v. Tertullian's Theological Terminology ; 4
" Une bot Ax tA ti bus pterea
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
is at the back of his mind as a postulate, and the Gospel text must be expounded in accordance with it. In this respect he has left the apologists behind him: the apologetic value of the term is forgotten: itis to him, as to the evangelist, a positive contribution to Christian theology.
V. TERTULLIAN'S THEOLOGICAL TERMINOLOGY
x Una substantia in tribus personis, an expression with which Tertullian is commonly credited, sufficiently represents his position, for though tres personae does not seem actually to occur, it is certainly there by implication, as the following discussion will show.
Professor Bethune-Baker (Early History of Christian Doctrine, p. 138), writing in 1903, said: "Tertullian was perhaps less of a philosopher than a jurist, and we are helped to understand his theory .
. by the legal use of the terms he employs."
He proceeds to explain that substantia in legal usage means y^" eproperty, and persona a being with legal rights. "Such a person's b position or circumstances would be his status or condition— perhaps even his nature (matura or proprietas) when looked at from an inward point of view—and obviously a number of persons might occupy the same status, or be in the same condition, or have the same nature."
Equally also, he implies rather than states, three persons could be joint possessors of one undivided
" Jproperty (substantia) and one of those persons could, without elinquishing that property, become also the possessor of another.
The theory is due to Harnack, whose brilliant guesses it^vas the fashion in some quarters at that date to accept at the value of their author's great name: but apparently Bethune-Baker had his doubts, for in a footnote (after a reference to Harnack, DG.
(Eng. Tr.) vol. iv. pp. 122-3) he remarks: "The conceptions and expressions of Tertullian were by no means entirely controlled by legal usage, and the philosophical sense of the terms must also be borne in mind."
In fact, as the following examination will show, the philosophical (that is, the logical) sense is the only one worth considering.
'l'xeront was more reserved; he wrote (Histoire des Dogmes, vol. ii. p. 338 footnote): "M. Harnack a prétendu que Tertullien avait-pris-ees mots seulement dans Teur sens juridique de personne morale et de fortune, biens possédés.
Cette opinion n'est pas soutenable."
»n Sus + ! bere ° V Opel j :
INTRODUCTION "7
beet prenrd, E Substantia = UROSTKO = 6U6 * is not quoted from Latin authors earlier than Quintilian.
It is evidently a translation of $róg Tagus, capable of being made to mean whatever the Greek word means: which gives wide possibilities.
(a) That it occurs in the sense of| property| is undeniable:
Apol. 39, ex substantia familiari fratres sumus, quae penes vos fere dirimit fraternitatem (where substantia is apparently equivalent to res in the next sentence): De cult. fem. i. 9, tantarum substantiarum usuram uno et muliebri corpusculo baiulare : De exhort. cast.
10, per continentiam enim negotiaberis magnum substantiam sanctitatis, parsimonia carnis spiritum acquires:
Adv. Marc. iv. 15
(quoting Is. 5. 14, Inhonorabitur vir), utique ob substantiam honorabilis.
(b) It occurs in several subsidiary senses of brdatacis: De cult. fem. ii. 2, debemus quidem ita sancte et tota fidei substantia incedere ut confisae et securae simus de conscientia nostra (equivalent to vrócTac:s in the sense of confidence or standing-ground, according to the figure of Ps. 69. 2, éverayny eis iov BvÜoU
Kal ovK éoTw wmróoTacis, and parallel with Heb.
11.
1, eAmilopevwv vróaTaocts, "confidence concerning things hoped for"): Adv. Prax. 25, post Philippum et totam substantiam quaestionis istius ("subject-matter", cf. Liddell and Scott (8th ed.), s.v.
B. IL): and compare zbid. 31, quod opus evangelü, quae est substantia novi testamenti statuens legem et prophetas usque ad
Ioannem .
. .? (where substantia may conceivably mean "whole content", though more probably the sense is "with what confidence does the New Testament terminate the law and the prophets with John, unless from thenceforth, etc.?"): and again
De orat. 4, petimus ergo substantiam et facultatem voluntatis suae subministret nobis (the addition of facultas suggests the meaning
"entire resources", though the idea of confidence is not absent): ibid., dominus .
. cum substantia passionis infirmitatem | carnis demonstrare iam in sua carne voluisset (''toleration"', "sufferance'"' :
L. and S., s.v. vpiorntL, refer to Demosthenes, P. 1421, where:
OT Dai is apparently a synomym of vzopetvay and qemovÜéva, so that Ursinus! conjecture sub instantiam is " unnecessary).
(c) The philosophical (logical) sense.
Since ipioracGar is
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
by one of its uses a synomym of eivau drdoTacts and ovaía can.also be synomyms, and when by convention they are distinguished, substantia remains untouched by the Greek development and continues to represent ovoía.
Further, since ovaia is the abstract noun of etvau, it could have meant '* being" in any sense in which the verb means "'to be", i.e. either as copula or as existential verb.
In practice it seems always to have represented the existential verb, as d$wvows (natura) represents attributes attached by the copula, though without any necessary definition (expressed or implied) of what "being" is
As representing the existential verb, ovata is the first of the categories.
Unlike the Stoic jmoxeípevov, it begs no questions, though the Aristotelian explanation, Cat. 4. 1 625, €or 86 ovcia pev ós TUTw@ eUreiv otov dvÜpormos tm7os, perhaps unduly confines the meaning to visible objects. That Tertullian regarded substantia as in this sense equivalent to ov oca appears from the following passages.
De anima, 11: sed ut animam spiritum dicam praesentis quaestionis ratio compellit, quia spirare alii substantiae adscribitur.
. spiritum necesse est certa condicione dicamus, mon status nomine sed actus, nec substantiae titulo sed operae, quia spirat, non quia proprie spiritus est. . .
. illic de substantia quaestio est: spirare enim substantiae actus est.
. solam eam (sc. animam) constat ante eventum spiritus utriusque (sc. dei et diaboli): si solam, et simplicem et uniformem substantiae nomine, atque ita non aliunde spirantem quam ex substantiae suae sorte.
That is, anima being in the category of ovoia, spiritus (in the sense in which the soul is in Scripture called spirit) is in the category of zrovety: but not as an accident, since spiration is by nature (apart from either inspiration or obsession) an activity of soul.
De anima, 32: nam etsi quidam homines bestiis adaequantur pro qualitatibus morum et ingeniorum et affectuum .
. non ideo milvi ex rapacibus fient, etc.
. .
. quasi eadem substantia animae ubique naturam suam in animalium proprietatibus repetat. aliud est autem substantia, aliud natura substantiae, siquidem substantia propria est ret cuiusque, natura vero potest esse communis.
. substantia est lapis, ferrum: duritia lapidis et ferri natura substantiae est. — duritia communicat, substantia | discordat.
