Tertullian — Against Marcion 2.28
Now also concerning littlenesses and malignities and the other marks I myself will make rival antitheses against Marcion. If my God did not know there was another above him, yours too altogether did not know there was another below him. For what does that dark Heraclitus say? The same way up and down. Finally if he had not been ignorant, he would also from the beginning have met him. Delict and death and the very author of delict the devil and every evil which my God suffered to be—this also yours, who suffered him to suffer it.
Our God changed his sentences. Accordingly also yours. For he who looked on the human race so late changed that sentence by which for so great an age he did not look on. God was sorry in something. But also yours. For by this, that he at last attended to human salvation, he made repentance of former dissimulation, owed to a bad deed. Further, neglect of human salvation will be counted a bad deed, emended with your god only through repentance.
Our God commanded a fraud—but of gold and silver. Yet by how much a human is costlier than gold and silver, so much more fraudulent is your god, who snatches the human from his lord and maker. Our God demands eye for eye. But yours too, forbidding a return blow, more makes injury repeatable. For who will not strike again when not struck back? Our God did not know what sort he would elect. Therefore neither yours. For he would not have elected Judas the betrayer if he had foreknown.
If you also say the Creator lied somewhere, far greater is the lie in your Christ, whose body was not true. My God’s savagery consumed many. Your god too, those he does not make safe he assuredly arranges for destruction. My God ordered someone to be killed. Yours willed himself to be slain—no less a homicide toward himself than toward him by whom he willed to be killed. But that his God killed many I will prove to Marcion. For he made the people a homicide, assuredly about to perish—unless it sinned nothing against Christ. But the ready force of truth loves few words. Many things will be necessary for a lie.
Latin
Nunc et de pusillitatibus et malignitatibus ceterisque notis et ipse aduersus Marcionem antithesis aemulas faciam. si ignorauit deus meus esse alium super se, etiam tuus omnino non sciit esse alium infra se. quid enim ait Heraclitus ille tenebrosus? eadem uia sursum et deorsum. denique si + non ignorasset, et ab initio ei occurrisset. delictum et mortem et ipsum auctorem delicti diabolum et omne malum, quod deus meus passus est esse, hoc et tuus, qui illum pati passus est. mutauit sententias suas deus noster. proinde quam et uester. qui enim genus humanum tam sero respexit, eam sententiam mutauit, qua tanto aeuo non respexit. paenituit in aliquo deum nostrum. sed et uestrum. eo enim, quod tandem animaduertit ad hominis salutem, paenitentiam dissimulationis pristinae fecit, debitam malo facto. porro malum factum deputabitur neglegentia salutis humanae, non nisi per paenitentiam emendata apud deum uestrum. mandauit fraudem deus noster, sed auri et argenti. quanto autem homo pretiosior auro et argento, tanto fraudulentior deus uester, qui hominem domino et factori suo eripit. oculum pro oculo reposcit deus noster. sed et uester uicem prohibens iterabilem magis iniuriam facit. quis enim non rursus percutiet non repercussus? nesciit deus noster, quales adlegeret. ergo nec uester. ludam (euim) traditorem non adlegisset, si praescisset. si et mentitum alicubi dicis creatorem, longe maius mendacium est in tuo Christo, cuius corpus non fuit uerum. multos saeuitia dei mei absumpsit. tuus quoque deus quos saluos non facit utique in exitium disponit. deus meus aliquem iussit occidi. tuus semetipsum uoluit interfici, non minus homicida in semetipsum quam in eo, a quo uellet occidi. multos autem occidisse deum eius probabo Marcioni. nam fecit homicidam populum, utique periturum, nisi si nihil deliquit in Christum. sed expedita uirtus ueritatis paucis amat. multa mendacio erunt necessaria.