Tertullian, Against Marcion 15
It will not be tedious to turn to the shorter epistles as well; even a few words carry flavor. The Jews killed their own prophets. I can ask: what concern is it of the apostle of another god—and the best one at that—who supposedly does not condemn the offenses of his own people and who himself, in a sense, destroys those same prophets? What wrong did Israel do against him if it killed men he had already rejected, if it passed a hostile judgment on them first? 'Yet they offended against their own god': the one who was injured will rebuke the iniquity; certainly no one else but the adversary of the injured party. Nor would he burden them by imputing the Lord's death, since they killed the Lord by their own words and their own prophets—though the word 'their own' is a heretic's addition. What could be more bitter than that they killed the preacher Christ of another god, when they had slaughtered the prophets of their own? The charge is one of exaggeration, because they killed both the Lord and his servants. Finally, if they killed the Christ of another god and the prophets of another, they merely equalized the impiety; they did not heighten it. But it was not meant to be equalized; therefore it could not be heightened unless the offense was committed against the same God on both counts. Therefore Christ and the prophets belong to the same God.
What kind of sanctity does he call ours, to be recognized from the opposites he forbids? He says to abstain from fornication, not from marriage; to know how each person should handle his own vessel in honor. How? By not acting in lust, as the Gentiles do. Lust is not ascribed to marriage even among the Gentiles, but to extraordinary, unnatural, and monstrous luxuries. This sanctity is the opposite of every shame and impurity; it does not exclude marriage, but lust, which handles our vessel in the honor of marriage. I will treat this passage while preserving the preference of another—that is, a fuller sanctity—by placing continence and virginity above marriage, yet not forbidding marriage. For I am refuting the destroyers of God's marriages, not the followers of chastity.
He says that those who remain until the coming of Christ, together with those who died in Christ and will rise first, will be caught up in clouds into the air to meet the Lord (1 Thess 4:16-17). I recognize that they already then looked forward to the heavenly substances—that very Jerusalem which is above—and pronounced through Isaiah: 'Who are these that fly like clouds, like doves with their young to me?' (Isa 60:8). If Christ prepares this ascent for us, he will be the Christ of whom Hosea says: 'He builds his ascent in the heavens, surely for himself and his own' (Hos 9:6). From whom shall I now hope, if not from him from whom I heard these things?
Which spirit does he forbid to be quenched, and which prophecies does he forbid to be treated as nothing? Certainly not the Spirit of the Creator, nor the prophecies of the Creator, according to Marcion. For what Marcion destroys, he has already quenched and made nothing; nor can he forbid what he himself made. Therefore it falls on Marcion to produce today in his church the spirit of his god that cannot be quenched, and prophecies that are not to be treated as nothing. And if he produces what he thinks qualifies, let him know that we will test whatever that is against the standard of spiritual and prophetic grace and power, so that it may also predict the future, reveal the heart's secrets, and expound the sacraments. Since he has produced and proven nothing of the kind, we will produce the Spirit and prophecies of the Creator, preaching in accordance with them. And thus it will be established that the apostle spoke of those things that were to be in the church of his God—who, as long as he exists, his Spirit also operates and his promise is celebrated.
Come now, you who deny the salvation of the flesh: whenever the body is mentioned in this context, you interpret it as something other than the substance of flesh. How then does the apostle distinguish all the substances in us by specific names and unite them all in a single vow of salvation, praying that our spirit and body and soul be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord and Savior Christ (1 Thess 5:23)? For he also named the soul and the body as two distinct things. Although both soul and body have their own quality, just as the spirit does, when body and soul are named distinctly the soul has its own proper term, not needing the common term for body; that common term is left to the flesh, which lacks a proper name of its own and must use the common one by necessity. For I see no other substance in a human being after spirit and soul to which the word 'body' could apply except flesh. I understand 'flesh' every time the word 'body' is used without being named as such; all the more so here, when what is called 'body' is called by its own name.