INTRODUCTION
mollitia lanae, mollitia plumae, pariant naturalia earum, substantiva non pariant.
. naturae similitudo notatur cum substantiae dissimilitudo conspicitur.
. sic et divina pronuntiatio (Ps. 49. 20) sapit, pecudibus adaequans hominem matura non substantia. ceterum nec deus hominem hoc modo notasset si pecudem de substantia nosset.
That is to say, a thing is what it is, and cannot be another thing.
The examples given are of devrepar ova (at, but the same would hold good of ovciat pora.
This has a close bearing on our present subject.
"Tertullian nowhere says (as Harnack would seem to suggest) that God substantiam obtinet: rather God 1$ substantia quaedam, even res quaedam (e.g. Adv. Prax. 9, pater enim tota substantia est: and Adv. Marc. iii. 6, Christ 1s the Son and spirit and substance of the Creator) and that substance cannot be other than it is. Moreover, in the examples quoted, substantia discordat; but with God substantia communicat, the Son and the Holy Spirit being consortes substantiae patris (not participes), one and the same substance, even (if you insist) one and the same thing. The divine substance is something necessarily one and necessarily indivisible and incommiunicable, which each of the three Persons (not "has buty ist" we are" discoursing in the category of ovata not of éyew.!
Substantia, it appears, though it might have meant "existence'', comes in practice to mean an existent thing: and since God is not a species or genus, it must mean a mor» ovgía, a single individual Being.
A consideration of some of the derivatives of substantia will illustrate this conclusion.
Substantialis:
De res. carn. 45, tam vetustatem hominis quam novitatem ad moralem non ad substantialem differentiam pertinere definimus ("old man" and ''new man" signify not a difference of identity but of character): Adv. Val. 7, referring to the Valentinians' god, hunc substantialiter quidem aidva réXewov appellant, personaliter vero Upoapyny et rnv Apyny, etc. (he is a singular individual thing, a 7c: ovcia, described as "'perfect zon", and is also a person named Proarche, etc.: and, one may add,
God is a vp» ovcía described as deus, and his personal name 1 Thinking in similar terms, Athenagoras, Suppl. 5, remarks that Euripides seems to have been aware that the so-called gods were non-existent, they were not ojc(a.: obre ras ovclas als émixarnyopetoOar 7d Üvoua cvuBéBmkev Vmrokeuévas éópa .
. obre rà Óvóuara Kal' vroKemmévwn KaTyyopeicar mpayudrur.
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
| is "the Lorp"': and similarly, Adv. Prax. 7, the Logos is res et persona quaedam): Adv. Val. 27, patitur vero animalis et carneus
Christus in delineationem superioris Christi qui ad Achamoth formandam substantivali non agnitionali forma cruci id est Horo fuerat innixus (the tragedy of the "'superior Christ" was represented as a fact, though outside the range of perception).
Substantivus: Adv. Hermog. 7, nam et ipsum principium in quo deus fecit et caelum et terram aliquid volunt fuisse quasi substantivum et corpulentum: ibid. 36, (motus) substantiva res (non est) quia nec corporalis, sed accidens si forte substantiae et corpori: De res. carn. 40, ita vocabulum homo consertarum substantiarum duarum quodammodo fibula est, sub quo vocabulo non possent esse nist cohaerentes. interiorem hominem .
. non substantiam ipsam sed substantiae saporem .
. fidem quidem et dilectionem non substantiva animae ponens sed conceptiva.
In every case we seem to be dealing with the Aristotelian categories: certain persons wish to take im principio not in the category of moré but of ovaia: motion is not ovoia but ove or vácxXew: faith and charity are not ovota but are activities of the understanding: the inner man is not ovata but otov.
A few passages from Adv. Prax. will provide further illustration of these derivatives.
Adv. Prax. 7: non vis enim eum (sc. sermonem) substantivum habere in re per substantiae proprietatem, ut res et persona quaedam videri possit . . . quid est enim, dices, sermo misi vox et sonus oris, et sicut grammatici tradunt aer offensus intelligibilis auditu, ceterum vacuum. nescio quid et inane et incorporale?
The ap eR ra a eg is à mere. function of God, while-F ian maintains that he.is substantive, as being M .
° .
* qx Sm .
d a substance which is himself and nothing but himself, an objective entity (res), and moreover a person (which is a kind of res), and in effect corporal (since he is spirit, which is corpus sui generis).
It would follow, per substantiae unitatem (§ 2), that the substance which is the Logos himself is identical with the substance which is the Father and which also is the Holy Spirit: for unitas is not '
. el TET union but arithmetical unity.
Adv. Prax. 26. In the text Luke 1. 35, since by the rules of grammar spiritus dei, though a substantiva res, is not ipse deus
(i.e. the Spirit of the Lord which was to come upon Mary is not the Lord whose Spirit he is, viz. the Father), multo magis
AOS = rálio d Séen~o
INTRODUCTION
virtus altissimi non erit ipse altissimus, quia nec substantiva res est quod est spiritus, sicut nec sapientia nec providentia: et haec enim substantiae non sunt sed accidentia uniuscuiusque substantiae.
"God is a spirit"', and therefore the Spirit of God is what God is, a substantiva res, though not personally identical with God; às the genitive dependence shows.
But virtus and sapientia and providentia are not substantive, but are in the subordinate categories
(accidentia): and consequently the text Virtus altissimi obumbrabit te gives no authority for saying that it was the Father who was the subject of the Incarnation.
Here it is to be observed (in contrast with De anima, 11, quoted above) that spirit is not a function of the divine substance: it is the divine substance; the divine substance is that kind of substance which is spirit.
We return to the term substantia, ps further examples of the same meaning.
Adv. Prax. 5: quia sermo ratione consistens priorem eam ut substantiam suam ostendat. | tamen et sic nihil interest.
Aóyos means both ratio and sermo: the latter is the more usual translation, though the former might be preferable, since as a matter of human experience speech is an activity proceeding from reason: i.e. ratio being in the category of ovata, sermo is in the category of ovwetv. Even so it makes no difference, since reason is only reason if it is articulate, and in God, whose reason is always articulate, ratio and sermo are not distinguishable except in thought.
Consequently: ibid. 7: ergo, inquis, das aliquam substantiam esse sermonem, spiritu et sophia et ratione (so C. H. Turner, for MSS. sophiae traditione) constructam? plane.
Sermo, the divine Logos, cannot be a mere function, but must be res et persona quaedam, someone substantivus in re per substantiae proprietatem.
Yt is impossible that that which has proceeded from the divine substance (de Tata substantia) should be devoid of substance, or that the maker of created substances tantas substantias) should be unsubstantial.
See the note on this passage, and compare: ibid. 6: nam ut primum deus voluit ea quae cum sophiae
(qu. an legendum, sophia et) ratione et sermone disposuerat intra
eal
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
se in substantias et species suas edere, ipsum primum protulit. sermonem .
