Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 09:33 AM

The Jewish context for Marcionitism is even more interesting when we consider the question of how the theological notion of a complete schism between the powers of 'good' and 'justice' could have arisen. It is worth noting that in mystical Judaism there is a consistent understanding in early sources of 'the people' (= the nation) having in effect control, holding the key to 'the Lord' and 'God' coming together as one. If the nation was iniquitous then the face of the cherubim in the holy of holies turned away from one another symbolizing the end to their union, their 'togetherness' with one another. One can imagine then that Marcionitism could have developed from the idea that (a) the Jews were wretchedly vile/sinful before the destruction of the temple and (b) as such/because of this (religious minds always confound cause and consequence) lost sight of the power of 'good/mercy.' The good god became unknown/separated from them and came back to earth in the form of Jesus and warned them of the catastrophic consequences of their iniquity (= the destruction of the temple).

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 09:39 AM

It is clear from Tertullian's account of creation that 'God' (= the Marcionite god) had no part in the creation of man. This understanding is not supported by existing texts of the Pentateuch where 'Lord God' has been (artificially?) established to deny the original heretical understanding (= the 'two powers' in heaven doctrine extended into mainstream Judaism). But the understanding that one God (= the Lord) was responsible for creating man and another God secretly tried to save man is also well established in heretical Christian sources. Was there a variant account of Genesis or a variant Genesis text that established the heretical understanding? No existent Qumran fragments help shed light on this subject. Jubilees mostly attributes creation solely to 'the Lord':

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All the properties of God ought to be as rational as they are natural. I require reason in His goodness, because nothing else can properly be accounted good than that which is rationally good; much less can goodness itself be detected in any irrationality. More easily will an evil thing which has something rational belonging to it be accounted good, than that a good thing bereft of all reasonable quality should escape being regarded as evil. Now I deny that the goodness of Marcion's god is rational, on this account first, because it proceeded to the salvation of a human creature which was alien to him. I am aware of the plea which they will adduce, that that is rather a primary and perfect goodness which is shed voluntarily and freely upon strangers without any obligation of friendship, on the principle that we are bidden to love even our enemies, such as are also on that very account strangers to us. Now, inasmuch as from the first he had no regard for man, a stranger to him from the first, he settled beforehand, by this neglect of his, that he had nothing to do with an alien creature. Besides, the rule of loving a stranger or enemy is preceded by the precept of your loving your neighbour as yourself; and this precept, although coming from the Creator's law, even you ought to receive, because, so far from being abrogated by Christ, it has rather been confirmed by Him. For you are bidden to love your enemy and the stranger, in order that you may love your neighbour the better. The requirement of the undue is an augmentation of the due benevolence. But the due precedes the undue, as the principal quality, and more worthy of the other, for its attendant and companion. Since, therefore, the first step in the reasonableness of the divine goodness is that it displays itself on its proper object in righteousness, and only at its second stage on an alien object by a redundant righteousness over and above that of scribes and Pharisees, how comes it to pass that the second is attributed to him who fails in the first, not having man for his proper object, and who makes his goodness on this very account defective? Moreover, how could a defective benevolence, which had no proper object whereon to expend itself, overflow on an alien one? [1.23]

Notice the use of Lord (= Yahweh) at the end of the chapter:

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Such a deliverer, I had almost said kidnapper, would even meet with condemnation in the world. Now, no other than this is the character of Marcion's god, swooping upon an alien world, snatching away man from his God, the son from his father, the pupil from his tutor, the servant from his master--to make him impious to his God, undutiful to his father, ungrateful to his tutor, worthless to his master. If, now, the rational benevolence makes man such, what sort of being prithee would the irrational make of him? None I should think more shameless than him who is baptized to his god in water which belongs to another, who stretches out his hands to his god towards a heaven which is another's, who kneels to his god on ground which is another's, offers his thanksgivings to his god over bread which belongs to another, and distributes by way of alms and charity, for the sake of his god, gifts which belong to another God. Who, then, is that so good a god of theirs, that man through him becomes evil; so propitious, too, as to incense against man that other God who is, indeed, his own proper Lord?