Latin
Breuioribus quoque epistulis non pigebit intendere. est sapor et in paucis. occiderant Iudaei prophetas suos. possum dicere: quid ad apostolum dei alterius et quidem optimi, qui nec suorum delicta damnare dicatur quique et ipse prophetas eosdem destruendo quodammodo perimat? quid mali admisit apud illum Israhel, si occidit quos et ille reprobauit, si prior inimicam in eos sententiam statuit? 'deliquit autem apud deum ipsorum': is exprobrabit iniquitatem, ad quem pertinet laesus; certe quiuis alius quam aduersarius laesi. sed nec onerasset illos imputando etiam domini necem qui et dominum interfecerunt dicendo et prophetas suos, licet 'suos' adiectio sit haeretici. quid enim tam acerbum, si alterius dei praedicatorem Christum interemerunt qui sui dei prophetas contrucidauerunt? status autem (est) exaggerationis, quod et dominum et famulos eius peremissent. denique si alterius dei Christum alterius prophetas peremerunt, aequauit impietatem, non exaggerauit. aequanda autem non fuit: ergo exaggerari non potuit, nisi in eundem deum commissa ex utroque titulo. ergo eiusdem dei Christus et prophetae. Quam autem sanctitatem nostram (uoluntatem dei' dicat, ex contrariis, quae prohibet, agnoscere est — abstinere enim, inquit, a stupro, non a matrimonio; scire unumquemque uas suum in honore tractare. quomodo? dum non in libidine, qua gentes. libido autem nec apud gentes matrimonio adscribitur, sed extraordinarils et non naturalibus et portentosis luxuriae —: est turpitudini quaque et inmunditiae contraria, quae non matrimonium excludat, sed libidinem, quae uas nostrum in honore matrimonii tractet. hunc autem locum salua alterius, id est plenioris sanctitatis praelatione tractauerim, continentiam et uirginitatem nuptiis anteponens, sed non prohibitis. destructores enim dei nuptiarum, non sectatores castitatis retundo. Ait eos, qui remaneant in aduentum Christi cum eis, qui mortui in Christo primi resurgent, quod in nubibus auferentur in aerem obuiam domino. agnosco his iam tunc prospectis mirari substantias caelestes ipsam Hierusalem, quae sursum est, et per Esaiam pronuntiare: quinam huc uelut nubes uolant, tamquam columbae cum pullis ad me? hunc ascensum si Christus nobis praeparabit, ille erit Christus, de quo Osee: qui ascensum suum aedificat in caelos, utique sibi et suis. exinde a quo sperabo nunc, nisi a quo haec audiui ? Quem spiritum prohibet extingui et quas prophetias uetat nihil haberi? utique non creatoris spiritum nec creatoris prophetias secundum Marcionem. quae enim destruit, ipse iam extinxit et nihil fecit, nec potest prohibere quae ipse fecit. ergo incumbit Marcioni exhibere hodie apud ecclesiam suam exinde spiritum dei sui, qui non sit extinguendus, et prophetias, quae non sint nihil habendae. et si exhibuit quod putat, sciat nos quodcumque illud ad formam spiritalis et propheticae gratiae atque uirtutis prouocaturos, ut et futura praenuntiet et occulta cordis reuelet et sacramenta edisserat. cum nihil tale protulerit ac probarit, nos proferemus et spiritum et prophetias creatoris secundum ipsum praedicantes. atque ita constabit apostolus de quibus dixerit, de eis scilicet, quae futura erant in ecclesia eius dei, qui dum est, spiritus quoque eius operatur et promissio celebratur. Age nunc, qui salutem carnis abnuitis et, si quando corpus in huiusmodi praenominatur, aliud nescio quid interpretamini illud quam substantiam carnis, quomodo apostolus omnes in nobis substantias certis nominibus distinxit et omnes in uno uoto constituit salutis, optans, ut spiritus noster et corpus et anima sine querela in aduentu domini et salutificatoris nostri Christi conseruentur? nam et animam posuit et corpus, tam duas res quam diuersas. licet enim et anima I et] corpus sit aliquod suae qualitatis, sicut et spiritus, cum tamen et corpus et anima distincte nominantur, habet <autem) anima suum uocabulum proprium, non egens communi uocabulo corporis, id relinquitur carni, quae non nominata proprio, communi utatur necesse est. etenim aliam substantiam in homine non uideo post spiritum et animam, cui uocabulum corporis accommodetur praeter carnem, hanc totiens in corporis nomine intellegens, quotiens non nominatur; multo magis hic, cum quae dicitur corpus suo nomine appellatur.