Tertullian — Against Marcion 2.1
The occasion of reforming this little work—what happened to which we prefaced in the first booklet—this also conferred on us, that for rehandling two gods against Marcion we should distinguish for each his own title and volume according to division of matter, defining the one god to be not at all, defending the other to be worthily God, inasmuch as it so pleased the Pontic to introduce the one and exclude the other. For he could not build a lie without demolition of truth. He held it necessary to undermine something else, so that he might construct what he willed. So builds one who lacks his own material.
But it had been right to have disputed in this alone—that that god is no one who is superimposed on the Creator—so that, with the false god driven off by sure rules prescribing both unique and perfect divinity, nothing would now be sought into the true God, whom as much as it stood that he is—thus too, while it does not stand that another is—so much it would befit that he be held of whatever sort without controversy, to be adored rather than judged and to be earned rather than rehandled. [or than feared on account of severity.] For what more is necessary for a human than care toward the true God, into whom, so to speak, he had fallen, because another god was not?
Latin
Occasio reformandi opusculi huius. cui quid acciderit primo libellulo praefati sumus, hoc quoque contulit nobis, uti duobus diis aduersus Marcionem retractandis suum cuique titulum et uolumen distingueremus pro materiae diuisione, alterum deum definientes omnino non esse, alterum defendentes digne deum esse, quatenus ita Pontico placuit alterum inducere alterum excludere. non enim poterat aedificare mendacium sine demolitione ueritatis. aliud subruere necesse habuit, ut quod uellet ex trueret. sic aedificat qui propria paratura caret.\' Oportuerat autem in hoc solum disceptasse, quod nemo sit deus ille, qui creatori superducitur, ut falso deo depulso regulis certis et unicam et perfectam praescribentibus diuinitatem nihil iam quaereretur in deum uerum, quem quanto constaret esse. — sic quoque, dum alium esse non constat — tanto qualemcumque sine controuersia haberi deceret, adorandum potius quam iudicandum et demerendum magis quam retractandum. [uel quam timendum ob seueritatem. I quid enim amplius homini necessarium quam cura in deum uerum. in quem, ut + ita dixerim, inciderat, quia alius deus non erat?