Book
II.
Wherein Tertullian shows that the
creator, or demiurge, whom Marcion calumniated, is the true and good
God.
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Chapter I.—The Methods of
Marcion’s Argument Incorrect and Absurd. The Proper Course
of the Argument.
occasion of
reproducing this little work, the fortunes of which we noticed in the
preface of our first book, has furnished us with the opportunity of
distinguishing, in our treatment of the subject of two Gods in
opposition to Marcion, each of them with a description and section of
his own, according to the division of the subject-matter, defining one
of the gods to have no existence at all, and maintaining of the Other
that He is rightly God; thus far
keeping pace with the heretic of Pontus, who has been pleased to admit
one unto, and exclude the other. For he could
not build up his mendacious scheme without pulling down the system of
truth. He found it necessary to demolish
some other thing, in order to build up the theory which he wished. This
process, however, is like constructing a house without preparing
suitable materials. The discussion
ought to have been directed to this point alone, that he is no god who
supersedes the Creator. Then, when the false god had been excluded by
certain rules which prescriptively settle what is the character of the
One only perfect Divinity, there could have remained no longer any
question as to the true God. The proof of His existence would have been
clear, and that, too, amid the failure of all evidence in support of
any other god; and still clearer would have
seemed the point as to the honour in which He ought without controversy
to be held: that He ought to be worshipped rather than judged; served
reverentially rather than handled critically, or even dreaded for His
severity. For what was more fully needed by man than a careful
estimate of the true God, on
whom, so to speak, he had alighted, because there
was no other god?