One God, Old and New Testaments
Tertullian, Against Marcion 11
They say it's justified. After all, who isn't as well known to their own people as to strangers? Nobody. I'll hold to that line of reasoning too. What kind of situation would it be for something to be foreign to God? If anyone existed to whom nothing was foreign — because it's God's nature that all things are His and all things pertain to Him — then He'd immediately hear from us: 'What business does He have with foreigners?' He'll hear that more fully in due course. For now, it's enough that no one is approved when nothing about them is approved. Just as the Creator is God and an undisputed God because all things are His and nothing is foreign to Him, so another is not God because not all things are His and therefore they're foreign. Finally, if the universe belongs to the Creator, I don't even see a place for another God. Everything is full and occupied by its Author. If some space lies vacant in creation for some divinity, it'll be a false vacancy. Truth lies open to falsehood. What great power do idols have that they won't receive Marcion's God somewhere? So I demand this too from the Creator's pattern: God should have been recognized from His works — from His own world, His own man, His own age — since even the world's error has presumed gods, which people sometimes acknowledge, because something from each seems useful and convenient for life's utilities and conveniences. So this too is believed to be divine: to establish or demonstrate what's suitable and necessary for human affairs. So much so that if authority is accommodated to a false divinity from which the true one preceded, Marcion's God ought to have produced at least one little circle of His own, so that some new Triptolemus might be proclaimed. Or produce a reason worthy of God for why He created nothing, if He exists; because He would have created if He had been God, by that very prejudice by which our God is made manifest in no other way than that He created all this. For once the rule stands firm — that they can't confess the Creator as God and also want the other to be believed as God equally without proving Him according to the pattern of Him whom they themselves and everyone acknowledge as God — then, when no one doubts the Creator is God because He created all this, no one ought to believe that the one who created nothing is also God, unless some reason is perhaps brought forward. This necessity appears to be twofold: either He didn't want to create anything, or He wasn't able. The third option is absent, but inability is unworthy of God. Whether unwillingness is worthy, I want to investigate. Tell me, Marcion: did your God want to be recognized at some time or not? Did He come down and preach and suffer and rise again with some other purpose than to be recognized? But without doubt, if He is recognized, He wanted to be. For nothing happens around Him unless He willed it. So He who procured knowledge of Himself so assiduously that He was exhibited in the shame of the flesh — and even greater shame if it's false, for it's more shameful if He also lied about the substance of the body — who also took the Creator's curse upon Himself, hanging on the tree — how much more honestly would He have established knowledge of Himself through some indications of His own creation! Especially against Him, having knowledge, among whom from the beginning He was not recognized by His works. For what kind of thing is it that the Creator, indeed not knowing there is another God above Himself as the Marcionites want — who swore and asserted He is alone — armed knowledge of Himself with such great works, as much as He could not have neglected according to the presumption of His singularity, while the other, more exalted one, knowing the inferior God to be so instructed, provided no preparation for Himself to be recognized? When He ought to have created more remarkable and superior works, so that God might be recognized from His works according to the Creator, and from more honorable works, a more powerful and noble Creator.
Latin
Et merito, inquiunt. quis enim non tam suis notus est quam extraneis? nemo. teneo et hanc uocem. quale est enim, ut aliquid extraneum deo sit? cui nihil extraneum esset, si quis esset, — quia dei hoc est, omnia illius esse et omnia ad illum pertinere — uel ne statim audiret a nobis: quid ergo illi cum extraneis? quod plenius suo loco audiet. at nunc satis est nullum probari cuius nihil probatur. sicut enim creator ex hoc et deus et indubitatus deus, quia omnia ipsius et nihil extraneum illi, ita et alius idcirco non deus, quia omnia non eius ideoque et extranea. denique si uniuersitas «rpatoris est, iam nec locum uideo dei alterius. plena et occupata sunt omnia suo auctore. si uacat aliquid spatii alicuius diuinitati in creaturis, plane falsae uacabit. patet mendacio ueritas. tanta uis idolorum cur non recipiat alicubi deum Marcionis? igitur et hoc ex forma creatoris expostulo, deum (eius) ex operibus cognosci debuisse alicuius proprii sui mundi et hominis et saeculi, quando etiam error orbis propterea deos praesumpserit, quos homines interdum confitetur. quoniam aliquid ab unoquoque prospectum uidetur utilitatibus et commodis uitae. ita et hoc ex forma dei creditum est diuinum esse, instituere uel demonstrare quid aptum et necessarium rebus humanis. adeo inde auctoritas accommodata si falsae diuinitati, unde praecesserat uerae, unam saltim cicerculam deus Marcionis propriam protulisse debuerat, ut nouus aliqui Triptolemus praedicaretur. aut exhibe rationem deo dignam, cur nihil condiderit, si est; quia condidisset, si fuisset, illo scilicet praeiudicio, quo et nostrum deum non alias manifestum est esse quam quia totum condidit hoc., semel enim praescriptio stabit non posse illos et deum confiteri creatorem et eum, quem uolunt aeque deum credi, non ad eius formam probare, quem et ipsi et omnes deum (agnoscunt,) ut, quando hoc ipso nemo creatorem deum dubitet. quia totum hoc condidit, hoc ipso nemo debeat credere deum et illum, qui nihil condidit, nisi ratio forte proferatur. duplex ista uideatur necesse est, ut aut noluerit condere quid aut non potuerit. tertium cessat sed non potuisse indignum deo est. noluisse an dignum, uolo inquirere. dic mihi, Marcion, uoluit deus tuus cognosci se quocumque in tempore an non? alio proposito et descendit et praedicauit et passus resurrexit quam uti cognosceretur? at sine dubio, si cognitus est, uoluit. nihil enim circa eum fieret, nisi uoluisset. qui ergo tantopere notitiam sui procuranit, ut in dedecore carnis exhiberetur, et quidem maiore, si falsae, - nam hoc turpius, si et mentitus est substantiam corporis — qui et maledictum in se creatoris admisit ligno suspensus, quanto honestius per aliqua propriae molitionis indicia cognitionem sui praestruxisset! maxime aduersus eum cognosci habens, apud quem ex operibus ab initio cognitus non erat. nam et quale est, ut creator quidem ignorans esse alium super se deum, ut uolunt Marcionitae, qui solum se etiam iurans adseuerabat, tantis operibus notitiam sui armauerit, quam potuerat non ita curasse secundum singularitatis suae praesumptionem, ille autem sublimior, sciens inferiorem deum tam instructum, nullam sibi prospexerit agnoscendo paraturam? quando etiam insigniora et superbiora opera debuisset condidisse, ut et deus ex operibus cognosceretur secundum creatorem et ex honestioribus potior et generosior creatore.