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 09:43 AM

Tertullian's defence of the 'just god' and attack against Marcion's purely 'good' god. Clearly the argumentation works with the traditional Jewish division of powers (rather than 'good and evil'):

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But it is here sufficient that the extreme perversity of their god is proved from the mere exposition of his lonely goodness, in which they refuse to ascribe to him such emotions of mind as they censure in the Creator. Now, if he is susceptible of no feeling of rivalry, or anger, or damage, or injury, as one who refrains from exercising judicial power, I cannot tell how any system of discipline--and that, too, a plenary one--can be consistent in him. For how is it possible that he should issue commands, if he does not mean to execute them; or forbid sins, if he intends not to punish them, but rather to decline the functions of the judge, as being a stranger to all notions of severity and judicial chastisement? For why does he forbid the commission of that which he punishes not when perpetrated? It would have been far more right, if he had not forbidden what he meant not to punish, than that he should punish what he had not forbidden. Nay, it was his duty even to have permitted what he was about to prohibit in so unreasonable a way, as to annex no penalty to the offence. For even now that is tacitly permitted which is forbidden without any infliction of vengeance. Besides, he only forbids the commission of that which he does not like to have done. Most listless, therefore, is he, since he takes no offence at the doing of what he dislikes to be done, although displeasure ought to be the companion of his violated will. Now, if he is offended, he ought to be angry; if angry, he ought to inflict punishment. For such infliction is the just fruit of anger, and anger is the debt of displeasure, and displeasure (as I have said) is the companion of a violated will. However, he inflicts no punishment; therefore he takes no offence.

He takes no offence, therefore his will is not wronged, although that is done which he was unwilling to have done; and the transgression is now committed with the acquiescence of his will, because whatever offends not the will is not committed against the will. Now, if this is to be the principle of the divine virtue or goodness, to be unwilling indeed that a thing be done and to prohibit it, and yet not be moved by its commission, we then allege that he has been moved already when he declared his unwillingness; and that it is vain for him not to be moved by the accomplishment of a thing after being moved at the possibility thereof, when he willed it not to be done. For he prohibited it by his not willing it. Did he not therefore do a judicial act, when he declared his unwillingness, and consequent prohibition of it? For he judged that it ought not to be done, and he deliberately declared that it should be forbidden. Consequently by this time even he performs the part of a judge. If it is unbecoming for God to discharge a judicial function, or at least only so far becoming that He may merely declare His unwillingness, and pronounce His prohibition, then He may not even punish for an offence when it is committed. Now, nothing is so unworthy of the Divine Being as not to execute retribution on what He has disliked and forbidden.

First, He owes the infliction of chastisement to whatever sentence or law He promulges, for the vindication of His authority and the maintenance of submission to it; secondly, because hostile opposition is inevitable to what He has disliked to be done, and by that dislike forbidden. Moreover, it would be a more unworthy course for God to spare the evil-doer than to punish him, especially in the most good and holy God, who is not otherwise fully good than as the enemy of evil, and that to such a degree as to display His love of good by the hatred of evil, and to fulfil His defence of the former by the extirpation of the latter. [1.26]

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 09:46 AM

The account continues into the next chapter where it is plain that we are witnessing a rejection of the traditional Jewish 'two powers in heaven' doctrine rather than the 'good/evil' power doctrine:

