Panarion (Medicine Chest Against Heresies), Haer. 1-64 42.11.17

So that the things in it that are hard to understand may not be presented obscurely and remain unknown to some, I shall again explain in order the numbers of the headings, I mean of the first, second and third chapter, and for what reason each saying was selected and altered there. I shall begin to speak as follows: Scholion 1, from the gospel of Marcion himself. “Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing as Moses commanded” — “that this may be a testimony to you,” instead of the Saviour's words, “for a testimony to them.” Refutation 1. How could the Lord, whose teaching, as you say, was against the Law and against the God of the Law, say to those he healed, I mean to the leper, “Go, show yourself to the priest”? For by saying “priest” he does not reject the priesthood of the Law. “And offer for your cleansing”: even if you cut out “the gift,” it will appear from “offer” that he speaks of a gift. “For your cleansing, as Moses commanded”: for if he advises that Moses' command be carried out, he does not reject or blaspheme the God of the Law, but confesses that he himself and his Father, God, gave the Law to Moses. But you have twisted the saying, Marcion, saying “a testimony to you” instead of “for a testimony to them.” And in this you have plainly lied against your own head. For if he said “a testimony to you,” he made himself a witness that “I came not to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfil them.” Scholion 2. “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” Refutation 2. If, then, he calls himself Son of Man, the Only-begotten does not deny the incarnation, and your song that he appeared in semblance is sung in vain. And if he has authority on earth, the earth is not foreign to his works and to his Father. Scholion 3. “The Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath.” Refutation 3. At once, two things in the same place: the Saviour confesses himself both Son of Man and Lord of the sabbath, teaching that the sabbath should not be thought foreign to his own making …, even if in the last times he is called Son of Man because of his coming in the flesh. Scholion 4. “Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.” And instead of “he came down with them,” he has “he came down among them.” Refutation 4. Judas Iscariot, “who became a traitor.” Of whom? Tell me. Surely of the one who was arrested, yes, and crucified and who suffered much. How then is he arrested and crucified who, by your account, Marcion, cannot be touched? For you say he was a semblance. But your supposition will be refuted by the fact that Judas is written to be a traitor. For he betrayed his own Master and handed him over into the hands of men. And it did you no good to say “he came down among them” instead of “with them.” For you cannot define as a phantom the one who, even in your version and against your will, is afterwards shown to be touched. Scholion 5. “And all the crowd sought to touch him. And he lifted up his eyes,” and so on. Refutation 5. Again, how could the crowd touch one who cannot be touched? And what sort of eyes did he lift to heaven, who was not formed of flesh? But [it is said] to show that the mediator between God and men is the man Christ Jesus, having both: the flesh from men, and the invisible being from God the Father. Scholion 6. “In the same way your fathers did to the prophets.” Refutation 6. If he mentions prophets, he does not deny the prophets; if he avenges the murder of the prophets and reproaches those who murdered and persecuted them, he is not foreign to the prophets, but is their God, who establishes them. Scholion 7. “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Refutation 7. If not even in Israel did he find such faith as in the centurion who came from the Gentiles, then he does not find fault with the faith of Israel. For if it belonged to a foreign God and not to his own Father, he would not have praised it. Scholion 8. “Blessed is he who is not offended in me” is altered; for he had it as though addressed to John. Refutation 8. Whether he has it addressed to John or to the Saviour himself, he blesses those who are not offended, whether in him or in John, so that they may not invent for themselves what they do not hear from him. But there is a deeper meaning in why the Saviour said it. So that no one should think John, whom he ranked the greatest among those born of women, to be greater even than the Saviour himself, because he too was born of a woman, he guards against this and says, “And blessed is whoever is not offended in me.” That is why he says, “But he who is least in the kingdom is greater than he.” For the Saviour, by his birth in the flesh, was younger than John by six months, but greater in the kingdom, being plainly his God. For the Only-begotten did not come to speak anything in secret or to say anything false about his own preaching. For he is [the truth], as he says, “I am the way and the truth.” Neither, then, does the way contain error, nor does the truth hide itself and speak falsehood. Scholion 9. “This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face.’” Refutation 9. If the only-begotten Son of God recognizes John and knows him beforehand, and, knowing him beforehand, shows those who wish to know the truth that this is he of whom it is written, “I send my messenger before your face,” then he who wrote and said, “I send my messenger before your face,” the eternal God who spoke in the prophets and in the Law, was not foreign to his own Son Jesus Christ. For he sends his messenger before his face, before the face of the Son honoured by the Father. For he would not send his messenger to serve a stranger to whom he was, by your account, Marcion, opposed. Scholion 10. “And having entered the house of the Pharisee, he reclined. And the woman who was a sinner, standing behind at his feet, wet his feet with her tears, and anointed and kissed them.” Refutation 10. “Having entered” shows a body; for it shows a house and the part [played] by a body. And reclining belongs to no one [except one who has] bulk to lie down; and the woman wet with her tears feet that were not the feet of a phantom or a semblance; for she anointed and wet and kissed them, perceiving the touch of the body. Scholion 11. And again: “She wet my feet with her tears, and anointed and kissed them.” Refutation 11. So that you may not think, Marcion, that it was merely supposed by men that the sinful woman wet, anointed and kissed the Saviour's feet, the Saviour himself confirms it, teaching that these things did not happen in semblance but in truth, to refute the Pharisee, and you, Marcion, and those like you, insisting and saying, “She anointed and kissed my feet.” And what sort of feet, if not feet made of flesh and bones and the rest? Scholion 12. He did not have “his mother and his brothers,” but only “your mother and your brothers.” Refutation 12. Even if you cut away the saying of the gospel above, Marcion, to make the evangelist not agree with the words spoken by certain people, “your mother and your brothers,” you cannot get past the truth. For why did he not name many mothers? Why did he not speak of many homelands? How many people say how many things about Homer! Some say he was an Egyptian, others a Chian, others a Colophonian, others a Phrygian, others a Smyrnaean, son of Meles and Critheïs; Aristarchus and his followers declared him an Athenian; others a Lydian, son of Maeon; others a Cypriot from Propodias, a district around Salamis; and yet he was a man. Because he was said to be born in many homelands, many have been led into different accounts. But here, speaking of God and Christ, they did not suppose many mothers, but the one who truly bore him; and not many brothers, but the sons of Joseph by his other, real wife. And you cannot arm yourself against the truth. And do not let the saying mislead you where the Lord said, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” For he did not say this denying his mother, but rejecting the untimeliness of the one who spoke, when so great a crowd stood around and his saving teaching was pouring out, and he was intent on the healings and the preaching, [interrupting] him by saying, “Behold, your mother and your brothers.” And had he not received it with joy (not as though he did not know that they had come before he heard it, but knowing beforehand that they were standing outside), he would have rejected the untimely words of the speaker with a rebuke, as he once said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan, for you do not think the things of God but the things of men.” Scholion 13. “As they sailed he fell asleep; and he awoke and rebuked the wind and the sea.” Refutation 13. Tell me, who fell asleep? You will not dare say it of the Godhead; and if you did say it, you god-forsaken man, you would blaspheme against your own head. But it is clear to everyone that he who truly became man, needing sleep because of his body, fell asleep. For those who woke him did not see a semblance but a true incarnation. Indeed, shaking him with their hands and calling out, they bear witness that they woke him. For “having risen,” it says — the sleeping God who bore flesh, who came down from heaven and put on flesh for our sake — “he awoke” as man, but “rebuked” the sea as God, and made [a calm]. Scholion 14. “And as they went, the crowds pressed him. And a woman touched him and was healed of her flow of blood; and the Lord said, ‘Who touched me?’” And again: “Someone touched me; for I perceived power going out from me.” Refutation 14. “As they went,” and he did not say “as he went,” so as not to present him in any other way than as one following the road with the travellers. And “the crowds pressed him”: crowds could not press a spirit. And the woman who touched him and was healed did not touch air, but a human body. For to show that the touching of his body by the woman did not take place in semblance only, he teaches, saying, “Who touched me? For I perceived power going out from me.” Scholion 15. “Looking up to heaven he blessed them.” Refutation 15. If he looked up to heaven and blessed them, he did not have the forms of his eyes and other members in semblance. Scholion 16. “Saying, ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be killed, and after three days be raised.’” Refutation 16. If the only-begotten Son of God confesses himself Son of Man, and that he would suffer and be killed …, this is an axe against you that cuts out your whole root, Marcion, born of thorns, waterless cloud, fruitless autumn tree. For again he says, “and after three days be raised.” And what was raised, if not the very thing that had suffered and been buried in the tomb? A semblance, or a wind, or a spirit, or a phantom does not admit of burial rites and burial and resurrection. Scholion 17. “And behold, two men were talking with him, Elijah and Moses, in glory.” Refutation 17. Perhaps, I think, through these words the sickle in holy Zechariah has been prefigured against you, Marcion, to cut out all the lying you have devised against the Law and the prophets. For since you were going to reject the Law and the prophets, saying they were foreign to the Saviour, to his glory and his divine teaching, he brought both with him in his own glory and showed them to his disciples, and the disciples to us and to the world, that is, to every person who wishes to live; so that by the first, as with an axe, he might cut your roots, and by the second, as with the sickle of the word of truth, he might cut out your branches, which produce hemlock and deadly poison for men, the sticky sap of blasphemy. For if Moses, to whom Christ long ago entrusted the Law, was a stranger, and the prophets were strangers, he would not have revealed them with himself in his own glory. For see the wonder: he did not show them at the tomb or beside the cross, but when he revealed a part of his glory to us as a pledge, then he brought the saints with him, I mean Moses and Elijah, to show that they are joint heirs of his kingdom. Scholion 18. “From the cloud a voice: ‘This is my beloved Son.’” Refutation 18. It is clear to everyone that the cloud is not the highest thing, nor is it above heaven, but within the creation around us, from which the voice was borne to the Saviour. If, then, the Father speaks even in a cloud, pointing out his Son to the disciples, the craftsman is not another, but the same, who bore witness to his own Son through a cloud, and is not master only of what is above heaven, as you say. Scholion 19. “I begged your disciples.” And he had, beside “they were not able to cast it out,” “and [he said] to them, ‘O faithless generation, how long shall I bear with you?’” Refutation 19. “How long” indicates the time of his coming in the flesh, and so does “O faithless generation,” since the prophets worked divine signs in his name and believed, as Elijah is found doing, and Elisha, and the others. Scholion 20. “For the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” Refutation 20. The words “Son of Man” and “to be delivered into the hands of men” do not suggest a semblance or a phantom, but present a body and members. Scholion 21. “Have you not even read this, what David did? He went into the house of God.” Refutation 21. If he calls the house of the tabernacle made by Moses the house of God, he does not reject the Law or the God who spoke in the Law. For he calls him God, who is his Father, … or the Only-begotten himself. For the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is accustomed to act in the Law and the prophets and the gospels and the apostles. Scholion 22. “I thank you, Lord of heaven.” But he did not have “and of the earth,” nor did he have “Father.” But he is refuted, for below he