Chapter XXXVI.—The Parables of the Importunate Widow, and of the Pharisee and the Publican. Christ’s Answer to the Rich Ruler, the Cure of the Blind Man. His Salutation—Son of David. All Proofs of Christ’s Relation to the Creator, Marcion’s Antithesis Between David and Christ Confuted.

When He recommends perseverance and earnestness in prayer, He sets before us the parable of the judge who was compelled to listen to the widow, owing to the earnestness and importunity of her requests.^49174917    Luke xviii. 1–8. He show us that it is God the judge whom we must importune with prayer, and not Himself, if He is not Himself the judge. But He added, that “God would avenge His own elect.”^49184918    Luke xviii. 7, 8. Since, then, He who judges will also Himself be the avenger, He proved that the Creator 410is on that account the specially good God,^49194919    Meliorem Deum. whom He represented as the avenger of His own elect, who cry day and night to Him. And yet, when He introduces to our view the Creator’s temple, and describes two men worshipping therein with diverse feelings—the Pharisee in pride, the publican in humility—and shows us how they accordingly went down to their homes, one rejected,^49204920    Reprobatum. the other justified,^49214921    Luke xviii. 10–14. He surely, by thus teaching us the proper discipline of prayer, has determined that that God must be prayed to from whom men were to receive this discipline of prayer—whether condemnatory of pride, or justifying in humility.^49224922    Sive reprobatricem superbiæ, sive justificatricem humilitatis. I do not find from Christ any temple, any suppliants, any sentence (of approval or condemnation) belonging to any other god than the Creator. Him does He enjoin us to worship in humility, as the lifter-up of the humble, not in pride, because He brings down^49234923    Destructorem. the proud. What other god has He manifested to me to receive my supplications?  With what formula of worship, with what hope (shall I approach him?) I trow, none.  For the prayer which He has taught us suits, as we have proved,^49244924    See above, chap. xxvi. p. 392. none but the Creator. It is, of course, another matter if He does not wish to be prayed to, because He is the supremely and spontaneously good God! But who is this good God? There is, He says, “none but one.”^49254925    Luke xviii. 19. It is not as if He had shown us that one of two gods was the supremely good; but He expressly asserts that there is one only good God, who is the only good, because He is the only God. Now, undoubtedly,^49264926    Utique. He is the good God who “sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust, and maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good;”^49274927    Matt. v. 45. sustaining and nourishing and assisting even Marcionites themselves! When afterwards “a certain man asked him, ‘Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’” (Jesus) inquired whether he knew (that is, in other words, whether he kept) the commandments of the Creator, in order to testify^49284928    Ad contestandum. that it was by the Creator’s precepts that eternal life is acquired.^49294929    Luke xviii. 18–20. Then, when he affirmed that from his youth up he had kept all the principal commandments, (Jesus) said to him: “One thing thou yet lackest: sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”^49304930    Luke xviii. 21, 22. Well now, Marcion, and all ye who are companions in misery, and associates in hatred^49314931    See above, chap. ix., near the beginning. with that heretic, what will you dare say to this? Did Christ rescind the forementioned commandments: “Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother?” Or did He both keep them, and then add^49324932    Adjecit quod deerat. what was wanting to them? This very precept, however, about giving to the poor, was very largely^49334933    Ubique. diffused through the pages of the law and the prophets. This vainglorious observer of the commandments was therefore convicted^49344934    Traduceretur. of holding money in much higher estimation (than charity). This verity of the gospel then stands unimpaired: “I am not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but rather to fulfil them.”^49354935    Matt. v. 17. He also dissipated other doubts, when He declared that the name of God and of the Good belonged to one and the same being, at whose disposal were also the everlasting life and the treasure in heaven and Himself too—whose commandments He both maintained and augmented with His own supplementary precepts. He may likewise be discovered in the following passage of Micah, saying: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to be ready to follow the Lord thy God?”^49364936    Mic. vi. 8. The last clause agrees with the Septuagint: καὶ ἕτοιμον εἶναι τοῦ πορεύεσθαι μετὰ Κυρίου Θεοῦ σου. Now Christ is the man who tells us what is good, even the knowledge of the law. “Thou knowest,” says He, “the commandments.” “To do justly”—“Sell all that thou hast;” “to love mercy”—“Give to the poor:” “and to be ready to walk with God”—“And come,” says He, “follow me.”^49374937    The clauses of Christ’s words, which are here adapted to Micah’s, are in every case broken with an inquit. The Jewish nation was from its beginning so carefully divided into tribes and clans, and families and houses, that no man could very well have been ignorant of his descent—even from the recent assessments of Augustus, which were still probably extant at this time.