On Against Paxeas:
After the introductory chapter on Praxeas
and his teaching, the author deals with the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity,
sometimes called the divine economy or dispensation (oikonomia, dispositio).
In order to allay popular fears and prejudices, he draws a parallel with the theory
of Orman Law which acknowledged several imperatores but only one imperium;
that is, the State was ruled in virtue of one undivided power, but, since that
sole authority could not be effectively exercised over so vast a territory, by
an individual, the territory was divided but not the power, and each Emperor
wielded that one within an allotted area. Similarly, the divine monarchy is unimpaired
in the Church’s dogma. There follows a discussion of the generation of the Son,
also called the Word and the Wisdom of God, with biblical quotations in proof
of the plurality of divine persons. The testimony of the Gospel of John is
adduced in order to refute the heretical interpretation of Scriptural passages
by Praxeas. Finally, the writer creates of the Holy Ghost or Paraclete, as
distinct from the Father and the Son. But this is only the frame of the
treatise. Within the 31 chapters Tertullian develops completely the doctrine of
the Trinity (this will be discussed later). There are striking passages like
the following:
Three, however, not in quality, but in
essence, not in substance, but in form, not in power, but in aspect; yet of one
substance and one quality and one power, because there is one God from whom
these sequences and forms, and aspects are reckoned out in the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (2).
He describes the relation existing
between the Father and the Son as in no way destroying the Divine Monarchy,
because it is not by division that the one differs from the other—but by
distinction (9). He is the first of the Latin authors to use trinitas as
the technical term 92 ff).
Unfortunately, in his defense of the
distinction of the Divine persons, he did not escape the pitfalls of Subordinationism.
(Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols. [Westminster, Md.: Christian
Classics, Inc., 1992], 2:285-86)
Trinity
It is in the doctrine of the Trinity
and the intimately connected Christology that Tertullian made the greatest
contribution to theology. Some of his formulae and definitions are so precise
and happy that they were adopted by the ecclesiastical terminology never to be
discarded. It was mentioned above that Tertullian was the first to use the
Latin word trinitas for the three divine persons. De pud. 21
speaks of a Trinitas unius Divinitatis, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus.
However, it is in Adv. Prax., that his doctrine of the trinity finds its
best expression. He explains the compatibility between the unity and trinity of
the Godhead by pointing to the oneness in substance and origin of the three: tres
unius substantiae et unius status et unius potestatis (De pud. 2).
The Son is ‘of the substance of the Father’: Filium non aliunde deduco, sed
de substantia Patris (ibid. 4). The Spirit is ‘from the Father
through the Son’: Spiritum non aliunde deduco quam a Patre per Filium (ibid.)
Thus Tertullian states: ‘I always affirm that there is one substance in three
united together’: Ubique teneo unam substantiam in tribus cohaerentibus (ibid.
12). In ch. 25 of De pud. he puts the relation of Father, Son and
Paraclete in the following way: Connexus Patris in Filio et Filii in
Paracleto tres efficit cohaerentes, alterum e altero. Qui test unum sunt, non
unus. Tertullian is the first to use the term persona, which became
so famous in the subsequent development. He says of the Logos that he is ‘another’
than the father ‘in the sense of person, not of substance, for distinctiveness,
not for division; alium autem quomodo accipere debeas iam professus sum,
personae non substantiae nominee, ad distinctionem non ad divisionem (Adv.
Prax. 12). The term persona is applied also to the Holy Spirit, whom
Tertullian calls ‘the third person’:
If the plurality of the Trinity still
offends you, as if it were not connected in simple unity, I ask you how it is
possible for a Being who is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to speak in
plural phrase, saying, ‘let us make man in our own image, and after our own likeness’;
whereas He ought to have said, ‘Let me make man in my own image, and after my
own likeness,’ as being a unique and singular Being? In the following passage,
however, ‘Behold the man is become as one of us,’ He is either deceiving or
amusing us in speaking plurally if He is the One only and singular. Or was it to
the angels that He spoke, as the Jews interpret the passage, because these also
acknowledge not the Son? Or was it because He was at once the Father, the Son,
and the Spirit, that he spoke to Himself in plural terms, making Himself plural
on that very account? Nay, it was because He had already His Son close at His
side, as a second Person, His own Word, and a third Person also, the Spirit in
the Word, that He purposely adopted the plural phrases ‘Let us make’ and ‘in
our image’ and ‘become as one of us,’ For with whom did He make man? and to
whom did He make him like? He was speaking with the Son who was to put on human
nature; and the Spirit who was to sanctify man. with these did He then speak,
in the Unity of the Trinity, as with His ministers and witnesses (ibid.
