OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN TEXTS
General Editor

DR HENRY CHADWICK
Dean of Christ Church, Oxford

=========

TERTULLIAN

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

TERTULLIAN

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

EDITED AND TRANSLATED
BY
ERNEST EVANS

BOOKS 1 TO 3

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1972

Oxford University Press, Ely House, London W. 1

GLASGOW  NEW YORK  TORONTO  MELBOURNE  WELLINGTON
CAPE TOWN  IBADAN  NAIROBI  DAR ES SALAAM  LUSAKA  ADDIS ABABA
DELHI  BOMBAY  CALCUTTA  MADRAS  KARACHI  LAHORE  DACCA
KUALA LUMPUR  SINGAPORE  HONG KONG  TOKYO

© OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1972

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD
BY VIVIAN RIDLER
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PREFACE

IN his Latin dissertation on Tertullian and his Writings (reprinted in
the third volume of Oehler) John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln 1827-
1853, observes that Tertullian is of all writers the most harsh and
obscure, and one whom it is impossible to translate into another
language. In a different connection, that accomplished Latinist
George Long, in his edition of the Verrine orations (1862), re-
marked that the Latin language has a mode of dealing with
generalities which the English has not. The Latin, he says, reaches
the understanding, but it often refuses all expression in another
tongue, at least in ours. That being so, one can have nothing but
admiration for the pioneer work of Dr. Peter Holmes, who in 1868
translated these five books into English. ¹ My own translation was
almost complete before I was able to obtain a copy of his. I have
since then compared the two versions almost sentence by sentence
throughout: and if it is true that I have found a number of places
where I was bound to think him mistaken, it is also true that there
are some six or more where he has warned me to correct or avoid
a mistake of my own.

        The indexes to the present work were compiled with the
assistance of the very .complete and accurate indexes to the whole
of Tertullian's works provided in the second volume of Corpus
Christianorum (Turnhout, 1954). The numbering of the sentences
within the chapters is copied from that of Kroymann, but with
occasional adjustments of never more than a line or two in either
direction as required by the improved punctuation of this edition
of the Latin text.

        This work owes much of its accuracy to the acute perception
and retentive memory of the craftsmen and readers of the Press:
to them my thanks are due, and are hereby most gladly offered.

E. E.

Scalby
June 1971

¹ The Five Books of Quintus Sept. Flor. Tertullians against Martian, trans-
lated by Peter Holmes, D.D., F.R.A.S., Edinburgh, 1868 [Ante-Nicene Christian
Library],

CONTENTS