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Again, he plainly judges evil by not willing it, and condemns it by prohibiting it; while, on the other hand, he acquits it by not avenging it, and lets it go free by not punishing it. What a prevaricator of truth is such a god! What a dissembler with his own decision! Afraid to condemn what he really condemns, afraid to hate what he does not love, permitting that to be done which he does not allow, choosing to indicate what he dislikes rather than deeply examine it! This will turn out an imaginary goodness, a phantom of discipline, perfunctory in duty, careless in sin. Listen, ye sinners; and ye who have not yet come to this, hear, that you may attain to such a pass! A better god has been discovered, who never takes offence, is never angry, never inflicts punishment, who has prepared no fire in hell, no gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness! He is purely and simply good. He indeed forbids all delinquency, but only in word. He is in you, if you are willing to pay him homage, for the sake of appearances, that you may seem to honour God; for your fear he does not want. And so satisfied are the Marcionites with such pretences, that they have no fear of their god at all. They say it is only a bad man who will be feared, a good man will be loved. Foolish man, do you say that he whom you call Lord ought not to be feared, whilst the very title you give him indicates a power which must itself be feared? But how are you going to love, without some fear that you do not love? Surely (such a god) is neither your Father, towards whom your love for duty's sake should be consistent with fear because of His power; nor your proper Lord, whom you should love for His humanity and fear as your teacher. Kidnappers indeed are loved after this fashion, but they are not feared. For power will not be feared, except it be just and regular, although it may possibly be loved even when corrupt: for it is by allurement that it stands, not by authority; by flattery, not by proper influence. And what can be more direct flattery than not to punish sins? Come, then, if you do not fear God as being good, why do you not boil over into every kind of lust, and so realize that which is, I believe, the main enjoyment of life to all who fear not God? Why do you not frequent the customary pleasures of the maddening circus, the bloodthirsty arena, and 293

the lascivious theatre? Why in persecutions also do you not, when the censer is presented, at once redeem your life by the denial of your faith? God forbid, you say with redoubted emphasis. So you do fear sin, and by your fear prove that He is an object of fear Who forbids the sin. This is quite a different matter from that obsequious homage you pay to the god whom you do not fear, which is identical in perversity indeed to is own conduct, in prohibiting a thing without annexing the sanction of punishment. Still more vainly do they act, who when asked, What is to become of every sinner in that great day? reply, that he is to be cast away out of sight. Is not even this a question of judicial determination? He is adjudged to deserve rejection, and that by a sentence of condemnation; unless the sinner is cast away forsooth for his salvation, that even a leniency like this may fall in consistently with the character of your most good and excellent god! And what will it be to be cast away, but to lose that which a man was in the way of obtaining, were it not for his rejection--that is, his salvation? Therefore his being cast away will involve the forfeiture of salvation; and this sentence cannot possibly be passed upon him, except by an angry and offended authority, who is also the punisher of sin--that is, by a judge. [1.27]

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 03:07 PM

As we continue to go through Against Marcion it is clear that Tertullian consistently identifies the Marcionites as saying that the Creator 'produced evil' - but in the specific sense of 'evil' or 'bad things.' From Book Two:

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What is the evil, then, which you want to impute to the Creator? If it is man's sin, it will not be God's fault, because it is man's doing; nor is that Being to be regarded as the author of the sin, who turns out to be its forbidder, nay, its condemner. If death is the evil, death will not give the reproach of being its own author to Him who threatened it, but to him who despised it. For by his contempt he introduced it, which assuredly would not have appeared had man not despised it.

If, however, you choose to transfer the account of evil from man to the devil as the instigator of sin, and in this way, too, throw the blame on the Creator, inasmuch as He created the devil,--for He maketh those spirtual beings, the angels--then it will follow that what was made, that is to say, the angel, will belong to Him who made it; while that which was not made by God, even the devil, or accuser, cannot but have been made by itself; and this by false detraction from God: first, how that God had forbidden them to eat of every tree; then, with the pretence that they should not die if they ate; thirdly, as if God grudged them the property of divinity. Now, whence originated this malice of lying and deceit towards man, and slandering of God? Most certainly not from God, who made the angel good after the fashion of His good works. Indeed, before he became the devil, he stands forth the wisest of creatures; and wisdom is no evil. [2.9,10]

Clearly then the Marcionites did not identify the Creator as evil. Why does Tertullian let the door open? He is clearly hinting at the actual tripartite godhead - good, justice, evil - which is consistent in other sources. Go back to the Marcionite opponent of Epiphanius who speaks of the Christian/Jewish god as 'Lord of Satan.'

