In an essay
on Milton’s theological vocabulary in his writings, W.B. Hunter wrote the
following about Tertullian’s Christology which should be of interest to
readers:
Tertullian seems to have introduced to
theology the use of substantia as the
Latin translation of ousia, and he
employs substantia in both senses of
the Greek word. First, he writes against Praxeas, “you will not allow Him [the
Word] to be really a substantive being, by having a substance [substantiae] of His own; in such a way
that He may be regarded as an objective thing and a person and so be able . . .
to make two, the Father and the Son, God and the Word” (Against Praxeas, 7). Here substantia
is evidently used as synonymous with persona
or hypostasis or first ousia. Thus,
one could follow Tertullian and state that there are three substances in the
Trinity. As we have seen, this is the meaning of substantia which Augustine later adopted. But for the common unity
of the Trinity Tertullian also uses the same word substantia, now meaning substratum. Commenting upon the verse “I
and my Father are one” (John 10:30), he says that they are one “in respect of
unity of substance [substantiae], not
singularity of number” (Against Praxeas,
25). As Wolfson observes, by substantia Tertullian
must here mean unity of substratum, which derives from the Father. Several times
elsewhere, Tertullian employs this second meaning. For instance, he writes that
“the Father is the entire substance but the Son is a derivation and portion of
the whole” (Against Praxeas, 9), or
the Son derives “from the substance of the Father” (Against Praxeas, 4), or the Trinity are three “not in condition,
but in degree; not in substance, but inform; not in power, but in aspect; yet
of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power” (Against Praxeas, 2), or finally, the distinction of Father and Son
is to be explained “on the ground of Personality, not of Substance—in the way
of distinction, not of division” (Against
Praxeas, 12). This second use of substantia
in Tertullian for Stoic ousia or
substratum if precisely that of Milton, who is thus echoing what appears to be
the earliest technical meaning of substantia
in any Latin theological writer. Neither man uses the term consubstantial in this context, though
both could have.
Another point of similarity between Tertullian
and Milton (aside from their subordinationism, which I have argued elsewhere)
is the act that both derive the second and third Persons from the substance of
the Father. For neither writer is there a common substratum underlying all
three members. Tertullian’s view continues in the Nicene Creed (325), which
anathematizes all “who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis
or ousia.” The two words are used
synonymously here—a well-established practice by this time with reference to
the substratum in the Son, begotten of the ousia
of the Father, as an earlier clause in the original Creed states. Milton, thus,
is following the earliest tradition of the Latin church. Augustine, on the
other hand, later established the view that a common substratum underlies both
Father and Son, and this became the accepted interpretation. (W.B. Hunter, “Further
Definitions: Milton’s Theological Vocabulary” in W.B. Hunter, C.A. Patrides,
and J.H. Adamson, eds., Bright Essence:
Studies in Milton’s Theology [Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,
1973], 15-25, here, pp. 22-23)
