Of Marcion's Antitheses.

Book IV.—Of Marcion’s Antitheses.¹⁵³⁹

What the Inviolable Power bids

The youthful people,¹⁵⁴⁰ which, rich, free, and heir,

Possesses an eternal hope of praise

(By right assigned) is this:  that with great zeal

5  Burning, armed with the love of peace—yet not

As teachers (Christ alone doth all things teach¹⁵⁴¹),

But as Christ’s household—servants—o’er the earth

They should conduct a massive war;¹⁵⁴² should raze

The wicked’s lofty towers, savage walls,

10  And threats which ’gainst the holy people’s bands

Rise, and dissolve such empty sounds in air.

Wherefore we, justly speaking emulous words,¹⁵⁴³

Out of his¹⁵⁴⁴ own words even strive to express

The meaning of salvation’s records,¹⁵⁴⁵ which

15  Large grace hath poured profusely; and to ope

To the saints’ eyes the Bandit’s¹⁵⁴⁶ covert plague:

Lest any untrained, daring, ignorant,

Fall therein unawares, and (being caught)

Forfeit celestial gifts.

God, then, is One

20  To mortals all and everywhere; a Realm

Eternal, Origin of light profound;

Life’s Fount; a Draught fraught¹⁵⁴⁷ with all wisdom.  He

Produced the orb whose bosom all things girds;

Him not a region, not a place, includes as

25  In circuit:  matter none perennial is,¹⁵⁴⁸

So as to be self-made, or to have been

Ever, created by no Maker:  heaven’s,

Earth’s, sea’s, and the abyss’s¹⁵⁴⁹ Settler¹⁵⁵⁰ is

The Spirit; air’s Divider, Builder, Author,

30  Sole God perpetual, Power immense, is He.¹⁵⁵¹

Him had the Law the People¹⁵⁵² shown to be

One God,¹⁵⁵³ whose mighty voice to Moses spake

Upon the mount.  Him this His Virtue, too,

His Wisdom, Glory, Word, and Son, this Light

35  Begotten from the Light immense,¹⁵⁵⁴ proclaims

Through the seers’ voices, to be One:  and Paul,¹⁵⁵⁵

Taking the theme in order up, thus too

Himself delivers; “Father there is One¹⁵⁵⁶

Through whom were all things made:  Christ One, through whom

40  God all things made;”¹⁵⁵⁷ to whom he plainly owns

That every knee doth bow itself;¹⁵⁵⁸ of whom

Is every fatherhood¹⁵⁵⁹ in heaven and earth

Called:  who is zealous with the highest love

Of parent-care His people-ward; and wills

45  All flesh to live in holy wise, and wills

His people to appear before Him pure

Without a crime.  With such zeal, by a law¹⁵⁶⁰

Guards He our safety; warns us loyal be;

Chastens; is instant.  So, too, has the same

50  Apostle (when Galatian brethren

Chiding)—Paul—written that such zeal hath he.¹⁵⁶¹

The fathers’sins God freely rendered, then,

Slaying in whelming deluge utterly Parents alike with progeny, and e’en

55  Grandchildren in “fourth generation”¹⁵⁶² now

Descended from the parent-stock, when He

Has then for nearly these nine hundred years

Assisted them.  Hard does the judgment seem?

The sentence savage?  And in Sodom, too,

60  That the still guiltless little one unarmed

And tender should lose life:  for what had e’er

The infant sinned?  What cruel thou mayst think,

Is parent-care’s true duty.  Lest misdeed

Should further grow, crime’s authors He did quench,

65  And sinful parents’ brood.  But, with his sires,

The harmless infant pays not penalties

Perpetual, ignorant and not advanced

In crime:  but lest he partner should become

Of adult age’s guilt, death immature

70  Undid spontaneous future ills.

Why, then,

Bids God libation to be poured to Him

With blood of sheep? and takes so stringent means

By Law, that, in the People, none transgress

Erringly, threatening them with instant death

75  By stoning? and why reprobates, again,

These gifts of theirs, and says they are to Him

Unwelcome, while He chides a People prest

With swarm of sin?¹⁵⁶³  Does He, the truthful, bid,

And He, the just, at the same time repel?

