Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

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Secret Alias
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Re: Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

Post by Secret Alias »

The Third Book begins:
Tu quidem, dilectissime, praeceperas nobis, ut eas, quae a Valentino sunt, sententias absconditas, ut ipsi putant, in manifestum proderem; et ostenderem varietatem ipsorum, et sermonem destruentem eos inferrem. Aggressi sumus autem nos, arguentes eos a Simone, patre omnium haereticorum, et doctrinas, et successiones manifestare, et omnibus eis contradicere : propter quod cum sit unius operis traductio eorum, et destructio in multis, misimus tibi libros, ex quibus primus quidem omnium illorum sententias continet, et consuetudines et characteres ostendit conversationis eorum. In secundo vero destructa et eversa sunt quae ab ipsis male docentur, et nudata et ostensa sunt talia qualia et sunt. in hoc autem tertio ex scripturis inferemus ostensiones, ut nihil tibi ex his quae praeceperas desit a nobis. In hoc autem tertio ex Scripturis inferemus ostensiones, ut nihil tibi ex his, quae praeceperas, desit a nobis; sed et, praeterquam opinabaris, ad arguendum et everténdum eos, qui quolibet modo male docent, occasiones a nobis accipias. Quae enim est in Deo charitas, dives et sine invidia exsistens, plura donat quam postulet quis ab ea. Memento igitur eorum quae diximus in prioribus duobus libris; et haec illis adjungens, plenissimam habebis a nobis adversus omnes haereticos contradictionem, et fiducialiter ac instantissime resistes eis pro sola vera ac vivifica fide, quam ab Apostolis Ecclesia percepit, et distribuit filiis suis. Etenim Dominus omnium dedit Apostolis suis potestatem Evangelii, per quos et veritatem, hoc est, Dei Filii doctrinam cognovimus; quibus et dixit Dominus: Qui vos audit, me audit: et gut vos contemnit, me contemnit, et eum qui me misit.

You indeed, most beloved, have commanded us to reveal those hidden sentences which are from Valentinus, as they themselves think, to manifest and show their variety, and to introduce them into a destroying speech. We have attempted, however, to make known them by Simon, the father of all heretics, and to make known doctrines and successions, and to contradict them all. contains and displays the characters and routines of their behavior. But in the second (book) they have been destroyed and overturned, and those things which are taught by them are ill-treated, and stripped bare, and are shown such things as they are and are. In this third book, we will bring in displays from the Scriptures, that nothing will be wanting from us as you commanded, but also, besides you were expecting, to receive opportunities from us to convince and overthrow those who in any way teach evil. For the love of God, existing rich and without envy, gives more than one may ask of it. Remember, therefore, what we have said in the first two books, and adjoining them to them, you will have a very complete opposition from us against all heretics; For the Lord has given His Apostles the power of the Gospel, through whom we have learned the truth, that is, the doctrine of the Son of God, to whom the Lord also said: He who hears you hears me.
This is what is so clever about Irenaeus. The first two books are negative. The third book is the first positive work. But, as been demonstrated by others, Irenaeus is essentially lowering the gospels to something equivalent to the Mishnah in rabbinic Judaism. As the Mishnah is essentially the defining 'commentary' on the Torah basically, the gospel - now in four - has been recast by Irenaeus into nothing more than 'commentaries' on the Old Testament. The 'gospel' (aka Scriptural commentary) was given to the apostles according to Irenaeus at Pentecost as we see in what immediately follows:
We have learned from none others (than the apostles) the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed "perfect knowledge," as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God. Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews(3) in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.
The four books together form one 'gospel' which as noted are only the defining commentary on the Old Testament. There is a continuity from one to the other. Irenaeus claims that they all preached his weird Patripassian doctrine:
These have all declared to us that there is one God, Creator of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophets; and one Christ the Son of God. If any one do not agree to these truths, he despises the companions of the Lord; nay more, he despises Christ Himself the Lord; yea, he despises the Father also, and stands self-condemned, resisting and opposing his own salvation, as is the case with all heretics.
The logic of Irenaeus has escaped most commentators. Matthew, Mark and Luke all had a pre-existence in some form. But John is the gospel which was 'missing' from previous generations. Irenaeus claims to have 'put all the pieces together' and now that the four are restored to their proper order the monarchian understanding of a Son of God who is completely one with the Father connected by the Holy Spirit is revealed.
Secret Alias
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Re: Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

Post by Secret Alias »

The first reference to 'the Father' in Book Four makes clear that those who undergo Christian baptism become gods:
and have shown that there is none other called God by the Scriptures except the Father of all, and the Son, and those who possess the adoption.
and continues:
Since, therefore, this is sure and stedfast, that no other God or Lord was announced by the Spirit, except Him who, as God, rules over all, together with His Word, and those who receive the Spirit of adoption,(2) that is, those who believe in the one and true God, and in Jesus Christ the Son of God; and likewise that the apostles did Of themselves term no one else as God, or name [no other] as Lord; and, what is much more important, [since it is true] that our Lord [acted likewise], who did also command us to confess no one as Father, except Him who is in the heavens, who is the one God and the one Father;--those things are clearly shown to be false which these deceivers and most perverse sophists advance, maintaining that the being whom they have themselves invented is by nature both God and Father; but that the I Demiurge is naturally neither God nor Father, but is so termed merely by courtesy (verbo tenus), because of his ruling the creation, these perverse mythologists state, setting their thoughts against God; and, putting aside the doctrine of Christ, and of themselves divining falsehoods, they dispute against the entire dispensation of God. For they maintain that their Aeons, and gods, and fathers, and lords, are also still further termed heavens, together with their Mother, whom they do also call "the Earth," and "Jerusalem," while they also style her many other names. Now to whom is it not clear, that if the Lord had known many fathers and gods, He would not have taught His disciples to know [only] one God,(3) and to call Him alone Father? But He did the rather distinguish those who by word merely (verbo tenus) are termed gods, from Him who is truly God, that they should not err as to His doctrine, nor understand one [in mistake] for another. And if He did indeed teach us to call one Being Father and God, while He does from time to time Himself confess other fathers and gods in the same sense, then He will appear to enjoin a different course upon His disciples from what He follows Himself. Such conduct, however, does not bespeak the good teacher, but a misleading and invidious one. The apostles, too, according to these men's showing, are proved to be transgressors of the commandment, since they confess the Creator as God, and Lord, and Father, as I have shown--if He is not alone God and Father. Jesus, therefore, will be to them the author and teacher of such transgression, inasmuch as He commanded that one Being should be called Father,(4) thus imposing upon them the necessity of confessing the Creator as their Father, as has been pointed out.
The reason I cite this is that Irenaeus goes to the maximal position (= the Valentinians) to exaggerate what other 'ordinary' Christians might see about his system. In other words, Justin clearly thought "Word/Son/Man" was one god "the Father, the good god" was another god. For Irenaeus those who held this belief argued for two Fathers because according to his system "the Word" was inseparable from the Father. Irenaeus needed the Valentinians because they made his case stronger.
Secret Alias
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Re: Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

