Chapter 4 Monarchianism and the Fully Trinitarian Problematic
CHAPTER 4
Monarchianism and the Fully Trinitarian Problematic
If a simple God can generate only what is “one and the same” as himself, does this imply the dissolution of the distinction between the generator and the generated? According to Reinhard Hübner, “If one would like to defend the oneness of God (Einzigkeit Gottes) against the divisions of the gnostic Pleroma, then one must (as Irenaeus explicitly did) exclude any propria figuratio of the Logos who would have existed in himself distinctly [i.e., efficabiliter et partiliter] from God, in spite of the distinction between God and Logos, Father and Son, taken from Scripture.”1 If this is right, then Irenaeus’s anti-Valentinian account of generation—the only one that is compatible with divine simplicity for the bishop of Lyons—will inevitably lead to a dissolution of the distinction between generator and generated. When applied to the generation of the Son from the Father, then, such an account will not be compatible with the affirmation of Father and Son as two distinct divine persons—a central thesis in a Trinitarian conception of God. But if Irenaeus’s analysis of the implication of divine simplicity for processes of generation involving God is not off the mark, then it seems impossible to reconcile the affirmation of God’s simplicity with a “Trinitarian” distinction between the Father and the Son. Surprisingly, Hübner’s remark on Irenaeus pinpoints an issue commonly raised by modern philosophers but in a totally different guise: is divine simplicity at all compatible with Trinitarian theology?
My aim in this chapter is to clarify how discerning the state of this question in the late second to the early third centuries, which emerged during the Monarchian controversy, forms the second important episode in the formation of the “ante-Nicene problematic.” The term “Monarchian controversy” refers not to a single controversy but to a series of controversies occurring in this period.2 Geographically, these controversies spanned Asia Minor and Rome. Hence it is a significant theological controversy among Christian communities in this period. The Monarchian controversy was the major doctrinal episode that brought about sustained theological engagements in the ante-Nicene period on the nature of the distinction between Father and Son. This is because Monarchians, according to their opponents, dissolved this distinction between Father and Son. As a result, the details of this controversy will likely shed light on the key issues for ante-Nicene theologians related to the relationship between divine simplicity and the affirmation of the Father-Son distinction.
My central thesis is that the compatibility between the model of generation that follows from divine simplicity we have seen in Irenaeus and the affirmation of the “Trinitarian” distinction between Father and Son became the explicit subject of debate during the Monarchian controversy. Hübner is surely right to identify a close connection between an anti-Gnostic rejection of emissions (and hence, as we have seen, an affirmation of divine simplicity) and the question concerning the distinction between the Father and the Son. But, as I shall argue in the second part of this chapter, the first attitude does not necessarily require a dissolution of the Father-Son distinction. This inference was likely drawn by Monarchians but, as we shall see in Tertullian’s Adversus Praxean, the intelligibility of the anti-Monarchian position rests precisely on the unwillingness to concede the point.
