Tertullian — Against Marcion 2.3
Therefore those beginning examination into the known God—if it is asked in what condition he is known—will need to begin from his works, which are prior to the human, so that at once with him his goodness, ascertained and thence constituted and prescribed, may suggest to us some sense of understanding how the following ordination of things turned out. But Marcion’s disciples, recognizing our God’s goodness, can also acknowledge it worthy of God by the same titles by which we have shown it unworthy in their god. Already this itself, that it is the matter of his recognition, he did not find with another but made for himself from his own.
Finally the Creator’s first goodness is that by which God willed not to hide forever—that is, that there not be something to which God would be known. For what is so good as the knowledge and fruit of God? For even if it was not yet appearing that this was good, because there was not yet anything to which it would appear, yet God foreknew what good would appear, and therefore committed into his summit the goodness that would negotiate the good about to appear—not at all sudden, nor of incidental goodness nor of provoked animation, as if to be counted from when it began to work. For if it itself constituted a beginning from when it began to work, it did not itself have a beginning when it made. But a beginning having been made by it, from it also the reason of times was born, inasmuch as stars and heavenly luminaries were disposed for distinguishing and noting them. For they will be, he says, for times and months and years.
Therefore neither did that which made time have time before time, just as neither that which constituted a beginning had a beginning before a beginning. And so lacking both the order of a beginning and the measure of time it will be counted from an immense and interminable age and will not be able to be reputed sudden or incidental and provoked, not having whence it may be reputed—that is, some species of time—but is to be presumed eternal and inborn to God and perpetual and thereby worthy of God, already from here shaming the goodness of Marcion’s god—I do not say later than beginnings and times, but later than the Creator’s very malice, if indeed malice could have been committed by goodness.
Latin
Igitur oportebit ineuntes examinationem in deum notum, I si quaeritur in qua conditione sit notus, ab operibus eius incipere, quae priora sunt homine, ut statim cum ipso comperta bonitas eius et exinde constituta atque praescripta aliquem sensum suggerat nobis intellegendi, qualiter sequens rerum ordinatio euaserit. possunt autem discipuli Marcionis recognoscentes bonitatem dei nostri dignam quoque deo agnoscere per eosdem titulos, per quos indignam ostendimus in deo illorum.i iam hoc ipsum, quod materia est agnitionis suae, non apud alium inuenit, sed de suo sibi fecit. prima denique bonitas creatoris, qua se deus noluit in aeternum latere, id est non esse aliquid, cui deus cognosceretur. quid enim tam bonum quam notitia et fructus dei? nam etsi nondum apparebat hoc bonum esse, quia nondum erat quicquam, cui appareret, sed deus praesciebat, quid boni appariturum esset, et ideo in suam summam commisit bonitatem, apparituri boni negotiatricem.I non utique repentinam, nec obuenticiae [bonitatis] nec prouocaticiae animationis, quasi exinde censendam, quo coepit operari. si enim ipsa constituit initium exinde, quo coepit operari, non habuit initium ipsa, cum fecit. initio autem facto ab ea, (ab ea) etiam ratio temporum nata est, utpote quibus i distinguendis et notandis sidera et luminaria caelestia disposita sunt. erunt enim, inquit, in tempora et menses et annos. ergo nec tempus habuit ante tempus quae fecit tempus, sicut nec initium ante initium quae constituit initium. atque ita carens et ordine initii et modo temporis de inmensa et interminabili aetate censebitur nec poterit repentina uel obuenticia et prouocaticia reputari, non habens unde reputetur, id est aliquam temporis speciem, sed (est) aeterna et deo ingenita et perpetua praesumenda ac per hoc deo digna, suffundens iam hinc bonitatem dei Marcionis, non dico initiis et temporibus, sed ipsa malitia creatoris posteriorem, si tamen malitia potuit a bonitate committi.