two author-gods, and so claim the invisible things for their own god. But who could persuade himself — except a heretical spirit — that the invisible things are his who has sent ahead nothing visible, rather than His who, having wrought the visible, has also made the invisible credible — since it is far juster to assent to some specimens than to none? We shall see also to which author the apostle reckons the invisible things, when we have examined him too. For now we are paving, by common senses for the most part and by just arguments, the way to faith for the appeal to the Scriptures that is to follow; confirming that this diversity of visible and invisible is so far to be reckoned to the Creator, just as His whole operation consists of diversities: of bodily and incorporeal, of animate and inanimate, of vocal and mute, of mobile and stationary, of fruitful and barren, of dry and moist, of hot and cold. So too has diversity tempered man himself, as well in body as in sense. Some limbs are strong, some weak; some honourable, some unhonourable; some twofold, some single; some matched, some unmatched. Likewise in sense: now gladness, now anxiety; now love, now hatred; now anger, now gentleness. But if it is so, that this whole universe is modulated of mutually rival conditions, then the invisible things too are owed to the visible, to be reckoned to no other author than Him to whom their rivals also are — things which mark the Creator Himself as diverse, commanding what He forbade and forbidding what He commanded, smiting and healing. Why in this one species alone do they take Him as uniform, the founder of visible things only — Him whom we ought accordingly to believe to have founded both the visible and the invisible, just as both life and death, and evils and peace? And surely, if those invisible things are greater than the visible creatures, which are great in their own place, in this way too it is fitting that the greater be His whose the great things also are, since not even the great, much less the greater, can belong to him whose lesser things do not even appear.

Hemmed in by these things, they break out into saying: "It is enough for our god, this one work, that he set man free by his supreme and surpassing goodness, to be preferred to all the locusts." O greater god, whose so great a work could not be found greater than in the man of a lesser god! Indeed, the first thing is for you to prove that he exists by the means whereby a god must be proved — by works; and then secondly by benefits. For first it is asked whether he exists, and so, what sort he is. The one is discerned from works, the other from benefits. But not because he is said to have set man free is it thereby established that he exists; rather, if it shall be established that he exists, then it will also be said that he set free, so that it may be established even whether he set free — since he might both exist and not have set free. How then, because he will be said to have set free, will he also be believed to exist, when he might both exist and not have set free? Now in this article, drawn off from the question of the unknown god, it has been sufficiently established that he made nothing, just as he ought to have made, in order to be known from his works; because, if he had existed, he ought to have been known — and certainly from the beginning of things; for it did not become God to lie hid. I must of necessity go back to the origin of the question of the unknown god, to shake out its other little branches too. For first it will have to be asked: he who afterwards brought himself into knowledge — why afterwards, and not from the beginning of things? — for to those to whom he was surely necessary, in so far as a god, and indeed the more necessary the better he was, he ought not to have lain hid. For it cannot be said that there was no material or cause for knowing the god, since both man was from the beginning in the world, to whom he now comes to aid, and the malice of the Creator was there, against which, as a good god, he comes to aid. Therefore either he was ignorant both of the cause and the material of his necessary revelation, or he doubted, or he was unable, or he was unwilling. All these are unworthy of God, especially of a best god. But this point too we will fill out elsewhere with reproach of the late revelation, as now with mere demonstration.

Suppose, then, that he came forth into knowledge when he willed, when he was able, when the fatal hour arrived. For perhaps the ascending node stood in his way, or some malefic stars, or a quartile Saturn, or a trine Mars. For the Marcionites are very much astrologers too, and not even blushing at this, that they live by the very stars of the Creator. Here too we must treat of the quality of the revelation: whether he was worthily known, that it may be established whether truly, and so be believed to be the one who shall be established to have been worthily revealed. For things worthy of God will prove God. We define that God is to be known first by nature, then to be recognized by teaching: by nature from works, by teaching from preachings. But to him who has no nature, the instruments of nature are not at hand. Therefore he ought at least to have wrought the revelation of himself by preachings — especially as he had to be revealed against Him who, by works of creation and preaching so many and so great, had nevertheless scarcely filled out the faith of men. How then was he revealed? If by human conjecture, deny that God can be known otherwise than through Himself — challenging not only to the form of the Creator, but also to the condition both of so great a divine greatness and of so small a human mediocrity; lest man be able to seem greater than God, who has, as it were, dragged Him into the public view of recognition by his own forces, though He did not willingly wish to be known — when human mediocrity knows, according to the experiences of every age, more easily to fashion gods for itself than to pursue the true one, whom by nature it already understands. Otherwise, if man will invent a god in the way that Romulus invented Consus and Tatius Cloacina and Hostilius Pavor and Metellus Alburnus and a certain one before this time Antinous, this will be lawful for others too. We know Marcion to have been a shipmaster, not a king or an emperor.

