One God, Old and New Testaments
Tertullian, Against Marcion 16
Since there is no other world, neither is there another god for it. It follows, then, that they split the two kinds of things—visible and invisible—between two gods as authors, and so they reserve the invisible things for their own god. Who, except a heretical spirit, could even entertain the idea that the invisible things belong to a god who has produced not a single visible thing? They belong far more properly to the one who has actually worked visible things and thereby grounded faith in the invisible as well; it is much more just to trust some exemplars than none at all. We will also see to which author the apostle assigns the invisible things, once we have examined him. For now we are relying on the plainest common sense and sound reasoning, preparing the ground for the appeal to Scripture, confirming that this diversity of visible and invisible things must be credited to the Creator God. His entire operation consists of diversities: corporeal and incorporeal, animate and inanimate, vocal and mute, mobile and stationary, fertile and sterile, dry and moist, hot and cold. That same diversity has tempered man himself, both in body and in senses: some members strong, others weak; some honorable, others dishonorable; some paired, others single; some alike, others unalike. And so also in the inner senses: now joy, now anxiety; now love, now hatred; now anger, now gentleness. If the whole universe is thus modulated as a rivalry of conditions, then the invisible things are owed to the visible things—not to be assigned to a different author than the one to whom their rivals belong. They themselves point out the Creator as diverse: commanding what he forbids and forbidding what he commands, striking and healing. So why do they take him as uniform in this one respect, as only the founder of visible things, when it should be believed that he created both visible and invisible, just as he created both life and death, both evil and peace? And certainly, if those invisible things are greater than the visible things in their own place, then it is also fitting that the greater things belong to him whose are the great things, because neither great things nor, still less, greater things can belong to him to whom not even moderate things are comparable.
Latin
Non comparente igitur mundo alio sicut nec deo eius. consequens est, ut duas species rerum, uisibilia et inuisibilia. duobus auctoribus deis diuidant et ita suo deo inuisibilia defendant. quis autem poterit inducere in animum, nisi spiritus haereticus, eius esse inuisibilia. qui nihil uisibile praemiserit. quam eius, qui uisibilia operatus inuisibilium quoque fidem fecerit, cum iustius multo sit aliquibus exemplariis adnuere quam nullis? uidebimus et apostolus cui auctori inuisibilia deputet, cum et illum explorauerimus. nunc enim communibus plurimum sensibus et argumentationibus iustis secuturae scripturarum quoque aduocationi fidem sternimus, confirmantes diuersitatem hanc uisibilium et inuisibilium deo creatori deputandam, sicuti tota operatio eius ex diuersitatibus constat, ex corporalibus et incorporalibus, ex animalibus et inanimalibus, ex uocalibus et mutis, ex mobilibus et statiuis, ex genitalibus et sterilibus, ex aridis et sucidis, ex calidis et frigidis. sic et hominem ipsum diuersitas temperauit, tam in corpore quam in sensu. alia membra fortia alia infirma, alia honesta alia inhonesta. alia gemina alia unica, alia comparia alia disparia. proinde et in sensu nunc laetitia nunc anxietas nunc amor nunc odium nunc ira nunc lenitas. quod si ita est, ut aemula inter se conditionis uniuersitas ista modulata sit, iam igitur et uisibilibus inuisibilia debentur, non alteri auctori deputanda quam cui et aemula eorum. (qui) ipsum creatorem diuersum notant, iubentem quae prohibuit et prohibentem quae iussit, percutientem et sanantem, cur in hac sola specie uniformem eum capiunt, uisibilium solummodo conditorem, quem proinde credendum sit et uisibilia et inuisibilia condidisse quemadmodum et uitam et mortem, et mala et pacem? et utique, si illa inuisibilia maiora sunt uisibilibus creatoris suo loco magnis, sic quoque congruit eius esse maiora, cuius et magna, quia nec magna, nedum maiora, ei competant, cuius nec modica comparent.