Post by Secret Alias »

We can see how the Third Book emerges in Against Heresies because it is anticipated in the last chapter of the Second Book. I can't stress this enough. Book 1 was an adaptation of Justin within an anti-Valentinian treatise. Why the focus on Valentinus? The first is that they were popular at Rome. The second is that it is the extreme position against 'monarchianism.' If the monarchians say that there is One who Father, Son and Holy Spirit at the same time the reverse position is that there are MANY MANY gods. This focus on Valentinus helped win over fringe supporters who might not have agreed with everything Irenaeus said but hated polytheism. At the very end of Book Two we read after an attack on Basilides:

The remainder of those who are falsely termed Gnostics, and who maintain that the prophets uttered their prophecies under the inspiration of different gods, will be easily overthrown by this fact, that all the prophets proclaimed one God and Lord (= the Father), and that the very Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things which are therein; while they moreover announced the advent of His Son, as I shall demonstrate from the Scriptures themselves, in the books which follow.
But if some, according to the Hebrew language, are opposed to the different expressions placed in the Scriptures, such as Sabaoth and Eloa and Adona, and whatever other such expressions, while working out from them to show them different virtues and gods, let them learn that the meanings and designations of one and the same are all of this kind (Si autem quidam secundum hebraeam linguam diuersas dictiones positas in Scripturis opponant, quale est Sabaoth et Eloae et Adonae et alia quaecumque sunt talia, ex his ostendere elaborantes diuersas Virtutes atque Deos, discant quoniam unius et ipsius significationes et nuncupationes sunt omnia huiusmodi). For what is said of Eloa according to the Jewish word signifies God, and of Eloae true, and Elloeuth, according to the Hebrew language, signifies that it contains all things (Quod enim dicitur Eloae secundum iudaicam uocem Deum significat [ et Eloae] uerum, et Elloeuth secundum hebraicam linguam hoc quod continet omnia significat). But what he says to Adona sometimes means the unnamable and admirable, but sometimes, the double letter of the alpha with aspiration, as, for instance, Adonai, who defines and separates the earth from water, and afterwards the water rises up into it (Quod autem ait Adonae, aliquando quidem innominabile et admirabile significat, aliquando autem, duplicata littera delta cum adspiratione, ut puta Addonai, prae.finientem et separantem terram ab aqua, nec postea aquam insurgere in eam). In like manner, also, 'Power' also means 'voluntary' in the Greek, written in the last syllable; but by the Greek, as Hosts, he manifests the first heaven. In the same way lawth, when extended with the aspiration of the last syllable, manifests the predetermined measure; but when he is corrected by the Greek, as, for instance, Jaoth, he means the one who gives flight to the evils (Similiter autem et Sabaoth per eo quidem graecam in syllaba nouissima scribitur, uoluntarium significat; per o autem graecam, ut puta Sabaoth, primum caelum manifestat. Eodem modo et lawth, extensa cum adspiratione nouissima syllaba, mensuram prae.finitam manifestat; cum autem per o graecam corripitur, ut puta Iaoth, eum qui dat fugam malorum significat). And all other denominations are of the same one, as, according to Latin, the Lord of Virtues and Father of all, and God Almighty and Most High, and Lord of the heavens, Creator and Maker, and the like. the one God and the Father is shown who contains all and all that they may be outstanding (Et cetera omnia unius eiusdem que nuncupationes sunt, sicut secundum latinitatem Dominus Virtutum et Pater omnium et Deus omnipotens et Altissimus et Dominus caelorum et Creator et Fabricator et similia his: non alterius atque alterius haec sunt, sed unius eiusdem que nuncupationes et pronomina, per quae unus Deus et Pater ostenditur qui continet omnia et omnibus ut sint praestan).

