Tertullian — Against Marcion 4.43

The Lord’s burier also ought to have been prophesied and already then worthily blessed, if prophecy does not pass by those women’s office who before light gathered at the tomb with a preparation of spices. For of this through Hosea: And they will seek, he says, my face; before light they will watch for me saying: Let us go and turn to the Lord, because he himself has seized and will heal us, he struck and will pity us, he will heal us after two days, on the third day we will rise.

For who would not believe these things rolled in those women’s thought between the pain of present forsaking, by which they seemed to themselves struck by the Lord, and the hope of his resurrection, by which they thought they would be restored? And with the body not found, his burial had been taken up from the midst according to Isaiah. But also two angels appeared there — about as many side-helpers as God’s word was used to stand on in two witnesses. Isaiah also foresaw the women returning from the tomb and from that angels’ vision: Women, he says, coming from the vision, come — to announce of course the Lord’s resurrection. And it is well that the disciples’ unbelief persisted, so that to the end our defense would stand: that Christ had shown himself to the disciples as no other than the prophets’. For when two of them were on the way and the Lord had joined them, not appearing as himself, even hiding knowledge of what was done: But we thought, they say, he was Israel’s redeemer — of course their Christ, that is the Creator’s. So he had not shown himself as another to them. Otherwise they would not have thought him the Creator’s; and when he was thought the Creator’s, he would not have borne this thought about himself if he were not the one thought. Else he himself will be author of error and traitor of truth against the best God’s title. But not even after the resurrection did he show himself to them as other than whom they had said they thought. Clearly he attacked them: O senseless and slow of heart in not believing all that he spoke to you. What things spoken? That he was of another god? Prove it, and I yield. Or the same things the angels also to the women: Remember what he spoke to you in Galilee, saying that the Son of man must be handed over and crucified and rise on the third day? And why must it, unless because so it was written by God the Creator? Therefore he rebuked them as scandalized only at the passion and as doubtful of the faith of the resurrection announced to them by the women — by which they had not believed he was the very one they had thought. So what they had thought, that he wanted believed: he confirmed himself as the one they had thought — of course the Creator’s Christ, Israel’s redeemer.

But what can be clearer about the truth of the body? When they hesitated lest he be a phantasm — indeed believing a phantasm: Why are you troubled? he says, and why do thoughts enter your hearts? See my hands and my feet, because I myself am, since a spirit does not have bones as you see me having. And Marcion, I believe by industry, was unwilling to erase from his gospel certain things contrary to himself, so that from those he could erase and did not erase, those he did erase may either be denied erased or said rightly erased; nor does he spare except those he overturns no less by interpreting otherwise than by deleting. So he wants it said thus: A spirit does not have bones as you see me having — as if as you see me having were referred to the spirit, that is not having bones, as the spirit also. And what reason for this twist, when he could have pronounced simply: because a spirit does not have bones as you see me not having? But why does he offer their inspection his hands and feet, which members consist of bones, if he had no bones? Why add: And know that I am — whom of course they had known before as bodily? Or if he was a phantasm through and through, why rebuke them for believing a phantasm? Yet while they still did not believe he desired food for this reason: to show he even had teeth. We have fulfilled, I think, the pledge. We have exhibited the law’s Christ by the prophets’ teachings, sentences, affections, senses, powers, passions, even resurrection as no other than the Creator’s — since also sending apostles to preach to all nations he commanded, fulfilling the psalm, that their sound go out into all the earth and their voices to the ends of the earth. I pity you, Marcion; you have labored in vain. For Christ Jesus in your gospel is mine.