Before I lay out the evidence for my claim, some conceptual ground-clearing on the relationship between divine simplicity and Monarchianism is necessary. This is because, as I hinted a moment ago, modern writers have frequently raised the issue concerning the compatibility between divine simplicity and the affirmation of Trinitarian distinction. Instead of raising the potential incompatibility through the recognition of the close connection between an anti-Gnostic attitude and Monarchianism—which is how the issue was raised in the ante-Nicene period, as I shall argue—modern writers are troubled by the fact that divine simplicity seems to logically entail Monarchianism. If divine simplicity implies that multiple divine attributes are identical to each other, a claim we have seen can be inferred from Alcinous and Irenaeus, then, following the same logic, divine simplicity surely also requires the three divine persons to be identical to each another, in line with Monarchianism. William Hasker, for example, voices the puzzlement that the Church Fathers seem to have missed this obvious logical connection between the two positions.3 The prominence of this concern in modern scholarship likely has colored the current perception of the issue at stake between divine simplicity and Monarchianism among theologians and philosophers. So before I turn to sketch out the distinctive ante-Nicene formulation of the incompatibility issue, I shall devote the first part of this chapter to clearing away the modern formulation by elucidating why early Christians did not identify the same logical connection between divine simplicity and Monarchianism.4
DIVINE SIMPLICITY AND MONARCHIANISM: TWO DIFFERENT THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS
It is true that divine simplicity and Monarchianism are both driven by a concern for the unity of God that leads to a form of rejection of multiplicity. In the former, God is to be identified with the divine attributes (e.g., Word, Wisdom, etc.) since, as we have seen in Alcinous and Irenaeus, the plurality of these attributes must be ultimately characterized by a unity in order to preserve God’s simplicity. Monarchianism is similarly committed to a strong notion of the unity of God. According to some Monarchians, if (1) God is one, and (2) Jesus Christ is divine, then one must conclude that the divine Son of God is identical to God the Father. Both doctrines, then, in their distinctive way render the multiplicity associated with God as lacking ultimate reality. This analogy, however, is somewhat misleading if taken as a hermeneutical lens through which to view our sources because it is too general. If one begins to scratch beneath the surface, one finds that the two doctrines address different theological problems in early Christian thought. This point will emerge clearly from examining the sources of the Monarchian controversy.
Monarchianism as an Exegetical Position
The Monarchian controversy is centred on prosopological exegesis.5 Prosopological exegesis refers to the task of identifying “who is speaking to whom” in Scripture. In Scripture we find many passages in which the answer to this question is not obvious.6 Theologically, this problem becomes even more troublesome when a variant form of the question is posed: who in Scripture could be identified as a divine subject? In other words, how many actors or speakers in Scripture could be identified as divine? The Monarchian controversy is best understood in relation to this question.7 For both Monarchians and anti-Monarchians agree that two crucial premises must govern Christian hermeneutics: (1) the belief in one God (monotheism) and (2) the belief that Jesus Christ is God (the divinity of Christ). It was uncontroversial to insist that Christian hermeneutics must uphold both of these premises in some ways. What was controversial at the time concerns the exact implications of these premises for reading Scripture.
The historical referent designated by the term “Monarchian” is a much-debated topic among scholars. Influenced by Adolf von Harnack, scholars traditionally differentiate between “modalist” and “dynamic” Monarchians.8 Whether there were indeed two different kinds of Monarchianism at the time is debatable.9 Further, the determination of different “Monarchian” groups is complicated by the fact that it is likely that different Monarchian theologies underwent internal variations and developments.10 Some Monarchians were also patripassians who affirmed that the Father suffered in the economy of salvation, whereas others were not. There might also have been a difference between early Monarchians and Sabellians. These historical difficulties notwithstanding, a single underlying concern unifies all theologies traditionally identified as “Monarchian”: monotheism.11 In this study I shall limit my use of the term “Monarchian” to refer to a restricted group in the third century who had a tendency to identify the Father and the Son as a result of their commitment to monotheism.12 Monarchians of this sort were deeply concerned about the implication of monotheism for Scriptural hermeneutics. They argued that if there is only one God, and if Jesus Christ is divine, then in Scripture, passages about the divine Son of God must be regarded as having the same referent as passages about God. Consequently, if we identify the Father as God himself, then it follows that the divine Son and the Father must be identical to each other. For Monarchians, this is the only available conclusion if one wishes to affirm monotheism and the divinity of Christ together. Hippolytus and Tertullian both testify that this move lies at the heart of Monarchianism:
This is the way they are claiming to establish a single God. They reply to queries by saying, “Well, if I maintain that Christ is God, then he is the Father in person—if in fact he is God at all.”13
And in particular this one [Monarchianism] which supposes itself to possess truth unadulterated while it thinks it impossible to believe in one God unless it says that both Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one and the same. . . .14
Our sources, furthermore, highlight that Monarchians arrive at the identification of the Father and the Son through exegesis. According to Hippolytus, Noetus of Smyrna—perhaps the founder of Monarchianism—built an exegetical case for Monarchianism through a number of Scriptural verses.15 The dossier of Scriptural passages used by Noetus to support his Monarchian thesis is given by Hippolytus. In Ex. 3:6 and 20:3, God pronounces to Israel, “You shall have no other gods besides me.” In Isa. 44:6 we read, “I am the first, and I am the last, and in addition to me there is no one.” Bar. 3:36 states, “This is our God. No other will be compared to him.” What these verses have in common is a particular language for affirming monotheism: There is no other besides the one God. According to Noetus, these verses imply that God is the “one alone” (ὁ μόνος), and so there can be no other (ἕτερος) divine person or being besides him.16 Given this interpretation, accordingly, Noetus and his followers likely argue as follows:
