General Reply to Sundry of Marcion's Heresies.

Book V.—General Reply to Sundry of Marcion’s Heresies.¹⁶²⁵

The first Book did the enemy’s words recall

In order, which the senseless renegade

Composed and put forth lawlessly; hence, too,

Touched briefly flesh’s hope, Christ’s victory,

5  And false ways’ speciousness.  The next doth teach

The Law’s conjoined mysteries, and what

In the new covenant the one God hath

Delivered.  The third shows the race, create

From freeborn mother, to be ministers

10  Sacred to seers and patriarchs;¹⁶²⁶ whom Thou,

O Christ, in number twice six out of all,¹⁶²⁷

Chosest; and, with their names, the lustral¹⁶²⁸ times

Of our own elders noted, (times preserved

On record,) showing in whose days appeared

15  The author¹⁶²⁹ of this wickedness, unknown,

Lawless, and roaming, cast forth¹⁶³⁰ with his brood.

The fourth, too, the piacular rites recalls

Of the old Law themselves, and shows them types

In which the Victim True appeared, by saints

20  Expected long since, with the holy Seed.

This fifth doth many twists and knots untie,

Rolls wholly into sight what ills soe’er

Were lurking; drawing arguments, but not

Without attesting prophet.

And although

25  With strong arms fortified we vanquish foes,

Yet hath the serpent mingled so at once

All things polluted, impious, unallowed,

Commaculate,—the blind’s path without light!

A voice contaminant!—that, all the while

30  We are contending the world’s Maker is

Himself sole God, who also spake by voice

Of seers, and proving that there is none else

Unknown; and, while pursuing Him with praise,

Who is by various endearment¹⁶³¹ known,

35  Are blaming—among other fallacies—

The Unknown’s tardy times:  our subject’s fault

Will scarce keep pure our tongue.  Yet, for all that,

Guile’s many hidden venoms us enforce

(Although with double risk¹⁶³²) to ope our words.

40  Who, then, the God whom ye say is the true,

Unknown to peoples, alien, in a word,

To all the world?¹⁶³³  Him whom none knew before?

Came he from high?  If ’tis his own¹⁶³⁴ he seeks,

Why seek so late?  If not his own, why rob

45  Bandit-like? and why ply with words unknown

So oft throughout Law’s rein a People still

Lingering ’neath the Law?  If, too, he comes

To pity and to succour all combined,

And to re-elevate men vanquisht quite

50  By death’s funereal weight, and to release

Spirit from flesh’s bond obscene, whereby

The inner man (iniquitously dwarfed)

Is held in check; why, then, so late appear

His ever-kindness, duteous vigilance?

55  How comes it that he ne’er at all before

Offered himself to any, but let slip

Poor souls in numbers?¹⁶³⁵ and then with his mouth

Seeks to regain another’s subjects:  ne’er

Expected; not known; sent into the orb.

60  Seeking the “ewe” he had not lost before,

The Shepherd ought¹⁶³⁶ to have disrobed himself

Of flesh, as if his victor-self withal

Had ever been a spirit, and as such¹⁶³⁷

Willed to rescue all expelled souls,

65  Without a body, everywhere, and leave

The spoiled flesh to earth; wholly to fill

The world¹⁶³⁸ on one day equally with corpses

To leave the orb void; and to raise the souls

To heaven.  Then would human progeny

70  At once have ceased to be born; nor had

Thereafter any scion of your¹⁶³⁹ kith

Been born, or spread a new pest¹⁶⁴⁰ o’er the orb.

Or (since at that time¹⁶⁴¹ none of all these things

Is shown to have been done) he should have set

75  A bound to future race; with solid heart

Nuptial embraces would he, in that case

Have sated quite;¹⁶⁴² made men grow torpid, reft

Of fruitful seed; made irksome intercourse

With female sex; and closed up inwardly

80  The flesh’s organs genital:  our mind

Had had no will, no potent faculty

Our body:  after this the “inner man”

Could withal, joined with blood,¹⁶⁴³ have been infused

And cleaved to flesh, and would have ever been

85  Perishing.  Ever perishes the “ewe:”

And is there then no power of saving her?

