Tertullian — Against Marcion 3.22
You have also the apostles’ work preached: How timely the feet of those evangelizing peace, evangelizing good things—not war nor evils. A psalm also answers: Into all the earth their sound went out and into the ends of the earth their voices—of those of course carrying around the law that went forth from Zion and the Lord’s word from Jerusalem, that what is written might happen: And those far from my justice drew near to my justice and truth.
When the apostles were girding for this business, did they renounce the elders and rulers and priests of the Jews or not? Especially, you say, as preachers of another god. Yet rather of that very same whose Scripture they were then most filling: Turn aside, turn aside, Isaiah cries, go out from there and touch no unclean—blasphemy against Christ of course—go out from her midst—of the synagogue of course—be separated, you who carry the Lord’s vessels. For already according to what was written above the Lord had revealed his holy arm—that is Christ by his power—before the nations, that all nations might see and the ends of the earth the salvation that was from God.
So also, turning aside from Judaism itself when they exchanged the law’s bonds and burdens for gospel liberty already, they were executing the psalm: Let us break their chains and cast their yoke from us—certainly after nations had raged and peoples devised empty things; kings of the earth stood by and princes gathered as one against the Lord and against his Christ.
What then did the apostles suffer? Every iniquity of persecutions, you say, from the Creator’s humans of course as adversaries of him whom they preached. And how does the Creator, if he was Christ’s adversary, not only preach that his apostles would suffer this but also reproach it? For he would neither preach another god’s order whom he did not know, as you wish, nor have reproached what he himself had caused: See how the just perishes… From the person of injustice the just was removed. Who unless Christ?
Sending ahead and joining likewise that Christ suffered, equally his just will suffer the same—apostles and thereafter all faithful—he prophesied, sealed with that mark of which Ezekiel: Pass through the midst of Jerusalem and give a Tau sign on the men’s foreheads—that Greek Tau / our T, the cross’s shape, which he was portending as future on our foreheads at the true catholic Jerusalem, where Christ’s brothers, God’s sons, would return glory to God as Psalm 21 sings. And Micah: From the sun’s rising to its setting my name is glorified among nations and in every place a clean sacrifice is offered to my name—glory’s return and blessing and praise and hymns. All which when they are caught in you too—seal of foreheads and churches’ sacraments and sacrifices’ cleanness—you ought already to burst out and say the Creator’s Spirit prophesied to your Christ.
Latin
Habes et apostolorum opus praedicatum: quam tempestiui pedes euangelizantium pacem, euangelizantium bona, non bellum nec mala. respondet et psalmus: in omnem terram exiuit sonus eorum et in terminos terrae uoces eorum, circumferentium scilicet legem ex Sion profectam et sermonem domini ex Hierusalem, ut fieret quod scriptum est: quique long\'e a iustitia mea. adpropinquauerunt iustitiae meae et ueritati. cum huic negotio accingerentur apostoli, renuntiauerunt presbyteris et archontis et sacerdotibus Iudaeorum, an non? uel maxime. inquit, ut alterius dei praedicatores. atquin ipsius eiusdem. cuius scripturam cum maxime implebant: diuertite, diuertite, inclamat Esaias, excedite illinc et inmundum ne attigeritis, — blasphemiam scilicet in Christum — excedite de medio eius, - utique synagogae — separamini, qui dominica uasa portatis. iam enim secundum supra scripta reuelauerat dominus brachio suo sanctum, id est uirtute sua Charistum, coram nationibus, ut uiderent uniuersae nationes et summa terrae salutem. quae erat a deo. sic et ab ipso Iudaismo diuertentes, cum legis obligamenta et onera euangelica iam libertate mutarent, psalmum exequebantur: disrumpamus uincula eorum et abiciamus a nobis iugum eorum, postea certe quam tumultuatae sunt gentes et populi meditati sunt inania; adstiterunt reges terrae et principes congregati sunt in unum aduersus dominum et aduersus Christum eius. quae dehinc passi sunt apostoli? omnem, inquis. iniquitatem persecutionum, ab hominibus scilicet creatoris, ut aduersarii eius, quem praedicabant. et qui creator, si aduersarius erat Christi, non modo praedicat hoc passuros apostolos eius uerum et exprobrat? nam neque praedicaret alterius dei ordinem, quem ignorabat, ut uultis, neque exprobrasset quod ipse curasset: uidete, quomodo perit iustus, nec quisquam excipit corde, et uiri iusti auferuntur, nec quisquam animaduertit; a persona enim (in)iustitiae sublatus est iustus. quis, nisi Christus? uenite, inquiunt, auferamus iustum, quia inutilis est nobis. praemittens itaque et subiungens proinde passum etiam Christum, aeque iustos eius eadem passuros, tam apostolos quam et deinceps omnes fideles, prophetauit, signatos illa nota scilicet, de qua Ezechiel: dicit dominus ad me: pertransi medio portae in media Hierusalem et da signum Tau in frontibus uirorum. ipsa est enim littera Graecorum Tau, nostra autem T, species crucis, quam portendebat futuram in frontibus nostris apud ueram et catholicam Hierusalem, in qua fratres Christi, filios scilicet dei, gloriam fore deo relaturos psalmus uicesimus primus canit ex persona ipsius Christi ad patrem: enarrabo nomen tuum fratribus meis, in medio ecclesiae hymnum tibi dicam, — quod enim in nomine et spiritu ipsius hodie fieri habebat, merito a se futurum praedicabat — et paulo infra: ate laus mihi in ecclesia magna in sexagesimo septimo: in ecclesiis benedicite domi. num deum, ut pariter concurreret et Micheae prophetia: non est uoluntas mea, dicit dominus, et sacrificia uestra non excipiam; quoniam ab ortu solis usque in occasum nomen meum glorificatum est nationibus et in omni loco sacrificium nomini meo offertur, et sacrificium mundum, gloriae scilicet relatio et benedictio et laus et hymni. quae omnia cum in te quoque deprehendantur, et signaculum frontium et ecclesiarum sacramenta et munditiae sacrificiorum, debes iam erumpere, uti dicas spiritum creatoris tuo Christo prophetasse.