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

1626 Or, “consecrated by seers and patriarchs.”

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

1627 i.e., all the number of Thy disciples.

Chosest; and, with their names, the lustral¹⁶²⁸

1628 Tempora lustri, i.e., apparently the times during which these “elders” (i.e., the bishops, of whom a list is given at the end of book iii.) held office.  “Lustrum” is used of other periods than it strictly implies, and this seems to give some sense to this difficult passage.

Of our own elders noted, (times preserved

On record,) showing in whose days appeared

15  The author¹⁶²⁹

1629 i.e., Marcion.

Lawless, and roaming, cast forth¹⁶³⁰

1630 i.e., excommunicated.

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

1631 Complexu vario.

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

1632 Ancipiti quamquam cum crimine.  The last word seems almost ="discrimine;” just as our author uses “cerno” ="discerno.”

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

Unknown to peoples, alien, in a word,

To all the world?¹⁶³³

1633 Mundo.

Came he from high?  If ’tis his own¹⁶³⁴

1634 Cf. John i. 11, and see the Greek.

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

1635 Whether this be the sense I know not.  The passage is a mass of confusion.

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

1636 i.e., according to Marcion’s view.

Of flesh, as if his victor-self withal

Had ever been a spirit, and as such¹⁶³⁷

1637 i.e., as spirits, like himself.

Willed to rescue all expelled souls,

65  Without a body, everywhere, and leave

The spoiled flesh to earth; wholly to fill

The world¹⁶³⁸

1638 Mundum.

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

1639 i.e., Marcionite.

Been born, or spread a new pest¹⁶⁴⁰

1640 See book ii. 3.

Or (since at that time¹⁶⁴¹

1641 i.e., apparently on the day of Christ’s resurrection.

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

1642 Replesset, i.e., replevisset.  If this be the right reading, the meaning would seem to be, “would have taken away all further desire for” them, as satiety or repletion takes away all appetite for food.  One is almost inclined to hazard the suggestion “represset,” i.e., repressisset, “he would have repressed,” but that such a contraction would be irregular.  Yet, with an author who takes such liberties as the present one, perhaps that might not be a decisive objection.

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

1643 “Junctus,” for the edd.’s “junctis,” which, if retained, will mean “in the case of beings still joined with (or to) blood.”

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

1644 “Docetur,” for the edd.’s “docentur.”  The sense seems to be, if there be any, exceedingly obscure; but for the idea of a half-salvation—the salvation of the “inner man” without the outer—being no salvation at all, and unworthy of “the Good Shepherd” and His work, we may compare the very difficult passage in the de Pudic., c. xiii. ad fin.

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

1645 This sense, which I deduce from a transposition of one line and the supplying of the words “he did exhort,” which are not expressed, but seem necessary, in the original, agrees well with 1 Cor. vii., which is plainly the passage referred to.

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

1646 “Causa;” or perhaps “means.”  It is, of course, the French “chose.”

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

1647 i.e., you and your like, through whom sin, and in consequence death, is disseminated.

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

1648 Here, again, for the sake of the sense, I have transposed a line.

Nor are they seen to have each his own set

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

Groans, joys, grieves, loves; himself¹⁶⁴⁹

1649 i.e., “the other,” the “inner man,” or spirit.

Most dear, too; through which¹⁶⁵⁰

1650 i.e., through flesh.

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

1651 i.e., in His own person.

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

1652 I hope I have succeeded in giving some intelligible sense; but the passage as it stands in the Latin is nearly hopeless.

What say now

150  The impious voices? what th’ abandoned crew?

If He Himself, God the Creator’s self,

Gave not the Law,¹⁶⁵³

1653 I read “legem” for “leges.”

1654 I read “valle” for “calle.”

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

1655 Alios.

1656 Altera.

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

1657 i.e., “the gifts of baptism.”

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

1658 This seems to give sense to a very obscure passage, in which I have been guided more by Migne’s pointing than by Oehler’s.

What¹⁶⁵⁹

1659 I read here “quid” for “quod.”

To make men recognise what God can give

And man can suffer, and thus live?¹⁶⁶⁰

1660 i.e., to make men live by recognising that.  Comp. the Psalmist’s prayer:  “Give me understanding and I shall live” (Ps. cxix. 144; in LXX., Ps. cxviii. 144).

Neither predictions earlier nor facts

180  The latest can suede senseless frantic¹⁶⁶¹

1661 The “furentes” of Pam. and Rig. is preferred to Oehler’s “ferentes.”

That God became a man, and (after He

Had suffered and been buried) rose; that they

May credit those so many witnesses

Harmonious,¹⁶⁶²

1662 “Complexis,” lit. “embracing.”

185  With heavenly word, let them both¹⁶⁶³

1663 i.e., both Jews and Gentile heretics, the “senseless frantic men” just referred to probably:  or possibly the “ambo” may mean “both sects,” viz., the Marcionites and Manichees, against whom the writer whom Oehler supposes to be the probable author of these “Five Books,” Victorinus, a rhetorician of Marseilles, directed his efforts.  But it may again be the acc. neut. pl., and mean “let them”—i.e., the “senseless frantic men”—“learn to believe as to both facts,” i.e., the incarnation and the resurrection; (see vers. 179, 180;) “the testimony at least of human reason.”