And again in the next chapter:

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You should now set about showing also that the position of a judge is allied with evil, who have been dreaming of another god as a purely good one--solely because you cannot understand the Deity to be a judge; although we have proved God to be also a judge. Or if not a judge, at any rate a perverse and useless originator of a discipline which is not to be vindicated--in other words, not to be judged. You do not, however, disprove God's being a judge, who have no proof to show that He is a judge. You will undoubtedly have to accuse justice herself, which provides the judge, or else to reckon her among the species of evil, that is, to add injustice to the titles of goodness. But then justice is an evil, if injustice is a good. And yet you are forced to declare injustice to be one of the worst of things, and by the same rule are constrained to class justice amongst the most excellent. Since there is nothing hostile to evil which is not good, and no enemy of good which is not evil. It follows, then, that as injustice is an evil, so in the same degree is justice a good. Nor should it be regarded as simply a species of goodness, but as the practical observance of it, because goodness (unless justice be so controlled as to be just) will not be goodness, if it be unjust. For nothing is good which is unjust; while everything, on the other hand, which is just is good. [2.11]

and again:

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As goodness conceived all things, so did justice discriminate them. With the determination of the latter, everything was arranged and set in order. Every site and quality of the elements, their effect, motion, and state, the rise and setting of each, are the judicial determinations of the Creator. Do not suppose that His function as a judge must be defined as beginning when evil began, and so tarnish His justice with the cause of evil. By such considerations, then, do we show that this attribute advanced in company with goodness, the author s of all things,--worthy of being herself, too, deemed innate and natural, and not as accidentally accruing to God, inasmuch as she was found to be in Him, her Lord, the arbiter of His works. [2.12]

and again:

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But yet, when evil afterwards broke out, and the goodness of God began now to have an adversary to contend against, God's justice also acquired another function, even that of directing His goodness according to men's application for it. And this is the result: the divine goodness, being interrupted in that free course whereby God was spontaneously good, is now dispensed according to the deserts of every man; it is offered to the worthy, denied to the unworthy, taken away from the unthankful, and also avenged on all its enemies. Thus the entire office of justice in this respect becomes an agency for goodness: whatever it condemns by its judgment, whatever it chastises by its condemnation, whatever (to use your phrase) it ruthlessly pursues, it, in fact, benefits with good instead of injuring. Indeed, the fear of judgment contributes to good, not to evil. For good, now contending with an enemy, was not strong enough to recommend itself by itself alone. At all events, if it could do so much, it could not keep its ground; for it had lost its impregnability through the foe, unless some power of fear supervened, such as might compel the very unwilling to seek after good, and take care of it. But who, when so many incentives to evil were assailing him, would desire that good, which he could despise with impunity? Who, again, would take care of what he could lose without danger? You read how broad is the road to evil, how thronged in comparison with the opposite: would not all glide down that road were there nothing in it to fear? We dread the Creator's tremendous threats, and yet scarcely turn away from evil. What, if He threatened not? Will you call this justice an evil, when it is all unfavourable to evil? Will you deny it to be a good, when it has its eye towards good? What sort of being ought you to wish God to be? Would it be right to prefer that He should be such, that sins might flourish under Him, and the devil make mock at Him? Would you suppose Him to be a good God, who should be able to make a man worse by security in sin? Who is the author of good, but He who also requires it? In like manner who is a stranger to evil, except Him who is its enemy? Who its enemy, besides Him who is its conqueror? Who else its conqueror, than He who is its punisher? Thus God is wholly good, because in all things He is on the side of good. In fact, He is omnipotent, because able both to help and to hurt. Merely to profit is a comparatively small matter, because it can do nothing else than a good turn. From such a conduct with what confidence can I hope for good, if this is its only ability? How can I follow after the reward of innocence, if I have no regard to the requital of wrong-doing? I must needs have my doubts whether he might not fail in recompensing one or other alternative, who was unequal in his resources to meet both. Thus far, then, justice is the very fulness of the Deity Himself, manifesting God as both a perfect father and a perfect master: a father in His mercy, a master in His discipline; a father in the mildness of His power, a master in its severity; a father who must be loved with dutiful affection, a master who must needs be feared; be loved, because He prefers mercy to sacrifice; be feared because He dislikes sin; be loved, because He prefers the sinner,s repentance to his death; be feared, because He dislikes the sinners who do not repent. Accordingly, the divine law enjoins duties in respect of both these attributes: Thou shalt love God, and, Thou shalt fear God. It proposed one for the obedient man, the other for the transgressor. [2.13]

One can make a very strong case that Theophilus of Antioch (= 160 CE) who wrote this text (cf. Robert McQueen and others) is not so much as attacking the Marcionite understanding of a tripartate division of the godhead - he clearly accepts the tradition Jewish division of 'good' and 'just' powers - but attacks the specific Marcionite application of that belief which he feels demeans the authority of the power of justice and the Jewish god. Book Two can be used to demonstrate that Marcionitism wasn't that far removed from contemporary Christianity. It is only in the late second century when Sabellianism took over the Roman Church (= Irenaeus) that the division of god into powers became extremely heretical.