. ut coram quoque in suis speciebus atque substantus cognoscerentur atque tenerentur : where, since species are evidently devrepar ovaíaw, substantiae must be mpa@rau ovaía.
On the other hand, at § 8 <Achamoth> paene devoratur in reliquam substantiam, substantia seems to mean matter in general: though in the same chapter:
: nam et istae species (sc. frutex, fluvius, radius) mpoBoxai sunt earum substantiarum ex quibus prodeunt, substantiae (the root, the fountain, the sun) are once more singular things, while species are not devrepar ovata but aspects of the several substances. e Having, as we think, established the point that substantia
,Ameans a concrete individual thing, we-pass-om-to-"Fertullian's ^ discussion of the unity of the divine Trinity. The Three are one
_ per substantiae unitatem, because they are one identical substance, p one single Thing.
The Son and the Holy Spirit are consortes £7 substantiae patris, in contrast with the angels who (if the reconstructed text is correct) are alieni a substantia patris (S 3). The Son (and by implication the Holy-Spirit)-is d£ substantia patris (§ 4), de tanta substantia processit (§ 7), whereas man is only ex substantia eius animatus, has become a living soul as a secondary result (ex, not de) of the action of the spirit of life which is the kind of substance God is (§ 5). 'The unity depends on this, that the Father is the whole substance, pater tota substantia est, while the Son is derivatio totius et portio ($9). It is tempting here, and in $ 26 (portio totius quae cessura erat in filii nomen) to claim that portio does not mean part but inheritance, and that fotius is a descriptive, not a partitive, genitive; but it seems from Novatian
(see the note ad loc.) that in the third century portio was regularly used for pars, and in fact in the present passage Tertullian admits a certain minoration of the Son (not only in the Incarnation but) in his divine being.
But there is no division or partition of the divine substance: the Son is alius (not aliud) personae non substantiae nomine, ad distinctionem non ad divisionem (§ 12): the
4 On Mode "fu whak eve Lo. Vhree advos Kat Aber (s) » E
INTRODUCTION
divine substance is not divided into three nor shared among the Three, but is una substantia in tribus cohaerentibus (ibid.). The illustrations of the root, the fountain, and the sun, though they claim "prophetic" authority, are admittedly no more than illustrations: if they seem to divide the substance, it must be observed that at this point Tertullian has reached the end of his self-defence against the charge of tritheism, and is now concerned to maintain that the 'Three are really three.
And moreover, though the smallest created substance is indefinitely divisible, it is common ground to both disputants that the divine substance is necessarily incomposite and indivisible: and therefore the illustration of the light and the radiance which, being of scriptural origin, is the least faulty of the three, must, for the purpose in hand, be understood in the sense required by the absolute indivisibility of the divine substance—et solem et radium eius tam duas res et duas species unius et indivisae substantiae numerabo quam deum et sermonem etus (§ 13). m.
= The divine unity being thus safeguarded, there remains the question of the trinity. The mystery of the economy (oixovopias sacramentum, § 2). must be acknowledged, though it remains a mystery. The scriptural data prove beyond question that the Father and the Son are alius et alius, that there are two and even three who are called God and Lord, though there are not three gods or three lords: on that set of facts, not on any explanation of them, Tertullian rests his case.
But the question arises, three what are the Three?
Justin had been content to say a\Aos_ Kat àÀXos, and Tertullian on occasion uses the same expression ; but now another term is necessary, which Tertullian supplies.
The Word, he says, is res et persona quaedam: he is that per substantiae proprietatem, because that which he is is himself and not another: quaecunque ergo substantia sermonis fuit, illam. dico personam (§ 7).
It will appear in what follows that Tertullian, having first applied this designation to the Word, goes on afterwards to use it of the Father and the Holy Spirit: and this is correct Christian procedure, for (since he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father) as it is a matter of apostolic experience that the Son is a person, it follows of necessity that the Father also is a person, and so is the Holy Spirit.
But first we need to enquire what the term is intended to mean.
[ (! jor E
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
T» Persona is found in the following senses:
(a) Mask: De spect. 23, iam vero ipsum opus personarum quaero an deo placeat qui omnem similitudinem vetat fieri, quanto magts imaginis suae: De carne Christi, 11, nemo ostendere volens hominem cassidem aut personam ei inducit.
It must be observed that persona means the mask itself, not the person who wears it, or the role that person assumes.
_ (P) A quasi-dramatic sense:
Adv. Prax. 11, omnes psalmi qui Christi personam sustinent filium ad patrem, id est Christum ad deum, verba facientem repraesentant (all the Messianic psalms, the psalms which sustain the role of Christ): zbid., animadverte etiam spiritum loquentem ex tertia persona de patre et filio (as a third character: but possibly a grammatical sense is here to be understood, "in the third person"): zbid., sic et cetera quae nunc a patre de filio vel ad filium, nunc a filio de patre vel ad patrem, nunc a spiritu pronuntiantur, unamquamque personam in sua proprietate constituunt: i.e. the five groups of citations thus summarised, with other possible ones, indicate that Father and Son and Spirit
» are three distinct characters (possibly the dramatic sense is in ^ mind, but it is no longer prominent, and we have reached the point where we are almost ready to speak of three Persons). The dramatic sense perhaps also underlies zbid. 7 (the first appearance of the term in this treatise), 1n persona illius
. filius ex sua persona (the Son quoting the Father's words . . . the Son speaking as himself): and ibid. 21, quo dicto utriusque personae constituit distinctionem, et filii in terris, quem Petrus agnoverat dei filium, et patris qui in caelis, qui Petrorevelaverat, etc. 'The same, or a kindred grammatical sense, is apparently in view zbid. 22, qui non videant
... "Sumus" non ex unius esse persona (the plural verb is not used for the singular number, or by a character representing one individual): Adv. Marc. ii. 26, Christum non agnoscitis in persona
Moysi figuratum, patris deprecatorem et oblatorem animae suae pro populi salute (the two roles are parallel, and so Moses is a type of Christ).
(c) Face: Adv. Prax. 14, quoting Lam. 4. 20 in the form Spiritus personae eius Christus dominus, he remarks that Christus personae paternae spiritus est, and proceeds to equate persona with facies, so that when the Son says to Moses "My face cannot be
| pircorn - fi dla of He Som. pens
INTRODUCTION
TER seen", "my face" means the Father: mira res plane an facies filii pater accipi possit qui est caput eius (see the note ad loc.).
