…none but Christ could become incarnate by being born of the flesh in order that by His own nativity He might regenerate our birth, and might further by His death also dissolve our death, by rising again in that flesh in which, that He might even die, He was born.
Tertullian
The Five Books Against Marcion, Book III
Chapter IX
God held converse with man, that man might learn to act as God. God dealt on equal terms with man, that man might be able to deal on equal terms with God. God was found little, that man might become very great. You who disdain such a God, I hardly know whether you ex fide believe that God was crucified.
Tertullian
The Five Books Against Marcion, Book II
Chapter XXVIII
Inasmuch as ye yourselves have now come to the belief that God moved about in the form and all other circumstances of man’s nature, you will of course no longer require to be convinced that God conformed Himself to humanity, but feel yourselves bound by your own faith. For if the God (in whom ye believe,) even from His higher condition, prostrated the supreme dignity of His majesty to such a lowliness as to undergo death, even the death of the cross, why can you not suppose that some humiliations are becoming to our God also, only more tolerable than Jewish contumelies, and crosses, and sepulchres?
Tertullian
The Five Books Against Marcion, Book II
Chapter XXVII
We who believe that God really lived on earth, and took upon Him the low estate of human form, for the purpose of man’s salvation, are very far from thinking as those do who refuse to believe that God cares for anything.
…Fortunately, however, it is a part of the creed of Christians even to believe that God did die, and yet that He is alive for evermore.
Tertullian
The Five Books Against Marcion, Book II
Chapter XVI
Every piece of timber which is fixed in the ground in an erect position is a part of a cross, and indeed the greater portion of its mass. But an entire cross is attributed to us, with its transverse beam, of course, and its projecting seat.
…Since the head rises upwards, and the back takes a straight direction, and the shoulders project laterally, if you simply place a man with his arms and hands outstretched, you will make the general outline of a cross.
Tertullian
Ad Nationes, Book I
Chapter XII
Then, if any of you think we render superstitious adoration to the cross, in that adoration he is sharer with us. If you offer homage to a piece of wood at all, it matters little what it is like when the substance is the same: it is of no consequence the form, if you have the very body of the god. And yet how far does the Athenian Pallas differ from the stock of the cross, or the Pharian Ceres as she is put up uncarved to sale, a mere rough stake and piece of shapeless wood? Every stake fixed in an upright position is a portion of the cross; we render our adoration, if you will have it so, to a god entire and complete.
Tertullian
Apology
Chapter XVI
Now, no one could say or prove that the horns of an unicorn represent any other fact or figure than the type which portrays the cross. For the one beam is placed upright, from which the highest extremity is raised up into a horn, when the other beam is fitted on to it, and the ends appear on both sides as horns joined on to the one horn. And the part which is fixed in the centre, on which are suspended those who are crucified, also stands out like a horn; and it also looks like a horn conjoined and fixed with the other horns.
Justin Martyr
Dialogue with Trypho
Chapter XCI
And I wish you to observe, that they have altogether taken away many Scriptures from the translations effected by those seventy elders who were with Ptolemy, and by which this very man who was crucified is proved to have been set forth expressly as God, and man, and as being crucified, and as dying.
Justin Martyr
Dialogue with Trypho
Chapter LXXI
And this, as the prophet foretold, is the greatest symbol of His power and role; as is also proved by the things which fall under our observation. For consider all the things in the world, whether without this form they could be administered or have any community. For the sea is not traversed except that trophy which is called a sail abide safe in the ship; and the earth is not plowed without it: diggers and mechanics do not their work, except with tools which have this shape. And the human form differs from that of the irrational animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having the hands extended, and having on the face extending from the forehead what is called the nose, through which there is respiration for the living creature; and this shows no other form than that of the cross.
Justin Martyr
First Apology
Chapter LV
For the Scripture saith, “And Abraham circumcised ten, and eight, and three hundred men of his household.” What, then, was the knowledge given to him in this? Learn the eighteen first, and then the three hundred. The ten and the eight are thus denoted—Ten by Ι, and Eight by Η. You have the initials of the, name of Jesus. And because the cross was to express the grace of our redemption by the letter Τ, he says also, “Three Hundred.” He signifies, therefore, Jesus by two letters, and the cross by one.
Epistle of Barnabus
Chapter IX