, IV.
34. 1) put the question to their ecclesiastical opponents, "Quid novi
attulit dominus veniens?" and therewith caused them no small
embarrassment.]

[Footnote 376: On these see Tertull. I. 19; II. 28. 29; IV. 1, 4, 6;
Epiph. Hippol., Philos. VII. 30; the book was used by other Gnostics
also (it is very probable that 1 Tim. VI. 20, an addition to the
Epistle--refers to Marcion's Antitheses). Apelles, Marcion's disciple,
composed a similar work under the title of "Syllogismi." Marcion's
Antitheses, which may still in part be reconstructed from Tertullian,
Epiphanius, Adamantius, Ephraem, etc., possessed canonical authority in
the Marcionite church, and therefore took the place of the Old
Testament. That is quite clear from Tertull., I. 19 (cf. IV. 1):
Separatio legis et Evangelii proprium et principale opus est Marcionis,
nee poterunt negare discipuli ejus, quod in summo (suo) instrumento
habent, quo denique initiantur et indurantur in hanc haeresim.]

[Footnote 377: Tertullian has frequently pointed to the contradictions
in the Marcionite conception of the god of creation. These
contradictions, however, vanish as soon as we regard Marcion's god from
the point of view that he is like his revelation in the Old Testament.]

[Footnote 378: The creator of the world is indeed to Marcion "malignus",
but not "malus."]

[Footnote 379: Marcion touched on it when he taught that the "visibilia"
belonged to the god of creation, but the "invisibilia" to the good God
(I. 16). He adopted the consequences, inasmuch as he taught docetically
about Christ, and only assumed a deliverance of the human soul.]

[Footnote 380: See especially the third book of Tertull., adv. Marcion.]

[Footnote 381: "Solius bonitatis", "deus melior", were Marcion's
standing expressions for him.]

[Footnote 382: "Deus incognitus" was likewise a standing expression.
They maintained against all attacks the religious position that, from
the nature of the case, believers only can know God, and that this is
quite sufficient (Tertull., 1. 11).]

[Footnote 383: Marcion firmly emphasised this and appealed to passages
in Paul; see Tertull., I. 11, 19, 23: "scio dicturos, atquin hanc esse
principalem et perfectam bonitatem, cum sine ullo debito familiaritatis
in extraneos voluntaria et libera effunditur, secundum quam inimicos
quoque nostros et hoc nomine jam extraneos deligere jubeamur." The
Church Fathers therefore declared that Marcion's good God was a thi