had “Yes, Father.” Refutation 22. He gives thanks to the Lord of heaven, even if you remove “and of the earth,” and even if you cut out “Father,” Marcion, so as not to show that Christ calls the craftsman his Father. For the members of the truth remain alive. For as in a remnant, through forgetfulness, you let stand, Marcion, the words “Yes, Father” … It has therefore been proved in every way that Christ gives thanks to his own Father and names him Lord of heaven. And great is your derangement, which does not grasp the path of truth. Scholion 23. He said to the lawyer, “What is written in the law?” And after the lawyer's answer he answered, “You have spoken rightly; do this, and you will live.” Refutation 23. The Son of God, being truth, misled no one who asked about life; for he came for the life of men. Since, then, he cares for life, and shows that for the one who keeps the Law there is life, and tells the one who answered according to the Law that he has spoken rightly and “do this and you will live,” who would be so thunderstruck as to believe Marcion, who blasphemes the God who has given men both the Law and the grace of the gospel, and to be led away with him who has nothing of his teaching either from the Law or from the Holy Spirit? Scholion 24. And he said, “Which of you will have a friend, and go to him at midnight asking for three loaves?” And further: “Ask, and it will be given. For which of you, if his son asks his father for a fish, will give him a serpent instead of a fish, or a scorpion instead of an egg? If then you, being evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more the Father?” Refutation 24. By this saying the deceiver's self-chosen religion in his way of life is refuted. For with him the way of life is not for the sake of self-control, nor for a good reward and the hope of the contest, but out of impiety and the perversity of an evil notion. For he teaches that one should not partake of living creatures, saying that those who partake of meat are liable to judgment, as though eating souls. But the whole thing is silly. For the meat is not the soul, but the soul is in the meat; and we do not say that the soul in animals is like the precious soul of men, but a soul only for the animal to live. But this wretched man, together with those who think the same way, supposes that the same soul is in men and animals. For this is vainly supposed by many of the sects that have gone astray. For Valentinus and Colorbasus, and all the Gnostics and Manichaeans, speak of a transfusion of souls and of re-embodiments of the soul of men who are in ignorance, as they say according to some myth-making: they say that this soul returns and is re-embodied in each of the animals until it comes to knowledge, and so, cleansed and released, passes over to the heavenly realms. And first, his whole vain construction of myth has been refuted. For no one else can know the exact truth of these things beyond our Lord Jesus Christ, who came for the sake of the lost sheep, that is, for the souls of men; who, caring for them, healed them in body and in soul, since he is master of both body and soul and the giver of life here and of the life to come. Those who had died, I mean Lazarus and the widow's son and the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, he raised from the dead, not bringing them into an evil state (as these people teach that the body is a prison), but doing them good, and knowing that both the stay here in the flesh is appointed by him and the future resurrection of flesh and soul. And again, if he knew that there is one soul in animals and in men, and he came to bring about the salvation of the soul, he ought not, in cleansing one demoniac (I mean the one who came out from the tombs), to have ordered the demons to go off and kill two thousand pigs, if the souls of men and of pigs were equal. For how, caring for one, would he bring about the destruction of two thousand? And if again you twist like a serpent, contriving and saying that he released them from their bodies so that they might ascend, then Lazarus, once released from the body, ought not to have returned to the body again; rather, he should have released the demoniac himself from the bond of the body. But he did not do so; rather he provided for the body in this way, knowing what was good for it. Your doctrine of the soul has collapsed, Marcion, and that of those who come from you and from the other sects that are like you. And I shall speak again about your pretended way of life, because you say that eating meat is wicked and unlawful. But the Saviour refutes you, knowing more than you, and teaching what is better by this saying. For he says, “Which [father], if his son asks for a fish, will give him a serpent, or a scorpion instead of an egg?” And afterwards he says, “If then you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more your heavenly Father?” If, then, he has called a fish and an egg good gifts, what is given by God and received with thanksgiving is not evil, and your perversity has been refuted on every side. Scholion 25. The passage about Jonah the prophet has been cut away. For he had, “This generation — no sign will be given to it,” but he did not have the passage about Nineveh and the queen of the south and Solomon. Refutation 25. Even in the very things you think you are cutting away, Marcion, you cannot escape the truth. For even if you remove the passage about Jonah the prophet, which signifies the Saviour's saving plan, and remove the passage about the queen of the south and Solomon, and the saving story of Nineveh and the preaching of Jonah, the Saviour's words that stand in your text refute you. For he says, “This generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it,” as though the generations before this one had been counted worthy of signs from God out of heaven: as Elijah worked a sign through the fire that came down from heaven and took the sacrifice, and Moses divided the sea, and Joshua son of Nun made the sun and the moon stand still. And in every way, even if the deceiver hides what is written, he will not harm the truth at all, but estranges himself from the truth. Scholion 26. Instead of “you pass over the judgment of God,” he had “you pass over the calling of God.” Refutation 26. From where are you not refuted, and from where is the testimony [not] gathered against you? For the first things agree with what comes after, and your tampering is refuted. For if he says, “You keep the traditions of your elders and pass over the mercy and the judgment of God,” learn from what time he blames them for doing this, and when the tradition of the elders arose among them, and you will find that that of Addas arose after the return from Babylon, that of Akiba even before the Babylonian captivities, and that of the sons of Hasmonaeus in the times of Alexander and Antiochus, a hundred and ninety years before the coming of Christ. So, then, even from that time judgment was through the Law and mercy through the prophets, and your charlatan's argument falls on every side. Scholion 27. “Woe to you, because you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.” Refutation 27. If he takes thought for the prophets, reproaching those who killed them, the prophets were not strangers to him, but servants sent beforehand by him and by the Father and by the Holy Spirit to prepare for his coming in the flesh; and they also bore witness to the new covenant. Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me”; and before him Jacob said, “From a shoot, my son Judah, you went up; lying down you slept; a ruler shall not fail from Judah,” and a little after, “until there come the things stored up for him, and he is the expectation of the nations, and on him the nations will hope”; Isaiah, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive”; Jeremiah, “And he is a man, and who will know him?”; Micah, “And you, Bethlehem,” and after other words, “From you shall come forth for me a ruler,” and so on; Malachi, “Suddenly the Lord will come to the temple”; and David, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand,’” and so on. And there is much to say, since the Saviour himself says, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for he wrote about me.” Scholion 28. He did not have “Therefore the Wisdom of God said, ‘I send them prophets,’” nor the passage about the blood of Zechariah and Abel and the prophets, that it will be required of this generation. Refutation 28. In this too there is great shame for you, Marcion, since the form of the truth is preserved and the places of your thefts by excision are found, and the things you removed are exposed. Scholion 29. “I say to my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body; but fear him who, after killing, has authority to cast into Gehenna.” But he did not have “Are not five … forgotten before God?” Refutation 29. The words “I say to my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body; but fear him who has authority, after killing the body, to cast the soul into Gehenna,” compel you, Marcion, to confess the rest of the parable as well. For without God nothing happens, even if you take away the passage about the sparrows. Give an account, then, of what you have left in the saying, Marcion, and answer us what you think about the one who has authority. If you say he is the Father of Christ, the one you call the good God, though you distinguish wrongly, still, [he is] … But if you do not mean him, but the craftsman whom you celebrate as by nature a judge, tell me, who gave him the authority? For if he has it from himself, then he is great and has authority; and if he has authority to judge, he also has it to save. For he who is able to judge is also able to acquit. And another point: if, when the judge casts souls into Gehenna, the good God does not rescue them, though he cares for these same souls in every way, how would he be good? For either he is able, but does not wish, to rescue them from his hand, or he is not able; and where is the goodness? And if the craftsman, because he created, has authority also to judge, how does the God above, about whom you tell your myths, save some partially? For if he saves by taking from what belongs to others, so that the work may turn to good and to salvation, you make him a respecter of persons, doing good not equally to all but partially. Scholion 30. Instead of “will confess before the angels of God,” he says “before God.” Refutation 30. He is refuted on every side as not walking according to God, even if he alters the truth in the shortest phrase. For he who dares to alter anything of what was written from the beginning does not stand in the way of truth. Scholion 31. He does not have “God clothes the grass.” Refutation 31. Even if you do not allow what is written to stand as it was spoken by the Saviour, yet the passages are preserved in the gospel of the holy church, even if you deny the God who made all things and by his word cares for all, even for the grass, and who is confessed by the Saviour. Scholion 32. “But your Father knows that you need these things,” that is, the things of the flesh. Refutation 32. The Father knows that the disciples need the things the flesh requires, and he provides for such things. He provides not in another age but here, making provision for his servants not among things that belong to others but among the things he himself created. Scholion 33. “But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.” Refutation 33. If we are fed from what belongs to another, and another God is God of the kingdom of heaven, how will the saying still agree? For either the things here are his and the kingdom is his — and so he adds all the things here, since they are his, because of the labour of longing for his kingdom — or the kingdom and the age there are his, but the things here belong to the craftsman, and the craftsman is of one mind with the kingdom of the one above, helping those who seek the righteousness and kingdom of the one above. But if there is one good will and not a divided one, there are no longer two principles or three. For in truth God is one, who made all things, and made them well and not in opposition. It is ours to sin and go wrong, in willing and in not willing. Scholion 34. Instead of “your Father” he had “the Father.” Refutation 34. In this too you will do us no harm, but will rather confirm our case. For you have confessed that the Saviour said that his Father provides for the things here. Scholion 35. Instead of “in the second or third watch” he had “in the evening watch.” Refutation 35. The brute is refuted, having foolishly twisted the divine words to his own notion. For the watches are not of the day but of the night; they run from evening to the first … of their extension, and not from dawn to evening, as he is caught having tampered. Scholion 36. Who is it that cuts the servant in two? Tell me. If it is the craftsman, “and he will put his portion with the unbelievers.” Refutation 36. If the one who will do this is the God you speak of, then the believers are his; for in rebuking the servant who does not act well, he puts his portion with the unbelievers. But if it is the Father of Christ, or Christ himself, who will do this, you clearly keep in your own book the testimony against you. For in confessing that either Christ or his Father will do this, you have confessed beyond doubt that the same is judge, the same is good, and he is one, providing both for things here and for things there. Scholion 37. “Lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer.” Refutation 37. You say the judge is the craftsman, and the officer each of his angels, who will exact from sinners what they have done. And what is that, if not the faults and sins which Jesus also abhors, which you