Anf-03 iv.iv.iv Pg 7
Isa. xliv. 8 et seqq.
says, “Ye are witnesses whether there is a God except Me.” “And they who mould and carve out at that time were not: all vain! who do that which liketh them, which shall not profit them!” And that whole ensuing discourse sets a ban as well on the artificers as the worshippers: the close of which is, “Learn that their heart is ashes and earth, and that none can free his own soul.” In which sentence David equally includes the makers too. “Such,” says he, “let them become who make them.”184 184
Anf-03 v.iv.iii.xxvi Pg 4
Isa. xliv. 8.
of no other God; especially when He was swearing to this very point, that besides himself there was absolutely no God? Is it then of swearing falsely that you convict3037 3037 Deprehendis.
Him, or of swearing a vain oath? But it is not possible for him to appear to have sworn falsely, when he was ignorant, as you say he was, that there was another God. For when he swore by that which he knew, he really committed no perjury. But it was not a vain oath for him to swear that there was no other God. It would indeed be a vain oath, if there had been no persons who believed that there were other Gods, like the worshippers of idols then, and the heretics of the present day. Therefore He swears by Himself, in order that you may believe God, even when He swears that there is besides Himself no other God at all. But you have yourself, O Marcion, compelled God to do this. For even so early as then were you foreseen. Hence, if He swears both in His promises and His threatenings, and thus extorts3038 3038 Extorquens.
faith which at first was difficult, nothing is unworthy of God which causes men to believe in God. But (you say) God was even then mean3039 3039 Pusillus.
enough in His very fierceness, when, in His wrath against the people for their consecration of the calf, He makes this request of His servant Moses: “Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation.”3040 3040
Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge, Chapter 44
VERSE (8) - :2; 41:10-14 Pr 3:25,26 Jer 10:7; 30:10,11 Joh 6:10
