Tertullian — Against Marcion 9
Out of so many kinds of occupations, why indeed had He such respect for that of fishermen, as to select from it for apostles Simon and the sons of Zebedee (for it cannot seem to be the mere fact itself for which the narrative was meant to be drawn out ), saying to Peter, when he trembled at the very large draught of the fishes, Fear not; from henceforth you shall catch men? By saying this, He suggested to them the meaning of the fulfilled prophecy , that it was even He who by Jeremiah had foretold, Behold, I will send many fishers; and they shall fish them, Jeremiah 16:16 that is, men. Then at last they left their boats, and followed Him, understanding that it was He who had begun to accomplish what He had declared.
It is quite another case, when he affected to choose from the college of shipmasters, intending one day to appoint the shipmaster Marcion his apostle. We have indeed already laid it down, in opposition to his Antitheses , that the position of Marcion derives no advantage from the diversity which he supposes to exist between the Law and the Gospel , inasmuch as even this was ordained by the Creator, and indeed predicted in the promise of the new Law, and the new Word, and the new Testament.
Since, however, he quotes with special care, as a proof in his domain, a certain companion in misery ( συνταλαίπωρον ), and associate in hatred ( συμμισούμενον ), with himself, for the cure of leprosy , Luke 5:12-14 I shall not be sorry to meet him, and before anything else to point out to him the force of the law figuratively interpreted, which, in this example of a leper (who was not to be touched, but was rather to be removed from all intercourse with others), prohibited any communication with a person who was defiled with sins , with whom the apostle also forbids us even to eat food, 1 Corinthians 5:11 forasmuch as the taint of sins would be communicated as if contagious, wherever a man should mix himself with the sinner.
The Lord, therefore, wishing that the law should be more profoundly understood as signifying spiritual truths by carnal facts — and thus not destroying, but rather building up, that law which He wanted to have more earnestly acknowledged — touched the leper , by whom (even although as man He might have been defiled) He could not be defiled as God , being of course incorruptible. The prescription, therefore, could not be meant for Him, that He was bound to observe the law and not touch the unclean person, seeing that contact with the unclean would not cause defilement to Him. I thus teach that this (immunity) is consistent in my Christ, the rather when I show that it is not consistent in yours.