1. There is only one God, the Father, besides whom there is no other.
2. Jesus Christ is God.
Therefore,
3. Jesus Christ is identical to the Father.
It seems that Noetus understands 3 to be an inevitable implication of the Scriptural passages given by Hippolytus. It is unclear whether Noetus formulates his position, namely, that there is only one divine person (prosopon) in Scripture, in technical language. But he clearly draws the following exegetical conclusion: given that the Father must be identified with the Son as a consequence of monotheism, the whole of Scripture must be read as though there is only one acting and speaking divine subject in Scripture. Moreover, Noetus also affirms that patripassianism logically follows: “The Father is himself Christ; he is himself the Son; he himself was born, he himself suffered, he himself raised himself up.”17 Thus, in its original form, Monarchianism is an exegetical-hermeneutical claim about the implication of monotheism for prosopological exegesis.
The treatment of two passages in the Gospel of John further illustrates the nature of Monarchian exegesis. John 10:30 and 14:9–11 are central for all Monarchians because these passages lend themselves well to Monarchian exegesis.18 Monarchians interpret John 10:30 as Jesus teaching that he himself is God the Father.19 It is easy to imagine how this conclusion seems obvious in the Monarchian framework, wherein there can be only one divine subject in Scripture. Hence Monarchians take John 10:30 as key evidence for their approach that whenever the divine Son is speaking or acting, it is the Father who is speaking or acting. For Monarchians, this reading of John 10:30 is further supported by Jesus’s response to the question posed by Philip in John 14:9–10: “Have I been with you so long, Philip, yet you do not know me? He who has seen me has seen the Father. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” Monarchians interpret these verses as suggesting that Jesus is once again teaching that the Father and the Son are identical.20 Even though our polemical sources do not provide us with the details of the Monarchian argument, it is not difficult to imagine how the argument might have proceeded. First, if one sees the Father when one sees the Son, then one could argue that this is because the Son is the Father. Second, one could argue that in John 14:10 the preposition “in” simply indicates identity. If the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son, then their identities simply overlap—in other words, they are the same person. For Monarchians, John 14:9–10 provides further evidence that Monarchian exegesis makes good sense of the narrative of Scripture.
We do not know whether Monarchians systematically apply their exegetical framework to the interpretation of the whole of Scripture. But what we have examined so far suffices to characterize the basic contours of their position. First, Monarchianism is primarily driven by the desire to maintain monotheism and the divinity of Jesus Christ together. For Monarchians, the only solution is to hold that the Father is identical to the divine Son, a solution justified by Scriptural passages such as Ex. 3:6, Isa. 44:6, and Bar. 3:36–38. Second, as a result of the Son’s identification with the Father, Monarchian exegesis posits only one divine subject in the drama of Scripture. Whenever Scripture mentions a divine subject acting or speaking, Monarchians interpret Scripture as referring to the same God. This approach to prosopological exegesis has numerous implications. For instance, a dialogue between two divine subjects would be impossible. Further, the Monarchian position will look for an explanation for any difficult passages in light of their presupposition that there is only one divine subject in Scripture.21 Thus Monarchianism is best understood as an approach to prosopological exegesis, grounded in the implication of monotheism, that rules out the possibility of having more than one divine actor in Scripture.