= (d) In the sense of "person", with no psychological or meta- | physical or juristic reference, but simply as equivalent to homo or Wy vr: De paenit. 11, ad omnem occursum maioris cutusque personae decrescentes (personage): De cor. 1, persona iam ex ordine decesserat
(the man in question): De monog. 7, post vetera exempla originalium personarum aeque ad vetera transeamus instrumenta legalium seripturarum (personal examples as contrasted with legal precepts):
Adv. Marc. ii. 23, st vero etiam circa personas levem (sc. deum) vultis intelligi (men, such as Saul, as opposed to institutions such as the sabbath, images, sacrifices): ibid. iv. 14, et utique si nondum venisset (sc. filius hominis) non potuisset nominis odium quod agitur hodie personam nominis antecessisse (persecution of Christians could not have preceded the coming of Christ, the person to whom the name belongs): Apol. 36, nullum bonum sub exceptione personarum administramus (a reminiscence of Gal. 2. 6): Adv. Prax. 14, non (i.e. nonne) enim et de aliqua maiore persona congruit dicere,
Facies mea est ille homo, et, Faciem mihi praestat? (some older or greater person): and in a slightly derivative sense Adv. Marc.ii. 24, circa personam Saulis honorandam (referring to his presence or outward appearance, and quoting optimus qualis non erat in filis
Israelis).
(e) We are left with the passages bearing a theological import, ^ and our suggestion is that they are based on an analogy with Hob things human, being saved from anthropomorphism not by any
special meaning of the term persona but by consideration of the fact that the substance which the three Persons are is the divine
Substance. Also it will appear that the term is first used of the. T Son (as sermo) and is afterwards applied to the Father and the Holy Spirit.
There seems nowhere to be any sign of juristic. usage. uet n Adv. Prax. 7: non vis enim eum substantivum habere 1n re per substantiae proprietatem, ut res et persona quaedam videri possit.
The existence of substance constitutes a res, and a person is that X articular kind of res which is conscious of itself, of its own existence and relationships. ibid. ad fin.: quaecunque ergo substantia sermonis fuit, illam dico personam, et illi nomen filit vindico.
e) 2] wy
X r ee. t five Vo Aer
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
The possession of a name indicates personality: cf. Adv.
Marc. iv. 14 (quoted above), personam nominis.
So also of common nouns, De carne Christi 13, fides nominum salus est proprietatum.
'lertullian elsewhere remarks on the distinction between the proper and the attributive name:
Adv. Prax. 28, quorum nominum (sc. Iesus et Christus) alterum est proprium quod ab angelo impositum est, alterum accidens quod ab unctione convenit : so that the possession of both a name and a title does not imply division of personality.
But neither "father" nor "son" is a title, and consequently dum filium agnosco secundum a patre defendo, observing that there is a Son I maintain that he is another beside the Father. ibid. 12: quia iam adhaerebat illi filius, secunda persona,
: sermo ipsius, et tertia, spiritus in sermone, ideo pluraliter. pronuntiavit Faciamus et Nostram et Nobis. ibid.: habes duos, alium dicentem ut fiat, alium facientem. e alium autem quomodo accipere debeas iam professus sum, personae
qutt non substantiae nomine, ad distinctionem non ad divisionem.
The dramatic sense of two interlocutors is by the nature of the argument there, but very much in the background: we have reached the point when we may explicitly acknowledge three
Persons.
Moreover, if the dramatic sense is there, it is not in the form which the Sabellians are (apparently without warrant) said to have suggested, for the two Interlocutors are on the scene together, and there is no question of one actor sustaining three successive roles. The result of the scriptural evidence is again by negative inference indicated: tbid.
13: si enim una persona et dei et domini in scripturis inveniretur, merito Christus non esset admissus ad nomen det et domini .
. et futurum erat ut ipse pater descendisse videretur. ibid. 18: sine filio autem nominatur cum principaliter determinatur ut prima persona, quae ante filii nomen erat proponenda, quia pater ante cognoscitur et post patrem filius nominatur.
The descriptions "second" and "third" person have already occurred, not necessarily meaning anything more than an enumeration of characters: now "first person" is introduced, not as enumerative but as indicating a metaphysical priority of the Father.
INTRODUCTION
tid. 24: et ideo suggillatur patrem. videre desiderans quasi visibilem, et instruitur visibilem eum in filio fieri ex virtutibus non ex personae repraesentatione. tbid.: igitur et manifestam fecit duarum personarum. contunctionem, ne pater seorsum quasi visibilis in conspectu desideraretur et filius repraesentator patris haberetur.
The former of these sentences might have recalled the equation persona—facies (§ 14): but the second makes it evident that in both cases persona means "his very self". ibid. 26: nam nec semel sed ter, ad singula nomina in personas singulas, tinguimur. ibid. 31: sic deus voluit novare sacramentum ut nove unus crederetur per filium et spiritum, ut coram iam deus in suis propriis nominibus et personis cognosceretur.
"e return to the starting point: the possession of a name is a "sign of personality: the scriptural revelation of three names indicates that God is three Persons.
And lastly, the Son is one single Person.
The error of one group of the monarchians was to attempt to locate the distinction of Father and Son in that one Person: ibid. 27, ut aeque in una persona utrumque distinguant, patrem et filium.
'The truth is that in the Son of God videmus duplicem statum, non confusum sed coniunctum, in una persona deum et hominem lesum: and it is in Jesus that we are able to observe what is the nature of personality, whether human or divine, since his is both.
Una substantia, tres personae: "one thing, three men" seems to have been the analogy from which Tertullian began, but the severest critic will not accuse him of having stopped there:
Adv. Marc. ii. 16, discerne substantias, et suos eis distribue sensus tam diversos quam substantiae exigent, licet vocabulis communicare videantur.
'"'One subject, three consciousnesses" will hardly serve as an equivalent, for consciousness is an abstract term, while persona is concrete.
It would be advisable to retain "one Substance, three Persons", writing capital letters to indicate that the substance is the divine Thing, and that the Persons are not men.
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
There remains the question of the relation between the three Persons, and the passage which calls for elucidation is:
M Adv. Prax. 2: quasi non sic quoque unus sit omnia dum ex uno omnia, per substantiae scilicet unitatem, et nihilo minus custodiatur oikovouías sacramentum quae unitatem in trinitatem disponit, tres dirigens patrem et filium et spiritum, tres autem non statu sed gradu, nec substantia-sed forma, nec potestate sed sed specie, unius autem substantiae et unius status et untus otestatis, quia unus eus ex quo et gradus isti et formae et species in nomine patris et filüi et spiritus sancti deputantur.
The terms are in part recapitulated ibid. 19: rationem reddimus qua det non duo dicantur nec domini sed qua pater et filius duo, et hoc non ex separatione substantiae sed ex dispositione, cum individuum et inseparatum filium a patre pronuntiamus, nec statu sed gradu alium, qui etsi deus dicatur quando nominatur singularis non ideo duos deos faciat sed unum, hoc ipso quod et deus ex unitate patris vocari habeat.
