Reading Scripture: Types and Figures
Tertullian, Against Marcion 6
Through all this he demonstrates whose wisdom he proclaims among the mature — the God who stripped the wise of their wisdom, rendered the prudence of the prudent void, and made the world's wisdom look foolish by choosing its foolish elements and ordering them for salvation (Isaiah). He declares this wisdom was kept secret, lodged among the foolish, the insignificant, and the dishonorable, concealed even beneath figures, allegories, and riddles, only to be unveiled later in Christ, who was set as a light to the nations by the Creator promising through Isaiah's voice to lay bare invisible, hidden treasures (Isaiah). It is absurd to claim a God who did absolutely nothing could have hidden anything in which something might be thought concealed; if such a god existed, he could not remain hidden, let alone his mysteries. The Creator, by contrast, is fully known, and so are his mysteries, openly active throughout Israel, though veiled by symbolic meanings in which God's wisdom took delight. These were to be declared among the mature at the appointed time, yet they were purposed in God's plan before the ages. Whose ages, if not the Creator's? Since the ages are constructed from times, and times are composed of days, months, and years, and days, months, and years are marked by the Creator's sun, moon, and stars set in place for this very purpose — 'they will serve as signs for months and years' — the ages themselves belong to the Creator, and whatever is said to have been purposed before the ages belongs to none other than the One to whom the ages belong (Isaiah). Let Marcion prove his own god's ages; let him produce the world itself in which ages are reckoned, a vessel, so to speak, of times, and any signs or mechanisms for them. If he demonstrates nothing, I return to the point: why did the Creator purpose our glory before the ages? One might suppose he purposed it before the ages, only to reveal it when the age dawned. But since he acts when nearly all the Creator's ages have already run their course, he purposed it in vain before the ages and not so much within the ages what he would reveal almost after the ages. For it is not the mark of the One who delays in revealing to rush in purposing. Both belong to the Creator: to have purposed before the ages and to have revealed at the culmination of the ages, because what he purposed and revealed he had already administered beforehand, in the middle span of the ages, through figures, riddles, and allegories.
Latin
Igitur per haec omnia ostendit, cuius dei sapientiam loquatur inter perfectos, eius scilicet, qui sapientiam sapientium abstulerit et prudentiam prudentium inritam fecerit, qui infatuauerit sapientia mundi, stulta eligens eius et disponens in salutem. hanc dicit sapientiam in occulto fuisse, quae fuerit in stultis et in pusillis et (in) inhonestis, quae latuerit etiam sub figuris, allegoriis et aenigmatibus. reuelanda postmodum in Christo, posito in lumen nationum a creatore promittente per Esaiae uocem patefacturum se thesauros inuisibiles et occultos. nam ut absconderit aliquid is deus, qui nihil egit omnino, in quod aliquid abscondisse existimaretur, satis incredibile. ipse si esset, latere non posset, nedum aliqua eius sacramenta. creator autem tam ipse notus quam et sacramenta eius, palam scilicet decurrentia apud Israhel, sed de significantiis obumbrata, in quibus sapientia dei delitiscebat. inter perfectos narranda suo in tempore, proposita uero in proposito dei ante saecula. cuius et saecula, nisi creatoris? si enim et saecula temporibus structa sunt, tempora autem diebus et mensibus et annis compinguntur, dies porro et menses et anni solibus et lunis et sideribus creatoris signantur in hoc ab eo positis, — et erunt enim, inquit, in signa mensium et annorum — apparet et saecula creatoris esse et omne, quod ante saecula propositum dicatur, non alterius esse, quam cuius et saecula. aut probet dei sui saecula Marcion; ostendat et mundum ipsum, in quo saecula deputentur, uas quodammodo temporum, et signa aliqua uel organa eorum. si nihil demonstrat, reuertor, ut et illud dicam: cur autem ante saecula creatoris proposuit gloriam nostram? posset uideri eam ante saecula proposuisse, quam introductione saeculi reuelasset. at cum id facit paene iam totis saeculis creatoris prodactis, uane ante saecula proposuit et non magis intra saecula quod reuelaturus erat paene post saecula. non enim eius est festinasse in proponendo, cuius est retardasse in reuelando. creatori autem competit utrumque: et ante saecula proposuisse et in fine saeculorum reuelasse, quia et quod proposuit et reuelauit medio spatio saeculorum in figuris et aenigmatibus et allegoriis praeministrauit.