"Nay," say the Marcionites, "our god, even if not from the beginning, even if not through creation, yet through himself was revealed in Christ Jesus." A book shall be given also concerning Christ, on his whole state. For the matters must be distinguished, that they may be more fully and orderly treated. Meanwhile it will be enough, at the present stage, to meet it thus: to show that Christ Jesus was the bearer of no other god than the Creator — and that in few words. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, Christ Jesus deigned to flow down from heaven, a saving spirit. Marcion's salvation, who so willed it — in what year of Antoninus the Elder the dog-star breeze breathed out of his Pontus, I have not cared to investigate. But of this it is certain: he is an Antonine heretic, impious under Pius. From Tiberius, however, to Antoninus there are about a hundred and fifteen years and a half, with a half month. They put just so great a span of time between Christ and Marcion. Since, then, under Antoninus Marcion first brought in this god, as we have proved — at once, you who are wise, the thing is plain. The times themselves give the verdict, that what first came forward under Antoninus did not come forward under Tiberius; that is, that the god of the Antonine reign was not of the Tiberian; and so was not revealed by Christ, since it is established that he was first preached by Marcion. To prove that this is established — what remains — I will take from the adversaries themselves. The separation of the Law and the Gospel is the proper and principal work of Marcion; nor will his disciples be able to deny it, since they have it in their chief instrument, by which indeed they are initiated and hardened into this heresy. For these are Marcion's Antitheses, that is, his contrary oppositions, which attempt to set the Gospel at discord with the Law, so that from the diversity of the judgments of the two instruments they may argue a diversity also of gods. Therefore, since that separation of the Law and the Gospel is the very thing that has insinuated another god of the Gospel against the God of the Law, it appears that before that separation the god was not in knowledge who became known from the argument of the separation; and so was not revealed by Christ, who was before the separation, but invented by Marcion, who instituted the separation against the peace of Gospel and Law — that peace which formerly, unhurt and unshaken from the appearing of Christ down to the audacity of Marcion, was preserved by that reasoning which defended no other god of both Law and Gospel than the Creator, against whom, so long a time after, the separation was let loose by the Pontic.

To this most ready proof a defence too is necessary for us against the clamours of the other side. For they say that Marcion did not so much innovate the rule by the separation of Law and Gospel as restore it, having been adulterated in time past. O Christ, most patient Lord, who for so many years didst endure the perversion of thy preaching, until, forsooth, Marcion should come to thy aid! For they bring forward also that Peter himself and the rest, pillars of the apostolate, were rebuked by Paul because they did not walk with straight foot toward the truth of the Gospel — by that very Paul, mind you, who, still raw in grace, trembling at last lest he had run or were running in vain, was then for the first time conferring with the apostles who went before him. So if, while still fervent as a neophyte, he thought something in their conduct toward Judaism worthy of rebuke — a passive matter, of course — though he himself afterwards would, by practice, become all things to all men, that he might gain all, to the Jews as a Jew, and to those under the Law as under the Law: do you wish that rebuke, which touched conduct alone — conduct that was to please his accuser afterwards — to be held suspect also of a betrayal of the preaching concerning God? But as to the unity of preaching — as we read above — they had joined right hands, and by that very distribution of office had agreed upon the fellowship of the Gospel, as also elsewhere: "Whether I," he says, "or they, so we preach." But even if he has described that certain false brethren had crept in, who wished to carry over the Galatians to another gospel, he himself shows that the adulteration of the Gospel had no intention of carrying them over to faith in another god and Christ, but of preserving the discipline of the Law; for he detected them, namely, claiming circumcision and observing times and days and months and years of Jewish ceremonies, which they ought to have recognized as already excluded, according to the renewed dispensation of the Creator, who long ago foretold of this very thing through His prophets. As through Isaiah: "The old things have passed away," He says; "behold new things which I now make"; and elsewhere, "And I will arrange a testament, not such as I arranged for your fathers, when I led them out of the land of Egypt." So too through Jeremiah: "Renew for yourselves a new renewal, and be circumcised to your God, and circumcise the foreskins of your heart." This circumcision, then, the apostle now establishing, and this renewal, he was also dissuading those old ceremonies, of which the same Founder of them professed that they should one day cease, through Hosea: "And I will turn away all her joys and her feast days and her new moons and her sabbaths and all her ceremonies." So too through Isaiah: "Your new moons and your sabbaths and the great day I do not endure; your holidays and fasting and feast days my soul hates." But if the Creator long since had rejected all these, and the apostle pronounced them now to be rejected, the very judgment of the apostle, consonant with the decrees of the Creator, proves that no other god was preached by the apostle than He whose decrees he wished now to be acknowledged, branding as false both the apostles and the brethren in this matter, who carried over the Gospel of Christ the Creator from the newness foretold by the Creator to the oldness rejected by the Creator.