The Exegetical Nature of Anti-Monarchian Arguments
In response, anti-Monarchians argue that the identification of only one divine subject in Scripture leads to theological problems. Hence anti-Monarchians seek to offer a more theologically coherent reading of Scripture in order to refute their opponents. Anti-Monarchians propose instead that two acting subjects—the Father and the Word, his Son—must be identified to make better sense of the drama of Scripture. For anti-Monarchians, in order to preserve monotheism and Jesus’s divinity together, it is not necessary to follow the Monarchians to restrict our reading of Scripture to only one divine subject. Rather, anti-Monarchians argue that plurality of divine subjects is compatible with monotheism. In the case of the Father and the Son, as long as it is possible to construe the Father-Son relation as one and undivided, it is possible to maintain both a plurality of divine subjects in Scripture and monotheism together. Thus the anti-Monarchian position differs from the Monarchian position precisely on the question of how many persons (prosopa) could be identified as possessing divine status in Scripture. For Monarchians, there is only one; for anti-Monarchians, at least two.22
The key strategy found among anti-Monarchians is to show that the Monarchian position is exegetically problematic. Anti-Monarchians attempt to out-exegete their opponents by carrying out a better reading of the Scriptural text measured by the grammatical reading techniques of the time.23 On this basis, anti-Monarchians regard Monarchian exegesis as methodologically flawed. Apart from the critique of Monarchianism in Pseudo-Hippolytus’s Refutatio omnium haeresium based on the writer’s peculiar attempt to trace the root of all heresies in philosophy, all extant anti-Monarchian critique (Contra Noetum, Adversus Praxean, and De Trinitate) is grounded on the same basic point, namely, that the Monarchians have failed to pay careful attention to Scripture in their exegesis. A brief examination of one of the key anti-Monarchians techniques—close grammatical observation—will confirm this point.24
In the first place, anti-Monarchians point to a small set of key passages in which the grammatical structure of a given passage requires a clear distinction between Father and Son. Two examples suffice to illustrate this point. First, on Gen. 1:26, “Let us make man after our image and likeness,” both Tertullian and Novatian draw on the use of the plural here in support of the thesis that the Father and the Son are distinct.25 From the Monarchian perspective, since there is only one single God, the obvious interpretation of Genesis 1 would be that there is one prosopon involved in the activities of creation. But if this is so, why did Scripture use the plural pronoun in this verse? Tertullian argues that this grammatical feature refers to multiple divine prosopa in this chapter. This is the only acceptable interpretation, since either God is deceptive in speaking in the plural when in reality the singular would have been more appropriate or, as in Jewish interpretation, God was merely speaking to the angels given that Jews do not recognize the existence of the divine Son in the Old Testament. For the Christian, Tertullian argues, both alternatives are unacceptable. Rather, in light of the gospels, the correct interpretation is that God was always with the other two divine persons, even in the act of Creation: “[In Genesis] there already was attached to him the Son, a second Person [secunda persona], his Word. . . . For that reason he spoke in the plural, ‘Let us make’ [ faciamus], ‘our’ [nostram], and ‘of us’ [nobis].”26 Further, Tertullian suggests that this interpretation is proven by other Scriptural passages. In Gen. 1:27, the text did not simply state that God made man in his own image. If Monarchians were correct—that there is only one person speaking—then the author would have written that man was made “in his own image.” But in fact, in Gen. 1:27 he wrote that “in the image of God he made him.” Tertullian interprets this phrase to imply that Scripture indicates that man was made in the image of the Son. On the basis of grammatical observations, then, Tertullian argues that God made man not in his own image but specifically in the image of the Son. For Tertullian, the use of the plural thus indicates that the Father and the Son were distinct from the very beginning of Scripture.
