Tertullian — Against Marcion 1.17
Compressed by these things they burst out to say: ‘This unique work suffices for our god, that he freed the human by his highest and principal goodness and to be preferred to all locusts.’ O greater god, whose so great a work could not be found except in the lesser god’s human! But in truth it is prior that you prove him to be through the things by which God ought to be proved—through works—then next through benefits. For first it is asked whether he is, and so of what sort he is. The one will be distinguished from works, the other from benefits. For the rest, not because he is said to have freed the human does it therefore stand that he is; but if it has stood that he is, then he will also be said to have freed, so that it may also stand whether he freed—because he could both be and not have freed. How then, because he will be said to have freed, will he also be believed to be, when he could both be and not have freed?
Now, in this article drawn down from the question of the unknown god, if it has stood enough that he founded nothing just as he ought to have founded, so that he might be known from works—because if he had been, he ought to have been known, and assuredly from the beginning of things, for it would not have suited God to have hidden—I must necessarily return to the origin of the unknown-god question, so that I may also shake out its other branchings. For first it will have to be asked, he who afterward brought himself forth into knowledge, why afterward and not from the beginning of things to which he was assuredly necessary as God—and indeed more necessary the better he was—he ought not to have hidden. For it cannot be said that there was not either matter or cause of knowing God, when both the human was from the beginning in the age, whom he now aids, and the Creator’s malice, against which as good he aids. Therefore he either ignored both the cause and matter of his necessary revelation, or doubted, or could not, or was unwilling. All these things are unworthy of God, especially of the best. But this place too we will fill elsewhere with reproach of late revelation, as now by demonstration alone.
Latin
His compressi erumpunt dicere: (sufficit unicum hoc opus deo nostro, quod hominem liberauit summa et praecipua bonitate sua et omnibus locustis anteponenda\'. o deum maiorem, cuius tam magnum opus non potuit inueniri quam in homine dei minoris! enimuero prius est, ut eum probes esse per quae deum probari oportet, per opera, tunc deinde per beneficia. primo enim quaeritur, an sit, et ita, qualis sit. alterum de operibus, alterum de beneficiis dinoscetur. ceterum non quia liberasse dicitur hominem, ideo esse eum constat, sed si esse constiterit, tunc et liberasse dicetur, ut et an liberauerit constet, quia potuerit et esse et non liberasse. quomodo ergo, quia liberasse dicetur, etiam esse credetur, cum potuerit et esse et non liberasse? . Nunc, in isto articulo ab ignoti dei quaestione deducto si satis constitit tam nihil illum condidisse quam debuisse condidisse, uti cognosceretur ex operibus, quia si fuisset, cognosci debuisset, et utique a primordio rerum, — deum enim non decuisset latuisse — regrediar necesse est ad originem quaestionis dei ignoti, ut ceteros quoque ramulos eius excutiam. primo enim quaeri oportebit, qui postea se protulerit in notitiam cur postea et non a primordio rerum quibus utique necessarius, qua deus, et quidem necessarior quo melior latere non debuit. non enim potest dici non fuisse aut materiam aut causam cognoscendi deum, cum et homo a primordio esset in saeculo, cui nunc subuenit, et malitia creatoris, aduersus quam ut bonus subuenit. igitur aut ignorauit et causam et materiam suae reuelationis necessariae aut dubitanit ++ aut non potuit aut noluit. omnia haec deo indigna, maxime optimo. sed et hunc locum alibi implebimus exprobratione serae reuelationis, sicut nunc sola demonstratione.