^49384938    Tunc pendentibus: i.e., at the time mentioned in the story of the blind man. But the Jesus of Marcion (although there could be no doubt of a person’s having been born, who was seen to be a man), as being unborn, could not, of course, have possessed any public testimonial^49394939    Notitiam. of his descent, but was to be regarded as one of that obscure class of whom nothing was in any way 411known.  Why then did the blind man, on hearing that He was passing by, exclaim, “Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me?”^49404940    Luke xviii. 38. unless he was considered, in no uncertain manner,^49414941    Non temere. to be the Son of David (in other words, to belong to David’s family) through his mother and his brethren, who at some time or other had been made known to him by public notoriety? “Those, however, who went before rebuked the blind man, that he should hold his peace.”^49424942    Luke xviii. 39. And properly enough; because he was very noisy, not because he was wrong about the son of David. Else you must show me, that those who rebuked him were aware that Jesus was not the Son of David, in order that they may be supposed to have had this reason for imposing silence on the blind man. But even if you could show me this, still (the blind man) would more readily have presumed that they were ignorant, than that the Lord could possibly have permitted an untrue exclamation about Himself. But the Lord “stood patient.”^49434943    Luke xviii. 40. Yes; but not as confirming the error, for, on the contrary, He rather displayed the Creator.  Surely He could not have first removed this man’s blindness, in order that he might afterwards cease to regard Him as the Son of David! However,^49444944    Atquin. that you may not slander^49454945    Infameretis. His patience, nor fasten on Him any charge of dissimulation, nor deny Him to be the Son of David, He very pointedly confirmed the exclamation of the blind man—both by the actual gift of healing, and by bearing testimony to his faith: “Thy faith,” say Christ, “hath made thee whole.”^49464946    Luke xviii. 42. What would you have the blind man’s faith to have been? That Jesus was descended from that (alien) god (of Marcion), to subvert the Creator and overthrow the law and the prophets? That He was not the destined offshoot from the root of Jesse, and the fruit of David’s loins, the restorer^49474947    Remunerator. also of the blind? But I apprehend there were at that time no such stone-blind persons as Marcion, that an opinion like this could have constituted the faith of the blind man, and have induced him to confide in the mere name,^49484948    That is, in the sound only, and phantom of the word; an allusion to the Docetic absurdity of Marcion. of Jesus, the Son of David. He, who knew all this of Himself,^49494949    That is, that He was “Son of David,” etc. and wished others to know it also, endowed the faith of this man—although it was already gifted with a better sight, and although it was in possession of the true light—with the external vision likewise, in order that we too might learn the rule of faith, and at the same time find its recompense. Whosoever wishes to see Jesus the Son of David must believe in Him; through the Virgin’s birth.^49504950    Censum: that is, must believe Him born of her. He who will not believe this will not hear from Him the salutation, “Thy faith hath saved thee.” And so he will remain blind, falling into Antithesis after Antithesis, which mutually destroy each other,^49514951    This, perhaps, is the meaning in a clause which is itself more antithetical than clear: “Ruens in antithesim, ruentem et ipsam antithesim.” just as “the blind man leads the blind down into the ditch.”^49524952    In book iii. chap. vii. (at the beginning), occurs the same proverb of Marcion and the Jews. See p. 327. For (here is one of Marcion’s Antitheses): whereas David in old time, in the capture of Sion, was offended by the blind who opposed his admission (into the stronghold)^49534953    See 2 Sam. v. 6–8.—in which respect (I should rather say) that they were a type of people equally blind,^49544954    The Marcionites. who in after-times would not admit Christ to be the son of David—so, on the contrary, Christ succoured the blind man, to show by this act that He was not David’s son, and how different in disposition He was, kind to the blind, while David ordered them to be slain.^49554955    See 2 Sam. v. 8. If all this were so, why did Marcion allege that the blind man’s faith was of so worthless^49564956    Fidei equidem pravæ: see preceding page, note 3. a stamp? The fact is,^49574957    Atquin. the Son of David so acted,^49584958    Et hoc filius David: i.e., præstitit, “showed Himself good,” perhaps. that the Antithesis must lose its point by its own absurdity.^49594959    De suo retundendam. Instead of contrast, he shows the similarity of the cases. Those persons who offended David were blind, and the man who now presents himself as a suppliant to David’s son is afflicted with the same infirmity.^49604960    Ejusdem carnis: i.e., infirmæ (Oehler). Therefore the Son of David was appeased with some sort of satisfaction by the blind man when He restored him to sight, and added His approval of the faith which had led him to believe the very truth, that he must win to his help^49614961    Exorandum sibi. the Son of David by earnest entreaty.  But, after all, I suspect that it was the audacity (of the old Jebusites) which offended David, and not their malady.