TRANSLATIONS OF CHRISTIAN UTERATURE TERTULLIAN AGAINST I RAXEAS ALEXANDER SOUTER, TRANSLATIONS OF CHRISTIAN LITERATURE SERIES II LATIN TEXTS GENERAL EDITORS: W. J. SPARROW-SIMPSON, D.D., W. K. LOWTHER CLARKE, B.D. TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS OF ;RATUKE. SERIES II LATIN TEXTS TERTULIAN AGAINST^ PRAXEAS A SOUTER,D.LITT. SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. London Jill The Macmillan Companu. Newark |||, 1919 l PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN nv RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E. I, AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. IN LOVING MEMORY OF MY DAUGHTER BETH SUDDENLY CALLED TO HIGHER SERVICE IN HER SIXTEENTH YEAR DECEMBER 15, 1918 PREFACE BY common consent the Against Praxeas of Tertullian is one of its author s most important works. Like many other writings which have sprung out of controversy, it possesses a positive and historic significance also, as the earliest sur viving formal statement of the doctrine of the Trinity. It is true that the argument, at least so far as it is based on passages from the Greek version of the Old Testament, or on a Latin translation of that Greek, is not so convincing to the modern student of Scripture as it must have been in Tertullian s own day. Yet the knowledge of the Bible shown is amazing, and such as to shame most modern readers. At the same time the sheer brain power which the work exhibits would render it notable in any age. The difficulty of interpreting Tertullian is an old story. There is no Latin writer for whose study an exhaustive concordance or special lexicon is so necessary, and yet there are few for whose Latinity so little of a comprehensive nature has been done. With the exception of the complete vocabulary of the works edited in the two volumes of the viii PREFACE Vienna edition, preserved in Munich for the sake of the great Thesaurus Linguae Latinae,3J\& Henen s published index to the Apologeticus, no complete record of the vocabulary of a single work of Ter- tullian is known to me. The translator has there fore to depend on the incomplete indexes of words in the various editions and the useful, if necessarily partial, treatment of the vocabulary in Hoppe s Syntax und Stil des Tertullian. It is fortunate, however, for the translator of the Adversus Praxean that his difficulty arises more from individual terms of theological import like sub s tantia^ than from the build of clauses or sentences. Here, too, as in the case of Tertullian s works generally, we are faced with a scanty manuscript tradition of somewhat questionable value. Grati tude is due to Dr. Emil Kroymann for the fresh record of manuscript variants in his two editions (Vienna, 1906; Tubingen, 1907). I have not been able to adhere, however, either to his or to any other single text. In particular I would depre cate the theory underlying Kroymann s frequent additions to, and excisions from, the text of the manuscripts. Words do get lost and added in the course of transmission, but if I may venture to say so, hardly in the way Kroymann postulates. I have consulted in addition to Kroymann, the complete editions of De la Barre (Paris, 1580), Rigault (Paris, 1634), and Oehler (Leipzig, 1854). I have also profited by the notes on the text of chapters 1-17, contributed by Dr. C. H. Turner to the PREFACE ix Journal of Theological Studies y vo\. xiv. (1912-1913) PP- 55^-564. The monograph of d Ales, La Theologie de Tertullien (Paris, 1905), has proved most valuable to one who is no theologian. I have not seen any previous English translation, but I was glad to accept the kind offer of my assistant, Mr. James H. Baxter, M.A., of Glasgow University, to revise my translation, before I had revised it myself. I have been at pains to record the Biblical quotations and references with greater fulness than the editors. My book is not intended for the expert in Tertullian ; he may, however, find something in the notes to interest him. The general reader is expected to use the translation along with the original, but I hope it will be intelligible even to readers for whom the original is a closed book. A. SOUTER. Aberdeen, February 8, 1919. INTRODUCTION i. ON TERTULLIAN S LIFE AND WORKS OF Tertullian, as of many another who has rendered pre-eminent service to humanity, almost nothing is known. His full name was Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, and he was a native of the Roman province of Africa, which corresponded roughly in area to the modern Tunis. He was of pagan parentage, and underwent a complete training as a lawyer. He appears to have visited Italy, but he spent the greatest part of his life in the city of Carthage, which had been refounded by Julius Caesar about a hundred years after the younger Scipio had laid it waste. The city had become once again a great centre, and Christianity must have reached it at an early period, probably direct from Italy. In Africa the new religion found a favourable soil, a fact not altogether undue to the Semitic origin of the old Punic stock, which found something akin to itself in the daughter of Judaism. The number of churches in Africa in Tertullian s time probably greatly exceeded the total of Italy itself. And this Christianity seems to have been more Latin than Greek. The most highly educated of the xii INTRODUCTION provincials in Africa were acquainted with Greek, but the proportion of such persons was far less than would have been found in Italy. We have no evidence as to the date of Tertul- lian s birth, but if we place it about A.D. 160, we shall probably not be far wrong. The date of his conversion is equally unknown, but it may be assigned to the period of mature manhood. He was a man of ardent temperament, unbounded energy and great creative faculty. In such a man conversion was sure to be followed at the earliest possible interval by active work on behalf of the Faith, and for him the pen was the obvious instru ment. All his knowledge of law, literature and philosophy was at once enlisted on the side of the persecuted religion. Like a later convert from paganism, St. Ambrose, he must have taken up the study of the Scriptures as eagerly as he had followed his earlier pursuits. We have no satis factory evidence that he held any office in the Church. It is safest to regard him as an early forerunner of a succession of Christian laymen, men like Pelagius, Marius Mercator, Junilius and Cassiodorus, who have had their share in building up the body of Christian doctrine. The strongly ascetic vein in Tertullian led him later to adopt the doctrines of the Montanists. This sect took its name from Montanus of Pepuza in Phrygia, and among its tenets was the assertion of prophetic gifts in opposition to the regularly constituted ministry ; millenarism, and abstinence INTRODUCTION xiii from every sort of union between the sexes. The influence of Montanism spread gradually in the West, and reached Africa almost certainly from Italy, but it is improbable that it had become associated with a declared sect in Africa in Ter- tullian s time. It represented rather a tendency within the bosom of the Church. But that tend ency gained more and more power with Tertullian himself, and in his later works he accepts the doctrine of the new prophecy, and inaugurates the arbitrary rule of individual spiritual gifts, thus undermining the authority of the Old and New Testaments as well as that of the Church. He contradicts Scripture in urging the Christian to face persecution, in depreciating marriage, in making regulations for fasting, and other minor matters. But these and other exaggerations, though they have deprived Tertullian of canonisation, in no way affect his importance as the earliest of the Latin Fathers. His great learning, his obvious sincerity and his burning eloquence are to be set over against such excesses, as well as against the occasional coarseness which will break out in the writings of a Tertullian, a Jerome and an Augustine, who have in their unregenerate days become too familiar with uncleanness. In originality he is inferior to none of these. In doctrine and in language alike he is a pioneer of Western Christianity. To him we owe the first formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity ; to him we owe a great part of the Christian Latin vocabulary. He xiv INTRODUCTION is the earliest Latin writer to quote Scripture with any freedom, and he is the first of that roll of noble names, Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, Ambrose) Jerome, Augustine, which no Christian literature in any language can match. Yet here, also, we have our treasure in earthen vessels. Tertullian is the most difficult of all Latin prose writers, outdoing the fully developed Tacitean style in that brevity which inevitably becomes obscurity. His vocabulary is curiously com pounded of technical legal language, Grecisms and colloquialisms, and in the absence of a special lexicon or a concordance to his works it is a task of extreme difficulty at times to ascertain precisely what shade of meaning to assign to a word. The importance of Tertullian is becoming so widely recognised now that the task of compiling such a lexicon may be commended to a patient scholar as one of the most urgent requirements of Latin scholarship. But we shall never know his vocabu lary and idiom in the way that it is possible to know that of Jerome, Augustine or Gregory. The comparative neglect of his works in the Middle Ages has resulted in the survival of a pathetically scanty list of good manuscripts. Much of his text will, in consequence, never be restored with absolute certainty. The list of his surviving works, with the dates now generally 1 assigned to them, is as follows : 1 I follow d Ales, pp. xiii. ff.. slightly different from Harnnck, Gesch. altchr. Lift,, II. 2. (Leipzig, 1904), pp. 295 f. INTRODUCTION xv Ad Martyras Ad Nationes Apologeticus De Testimonio Animae De Spectaculis De Praescriptione Haereti- corum .... De Oratione De Baptismo De Patientia . . De Paenitentia . . De Cultu Feminarum . Ad Uxorem Adversus Heruwgenen Adversiis Indaeos De Virginibus Velandis Adversus Mardonem, Libri I.-IIII De Pallia . . . - . Adversus Valentinianos De Anima .... De Carne Christi De Resurrectione Carnis Adversus Marcionem, Liber V De Exhortatione Castitatis . De Corona .... Scorpiace . . . , De Idohlatria . Ad Scapulain . , , Feb. or March 197. after Feb. 197. autumn 197. between . 197 and 200. about 200. about 200. between 200 and 206. about 206. 207-8. 209. between 208 and 21 211. 211 or 212. 211 or 212. end of 212. xvi INTRODUCTION The following are definitely Montanist : De Fuga in Persecutione . 213. Adversus Praxean . . \ De Monogamia . . .) after 21 3, De leiunio . . . . De Pudicitia . . . between 217 and 222. Besides these, several works by him have been lost. It is also to be noted that he issued the Apologeticus (probably) and the De Spectaculis (certainly) in Greek, as well as a Greek work on Baptism. Of annotated editions of Tertullian s complete works, the best is that by Franciscus Oehler (Lipsiae, 3 Vols., 1853, 1854). The best text of the following works is to be found in the Vienna Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticoruin Latinorum, Vols. XX. and XLVII. (Vindobonae et Lipsiae), 1890, 1966) : De Spectaculis ; De Idololatria y Ad Nationes, De Testimonio Aniinae, Scorpiace, De Oratione, De Baptismo, De Pudicitia^ De leiunio, De Anima, De Patientia, De Carnis Resurrect ione, Adversus Hermogenen, Adversus Valentinianos, Adversus O nines Haereses^- Adversus Praxean Adversus Marcionem. The best work on the language of Tertullian is H. Hoppe, Syntax und Stil des Tertullian (Leipzig, 1903) ; on his theology, A. d Ales, La Theologie de Terttillien (Paris, 1905); on his New Testament citations, H. Ronsch, Das Neue Testament Tertullian s (Leipzig, 1871). 1 This book is perhaps the work of Victorinus of Pettau (f 303). INTRODUCTION xvii 2. ADVERSUS PRAXEAN 1 Of the life of Praxeas almost nothing is known. We may safely argue that he was a Greek, for the name is Greek and not Latin. He lived and taught at Rome early in the third century, sharing the views of a contemporary, Noetus of Smyrna. He gained some reputation in the metropolis for his exposure of the Montanist prophets, and would thus be far from acceptable to an adherent of their views like Tertullian. But Praxeas services in this connexion were counterbalanced by heresy in another. He insisted on divine unity to such a degree that he destroyed the Trinity. Crudely expressed, his position was that the Father alone was God, and that all the experiences undergone by Jesus in His earthly life were undergone by the Father. The other two Persons in the Trinity were reduced to mere modality. Praxeas later recanted, but his heresy was to spring up later with Sabellius, from whose name it comes to be called Sabellianism. 2 Tertullian does not find it difficult to make a very vigorous defence of the doctrine of the Trinity, a defence which loses none of its import ance and value from the fact that the author was 1 In this section I am greatly indebted to d Ales, pp. 67-81. Compare also Bp. Kaye, The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries (cheap edition), pp. 260-280; Blunt, On the Right Use of the Early Fathers (London, 1857), pp. 485-517. 2 It is also, of course, known as Patripassianism, which may be paraphrased " the doctrine that the Father suffered (on the .Cross)." B xviii INTRODUCTION a Montanist at the time he wrote it. He points out Praxeas contention that it was the Father Himself who was incarnated in the Virgin, that it was He who was born and suffered, that the Father is Jesus Christ. The Christian tradition, however, without surrendering the unity of the Godhead, maintains the "economy" (oeconomia, dispensatid] of the Trinity. God is one, but His activities are exercised by Father, Son and Spirit. There is one Son of God, His Word, incarnated by Him, who in His turn sent the Holy Spirit or Paraclete who comes from the Father, to sanctify in the faith those who believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is the faith of the Gospel, the creed of the Church. Tertullian does not, however, rest content with this statement. He proceeds to elaborate a proof of it, and he begins by pointing out that divine unity is not in question, because the Church admits one divine substance in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are one substance ; they differ only in degree, form, aspect. The rest of the treatise (chap. 3 to the end) is only a development of this thesis. Ordinary Christians hold fast to the idea of " monarchy," from fear of polytheism. Tertullian analyses the idea of monarchy and points out how in the case of an earthly monarchy the power of the sole ruler is not impaired by devolution of certain powers to his subordinates. It is his power all through, and they are the essential instruments INTRODUCTION xix of it. So it is with the hierarchy of heaven. The Son must restore His kingdom to the Father (i Cor. xv. 24, 25, 28). A full study of all the Scripture references to the Son is, however, neces sary. God existed alone at the beginning of the world, but He already carried His thought (ratio, sensus] within Himself; this is what the Greeks mean by Logos, which the Latins have repre sented by Sermo. In His thought was His Word, which by mental effort He made distinct from Himself. This same divine thought is called Wisdom (Sophia) in the Book of Proverbs (viii. 22 ff.), 1 where we find the second person carrying out the plan of God s works. This thought is developed through a synthesis of a number of passages of Scripture. The Word is substance, He is person, He is Son of the Father, and has the highest position after Him. A possible confusion with Valentinus the Gnostic s doctrine is here eluci dated, by showing clearly the difference between his position and that of the true thinker, in particular the real union between the Father and Son, which is copiously illustrated, especially from St. John s Gospel. The relation of Father to Son is compared to that of the tree and its branch, the source and the river, the sun and a ray of the sun. Keeping the analogy, he compares the Holy Spirit to the fruit on the branch. We must hold fast to the indissoluble union of Father, Son and Holy 1 Prax. 6. xx INTRODUCTION Spirit. Yet the Father and the ,Son are different, in that the Father is greater than^the Son. The Holy Spirit is also other than the Son, for the Son promised to send Him. A father implies a son, and a son a father ; to fail to recognise this is to destroy the Father as well as the Son. God can do everything, but He did not will everything, and with Him to will is to do. Scripture proves separate identity of the three Persons by introduc ing one speaking to another, 1 as well as by the occasional use of the plural number. 2 Tertullian then meets the accusation that these passages prove the existence of two gods. Scripture has often given the name God to the three Persons taken separately, but Christians are careful never to speak of " gods" in the plural, lest they should be charged with polytheism. The distinction between the Divine Persons is also proved by the divine appearances in the Old Testament. The Son as God is as invisible as the Father; the Son is visible only as Man. The theophanies of the Old Testament imply a created mediator, namely the Son. The reference to God appearing to Moses "face to face" (Numb. xix. 6-8) is taken, with Irenaeus, 3 as referring to the Transfiguration by anticipation ; and in Old Testament times the Son appeared only "in an image or enigma." In the New Testament we find it stated more 1 Prax. II. 2 Prax. 12. 3 Adv. Haer. V. 20, 9. INTRODUCTION xxi than once that no one has seen the Father, yet there we find equally definite statements that the Son has been seen and even touched. And it was not only after the incarnation that this took place : the Divine appearances of the Old Testa ment are appearances of the Son. There is no difficulty in supposing that He acted in the Father s name, for the Father shares everything with Him. The Monarchians appeal, however, to some passages where monotheism is strongly insisted on, for example, Deut. xxxii. 39 ; John x. 30 ; xiv. 9-11. But they are really founding their doctrine on a few obscure passages to the exclusion of many others that are perfectly clear. To these few passages Tertullian opposes in detail a large number from the Gospels, which represent two distinct Persons. He points out how a passage like John x. 30, instead of supporting their view, actually tells against it. There is moral and dynamic union between the three Persons, but unity of substance is also clearly affirmed with reference to the Paraclete (John xvi. 7, 14), who receives His substance from the Son, as the Son receives His from the Father. The story of the childhood of Jesus equally proves the distinction between the Father and the Son. According to Tertullian, the expressions spiritus dei, virtus altissimi (Luke i. 35), would indicate the Son. Spiritus dei and Sermo dei would be in effect two names, the one referring to substance, the other to xxii INTRODUCTION activity, to indicate the one Person of the Word Son of God. But the Monarchians, even when compelled by Scripture to distinguish the Son from the Father, destroy the effect of their admission by finding in the one person of Jesus Christ both the Son (that is, the human being Jesus) and the Father (that is, the spiritual being God who is also the Christ). But the Acts of the Apostles establishes that Jesus is surnamed the Christ because He is the anointed of the Father, which is another proof that the Father is not the Christ (Acts iv. 27). St. Peter, St. John, and St. Paul are also cited in evidence that the Father and Son are to be distinguished. The most decisive texts are those that mention the death of Christ, Son of God l (i Cor. xv. 3). Christ being composed of two substances, the one divine and immortal, the other human, could die accord ing to the flesh alone. And here appears the error of those who make the Father die on the cross. The Father being God only, could not die, nor could He bear the curse attached to crucifixion. This fact condemns the Patripassians and even the Patricompassians. For, being unable to prove that the Father suffered, some try to. make out that He was a fellow-sufferer. But this view after all implies suffering on the Father s part, and the principle must be laid down that the Father is impassible. And the Son also is impassible as far as His divinity is concerned. He suffered as man, but the man 1 Prax. 29. INTRODUCTION xxiii in Him was separated from the Father, while the God in Him was still united with the Father. To trouble the water of a stream is not necessarily to trouble the source : yet it is the water from the source that flows in the bed of the stream, and the stream is not separated from the source. Even if the divinity in the Son had suffered, this suffering could not have flowed back to the Father. But there is no need to dwell on this supposition, for the divine spirit as such did not suffer. Although the Son suffered in His flesh, the Father was in Him, but did not suffer. Similarly, in proportion, we can suffer for God, thanks to the Divine Spirit which is in us : yet the Divine Spirit does not suffer. Tertullian s last argument is perhaps his most powerful a reference to the words of Christ dying on the cross : " My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It is not the God we are listening to here, but the man who cries to an impassible and in flexible God. These words are the effect of the inexorable sentence which delivers His human nature to death. He delivers up His human soul into His Father s hands, and expires. Raised by God s power, He ascended to heaven, where Stephen saw him on the Father s right hand. One day He will come on the clouds. Meantime, He has sent the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, for the full revelation of the Christian mystery. To refuse to believe in the Trinity, is to become a Jew. It is this doctrine alone that separates us from the Jews : it is the work of the Gospel, the xxiv INTRODUCTION kernel of the New Testament. God who revealed Himself but obscurely in the Old Testament, pre served for these later days this great light on His real being. He who will have life, must believe on the Son of God. TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS i. MANIFOLD are the ways in which the devil has shown his enmity to the truth. He has at length striven to shatter it by defending it. He claims that there is but one God, the all-powerful Creator of the universe, in order to make a heresy even out of that one. He says that the Father Himself descended into the virgin, that He likewise was born of her, and Himself suffered ; even that He Himself is Jesus Christ. The serpent forgot himself; for when trying Jesus Christ after He had been baptised by John, he approached Him as Son of God, knowing full well that God had a Son, even from the very Scriptures out of which he was then building up the temptation. 1 "If thou art the Matt. iv. 3 Son of God, speak that these stones become loaves " ; again : " If thou art the Son of God, cast Matt iv. 6 thyself down hence; for it is written, that He" p . . 