Against Marcion 2.5
Summary: To the Marcionite charge that a good, all-knowing, all-powerful God would have prevented the fall, Tertullian answers that God's works prove all three attributes, and that the fall came from the free will God gave man as the very mark of his image.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:339–341
Iam hinc ad quaestiones t omnes, o canes, quos foras apostolus expellit, latrantes in deum ueritatis. haec sunt argumentationum ossa, quae obroditis: (si deus bonus et praescius futuri et auertendi mali potens, cur hominem, et quidem imaginem et similitudinem suam, immo et substantiam suam, per animae scilicet censum, passus est labi de obsequio legis in mortem, circumuentum a diabolo? si enim et bonus, qui euenire tale quid nollet, et praescius, qui euenturum non ignoraret, et potens, qui depellere ualeret, nullo modo euenisset quod sub his tribus condicionibus diuinae maiestatis euenire non posset. quod si euenit, absolutum est e contrario deum neque bonum credendum neque praescium neque potentem; siquidem in quantum nihil tale euenisset, si talis deus, id est bonus et praescius et potens, in tantum ideo euenit, quia non talis deus), ad haec prius est istas species in creatore defendere, quae in dubium uocantur, bonitatem dico et praescientiam et potentiam. nec immorabor huic articulo, praeeunte definitione etiam ipsius Christi ex operibus ineundae probationis. opera creatoris utrumque testantur, et bonitatem eius, qua bona, sicut ostendimus, et potentiam, qua tanta, et quidem ex nihilo. nam et si ex aliqua materia, ut quidam uolunt, hoc ipso tamen ex nihilo; dum non id fuerunt, quod sunt. postremo uel sic magna, dum bona, uel sic deus potens, dum omnia ipsius, unde et omnipotens. de praescientia uero quid dicam, quae tantos habet testes, quantos fecit prophetas? quamquam quis praescientiae titulus in omnium auctore. qui uniuersa utique (et) disponendo praesciit et praesciendo disposuit? certe ipsam transgressionem, quam nisi praescisset. nec cautionem eius delegasset sub metu mortis. igitur si et fuerunt in deo istae facultates, prae quibus nihil mali euenire homini aut potuisset aut debuisset, et nihilominus euenit. uideamus et hominis condicionem, ne per illam potius euenerit quod per deum euenire non potuit. liberum et sui arbitrii et suae potestatis inuenio hominem a deo institutum, nullam magis imaginem et similitudinem dei in illo animaduertens quam eiusmodi status formam. neque enim facie et corporalibus lineis, tam uariis in genere humano, ad uniformem deum expressus est, sed in ea substantia, quam ab ipso deo traxit, id est anima, ad formam dei, spondentis et arbitrii sui libertatem et potestatem, signatus est. hunc statum eius confirmauit etiam ipsa lex tunc a deo posita. non enim poneretur lex ei, qui non haberet obsequium debitum legi in sua potestate, nec rursus comminatio mortis transgressioni adscriberetur, si non et contemptus legis in arbitrii libertatem homini deputaretur. sic et in posteris legibus creatoris inuenias. proponentis ante hominem bonum et malum, uitam et mortem. sed nec alias totum ordinem disciplinae per praecepta dispositum a uocante deo, et minante et hortante, nisi et ad obsequium et ad contemptum libero et uoluntario homini.
English · Claude translation
From here, then, on to all the questions — you dogs, whom the apostle drives outside, barking at the God of truth. These are the bones of argument you gnaw: “If God is good, and foreknows the future, and has power to avert evil, why did he allow man — his own image and likeness, indeed his own substance, by the origin of the soul — to fall away from obedience to the law into death, circumvented by the devil? For if he were good, and so unwilling that such a thing should happen, and foreknowing, and so not ignorant that it would happen, and powerful, and so able to prevent it, what could not happen under these three conditions of divine majesty would in no way have happened. But if it did happen, the contrary is settled: God is to be believed neither good nor foreknowing nor powerful. For in so far as nothing of the kind would have happened if God were such — that is, good, foreknowing, and powerful — to that extent it happened because God is not such.”
To this we must first defend in the Creator the attributes that are called into doubt: I mean goodness, foreknowledge, and power. And I shall not linger on this point, since Christ himself goes before us with the rule that proof is to be undertaken from works. The Creator's works testify to both his goodness, in that they are good, as we have shown, and his power, in that they are so great, and made moreover out of nothing. For even if they were made out of some matter, as some will have it, even so they were made out of nothing, since they were not what they are. In short, they are great in this way, by being good; and God is powerful in this way, in that all things are his — which is why he is called almighty. And what shall I say of his foreknowledge, which has as many witnesses as it has made prophets? Yet what need is there to claim foreknowledge for the author of all things, who surely foreknew all things by arranging them and arranged them by foreknowing them? Certainly he foreknew the transgression itself; had he not foreknown it, he would not have enjoined caution against it under fear of death.
If, then, these faculties were in God, on account of which no evil either could or should have befallen man, and it nevertheless befell him, let us look also at man's condition, to see whether it happened rather through it, since it could not have happened through God. I find that man was established by God free, master of his own choice and his own power; and I observe no image and likeness of God in him more than the form of such a state. For it is not by his face and bodily features, so varied in the human race, that he was modelled on the God who is uniform; but in that substance which he drew from God himself, that is, the soul, answering to the form of God, he was stamped with the freedom and power of his own choice. This state of his was confirmed by the very law that God then laid down. For a law would not be laid down for one who did not have in his power the obedience due to the law; nor again would the threat of death be attached to transgression, if contempt of the law were not also reckoned to man as lying within the freedom of his choice. So too you will find in the Creator's later laws, as he sets before man good and evil, life and death. Nor would the whole order of discipline have been arranged through precepts, with God calling, threatening, and exhorting, except for man, free and willing both to obey and to despise.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The dogs driven outside recall Phil 3:2 and Rev 22:15; proof from works recalls Luke 6:44 (cf. John 10:37–38). Good and evil, life and death, are set before Israel in Deut 30:15, 19. The threat of death is Gen 2:17. The “t” before “omnes” in the digital text is probably the editor's crux mark (†) misread; it is not translated.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (Stray comma in the digital text.): labi de, obsequio → labi de obsequio.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 2.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/5/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 2.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/2/5/).
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