The key-words are translated by Bethune-Baker (of. cit. p. 140) as follows:
"'Three, however, not in condition but in relation, P not in substance but in mode of existence, and not in power but in special characteristics."
This is no more lucid than the Latin.
In a footnote he quotes Bull, Def. Fid. Nic. ii. vii, to the effect that gradus means the relative order of the three Persons, while forma and species indicate different modes of subsistence,
Tpomo. vmáp£eos. A further footnote adopts a suggestion that forma and species are identical in meaning, being equivalents of the Greek idéa.
This still leaves Tertullian's meaning far from clear: for what is a rpómos vmáp£eos, and which of the many senses of idéa is indicated?
A new examination of the terms seems necessary.
Status is found to mean:
(a) Rank or position, or condition of life: De idol. 18, Daniel qui per captivitatem statum verterat (i.e. from freedom to slavery):
De pud. 6, 'The flesh statum vertit et in Christum tincta. induit Christum.
(b) Established usage or fact: De cor. 3, habentes observationem inveteratam quae praeveniendo statum fecit: Adv. Marc. iv. 12,
| Status cwhalil mone, Ma Bhs Tone" cp OY ap 7 ¢
INTRODUCTION
adversus statum scripti et voluntatem creatoris (opposed to the fact of Scripture and to the Creator's will).
(c) A state or national polity: Adv. Marc. iv. 6, alium (sc.
Christum) qui a deo creatore (i.e. Marcion's creator god) in restitutionem Iudaici status sit destinatus quandoque venturus.
(d) That which is permanent and unchangeable: De pud. 6, coepimus .
. ab eo statu legis quem Christus non dissolvit sed implevit (those permanent elements of the Law): De fuga, 4, non sensus hominis praeiudicat statui rerum sed status sensui: status enim unusquisque certum quid est et dat sensui legem ita sentiendi statum sicuti est: si autem statu bonum quod a deo venit ...
. sensui vero malum videtur, erit status in tuto sensus in vitio (status is a matter of fact, not of opinion): Adv. Marc. ii. 16, et haec ergo imago censenda est dei in homine, quod eosdem motus et sensus habeat humanus animus quos et deus, licet non tales quales deus: pro substantia enim et status eorum et exitus distant (status is permanent because it depends on substantia: and it might not be quite beside the point that social status was to some extent dependent on substantia, property: but this instance approaches towards the meaning of the following).
(e) In the preceding instance possibly, and certainly in these that follow, status means existentia, Urapéus: De anima, 3, ali immortalem negant animam, alit plusquam immortalem affirmant, alii de substantia alii de forma alii de unaquaque dispositione dis- . ceptant, hi statum eius aliunde ducunt, hi exitum aliorsum abducunt : ibid. 11 (quoted above), non status nomine sed actus: Adv. Marc. 1.
22, omnia enim in deo naturalia et ingenita esse debebunt, ut sint aeterna secundum statum ipsius, ne obvenientia et extranea reputentur ac per hoc temporalia et aeternitatis aliena. (secundum | statum ipsius—karà TO eiva, avro).
That stare easily passes over to mean esse is shown by the fact n di that the Romance languages have all borroweda supposed participle of stare to supply the deficient participle of esse.
But status has a sense of objectiveness and permanency, as the following citations show:
3) ; à Novatian, De trin. 4: Ego ait sum deus et non sum mutatus, statum suum tenens semper dum id quod natum non est converti non potest .
. merito in deo manet semper status suus, dum sine detrimento commutationis semper sui et similis et aequalis est.
Gtalus 7 cxislowe , Svp aei AE ong
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
ibid.: utroque (sc. esse immortalis et esse incorruptibilis) invicem sibi et in se conexione mutua perplexo et ad statum aeternitatis vicaria concatenatione producto (so that status cannot mean rank, but is rather something permanent, not in externals only or in position, but in esse). ibid. 26: alii haeretici erumpentes statum in Christo religionis concutere machinantur (stability).
Tertullian, adv. Marc. i. 28: o deum usquequaque perversum . cutus non statum non condicionem non naturam non ullum ordinem video constare.
We shall therefore suspect that the difference between status and substantia is that the former means "existence", while the latter means the existent thing: i.e., if substantza is indicated by . the existential verb, status represents the copula in so far as it attaches attributes Stick are permanent (the proprietates), those which are secundum condicionem, and constitute the natura of the object: so, Adv. Marc. ii. 6, oportebat igitur imaginem et similitudinem dei liberi arbitrii et suae potestatis esse, in quo hoc ipsum imago et similitudo dei deputaretur .
. in quam rem ea substantia homini accommodata est quae huius status esset, afflatus dei utique liberi et suae potestatis (i.e. God possesses free will, and God's spirit breathed into man gives him the same as a permanent endowment): ibid. ii. 17, (bonitatem) semotam a tudiciarits sensibus et in suo statu puram (i.e. possessing only those characteristics which are proper to goodness, and not yet discharging those adventitious functions which it undertakes on account of man's disobedience).
Also, since ($ d above) status depends on substantia, the unity of the divine substance precludes the possibility of there being a plurality of degrees of the divine existence or any difference of natura or any greater or less sharing of the proprietates within the godhead: i.e. none of the Three is more or less existent or more or less possessed of the divine attributes than the others.
Gradus.
Two figurative uses may be ruled out of present consideration.
(a) A metaphor from the original meaning "'footstep"': De pud.1o, quid itaque in gradu totus es? (Why is your attention all on your steps, why do you not extend yourself to a larger purpose?).
iis ec MM 7^
INTRODUCTION
(b) A metaphor from the gladiatorial combats, indicating a position taken up and defended in argument: De pud. 7, decedam nunc paulisper de gradu isto: Adv. Prax. 8, hic mecum gradum fige: and frequently.
(c) A possible meaning is relative place or position, and something of the kind is apparently what is intended here and at $
4, hoc mihi et in tertium gradum dictum sit, quia spiritum non aliunde puto quam a patre per filium. Undoubtedly singularity of substantia and of status precludes difference of rank; but since the Father is primarius fons deitatis there is a sense, albeit not a temporal one, in which the Son is "after" the Father and the Holy Spirit after the Son, in that the Son and the Holy Spirit derive their being from the Father and are in practice mentioned after him: so $ 8, trinitas per consertos et connexos gradus a patre decurrens: and arc.
1. 23, sit nunc et a secundo gradu incipiens ratio bonitatis, in dicas scilicet, nec secundus illi gradus ratione constabit alio modo destructus (the goodness of God must be as rational in regard to man as it is in God himself).
Substantia has already been sufficiently discussed.
Evidently, in juxtaposition with forma, it does not mean property or possessions: the whole context demands a metaphysical sense, and we have suggested that that is to be found in the Aristotelian ovoia, albeit the divine ovaia, which on all Jewish and Christian
Wwe, he principles is one and indivisible and incommunicable.