A second example is found in the anti-Monarchian treatment of the crucial passage for the Monarchians: John 10:30. This passage receives detailed treatment from Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Novatian, further illustrating how significant it was for the Monarchians.27 All three anti-Monarchians make use of an argument based on close grammatical analysis. Hippolytus argues that the Monarchians fail to attend to the use of the plural in John 10:30: “I and the Father are (ἐσμέν) one.”28 The plural ἐσμέν is used only when there are two or more persons involved. For Hippolytus, this point is further clarified by Jesus’s words in John 17, where we read that the Father and the Son are one. According to Hippolytus, since it is absurd to think that the body of Christ (i.e., the Church) is (ἐστίν) one “in terms of substance” (κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν)—for this implies that the Church’s unity rules out multiple distinct persons in her constitution—it is likewise absurd to think that the Father and the Son is one in this manner.29 Accordingly, if the body of Christ are one, indicating that the Church consists of multiple persons in unity, then on the basis of John 17, we must likewise understand the unity indicated by John 10:30 as one that preserves the plurality of persons implied by the distinction between Father and Son. Consequently, we must regard the Father and the Son as two divine subjects in Scripture.
We find a similar argument in Tertullian. First Tertullian argues that “I and the Father” (Ego et pater) is an indication that they are two. Tertullian specifically highlights the use of two nominative subjects in the passage. Second, like Hippolytus, Tertullian points out that the use of the plural verb “are” (sumus) is another indication that Father and Son are two, since the plural is used to speak not of one but of more than one. Third, in this passage we read that Father and Son “are one [thing] (unum)” in the neuter, not “are one [person] (unus)” in the masculine. For Tertullian, this clearly indicates that the sense of unity implied by the verse is not that of one single person. For if this were the case, then the masculine unus would have been used:
When he [Jesus] says that two, of the masculine gender, are one, in the neuter—which is not concerned with singularity but with unity, with similitude, with conjunction, with the love of the Father who loveth the son, and with the love of the Father who loveth the Son, and with the obedience of the Son who obeys the Father’s will—when he says, one are I and the Father, he shows that those whom he equates and conjoins are two.30
For Tertullian, the grammatical features of John 10:30 suggest that, contrary to the Monarchian interpretation, this verse clearly refers to two divine persons.
Novatian’s exegesis of John 10:30 recapitulates what we have seen so far in Hippolytus and Tertullian but adds further details. First, Novatian argues that when the Son said, “I and the Father,” the use of the “and” signifies that the Son wishes to differentiate himself from the Father. If the Monarchian position were correct, then the Son would have said, “I, the Father, am I.” However, the text reads, “I and the Father,” which for Novatian establishes the distinction between the Father and the Son.31 Second, like Tertullian, Novatian points out that unum is used, not unus. Novatian’s explanation is as follows:
And since He said “one” thing [unum], let the heretics understand that He did not say “one” person [unus]. For one placed in the neuter, intimates the social concord, not the personal unity. He is said to be one neuter, not one masculine, because the expression is not referred to the number, but it is declared with reference to the association of another.32
Third, highlighting a point made by both Hippolytus and Tertullian, Novatian argues that sumus, in the plural, was used, indicating that the Father and the Son are two persons: “For He would not have added ‘We are’ [sumus], if He had had it in mind that He, the only and sole Father, had become the Son.”33 Anti-Monarchian exegesis of John 10:30 thus further confirms the characteristic of anti-Monarchian arguments in general, namely, that they combat Monarchianism as an exegetical position and refute it on exegetical grounds.
The Difference between Monarchianism and Divine Simplicity
The preceding analysis confirms that the Monarchian controversy was primarily preoccupied with prosopological exegesis. The point at stake was whether the whole of Scripture is better explained according to Monarchian or anti-Monarchian exegesis. On the one hand, based on key passages like Isa. 44:6 and Bar. 3:36–38, Monarchians argue for a prosopological exegetical framework that is consistent with monotheism. On the other hand, through close grammatical observations of passages like Gen. 1:26 and John 10:30, anti-Monarchians establish a counter case against Monarchian exegesis. Historically, then, Monarchianism as a theological position has been treated as much more than part of a syllogism. Rather, Monarchianism’s merit has been assessed based on how certain Scriptural passages are read and interpreted. As a historical position in the ante-Nicene period, Monarchianism is therefore best identified as the exegetical claim, motivated by monotheism, that the whole of Scripture contains references to only one divine subject.
