Tertullian — Against Marcion 3

A procedure of this kind, you say, was not necessary, because He was immediately to prove Himself the Son and the Sent One, and the Christ of God in very deed, by means of the evidence of His wonderful works . On my side, however, I have to deny that evidence simply of this sort was sufficient as a testimony to Him. He Himself afterwards deprived it of its authority, because when He declared that many would come and show great signs and wonders, so as to turn aside the very elect, and yet for all that were not to be received, He showed how rash was belief in signs and wonders, which were so very easy of accomplishment by even false christs.

Else how happens it, if He meant Himself to be approved and understood, and received on a certain evidence — I mean that of miracles — that He forbade the recognition of those others who had the very same sort of proof to show, and whose coming was to be quite as sudden and unannounced by any authority?

If, because He came before them, and was beforehand with them in displaying the signs of His mighty deeds , He therefore seized the first right to men's faith — just as the firstcomers do the first place in the baths — and so forestalled all who came after Him in that right, take care that He, too, be not caught in the condition of the later comers, if He be found to be behindhand with the Creator, who had already been made known , and had already worked miracles like Him, and like Him had forewarned men not to believe in others, even such as should come after Him.

If, therefore, to have been the first to come and utter this warning, is to bar and limit faith , He will Himself have to be condemned, because He was later in being acknowledged; and authority to prescribe such a rule about later comers will belong to the Creator alone, who could have been posterior to none.