Against Marcion 2.12
Summary: Goodness and justice cannot be split between two gods: from the first days of creation the Creator's justice was at work, separating light from darkness and ordering every part of the world.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:351–352
Ita si societas et conspiratio bonitatis atque iustitiae separationem earum non potest capere, quo ore constitues diuersitatem duorum deorum in separatione, seorsum deputans deum bonum et seorsum deum iustum? illic consistit bonum ubi et iustum, a primordio denique creator tam bonus quam et iustus. pariter utrumque processit. bonitas eius operata est mundum. iustitia modulata est, quae etiam, dum mundum iudicauit ex bonis faciendum, [quia] cum bonitatis consilio iudicauit. iustitiae opus est, quod inter lucem et tenebras separatio pronuntiata est, inter diem et noctem, inter caelum et terram, inter aquam superiorem et inferiorem, inter maris coetum et aridae molem, inter luminaria maiora et minora, diurna atque nocturna, inter marem et feminam. [et] inter arborem agnitionis [mortis] et uitae, inter orbem et paradisum, inter aquigena et terrigena animalia. omnia ut bonitas concepit, ita iustitia distinxit. totum hoc iudicato dispositum et ordinatum est. omnis situs habitus effectus motus status ortus occasus singulorum elementorum iudicia sunt creatoris, ne putes eum exinde iudicem definiendum, quo malum coepit, atque ita iustitiam de causa mali offusces. his enim modis ostendimus: eam cum auctrice omnium bonitate prodisse, ut et ipsam ingenitam deo et naturalem nec obuenticiam deputandam, quae in domino inuenta sit arbitratrix operum eius.
English · Claude translation
So if the fellowship and harmony of goodness and justice cannot admit their separation, with what face will you set up the difference of two gods by separating them, reckoning a good god on one side and a just god on the other? Where the good is, there the just stands too. From the beginning, in short, the Creator was just as much as he was good; both went forth together. His goodness wrought the world; his justice regulated it — justice which, even when it judged that the world should be made of good things, judged with the counsel of goodness. It is the work of justice that a separation was pronounced between light and darkness, between day and night, between heaven and earth, between the upper and the lower water, between the gathering of the sea and the mass of dry land, between the greater and the lesser lights, those of day and of night, between male and female, between the tree of knowledge and the tree of life, between the world and paradise, between the animals born of water and those born of earth. As goodness conceived all things, so justice distinguished them. All of this was arranged and ordered by judgment. Every position, condition, effect, motion, state, rising, and setting of each of the elements is a judgment of the Creator — so that you should not think he is to be defined as judge only from the time evil began, and so darken justice with the cause of evil. For in these ways we have shown that justice came forth together with goodness, the author of all things, so that it too is to be reckoned inborn in God and natural, not incidental, since it has been found in the Lord as the arbiter of his works.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The separations are those of Gen 1:4–27 and 2:9. The editor deletes “mortis” (after “agnitionis”), “quia”, and “et” as spurious; they are left out of the translation.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 2.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/12/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 2.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/12/).
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