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 04:52 PM

As we continue with this, the next chapter

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On all occasions does God meet you: it is He who smites, but also heals; who kills, but also makes alive; who humbles, and yet exalts; who "creates evil," but also "makes peace;"--so that from these very (contrasts Of His providence) I may get an answer to the heretics. Behold, they say, how He acknowledges Himself to be the creator of evil in the passage, "It is I who create evil." They take a word whose one form reduces to confusion and ambiguity two kinds of evils (because both sins and punishments are called evils), and will have Him in every passage to be understood as the creator of all evil things, in order that He may be designated the author of evil. We, on the contrary, distinguish between the two meanings of the word in question, and, by separating evils of sin from penal evils, mala culpoe from mala poenoe, confine to each of the two classes its own author,--the devil as the author of the sinful evils (culpoe), and God as the creator of penal evils (poenoe); so that the one class shall be accounted as morally bad, and the other be classed as the operations of justice passing penal sentences against the evils of sin. Of the latter class of evils which are compatible with justice, God is therefore avowedly the creator. They are, no doubt, evil to those by whom they are endured, but still on their own account good, as being just and defensive of good and hostile to sin. In this respect they are, moreover, worthy of God. Else prove them to be unjust, in order to show them deserving of a place in the sinful class, that is to say, evils of injustice; because if they turn out to belong to justice, they will be no longer evil things, but good--evil only to the bad, by whom even directly good things are condemned as evil. In this case, you must decide that man, although the wilful contemner of the divine law, unjustly bore the doom which he would like to have escaped; that the wickedness of those days was unjustly smitten by the deluge, afterwards by the fire (of Sodom); that Egypt, although most depraved and superstititious, and, worse still, the harasser of its guest-population, was unjustly stricken with the chastisement of its ten plagues. God hardens the heart of Pharaoh. He deserved, however, to be influenced to his destruction, who had already denied God, already in his pride so often rejected His ambassadors, accumulated heavy burdens on His people, and (to sum up all) as an Egyptian, had long been guilty before God of Gentile idolatry, worshipping the ibis and the crocodile in preference to the living God. Even His own people did God visit in their ingratitude. Against young lads, too, did He send forth bears, for their irreverence to the prophet.

Consider well, then, before all things the justice of the Judge; and if its purpose be clear, then the severity thereof, and the operations of the severity in its course, will appear compatible with reason and justice. Now, that we may not linger too long on the point, (I would challenge you to) assert the other reasons also, that you may condemn the Judge's sentences; extenuate the delinquencies of the sinner, that you may blame his judicial conviction. Never mind censuring the Judge; rather prove Him to be an unjust one. Well, then, even though He required the sins of the fathers at the hands of the children, the hardness of the people made such remedial measures necessary s for them, in order that, having their posterity in view, they might obey the divine law[2.14,15]

Again the specific argument here is whether there is a difference between 'the Lord' who is said to be 'the author of evils' as opposed to 'God' who is understood to be wholly separate from evil. I think this all goes back to Epiphanius's Marcionite opponent who is understands the Jewish and Christian 'god' to be 'the Lord of Satan.' None of this supports the idea that the Marcionites had a simple dichotomy between 'the good' god and the evil Creator. The Creator created the world and with it some evil things (and also some good things). But the Creator is never said to be evil.