80  The causes if thou seekst, cease to be moved

Erringly:  for faith’s cause is weightier

Than fancied reason.¹⁵⁶⁴  Through a mirror¹⁵⁶⁵—shade

Of fulgent light!—behold what the calf’s blood,

The heifer’s ashes, and each goat, do mean:

85  The one dismissed goes off, the other falls

A victim at the temple.

With calf’s blood

With water mixt the seer¹⁵⁶⁶ (thus from on high

Bidden) besprinkled People, vessels all,

Priests, and the written volumes of the Law.

90  See here not their true hope, nor yet a mere

Semblance devoid of virtue:¹⁵⁶⁷  but behold

In the calf’s type Christ destined bodily

To suffer; who upon His shoulders bare

The plough-beam’s hard yokes,¹⁵⁶⁸ and with fortitude

95  Brake His own heart with the steel share, and poured

Into the furrows water of His own

Life’s blood.  For these “temple-vessels” do

Denote our bodies:  God’s true temple¹⁵⁶⁹ He,

Not dedicated erst; for to Himself

100  He by His blood associated men,

And willed them be His body’s priests, Himself

The Supreme Father’s perfect Priest by right.

Hearing, sight, step inert, He cleansed; and, for a “book,”¹⁵⁷⁰

Sprinkled, by speaking¹⁵⁷¹ words of presage, those

105  His witnesses:  demonstrating the Law

Bound by His holy blood.

This cause withal

Our victim through “the heifer” manifests

From whose blood taking for the People’s sake

Piacular drops, them the first Levite¹⁵⁷² bare

110  Within the veil; and, by God’s bidding, burned

Her corse without the camp’s gates; with whose ash

He cleansed lapsed bodies.

Thus our Lord (who us

By His own death redeemed), without the camp¹⁵⁷³

Willingly suffering the violence

115  Of an iniquitous People, did fulfil

The Law, by facts predictions proving;¹⁵⁷⁴ who

A people of contamination full

Doth truly cleanse, conceding all things, as

The body’s Author rich; within heaven’s veil

120  Gone with the blood which—One for many’s deaths—

He hath outpoured.

A holy victim, then,

Is meet for a great priest; which worthily

He, being perfect, may be proved to have,

And offer.  He a body hath:  this is

125  For mortals a live victim; worthy this

Of great price did He offer, One for all.

The¹⁵⁷⁵ semblance of the “goats” teaches that they

Are men exiled out of the “peoples twain”¹⁵⁷⁶

As barren;¹⁵⁷⁷ fruitless both; (of whom the Lord

130  Spake also, in the Gospel, telling how

The kids are severed from the sheep, and stand

On the left hand¹⁵⁷⁸):  that some indeed there are

Who for the Lord’s Name’s sake have suffered:  thus

That fruit has veiled their former barrenness:

135  And such, the prophet teaches, on the ground

Of that their final merit worthy are

Of the Lord’s altar:  others, cast away

(As was th’ iniquitous rich man, we read,

By Lazarus¹⁵⁷⁹), are such as have remained

140  Exiled, persistent in their stubbornness.

Now a veil, hanging in the midst, did both

Dissever,¹⁵⁸⁰ and had into portions twain

Divided the one shrine.¹⁵⁸¹  The inner parts

Were called “Holies of holies.” Stationed there

145  An altar shone, noble with gold; and there,

At the same time, the testaments and ark

Of the Law’s tablets; covered wholly o’er

With lambs’skins¹⁵⁸² dyed with heaven’s hue; within

Gold-clad;¹⁵⁸³ and all between of wood.  Here are so

150  The tablets of the Law; here is the urn

Replete with manna; here is Aaron’s rod

Which puts forth germens of the cross¹⁵⁸⁴—unlike

The cross itself, yet born of storax-tree¹⁵⁸⁵—And over it—in uniformity

155  Fourfold—the cherubim their pinions spread,

And the inviolable sanctities¹⁵⁸⁶

Covered obediently.¹⁵⁸⁷  Without the veil

Part of the shrine stood open:  facing it,

Heavy with broad brass, did an altar stand;

