This will be enough of working through Tertullian for now. I will share here the rest of my unedited notes on Tertullian and Luke. Generally they are just quotations from the Evans translation.
Yet how is it that their owner has been in evidence since the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, but of his possessions right down to this fifteenth year of the emperor Severus there is no indication whatsoever?
'In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar Christ Jesus vouchsafed to glide down from heaven, a salutary spirit.'
And yet, if you were to accept the gospel in its true form ... "His blood be on our heads and on our children's."
Yet the facts show him sending rain upon good and evil, and making his sun to rise upon just and unjust: of which that other god makes no sort of provision. For although Marcion has presumed to erase from the gospel this testimony of Christ to the Creator
In any case, it was not from your god that my Creator learned to command, Thou shall not kill, shalt not commit adultery, shall not steal, shalt not speak false testimony, shalt not desire what is another's, honour father and mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, 19 Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”)
that gospel teaching, Out of thine own mouth shall thou be justified, and out of thine own mouth shall thou be condemned. [at variance with Luke]
That the Father has become visible to no man is the testimony of that gospel which you share with us, in which Christ says, No one knoweth the Father save the Son.
Consequently, it was not as belonging to another god that they objected to Christ and persecuted him, but as being nothing more than a man, whom they supposed to be a magician [planus = planos = Matthew 27:63] in his miracles, and their opponent in his doctrines: with the result that this man, as belonging to them, being a Jew, yet a perverter and overthrower of Judaism, they brought to judgement and punished by their law: a stranger they would certainly not have judged.
'Yes, but our god,' the Marcionites rejoin, 'though not revealed from the beginning, or by virtue of any creation, yet has by his own self been revealed in Christ Jesus.'
'that which is blessed and incorruptible should give no trouble either to itself or to anything else'—for by brooding over this sentence Marcion has abstracted from him all functions involving severity or criticism
A certain woman cried out, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the breasts which thou hast sucked: and how comes it that his mother and his brethren are reported standing without? But we shall consider these texts in their proper place. Certainly when he himself described himself as the Son of man, this was a claim to have been born. ... I may defer all these matters until I come to assess the evidence of the gospel ...
In fact how can he tell us that a new patch is not sewn on to an old garment, nor new wine entrusted to old wineskins, if he is himself patched on to, and dressed up in, names that are old?
Since I have thought it well that Marcion's own gospel should be brought under discussion, I shall defer until then my treatment of various aspects of his teaching and miracles, as for the matter then in hand.
You have a hint of this tree also in Jeremiah, who prophesies to the Jews that they will say, Come and let us cast a tree into his bread,c meaning, his body. For so God has revealed it, even in the gospel which you accept, when he says that bread is his body:d so that even from this you can understand that he who gave bread the figure of his body is the same as he whose body the prophet had of old figuratively described as bread, as our Lord himself was afterwards to expound this mystery.
Proofs against Marcion from the Gospel:
(1) he is found to have administered the Creator's ordinances,
(2) fulfilled his prophecies,
(3) supported his laws,
(4) given actuality to his promises,
(5) revived his miracles,
(6) given new expression to his judgements, and
(7) reproduced the lineaments of his character and attributes
Tertullian doesn't know if the word "appeared" is used: "It is no matter if somewhere the word 'appeared' is used."
Tertullian relies on a source that considers Marcion's Gospel an edited version of Matthew: "he is come not to destroy the law and the prophets, but rather to fulfil them. For Marcion has blotted this out as an interpolation."
The sames source seems to view these as also removed: "As the saying goes, let us get down to it: to your task, Marcion: remove even this from the gospel, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and, It is not <meet> to take away the children's bread and give it to dogs: for this gives the impression that Christ belongs to Israel."
'But they were all astonished at his doctrine.' Quite so. Because, it says, 'his word was with power',
"What have we to do with thee, Jesus? Thou art come to destroy us. I know who thou art, the Holy One of God"
References omissions in the birth narrative: He had had these names given by an angel, our gospel relates: Therefore that which shall be born in thee shall be called holy, the Son of God:d and, Thou shalt call his name Jesus.
