And the Apostle Paul also, saying, "For though ye have served them which are no gods; ye now know God, or rather, are known of God," has made a separation between those that were not [gods] and Him who is God ... For he has made a distinction, and separated those which are indeed called gods, but which are none, from the one God the Father, from whom are all things, and, he has confessed in the most decided manner in his own person, one Lord Jesus Christ. [Irenaeus 3.3]From the argument of the Haer. we can discern the main sources of Marcion's dualism and ditheism in the epistles: It will serve here to summarize these (Haer . 3.3ff.): (a) Gal 4.8, 9: 'For though you have served them which are not gods, you now know God, or rather are known of God' (cf. AM 5.4.5). Tertullian's reference to the same text elaborates upon Irenaeus' simple denial that it was not Paul's intent to make a separation between those 'who were not God and him who is God': Thus, Paul was 'castigating the error of physical and natural superstition, which puts the elements in the place of God'.
Therefore, after such affluence (of grace), they should not have returned "to weak and beggarly elements."150 By the Romans, however, the rudiments of learning are wont to be called elements. He did not therefore seek, by any depreciation of the mundane elements, to turn them away from their god, although, when he said just before, "Howbeit, then, ye serve them which by nature are no gods,"151 he censured the error of that physical or natural superstition which holds the elements to be god; but at the God of those elements he aimed not in this censure.152 He tells us himself clearly enough what he means by "elements," even the rudiments of the law: [Tertullian 5.4.5]