1 that is, the Father "hath given His messengers charge over thee, to uphold thee by their hands lest anywhere thou shouldst strike thy foot against a stone." Or shall he upbraid the Gospels with falsehood, and say : " It is Matthew s and Luke s 1 For the missing present participle of sum to be supplied with cert us, cf. Hoppe, pp. 144 f. 25 26 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [i concern, not mine? It was God Himself that I approached, the All-powerful Himself whom I assayed hand to hand ; it was for that reason that I approached, it was also for that reason that I attacked. But if He had been merely the Son of God, I should never have deigned to tempt cf. John Him." In truth, however, it is rather "he himself" vm - 44 w ho "has been a liar" "from the beginning," he and any man he has privily sent of his own accord, such as Praxeas. For it was Praxeas who first, from Asia, 1 imported this kind of perversity to Roman soil, a restless being in other 2 respects, and puffed up besides with boasting about his martyr dom, which consisted merely in an ordinary brief, if irksome, 3 period in prison ; whereas, even if he cf i Cor. had " surrendered his body to be burnt up," it would have " profited him nothing," as he had not cf. i Cor. " the love " of God, whose " gifts " he even violated. xn. 4, etc. p or ^ w hen the then bishop of Rome 4 was now recognising the prophecies of Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla, and as the result of that recognition 1 Asia means, of course, the Roman province of the name, roughly the western third of what we call Asia Minor. 2 For the post-classical use of alias aliter, see Thesatirus s.v., and Hoppe, pp. no f. 3 For the hypallage here, see Hoppe, p. 87. 4 The bishop referred to was either Victor (so Allix, Oehler) or his predecessor Eleutherus (so Blondel, Neander). For the tradi tional lists of these bishops see C. H. Turner in Journ. TheoL Studies, vol. xviii. pp. 108, 118. The date of Victor s accession is put at M. Aurelius XVII (=A.D. 163), cf. Turner, p. 115, but the true date appears to be 189. Montanus founded Mon anism in Phrygia about the middle of the second century. Prisca and Maximilla were women followers of his. All prophesied and maintained the superiority of spiritual gifts over official position in the Church. See d Ales, chap. ix. xiu. 25 etc. i] TERTULLTAN AGAINST PR AXE AS 27 was seeking to introduce peace to the churches of Asia and Phrygia, it was he who did, by making false statements about these very prophets and their churches, and by defending the authoritative acts of his predecessors, compel him both to recall the letters of peace that had been already despatched and to give up his project of welcoming their gifts. So Praxeas managed two pieces of the devil s business at Rome ; he drove out prophecy and brought in heresy, he put the Paraclete 1 to flight and crucified the Father. Praxeas " tares " cf. Matt have borne fruit here too, having been "sown above " the pure teaching " while " many " slept " ; thereafter through him whom God willed, 2 they seemed to have been revealed and even pulled up by the roots. 3 Furthermore, the presbyter 4 who taught them had given sureties for his reform, and his signed promise remains in the possession of the carnal men in whose presence the transaction took place at the time. Ever since there has been silence. As for ourselves, the recognition and defence of the Paraclete afterwards separated us from these carnal men. 5 Those tares 6 had, however, 1 Remember that Montanus accepted the tide of "the Paraclete" (Euseb., Hist. Eccl., v. 14). 2 /. e. probably a reference to Tertullian himself. 3 For traductae thus used cf. Lofstedt, Krit. Bemerkungen zu Tertullian s Apologeticutn (Lund, 1918), p. 72. 4 Reading with Turner presbiter istornm : there is no adverb pristinum. Yet Hoppe, p. 1 8, explains pristinum doctor as =* qui pristinum docet. 5 The "carnal" men (psychici] are the Catholics, as opposed to the Montanists, who are spiritual. Cf. d Ales, pp. 453 f. 6 For the similes of Tertullian, see Hoppe, pp. 193-220 (this one, p. 197). 28 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [i, 2 cf. Matt, at that time everywhere " choked " the seed. For some time that fact lay hidden through hypocrisy, such was its cunning vitality, and now it has burst forth again. But it will also be again uprooted ; if the Lord wills, in this present age ; l but if cf. Matt, not, "at their proper season" all the corrupt crops ctVau. "will be gathered together," and "along with all cf^Matt 41 other stum bling-blocks " will u be burnt by un- iiil 12 quenchable fire." 2 2. Therefore after a time the Father that was born and the Father that suffered, God Himself cf. various the " all-powerful " Lord is preached as Jesus Christ. But we both always and now more than before, 3 as being better instructed by " the Para- cf.John clete,""who" of course "leads us into all truth," cT NiiLne " believe " indeed " in one God," but subject to this arrangement, which we call economy, that to the one God there should also belong a Son, His own Word, who has come forth from Him, John i. 3 " through Whom all things were made, and with out Whom nothing was made " 4 ; that it was He cf. various who was put by the Father into "the virgin," and " born from " her, both man and God, son of man cf. Matt, and Son of God, and surnamed "Jesus Christ"; 1 For this sense of commeatns, see the Thesaurus s.v. Iloppe p. 120, d Ales, p. 68. - For other examples of the ending _r ^ -_ - ^ , see Iloppe PP.- 155 f- On the relation of this passage to the official creed of the churches of North Africa, see the important section in d Ales, pp. 254-261. 4 The invariable, or almost invariable, punctuation of this verse down to the latter part of the fourth century : see the evidence set forth in my critical apparatus to Novum Testamentum Graece, and add W (the Freer-Washington codex) to the uncials there cited. 2] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 29 that it was He " who suffered, died, and was cf. vaiious buried" "according to the Scriptures," and was cf^Cor raised again by the Father, and being taken back xv. 3, 4 " into heaven * is seated at the right hand of the cf. various Father, and will come to judge the living and the creeds dead"; who afterwards, according to His promise, sent from the Father the Holy " Spirit, 2 the cf. John Paraclete," the sanctifier of the faith of them who xiv l6 believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. That this rule (of faith) has run its course from the beginning of the Gospel, even before the days of all the earlier heretics, and much more before the days of Praxeas, who is but of yesterday, will be proved as much by the very succession of all the heretics as it will be by the very modernity of the Praxeas of yesterday. Just as was done in exactly the same way " against all heresies," 3 so let c f. Teit. us from the present case also derive the preliminary {J^ sct \ judgment that whatsoever is first is true, while whatsoever is later is corrupt. But without pre judice, however, to this " preliminary declaration," 4 ibid. 1 For the abl. caelo = ace. caelitiu, see Hoppe, pp. 40 f. 2 It is surely not fanciful to suppose that in what has just preceded Tertullian has had some creed in view. He quotes in a fuller form than the Apostles Creed, and curiously anticipates certain later forms. The reader should consult Dr. Sanday in journal of Theological Studies, vol. i. , pp 3 ff. " Recent Research on the Origin of the Creed." 3 This must be a reference, as C. II. Turner points out, to the passage in the De praescripiione haereticornm : "ex ipso ordine manifestatur id esse dominicum et uerum quod sit prius traditum, id nutem extraneum et falsnm quod sit posterius immissum." 4 The word praescriptio is borrowed from Law, where it means "a preliminary declaration, by which one cuts the arguments of the opposite party short " (d Ales, p. 201). 3 o TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [2 room for revision of judgment 1 must also be everywhere given, for the instruction and fortifica tion of certain people, if only to prevent each single perversity from the appearance of condemnation, not after, but before it has been judged. And this applies especially to the perversity that thinks it possesses the undiluted truth, in holding the view that it must not believe in one God in any other way than by saying that this selfsame God is both Father and Son and Spirit. As if by parity of reasoning one of these were not all, since all come from one, of course through unity of nature, and as if, nevertheless, the mystery 2 of the economy were maintained. This economy arranges unity in trinity, regulating three, Father, Son and Spirit three, however, not in unchangeable condition, but in rank; not in substance, but in attitude; not in office, but in appearance ; 3 but of one nature 4 and of one reality and of one power, because there is one God from whom these ranks and attitudes and appearances are derived in the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. How they are subject 5 to 1 Hoppe, p. 138 n., classes the meanings of retractatus in Tertullian. 2 On the word sacramentum in Tertullian there has been much discussion : see d Ales, pp. 321 ff. 3 This clause appears to indicate an unequal share of divinity between the Three. 4 The word sitbstantia (= nature) recurs cc. 5, 8, 12, 26, 27 : see Dean Strong in Journal Theol. Sttidies, vol. iii. pp. 38^40, Dr. J. F. Bethune-Baker, ibid., vol. iv. pp. 440-442, both cited by d Ales, p. 81, n. 2, who in n. 3 defines status in Tertullian as " nature ou realite." 5 Yoi the indicative in indirect questions, see Hoppe, p. 72. 2,3] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 31 number and are yet not divided, these expositions will make clear as they advance. 3. All simple people, not to say the unwise and unprofessional l (who always constitute the majority of believers), since even the rule of faith 2 itself removes them from the plurality of "the gods" of cf. i Cor. this world to " the one true God," become greatly SJjoLn terrified through their failure to understand that, *vii. 3 while He must be believed to be one, it is along with His economy, because they judge that economy, implying a number and arrangement of trinity, is really a division 3 of unity, whereas 4 unity, deriving trinity from itself, is not destroyed by it, but made serviceable. Therefore they now circulate the statement that two and three are preached by us, while they judge that they are worshippers of one God, just as if the irrational contraction of unity did not produce heresy and the rational expansion of trinity did not establish truth. " We hold to monarchy," they say, and even Latins, even artisans, 5 give such character to the word itself with their voices, that you might suppose they understand " monarchy " as well as they articulate the word. But the Latins are 1 " Unprofessional " : possibly " uninitiated " would be better. 2 Kegula Jideij a regular expression in the early writers for the official creed. 3 Hoppe (p. 168) takes dispositioncm and diuisionem, as an in stance of alliteration, a rhetorical device. 4 For this sense of qttando, see Hoppe, pp. 78 f. 5 Edam opifices with Kigalt and C. II. Turner, for the impossible et tarn optfice of MSS. and editors. 32 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [3 anxious to preach l " monarchy," while even the Greeks are unwilling to understand "economy." But I, if I have culled any knowledge of both languages, know that " monarchy " means nothing else but the rule of one single person ; but that monarchy, nevertheless, does not for the reason that it belongs to one, lay it down that he to whom it belongs should either not have a son or should have made his very self into a son for himself, or should not manage his monarchy through whom he will. Further I affirm that no sovranty belongs so to one in himself, is so individual, is so much monarchy, that it cannot also be administered through other agents 2 in contact with it, whom it has itself looked out to perform services for itself. If, moreover, he to whom the monarchy belongs, has also had a son, you would not at once say that it was divided and ceased to be a monarchy, if the son also were taken to share in it, but that it was just as before chiefly his by whom it is shared with his son, and while it is his, it is just as much monarchy, since it is held together by two who are so united. Therefore, if the divine monarchy also is admin istered by so many " legions " and armies " of c f . Matt, angels," as it is written : " a hundred thousand nan! vu. times a hundred thousand were standing by Him, 10 and a thousand times a hundred thousand were 1 Sonare praedicare, significare> is for the most part post- classical (Hoppe, p. 15). 2 "Agents." Personas in theology seems to be derived from personas in law, where persona has the meaning "civil personality." 3,4] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 33 in attendance upon Him," and if it did not there fore cease to belong to one, so as to cease to be a monarchy, because its affairs are managed by so many thousands of powers, what sort of an idea is it that God should seem to suffer division and dispersal l in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, who have obtained respectively the second and the third place, and who are such partners in the Father s substance, a division and dispersal which He does not suffer in the angels who are so many in number, who are moreover no part of the Father s substance ! Do you consider that the parts and pledges and tools and the very power and the whole origin of monarchy are its undoing? That is wrong. I would rather you schooled your self to understand the thing than to utter the word. The undoing of monarchy you must under stand to take place when another sovranty is superimposed on its circumstances and its own special condition, and thus becomes hostile. When another god is introduced against the Creator, then is it evil, when it leads to the dethronement of the Creator ; when a number are introduced, as by the Valentini and Prodici, 2 then it leads to the overturning of monarchy ; (4) but how can I who 1 For many such examples of time as diuisionem et dispersionem in Tertullian, see Hoppe, pp. 162 ff. (especially p. 163). 2 That is, people like Valentinus and Prodicus, the Greek Gnostics. The former was an Egyptian Greek who lived from about A.D. 135 to A.D. 160 in Rome. Prodicus was less important, and of him little or nothing is known. Their doctrine set forth a plurality of divinities. (Cf. Ircnaeus passim, and Tertullian, Aduersus Valentinianos. ) C 34 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [4 derive the Son from nowhere else, but from the cf. John substance of the Father, "doing" nothing without S John " th e " Father s " will," obtaining " all power " from xvii. 2 the Father, how can I be supposed 1 to be breaking up monarchy, which, as handed over by the Father to the Son, I preserve in the Son ? May I say this too with regard to the third grade, that I do cf. John not regard "the Spirit as coming" from anywhere else than " from the Father " through the Son. 2 Beware then lest it be rather you who are breaking up monarchy, in overturning its arrangement and management, 3 established as they are in as many names as God willed. To such a degree, more over, does it remain in its established condition, though trinity be introduced, that it has even to be restored to the Father by the Son, even as the i Cor. xv. Apostle writes about the final end : " When He has 24> 25 handed over the kingdom to His God and Father. For He must reign till God put His enemies under His feet," of course according to the psalm : "Sit Ps. cix. i at my right hand, till I make thine enemies i Cor. xv. a footstool to thy feet" "when, moreover, all things are subjected to him save Him who sub jected all things unto Him, then He Himself also will be subjected unto Him who subjected all 1 Reading with C. II. Turner uideri for de fide of MSS. and edd. De fide, however, might conceivably mean "from the vantage ground of faith." 2 Note this careful statement, taken perhaps from the Greeks (cf. d Ales, p. 96). The first definite statement in a creed of Procession of the Spirit from the Son as well as the Father is in the Fourth Council of Toledo (A.D. 589). a Note this case of rime : cf. Hoppe, p. 163. 4, 5] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 35 things unto Him, that God may be all things in all." We see therefore that monarchy is not harmed although it be to-day with the Son, because it is both in its established condition with the Son and along with its established condition it will be restored to the Father by the Son. So no one will break it up in this way, that is, by admitting the Son, to whom it is well known that it was handed over by the Father and by whom it is well known it will one day be restored to the Father. By this one passage 1 of the Apostle s letter we have already been able to show 2 that the Father and the Son are two, because, apart from the fact of the names Father and Son, there is the other fact that He who " handed over the cf. i Cor. kingdom " and He to whom it was handed over, xv> 24 and likewise " He who subjected " and He to whom cf. i Cor. He was subjected, are of necessity two. 3 xv- 28 5. But because they make out that the two are one, so that the Father and Son are regarded as the same, we must weigh also the whole subject of the Son, whether He exists and who He is and how He comes to be, and thus the fact itself will vindicate its outward expression which protects the Scriptures and their translations. Some say that even Genesis in the Hebrew begins thus : " In the beginning God cf. Gen. i. 1 Capitulum indicates a section, usually longer than a modern verse, but considerably shorter than a modern chapter. 2 For ostendisse = ostendere, see Hoppe, pp. 52-54, who furnishes many parallels. 3 If we assume synaloepha, as Hoppe does (p. 154 n. 3), this is an^ instance of the commonest type of ending in Tertullian ~~ 36 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [5 made for Himself a Son." 1 That this is not reliable I am induced to believe by other argu ments drawn from God s arrangement itself which cf. John He followed from " before the foundation of the etc! 24> world" down to the begetting of a Son. 2 For at the first God was alone, He was to Himself both universe and place and everything, alone, more over, because there was nothing outside but Him self. 3 But even at that time He was not alone ; for He had with Him what He had in Himself, namely, His reason. For God is rational, and reason was first in Him, and thus it is that from Him it comes into all things. 4 This reason is His own John i. i thought ; this is what the Greeks call " Logos," which word we translate also by "speech," and therefore it is now our (Latin) custom by a simple John i. 2 translation to declare that " the Word was in the beginning with God," although it is more fitting that reason should be regarded as the older, because a God rational even before the beginning is not from the beginning given to speech, 5 and because even speech itself, since it depends on reason, shows that the latter is earlier, as being its founda tion. Yet for all that there is no difference. For 1 Oehler compares Hil. in Ps. ii. 2, Hier. Quaest. Hebr. in Gen. torn. II. p. 507, ed. Bened. * The teaching here is derived from the Greek Apologists : the parallels are set out in detail by d Ales, pp. 86 f. 3 For a Hippolytean parallel, see d Ales, p. 89. 4 Reading in omnia with C. H. Turner, for omnia of MSS. and edd. 6 The word sermonalis appears to be a coinage of Tertullian to correspond with rationalis (Hoppe, p. 1 16). Note the rime between the two (Hoppe, p. 166). 5] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 37 although God " had " not yet " uttered His word," PS. cvi. 20 all the same He had it both with and in reason itself within Himself, while silently meditating and arranging with Himself what He was afterwards to state in word. For meditating and arranging in company with His reason, He made that into word which He was dealing with by word. To under stand it more easily, take knowledge from yourself, I pray you, as from "the image and likeness" ofcf. Gen. i. God, that you also have in yourself reason, being a 2 rational living being, not only made as you are, of course by a rational Creator, but also given life cf. Gen. ii. from His own nature. See, when you silently meet with yourself in the process of thinking, that this very process goes on within you by reason meeting you along with word at every movement of your thought, at every beat of your understanding. Whatsoever you think is word ; whatsoever you understand is speech. 1 You must speak that within your mind, and while you speak, you experience in conversation with you the word which contains this very reason. By means of reason you think in company with word, and speak, and when you speak through word, you are thinking. So some how there is in you a second word, through which you speak when meditating and through which you meditate when speaking : the word itself is different. With how much more completeness, 1 Reading oratio with Kroymann ; for the corruption, cf. the variants in Ep. Phil. iv. 17, where certain Pelagian MSS. read orationem (cf. comment), where the Vulgate has ratione. 38 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [5, 6 cf. Gen.i. then, does this take place in God, whose "image and likeness " you also are deemed to be ! 1 Since He has reason in Himself even when silent, and in having reason has word also, it may be, therefore, that I have not made a rash beginning by laying cf. John down that even then " before the foundation of etc. " the universe" God was not alone, having in Himself alike reason and word in reason, which (word) He had made second to Himself by exercising it within Himself. 2 6. This power and this arrangement of divine understanding is indicated in the Scriptures also under the name " wisdom." For what could be wiser than the reason or word of God ? Therefore listen Trov. viii. to wisdom also created as the second person : " At 22, 23, 25 fi rs ^ ^ e L orc j coated me as a beginning of ways for his works, before He made the earth, before the mountains were set ; yea, before all the hills He begat me," creating and begetting me in His under standing of course. Then take knowledge of her standing by at the time when He Himself worked 3 : Prov. viii. "When He was preparing heaven," she says, "I was present with Him at the time; and how strong He made the clouds that are overhead, above the winds, and how securely He placed the sources of that quarter which is under heaven ! I was with 1 A good collection of examples of ccnseri as used by Tertullian in Thes. s.v., also in d Ales, pp. 366 f. 2 Observe the ending ^ _> ^ (without synaloepha), frequent in Tertullian (Hoppe, p. 156). 3 Read, with C. H. Turner, ipsiiis operationi, for ipsa separationc of the MSS. (in ipsa operatione, Kroymann). 6, 7] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 39 Him constructing, 1 I it was in whom He rejoiced ; and daily was I delighted before His face." Then, as soon as God had willed to put forth into His own matter and form that which He had in company with the reason and word of wisdom arranged within Himself, he first brought forth the word itself, having in itself its own in separable reason and wisdom, that everything might be made through the very (word) by which all had been planned and arranged, or rather already made, so far as God s thought was con cerned. 2 For this they still lacked : they had yet to become known and remembered before the eyes of each person in their appearances and substances. 