There was, he says, a time before
the generation of the Son when God was alone, not so much lacking as containing
all else that would be Trinity (Prax. 7–9). The “Father is the whole substance”
(pater enim tota substantia est, 9.2), which suggests a quite different
understanding of the meaning of God’s fatherhood, and potentially a
subordinationist one; but this is primarily a claim for unity of divine
substance. When he asserts that the reality of divine persons is not a matter
of diversity but distribution, or not one of division but of distinction (9.1),
Tertullian affirms that sequence is of relatively little importance, given a
unity of divine substance. (Andrew B. McGowan, "God in Early Latin Theology:
Tertullian and the Trinity," in God in Early Christian Thought: Essays
in Memory of Lloyd G. Patterson, ed. Andrew B. McGowan, Brian E. Daley, and
Timothy J. Gaden [Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 94; Leiden: Brill, 2009],
66)
