In agreement with Giuseppe
Why did Tertullian make such an effort to refute Marcion, [ to] make the fight against Marcion almost 'his life passion'?9 Especially at a time when he himself had already joined the prophetic movement of the so-called Montanists?10 Was it because Marcion had rejected any prophetism except that of Christ himself,11 had criticized the Jewish Prophets for not knowing anything of Christ Jesus,12 [and] had denied the authority of John the Baptist for having taken offence at Jesus? Was it because Montanists were in rivalry with Marcionites about the number of martyrs, [as] indicated by Eusebius?13 In my eyes, Tertullian's preface to his work on the Lord's Prayer reveals a potential answer; namely, the proximity in thinking between Tertullian and his theological arch-rival Marcion. In his On Prayer, Tertullian praised the 'novelty' of this form of prayer together with the novelty of the 'New Testament.'
Perhaps strange for us, but, as van der Geest has shown, the understanding of 'New Testament' changed during the life of Tertullian.14 While generally in his pre-Marcionite writings ‘testamentum’ had the meaning of God’s ordinance; after he [started] dealing with Marcion, Tertullian started mentioning Marcion’s use of ‘New Testament’ for the collection of the Gospel and Pauls letters; a terminology which he sometimes adopted himself, albeit rarely.15 Yet, as Tertullian also explained in his commentary on Marcion's Gospel, he too embraced from Marcion this notion of novelty: "So then I do admit that there was a different course followed in the old dispensation under the Creator, from that in the new dispensation under Christ." And Tertullian added:
"I do not deny difference in records of these of things spoken, in precepts for good behaviour, and in rules of Law, provided that all these differences have reference to one and the same God, that God by whom it is acknowledged that they were obtained and also foretold." [Adv. Marcion IV 1,3]
Neither Marcion’s claim of Christianity’s novelty or the difference between the Gospel and the Torah bothered Tertullian, but [Marcion’s] claim that the two testaments referred to two different Gods did. In contrast, Tertullian underlined that Christianity’s novelty was already ‘ordained and foretold’ by God; namely, precisely through the message of profits [prophets(?)], when, he added:
"Long ago did Isaiah proclaim that the law will go forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem - another law, he means, and another word. In fact, he says, he shall judge among the gentiles, and shall convict many people (Isaiah 2:3), meaning not of the one nation of the Jews, but of the gentiles who, by the new law of the gospel and the new word of the Apostles, are being judged and convicted in their own sight in respect of their ancient error, as soon as they have believed, and thereupon beat their swords into ploughshares." [Adv. Marcion IV 1,4]
In fact, one of the big novelties in Marcion's gospel was the introduction of a new form of prayer which was meant to contrast that of John the Baptist and his disciples, namely the Lord’s Prayer.18 Against this background, Tertullian’s preface to his own prayer was revelatory. He says:
"The Spirit of God, and the Word of God, and the Reason of God - Word of Reason, and Reason and Spirit of Word - Jesus Christ our Lord, namely, who is both the one and the other - has determined for us, the disciples of the New Testament, a new form of prayer; for in this particular also it was needful that new wine should be laid up in new skins, and a new breadth be sewn to a new garment. Besides, whatever had been in bygone days, has either been quite changed, as circumcision; or else supplemented, as the rest of the Law; or else fulfilled, as Prophecy; or else perfected, as faith itself. For the new grace of God has renewed all things from carnal unto spiritual, by superinducing the Gospel, the obliterator of the whole ancient bygone system; in which our Lord Jesus Christ has been approved as the Spirit of God, and the Word of God, and the Reason of God: the Spirit, by which He was mighty; the Word, by which He taught; the Reason, by which He came." [De. or. 1]
Tertullian starts with the ‘new form of prayer’ which the Lord Jesus Christ has ‘determined’ for the disciples of the New Testament. Not only did Tertullian stress the notion of ‘novelty’, which he saw as one of the typical characteristics of Marcion, he also added a biblical reference of Marcion’s Gospel (Mcn 5:36. par. Luke; Matthew. 9:17) on the new wine and the new skins, which, according to Tertullian, was one of the core passengers from which Marcion developed his idea of novitas Christiana and, therefore the distinction between Judaism and what Marcion coined in antithesis to it, Christianity [see Tert. Adv. Marcion III 16 and IV 11].
Here, however, Tertullian deviated from Marcion, when, similar to Justin, he changed Marcion's antithesis for the notions of ‘change’, ‘supplement’, ‘fulfilment’ and ‘perfection’. Strangely enough, for a rhetorician who strived to paint the world in black or white and, therefore, was certainly not only attracted by the Montanist oracles, but also by the antithetical thinker Marcion, when it comes to the relation between the historical past and Christian novelty, Tertullian became a nuanced interpreter who consciously forwent consistency. While he claimed that the superseded Gospel obliterated ‘the whole ancient bygone’ system, he maintained that the prophetism of bold and that of the present are the basis on which the New Testament stands. If faceless, Tertullian did not seem to be without contours; and his ambiguities and inconsistencies may perhaps even make him the more likeable than the contrasts which he is often attempting in his designs.
9 So U.M.S. Rohl, Der Paulusscheruler Markion (2014), 65.[/i]
10 On the chronology see T.D. Barnes, Tertullian (1985), 32-5, 326-8; also compare J.-C. Fredoulle, Tertullien... (1972), 487-8; Rankin, Tertullian and the Church (19950, xv; G.D. Dunn Tertullian (2004), 7-8.
11 one of the main reasons that turned Tertullian against Praxeas: see his Adv. Prax. 1,4-5.
12 on Tertullian's concept of prophetism, see van Geest, Le Christ et l'Ancien Testament chez Tertullien (1972), 99-131.
13 Eusebius, De eccl. hist. V 16,21.
14 see van Geest, Le Christ et l'Ancien Testament chez Tertullien (1972), 30-1, and 30, n.2.
15 See W. Kinzig, 'H καινη διαθήκή' (1994), 530.
18 See E. Osborn, Tertullian (1997), 145-51 on 'the New Prayer'
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(Markus Vinzent (2016) 'Tertullian's Preface to Marcion's Gospel', pp. 349-52