For the rest, if anyone preaching a new god wished to exclude the Law of the old god, why does he prescribe nothing concerning the new god, but only concerning the old Law — unless because, the faith in the Creator remaining, His Law alone had to give place? As that psalm too had foresung: "Let us burst their bonds from us, and cast away their yoke from us" — from which, of course, the nations were stirred up and the peoples meditated vain things; the kings of the earth stood by and the magistrates came together as one against the Lord and against His Christ. And surely, if another god were preached by Paul, there would be no dispute whether the Law were to be kept or not — the Law not pertaining, of course, to a new lord and rival of the Law. For the very newness and diversity of the god would have taken away not only the question of an old and alien law, but every mention of it. But this was the whole state of the question: that, since the same God of the Law was preached in Christ, His Law was being derogated. The faith, then, stood always in the Creator and in His Christ; but conduct and discipline wavered. For some disputed about eating things sacrificed to idols, some about the veiling of women, some about marriages or divorces, some too about the hope of resurrection — but no one about God. For if this question too had been disputed, it too would be found in the apostle — and how much more as the principal one. But if after the times of the apostles the truth suffered adulteration concerning the rule of God, then the apostolic tradition suffered nothing in its own time concerning the rule of God; and no other tradition of the apostles is to be recognized than that which is published today among their own churches. But you will find no church of apostolic census which does not Christianize in the Creator. Or if these were corrupted from the beginning, which will be the uncorrupted ones? — those, no doubt, that are adverse to the Creator? Produce, then, some one of yours of apostolic census, and you will have closed the matter. Therefore, since by all means it is established that no other god in the rule of this sacrament existed, from Christ down to Marcion, than the Creator, our proof is now sufficiently fortified, whereby we have shown that the knowledge of the heretic's god began from the separation of Gospel and Law; and the earlier definition is established, that no god is to be believed whom man has composed out of his own senses — unless plainly a prophet, that is, not out of his own senses. But if Marcion can be called such, he ought also to be proved such. There was no need to revise anything. For by this wedge of truth all heresy is thrust out, when Christ is shown to be the bearer of no other god than the Creator.

But how shall antichrist be utterly overthrown, unless room be given for crushing his other inroads too, the defence of prescriptions being relaxed? Let us approach, then, from this point, the very person of his god — or rather his shadow and phantasm, in keeping with his Christ — and let him be examined by that whereby he is preferred to the Creator. And certainly there will be sure rules for examining the goodness of a god. But the first thing is for me to find that goodness and lay hold of it, and so bring it to the rules. For when I look round on the times, it is nowhere — from the beginning of the materials and at the entrance of the causes, with which it ought to have been found, thenceforth doing what it had to do. For already there was death, and the sting of death was sin, and the very malice of the Creator, against which the goodness of another god ought to have come to aid — meeting this first rule of divine goodness, if it should prove itself natural, by aiding at once, as the cause arose. For all things in God must be natural and innate, that they may be eternal, according to His own state, lest they be reckoned things that come upon Him and from outside, and thereby temporal and alien to eternity. So too goodness perennial and continual will be required in God — goodness which, stored up and prepared in the treasuries of natural properties, should anticipate its causes and materials, and take up the very first that arose, not despise and forsake it, if it anticipated it. Lastly, here too I shall ask no less why his goodness did not operate from the beginning, than we asked concerning the god himself, why he was not revealed from the beginning? Why not, indeed, he who had to be revealed through his goodness, if he had existed? It is not lawful that anything be impossible to God — much less that he not perform his own natural functions; which, if they be hindered from running their course, will not be natural. For nature does not even know idleness in itself. By this it is reckoned, if it acts; so neither will he seem to have been unwilling to exercise his goodness, at least under the name of nature. For nature cannot be unwilling toward itself, which so directs itself that, if it cease, it is not. But goodness ceased at some time from work in Marcion's god. Therefore it was not natural goodness, which could at some time have ceased — which is not lawful for natural things. And if it will not be natural, then neither is it to be believed eternal nor equal to God, because it is not eternal, since not natural — which finally establishes for itself no perpetuity, either out of the past or by promise of the future. For both it was not from the beginning, and in the end without doubt it will not be. For it can also not exist at some time, just as it did not exist at some time. Therefore, since it is established that at the beginning the goodness of that god ceased (for he did not set man free from the beginning), and that it ceased by will rather than by weakness, now the will of suppressed goodness will be found to be the end of