And since the preaching of the apostles and the master's teaching is in accord with our sayings, and the proclamation of the prophets, and the dictation of the apostles, and the administration of the legislation, one and the same father of all praising God, and not one and another the underlying natures and dispositions, and neither by the angels, nor by some other angels, nor by some other virtue, but by God the Father alone, visible and invisible, and all things whatsoever that have been made, I think, indeed sufficiently shown (Quoniam autem dictis nostris consonat praedicatio apostolorum et domini magisterium et prophetarum annuntiatio et apostolorum dictatio et legislationis ministratio unum eundemque omnium deum patrem laudantium et non alium atque alium , neque ex diversis diis aut virtutibus substantiam habentem sed ex uno et eodem patre omnia qui tamen aptat secundum subiacentium naturas et dispositionem et neque ab angelis neque ab alia quadam angelis, neque ab alia quadam virtute, sed a solo Deo Patre visibilia atque invisibilia et omnia omnino quaecunque facta sunt arbitror quidem sufficienter ostensum et per haec tanta uno ostenso Deo Patre factore omnium) But lest we should be thought to shun that proof which is from the Lord's Scriptures (Sed ne putemur fugere illam, quae ex Scripturis dominicis est probationem), by those who preach this very thing much more clearly and clearly than the Scriptures themselves (Sed ne putemur fugere illam, quae ex Scripturis dominicis est probationem, ipsis Scripturis multo manifestius et clarius hoc ipsum praedicantibus) but to those who do not pay attention to them wrongly, by rendering their own book, which follows these Scriptures, we will add proofs from the divine Scriptures among all who love the truth (his tamen qui non prave intendant eis proprium librum, qui sequitur has scripturas, reddentes, ex Scripturis divinis probationes appponemus in medio omnibus amantibus veritatem)
What I am suggesting is there is this 'plan' to Against Heresies. Here is the first draft:
Book One: an anti-Valentinian reworking of Justin's Syntagma
Book Two: "In the present book, I shall establish those points which fit in with my design, so far as time permits, and overthrow, by means of lengthened treatment under distinct heads, their whole system; for which reason, since it is an exposure and subversion of their opinions, I have so entitled the composition of this work. For it is fitting, by a plain revelation and overthrow of their conjunctions, to put an end to these hidden alliances,(3) and to Bythus himself, and thus to obtain a demonstration that he never existed at any previous time, nor now has any existence." (2.1)
Book Three: the Old Testament shows there is one God the Father and the Gospel (in Four) is a Commentary on the Old Testament and the Only Reason Heretics Don't Get It is Because They Don't Have the Complete Gospel (the Synoptics + Gospel of John)
Book Four: "to adduce the words of the Lord; if, by convincing some among them, through means of the very instruction of Christ, I may succeed in persuading them to abandon such error, and to cease from blaspheming their Creator, who is both God alone, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."[3.35] "the words of the Lord are numerous, while they all proclaim one and the same Father, the Creator of this world, it was incumbent also upon me, for their own sake, to refute by many [arguments] those who are involved in many errors, if by any means, when they are confuted by many [proofs], they may be converted to the truth and saved." (4.41)
Book Five: "the doctrine of Paul after the words of the Lord, to examine the opinion of this man, and expound the apostle, and to explain whatsoever [passages] have received other interpretations from the heretics, who have altogether misunderstood what Paul has spoken, and to point out the folly of their mad opinions; and to demonstrate from that same Paul, from whose [writings] they press questions upon us, that they are indeed utterers of falsehood, but that the apostle was a preacher of the truth, and that he taught all things agreeable to the preaching of the truth; [to the effect that] it was one God the Father who spake with Abraham, who gave the law, who sent the prophets beforehand, who in the last times sent His Son, and conferred salvation upon His own handiwork--that is, the substance of flesh. Arranging, then, in another book, the rest of the words of the Lord, which He taught concerning the Father not by parables, but by expressions taken in their obvious meaning (sed simpliciter ipsis dictionibus), and the exposition of the Epistles of the blessed apostle, I shall, with God's aid, furnish thee with the complete work of the exposure and refutation of knowledge, falsely so called; thus practising myself and thee in [these] five books for presenting opposition to all heretics."(4.41) "Then also--having disposed of all questions which the heretics propose to us, and having explained the doctrine of the apostles, and clearly set forth many of those things which were said and done by the Lord in parables--I shall endeavour, in this the fifth book of the entire work which treats of the exposure and refutation of knowledge falsely so called, to exhibit proofs from the rest of the Lord's doctrine and the apostolical epistles" (5.1)
Simplified understanding of the Five Books Against Heresies:
Book One: anti-Valentinian treatise + Justin's Syntagma (a pre-existent catalogue of heresies)
Book Two: further anti-Valentinian treatise
Book Three: why not accepting the Gospel-in-Four leads all heretics to misunderstand Jesus/Man as another god other than the Father
Book Four: how the parables of Jesus show there is only One god the Father and/who is the Word his Son
Book Five: how the Lord's doctrine and the epistles of Paul show there is only One god the Father and/who is the Word his Son
Secret Alias
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Re: Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

Post by Secret Alias »

So Irenaeus's 'end goal' is to prove that there is One God, the Father and his Son (+ the Holy Spirit). He lays out the following 'plan' to do so:
Book One: anti-Valentinian treatise + Justin's Syntagma (a pre-existent catalogue of heresies)
Book Two: further anti-Valentinian treatise
Book Three: why not accepting the Gospel-in-Four leads all heretics to misunderstand Jesus/Man as another god other than the Father
Book Four: how the parables of Jesus show there is only One god the Father and/who is the Word his Son
Book Five: how the Lord's doctrine and the epistles of Paul show there is only One god the Father and/who is the Word his Son
The arrangement 'in five books' looks a lot like Against Marcion by Tertullian. In Tertullian:
Book Four: the gospel
Book Five: the epistles of Paul
In Irenaeus:
Book Four: the parables of Jesus
Book Five: the epistles of Paul


Even if you look at Book Five it starts with Paul and goes through Paul, Paul, Paul. So the arrangement is almost identical to Tertullian's Against Marcion (probably because Against Marcion was originally written in Greek by Irenaeus and loosely translated into Latin by Tertullian).

But the Book 4 and 5 devoted to 'gospel' and 'apostle' respectively is Marcionite. Marcion comes up at the end of Book Three. There's a weird logic to attacking the Valentinians so prominently in Book One and Two even though they were the only sect which seems to have embraced the Gospel of John which is supposedly the way you come to see Jesus as the Father. Who was Against Heresies directed at? The Marcionites?
Secret Alias
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Re: Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

Post by Secret Alias »

It is the third book in either set that becomes the most important. In Against Marcion the five works are:

Book One: not two gods but one god (with however only 3 references to the heavenly Father) (1.23) "No better is Marcion's god, breaking his way into a world not his own, stealing man from God, son from father, foster-son from nursing-father, servant from master, so as to make him undutiful to God, disrespectful to his Father, ungrateful to his foster-Father, worthless to his Master. I ask you: if rational goodness has this effect on him, what effect would irrational goodness have? (1.24) As a god is both eternal and rational, no less, I suppose, is he perfect in all things: for, Ye shall be perfect, as is your Father who is in heaven. Produce the evidence of <your god's> goodness being perfect." (1.27) "And in fact the Marcionites make it their boast that they do not at all fear their god: for, they say, a bad god needs to be feared, but a good one loved. Fool: you call him lord, but deny he is to be feared, though this is a term suggesting authority, and with it fear. Yet how shall you love, unless you fear not to love? Evidently he is not even your father, to whom would be due both love for affection's sake, and fear for the sake of authority: nor is he your lawful lord, for you to love for human kindness' sake and fear for the sake of discipline." This is simply incredible. Clearly from this (a) the Father is kind and in heaven (b) the Son is just and on earth or somehow related to the earth.