Even in this Marcion sees an 'opposition', that whereas Elisha needed a material help, and made use of water, seven times at that, Christ by the act of his word alone, without repeating it, immediately put the healing into effect—as though I were not bold enough to claim even the word he used, as part of the Creator's property.
"That it may be to you for a testimony—no doubt by which he testified that he did not destroy the law but fulfilled it, a testimony that it was he and no other of whom it was foretold that he would take upon him their diseases and sicknesses. This entirely adequate and necessary interpretation of that testimony Marcion, in subservience to his own Christ, seeks to discount"
"I am not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it. What good then did it do you to excise from the gospel a sentence which remains there still?"
Marcion, you accept Son of man
The publican [Luke 5:27] chosen by our Lord for a disciple is brought into the argument by Marcion with the suggestion that because he was outside the law and regarded by the Jews as unclean, he must have been chosen by one hostile to the law.
From what direction does John make his appearance? Christ unexpected: John also unexpected. With Marcion all things are like that [Luke 5:33]
You are in error also about that pronouncement of our Lord in which he is seen to make a distinction between new things and old. You are puffed up with old wineskins, and befuddled with new wine, and consequently have sewn the patch of heretical newness upon the old [Luke 5:36-39]
Even if it was through hatred that he made an attack on the Jews' most solemn day because <as Marcion alleges> he was not the Jews' Christ [Luke 6:2]
"I am not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it, even if Marcion has closed his mouth with this word."
"But, you say, he was not necessarily acting in defence of the prophets if it was his intention to insist on the iniquity of the Jews in not treating with kindness even their own prophets" [Luke 6:26]
"Woe" - There are others indeed who admit the word involves cursing, but will have it that Christ uttered the word Woe not as proceeding strictly from his own judgement, but because the word woe comes from the Creator, and he wished to set before them the Creator's severity, and so give greater commendation to his own tolerance previously in the beatitudes. (Either Luke 6:26 or previous)
On Matthew 7:12 // Luke 6:31, Tertullian treats it more in the way in which it is presented in Matthew, as a summary rule being given: "And so Marcion's god, now that he has recently been revealed, if indeed revealed, has not been in a position, in respect of this precept which we are considering, to publish a summary so concise and obscure and even yet of hidden meaning, or more easy of interpretation in accordance with my own preferential choice: for he had worked out no previous distinction in the matter."
"and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish" [Mark 6:35 // Luke 6:35]
Well done, Marcion. Cleverly enough have you deprived him of rain and sunshine, that he might not be taken for the Creator. Yet who is this kind one, who has never been heard of until now? [Matthew 5:45]
"But John is offended when he hears of Christ's miracles—because, <you suggest>, he belongs to the other <god>." [Luke 7:21]
He himself, they say, affirms that he has not been born when he says, "Who is my mother and who are my brethren?" [Mark 3:33 // Matthew 12:48]
Tertullian quotes Luke 8:21 as "Those only who hear my words and do them."
"But this too, <you object>, as an opponent of the law: because the law sets a barrier against contact with a woman with an issue of blood, for that very reason he was intent not merely to permit her touching of him but even to grant her healing." [Mt 9:20,22 // Mk 5:25,34 // Lk 8:43,48]
Who could have given this command, but he who feeds the ravens and clothes the flowers of the field, who of old gave orders that the ox treading out the corn must have unmuzzled mouth, as licence to filch fodder from his labour—because the labourer is worthy of his hire? Let Marcion delete such matters, so long as their meaning is preserved.