malignity. For what is so malignant as to be unwilling to do good when you can, as to torment usefulness, as to allow injury? In short, the whole indictment of the Creator will be re-inscribed upon him who, by the delay of his own goodness, abetted the Creator's cruelties. For in whose hand it is that a thing be not done, to him it is reckoned when it is done. Man is condemned to death for the tasting of one little tree, and thence sins go forward with their punishments, and now all perish who know not a single sod of Paradise. And this some better god either knows not, or endures? If it were so that he might thereby be found the better, how much the worse would the Creator be held? — malicious enough even in this counsel, who both wished Him to be loaded, His operations being admitted, and held the world in vexation. What will you judge of such a physician, who should feed the disease by delay of relief and prolong the danger by deferring the remedy, that he might cure more dearly or more famously? Such is the sentence to be pronounced upon Marcion's god too: a permitter of evil, a fosterer of injury, a pander of grace, a betrayer of his own kindness, which he did not at once exhibit to its cause — plainly meaning to exhibit it, if good by nature, and not by accession; if best by character, and not by discipline; if a god from eternity, and not from Tiberius — nay, what is truer, from Cerdo and Marcion. Tiberius now, it seems, conferred upon that god this favour, that in his reign divine goodness should be dedicated on earth.

I hold out to him another rule: that as all things in God ought to be natural, so they ought to be rational. I demand a reason of his goodness, since nothing else may be held good which is not rationally good — much less may goodness itself be detected as irrational. More easily will an evil to which some measure of reason has been present be held for good, than that a good deserted by reason be not judged for evil. I deny the goodness of Marcion's god to be rational, on this first ground: that it went forth for the salvation of an alien man. I know they will say that this is precisely the principal and perfect goodness, when, without any debt of kinship, it is poured out upon strangers, voluntary and free — according to which we too are bidden to love even our enemies, and on this score now strangers. Since, then, he did not look upon man from the beginning — a stranger from the beginning — by his ceasing he prejudged that he had nothing to do with the stranger. For the rest, the discipline of loving the stranger or the enemy was preceded by the precept of loving the neighbour as yourself; which, though it be from the Law of the Creator, you too must except, as not destroyed by Christ but rather built up. For the more you love your neighbour, the more you are bidden to love your enemy and the stranger. The exaction of the goodness not owed is an enhancement of the owed. But the owed precedes the not-owed, as the principal, as the worthier, with its handmaid and companion — that is, the not-owed. The first reason of goodness, then, being to be exhibited toward one's own out of justice, and the second toward another out of the overflow of justice above the Scribes and Pharisees — what sort of thing is it that the second reason should be referred to him to whom the first is lacking, who has no man of his own, and thereby is also of scant goodness? Further, the scant goodness, which had nothing of its own, how has it overflowed upon another's? Exhibit the principal reason, and then claim the consequent. No thing without order can be claimed as rational — so far is it from this, that reason itself should in anything lose order. Let now the reason of goodness begin even from the second degree, namely toward the stranger; not even that second degree of his will stand by reason, being in another way destroyed. For then will even the second goodness toward the stranger be held rational, if it operate without injury to him whose the thing is. Whatever goodness, the first justice makes rational. So too in the principal degree it will be rational, when it is exhibited toward one's own, if it be just. So too toward the stranger it will be able to seem rational, if it be not unjust. But for the rest, what sort of goodness is that which stands by injury, and indeed for a stranger? For perhaps for a member of one's household injurious goodness might to some extent be held rational. But for a stranger, to whom not even honest goodness was lawfully owed — by what reason shall a goodness so unjust be defended as rational? For what is more unjust, what more iniquitous and dishonest, than so to benefit another's slave that he is snatched from his master, claimed for another, suborned against his master's life — and indeed, what is more unworthy, while still in his master's very house, living still off his stores, trembling still under his lashes? Such an abettor would be condemned even in the world, not to say a kidnapper. Not otherwise is Marcion's god, breaking into another's world, snatching man from God, the son from the father, the pupil from the trainer, the servant from the lord — to make him impious to God, irreligious to his father, ungrateful to his trainer, worthless to his lord. I ask you, if rational goodness makes a man such as irrational goodness would make him —? I should think none more impudent than one who is baptized in another god's water to another god, stretched out to another god under another's heaven, prostrated to another god on another's earth, who performs over another's bread thanksgivings to another god, who out of another's goods works in the name of almsgiving and love on account of another god. What god is this, so good that by him man is made evil, so propitious that he makes another god — and that one the man's own lord — angry?

