Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III:
Tertullian: Part II: The Judicial Severity of Christ and the Tenderness of the Creator, Asserted in Contradiction to Marcion.  The Cure of the Ten Lepers. Old Testament Analogies. The Kingdom of God Within You; This Teaching Similar to that of Moses. Christ, the Stone Rejected by the Builders. Indications of Severity in the Coming of Christ. Proofs that He is Not the Impassible Being Marcion Imagined.

Chapter XXXV.—The Judicial Severity of Christ and the Tenderness of the Creator, Asserted in Contradiction to Marcion. The Cure of the Ten Lepers. Old Testament Analogies. The Kingdom of God Within You; This Teaching Similar to that of Moses. Christ, the Stone Rejected by the Builders.  Indications of Severity in the Coming of Christ. Proofs that He is Not the Impassible Being Marcion Imagined.

Then, turning to His disciples, He says: “Woe unto him through whom offences come! It were better for him if he had not been born, or if a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones,” 4860 that is, one of His disciples. Judge, then, what the sort of punishment is which He so severely threatens. For it is no stranger who is to avenge the offence done to His disciples. Recognise also in Him the Judge, and one too, who expresses Himself on the safety of His followers with the same tenderness as that which the Creator long ago exhibited: “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of my eye.” 4861 Such identity of care proceeds from one and the same Being. A trespassing brother He will have rebuked. 4862 If one failed in this duty of reproof, he in fact sinned, either because out of hatred he wished his brother to continue in sin, or else spared him from mistaken friendship, 4863 although possessing the injunction in Leviticus: “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart; thy neighbor thou shalt seriously rebuke, and on his account shalt not contract sin.” 4864 Nor is it to be wondered at, if He thus teaches who forbids your refusing to bring back even your brother’s cattle, if you find them astray in the road; much more should you bring back your erring brother to himself. He commands you to forgive your brother, should he trespass against you even “seven times.” 4865 But that surely, is a small matter; for with the Creator there is a larger grace, when He sets no limits to forgiveness, indefinitely charging you “not to bear any malice against your brother,” 4866 and to give not merely to him who asks, but even to him who does not ask. For His will is, not that you should forgive 4867 an offence, but forget it. The law about lepers had a profound meaning as respects 4868 the forms of the disease itself, and of the inspection by the high priest. 4869 The interpretation of this sense it will be our task to ascertain. Marcion’s labour, however, is to object to us the strictness 4870 of the law, with the view of maintaining that here also Christ is its enemy—forestalling 4871 its enactments even in His cure of the ten lepers. These He simply commanded to show themselves to the priest; “and as they went, He cleansed them” 4872 —without a touch, and without a word, by His silent power and simple will. Well, but what necessity was there for Christ, who had been once for all announced as the healer of our sicknesses and sins, and had proved Himself such by His acts, 4873 to busy Himself with inquiries 4874 into the qualities and details of cures; or for the Creator to be summoned to the scrutiny of the law in the person of Christ? If any part of this healing was effected by Him in a way different from the law, He yet Himself did it to perfection; for surely the Lord may by Himself, or by His Son, produce after one manner, and after another manner by His servants the prophets, those proofs of His power and might especially, which (as excelling in glory and strength, because they are His own acts) rightly enough leave in the distance behind them the works which are done by His servants. But enough p. 408 has been already said on this point in a former passage. 4875 Now, although He said in a preceding chapter, 4876 that “there were many lepers in Israel in the days of Eliseus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian,” yet of course the mere number proves nothing towards a difference in the gods, as tending to the abasement 4877 of the Creator in curing only one, and the pre-eminence of Him who healed ten. For who can doubt that many might have been cured by Him who cured one more easily than ten by him who had never healed one before? But His main purpose in this declaration was to strike at the unbelief or the pride of Israel, in that (although there were many lepers amongst them, and a prophet was not wanting to them) not one had been moved even by so conspicuous an example to betake himself to God who was working in His prophets. Forasmuch, then, as He was Himself the veritable 4878 High Priest of God the Father, He inspected them according to the hidden purport of the law, which signified that Christ was the true distinguisher and extinguisher of the defilements of mankind.  However, what was obviously required by the law He commanded should be done: “Go,” said He, “show yourselves to the priests.” 4879 Yet why this, if He meant to cleanse them first? Was it as a despiser of the law, in order to prove to them that, having been cured already on the road, the law was now nothing to them, nor even the priests?  Well, the matter must of course pass as it best may, 4880 if anybody supposes that Christ had such views as these! 4881 But there are certainly better interpretations to be found of the passage, and more deserving of belief: how that they were cleansed on this account, because 4882 they were obedient, and went as the law required, when they were commanded to go to the priests; and it is not to be believed that persons who observed the law could have found a cure from a god that was destroying the law. Why, however, did He not give such a command to the leper who first returned? 