Tertullian — Against Marcion 5.12
For these things, going back to console the fear of death and the sadness of dissolution itself, he is clear also through what follows, when he adds that we groan from this tent of an earthly body, longing to put on over it what is from heaven: since even stripped we will not be found naked — that is: we will receive what we were stripped of, that is the body — and again: for we who are in this tent of the body groan, being burdened, not willing to be stripped but to be clothed over. For here he expressed what he touched in the first letter: and the dead will rise incorrupt — who have already died — and we will be changed, who will have been caught in the flesh by God here. For those too will rise incorrupt, having received the body of course and indeed whole, so that from this they are incorrupt, and these, because of the last moment of time already and because of the deserts of antichrist’s harassings a shortcut of death, but changed, will follow, clothed over with what is from heaven rather than stripped of the body. So if these put that heavenly thing on over the body, of course the dead too will receive the body, over which they also put on incorruption from heaven, because he also says of them: This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal immortality. Those put on when they have received the body; these put on over, because they have not lost the body, and therefore he did not say rashly: not willing to be stripped of the body but clothed over — that is, not willing to experience death but to be anticipated by life, so that this mortal may be swallowed by life while it is snatched from death by the over-clothing of change. Therefore, because he showed this is better, lest we be saddened by death’s possible anticipation, he also says we have the Spirit’s earnest from God, as if pledged into the same hope of over-clothing, and are away from the Lord as long as we are in the flesh, and for that reason ought to count it good rather to be away from the body and be with the Lord, so that we may also receive death gladly. And so he says all of us must be shown before Christ’s tribunal, so that each may receive what he did through the body, whether good or evil. For if then is the repayment of deserts, how can some already be counted with the Lord? And by naming a tribunal and a sorting of good and evil work he showed a judge of either sentence and confirmed a bodily presentation of all. For what was done by the body will not be able to be judged except by the body. For God is unjust if someone is not punished or helped through that by which he worked.
If therefore there is any new condition in Christ, the old things have passed; behold, all things have been made new: Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled. If he also commands that we cleanse ourselves from the defilement of flesh and blood, it is not that the substance is barred from taking God’s kingdom. If he also destines a holy virgin church to be assigned to Christ, of course as a bride to a bridegroom, an image cannot be joined to an enemy of the thing’s truth. If he also calls false apostles deceitful workers, transformers of himself — of course by hypocrisy — he taxes them as guilty of adulterated way of life, not of adulterated preaching. So far the quarrel was about discipline, not about divinity.
If Satan is transformed into an angel of light, this cannot be aimed at the Creator. For God, not an angel, the Creator would have been said to transform himself into a god of light, not into an angel — if he were not signifying that Satan whom both we and Marcion know as an angel. About paradise he has his own style for every question he suffers. Here I will perhaps wonder at this: if a god of no earthly arrangement could have a paradise of his own — unless he also used the Creator’s paradise by begging, as also the world. And yet to take a man up to heaven is the Creator’s example in Elijah. But I will wonder more that the best god, foreign to striking and raging, applied not even his own but the Creator’s angel of Satan to his apostle for buffetings and, asked by him three times, did not grant it. So Marcion’s god also corrects according to the Creator, rivaling the lofty and putting dynasts down from the throne.
Latin
haec enim ad mortis metum et ad ipsius dissolutionis contristationem consolandam retractans etiam per sequentia manifestus, cum subicit ingemere nos de isto tabernaculo corporis terreni. quod de caelo est superinduere cupientes: siquidem et despoliati non inueniemur nudi — id est: recipiemus quod despoliati sumus, id est corpus, et rursus: etenim qui sumus in isto tabernaculo corporis in gemimus, quod grauemur no lentes exui, sed superindui. hic enim expressit quod in prima epistola strinxit: et mortui resurgent incorrupti, qui iam obierunt, et nos mutabimur, qui in carne fuerint reprehensi a deo hic. et illi enim resurgent incorrupti, recepto scilicet corpore et quidem integro, ut ex hoc sint incorrupti, et hi propter temporis ultimum iam momentum et propter merita uexationum antichristi compendium mortis, sed mutati, consequentur, superinduti magis quod de caelo est quam exuti corpus. ita si hi super corpus induent caeleste illud, utique et mortui recipient corpus, super quod et ipsi induant incorruptelam de caelo, quia et de illis ait: necesse est corruptiuum istud induere incorruptelam et mortale istud inmortalitatem. illi induunt, cum receperint corpus, isti superinduunt, quia non amiserint corpus, et ideo (non) temere dixit: nolentes exui corpore, sed superindui, id est nolentes mortem experiri, sed uita praeueniri, uti deuoretur mortale hoc a uita, dum eripitur morti per superindumentum demutationis. ideo quia ostendit hoc melius esse, ne contristemur mortis, si forte, praeuentu, et arrabonem nos spiritus dicit a deo habere, quasi pigneratos in eandem spem superindumenti, et abesse a domino, quamdiu in carne sumus, ac propterea debere boni ducere abesse potius a corpore et esse cum domino, ut et mortem libenter excipiamus. atque adeo omnes ait nos oportere manifestari ante tribunal Christi, ut recipiat unusquisque quae per corpus admisit siue bonum siue malum. si enim tunc retributio meritorum, quomodo iam aliqui cum domino poterunt deputari? et tribunal autem nominando et dispunctionem boni ac mali operis utriusque sententiae iudicem ostendit et corporalem omnium repraesentationem confirmauit. non enim poterit quod corpore admissum est non corpore iudicari. iniquus enim deus. si non per id punitur quis aut iuuatur, per quod operatus est
Si qua ergo conditio noua in Christo, uetera transierunt, ecce noua facta sunt omnia: impleta est Esaiae prophetia. si etiam iubet, ut mundemus nos ab inquinamento carnis et sanguinis, non substantiam *** capere regnum dei. si et uirginem sanctam destinat ecclesiam adsignare Christo, utique ut sponsam sponso, non potest imago coniungi inimico ueritatis rei ipsius. si et pseudoapostolos dicit operarios dolosos transfiguratores sui, per hypocrisin scilicet, conuersationis, non praedicationis adulteratae reos taxat. adeo de disciplina, non de diuinitate dissidebatur.
si satanas transfiguratur in angelum lucis, non potest hoc dirigi in creatorem. deus enim, non angelus, creator in deum lucis. non in angelum, transfigurare se dictus esset. si non eum satanam significaret, quem et nos et Marcion angelum nouimus. (De paradiso suus stilus est ad omnem quam patitur quaestionem. hic illud forte mirabor, si proprium potuit habere paradisum deus nullius terrenae dispositionis; nisi si etiam paradiso creatoris precario usus est, sicut et mundo. et tamen hominem tollere ad caelum creatoris exemplum est in Helia. magis uero mirabor deum optimum, percutiendi et saeuiendi alienum, nec proprium saltem, sed creatoris angelum satanae colaphizando apostolo suo adplicuisse et ter ab eo obsecratum non concessisse. emendat igitur et deus Marcionis secundum creatorem, elatos aemulantem et deponentem scilicet de solio dynastas.