But God, as eternal and rational, so, I suppose, is also perfect in all things. "For you shall be perfect, as your Father who is in heaven." Exhibit, then, his perfect goodness too. Even though concerning its imperfection it is sufficiently established — goodness which is found neither natural nor rational — now it shall be convicted by another reasoning too: no longer imperfect, nay, even defective, scant and exhausted, less than the number of its own materials, not exhibited in all. For not all are saved, but fewer than all, both the Jews and the Christians of the Creator. But with the greater part perishing, how is that goodness defended as perfect which is, for the greater part, a ceaser — to a few something, to the greater number nothing — yielding to perdition, a partner in destruction? But if more are not to be saved, it will now be not goodness, but a more perfect malice. For just as the operation of goodness is what makes men saved, so the operation of malignity is what does not make them saved. But not making more saved, while making few, it will be more perfect in not helping than in helping. You cannot refer to the Creator too a goodness toward all and a defect. For Him whom you hold a judge, you show, if at all, to be understood as a dispenser of goodness, not a profligate squanderer — which you claim for your god. So far do you prefer him to the Creator by this goodness alone, that, if he professes it alone and whole, it ought to have been wanting to none. But I will not now charge Marcion's god with imperfection of goodness from the greater part of those who perish. It is enough that the very ones whom he saves, found to be of an imperfect salvation, show his goodness to be imperfect — saved, namely, only as to the soul, lost as to the flesh, which with him does not rise again. Whence this halving of salvation, except from a defect of goodness? What belonged to perfect goodness but to bring back the whole man into salvation — the whole man condemned by the Creator, the whole man chosen by the best god? As far as I know, with him the flesh too is baptized, and the flesh is taken away from marriages, and the flesh is treated cruelly in the confession of his name. But even if sins are reckoned to the flesh, the guilt of the soul goes before, and the leadership of the fault is rather to be ascribed to the soul, to which the flesh meets only in the name of a servant. The flesh, finally, when destitute of the soul, sins only so far. So in this too the goodness is unjust and thereby imperfect, leaving the more innocent substance to destruction — a substance that sins by compliance, not by choice; whose truth, even if Christ did not put on, as your heresy thought, yet he deigned to undergo its image. By the very fact that he counterfeited it, he owed it that he owed it something. But what else is man than flesh, since the name of man was assigned by the Author to the bodily material, not the animate? "And God made man," it says, "of the slime of the earth" — not the soul; for the soul is from the breath: "and man became a living soul." What man? Surely he who was of the slime. "And God placed the man in Paradise" — the one he formed, not the one he breathed; the one who is now flesh, not the one who is soul. So if it is thus, with what face will you contend for a perfect title of goodness, which has now failed not from a special partition of the man to be freed, but from the general property? If the grace be full, and the mercy solid, which is salutary to the soul alone, this life confers more, in which we enjoy the man whole and entire. For the rest, to rise again in part will be to be mulcted, not freed. There was this too belonging to perfect goodness, that man, set free into the faith of the best god, should at once be exempted from the dwelling and dominion of the cruel god. But as it is, O Marcionite, you both run a fever, and the pain of your flesh breeds for you the rest of the thorns and thistles, and you are exposed not only to the Creator's lightnings or wars and plagues and other strokes, but even to His scorpions. In what do you suppose yourself freed from His kingdom, when His flies still trample you? If you are rescued from the future, why not from the present too, that you may be perfectly freed? Other is our condition with the Author, with the Judge, with the offended sovereign of the race. You only put forward a good god. But you cannot show him perfectly good, by whom you are not perfectly freed.

