"For even in the case before us he fulfilled the law, while interpreting its condition; [moreover,] he exhibits in a clear light the different kinds of work, while doing what the law excepts from the sacredness of the Sabbath, [and] while imparting to the Sabbath day itself, which _from the beginning_ had been consecrated by the benediction of the Father, an additional sanctity by his own beneficent action. For he furnished to this day divine safeguards,--a course which his adversary would have pursued for some other days, to avoid honoring the Creator's Sabbath, and restoring to the Sabbath the works which were proper for it. Since, in like manner, the prophet Elisha on this day restored to life the dead son of the Shunammite woman, you see, O Pharisee, and you too, O Marcion, how that it was [proper employment] for the Creator's Sabbaths of old to do good, to save life, not to destroy it; how that Christ introduced nothing new, which was not after the example, the gentleness, the mercy, and the prediction also of the Creator. For in this very example he fulfills the prophetic announcement of a specific healing: 'The weak hands are strengthened,' as were also 'the feeble knees' in the sick of the palsy."--_Tertullian against Marcion_, b. iv. chap. xii. Tertullian mistakes in his reference to the Shunammite woman. It was not the Sabbath day on which she went to the prophet. 2 Kings 4:23. But in the last three paragraphs quoted from him, which in his work form one continuous statement, he affirms many important truths which are worthy of careful enumeration. They are as follows:-- 1. Christ, in determining what should, and what should not, be done on the Sabbath, "was called 'Lord of the Sabbath,' because he maintained the Sabbath as his own institution." 2. "The Sabbath was not broken by the Creator, even at the time when the ark was carried around Jericho." 3. The reason why God expressed his aversion to "your Sabbaths," as though they were "men's Sabbaths, not his own," was "because they were celebrated without the fear of God, by a people full of iniquities." See Isa. 1:13, 14. 4. "By the same prophet [Isa. 58:13; 56:2], he declares them [the Sabbaths] to be 'true and delightful and inviolable.'" 5. "Thus Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath." 6. "He kept the law thereof." 7. "The Sabbath day itself, which from the beginning had been consecrated by the benediction of the Father." This language expressly assigns the origin of the Sabbath to the act of the Creator at the close of the first week of time. 8. Christ imparted to the Sabbath "an additional sanctity by his own beneficent action." 9. "He furnished to this day divine safeguards,--a course which his adversary would have pursued for some other days, to avoid honoring the Creator's Sabbath, and restoring to the Sabbath the works which were proper for it."