For if Peter was not in a position to affirm that he was any other than the Creator's, and Christ himself gave orders that they were to tell no man of this, evidently he was unwilling for Peter's supposition to be published abroad. Quite so, you say: because that supposition was incorrect, and he did not wish a lie to be spread abroad. [Mk 8:30 // Lk 9:21 // Mt 16:20]
Whosoever, he says, will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose it for my sake, will save it. [Mk 8:35 // Lk 9:24 // Mt 16:25]
Whoso shall be ashamed of me, he says, of him will I also be ashamed. [Mark 8:38 // Luke 9:26]
"This you suggest was the intended meaning of that voice from heaven, This is my beloved Son, hear him—that is, not Moses and Elijah any longer." [Mk 9:7 // Lk 9:35 // Mt 17:5]
Otherwise, if 'he did not know' means that he was mistaken in thinking that this was the Christ of Moses and Elijah,—consequently it is already evident that a little earlier, when Peter was asked by Christ whom they considered him to be, his answer Thou art the Christ, meant 'the Creator's Christ': because if he had then been aware that he belonged to that other god, he would not have made a mistake here either. [Mk 9:6 // Lk 9:33]
9.30 And behold, two men talked with him, Moses and Elijah, 9.31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem
But see, <you say>, Christ loves the little ones, and teaches that all who ever wish to be the greater, need to be as they; whereas the Creator sent bears against some boys, to avenge Elisha the prophet for mockery he had suffered from them. A fairly reckless antithesis... [Mk 9:36 // Lk 9:47 // Mt 18:3 // Th 22]
Can any be called upon as Lord of heaven, without being first shown to be the maker of it? For he says, I thank thee, and give praise, O Lord of heaven, because those things which were hidden from the wise and prudent, thou hast revealed unto babes. What things? and whose things? and by whom hidden? and by whom revealed? If by Marcion's god they have been hidden and revealed—since he had never provided anything in which things could have been hidden, neither prophecies nor parables nor visions, nor any evidences of events or words or names adumbrated in allegories or figures of speech or the clouds of enigma, but had hidden even his own greatness, and was only then in process of revealing it through Christ, this is unfair enough. [Lk 10:21 // Mt 10:25 // western readings]
But, "No man knoweth who the Father is, but the Son, and who the Son is, but the Father, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him." [Lk 10:22 // Mt 11:27] And thus it was an unknown god whom Christ preached. From this sentence other heretics1 too take for themselves support, objecting that the Creator was known to all men, to Israel because they were his particular friends, to the gentiles by the law of nature.
In the gospel of truth a doctor of the law approaches Christ with the question, "What shall I do to obtain eternal life?" [Mk 10:17 // Lk 10:25 // Lk 18:18 // Mt 19:16] In the heretic's gospel is written only 'life', without mention of 'eternal', so that the doctor may have the appearance of asking for advice about that life, that long life, which is promised by the Creator in the law, and the Lord may then seem to have given him an answer in terms of the law, "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength," because the question asked was about the law of life.
one of his disciples approached him and said, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples," [Luke 11:1] because, as you will have it, he thought a different god must needs be prayed to in different terms
"But if I by the finger of God drive out devils, is not then the kingdom of God come near against you?" ... With good reason, therefore, with his parable of the strong man armed, whom another stronger than he overcame, did he connect the prince of the devils, whom he had previously called Beelzebub and Satan, indicating that by the finger of God he had been overcome, not that the Creator had been suppressed by some other god.
"Beware," he says to the disciples, "of the leaven of the pharisees, which is hypocrisy," [Mk 8:15 // Mt 16:6 // Lk 12:1] not the preaching of the Creator. The Son hates these who show insolence to his Father: it is against him, not against another, that he would not have his disciples so behave.