This conclusion clarifies the intelligibility of why ante-Nicene writers did not regard divine simplicity as entailing Monarchianism. Divine simplicity, as I have argued in chapters 1 and 2, is concerned with determining descriptions of God that are worthy of the divine. For early Christians, a theology worthy of God requires that God is always self-consistent, free from internal contradictions, and that as the supreme highest principle, God is partless, free from composition, and incorporeal. Monarchianism, however, is concerned with determining how many divine persons are acting and speaking in Scripture. Monarchians argue that monotheism implies that there could be only one divine acting and speaking subject in Scripture. Consequently, the same subject must be identified in all passages involving God. It is true that both divine simplicity and Monarchianism set out some hermeneutical rules to regulate theological interpretation of Scripture. In this regard, divine simplicity and Monarchianism function as “second-order” rules for theological discourse. But as such, divine simplicity is concerned with regulating how we interpret the meaning of language for God in Scripture, whereas Monarchianism is concerned with regulating how many divine subjects could be identified in the Scriptural narrative. Thus, historically, the theological problem addressed by Monarchianism can be clearly distinguished from the one addressed by divine simplicity. It follows, then, that the Monarchian thesis can also be clearly distinguished from the doctrine of divine simplicity. This explains why, unlike modern writers, ante-Nicene theologians were hardly tempted to draw the inference from divine simplicity to Monarchianism.
FROM THE PROTO-TRINITARIAN TO THE FULLY TRINITARIAN PROBLEMATIC
If divine simplicity did not lead to Monarchianism in the ante-Nicene period, this is not to say that theologians in this period were unaware of the potential problems at the intersection of the two positions. During the Monarchian controversy, we have evidence that some Christians became aware of a potential incompatibility between divine simplicity and the characteristic anti-Monarchian stress on the distinction between Father and Son. This incompatibility, however, is of an indirect nature. What participants in the Monarchian controversy recognized was that the model of generation put forward by Irenaeus, which follows from divine simplicity, might actually be incompatible with the anti-Monarchian affirmation of the distinction between Father and Son. The logic seems to go something like this. As we have seen, anti-Monarchians argue that, contrary to Monarchianism, Father and Son are two divine subjects that cannot be identified with each other. This raises a question about the implication of the anti-Monarchian stance on the nature of the Son’s generation: does the anti-Monarchian insistence on the Son’s distinction from the Father necessarily imply a materialistic process of generation akin to Valentinian emissions? This worry makes sense because, as we saw in the previous chapter, it is materialistic emissions (i.e., ones that are incompatible with simplicity) that produce the generated, which has a kind of separate existence from the generator. So if the Son and the Father are two, as the anti-Monarchians insist, then surely the former must be begotten efficabiliter et partiliter from the latter. Divine simplicity, then, is implicated indirectly: if the anti-Monarchian position indeed implies a kind of Valentinian emission of the Son’s begetting, then it seems incompatible with divine simplicity since, as Irenaeus has shown, God’s simplicity is incompatible with emission as a model of generation. Hence, in this indirect manner, through the language of generation, divine simplicity might pose a problem to the anti-Monarchian position.
