Tertullian — Against Marcion 2.15
First, then, inspect the judge’s justice; if its reason stands, then severity and the means through which severity runs will also be credited to reason and justice.
And not to linger in many words: allege the other causes too so as to condemn the sentences; excuse the offenses so as to reject the judgments. Do not blame a judge, but refute a bad judge.
For even if he was exacting fathers’ offenses from sons, the people’s hardness had compelled such remedies, so that looking out at least for their posterity they would obey the divine law. For who does not care more for his children’s safety than for his own?
But if also the fathers’ blessing was destined for their seed too, still without any desert of it yet, why should not the fathers’ guilt also overflow onto sons—so that through the whole race both grace and offense would run?
Saving this, that it was later to be decreed they would not say the fathers ate a sour grape and the children’s teeth are set on edge—each soul bears its own. Severity tracks justice’s reason, not Marcion’s caricature of cruelty.
Latin
Iustitiam ergo primo iudicis dispice; cuius si ratio constiterit, tunc et seueritas et per quae seueritas decurrit rationi et iustitiae reputabuntur. ac ne pluribus inmoremur, adserite causas [ceteras] quoque, ut sententias condemnetis, excusate delicta, ut iudicia reprobetis. nolite reprehendere iudicem, sed reuincite malum iudicem. nam et si patrum delicta de filiis exigebat, duritia populi talia remedia compulerat, ut uel posteritatibus suis prospicientes legi diuinae oboedirent. quis enim non magis filiorum salutem quam suam curet? sed et si benedictio patrum semini quoque eorum destinabatur, sine ullo adhuc merito eius, cur non et reatus patrum in filios quoque redundaret, [sicut gratia, ita et offensa] ut per totum genus et gratia decurreret et offensa? saluo eo, quod postea decerni habebat: non dicturos acidam uuam patres manducasse et filiorum dentes obstipuisse, id est non sumpturum patrem delictum filii nec filium delictum patris, sed unumquemque delicti sui reum futurum, ut post duritiam populi duritia legis edomita iustitia iam non genus, sed personas iudicaret. quamquam si euangelium ueritatis accipias, ad quos pertineat sententia reddentis in filios patrum delicta cognosces, ad illos scilicet, qui hanc ultro sibi sententiam fuerant inrogaturi: sanguis illius super capita nostra et filiorum nostrorum. hoc itaque homini prouidentia dei censuit, quod iam audierat.