Tertullian — Against Marcion 2.2
But now almighty God, Lord and founder of the universe, suffers trouble—only, I suppose, because he is known from the beginning, because he never hid, because he always shone, even before Romulus himself, much more before Tiberius—except that he is not known only to heretics, who make him trouble, thinking another god must therefore be presumed because they can rather blame than deny him who is agreed to be, weighing God by their sense’s verdict—just as if some blind man or with swimming eyes should therefore presume another milder and healthier sun because he does not see the one he sees.
There is one sun, O human, that governs this world; and when you do not think so, he is best and useful, and when harsher and more hostile to you or even dirtier and more corrupt, he is still equal to his own reason. If you cannot see through that, already neither could you have borne the rays of any other sun, if there were one—surely greater. For you who go blind toward a lower god—what toward a higher?
Why rather not spare your weakness and not stretch into danger, having a God certain and undoubted and by this itself seen enough when you first catch that he is whom you do not know except in part—as he himself willed? But God indeed, as knowing, you do not deny; as not knowing, you reopen—nay even accuse as if knowing—whom if you knew you would neither accuse nor reopen. Paying him the name you deny the name’s substance—that is greatness—which is called God—not recognizing it as great as it would not be greatness if a human could know it every way.
Isaiah himself already then foresaw heretical hearts: Who has known the Lord’s mind, or who was his counselor?… To whom the apostle will also sing: O depth of God’s riches and wisdom… How unsearchable his judgments… The world’s spirit-holders, not recognizing God through God’s wisdom, seem to themselves more counsel-wise than God—since as the world’s wisdom is folly with God, so God’s wisdom is folly with the world. But we know God’s foolish is wiser than humans and God’s weak stronger than humans.
And so God is then most great when little to a human, then most best when not good to a human, then most one when two or more to a human. But if from the beginning the animal human, not receiving what are of the Spirit, thought God’s law folly—so that he neglected to keep it—and therefore by not having faith even what he seemed to have was taken from him (paradise’s grace and God’s familiarity, through which he would have known all God’s things if he had obeyed), what wonder if, returned to his matter and relegated to the workhouse of earth to be worked, in that very work prone and bent to earth he handed to his whole race the world’s spirit usurped from it—animal and heretical at least, not receiving what are of God? Or who will doubt to pronounce that very delict of Adam heresy, because he admitted it by choosing his own rather than the divine sentence? Except that Adam never said to his potter: You did not form me wisely. He confessed the seduction; he did not hide the seductress. He was a still raw heretic: he did not obey, yet he did not blaspheme the Creator nor blame the author whom from his beginning he had found both good and best.
Latin
at nunc negotium patitur deus omnipotens, dominus et conditor uniuersitatis. ideo tantum, opinor, quia a primordio notus est, quia numquam latuit, quia semper inluxit, etiam ante Romulum ipsum, nedum ante Tiberium; nisi quod solis haereticis cognitus non est, qui ei negotium faciunt, propterea alium deum existimantes praesumendum, quia quem constat esse reprehendere magis possunt quam negare, de arbitrio sensus sui pensitantes deum, proinde atque si caecus aliqui uel fluitantibus oculis ideo alium solem praesumere uelit mitiorem et salubriorem, quia quem uideat non uidet. unicus sol est. o homo, qui mundum hunc temperat: et quando non putas, optimus et utilis, et cum tibi acrior et infestior uel etiam sordidior atque corruptior, rationi tamen suae par est. eam si tu perspicere non uales, iam nec ullius alterius solis, si qui fuisset, radios sustinere potuisses, utique maioris. nam qui (in) inferiorem deum caecutis, quid in sublimiorem? quin potius\' infirmitati tuae parcis nec in periculum extenderis, habens deum certum et indubitatum et hoc ipso satis uisum, cum id primum conspexeris, eum esse, quem non scias nisi ex parte. qua uoluit ipse? sed deum quidem ut sciens non negas, ut nesciens retractas, immo et accusas quasi sciens, quem si scires, non accusares, immo nec retractares. reddens nomen illi negas substantiam nominis, id est magnitudinem, [quae deus dicitur] non tantam eam agnoscens. quantam si homo omnifariam nosse potuisset, magnitudo non esset. ipse (Esaias.) iam [apostolus tunc prospiciens haeretica corda: quis, inquit, cognouit sensum domini, aut quis illi consiliarius fuit? aut ad quem consultauit, aut uiam intellectus et scientiae quis demonstrauit ei? cui et apostolus condicet: o profundum diuitiarum etsophiae dei, ut (in)inuestigabilia iudicia eius, utique dei iudicis, et (in)inuestigabiles uiae eius, utique intellectus et scientiae, quas ei nemo monstrauit, nisi forte isti censores diuinitatis, dicentes: \'sic non debuit deus\' et: (sic magis debuit), quasi cognoscat aliquis, quae sint in deo, nisi spiritus dei. mundi autem habentes spiritum, non agnoscentes in sapientia dei per sapientiam deum, consultiores sibimet uidentur deo, quoniam sicut sapientia mundi stultitia est penes deum, ita et sapientia dei stultitia est penes mundum. sed nos scimus stultum dei sapientius hominibus et inualidum dei ualidius hominibus. et ita deus tunc maxime magnus, cum homini pusillus, et tunc maxime optimus, cum homini non bonus, et tunc maxime unus, cum homini duo aut plures. quodsi a primordio homo animalis, non recipiens quae sunt spiritus, stultitiam existimauit dei legem, ut quam obseruare neglexit, ideoque non habendo fidem etiam quod uidebatur habere ademptum est illi, paradisi gratia et familiaritas dei, per quam omnia dei cognouisset si oboedisset, quid mirum, si, redhibitus materiae suae et in ergastulum terrae laborandae relegatus in ipso opere prono et deuexo ad terram, usurpatum ex illa spiritum mundi uniuerso generi suo tradidit, dumtaxat animali et haeretico, non recipienti quae sunt dei? aut quis dubitabit ipsum illud Adae delictum haeresin pronuntiare, quod per electionem suae potius quam diuinae sententiae admisit? nisi quod Adam numquam figulo suo dixit: non prudenter definxisti me. confessus est seductionem, non occultauit seductricem. rudis admodum haereticus fuit. non): obaudiit, non tamen blasphemauit creatorem nec reprehendit auctorem, quem a primordio sui et bonum et optimum inuenerat et ipse, si forte, iudicem fecerat. [a primordio.\'