One God, Old and New Testaments
Tertullian, Against Marcion 24
God is eternal and rational, yes — but I say He is also perfect in every respect: 'You will be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect' (Matthew 5:48). So demonstrate this perfect goodness of yours, even though the imperfect version is already well enough attested — a goodness that is neither natural nor rational.
Now the argument shifts: Marcion's goodness is not merely imperfect, but positively defective, scanty, and exhausted. It operates with a smaller stock of raw material and fails to show itself in all cases. Not everyone is saved — fewer than all, whether Jews or Christians of the Creator. With the majority perishing, how can you defend a 'perfect' goodness that fails in the greater part, yields to destruction, and is partial in its reach — doing something for a few, nothing for many, surrendering the rest to ruin? If the majority are not saved, then it is not goodness but malice that turns out perfect. The operation of goodness saves; the operation of malice does not. And a goodness that fails to save the many while saving only a few is more perfect in its failure to help than in its help.
You cannot pin this universal defection of goodness on the Creator. What judge do you acknowledge — a dispenser, perhaps, of goodness to be understood, not a lavish giver, which is what you claim for your god? You prefer him to the Creator on this single count: goodness. But if he alone possesses it in full, no one ought to lack it. I will not press the charge of imperfect goodness against Marcion's god based on the majority perishing; it is enough that those he does save exhibit an imperfect salvation, proving his imperfect goodness — saved in soul, lost in flesh, which does not rise again in his scheme. Where does this halving of salvation come from, if not from a defection of goodness? What would perfect goodness have done but bring the whole person into salvation — the whole person condemned by the Creator, the whole person summoned by the best God?
As far as I can see, even the flesh is stained in his system, the flesh is excluded from marriage, the flesh is punished in the confession of the Name. Even if sins are charged to the flesh, the soul's guilt comes first, and the principality of fault belongs rather to the soul — the flesh merely serves as its minister. A flesh without a soul does not sin at all. So here too the goodness is unjust and therefore imperfect: it abandons the more innocent substance to destruction, though that substance offends by obedience, not by choice. Christ, even if he did not assume the reality of flesh as your heresy claims, still deigned to undergo its likeness. And that very likeness, which he feigned, he owed something to. What is a human being, after all, but flesh? The name 'human' denotes a bodily, material thing, not an animating principle, assigned by the Author. 'God made man from the clay of the earth' — not the soul; the soul comes from the breath — 'and man became a living soul' (Genesis 2:7). Who? The one made from clay. 'God put man in the garden' — the thing he formed, not the thing he breathed into: the one who is now flesh, not the one who is soul.
So if that is the case, with what mouth do you contend for the title of perfect goodness — a goodness that fails not only in the special task of liberating the human person, but in the general property of humanity itself? If grace is full and mercy solid, yet they avail only for the soul, then this present life provides more, since we enjoy it whole and entire. To rise again in part is not liberation but punishment. It would have been the mark of perfect goodness for a human, once liberated into faith in the best God, to be immediately removed from the dwelling and dominion of the harsh God. But now, Marcionite, you still endure fevers, thorns, the pain of your flesh — not only the Creator's thunderbolts, wars, plagues, and other scourges, but even his scorpions. You are cast into the very realm you think you have escaped from his kingdom, where his flies still trample you. If you have been torn free from the future, why not from the present as well, so that the liberation might be perfect?
Our condition is different — with the Author, with the Judge, with the offended Prince of the race. You merely prefer a good God. But you cannot show that God to be perfect, when you are not perfectly liberated from him.
Latin
Sed deus sicut aeternus et rationalis, ita, opinor, et perfectus in omnibus: eritis enim perfecti quemadmodum pater uester, qui in caelis est. exhibe perfectam quoque bonitatem eius, etsi de imperfecta satis constat, quae neque naturalis inuenitur neque rationalis. nunc et alio ordine traducetur: nec iam imperfecta, immo et defecta, exigua et exhausta, quae, minor numero materiarum suarum, non in omnibus exhibetur. non enim omnes salui fiunt, sed pauciores omnibus et Iudaeis et Christianis creatoris. pluribus uero pereuntibus quomodo perfecta defenditur bonitas ex maiore parte cessatrix, paucis aliqua, pluribus nulla, cedens perditioni, partiaria exitii? quodsi plures salui non erunt, erit iam non bonitas, sed malitia perfectior. sicut enim bonitatis operatio est, quae facit saluos, ita malignitatis, quae non facit saluos. magis autem non faciens saluos, dum paucos facit, perfectior erit in non iuuando quam (in) iuuan lo. non poteris et in creatorem referre bonitatis in omnes defectionem. quem enim iudicem tenes, dispensatorem, si forte, bonitatis ostendis intellegendum, non profusorem, quod tuo deo uindicas. usque adeo hac sola eum praefers bonitate creatori. quam si solam profitetur et totam, nulli deesse debuerat. sed nolo iam de parte maiore pereuntium imperfectae bonitatis arguere deum Marcionis: sufficit ipsos, quos saluos facit, imperfectae salutis inuentos imperfectam bonitatem eius ostendere, scilicet anima tenus saluos, carne deperditos, quae apud illum non resurgit. unde haec dimidiatio salutis nisi ex defectione bonitatis? quid erat perfectae bonitatis quam totum hominem redigere in salutem, totum damnatum a creatore, totum a deo optimo adlectum? quod sciam, et caro tingitur apud illum, et caro de nuptiis tollitur, et caro in confessione nominis desaeuitur. sed et si carni delicta reputantur, praecedit animae reatus et culpae principatus animae potius adscribendus. cui caro ministri nomine occurrit. carens denique anima caro hactenus peccat. ita et in hoc iniusta bonitas et sic quoque imperfecta, innocentiorem substantiam relinquens in exitium, obsequio, non arbitrio delinquentem. cuius Christus etsi non induit ueritatem. ut tuae haeresi uisum est, imaginem tamen eius subire dignatus est. ipsum quod mentitus est illam, aliquid ei t debuit debuisse quid est autem homo aliud quam caro, siquidem nomen hominis materia corporalis, non animalis, ab auctore sortita est? et fecit hominem deus, inquit, limum de terra, non animam; anima enim de afflatu: et factus est homo in animam uiuam; quis? utique qui de limo: et posuit deus hominem in paradiso; quod finxit, non quod flauit: qui caro nunc, non qui anima. itaque si ita est. quo ore contendes perfectum bonitatis titulum, quae non iam a partitione speciali hominis liberandi defecit, sed a proprietate generali? si plena est gratia et solida misericordia, quae soli animae salutaris est, plus praestat haec uita, qua toti et integri fruimur. ceterum ex parte resurgere multari erit, non liberari. erat et illud perfectae bonitatis, ut homo, liberatus in fidem dei optimi, statim eximeretur de domicilio atque dominatu dei saeui. at nunc et febriculas, o Marcionita, et ceteros tribulos et spinas dolor carnis tuae tibi edit; nec fulminibus tantum aut bellis et pestibus aliisque plagis creatoris sed et scorpiis eius obiectus, in quo te putas liberatum de regno eius, cuius te muscae adhuc calcant? si de futuro erutus es, cur non et de praesenti, ut perfecte? alia est nostra condicio apud auctorem, apud iudicem, apud offensum principem generis. tu tantummodo bonum deum praefers. non potes autem perfecte bonum ostendere a quo non perfecte liberaris.