Tertullian — Against Marcion 4.13
Assuredly he evangelizes Zion and Jerusalem with peace and all good things; assuredly he goes up on a mountain and spends the night there in prayer and is of course heard by the Father. Unroll the prophets therefore and recognize the whole order: Go up, Isaiah says, on a high mountain, you who evangelize Zion; lift your voice with strength, you who evangelize Jerusalem—still with strength they were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching as one having power.
And again: therefore my people shall know my name in that day—what name unless Christ’s?—that I myself am he who speaks: for then he himself was speaking in the prophets, the Word, the Creator’s Son. I am present while it is the hour, on the mountains, as one evangelizing a hearing of peace, as one evangelizing good things; likewise Nahum of the Twelve: for behold swift feet on the mountain of one evangelizing peace.
Of the voice of night prayer to the Father a psalm speaks openly: My God, I will cry by day and you will not hear, and by night, and not for vanity to me; and elsewhere of place and the same voice: With my voice I cried to the Lord, and he heard me from his holy mountain. You have representation of the name, you have the act of one evangelizing, you have the mountain place and night time and sound of voice and the Father’s hearing—you have the Christ of the prophets.
Why moreover did he choose twelve apostles and not any other number? Lest even from this I could not interpret my Christ as preached not only by the prophets’ voices but also by arguments of things. For I catch figures of this number with the Creator: twelve springs of Elim, twelve gems on Aaron’s priestly tunic, twelve stones chosen by Joshua from the Jordan and stored in the ark’s area—so many apostles were foreshown, as springs to irrigate a world of nations dry of God’s knowledge, as gems to light the church’s sacred garment which Christ the Father’s high priest wears, as faith-solid stones whom the true Jesus chose from Jordan’s washing and received into his testament’s shrine.
What like defense of number suits Marcion’s Christ? Something cannot seem simply done by him which can seem not simply done by mine; the thing will belong to him with whom the thing’s preparation is found. He changes Peter’s name from Simon because the Creator also reshaped Abraham’s and Sarah’s and Hosea’s names, calling this one Jesus and adding syllables to those. But why also Peter? If for vigor of faith, many solid materials would equally lend a name of their own—or because Christ is also rock and stone? For we also read him set for a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal. So he longed to share a name from his own figures with his dearest disciple, I think more fittingly than from what is not his. Multitudes gather from Tyre and other regions even overseas—this the psalm eyed: Tyre and the people of the Ethiopians were there; Mother Zion a man shall say, and a man is born in her—since God was born man—and he built her by the Father’s will. So also Isaiah: these come from afar, from the north and sea, from Persia. Will this be the Christ not of the prophets? And who will be the Marcionites’ Christ? If perversity please: one who was not of the prophets.
Latin
Certe euangelizat Sion et Hierusalem pacem et bona omnia, certe ascendit in montem et illic pernoctat in oratione et utique auditur a patre. euolue igitur prophetas et ordinem totum recognosce: in montem, inquit, excelsum, Esaias, ascende, qui euangelizas Sion, extolle cum uigore uocem tuam, qui euangelizas Hierusalem: adhuc in uigore obstupescebant in doctrina. eius; erat enim docens tamquam uirtutem habens. et rursus: propterea cognoscet populus nomen meum in illa die, — quod nomen, nisi Christi? — quod ego sim ipse qui loquor: tunc enim ipse erat, qui in prophetis loquebatur, sermo filius creatoris. adsum, dum hora est, in montibus, ut euangelizans auditionem pacis, ut euangelizans bona; item Naum ex duodecim: quoniam ecce ueloces pedes in monte euangelizantis pacem. de uoce autem nocturnae orationis ad patrem manifeste psalmus: deus meus, clamabo per diem, et (non) exaudies, et nocte, et non in uanitatem mihi. et alibi de loco et uoce eadem psalmus: uoce mea ad dominum exclamaui, et exaudiuit me de monte sancto suo. habes nominis repraesentationem, habes actum euangelizantis, habes locum montis et tempus noctis et sonum uocis et auditum patris, habes Christum prophetarum. Cur autem duodecim apostolos elegit et non alium quemlibet numerum? ne (non)et ex hoc meum Christum interpretari possem, non tantum uocibus prophetarum, sed et argumentis rerum praedicatum. huius enim numeri figuras apud creatorem deprehendo: duodecim fontes Elim, et duodecim gemmas in tunica sacerdotali Aaronis, et duodecim lapides ab Iesu de Iordane electos et in aream testamenti conditos. totidem enim apostoli portendebantur, proinde ut fontes et amnes rigaturi aridum retro et desertum a notitia (dei) orbem nationum, — sicut et per Esaiam: ponam in terra inaquosa flumina — proinde ut gemmae inluminaturi sacram ecclesiae uestem, quam induit Christus, pontifex patris, proinde ut et lapides solidi fide, quos de lauacro Iordanis Iesus uerus elegit et in sacrarium testamenti sui recepit. quid tale de numeri defensione competit Christo Marcionis? non potest simpliciter factum ab illo quid uideri, quod potest uideri non simpliciter factum a meo. eius erit res, apud quem inuenitur rei praeparatura. Mutat at Petro nomen de Simone, quia et creator Abrahae et Sarrae et Ausae nomina reformauit, hunc uocando Iesum, illis syllabus adiciendo. sed cur et Petrum? si ob uigorem fidei, multae materiae, solidae aeque, nomen de suo accommodarent. an quia et petra et lapis Christus? siquidem et legimus positum eum in lapidem offendiculi et in petram scandali. omitto cetera. itaque adfectauit carissimo discipulorum de figuris suis peculiariter nomen communicare, puto propius quam de non suis. Conueniunt a Tyro et ex aliis regionibus multitudo, etiam transmarina. hoc spectabat psalmus: et ecce allophyli et Tyrus et populus Aethiopum, isti fuerunt illic. mater Sion, dicet homo, et homo natus est in illa — quoniam deus homo natus est — et aedificauit eam — uoluntate patris —, ut scias ad eum tunc gentiles conuenisse, qui deus homo erat natus, aedificaturus ecclesiam ex uoluntate patris ex allophylis quoque. sic et Esaias: ecce isti ueniunt de longinquo, isti autem ueniunt ab aquilone et mari, alii autem de terra Persarum. de quibus et rursus: attolle per circuitum oculos tuos et uide: omnes congregati sunt; de quibus et infra, uidens ignotos et extraneos: et dices cordi tuo: quis istos genuit mihi? porro: hos quis mihi educauit? at hi mihi ubi fuerunt? hic erit Christus non prophetarum? et quis erit Christus Marcionitarum? si peruersitas placet: qui non fuerit prophetarum.