Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 10

But those who claim confession isn't established here—within this circle of earth, through this journey of life, among men of this common nature—what sheer presumption against every order of things on this earth, in this life, under human powers to be tested! Doubtless when souls exit their bodies and begin to be inspected by command through each level of the heavens, and those secret sacraments of the heretics are interrogated, then confession must be made before the true powers and true men—Theletos, Abascantos, and Acinetos of Valentinus. They say even the Demiurge himself didn't consistently judge our kind to be true men, since he likened them to a bucket's drip, threshing-floor dust, spittle, and locusts, even equating them with irrational beasts. It's written plainly enough. But that doesn't mean another kind of man exists beyond us—men whose existence is agreed on and who could serve for comparison while preserving both the kind's property and its singularity. Even if life is corrupted, so that it's judged despicable by comparison with the despicable, the nature isn't abolished so another can be substituted in its name. Nature is preserved, even when life is corrupted, and Christ knows no other men than those he speaks of: 'Who do men say that I am?' and 'However you want men to treat you, treat them the same way.' See if he didn't preserve the kind—from whom he expects testimony about himself and in whom he commands the duty of justice. But if I demanded those heavenly men be shown me, Aratus would more easily trace Perseus, Cepheus, Erigone, and Ariadne among the stars. Who prevented the Lord from determining right there that confession before men should be made manifest, where he openly declared his own future confession would be? So it would read: 'Whoever confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven?' He should have snatched me from this error of earthly confession, which he refused to accept, if he had commanded a heavenly one—since I knew no other men except earth's inhabitants; not even the man in heaven had been seen by me at that time.