Against Marcion 4.14

I come now to his regular sayings, through which he introduces the distinctive character of his teaching; to Christ's edict, so to speak: “Blessed are the beggars” (for so the interpretation of the Greek word demands), “for theirs is the kingdom of God.” Already the very fact that he began with blessings belongs to the Creator, who consecrated all things, as he brought them forth, with no other word than a blessing: “My heart,” he says, “has uttered a most excellent word.” This will be the most excellent word, the word of blessing, which is recognized as inaugurating the new testament too, after the example of the old. What wonder, then, if he entered upon his work through a saying of this kind from the dispositions of the Creator, who always loves, comforts, protects, and vindicates beggars, the poor, the lowly, widows, and orphans, so that you may believe this seemingly private kindness of Christ to be a stream from the springs of the Savior? Truly I do not know where to turn among so great a multitude of such sayings, as in a forest, or a meadow, or an orchard. They must be gathered here and there as they come. The psalm cries out: “Do justice to the orphan and the beggar, and treat the lowly and poor justly; set free the poor, and rescue the beggar from the hand of the sinner.” Likewise the seventy-first psalm: “He will judge the beggars of the people in righteousness, and will save the sons of the poor”; and in what follows, of Christ: “All nations will serve him” (but David ruled over the one Jewish nation, so let no one think it spoken of David, because he too took in the lowly and those in distress), “because he has set free,” it says, “the beggar from the mighty; he will spare the beggar and the poor, and will save the souls of the poor; from usury and injustice he will redeem their souls, and their name will be honored in his sight.” Likewise: “Let the sinners be turned into the underworld, all the nations that forget God; for the beggar will not be forgotten for ever; the endurance of the poor will not perish for ever.” Likewise: “Who is like our God, who dwells on high and looks upon lowly things in heaven and on earth; who raises the beggar from the earth and lifts the poor from the dunghill, to make him sit with the princes of the people,” in his kingdom, of course? So too earlier, in the books of Kingdoms, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, giving glory to God in the Spirit: “Who raises the poor from the earth,” she says, “and lifts the beggar from the dunghill, to make him sit with the mighty of the people and on thrones of glory,” royal thrones, of course. And through Isaiah, how he inveighs against the oppressors of the needy! “But you, why have you burned my vineyard, and the plunder of the beggar is in your houses? Why do you injure my people and put the face of the beggars to shame?” And again: “Woe to those who write wickedness! For writing they write what is evil, avoiding the judgments of the beggars and plundering the rights of the poor of my people.” These judgments he demands for orphans and widows too, as for the needy, for their comfort: “Do justice to the orphan and treat the widow justly, and come, let us be reconciled, says the Lord.” He who has so great an affection for every condition of lowliness, his too will be the kingdom which Christ promises, since those to whom it is promised have long belonged to his affection. For even if you think that the Creator's promises were earthly and Christ's heavenly: it is well that no heaven of any other god has yet appeared, except his to whom the earth also belongs; it is well that the Creator promised lesser things first, so that I may more easily believe him about greater things too than one who never first built up belief in his generosity with lesser things. “Blessed are the hungry, for they will be filled.” I could have transferred this heading to the one above, since the hungry are none other than the poor and the beggars, if the Creator had not appointed this promise too particularly, as a groundwork for his gospel, of course; since through Isaiah he says of those whom he was to call from the end of the earth, the nations, of course: “Behold, they will come swiftly, lightly” (swiftly, as hastening at the end of the times; lightly, as without the burdens of the former law); “they will not hunger or thirst.” Therefore they will be filled, which is certainly not promised except to the hungry and thirsty. And again: “Behold,” he says, “those who serve me will be filled, but you will hunger; behold, those who serve me will drink, but you will thirst.” We shall see whether these opposites too are furnished beforehand for Christ. Meanwhile, the promise of fullness to the hungry belongs to the Creator. “Blessed are those who weep, for they will laugh.” Run through the saying of Isaiah: “Behold, those who serve me will be delighted, but you will be put to shame; behold, those who serve me will exult in joy, but you will cry out for sorrow of heart.” These opposites too we shall recognize in Christ. Certainly delight and exultation in joy are promised to those in the opposite condition, the sad, the sorrowful, and the anxious. So too the hundred and twenty-fifth psalm says: “Those who sow in tears will reap in exultation.” Further, laughter comes to those who exult and receive joy, just as weeping to those who grieve and suffer. So the Creator, foretelling the occasions of laughter and weeping, was first to say that those who weep would laugh. So he who began with the comfort of the poor, the lowly, the hungry, and the weeping was eager at once to present himself as the one whom he had shown through Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” (“Blessed are the beggars, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”); “he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted” (“Blessed are those who hunger, for they will be filled”); “to call the sick” (“Blessed are those who weep, for they will laugh”); “to give to those who mourn in Zion glory, and instead of ashes the oil of joy, and a garment of glory instead of a spirit of weariness.” If Christ, as soon as he was received, carried out these things, either he is the one who foretold that he would come for these things, or, if the one who foretold has not yet come (I would say it absurdly, but necessarily), perhaps he commissioned Marcion's Christ! “Blessed will you be when men hate you and reproach you and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man.” By this declaration he doubtless exhorts to endurance. What less does the Creator say through Isaiah? “Do not fear reproach from men, and do not be diminished by their scorn.” What reproach, what scorn? That which was to come on account of the Son of Man. Which Son of Man? The one who is according to the Creator. How shall we prove it? From the hatred foretold against him too, as through Isaiah to the Jews, the authors of the hatred: “Because of you my name is blasphemed among the nations”; and elsewhere: “Hallow him who limits his own life, who is held in contempt by the nations, by servants and magistrates.” For if hatred was foretold against that Son of Man who is according to the Creator, and the gospel testifies that the name of Christians, certainly derived from Christ, will be hated on account of the Son of Man, that is, Christ, then it makes the cause of the hatred that Son of Man who was according to the Creator, against whom the hatred was foretold. And certainly, if he had not yet come, the hatred of the name, which is at work today, could not have come before the person who bears the name. For he is both hallowed among us, and he limits his own life, laying it down for us, and he is held in contempt by the nations. So the one who was born will be the Son of Man, on account of whom our name too is rejected.