12 ANF 4).
However, Tertullian could not shake
off entirely the influence of subordinationism. The old distinction between the
Logos endiathetos and the Logos prophorikos, the Word internal or
immanent in God and the Word emitted or uttered by God, which isled the Greek
apologists, made him regard the divine generation as taking place gradually.
Although Wisdom and Word are identical names for the second person in the
Trinity, Tertullian distinguishes between a prior birth as Wisdom before the
creation, and a nativitas perfecta at the moment of creation, when the
Logos was sent forth and Wisdom became the Word: ‘Hence it was then that the
Word itself received its manifestation and its completion, namely sound and
voice, when God said: Let there be light. This is the perfect birth of
the Word, when it proceeds from God. it was first introduced by Him for thought
under the name of Wisdom. The Lord established me as the beginning of his
ways (prov. 8, 22). Then He is generated for action: When He made the
heavens, I was near Him (Prov. 8, 27). Consequently, making the one of whom
he is the Son to be His Father by His procession, He became the first-born, as
generated before all, and only Son, as solely generated by God’ (Adv. Prax.
7). Thus the Son as such is not eternal (Hermog. 3 EP 321) although the
Logos was res et persona even before the creation of the world per
substantiae proprietatem (ibid.). The Father is the whole substance
(tota substantia est) while the Son is only an outflow and a portion of
the whole (derivation totius et portio), as He Himself professes, Because
my Father is greater than I (John 14, 28). The analogies by which
Tertullian tries to explain the Godhead also indicate his subordinationist tendencies,
especially when he states that the Son goes out from the Father as the beam from
the sun:
For God brought forth the Word, as
also the Paraclete declares, as a root brings forth the ground shoot, and a
spring the river and the sun its beam. For these manifestations also are emanations
of the substances form which they proceed. I should not hesitate, indeed, to call
the shoot the son of the root and the river son of the spring and the beam son
of the sun, because every source is a parent and everything which issues from a
source is an offspring—and especially the Word of God, who has actually
received as his own peculiar designation the name of Son: yet the shoot is not
shut off from the root nor the river from the spring nor the beam from the sun,
anymore than the Word is separated from God. Following, therefore, the form of
these analogies I confess that I call God and His Word—the Father and His Son—two.
For the root and the shoot are distinctly two things, but conjoined; and the
spring and the river are also two manifestations, but undivided; so likewise
the sun and the beam are two aspects, but they cohere. Everything which proceeds
from something else must needs be second to that from which it proceeds,
without being on that account separated. Where, however, there is a second,
there must be two; and where there is a third, there must be three. Now the Spirit
indeed is third from God and the Son; just as the fruit of the shoot is third
from the root, or as the irrigation canal out of the river is third from the
spring, or as the apex of the beam is third from the sun; nothing, however, is
alien form that original source whence it derives its own properties. . . . In
like manner the Trinity, proceeding from the Father by intermingled and
connected degrees, does not at all disturb the monarchy, while it guards the
state of the economy. (Adv. Prax. 8 ANF). (Johannes Quasten, Patrology,
4 vols. [Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, Inc., 1992], 2:324-28)
Christology
Tertullian’s doctrine of the Trinity
in spite of its shortcomings marks an important step forward. Some of his formulas
are identical with those of the Council of Nicaea, held more than one hundred
years later. Others have been adopted by tradition and later Councils. This
holds true especially of his Christology, which has all the merits of his
teaching on the Godhead and none of its defects. He clearly announces the two
natures in the one person of Christ. There is no transformation of the divinity
into the humanity, any more than a fusion or combination that would have made
only one substance out of two:
We see plainly the twofold state,
which is not confounded, but conjoined in one person—Jesus, God, and Man . . .
so that the property of each nature is so wholly preserved that the Spirit on
the one hand did all its own things in Jesus such as miracles, and mighty deeds
and wonders; and the flesh, on the other hand, exhibited the affections which belong
to it. It was hungry under the devil’s temptation, thirsty with the Samaritan
woman, wept over Lazarus, was troubled even unto death, and at last actually
died. If, however, it was only some third thing, some composite essence formed
out of the two substances, like the electrum, there would be no distinct proofs
apparent of either nature. But by a transfer of functions, the Spirit would
have done things to be done by the Flesh, and the Flesh such as are effected by
the spirit; or else such things as are suited neither to the Flesh nor to the
Spirit, but confusedly of some third character. Nay more, on this supposition,
either the Word underwent death, or the flesh did not die, if the Word had been
converted into flesh; because either the flesh was immortal, or the Word was
mortal. Forasmuch, however, as the two substances acted distinctly, each in its
own character, there necessarily accrued to them severally their own operations
and their own issues. (Adv. Pra. 27 ANF 3).
We recognize in these statements the
formula of the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.) of the two substances in one
person. (Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols. [Westminster, Md.:
Christian Classics, Inc., 1992], 2:328)