The key evidence that shows awareness of this theological issue during the Monarchian controversy is Tertullian’s Adversus Praxean. In this work Tertullian recognizes and addresses the very objection that the anti-Monarchian position could lead to Valentinian emission (Latin: prolatio/ Greek: probolē). Tertullian addresses the issue directly in APrax. 8–9. Since this section forms part of Tertullian’s overall response to Monarchianism, where he addresses several critical objections to his Trinitarian position made by his critics, it is likely that the issue was raised by Monarchians as an objection to anti-Monarchian theology. The exact nature of the connection between Monarchianism and anti-Gnosticism is far from certain in Tertullian’s report, but the question was surely regarded as sufficiently important for Tertullian to feel the need to draft a direct response in APrax. 8–9. So it is likely that, for both Monarchians and anti-Monarchians alike, the potential connection between the anti-Monarchian position and Valentinian probolē and, consequently, the potential incompatibility between the anti-Monarchian affirmation of the Father-Son distinction and divine simplicity, were recognized as important points at stake.
Let us now turn to Tertullian. Does the anti-Monarchian position necessarily lead to Valentinian probolē? Tertullian’s response, as we shall see, reveals that his take on the language of generation complicates the problematic we have seen in Irenaeus. According to Tertullian, the heart of the issue concerns the interpretation of the term probolē. He concedes that the anti-Monarchian position must lead to some kind of probolē that results in the Son’s being seen as a person (persona).34 However, the crucial issue is whether probolē must be understood in a sense that causes division (divisio) and hence separates (separat) the Father and the Son in a way analogous to how Valentinian aeons are separated from the First Father.35 If so, then the anti-Monarchian position is indeed guilty of proposing a problematic kind of probolē that would diminish the Father by the generation of the Son and thus violate the unity of God. But must every emission that ends up with the generated and the generator as two amount to Valentinian-like probolē? Or, to pose the question in Irenaeus’s terms: must the Son be emitted efficabiliter et partiliter in order for him to be a distinct person from the Father? Here Tertullian is concerned with upholding an additional element not found in Irenaeus that complicates the analysis of what constitutes appropriate language of generation, namely, the distinction between Father and Son. Irenaeus seems to be silent on this question.36 This additional element allows Tertullian to pose a more complex form of the question concerning the nature of generation than Irenaeus: how do we account for the Son’s begetting such that his generation (1) does not subject God the Father to division (the anti-Valentinian condition) and (2) maintains the Father and the Son as two distinct persons (the anti-Monarchian condition)?
Tertullian, like Irenaeus, insists that God the Father must not be diminished in any way by his generation of the Son. This would inappropriately subject God to divisions. Hence Tertullian rejects the use of probolē in Valentinian protology because “Valentinus secludes and separates his ‘projections’ from their originator, and places them so far from him that an aeon is ignorant of its father.”37 But the situation is different in the anti-Monarchian position. The distinction between Father and Son need not involve a kind of probolē that subjects God to division. The key is to differentiate between two kinds of plurality that results from a process of generation. In developing this point, Tertullian draws on various terminological pairs. One helpful pair is division (divisio) and distinction (distinctio). For Tertullian, distinctio between the generator and the generated is sufficient to differentiate the anti-Monarchian position from the Valentinian position that leads to divisio. As Antonio Orbe has conjectured, Tertullian’s solution could also be understood in terms of the differentiation between portio and pars.38 According to Orbe, Tertullian maintains that the Son is not a part of God that is separated from the Father. Rather, the Son is a portion of God that proceeded from him. Portio thus results from distinctio that does not diminish the generator, whereas pars signifies the consequence of divisio that violates the original nature of the generator. In light of the distinctio-divisio and portiopars distinctions, Tertullain argues that the anti-Monarchian position does not necessarily involve a Valentinian type probolē:
For . . . I say that the Father is one, and the Son another . . . not however that the Son is other than the Father by diversity, but by distribution, not by division but by distinction, because the other is not identical with the Son, they even being numerically one and another. For the Father is the whole substance, while the Son is an outflow and assignment of the whole.39
Enim dico alium esse patrem et alium filium . . . non tamen diversitate alium filium a patre sed distributione, nec divisione alium sed distinctione, quia non sit idem pater et filius, vel modulo alius ab alio. Pater enim tota substantia est, filius vero derivatio totius et portio.