3 7. It is then, therefore, that even the word itself 4 takes its own appearance and vesture, namely sound and expression ; when " God says : Let Gen. i. there be made light. " This is the complete birth of the word, since it proceeds out of God. Having been first created by Him as far as thought is concerned, under the name of wisdom " the rrov. viii. Lord created me as a beginning of ways," then p^. ov viii begotten to actuality " when He was preparing 27 heaven, I was with Him," thereafter, making as 1 For the periphrastic conjugation eram conpingens, see Hoppe, PP; 59 f- 2 This passage is compared with passages from the Greek Apologists in d Ales, pp. 87 f. 3 The same metrical ending as in chapters I, 5, and 7, etc. (see Hoppe, p. 156). 4 The relation of the first part of this chapter to the Greek Apologists is set forth by d Ales, pp. 90 ff. 40 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [7 Father 1 for Himself Him from whom He proceeds cf. Col. i. and thus becomes His Son, He was made " first- I5) etc * begotten," as having been begotten before every- cf. John i. thing, and " only-begotten," as having been alone 14, etc. begotten from God, in a real sense from the womb of His own mind, according as even the Ps. xliv. 2 Father Himself testifies: "My mind hath given forth a good word." Rejoicing, He thereupon ad dresses Him, who in like manner rejoices in His Ps. ii. 7 presence : Thou art my Son, this day have I L^eiV) be g tten thee," 2 and: "Before the morning star Ps! cix. 3 was, I begat thee." Even so the Son from His own person declares the Father under the name Prov. viii. of wisdom : " The Lord created me as a beginning 22 2 5 of ways for His works ; yea, before all the hills were, He begat me." And if here indeed wisdom seems to say that she was created by the Lord for His works and ways, elsewhere, however, it is John i. 3 shown that " all things were made through the Word, and without it was nothing made/ 3 even Ps. xxxii. as again we have the words : " By His word were the heavens established, and by His spirit all their strength" : by that spirit, of course, which was in the word. It is clear that it is one and the same power that passes now under the name of wisdom, Prov. viii. now under the title "word," which received " a be- 22 1 Patrem : d Ales (p. 90) saw that parem of the editions was wrong, and conjectured patrem ; Kroymann found the latter in MSS. and rightly reads it in his editions. There is no reference to equality here, but only to paternity. 2 Luke iii. 22 as read by Western documents for the most part : see my apparatus to N. T. Gr. ad hoc. 3 See the note on chap. ii. p. 28. 7] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 41 ginning of ways for the works " of God, and which " established the heaven " " through which all ?s. xxxii. things were made, and without which nothing was j h n j 3 made." Let us dwell no longer on this subject, as if the word itself were not meant when we find the names " wisdom," " reason," and the whole divine " mind " and " spirit," which was made the Son of God, from which he proceeded and was begotten. " Then," you say, " you argue that the word is some material, built up of spirit and wisdom and reason ? " l Certainly : for you do not want it to be regarded as in itself material through the inde pendence of its matter, lest it 2 might appear as a sort of object and person and, being second to God, might thus be able to make two, Father and Son, God and Word. " For what," you say, " is word, but voice and a sound of the mouth, and as the school teachers teach, a striking against air, cf. Dona- intelligible to the hearing, but something empty ^ Ij and vain and bodiless ? " But I say that nothing could have gone forth from God vain and empty, since the source from which it is brought is neither vain nor empty, and that what came forth from so great a material and made such great materials, cannot be immaterial ; for He it was who also made what was made through Him. What sort of a notion is it that He "without Whom nothing was made," should Himself be nothing, that an A The true readings were pointed out by C. H. Turner, namely sophia et rations (instead of sophiae traditione] and haberi in se (for habere in re). 2 Read ne ut with Kroymann for MSS. tit simply. 42 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [7 unsubstantial person should have worked what was solid, an empty person what was full, an incorporeal person what was corporeal ! For although some times a thing can come into being different from that through which it comes into being, yet nothing can come into being through that which is empty and vain. Is the word of God an empty and shadowy thing which was called the Son ? which was sur- John i. i named God Himself? " And the Word was with God, and the Word was God." It is written : Exod. xx. "Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain." Deut v That is assuredly He who " being in the image of ii) God thought it not robbery to be equal to God." Phil. ii. 6 _ . . . f ^ j , / 11 In what image of God ? Assuredly in some image, not in none at all. For who will deny that God is John iv. body, 1 even though "God is spirit"? For spirit is a particular kind of body in its own image, cf. Rom. i. But if even those " invisible things," whatsoever they are, have with God both their body and their shape, by means of which they are visible to God alone, how much more will that which has been put forth from His own being, have being? 2 For whatsoever the being of the Word was, I call it a person and I claim the name "Son" for Him, and in recognising Him as Son, I claim that He is second to the Father. 3 1 " Body," render perhaps rather by "substance " : passages illus trating the uses of this word in Tei tullian are given by d Ales, p. 62. 2 This thought is paralleled in the early Greek Apologists : see the evidence in d Ales, p. 92. The sentence is explained in some detail by Dr. J. F. Bethune-Baker in Jon> <n. TheoL Studies, vol. iv. pp. 441 f. 3 See the note at the end of chap. 6. 8] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 43 8. If any one thinks that herein I am intro ducing some probole} that is, projection of one thing from another, as Valentinus 2 does, when he brings forth from an Aeon one and another Aeon, in the first place I will tell you this : truth does not refrain from using this word and the thing and the origin it represents, for the reason that heresy also uses it : nay rather heresy got from the truth the materials for constructing its own falsehood. Was the word of God brought forth or not? Here plant your step with me. 3 If it was brought forth, learn of the projection belong ing to the truth, and it is heresy s look out if it has imitated anything from the truth. Our present question is who uses a certain thing 4 and how he uses it and the word describing it. Valentinus distinguishes and separates his projections from the Creator, and places them so far from Him, that the Aeon does not know the Father; for he longs to know Him, and cannot, nay he is almost swal lowed and broken up into the remaining material. But amongst us it is only "the Son that knows the c f. Matt. Father," and He Himself "has revealed the bosom Jj^Vit of the Father " and " He has heard " and " seen " all cf. John things with the Father and " what things He was * John v. 1 For prolatio as a Latin rendering of Greek probcle, see Hoppe, *^ p. 123, n. I. 2 Valentinus, the Gnostic : see the note on chap. 3 fin. The doctrine of Aeons was one of the most characteristic parts of the Gnostic system. 3 Other examples of the metaphor gradient figere in Hoppe, p. 208, n. I. 4 For the two question clauses without connective, a Latin and Greek idiom, cf. Hoppe, p. 74. 44 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [8 cf. John commanded by the Father, these He also speaks " ; cf!john an d it was "not His own will, but "the Father s - 49 that He accomplished, that will which He knew at cf. John vi. 38 close quarters, nay from His inmost soul. "For Cor< who knows what is in God but the Spirit who is in 11. ii Himself? " The word, moreover, is equipped 1 with the spirit, and if I may say so, the word s body is spirit. 2 The word, therefore, was both always in the Father, even as He says : " I in the Father," John xiv. and always with God, as it is written : " And the John 1. i Word was with God," and never separated from the Father or different 3 from the Father, because : " I and the Father are one." This will be the pro- John x. 30 jection of truth, the guardian of unity, by which we say that the Son was brought forth from the Father, but not separated. For God brought forth the Word, even as the Paraclete also teaches, as the root does the shrub, the source the river, and the sun the ray. For these forms too are pro jections of the natures from which they proceed. Nor should I hesitate to call the Son both the shrub of the root and the river of the source and the ray of the sun, because every origin is a parent, 4 and all that is brought forth from the origin is offspring, much more the Word of God, which also in a real sense received the name of Son. And yet the shrub is not distinguished from 1 For struct us = instructus, cf. Iloppe, pp. I38f. 2 With this passage d Ales, p. 86, compares passages in the Greek Apologists. 3 For the a (ab] after a/ius, cf. chaps. 9 (quater], 1 8 (Hoppe, p. 36). 4 D Ales, p. 92, compares this passage with some in the Greek Apologists. 8] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 45 the root, nor the river from the source, nor the ray from the sun, even as the Word is not distinguished from God either. Therefore according to the pat tern of these examples I declare that I speak of two, God and His Word, the Father and His Son. The root and the shrub are also two things, but joined together ; the source and the river are two forms, but undivided ; the sun and the ray are two forms, but they cleave together. Everything that proceeds from something, must be second to that from which it proceeds, but it is not therefore separated. Where, however, there is a second, there are two, and where there is a third, there are three. The Spirit is third with respect to God and the Son, even as the fruit from the shrub is third from the root, and the channel from the river is third from the source, and the point l where the ray strikes something is third 2 from the sun. Yet in no respect is it banished from the original source from which it derives its special qualities. Thus the Trinity running down from the Father through stages linked and united together, 3 offers no obstacle to monarchy and con serves the established position of the economy. 4 1 My rendering of apex is cumbrous: Blunt, Right Use, etc., p. 504, renders by "sparkle," Kaye, Eccles. Hist, (cheap edition), pp. 265 f., by " terminating point." 2 The repetition of the word tertius (anaphora) is a rhetorical device used for effect : cf. Hoppe, pp. 146 f. 3 The alliteration consertos conexos is an intentional rhetorical device: Hoppe, pp. 148 ff. 4 This ending ( ^ i=d=r ) is one of the rarer types in Tertullian ; occurring in about thirteen per cent, of the cases only (Hoppe, pp. 156 f.) 46 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [9 9. Everywhere remember that I have announced this rule by which I testify that Father and Son and Spirit are unseparated from one another, and thus you will recognise what is meant and how it is meant. 1 Understand then ; I say that the Father is one, the Son another, and the Spirit another every untrained or perverse person takes this saying wrongly, as if it expressed 2 difference, and as the result of difference meant a separation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit ; but it is of necessity that I say this, when they contend that Father, Son and Spirit are the same person, fawning on monarchy at the expense of economy but that it is not by difference that the Son is other 3 than the Father, but by distribution, and it is not by division that He is other, but by dis tinction, because Father and Son are not the same, being different one from the other even in measure. For the Father is all being, but the Son is a tributary of the whole and a portion, as He John xiv. Himself declares : " Because the Father is greater than 1." In the psalm He is sung of as being cf. Ps. "made" by Him "a little lower than the angels." 4 (Hptf ii So also the Father is other than the Son > since He 7) is greater than the Son, since it is one that begets, 1 For the double question, without connective, cf. Hoppe, p. 74. 2 sonet = signified (Hoppe, p. 15). a For a/tus, a, here and thrice below in this chapter, cf. Hoppe, p. 36. 4 Cf. cc. 14, 26, which like this passage favour subordinationism ; but the passages must be read in conjunction with others of contrary tendency in cc. 9, II (cf. d Ales, pp. 100 f.). 9, TO] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 47 another that is begotten, since it is one that sends, another that is sent ; since it is one that acts, another through whom action takes place. It is well that the Lord also, using this word in reference to the person of the Paraclete, indicated not division, but arrangement ; for, He said : " I John xiv. will ask the Father, and He will send you another l advocate, the Spirit of reality," meaning a Paraclete other than Himself in the same way as we also mean a Son other than the Father, 1 to show the third stage in the Paraclete, as we show the second in the Son because of our regard to economy. Does not the very fact that Father and Son are named, mean that the one thing is different from the other ? For certainly all things will be what they are called, and what they shall be, that they will be called, and the difference in the names cannot be at all mixed up, any more than the difference in the objects they will represent. "Yea, yea, nay, Matt. v. nay ; for what is more than yea and nay is from 37 the evil one." 10. So both the Father "is" and the Son " is " 2 (just as day is and night is) ; and neither is day the same as night, nor Father the same as Son. If they were, both would be one and either of the two would be both, as these foolish Monarchians make out. " He Himself," they say, " made Himself Son 1 For the omission of dicit and dicimits, cf. Hoppe, p. 145. 2 Here C. H. Turner is followed as to arrangement, reading and translation : ita et pater et filius " esf." 48 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [10 for Himself." Nay, rather a father makes a son and a son a father, 1 and those who come from one or other, cannot in any way be made by themselves for themselves, so that a father should make himself a son for himself and a son should offer himself as a father to himself. What God created, God Himself also maintains. A father must needs have a son, to be a father, and a son must have a father, to be a son. It is one thing to have, another to be. For example, to be a husband I must have a wife ; I shall not be myself a wife to myself. So also to be a father, I must have had a son ; I myself shall not be a son to myself ; and to be a son, I shall have a father; I myself shall not be a father to myself. If I have what makes me so, then I shall be so ; a father, if I have a son ; a son, if I have a father. Further, if I shall myself be any of those, I no longer have that which I shall myself be ; neither a father, because I shall myself be a father, nor a son, because I shall myself be a son. In so far as I must have one of those two, and be the other, just in so far, if I am both, I shall not be one of the two, as long as I do not possess the other. For if I myself shall be a son, who am also a father, I no longer have a son, but I am myself a son. But if I have not a son, while I am myself a son, how shall I be a father ? For I must have a son to be a father. I am therefore not a son because I have not a father, who makes a son. Equally if I myself am a father, who am 1 This sentence supports the new reading patrem in c. 7. ID] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 49 also a son, I no longer have a father, but I am myself a father. But if I have not a father, while I am myself a father, how shall I be a son ? For I must have a father, to be a son. I shall therefore not be a father, because I have not a son, who makes one a father. This will all be a contrivance of the devil to shut out the one from the other, while by enclosing both in one under the support he gives to monarchy, he causes neither to be possessed, so that he should not be a father who of course has not a son, nor should he be a son who equally has not a father ; for while he is a father, he will not be a son. So do they hold to monarchy, who hold together at the same time neither Father nor Son. But " nothing is difficult job xiii. 2 to " God : who does not know it ? and, " what is ^iii?i4) impossible with the world is possible with God " : Lu .k. e who is ignorant of this ? and " God chose the JTcorfi. foolish things of the world to put the wise things 2 ? to confusion": we read all this in Scripture. " Therefore," they say, " it was not difficult for cf. Job God to make Himself both Father and Son xliL 2 against the law handed down to human circum stances. For it was not difficult for God either cf. Job that a barren woman should bear contrary to *[ u G 2 al i v nature, or that a virgin either should do so/ 27 (Isa. Clearly, "nothing is difficult to" God, but if we c ^ Matt, take such inconsiderate advantage of this thought ?3 Job xlu in our assumptions, we shall be able to imagine anything we like about God, as if He acted simply because He had the power to act. But we are not D 50 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [10,11 cf. Sap. to believe that because " He can do all things," therefore He did even what He did not do, but we must ask whether He did it. 1 He could, if He had wished, have provided 2 man with wings to fly, as He did for kites ; nevertheless He did not at once proceed to do it simply because it was in His power. He could have at once put to death 2 both Praxeas and all other heretics alike ; yet simply because He had the power He did not do so. cf. i Cor. For " it was meet that there should be " both kites 3 and "heretics," it was also meet that the Father should be crucified ! In this way there will be cf. job something even " difficult to " God, namely, whatso ever He has not done, not because He could not, but because He willed not. For God s power is His will, and His inability is His unwillingness. What He willed, He was both able and ready to do. Therefore because, if He willed to make Himself into a son for Himself, He could have done it, and because if He could, He did it you will prove that He both could and willed, if once you prove that He did it. ii. You will have to prove as clearly from the Scriptures as we prove it, that He made His word a son for Himself. For if He names His Son (and there will be no Son other than He who came forth from Himself, but the Word proceeded from 1 Note the reasonableness of the view just expressed ; cf. d Ales, PP. 35, 66. 2 For the perfect infinitive after posse, where the present infinitive would be expected, cf. Hoppe, p. 53. 3 For the comparison with kites here, see Hoppe, p. 199. n] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 51 Himself), that will be the Son, not Himself, from whom He proceeded. For He did not Himself proceed from Himself. Moreover, you who say that the Father and the Son are the same, argue that the same both brought forth and proceeded from Himself. Though God could have done 1 this, yet He did not do it. Or set forth the proof I demand, like my own, that is that the Scriptures indicate the same to be Son and Father in the same way as with us the Father and Son are indicated differentially ; differentially, I say, not separately. Just as I produce God s saying : "my Ps. xliv. 2 mind has given forth a good word," do you retort with the statement that God has somewhere said : " my mind has given forth myself, a good word," cf. Ps. so that it should be Himself who both gave forth xhv 2 and was that which He gave forth, and Himself who brought forth and who was brought forth, if He Himself is both Word and God. Again : I point out that the Father said to the Son : " Thou Ps. ii. 7 art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." If^ ukeiii> you should want me to believe that the Father Himself is also the Son, show me this declaration elsewhere : " The Lord said to Himself: I am my cf. Ps. ii. son, I have this day begotten myself" ; in like $.22)* manner also : " Before the morning star I begat cf. Ps. cix. myself" ; and : " I the Lord created myself as a ;? f ProVm beginning of ways for my works, yea, before any viii - 22 > 2 5 of the hills were, I begat myself," and any other 1 For the perfect infinitive after posse = present infinitive, cf. Hoppe, p. 53. 52 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [u passages after this likeness. Whom was God, the Lord of all things, afraid thus to proclaim, if such was the fact? Was He afraid He should not be believed, if He declared Himself in plain language to be both Father and Son ? Nay : one thing, however, He did fear ; falsehood being afraid of Himself and His own truth ; l and therefore be lieving God truthful I know that He has not declared differently from what He arranged, and has not arranged differently from what He declared. But you would make Him untruthful and false, and a deceiver of these believers, 2 if, although Himself a son to Himself, he gave to another the person of His Son, since 3 all the Scriptures make the Trinity clear and the distinction within it, from which Scriptures our objection is also taken, namely that He who speaks and He about whom He speaks and He to whom He speaks, cannot be regarded as one and the same, because neither perversity nor deception befits God ; that although it was Himself to whom He was speaking, He should be speaking rather to another, and not to Himself. Listen, therefore, also to other words of the Father touching the Son, spoken through the medium of Isaiah : Isa. xlii. i " Behold my Son whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased ; I will put my spirit 1 C. H. Turner s view merits mention, and may be right. He reads ueritatis auctorem for tieritm an fern : "one thing nevertheless he did fear, that the Author of Truth should falsify himself and his truth." 2 Fides (abstract) *= fables (concrete) : cf. Hoppe, p. 93, who gives parallels. 