As concerns the question of goodness, by these lines we have brought it down that it is by no means made equal to a god — being neither inborn nor rational nor perfect, but even dishonest and unjust and now unworthy of the very name of goodness; so that, in so far as it suits a god, in so far it is fitting that he be not a god who is preferred even because of such goodness — and not because of such goodness merely, but even because of it alone. For now it is fit that this too be examined: whether God is to be reckoned of goodness alone, the other appendages being denied — the senses and affections, which the Marcionites indeed drive away from their god into the Creator, but which we both acknowledge in the Creator as worthy of a god. And from this too we shall deny him a god in whom not all things that are worthy of a god are established. If he affected to entitle, under the name of Christ, some god out of the school of Epicurus — to the end that, being blessed and incorruptible, he should offer molestation neither to himself nor to another (for chewing over this maxim Marcion removed from him severities and judicial powers) — he ought either to have conceived a god altogether immobile and stupefied (and what has he to do with Christ, troublesome both to the Jews by his teaching and to himself by his sense?), or else to have acknowledged him capable of the other motions too (and what has he to do with Epicurus, necessary neither to himself nor to the Christians?). For lo, by this very fact, that he who was formerly quiet, who took no care for the knowledge of himself by any work in the meantime, after so great an age felt a concern for the salvation of man — by will, of course — was he not then shakeable by a new will, so that he seems liable to the other motions too? But what will is there without the goad of desire? Who will wish what he will not desire? But care too will attach to will. For who will wish anything and desire it, and not care for it? Therefore, since he both willed and desired the salvation of man, he has now made business both for himself and for others — Epicurus unwilling, Marcion his counsellor. For he set up an adversary to himself in that very thing against which he both willed and desired and cared — whether sin or death — first of all the very arbiter and lord of these, man's Creator. Further, nothing will run its course without rivalry which will not be without an adversary. In short, willing and desiring and caring to free man, by this very fact he is now a rival even of Him from whom he frees him, to free him against Him, of course; and of those things from which he frees him, to free him into others. Accordingly, into that which he rivals there must of necessity meet the officials of his rivalry: anger, discord, hatred, disdain, indignation, gall, unwillingness, offence. If all these stand by rivalry, but rivalry is procured by freeing man, but the freeing of man is an operation of goodness, that goodness will not be able to subsist without its own endowments — that is, without the senses and affections through which it is administered against the Creator — lest in this way too it be prescribed as irrational, if it lack both the senses and the due affections. These things we shall defend much more fully in the cause of the Creator, in which they are also reproached.

But here it is enough to show the god most perverse in the very heralding of his solitary goodness, by which they will not ascribe to him those motions of mind which they blame in the Creator. For if he neither rivals nor is angry nor condemns nor vexes — inasmuch as he furnishes not even a judge — I do not find how the system of disciplines can stand for him, and that the fuller one. For what sort of thing is it that he should set up precepts which he will not enforce, that he should forbid sins which he will not avenge, since he will not judge — being, of course, a stranger to all the senses of severity and animadversion? For why does he forbid a thing to be committed which he does not punish when committed — when it had been far more right not to have forbidden what he was not going to punish, than not to punish what he had forbidden? Nay, he ought even outright to have permitted it, being about to forbid it to no purpose, as not about to punish it. For even now what is forbidden without vengeance is tacitly permitted. And surely he forbids nothing to be committed except what he does not love to be done. Most stupid, then, is he who is not offended by a deed which he does not love to be done — since offence is the companion of a thwarted will. Or if he is offended, he ought to be angry; if he is angry, he ought to avenge. For vengeance too is the fruit of anger, and anger the debt of offence, and offence, as I said, the companion of a thwarted will. But he does not avenge; therefore he is not offended. But he is not offended; therefore neither is his will hurt, when that is done which he was unwilling should be done — and so the sin now happens according to his will, since that does not happen against his will which does not hurt his will. Or if this shall be of divine power or goodness — to be unwilling indeed that a thing be done, and to forbid it being done, yet not to be moved if it be done — we say that he has now been moved who was unwilling, and that he is to no purpose unmoved at the deed who was moved at the not-doing, since he was unwilling that it be done. For in being unwilling he forbade. Did he not also judge by being unwilling that it be done, and therefore by forbidding? For he judged that it ought not to be done, and pronounced that it ought to be forbidden. Therefore he too now judges. If it is unworthy of God to judge — or if it is worthy of God to judge only so far as merely to be unwilling and to forbid, but not also to punish the deed — yet nothing is so unworthy of God as not to follow up what he was unwilling and forbade to be committed: first, because to any verdict and law of his he owes vengeance, for authority and the necessity of obedience; secondly, because it must of necessity be a rival, that which he was unwilling should be committed and by being unwilling forbade. But to spare evil is more unworthy of God than to chastise it — and that of a best god, who is not otherwise fully good unless a rival of evil, so as to exercise love of the good by hatred of the evil, and to fulfil the guardianship of the good by the storming of the evil.