For Tertullian, the best illustration for how distinctio/portio can arise in generation is given by three similar metaphors: “as a root brings forth the ground shoot, and a spring the river, and the sun its beam.”40 In these metaphors, we can distinguish the source (the “parent”) from the generated (the “son”) clearly so that they are not identical: “The root and the shoot are two things, but conjoined; and the spring and the river are two manifestations, but undivided; and the sun and its beam are two aspects, but they cohere.”41 The three metaphors, then, capture a mode of generation in which the generated can be a distinct reality beside the generator without compromising the unity between the two. In this manner, Tertullian concludes, the Son can be said to be begotten from the Father without being “separated” from him, bringing about divisions to God.
In reaching this conclusion, Tertullian does not refer to God’s simplicity (simplicitas).42 Although he forbids any kind of probolē that would subject God to divisions—an idea not far from the concept of simplicity developed in the Platonic tradition—Tertullian’s reasoning is clearly grounded on the indivisibility of the divine monarchy.43 But what APrax. 8–9 witnesses to is that by the early third century not all Christian writers accepted the Monarchian perspective that an anti-Valentinian rejection of emission is compatible only with the identification of the Father and the Son. Tertullian’s awareness of this problem and his attempt to sketch out a solution illustrate that anti-Monarchian writers in this period were acutely aware of the centrality of resolving this issue for the purpose of affirming a theology that makes a clear distinction between Father and Son. This was especially so for those anti-Monarchians who, like Irenaeus, were explicitly committed to divine simplicity (and hence to an anti-Valentinian account of generation). Such anti-Monarchians faced the challenge of upholding their insistence on the distinction between Father and Son without compromising their commitment to divine simplicity and its subsequent implications for the language of generation. As I shall argue in chapters 6 and 7, it is with respect to this problematic that Origen works out the distinctive contours of his thinking on the Father-Son relation.
Historically, the relation between divine simplicity and Monarchianism has been complex. Modern analyses fail to capture the theological issue that arose at the intersection of these two positions in the ante-Nicene period. However, the hunch underlying modern analyses is not entirely irrelevant because during the Monarchian controversy Christians indeed recognized a potential incompatibility—albeit one revealed indirectly through the issue of the language of generation—between divine simplicity and the affirmation of the Father-Son distinction. Monarchians likely raised this issue in defense of their position, although they might not have conceptualized the problem via the Platonic language of simplicity. Anti-Monarchians, in turn, recognized the importance of this issue and had to respond to it. I have argued that in Tertullian’s response to the Monarchian criticism, the “proto-Trinitarian” problematic we have seen in Irenaeus is developed into a “fully Trinitarian” problematic. The “ante-Nicene Trinitarian problematic,” in short, is the need to maintain an anti-Monarchian distinction between Father and Son while holding onto an anti-Valentinian account of generation that is compatible with divine simplicity. One can look at this problematic from two sides. From one side: is it possible to maintain an anti-Valentinian account of generation that stresses inseparability, consubstantiality, and contemporaneity between generator and generated (and hence is compatible with divine simplicity) without falling into the Monarchian position that the Son and the Father are one and the same? Or, starting from the other side: is it possible to maintain the anti-Monarchian emphasis on the Son’s distinction from the Father (such that there are two divine acting subjects in Scripture) without introducing a Valentinian probolē that compromises divine simplicity? Or, more succinctly: must we fall into either Valentinian probolē or Monarchianism? Hübner’s diagnosis, which captures the Monarchian perspective so well, presents this binary as inevitable. But it is precisely the possibility of going beyond this binary that makes the search for a via media between Valentinian probolē and Monarchianism an intelligible option in the ante-Nicene period. And given the centrality of divine simplicity in the ante-Nicene Trinitarian problematic and its Platonic pedigree, it is unsurprising that the doctrine has cemented its place in the thought of the greatest theologian and Christian Platonist in this period, Origen of Alexandria.