Tertullian. x GS lary was unable to conceive of existence except as in some sense involving corporeity : De paenit. 3, omne quod est corpus est sui generis: Adv. Prax. 7, quis enim negabit deum corpus esse, etsi deus. spiritus est? spiritus enim corpus sui ze (spirit is ody, though of a special kind and with a character of its own).
But it does not follow that "body" in the sense intended is necessarily material.
Novatian seems to have been of the same mind: of God he says (De trin. 5), est enim simplex et sine ulla corporea. concretione, quicquid illud est totus, quod se solus scit esse, quandoquidem spiritus sit dictus. Here he is not denying corporeity so much as concretio: he has already said (paullo supra) of passions such as anger and hatred, habent igitur isa vim suam quam exerceant, sed ubi praecedit passibilis materia, non ubi praecedit
fred: Vwevceoet. v
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
impassibilis substantia.
'There is therefore a substance which, though, being real, it may be described as corpus sui generis, is nevertheless not material.
'The metaphysical discussion is not apparently taken any further.
Forma (a) in a number of passages means, by juristic or forensic usage, the statute or custom on which an advocate bases his plea:
Apol. 2, itaque nec in illo ex forma malorum iudicandorum agitis erga nos: and metaphorically, De idol. 18, tu vero nullius servus
. . . ex forma dominica agere debebis: Adv. Marc. ii. 10, (deus) qui et angelum ex forma operum bonorum instituit bonum (in consonance with the general principle that all his works are good): De res. carn. 5, caro autem et sermone dei constitit, propter formam, ne quid sine sermone.
(b) an architect's plan, or the map used by agrarian com- / missioners in the allocation of public lands: in many instances it is difficult to say whether this or the juristic sense is in Tertullian's mind.
(c) The obvious meaning is "shape": De test. anim.
3, Minervam calcias furvis galeam formis (you give her a leather helmet with terrifying shapes): De anima, 9, recogita enim, cum deus flasset in faciem hominis flatum vitae et factus est homo in animam vivam, totum utique per faciem statim flatum illum, in interiora transmissum et per universa corporis spatia diffusum simulque divina aspiratione densatum, omni intus linea expressum esse quam densatus impleverat et velut in forma gelasse (the soul
* set" in the body like a jelly in a mould, and received shape from the body): De res. carn.
59, nec alia erit forma nationum credentium nist quae et non credentium, de carne, de anima.
(d) More generally, form as an attribute of substance:
De anima, 3, alii de substantia alii de forma alii de unaquaque dispositione disceptant: and consequently
(e) Form as that by which a substance becomes visible or otherwise cognisable by the senses: Adv. Marc. ii. 5, liberum et sui arbitrii et suae potestatis invenio hominem a deo institutum, nullam magis imaginem et similitudinem dei in illo animadvertens quam eiusmodi status formam (human status is one of free will, etc., and the form of that status is such outward manifestations as make it a
eleslia! Meere ET Songs ad de. ou
INTRODUCTION
fact which can be observed): Adv. Prax. 8, sol et radius ie formae sunt sed cohaerentes.
Scriptural precedent here gives no help. Phil. 2. 6, év nopom | coU trapywv: in St Paul's sense there is one form of God, not three.
Mark 16. 12, épavepaOn ev érépg popdp, would give something less than Tertullian's meaning, whichffis that forma is unchangeably characteristic of each[Person. Mépdwors,
2 Tim. 3. 5, indicates form divorced from substance, mere speciosity: at Rom. 2. 20 it seems to mean that knowledge and truth have been given visible shape in the Law.
The difficulty is to explain how one substance, singular and undivided and unshared, can display itself in three forms.
What Tertullian succeeds in saying (and in a sense he seems to have meant it) is that the three divine Persons, being each what the others are, are distinguishable one from the other as three men otherwise alike are distinguishable im aspect.
If this sounds dangerously anthropomorphic, the answer would be that in any case we are bound to think in terms which we understand: substantia is a thing, and persona is a man, and forma is an aspect,
© but in applying these analogies to God, discerne substantias and you will be discreet in other respects as well.
Potestas (a) means dvvapis, strength or power, either as inherent in its Diomede cmd .
. possessor or as exercised by him: hence it may be substantified to indicate on the one hand the possessor of the power (as certain angels are called potestates) or on the other hand the effects of its exercise (e.g. miracles):
(b) é€ovoia, authority, either as inherent in the person to whom it is committed, or by substantification that person himself (as magistrates are called potestates).
All these meanings are found in Novatian:
(a) De trin. 11, maiestates in illo affirmant divinam potestatem: ibid. 19, qui aut hominem Christum aut angelum tantummodo dicit subtracta illi divini nominis potestate: angels, ibid. 13, quoting Col. 1. 16: miracles, zbid. 11, infirmitates carnis recolunt, potestates divinitatis excludunt.
(b) ibid. 17, ut merito nec veteris testamenti circa personam
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
Christi vacillet auctoritas .
. nec novi testamenti intercepta sit potestas (auctoritas and potestas are not quite equivalent: the former implies priority, which the latter does not): ibid. 20, divini enim nominis potestatem et super omnia et in omne tempus accepit (a combination of both senses, the inherent dvvapus indicated by the divine name, and the committed éfovcia received from the Father): ibid. 31, omnis creaturae subiectam sibi habens a patre proprio potestatem: magistrates, ibid. 25, hortans nos ad martyrium et ad contemptum omnis humanae potestatis.
Especially noteworthy is (?bid. 27): dicendo, Ego et pater, proprietatem personae suae, id est filii, a paterna auctoritate discernit atque distinguit, non tantummodo de sono nominis sed etiam de ordine dispositae potestatis (the Father has auctoritas as primarius fons deitatis: that the Son is a Person distinct from the Father is indicated by his name of Son: and, being the Son, he has the dvvapus and the é£ova(a de ordine, as second, dispositam, kat' oikovopiav).
According to Tertullian the three divine Persons possess_and exercise one dvvapuis, which includes é£ovaía), neither dividing it among them nor dividing the sphere of its exercise, but (as Cyprian says of the episcopate) each holding it in solidum.
He may have had in mind as an illustration Severus and his colleagues, under whom the imperial power remained a unity and the Empire a unity, though three held the zmperium
(not as later under the successors of ''heodosius, where there was theoretical unity but actual partition).
He refers to that fact De pall. 2, praesentis imperii triplex virtus .
... deo tot Augustis in unum favente: and Athenagoras had already so used a similar situation when Marcus and Commodus were colleagues, Suppl. 18,
@s yàp vp» TaTpl Kat Viq gávra Kexeporat dvabev Tv Bacthetav cin peau ? ib obras evi TQ 0ed Kai TO Tap
QUTOU oy viQ voovuévo GpEpioTH Távra vmoTérakTa4.
