Tertullian — Against Marcion 1.23
I stretch before him another rule: as natural things, so all things in God ought to be rational. I demand a reason for goodness, because nothing else may be held good that is not rationally good—much less that goodness itself be caught irrational.
I deny the rational goodness of Marcion’s god already in this first, that it advanced into the salvation of another’s man. I know they will say this is principal and perfect goodness when without any debt of familiarity it is poured voluntarily and freely toward strangers, according to which we are also ordered to love our enemies.
Why then did he not regard man from the beginning, a stranger from the beginning? By ceasing he prejudged that he had nothing to do with the stranger. But the discipline of loving the stranger or enemy was preceded by the precept of loving the neighbor as yourself—which even from the Creator’s law you too must accept as not destroyed but rather built up by Christ.
So the first reason of goodness is to be shown toward one’s own from justice; the second toward another’s from justice’s overflow above scribes and Pharisees—what is it to credit the second reason to one who lacks the first, having no proper man and thus also meager? Exhibit the principal reason, then claim the following.
Even second-grade goodness toward a stranger will not stand by reason if it works with injury to the one whose the thing is; what is more unjust than so to benefit another’s slave that he is torn from the lord, claimed for another, suborned against the lord’s head—still in the lord’s house, living from his barns, trembling under his blows? Not otherwise does Marcion’s god break into another’s world and snatch man from God—so if rational goodness makes such a man, what would irrational make?
Latin
aliam illi regulam praetendo: sicut naturalia, ita rationalia esse debere in deo omnia. exigo rationem bonitatis, quia nec aliud quid bonum haberi liceat, quod non rationaliter bonum sit, nedum ut ipsa bonitas inrationalis deprehendatur. facilius malum, cui rationis aliquid adfuerit, pro bono habebitur quam ut bonum ratone desertum non pro malo iudicetur. nego rationalem bonitatem\', dei Marcionis iam hoc primo, quod in salutem processerit; hominis alieni. scio dicturos atquin hanc esse principalem \' et perfectam bonitatem, cum sine ullo debito familiaritatis iri extraneos uoluntaria et libera effundatur, secundum quam inimicos quoque nostros et hoc nomine iam extraneos diligere iubeamur. cur ergo non a primordio hominem respexit. a primordio extraneum? cessando praeiudicauit cum extraneo nihil sibi esse. ceterum disciplinam diligendi extraneum uel inimicum antecessit praeceptum diligendi proximum tamquam te ipsum. quod etsi ex lege creatoris, et tu quoque illud excipere debebis, ut a Christo non destructum, sed potius exstructum. nam quo magis proximum diligas, diligere iuberis inimicum et extraneum. exaggeratio est debitae bonitatis exactio indebitae. antecedit autem debita indebitam, ut principalis, ut dignior, ut ministra et comite sua [id est indebita] prior. igitur cum prima bonitatis ratio sit in rem suam exhiberi ex iustitia, secunda autem in alienam ex redundantia iustitiae super scribarum et Pharisaeorum, quale est secundam ei rationem referri, cui deficit prima, non habenti proprium hominem ac per hoc quoque exiguae? porro exigua, quae suum non habuit, quomodo in alienum redundauit? exhibe principalem rationem, et tunc uindica sequentem. nulla res sine ordine rationalis potest uindicari; tanto abest, ut ratio ipsa in aliquo ordinem amittat. sit nunc et a secundo gradu incipiens ratio bonitatis, in extraneum scilicet: nec secundus illi gradus ratione constabit, alio modo destructus. tunc enim rationalis habebitur uel secunda in extraneum bonitas, si sine iniuria eius operetur, cuius est res. quamcumque bonitatem iustitia prima efficit rationalem. sicut in principali gradu, cum in rem suam exhibetur, rationalis erit si iusta sit, sic et in extraneum rationalis uideri poterit, si non sit iniusta. ceterum qualis bonitas quae per iniuriam constat, et quidem pro extraneo? fortasse enim pro domestico aliquatenus rationalis habeatur bonitas iniuriosa. pro extraneo uero, cui nec proba legitime deberetur, qua ratione tam iniusta rationalis defendetur? quid enim iniustius, quid iniquius et improbius quam ita alieno benefacere seruo, ut domino eripiatur, ut alii uindicetur, ut aduersus caput domini subornetur, et quidem, quod indignius, in ipsa adhuc domo domini, de ipsius adhuc horreis uiuens, sub ipsius adhuc plagis tremens? talis adsertor etiam damnaretur in saeculo, nedum plagiator. non aliter ** deus Marcionis, inrumpens in alienum mundum, eripiens deo hominem, patri filium, educatori aluminum, domino famulum, ut eum efficiat deo impium, patri inreligiosum, educatori ingratum, domino nequam. oro te, si rationalis bonitas talem facit, qualem faceret inrationalis? non putem impudentiorem quam qui in aliena aqua alii deo tingitur, ad alienum caelum alii deo expanditur, in aliena terra alii deo sternitur, super alienum panem alii deo gratiarum actionibus fungitur, de alienis bonis ob alium deum nomine elemosynae et dilectionis operatur. quis iste deus tam bonus, ut homo ab illo malus fiat, tam propitius, ut alium illi deum, et dominum quidem ipsius, faciat iratum?