4883 Because Elisha did not in the case of Naaman the Syrian, and yet was not on that account less the Creator’s agent? This is a sufficient answer. But the believer knows that there is a profounder reason. Consider, therefore, the true motives. 4884 The miracle was performed in the district of Samaria, to which country also belonged one of the lepers. 4885 Samaria, however, had revolted from Israel, carrying with it the disaffected nine tribes, 4886 which, having been alienated 4887 by the prophet Ahijah, 4888 Jeroboam settled in Samaria. Besides, the Samaritans were always pleased with the mountains and the wells of their ancestors. Thus, in the Gospel of John, the woman of Samaria, when conversing with the Lord at the well, says, “No doubt 4889 Thou art greater,” etc.; and again, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; but ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” 4890 Accordingly, He who said, “Woe unto them that trust in the mountain of Samaria,” 4891 vouchsafing now to restore that very region, purposely requests the men “to go and show themselves to the priests,” because these were to be found only there where the temple was; submitting 4892 the Samaritan to the Jew, inasmuch as “salvation was of the Jews,” 4893 whether to the Israelite or the Samaritan.  To the tribe of Judah, indeed, wholly appertained the promised Christ, 4894 in order that men might know that at Jerusalem were both the priests and the temple; that there also was the womb 4895 of religion, and its living fountain, not its mere “well.” 4896 Seeing, therefore, that they recognised 4897 the truth that at Jerusalem the law was to be fulfilled, He healed them, whose salvation was to come 4898 of faith 4899 without the ceremony of the law. Whence also, astonished that one only out of the ten was thankful for his release to the divine grace, He does not command him to offer a gift according to the law, because he had already paid his tribute of gratitude when “he glorified God” 4900 for thus did the Lord will that the law’s requirement should be interpreted. And yet who was the God to whom the Samaritan gave thanks, because thus far not even had an Israelite heard of another god? Who else but He by whom all had hitherto been p. 409 healed through Christ? And therefore it was said to him, “Thy faith hath made thee whole,” 4901 because he had discovered that it was his duty to render the true oblation to Almighty God—even thanksgiving—in His true temple, and before His true High Priest Jesus Christ. But it is impossible either that the Pharisees should seem to have inquired of the Lord about the coming of the kingdom of the rival god, when no other god has ever yet been announced by Christ; or that He should have answered them concerning the kingdom of any other god than Him of whom they were in the habit of asking Him. “The kingdom of God,” He says, “cometh not with observation; neither do they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” 4902 Now, who will not interpret the words “within you” to mean in your hand, within your power, if you hear, and do the commandment of God? If, however, the kingdom of God lies in His commandment, set before your mind Moses on the other side, according to our antitheses, and you will find the self-same view of the case. 4903 “The commandment is not a lofty one, 4904 neither is it far off from thee. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, ‘Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?’ nor is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, ‘Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?’ But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, and in thy hands, to do it.” 4905 This means, “Neither in this place nor that place is the kingdom of God; for, behold, it is within you.” 4906 And if the heretics, in their audacity, should contend that the Lord did not give an answer about His own kingdom, but only about the Creator’s kingdom, concerning which they had inquired, then the following words are against them. For He tells them that “the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected,” before His coming, 4907 at which His kingdom will be really 4908 revealed. In this statement He shows that it was His own kingdom which His answer to them had contemplated, and which was now awaiting His own sufferings and rejection. But having to be rejected and afterwards to be acknowledged, and taken up 4909 and glorified, He borrowed the very word “rejected” from the passage, where, under the figure of a stone, His twofold manifestation was celebrated by David—the first in rejection, the second in honour: “The stone,” says He, “which the builders rejected, is become the head-stone of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing.” 4910 Now it would be idle, if we believed that God had predicted the humiliation, or even the glory, of any Christ at all, that He could have signed His prophecy for any but Him whom He had foretold under the figure of a stone, and a rock, and a mountain. 4911 If, however, He speaks of His own coming, why does He compare it with the days of Noe and of Lot, 4912 which were dark and terrible—a mild and gentle God as He is? Why does He bid us “remember Lot’s wife,” 4913 who despised the Creator’s command, and was punished for her contempt, if He does not come with judgment to avenge the infraction of His precepts? If He really does punish, like the Creator, 4914 if He is my Judge, He ought not to have adduced examples for the purpose of instructing me from Him whom He yet destroys, that He 4915 might not seem to be my instructor. But if He does not even here speak of His own coming, but of the coming of the Hebrew Christ, 4916 let us still wait in expectation that He will vouchsafe to us some prophecy of His own advent; meanwhile we will continue to believe that He is none other than He whom He reminds us of in every passage.