"But there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and nothing hid that shall not be known." [Mk 4:22 // Lk 12:2 // Mt 10:26 // Th 5] Let no one suppose that by this he indicates the revealing and making known of a god previously unknown and kept hidden...
the Christ of your supremely good god, who is not a judge, asks, "Who has set me as a judge over you?" [Lk 12:14]
Who is this that would have us not be concerned for our life, in the matter of feeding, or for our body in the matter of clothing? [Lk 12:22] Surely he who has of old made provision of these things for man, and as he continually supplies us with them does with good reason forbid concern for them, as a challenge to his generosity. To the substance of the soul itself he has given a value better than meat, and to the material of the body a shape better than a garment [Lk 12:23]: for his ravens neither sow nor reap nor gather into storehouses, and yet receive nourishment from him, [Lk 12:24] whose lilies and whose grass neither weave nor spin and yet are clothed by him: his Solomon too was of excellent glory, yet was not better arrayed than one little flower [Lk 12:27-28]. However, there is nothing so easy as that one should make provision, and a different one should command us not to be anxious about that provision, even when the latter is a disparager of the former. (pg. 426)
Again in the parable which follows one is badly astray who identifies with the person of the Creator that thief by whom, if the householder had known the hour of his coming, he would not have suffered his house to be broken through. [Lk 12:39 // Mt 24:43 // Th 21]
For they try to mitigate the meaning here, when it is proved to apply to Marcion's god, as though it were an act of peacefulness and gentleness merely to set him on one side and appoint his portion with the unbelievers [Lk 12:46 // Mt 24:51], as one who has not been called to account but merely returned to his own position.
For even that judge who sends men to prison, and does not bring them out until they have paid the last farthing, these people explain in the person of the Creator, for disparagement sake. [Lk 12:59 // Mt 5:26]
The kingdom of God, he says, is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his own garden. [Mt 12:31 // Lk 13:19 // Mk 4:33 // Th 20] Whom must we understand in the person of the man? Evidently Christ ... Otherwise if for the sake of escaping this noose they divert the person of the man away from Christ and apply it to a man who takes the seed of the kingdom and sows it in the garden of his own heart, not even so can this matter apply to anyone but the Creator.
Meanwhile, you who interpret the invitation to this supper [Mt 22:3 // Lk 14:16 // Th 64] as meaning the heavenly banquet of spiritual satiety and joyfulness, must remember that even earthly promises of wine and oil and corn and even of citizenship, are no less employed by the Creator as figures of things spiritual.
So let no one suppose that by 'mammon' one must understand the Creator, or that Christ had called them away from the Creator's service. [Mt 6:24 // Lk 16:13]
If then these expressions do not apply to the Creator but to mammon, the questions Who will entrust to you that which is more true? [Lk 16:11] and, Who will give you that which is mine? [Lk 16:12 - "that which is your own" / "ours"] cannot be taken for questions by one god about another god's grace.
I can now find out why Marcion's god remained all those long ages in hiding. He was waiting, I suspect, until he should learn all these things from the Creator. So he learned them, right down to the time of John, and then after that came forth to announce the kingdom of God, saying, The law and the prophets were until John, since which time the kingdom of God is announced. [Mt 11:12 // Lk 16:16] As though we too did not know that John has been set as a sort of dividing-line between old things and new, a line at which Judaism should cease and Christianity should begin—not however that by the action of any alien power there came about this cessation of the law and the prophets, and the inception of that gospel in which is the kingdom of God, Christ himself.
But, <you allege>, Christ forbids divorce: his words are, "Whosoever sendeth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth one that is sent away by her husband, is no less an adulterer." [] So as to forbid divorce on this side as well, he makes unlawful the marriage of a divorced woman. Moses however permits divorce, in Deuteronomy: If any man hath taken a wife, and hath dwelt with her, and it come to pass that she find not favour with him because some unseemly thing hath been found in her, he shall write a bill of divorcement and give it into her hand and send her away from his house.a You notice the contrast between law and gospel, between Moses and Christ? To be sure I do. For you have not accepted that other gospel, of equal truth, and of the same Christ, in which while forbidding divorce he answers a particular question concerning it: "Moses because of the hardness of your heart commanded to give a bill of divorcement, but from the beginning it was not so"
The observations I have made here will be of service also for the narrative that follows, of the rich man in pain in hell and the poor man at rest in Abraham's bosom. For that too, as far as the surface of scripture goes, is set before us abruptly, though as concerns the purport of its meaning it too is linked with the reference to the ill usage of John and his disapproval of Herod's unlawful marriage: for it delineates the latter end of both, Herod in torment, and John comforted, so that even while alive Herod might hear it said, "They have there Moses and the prophets, let them hear them." [Luke 16:29 - why does Tertullian connect it to John and Herod?] But Marcion twists it into another direction, so as to claim that both of the Creator's rewards in hell, whether of torment or of comfort, are intended for those who have obeyed the law and the prophets, while he defines as heavenly the bosom and the haven of his particular Christ and god.