Book Two: while there no clear sense of any 'order' to the work from Book One, the preface to Book Two is a little clearer:
The fortunes of this work have been described in the preface to Book I. The opportunity of revision gives me this further advantage, that in the discussion of two gods, in opposition to Marcion, I am now able to assign to each of them a separate book with its distinctive heading: for so does the subject-matter naturally divide. That man from Pontus has seen fit to invent a second god, while denying the first: I however totally deny the existence of the second, while maintaining that the first is God in fall right. Marcion could only build up his falsehood by first breaking down the truth ... It ought to have been possible to confine my argument to this single theme, that the god brought in to supersede the Creator is no god at all. In that case, when the false god had been overthrown by those clear definitions which require deity to be both singular and complete, no further discussion of the true God would have been called for. As his existence would have been proved by the disproval of the other, so it would have been right that, whatever sort of God he was, he should be accepted without argument, to be worshipped and not judged, to be obeyed rather than discussed, and even feared for his severity.
The argument develops as an assumption (strangely) that 'the Son' the god the Marcionites understood as just but not good was the only god and their imaginary 'Father' god who is all good is non-existent. This approach seems to be described as a later innovation. Tertullian makes it seem as if this whole argument regarding the non-existence of Marcion's 'other god' is the innovation. What was there before? One would have to expect that it was something closer, more 'positive' with respect to there being only one God like in the Against Heresies series.

So I would now re-interpret my original ordering:

Book One: a description of the One God as understood by the orthodox Church
Book Two: a denial of the existence of the Marcionite 'other' god - viz. 'the all-good God the Father.'
Book Three: an account of 'Christ' the Son. This from the opening lines of Book Three:
Continuing with my reconstruction of the work which was lost, and following its original lines, I have now to treat of the Christ, even though, by having completed my proof that divinity necessarily implies unity, I have rendered this superfluous. That the Christ cannot be thought of as belonging to any god except the Creator is involved in the decision already arrived at, that there cannot be any god besides the Creator. This is the Creator whom Christ preached: and the apostles after him proclaimed Christ as belonging to no other god than that God, the Creator, whom Christ had preached: so much so, that no mention was ever made of a second god or a second Christ until Marcion's offence came in.
But it is interesting how the author avoids using the "Father" and "Son" here too. 3 references as we saw in Book 1 (a book ultimately about the Father). Book 2 less than 20 references. Book 3 less than 20 references, but even some interesting ones like a 'Father' 'Son' reading of Isaiah:
Let us bring the rest of his activities into comparison with the scriptures. Whatever that poor body may be, in whatever condition it was, and however regarded, so long as he is without glory, without nobility, and without honour, he will be the Christ I know, because it was foretold that in condition and in aspect such he would be. Once more Isaiah helps us: We have announced, he says, before him: as a young boy, as a root in thirsty land: and he has no form nor glory, and we saw him, and he was without form or comeliness, but his form was dishonoured, defective beyond all men:a as also just before, <there was> the voice of the Father <speaking> to the Son, Even as many will be astounded at thee, so thy appearance will be without glory from men.
The point is that against Marcion the Father is not brought forward as a weapon even though the author says that the 'other god' of the Marcionite system is the good Father. Tertullian side steps the whole issue of the Good Father saying that 'Christ' is shared in common by both and they he isn't merely 'just' but also good which means BY IMPLICATION he's also the Father. But when the work was reorganized in its third edition all reference to the Father seems to have been cut out of the argument.

What I am saying is that based on Tertullian's Against Marcion (which he says was developed two/three times away from a lost original source) Irenaeus's Father is the Son is the Holy Spirit is One God argument HAD TO BE DEVELOPED against the Valentinians. They are the foil because the argument works better against polytheists.
Secret Alias
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Re: Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

Post by Secret Alias »

