Against Marcion 4.19
Summary: The women who served Jesus, his warnings about hearing, and his saying “Who is my mother?” all fit the Creator's prophecies, and the last shows that Jesus really had a mother and brothers.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:480–484
Quod diuites Christo mulieres adhaerebant, quae et de facultatibus suis ministrabant ei, inter quas et uxor regis procuratoris, de prophetia est. has enim uocabat per Esaiam: mulieres diuites, exsurgite et audite uocem meam. ut discipulas primo, dehinc ut operarias et ministras ostenderet: filiae in spe, audite sermones (meos.) diei anni mementote cum labore in spe; cum labore enim prosequebantur et ob spem ministrabant. Aeque de parabolis semel sufficiat probatum hoc genus eloquii a creatore promissum. at nunc illa quoque pronuntiatio eius ad populum: aure audietis et non audietis dedit Christo frequenter inculcare: qui habet aures audiat, non quasi ei diuersitate auditum permitteret Christus, quem ademisset creator, sed quia comminationem exhortatio sequebatur. [primo: aure audietis et non audietis, dehinc: qui habet aures audiat.] non enim audiebant ultro qui aures habebant, sed ostendebant aures cordis necessarias, quibus illos audituros negarat creator, et ideo per Christum adicit: uidete, quomodo audiatis, id est: ne aure audiatis et non audiatis, non corde scilicet audientes, sed aure. si dignum sensum pronuntiationi accommodes pro sensu eius, qui auditui suscitabat, etiam dicendo: uidete, quomodo audiatis non audituris minabatur. sane non minatur mitissimus deus, quia nec iudicat nec irascitur. hoc probat etiam subiacens sensus: ei, qui habet, dabitur, ab eo autem, qui non habet, etiam quod habere se putat auferetur ei. quid dabitur? adiectio fidei uel intellectus uel salus ipsa. quid auferetur? utique quod dabitur. a quo dabitur auferetur? si a creatore auferetur, ab eo et dabitur; si a deo Marcionis dabitur, ab eo et auferetur. quoquo tamen nomine comminatur ablationem, non erit eius dei, qui nescit comminari, qui non nouit irasci. miror autem, cum lucernam negat abscondi solere qui se tanto saeculo absconderat, maius et necessarius lumen, cum omnia de occulto in apertum repromittit qui deum suum usque adhuc obumbrat, expectans, opinor, nasci Marcionem. Venimus ad constantissimum argumentum omnium, qui domini natiuitatem in controuersiam deferunt. ipse, inquiunt, contestatur se non esse natum dicendo: quae mihi mater et qui mihi fratres? ita semper haeretici aut nudas et simplices uoces coniecturis quo uolunt rapiunt aut rursus condicionales et rationales simplicitatis condicione dissoluunt, ut hoc in loco. nos contrario dicimus primo non potuisse illi adnuntiari, quod mater et fratres eius foris starent quaerentes uidere eum, si nulla illi mater et fratres nulli fuissent, quos utique norat qui adnuntiarat, uel retro notos uel tunc ibidem compertos, dum eum uidere desiderant uel dum ipsi nuntium mandant. ad hanc primam propositionem nostram solet ex diuerso responderi: (quid enim, si temptandi gratia nuntiatum est ei? sed hoc scriptura non dicit, quae quanto significare solet ex temptatione quid factum, — ecce legis doctor adsurrexit temptans eum, et de tributi consultatione: et accesserunt ad eum Pharisaei temptantes eum — tanto, ubi non facit temptationis mentionem, non admittit temptationis interpretationem. et tamen ex abundanti causas temptationis expostulo, cui rei temptauerint illum per nominationem matris et fratrum. si, ut scirent, natusne esset an non, quando de hoc fuit quaestio, quam ex ist temptatione discuterent? quis autem dubitaret natum quem uideret hominem? quem audisset filium se hominis professum? quem de conspectu omnis humanae qualitatis dubitaret deum aut filium dei credere, propheten facilius existimans, licet magnum aliquem, utique tamen natum? etiam si in explorationem natiuitatis temptandus fuisset, quodcumque aliud argumentum temptationi competisset, quam per earum personarum mentionem, quas potuit etiam natus non habere. dic mihi, omnibus natis mater aduiuit? omnibus natis adgenerantur et fratres? non licet patres magis et sorores habere uel et neminem? sed et census constat actos sub Augusto tunc in Iudaea per Sentium Saturninum, apud quos genus eius inquirere potuissent. adeo nullo modo consistit ratio temptationis istius, et uere mater et fratres eius foris stabant, et superest dispicere sensum non simpliciter pronuntiantis: quae mihi mater aut fratres? quasi ad generis et natiuitatis negationem, sed [et] ex causae necessitate et condicione rationali. tam proximas enim personas foris stare, extraneis intus defixis ad sermones eius, amplius et auocare eum a sollemni opere t quaerentes merito indignatus est non tam negauit quam abdicauit. atque adeo cum praemisisset: quis mihi mater et qui mihi fratres? Subiungens: nisi qui audiunt uerba mea et faciunt ea, transtulit sanguinis nomina in alios, quos magis proximos prae fide iudicaret. nemo autem transfert quid, nisi [ab eo] qui habet id, quod transfert. si ergo matrem et fratres eos fecit, qui non erant, quomodo negauit eos, qui erant? ceterum ex hoc magis matrem et fratres confitebatur, quod illos nolebat agnoscere, meritorum scilicet condicione, non ex proximorum negatione, in semet ipso docens qui patrem aut matrem aut fratres praeponeret uerbo dei non esse dignum discipulum. quod alios adoptabat, confirmabat quos ex offensa negauit, quibus non ut ueriores substituit, sed ut digniores. denique nihil magnum, si fidem sanguini praeposuit, quem non habebat.
