Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
I know quite well in what sense they keep touting a "new" god — they mean, of course, one newly recognized. But it was precisely that shock of novelty that strikes untrained minds, and the natural charm novelty carries with it, that I wanted to strike back at, and from there raise the challenge about the "unknown god." For obviously, when they oppose this god to another by calling him newly recognized, they are thereby proving him unknown before that recognition. Well then, back to the lines, back on your mark. Try to persuade me a god could have been unknown. I do indeed find altars set up for unknown gods — but that is Athenian idolatry. Likewise for uncertain gods — but that is Roman superstition. Now uncertain gods are less known precisely because they are less certain, and therefore unknown to the degree they are uncertain. Which of these two labels shall we pin on Marcion's god? Both, I should think — uncertain now, and unknown before. For just as a known god, the Creator, made him unknown, so a certain god makes him uncertain. But I will not wander off to say: if this god was unknown and lay hidden, some region of hiding-places overshadowed him — itself likewise new and unknown, and likewise now uncertain, some region no doubt immense and indubitably greater than the one it concealed. I will state it briefly instead and pursue it fully, laying down as a rule that a god could neither have gone unrecognized by right of his own greatness, nor ought to have, by right of his own goodness — especially since in both respects he is claimed to surpass our Creator. But since I notice that in certain quarters every proof of a new and formerly unknown god has to be measured against the form of the Creator, I must first establish by reasoned argument that this very method is legitimate, so that I may lean on the authority of that established reasoning with greater confidence. Before anything else: what sense does it make that you, who acknowledge God as Creator and confess him prior in point of recognition, should not know that you must examine any other god by the very standards by which you have already learned to know God at the outset? Whatever came earlier supplies the measure for whatever follows it. Two gods are now set before us, one unknown, one known. About the known one there is no dispute — that he exists is settled, because he would not be known if he did not exist. About the unknown one the argument rages. He may equally not exist, because if he did exist he would be known. So what is in question, for as long as it remains unknown, is uncertain for as long as it is in question, and may well not exist for as long as it remains uncertain. So you have a god certain in that he is known, and uncertain in that he is unknown. If that is so, does it not strike you as sound reasoning that uncertain things should be tested against the norm and form and rule of certain ones? Furthermore, if to settle this case — itself still uncertain — arguments drawn from equally uncertain things are brought in, the chain of questions will tangle itself further, since the very arguments used are themselves equally uncertain and put faith itself at risk through uncertainty, and we shall end up in those endless, undecidable questions the apostle has no love for. But suppose that things certain, indubitable, and settled parts of the rule were to be prejudged by things uncertain, doubtful, and unresolved — well, in cases where a difference of basic standing is found, perhaps the uncertain things need not be summoned before the standard of the certain, since the very difference in their fundamental standing frees them from being dragged into any further comparison. But when two gods are set before us, their fundamental standing is shared. For insofar as each is "god," both are: unborn, unmade, eternal. That will be the fundamental standing. Let Marcion see to the rest, if he has arranged some difference there — those are secondary matters up for reexamination, and indeed will not even be admitted unless the fundamental standing is first settled. Now it is settled, because both are gods; and so, since their standing is agreed to be shared, when under that shared standing they are called forward for proof, if they are uncertain they will have to be tested against the form of those certain gods with whom they are reckoned to share that fundamental standing in common, so that they may likewise share in the proof. On this basis, then, I will steer with the utmost confidence toward this conclusion: a god cannot be one who is uncertain today because unknown in the past, since the very fact that he is agreed to exist follows from the fact that he was never unknown, and therefore never uncertain either.
10.