only 3 'Father' references in Book One of Against Marcion as we saw. 3 'Father' references in Book 2 of Against Marcion:
(2.13) Thus is God wholly good, in that he is all and everything in favour of the good. Thus in effect is he almighty, in that he is mighty both to help and to hurt. It is a lesser thing to show nothing but favour, because of inability to show anything but favour. With what confidence should I hope for goodness from such a one, if goodness is all he is capable of? How could I strive after the wages of innocence, if I had not also regard to the wages of guilt? I should have to be doubtful of his granting a reward in either direction if he were not competent to do so in both. To such a degree as this is justice even the plenitude of divinity itself, that it reveals God in his perfection both as Father and as Lord: as Father in clemency, as Lord in discipline: as Father in kindly authority, as Lord in that which is stern: as Father to be loved from affection, as Lord to be necessarily feared: to be loved because he would rather have mercy than sacrifice, to be feared because he forbids to sin: to be loved because he would rather have a sinner's repentance than his death, to be feared because he refuses such as do not now repent. For that reason the law lays down both these commandments, Thou shalt love God,b and, Thou shall fear God:c the one it sets before the obedient, the other before the transgressor.
Notes: I have always noticed the manner in which Tertullian goes back to the Old Testament. Why would Marcion or Marcionites be convinced by the scriptural citations here? They must have used the Old Testament or that they had some relevance to the understanding of 'God' or 'the gods.' It is also worth noting that the distinction between 'Father' and 'Lord' as 'the good god' and the 'just god' respectively seems to be born out of a pre-existent - even Marcionite - distinction i.e. 'the Lord' = Jesus/Man and not the Father. Unlike Irenaeus here.
2.26 Also, God swears with an oath. Is this oath perhaps by Marcion's god (= the Good Father)? 'No,' your answer is, 'much more pointlessly, he swears by himself.' What else could he have thought of doing, when he was unaware of the existence of any other god, and in fact was then and there swearing that besides himself there is no other god at all?" Do you then charge him with false or perhaps pointless swearing? But he cannot be supposed to have sworn falsely if, as you allege, he did not know there was another god: for his swearing of what he knew of was not in a true sense false swearing. Neither is his swearing that there is no other god a pointless swearing ... [s]o he swears by himself, so that you may believe God, at least on his own oath, that there is no other god at all. And it is you, Marcion, who have forced God to do this: for even so long ago God had foreknowledge of you. Consequently if in his promises, and in his threatenings besides, God uses an oath in dragging forth that faith which in its beginnings is hard to attain to, there is nothing unworthy of God in that which causes men to believe in God. On that other occasion also God made himself little even in the midst of his fierce anger, when in his wrath against the people because of the consecration of the (golden) calf he demanded of his servant Moses, Let me alone, and I will wax hot in wrath and destroy them, and I will make thee into a great nation.b On
this you are in the habit of insisting that Moses was a better person than his own God—deprecating, yes and even forbidding, his wrath: for he says, Thou shalt not do this: or else destroy me along with them.c Greatly to be pitied are you, as well as the Israelites, for not realizing that in the person of Moses there is a prefiguring of Christ, who intercedes with the Father, and offers his own soul for the saving of the people. But for the present it is enough that the people were granted even to Moses in his own person. Also, so that the servant might be in a position to make this request of his Lord, the Lord made that request of himself.
Notes: clearly the Marcionites took the early Jewish understanding that there were two powers in heaven - Man the Logos who interacted with the Patriarchs and the Israelites and 'the Father' who is heard from heaven during the Sinai theophany.
2.27 Now at length—that I may dispose of the rest of these questions in one single answer—for all those details which you class together as petty and weak and unworthy, with intent to drag the Creator down, I shall set before you a straightforward and definite reason: it is that God would not have been able to enter into converse with men except by taking to himself those human thoughts and feelings by which he might reduce the force of his majesty, which human mediocrity was utterly unable to bear, by virtue of a humility, unworthy indeed of himself but necessary for man, and consequently worthy even of God, since nothing is so worthy of God as the salvation of man. Of this I might have discoursed at greater length if I had been treating with heathens— although even with heretics the method of attack is not very different. 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. 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? Or is it not these same pettinesses which ought, without further discussion, to make it clear to you that the Christ who was made the sport of men's passions belongs to that same God whose human appearances and activities are the object of your reproaches? For we claim also that Christ has always acted in God the Father's name, has himself ever since the beginning associated with, and conversed with, patriarchs and prophets.1 He is the Son of the Creator, his Word whom by bringing him forth from himself he caused to be his Son. From then onwards he put him in authority over his whole design and purpose, reducing him a little below the angels,a as it is written in David. By this reduction he was brought by the Father to these (acts and experiences) which you disapprove of as human: for he was learning even from the beginning, by so early assuming manhood, to be that which he was going to be at the end. He it is who comes down (to inquire into Sodom), who asks questions (of Adam and of Cain), who makes request (of Moses), and swears with an oath. 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. It was he also who in the Old Testament had already declared, No man shall see God and live thus pronouncing that the Father cannot be seen, while with the Father's authority and in his name he himself was the God who was seen, the Son of God. So too among us God is accepted in the person of Christ, because in this way also he belongs to us. Therefore all the (attributes and activities) you make requisition of as worthy of God are to be found in the Father, inaccessible to sight and contact, peaceable also, and, so to speak, a god philosophers can approve of: but all the things you repudiate as unworthy, are to be accounted to the Son, who was both seen and heard, and held converse, the Father's agent and minister, who commingles in himself man and God, in the miracles God, in the pettinesses man, so as to add as much to man as he detracts from God. In fact the whole of that which in my God is dishonourable in your sight, is a sign and token of man's salvation. God entered into converse with man, so that man might be taught how to act like God. God treated on equal terms with man, so that man might be able to treat on equal terms with God. God was found to be small, so that man might become very great.
Notes: very little separates Tertullian and Marcion. Both accept that the god who is portrayed as engaging with the ancient Israelites is 'the Son' and 'Man' while there is a Father in heaven who could not be seen.

1 It was almost universally held, until the end of the fourth century, that the subject of the theophanies, the speaker of divine words throughout the Old Testament, was God the Son acting as the agent or messenger of the Father: Justin, dial. 56 sqq.; Tertullian, adv. Prax. 14-16; Eusebius, H.E. i. 2; Prudentius, Apotheosis (passim).
Secret Alias
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Re: Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

Post by Secret Alias »

The first book of Against Marcion: "But what if these same characteristics are found to be in your god too? I have already, in the book assigned to him,3 proved that he is a judge, and as a judge necessarily stern, and as stern also cruel— if cruelty is the proper word." (3.26)
Secret Alias
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Re: Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

Post by Secret Alias »

