and thenBesides that, to work up credence for it he has contrived a sort of dowry, a work entitled Antitheses because of its juxtaposition of opposites, a work strained into making such a division between the Law and the Gospel as thereby to make two separate gods, opposite to each other, one belonging to one instrument (or, as it is more usual to say, testament), one to the other, and thus lend its patronage to faith in another gospel, that according to the Antitheses. Now I might have demolished those antitheses by a specially directed hand-to-hand attack, taking each of the statements of the man of Pontus one by one, except that it was much more convenient to refute them both in and along with that gospel which they serve: although it is perfectly easy to take action against them by counter-claim,1 even accepting them as admissible, accounting them valid, and alleging that they support my argument, that so they may be put to shame for the blindness of their author, having now become my antitheses against Marcion.So then I do admit that there was a different course followed in the old dispensation under the Creator, from that in the new dispensation under Christ. I do not deny a difference in records of things spoken, in precepts for good behaviour, and in rules of law, provided that all these differences have reference to one and the same God, that God by whom it is acknowledged that they were ordained and also foretold. Long ago did Isaiah proclaim that the law will go forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem— another law, he means, and another word. In fact, he says, he shall judge among the gentiles, and shall convict many people,a meaning not of the one nation of the Jews, but of the gentiles who by the new law of the gospel and the new word of the apostles are being judged and convicted in their own sight in respect of their ancient error, as soon as they have believed, and thereupon beat their swords into ploughshares, and their zibynae (which is a sort of hunting-spear) into pruning-hooks—that is, they are converting their formerly fierce and savage minds into honest thoughts productive of a good result. And again: Hearken to me, hearken to me, my people; and ye kings incline your ears to me: because a law will go forth from me, my judgement also for a light of the gentiles - that by which he had judged and decreed that the gentiles also should be enlightened by the law and word of the gospel. This will be the law also in David, an unassailable law, because it is perfect, converting the soul,c from idols unto God. This also will be the word, of which Isaiah says again, Because the Lord will make a decisive word upon the earth:d for the new testament is made very concise, and is disentangled from the intricate burdens of the law.
End of chapter 1. Suddenly in chapter 2 there is the statement:Why need you explain a difference of facts as an opposition of authorities? Why need you distort against the Creator those antitheses in the evidences, which you can recognize also in his own thoughts and affections? I will smite, he says, and I will heal:k I will slay, he says, and also make alive, by establishing evil things and making peace:l because of which it is your custom even to censure him on account of fickleness and inconstancy, in forbidding what he commands and commanding what he forbids. Why then have you not also thought out some antitheses for the essential attributes of a Creator always at variance with himself? Not even among your men of Pontus, if I mistake not, have you been able to realize that the world is constructed out of the diversities of substances in mutual hostility. And so you ought first to have laid it down that there was one god of light and another of darkness: then you could have affirmed that there was one god of the law and another of the gospel. For all that, judgement is already given, and that by manifest proofs, that he whose works and ways are consistently antithetic, has also his mysteries <of revelation> consistently of that same pattern.
So Adversus Marcionem veers off to a different direction. But notice this a little later written clearly by the third editor, Tertullian:2. You have there my short and sharp answer to the Antitheses. I pass on next to show how his gospel—certainly not Judaic but Pontic—is in places adulterated
What about the "Antitheses" once added to Luke "betrays" Marcion's origin in the Catholic Church? It might be that they resembled Matthew's Antitheses, though Tertullian seems to avoid acknowledging this. Marcion "adding" Matthew's antitheses to Luke might explain why Matthew is mentioned throughout Adversus Marcionem.So then meanwhile, as concerns the gospel of Luke, seeing that the use of it shared between us and Marcion becomes an arbiter of the truth, our version of it is to such an extent older than Marcion that Marcion himself once believed it. That was when in the first warmth of faith he presented the catholic church with that money which was before long cast out along with him after he had diverged from our truth into his own heresy. What now, if the Marcionites are going to deny that his faith at first was with us—even against the evidence of his own letter? What if they refuse to acknowledge that letter? Certainly Marcion's own Antitheses not only admit this, but even make a show of it. Proof taken from them is good enough for me. If that gospel which among us is ascribed to Luke—we shall see <later> whether it is <accepted by> Marcion—if that is the same that Marcion by his Antitheses accuses of having been falsified by the upholders of Judaism with a view to its being so combined in one body with the law and the prophets that they might also pretend that Christ had that origin, evidently he could only have brought accusation against something he had found there already.
