Tertullian — Against Marcion 1.4
But anyone will argue that even two supreme greats can stand, distinct and disjoined in their own bounds, and will of course summon the example of the kingdoms of the earth—so many in number and yet supreme greats in their several regions—and will think human things everywhere to be conferred with divine. Already then if place is given to this argumentation, what prevents introducing not only a third and fourth god but as many in number as there are kings of the nations? The matter is about God, whose property this principally is: to take comparison of no example. Nature itself—if not some Isaiah, or God himself through Isaiah—will proclaim: To whom will you liken me? Human things perhaps will be compared with divine; with God not so. For God is one thing, the things of God another.
Finally you who use a king’s example as if of a supreme great—see that you may already not be able to use it. For the thing, even if it is a supreme great on its own throne up to God, is yet below God; but compared to God it will already fall from the supreme great, transferred into God. If this is so, how do you use the example of that thing for comparison with God which, while it approaches comparison, is lost? What now, if even among kings the supreme great cannot appear multifarious, but unique and singular—namely with him who is received as king of kings because of the summit of greatness and the subjection of the other ranks as the peak of domination?
But even kings of another form who preside singularly in union of empire similarly over, so to speak, minced kingdoms—if they are everywhere conferred into examination by which it may stand who of them excels in the substances and forces of the kingdom—necessarily the summit of greatness will be clarified into one, all having been gradually expressed and excluded from the supreme of greatness through the outcome of comparison. So even if in dispersion the supreme great seems multifarious, by its own forces and its own nature and its own status it is unique. Accordingly when two gods are conferred as two kings and two supreme greats, necessarily the union of the supreme great must yield into the one from the sentence of comparison, because the summit stands by its victory, the rival other great having been overcome—yet not supreme—and by the rival’s defect possessing a certain solitude from the singularity of its preeminence it is unique. That inescapable embrace constrains the sentence to this: either deny that God is the supreme great—which no wise person will suffer—or communicate it to none other.
Latin
Sed argumentabitur quilibet posse et duo summa magna consistere, distincta atque disiuncta in suis finibus, et utique aduocabit exemplum regna terrarum, tanta numero et tamen summa magna in suis quibusque regionibus, et putabit ubique humana diuinis conferenda. iam ergo si huic argumentationi locus dabitur, quid prohibet, non dico et tertium et quartum deum inducere, uerum tot iam numero quot et gentium reges? de deo agitur, cuius hoc principaliter proprium est, nullius exempli capere comparationem. hoc natura ipsa, si non aliquis Esaias, uel ipse per Esaiam deus, contionabitur: cui mesimilabitis? diuinis forsitan comparabuntur humana, deo non ita. aliud enim deus, aliud quae dei. denique qui exemplo uteris regis quasi summi magni, uide ne iam non possis eo uti. rei enim, etsi summum magnum est in suo solio usque ad deum, tamen infra deum; comparatus autem ad deum excidet iam de summo magno, translato in deum. hoc si ita, quomodo uteris eius rei exemplo ad dei comparationem quae, dum ad comparationem accedit, amittitur? quid nunc, si nec inter reges plurifarium uideri potest summum magnum, sed unicum et singulare, apud eum scilicet, qui rex regum ob summitatem magnitudinis et subiectionem ceterorum graduum quasi culmen dominationis excipitur\'? sed etiam [alterius formae] reges, qui singulares in unione imperii praesunt si(militer) minutalibus, ut ita dixerim, regnis, (si) undique conferantur in examinationem, qua constet, quis eorum praecellat in substantiis et uiribus regni, in unum necesse est summitas magnitudinis eliquetur, omnibus gradatim per comparationis exitum de magnitudinis summa expressis et exclusis. I adeo etsi in disperso multifarium uidetur summum magnum, suis uiribus et sua natura et suo statu unicum est. proinde cum duo dii conferuntur ut duo [reges et duo] summa magna, in alterum concedat necesse est unio summi magni ex sententia comparationis, quia summum uictoria sua constat, superato aemulo alio magno, non tamen summo, atque ex defectione, aemuli solitudinem quandam de singularitate praestantiae suae possidens unicum est. ineluctabilis iste complexus in hoc sententiam constringit: aut negandum deum esse summum magnum, quod nemo patietur sapiens, aut nulli alii communicandum.