But he plainly judges evil by being unwilling, and condemns it by forbidding; yet he dismisses it by not avenging, and absolves it by not punishing. O god, betrayer of the truth! a circumventer of his own verdict! He fears to condemn what he condemns, fears to hate what he does not love; he allows the deed which he does not allow to be done, and would rather show what he does not wish than approve it. This will be an imaginary goodness, a phantasm of discipline, and the precepts themselves perfunctory, the sins secure. Hear, O sinners — and whoever are not yet such, that you may be able to be! — a better god has been found, who is neither offended nor angry nor avenges, for whom no fire is kindled in Gehenna, for whom no gnashing of teeth shudders in the outer darkness: he is only good. In short, he forbids sinning — but by letters alone. It is in you, if you will, to subscribe him your obedience, that you may seem to have paid honour to a god; for fear he does not want. And to such a point do the Marcionites parade it, that they fear their god not at all. "But the evil one," they say, "shall be feared; the good one shall be loved." Fool, do you deny that he must be feared whom you call lord — when this name belongs to a power that must also be feared? But how will you love, unless you fear not to love? Plainly he is not your father, in whom should meet both love for piety's sake and fear for power's sake; nor a legitimate lord, that you should love him for his humanity and fear him for his discipline. So, finally, are kidnappers loved, but not also feared. For nothing will be feared except just and ordinary dominion; but even an adulterous one can be loved — for it stands by solicitation, not by authority, by flattery, not by power. And what, in fine, is more flattering than not to follow up sins? Come, then, you who fear not God as good — why do you not boil over into every lust, the highest fruit of life, as far as I know, for all who fear not God? Why do you not frequent the so solemn pleasures of the raging circus and the savaging amphitheatre and the wantoning stage? Why do you not, in persecutions too, the moment the censer is offered, gain your life by denial? God forbid, you say; God forbid. Then you already fear sin, and by fearing you have proved that He is feared who forbids sin. It is another matter if, by that same perversity of your god whom you fear not, you observe him — by which he too forbids what he does not avenge. Vainer still is it when, asked, "What will become of every sinner in that day?", they answer that he will be cast away, as it were from his eyes. Is not this too transacted by judgment? For he is judged to be cast away — and surely by a judgment of condemnation; unless indeed the sinner be cast away into salvation, that this too may suit the best god. And what will it be to be cast away, but to lose that which he would have obtained had he not been cast away — that is, salvation? Therefore he will be cast away to the detriment of salvation; and this cannot be decreed except by one who is angered and offended and an executor of the deed — that is, a judge.

But what end awaits that cast-away one? "He will be seized," they say, "by the Creator's fire." Has he then no element of his own, provided even for this case, by which he may at least relegate his sinners without cruelty, rather than give them up to the Creator? What then does the Creator do? He will prepare for them, I believe, a more sulphurous Gehenna — as for his blasphemers, of course; unless perchance God the jealous one should spare the deserters of his rival. O god in every way perverse, everywhere irrational, in all things vain, and so a god who is no one! — whose state, whose condition, whose nature, whose any order I see not standing fast; nor now even the very sacrament of faith in him. For to what end is baptism too exacted with him? If it is the remission of sins, how will he seem to remit sins who will not seem to retain them? For he would retain them, if he judged. If it is the absolution of death, how would he absolve from death who has not bound to death? For he would have bound, if he had condemned from the beginning. If it is the regeneration of man, how does he regenerate who has not generated? For repetition does not belong to him by whom a thing was not done even once. If it is the obtaining of the Holy Spirit, how will he bestow the spirit who did not first confer the soul? For the soul will somehow suffice in place of the spirit. He seals, then, a man never unsealed with him; he washes a man never defiled with him; and in this whole sacrament of salvation he plunges a flesh that is excluded from salvation. Not even a countryman will water ground that will bring back no fruit — unless he be as vain as Marcion's god. Accordingly, why does he lay so great a burden, or glory, of holiness upon a flesh most weak or most unworthy? But what shall I say of the vanity of the discipline, by which he sanctifies a holy substance? Why does he either burden a weak one or adorn an unworthy one? Why does he not requite with salvation that which he burdens or adorns? Why does he defraud the wage of the work, not repaying salvation to the flesh? Why does he suffer even the honour of holiness to die in it?