But it is to be observed that the illustration is no more than an illustration: the divine potestas is not (like the imperial potestas) a detachable accident of the persons who happen to possess it, but is a necessary characteristic of the divine substance: it is only on that consideration that Hippolytus (following Tertullian) is justified in making the divine S¥vapis the conte of the divine unity: c. Noet. 8, ei 8e Bovherau paDeiv TOS ets
Ócós dmoOeíkvvrau, yweokéro OTL pia Ovvapus TovTov, kai
Arauca. n? Fracud, bat Nor LL
INTRODUCTION
kd b X * o T , , v N X Ocov pev Kata T)v Sdvapw ets eat. Üeós, Goov dé Kata ^ > ^, THY OlKovopiay Tpiyis *) amddevéis.
Species.
Cicero (Topica, 7, referred to by Bethune-Baker, loc. cit.) proposes to treat forma and species as synonyms, equivalent to the Greek idéa, with a preference for the former because the latter is defective in the plural (a nicety of grammar which would not trouble Tertullian).
But Cicero is speaking of scientific division into genera and species: formae igitur sunt hae in quas genus sine ullius praetermissione dividitur, ut siquis ius in legem morem aequitatem dividat.
'lhis is certainly not what Tertullian means:
God is not a genus divided into three species.
That forma and species are alike but not identical in meaning appears from Adv. Prax. 8, nam et radix et frutex duae res sunt sed coniunctae, et fons et flumen duae species sunt sed indivisae, et sol et radius duae formae sunt sed cohaerentes.
A technical legal usage may indicate wherein they differ.
In a number of places species means causa, casus, viróOeous, argumentum (so Oehler, index), ie. a particular application of the appropriate forma: Apol. 1, si ad hanc solam speciem auctoritas vestra de iustitiae diligentia in publico aut timet aut erubescit inquirere.
So then, as potestas is substantia in action, species will be forma brought into view: the divine potestas, being one and indivisible, is displayed by the Father primarily as creative, by the Son as redemptive, and by the . Holy Spirit as informative, though all three Persons are one
Creator and Redeemer and Sanctifier.
So we translate "not in power but in its manifestation ", and with this agrees Adv. Prax. 7, where species et ornatus sermonis are interpreted as the sonus et vox by which God said " Let therebe light". Cf.also Adv. Marc. ii. 14, where it is said that Marcion seizes upon the equivocation which confuses duas malorum species, whereas we, adhibita distinctione utriusque formae, assign each to its own author: the two species of evils are real evil and remedial evil in their manifestations, while their two formae are real evil as inherent in the devil, and chastisement as having its ground in the rational goodness of God.
The two sentences therefore seem to mean:
"Though of course the One may be all these on this ground also, that they are all from the One, namely by unity of substance, and for all that there may be preserved the mystery of that economy
58 | TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
which distributes the unity into a trinity, setting out the Father and the Son and the Spirit as three, three however not in quality but in sequence, not in substance but in aspect, not in power but in its manifestation, but of one substance and one quality and one power, seeing it is one God from whom in the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit those sequences and aspects and manifestations are reckoned."
*We duly give reason why, though we may not say 'two gods' or 'two lords', yet the Father and the Son are two, and that not by partition of substance but by distribution, while we pronounce the Son indivisible and inseparable from the Father, another not in quality but in sequence, and although he is designated God when he is mentioned by himself, he does not on that account make two gods but one, by this very fact that he must be called God in consequence of his unity with the Father."
D One difficulty remains.
The sentence "unus deus ex quo... deputantur", if taken literally, sounds dangerously like the theory of one section of the Sabellians that there is an original monad anterior to the three Persons and from which the three
« Persons are produced by expansion.
"That this is not what Tertullian means the whole tenor of the treatise shows.
The difficulty would be removed if we might suppose either (a) that ut only the Son and the Holy Spirit are referred to as gradus et
NM. formae et species, or (b) that "ex quo" is a slip for "in quo". bj
'TERTULLIAN ON THE INCARNATION
I In the early work, the Apologeticus, 'Tertullian had already, for a pagan audience, expressed the doctrine of the Incarnation in terms which in his later treatises were to need no correction, but.
, only explanation and scriptural justification.
"Throughout his i :
| writings there is a consistency of statement which suggests that, w^ in this matter at least, he had either worked out his theology down
Tul to its smallest detail surprisingly soon after his conversion, or else had learned it and the forms of its expression from his instructors in the faith.
Except for the discarding of one inappropriate word, he had nothing to unlearn; and neither from Montanism nor from elsewhere does he seem, in the essentials
INTRODUCTION
of his doctrine, to have learned anything new during the twenty years of his literary activity.
The passages of the Apology which bear on the Person of Christ and on the Incarnation are these:
Apol.17: quod colimus deus unus est qui totam molem istam cum omni instrumento elementorum corporum spirituum verbo quo iussit, ratione qua disposuit, virtute qua potuit, de nihilo expressit in ornamentum maiestatis suae.
The object of our worship is the one God: who by the word with which he commanded, the reason by which he ordained, the power by which he was able, formed out of nothing this whole world with all its appurtenance of elements, bodies, and spirits, for the adornment of his majesty.
Apol. 21: sed prius substantiam edisseram ut et nativitatis qualitas intellegatur. iam ediximus deum universitatem hanc mundi verbo et ratione et virtute molitum. | apud vestros quoque , sapientes Xoyov, id est sermonem atque rationem, constat artificem videri universitatis. .
. . et nos autem sermoni atque rationi itemque virtuti per quae omnia molitum deum ediximus propriam. subI n. inscribimus cui et sermo insit pronuntianti et ratio adsit disponenti et virtus praesit perficienti. hunc ex deo prolatum didicimus et prolatione generatum et idcirco filium dei et deum dictum ex unitate substantiae. nam et deus spiritus. et cum radius ex sole porrigitur portio ex summa: sed sol erit in radio quia solis radius est nec separatur substantia sed extenditur. ita de spiritu spiritus et de deo deus ut lumen de lumine accensum. manet integra et indefecta materiae matrix etsi. plures. inde traduces qualitatis mutueris: ita et quod de deo profectum est deus est et dei filius et unus ambo. ita et de spiritu spiritus et de deo deus modulo alternum numerum * gradu non statu fecit, et a matrice non recessit sed excessit. iste igitur dei radius, ut retro semper praedicabatur, delapsus in virginem quandam et in utero eius caro figuratus nascitur homo deo mixtus. caro spiritu instructa nutritur adolescit adfatur docet operatur et Christus est.
But I shall first declare his substance so that you may also understand the quality of his nativity.
We have already stated that God by word and reason and power made this world and all that is in it. Among your philosophers also there is agreement to regard Jogos, i.e. speech and reason, as the 1 The meaning of these three words has been much discussed, and the accuracy of the text has been questioned.
