Tertullian, Against Marcion 9
Why on earth did He zero in on fishing as the trade from which to draft Simon and the sons of Zebedee as apostles? The incident is hardly trivial; it sets up His entire argument. He tells a trembling Peter, shaken by the massive haul, 'Do not fear; from now on you will be catching men' (Jeremiah). That declaration planted the realization that the prophecy was fulfilled: He is the very one Jeremiah announced when he said, 'Behold, I will send many fishermen, and they will fish for them — namely, men.' At once they abandoned their boats and followed Him, recognizing the One who had begun to act on His own words. It would be a different matter if He had simply tried to recruit from the guild of boatmen, destined to have Marcion as an apostle and a shipmaster somewhere down the line. We have already demonstrated against the antithesis that nothing advances Marcion's proposal — at least as he imagines it — regarding the supposed diversity between law and gospel. That diversity itself was arranged by the Creator, finally proclaimed in the promise of a new law, a new word, and a new testament. But since he argues his case more closely with his so-called 'commiseronem' and 'coodibilem' in the cleansing of the leper, I am not reluctant to engage and, first of all, to display the force of the figurative law. In the case of the leper — not to be touched, indeed to be cut off from all intercourse — that law forbade contact with a man stained by sins, and the apostle even forbids eating with such a person; for anyone who mingles with a sinner shares the marks of sins as if by contagion. Therefore the Lord, desiring the law to be understood more deeply — since it signifies spiritual realities through physical ones — and not abolishing it but rather building it up so that it might be acknowledged as more relevant, touched the leper. From that leper, even if a human being could be defiled, God certainly would not be, being by nature uncontaminable; thus it will not be prescribed for Him that He ought to observe the law and avoid touching the unclean, when the touch of the unclean could not defile Him. I teach that this fits my Christ all the more, while I prove it does not fit yours.
Latin
De tot generibus operum quid utique ad piscaturam respexit, ut ab illa in apostolos sumeret Simonem et filios Zebedaei — non enim simplex factum uideri potest de quo argumentum processurum erat — dicens Petro trepidanti de copiosa indagine piscium: ne time, abhinc enim homines eris capiens? hoc enim dicto intellectum illis suggerebat adimpletae prophetiae, se eum esse, qui per Hieremiam pronuntiarat: ecce ego mittam piscatores multos, et piscabuntur illos, homines scilicet. denique relictis nauclis secuti sunt eum, ipsum intellegentes, qui coeperat facere quod edixerat. aliud est, si adfectauit de nauiculariorum collegio adlegere, habiturus apostolum quandoque nauclerum Marcionem. Praestruximus quidem aduersus antithesis nihil proficere proposito Marcionis quam putat diuersitatem legis et euangelii. ut et hanc a creatore dispositam, denique praedicatam in repromissione nouae legis et noui sermonis et noui testamenti. sed quoniam adtentius argumentatur apud illum suum nescio quem ouvTaXawutopov (commiseronem) et auvp.iao6(x=vov (coodibilem) in leprosi purgatione, non pigebat ei occurrere et inprimis figuratae legis uim ostendere, quae in exemplo leprosi non contingendi, immo ab omni commercio summouendi, communicationem prohibebat hominis delictis commaculati, cum qualibus et apostolus cibum quoque uetat sumere; participari enim stigmata delictorum quasi ex contagione, si qui se cum peccatore miscuerit. itaque dominus, uolens altius intellegi legem per carnalia spiritalia significantem, et hoc nomine non destruens sed magis exstruens quam pertinentius uolebat agnosci, tetigit leprosum. a quo et si homo inquinari potuisset, deus utique non inquinaretur, incontaminabilis scilicet: ita non praescribetur illi, quod debuerit legem obseruare et non contingere inmundum, quem contactus inmundi non erat inquinaturus. hoc magis meo Christo competere sic doceo, dum tuo non competere demonstro.