apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

GENUINENESS OF THE EPISTLE. 587
Apocalypse (Rev. ii. 6, 14, 15, 20, 24), the evil is nearly full blown.
This interpretation becomes tlie more evident, when read in the light of
the accompanying clause, where the same persons are described as saying
that 'there is no resurrection or judgment'. This can only mean that
they denied the doctrine of a future retribution, and so broke loose from
the moral restraints imposed by the fear of consequences. Here again
they had their forerunners in those licentious speculators at Corinth,
who maintained that 'there is no resurrection of the dead' (i Cor. xv.
12), and whose Epicurean lives were the logical consequence of their
Epicurean doctrine. Here again the Pastoral Epistles supply a pertinent
illustration. If we are perplexed to conceive how they could
extract this doctrine out of 'the oracles of the Lord', our perplexity is
unravelled by the case of Hymenasus and Philetus who taught 'that the
resurrection is past already' (2 Tim. ii. 18),
or in other words that all
terms applying thereto must be understood metaphorically as describing
the spiritual change, the new birth and resuscitation of the believers, in
this present world'. Thus everything hangs together. But such teaching
is altogether foreign to Marcion. He did indeed deny the resurrection
of the flesh and the future body of the redeemed". This was a necessary
tenet of all Gnostics, who held the inherent malignity of matter.
In this sense only he denied the resurrection ;
and he did not deny the
judgment at all. Holding as firmly as the Catholic Christian that men
would be rewarded or punished hereafter according to their deeds in
this life, he was obliged to recognize a judgment in some form or other.
His Supreme God indeed, whom he represented as pure beneficence,
could not he a judge or an avenger; but he got over the difficulty by
assigning this task to the Demiurge ^
(ii)
The second point in the indictment is the recurrence of the
same phrase 'first-born of Satan' after a long interval. The passage in
the epistle, if genuine, must have been written, as we have seen,
before
A. D. 118. The expression, as applied to Marcion, cannot, it is urged,
have been uttered before a. d. 154; for this will be the date of Polycarp's
visit to Rome, supposing Waddington to have correctly assigned
the martyrdom to the year 155. It is not indeed clear that the interview
between Polycarp and Marcion took place during this visit.
^
Iren. ii. 31. 2; Tertull. de Resurr. Iren. iii. 25. 2, 3, 'Alteram quidem //-
Cam. 19.
dicarc et alterum quidem salvare dixerant
" Iren. ...Marcion igitur ipse dividens Deum in
i. 27. 3, Tertull. adv. Marc. v.
10, de Praescr. Haer. 33. duo, alterum quidem bonum et alterum
^ See Neander Chtirch History 11. p. ittdkialaii dicens ', with the context.
147, and to the references there given add