3 For quando = "since," cf. Hoppe, p. 78- n] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 53 upon Him, and He will preach judgment to the nations." Take this also addressed to Himself: " It is a great thing for thee, that thou shouldest Isa. xlix. 6 be called my son to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to turn back the scattering of Israel ; I have set thee as a light to the nations, that thou mayest be salvation to the ends of the earth." Take now also words of the Son touching the Father : " The Luke iv. Spirit of the Lord is upon me; wherefore He hath i sa .i x i. z) anointed me to give the good news unto men." Likewise to the Father in the psalm : " Lord God, Ps. ixx. forsake me not, till I preach of thine arm to all l{ that shall be born " ; likewise in another : " Lord, Ps. iii. wherefore are they multiplied that seek to crush me?" But almost all the psalms look forward to Christ s person, and set forth x the Son speaking to the Father, that is, Christ to God. Observe also the Spirit speaking as the third person about the Father and the Son : " The Lord said unto my Ps. cix. i Lord : Sit on my right hand, till I make thine enemies a footstool to thy feet." Likewise through Isaiah : " Thus saith the Lord to my Lord the Isa. xlv. i Anointed :" likewise through the same to the Father regarding the Son : " Lord, who hath believed our Isa. liii. report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord : ~ 2 been revealed ? We have preached about him : even as a young boy, even as a root in thirsty ground, and he had no beauty nor glory." These 1 The fullest discussion of the word rcpraesentat e is in d Ales 356-36o. Cf. also Prof. H. B. Swete in Journ. Theol. Stud. I., pp. 161-177. It is used in a moral sense here. 54 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [11,12 are but few passages out of many. For we are not striving to go through all the passages of Scripture, since by calling in the testimony of the full majesty and authority in individual passages, we find greater opportunity for attack in reviewing them. 1 By these passages, therefore, few as they are, the distinction within the Trinity is yet clearly set forth : for there is He who declares, the Spirit, and the Father to whom He declares, and the Son about whom He declares. So also with all other things that are uttered now by the Father about the Son 2 or to the Son, now by the Son about the Father or to the Father, now by the Spirit : they establish each person in His own proper self. 3 12. If you still find the number of the Trinity a stumbling-block, as if it were not knit together in a single unity, I ask you : how is it that one Gen. i. 26 individual speaks in the plural : " Let its make man in our image and likeness," when He ought to have said : 4 " Let me make man in my image and likeness," inasmuch as 5 He is one individual? Gen. iii. But also in .what follows : " Behold, Adam was made like one of its" He is either deceiving or making fun of us, speaking as if He were a number, when He is one and alone and individual. Or 1 For the senses of retractatus in Tertullian see Hoppe, p. 138, n. i. 2 Reading, with C. H. Turner, a pat re defilio ltd ad filium, nunc afilio de pat re uel ad patrein, nunc a spiritu. 3 For the rare ending ( ^ ^ ^ ), see Iloppe, p. 157. 4 For the perfect infinitive here, where present infinitive would be expected, cf. Hoppe, p. 54. 6 Utpote should be read : utpute (Kroymann) is a vox nihili, being a cross between utputa and utpote, not uncommon in MSS. 12] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 55 was He addressing the angels, as the Jews under stand, because they too fail to recognise the Son ? Or was it because He was Himself Father, Son, Spirit, that for that reason, showing Himself to be plural, He spoke in a plural way to Himself? Nay, it was because the Son, the second person, His own Word, was already cleaving to Him, and the third, 1 the Spirit in the Word, that for that reason He made the announcement in the plural : " Let us make " and " ours " and " us." For He Gen. i. 26; was speaking to those in conjunction with whom He was making man and in whose likeness He was making him with the Son on the one hand, who was to put on " man," with the Spirit, on c f. Phil. ii. the other hand, who was to hallow man as with 7> etc> servants and eyewitnesses, in accordance with the unity of the Trinity. For the following passage of Scripture distinguishes between the persons : " God made man, in the image of God He made Gen. i. 27 him." Why not " His own" (image), if there was one who made, and there was no one in whose image to make him ? But there was One in whose image He made him, namely the Son, who, destined to be a surer and truer man, had caused His image to be called man, who then was to be " formed " out of " mud," " the image and c f. Gen.ii, likeness " of reality. But even in the case of the f Ge ^ . preceding works of the universe how is it written ? 26 At first, while as yet the Son did not show 1 There is something of a confusion here with regard to the three Persons, such as occurs in other writers also (cf. d Ales, p. 96). 56 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [12 Gen. i. 3 Himself: "And God said, Let there be light/ and it was made " immediately the Word Himself, " the Jolmi. 9 true light that comes 1 into the world and lightens cf. John. i. every man," and through Him "the light" of the universe also. Thereafter, too, in the Word Christ, standing by Him and carrying out His behests, 2 God willed creation, and God created : Gen. i. 6. 7 "And God said : Let there be a firmament, and Gen. i. 14, God made a firmament"; "and God said: Let there be lights/ and God made a greater and a less light." But the rest also were of course made by the same power as made what went before, namely John i. 3 by the Word of God, " through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made." John i. i If he was God Himself (according to John : "The Word was God "), you have two, one saying it should be done, the other doing it. 3 And how you ought to regard "the other," I have already declared, " other " in respect of role, not of nature ; 4 by way of distinction, not of division. But although I hold, 5 everywhere to one being in three 1 The true Cyprianic reading, as Turner points out, is ueniens, i.e. fp\6^vov is made to agree with (pus. Doubtless it was so taken by Tertullian also. I should also insert the omnem omitted by scribal inadvertence before the almost identical hominem. The passTge would then read: ipse statim sermo "uera lux quae nluminat omnem hominem ueniens in hunc mundum." ihe mundialis lux is the sun. 2 The alliteration adsist. admin, is an intentional rhetorical device (Hoppe, p. 149). 3 Perhaps pant should be read for fiat, corresponding better to facta sunt. 4 On this passage see Dean Strong, Journ. Theol. Stud., III. p. 38. 5 Teneam is potential : the construction is paratactic. The parallels in Hoppe, p. 83, show that there is no need to insert etsi, as Kroymann does. i 2 , i 3 ] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 57 that cleave together, yet the need of expressing my meaning makes me speak of the one who orders and the one who carries out the order, as different. For besides, He would not give the order, if He Himself were to act while giving it, that it should be done by him to whom He then gave the order ; He would either have given the com mand 1 to Himself, if He were One only; or He would have done it without command, because He would not have waited to give the command to Himself. 13. "Therefore," you say, "if God spoke and God acted, if God spoke and another acted, you are proclaiming two gods." If you are so obtuse, keep your opinion for the time being ; and to make you hold this opinion still more, 2 listen to the mention of two gods even in a psalm : " Thy throne, God, is for ever- p s . xliv. lasting ; (a rod of uprightness is) 3 the rod of Thy 7) 8 kingdom ; Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity ; therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee." If it is "God" he is addressing, and he says that "God has been anointed by God," here too he avows two gods. In virtue of " the rod of thy kingdom." 4 Hence it is that Isaiah also refers to the person of Christ : " And isa. xlv. 14, 15 1 For iubeo with the dative, on the analogy of impero, cf. Hoppe, p. 29. 2 On adhuc with the comparative, see Hoppe, p, no. 3 Uirga directionis has doubtless been omitted by homoeoarcton. 4 Pro perhaps means "instead of, "in place of." The whole phrase sounds like a gloss out of its place : clearly there is a corruption of some kind. 58 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [13 the Seboin, lofty men, will cross to Thee and follow after Thee with hands bound, and will worship Thee, because God is in Thee ; for Thou art our God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel." Here too by saying " God in Thee " and "Thou God," he sets forth two, namely, Him who was in Christ and Christ 1 himself. There is more that you will find in the Gospel so many times ; John i. i "In the beginning was the Word, 2 and the Word was with God, and the W T ord was God " : One who was, and another with whom He was. But I also read that the name of the Lord was used in Ps. cix. i reference to two : " The Lord said unto my Lord : Sit at my right hand. " And Isaiah says this: Isa. liii. i " Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed ? " For he would have said " thine arm," not " the arm of the Lord/ if he had not wished the Lord the Father and the Lord the Son to be under stood. Also there is the still 3 older book of Gen. xix. Genesis : " And the Lord rained on Sodom and 24 Gomorrah sulphur and fire from heaven from the Lord." Either deny that this is in the Bible, or who are you to hold the opinion that the words are not to be taken in the sense in which they are written, especially those whose meaning lies not 1 Read Christum for spiritum with C. II. Turner. The corruption (spm for xpm) is found elsewhere also. 2 This passage is illustrated from Greek Apologists by d Ales, pp. 86 f. 3 On adhuc with the comparative, see Hoppe, p. no, who suggests pleonasm here. i 3 ] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 59 in allegories or similitudes, but in sure and simple definitions? But if you be of the number of those who would not then endure l the Lord s declaring cf. Juhn x. Himself the Son of God, lest they should believe 33 Him God, recollect that He is included with them in these words : " I said : Ye are gods and sons of Ps. ixxxi. the Highest, " and : " God stood in the assembly of x . 34) the gods," in order that, if Scripture did not fear to Ps. ixxxi. declare that men, " made sons of God by faith," c f. j hn i. gods, you may know that Scripture much more were 1 J Qal ... rightly conferred upon the true and only Son of 26 God the name both of God and of Lord. 2 " There fore," you say, " I will challenge you to preach consistently even to-day two gods and two lords in accordance with the authority of these Scriptures." God forbid ! For we who by God s grace examine both the times and the motives of the Scriptures, as pupils especially of the Paraclete, not of men, cf. John do indeed lay down two, Father and Son, and xvu I3> even three including the Holy Spirit according to the method of economy which produces the number, lest, as your perversity smuggles it in, the Father Himself should be believed to have been born and suffered, which it is not allowable to believe since it has not so been recorded yet we never with our lips utter the expressions " two gods" and "two lords," not because the Father is not God and the Son is not God and the Spirit 1 For sustinere with the participle, Hoppe compares the use of anechesthai in Greek, and gives other examples, p. 58. 2 Following Turner and reading et dei et domini nomen. 60 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [13 is not God and each one of them is not God, but since in the past two gods and two lords were preached simply in order that when Christ had come, he might be recognised as God and also called Lord, because he was the Son of God and the Lord. For if there were found in the Scrip tures only one being both of God and the Lord, Christ would deservedly have been refused ad mission to the name of God and that of Lord cf. Exod. for it was preached that there was " no God " and Deut v 7 Lord "but" one and the Father Himself would cf. Eph. be thought " to have descended/ because they read of one God and one Lord, and His whole economy would have been overshadowed, which was planned and administered as subject-matter for belief. But when Christ came and we learned about Him that He Himself who had in the past caused the (plural) number, having been made second to the Father, and one of three if the Spirit be included, being also the Father, who was more fully mani fested by Him, the name of God and Lord was now reduced to an unity, 1 in order that because c f. i " the nations were leaving " a multitude of " images cf Art s xv 9 an< ^ comm g to the" one "God," there might also 19, etc. be established a difference between the worshippers of a single and of a multiple divinity. Besides, John xii. it was the duty of Christians, as " sons of light," 36; Eph. V Th * This, I think, is the right way to take this sentence. The Vt scriptural language latent in it has not, I think, been hitherto pointed out. This -is the only passage in Tertullian where it has been suggested to take quia in a final sense ( = ut} (Iloppe, p. 76, n. 3), the ut in the text being regarded as consecutive. 13, 14] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 61 " to shine " in the world, worshipping and naming c f. Matt. " the light of the world," one God and Lord. But if we had named gods and lords in virtue of that 12 knowledge which tells us that the name of God and Lord fits Father and Son and Spirit, we should have extinguished our torches and shown cowardice also in giving our testimony ; we should have found everywhere open before us an oppor tunity to escape this, and at once proceeded to swear by gods and lords, as certain heretics do who have a number of gods. Therefore I will not use at all the expressions "gods" or "lords," but I will follow the Apostle, and if I have to name the Father and Son together, I will call the Father " God " and name Jesus Christ " the Lord." Rom. i. 7, Moreover, I shall be able to speak of Christ as etc- God, only in the way that the same Apostle does : " From whom is Christ, who is," he says, " God Rom. ix. 5 over all, blessed throughout all time." For I shall also call a ray of the sun by itself " sun " ; but in naming the sun whose ray it is, I shall not straightway call a ray "the sun." For I am not going to make out that there are two suns. Nevertheless, I will just as much count the sun and its ray two things and two aspects of one indivisible material, as I do God and His Word, as I do Father and Son. 1 14. Further, there comes to our support in 1 This ending ( - ^ ^ -^ ^) is one of the rarer types, occurring in about thirteen per cent, of the cases, cf. Hoppe, pp. 156 f. Note that the final syllable of patrem is elided. 62 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [14 claiming two, Father and Son, the rule that defined God as invisible. For when Moses in Egypt had longed for a sight of the Lord, saying : Exod. "If therefore I have found grace in thine eyes, 13 revea j Thyself unto me, that I may see Thee and know Thee," He said : " Thou canst not see my xxxiii. 20 f ace f or no one will see my face and live," that is : he who sees it will die. But we find that God was seen by many, and yet none of those who had seen Him, died : He had, of course, been seen as far as men s powers served, not in the fullness of His cf. Gen. divinity. The patriarchs are related to have seen X " Gen God, for example Abraham and Jacob, and the xxviii. 13; prophets, as Isaiah and Ezekiel, and yet they did cfHtsafvj. not die. Therefore, either they must have died if 1 they had seen Him " for no one will see "God "and cf Ezdc i i live " or, if they saw God and did not die, Scripture xxxifi 20 ls ^ se * n statm & tnat God said : " If a man see my ibid. face, he shall not live." Or if Scripture does not cf. John. He, either in declaring God to be invisible, or in i. 1 8, etc. stating that He has been seen, it must therefore be some one else who was seen, because he who was seen, the same cannot be defined as invisible, and it will follow that we must understand the Father as invisible in virtue of the fullness of His majesty, while we recognise the Son as visible in accordance with the measure of a secondary l nature ; just as 1 " secondary," i. e. not inferior, hut derived, deduced from the other, as an irrigation canal is "deduced" from a river. But Tertullian seems here (cf. c. 26) to come perilously near to sub- ordinationism, cf. d Ales, p. 101. On p. 102 he gives parallels to the general argument of the chapter. 14] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 63 we may not view the sun, so far as the sum-total of its matter in the sky is concerned, but we can bear a ray of it with our eyes, as that is only a portion toned down, projected from it on to the earth. Here some one from the opposite side x will seek to maintain that even the Son is invisible, like a word, like breath, and in claiming one state 2 for Father and Son, to establish that Father and Son are rather one and the same. But we have said c f. c. 14 above that Scripture supports a difference by its pr> distinction between the visible and the invisible. They will then add this point to their reasoning, that if it was the Son who then spoke to Moses, He Himself declared His face to be visible to no one> because, of course, the invisible Father Himself was (present) under the Son s name. By this means they will have the same being regarded as both visible and invisible, even as the same is both Father and Son, since a little earlier also, before He refuses to show His face to Moses, it is written that " the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as if one Exod. were speaking to his friend," and in like manner 3 """ 11 XI Jacob also says : " I have seen God face to face." Gen. " Therefore the same being is visible and invisible ; XXXIU 3 and because he is both, therefore also the Father Himself is invisible, but being also the Son, He is visible." As if, indeed, the explanation of the Scripture passage we are now giving were suited 1 ex diuerso ex diuersa parte : Tertullian is very fond of this type of phrase, where a preposition is used with the neuter of an adjective, cf. Iloppe, pp. 98 ff. 2 "one state," z. e. the state of invisibility. 64 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [14 to a Son separated from the Father in His visibility ! For we say that even the Son in His own name is invisible to the same extent as the Word and Spirit of God are, in virtue of the state of His being, even now also because He is God and Word and Spirit of God, but that He was visible before He took flesh, in the way to which He refers in Numb. speaking to Aaron and Miriam : "And if there be a prophet among you, I shall be known of him in a vision, and in a dream shall I speak to him, not in the way " he described to " Moses : I will speak to him mouth to mouth, in my visible form/ that is, in reality, "and not in a riddle," that is, not in i Cor. a phantom ; even as also the Apostle says : " Now xiii. 12 , ri r . . -Jill we see as if by means of a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face." Therefore, when in Moses case He keeps the sight of Himself and face to face con verse for a future date for this was afterwards cf. Matt, fulfilled in the retirement " on the mountain," since cf V1 Matt we rea d in the Gospel that " Moses was seen xvii - 3; conversing with Him " l it is clear that previously \ T U 1 Y /I Luke ix. God that is, the Son of God had always been 3?- seen " in a mirror " and " riddle " and " vision " and cf. Numb. xii. 8; cf. "dream," as much by prophets and patriarchs as r^f Gen also tiH tnat time ty Moses himself, and the Lord xxviii. 13, Himself indeed perchance spoke face to face, 2 yet not in such a way that a man might see his face, Numb. xii. except perhaps " in a mirror, in a riddle." For if u 1 See d Ales, p. 171, for the connexion between the Transfigura tion and the promise made to Moses. 2 Kroymann s punctuation is wrong here: si forte, as often in Tertullian and elsewhere =fortasse ; see Mayor, Tert. Apol. index. 14] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 65 the Lord had spoken to Moses in such a way that even Moses knew his face at close quarters, how does he immediately and on the very spot long to see His face, which he would not long to see, because he had seen it? How is it that the Lord c f. Exol. also equally declares that His face cannot be seen, xxxiii - 20 which He had already shown, if He really had shown it ? But what is that " face " of God, the ibid. " sight " of which is refused ? If it was that which was seen " I saw God," says Jacob, <; face to face, Gen. and my soul was saved " that " face " must be xxxu< 3 different which, if seen, slays. 1 Or was the Son indeed seen although " face to face," yet this very sight occurred " in vision " and " dream " and c f. Gen. "mirror and riddle," because Word and Spirit xiL .?. ; xxvin. 13, cannot be seen except in an imaginary form and etc. does he mean by his " face " 2 the invisible Father ? %^ mb Who is the Father ? WiH not the Son s face be Exod. His by virtue of the authority which He obtains as begotten by the Father? Is it not fitting to use the expression about some greater being : " That man is my face," and : " he countenances me"? "The Father," He says, "is greater than John xiv. I." Therefore the Son s face will be the Father. 28 For, besides, what is it the Scripture says ? " The Lam. iv. spirit of His face (///. mask), Christ the Lord." 320 1 The sentence would gain in clearness if, with C. H. Turner, we inserted itisa esf, alia quae tfterfacies quae. 2 On this passage and the scriptural use of fades in this connexion, see Thes. vol. vi. (1913), p. 49, 11. 26 ff. 3 The MSS. must be followed here as agreeing with LXX. Kroymann alters to spiritus (gen.) eius persona . . . persona paterni spiritus. But Tertullian s agreement with LXX in not perfect. In . E 66 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [14, 15 Therefore, if "Christ is the spirit of the Father s face," it follows that He proclaimed His own face (as the result of their unity, of course), to be that of the Spirit whose face He was, namely that of the Father. It is matter for wonder whether the Son s face can be taken as the Father, who is "His head." For "God is Christ s head." i Cor. xi. 15. If I do not succeed in explaining this part of my subject by investigations of the Old Scripture, I will take from the New Testament the confirmation of my interpretation, lest whatever I attribute to the Son, you should in like manner claim for the Father. For observe, both in the Gospels and in the Apostles 1 I find that God is visible and invisible, with a clear and personal difference between the two states. John, as it were, shouts aloud : " No one hath seen God at any time," and therefore, of course, not in the past ; for he has John i. 18 removed all question as to time by saying that " God has never been seen." And the Apostle also confirms this as regards God : " whom no human jbid. being hath seen, nor indeed can see," assuredly i Tim. vi. because he who does see Him will die. These very same Apostles testify that they " have both cf. Exod. seen and handled" Christ. But if Christ Himself " rjohn is koth Father and Son, how was He both seen i. i place of eitts (his) LXX has T\pS>v (ours). It looks as if he had falsified the text for his own purpose. R. V. : " The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord." Cf. d Ales, pp. 98, 237. 1 For the terms used by Tertull an to indicate Scripture or parts of Scripture, see d Ales, p. 223 ff. 15] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 67 and invisible? Some opponent of ours will now 1 argue, with the view of combining this distinction of visible and invisible in a unity, that both statements are correct, that He was visible indeed in the flesh, but invisible before He became flesh, with the result that the Father, invisible before He became flesh, is the same as the Son who is visible in the flesh. But if the same was invisible before becoming flesh, how is He found to have been seen even in the past before He became flesh ? Like wise, if the same was visible after becoming flesh, how is He even now declared invisible by the Apostles, except because it was one who even in the past was seen "in a riddle "and was made more Numb, xii o fully visible by flesh, namely, " the Word," who j ohn j , 4 " was " also " made flesh," and it was another whom " no one ever saw," the Father, of course, whose the John i. is Word is ? For let us examine who it was the Apostles saw. " What we have seen," says John, i John i. i " what we have heard, what we with our eyes have seen, and our hands have handled of the Word of life." For "the Word" "of life" "was made John i. 14 flesh " was heard and seen and handled, because flesh who before the Incarnation was merely " the Word in the beginning with God " the John i. r, Father, not the Father with Himself. 