Tertullian — Against Marcion 3.21
So neither can you sustain that thrust of yours for difference of two Christs—as if the Jewish Christ were destined by the Creator for gathering the people alone from dispersion, but yours were conferred by the Best God for freeing the whole human race—when finally the Creator’s Christians are found earlier than Marcion’s, all peoples already called into his kingdom from when God reigned from the wood, with Cerdo not yet, much less Marcion.
But beaten back about the nations’ calling, you now try to turn it into proselytes who pass from the nations to the Creator—when even proselytes, of a diverse and proper condition, are named separately by the prophet: Behold, Isaiah says, proselytes will approach you through me, showing even proselytes will approach God through Christ—and the nations, which we are, likewise have their own naming: hoping in Christ: And in his name, he says, the nations will hope.
Proselytes, however, whom you substitute in the nations’ preaching, are not used to hope in Christ’s name but in Moses’ order, from which their institution is. But the gathering of the nations arose from the last days. In the same words Isaiah: And it will be in the last days the Lord’s mountain will be manifest—of course God’s height—and God’s house upon the highest mountains—of course Christ, catholic temple of God in which God is worshiped, set over all eminences of powers—and all nations will come to him, and many will go and say: Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain and to Jacob’s house of God, and he will announce to us his way and we will walk in it; for from Zion the law will go out and the Lord’s word from Jerusalem—this will be the way of the new law, the gospel, and of the new word, in Christ, no longer in Moses—and he will judge among the nations about their error of course, and rebuke a large people, of the Jews themselves and proselytes first, and they will beat their swords into plows and spears into sickles—that is, convert harmful minds and hostile tongues and every malice and blasphemy’s ingeniums into studies of modesty and peace—and nation will not take sword upon nation, of discord of course, and they will learn war no more—that is, to finish enmities—so that here too you learn Christ promised not warlike but peace-bringing.
Deny these either prophesied when they are seen face to face, or fulfilled when they are read; or if you deny neither, they will have been fulfilled in him unto whom they were prophesied. Inspect still also the very ingress and course of the calling into the nations, from the last days approaching the Creator God—not into proselytes, whose gathering is rather from the first days. For the apostles introduced this faith.
Latin
Sic nec illam iniectionem tuam potes sistere ad differentiam duorum Christorum, quasi Iudaicus quidem Christus populo soli ex dispersione redigendo destinetur a creatore. uester uero omni humano generi liberando conlatus sit a deo optimo, cum postremo priores inueniantur Christiani creatoris quam Marcionis, exinde uocatis omnibus populis in regno eius, ex quo deus regnauit a ligno, nullo adhuc Cerdone, nedum Marcione. sed [et] reuictus de nationum uocatione, conuertere iam in proselytos quaeris qui de nationibus transeunt ad creatorem, quando et proselyti, diuersae et propriae condicionis, seorsum a propheta nominentur, — ecce, inquit Esaias, proselyti per me accedent ad te, ostendens ipsos quoque proselytos per Christum accessuros ad deum - et nationes, quod sumus nos, proinde suam habeant nominationem: sperantes in Christum: et in nomine, inquit, eius nationes sperabunt. proselyti autem, quos in nationum praedicatione substituis, non in Christi nomine sperare solent, sed in Moysei ordine, a quo institutio illorum est. ceterum adlectio nationum a nouissimis diebus exorta est. isdem uerbis Esaias: et erit, inquit, in nouissimis diebus manifestus mons domini, utique sublimitas dei, (et> aedes dei super summos montes, utique Christus, — catholicum dei templum, in quo deus colitur, constitutum super omnes eminentias uirtutum et potestatum — et uenient ad eum uniuersae nationes, et ibunt multi et dicent: uenite, ascendamus in montem domini et in aedem dei Iacob, et adnuntiabit nobis uiam suam et incedemus in ea; ex Sion enim exibit lex et sermo domini ex Hierusalem, - haec erit uia nouae legis, euangelium, et noui sermonis, in Christo, iam non in Moyse — et iudicabit inter nationes, de errore scilicet earum, et reuincet populum amplum, ipsorum inprimis Iudaeorum et proselytorum, et concident machaeras suas in aratra et zibinas in falces, id est animorum nocentium et linguarum infestarum et omnis malitiae atque blasphemiae ingenia conuertent in studia modestiae et pacis, et non accipiet gens super gentem machaeram, utique discordiae, et non discent amplius bellare, id est inimicitias perficere, ut et hic discas Christum non bellipotentem, sed paciferum repromissum. haec aut prophetata nega, cum coram uidentur, aut adimpleta, cum leguntur, aut si non negas utrumque, in eo erunt adimpleta, in quem sunt prophetata. inspice enim adhuc etiam ipsum introgressum atque decursum uocationis in nationes, a nouissimis diebus adeuntes ad deum creatorem, non in proselytos, quorum a primis magis diebus adlectio est. etenim fidem istam apostoli induxerunt.