Footnotes

Luke 17:1, 2.

Zech. ii. 8.

Luke xvii. 3.

Ex acceptione personæ. The Greek προσωποληψία, “respect of persons.”

Lev. xix. 17. The last clause in A.V. runs, “And not suffer sin upon him;” but the Sept gives this reading, καὶ οὐ λήψῃ δι᾽ αὐτὸν ἁμαρτίαν; nor need the Hebrew mean other than this. The prenominal particle וייֹע may be well rendered δι᾽ αὐτόι on his account.

Luke xvii. 4.

Lev. xix. 18.

Dones.

Erga: i.q. circa.

See Lev. 13:0, Lev. 14:0.

Morositatem.

Prævenientem.

Luke xvii. 11-19.

Or, perhaps, “had proved the prophecy true by His accomplishment of it.”

Retractari.

See above in chap. ix.

Præfatus est: see Luke iv. 27.

Destructionem.

Authenticus. “He was the true, the original Priest, of whom the priests under the Mosaic law were only copies” (Bp. Kaye, On the Writings of Tertullian, pp. 293, 294, and note 8).

Luke xvii. 14.

Et utique viderit.

Tam opiniosus.

Qua: “I should prefer quia” (Oehler).

Pristino leproso: but doubtful.

Causas.

Luke xvii. 17.

Schisma illud ex novem tribubus. There is another reading which substitutes the word decem. “It is, however, immaterial; either number will do roundly. If ‘ten’ be the number, it must be understood that the tenth is divided, accurately making nine and a half tribes. If ‘nine’ be read, the same amount is still made up, for Simeon was reckoned with Judah, and half of the tribe of Benjamin remained loyal” (Fr. Junius).

Avulsas.

1 Kings 11:29, 1 Kings 12:15.

Næ.

John 4:12, 20.

Amos vi. 1.

Subiciens: or “subjecting.”

John iv. 22.

Tota promissio Christus.

Matricem.

Fontem non puteum salutis.

Agnovisse.

Justificandos.

Luke xvii. 19.

Luke xvii. 15.

Luke xvii. 19.

Luke 17:20, 21.

Una sententia.

Excelsum: Sept. ὑπέρογχος.

Deut. xxx. 11-13.

Luke xvii. 21.

Luke xvii. 25.

Substantialiter.

Assumi.

Ps. cxviii. 21.

See Isa. 8:14, 1 Cor. 10:4.

Luke xvii. 26-30.

Luke xvii. 32.

Ut ille.

Ille: emphatic.

That is, the Creator’s Christ from the Marcionite point of view.