2 For 2 although " the W T ord was God," yet, because God John i. i springs from God, it was " with God," because in company with the Father means " with " the 1 For ex diuerso, see the note on chap. 14, p. 63. Read mine for non of the MSS. with C. H. Turner. 2 Read seniet ipsum with C. H. Turner for sennonem of MSS. 68 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [15 John i. 14 Father. " And we saw His glory, as of the only begotten of the Father," assuredly the Son, of cf. John course visible, " glorified " by the invisible Father, xvh. 4, ^ nd it was f or t hat reason (since he had called John i. i " the Word " of God " God "), lest he should en courage the assumption of his enemies, that he claimed to have seen the Father Himself, that in order to distinguish between the invisible Father John i. 18 and the visible Son he adds over and above l : " God no one hath seen at any time." Which God ? The i John i. i Word ? Nay : " we have seen and heard and handled of the Word of life" preceded. But what God? cf. John i. The Father, of course, " with whom was God the ohn i 18 Word," " the onl y begotten Son, who Himself de- cf- Tjohn dared the Father s bosom." He Himself was " both " : heard and seen," and lest He should be believed to cf. i John be an apparition, was even " handled." Him also L l Paul saw, but yet he did not see the Father, i Cor. ix. "Have I not," he said, "seen Jesus?" But he 1 ix also surnamed " Christ " " God " : " Of whom were the fathers and from whom was Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever." He also showed that God the Son was John i. 14 visible, that is, " the Word " of God, because he "who was made flesh" was called Christ. But i Tim. vi. about the Father he says to Timothy : " Whom no 16 one of men hath seen, nor indeed can see," ampli- i Tim. vi. fying further : " Who alone hath immortality and 16 inhabiteth unapproachable light," concerning whom 1 ex abundanti: see Thesaunis s. v. abundo and Hoppe, p. 101. It is very common in Tertullian. 15] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PR AXE AS 69 he had also said earlier : " And to the King of the i Tim. i. ages, immortal, invisible, the only God," that we i; might also ascribe the contrary qualities to the Son Himself, mortality, accessibility, who, he testifies, "died according to the Scriptures" and "was last i Cor. xv seen by himself," by means of " approachable " 3 c " light," of course and yet even it neither he 8 himself could experience without danger to his j[ \^ im sight nor could Peter, John and James, without cf - z Cor - having to reckon the chance of loss of reason, who, John xx i. if they had seen, not the glory of the Son that was to suffer, but the Father, would, I believe, have ix. 6 straightway died. 1 For " no one shall see God and Exod. live." If these things are so, it is certain that He xxxlli - 20 who was seen at the end, was always seen from the beginning, and that He was not seen at the end who was not seen from the beginning, and that thus the seen and the unseen are two. Therefore the Son was always seen and the Son always moved about and the Son always "worked," by cf. John v. the authority and will of the Father, because " the I 7 olin v Son can do nothing of Himself, unless He see the Father doing it," that is, of course, doing it in thought. For the Father acts by thought, the Son, who is in the Father s thought, sees and accom plishes. 2 Thus " all things were done by " the Son John i. 3 " and without Him nothing was done." 3 1 Reading anientiae for et amentia with C. H. Turner. For ibidem (like ilico] of time, cf. Hoppe, p. 112. 2 C. H. Turner compares Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians, 3, but I am inclined to suggest sinu for the second sensu (cf. John i. 18). 3 On this punctuation of John i. 3, see note on c. 2. 70 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [16 1 6. And you are not 1 to suppose that it was cf. John i. only the works 2 of the universe that were done by the" Son; He also performed all that were subsequently performed by God. For " the Father " John iii, who " loves the Son and hath given over all things into His bosom/ 3 " loves," of course, from the begin ning and a gave over" from the beginning, from John i. i that beginning 4 when "the Word was with God Matt. and the Word was God." To whom " has been 18 ll powcr >, by the p ather in h eaven anc ] on John v. 22earth" ; "the Father does not judge any one, but He has given all judgment to the Son," from the Matt. beginning, however. For in saying "all power" jolm ii v. I 22 and " a11 judgment" and that "all things were John i. 3 made by Him" and that "all things have been 111 handed over into His hand," he allows no exception in time, because it will not be a case of "all," if they have not belonged to all time. Therefore it is the Son who has judged from the beginning cf Gen. xi. also, dashing to the ground the disdainful tower cf Gen and destroying the tongues, punishing the whole vii. 10 world with violent waters, " raining fire and xi*. 24* brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah," being God from God. It was He himself, too, who always condescended to converse with men, from Adam 1 For nee in a prohibitive clause, see Hoppe, p. 107. 2 The works of the original creation (Gen. i.). 3 I follow the MSS. here, with Oehler and the Colbertine MS. (<:) of the Gospels. For abl. =acc., see Hoppe, pp. 40 f. Pamelius altered stnu to vianu, and this is accepted by Krojmann. Senszi in the apparatus to Kroymann s smaller edition is a misprint. See c. 21 for the regular reading. Ronsch, Das N. T. Teitullians has strangely overlooked this difference. 4 Omit the a of MSS. with C. H. Turner. i6] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 71 down to the patriarchs and prophets, " in vision," cf. Numb. "in dream," "in a mirror," "in a riddle," building ^or. xiii. always from the beginning His course which He 12; Numb. was to maintain at the end. Thus it was that even " God " was always learning the lesson " to c f. Bar. iii. live on the earth with men," being none other than ^ " the Word," which was to " become flesh " ; more- 14 over He was learning to pave l the way of faith for us, that we might more easily believe that the Son of God had descended into the world and learn that something of the kind had been achieved in the past. For it was " for us " that they were i Cor. x also done even as "they were written" ; "unto us !I have the ends of the ages run down their course." Even then He had actually such knowledge of human feelings, as He was about to take upon himself even the very materials of man, flesh and mind, 2 when He asked Adam as if ignorant: "Where art thou, Adam?" "regretting that He Gen. iii. 9; had made man," as if not foreseeing his character ; c{ : ? en * "trying Abraham," as if He did not "know what cf. Gen. was in man " ; when hurt, reconciled to them again, cfjohn ii. and any such qualities as heretics snatch at, as if 2 5 they were unworthy of God, for the dethronement of the Creator, not knowing that these were suited to the Son, who was to endure even the sufferings cf , hn of men, thirst, hunger, tears, birth itself and death iv. 7; xix. itself, having on this account been "made" by the jf. ; a f att John xi. 1 For the metaphorical uses of sterna in Tertullian. see Hoppe, 35? Matt.i. p. 191. 16; xxvu. For parallels to this in Teitullian, see d Ales, p. 102. 5> etc - TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [r6 cf. Ps. viii. 6 (Heb. ii. 7) Ibid. Ibid. i Tim. vi. 16 Acts xvii. 24 Ps. xcvi. 4.5 Isa. x. 14 I-a. Ixvi. i cf. Gen. iii. 8 cf. Gen. vii. 1 6 cf. Gen. xviii. 4, 8 cf. Exod. iii. 4 cf. Dan. iii. 92 cf. Numb. xii. 6, 8 ; i Cor. xiii. 12. Father 1 " a little less than the angels." But you thrust upon the Father Himself what the heretics indeed will not consider suitable even to the Son of God, namely, the degradation of Himself by Himself for our sakes, although the Scripture says that one "was made less" by another, not Himself by Himself. And if it was One who " was crowned with glory and honour," it was Another who crowned Him that is, the Father the Son. And yet what an idea it is, that the all-powerful God, the invisible, " whom no man hath seen nor can see," He who " dwelleth in light unapproachable," He who "dwelleth not in what is made by the hand 2 of man," " in whose presence the earth trembles, the mountains melt like wax," " who seizes the whole world with his hand like a nest," whose " throne is heaven and his footstool earth," in whom is all space while He himself is not in space, who is the farthest boundary of the universe, the Most High, "walked in the garden till the evening" seeking Adam, and "shut the ark" after Noah s entrance, and " rested " 3 with Abraham " under an oak," and " called Moses from the " burning " bush," and appeared with three others " in the furnace " of the Babylonian king ! Although He was called Son of God in " image " and " mirror " and " riddle," 1 When Tertul Han refers to this verse, it is rather the abased con dition than the human nature of Christ he is thinking of: cf. d Ales, p. 101 (p. 100 n. 3). 2 P^or plur. neut. of participle following a preposition, see Hoppe, pp. 97 f. 3 For refrigerare intransitively used, see Hoppe, p. 64. i6, 17] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 73 these things, besides, would really not have been believed even about the Son of God, if they had not been in Scripture, and are perhaps not to be believed about the Father, 1 even though they are in Scripture ; whom those people bring down into Mary s " womb " and " set upon " Pilate s "tribunal " 2 c f. Matt. i. and bury in "Joseph s tomb." This, then, makes j^ hn xix clear their mistake. Not knowing that from the 13 beginning the whole course of the divine system XX vii. 5 g } took its way through the Son, they believe that 6o the Father Himself was seen, met with men, worked, and endured thirst and hunger in contra diction of the prophet s statement : "The eternal Isa. xl. 28 God will not thirst nor hunger at all " : how much more will He neither die nor be buried ! and that thus one God, namely the Father, had always done what was done through the Son. 3 17. They deemed it easier for the Father to come in the Son s name than for the Son to come in the Father s, although the Lord Himself says : "I came in my Father s John v. 43 name," likewise to the Father Himself: "I have John xvii. made Thy name manifest unto men," while Scrip- 6 ture says in agreement : 4 " Blessed is He that PS. cxvii. cometh in the name of the Lord," meaning, of 26 course, the Son in the Father s name. " But the Rev. xix. name of the Father," they say, is " God all- 6 1 Here Tertullian is only giving a paradoxical turn to his argument. a From this reference it is obvious that Tertullian, or the version of Scripture used by him, took e/ca0i<rei/ transitively here, with Pilate as subject. So also did the author of the Gospel of Peter (Turner). 3 For this ending, see the note at the end of c. 8. * For this use of condico in Tertullian, see Hoppe, p. 127. 74 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [17 isa. i. 9, powerful," "Lord of hosts," "King of Israel," "I Exoc^iii am -" Because 1 so the Scriptures teach, we say 14, etc. that these also suited the Son, and that in these the Son came, and that in these He always acted, and that in this way He 2 made Himself clear unto John xvi. men. " All things belonging to the Father," he 15 says, " are mine." 3 Why not also names ? When Rev. xix. therefore, you read of " God all-powerful " and 6; Numb. t h e Most High" and "God of Hosts" and "King xxiv. 16 Isa. i. 9, of Israel" and "I am," consider whether the Son Exo d jjj also be not indicated by these terms, being in his 14, etc. own right " God," as " the Word of all powerful xix. 6 (13) God" and as having " received power over every- cf. Matt, thing"; "Most High," as "raised by God s right xxviii! 18; hand," even as Peter says in his speech in Acts ; S^-H."! " Lord of Hosts >" because " everything has been cf. Actsii. made subject to Him" by the Father; "King of H I cor. Israel," because the lot of that race fell 4 especially xv. 28 to him ; also " I am," because many " are named cf. Deut. 7 xxxii. 8, 9 sons, and are not sons. But if they will have it cf. i John that the F at her s name belongs also to Christ, they will get their answer in its proper place. Mean time let me have at this point an answer ready to that which they produce also from John s Rev. i. 8 Apocalypse : " I am the Lord who is, and who 1 Qtiateiius "because" ; see Iloppe, pp. 82 f. 2 Reading eitni for ea in, with C. H. Turner. 8 Cf. with d Ales, p. 100, cc. 2, 22, for the equality of honour between the three Divine Persons. 4 -For various meanings and constructions of excido in Tertullian, see Hoppe, p. 131. He regards the meaning here as doubtful ; pos sibly accidit, which Fr. lunins read here, while Latini suggested exiuit. Yet the MS. reading is genuine ; see passages from Livy in the lexica s. v. excido. 17, i8] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 75 was, and who comes with all power," and any other passages where they think that the title all- powerful God " is not suited also to the Son, as if He who is to come is not "all-powerful," although the Son of the "all-powerful" is also as "all- powerful " as God the Son of God. 1 1 8. But to prevent them from easily under standing this partnership in the Father s names which the Son enjoys, there is the confusion Scrip ture causes them, whensoever it lays down that there is one God only, as if it has not also set forth two Gods and Lords, as we showed above, cf. c. 13 "Therefore," they N say, "because we find two and one, therefore both are one and the same, both Son and Father." But 2 Scripture is not in such danger that you need come to its help with your reasoning, lest it should seem inconsistent with itself. It is quite right both when it lays down that there is one God and when it shows that there are two, Father and Son, and it is self-sufficient. It is well known that the Son is named by it. For without prejudice to the Son it can quite rightly have defined God as one, whose the Son is. In having a Son Redoes not Himself cease to be One, in His own name, of course, as often as He is named apart from His Son. And He is named without the Son when He is defined in His supreme aspect as the chief being, which had to be put forward before the Son s name, because the Father 1 For the ending, see the note on c. 8. 2 tiw porro = seel, etc., see Hoppe, p. 113. 76 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [18 becomes first known, and after the Father the Son. Isa. xlv. 5 " One God " the Father, therefore, is named, " and other apart from " Him " there is none." When He Himself states this, He is not denying the Son, but any other god. Further, the Son is not other than the Father. 1 For examine what follows such announcements, and you will find that their teaching is generally connected with makers and worshippers of images, that the unity of divinity may drive out the multitude of false gods, a unity which nevertheless comprises the Son, who is as much to be reckoned in the Father as He is un divided and unseparated from the Father, though He is not named. Nay, if He had named Him, He would have separated Him, in these words : "There is none other but Me except My Son." For He would have made even the Son other, whom He would have excepted from the others. Suppose that the sun says : " I am the sun, and other than me there is not, except my beam " ; would you not have stigmatised its folly, as if the beam also were cf. Isa. nt reckoned in the sun? Therefore it is that xlv - 5 He said there was no other God but Himself. This word was uttered on account of the idolatry of the heathen as much as of Israel ; also on account of the heretics who, even as the heathen fashion images with their hands, so also themselves fashion them with words, namely another God and another Christ. Therefore, even when He pro claimed Himself as one, the Father was acting in 1 For alius a, see the notes on cc. 8, 9 above. i8, 19] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 77 the Son s interests, lest Christ should be believed to have come from another God, rather than from Him who had before said : " I am God and other isa. xlv. 5 than I there is none," who signified that He was one, but in company with the Son, with whom " He alone stretched out the heavens." c f. isa. 19. If any will snatch even at this saying of His xllv - 24 to prove His individuality, He uses the words, " I i sa . xliv. alone stretched out the heavens " as meaning 24 " alone " in regard to all other powers, building beforehand against the conjectures of heretics 1 who maintain that the universe was constructed by various angels and powers, who also either make the Creator Himself into an angel or represent Him as having been engaged by some other ex ternal power, even without His knowledge, to pro duce the works of the universe. Or, if He "alone cf. Isa. stretched out the heavens " in the way in which x these heretics perversely imagine, as an individual, that "wisdom" would not be admitted, saying : Prov. viii. " When He was preparing the heavens, I was with p rov viii Him." Isaiah 2 also said : " Who hath learned the 27 Lord s mind and who advised Him ; " except, of course, " Wisdom," which "was present" with Him cf. Prov. and yet was within Him and "with Him con- ^"prov. 7 structed " all things, though He did not know what viii. 30 He was doing? "Apart from the wisdom," how ever, means " apart from the Son," who is " Christ, i Cor. i. 24 1 The heretics intended are such as Simon Magus, Apelles, Menander, and others: cf. d Ales, pp. no, 155, who refers to o her passages also where they are attacked. 1 Esaias Engelbrecht ; si MSS. 78 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [19 the wisdom and power of God " according to the Apostle, " who " alone " knows " the Father s mind. i Cor. ii. For 4< who knows what is in God save the Spirit that is in Him"? not that which is outside Him. There was therefore one who made God by Himself, only in the sense of apart from all others (but the Son). But let the Gospel also be rejected because John i. 3 it says that " all things were made by God through the Word and that without Him nothing was made." 1 Unless I am mistaken, it is also else- Ps. xxxii. where written: "By His Word the heavens were strengthened and by His Spirit comes all their John i. i- strength." But " the Word," " power and wisdom 3;iCor.i. of God ,, win be the Son Himself> If; thenj all cf. Isa. things are through the Son, in " stretching out xhv. 24 the heavens" a i so through the Son He did not ibid. " stretch them out alone," except in the way in which He did it apart from all others (but the Son). And, besides, He immediately speaks about the Isa. xliv. Son : " Who else cast down the signs of the ven- 25> 2( triloquists and divinations from the mind, turning back the wise and making their counsel of none effect, 2 establishing the words of His Son "? saying, Luke ix. of course : " This is my beloved Son, hear Him." 35 By thus adding " the Son " He Himself explains cf. Isa. the manner in which " He alone stretched out the xhv. 24 heavens," namely, alone with His Son, even as He is one with the Son. Similarly, also, the Son 1 On this punctuation, cf. the note on c. 2. 2 This passage is closely parallel to Adv. Marc. iv. 22 (p. 217, Oehler ; p. 494, 1. 21, Kroymann). i 9 ] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 79 will utter the words : " I alone stretched out the isa. xliv. heavens," because " by the Word the heavens were JJjj?g strengthened," because when "wisdom stood by " cf. Prov. in the Word, " the heavens were prepared " and V1 "all things were done by the Word." It is fitting, John i. 3 also, that the Son "by Himself should have stretched Isa. xliv. out the heavens," since it was He alone who acted j! 4 Prov as servant to the operation of the Father. He also viii. 27 it will be that says : " I am the first, and I am for j sa . x ii. 4 the time that is to come." " The Word," of course, c f. i sa . X H. is " first " of all : " In the beginning was the Word," 4 John i. I in which beginning He was brought forth by the Father. But the Father as " having no beginning/ c f. n e b. as brought forth by no one, as unborn, cannot be vu * 3 seen. He who was always " alone," could have no isa. xliv. order in time. Therefore if they thought that the same being was to be believed to be both Father and Son, with the object of asserting God to be one, His unity is unimpaired who, though He is one, has also a Son, who is Himself also in like manner included in the same Scriptures. If they refuse to consider the Son as second to the Father, lest " second " should bring about the mention of two gods, we have shown two Gods mentioned in Scripture also, and c. 13 two Lords ; and yet, lest this prove a stumbling- block to them, we explain why we should not speak of two Gods or Lords, but of two who stand in relation of Father and Son, and this not as the result of separation of being, but of arrangement, since we declare the Son to be undivided and 8o TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [19, 20 unseparated from the Father, and different not in permanent condition, but only in rank, who although He is called God, when He is named by Himself, does not therefore imply two gods, but only one, by this very fact that He can be called God also from the unity of the Father. 20. But we must devote ourselves to the further repression of their reasonings, 1 if they pick any thing out from the Scriptures to support their view, refusing to look upon everything else which in itself keeps the rule, 2 and indeed without danger to the unity of divinity ancUhe established position 3 of monarchy. For as in the Old Testament they Isa. xlv. 5 remember nothing but " I am God and other than I there is none," so in the Gospel they defend the John. x. Lord s answer to Philip : " I and the Father are 3> X1V - 9 onej " anc i . He who hath seen me, hath seen also John. xiv. the Father," and : " I am in the Father and the I0> " Father in me." To these three passages 4 they would have the whole charter 5 of both Testaments to yield, although it is proper that the fewer passages should be understood in the light of the more numerous. But this is a characteristic of all heretics. Since there are few that can be found in 1 For examples of the dative of the gerundive and gerund in Tertullian, see Hoppe,pp. 55 f. 2 regulam seruant "keeps the rule," that is, upholds the general teaching of Scripture. Probably there is no reference heie to the refill a Jidei. 3 Reading stalu with Kroymann for the not impossible MSS. reading sonilti (sonalu), "meaning." 4 Cf. d Ales, p. 243. 5 One of the various expressions used by Tertullian to indicate Scripture: cf. d Ales, p. 224; Harnack, Beitrcige, Bd. vi. pp. 137 ff. 2o, 21] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 81 the forest 1 of instances, these few they defend against the majority, and they take up the cause of the later against the earlier. But the rule that has been fixed for everything from the beginning, if valid in the earlier cases, gives directions also for the later, and of course also for the fewer. 