One God, Old and New Testaments
Tertullian, Against Marcion 6
We still seem to be arguing as if Marcion had established two equals. While we insist that the one true God must be believed to be the Supreme, the Great, excluding any equal from Him, it is as though we have retreated from the issue of two equals; nevertheless, by teaching that equals cannot exist according to the form of the Supreme and Great, we have sufficiently confirmed that two cannot exist. Otherwise, we would certainly be conceding that Marcion constitutes unequal gods: one a Judge, fierce and warlike, the other mild, placid, and merely good and optimal. Let us examine this alternative just as closely: whether diversity can at least accommodate two, since equality could not. Furthermore, the same rule of the Supreme and Great will defend us here too, since it vindicates the entire state of divinity. It is fitting and, in a sense, seizing the adversary's meaning by the throat—he who does not deny the Creator God—to justly prescribe that diversity has no place between those whom, having confessed them equally as gods, he cannot make diverse. Not because men cannot be utterly diverse under the same title, but because God will not be called—indeed, cannot be believed—unless He is the Supreme and Great. Therefore, when the Supreme and Great is compelled to acknowledge the God he does not deny, he cannot admit that he ascribes any diminution to the Supreme and Great by which He would be subjected to another Supreme and Great. For He ceases to be if He is subjected. But it is not in God's nature to cease from His state—that is, from being the Supreme and Great. For even in that supposedly superior god, the Supreme and Great would be endangered if it were captured in the Creator. Thus, when two gods are pronounced, two Supreme and Great Ones, it is necessary that neither is greater or lesser than the other, neither more sublime nor more cast down. Deny the God whom you call worse; deny the Supreme and Great whom you believe to be lesser. Having confessed God, you have confessed both as two Supreme and Great Ones. You take nothing away from one nor ascribe anything to the other. In recognizing the divinity, you have denied the diversity.
Latin
Sic adhuc uidemur disputare, quasi Marcion duos pares constituat. nam dum defendimus deum, summum magnum, unicum credi oportere, excludentes ab eo parilitatem, tamquam de duobus paribus de his retractauimus, nihilominus tamen docendo pares esse non posse secundum summi magni formam satis confirmauimus duos esse non posse, alioquin certi Marcionem dispares deos constituere, alterum iudicem, ferum, bellipotentem, alterum mitem, placidum et tantummodo bonum atque optimum. dispiciamus aeque et hanc partem, an diuersitas saltim duos capiat, si parilitas capere non potuit. porro et hic eadem regula summi magni patrocinabitur nobis, utpote quae totum statum uindicet diuinitatis. conueniens enim et quodammodo iniecta manu detinens aduersarii sensum non negantis creatorem deum, iustissime praescribo illi diuersitati locum non esse inter eos, quos ex aequo deos confessus non potest facere diuersos. non quia non et homines licet sub eadem appellatione diuersissimos esse, sed quia deus non erit dicendus, quia nec credendus, nisi summum magnum. cum ergo summum magnum cogatur agnoscere quem deum non negat, non potest admitti, ut summo magno aliquam adscribat diminutionem, qua subiciatur alii summo magno. desinit enim, si subiciatur. non est autem dei desinere de statu suo, id est de summo magno. nam et in illo deo potiore periclitari poterit summum magnum, si depretiari capit in creatore. ita cum duo dii pronuntiantur duo summa magna, necesse est neutrum altero aut maius sit aut minus, neutrum altero aut sublimius aut deiectius. nega deum quem dicis deteriorem; nega summum magnum quem credis minorem. deum uero confessus utrumque duo summa magna confessus es. nihil alteri adimes aut alteri adscribes. agnoscens diuinitatem negasti diuersitatem.