5. Five Books in Reply to Marcion.
(Author Uncertain.)
Book I.—Of the Divine Unity, and the Resurrection of the Flesh.
Part I.—Of the Divine Unity.
After the Evil One’s impiety
Profound, and his life-grudging mind, entrapped
Seducèd men with empty hope, it laid
Them bare, by impious suasion to false trust
5 In him,—not with impunity, indeed;
For he forthwith, as guilty of the deed,
And author rash of such a wickedness,
Received deserved maledictions. Thus,
Thereafter, maddened, he, most desperate foe,
10 Did more assail and instigate men’s minds
In darkness sunk. He taught them to forget
The Lord, and leave sure hope, and idols vain
Follow, and shape themselves a crowd of gods,
Lots, auguries, false names of stars, the show
15 Of being able to o’errule the births
Of embryos by inspecting entrails, and
Expecting things to come, by hardihood
Of dreadful magic’s renegadoes led,
Wondering at a mass of feigned lore;
20 And he impelled them headlong to spurn life,
Sunk in a criminal insanity;
To joy in blood; to threaten murders fell;
To love the wound, then, in their neighbour’s flesh;
Or, burning, and by pleasure’s heat entrapped,
25 To transgress nature’s covenants, and stain
Pure bodies, manly sex, with an embrace
Unnameable, and uses feminine
Mingled in common contact lawlessly;
Urging embraces chaste, and dedicate
30 To generative duties, to be held
For intercourse obscene for passion’s sake.
Such in time past his deeds, assaulting men,
Through the soul’s lurking-places, with a flow
Of scorpion-venom,—not that men would blame
35 Him, for they followed of their own accord:
His suasion was in guile; in freedom man
Performed it.
Whileas the perfidious one
Continuously through the centuries
Is breathing such ill fumes, and into hearts
40 Seduced injecting his own counselling