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

1664 I would suggest here, for “…quia summa voluntas In cujus manu regnantis cor legibus esset,” something like this, “…quia summa voluntas, In cujus manu regnantis cor regis, egisset,” which would only add one more to our author’s false quantities.  “Regum egisset” would avoid even that, while it would give some sense.  Comp. Prov. xxi. 1.

To do it, and the enrolment was reduced

195  To orderly arrangement.  Joseph then

Likewise, with his but just delivered wife

Mary,¹⁶⁶⁵

1665 Maria cum conjuge feta.  What follows seems to decide the meaning of “feta,” as a child could hardly be included in a census before birth.

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

1666 Again I have had to attempt to amend the text of the Latin in order to extract any sense, and am far from sure that I have extracted the right one.

The Jews, who own¹⁶⁶⁷

1667 “Fatentur,” unless our author use it passively ="are confessed.”

A grave crime, while in our disparagement

They glow, and do resist us, neither call

Christ’s family unknown, nor can¹⁶⁶⁸

1668 “Possunt,” i.e., probably “have the hardihood.”

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

1669 Because Christ plainly, as they understood Him, “made Himself the Son of God;” and hence, if they confessed that He had said the truth, and yet that they hanged Him on a tree, they would be pronouncing their own condemnation.

210  Ignorant that the Lord’s flesh which they bound¹⁶⁷⁰

1670 “Vinctam” for “victam” I read here.

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

1671 i.e., you and the Jews.  See above on 185.

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

1672 Quod qui præsumpsit mergentes spargitis ambo.  What the meaning is I know not, unless it be this:  if any one hints to you that you are in an error which is sinking you into perdition, you both join in trying to sink him (if “mergentes” be active; or “while you are sinking,” if neuter), and in sprinkling him with your doctrine (or besprinkling him with abuse).

Will then approve Him man alike and God

Commingled, and the world¹⁶⁷³

1673 Mundus.

225  No few.

While then the Son Himself of God

Is seeking to regain the flesh’s limbs,¹⁶⁷⁴

1674 “Dum carnis membra requirit,” i.e., seeking to regain for God all the limbs of the flesh as His instruments.  Comp. Rom. vi. 13; 19.

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

1675 Ligno.

Is fixed; wine drugged with myrrh,¹⁶⁷⁶

1676 “Scriblita,” a curious word.

1677 Fel miscetur aceto.  The reading may have arisen—and it is not confined to our author—from confounding ὄξος with οἶνος.  Comp. Matt. xxvii. 33 with Mark xv. 23.

Is mixt with vinegar; parted His robe,¹⁶⁷⁸

1678 This is an error, if the “coat” be meant.

And in it¹⁶⁷⁹

1679 Perhaps for “in illa” we should read “in illam”—“on it,” for “in it.”

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

1680 The Jews.

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

1681 For “ante diem quam cum pateretur” I have read “qua tum.”

And handing down a memorable rite¹⁶⁸²

1682 Or, “deed”—“factum.”

To His disciples, taking bread alike

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

260  Which is poured¹⁶⁸³

1683 Or, “is being poured”—“funditur.”

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

1684 Mundi.

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

1685 I read with Migne, “Patris sub imagine virtus,” in preference to the conjecture which Oehler follows, “Christi sub imagine virtus.”  The reference seems clearly to be to Heb. i. 3.

270  United both in glory and in age;¹⁶⁸⁶

1686 Ævo.  Perhaps here ="eternity.”

Because alone He ministers the words

Of the All-Holder; whom He¹⁶⁸⁷

1687 i.e., “The All-Holder.”

Accepts;¹⁶⁸⁸

1688 Capit.

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

1689 Cf. Jacob’s words in Gen. xxxii. 30; Manoah’s in Judg. xiii. 22; etc.

280  God is our witness—since the origin

Of this our world,¹⁶⁹⁰

1690 Mundi.

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

1691 For “dimisit in umbris” I read here “demisit in imbris.”  If we retain the former reading, it will then mean, “dispersed during the shades of night,” during which it was that the manna seems always to have fallen.

From heaven for the People; brake the rock;

Bedewed with wave the thirsty;¹⁶⁹²

1692 “Sitientis” in Oehler must be a misprint for “sitientes.”

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

1693 There ought to be a “se” in the Latin if this be the meaning.

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

1694 For “Mundator carnis seræ” ="the Cleanser of late flesh” (which would seem, if it mean anything, to mean that the flesh had to wait long for its cleansing), I have read “carnis nostræ.”

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

1695 Lignum.

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

1696 I have followed the disjointed style of the Latin as closely as I could here.

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

1697 Here we seem to see the idea of the “limbus patrum.”

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

1698 “Subiens” ="going beneath,” i.e., apparently coming beneath the walls of heaven.

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

1699 i.e., a figure of the future harvest.

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

1700 I have hazarded the conjecture “minutus” here for the edd.’s “munitus.”  It adds one more, it is true, to our author’s false quantities, but that is a minor difficulty, while it improves (to my mind) the sense vastly.

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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