160  And with two triple sets (on each side one)

Of branches woven with the central stem,

A lampstand, and as many¹⁵⁸⁸ lamps:

The golden substance wholly filled with light

The temple.¹⁵⁸⁹

Thus the temple’s outer face,

165  Common and open, does the ritual

Denote, then, of a people lingering

Beneath the Law; amid whose¹⁵⁹⁰ gloom there shone

The Holy Spirit’s sevenfold unity

Ever, the People sheltering.¹⁵⁹¹  And thus

170  The Lampstand True and living Lamps do shine

Persistently throughout the Law and Seers

On men subdued in heart.  And for a type

Of earth,¹⁵⁹² the altar—so tradition says—

Was made.  Here constantly, in open space,

175  Before all eyes were visible of old

The People’s “works,”¹⁵⁹³ which ever—“not without

Blood”¹⁵⁹⁴—it did offer, shedding out the gore

Of lawless life.¹⁵⁹⁵  There, too, the Lord—Himself

Made victim on behalf of all—denotes

180  The whole earth¹⁵⁹⁶—altar in specific sense.

Hence likewise that new covenant author, whom

No language can describe, Disciple John,

Testifies that beneath such altar he

Saw souls which had for Christ’s name suffered,

185  Praying the vengeance of the mighty God

Upon their slaughter.¹⁵⁹⁷  There,¹⁵⁹⁸ meantime, is rest.

In some unknown part there exists a spot

Open, enjoying its own light; ’tis called

“Abraham’s bosom;” high above the glooms,¹⁵⁹⁹

190  And far removed from fire, yet ’neath the earth.¹⁶⁰⁰

The brazen altar this is called, whereon

(We have recorded) was a dusky veil.¹⁶⁰¹

This veil divides both parts, and leaves the one

Open, from the eternal one distinct

195  In worship and time’s usage.  To itself

Tis not unfriendly, though of fainter love,

By time and space divided, and yet linked

By reason.  ’Tis one house, though by a veil

Parted it seems:  and thus (when the veil burst,

200  On the Lord’s passion) heavenly regions oped

And holy vaults,¹⁶⁰² and what was double erst

Became one house perennial.

Order due

Traditionally has interpreted

The inner temple of the people called

205  After Christ’s Name, with worship heavenly,

God’s actual mandates following; (no “shade”

Is herein bound, but persons real;¹⁶⁰³) complete

By the arrival of the “perfect things.”¹⁶⁰⁴

The ark beneath a type points out to us

210  Christ’s venerable body, joined, through “wood,”¹⁶⁰⁵

With sacred Spirit:  the aërial¹⁶⁰⁶ skins

Are flesh not born of seed, outstretcht on “wood;”¹⁶⁰⁷

At the same time, with golden semblance fused,¹⁶⁰⁸

Within, the glowing Spirit joined is

215  Thereto; that, with peace¹⁶⁰⁹ granted, flesh might bloom

With Spirit mixt.  Of the Lord’s flesh, again,

The urn, golden and full, a type doth bear.