English · Claude translation
That wealthy women attached themselves to Christ and also ministered to him from their means, among them the wife of the king's steward, comes from prophecy. For he called these through Isaiah: “Rich women, rise up and hear my voice,” to show them first as disciples, then as workers and ministers: “Daughters, in hope hear (my) words; remember the day of the year with labor in hope”; for with labor they followed him, and in hope they ministered.
Likewise, regarding parables, let it suffice to have proved once that this kind of speech was promised by the Creator. But now that saying of his to the people too, “With the ear you will hear and not hear,” gave Christ reason to press home often: “He who has ears, let him hear,” not as though Christ, being a different god, granted a hearing which the Creator had taken away, but because exhortation followed the threat. For those who had ears were not hearing of their own accord; he was showing that the ears of the heart were needed, with which the Creator had said they would not hear; and therefore through Christ he adds: “Take heed how you hear,” that is, lest you hear with the ear and not hear, hearing, that is, not with the heart but with the ear. If you fit a worthy sense to the saying, according to the mind of him who was rousing them to hear, then even by saying “Take heed how you hear” he was threatening those who would not hear. Surely the most gentle god does not threaten, since he neither judges nor is angry. This is proved also by the sense that follows: “To him who has, more will be given, but from him who has not, even what he thinks he has will be taken away.” What will be given? An increase of faith or of understanding, or salvation itself. What will be taken away? Surely what will be given. By whom will it be given, and taken away? If it is taken away by the Creator, it will also be given by him; if it is given by Marcion's god, it will also be taken away by him. Yet under whatever name he threatens the taking away, it will not belong to the god who does not know how to threaten, who knows nothing of anger. But I marvel that he should say a lamp is not usually hidden, he who had hidden himself through so long an age, a greater and more necessary light; that he should promise to bring everything out of secrecy into the open, he who keeps his god in shadow even until now, waiting, I suppose, for Marcion to be born.
We come to the argument most constantly used by all who dispute the Lord's birth. He himself, they say, testifies that he was not born, by saying: “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” So heretics always either snatch plain and simple words by conjecture to whatever sense they wish, or on the other hand dissolve words that are conditional and reasoned by treating them as simple, as in this place. We, on the contrary, say first that it could not have been announced to him that his mother and brothers were standing outside seeking to see him, if he had had no mother and no brothers; the one who announced it surely knew them, either known from before or learned then and there, while they were desiring to see him or while they themselves were sending the message. To this first proposition of ours the other side usually replies: (What if it was announced to him in order to test him? But Scripture does not say this; and just as it usually indicates when something was done by way of testing — “Behold, a lawyer stood up, testing him,” and on the question of tribute: “And the Pharisees came to him, testing him” — so, where it makes no mention of testing, it does not admit an interpretation of testing. And yet, more than is needed, I demand the reasons for the test: for what purpose would they have tested him by naming his mother and brothers? If it was to learn whether he had been born or not, when was this ever in question, that they should settle it by that test? Who would doubt that one he saw to be a man had been born? One he had heard declare himself the Son of Man? One whom, seeing every human quality in him, he would hesitate to believe God or the Son of God, more readily thinking him a prophet, however great, but surely born? Even if he had had to be tested to probe his birth, any other proof would have suited the test better than a mention of those persons whom he could have lacked even though born. Tell me, does a mother outlive everyone who is born? Are brothers born after everyone who is born? May one not rather have fathers and sisters, or even no one? Besides, it is established that a census had then been taken in Judea under Augustus by Sentius Saturninus, in whose records they could have inquired into his family. So the theory of this testing does not stand at all; his mother and brothers truly were standing outside, and it remains to discern the sense of one who says, not simply, “Who is my mother or my brothers?” as though denying his family and birth, but out of the necessity of the case and on a reasoned condition. For when persons so close stood outside, while strangers inside were intent on his words, and moreover sought to call him away from his solemn work, he was rightly indignant; he did not so much deny them as disown them. And so, when he had first said, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?”, and then added, “except those who hear my words and do them,” he transferred the names of blood to others, whom he judged closer on account of faith. But no one transfers anything except one who has what he transfers. If, then, he made mother and brothers of those who were not, how did he deny those who were? Rather, by this very thing he the more confessed that he had a mother and brothers, in that he refused to acknowledge them, on the condition of deserts, that is, not by denying his kin, teaching in his own person that whoever put father or mother or brothers before the word of God was not a worthy disciple. By adopting others he confirmed those whom he denied because of offense, putting the others in their place not as more real but as more worthy. In short, it would be nothing great if he put faith before a blood kinship that he did not have.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are Luke 8:2–3; Isa 32:9–10 (in a Greek-derived form); Isa 6:9; Luke 8:8, 18, 16–17, 19–21; Luke 10:25; Luke 20:20–22. Tertullian names the governor of the census as Sentius Saturninus, not Quirinius as in Luke 2:2. The Latin opere t quaerentes (“sought to call him away”) is probably damaged in the digital text; ex ist temptatione is rendered “by that test”. Words in parentheses are the editor's supplements; the editor deletes as a gloss the sentence primo: aure audietis … qui habet aures audiat, and as spurious the words et (before ex causae necessitate) and ab eo (before qui habet); they are left out of the translation.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (letter misread in the digital text; letters misread in the digital text; letters transposed in the digital text; split word in the digital text; split word with stray points in the digital text; words run together in the digital text): ipBe/ → ipse,; sem. per → semper; aureaudietis → aure audietis; quiaudiunt → qui audiunt; ex boc → ex hoc; israci → irasci; extra.. neis → extraneis; praemisiss et → praemisisset.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Marc. 4.19 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/4/19/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Marc. 4.19 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-marcionem/4/19/).
Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)
Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text