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 04:57 PM

Another very important statement in chapter 15:

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Do you really believe the Creator to be God? By all means, is your reply. How then do you suppose that in God there is anything human, and not that all is divine? Him whom you do not deny to be God (= theos/Jesus), you confess to be not human; because, when you confess Him to be God, you have, in fact, already determind that He is undoubtedly diverse from every sort of human conditions. Furthermore, although you allow, with others, that man was inbreathed by God into a living soul, not God by man, it is yet palpably absurd of you to be placing human characteristics in God rather than divine ones in man, and clothing God in the likeness of man, instead of man in the image of God. [2.15]

and again:

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And this, therefore, is to be deemed the likeness of God in man, that the human soul have the same emotions and sensations as God, although they are not of the same kind; differing as they do both in their conditions and their issues according to their nature. Then, again, with respect to the opposite sensations,--I mean meekness, patience, mercy, and the very parent of them all, goodness,--why do you form your opinion of the divine displays of these (from the human qualities)? For we indeed do not possess them in perfection, because it is God alone who is perfect.

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 05:02 PM

Then in chapter sixteen we see an erasure unmentioned by any authority:

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These considerations show that the entire order of God as Judge is an operative one, and (that I may express myself in worthier words) protective of His Catholic and supreme goodness, which, removed as it is from judiciary emotions, and pure in its own condition, the Marcionites refuse to acknowledge to be in one and the same Deity, "raining on the just and on the unjust, and making His sun to rise on the evil and on the good,"--a bounty which no other god at all exercises. It is true that Marcion has been bold enough to erase from the gospel this testimony of Christ to the Creator; but yet the world itself is inscribed with the goodness of its Maker, and the inscription is read by each man's conscience. Nay, this very long-suffering of the Creator will tend to the condemnation of Marcion; that patience, (I mean,) which waits for the sinner's repentance rather than his death, which prefers mercy to sacrifice, averting from the Ninevites the ruin which had been already denounced against them, and vouchsafing to Hezekiah's tears an extension of his life, and restoring his kingly state to the monarch of Babylon after his complete repentance; that mercy, too, which conceded to the devotion of the people the son of Saul when about to die, and gave free forgiveness to David on his confessing his sins against the house of Uriah; which also restored the house of Israel as often as it condemned it, and addressed to it consolation no less frequently than reproof. Do not therefore look at God simply as Judge, but turn your attention also to examples of His conduct as the Most Good. [2.16]

Notice again the consistent understanding of a 'good' versus 'just' dichotomy. No mention is ever made of 'good vs evil.'

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 05:11 PM

The last significant reference to the relationship between the Creator and 'evils' appears in chapter 24. We read:

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For if He who has this attribute is the Most Good, you will have first to relinquish that position of yours, that the very contact with evil is incompatible with such a Being, that is, with the most good God. And because Marcion, too, maintains that a good tree ought not to produce bad fruit; but yet he has mentioned "evil" (in the passage under discussion), which the most good God is incapable of, is there forthcoming any explanation of these "evils," which may render them compatible with even the most Good? There is, We say, in short, that evil in the present case means, not what may be attributed to the Creator's nature as an evil being, but what may be attributed to His power as a judge. In accordance with which He declared, "I create evil," and, "I frame evil against you;" meaning not to sinful evils, but avenging ones. What sort of stigmas pertains to these, congruous as they are with God's judicial character, we have sufficiently explained. Now although these are called "evils," they are yet not reprehensible in a judge; nor because of this their name do they show that the judge is evil: so in like manner will this particular evil be understood to be one of this class of judiciary evils, and along with them to be compatible with (God as) a judge.

