Tertullian, Against Marcion 3.4
He disdained, I suppose, to imitate our God’s order as of one displeasing, as of one especially to be refuted; as new he wanted to come newly—a son before the father’s profession and sent before the sender’s authority—so as to introduce even a most monstrous faith whereby Christ would be believed to have come before it was known he had been.
It also suits me to review why he did not come after Christ: when I look at his god so long most patient of the bitterest Creator, meanwhile announcing his Christ among humans, by whatever reason he deferred both his revelation and intervention, by the same reason I say he owed patience to the Creator also in the Creator’s Christ about to execute his dispositions—so that when every operation of the rival god and rival Christ was finished he himself might then superinduce his own.
Otherwise if repentance of such patience made him not persevere to the Creator’s end of things, he vainly endured the Creator’s Christ to be preached whom he did not endure to be exhibited; either without cause he cut into another’s time’s course or without cause so long did not cut it—what held him, what disturbed him?
Indeed he offended both ways: revealed so late after the Creator, yet so hastily before the Creator’s Christ; he ought long ago to have exposed the one and not yet the other—lest he so long endure the one raging and disturb the other still quiet—failing around both the title of best god, at any rate himself variable and uncertain: lukewarm toward the Creator and hot toward Christ and vain in both.
For he no more checked the Creator than he blocked Christ; the Creator remains as he wholly is; Christ will come as he is also written; why come after the Creator whom he could not amend? why revealed before the Creator’s Christ whom he could not call back? If he amended the Creator by being revealed after him so that things to be amended would precede, then as future equal amendator of Christ he ought also to have waited for him—or else he will come again after him: first against the Creator destroying law and prophets, second against Christ refuting his kingdom—only then perhaps to be believed; or if his matter is already complete here, he will vainly come with nothing to finish.
Latin
Dedignatus, opinor, est imitari ordinem dei nostri. ut displicentis, ut cum maxime reuincendi. nouus noue uenire uoluit, filius ante patris professionem et missus ante mandatoris auctoritatem, ut et ipsam fidem monstruosissimam induceret, qua ante crederetur Christum uenisse quam sciretur fuisse. competit mihi etiam illud retractare, cur non post Christum uenerit. nam cum intueor deum eius tanto aeuo patientissimum acerbissimi creatoris, adnuntiantis interea in homines Christum suum, quacumque id ratione fecit, tam reuelationem quam intercessionem suam differens, eadem ratione dico illum patientiam debuisse creatori in Christo quoque suo dispositiones suas executuro, ut perfecta et expleta omni operatione aemuli dei et aemuli Christi tunc et ipse proprias dispositiones superduceret. ceterum (si) paenitentia tantae patientiae fecit, quod non in finem rerum creatoris perseuerauerit. uane sustinuit praedicari Christum eius, quem non sustinuit exhiberi. aut sine causa intercidit temporis alieni decursum aut sine causa tam diu non intercidit. quid illum detinuit, quidue turbauit? atquin in utrumque commisit, post creatorem quidem tam tarde reuelatus, ante Christum uero eius tam propere. alterum [uero] iam dudum debuerat traduxisse alterum nondum, ne illum quidem tam diu saeuientem sustinuisset, istum uero adhuc quiescentem inquietasset, circa ambos excidens ab optimi dei titulo, certe uarius et ipse et incertus, tepidus scilicet in creatorem et calidus in Christum et uanus utrobique. non magis enim compescuit creatorem quam obstitit Christo. manet et creator, qualis omnino est; ueniet et Christus, qualis et scribitur. quid uenit post creatorem, quem emendare non ualuit? quid ante Christum eius reuelatus est, quem reuocare non potuerit? aut si emendauit creatorem, post illum reuelatus, ut emendanda praecederent, ergo et Christum eius aeque emendaturus expectasse debuerat, proinde et illius posterior emendator futurus sicut creatoris. aliud est, si et ipse post illum rursus adueniet, ut primo quidem aduentu processerit aduersus creatorem, legem et prophetas destruens eius, secundo uero procedat aduersus Christum, regnum redarguens eius. tunc ergo conclusurus ordinem suum, tunc, si forte, credendus est. aut si iam hinc perfecta res est eius, uane ergo uenturus est, nihil scilicet peracturus.