2 21. Look therefore how many passages 3 lay down a rule for you even in the Gospel before Philip s consultation and earlier than any reasoning of yours. And in the first place the very preface of the evangelist John at once points out what He who was to " become flesh," was in the past : " In cf. John i. the beginning was the Word, and the Word was j hni ,_ with God and the Word was God ; He was in the beginning with God ; all things were made by Him and without Him nothing was made." 4 For if these words may not be taken otherwise than as they are written, beyond doubt one is indicated who "was from the beginning/ another " with cf. John i. whom " He was ; the one " the Word " of God, the ] bn other " God "although " the Word is " also " God," but as God s Son, not as Father one " through cf.joLn i. whom " are all things, the other " from whom " are 3 . * "forest" (silua), a graphic way of describing the immense sue and complexity of Scripture : cf. Apol. c. 4 (p. 16 1 27 ed Mayor), totam illam neterem et squalentem siluctm legum etc of the mass of the ancient Roman jurisprudence. It might be rendered multitude simply. For this type of metaphor, see Hoppe, pp. 194 f., especially p. 195 n . i. 2 Th V e f is doubtful here ; I translate Ursinus /" (MSS paiiaoribns). Ho io = O SC- ca ua cf - 4 For this punctuation of the verse, see the note on c. 2. 82 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [21 all things. But in what sense we use the word " other," we have already often announced ; by " other" we must mean not the same but not as if we meant separated : by arrangement " other," not John i. 14 by division. He, therefore, it was that " was made Ibid. Flesh," not He whose " Word " he was ; it was his " glory that appeared, as of the only one from the John i. 18 Father," not as of the Father. " He " alone " ex plained the Father s bosom," the Father did not explain His own bosom. For the statement pre- Ibid. cedes : " God no one ever saw at any time." He cf^Matt 36 also i1: is that is termed b y J hn " the Lamb of iii. 17, etc. God," not He whose " Beloved " l He is, who is John i. 49; certainly always called "Son of God," but not cf. Johni. identified with Him whose Son he is. Nathanael perceived at once that He was this, even as else- Matt, xvi. where also Peter : " Thou art the Son of God." He 16 himself, too, proves that they were right in this judgment, by answering Nathanael indeed thus : Johni. 50 "Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree, there- Matt, xvi. fore thou believest," by maintaining, however, that 17 Peter " was happy, since neither flesh nor blood had levealed" what he had thought, "but the Father who is in heaven." By this saying he established the distinction between the two persons : that of the Son on the earth whom Peter had recognised as Matt. xvi. " Son of God," and that of " the Father in heaven " 16,17 w ho had "revealed" to Peter what Peter had 1 Dilectus (Gk. agapetos) : see Dean Robinson, " The Beloved" as a Messianic title, in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, pp. 229-233. 21] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PR AXE AS 83 recognised, namely, that " Christ was the Son of Matt. xvi. God." When He entered " into the temple," He, as j^ hn }i> Son, called it His " Father s house." When He 14, 16 addresses Nicodemus, He says : " God so loved the {^ m world that He gave His only Son, that every one who believed in Him, should not perish, but should have everlasting: life." And ae;ain : " For God sent J ohn i- 1 7 1 8 not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved ; he who has believed in Him, is not judged ; he who has not believed in Him, has been already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." John, too, when some one was asking about Jesus why " He baptized," 1 said : cf. John " The Father loveth the Son and hath given all j^n things into His hand ; he that beiieveth in the Son, 35. 36 hath everlasting life ; he that beiieveth not in the Son of God, shall not see God, but God s anger shall abide upon him." As what, indeed, did He show himself to the Samaritan woman ? If as " the Messiah, that is called Christ," He showed John iv. Himself of course as the Son, not the Father, who 25 2i elsewhere also was called " Christ, Son of God," Matt. xvi. not the Father. Later He says to His disciples : l6 etc< " It is mine to do the will of Him that sent me, John iv. that I may complete His work." And to the Jews 34 about the healing of the paralytic: "My Father John v. 17 worketh hitherto, and I work." The Son says 1 cum interrogaret qui de lesu, cur tineret, Kroymann s skilful emendation of the MSS. reading, CUDI interrogaretur quid de lesu contingeret. 84 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PR AXE AS [21 John v. 18 " the Father" and "I." For "on this account were the Jews the more desirous to kill Him, not only because He sought to do away with the Sabbath, but because He called God Pi is Father, thus making Himself equal to God." Then, there- John v. fore, He said to them : " The Son can do nothing 19-27 of Himself, save He see the Father doing it : for the things that He doth, the Son also doeth. For the Father loveth the Son and hath pointed out to Him all that He himself doeth, and greater works than these shall He point out l to him, that ye may wonder. For as He raiseth the dead and maketh them alive, so also the Son maketh alive those whom He will. Nor indeed does the Father judge, but He hath given all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son even as they honour the Father. He that doth not honour the Son, doth not honour the Father, who sent the Son. Verily, verily I say unto you that he who heareth the word and belie veth Him that sent me, hath ever lasting life and shall not come into judgment, but hath passed from death into life. Verily I say unto you that the hour shall come in which the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and when they have heard it, shall live. For even as the Father hath everlasting life of Himself, so also He hath given to the Son to have everlasting life in Himself, and hath given Him to do judgment in power, because He is the Son of man," by the flesh, of course, even as He is Son of God by His spirit. 1 demonsirabit Kroymann, for MSS. dtnionstrauit. 2i] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 85 He adds further: "But I have greater testimony John v. than that of John ; for the works that the Father 36 > 37 hath given me to complete will themselves bear witness concerning me, that the Father sent me ; and the Father that sent me, Himself bore testi mony concerning me." Moreover, in adding: " Ye John v. 37 have never heard His voice, nor yet have ye seen His shape," He proves that in the past it was not the Father, but the Son that was seen and heard. For He says : " I came in my Father s name, and ye John v. 43 received me not." Thus the Son was always in the name of God and King and All-powerful Lord and Most High. 1 Further, when they asked "what John vi. they ought to do," He answered : " To believe in * 8 > 2 9 Him whom God hath sent." He declares that He "is also the bread which the Father offered from 3? 35 * heaven " ; therefore that " everything which the c f John vi. Father gave Him, was coming to Him, and that He 37) 3 8 would not reject Him, because He had come down from heaven, not to do His own, but the Father s will"; that it was, moreover, "His Father s will c f. John vi. that he who saw the Son and believed in Him, 4 should attain life and resurrection " ; that " no cf. John one," further, "could come to Him unless the vi- 44 Father drew him"; "that every one who had cf. John heard and learnt from the Father, came to Him, vit 45 adding here also : "not as if any one has seen the j ohn vi Father," to show that it is the Father s word that & makes men learned. But when " many are depart- cf . John ing" from Him and He puts the question to His vi - 6 6 J See above, c. 17, 86 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PR AXE AS [21, 22 cf. John apostles " whether they also wish to depart," what John 7 vi. " does Simon Peter answer " ? " Whither are we to 68, 69 go ? jhou hast the words of life, and we believe that thou art the Christ." Did they believe that He was the Father or the Father s Anointed ? John v. 28 22. Whose teaching does He mean that they "wondered at"? His, or the Father s? When they were equally in doubt among themselves as to cf. John whether l He Himself were " the Christ " (of course i": 26 " 27 not the Father, but the Son), He said: "And me, John vu. i T i r 28, 29 ye know whence I am ; and I have not come ot myself, but He is true, who sent me, whom ye know not; I know Him, because I was with Him." He did not say : " Because I am He" and " I my self sent myself," but " He sent me." Also, when John vii. "the Pharisees had sent to attack Him": " Yet a 32) 33 little while," said He, " I am with you and I go to cf. John Him who sent me." And when He denies that viii. 16 j_f e i s a ione " " But I," he says, " and He who sent l6* n me, the Father" does He not indicate two, as much two as inseparable? Nay, this was His whole teaching, that the two are inseparable, since also in setting forth the law confirming " the evi- john viii. dence of two men," He adds : " I give testimony I7 l8 concerning myself, and the Father who sent me testifies concerning me," But if He were one, pro vided the Son and Father were the same, He would John viii. not use the defence furnished by that law which 17 (Deut. imposes faith on "the testimony," not of one, but xvii. 6) cf. John i For this ne interrogative in an indirect clause, cf, JJoppe, viu. 18 7?j ^nd Mayor on Jtgt, c, 3 (p. I?, 1. 25), 22] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 87 " of two." Also, when asked " where the Father c f. John was," in "answering that neither He nor the Father j^ 1 ^ was known to them," He mentioned two unknowns, 19 because, " if they knew Him, they would know the * Father," not indeed implying that He Himself was Father and Son, but because through their indi visibility the one could neither be recognised nor unknown without the other, while quite another passage of Scripture explains that they had not learned what He had said about the Father " He John viii. who sent me," 1 He said, " is true, and what I have 2(5 heard from Him, that I also speak to the world " when, of course, they ought to have learnt that the Father s words are in the Son, from reading in Jeremiah : " And the Lord said unto me, Behold Jer. i. 9 I have put my words in thy mouth, " and in Isaiah : " The Lord gives me the tongue of learn- isa. 1. 4 ing to apprehend when I ought to speak a word," even as He Himself also says: "Then shall ye John viii. learn that I am and that I speak nothing of my- 28> 29 self, but even as He taught me, so also I speak, because He also that sent me is with me," and this, too, is evidence of two inseparables. 2 Likewise in his dispute with the Jews, upbraiding them because " they wanted to kill him," He said : : I speak what cf. John I saw with my Father," and : " Ye do that which ye saw with your father," and : " Now ye wish to 38 slay a man who hath spoken to you the truth ^ which He heard from God," and: " If God had John viii. 1 The quotation is given by the MSS. after the end of the clause 4 2 in line 8, but Kroymann has transposed it to its present position. ? For the ellipsis of adtinet we pertinet here, see Iloppe, p. 146, 88 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [22 been your Father, ye would have loved me : for I proceeded and came from God," and yet we do not John viii. separate Him, although He said He " proceeded," in the way that certain people seize the chance ibid. offered by this utterance ; for He " proceeded from" the Father like a beam from the sun, a stream John viii. from its source, a shrub from its seed. " I have not an evil spirit, but I honour my Father," and : John viii. " Were I to glorify myself, my own glory is no- 54 55 thing: there is He that glorifieth me, the Father, who you say is your God and ye know Him not ; but I know Him, and if I were to say: I know Him not, I shall be, Ifke you, a liar ; but I know Him and I keep His word." And when He adds : John viii. " Abraham saw my day and rejoiced," of course He indicates that the Son had been seen of Abra ham in the past, not the Father. Also over the cf. John blind man He says that He " must do the Father s works," to whom after restoring his eyes He says : cf. John " Dost thou believe in the Son of God ? " and when Jo hn ix. he as k e d " who He was," He pointing to Himself, of 35 course pointed out the Son, who He had said should he. 36, 37 "be believed." Later He declares that He "is cf. John known to the Father and that the Father is known cf. John x. to Him," and that therefore is " He loved by the cf. John x. Father because He lays down His life," because " He 1 7 had received this command from the Father." And 18 X having been asked by " the Jews " " whether 1 He cf.johnx. was Himself the Christ" of course of God, for even to the present day the Jews hope, not for the 1 ti = nuw: see Iloppe, p. 73, 22] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PR AXE AS 89 Father Himself, but for the Christ (i.e. Anointed) of God, because it is never written that Christ the Father will come " I speak," He says, " to you, John x. 25 and ye believe not ; the works which I do in the Father s name, they themselves give evidence con cerning me." Evidence of what? Assuredly that He is Himself the very one about whom they were asking that is, the Christ of God. With regard to his " own sheep " also He says that " no one will cf. John x. seize them from his hand " : " for what the Father ? hn x 2 hath given me is greater than all," and " I and the John x. Father are one." Here, then, fools, or rather the blind, wish now to take a stand, because they do not see, firsr,that " I and the Father " is an indication John x. 30 of two ; second, that " we are," at the end, being ex pressed in the plural, cannot come from one person only ; third, that the expression is " we are one thing," not " we are one person." For if He had said: "We are one person," He could have sup ported their view; for "one (person)" appears to be an indication of the singular number. But as matters are, when He says that two of the mas culine gender are one in the neuter, 1 which is not connected with individuality but with unity, likeness, connexion, love of the Father who loves the Son, and the obedience of the Son who obeys the Father s will, in saying : " I and the Father //. are one thing," He shows that they are two whom He makes equal and joins together. 2 He further 1 On this passage, see d Ales, p. 82. 2 Ibid., p. loo. 90 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [22, 23 cf. John x. adds that He " had shown also many works from the Father, not any of which deserved stoning," and lest they should suppose that they ought to stone Him for the reason that He had desired Him- cf. John x. self to be understood "as God Himself" that is, John x. 30 ^ e Father, because He had said : " I and the Father are one thing," indicating God as Son of God, not as God Himself He says : " If in the Scripture it John x. is written : I said : " Ye are gods," and the Scrip ture cannot be done away with, do ye contend that He whom the Father made holy and sent into the world, is a speaker of abusive language, be cause He said : I am the Son of God ? If I do not the works of my Father, do not believe ; but if I do them and ye will not believe me, pray believe on account of the works ; and know that I am in the Father and the Father in me." Through the works, therefore, the Father will be in the Son, and the Son in the Father ; and thus through the cf. John x. works we know that " the Father and Son are one thing." All this He continued to impress upon them to the end that there might be believed to be two, though in one power only, because other wise the Son could not be believed, unless two were believed. cf.Johnxi. 23. After this, too, "Martha" in confessing " Him Son of God," was no more in error than cf. Matt. Peter and Nathanael ; although, even if she had T iin 1 ? been in error, she would immediately have learned the truth. For, lo ! when with a view to raising 41 her brother from the dead the Lord "looked up to 23] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 91 heaven and his Father," He said (the Son, of course) : " I thank Thee that Thou dost ever hear John xi. me ; for the sake of these crowds standing around 4I 4 " I spoke that they might believe that Thou didst send me." But also midst " confusion of soul " c f. John He said: "And what shall I say? Father, save j^nxii. me from this hour ? Nay, for this purpose came 27, 28 I into this hour ; but, Father, glorify Thy name," the name in which the Son came. " I," says He, " came in John v. 43 my Father s name," therefore 1 for, of course, the voice of Son to Father had been enough 2 lo ! the Father gives a superabundant answer from heaven, He witnesses fully to the Son : " This is my Matt. x\ii. beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear 5 Him," and so also in this word : " I have glorified John xii. and will glorify again." How many persons do you 28 think there are, most perverse Praxeas, if not as many as there are voices ? You have the Son on earth, you have the "Father in heaven." This is Matt. vi. not a separation, but a Divine arrangement. But 9 > etc we know that God is even amidst the depths and c f. Ps. is present everywhere, but in force and power, and CXXXV1U - the Son being inseparable is with Him every where. Yet in the economy itself the Father wished the Son to be possessed on earth, but Him self in heaven, to which place also the Son Himself cf. John looking up both prayed and besought the Father, XI 4I to which place He taught us, too, to raise ourselves 1 For inde in causal sense (= "therefore"), a use rare even in Tertullian, see Hoppe, pp. in f. , who does not consider what follows inde here to be in parenthesis. * " had been enough " ; that is, to secure the Father s agreement, 92 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [23 Matt. vi. 9 and pray: 1 "Our Father who art in heaven." Since He is also everywhere, this was His own Isa. ixyi. i seat that the Father desired : "To Me a throne." (Heb. a. " He made " His Son " a little less than the 7) angels" 2 by letting Him down to earth, but He ibid. was to "crown Him with glory and honour" by taking Him back into heaven. This distinction He John xi!. was already offering to Him, saying : " I have both glorified and will glorify." The Son requests from the earth, the Father promises from heaven. Why do you make both the Father and the Son liars ? If either the Father was speaking from heaven to the Son, although He Himself was the Son in the earth, or the Son was praying to the Father, cf. Matt, although He Himself was "the Father in the heavens," 3 what sort of situation is it 4 that the Son should likewise beg of Himself in begging of the Father, if the Son was the Father ; or again, that the Father should Himself promise to Himself in promising to the Son, if the Father was the Son ! As for our speaking of two, divided from one another, in the way you gabble, it were more endurable to proclaim two divided than one God that changes His form. Therefore it was to these John xii. that the Lord then proclaimed : " It is not on my account that this voice has come, but on your * Cf. De Orat. 2, d Ales, p. 302. 2 Cf. the note on c. 16, also d Ales, pp. 101, 155. Man is here considered on the material side only. 3 Reading pater apud caelos with Kroymann, for the filius apud caelos Q{ the MSS. 4 For this phrase, qttale est ^lt (where ut is consecutive) cf, Hoppf, p. 68 : it is cominqn in late authors. 23] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 93 account," that these also may believe that both the Father and the Son are each present in His own name and person and place. But " Jesus" John xii. further 1 "proclaims, saying : He that believeth in 4/ me, believeth not in me, but believeth in Him who sent me because it is through the Son that people believe in the Father, and the Father is the authority for believing in the Son "and he John xii. who looks at me, looks at Him who sent me." ^ How? "Since," of course, "of myself I did not John xii. speak, but He who sent me, the Father, Himself 4 gave me commandment what to say and what to speak;" for "the Lord gives me a tongue oflsa. 1. 4 learning to learn the proper season for speech " " the things that I speak, even as the Father told John xii. me, so also do I speak." How these things were said, the evangelist and, of course, so " beloved a cf. John disciple " as John knew better than Praxeas, and *|* 2 therefore he himself out of his own understanding said: "But before the festival of the Passover John xiii. Jesus, knowing that all things had been handed T 3 over to Him by the Father and that He had gone out from God and was on His way to God." But Praxeas will have it that the Father Himself " went cf. John out from" Himself and "went away to" Himself, with the result that " the devil put into the mind 2 of Judas " the betrayal " not of the Son, but of the Father Himself, with good result neither for the devil nor for the heretic, because not even in the case of His good Son did the devil work 1 For adhuc = itisuper, praeterea, see Hoppe, p. 1 10. 94 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [23, 24 betrayal. For it was the Son of God that was betrayed, who was in the Son of Man, even as the John xiii. Scripture adds : " Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." What God ? Cer tainly not the Father, but the Word of the Father, who was in^the Son of Man, that is in the flesh. In the flesh both when already glorified but in power and word and previously, Jesus said : "And John xiii. God will glorify Him in Himself," that is, the Father, the Son whom He "having Him in Himself," though He has been sent forth to earth, will later glorify by resurrection, after the defeat of death. 