Tertullian: On the Trinity
Tertullian: On the Trinity
[Excerpts from his work, Against Praxeas]
Chapter I.—Satan’s Wiles
Against the Truth. How They Take the Form of the Praxean Heresy.
Account of the Publication of This Heresy.
In various ways has the
devil rivalled and resisted the truth. Sometimes his aim has been
to destroy the truth by defending it. He maintains that there is one
only Lord, the Almighty Creator of the world, in order that out of this
doctrine of the unity he may fabricate a heresy. He says that
the Father Himself came down into the Virgin, was Himself born of her,
Himself suffered, indeed was Himself Jesus Christ. Here the old
serpent has fallen out with himself, since, when he tempted Christ
after John’s baptism, he approached Him as “the Son of
God;” surely intimating that God had a Son, even on the testimony
of the very Scriptures, out of which he was at the moment forging his
temptation: “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones
be made bread.”7768 Again:
“If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from
hence;7769 for it is written,
He shall give His angels charge concerning thee”—referring
no doubt, to the Father—“and in their hands they shall bear
thee up, that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone.”7770 Or perhaps, after all, he was only
reproaching the Gospels with a lie, saying in fact: “Away with
Matthew; away with Luke! Why heed their words? In spite of them,
I declare that it was God Himself that I approached; it was the
Almighty Himself that I tempted face to face; and it was for no other
purpose than to tempt Him that I approached Him. If, on the contrary,
it had been only the Son of God, most likely I should never have
condescended to deal with Him.” However, he is himself a liar
from the beginning,7771 and whatever man he
instigates in his own way; as, for instance, Praxeas. For he was
the first to import into Rome from Asia this kind of heretical pravity,
a man in other respects of restless disposition, and above all inflated
with the pride of confessorship simply and solely because he had to
bear for a short time the annoyance of a prison; on which occasion,
even “if he had given his body to be burned, it would have
profited him nothing,” not having the love of God,7772 whose very gifts he has resisted and
destroyed. For after the Bishop of Rome7773
had acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Prisca, and
Maximilla, and, in consequence of the acknowledgment, had bestowed his
peace7774 on the churches of Asia and Phrygia,
he, by importunately urging false accusations against the
prophets themselves and their churches, and insisting on the authority
of the bishop’s predecessors in the see, compelled him to recall
the pacific letter which he had issued, as well as to desist from his
purpose of acknowledging the said gifts. By this Praxeas did a
twofold service for the devil at Rome: he drove away prophecy,
and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he
crucified the Father. Praxeas’ tares had been moreover
sown, and had produced their fruit here also,7775
while many 598were asleep
in their simplicity of doctrine; but these tares actually seemed to
have been plucked up, having been discovered and exposed by him whose
agency God was pleased to employ. Indeed, Praxeas had
deliberately resumed his old (true) faith, teaching it after his
renunciation of error; and there is his own handwriting in evidence
remaining among the carnally-minded,7776 in whose
society the transaction then took place; afterwards nothing was heard
of him. We indeed, on our part, subsequently withdrew from the
carnally-minded on our acknowledgment and maintenance of the
Paraclete.7777 But the tares of
Praxeas had then everywhere shaken out their seed, which having
lain hid for some while, with its vitality concealed under a mask, has
now broken out with fresh life. But again shall it be rooted up, if the
Lord will, even now; but if not now, in the day when all bundles of
tares shall be gathered together, and along with every other
stumbling-block shall be burnt up with unquenchable fire.7778
The error of
Praxeas appears to have originated in anxiety to maintain the unity of
God; which, he thought, could only be done by saying that the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost were one and the same. He contended, therefore,
according to Tertullian, that the Father himself descended into the
virgin, was born of her, suffered, and was in a word Jesus Christ. From
the most startling of the deductions from Praxeas’ general
theory, his opponents gave him and his followers the name of
Patripassians; from another point in his teaching they were
called Monarchians. [Probable date not earlier than a.d. 208].
[Elucidation I.]
Probably Victor. [Elucidation II.]
Had admitted them to communion.
“The connection renders it very probable that the hic quoque of this sentence forms an antithesis to Rome, mentioned before, and that Tertullian expresses himself as if he had written from the very spot where these things had transpired. Hence we are led to conclude that it was Carthage.”—Neander, Antignostikus, ii. 519, note 2, Bohn.
On the designation Psychici, see our Anti-Marcion, p. 263, note 5, Edin.
[This statement may only denote a withdrawal from the communion of the Bishop of Rome, like that of Cyprian afterwards. That prelate had stultified himself and broken faith with Tertullian; but, it does not, necessarily, as Bp. Bull too easily concludes, define his ultimate separation from his own bishop and the North-African church.]