But he also gave them the order which was in the surface meaning of the law: Go, shew yourselves to the priests. [Luke 17:14] Why so, if his intention was to cleanse them first? Was it perhaps as one casting scorn on the law, so as to let them see, as they were healed on the way, that the law was nothing to them, nor the priests either? [Tertullian's speculation]
This will be the meaning of, Not here, not there; for behold the kingdom of God is within you. [Lk 17:21] And to prevent heretical audacity from arguing that our Lord's reply to them was concerned with the Creator's kingdom, about which they consulted him, and not with his own, the words that follow stand in the way.
Who, he asks, is supremely good, except one, that is God? [Mk 10:18 // Lk 18:19 // Mt 19:17] Not as though he has indicated by this that one out of two gods is supremely good, but that there is one only supremely good God, who is for this reason the one supremely good because he is the only God.
For if, <as you suggest>, blind men once came into conflict with David at his recapture of Sion, fighting back to prevent his admission [2 Samuel 5:6]—though these are a figure of that nation equally blind, which was some time to deny admission to Christ the son of David—and therefore Christ came to the blind man's help by way of opposition so that by this he might show himself not the son of David [Mk 10:47 // Lk 18:38 // Mt 20:30], being of opposite mind, and kind to blind men, such as David had ordered to be slain <if this is so> why did he say he had granted this to the man's faith, and false faith at that? But in fact by this expression son of David I can, on its own terms, blunt the point of the antithesis.
It is the act of a madman, when a person asks for judgement on one matter, to answer him about something different. So let us not attribute to Christ an act unseemly even for a man. The sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, having a question to ask about this, set before our Lord a case out of the law, touching a woman who according to legal requirement had married seven brothers who died one after the other, and asked which man's wife she would be reckoned to be at the resurrection. This was the subject of the question, the object of their consultation. Christ's answer must have been on the same terms. He had no fear of anyone, nor any reason why we should think he either refused their questionings, or used them as an opportunity for giving secret hints of things which in other circumstances he did not teach openly. [Mark 12:18-27 // Luke 20:27-44 // Mt 22:23-33]
They have seized upon the text of scripture, and have read on like this: 'Those whom the god of that world has counted worthy'.1 [Lk 20:35] They attach 'of that world' to 'god', so as to make out that there is another god, 'of that world'. Whereas it ought to be read, Those whom God has counted worthy, so that by punctuating after 'God', 'of that world' belongs to what follows, that is, Those whom God hath counted worthy of the inheritance of that world, and of the resurrection. For the question he was asked was not about the god of that world, but about its conditions, whose wife the woman was to be in that world, after the resurrection. So again, on the subject of marriage, they misrepresent his answer, so as to make out that, The children of this world marry and are given in marriage, refers to the Creator's men whom he allows to marry, whereas they themselves, whom the god of that world, that other god, has counted worthy of the resurrection, even here and now do not marry, because they are not the children of this world—although it was the marriage of that world he was asked about, not this, and the marriage he said there was not, was that about which he was consulted. So then those who had taken in the real force of his words and their expression and punctuation, understood no other meaning than that which was pertinent to the subject he was asked about. And so the scribes comment, Master, thou hast well said.
But there shall be a crown for them that have endured. [Lk 21:19] But so that you may not presume to argue that the apostles were put to distress by the Jews as preachers of your other god, remember that the prophets also suffered the same things from the Jews, though they were apostles of no other god than the Creator.