1 24. There were clearly some who even then did not understand, since even Thomas was for some John xiv. time unbelieving. For he said : " Lord, we do not know whither thou goest, and how can we know the road ? And Jesus said : I am the road, the reality and the life : no one cometh to the Father except through me ; if ye had come to know me, ye would have come to know the Father also ; but from now ye know Him and have seen Him." And now we have reached Philip who, uplifted with the hope of seeing the Father and not under standing how he should see the Father he had John xiv. heard of, said : " Show us the Father, and it is John xiv. enough for us." And the Lord "said: Philip, 9 have I been so long time with you, and yet have ye not come to know me?" And as for Him who, He snys, ought to have become known by them for this is the only point that ought to be con 1 For this type of metrical ending, see note on c. I. 24] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 95 sidered was it as Father, or as Son? If as Father, let Praxeas teach us that Christ who had " for so long a time " lived with them, could ever John xiv. have been, I do not say understood, but even 9 considered as Father. For us all the Scriptures, both Old and New, define the Christ (Anointed) of God as the Son of God. This was preached also in the past, this was proclaimed also by Christ Himself, nay already even by the Father Himself, who, before His face, avowed His Son " from the Matt. iii. heavens " and glorified His Son ; " This is my Son," and: "I have glorified and will glorify"; this was 28 also believed by the disciples, this was also dis believed by the Jews. Desiring them to hold this belief about Himself, 1 every hour He named the Father and set forth the Father and honoured the Father. If that is so, therefore it was not the Father who had lived with them " so long a time " John xiv. and whom " they had not known," but the Son ; 9 and the Lord, when upbraiding them for not recognising Himself to be Him of whom they had been ignorant, wished, of course, to be recognised as one whose non-recognition " for so long a time " He ibid. had reproved, namely the Son. And it can now be clear how it was that the words were uttered : " He who seeth me, seeth the Father also," of Ibid. course in the same way as above : " I and the John x. 30 Father are one " ; why? Because " I went forth John xvi. and came from God " and : " I am the road, no j h n x j v . one cometh to the Father but by me " ; and : " No 6 1 For ace. and infin. after a verb of "willing," cf. Hoppe, p. 5- 96 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [24 John vi. one cometh to me unless the Father hath drawn ct Matt. hi" 1 " j anc * : " The Father hath handed over all Tohn 7 v 21 thin S s to me " and : " Even as tne Father makcth cf. John alive, so also the Son " ; and : " If ye have come to know me, ye have come to know the Father also." According to these words He had presented Him self as the Father s substitute, through whom the Father might be seen in works and heard in words and His character learned in a Son who carried out the deeds and words of the Father, because the Father is invisible, a fact which Philip had learned in the Scripture and ought also to have remem- Exod. bered : " No one shall see " God "and live." And enjoin tnere f re he is reprimanded for his desire to see xiv. 9 the Father, as if He were visible, and he is cf. John informed that He becomes visible in the Son by deeds of power, not by the visible manifestation of His person. For if he wished the Father to be understood as identical with the Son, in saying : John xiv " He that seeth me, seeth the Father," how did He John xiv a ^d : " Dost thou not believe that I am in the 10 Father and the Father in me " ? For He ought to f- j v O xiv. 10 have added x : " Dost thou not believe that I am the Father " ? Or to what purpose did He amplify the argument, if He did not make that clear which He had wished to be understood, namely that He John xiv. was the Son ? Further, in saying : " Dost thou not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me ? " He preferred to amplify the argument for 1 For the perf. infin. after debuerat, vhere we should expect the present, see Hoppe, pp. 53 f. 24] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 97 the reason lest, because He had said : " He who hath j hn xiv. seen me, hath also seen the Father," He might be 9 deemed to be the Father, a thing He never wished to be deemed, since He always declared Himself to be the Son and <: to have come from the Father." John xvi. For this reason also He made clear the unity of the 2S two persons, lest the Father should be desired by Himself as visible and face to face, and in order that the Son might be regarded as representing the Father, 1 and nevertheless He explained this also, namely how the Father was in the Son and the Son in the Father : " The words," He says, John xiv. " which I speak unto you, are not mine " of I0 course because they are the Father s " but the Father abiding in me doeth the works." " The Father," therefore, " abiding in " the Son through " the works " of power and " the words " of teach ing, is seen through those things through which " He abides," and through Him in whom " He abides," and the special quality of each of the two persons shows itself from this very fact ; namely, His saying : " I am in the Father and the Father John xiv. in me." And further He says : " Believe." " Believe " }^ what ? " That I am the Father " ? I do not think that is in Scripture, but : " That I am in the Father ibid. and the Father in me ; otherwise, believe even on account of the works," those works, of course, through which the Father was seen in the Son, not by sight, but by thought. 2 1 Literally "as the presenter of the Father to us" (in a moral aspect, cf. d Ales, p. 359). 2 For this metrical ending, see the note on c. I. G 9 S TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [25 25. After dealing with l Philip and the whole compass of this enquiry which continues till the end of the Gospel, in the same tenor of con versation, in which Father and Son v are each distinguished in His special quality, He promises John xiv. that " He will ask a Paraclete also from the Father," after He has ascended "to the Father," and that He will send Him, and indeed " another (Para- c. 13 clete)." But we have already explained how it is John xvi. He is " another." 2 Further He says : " He will cffjohn take from mine," even as He Himself "took from" xvi - 15- the Father s. Thus the link with the Father in the Son and of the Son in the Paraclete makes three cleaving together, each to his neighbour, i John v. " These three are one thing," not one person, as it is put : " I and the Father are one thing," in John x. 30 r respect to unity of nature, not as regards the singular number. Run farther over the Gospel and you will find that He whom you believe to John xv. i be the Father, is called the Father s " vine," 3 and the Father" is called "the husbandman," as being He who you suppose was on the earth and cf. John was at the same time recognised by the Son " in the heavens, when looking up" there He commended cf. John His disciples to " the Father." But even if it is i^ 11 " not in this Gospel that these revelations are made : Matt. " My God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? " and : Luk e 46 " Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit," yet xxiii. 46 1 For this pregnant use of post, cf. Hoppe, p. 141. 2 For parallel passages, see d Ales, pp. 81, 82, 96. 3 iiitem Kroymann for the MSS. nice, very neatly. 2s] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 99 after the resurrection and the glory of overcoming death, when the need for any humility was cast off, 1 when now He could have shown Himself as Father to so faithful a woman, who ventured to touch Him out of love, not out of curiosity or unbelief like that of Thomas, He said : " Do not John xx. touch me, I have not yet ascended to my Father ; I7 but go to my brethren" because in this, too, He showed Himself the Son ; for He would have called them " sons," if He had been the Father " and you will say 2 to them, I go up to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God." Father to Father, and God to God ? or Son to Father, and Word to God ? For what purpose does even the very conclusion 3 of the Gospel confirm these writings except : " That ye may j h n xx. believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God ? " 3 1 Therefore, whatever of these words you think can benefit you in your effort to prove the identity of Father and Son, you will be striving against the final verdict of the Gospel. 4 The words " were " not " written with the purpose Ibid. that you should believe Jesus Christ to be " the Father, but that you should believe Him to be "the Son." 5 1 exposita =deposita: see Oehler s note on De Orat. 15. 2 For the future indicative, implying a command, see Hoppe, pp. 65 f. It is unsafe to conclude from this expression that Tertullian was unacquainted with the twenty-first chapter of St. John s Gospel (d Ales, p. 230, n. 7, and Ronsch, p. 290.) 4 " final " : that is, from which there is no appeal. 5 For the metrical ending, see the note on c. 8. ioo TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [26 26. On account of the speech of Philip alone and the Lord s answer to him we seem to have run through John s Gospel, lest so many clear pronouncements, both of an earlier and a later date, should be overturned by one utterance, 1 which is to be interpreted rather according to, than against, everything, even against its own meaning. Put to insert passages from other Gospels at this stage, 2 which confirm belief in the Lord s origin, it is enough that He who was to be born of a virgin, Luke i. 35 was named by the announcing 3 angel himself " Son Ibid. of God " : " The Spirit of God will come upon thee, and the power of the Most High will over shadow thee : wherefore the holy thing that will be born from thee, shall be called the Son of God." They will want, of course, to argue here too ; but iEsdr.lv. "the truth will prevail." 4 "Of course," they say, f. 1 Luke i. " tne Son of God is God, and the power of the 35 Most High is the Most High." Nor are they ashamed to foist on those 5 words what, if it were true, would have been written. For of whom was he to stand in awe that he could not openly 1 Elsewhere, also, Tertullian says we must proceed from the known to the unknown : cf. d Ales, p. 242 f. 2 Reading mine with Kroymann for non of the MSS. ; but it is possible that alia means " other than the one I am going to cite," and that the non should be retained. 8 admintiali : Kroymann s palmary emendation for adnuntiari of MSS. 4 Note that the original has the present praeualet : Tertullian is curiously in agreement with the popular way of quoting the expression. 6 Reading Hits with Kroymann, for illos (///<?) of MSS.; but I feel sure neither about the reading nor about the interpreta tion. 26] TERTULLTAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 101 declare, " God will come upon thee, and the Most c f. Luke i. High will overshadow thee"? But 1 by saying 3S " the Spirit of God," although the Spirit of God is God, 2 yet by not explicitly naming God, he wished a portion of the whole to be understood which was to pass into the Son s person. Mere "the Spirit of God " will be the same "Word." 3 For just as John i. 14 when John says : " The Word was made Flesh," we understand "the Spirit" also in the mention of "the Word," so also here we recognise "the Word " also in the name of " the Spirit." For besides, spirit is the foundation of speech, and speech is the working of spirit, and the two are one. But John would declare 4 that one " was j hn i. i 4; made flesh," the angel would say that the other cf j Lu ^ e would become flesh, if spirit is not also word, and 3: word spirit. Therefore, even as the Word of God is not the very Person whose word it is, so also the Spirit, even if it be spoken of as God s, 5 is yet not the very person whose it is said to be. Nothing belonging to a person will be the very person whose it is. Clearly, when something is from a person himself, and is (thus) his, provided it comes from himself, something can be such in character * Cf. cc. 9, 14, and d Ales, p. lor. ~ I venture to suggest that dens est has slipped out after spiritus dei. 3 Here Tertullian seems to identify Son and Spirit, cf. d Ales, pp. 96ft., 194, 252, and contrast cc. 4, 8, 25. Justin had previously expressed the view taken in this chapter. 4 For the future indicative used = potential subjunctive, cf. Hoppe, pp. 64 f. 5 Reading dei with Kroymann for MSS. dens. 102 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PR AXE AS [26 as he himself also is from whom it comes and whose it is, and therefore " Spirit " is God and " Word " is God, because from God, but, never theless, not Himself from whom it comes. 1 But if a God belonging to God, so to speak, a self-existent thing, will not be God Himself, but only so far 2 God as it comes from the being of God Himself, which is also a self-existent thing, and as some Luke i. 35 portion of the whole, much more " the power of the Most High" will not be the "Most High" Himself, because it is not a self-existent thing either, because it is spirit, just as neither wisdom nor providence is. These things, too, are not sub stances, but accidental attributes of each substance, and power is an accident of spirit but will not be spirit itself. These things, therefore, whatsoever they are, " the Spirit of God " and " the Word " and "the power," having been brought together Ibid. i n t the virgin, " what is born of her is Son of God." That He was this He Himself testifies Luke ii. right from boyhood in these Gospels also. " Do ye not know," He said, "that I must be in my Father s house? " Satan, also, in his trials of Him Matt. iv. knows that He is this: "If Thou art the Son of 3, 6, etc. Q 0( j : this a i so the e vil spirits afterwards ^admit : cf. Marki. " W T e know who Thou art, Son of God." He also 24, etc. Himself worships the Father. When recognised cf. Matt, by Peter as "God s Christ" (Anointed), He does xvi. 1 6, 17 1 Tertullian s view is in error here, cf. c. 28, etc. and d Ales, p. 84. 2 hactenus . . . qua : an excellent instance of the original force of hactcnus, cf. Hoppe, p. ill, n. I. 26] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PR AXE AS 103 not deny it. "Exulting in spirit" before the Luke x. 21 Father, " He says : I offer praise l to Thee, O Father, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise "here also He asserts that " the Father Luke x. is known to no one save the Son." It is the Son 22> et of the Father who "will before the Father confess c f. Matt, knowledge of those that confess Him, and will x c 32 33 deny knowledge of those that deny Him"; who "introduces" the parable of "the Son," not the cf. Matt. Father, who " is sent into the vineyard after some "j JJ* slaves have been sent, and is slain by wicked rustics," and defended by the Father ; who "even c f. Mark Himself is ignorant of the last day and hour, which xlll> 3 * are known only to the Father" ; who "arranges the cf. Luke kingdom " for His disciples " in the way" He says x3 " it has been arranged for Himself also by the Father"; who "has the power to ask legions of c f. Matt, angels" to His help "from the Father," if he "^ will ; who " calls aloud that God has abandoned xxvii. 46, Him"; who "places His spirit in the Father s hands"; and who after His resurrection binds xx himself "to send to His disciples the Father s X xiv. 49 promise"; and who at the last gives them com mand " to baptise into the Father and the Son cf. Matt. and the Holy Spirit," not into one only. For it x is not once only, but thrice that we are, at the utterance of each of the names, baptised into each of the Persons. 2 1 Or " thanks." The meaning of 0^0X070^011 is a well-known crux. The translator s Pocket Lexicon to the Greek Neiv Testament may be consulted. 2 For the metrical ending, see the note on c. 8. 104 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PR AXE AS [27 27. But why should I delay over such evident facts, when I ought to attack the arguments by which they seek to obscure the evident ? For, refuted l on all sides by the distinction between the Father and the Son, which we set forth without disturbing the union, as in the case of the sun and the ray, the source and the streim, by what is yet the undivided number of two and three, they attempt nevertheless to explain it otherwise in accordance with their own view, so as to dis tinguish both alike in one person, Father and Son, saying that the Son is flesh (that is, man ; that is, Jesus), while the Father is Spirit (that is, God ; that is, Christ). And those who contend that Father and Son are one and the same, presently begin to separate them rather than to unite them. For if Jesus is different from Christ, the Son will be different from the Father, because the Son is Jesus and the Father is Christ. A monarchy of this kind they, perchance, learned about in Valentinus. 2 But cf. c. 26 this objection 3 of theirs also, the making of Jesus and Christ into two, 4 has already been parried by our previous discussion, which was to the effect that "the Word of God" or "the Spirit of God" and "the power of the Most High" are names given to Him whom they make out to be the 1 For obduco = "refute," "convict," see Oehler or Mayor on Tert. Apol. 46, etc. 2 Cf. Adv. Valent., cc. 19. 27 (Oehler). :! iniectio = Greek eisbSlc in Tertullian, see Hoppe, p. 121. 4 Kroymann s transference of duos facere lesum et Christum from their position in the MSS. after didicerunt, appears to be right. 27] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PR AXE AS 105 Father. For they are not He Himself 1 whose they are said to be, but they are from Himself and belong to Himself. However, they will be refuted in another way, also, in the present chapter. " Lo," they say, " it was proclaimed 2 by the angel " : " Wherefore the holy thing that will be born, shall Luke i 35 be called the Son of God." "What was born," therefore, was flesh ; therefore " the Son of God " will be flesh. Nay, rather, it was with reference to the Spirit of God that the statement was made. For certainly it was " from the Holy Spirit Creeds that the virgin conceived," 3 and what she con ceived, that she bore; that therefore was to be born which had been conceived, and was to be borne that is, spirit, whose " name also will cf. Matt, be Emmanuel, which is translated 4 : God with us. " Flesh, moreover, is not God, that it should be said about it : " The holy thing shall be Luke i. 35 called Son of God," but He who was born in it, is God, concerning whom also the psalm says : 5 Since "man was born God in it, and built it by Ps.lxxxvi. the Father s will." What "God was born in it"? 5 " The Word," and the Srjirit who with " the Word John i. 13 was born of the Father s will." Therefore, 6 since 1 ipse with Kroymann ; ipsae MSS. 2 In such cases it is tempting to alter to praedictum ; but see the index to Mayor s Tertullian Apologeticus (Cambr. Press, 1917) s. v. On the thought, cf. c. 26, and d Ales, p. 194. 3 On this passage see d Ales, p. 97, and cf. c. 26. 4 For interpretari passive, see Hoppe, p. 62. 5 This quotation (repeated below, p. 107), is very free, and Tertullian s exegesis is unwarrantable. 6 Perhaps the most important Christological passage in Tertullian ; see d Ales, p. 198. io6 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [27 the Word is in the flesh, 1 we must enquire also John i. 14 into this, how " the Word became flesh," whether as having been changed to the form of flesh or as having put on flesh as a covering. 2 Certainly the latter. But it must be believed that God is un changeable and incapable of outward form, as being everlasting. Moreover, change of form implies the destruction of the original form. 3 For everything that is altered in shape to become something else, ceases to be what it has been, and begins to be what it was not. God, however, neither ceases to be, nor can be anything else. John i. i But " the Word is God " and " the Word of the Isa. xl. 8 Lord abideth for ever," continuing, of course, in its own shape. And if it is not possible that the Word should be changed in shape, it follows that cf. John i. He must be understood to "have been made flesh" H in this sense, namely by being made in flesh and cf. i John manifested "and seen and handled " by means of i l flesh, because other considerations also demand that it should be understood in this way. For if John i. 14 " the Word " by a change in the form and a change in substance " became flesh," Jesus will then be one substance composed of two, flesh and spirit, a sort of mixture, like electrum made from gold and silver, and it begins to be neither gold (that is, 1 D Ales, p. 87, sets forth parallels between this passage and early Greek Fathers. Here I translate Kroymann s order dum sermo in came for the MSS. order sermo in carne dum. 2 For utrumne . . . an, cf. Hoppe, p. 73. 3 Cf. Lucretius, I. 670-671, etc. This passage has a bearing on the doctrine of transubstantiation, cf. d Ales, p. 363, n. i. 27] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 107 spirit) nor silver (that is, flesh), since one element is interchanged with the other, and a sort of third substance is the result Therefore Jesus will neither be God for " the Word " ceased to exist, cf. John i. "being made flesh" nor man. He who was M " Word " is not " flesh " in a real sense. So neither comes from both, and the third is far different from both. But in truth we find him definitely explained as both God and man, and this is sug gested by the psalm itself: Since "man was PS. ixxxvi. born God in it, and built it by the Father s will " ; 5 certainly everywhere Son of God and Son of Man, as being both God and man, differing un doubtedly in His own special character according to both natures, because neither is "the Word" other than " God," nor the flesh other than man. So also the Apostle teaches about both his natures : " Who was made," he says, " of the seed Rom. i. 3 of David " ; He will be man and the Son of Man, " who was marked as Son of God according to Rom. * 4 the spirit": he will be God and the Word, the Son of God. We see two natures, not mixed, but joined together in one person, God and man, j esus _I postpone speaking 1 of Christ and so unimpaired is the special quality of both natures, that on the one hand spirit carried out its own operations in Him that is, deeds of power and works and signs and on the other hand flesh cf. Matt. experienced its own sufferings, "starving" in ^ " the devil s company, thirsting in the company of cf. John 1 For the ellipsis of the verb of saying, cf. Hoppe, p. 146. io8 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [27 cf. John "the Samaritan woman," " weeping" for Lazarus, cf!*Matt. " anxious even unto death," and finally died. But if xxvi. 38, there were some third thing, a mixture of both, like cf. Matt, electrum, no such clear proofs of two natures would xxvii. 50, s h ow themselves, but on the one hand the spirit would have acted carnally, and on the other the flesh would have acted spiritually as the result of the change, or neither carnally nor spiritually, but after some third pattern, as the result of the cf. John i. mixture. Nay, rather, either " the Word " would cf John i. ^ ave ^ ied or " tlie ^ esh " wou ld not nave died, if 14 "the Word" had been turned into "flesh"; for either "the flesh" would have been immortal or " the Word " mortal. But because both natures, each in its own established condition, acted separately, therefore both their works and their outcomes corresponded to them. Learn, therefore, with John iii. 6 Nicodemus that "what is born in flesh is flesh, and what is from spirit is spirit." Neither does flesh become spirit nor does spirit become flesh. But they can, to be sure, 1 be present in one. Of these Jesus consisted, as man, of flesh, as God, of spirit. In respect of that part which was spirit, Luke i. 35 the angel then declared Him " Son of God," keep- Matt, viii. ing for the flesh the name u Son of Man> > So i Tim. ii. also the Apostle by calling him " mediator be tween God and men," established his double nature. Lastly : you who explain " the Son of God " as flesh, show me who is " the Son of Man." Can He be the Spirit? But you wish 1 For plane in this sense (often ironical), cf. Hoppe, p. 112. 