Tertullian: Against Marcion, Books I–V

Chapter III.—God Known by His Works. His Goodness Shown in His Creative Energy; But Everlasting in Its Nature; Inherent in God, Previous to All Exhibition of It. The First Stage of This Goodness Prior to Man.

It will therefore be right for us, as we enter on the examination of the known God, when the question arises, in what condition He is known to us, to begin with His works, which are prior to man; so that His goodness, being discovered immediately along with Himself, and then constituted and prescriptively settled, may suggest to us some sense whereby we may understand how the subsequent order of things came about. The disciples of Marcion, moreover, may possibly be able, while recognising the goodness of our God, to learn how worthy it is likewise of the Divine Being, on those very grounds whereby we have proved it to be unworthy in the case of their god.

Now this very point, ^{Edition note 1} which is a material one in their scheme, ^{Edition note 2} Marcion did not find in any other god, but eliminated it for himself out of his own god. The first goodness, then, ^{Edition note 3} was that of the Creator, whereby God was unwilling to remain hidden for ever; in other words, (unwilling) that there should not be a something by which God should become known. For what, indeed, is so good as the knowledge and fruition ^{Edition note 4} of God?

Now, although it did not transpires that this was good, because as yet there existed nothing to which it could transpire, ^{Edition note 5} yet God foreknew what good would eventually transpire, and therefore He set Himself about developing ^{Edition note 6} His own perfect goodness, for the accomplishment of the good which was to transpire; not, indeed, a sudden goodness issuing in some accidental boon ^{Edition note 7} or in some excited impulse, ^{Edition note 8} such as must be dated simply from the moment when it began to operate.

For if it did itself produce its own beginning when it began to operate, it had not, in fact, a beginning itself when it acted. When, however, an initial act had been once done by it, the scheme of temporal seasons began, for distinguishing and noting which, the stars and luminaries of heaven were arranged in their order. “Let them be,” says God, “for seasons, and for days, and years.” ^{Edition note 9} Previous, then, to this temporal course, (the goodness) which created time had not time; nor before that beginning which the same goodness originated, had it a beginning.

Being therefore without all order of a beginning, and all mode of time, it will be reckoned to possess an age, measureless in extent ^{Edition note 10} and endless in duration; ^{Edition note 11} nor will it be possible to regard it as a sudden or adventitious or impulsive emotion, because it has nothing to occasion such an estimate of itself; in other words, no sort of temporal sequence. It must therefore be accounted an eternal attribute, inbred in God, ^{Edition note 12} and everlasting, ^{Edition note 13} and on this account worthy of the Divine Being, putting to shame for ever ^{Edition note 14} the benevolence of Marcion’s god, subsequent as he is to (I will not say) all beginnings and times, but to the very malignity of the Creator, if indeed malignity could possibly have been found in goodness.