Tertullian, Against Marcion 1.19
‘Nay,’ say the Marcionites, ‘our god, though not from the beginning, though not through the creation, yet revealed himself through himself in Christ Jesus.’ There will be a book also on Christ for his whole status—subjects must be distinguished so they may be treated more fully and orderly—; for the present grade it will be enough to meet them so as to show Christ a carrier of the laws of no other god than the Creator, and that in a few words.
In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Christ Jesus deigned to flow down from heaven—Marcion’s saving spirit. In what year of Antoninus the Greater the dog-star blast exhaled from his Pontus I have not cared to investigate; yet it is settled he is an Antoninian heretic, under Pius impious. From Tiberius to Antoninus there are about a hundred and fifteen and a half years with half a month—so much time they set between Christ and Marcion.
Since therefore under Antoninus Marcion first introduced this god, as we have proved, at once, if you have sense, the matter is plain: the times prejudge that what first proceeded under Antoninus did not proceed under Tiberius—that is, that a god of Antoninus’s empire was not of Tiberius’s—and so was not revealed by Christ whom Marcion is agreed to have first preached.
What remains I will take from the adversaries themselves. Separation of law and gospel is Marcion’s own and principal work, nor can his disciples deny what they hold in their chief instrument, by which finally they are initiated and hardened into this heresy—for these are Marcion’s Antitheses, contrary oppositions that try to set the gospel at discord with the law so as to argue also diversity of gods from diversity of sentences of each instrument.
Therefore since that very separation of law and gospel is what introduced another god of the gospel against the god of the law, it appears that before that separation the god was not in knowledge who became known from the argument of separation—and so was not revealed by Christ who was before the separation, but fabricated by Marcion who instituted the separation against the peace of gospel and law which that reason had kept unhurt and unshaken from Christ’s appearing until Marcion’s audacity, which guarded no other god of both law and gospel except the Creator, against whom so long afterward a separation was launched from the Pontic.
Latin
\'Immo\', inquiunt Marcionitae, \'deus noster, etsi non ah initio, etsi non per conditionem, sed per sometipsum reuelatus est in Christo Iesu? dabitur et in Christum liber de omni statu eius — distingui enim materias oportet, quo plenius et ordi natius retractentur —: interim satis erit ad praesentem gradum ita occurrere, ut ostendam Christum legum non alterius dei circumlatorem quam creatoris, et quidem paucis. anno quinto . decimo Tiberii Christus Iesus de caelo manare dignatus est. spiritus salutaris Marcionis. [salutis] qui ita uoluit quoto quidem anno Antonini maioris de Ponto suo exhalauerit aura canicularis, non curaui inuestigare. de quo tamen constat. Antoninianus haereticus est, sub Pio impius. a Tiberio autem usque ad Antoninum anni fere centum quindecim et dimidium anni cum dimidio mensis. tantundem temporis ponunt inter Christum et Marcionem. cum igitur sub Antonino primus: Marcion hunc deum induxerit, sicut probauimus, statim. qui sapis, plana res est: praeiudicant tempora quod sub Antonino primum processit sub Tiberio non processisse, id est deum Antoniniani imperii Tiberiani non fuisse, atque ita non a Christo reuelatum quem constat a Marcione primo praedicatum. hoc nunc ut probem constare. quod superest ab ipsis aduersariis sumam. separatio legis et euangelii proprium et principale opus est Marcionis, nec poterant negare discipuli eius quod in summo instrumento habent, quo denique initiantur et indurantur in hanc haeresim. nam hae sunt \'Antithesis\' Marcionis, id est contrariae oppositiones. quae conantur discordiam euangelii cum lege committere. ut ex diuersitate sententiarum utriusque instrumenti diuersitatem quoque argumententur deorum. igitur cum ea separatio legis et euangelii ipsa sit, quae alium deum euangelii insinuauerit aduersus deum legis, apparet ante eam separationem deum in notitia non fuisse, qui ab argumento separationis innotuit, atque ita non a Christo reuelatum qui fuit ante separationem, sed a Marcione commentatum, qui instituit separationem aduersus euangelii legisque pacem, quam retro inlaesam et inconcussam ab apparentia Christi usque ad audaciam Marcionis illa utique ratio seruauit, quae non alium deum et legis et euangelii tuebatur praeter creatorem, aduersus quem tanto post tempore separatio a Pontico inmissa est.