Tertullian, Against Marcion 8

Christ is the head of the man. Who is Christ? Is he not the author of the man? 'Head' stands for authority, and authority belongs only to the author. So of which man is he head? Certainly of the one the text immediately names: the man must not be veiled, since he is God's image. If he is the Creator's image — for the Creator, looking at his own Word, was about to make a man: 'Let us make man in our image and likeness' (Genesis 1:26) — how could I have another head, not the one whose image I am? When I am the Creator's image, there is no room in me for a different head. Why, then, should the woman have authority over the head? If it is because she was made from the man and for the man by the Creator's institution, then the apostle also enforced her discipline, deriving the reasons for it from that same institution. He adds, 'because of the angels.' Which angels? That is, whose angels? If they are the Creator's apostate angels, rightly so, that the face which scandalized them might bear a mark of humility and the veiling of beauty. But if they are angels of another god, why would he fear them, when even the Marcionites themselves do not desire women? We have often shown that the apostle ranks heresies among evils as an evil, and that those who flee heresies as evil are to be approved. Therefore we have already proven in the Gospel the truth of the Lord's body and blood against Marcion's phantom, and that every mention of judgment belongs to the Creator as the judging God — a point that runs through nearly the whole work. Now for spiritual gifts. I say this too: these things were promised by the Creator in Christ, under that rule — most just, I think — by which no one's revelation is to be believed except his whose promise has been proven. Isaiah declared: 'A shoot will come forth from the stump of Jesse, and a branch will grow from his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him' (Isaiah 11:1-2). Then he lists the Spirit's qualities: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety; the spirit will fill him with the fear of the Lord. He portrays Christ as the flower, rising from the branch sprung from Jesse's root — that is, from the virgin of David's line, Jesse's son — in whom Christ was to possess the full substance of the Spirit, not as a later addition to one who had always been the Spirit of God even before the flesh. Otherwise you might argue the prophecy refers to that Christ who, as a mere man by David's lineage alone, would only later receive his God's Spirit. Rather, from the moment he flourished in flesh taken from David's stock, every operation of spiritual grace was to rest in him and cease for the Jews. The fact itself testifies: from then on nothing breathed the Creator's Spirit among them, once the wise architect, the prudent counselor, and the prophet were taken from Judea — so that it became: 'the law and the prophets until John.' Now see how he also foretold the charisms that would come after Christ was taken up into heaven: 'He ascended on high; he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men.' He says elegantly 'to the sons of men,' not to humanity at large, pointing us to the true sons of men, the apostles. For in the Gospel he says: 'I have begotten you,' and: 'My children, whom I am again in labor with' — and already now that promise of the Spirit is fulfilled, the one made through Joel: 'In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters will prophesy, and on my male and female servants I will pour out my Spirit' (Joel 2:28-29). Certainly, if the Creator promised the grace of his Spirit for the last days, and Christ the dispenser of spiritual things appeared in the last days, as the apostle says: 'When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son,' and again: 'The appointed time has grown short' — it follows that this grace of the Spirit belongs to Christ the preacher, from the preaching of the last times. Finally, compare the apostle's list with Isaiah's. 'To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom' — Isaiah immediately places the spirit of wisdom. 'To another the word of knowledge' — here is the spirit of understanding and counsel. 'To another faith by the same Spirit' — here is the spirit of piety and fear of God. 'To another gifts of healing, to another miracles' — here is the spirit of might. 'To another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues' — here is the spirit of knowledge. See the apostle conspiring with the prophet both in distributing the one Spirit and in specifying its operations. I can say: the same one who fitted the unity of diverse charisms to the many and varied members of our body shows himself Lord both of the human body and of the Holy Spirit. He did not want the merits of charisms to reside in the Spirit, any more than he placed them in the human body. He also taught the apostle to set love above all charisms by a chief commandment that Christ himself endorsed: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your soul, and your neighbor as yourself.' And when he recalls something written in the law — that the Creator would speak in other tongues and through other lips — that very recollection confirms the charism of tongues; nor can it appear here that an alien charism was confirmed by the Creator's preaching. Likewise, when he prescribes silence for women in the church so they do not speak even to learn — though he has already shown they have the right to prophesy, since he puts a veil on a prophesying woman — he takes the authority for the woman's subjection from the law, which, as I said once, he ought not to have known except to destroy it. But so we may move on from spiritual things, the facts themselves must prove which of us rashly claims his God and whether this can be opposed to our side. If the Creator promised in his Christ, not yet revealed, as destined only for the Jews, that he would have his operations in his Christ and his people in his time — then let Marcion produce the gifts of his god: some prophets who spoke not from human sense but from God's Spirit, who foretold the future and exposed the heart's secrets; let him produce a psalm, a vision, a spiritual prayer, at least in ecstasy, that is, in madness, if any interpretation of tongues accompanies it. Let him also prove that a woman prophesied among his own holier women. I say: if all these things come more easily from me and certainly align with the Creator's rules, dispositions, and disciplines, then beyond doubt Christ and the Spirit and the apostle belong to my God. My profession stands for whoever wishes to demand it.