Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] "No," say the Marcionites, "our god, though not from the beginning, though not through creation, was revealed through himself in Christ Jesus." A whole book will be given over to Christ, on his entire condition. The subjects must be kept distinct, so that they may be handled more fully and in better order. For the present stage it will be enough to meet them thus — to show, briefly, that Jesus Christ was the vehicle of no other god than the Creator. [2] It was in Tiberius's fifteenth regnal year that Christ Jesus condescended to glide earthward out of the heavens, a spirit bringing salvation. As for the salvation of Marcion, who so willed it — in just what year of the elder Antoninus that dog-star breath of his came wafting out of his native Pontus, I have not troubled to investigate. This much, however, is certain: he is a heretic of the Antonine age, an impious man under Pius. Now from Tiberius to Antoninus there are roughly one hundred and fifteen years, and half a year, and half a month besides. That is precisely the span of time they set between Christ and Marcion. [3] Since, then, it was under Antoninus that Marcion first introduced this god of his, as we have shown, the matter is plain at once to anyone with sense. The dates themselves prejudge the case: what first came forth under Antoninus did not come forth under Tiberius — that is, the god of the Antonine empire was not the god of Tiberius's, and so was not revealed by Christ, since it is agreed he was first preached by Marcion. [4] To establish this now, I will take what remains from the adversaries' own camp. The separation of law and gospel is Marcion's own special and principal work; his disciples cannot deny it — it is the very sum and substance of their teaching, the text by which converts are initiated and hardened into this heresy. For these are Marcion's Antitheses, that is, his contrary oppositions, by which he tries to set the gospel at odds with the law, so as to argue, from the disagreement of the two documents' teachings, a corresponding disagreement of gods. [5] Since, then, it is precisely this separation of law and gospel that has smuggled in another god of the gospel over against the god of the law, it is plain that before this separation there was no knowledge of the god who became known only through the argument of separation — and so he was not revealed by Christ, who existed before the separation, but was invented by Marcion, who instituted the separation against the peace of gospel and law. That peace, unbroken and unshaken from Christ's appearing right down to Marcion's audacity, was preserved precisely by the reasoning which held that there was no other god of both law and gospel besides the Creator — against whom, after so long an interval, this separation was launched from Pontus.
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