In the course of time, then, the Father forsooth was born, and the Father suffered, God Himself, the Lord Almighty, whom in their preaching they declare to be Jesus Christ. We, however, as we indeed always have done (and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete, who leads men indeed into all truth), believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, or ????????? , as it is called, that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded7779 from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her—being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete,7780 the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. That this rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the gospel, even before any of the older heretics, much more before Praxeas, a pretender of yesterday, will be apparent both from the lateness of date7781 which marks all heresies, and also from the absolutely novel character of our new-fangled Praxeas. In this principle also we must henceforth find a presumption of equal force against all heresies whatsoever—that whatever is first is true, whereas that is spurious which is later in date.7782 But keeping this prescriptive rule inviolate, still some opportunity must be given for reviewing (the statements of heretics), with a view to the instruction and protection of divers persons; were it only that it may not seem that each perversion of the truth is condemned without examination, and simply prejudged;7783 especially in the case of this heresy, which supposes itself to possess the pure truth, in thinking that one cannot believe in One Only God in any other way than by saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are the very selfsame Person. As if in this way also one were not All, in that All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation7784 is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order7785 the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition,7786 but in degree;7787 not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect;7788 yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.7789 How they are susceptible of number without division, will be shown as our treatise proceeds.
The Church afterwards applied this term exclusively to the Holy Ghost. [That is, the Nicene Creed made it technically applicable to the Spirit, making the distinction marked between the generation of the Word and the procession of the Holy Ghost.]
The “Comforter.”
See our Anti-Marcion, p. 119, n. 1. Edin.
See his De Præscript. xxix.
Tertullian uses similar precaution in his argument elsewhere. See our Anti-Marcion, pp. 3 and 119. Edin.
?????????.
Dirigens.
Statu.
See The Apology, ch. xxi.
Specie.
See Bull’s Def. Fid. Nic., and the translation (by the translator of this work), in the Oxford Series, p. 202.
The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and unlearned,) who always constitute 599the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation7790 (of the Three in One), on the ground that their very rule of faith withdraws them from the world’s plurality of gods to the one only true God; not understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must yet be believed in with His own ????????? . The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity they assume to be a division of the Unity; whereas the Unity which derives the Trinity out of its own self is so far from being destroyed, that it is actually supported by it. They are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves pre-eminently the credit of being worshippers of the One God; just as if the Unity itself with irrational deductions did not produce heresy, and the Trinity rationally considered constitute the truth. We, say they, maintain the Monarchy (or, sole government of God).7791 And so, as far as the sound goes, do even Latins (and ignorant ones too) pronounce the word in such a way that you would suppose their understanding of the ???????? (or Monarchy) was as complete as their pronunciation of the term. Well, then Latins take pains to pronounce the ???????? (or Monarchy), while Greeks actually refuse to understand the ?????????, or Dispensation (of the Three in One). As for myself, however, if I have gleaned any knowledge of either language, I am sure that ???????? (or Monarchy) has no other meaning than single and individual7792 rule; but for all that, this monarchy does not, because it is the government of one, preclude him whose government it is, either from having a son, or from having made himself actually a son to himself,7793 or from ministering his own monarchy by whatever agents he will. Nay more, I contend that no dominion so belongs to one only, as his own, or is in such a sense singular, or is in such a sense a monarchy, as not also to be administered through other persons most closely connected with it, and whom it has itself provided as officials to itself. If, moreover, there be a son belonging to him whose monarchy it is, it does not forthwith become divided and cease to be a monarchy, if the son also be taken as a sharer in it; but it is as to its origin equally his, by whom it is communicated to the son; and being his, it is quite as much a monarchy (or sole empire), since it is held together by two who are so inseparable.7794 Therefore, inasmuch as the Divine Monarchy also is administered by so many legions and hosts of angels, according as it is written, “Thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him;”7795 and since it has not from this circumstance ceased to be the rule of one (so as no longer to be a monarchy), because it is administered by so many thousands of powers; how comes it to pass that God should be thought to suffer division and severance in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, who have the second and the third places assigned to them, and who are so closely joined with the Father in His substance, when He suffers no such (division and severance) in the multitude of so many angels? Do you really suppose that Those, who are naturally members of the Father’s own substance, pledges of His love,7796 instruments of His might, nay, His power itself and the entire system of His monarchy, are the overthrow and destruction thereof? You are not right in so thinking. I prefer your exercising yourself on the meaning of the thing rather than on the sound of the word. Now you must understand the overthrow of a monarchy to be this, when another dominion, which has a framework and a state peculiar to itself (and is therefore a rival), is brought in over and above it: when, e.g., some other god is introduced in opposition to the Creator, as in the opinions of Marcion; or when many gods are introduced, according to your Valentinuses and your Prodicuses. Then it amounts to an overthrow of the Monarchy, since it involves the destruction of the Creator.7797
?????????.
So Bp. Kaye, On Tertullian, p. 499.
Unicum.
This was a notion of Praxeas. See ch. x.
Tam unicis.
“Pignora” is often used of children and dearest relations.
[The first sentence of this chapter is famous for a controversy between Priestly and Bp. Horsley, the latter having translated idiotæ by the word idiots. See Kaye, p. 498.]
