Thursday, November 20, 2014

40. Marcion cut John 17:25

Marcion, a very mouthpiece of ungodliness ; for one who teaches different Gods, one good, the other just, contradicts the Son, who says Rigtheous Father [John 17.25]. Again, one who says that the Father is different from the Maker of the world, is at variance with the Son who says, If then God so clothe the grass, which is to-day in the to-morrow is cast into the oven [Luke 12.8]; and Who maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. [Matt 5:45] This Marcion, then, came next, the originator of another error; for being refuted by the texts from the Old Testament which are cited in the New, he who had already effaced the idea of God, was the first to venture also on cutting out those very testimonies to the word of faith preached in the Gospel ; and to consent to weaken the Church's faith, as though there had been no heralds of it. [Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lecture 6:15] 
There are three refutations of Marcion from 'the gospel' - John 17.25, Luke 12.8, Matt 5:45. Since the last two are explicitly confirmed to be standard accusations of Marcion 'removing things' from his gospel that contradicted his thesis, the first John 17:25 must be similarly regarded.
Again Origen argues (princ. 2.5) for the goodness ofjustice, citing Paul, 'The law then is good and the commandment holy and just and good' (Rom. 7: 12). The Marcionites had claimed that Matt. 19: 10 refers to the father of Christ who is not the creator; but in the Psalms, God is described as 'good' and in John 17 : 2 5,Jesus addresses his father as 'just '. Origen's thought is dominated by the twin themes of divine unity and goodness. [Eric Osborn the Emergence of Christian Theology p. 138]


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