Against Marcion

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,” he had a favourable opportunity, no doubt, 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, 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,” 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, 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 course 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; but emptied 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,” 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.” 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 propounded Him as thus “found” in the manner 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,” 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.” For he could hardly mean this to be a climax to the human suffering, to extol the virtue 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 virtue 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 Pharisee — he now reckons to be only “loss” to himself; (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” (but by no means for the rejection of God the Creator); “while 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.” 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.” I here recognise the Creator's ancient promise to Abraham: “I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven.” Therefore “one star differs from another star in glory.” If, again, Christ in His advent from heaven “shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like His glorious body,” 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 flesh at the advent of God, and who shall have to be changed, 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).” Then, if we are to be caught up alone with them, surely we shall likewise be changed together with them.