Tertullian — Against Marcion 4.6
But from here we enter another step, challenging Marcion’s gospel itself, as we professed, so as to prove it adulterated this way too. For surely everything he labored—also by prefacing the Antitheses—drives to this: that by establishing diversity of old and new testament he may likewise establish his Christ separated from the Creator, as of another god, as alien to law and prophets.
Surely for that reason he erased whatever was contrary to his opinion, conspiring with the Creator, as if woven in by the Creator’s assertors, but reserved what suited his opinion. These we will meet, these we will embrace: if they are more with us, if they strike Marcion’s presumption, then that too will stand—erased by the same vice of heretical blindness by which these were reserved.
So will the intention and form of our little work hold, under that condition of course agreed from each side. Marcion establishes that there is another Christ who in Tiberian times was revealed by a formerly unknown god unto salvation of all nations, and another who by God the Creator is destined unto restoration of the Jewish status, someday to come.
Between these he cleaves a great and total difference—as much as between the just and the good, as much as between law and gospel, as much as between Judaism and Christianity. Hence will be also our prescription, by which we fix that nothing ought to be common to another god’s Christ with the Creator: otherwise he is to be pronounced the Creator’s if he administered his dispositions, if he fulfilled his prophecies, if he assisted his laws, if he represented his promises, if he restored his powers, if he reformed his sentences, if he expressed his manners and properties.
Of this pact and this prescription, I ask you, reader, remember everywhere and begin to recognize either Marcion’s Christ or the Creator’s.
Latin
Sed alium iam hinc inimus gradum, ipsum, ut professi sumus, euangelium Marcionis prouocantes, sic quoque probaturi adulteratum. certe enim totum quod elaborauit, etiam : antithesis praestruendo, in hoc cogit, ut ueteris et noui testamenti diuersitatem constitu(ens constitu)at proinde Christum ! suum a creatore separatum, ut dei alterius, ut alienum legis et i prophetarum. certe propterea contraria quaeque sententiae suae I erasit, conspirantia cum creatore, quasi (ab) adsertoribus eius in-: texta, competentia autem sententiae suae reseruauit. haec conueniemus, haec amplectemur: si nobiscum magis fuerint. si Marcionis praesumptionem percusserint, tunc et illa constabit eodem i uitio haereticae caecitatis erasa, quo et haec reseruata. sic 1 habebit intentio et forma opusculi nostri, sub illa utique con-i dicione, quae ex utraque parte condicta sit. constituit Marcion alium esse Christum, qui Tiberianis temporibus a deo quon- 1 dam ignoto reuelatus sit in salutem omnium gentium, alium, qui a deo creatore in restitutionem Iudaici status sit destinatus, quandoque uenturus. inter hos magnam et omnem differentiam scindit, quantam inter iustum et bonum, quantam inter legem et euangelium, quantam inter Iudaismum et Christianismum. hinc erit et nostra praescriptio, qua defigimus nihil Christo dei alterius commune esse debere cum creatore: ceterum creatoris pronuntiandum, si administrauerit dispositiones eius, si impleuerit prophetias eius, si adiuuerit leges eius, si repraesentauerit promissiones eius, si restaurauerit uirtutes eius, si sententias reformauerit, si mores, si proprietates expresserit. huius pacti et huius praescripti, quaeso te, lector, memineris ubique et incipe recognoscere aut Marcionis Christum aut creatoris.