Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
So then you make Christ the Father, you utter fool, without even considering the force of this very name — if indeed "Christ" is a name at all, and not rather a designation: for it signifies "anointed." And "anointed" is no more a name in itself than "clothed" or "shod" is — these are things that happen to a name, not the name itself. Would you, if on some argument Jesus were also called "clothed," go on to say — just as you call him "Christ" from the sacrament of anointing — that Jesus was Son of God while believing "clothed" to be the Father? Now, on to Christ. If the Father is Christ, the Father is anointed — and certainly by another; or if by himself, prove it. But that is not what the Acts of the Apostles teaches, in that cry of the church to God: "For truly they gathered together in this city against your holy Son whom you anointed — Herod and Pilate along with the nations." So they testified both that Jesus is Son of God and that the Son was anointed by the Father: therefore it is Jesus who is the same as the Christ who was anointed by the Father, not the Father who anointed the Son. So too Peter: "Let the whole house of Israel therefore know most assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, that is, anointed — this Jesus whom you crucified." John, moreover, brands as a liar the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, and conversely declares born of God everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ; for which reason he also urges us onward to trust in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, so that we may hold fellowship with the Father and together with his Son Jesus Christ. So too Paul, throughout, sets forth God the Father alongside Jesus Christ our Lord: writing to the Romans, he offers thanks to God through Christ Jesus our Lord; writing to the Galatians, he insists he is an apostle neither from men nor by a man, but rather through Jesus Christ, and through God the Father. And across his whole body of letters you find passages proclaiming matters in just this fashion, laying out two — God the Father, and Jesus Christ our Lord, the Son of the Father — and that Jesus himself is the Christ, under the other name as well, Son of God. For from that point on, by the same right by which both names belong to one person — that is, the Son of God — the one, even without the other, belongs to that same person: whether "Jesus" alone is used, "Christ" is understood as well, since Jesus is anointed; or whether "Christ" alone, it is likewise Jesus, since Jesus is the one who is anointed. Of these two names, the one is his own, given by the angel; the other is something that happens to him, arising from the anointing — while all the while it is the Son, not the Father, who is Christ. Finally, how blind is he who does not even grasp, in the very name "Christ," that another God is being pointed to, if he assigns the name of Christ to the Father! For if Christ, who says, "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God," is the Father-as-God, then plainly he points to another Father and God above himself. Likewise if the Father is Christ, then it is someone else who "establishes the thunder and creates the wind and announces to men his own Anointed." And if "the kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers gathered together as one against the Lord and against his Christ," then the Lord against whose Christ the kings and rulers gathered will be someone else again. And if "the Lord said to my Lord, the Christ" — the Lord who speaks will be someone else than the Father-Christ he speaks to. And when the apostle writes, "that the God of Christ Jesus our Lord may grant you the spirit of wisdom and revelation," the God of Christ Jesus, the giver of the spiritual gifts, will be someone else again. Indeed — not to wander through every text — the one "who raised up Christ" will also raise our mortal bodies, as though there will be someone other doing the raising than the Father who died and the Father who was raised, if it is the Father who is the Christ that died.