Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] But now we move on from here to a further stage, challenging, as we promised, Marcion's own gospel itself, so as to prove that it too has been corrupted. For certainly the whole labor he expended in constructing even his Antitheses is bent on this single aim: to establish a difference between the old and the new testament, and thereby to separate his own Christ from the Creator, as belonging to another god, as a stranger to the Law and the Prophets. [2] For that very reason he erased whatever statements were at odds with his own position, as being in agreement with the Creator — as though they had been woven in by his defenders — while he kept whatever statements suited his own position. These we shall agree to, these we shall embrace, if they are found to be more on our side, if they strike down Marcion's presumption. Then it will also be established that those other statements were erased by the same fault of heretical blindness by which these were kept. [3] So this will be the plan and shape of our little work, on the condition, of course, agreed on from both sides. Marcion holds that there is one Christ, revealed in the time of Tiberius by a hitherto unknown god, for the salvation of all nations; and another Christ, destined by the Creator god for the restoration of the state of the Jews, still to come at some future time. Between these two he draws a vast and total distinction — as great as that between the just and the good, as great as that between law and gospel, as great as that between Judaism and Christianity. [4] From this, then, will follow our own prescriptive rule as well, by which we lay it down that Christ, belonging to that other god, ought to have nothing in common with the Creator — but must otherwise be declared to belong to the Creator, given that he has carried out the Creator's arrangements, if he has fulfilled the Creator's prophecies, if he has upheld the Creator's laws, if he has made good the Creator's promises, if he has restored the Creator's mighty works, if he has reshaped the Creator's pronouncements, expressing his character, expressing his very qualities. Of this agreement and of this rule, I ask you, reader, to be mindful throughout, and begin now to recognize, at every turn, either Marcion's Christ or the Creator's.
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