One God, Old and New Testaments
Tertullian, Against Marcion 14
You mock the smaller animals, too — the ones the greatest Artisan deliberately enlarged through their own talents or strengths — thereby teaching that greatness proves itself in moderation, just as virtue does in weakness, as the apostle says (1 Corinthians 12:22). Imitate the bees' architecture if you can, the ants' dwellings, the spiders' webs, the silkworms' threads; endure the very beasts of your bed and cloak if you can — the beetles' poisons, the flies' stings, the mosquitoes' trumpets and lances. What will the greater things be like, when such tiny things either help or harm you, so that you do not despise the Creator even in the smallest things?
Finally, walk yourself around and examine the human being inside and out: will this work of our God please you, the work your Lord — that better God — admired, for whose sake he labored to descend from the third heaven into these poor elements, for whose sake he was even crucified in this cell of the Creator?
But that God, at any rate, has not rejected up to now the Creator's water, with which he washes his own, nor the oil with which he anoints his own, nor the fellowship of honey and milk, with which he nurtures his infants, nor the bread, with which he represents his own body even in his own sacraments, though he stands in need of the Creator's alms. You, however — a disciple above the master, a servant above the Lord — you presume to be wiser than he, destroying what he desires.
I want to examine whether, at least from faith, you do not also desire what you destroy. You oppose heaven, yet you capture heaven's freedom inside dwellings; you despise the earth — now plainly the mother of your enemy, the flesh — and you wring out all its marrow for food; you reject the sea, but only up to its resources, which you count as holier food. If I offered you a rose, you would not despise the Creator. Hypocrite: so that you may prove yourself a Marcionite — that is, a rejecter of the Creator — for this ought to have been pursued as martyrdom among you, if the world displeased you — into whatever material you resolve, you use the Creator's substance. How great is the obstinacy of your hardness! You devalue the very things in which you both live and die.
Latin
At cum et animalia inrides minutiora, quae maximus artifex de industria ingeniis aut uiribus ampliauit, sic magnitu-i dinem in mediocritate probari docens quemadmodum uirtutem ; in infirmitate secundum apostolum, imitare, si potes, apis aedificia, formicae stabula, aranei retia, bombycis stamina, sustine, si potes, illas ipsas lectuli et tegetis tuae bestias,I cantharidis uenena, muscae spicula, culicis et tubam et lanceam. qualia erunt maiora, cum tam modicis aut iuuaris aut laederis, ut nec in modicis despicias creatorem? postremo te tibi circumfer, intus ac foris considera hominem: placebit tibi uel hoc opus dei nostri, quod tuus dominus, ille deus melior, adamauit, propter quem in haec paupertina elementa de tertio caelo descendere laborauit, cuius causa in hac cellula creatoris etiam crucifixus est? sed ille quidem usque nunc nec aquam reprobauit creatoris, qua suos abluit, nec oleum, quo suos ungit, nec mellis et lactis societatem, qua suos infantat, nec panem, quo ipsum corpus suum repraesentat etiam in sacramentis propriis egens mendicitatibus creatoris. at tu, super magistrum discipulus et seruus super dominum. I, sublimius illo sapis, destruens quae ille desiderat. uolo inspicere, si ex fide saltim, ut non et ipse quae destruis adpetas. I aduersaris caelum, et libertatem caeli in habitationibus captas:I despicis terram — plane inimicae iam tuae, carnis, matricem — et, omnes medullas eius uictui extorques; reprobus et mare, sed usque ad copias eius, quas sanctiorem cibum deputas. rosam tibi si obtulero, non fastidies creatorem. hypocrita, ut apocarteresi probes te Marcionitam, id est repudiatorem creatoris, — nam haec apud uos pro martyrio adfectari debuisset, si uobis mundus displiceret — in quamcumque materiam resolueris, substantiam creatoris uteris. quanta obstinatio duritiae tuae! depretias in quibus et uiuis et moreris.