too say you forbid? If, then, what the good God abhors the judge and craftsman also abhors, he is one and the same, shown to be so by his work and by one good will. Scholion 38. It was cut away from “Some came telling him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices,” to where he speaks of the eighteen who died at the tower in Siloam, and “unless you repent,” and what follows, to the parable of the fig tree, of which the vinedresser said, “I dig and put on manure, and if it does not bear, cut it down.” Refutation 38. The thief made away with all these things, hiding the truth from himself, because the Lord agreed with Pilate, who judged such men rightly, and [said] that those at Siloam rightly died, being sinners and punished thus by God. But when some tamper with royal decrees, the copies produced from the archives, kept securely, refute the fools. So also the gospel produced from the royal house, that is, from God's holy church, refutes these mice who destroy fine garments. Scholion 39. “This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound.” Refutation 39. If the Lord, when he came, cared for Abraham's daughter, Abraham is not a stranger to him. For he confesses that Abraham pleased him, showing compassion to his daughter. Scholion 40. Again he cut away, “Then you will see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God,” and instead of this he made, “when you see all the righteous in the kingdom of God, and yourselves cast” — he made it “held” — “outside; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Refutation 40. See how the traces of the truth appear. For no one can hide a road. One can lead people astray from it and hide it from those who do not know it, but from those who have experience of it this is impossible. For one cannot make the ground where the road was disappear. Even if he obscures it, since the place of the road remains, the one who tampered with the road is exposed by those who know it. So see the traces of the sequence. To whom did he speak this saying, if not to the Jews? And if to the Jews, he has already shown that they were inside and are cast out from among the righteous. And who would these be, if not their fathers, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the prophets? For he did not say, “You will see Abraham entering and yourselves not entering,” but “You will see the righteous in the kingdom, and yourselves cast out.” And about the casting out he spoke in the future tense, but the righteous he showed to be there already, not strangers to these people in the flesh or in their calling, but called together with them, and already justified before his coming in the flesh. And if [he says that they] remain outside …, it is because the fathers are inside. And how, you fool, is there gnashing of teeth at the judgment, unless there is a resurrection of bodies? Scholion 41. Again he cut away, “They will come from east and west and recline in the kingdom,” and “the last will be first,” and “The Pharisees came, saying, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you,’” and “He said, ‘Go and tell that fox,’” as far as where he said, “it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem,” and “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills the prophets and stones those sent,” and “How often I wanted to gather your children as a bird,” and “your house is left to you,” and “you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed.’” Refutation 41. See such audacity: how much of the gospel he removes! It is as if someone took an animal, cut away half of its body, and tried to persuade the ignorant with the half, saying that this is what the animal is like and nothing has been taken from it. Scholion 42. Again he cut away the whole parable of the two sons, the one who took his share of the property and spent it wastefully, and the other. Refutation 42. What follows of his tampering will differ in no way from what he dared before; but he brings the loss upon himself, while the truth that is according to God remains. Scholion 43. “The law and the prophets until John, and everyone forces his way into it.” Refutation 43. If he ranks the Law and names the prophets, and does not declare the Law lawlessness or call the prophets false prophets, it is clearly confessed that the Saviour bore witness to the prophets, and it has been shown that they prophesied about him. Scholion 44. About the rich man and Lazarus the poor man, that he was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom. Refutation 44. See, Abraham is [placed] by the Lord among the living and the blessed and in the inheritance of rest. So no longer blaspheme Abraham, Marcion, who recognized his own Master and said to him, “Lord, who judge all the earth.” For see, he was attested by the Lord himself to be righteous and not a stranger to the life that the Saviour restores. Scholion 45. “But now he is comforted here,” this same Lazarus. Refutation 45. If Lazarus is comforted in Abraham's bosom, Abraham is not outside the comfort of life. Scholion 46. Abraham said, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them, since they will not listen even to one raised from the dead.” Refutation 46. It is not as one still in the world and deceived that Abraham bears witness to the Law of Moses and to the prophets, nor as one who did not know what would come of them, but after he had experienced the rest there. For after his death he is shown by the Saviour in the parable as having gained salvation by the teachings of the Law and the prophets, and having done these things before the Law. And likewise those who afterwards kept the Law and obeyed the prophets are in his bosom and go away into life with him; one of whom was Lazarus, who through the Law and the prophets was counted worthy of the life-giving bosom of Abraham's blessedness. Scholion 47. He cut away, “Say, ‘We are worthless servants; we have done what we ought to do.’” Refutation 47. He does not accept even the safeguard of the Lord's teaching. For guarding his own disciples, so that they might not lose the reward of their work through pride, he admonished them to be humble. But this man does not accept it; for in everything he was lifted up by conceit and not by truth. Scholion 48. When the ten lepers met him. He cut away much, and made it, “He sent them away, saying, ‘Show yourselves to the priests’”; and he put other things in place of others, saying, “There were many lepers in the days of Elisha the prophet, and none was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” Refutation 48. Here too the Lord calls Elisha a prophet, and himself one who fulfils what was done beforehand by Elisha as a type, to refute Marcion and all who reject God's prophets. Scholion 49. “Days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man.” Refutation 49. If he counts days and signifies times and calls himself Son of Man, then he showed both the measure of his age and a … pattern of the days of his preaching. So the Word is not without flesh, but [his] good pleasure is in a body. Scholion 50. “Someone said to him, ‘Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ And he said, ‘Do not call me good. One is good, God.’” He added “the Father,” and instead of “you know the commandments” he says “I know the commandments.” Refutation 50. So as not to show that the commandments were already written beforehand, he says “I know the commandments.” But the whole chapter is plain from the sequence. And if he calls the Father good and names him God, he rightly teaches from his Father's Law the one who wishes to inherit life, and does not reject or thrust it away, but rather bears witness that those who lived under the Law, Moses and the other prophets, have inherited eternal life. Scholion 51. “And as he drew near to Jericho, a blind man cried out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.’ And when he was healed he said, ‘Your faith has saved you.’” Refutation 51. There is no falsehood in faith; if it lies, it is not faith. At any rate he says “Son of David,” and the one who confessed the name is praised and receives his request, and he was not rebuked as a liar but blessed as faithful. So the one who, because the name was called on, granted the blind man sight, was not without flesh. For truly, and not in semblance, he was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, from Mary the holy virgin, through the Holy Spirit. Scholion 52. He cut away, “Taking the Twelve he said, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything written in the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. For he will be delivered and killed, and on the third day he will rise.’” All this he cut away. Refutation 52. So that he might walk straight in nothing, and may be exposed as tampering in every way. For he hid the sayings, supposedly in order to deny what concerns the Passion. But since he confesses later that he was crucified, the labour of his tampering will be in vain. Scholion 53. He cut away the chapter about the donkey and Bethphage, and the one about the city and the temple, because it was written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, and you are making it a den of robbers.” Refutation 53. Wickedness does not see its own refutation, for it is blind. It thinks it can hide the road of truth, which is impossible. For he leapt straight ahead, leaving out all the chapters mentioned before, because of the attested passage showing that the temple was his own and built for his name; and from Jericho he left out the whole sequence of the journey, and how he came to Bethphage. For there was, as a matter of fact, an old highway leading to Jerusalem over the Mount of Olives, not unknown to those who describe the place. But to be refuted from his own mouth, he says, “It happened on one of the days, as he was teaching in the temple, they sought to lay hands on him, and they were afraid,” as the next chapter, 54, has it. How, then, he got from Jericho to the temple will be known from that same journey and the length of the road. But [he leapt ahead] so that the tamperer might be seen to have hidden what happened on the road and what the Saviour himself said in the temple before this saying, I mean “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” and so on, as the prophecy has it. Scholion 54. “And they sought to lay hands on him, and they were afraid.” Refutation 54. This was considered and explained in the preceding refutation, together with the wording, with fitting brevity. Scholion 55. Again he cut away the passage about the vineyard let out to tenants, and “What then is this: ‘The stone which the builders rejected’?” Refutation 55. This will do us no harm. For even if he cuts it away, he has not cut it from us, but has done damage to himself and his own. For the refutation of him is sufficient through many testimonies. Scholion 56. He cut away, “That the dead are raised Moses showed at the bush, as he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And he is God of the living and not of the dead.” Refutation 56. One may wonder at the folly of this vain-minded man, how he does not understand that this testimony is equal to that of Lazarus the poor man and to the parable of those not permitted to enter the kingdom; of which parables he let the remnants stand and did not cut them away, but to his own shame left “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And since a finger was to be dipped in water after departure from here — the rich man said this to Abraham because of Lazarus — and there is gnashing of teeth and weeping, this is a sign of the resurrection of bodies, even if the brute cuts away what the Lord truly said about the resurrection of the dead. Scholion 57. He did not have this: “That the dead are raised Moses also showed, saying, God of Abraham and God of Isaac and God of Jacob, God of the living.” Refutation 57. Because the Saviour repeated the parable, we have set down something of what is written twice. The answer to his tampering has already been given in the refutation above. Scholion 58. Again he cut away, “Not a hair of your head will perish.” [Refutation 58: lost.] Scholion 59. Again he cut away, “Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains,” and what follows, because of what comes next in the passage, “until everything written is fulfilled.” Refutation 59. Having himself fallen into forgetfulness, he perhaps thinks everyone is as foolish as he is, and does not know that even if a small saying is left by him, it provides a refutation of each of the many sayings he has cut away. So nothing will prevent anyone who wishes from setting what he has admitted against these testimonies he has cut away. For it will be shown to agree with what he cut away … in the words Abraham spoke after his death, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” For what the prophets and Moses said was from God the Father and from the Lord himself, the Son of God, and from the Holy Spirit, and being written, it had to be fulfilled. Scholion 60. “He conferred with the captains how he might hand him over to them.” Refutation 60. O the derangement of Marcion! “He conferred”: who, if not Judas? To do what, if not to hand over the Saviour? And when the Saviour is handed over, the one handed over is no longer a semblance, but the truth. For if he were only spirit, he would not have been handed over to men of flesh. But being man, he was subject to touch, and having put on flesh he willingly handed himself over into the hands of human nature. But they utter things contrary to themselves out of folly. For once, when I was arguing with a certain Marcionite, one of his disciples, and saying that the gospel has it that the Spirit took him into the desert to be tempted by the devil, I heard from him: “How could Satan