Against Marcion 2.3
Summary: The Creator's goodness is eternal: before anything existed he willed to make a world through which he could be known, so his goodness is older than time itself, unlike the late-arriving goodness of Marcion's god.
Latin text · CSEL 47:336–337
Igitur oportebit ineuntes examinationem in deum notum, si quaeritur in qua conditione sit notus, ab operibus eius incipere, quae priora sunt homine, ut statim cum ipso comperta bonitas eius et exinde constituta atque praescripta aliquem sensum suggerat nobis intellegendi, qualiter sequens rerum ordinatio euaserit. possunt autem discipuli Marcionis recognoscentes bonitatem dei nostri dignam quoque deo agnoscere per eosdem titulos, per quos indignam ostendimus in deo illorum. iam hoc ipsum, quod materia est agnitionis suae, non apud alium inuenit, sed de suo sibi fecit. prima denique bonitas creatoris, qua se deus noluit in aeternum latere, id est non esse aliquid, cui deus cognosceretur. quid enim tam bonum quam notitia et fructus dei? nam etsi nondum apparebat hoc bonum esse, quia nondum erat quicquam, cui appareret, sed deus praesciebat, quid boni appariturum esset, et ideo in suam summam commisit bonitatem, apparituri boni negotiatricem. non utique repentinam, nec obuenticiae [bonitatis] nec prouocaticiae animationis, quasi exinde censendam, quo coepit operari. si enim ipsa constituit initium exinde, quo coepit operari, non habuit initium ipsa, cum fecit. initio autem facto ab ea, (ab ea) etiam ratio temporum nata est, utpote quibus distinguendis et notandis sidera et luminaria caelestia disposita sunt. erunt enim, inquit, in tempora et menses et annos. ergo nec tempus habuit ante tempus quae fecit tempus, sicut nec initium ante initium quae constituit initium. atque ita carens et ordine initii et modo temporis de inmensa et interminabili aetate censebitur nec poterit repentina uel obuenticia et prouocaticia reputari, non habens unde reputetur, id est aliquam temporis speciem, sed (est) aeterna et deo ingenita et perpetua praesumenda ac per hoc deo digna, suffundens iam hinc bonitatem dei Marcionis, non dico initiis et temporibus, sed ipsa malitia creatoris posteriorem, si tamen malitia potuit a bonitate committi.
English · Claude translation
In entering, then, on the examination of the known God, if it is asked in what condition he is known, we must begin from his works, which are prior to man, so that his goodness — discovered at once along with him, and thereafter established and laid down — may suggest to us some sense of how to understand the way the subsequent ordering of things turned out. And Marcion's disciples, recognizing the goodness of our God, can also acknowledge it as worthy of God under the same headings under which we showed it unworthy in their god. First, this very point: the material for his being acknowledged he did not find in another's possession, but made for himself out of his own. The first goodness of the Creator, then, is that by which God did not will to lie hidden forever — that is, that there should be nothing by which God might be known. For what is so good as the knowledge and enjoyment of God? For even though it did not yet appear that this was good, since there was not yet anything to which it could appear, yet God foreknew what good would appear, and therefore entrusted it to his supreme goodness, as the agent of the good that was to appear — a goodness surely not sudden, nor of an accidental or provoked impulse, as though it were to be reckoned from the moment it began to work. For if it itself set the beginning from the moment it began to work, it had no beginning itself when it made the beginning. And once the beginning had been made by it, from it was born the reckoning of times as well, for distinguishing and marking which the stars and heavenly lights were set in order: “For they shall be,” it says, “for times and months and years.” So it had no time before time, since it made time, just as it had no beginning before the beginning, since it established the beginning. And so, lacking both the order of a beginning and the measure of time, it will be reckoned of an immeasurable and endless age, and cannot be thought sudden or accidental or provoked, having nothing from which to be so reckoned — that is, any kind of time. It must be presumed eternal, inborn in God and perpetual, and therefore worthy of God; and from this point it puts to shame the goodness of Marcion's god, which is later, I do not say than beginnings and times, but than the very malice of the Creator — if indeed malice could have been produced by goodness.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotation is Gen 1:14.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (Stray letter (line marker) in the digital text.): notum, I si → notum, si; illorum.i iam → illorum. iam; negotiatricem.I non → negotiatricem. non; quibus i distinguendis → quibus distinguendis.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 2.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/3/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 2.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/3/).
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