Tertullian — Against Marcion 2.26
But God also swears. Surely not by Marcion’s god? ‘No,’ he says, ‘much more vainly, that by himself.’ What would you want him to do, if another god was not in his conscience—this when he is most of all swearing that another apart from himself is altogether not? Therefore do you catch him perjuring or vainly swearing? But he cannot seem to have perjured who did not know another to be, as you say. For what he knew, this swearing truly, he did not perjure. But neither does he vainly swear that another god is not. For then he would swear vainly, if there had not been those who believed other gods—then indeed worshipers of images, but now also heretics. He therefore swears by himself, so that you may believe even a swearing God that another god is altogether not. That God would do this, you too, Marcion, compelled. For already then you were being foreseen.
Accordingly if he also swears in promises or threats, wrenching hard faith in the beginnings, nothing is unworthy of God which causes belief in God. Enough then too was God ‘little’ even in his very ferocity, when enraged at the people over the calf’s consecration he demands of his servant Moses: Let me alone, and wrathful I will destroy them in anger and make you into a great nation. Whence you are accustomed to affirm Moses better than his God—as intercessor, nay even preventer of wrath. For you will not do this, he says, or else spend me too together with them. You also are to be pitied with the people, who do not recognize Christ, figured in Moses’ person, as the Father’s intercessor and offerer of his own soul for the people’s salvation.
But it is enough if the people was also properly granted to Moses for the present. What as servant he could demand of the Lord, that the Lord demanded of himself. For to this end he said to the servant: Let me alone, and I will destroy them—so that that one, by demanding and offering himself, would not allow it, and so you would learn how much is permitted a faithful one and a prophet with God.
Latin
Sed et iurat deus). numquid forte per deum Marcionis? \'immo>, inquit, multo uanius, quod per semetipsum\'. quid uelles faceret, si alius deus non erat in conscientia eius, hoc cum maxime iurantis alium absque se omnino non esse? igitur peierantem deprehendis an uane deierantem? sed non potest uideri peierasse qui alium esse non sciuit, ut dicitis. quod enim sciit, hoc deierans uere, non peierauit. sed nec uane deierat alium deum non esse. tunc enim uane deieraret, si non fuissent qui alios deos crederent, tunc quidem simulacrorum cultores, nunc uero et haeretici. iurat igitur per semetipsum. ut uel iuranti deo credas alium deum omnino non esse. hoc ut deus faceret, tu quoque, Marcion, coegisti. iam tunc enim prouidebaris. proinde si et in promissionibus aut comminationibus iurat, fidem in primordiis arduam extorquens, nihil deo indignum est, quod efficit deo credere. satis et tunc pusillus deus in ipsa etiam ferocia sua, cum ob uituli consecrationem efferatus in populum de famulo suo postulat Moyse: sine me. et indignatus ira disperdam illos et faciam te in nationem magnam. unde meliorem soletis adfirmare Moysen deo suo, deprecatorem, immo et prohibitorem irae. non facies enim, inquit, istud, aut et me una cum eis impende. miserandi uos quoque cum populo, qui Christum non agnoscitis, in persona Moysi figuratum, patris deprecatorem et oblatorem animae suae pro populi salute. sed sufficit, si et Moysi proprie donatus est populus ad praesens. quod ut famulus postulare posset a domino, id dominus a se postulauit. ad hoc enim famulo dixit: sine me, et disperdam illos, ut ille. postulando et semetipsum offerendo non sineret, atque ita disceres, quantum liceat fideli et prophetae apud deum.