tempt the one who is God, and greater than himself, and his Lord (as you say), Jesus, his Master?” But I, by God's help, taking understanding on the spot, answered him: “Do you not believe that Christ was crucified?” He said, “Yes,” and did not deny it. “Who crucified him?” He said, “Men.” Then I said to him, “Who is more powerful, men or the devil?” He said, “The devil.” When he said this, I answered: “If the devil is stronger than men, and men, who are weaker, crucified Christ, it is no wonder if he was also tempted by the devil. For Christ gave himself for us in all things willingly and not under compulsion, suffering in truth, not from weakness but by choice, as an example for us, and [enduring] what concerned the devil for our salvation in the passion of the cross …, for the condemnation of sin and the abolition of death.” Scholion 61. “And he said to Peter and the rest, ‘Go and prepare, that we may eat the Passover.’” Refutation 61. The saying contains, in one testimony, a cloud of arrows against you, Marcion. For if he orders it to be prepared for him to eat the Passover, and the Passover was celebrated before Christ suffered, it certainly had its foundation from the Law. And since Christ lived according to the Law, it was plain that he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it. And if a king does not abolish a law, the ordinance in the law is not unholy, nor forbidden to the king. And since the law is holy and the ordinance acknowledged, if a king adds something to the ordinance for a greater gift, the splendour of the addition comes by his authority. And since both the lawgiving and the gift by addition belong to one and the same person, it is plain and clear to everyone that the one who made the addition does not oppose the law. It has therefore been proved that the old covenant is not opposed to the gospel or to the sequence of the prophets. And you, Marcion, have brought the refutation on yourself in many ways, or rather you were compelled by the truth itself. For the old Passover was nothing but the sacrifice of a sheep and the eating of meat, the partaking of a living creature with unleavened bread. And who compelled you not to make the refutation of you disappear completely, if not (as I said) the truth itself? For the meat-eating you abhor the Lord Jesus practised with his disciples, celebrating the Passover according to the Law. And do not say that he gave the name beforehand to the mystery he was about to celebrate when he said, “I wish to eat the Passover with you.” For so that the truth might shame you in every way, he did not perform the mystery at the beginning, so that you could not deny it; but it says, “After supper, taking such and such, he said, ‘This is such and such,’” and he left no room for tampering. For he showed that it was after he had eaten the Passover of the Jews, that is, after supper, that he came to the mystery. Scholion 62. “And he reclined, and the twelve apostles with him, and he said, ‘I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.’” Refutation 62. The Saviour reclined, Marcion, and the twelve apostles with him. If he reclined and they reclined with him, one word cannot have one meaning and another, even if there is a difference in rank and manner. Either you will grant that the Twelve too reclined in semblance, or that he too, truly having flesh, truly reclined. And “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,” to show that the Passover before his Passion was prefigured in the Law, and that it became the confirmation of his Passion and called it on to greater fulfilment; and showing, as the holy apostle also says, [that] “the law has become our schoolmaster to Christ.” And if the Law is a schoolmaster to Christ, the Law is not foreign to Christ. Scholion 63. He cut away, “For I tell you, I will not eat it from now on until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Refutation 63. He removed and tampered with this, supposedly so as not to make food or drink [part of] the kingdom of God; the brute does not know that there can be spiritual and heavenly counterparts of earthly things, partaken of in a way we do not know. For again the Saviour bears witness and says, “You will sit at my table, eating and drinking in the kingdom of heaven.” Or else he cut these things away so as to make the things in the Law have no place in the kingdom of heaven. How, then, were Elijah and Moses seen with him on the mountain in glory? But no one can do anything against the truth. Scholion 64. He cut away, “When I sent you out, did you lack anything?” and what follows, because of “And this that is written must be fulfilled: ‘And he was counted with the lawless.’” Refutation 64. Even if you cut away the sayings, their places appear from the event, since the Law went before, the prophets proclaimed beforehand, and the Lord fulfilled. Scholion 65. “He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed.” Refutation 65. Kneeling down, he knelt visibly and did it perceptibly. And if perceptibly, he performed the act of kneeling in bodily form …; so the Only-begotten did not come without flesh. For to him “every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth”: of things in heaven spiritually, of things on earth perceptibly, of things under the earth in their own form. And here he did everything in truth, being seen and found tangible by the disciples, and not appearing as a phantom. Scholion 66. “And Judas drew near to kiss him, and said.” Refutation 66. He drew near to the Master who was in the flesh, to God who had taken a body, to kiss real lips, not lips in semblance and appearance. Scholion 67. He cut away what Peter did when he struck and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant. Refutation 67. The deceiver, thinking to hide, for Peter's honour, what truly happened, cut away the saying that glorifies the Saviour and hid it. But it will do him no good; for even if he cuts it away, we know the divine signs. For after the ear was cut off the Lord took it again and healed it, so that it might be shown that he is God and did a work of God. Scholion 68. “Those who held him mocked him, beating and striking him and saying, ‘Prophesy, who is it that struck you?’” Refutation 68. That “held,” “mocked,” “beat,” “struck,” and “prophesy, who is it that struck you” were not a semblance, but indicate a bodily touch and an existence in the flesh, is clear to everyone, even if you, Marcion, blinded, will not confess the manifest truth of God. Scholion 69. He added, after “We found this man perverting the nation,” “and destroying the law and the prophets.” Refutation 69. From where will you not be caught, from where will you not be refuted, perverting the way of the Lord? For when you add here what is not written, slandering yourself — I would not say the Lord — [and] saying, “We found this man destroying the law and the prophets,” its counterpart refutes