Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
After this, or rather before it, when you claim that he too has his own creation, his own world, his own heaven — as to that third heaven of his, we shall look into it if we get as far as examining your apostle — meanwhile, whatever this substance is, it surely ought to have appeared together with its own god. But as things stand, how is it that the Lord was revealed in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, while his substance, up to the fifteenth year now of the Emperor Severus, has been discovered by no one at all? Something so far surpassing the Creator's trifling handiwork should surely have stopped hiding once its own lord and author had ceased to hide. And so, if it was unable to show itself within this world, by what means did its lord come to appear here? If this world had room enough for the lord, why should it lack room for the substance — unless perhaps the substance is greater than the lord? Now we come to a question of place, one that bears on that higher world and on its very god as well. For look: if he too has his world beneath himself, above the Creator, then he surely made it in some place, a space that lay vacant between his own feet and the head of the Creator. So then, God himself existed in a place, and made his world in a place, and that place will now turn out to be greater than both God and the world; for nothing that contains is not greater than what it contains. And we must watch that there are no further leftover corners there still vacant, into which some third god as well, along with his own world, might yet be packed. So go ahead, start counting up gods. For place itself will turn out to be a god — not merely in that it is greater than God, but also in that it is unborn and unmade, and therefore eternal and equal to God, since God has always existed within it. Then again, if that god too fashioned his world out of some underlying matter, unborn, unmade, and coeval with God — just as Marcion holds about the Creator — you reduce this too to the majesty of place, which encloses both a god and matter, two gods. For matter too is god, according to the very form of divinity, being of course unborn, unmade, and eternal. Or if he fashioned the world out of nothing, he will be forced to hold the same about the Creator, to whom he attributes matter as the substance of the world's substance. But that other god too will have to have made his world from matter, by the same reasoning, since the same difficulty will confront that god as well, which was raised against the Creator, that he is equally a god. And so, count me up for now three gods of Marcion's — the maker, the place, and the matter. Accordingly he also makes the Creator exist in a place, judging him by exactly the same condition, and he assigns to him too a matter that is his own, unborn and unmade and, for that reason, eternal — as befits a lord. And further, attributing evil to matter, unborn to the unborn, unmade to the unmade, and eternal to the eternal, he has now made a fourth god out of this as well. [6] You have, then, in the higher realm three substances of divinity, and in the lower, four. When to these are added their own Christs as well — one who appeared under Tiberius, another whom the Creator has pledged to send — Marcion already stands caught in an open swindle, exposed by the very people who merely accuse him of setting up two gods, when in truth, unbeknownst to himself, he saddles us with nine.
So then, God himself existed in a place, and made his world in a place, and that place will now turn out to be greater than both God and the world. For nothing that contains is not greater than what it contains. And we must watch that there are no further leftover corners there still vacant, into which some third god, along with his own world, might yet be packed. So go ahead, start counting up gods. For place itself will turn out to be a god — not merely in that it is greater than God, but also in that it is unborn and unmade, and therefore eternal and equal to God, since God has always existed within it. Then again, if that god too fashioned his world out of some underlying matter, unborn, unmade, and coeval with God — just as Marcion holds about the Creator — you reduce this too to the majesty of place, which encloses both a god and matter, two gods. For matter too is god, by the very form of divinity, being unborn, unmade, and eternal. Or if he fashioned the world out of nothing, he will be forced to hold the same about the Creator, to whom he attributes matter as the substance of his world. But then that other god too will have to have made his world from matter, by the same logic, which then confronts that god as well with the same objection raised against the Creator — that matter is equally a god. And so, count me up three gods for Marcion so far: the maker, the place, and the matter. Likewise he makes the Creator exist in a place under exactly the same reasoning, and assigns to him too a matter that is unborn and unmade and, for that very reason, eternal — as befits a lord. And further, attributing evil to matter, unborn to the unborn, unmade to the unmade, eternal to the eternal, he has now made a fourth god out of this. So you have, in the higher realm, three substances of divinity, and in the lower, four. When to these are added their own two Christs — one who appeared under Tiberius, another promised by the Creator — Marcion suffers plain exposure as a fraud at the hands of those who claim he introduces merely two gods, when in fact, though he does not know it, he assigns nine. Turn to chapter 16.