First, 1 Corinthians 15:47: “The second man is from heaven.”
First, 1 Corinthians 15:47: “The second man is from heaven.”
(I) “One must read 1 Cor. 15:47: ‘The first man, from earth, is earthly; the second man, from heaven, is heavenly.’ The Latin Vulgate translation also reads this way. The Greek codices, however, uniformly read: 
, ‘the second man is the Lord from heaven.’ It is clear from Tertullian (in Marcionem, bk. 5) that this distortion has remained from the corruptions of Marcion because of the fault of copyists.”
We respond. (1) Against Bellarmine we set forth Salmeron, who comments on this passage: “We read in the Greek: ‘The second man from heaven is the Lord Himself.’ Some thought that in order to make the antithesis perfect it should be read: ‘The second man, from heaven, is heavenly’ (as it is read in the Latin version) and that He took His body from heaven, as Valentinus, Marcion, and Mani said in their raving.” Also, Alphonsus de Castro writes, among other things (bk. 4, title “Christus”): “Valentinus said that Christ brought His flesh from heaven because Paul says, ‘The first man, from earth, is earthly; the second, from heaven, is heavenly.’ Therefore the Latin version, more than the Greek text, appears to favor the opinion of the heretics.”
(2) Because the Greek codices uniformly read 
[“Lord from heaven”], in the same way as the Syriac and Arabic paraphrases also read, we conclude from this that one must insist on this reading as the genuine one.
(3) There is no suspicion of corruption here, for Christ is said to be “the Lord from heaven” because of the personal union of His human nature with the divine (Luke 1:78), because that Man, born of Mary, subsists as one thing with the Lord from heaven. John 3:13 is a similar passage. The Damascene, Orth. fid., bk. 3, c. 12: “He does not say that the body is from heaven, but it is clear that He is not a mere man.” The devout ancients offer four explanations for this name. First, because of His divinity united with His humanity: Christ is a divine person. Second, from His works: Christ performed divine and heavenly works. The third is with regard to merit: Christ earned heaven and immortality for us. The fourth is with regard to His conception: not that He brought His body down from heaven and placed it in Mary’s womb, but because He was conceived by heavenly power in the virgin’s womb.
(4) The opposition [in the passage] does not require that “the second Adam from heaven, heavenly” be opposed to “the first Adam from earth, earthly.” “There is a much stronger antithesis of ‘earthly’ and ‘the Lord’ than there is of ‘earthly’ and ‘heavenly’ since many heavenly things have been created, but the ‘Lord’ is set apart, who holds supreme power over all things. Next, if an earthly thing were directly opposed to a heavenly, such a great diversity of qualities would not be at hand; rather, it would seem to signify merely a different position. Once we have explained this, only then may one clearly and lucidly oppose a heavenly man to an earthly, as is done in the two following verses.” These are the words of Beza in his Annot. major. on this passage.
(5) From that section of Tertullian, one cannot prove that there is a Marcionitic corruption here in the Greek text, for he quotes the passage of the apostle with the same words as the Greek codices have and, in fact, with the same intent. To be sure, he speaks about a Marcionitic corruption, but this concerns v. 45, not v. 47. There, instead of the words 
[“the last Adam”], which have an incorrupt reading in our codices, Marcion had placed 
(“the last Lord”), something that Tertullian consequently reproached.
(6) Epiphanius (Haeres. 42) noted all the corruptions of Marcion, as Bellarmine himself bears witness, but he gives not a single word about this corruption that is still supposed to be in this passage.