Judgment and the Second Coming
Tertullian, Against Marcion 39
It was once settled as a matter of who owns the names: they belong to the one who first proclaimed his Christ to humanity and renamed the laws. Therefore it will also be settled as a matter of his impudence, since he claims many will come in his name — a name that is not his, if Christ and Jesus are not the Creator's, to whom the ownership of names belongs. Moreover, he ought to forbid the reception of those whose peer he himself is, so that the one who comes in a foreign name is treated accordingly; if not, it was his responsibility to shield his disciples from the lie of the name, since he possessed the truth of that name through its ownership. In the end, men will come saying, "I am Christ": you will receive them, because you received a similar one; nor does this one come in his own name. So what happens when the Lord of names himself arrives, Christ and Jesus of the Creator? Will you reject him? And how unjust, how unworthy of the best God, that you refuse to receive him coming in his own name, when you welcomed another in that same name! Let us see what signs he imposes on the times: wars, I suppose, and kingdom against kingdom, nation against nation, pestilence, famine, earthquakes, terrors, and portents from heaven — all of which suit a severe and cruel God. Since he adds that these things must also happen, what sort of God does he present? A destroyer or an approver of the Creator? He confirms that the Creator's dispositions ought to be fulfilled — dispositions the best God would have removed rather than established, if they were not his. Yet he predicts these persecutions and sufferings to them as things that will happen, leading certainly to martyrdom and to salvation.
Latin
Olim constitit de nominum proprietate, ei illam *, qui prior et Christum suum in homines adnuntiarit et legum transnominarit. constabit itaque et de impudentia eius, qui multos dicat uenturos in nomine ipsius, quod non sit ipsius, si non Christus et Iesus creatoris est, ad quem proprietas nominum pertinet. amplius et prohibeat eos recipi, quorum et ipse par sit, ut qui proinde in nomine uenit alieno: si non, ipsius erat a mendacio nominis praeuenire discipulos, qui per proprietatem nominis possidebat ueritatem eius. uenient denique illi dicentes: ego sum Christus: recipies eos, qui consimilem recepisti; nec hic enim in nomine suo uenit. quid nunc? quando et ipse ueniet nominum dominus, Christus et Iesus creatoris, reicies illum P et quam iniquum, quam iniustum et optimo deo indignum, ut non recipias eum in suo nomine uenientem, qui alium in nomine eius recepisti! Videamus et quae signa temporibus imponat: bella, opinor., et regnum super regnum et gentem super gentem et pestem et fames terraeque motus et formidines et prodigia de caelo, quae omnia seuero et atroci deo congruunt. haec cum adicit etiam oportere fieri, quem se praestat? destructorem an probatorem creatoris? cuius dispositiones confirmat impleri oportere, quas ut optimus tam tristes quam atroces abstulisset potius quam constituisset, si non ipsius fuissent ante haec autem persecutiones eis praedicat et passiones euenturas, in martyrium utique et in salutem.