But as for me, who derive the Son from no other source but from the substance of the Father, and (represent Him) as doing nothing without the Father’s will, and as having received all power from the Father, how can I be possibly destroying the Monarchy from the faith, when I preserve it in the Son just as it was committed to Him by the Father? The same remark (I wish also to be formally) made by me with respect to the third degree in the Godhead, because I believe the Spirit to proceed from no other source than from the Father through the Son.7798 Look to it then, that it be not you rather who are destroying the Monarchy, when you overthrow the arrangement and dispensa600tion of it, which has been constituted in just as many names as it has pleased God to employ. But it remains so firm and stable in its own state, notwithstanding the introduction into it of the Trinity, that the Son actually has to restore it entire to the Father; even as the apostle says in his epistle, concerning the very end of all: “When He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; for He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet;”7799 following of course the words of the Psalm: “Sit Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.”7800 “When, however, all things shall be subdued to Him, (with the exception of Him who did put all things under Him,) then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.”7801 We thus see that the Son is no obstacle to the Monarchy, although it is now administered by7802 the Son; because with the Son it is still in its own state, and with its own state will be restored to the Father by the Son. No one, therefore, will impair it, on account of admitting the Son (to it), since it is certain that it has been committed to Him by the Father, and by and by has to be again delivered up by Him to the Father. Now, from this one passage of the epistle of the inspired apostle, we have been already able to show that the Father and the Son are two separate Persons, not only by the mention of their separate names as Father and the Son, but also by the fact that He who delivered up the kingdom, and He to whom it is delivered up—and in like manner, He who subjected (all things), and He to whom they were subjected—must necessarily be two different Beings.
[Compare Cap. viii. infra.]
Chapter V.—The Evolution of the Son or Word of God from the Father by a Divine Procession. Illustrated by the Operation of the Human Thought and Consciousness.
But since they will have the Two to be but One, so that the Father shall be deemed to be the same as the Son, it is only right that the whole question respecting the Son should be examined, as to whether He exists, and who He is and the mode of His existence. Thus shall the truth itself7803 secure its own sanction7804 from the Scriptures, and the interpretations which guard7805 them. There are some who allege that even Genesis opens thus in Hebrew: “In the beginning God made for Himself a Son.”7806 As there is no ground for this, I am led to other arguments derived from God’s own dispensation,7807 in which He existed before the creation of the world, up to the generation of the Son. For before all things God was alone—being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself. Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say, His own Reason. For God is rational, and Reason was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself. This Reason is His own Thought (or Consciousness)7808 which the Greeks call ?????, by which term we also designate Word or Discourse7809 and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to say that the Word7810 was in the beginning with God; although it would be more suitable to regard Reason as the more ancient; because God had not Word7811 from the beginning, but He had Reason7812 even before the beginning; because also Word itself consists of Reason, which it thus proves to have been the prior existence as being its own substance.7813 Not that this distinction is of any practical moment. For although God had not yet sent out His Word,7814 He still had Him within Himself, both in company with and included within His very Reason, as He silently planned and arranged within Himself everything which He was afterwards about to utter7815 through His Word. Now, whilst He was thus planning and arranging with His own Reason, He was actually causing that to become Word which He was dealing with in the way of Word or Discourse.7816 And that you may the more readily understand this, consider first of all, from your own self, who are made “in the image and likeness of God,”7817 for what purpose it is that you also possess reason in yourself, who are a rational creature, as being not only made by a rational Artificer, but actually animated out of His substance. Observe, then, that when you are silently con601versing with yourself, this very process is carried on within you by your reason, which meets you with a word at every movement of your thought, at every impulse of your conception. Whatever you think, there is a word; whatever you conceive, there is reason. You must needs speak it in your mind; and while you are speaking, you admit speech as an interlocutor with you, involved in which there is this very reason, whereby, while in thought you are holding converse with your word, you are (by reciprocal action) producing thought by means of that converse with your word. Thus, in a certain sense, the word is a second person within you, through which in thinking you utter speech, and through which also, (by reciprocity of process,) in uttering speech you generate thought. The word is itself a different thing from yourself. Now how much more fully is all this transacted in God, whose image and likeness even you are regarded as being, inasmuch as He has reason within Himself even while He is silent, and involved in that Reason His Word! I may therefore without rashness first lay this down (as a fixed principle) that even then before the creation of the universe God was not alone, since He had within Himself both Reason, and, inherent in Reason, His Word, which He made second to Himself by agitating it within Himself.
Res ipsa.
Formam, or shape.
Patrocinantibus.
See St. Jerome’s Quæstt. Hebr. in Genesim, ii. 507.
“Dispositio” means “mutual relations in the Godhead.” See Bp. Bull’s Def. Fid. Nicen., Oxford translation, p. 516.
Sensus ipsius.
Sermonem. [He always calls the Logos not Verbum, but Sermo, in this treatise. A masculine word was better to exhibit our author’s thought. So Erasmus translates Logos in his N. Testament, on which see Kaye, p. 516.]
Sermonen.
Sermonalis.