Tertullian — Against Marcion 3.1
According to the tracks of the former work which we persist in reforming though it was lost, already from here the order concerning Christ—though from abundance after the defense of unique divinity has been run through. For it has been sufficiently prejudged that Christ is not to be understood as of another god than the Creator, when it has been determined that another god is not to be believed besides the Creator, whom Christ so preached and thereafter the apostles announced not another’s Christ than of that God whom Christ preached—that is, the Creator—so that no mention of another god and thus neither of another Christ was stirred before Marcion’s scandal.
This is most easily proved by a survey of apostolic and heretical churches—namely that a reversal of the rule is to be pronounced there where posterity is found. Which I also wove into the first booklet. But now too this contest separately about to examine unto Christ will surely profit in this: that while we prove Christ of the Creator, Marcion’s god is also thus excluded. It befits truth to use all its strengths—not as one laboring (otherwise it conquers in the shortcuts of prescriptions)—but as one eager to meet the adversary everywhere, raging so far that he more easily presumed that Christ to have come who was never announced than him who has always been preached.
Latin
Secundum uestigia pristini operis, quod amissum reformare perseueramus, iam hinc ordo de Christo, licet ex abundanti post decursam defensionem unicae diuinitatis. satis etenim praeiudicatum est Christum non alterius dei intellegendum quam creatoris, cum determinatum est alium deum non credendum praeter creatorem, quem adeo Christus praedicauerit et deinceps apostoli non alterius Christum adnuntiauerint quam eius dei, quem Christus praedicauit, id est creatoris, ut nulla mentio alterius dei atque ita nec alterius Christi agitata sit ante scandalum Marcionis. facillime hoc probatur apostolicarum et haereticarum ecclesiarum recensu, illic scilicet pronuntiandam regulae interuersionem, ubi posteritas inuenitur. quod etiam primo libello intexui. sed et nunc congressio ista seorsus in Christum examinatura eo utique proficiet, ut, dum Christum probamus creatoris, sic quoque deus excludatur Marcionis. decet ueritatem totis uiribus uti suis, non ut laborantem, — ceterum in praescriptionum compendiis uincit — sed [decretum est] ut gestientem ubique aduersario occurrere, in tantum furenti, ut facilius praesumpserit eum uenisse Christum, qui numquam sit adnuntiatus, quam eum, qui semper sit prae dicatus.