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| Christ's Authority Over the Sabbath. As Its Lord He Recalled It from Pharisaic Neglect to the Original Purpose of Its Institution by the Creator the Case of the Disciples Who Plucked the Ears of Corn on the Sabbath. The Withered Hand Healed on the Sabbath.
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Chapter
XII.—Christ’s Authority Over the Sabbath. As Its Lord He
Recalled It from Pharisaic Neglect to the Original Purpose of Its
Institution by the Creator the Case of the Disciples Who Plucked the
Ears of Corn on the Sabbath. The Withered Hand Healed on the
Sabbath.
Concerning the Sabbath also I have this to
premise, that this question could not have arisen, if Christ did not
publicly proclaim3853
the Lord of the
Sabbath. Nor could there be any discussion about His annulling3854
the Sabbath, if He had a right3855
to annul it. Moreover, He would have the
right, if He belonged to the rival god; nor would it cause surprise to
any one that He did what it was right for Him to do. Men’s
astonishment therefore arose from their opinion that it was improper
for Him to proclaim the Creator to be God and yet to impugn His
Sabbath. Now, that we may decide these several points first, lest we
should be renewing them at every turn to meet each argument of our
adversary which rests on some novel institution3856
| 3856 Institutione:
or, teaching, perhaps. | of
Christ, let this stand as a settled point, that discussion concerning
the novel character of each institution ensued on this account, because
as nothing was as yet advanced by Christ touching any new deity,
so discussion thereon was inadmissible; nor could it be retorted, that
from the very novelty of each several institution another deity was
clearly enough demonstrated by Christ, inasmuch as it was plain that
novelty was not in itself a characteristic to be wondered at in Christ,
because it had been foretold by the Creator. And it would have been, of
course, but right that a new3857
god should first be
expounded, and his discipline be introduced afterwards; because it
would be the god that would impart authority to the discipline, and not
the discipline to the god; except that (to be sure) it has happened
that Marcion acquired his very perverse opinions not from a master, but
his master from his opinion! All other points respecting the Sabbath I
thus rule. If Christ interfered with3858
the Sabbath,
He simply acted after the Creator’s example; inasmuch as in the
siege of the city of Jericho the carrying around the walls of the ark
of the covenant for eight days running, and therefore on a Sabbath-day,
actually3859
annulled the
Sabbath, by the Creator’s command—according to the opinion
of those who think this of Christ in this passage of St. Luke,
in their ignorance that neither Christ nor the Creator violated the
Sabbath, as we shall by and by show. And yet the Sabbath was actually
then broken3860
| 3860 Concussum est
sabbatum. | by Joshua,3861
so that the present charge might be alleged
also against Christ. But even if, as being not the Christ of the Jews,
He displayed a hatred against the Jews’ most solemn day, He was
only professedly following3862
| 3862
Professus…sequebatur. | the Creator, as
being His Christ, in this very hatred of the Sabbath; for He exclaims
by the mouth of Isaiah: “Your new moons and your Sabbaths my soul
hateth.”3863
Now, in whatever
sense these words were spoken, we know that an abrupt defence must, in
a subject of this sort, be used in answer to an abrupt challenge. I
shall now transfer the discussion to the very matter in which the
teaching of Christ seemed to annul the Sabbath. The disciples had been
hungry; on that the Sabbath day they had plucked some ears and
rubbed them in their hands; by thus preparing their food, they had
violated the holy day. Christ excuses them, and became their accomplice
in breaking the Sabbath. The Pharisees bring the charge against
Him. Marcion sophistically interprets the stages of the
controversy (if I may call in the aid of the truth of my Lord to
ridicule his arts), both in the scriptural record and in
Christ’s purpose.3864
| 3864 This obscure passage
runs thus in the original: “Marcion captat status
controversiæ (ut aliquid ludam cum mei Domini veritate), scripti
et voluntatis.” Status is a technical word in
rhetoric. “Est quæstio quæ ex prima causarum
conflictione nascitur.” See Cicero, Topic. c. 25,
Part. c. 29; and Quinctilian, Instit. Rhetor. iii.
6. (Oehler). | For from the
Creator’s Scripture, and from the purpose of Christ, there is
derived a colourable precedent3865
—as from the
example of David, when he went into the temple on the Sabbath, and
provided food by boldly breaking up the shew-bread.3866
Even he remembered that this privilege (I
mean the dispensation from fasting) was allowed to the Sabbath from the
very beginning, when the Sabbath-day itself was instituted. For
although the Creator had forbidden that the manna should be gathered
for two days, He yet permitted it on the one occasion only of the day
before the Sabbath, in
order that the yesterday’s provision of food might free from
fasting the feast of the following Sabbath-day. Good reason, therefore,
had the Lord for pursuing the same principle in the annulling of the
Sabbath (since that is the word which men will use); good reason, too,
for expressing the Creator’s will,3867
when He bestowed the privilege of not fasting on the Sabbath-day. In
short, He would have then and there3868
put an end to
the Sabbath, nay, to the Creator Himself, if He had commanded His
disciples to fast on the Sabbath-day, contrary to the
intention3869
of the Scripture
and of the Creator’s will. But because He did not directly
defend3870
| 3870 Non constanter
tuebatur. | His disciples, but
excuses them; because He interposes human want, as if deprecating
censure; because He maintains the honour of the Sabbath as a day which
is to be free from gloom rather than from work;3871
| 3871 Non contristandi quam
vacandi. |
because he puts David and his companions on a level with His own
disciples in their fault and their extenuation; because He is pleased
to endorse3872
| 3872 [This adoption
of an Americanism is worthy of passing notice.] | the Creator’s
indulgence:3873
| 3873 Placet illi quia
Creator indulsit. | because He is
Himself good according to His example—is He therefore
alien from the Creator? Then the Pharisees watch whether He would heal
on the Sabbath-day,3874
that they might
accuse Him—surely as a violator of the Sabbath, not as the
propounder of a new god; for perhaps I might be content with insisting
on all occasions on this one point, that another Christ3875
is nowhere proclaimed. The Pharisees,
however, were in utter error concerning the law of the Sabbath, not
observing that its terms were conditional, when it enjoined rest from
labour, making certain distinctions of labour. For when it says of the
Sabbath-day, “In it thou shalt not do any work of
thine,”3876
by the word
thine3877
| 3877 It is impossible to
say where Tertullian got this reading. Perhaps his LXX. copy
might have had (in Ex. xx.
