The Marcionites Used Philippians 2 as a Creed
Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 10:47 am
I saw this in Against Marcion 2 today. Hadn't spend a lot of time reading this book (because it is so boring). But let's look at what Tertullian says:
Nicola and many others see Philippians 2 as a kind of proto-Nicene creed "In contradiction to the Nicene Creed, Paul does not consider Jesus ever to be human, He only took on the likeness (or appearance) of a human man (Philippians 2:7)."But seeing that you yourselves have already stated your belief that a god has dwelt in human shape and in all the rest of what belongs to man's estate, you will assuredly not demand any further persuasion that God has in fact made himself conformable to human condition, but are confuted by virtue of your own creed (vestra fide revincimini). For if a god—I mean that more lofty one—did with such great humility so lay low the high estate of his majesty as to make it subject to death, even the death of a cross, why should you not agree that to our God also some few pettinesses were not inappropriate, being in any case less intolerable than the revilings, the scaffolds, and the sepulchres of the Jews?
Quatenus et ipsi deum in figura et in reliquo ordine humanae conditionis deversatum iam credidistis, non exigetis utique diutius persuaderi deum conformasse semetipsum humanitati, sed de vestra fide revincimini. Si enim deus, et quidem sublimior, tanta humilitate fastigium maiestatis suae stravit ut etiam morti subiceret, et morti crucis, cur non putetis nostro quoque deo aliquas pusillitates congruisse, tolerabiliores tamen Iudaicis contumeliis et patibulis et sepulcris?