Tertullian — Against Marcion 2.8
For he had brought the human forth only so far as living—not so as not also toward living rightly, namely in respect of God and his law. Therefore he himself had furnished living to him, made into a living soul, but had demanded living rightly, having admonished him into obedience of the law. So he proves the human was not instituted unto death who even now desires him restored unto life, preferring a sinner’s repentance rather than death. Therefore just as God introduced to the human the status of life, so the human drew to himself the status of death—and this not through weakness, just as not through ignorance, lest something be imputed to the author.
For even if there was an angel who seduced, yet free and of his own power was the one seduced; yet the image and likeness of God stronger than an angel; yet the breath of God more generous than the material spirit of which angels consisted—‘who makes,’ he says, ‘spirits his angels and attendants a flame of fire’—because he would not have subjected the universe to a human weak for ruling and not stronger than angels, to whom he subjected nothing of the sort. So neither would he have imposed the law’s weight—if the law is heavy—on one invalid for bearing it, nor would he have met with a definition of death one whom he knew excusable by the name of weakness. Finally he would not have made him weak by liberty and power of choice, but rather by defect of those.
And indeed the same human, the same substance of soul, the same status of Adam—the same liberty and power of choice—makes a victor today over the same devil when it is administered according to obedience of God’s laws.
Latin
Usque enim ad uiuendum solummodo produxerat hominem. ut non ad recte uiuendum, in respectu dei scilicet legisque eius. igitur uiuere quidem illi ipse praestiterat, facto in animam uiuam, recte uero uiuere demandarat, admonito in legis obsequium. ita non in mortem institutum hominem probat qui (et) nunc cupit in uitam restitutum, malens peccatoris paenitentiam quam mortem. igitur sicut deus homini uitae statum induxit, ita homo sibi mortis statum adtraxit, et hoc non per infirmitatem, sicuti nec per ignorantiam, ne quid auctori imputaretur. nam etsi angelus qui seduxit, sed liber et suae potestatis qui seductus est, sed imago et similitudo dei fortior angelo, sed adflatus dei generosior spiritu materiali, quo angeli constiterunt, — qui facit, inquit, spiritus angelos et apparitores flammam ignis — quia nec uniuersitatem homini subiecisset infirmo dominandi et non potiori angelis. quibus nihil tale subiecit. sic nec legis pondus imposuisset — si grauis lex — inualido sustinendi, nec quem excusabilem sciret nomine imbecillitatis. eum definitione mortis conuenisset. postremo non libertate nec potestate arbitrii fecisset infirmum, sed potius defectione earum. atque adeo eundem hominem, eandem substantiam animae, eundem Adae statum eadem arbitrii libertas et potestas uictorem efficit hodie de eodem diabolo, cum secundum obsequium legum dei administratur.