Tertullian, Against Marcion 7
You'll try to shake the retracted point about the name of God, relying on the fact that Scripture permits it passively and to others too: "God stands in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he judges" (Psalm 82:1), and "I said, 'You are gods'" (Psalm 82:6). But that doesn't mean the title 'Highest Great One' belongs to them just because they're called gods; the same goes for the Creator. I'll answer the fool who hasn't thought this through, lest the same retort boomerang against Marcion's God: he may be called God, but that doesn't prove he's the Highest Great One — any more than the Creator's angels or men are. If sharing a name prejudges the nature, then how many wicked slaves insult the names of kings — Alexander, Darius, Holofernes? Yet that doesn't strip the kings of what they are. The idols of the nations are commonly called gods, but no one is God by the mere fact of being called God. So I don't defend the Highest Great One in the Creator because of the name, the sound, or the label, but because of the substance that bears the name. Finding that substance alone innate, uncorrupted, alone eternal, and the maker of the universe, I ascribe and vindicate the Highest Great One to the reality, not the label; to the condition, not the appellation. And because that substance already holds the name God, you think I'm defending the name — since I must use the name to show which substance I mean, the one by which God is called God. But the Highest Great One is reckoned from the substance, not the name. Even Marcion, vindicating his God, does it by the reality, not the word. So we insist that the Highest Great One — which we ascribe to God by the law of substance, not the lottery of the name — must be equal in the two who share that substance called God. Because insofar as they are called gods, that is, Highest Great Ones, of substances innate and eternal and therefore great and highest, to that extent one Highest Great One cannot be less or worse than another. If the happiness, sublimity, and integrity of the Highest Great One stand in Marcion's God, they stand equally in ours; if not in ours, then equally not in his. Therefore the two Highest Great Ones won't be equal, because the established rule of the Highest Great One won't tolerate comparison; nor unequal, because another rule of the Highest Great One appears, refusing diminution. You're stuck, Marcion, in the middle of your Pontic storm. The waves of truth close in on both sides. You can't present gods as equal or unequal. There aren't two. As for the retracted number — though the whole fight is about two gods — we've boxed him in within these lines, inside which we'll now engage on the individual properties.
Latin
Temptabis ad haec de nomine dei concutere retractatum ; ut passiuo et in alios quoque permisso, quia scriptum sit: ! deus deorum stetit in ecclesia deorum, in medio autem deos diiudicabit, et: ego dixi, uos dii estis. nec tamen idcirco eis competat possessio summi magni, quia dii cognominentur; ita nec creatori. respondebo et stulto, qui nec hoc recogitauerit, ne tantundem et in deum Marcionis possit retorqueri, ut et illum deum dictum nec ideo tamen summum magnum probatum, sicut nec angeli aut homines creatoris. si communio nominum condicionibus praeiudicat, quanti nequam serui regum nominibus insultant, Alexandri et Darii et Olofernae? nec tamen ideo regibus id quod sunt detrahetur. nam et ipsa idola gentium dei uulgo, sed deus nemo ea re, qua deus dicitur. ita ego non nomini dei nec sono nec notae nominis huius summum magnum in creatore defendo, sed ipsi substantiae, cui nomen hoc contigit. hanc inueniens solam innatam infectam, solam aeternam et uniuersitatis conditricem, non nomini, sed statui, nec appellationi, sed condicioni eius summum magnum et adscribo et uindico. et ideo. quia deus iam uocari obtinuit substantia cui adscribo, nomini me adscribere putas, quia necesse est per nomen ostendam cui adscribam substantiae, scilicet qua constat qui deus dicitur. at summum magnum ex substantia, non ex nomine, deputatur. denique hoc et Marcion suo deo uindicans, secundum statum, non secundum uocabulum uindicat. id ergo summum magnum, quod deo adscribimus ex substantiae lege, non ex nominis sorte, contendimus ex pari esse debere in duobus, qui ea substantia constant, quae deus dicitur, quia in quantum dii uocantur, id est summa magna, substantiae scilicet mento innatae et aeternae ac per hoc magnae et summae, in tantum non possit summum magnum minus et deterius alio summo magno haberi. si summi magni felicitas et sublimitas et integritas stabit in deo Marcionis, stabit aeque et in nostro, si non et in nostro, aeque nec in Marcionis. ergo nec paria erunt duo summa magna, quia prohibet disposita iam regula summi magni comparationem non sustinens, nec disparia, quia et alia summi magni regula occurrit, diminutionem non admittens. haesisti, Marcion, in medio Ponti tui aestu. utrimque te fluctus ueritatis inuoluunt. nec pares nec dispares deos sistere potes. duo enim non sunt. quod pertineat proprie ad numeri retractatum, quamquam tota materia de duobus deis dimicetur, his interim lineis eum clusimus, intra quas de singularibus iam proprietatibus congrediemur.