11 references to 'Father' in Book 3 of Against Marcion. But very few of them doctrinal. Book Three is the clearest reworking of the original text of Against Marcion because it is mostly or 'muchly' borrowed from a treatise called Against the Jews which likely was written by Justin in some form. Most of the passages are just scriptural citations with 'Father' thrown in to the interpretation (3.17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23). What is so odd is that the Marcionite doctrine of two gods is critiqued as Man/Jesus/Christ/Son as the god held in common with the orthodox AND THEN THIS OTHER 'Good Father' god who according to Irenaeus doesn't exist. It is hard not to think that a Jew was responsible for this critique of Christianity.
3.2 Now for my first line of attack. I suggest that he had no right to come so unexpectedly. For two reasons. First because he too was the son of his own god.1 Proper order required that father should tell of son's existence before son told of father's, and father bear witness to son before son bore witness to father. Secondly, besides this matter of sonship, he was an emissary. The sender's acknowledgement ought to have come first, in commendation of the one who was sent. No one who comes by another's authority lays claim to it for himself, on his own bare statement, but looks for his credentials to the authority itself, headed by the style and title of the person who grants the authority. Moreover none can be recognized as a son unless a father has given him that name, nor can any be accepted as messenger unless he has been nominated by some person whose commission he holds. The naming and the nomination would certainly have been on record if there had been a father, or one to grant a commission. Anything that diverges from the rule is bound to be suspect: and the primary rule of all is that which does not permit son to vouch for father, or agent for principal, or Christ for god. As that from which a thing originates came first in the ordaining of it, so it comes first in men's knowledge of it. Here you have a son unexpected, an agent unexpected, a Christ unexpected. But I suggest that with God nothing is unexpected, because with God nothing exists unordained.
3.4 Your god was too proud, I suppose, to copy our God's ordering of events, since he disapproved of him and thought he would soon be shown wrong. Himself a newcomer, he decided to come in novel fashion, the son before the father's acknowledgement, the emissary before his principal's warrant. In this way he would become the inventor of a faith most unnatural, in which belief in Christ's coming would precede any knowledge of his existence.
3.6 Also when he upbraids them, by Isaiah once more, I have begotten and brought up children, but they have rejected me: the ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know me and the people hath not understood mee—we for our part, assured that Christ has always spoken in the prophets—being the Spirit of the Creator, as the prophet testifies, The person of our spirit, Christ the Lord,2,f who since the beginning, as the Father's representative, has been both heard and seen, under the name of God—we, I say, know that his were those words of this sort, when he even as early as that rebuked Israel for the sins it was prophesied they would commit against him: Ye have forsaken the Lord, and have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger.g If however you will have it that this whole imputation of Jewish ignorance since the first beginning refers not to Christ but rather to God himself, if you refuse to admit that even in the past the Word and Spirit, the Christ of the Creator, was despised by them and unrecognized, even then you will be confuted. For as you do not deny that the Creator's Christ is the Son and the Spirit and the substance of the Creator,3 you have to admit that such as did not recognize the Father were incapable also of recognizing the Son, because he is one and the same substance, with the same attributes, and if the fullness of this was beyond their understanding, so, a fortiori, was the derivative, seeing it is joint possessor with the fullness. If these facts are thus considered, it is now apparent for what reason the Jews both rejected Christ and put him to death—not because they took Christ for a stranger, but because though their own, they did not accept him.
3.7 For, he says, We have announced concerning him: as a little boy, as a root in thirsty ground: and he has no appearance nor glory, and we saw him, and he had no appearance or beauty, but his appearance was unhonoured, defective more than the sons of men, a man in sorrow, and knowing how to bear infirmity:a because set by the Father for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.b Made by him a little lower than the angels declaring himself a worm and no man, the scorn of man and the outcast of the people ... For it says, Fairer in beauty beyond the sons of men; grace is poured forth in thy lips; therefore God hath blessed thee for ever. Gird the sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty in thy worshipfulness and thy beauty. Then also the Father, now that he has made him a little lower than the angels, will crown him with glory and honour, and will put all things beneath his feet ... And he is a man, says Jeremiah, and who shall know him?h Because also, Isaiah says, His nativity, who shall tell of it?i So also in Zechariah, in the person of Jeshua, yes truly, in a name which is itself a sacrament, the veritable high priest of the Father, Christ Jesus, is by two styles of raiment marked out for two advents: he is at first clothed in filthy garments, which means the indignity of passible and mortal flesh, when also the devil stands as his adversary, the devil who put it into the heart of Judas the traitor, not to mention himself being the tempter after baptism: afterwards he is divested of his previous foulness, and arrayed in robe and mitre and shining crown, which means the glory and dignity of his second coming
3.15 On the question of the flesh, and, by implication, of the nativity, and for the time being of the one name, of Emmanuel, let this suffice. Next, as concerns his other names, and in particular his name of Christ, what answer are my opponents going to give? If in your opinion the name of Christ is a common noun, just as the name of god is, with the result that it is permissible for the sons of each of two gods to be called Christ, as also for each <of those gods> to be called father <and> lord, assuredly reason will controvert this proposition.
3.17 Once more Isaiah helps us: We have announced, he says, before him: as a young boy, as a root in thirsty land: and he has no form nor glory, and we saw him, and he was without form or comeliness, but his form was dishonoured, defective beyond all men: as also just before, <there was> the voice of the Father <speaking> to the Son, Even as many will be astounded at thee, so thy appearance will be without glory from men.
3.18 And so Isaac, to begin with, when delivered up by his father for a sacrifice, himself carried the wood for himself,b and did at that early date set forth the death of Christ, who when surrendered as a victim by his Father carried the wood of his own passion.2 Joseph also, himself to be a type of Christ—and not for this reason alone <that I delay not my course> that he suffered persecution from his brethren because of God's grace, as Christ suffered from the Jews, his brethren according to the flesh—when blessed by his father in these precise terms, His glory is that of a bullock, his horns are the horns of a unicorn: with them will he winnow the nations together, even to the end of the earth,c was certainly not intended to be a rhinoceros with one horn or a minotaur with two horns: rather in him Christ was indicated
3.19 If you ask for further prophecy of our Lord's Cross, you can find complete satisfaction in the twenty-first psalm, which comprises the whole passion of Christ, who was even at that date foretelling of his own glory. They pierced, he says, my hands and my feet,e which is the particular outrage of the cross. And again, while appealing for his Father's help, he says, Save me from the lion's mouth, meaning death: and <my> lowliness from the horns of the unicorn,f the points of the cross, as I have already pointed out.
3.20 Even at the very beginning of the Psalms the Father's promise will meet you: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee: require of me and I will give thee the gentiles for thine inheritance, and the boundaries of the earth for thy possession.
3.22 For this same letter TAU of the Greeks, which is our T, has the appearance of the cross, which he foresaw we should have on our foreheads in the true and catholic Jerusalem, in which the twenty-first psalm, in the person of Christ himself addressing the Father, prophesies that Christ's brethren, the sons of God, will give glory to God the Father: I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I sing praise to thee.
3.23 since the time, in fact, when Israel knew not the Lord, and the people would not understand him, but forsook him, and provoked the Holy One of Israel to indignation.g So also, under certain conditions, the threat of the sword, If ye be unwilling and refuse to hear me, the sword shall devour you,h proved that it was Christ whom they refused to hear, and therefore perished. He also in the fifty-eighth psalm demands of the Father their dispersion, Disperse them in thy strength
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Re: Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