Itself denotes that the new covenant’s Lord

Is manna; in that He, true heavenly Bread,

220  Is, and hath by the Father been transfused¹⁶¹⁰

Into that bread which He hath to His saints

Assigned for a pledge:  this Bread will He

Give perfectly to them who (of good works

The lovers ever) have the bonds of peace

225  Kept.  And the double tablets of the law

Written all over, these, at the same time,

Signify that that Law was ever hid

In Christ, who mandate old and new fulfilled,

Ark of the Supreme Father as He is,

230  Through whom He, being rich, hath all things given.

The storax-rod, too, nut’s fruit bare itself;

(The virgin’s semblance this, who bare in blood

A body:)  on the “wood”¹⁶¹¹ conjoined ’twill lull

Death’s bitter, which within sweet fruit doth lurk,

235  By virtue of the Holy Spirit’s grace:

Just as Isaiah did predict “a rod”

From Jesse’s seed¹⁶¹²—Mary—from which a flower

Issues into the orb.

The altar bright with gold

Denotes the heaven on high, whither ascend

240  Prayers holy, sent up without crime:  the Lord

This “altar” spake of, where if one doth gifts

Offer, he must first reconciliate

Peace with his brother:¹⁶¹³  thus at length his prayers

Can flame unto the stars.  Christ, Victor sole

245  And foremost.¹⁶¹⁴  Priest, thus offered incense born

Not of a tree, but prayers.¹⁶¹⁵

The cherubim¹⁶¹⁶

Being, with twice two countenances, one,

And are the one word through fourfold order led;¹⁶¹⁷

The hoped comforts of life’s mandate new,

250  Which in their plenitude Christ bare Himself

Unto us from the Father.  But the wings

In number four times six,¹⁶¹⁸ the heraldings

Of the old world denote, witnessing things

Which, we are taught, were after done.  On these¹⁶¹⁹

255  The heavenly words fly through the orb:  with these

Christ’s blood is likewise held context, so told

Obscurely by the seers’ presaging mouth.

The number of the wings doth set a seal

Upon the ancient volumes; teaching us

260  Those twenty-four have certainly enough

Which sang the Lord’s ways and the times of peace:

These all, we see, with the new covenant

Cohere.  Thus also John; the Spirit thus

To him reveals that in that number stand

265  The enthroned elders white¹⁶²⁰ and crowned, who (as

With girding-rope) all things surround, before

The Lord’s throne, and upon the glassy sea

Subigneous:  and four living creatures, winged

And full of eyes within and outwardly,

270  Do signify that hidden things are oped,

And all things shut are at the same time seen,

In the word’s eye.  The glassy flame-mixt sea

Means that the laver’s gifts, with Spirit fused

Therein, upon believers are conferred.

275  Who could e’en tell what the Lord’s parent-care

Before His judgment-seat, before His bar,

Prepared hath? that such as willing be

His forum and His judgment for themselves

To antedate, should ’scape! that who thus hastes

280  Might find abundant opportunity!

Thus therefore Law and wondrous prophets sang;

Thus all parts of the covenant old and new,

Those sacred rights and pregnant utterances

Of words, conjoined, do flourish.  Thus withal,

285  Apostles’ voices witness everywhere;

Nor aught of old, in fine, but to the new

Is joined.

Thus err they, and thus facts retort

Their sayings, who to false ways have declined;

And from the Lord and God, eternal King,

290  Who such an orb produced, detract, and seek

Some other deity ’neath feigned name,

Bereft of minds, which (frenzied) they have lost;

Willing to affirm that Christ a stranger is

To the Law; nor is the world’s¹⁶²¹ Lord; nor doth will

295  Salvation of the flesh; nor was Himself

The body’s Maker, by the Father’s power.¹⁶²²

Them must we flee, stopping (unasked) our ears;

Lest with their speech they stain innoxious hearts.

Let therefore us, whom so great grace¹⁶²³ of God

300  Hath penetrated, and the true celestial words

Of the great Master-Teacher in good ways

Have trained, and given us right monuments;¹⁶²⁴

Pay honour ever to the Lord, and sing

Endlessly, joying in pure faith, and sure

305  Salvation.  Born of the true God, with bread

Perennial are we nourished, and hope

With our whole heart after eternal life.