Since man is ever being born beneath

Death’s doom, what is the Shepherd’s work, if thus

The “ewe” is stated¹⁶⁴⁴ to be found?  Unsought

90  In that case, but not rescued, she is proved.

But now choice is allowed of entering

Wedlock, as hath been ever; and that choice

Sure progeny hath yoked:  nations are born

And folk scarce numerable, at whose birth

95  Their souls by living bodies are received;

Nor was it meet that Paul (though, for the time,

He did exhort some few, discerning well

The many pressures of a straitened time)

To counsel men in like case to abide

100  As he himself:¹⁶⁴⁵  for elsewhere he has bidden

The tender ages marry, nor defraud

Each other, but their compact’s dues discharge.

But say, whose suasion hath, with fraud astute,

Made you “abide,” and in divided love

105  Of offspring live secure, and commit crime

Adulterous, and lose your life? and, though

’Tis perishing, belie (by verbal name)

That fact.  For which cause all the so sweet sounds

Of his voice pours he forth, that “you must do,

110  Undaunted, whatsoever pleases you;”

Outwardly chaste, stealthily stained with crime!

Of honourable wedlock, by this plea,¹⁶⁴⁶

He hath deprived you.  But why more?  ’Tis well

(Forsooth) to be disjoined! for the world, too,

115  Expedient ’tis! lest any of your seed

Be born!  Then will death’s organs¹⁶⁴⁷ cease at length!

The while you hope salvation to retain,

Your “total man” quite loses part of man,

With mind profane:  but neither is man said

120  To be sole spirit, nor the flesh is called

“The old man;” nor unfriendly are the flesh

And spirit, the true man combined in one,

The inner, and he whom you call “old foe;”¹⁶⁴⁸

Nor are they seen to have each his own set

125  Of senses.  One is ruled; the other rules,

Groans, joys, grieves, loves; himself¹⁶⁴⁹ to his own flesh

Most dear, too; through which¹⁶⁵⁰ his humanity

Is visible, with which commixt he is

Held ever:  to its wounds he care applies;

130  And pours forth tears; and nutriments of food

Takes, through its limbs, often and eagerly:

This hopes he to have ever with himself

Immortal; o’er its fracture doth he groan;

And grieves to quit it limb by limb:  fixt time

135  Death lords it o’er the unhappy flesh; that so

From light dust it may be renewed, and death

Unfriendly fail at length, when flesh, released,

Rises again.  This will that victory be

Supreme and long expected, wrought by Him,

140  The aye-to-be-revered, who did become

True man; and by His Father’s virtue won:

Who man’s redeemed limbs unto the heavens

Hath raised,¹⁶⁵¹ and richly opened access up

Thither in hope, first to His nation; then

145  To those among all tongues in whom His work

Is ever doing:  Minister imbued

With His Sire’s parent-care, seen by the eye

Of the Illimitable, He performed,

By suffering, His missions.¹⁶⁵²

What say now

150  The impious voices? what th’ abandoned crew?

If He Himself, God the Creator’s self,

Gave not the Law,¹⁶⁵³ He who from Egypt’s vale¹⁶⁵⁴

Paved in the waves a path, and freely gave

The seats which He had said of old, why comes

155  He in that very People and that land

Aforesaid? and why rather sought He not

Some other¹⁶⁵⁵ peoples or some rival¹⁶⁵⁶ realms?

Why, further, did He teach that, through the seers,

(With Name foretold in full, yet not His own,)

160  He had been often sung of?  Whence, again,

Could He have issued baptism’s kindly gifts,

Promised by some one else, as His own works?

