Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] The occasion for revising this little work — what happened to its first small edition I have already explained — has also given me this: to distinguish, for the two-gods argument against Marcion I am reworking, its own title and volume for each, according to the division of the material — one defining that his god is simply not a god at all, the other maintaining that our God is worthily God — inasmuch as it pleased the man of Pontus to bring in the one and shut out the other. He could not build his lie without first tearing down the truth. He had to undermine one thing in order to erect what he wanted. So builds a man who has no materials of his own. [2] It would have sufficed, however, to have argued this one point alone — that there is no god, that one who is set up over the Creator — so that once the false god was driven off, and by sure rules prescribing a single, perfect Godhead, nothing further would need be asked about the true God; for the more certain it stood that he existed — even while it was uncertain that another existed — the more fitting it would be to hold him, whatever his character, beyond controversy, an object to be adored rather than judged, to be won over rather than cross-examined, or feared for his severity. [3] For what does a man need more than concern for the true God — into whom, so to speak, he had simply fallen, since there was no other god to be had?
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