The Greeks also sometimes use the word "evils" for troubles and injuries (not malignant ones), as in this passage of yours is also meant. Therefore, if the Creator repented of such evil as this, as showing that the creature deserve dcondemnation, and ought to be punished for his sin, then, in the present instance no fault of a criminating nature will be imputed to the Creator, for having deservedly and worthily decreed the destruction of a city so full of iniquity. What therefore He had justly decreed, having no evil purpose in His decree, He decreed from the principle of justice, not from malevolence. Yet He gave it the name of "evil," because of the evil and desert involved in the very suffering itself. Then, you will say, if you excuse the evil under name of justice, on the ground that He had justly determined destruction against the people of Nineveh, He must even on this argument be blameworthy, for having repented of an act of justice, which surely should not be repented of. Certainly not, my reply is; God will never repent of an act of justice. And it now remains that we should understand what God's repentance means. For although man repents most frequently on the recollection of a sin, and occasionally even from the unpleasantness of some good action, this is never the case with God. For, inasmuch as God neither commits sin nor condemns a good action, in so far is there no room in Him for repentance of either a good or an evil deed. Now this point is determined for you even in the scripture which we have quoted. Samuel says to Saul, "The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better than thou;" and into two parts shall Israel be divided: "for He will not turn Himself, nor repent; for He does not repent as a man does." According, therefore, to this definition, the divine repentance takes in all cases a different form from that of man, in that it is never regarded as the result of improvidence or of fickleness, or of any condemnation of a good or an evil work. What, then, will be the mode of God's repentance? It is already quite clear, if you avoid referring it to human conditions. For it will have no other meaning than a simple change of a prior purpose; and this is admissible without any blame even in a man, much more in God, whose every purpose is faultless. Now in Greek the word for repentance (metanoia) is formed, not from the confession of a sin, but from a change of mind, which in God we have shown to be regulated by the occurrence of varying circumstances. [2.24]

We should notice at once that Tertullian (= Theophilus) never tells us how the Marcionites defined 'evils' here, only that they interpreted the parable of the two trees in such a way that it meant one god only produced good fruit and the other fruit that weren't good, or corrupt. It is surprising to see Tertullian (= Theophilus) completely take over the 'good' and 'just' powers idea. But this is only because we have traditionally viewed the entire work to be the product of one 'Tertullian.' The reality is that Against Heresies is made up of books originally written by many different authors and this author (= Theophilus) was not a Sabellian. He accepted the 'just' and 'good' division but denied the inferences drawn from the existence of two powers in heaven by the Marcionites.

stephan huller · 04-08-2013, 06:00 PM

The summary near the end of Book Two says again:

Quote:

Now, touching the weaknesses and malignities, and the other (alleged), notes (of the Creator), I too shall advance antitheses in rivalry to Marcion's. If my God knew not of any other superior to Himself, your god also was utterly unaware that there was any beneath himself. It is just what Heraclitus "the obscure" said; whether it be up or down, it comes to the same thing. If, indeed, he was not ignorant (of his position), it must have occurred to Him from the beginning. Sin and death, and the author of sin too--the devil--and all the evil which my God permitted to be, this also, did your god permit; for he allowed Him to permit it. Our God changed His purposes; in like manner yours did also. For he who cast his look so late in the human race, changed that purpose, which for so long a period had refused to cast that look. Our God repented Him of the evil in a given case; so also did yours. For by the fact that he at last had regard to the salvation of man, he showed such a repentance of his previous disregard as was due for a wrong deed. But neglect of man's salvation will be accounted a wrong deed, simply because it has been remedied by his repentance in the conduct of your god. Our God you say commanded a fraudulent act, but in a matter of gold and silver. Now, inasmuch as man is more precious than gold and silver, in so far is your god more fraudulent still, because he robs man of his Lord and Creator. Eye for eye does our God require; but your god does even a greater injury, (in your ideas,) when he prevents an act of retaliation. For what man will not return a blow, without waiting to be struck a second time. [2.28]

And that's the end of Book Two. No evidence for a dualistic 'good and evil' relationship between two gods.

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04-08-2013, 09:33 AM	#111
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	The Jewish context for Marcionitism is even more interesting when we consider the question of how the theological notion of a complete schism between the powers of 'good' and 'justice' could have arisen. It is worth noting that in mystical Judaism there is a consistent understanding in early sources of 'the people' (= the nation) having in effect control, holding the key to 'the Lord' and 'God' coming together as one. If the nation was iniquitous then the face of the cherubim in the holy of holies turned away from one another symbolizing the end to their union, their 'togetherness' with one another. One can imagine then that Marcionitism could have developed from the idea that (a) the Jews were wretchedly vile/sinful before the destruction of the temple and (b) as such/because of this (religious minds always confound cause and consequence) lost sight of the power of 'good/mercy.' The good god became unknown/separated from them and came back to earth in the form of Jesus and warned them of the catastrophic consequences of their iniquity (= the destruction of the temple).

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