These gifts men who God’s mandates had transgressed,

And hence were found polluted, longed for,

165  And begged a pardoning rescue from fierce death.

Expected long, they¹⁶⁵⁷ came:  but that to those

Who recognised them when erst heard, and now

Have recognised them, when in due time found,

Christ’s true hand is to give them, this, with voice

170  Paternal, the Creator-Sire Himself

Warns ever from eternity, and claims;

And thus the work of virtue which He framed,

And still frames, arms, and fosters, and doth now

Victorious look down on and reclothe

175  With His own light, should with perennial praise

Abide.¹⁶⁵⁸

What¹⁶⁵⁹ hath the Living Power done

To make men recognise what God can give

And man can suffer, and thus live?¹⁶⁶⁰  But since

Neither predictions earlier nor facts

180  The latest can suede senseless frantic¹⁶⁶¹ men

That God became a man, and (after He

Had suffered and been buried) rose; that they

May credit those so many witnesses

Harmonious,¹⁶⁶² who of old did cry aloud

185  With heavenly word, let them both¹⁶⁶³ learn to trust

At least terrestrial reason.

When the Lord

Christ came to be, as flesh, born into the orb

In time of king Augustus’ reign at Rome,

First, by decree, the nations numbered are

190  By census everywhere:  this measure, then,

This same king chanced to pass, because the

Will

Supreme, in whose high reigning hand doth lie

The king’s heart, had impelled him:¹⁶⁶⁴  he was first

To do it, and the enrolment was reduced

195  To orderly arrangement.  Joseph then

Likewise, with his but just delivered wife

Mary,¹⁶⁶⁵ with her celestial Son alike,

Themselves withal are numbered.  Let, then, such

As trust to instruments of human skill,

200  Who may (approving of applying them

As attestators of the holy word)

Inquire into this census, if it be

But found so as we say, then afterwards

Repent they and seek pardon while time still

205  Is had¹⁶⁶⁶

The Jews, who own¹⁶⁶⁷ to having wrought

A grave crime, while in our disparagement

They glow, and do resist us, neither call

Christ’s family unknown, nor can¹⁶⁶⁸ affirm

They hanged a man, who spake truth, on a tree:¹⁶⁶⁹

210  Ignorant that the Lord’s flesh which they bound¹⁶⁷⁰

Was not seed-gendered.  But, while partially

They keep a reticence, so partially

They triumph; for they strive to represent

God to the peoples commonly as man.

215  Behold the error which o’ercomes you both!¹⁶⁷¹

This error will our cause assist, the while,

We prove to you those things which certain are.

They do deny Him God; you falsely call

Him man, a body bodiless! and ah!

220  A various insanity of mind

Sinks you; which him who hath presumed to hint

You both do, sinking, sprinkle:¹⁶⁷²  for His deeds

Will then approve Him man alike and God

Commingled, and the world¹⁶⁷³ will furnish signs

225  No few.

While then the Son Himself of God

Is seeking to regain the flesh’s limbs,¹⁶⁷⁴

Already robed as King, He doth sustain

Blows from rude palms; with spitting covered is

His face; a thorn-inwoven crown His head

230  Pierces all round; and to the tree¹⁶⁷⁵ Himself

Is fixed; wine drugged with myrrh,¹⁶⁷⁶ is drunk, and gall¹⁶⁷⁷

Is mixt with vinegar; parted His robe,¹⁶⁷⁸

And in it¹⁶⁷⁹ lots are cast; what for himself

Each one hath seized he keeps; in murky gloom,

235  As God from fleshly body silently

Outbreathes His soul, in darkness trembling day

Took refuge with the sun; twice dawned one day;

Its centre black night covered:  from their base

Mounts move in circle, wholly moved was earth,

240  Saints’ sepulchres stood ope, and all things joined

In fear to see His passion whom they knew!

His lifeless side a soldier with bare spear

Pierces, and forth flows blood, nor water less

Thence followed.  These facts they¹⁶⁸⁰ agree to hide,

245  And are unwilling the misdeed to own,

Willing to blink the crime.

Can spirit, then,

Without a body wear a robe? or is’t

Susceptible of penalty? the wound

Of violence does it bear? or die? or rise?

250  Is blood thence poured? from what flesh. since ye say

He had none? or else, rather, feigned He? if

’Tis safe for you to say so; though you do

(Headlong) so say, by passing over more

In silence.  Is not, then, faith manifest?

