Note 388 — Chapter V

Footnote 388:

(return)

Here Tertull., I. 27, 28, is of special importance; see also II. 28: IV. 29 (on Luke XII. 41-46): IV. 30. Marcion's idea was this. The good God does not judge or punish; but He judges in so far as he keeps evil at a distance from Him: it remains foreign to Him. "Marcionitæ interrogati quid fiet peccatori cuique die illo? respondent abici illum quasi ab oculis." "Tranquilitas est et mansuetudinis segregare solummodo et partem ejus cum infidelibus ponere." But what is the end of him who is thus rejected? "Ab igne, inquiunt, creatoris deprehendetur." We might think with Tertullian that the creator of the world would receive sinners with joy: but this is the god of the law who punishes sinners. The issue is twofold: the heaven of the good God, and the hell of the creator of the world. Either Marcion assumed with Paul that no one can keep the law, or he was silent about the end of the "righteous" because he had no interest in it. At any rate, the teaching of Marcion closes with an outlook in which the creator of the world can no longer be regarded as an independent god. Marcion's disciples (see Esnik) here developed a consistent theory: the creator of the world violated his own law by killing the righteous Christ, and was therefore deprived of all his power by Christ.