Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
I hold out another rule to him: just as all things in God must be natural, so they must also be rational. I demand a reason for his goodness, since nothing may be counted good that is not rationally good — still less should goodness itself be caught being irrational. It will be easier for an evil that has some touch of reason in it to pass as good than for a good deserted by reason to escape being judged evil. I deny, then, that Marcion's god possesses a goodness answerable to reason, and on this very first count: it went forth to rescue a man who was another's property. I know what they will say — that this is precisely the highest and most perfect goodness, when, owed nothing by any tie of kinship, it pours itself out freely and willingly on strangers, the very goodness by which we too are commanded to love even our enemies, who on that very score are already strangers. Since, then, he did not regard man from the beginning — regarded him, from the beginning, as a stranger — by his inaction he prejudged that he had nothing to do with a stranger. Moreover, the discipline of loving a stranger or an enemy comes after the precept of loving one's neighbor as oneself, and although that precept comes from the Creator's law, you too must accept it as something not abolished by Christ but rather built up further by him. For the more you are commanded to love your neighbor, the more you are then commanded to love the enemy and the stranger as well. The exaction of an undeserved kindness is an intensification built upon a kindness that was owed. But the owed kindness comes before the unowed, as the primary one, as the worthier one, with the unowed as its attendant and companion, coming second. Since, then, the first measure of goodness consists in being shown to one's own out of justice, and the second, toward a stranger, out of a justice that overflows beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees — what sense does it make to credit him with the second measure when he is lacking the first, having no man of his own, and therefore being deficient even in the second? For how did a goodness that had nothing of its own overflow onto what belonged to another? Show me the primary measure first, and then claim the one that follows. Nothing can rationally be claimed out of its proper order — reason itself is far from losing its own order in anything. Let goodness now be supposed to begin even from the second rank, that is, toward the stranger — even that second rank will not hold together rationally, for it is undone in another way as well. For that goodness toward a stranger will only be reckoned rational if it operates without injury to the one to whom the property belongs. Whatever goodness the primary justice produces, that justice makes rational. Just as it will be rational at the primary rank when shown toward one's own, provided it is just, so too it could appear rational toward a stranger, provided it is not unjust. But what sort of goodness is it that stands on injury — and injury done on behalf of a stranger, no less? Perhaps an injurious goodness might to some degree be reckoned rational when done on behalf of a member of one's own household. But on behalf of a stranger, to whom nothing was legitimately owed in the first place, by what reasoning will so unjust an act be defended as rational? For what is more unjust, more iniquitous and shameless, than to do good to another man's slave in such a way that he is snatched from his master, claimed for someone else, and set up against his own master's very authority — and, what makes it more disgraceful still, done right there in the master's own house, while the slave still lives off his master's own stores, still trembles under his master's own lash? Such a champion would be condemned even under the laws of this world, to say nothing of being branded a kidnapper of slaves. No different is Marcion's god, breaking into a world that belongs to another, snatching man from God, the son from his father, the ward from his guardian, the servant from his master, so as to make him impious toward God, irreligious toward his father, ungrateful toward his guardian, worthless toward his master. I ask you: if this is what a rational goodness produces, what would an irrational one produce? I could not think of anyone more shameless than one who is baptized in someone else's water for a different god, who stretches his hands toward someone else's heaven for a different god, who lies prostrate on someone else's earth for a different god, who gives thanks over someone else's bread for a different god, who out of someone else's goods, in the name of alms and love, performs works for the sake of another god. What sort of god is this, so good that a man becomes bad because of him, so kindly disposed that he makes another god — and that god the man's very own lord — angry at him?
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