So then since there is agreement in these statements involving promises, as there was in those which involved shattering down, because of this harmony between the prophets' pronouncements and our Lord's, you will be unable at this point to interpose any distinction, so as to refer the shatterings to the Creator—a god of savagery, shatterings such as a god supremely good could not permit, far less look forward to—but assign to your supremely good god those promises which the Creator in ignorance of him had not prophesied about. Otherwise, if they were his own promises that <the Creator> prophesied, and these were not different from the promises of Christ, <the Creator> will be equal in liberty with your supremely good god, and it will appear that nothing better is promised by your Christ than by my Son of man. You will find that the whole sequence of the gospel narrative, from the disciples' question as far as the parable of the fig-tree, is in its close-knit reasoning so attached on one side and on the other to the Son of man as to combine together in him both the sorrows and the joys, both the shatterings and the promises: nor can you detach from him either part of them. So then as it is but one Son of man whose advent is appointed between those two terms of shatterings and of promises, with that same one Son of man are necessarily associated both the distresses of the nations and the aspirations of the saints: for his position between them is such that he belongs equally to both terms, bringing by his advent an end to the one, the distresses of the nations, and a beginning to the other, the aspirations of the saints. So that if you admit that the coming of the Son of man is my Christ's advent, the more you impute to him those imminent sorrows which precede his advent, the more you are forced also to ascribe to him those good things which take their rise from his advent: or alternatively, if you prefer <the coming of the Son of man> to be the advent of your Christ, the more you ascribe to him those good things which arise from his advent, the more you are forced also to impute to him those sorrows which precede his advent. For the sorrows are no less closely attached to the corning of the Son of man by going before, than are the good things by coming after. Ask yourself then to which of the two Christs you assign the role of the one Son of man, so that to it may be referred both the one series of events and the other. [so Marcion had Lk 21:27 // Mk 13:26 // Mt 24:30]
Evidently the statement that his raiment was divided among the soldiers and partly assigned by lot, [Lk 23:34] has been excised by Marcion, because he had in mind the prophecy of the psalm, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.
If the spirit is given up, it has to be given up by something else: whereas if the spirit had been by itself, the word used would have been 'depart' and not 'give up'. Who is it then that gives up the spirit, if not the flesh? For the flesh breathes while it has the spirit, and therefore when it loses it, gives it up. In short, if there was no flesh, but only a phantasm of flesh, and there was also a phantasm of spirit, and the spirit gave itself up, and by giving itself up departed, then no doubt the phantasm departed when the spirit, which was a phantasm, departed, and the phantasm along with the spirit ceased to be there. In that case, nothing remained on the cross, after he gave up his spirit nothing was hanging there, nothing was begged for from Pilate, nothing was taken down from that gallows, nothing was wrapped in linen, nothing was laid in a new sepulchre. And yet it was not nothing. What then was it? If a phantasm, then Christ was still within it. If Christ had gone away, then he had taken the phantasm with him. It only remains for heretical presumption to say that a phantasm of a phantasm remained there. [was this a Marcionite argument, or Tertullian's supposition about it?]
Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? Behold my hands and feet, that it is I myself: for a spirit hath not bones, as ye see me having. Now here Marcion, on purpose I believe, has abstained from crossing out of his gospel certain matters opposed to him, hoping that in view of these which he might have crossed out and has not, he may be thought not to have crossed out those which he has crossed out, or even to have crossed them out with good reason. But he is only sparing to statements which he proceeds to overturn by strange interpretation no less than by deletion. He will have it then that <the words> A spirit hath not bones as ye see me having, were so spoken as to be referred to the spirit, 'as ye see me having', meaning, not having bones, even as a spirit has not. And what sense would there be in such a round-about way of putting it, when he might have said quite plainly, For a spirit hath not bones, as ye see that I have not'? [Lk 24:39]
