Tertullian — Against Marcion 3.7

Let the heretic learn — and the Jew too, with whom he may abound — the reason also of that one’s errors, from whom he borrowed lead in this argument, blind from blind, and fell into the same pit. We say two habits of Christ shown by the prophets marked as many advents of his: one in humility, of course the first, when he had to be led like a sheep to the victim and like a lamb before the shearer without voice, so not opening the mouth — not even honest in look. For we announced, he says, about him: like a little child, like a root in thirsty ground. And there is no appearance of him nor glory, and we saw him. And he had no appearance nor beauty, but his appearance was dishonored, failing short of the sons of men — a man in blow and knowing how to bear weakness — set by the Father as a stone of offense and rock of scandal, lessened by him a little under the angels, pronouncing himself a worm and not a man, mankind’s shame and the people’s nullifying.

These proofs of lowliness fit the first advent as those of height fit the second, when he will already be not a stone of offense nor rock of scandal, but the chief corner stone taken up after rejection and raised to the temple’s completion — the church, of course — and that rock in Daniel cut from the mountain, which will smash and crush the image of the world’s kingdoms. Of which advent the same prophet: And behold, coming with the clouds of heaven like a son of man he came to the ancient of days. He was present in his sight, and those standing by brought him. And royal power was given him and all nations of the earth by kinds and all glory in service. And his power forever which will not be taken away, and his kingdom which will not be spoiled.

Then of course he will have an honorable appearance and beauty that does not fail above the sons of men — for timely, he says, in beauty beyond the sons of men, grace is poured on your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever. Gird the sword on your thigh, powerful in your timing and beauty — when the Father also, after he lessened him a little under the angels, will crown him with glory and honor and put all under his feet. Then also those who pierced him will recognize him and beat their breasts tribe by tribe — of course because earlier they did not recognize him in the humility of the human condition: And he is a man, says Jeremiah, and who will know him? Because also: His nativity, Isaiah, who, he says, will tell? So also in Zechariah in Jesus’ person — indeed in the sacrament of the name itself — the Father’s true high priest, Christ Jesus, is outlined in a double habit into two advents: first clothed in filth, that is the unworthiness of passible and mortal flesh, when the devil also opposed him — author of course of Judas the traitor, not to say also tempter after baptism — then stripped of former filths and adorned with robe and mitre and clean turban, that is the glory and honor of the second advent. For if I also interpret the two goats offered on the fast, do not they too figure either order of Christ? Alike and similar for the same look of the Lord, because he will not come in another form, so that he may be recognized by those who hurt him. But one of them, wrapped in scarlet, cursed and spat on and torn and pierced, was cast by the people outside the city into ruin, marked with clear badges of the Lord’s passion; the other, offered for sins and given as food to the temple priests, signed the proofs of the second showing, by which, all sins expiated, the priests of the spiritual temple — that is the church — would enjoy the Lord’s grace as by a kind of feast, while the rest fast from salvation. Therefore since the first advent was sung both much veiled by figures and laid low by every dishonor, but the second both clear and worthy of God, they were not wrongly deceived who, looking only at the one easy to understand and believe — that is the second — missed the more obscure, certainly more unworthy — that is the first. And so to this day they deny their Christ has come, because he did not come in height, while they do not know he was also going to come in humility.