Book Four Chapter 6 is the last chapter before Irenaeus's original (as I propose) treatment of Luke 6 not surprising ends with mention of the Antheses. Chapter 7 is the beginning of his treatment of the gospel. We read in Chapter 6 (fully cited here):
I propose that Irenaeus's Adversus Marcionem originally went from here to the material in Chapter 14:6. I now advance a step further, while I call to account, as I have promised, Marcion's gospel in his own version of it, with the design, even so, of proving it adulterated. Certainly the whole of the work he has done, including the prefixing of his Antitheses, he directs to the one purpose of setting up opposition between the Old Testament and the New, and thereby putting his Christ in separation from the Creator, as belonging to another god, and having no connection with the law and the prophets. Certainly that is why he has expunged all the things that oppose his view, that are in accord with the Creator, on the plea that they have been woven in by his partisans; but has retained those that accord with his opinion. These it is we shall call to account, with these we shall grapple, to see if they will favour my case, not his, to see if they will put a check on Marcion's pretensions. Then it will become clear that these things have been expunged by the same disease of heretical blindness by which the others have been retained. Such will be the purpose and plan of my treatise, on those precise terms which have been agreed by both parties. Marcion lays it down that there is one Christ who in the time of Tiberius was revealed by a god formerly unknown, for the salvation of all the nations; and another Christ who is destined by God the Creator to come at some time still future for the re-establishment of the Jewish kingdom. Between these he sets up a great and absolute opposition, such as that between justice and kindness, between law and gospel, between Judaism and Christianity. From this will also derive my statement of claim, by which I lay it down that the Christ of a different god has no right to have anything in common with the Creator; and again, that Christ must be adjudged to be the Creator's if he is found to have administered the Creator's ordinances, fulfilled his prophecies, supported his laws, given actuality to his promises, revived his miracles, given new expression to his judgements, and reproduced the lineaments of his character and attributes. I request you, my reader, always to bear in mind this undertaking, this statement of my case, and begin to be aware that Christ belongs either to Marcion or the Creator, <but not to both>.
If you look at the material emboldened in red it is plain that it follows the argument made at the very beginning. Adversus Marcionem is claiming that the beatitudes are, to cite Evans "that the beatitudes and the woes, after the manner of the praetor's perpetual edict, are Christ's statement of the principles on which he will act when he comes to judge the world." Marcion's point of view was that it was the exact opposite of "judgement" but a statement of mercy. Irenaeus's ideas are crazy. But they follow from "turning upside down" i.e. making "antitheses of the antitheses" as he says somewhere, the original principles of Marcion's gospel.13. [Luke 6: 12-19.] Open then the prophets, and you will find it all set in order there. Get thee up, says Isaiah, into the high mountain, O thou that bringest good tidings to Sion, lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem.a Even now with strength were they astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had power.b And again: Therefore my people shall know my name at that day—what name, unless it be Christ's?—because it is I myself who speak:c because it was he himself who was then speaking in the prophets, the Word, the Son of the Creator. I am here, while the time is, upon the mountains, as one that bringeth good tidings of the hearing of peace, as bringing good tidings of good things.d Also Nahum, one of the twelve, For behold, swift upon the mountain are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings of peace:e 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. But why did he choose twelve apostles, and not some other number? Nay but even from this I could find that my Christ is indicated, one foretold not only by the voices of the prophets but also by the evidences of facts. I find figurative indications of this number in the Creator's scriptures, the twelve springs at Elim, the twelve jewels on Aaron's priestly garment, and the twelve stones chosen by Joshua out of Jordan and laid up in the ark of the covenant.h For this was a previous indication that apostles to that number would like fountains and rivers irrigate the world of the gentiles which had formerly been dried up and deserted of knowledge— 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 has chosen out of the baptism of Jordan and received into the holy place of his own covenant. Has Marcion's Christ anything that justifies his retention of that number? It cannot be thought that a thing was done by him without special meaning, which can be seen to have been done by my Christ with special meaning. The fact itself must belong to the one with whom is found the preparation for the fact. Also he changes Simon's name to Peter, because the Creator too had altered the names of Abraham and Sarah and Auses, calling this last one Joshua [Jesus], adding syllables to the other two. Also why Peter? If because of forcefulness of faith, there were many firm and solid materials to lend a name of their own. Or was it because Christ is both rock and stone? For we do indeed find it written that he is set for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.j I leave out the rest. And so he made a point of passing on to the dearest of his disciples a name specially connected with the types of himself, a closer name, I imagine, than one drawn from other types than his. There come together from Tyre and Sidon, and from other countries, a multitude even from over the sea. 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. So also Isaiah, Lo, these do come from far, and these come from the north and from the sea, and others from the land of the Persians.l Of these he says again, Lift up thine eyes round about and see, all these are gathered together.m And of the same a little later, when she sees the unknown and the strangers: And thou shall say to thine heart, Who hath begotten me these? and who hath brought me up these? and these, tell me, where have they been?n Must not this be the Christ of the prophets? So who can the Christ of the Marcionites be? If perversity is to their mind, the Christ who was not of the prophets.
14. [Luke 6: 20-2.] I come next to those customary judgements by which he builds up his own special doctrine, what I may call the magisterial edict of Christ.1 Blessed are the indigent—for the translation of the word which is in the Greek requires it so—for theirs is the kingdom of God. Now this very fact that he begins with blessings is characteristic of the Creator, who with no other voice than of benediction gave sanctity to the universe of things as soon as he made them. For he says, My heart hath disgorged a supremely good word.a This must be that excellent Word, of benediction surely, who by the precedent of the old covenant is recognized as the initiator of the new covenant as well. What wonder is it then, if he also by words of this kind begins his discourse with the Creator's affections, the Creator who always expresses his love for the indigent, the poor, the humble, and the widows and orphans, comforting, protecting, and avenging them—so that you may take this (as it were) private bounty of Christ to be a stream from the Saviour's fountains?