255  And are not all things fixed?  The day before

He then¹⁶⁸¹ should suffer, keeping Passover,

And handing down a memorable rite¹⁶⁸²

To His disciples, taking bread alike

And the vine’s juice, “My body, and My blood

260  Which is poured¹⁶⁸³ for you, this is,” did He say;

And bade it ever afterward be done.

Of what created elements were made,

Think ye, the bread and wine which were (He said)

His body with its blood? and what must be

265  Confessed?  Proved He not Himself the world’s¹⁶⁸⁴

Maker, through deeds? and that He bore at once

A body formed from flesh and blood?

This God

This true Man, too, the Father’s Virtue ’neath

An Image,¹⁶⁸⁵ with the Father ever was,

270  United both in glory and in age;¹⁶⁸⁶

Because alone He ministers the words

Of the All-Holder; whom He¹⁶⁸⁷ upon earth

Accepts;¹⁶⁸⁸ through whom He all things did create:

God’s Son, God’s dearest Minister, is He!

275  Hence hath He generation, hence Name too,

Hence, finally, a kingdom; Lord from Lord;

Stream from perennial Fount!  He, He it was

Who to the holy fathers (whosoe’er

Among them doth profess to have “seen God”¹⁶⁸⁹)—

280  God is our witness—since the origin

Of this our world,¹⁶⁹⁰ appearing, opened up

The Father’s words of promise and of charge

From heaven high:  He led the People out;

Smote through th’iniquitous nation; was Himself

285  The column both of light and of cloud’s shade;

And dried the sea; and bids the People go

Right through the waves, the foe therein involved

And covered with the flood and surge:  a way

Through deserts made He for the followers

290  Of His high biddings; sent down bread in showers¹⁶⁹¹

From heaven for the People; brake the rock;

Bedewed with wave the thirsty;¹⁶⁹² and from God

The mandate of the Law to Moses spake

With thunder, trumpet-sound, and flamey column

295  Terrible to the sight, while men’s hearts shook.

After twice twenty years, with months complete,

Jordan was parted; a way oped; the wave

Stood in a mass; and the tribes shared the land,

Their fathers’ promised boons!  The Father’s word,

300  Speaking Himself by prophets’ mouth, that He¹⁶⁹³

Would come to earth and be a man, He did

Predict; Christ manifestly to the earth

Foretelling.

Then, expected for our aid,

Life’s only Hope, the Cleanser of our flesh,¹⁶⁹⁴

305  Death’s Router, from th’ Almighty Sire’s empire

At length He came, and with our human limbs

He clothed Him.  Adam—virgin—dragon—tree,¹⁶⁹⁵

The cause of ruin, and the way whereby

Rash death us all had vanquisht! by the same

310  Our Shepherd treading, seeking to regain

His sheep—with angel—virgin—His own flesh—

And the “tree’s” remedy;¹⁶⁹⁶ whence vanquisht man

And doomed to perish was aye wont to go

To meet his vanquisht peers; hence, interposed,

315  One in all captives’ room, He did sustain

In body the unfriendly penalty

With patience; by His own death spoiling death;

Becomes salvation’s cause; and, having paid

Throughly our debts by throughly suffering

320  On earth, in holy body, everything,

Seeks the infern! here souls, bound for their crime,

Which shut up all together by Law’s weight,

Without a guard,¹⁶⁹⁷ were asking for the boons

Promised of old, hoped for, and tardy, He

325  To the saints’rest admitted, and, with light,

Brought back.  For on the third day mounting up,¹⁶⁹⁸

A victor, with His body by His Sire’s

Virtue immense, (salvation’s pathway made,)

And bearing God and man is form create,

330  He clomb the heavens, leading back with Him

Captivity’s first-fruits (a welcome gift

And a dear figure¹⁶⁹⁹ to the Lord), and took

His seat beside light’s Father, and resumed

The virtue and the glory of which, while

335  He was engaged in vanquishing the foe

He had been stripped;¹⁷⁰⁰ conjoined with Spirit; bound

With flesh, on our part.  Him, Lord, Christ, King, God,

Judgment and kingdom given to His hand,

The father is to send unto the orb.

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