With him the flesh is not baptized, unless it be virgin, unless widow, unless celibate, unless it has purchased baptism by divorce — as though even eunuchs were not born of marriage. Without doubt this institution will stand from the condemnation of wedlock. Let us see whether justly — not as though we meant to destroy the felicity of holiness, like certain Nicolaitans, champions of lust and luxury, but as men who have known holiness without the condemnation of marriage, and follow and prefer it — not as good to evil, but as better to good. For we do not cast away marriages, but lay them down; nor do we prescribe holiness, but persuade it, preserving both the good and the better by pursuing them according to each one's strength; defending wedlock outright then, finally, when it is enemy-wise accused under the name of foulness, to the destruction of the Creator, who accordingly blessed wedlock for the honesty of the thing toward the increase of the human race, just as He blessed the whole of creation for whole and good uses. Nor are foods therefore to be condemned because, more elaborately sought after, they go over into gluttony; nor will clothing therefore be accused because, more costly procured, it swells into ostentation. So neither will the matter of marriage therefore be spat upon because, more intemperately spread abroad, it burns into luxury. There is much difference between the cause and the fault, between the state and the excess. So in things of this kind it is not the institution but the going-out-of-bounds that is to be condemned, according to the censure of the Founder Himself, whose it is to say both "Increase and multiply" and "You shall not commit adultery, and you shall not covet your neighbour's wife" — punishing with death both the incestuous and the sacrilegious and the monstrous madness of lusts against males and against cattle. But even if a measure is now set for marrying — which indeed among us spiritual reason, on the authority of the Paraclete, defends, prescribing one marriage in the faith — it will belong to the same One to fix a measure who had at some time spread the measure abroad; the same will gather who scattered; the same will cut the wood who planted; the same will reap the harvest who sowed; the same will say, "It remains that even they who have wives be as though they had none," whose also formerly was "Increase and multiply" — the same the end whose also the beginning. Yet the wood is not cut as if to be accused, nor the harvest mown as if to be condemned, but as obeying its own time. So too the matter of wedlock admits the axe and the sickle of holiness not as an evil, but as ripe to be discharged, as reserved for holiness itself, to which by cutting it would yield a harvest. Whence I will now say that Marcion's god, when he condemns marriage as evil and as a business of unchastity, acts against the very holiness which he seems to study. For he erases its material; since, if there shall be no marriages, there is no holiness. For the testimony of abstinence falls empty, when licence is taken away, since certain things are proved only by their opposites. As virtue is perfected in weakness, so abstinence from marrying is recognized in the faculty of marrying. Who, in fine, shall be called abstinent, when that from which he must abstain is taken away? What temperance of the gullet in famine? What repudiation of ambition in want? What curbing of lust in castration? Now indeed, to suppress wholly the sowing of the human race — I know not whether even this suits the best god. For how will he wish man saved whom he forbids to be born, taking away that from which man is born? How will he have him in whom to mark his goodness, whom he suffers not to be? How does he love one whose origin he loves not? He fears, perhaps, an overflow of offspring, lest he labour to free more, lest he make many heretics, lest he have nobler Marcionites born of Marcionites. There will be no fiercer hardness than Pharaoh's, the slayer of newborns. For Pharaoh takes away souls; this god does not give them. The one takes away from life; the other does not admit to life. With both there is no difference from murder: under either, man is killed — under the one already born, under the other to be born. You would be welcome, O heretic god, if you had gone over to the dispensation of the Creator, who mingled male and female; for surely your own Marcion too was born of marriage. Enough of this concerning Marcion's god, whom both the definitions of the one divinity and the conditions of His states confirm to be altogether non-existent. But the whole course of this little work tends to this very thing. Accordingly, if to anyone we seem to have done too little, let him hope it reserved for its own time — as also the examination of those very Scriptures which Marcion uses.