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Book 4
4.9 Knowing that the law was in the form of prophecy, he was safeguarding its figurative regulations even in his own mirrored images of them, which indicated that a man who has been a sinner, as soon as he is cleansed by the word of God, is bound to offer in the temple a sacrifice to God, which means prayer and giving of thanks in the church through Christ Jesus, the universal high priest of the Father. This is why he added, That it may be to you for a testimony
4.10 Yet even though nothing of this sort had been foretold in respect of Christ, I should have in the Creator instances of this kindness, such as promise me in the Son too the affections of the Father. I see the men of Nineveh obtaining from the Creator the forgiveness of their crimes—or I should rather say 'from Christ', because even from the beginning he has acted in the Father's name.
ibid On the expression Son of man my postulates are two: first that Christ was incapable of lying, so as to declare himself the Son of man if he was not really so: and that no one can be accepted as Son of man who is not of human birth, either on the father's side or the mother's: and this will call for discussion, on what side his human birth must be taken to be, the father's or the mother's. Now if he is from God as father, certainly his father is not a man: if his father is not a man, the only thing left is for him to be of a human mother: and if of a human <mother> it is already evident that she is a virgin. For as there is ascribed to him no human father, neither can his mother be reckoned to have a husband: and <this mother> to whom no husband is reckoned, is a virgin. Otherwise there will be two fathers involved, God and a man, if his mother is not a virgin. For she has to have a husband, if she is not to be a virgin, and by having a husband she will cause him who was to be the Son of God and of man to have two fathers, God and a man. That perhaps is the sort of nativity the old tales ascribe to Castor and Hercules. But if the distinctions are made in this form, that is, if on his mother's side he is the Son of man because he is not the Son of man on his father's side, and if his mother is a virgin because he has no man for his father, this must be Isaiah's Christ whom he prophesies that a virgin will conceive. By what reasoning then, Marcion, you accept Son of man I am unable to understand. If <you mean> son of a human father, you deny that he is the Son of God: if <you mean> son of God as well, you are making Christ into Hercules out of the old story: if only his mother was human, you admit that he is mine: if neither father nor mother was human, then he is not the son of man at all, and we must conclude that he told a lie when he called himself something that he was not. One thing alone can get you out of these straits—if you are bold enough either to give your god, the father of Christ, the name of Man, which is what Valentinus did with the aeon, or else to deny that the virgin is human, which is a thing not even Valentinus has done
4.11 Also in Isaiah, rejoicing in his father's presence, he says, Let my soul exult in the Lord, for he hath clothed me with the garment of salvation and with the robe of joyfulness, as for a bridegroom, and hath placed upon me a crown as for a bride
4.12 Even in this instance he fulfilled the law by explaining the circumstances which condition it, by throwing light upon different kinds of works, by doing the things which the law exempts from the restraints of the sabbath, by making even more holy by his own kind deeds that sabbath day which since the beginning had been holy by the Father's kind words
4.13 You cannot deny that he brings to Sion and Jerusalem good tidings of peace and of all good things, nor that he goes up into the mountain and there spends all night in prayer, and in effect is heard by his Father ... But concerning the voice of prayer all night to the Father, the psalm manifestly speaks: O my God, I will cry throughout the day, and thou wilt hear, and at night, and it shall not be to me for vanity.f And in another place a psalm speaks of the same place and voice: With my voice I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me from his holy mountain.g So you have his name made present, you have the action of one who brings good tidings, you have his place on the mountain, and the time at night, and the sound of the voice, and the Father hearing him: you have the Christ of the prophets.
ibid as he also says in Isaiah, I will place rivers in a waterless landi—and would like jewels shed light upon the holy vesture of the church, that vesture which Christ the Father's high priest has put on, and would be firm in the faith like stones which the true Joshua
ibid This the psalm had in mind: And behold, the Philistines and Tyre and the people of the Morians, these have been there: Mother Sion, a man will say, and he became man in her— because God as man was born—and he hath builded her by the will of the Fatherk—that you may know that the reason why the gentiles then came together to him was that God as Man had been born and was to build up the church by the Father's will, even from among the Philistines.
4.16 and when the fulfilment began of that which was spoken by Hosea, Not-my-people <shall be> My-people, and She that had not obtained mercy <shall be> She that hath obtained mercyi—the gentile nation, it means—from thenceforth Christ extended towards all men the law of his Father's bounty, excluding none from his compassion as he excludes none from his vocation.
4.17 I cannot become the son of a eunuch, especially when I have for Father the same one whom all things have. For just as he who is the Creator of the universe is the Father of all things, so he who is the creator of no substance is but a eunuch.
4.18 When the Lord of hosts himself was by the Word and Spirit of the Father working and preaching upon earth, it was necessary that that apportionment of the Holy Spirit which, after the manner of what was measured out to the prophets, had in John had the function of preparing the ways of the Lord, should now depart from John, having been drawn back again into the Lord, as into its all-inclusive headspring
4.21 So it cannot have been your Christ who said, Whoso shall be ashamed of me. It must have been our Christ who used this expression, he who was made by the Father a little lower than the angels;e a worm and no man, a very scorn of men and the outcast of the people;f because so it pleased him, that by his bruise we should be healed,g and in his dishonour should our salvation stand firm.
4.22 Likewise even now the cloud was not silent, but there is the accustomed voice from heaven, and the Father's new testimony concerning the Son.
ibid So also Isaiah: Who is there among you that feareth God? Let him hear the voice of his Son.e This voice the Father himself would some time commend, for it says, Establishing the words of his Son,f by saying, This is my beloved Son, hear him. So that even though there has been a transference made of this hearing from Moses and from Elijah to Christ, this is not as from one god to another god, nor to a different Christ, but by the Creator to his own Christ, in accordance with the demise of the old covenant and the succession of the new: Not a delegate, says Isaiah, nor a messenger, but God himself shall save them,g now in his own person preaching, and fulfilling the law and the prophets. So the Father has put into the Son's charge the new disciples, by first displaying Moses and Elijah along with him in his excellence of glory, and thus granting them release, as having at length fully discharged their office and dignity—so that for Marcion's benefit confirmation might be given of this very fact, that there is even a sharing of Christ's glory with Moses and Elijah.