27, 28] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 109 the Spirit to be regarded as the Father Himself, because " God is a spirit," as if there were not also John iv. a " Spirit of God," just as there is both a " God " ^ t f ^ who is " Word " and a " Word of God." 1 16, etc. 28. Therefore you make Christ the Father, you fool, who do not even examine the force of this name, if indeed "Christ" is a name, and not rather an appellative : for it means " anointed." " Anointed," moreover, is no more a name than " clothed," than " shod," something which is an accidental quality of a name. If as the result of some argument Jesus were to be called also "clothed," just as Christ gets his name from the mystery of anointing, would you call Jesus " Son of God " in the same way, but believe " clothed " to be the Father? Apply this now to Christ. If the Father is Christ, the Father was anointed, and of course by some one else, or if by Himself, prove it. But this is not the teaching of the Acts of the Apostles in that cry of the Church to God : " For Actsiv. 27 all, yea, Herod and Pilate with the nations, have assembled in this city against Thy holy Son, 2 whom Thou didst anoint. So they testified that Jesus was both " Son of God " and " Son anointed " by the Father. Therefore Jesus will also be Christ who was " anointed " by the Father, and not the Father 1 For the metrical ending, see the note on c. i. 2 Kroymann is wrong in adding fesum here. Tertullian omits it also at Bapt. 7. Besides MS. gigas of Acts quoted by Wordsworth and White, a quotation in the eighth-century Spanish compiler Beatus, in Apocalypsin, omits (ed. E. S. Buchanan, Sacred Latin Texts, iv. London, 1916). no TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [28 who " anointed the Son." So also Peter teaches : Acts ii. 36 " Let the whole house of Israel therefore learn with absolute certainty that God made Him, this Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ " that is, anointed. John, moreover, even brands him i John ii. as " a liar, who denies that Jesus is Christ," but, on i ^ e con trary, says " every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." For this i John iii. reason he also exhorts us " to believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ," in order, of course, i John i. 3 that " we may have communion with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ." So also Paul every- cf. i Cor. where puts " God the Father and our Lord Jesus V, 3 et - c o Christ." When he writes to the Romans, he Kom. l. 5 " gives thanks to God by our Lord 1 Jesus Christ " ; when he writes to the Galatians, he declares he is Gal. i. i " an apostle not from men nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father." And you have his whole body of writings, which pro- cf. i Cor. claim after this fashion and set forth two, " God i. 3, etc. t he Father" and "our Lord Jesus Christ," Son of the Father, and that Jesus Himself is the Christ, Luke i. who is also, under another name, " Son of God." 35, etc. For it f u ows t hat, by the right by which both names belong to one, namely, to the Son of God, even one of the two without the other belongs to the same. And if on the one hand Jesus alone is mentioned, Christ also is understood, because Jesus was anointed, and if on the other 1 " our Lord " seems to be absent from all other authorities for the text of this verse. 28] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS in hand Christ alone is mentioned, He is the same as Jesus, because Jesus was anointed. Of these names the one is His own, which was conferred by cf. Matt. i. the angel, the other is an accidental attribute, 21 which comes from anointing, so long, however, as Christ is Son, not Father. Finally : how blind is he who does not understand that in the name of Christ another God is set forth, if he attribute the name of Christ to the Father ! For if Christ is God the Father who says : " I ascend to my John xx. Father and your Father, and to my God and your I7 God," of course He points to another Father and God above Himself. If, further, Christ is the Father, it is some one else " who stablishes the Amos iv. thunder and creates the wind and preaches His Christ (Anointed) among men." And "if the Ps. ii. 2 kings of the earth have stood by and the rulers have been assembled together against His own Christ (Anointed)," it will be another Lord " against whose Christ (Anointed) the kings and cf. Ps. ii. 2 rulers have been assembled." And if "the Lord Ps - cix - l says this to my Lord Christ " (Anointed), it will be another Lord who speaks to the Father of Christ. And when the Apostle writes: " That Eph. J. 17 the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give you a spirit of wisdom and knowledge/ it will be another God of Christ Jesus who giveth liberally of spiritual endowments. Assuredly, not to wander Rom. vin. away altogether, " He who raised Christ, and who n will raise our mortal bodies also," will be a sort v I f^ of different raiser from the Father "who died and Creeds ii2 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [28, 29 was raised," if so be that Christ who died, is the Father. 1 29. Silenced, I say silenced be this evil-speak ing ; enough that Christ, the Son of God, is spoken of as dead, and that too because it is so written. For the Apostle also, in declaring not without i Cor. xv. sorrow that "Christ died," added 2 : "according to the Scriptures," in order to soften the harshness of the declaration by the authority of the Scriptures and to destroy an obstacle in the hearer s path. And yet, since there are two natures present 3 in Christ Jesus, a divine and a human, and it is certain that the divine is immortal, while the human is mortal, it is clear how far he speaks of him as " dead," namely, so far as He was flesh and man and Son of Man, not in so far as He was " Spirit " and " Word " and " Son of God." Finally, in saying: "Christ died" that is, the Anointed (died) 4 he showed that what was anointed died that is, the flesh. " Therefore," you say, " we, too, in speaking of the Son in the same way as you do, speak no evil against the Lord God ; for it is not as regards his divine, but as regards his human nature that we speak of him as dead." But yet 5 1 For the metrical ending, see the note on c. II. 2 The better MSS. read adzcit, which may be right, in spite of the following molliret and euerteret. On such sequences see Iloppe, p. 67. 3 Censeantur : on the meanings of this word in Tertullian see Thes. s.v. or d Ales, pp. 366 f. 4 See d Ales, p. 363 n. 3 (p. 364), on this passage, and its bearing on the Eucharistic doctrine of Tertullian. 5 I translate Kroymann s at tamen, but I am by no means ceitain that it is right ; the MSS. read at cum. 29] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PR AXE AS 113 you speak evilly, not only because you say that the Father died, but also because you say He was crucified. For you are speaking against the Father when you turn the curse 1 of the crucified, which according to the Scripture belongs to the Son because " Christ was made a curse for you," Gal. Hi 13 not the Father when you turn the curse, which is Christ, upon the Father. But we, when we speak of " Christ as crucified," do not speak evil of Him, i Cor. i. we are only recalling the curse in the law ; for the Apostle when he said this, did not speak evil either. Just as no evil-speaking is employed in speaking of one of whom something can be truly said, so it is evil speaking, if what is said cannot be said with truth. Therefore the Father did not suffer even in company with the Son. It is, of course, because they are afraid of explicit evil- speaking against the Father that they hope it will be lessened in this way allowing now that Father and Son are two if the Son indeed suffers, but the Father suffers with him. They show them selves fools in this as well. For what is fellow- suffering but 2 to suffer along with another? Again, if the Father cannot suffer, assuredly He cannot be a fellow-sufferer ; or if He can be a fellow-sufferer, He can, of course, suffer. You confer nothing on Him even by your fear. You fear to speak of Him as able to suffer who, you 1 Reading maledictionem with Kroymann for maledictio of the MSS. 2 quant = nisi after a suppressed attus : cf. Hoppe, p. 77. H 1 14 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [29 say, can be a fellow-sufferer. But the Father is just as incapable of being a fellow-sufferer as the Son also is incapable of suffering as regards that nature which makes him God. 1 But how did the Son suffer, if the Father did not also suffer with Him ? He is separated from the Son, but not from the God. If a river, 2 too, is polluted by some dis turbance, although one material only runs down from the source and is not separated from the source, yet the pollution 3 of the stream will have nothing to do with the source ; and although it is the source s water that suffers in the stream, since it suffers, not 4 in the source, but in the stream, it is not the source that suffers, but the stream which comes from the source. So also the Spirit of God, although 5 it might suffer in the Son, because it would not suffer in the Father, but in the Son, would not seem to have suffered as the Father. But it is enough that the Spirit of God suffered nothing in its own name, because if it suffered anything in the Son, this 6 would really mean that the Father suffered with the Son in the flesh. This is a matter for reconsideration. Nor will any one deny it, since we also cannot suffer for God, unless the Spirit of God be in us, who also 1 See d Ales, pp. 98 f. on this passage. 2 The parallel here is explained by Hoppe, p. 198. 3 iniuria is sometimes found in late authors in the passive sense of "damage," "harm": cf. Hoppe, pp. 121 f. 4 For non ~ ne in this phrase, cf. Hoppe, p. 79. 5 Keep qui of the MSS. here, and take it concessively : see also d Ales, p. 97. 6 Supposing hoc omitted after filio. The text here is corrupt. I have tried to make some sense out of the MSS. reading. 29, 3] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 115 speaks concerning us what belongs to confession, not that He Himself suffers, but that He gives the power to suffer. 30. If in spite of what I have said you mean to proceed l farther, I shall be able to answer you more harshly and to put you in conflict with the declaration of the Lord Himself, so as to say : "Why do you enquire about this subject?" You have Himself " crying aloud " at the passion : " My Matt. God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Therefore, either the Son was suffering, having been abandoned by the Father, and it was not the Father who suffered, who forsook the Son ; or if it was the Father who was suffering, to what God did He cry aloud ? But this speech of flesh and soul (that is, of man), not an utterance of Word or Spirit (that is, not of God) was uttered for the purpose of showing that God could not suffer, who thus forsook the Son in "handing over " his human i sa . liii. 12 nature "to death." The Apostle also was of this opinion when he wrote : " If the Father spared not Rom. viii. the Son"; this also Isaiah earlier proclaimed: 32 "And the Lord handed Him over for our sins." isa. liii. 6 He "forsook" Him in "not sparing" Him, He cf. Matt. "forsook" Him in "handin Him over." Son was not " forsaken" by " the Father in whose li- 12 hands the Son placed His spirit." For He placed X xiii. 4 6 it there and immediately died ; for if the spirit ibid. remains in the flesh, the flesh cannot die at all. So " to be forsaken " by the Father meant death cf. Matt. xxvii. 46 1 Reading perges with Kroymann, for pergens of the MSS. n6 TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS [30,31 cf. i Cor. for the Son. The Son therefore both "dies" and xv * 3> 4 is "raised again " by the Father "according to the cf Eph. Scriptures," the Son " ascends to the topmost " iv. 8, 9 regions of heaven, who "also descends into the cf. Mark lowest 1 parts of the earth." It is " He that sits at cfTAc?s ii. the Father s right hand," not the Father who sits 34 at His own. It was He whom Stephen saw, when cf. Acts he was being " stoned," still " standing at God s c" p^ 8 di right hand," as one who would thereafter "sit, 1 until the Father should put all His enemies under cf. Acts i. His feet " for Him. It is He also who is " to come " cf. Luke again on " the clouds " " of heaven in such wise as xxi. 27 jj e a i s o ascended." It was He that meantime gave forth the gift he had received from the Father, cf. Acts ii. " the Holy Spirit," the third name of divinity and the third stage of majesty, the preacher of one monarchy, but also the expounder of economy, if any one receive the words of his new prophecy, 2 johnxvi. and "the leader into all truth," which is in the Father and Son and Holy Spirit according to the Christian mystery. 3 31. But this attitude of yours belongs to the Jewish faith, I mean the belief in one God in such a way as to refuse to count the Son along with Him, and after the Son the Holy Spirit. For what will there be between us and them except this difference? What need is there of the Gospel, 1 Reading inferiora, as the contrast with superiora requires, even apart from the undoubted allusion to Eph. iv. 9. The confusion of interior, inferior and intra, infra occurs elsewhere also in MSS. 2 On this passage in Tertullian, see d Ales, p. 450, n. 2. 3 For the metrical ending here, see the note on c. i. 31] TERTULLIAN AGAINST PRAXEAS 117 which is the foundation of the New Testament, laying it down that " the Law and the Prophets Luke xvi. were until John," 1 if the Father and Son and l6 Holy Spirit, " three " objects of belief, do not cf. i John thereafter establish one God ? God wished to v * 8 make the mystery new in such a manner that He should be believed to be One in a new way through the Son and the Spirit, that He should now come to be known as God face to face in His own special names and persons, who though preached in the past also through the Son and the Spirit, was not understood. " The antichrists," therefore, had better i John ii. look out, " who deny Father and Son." For they 22 deny the Father in saying that the Son is identical with Him, 2 and they deny the Son in believing that the Father is identical with him, offering them what they are not and taking away from them what they are. But " he who confesses 3 that Christ i John iv is the Son of God," not the Father, " God remains I5 in him and he himself in God." We believe "God s testimony" in which He gave evidence cf. i John concerning His Son : " He who hath not the Son, ^ j hath not life either." But he too " hath not the 12 Son," who believes him other than the Son." 4 1 Tertullian refers to this verse elsewhere : see Ronsch, das N. T. Teriulliam, ad loc., d Ales, p. 174, n. 6. 2 For dum with indie, here = coincident CUM, see Hoppe, p. 79 3 The future perfect (or perfect subjunctive) here is an exact translation of the original Greek : taken as Latin, such a use sup ports the contention that originally the fut. perf. expressed absolute (not relative) futurity. It certainly occurs frequently where, accord ing to our feeling, the ordinary future, or even the present, would suit the context : cf. Hoppe, p. 66. 4 For the metrical ending here, see the note on c. I. INDEX OF QUOTATIONS AND REFERENCES OLD TESTAMENT (SEPTUAGINT) PAGE PAGE Gen. i. i . cf. 35 Deut. v. 7 cf. 60 39, 56 V. II . cf. 44 o> j? 56 xvii. 6 . oo i *7 56 xxxii. 8 cf. 74 1. 7 i. 14 . 56 xxxii. 9 cf. 74 i. 16 . , 5 6 i Esdr. iv. 41 . 100 i. 26 . 54, 55, i. 27 . cf. 37, 38, 55 55 Ps. ii. 2 . ii. 7 III, cf. ill . 40, 51, cf. 51 ii 7 cf. 37, 55 iii. 2 53 11. / iii. 8 cf. 72 viii. 6 . cf. 46, 72 ter, 92 bis 71 xxxii. 6 . 40, 41, 78, 79 111. Q iii. 22 . 54, 55 xliv. 2 . . 40, 51, cf. 51 vi. 6 . cf. 71 xliv. 7 . . 57 vii. 10 . cf. 70 xliv. 8 . 57 vii. 1 6 . cf. 72 Ixx. 1 8 . 53 xi. 7, 8 cf. 70 Ixxxi. i . 59 xii. 7 cf. 62, 64, 65 Ixxxi. 6 59 xviii. 4 . cf. 72 Ixxxvi. 5 105, 107 xviii. 8 . cf. 72 xcyi. 4, 5 7 2 xviii. 14 xix. 24 . cf. 49 . cf. 58, 70 ~c >~j T cvi. 20 . cix. i . 34, 53, 58, i", cf. 116 xxii. i . ci. 7 1 xxviii. 13 xxxii. 30 Exod. iii. 4 -. iii. 14 . xx. 3 . cf. 62, 64, 65 63, 65, cf. 62 cf. 72 74 bi s cf. 60 cix. 3 . CXVll. 2O cxxxviii. 8 Prov. viii. I viii. 22 . 38 . 40, cf. 51 cf. 91 . 77, cf. 77 , 39, 40 bis, cf. 5 1 38 xx. 7 . . xxxiii. II xxxiii. 13 4 2 viii. 25 . viii. 27 . . 38, 40, cf. 51 38, 39, 77, cf. 77, xxxiii. 20 . ( 32 bis, 69, 96, 79 cf. Numb. xii. 6-8 xii. 6 . xii. 8 . 64, 63, 65 ter, 66 . 64 . cf. 71, 72 67, cf. 64, 65, viii. 28 . viii. 30. Job xlii. 2 Wisd. xi. 23 38 . -38, cf. 77 . 49, cf. 49 ter > 50 cf. 50 71, 72 Amos iv. 13 . . ill xxiv. 16 . . 74 Isa. i. 9 . 74 bis 119 120 INDEX OF QUOTATIONS PAGE PAGE Isa. vi. i . cf. 62 Isa. xlix. 6 53 x. 14 . . 72 1.4 - - 87, 93 xl. 8 . 106 liii. I 2 xl. 13 . 77 liii. i . i 53 . 58 xl. 28 . 73 liii. 6 . xli. 4 . xiii. i 79, cf. 79 . 52 liii. 12 . liv. i . 115, cf. 115 cf. 49 xliv. 6 . 74 bis Ixi. i . cf.53 xliv. 24 77, 79 ter, cf. Ixvi. i . 72, 92 77 bis, 78 ter Jer. i. 9 . 87 xliv. 25, 26 . . .78 Bar. iii. 36, 38 . . o/ cf. 71 xlv. i . 53 Lam. iv. 20 . 66 xlv. 5 . 76, 77, 80, cf. 76 Ezek. i. i cf. 62 xlv. 14 . 57 Dan. iii. 92 cf. 72 xlv. 15 . 57 vii. 10 . . 32 NEW TESTAMENT PAGE PAGE Matt. i. 1 6 . cf. 28, 71 Matt. xxi. 33-4: cf. 103 i. 21 cf. ill xxvi. 38 cf. 1 08 i. 23 . iii. 12 . cf. 49, 73, 105 cf. 28 xxvi. 53 xxvii. 46 . cf. 32, 103 98, 115, cf. iii. 16 . . 109 103, 115 bis iii. 17 . . 95, cf. 82 xxvii. 50 . cf. 71, 108 iv. i, *. cf. 107 xxvii. 59, 60 cf. 73 iv. 2 . . cf. 71 xxviii. 18 70 bis cf. 74 iv. 3 . 25, 102 xxviii. 19 cf. 103 iv. 6 . 25, IO2 Mark i. 24 cf. 102 v. 14 . cf. 61 ix. 4 . cf. 64 v. 16 . cf. 61 ix. 6 . cf. 69 v- 37 . 47 xiii. 32 cf. 103 vi. 9 . 91, 92, cf. 92 xvi. 19 . cf. 1 16 viii. 20 . . 108 Luke i. 35 100 b is, 1 02 x. 32 . cf. 103 bis, 105 bis, 108, no, cf. x. 33 cf. 103 100, cf. lor bis xi. 27 . cf. 43, 74, 96 ii. 49 . . IO2 xiii. 7 . cf. 28 iii. 22 . . 40, 51, cf. 51 xiii. 25 . . cf. 27 iv. 9-11 . cf. 25 xiii. 30 . " . cf. 28 iv. 18 . r? xiii. 41 cf. 28 ix. 30 . cf. 64 xvi. 16 . 82 bis, 83 bis, ix. 35 . . 7 8 cf. 90, 102 X. 21 . xvi. 17 . 82 bis, cf. 1 02 X. 22 . I0 3 xvii. i . cf. 64 xvi. 1 6 . . 117 xvii. 3 . cf. 64 xviii. 27 . 49 xvii. 5 . . . . 91 xxi. 27 . cf. 116 INDEX C7if C QUOTATION! 5 121 PAGE PAGE Luke xxii. : 29 . . cf. 103 J,ohn vi. 37, 38 . - cf. 85 xxiii. 46 98, cf. 103, vi. 38 . cf. 34, 44 115 bis vi. 40 . cf. 85 xxiv. 49 cf. 103 vi. 44 . . 06, cf. 85 John i. 1-3 . . 78, 81 vi. 45 . cf. 85 i. I 36, 42, 44, 56, 58, vi. 46 . . . 85 67 bis, 68, 70, 79, 106, cf. vi. 66 . cf. 85 68, 81, 108 vi. 67 . cf. 86 i. 2 26, 67 vi. 68, 69 .86 i-3 . 28, 40, 41, 56, 69, vii. 26, 27 cf. 86 78, cf. 70, 8 1 vii. 28, 29 . . 86 i. 4 cf. 56 vii. 32, 33 . 86 i. 9 . 56 viii. 12 . . 61 i. 12 cf. 59 viii. 1 6 . . 86, cf. 86 i. 13 . . 105 viii. 17 . 86 b is i. 14 . 67 bis, 68 bis, 82 viii. 18 . . 86, cf. 86 bis, 10 i bis, 106 bis, cf. viii. 19 . . 87, cf. 87 40, 71, 81, 106, 107, 108 viii. 26 . . 87, cf. 44 i. 18 . 43, 66 bis, 67, 68 viii. 28, 29 . . . 87 bis, 82 bis, cf. 62 viii. 37 . cf. 87 1.36 . 82, cf. 82 viii. 38 . . . 87 i. 49 . . 82, cf. 91 viii. 40 . . . 87 1.50 . . 82 viii. 42 . 87, 88 bis ii. 14 . . .83 viii. 44 . cf. 26 ii. 16 . . . . 83 viii. 49 . . 88 ii. 25 . . . cf. 71 viii. 54, 55 . . 88 iii. 6 . 108 viii. 56 . . 88 iii. 16 . 83 ix. 4 cf. 88 iii. 17, 18 - 83 ix. 7 . cf. 88 iii. 26 . cf. 83 ix. 35 . . 88, cf. 88 iii. 35, 36 . 83 ix. 36, 37 cf. 88 m. 35 . 70 bis x. 15 . cf 88 iv. 7 . . cf. 71, 107 x. 17 . cf. 88 iv. 24 . 42, 109 x. 18 . cf. 88 iv. 25, 26 . 83 X. 24 . cf. 88 83 X. 2^ , 80 v. 17 . . 83, cf. 69 x. 27 . y cf. 89 v. 18 . 84 x. 28 80 v. 19-27 . . . 84 x. 29 . oy . 8 9 v. 19 . .69, cf. 43 x. 30 . 44> 80, 89 ter, go, V. 21 . Q6 95, 98, cf. 90 V. 22 X 32 cf QO V. 28 . . 86 A.. J^ x. 33 cf. 59, 90 v. 36 . . . . 85 x. 34-38 . 90 v. 37 85 bis x. 34 . cf. 59 v : 43 - 73, 85, 91 xi. 27 . cf. 90 vi. 28, 29 . . .85 xi. 35 . cf. 71, 108 vi. 32 . - 85 xi, 41 , 91, cf. 90, 91 122 INDEX OF QUOTATIONS PAGE PAGE John xi. 42 . . 9 I Acts ii. 4 . cf. 116 xii. 27 . . 91, cf. 91 ii. 33 cf. 74 xii. 28 . . 91 quatev 11. 34 . cf. 116 xii. 30 . . 92 ii. 36 . . 1 10 xii. 36 . . 60 iv. 27 . . 109 xii. 44 . 93 v". 55 cf. 116 xii. 45 . 93 vii. 58 . cf. 116 xii. 49 . 93, cf. 44 xv. 19 . cf. 60 xii. 50 . 93 xvii. 24 . 72 xiii. I . 93 Rom. i. 3 . .107 93 i. 4 . 107 xiii. 3 . 93, cf. 74, 93 i. 7 . 61 i. 8 . no xiii. 32 . . 94 i. 20 (?) cf. 42 xiv. 5-7 . 94 viii. ii . . II I xiv. 6 . 95 viii. 32 . . 115 xiv. 7 . . cf. 96 ix. 5 . 61, 68 xiv. 8 . . .94 i Cor. i. 3 . cf. 1 10 bis xiv. 9 . 80, 94, 95 quater, i. 23 . . .113 96, 97, cf. 96 i. 24 . 77, 7 xiv. 10, ii . . 80 i. 27 . . 49 xiv. 10 . 96, 97, cf. 96 ii. II . . 78, cf. 44 bis viii. 5 . . . cf. 31 xiv. ii . 44, 96, 97 ter ix. i . 68 xiv. 16 . 47, 98, cf. 29 X. II . . 71 xiv. 28 4.6 6^ xi. 3 . 66 XV. I . . ^.W, V7_^ . . 98 xi. 19 . cf. 50 xv. 15 . cf. 43 xii. 4 . cf. 26 xvi. 26 . cf. 34 xiii. 3 . cf. 26 xvi 13 . 1 1 6, cf. 28, 59 xiii. 12 . . 64, cf. 71, 72 xvi. 14 . . . 98 xv. 3, 4 . cf. 29, ill, 1 16 xvi. 15. . 74, cf.gS xv. 3 . 69, 112 xvi. 28 . . 95. 97 xv. 5-7 cf. 69 xvii. I . cf. 98 xv. 8 . . . . 6 9 xvii. 2 . . 34, cf. 74 xv. 24, 25 34 xvii. 3 . cf. 31 xv. 24 . . . cf. 35 xvii. 4 . cf. 68 xv. 27 . 34 xvii. 6 . 73 xv. 28 . . 34, cf. 35, 74 xvii. ii cf. 98 Gal. i. i . . no xvii. 15 cf. 98 iii. 13 . . -. . 113 xvii. 24 . cf. 36, 38 iii. 26 . cf. 59 xix. 13 . cf. 73 iv. 27 . cf. 49 xix. 26. cf. 93 Eph. i. 17 . iii xix. 28 . cf. 71 iv. 8, 9 . cf. 116 xx. 17 . 99, in iv. 10 . cf. 60 xx. 31 . 99 bis v. 8 . . 60 xxi. 2 . cf. 69 Phil. ii. 6 . 42 Acts i. ii. cf, 116 ii. 7 cf. 55 INDEX OF QUOTATIONS 123 Col. i. 15 I Thess. i. 9 v - 5 PAGE cf. 40 cf. 60 . 60 i John i. 3 ii. 22 . iii. I PAGE . no . no, 117 cf. 74 i Tim. i. 17 . 69 . 108 iii. 23 . iv. 15 . . 1 10 . 117 : > , vi. 1 6 . Heb. ii. 7 vii. 3 . i John i. i 66, 68 bis, 72, cf. 69 . cf. 46, 72 ter, 92 bis cf. 79 . 67, 68, cf. 66, 68 bis, 1 06 V. I v. 8 . V. 10 . V. 12 . Rev. i. 8 . xix. 6 . xix. 13. .110 98, cf. 117 cf. 117 . 117 74 73, 74*n s 74 EXTERNAL SOURCES Creeds, 28 ter, 29 bis, 105, in Donatus i. i, cf. 41 Tertullian, De praeser. haer. 27, cf. 29 bts INDEX OF LATIN WORDS abundare : ex abundanti, 68 n. i adhuc : (with comparative), 57 n- 3, 58 n. 3 ( = insuper, praeterea), 93 n. i adnuntialis, 100 n. 3 adtinet (omitted), 87 n. 2 alias ( = aliter), 26 n. 2 alius : alius a (ab), 44 n. 3, 46 n. 4, 76 n. i apex, 45 n. i capitulum, 35 n. i censere, 38 n. i, 112 n. 3 commentus, 28 n. i condicere, 73 n. 4 dicere (omitted), 47 n. i, 107 n. i dilectus (= agapetos), 82 n. i diuersus : ex diuerso, 63 n. i , 67 n. i dum ( = cum), 117 n. 2 esse: missing participle of, 25 n. i excidere, 74 n. 4 exponere ( = deponere), 99 n. i fades, 65 n. 2 fides ( = fideles), 52 n. 2 hactenus, 104 n. 2 ibidem (of time), 69 n. i inde (= "therefore"), 91 n. I iniectio, 104 n. 3 iniuria (=" damage," "harm"), 114 n. 3 interpretari (passive), 105 n. 4 iubere (c. dat.), 57 n. 2 ne (indirect interrog.), 86 n. i nee (in prohibitive clause), 70 n. i non (= ne), 114, n. 4 obducere, 104 n. i oratio (confused with ratio), 37 n. i persona, 32 n. 2 pertinet (omitted), 87 n. 2 plane, 108 n. i porro ( = sed), 75 n. 2 post (pregnant use), 98 n. i praedicare, 105 n. 2 praescriptio, 29 n. 3 prolatio, 43 n. i qualis : quale est ut, 92 n. 4 quam ( = nisi), 113, n. 2 quando ("whereas"), 31 n. 4; ( = "since"), 52 n. 3 quanti ( quot), 81 n. 3 qualenus (=" because "), 74 n. i quia ( = ut), 60 n. i refrigerare (intians.), 72 n. 3 repraesentare, 53 n. i retractatus, 30 n. i, 54 n. i sacramentum, 30 n. 2 sermonalis, 36 n. 5 si ( = num), 88 n. \ 124 INDEX OF LATIN WORDS 125 si forte ( = fortasse), 64 n. 2 substantia, 30 n. 4 silua, 81 n. i sustinere (with participle), 59 sonare ( praedicare, signift- n. i care), 32 n. i. 46 n. 3 mtfo5 (=" meaning"), 80 tmduceve, 27 n. 3 sternere (metaphorically), 71 n. i utpote, 54 n. 5 struere, 44 n. i utrumne an, 106 n. 2 NOTES ON THE TEXT Pp. 34 n. i, 37 n. i, 54 n. 5, 56 nn. 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