Tertullian, Against Marcion 8

Christ is the head of the man. But who is Christ? Is He not the author of the man? 'Head' implies authority, and authority belongs to no one but the author. So of which man is He the head? Certainly the one Paul goes on to discuss: the man ought not to be veiled, because he is the image of God. If he is the image of the Creator — who, looking at His own Word about to make man, said, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness' (Gen 1:26) — how can I have any other head than the One whose image I am? When I am the Creator's image, there is no room in me for another head. But then why must the woman have a symbol of authority on her head? If it is because she was made from the man and for the man according to the Creator's institution, then the Apostle also enforced His discipline, deriving the reasons for that discipline from His institution. Paul adds: 'because of the angels.' Which angels? That is, whose angels? If they are the apostate angels of the Creator, then rightly so, so that the face which scandalized them might bear a mark of humility and the veiling of beauty. But if they belong to another God, what is there to fear, when not even the Marcionites themselves desire women? We have often shown that the Apostle ranks heresies among evils as an evil, and that those who flee heresies as an evil are to be approved. Accordingly, we have already proven in the Gospel the truth of the Lord's body and blood in the sacrament of bread and cup against Marcion's phantom, and also that every mention of judgment belongs to the Creator as the judging God — a point treated almost throughout the whole work. Now concerning spiritual gifts. I say these things, too, which were promised in Christ by the Creator, under that rule — most just, I think — that no one's manifestation is to be believed except His whose promise has been proven. Isaiah declared: 'A shoot will spring from the stump of Jesse, a branch from his roots will bear fruit, and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him — the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord' (Isa 11:1-2). He then lists the Spirit's species: wisdom, intelligence, counsel, strength, knowledge, piety, and the Spirit of the fear of God filling Him. Isaiah portrays Christ as the flower rising from the shoot that comes from the root of Jesse — that is, from the virgin of David's line, Jesse's son — in whom Christ was to possess the whole substance of the Spirit, not as something added later to One who was always the Spirit of God even before the flesh. Otherwise you might argue the prophecy refers to a Christ who, as mere man from David's stock, would only later receive the Spirit of His God. Rather, from the moment He blossomed in the flesh taken from David's line, every operation of spiritual grace was to rest in Him, be dispensed, and reach its completion as far as the Jews were concerned — just as the facts prove: from that time on, nothing breathed the Creator's Spirit among them, once the wise architect, prudent counselor, and prophet had been taken from Judea, so that 'the Law and the Prophets were until John.' Now see how He also foretold the charisms that would come after Christ was received into heaven: 'He ascended on high,' that is, into heaven; 'He led captivity captive,' that is, death or human bondage; 'He gave gifts to the sons of men' — the gifts we call charisms. He says 'sons of men' elegantly, not 'men' indiscriminately, pointing us to the true sons of men, the Apostles. For in the Gospel He says: 'I have begotten you,' and 'My sons, whom I am begetting again.' And already now that promise of the Spirit is fulfilled, spoken through Joel: 'In the last days I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters will prophesy, and on My servants and handmaids I will pour out My Spirit' (Joel 2:28-29). And certainly, if the Creator promised the grace of His Spirit for the last days, but Christ, the dispenser of spiritual things, appeared in the last days — as the Apostle says: 'When the time had fully come, God sent His Son,' and again: 'The time is already gathered up' — it follows that this grace of the Spirit belongs to Christ the Preacher, in the preaching of the last times. Finally, compare the Apostle's list with Isaiah's. Paul says: 'To one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom' — and immediately Isaiah sets the Spirit of wisdom; 'to another a word of knowledge' — here is the Spirit of intelligence and counsel; 'to another faith by the same Spirit' — here is the Spirit of piety and fear of God; 'to another gifts of healing, to another workings of miracles' — here is the Spirit of strength; 'to another prophecy, to another distinguishing of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues' — here is the Spirit of knowledge. See the Apostle conspiring with the prophet both in distributing the one Spirit and in specifying the gifts. I can say: the same One who adapted the unity of diverse charisms to the many members of our body shows Himself Lord of both the human body and the Holy Spirit — who did not want the merits of charisms to reside in the Spirit, any more than He placed them in the human body, and who also taught the Apostle to prefer love above all charisms by the principal commandment that Christ Himself endorsed: 'You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your soul, and your neighbor as yourself.' And when Paul recalls something written in the Law — that the Creator would speak in other tongues and through other lips — he confirms the charism of tongues by that very recollection; nor can the Creator's charism appear alien here, confirmed as it is by the preaching. Likewise, prescribing silence for women in the church, lest they speak merely for the sake of learning — though He has already shown they also have the right to prophesy, when He requires a veil on a prophesying woman — He takes the authority for the woman's subjection from the Law, which, as I have said once, he ought not to have known except to destroy it. But now that we turn from spiritual things, the facts themselves must prove which of us rashly claims his God, and whether this can be opposed to our side. If the Creator promised in His Christ, not yet revealed, destined only for the Jews, that He would have His operations in His Christ and His people in His time, then let Marcion produce the gifts of his god: some prophets who spoke not from human sense but from God's Spirit, who foretold the future and exposed the heart's secrets; let him produce a psalm, a vision, a spiritual prayer — at least in ecstasy, that is, madness — if any interpretation of tongues has been added; let him also prove that a woman has prophesied among his people, from those holier women of his. I say: if all these things are more easily produced by me and certainly align with the Creator's rules, dispositions, and disciplines, then without doubt the Christ, the Spirit, and the Apostle belong to my God. Anyone who wishes may demand my profession.