10): Οὐ ποιήσεις
ἐν αὐτῇ πᾶν
ἔργον σου, instead of
συ; every clause ending in
σου, which follows in
that verse. No critical authority, however, now known warrants
such a reading. [It is probably based inferentially on verse
9, “all
thy work.”] | it restricts the
prohibition to human work—which every one performs in his own
employment or business—and not to divine work. Now the work
of healing or preserving is not proper to man, but to God. So again, in
the law it says, “Thou shalt not do any manner of work in
it,”3878
except what is to
be done for any soul,3879
| 3879 The LXX. of the latter
clause of Ex. xii.
16 thus runs: πλὴν ὅσα
ποιηθήσεται
πάσῃ ψυχῇ.
Tertullian probably got this reading from this clause, although the
Hebrew is to this effect: “Save that which every man (or,
every soul) must eat,” which the Vulgate renders:
“Exceptis his, quæ ad vescendum pertinent.” | that is to say, in
the matter of delivering the soul;3880
because what
is God’s work may be done by human agency for the salvation of
the soul. By God, however, would that be done which the man Christ was
to do, for He was likewise God.3881
Wishing,
therefore, to initiate them into this meaning of the law by the
restoration of the withered hand, He requires, “Is it lawful on
the Sabbath-days to do good, or not? to save life, or to destroy
it?”3882
In order that He
might, whilst allowing that amount of work which He was about to
perform for a soul,3883
| 3883 Pro anima: or, for a
life. | remind them what
works the law of the Sabbath forbade—even human works; and what
it enjoined—even divine works, which might be done for the
benefit of any soul,3884
| 3884 Animæ omni: or,
any life. | He was called
“Lord of the Sabbath,”3885
because He
maintained3886
the Sabbath as His
own institution. Now, even if He had annulled the Sabbath, He would
have had the right to do so,3887
as being its Lord,
(and) still more as He who instituted it. But He did not utterly
destroy it, although its Lord, in order that it might henceforth be
plain that the Sabbath was not broken3888
| 3888 Destructum. We
have, as has been most convenient, rendered this word by annul,
destroy, break. | by
the Creator, even at the time when the ark was carried around Jericho.
For that was really3889
God’s work,
which He commanded Himself, and which He had ordered for the sake of
the lives of His servants when exposed to the perils of war. Now,
although He has in a certain place expressed an aversion of Sabbaths,
by calling them your Sabbaths,3890
reckoning them as men’s Sabbaths, not His own, because they were
celebrated without the fear of God by a people full of iniquities, and
loving God “with the lip, not the heart,”3891
He has yet put His own Sabbaths (those, that
is, which were kept according to His prescription) in a different
position; for by the same prophet, in a later passage,3892
| 3892 Isa.
lviii. 13 and lvi. 2. | He declared them to be “true, and
delightful, and inviolable.” Thus Christ did not at all rescind
the Sabbath: He kept the law thereof, and both in the former case did a
work which was beneficial to the life of His disciples, for He indulged
them with the relief of food when they were hungry, and in the present
instance cured the withered hand; in each case intimating by facts, “I came not to
destroy, the law, but to fulfil it,”3893
although Marcion has gagged3894
His mouth by this
word.3895
| 3895
“Destroy”…It was hardly necessary for Oehler to
paraphrase our author’s characteristically strong sentence by,
“since Marcion thought that he had gagged,”
etc. | For even in the case before us He fulfilled
the law, while interpreting its condition; moreover, He exhibits
in a clear light the different kinds of work, while doing what the law
excepts from the sacredness of the Sabbath3896
| 3896 In other words,
“permits to be done on the Sabbath.” |
and while imparting to the Sabbath-day itself, which from the
beginning had been consecrated by the benediction of the Father, an
additional sanctity by His own beneficent action. For He furnished to
this day divine safeguards,3897
—a course
which3898
| 3898 Quod, not
quæ, as if in apposition with præsidia. | His adversary would have pursued for some
other days, to avoid honouring the Creator’s Sabbath, and
restoring to the Sabbath the works which were proper for it. Since, in
like manner, the prophet Elisha on this day restored to life the dead
son of the Shunammite woman,3899
you see, O
Pharisee, and you too, O Marcion, how that it was proper
employment for the Creator’s Sabbaths of old3900
to do good, to save life, not to destroy it;
how that Christ introduced nothing new, which was not after the
example,3901
the gentleness, the
mercy, and the prediction also of the Creator. For in this very example
He fulfils3902
the prophetic
announcement of a specific healing: “The weak hands are
strengthened,” as were also “the feeble
knees”3903
in the sick of the
palsy.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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