Tertullian — Against Marcion 4.31
What sort does he order to be called to lunch or dinner? The sort he had shown through Isaiah: Break your bread for the hungry, and bring beggars and those without roof into your house—who of course cannot repay this humanity’s turn. If Christ forbids this to be angled for, promising it in the resurrection, it is the Creator’s form, whom lovers of gifts and pursuers of repayment do not please.
Weigh also to which side the inviter’s parable more runs. A certain man made a dinner and called many. Of course the dinner’s preparation figures eternal life’s satiety. First I say strangers and those of no right are not usually invited to dinner; certainly household and familiars more easily are. Therefore it is the Creator’s to have invited, to whom belonged those invited—both through Adam as humans and through the fathers as Jews—not his to whom they belonged neither by nature nor prerogative.
Next if he who prepared the dinner sends to the guests, so too the dinner is the Creator’s, who sent to remind guests already called through the fathers, to be reminded through the prophets—not one who sent no one to warn nor first did anything toward calling, but himself suddenly descended, only just becoming known already inviting, only just inviting already forcing into the feast, making the same hour for dining and inviting to dinner.
The invited excuse themselves. If from another god, deservedly, because suddenly invited; if not deservedly, then not suddenly; but if not suddenly invited, then from the Creator, from whom long since, whose call they had finally declined—first saying to Aaron: Make us gods who go before us—and thereafter hearing with the ear and not hearing. Most pertinently to this parable through Jeremiah: Hear my voice and I will be God to you… and they did not hear… but went in what their evil heart desired—‘I bought a field,’ ‘I bought oxen,’ ‘I married a wife.’ And still: I sent all my servants the prophets—here will be the Holy Spirit, remembrancer of guests—and my people did not hear.
When this was reported to the householder he was moved then—well that he was also moved, for Marcion denies his god is moved; so this too is mine—and orders a draft from the city’s streets and lanes. See whether in the sense again through Jeremiah: Have I become a wilderness to Israel’s house…? Then with place still abundant he commands gathering even from ways and hedges—that is, us already from foreign nations—by that jealousy in Deuteronomy: I will turn my face from them… they made me jealous by a non-god; I will make them jealous by a non-nation. What from this order, reviewed by the Creator’s dispositions and preachings, can suit him who has neither order nor disposition matching the parable, who did the whole work at once?
Latin
Ad prandium uel ad cenam quales uocari iubet? quales ostenderat per Esaiam: confringe panem tuum esurienti. et mendicos et qui sine tecto sunt induc in domum tuam, qui scilicet humanitatis istius uicem retribuere non possint. hanc si Christus captari uetat, in resurrectione eam repromittens, creatoris est forma, cui non placent amantes munera, sectantes retributionem. Etiam inuitatoris parabola cui magis parti occurrat, expende. homo quidam fecit cenam et uocauit multos. utique cenae paratura uitae aeterna saturitatem figurat. dico primo extraneos et nullius iuris adfines inuitari ad cenam non solere, certe facilius solere domesticos et familiares. ergo creatoris est inuitasse, ad quem pertinebant qui inuitabantur, et per Adam, qua homines, et (per) patres, qua Iudaici, non eius, ad quem neque natura pertinebant neque praerogatiua. dehinc si is mittit ad conuiuas, qui cenam parauit, sic quoque creatoris est cena, qui misit ad conuiuas admonendos, ante iam uocatos per patres, admonendos autem per prophetas, non, qui neminem miserit ad monendum nec qui nihil prius egerit ad uocandum, sed ipse descenderit subito, tantum quod innotescens iam inuitans, tantum quod inuitans iam in conuiuium cogens, eandem faciens horam cenandi et ad cenam inuitandi. excusant se inuitati. si ab alio deo, merito, quia subito inuitati; si non merito, ergo nec subito; si autem non subito inuitati, ergo a creatore, a quo olim, cuius denique declinauerant uocationem tunc, primo dicentes ad Aaronem: fac nobis deos, qui praeeant nobis, atque exinde aure audientes et non audientes, uocationem scilicet dei, qui pertinentissime ad hanc parabolam per Hieremiam: audite, inquit, uocem meam, et ero uobis in deum et uos mihi in populum, et ibitis in omnibus uiis meis, quascumque mandauero uobis — ecce inuitatio dei — et non audierunt, inquit, et non aduerterunt aurem suam m, - ecce recuaatio populi - 8 e sed i e abieruntin his, quae concupiuerunt corde suo malo: \'agrum emi\' et \'boues mercatus sum\' et \'uxorem duxi ? . et adhuc ingerit: et emisi omnes ad uos famulos meos, prophetas, — hic erit spiritus sanctus, admonitor conuiuarum — die et ante lucem, et non audiit populus meus et non intendit auribus suis et obdurauit collum suum. hoc ut patri familiae renuntiatum est, motus tunc — bene quod et motus; negat enim Marcion moueri deum suum; ita et hoc meus est — mandat de plateis et uicis ciuitatis facere sublectionem. uideamus an eo sensu, quo rursus per Hieremiam: numquid solitudo factus sum domui Israhelis aut terra in incultum derelicta? — id est: numquid non habeo quos adlegam aut unde adlegam? — quoniam dixit populus meus: non uenimus ad te. itaque misit ad alios uocandos ex eadem adhuc ciuitate. dehinc loco abundante praecepit etiam de uiis et sepibus colligi, id est nos iam de extraneis gentibus, illa scilicet aemulatione, qua in Deuteronomio: auertam meam faciemab eis et monstrabo, quid illis in nouissimis, — id est alios possessuros locum eorum — . quoniam genitura peruersa est, filii in quibus fides non est. illi obaemulati sunt me in non deo et prouocauerunt me in iram in idolis suis, e t ego obaemulabor eos in non natione, (in natione) insipienti prouocabo eos in iram, in nobis scilicet, quorum spem Iudaei gemunt, de qua illos gustaturos negat dominus, derelicta Sione tamquam specula in uinea et in cucumerario casula, posteaquam et nouissimam in Christo inuitationem recusauit. quid ex hoc ordine, secundum dispositiones et praedicationes creatoris recensendo, competere potest illi, cuius nec ordo habet nec dispositio ad parabolae conspirationem, qui totum opus semel fecit? aut quae erit prima uocatio eius, et quae secundo actu admonitio? ante debent alii excusare, postea alii conuenisse. nunc autem pariter utramque partem inuitare uenit, de ciuitate, de sepibus, aduersus speculum parabolae. nec potest iam fastidiosos iudicare quos numquam retro inuitauit, quos cum maxime adgreditur. aut si de futuro eos iudicat contempturos uocationem, ergo et sublectionem loco eorum ex gentibus de futuro portendit. plane adhuc secundo uenturus est: [ut gentibus praedicet. et si] uenturus est autem, puto, non quasi uocaturus adhuc conuiuas, sed iam collocaturus. interea qui cenae istius uocationem in caeleste conuiuium interpretaris spiritalis saturitatis et iocunditatis, memento et terrenas promissiones uini et olei et frumenti et ipsius ciuitatis aeque in spiritalia figurari a creatore.