Against Marcion 4.35

Turning to the disciples in the same place, (he pronounces woe) on the author of stumbling blocks: it would have been better for him if he had not been born, or if he had been thrown into the deep with a millstone tied round his neck, than that he should cause one of those little ones, surely his disciples, to stumble. Consider what punishment he threatens. For no other will avenge the stumbling of his disciples. Recognize, then, both a judge, and one who speaks about care for his own with the same affection as the Creator long ago: “Whoever touches you is as one who touches the pupil of my eye.” The same sense belongs to the same one. He commands a sinning brother to be rebuked; whoever does not do this has surely sinned, either wishing out of hatred that his brother should persist in sin, or sparing him out of partiality. You have Leviticus: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall surely reprove your neighbor” — and surely your brother — “and you shall not incur sin because of him.” And no wonder he teaches this, who forbids you to disregard even your brother's cattle, if you find them straying on the road, rather than lead them back to your brother, much less to neglect bringing back your brother himself to himself. He also commands you to forgive a brother who sins against you, even seven times. Too little, plainly. For there is more with the Creator, who set no limit, declaring without end: “Do not remember your brother's malice,” and commands you to grant forgiveness not only to one who asks it but even to one who does not. For he wants you not merely to pardon the offense but to forget it.

How much interpretation the law of the lepers requires, regarding the kinds of that disease and the inspection by the high priest, is for us to know; for Marcion, it is to set against it the fussiness of the law, so as here too to affirm that Christ is its rival, anticipating the solemn rites of the law even in the healing of the ten lepers, whom he cleansed on the way, merely commanding them to go and show themselves to the priests, now without touch and without a word, by silent power and his will alone. As if, once Christ had been announced as the healer of sicknesses and diseases and proved by the results, there were any need to reconsider the manner of the cures, or to summon the Creator in Christ to account under the law, if he himself accomplished something otherwise than he laid down in the law; since surely the Lord works in one way by himself or through the Son, and in another (through) the prophets his servants, especially in proofs of might and power, which, as clearer and stronger, being his own, may rightly differ from those done by deputies. But things of this kind have already been said elsewhere, in the previous book. Now, even though he had said earlier that there were many lepers in Israel in the days of the prophet Elisha and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian, the number surely will not make for a difference of gods, to the destruction of the Creator, who healed one, and the preference of him who cleansed ten. For who will doubt that more could have been healed by him who had healed one than ten by the other, who had never before healed even one? But by this very saying he strikes at the distrust or the pride of Israel: that though there were many lepers there and a prophet was not lacking, even when a proof had been given, no one ran to God working in the prophet. So, since he himself was the authentic high priest of God the Father, he inspected them according to the hidden meaning of the law, which signifies that Christ is the true examiner and remover of human stains. But he also commanded what was plain in the law: “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” Why, if he was going to cleanse them first? Or was it as a mocker of the law, so that, having healed them on the way, he might show that the law, along with the priests themselves, is nothing? Well, let him see to it, to whom Christ seems so given to fancies. No, worthier interpretations and ones more in keeping with faith should be given: they were healed because, having been commanded to go to the priests according to the law, they had obeyed. For it is not credible that observers of the law earned healing from a destroyer of the law. But why did he give no such command to the earlier leper? Because neither did Elisha to Naaman the Syrian; and yet not for that reason was Elisha not the Creator's. I have answered enough; but the one who believes understands something deeper as well. Learn, then, the reasons too. The event took place in the regions of Samaria, and one of the lepers was also from there. Now Samaria had revolted from Israel, holding to that schism of the nine tribes, torn away through the prophet Ahijah, which Jeroboam had settled at Samaria. And besides, the Samaritans were always pleased with themselves over the mountains and wells of the fathers, as in John's gospel that Samaritan woman, talking with the Lord at the well: “Are you greater?” and so on; and again: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you say that one must worship at Jerusalem.” So he who had also said through Isaiah, “Woe to those who trust in the mountain of Samaria,” now himself deigning to restore it, deliberately commands them to show themselves to the priests — who surely were nowhere but where the temple was — subjecting the Samaritan to the Jew, since salvation is from the Jews, whether for Israelites or Samaritans, for the whole promise was to the tribe of Judah — so that they might know that at Jerusalem were the priests and the temple and the mother of religion and the fountain, not a well, of salvation. And so, when he saw that they had acknowledged that the law was to be fulfilled at Jerusalem, he healed them, since they were now to be justified by faith without the order of the law. That is why, marveling at that one Samaritan out of the ten, who was set free and mindful of divine grace, he does not command him to offer a gift according to the law, because he had already offered enough by giving glory to God, the Lord wishing this too to interpret the law. And yet to what God did the Samaritan give thanks, when not even an Israelite had until then learned of another god? To what other than the one to whom all those formerly healed by Christ gave thanks? And so he heard, “Your faith has saved you,” because he had understood that he ought to make the true offering to almighty God, namely thanksgiving, at his true temple and before his true high priest, Christ.

But neither can the Pharisees seem to have asked the Lord when the kingdom of another god would come, so long as no other god had been made known by Christ, nor can he seem to have answered about the kingdom of any other than the one about whose kingdom he was asked. “The kingdom of God,” he says, “does not come with observation, nor do they say, ‘See, here! See, there!’; for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” Who will not interpret “is within you” thus: that is, in your hand, in your power, if you hear and do God's commandment? And if the kingdom of God lies in the commandment, then set Moses against it, after the manner of our own antitheses, and the sense is one. “The commandment,” he says, “is not high nor far from you. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up into heaven and bring it down to us, and having heard it we will do it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross over and fetch it for us, and having heard it we will do it?’ The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart and in your hands, to do it.” This will be: “Not here nor there; for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” And lest heretical boldness argue that the Lord answered them not about the Creator's kingdom, about which he was asked, but about his own, what follows stands in the way. For by saying that the Son of Man must first suffer many things and be rejected before his coming, in which the kingdom too will be revealed in substance, he showed that the kingdom about which he had answered was his own, since it awaited his sufferings and rejection. And since he was to be rejected and afterwards acknowledged and taken up and exalted, he took even the word “rejected” from the place where, in the riddle of the stone, both his manifestations were sung in David, the first to be refused, the second to be honored: “The stone,” he says, “which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner; this was done by the Lord.” For it would be empty to believe that God prophesied about the dishonor or glory of some piece of flint, and did not portend him in the figure of a stone too, whom he had portended also in the figure of a rock and of a mountain.

But if he is speaking of his own coming, why does a mild and gentle god compare it to the dark and dreadful days of Noah and Lot? Why does he warn us to remember Lot's wife, who did not despise the Creator's command with impunity, if he will not come with judgment to avenge his own commands? Even if he does avenge like the Creator, if he judges, he ought not to have formed me by the proofs of the one he is destroying, lest it seem to be the Creator who forms me. But if here too he is not speaking of his own coming but of that of the Jews' Christ, let us wait still for him to preach something about his own, believing meanwhile that he is the Creator's Christ, since he preaches him in every place.