you, you who labour in vain, since the Saviour himself says, “I did not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them.” So the same one who says “I did not come to destroy” cannot be accused of destroying. For the saying did not read so, but: “We found this man perverting the people, saying that he himself is Christ, a king.” Scholion 70. An addition after “forbidding to pay tribute”: “and turning away the women and the children.” Refutation 70. Who prepares a precipice for himself, fulfilling what is written: “He who is evil to himself, to whom will he be good?” For it is an example of all audacity and wickedness and of a dangerous journey to cut away what is written and add what is not written, especially in the gospel, which cannot be abolished for ever. And the words of the addition themselves have neither place nor [hidden] meaning. For Jesus did not turn away women or children; he himself said, “Honour your father and mother,” and “What God has joined together, let not man separate.” But even if he says, “Unless someone leaves father and mother and brothers and wife and children,” and so on, “he is not my disciple,” it is not so that we should hate our fathers, but so that we should not be led by the command of fathers and mothers … into another faith or a way contrary to the Saviour's teaching. Scholion 71. “And having come to the place called Place of the Skull, they crucified him, and divided his garments, and the sun was darkened.” Refutation 71. Glory to the merciful God, who bound your chariots, Pharaoh Marcion, and when you wished to escape sank them in the sea. For though you make excuses about everything, here you will have no excuse at all. For one who does not have flesh cannot be crucified either. How did you not flee this great saying? How did you not try to hide this great event, which undoes all the perversity you devised from the beginning? For if he was crucified at all, how do you not see that the crucified one was tangible and had his hands and feet fixed with nails? This could not have been a semblance or a phantom, as you say, but truly a body, which the Lord took from Mary (flesh of our nature, and bones and the rest), since even by you it is confessed that the Lord was fixed to a cross. Scholion 72. He cut away, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Refutation 72. You cut this away well and fittingly, Marcion; for you have taken away from yourself the entrance to paradise. For neither will you enter, nor will you let those with you enter. For those who lead astray and are led astray by nature truly hate the good. Scholion 73. “And crying out with a loud voice he breathed his last.” Refutation 73. If he breathed his last, Marcion, and uttered a loud voice, from what did he breathe it out, or what was it that breathed out? It is clear, even if you do not say it: the soul, together with the Godhead, went out from the body, while the body remained without breath, as the truth has it. Scholion 74. “And behold, a man named Joseph, taking down the body, wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid it in a tomb hewn out of rock.” Refutation 74. If “taking down,” “wrapping” and “laying in a hewn tomb” do not persuade you, Marcion, who is more foolish than you? What clearer thing could Scripture have shown, when it showed the tomb, the place, its form, the laying of the body for three days, and the wrapping in the linen cloth, to show the whole truth? Scholion 75. “And the women, having returned, rested on the sabbath according to the law.” Refutation 75. From where did the women return? And why is “rested” written, if not so that Scripture might show their testimony, which refutes your folly, Marcion? For see, women bear witness, and apostles, and Jews, and angels, and Joseph, who took down and wrapped a truly tangible body. But who will set in order the one who perverts himself, self-condemned, as it is written? Scholion 76. “Those in shining clothing said, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He has been raised. Remember what he told you while he was still with you, that the Son of Man must suffer and be delivered.’” Refutation 76. Not even these holy angels persuade you, Marcion, though they confess that he was among the dead for three days, and is now living and no longer dead: always living in his Godhead and never put to death at all, but put to death in the flesh for three days and living again. For they say to the women, “He has risen, he is not here.” And what is “he has risen,” unless he had also fallen asleep? For they tell it more clearly: “For remember,” it says, “that while he was still with you he told you this, that the Son of Man must suffer.” Scholion 77. He cut away what was said to Cleopas and the other when he met them: “O foolish and slow to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary for him to suffer these things?” And instead of “in what the prophets spoke,” he made it “in what I spoke to you.” But he is refuted, since “when he broke the bread, their eyes were opened and they recognized him.” Refutation 77. Tell me, Marcion, from what did the breaking of the bread come? From a phantom, or from a solid body acting in truth? For having risen from the dead, he rose in truth in that same holy body. And you, Marcion, made “Are these not the things I spoke to you?” instead of “Are these not the things the prophets spoke?” But if he had said to them “I spoke to you,” they would certainly have recognized him from the words “I spoke to you.” How then does it say that at the breaking of the bread “their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he vanished”? For it befitted him, being God and changing his body into a spiritual one, to show that body to be real, but to vanish when he wished, because all things are possible to him. For Elisha too, being a prophet and having received grace from God, asked God that those seeking him be struck with blindness, and they were struck and did not see him as he was. And in Sodom the angels hid Lot's door, and the Sodomites did not see it. Was Lot's door a semblance too, Marcion? No objection is left to you. For he clearly broke the bread and gave it to his disciples. Scholion 78. “Why are you troubled? See my hands and my feet, for a spirit does not have bones, as you see that I have.” Refutation 78. Who would not laugh at the nonsense of the man who in folly has dragged himself and the souls of others down to Hades? If these things had not been admitted by him, his error would have been plausible and those deceived by him would have had an excuse. But now, since he admitted them and did not remove these sayings, and his followers read them, his sin and theirs remains, and his fire and theirs is inescapable, since they are without excuse; for the Saviour clearly taught that even after the resurrection he has bones and flesh, as he himself bore witness, saying, “as you see that I have.”