4.24 So when he had told of benefits of healing, then it was that he put scorpions and serpents under subjection to his saints: and this was he who had first received from his Father this authority so as to grant it also to others, and now made it manifest in the order the prophecy had foretold.
4.25 Consequently, seeing he had made no provision of materials in which he could have hidden something, nor had been dealing with offenders from whom he ought to have hidden it, nor had the right to hide things even if he had been dealing with such offenders, it follows that he can never be the revealer of things, because he has never been the hider of them, and in that case is neither the lord of heaven nor the father of Christ: but rather he is, who satisfies all these conditions.
ibid He says all things are delivered to him by his Father. You can believe this, if Christ belongs to the Creator to whom all things belong, because the Creator has not delivered all things to the Son as to one less than himself: for by the Son, who is his own Word, he created them all. But if Christ is 'he that doth come', what are those 'all things' that are delivered to him by the Father? The Creator's things? Then those are good things which the Father has delivered to the Son, and good too is that Creator whose 'all things' are good, and that other one is not good who has broken in upon another's goods so as to deliver them to his son. If he teaches men to keep their hands off what is another's, he is certainly in extreme poverty in having nothing to enrich a son with except what is another's. Or, if nothing of the Creator's has been delivered to him by his father, by what right does he lay claim to the Creator's man? Or else, if it is only man who has been delivered to him, then man is not 'all things'. But the scripture says that delivery of all things has been made to the Son.
ibid 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. 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 ... For his reason for inserting the statement that the Father is known by that man to whom the Son has revealed him, is that it was he himself who was proclaimed as set by the Father as a light of the gentiles, and that they were to receive light concerning God, the God of Israel, and this by virtue of a fuller acknowledgement of God.
4.26 When he had been praying in a certain place, to that higher-class father, looking up with eyes above measure presumptuous and audacious towards the heaven of that Creator by whose sternness and savagery he could easily have been struck down by lightning and hail—even as at Jerusalem he can have been crucified by him—one of his disciples approached him and said, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples, because, as you will have it, he thought a different god must needs be prayed to in different terms.
ibid Again, take note of which God the terms of the prayer suggest. Whom shall I address as Father? Him who has had nothing at all to do with the making of me, and from whom I in no sense take my origin, or him who by making me and fashioning me became my begetter?
ibid But 'troublesome' is what a god lately arrived could not in so short a time have found any man to be. Acknowledge then as your Father the God you refer to as the Creator. He it is who knows what his sons are in need of.
4.28 And so it was with good reason that he disapproved of the hypocrisy of the pharisees, who loved God with their lips and not with their heart. Beware, he says to the disciples, of the leaven of the pharisees, which is hypocrisy, 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.
4.29 But when he adds once more, But the Father knoweth that ye have need of these things, I must first inquire whom Christ wishes them to understand by the Father. If he means their own Creator, he thereby affirms the goodness of him who knows what his sons have need of: but if he means that other god, how does this one know that food and clothing are what man has need of, when he has provided none of these?
4.30 The kingdom of God, he says, is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his own garden. Whom must we understand in the person of the man? Evidently Christ, because, even though he be Marcion's Christ, he is described as the Son of man, who has received from the Father the seed of the kingdom, which is the word of the gospel, and has sown it in his garden, meaning the world, and, if you like, on this occasion in a human being. But since he has said in his own garden, while neither the world nor that human being belongs to Marcion's god, but to the Creator, it follows that he who has sown the seed on his own property is proved to be the Creator.
4.34 When he forbids divorce, while yet claiming as his father him who has joined together the male and the female, must he not rather have defended than abolished Moses' regulation? But now, let us suppose that this Christ is yours, giving oppo- site teaching to Moses and the Creator—provided that if I prove it was not opposite, I may claim him as mine.
ibid Hence it becomes plain to any wise man who has ever heard of the Elysian fields, that there is a sort of distinct locality referred to as Abraham's bosom, for the reception of the souls of his sons even from among the gentiles— for he is the father of those many nations who are to be reckoned Abraham's offspring—and those of that same faith by which Abraham himself believed God, beneath no yoke of the law, and without the sign of circumcision.
4.35 So then, since he himself was with primary and plenary authority the high priest of God the Father, he did examine them in accor- dance with the secret meaning of the law, which indicates that Christ is the true examiner and remover of the defilements of men.
4.39 For what is there wiser or more irresistible than a plain and express confession in the name of a martyr who prevails with God ? For this is the meaning of Israel. And no wonder that a check was put upon premeditation by one who himself received from the Father the ability to speak words in season: The Lord giveth me the tongue of discipline <to know> when I ought to utter speech: except that Marcion suggests that Christ is not subject to the Father.
ibid his will be that great and notable day of the Lord, when he comes as the Son of man from heaven, as Daniel says: Behold one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, and what follows: and there was given to him kingly authority,l that which in the parable he had gone forth to claim, when he left money with his servants for them to do business with: and all the nationsl—those which the Father had promised him in the psalm, Desire of me and I will give thee the gentiles for thine inheritancem—and all glory serving him, and his dominion is everlasting, that shall not be taken away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed,l because in it they will not die, nor marry, but will be like the angels.
4.43 And see how it continues, even in the thirtieth psalm, to present Christ in his own person: he cries aloud to the Father, so as even in dying, with his last words, to fulfil the prophets
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Re: Parallel Scriptural Interpretations in Sabellius and Irenaeus

Post by Secret Alias »

So here is what I figured out so far:
Philo (two powers) Man, the divine Word who visited with the Patriarchs, a just power known from the Pentateuch as "Lord" and a merciful power known from the Pentateuch as "God."

Justin (two powers) Man, the divine Word who visited with the Patriarchs and (presumably) an unknown heavenly Father

Marcion (two powers) "Lord" who visited with the Patriarchs and was 'the Son" who was the the just power and a previously unknown heavenly Father who was the merciful power.
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