Tertullian — Against Marcion 1.15
After this, or before this, when you say he too has his own condition and his own world and his own heaven—about that third heaven we shall see if we also come to discussing your apostle—meanwhile, whatever his substance is, it ought of course to have appeared with its own god. But as it is, what sort of thing is it that the lord was revealed in Tiberius Caesar’s fifteenth year, yet the substance in Severus the emperor’s fifteenth year has been found out as nothing at all?
Excelling the Creator’s frivolities it would surely have ceased to hide, its lord and author no longer hiding. And so if it itself could not be manifested in this world, how did its lord appear in this world? If this world held the lord, why could it not hold the substance—unless perhaps greater than the lord?
Already now the question is of place, pertaining both to that superior world and to its god himself. For see: if he too has his world below him, above the Creator, he made it of course in a place whose space was vacant between his feet and the Creator’s head. Therefore the god himself was in a place and was making a world in a place, and that place will already be greater both than god and than world—for nothing that contains is not greater than what is contained.
And one must see lest some leftovers still vacate there in which some third god too could pack himself with his world. So already begin to count gods: for place too will be god, not only as greater than god but also as unborn and unmade and thereby eternal and equal to god, in which god always was. Then if he also wrought the world from some underlying matter, unborn and unmade and coeval with god—as Marcion thinks of the Creator—you reduce this too to the place’s majesty, which enclosed both god and matter, two gods. For matter too is god by the form of divinity—unborn, unmade, eternal—or if he wrought the world from nothing, he will be forced to think this also of the Creator to whom he subjects matter as the world’s substance.
So count for me meanwhile Marcion’s three gods: maker and place and matter. Likewise he also puts the Creator in a place, under the same census, and subjects matter to him—unborn, unmade, and by this name eternal as lord. Further, assigning evil also to matter—unborn to unborn, unmade to unmade, eternal to eternal—he has made a fourth god from here. You have therefore in the upper regions three substances of divinity, in the lower four. When their Christs also accede—one who appeared under Tiberius, another promised by the Creator—Marcion already suffers open fraud from those who presume he introduces two gods, when he assigns nine, though unknowing.
Latin
Post haec, uel ante haec, cum dixeris esse et illi conditionem suam et suum mundum et suum caelum, — de caelo quidem illo tertio uidebimus, si et ad apostolum uestrum discutiendum peruenerimus — interim, quaecumque substantia eius est, cum suo utique deo apparuisse debuerat. at nunc quale est, ut dominus anno quinto* decimo Tiberii Caesaris reuelatus sit, substantia uero anno quinto decimo iam Seueri imperatoris nulla omnino comperta sit? quae friuolis creatoris praecellens utique latere desisset, non latente iam domino suo et auctore. et ideo, si ipsa non potuit manifestari in hoc mundo, quomodo dominus paruit eius in hoc mundo? si dominum cepit hic mundus, cur substantiam capere non potuit, nisi domino fortasse maiorem? iam nunc de loco quaestio est, pertinens et ad mundum illum superiorem et ad ipsum deum eius. ecce enim, si et ille habet mundum suum infra se, super creatorem, in loco utique fecit eum, cuius spatium uacabat inter pedes suos et caput creatoris. ergo et deus ipse in loco erat et mundum in loco faciebat, et erit iam locus ille maior et deo et mundo. nihil enim non maius est id quod capit eo quod capitur. et uidendum, ne qua adhuc illic uacent subsiciua. in quibus et tertius aliqui stipare deus se cum mundo suo possit. ergo iam incipe deos computare. erit enim et locus deus, non tantum qua deo maior, sed et qua innatus et infectus ac per hoc aeternus et deo par, in quo semper deus fuerit. dehinc si et ille mundum ex aliqua materia subiacente molitus est innata et infecta et contemporali deo, quemadmodum de creatore Marcion sentit, redigis et hoc ad maiestatem loci, qui et deum et materiam, duos deos, clusit. et materia enim deus secundum formam diuinitatis, innata scilicet et infecta et aeterna, aut si de nihilo molitus est mundum, hoc et de creatore sentire cogetur, cui materiam subicit in substantiam mundi. sed ex, materia et ille fecisse debebit. eadem ratione occurrente illi quoque, [deo] quae opponitur creatori, ut aeque deo. atque ita tres interim mihi deos numera Marcionis, factorem et locum et materiam. proinde et creatorem in loco facit, utique eadem condicione censendo, et materiam ei subicit, utique innatam et infectam et hoc nomine aeternam, ut dominum. amplius; I et malum materiae deputans, innatum innatae, infectum infectae et aeternum aeternae, quartum iam hinc deum fecit. habes igitur in superioribus tres substantias diuinitatis, in inferioribus quat- i tuor. his cum accedunt et sui Christi, alter qui apparuit sub Tiberio alter qui a creatore promittitur. manifestam iam fraudem Marcion patitur ab eis, qui duos illum deos inferre : praesumunt, cum nouem adsignet, licet nesciens,