1 take modulus, by an extension of its meaning the abacus or counting-board, to mean ''numeration ", and alternus numerus to mean ** duality ".
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
artificer of the universe. . .
. And to that speech and reason and moreover power by which we have stated that God made all things, we also ascribe as proper substance spirit which has in it speech as it pronounces and with it reason as it ordains and as its assistant power as it brings to pass.
This spirit, we have been taught, was brought forth from God and by that bringing forth was begotten, and therefore is called Son of God, and God, as a consequence of unity of substance.
For God also is spirit.
And when a ray stretches forth from the sun, there is a portion from the whole: but the sun will be in the ray, because the ray belongs to the sun, and because the substance is not separated but extended.
There is spirit from spirit and God from God in the same way as there is light kindled from light.
The original matter [ht. "'the matrix of the matter''] remains intact and undiminished, although you borrow therefrom a number of offshoots of its quality: so also that which has come forth from God is God and Son of God, and both are one (God).
So also spirit from spirit and God from God has made duality in counting, in sequence not in quality, and has not withdrawn from its original but has gone beyond it.
So that ray of God, as was always prophesied beforehand, came down into a certain virgin, and was fashioned as flesh in her womb, and was born man commingled with God.
Flesh accoutred by spirit receives nourishment, grows up, becomes articulate, teaches, works (miracles), and is Christ. ibid.: quem igitur hominem praesumpserant de humilitate, sequebatur uti magum aestimarent de potestate, cum ille verbo daemonia de hominibus excuteret, etc. .
. ostendens se esse verbum dei, id est Xóyov, illud primordiale primogenitum virtute et raiione comitatum et spiritu fultum, eundem qui verbo omnia et faceret et fecisset.
Him therefore whom they had supposed a man for his humility, they must needs regard as a magician for his power, seeing he with a word cast out devils from men
. making it evident that he was the Word of God, that is, the Logos, that primordial first-begotten Word with power and reason for its escort and spirit for its basis, that same Logos who with a word both was making and had made all things. ibid.: et tamen suffixus multa mortis illius propria ostendit insignia: m it praevento carnificis officio.
And yet, when crucified, he made evident many notable
INTRODUCTION
peculiarities of that death: for of his own accord he let depart the spirit along with the Word, anticipating the function of the executioner.
It was the apologist's purpose to persuade his audience that Christians are not atheists.
He might be supposed to have done so when he had declared in categorical terms their belief in one
God, the creator of the universe.
Christians are monotheists: that there is no god but one is a fundamental fact which admits of no compromise: for that faith they suffer persecution.
If he could have left the matter there, he would have been saved a complicated explanation.
But he could not leave it: Christ is too important to be left out, and it is Christianity, not mere monotheism, that he is defending.
So he has to explain who Christ is and why he is worshipful, in such terms as not to compromise the essential fact of the divine unity. And the terms are ready to his hand: they are the common property of the Christian apologists and theologians, to be traced back through Irenaeus,
"Theophilus, Athenagoras, Justin, to the Gospel of John, and so well established in Christian thought as to have found their way even into gnostic travesties of the Gospel.
Like his predecessors, he begins at the beginning.
"There is no question of beginning with Jesus of Nazareth and working upwards to the divine Word: not in this way is it possible to account for the worshipfulness of Jesus while safeguarding the divine unity. His substance must be explained first, or the quality of his nativity will not be understood.
The word, the reason, the power, by which God created the world, which indeed is the artificer of the world, is itself a substance, which we designate spirit—for God is spirit—who manifests himself in speech, reason, and power.
That Greek philosophers used the term Aóyos to describe the creative principle, may save our doctrine from . appearing strange to the heathen, though that does not exhaust
'its content.
For the Logos of whom we speak is spirit, which implies objective reality and moreover personality, and the word, reason, and power displayed at the creation are activities of his
- but are not he.
Who is he? He is one who was brought forth from God, and by that bringing forth was begotten, and so is called the Son of God; and because of unity of substance, because he is what God is, he is called God. He is called God, not as a mere appellative:
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
deum dictum, spoken of as God in those Scriptures of ours which treat facts as facts, and treat only facts as facts.
Of unity of substance, not shared between two, but which both are, not by division or separation but by extension, you have a working example in the relation between the sun and its ray: of substance which transfers itself to another without thereby diminishing itself, you have an example in light kindled from light—an example, be it said, which is only applicable on the theory of the old physicists that fire is a natural element: of quality or attributes accurately copied without mutilation or exhaustion of the original, you have an example in the seal, which remains what it was however many identical impressions are taken from it. The examples illustrate, but no more.
The essential fact is that that which came forth from God is God and Son of God, and both are one God.
But there is a duality, of relative order, not of being: the procession or extension, which is no withdrawal, modulo alternum numerum fecit—a difficult expression, partly repeated. Adv. Prax. 9, and apparently meaning "brought about duality in counting".
And this ray of the divine substance came down into a virgin and in her womb was formed as flesh and was born as man commingled with God: and this is no surprise to us who know the history of divine revelation, for it was preached beforehand in all the prophets that so it would be. Flesh fashioned by and actuated by spirit— and spirit is the divine substance—is suckled as a babe, grows into manhood, is articulate, teaches, works miracles, and is
Christ.
That is who Christ is: that is why he is worshipful as God, without compromise to the divine unity.
Homo deo mixtus, an expression repeated elsewhere (e.g. De carne Christi, 15), is afterwards rejected as unsatisfactory (Adv.
Prax. 27). Also the phrase caro spiritu instructa (which does not seem to recur and may be considered to have been tacitly rejected), whether it means "flesh accoutred with spirit" or "flesh constructed by spirit", might have been thought to make the humanity of Christ the centre of his personality, except that the whole tenor of the passage is against this view, as also is the phrase which shortly follows, ostendens se esse verbum dei, id est Xóyov.
In this sentence the genders are carefully managed, the transition from verbum det illud. primordiale primogenitum to. eundem qui verbo omnia et faceret et fecisset indicating once more that the recognition
1 ** Seal", not "' womb ", appears to be the meaning of matrix.
a IC cubil Dto iu ^R E
INTRODUCTION
of the personality of the Word of God is essential to the understanding of who Christ is.
The divine substance is habitually described by Tertullian as spirit, in a specialised sense of that word which was apparently not so obvious a deduction from the pronouncement deus spiritus est as not to call for remark almost every time it was used. Novatian saw the danger of making too much of this idea—and indeed of making too much of any of those descriptions of the divine nature and attributes which can never be more than partial: and in the present instance it has led Tertullian into a false interpretation of Luke 23. 46, when he suggests that Christ's human nature so to speak gave his divine nature permission to depart at the moment of his death—a suggestion which is in substance repeated Adv. Prax. 30, spiritu enim manente in carne caro omnino mori non potest.
'The same principle, that God is spirit, caused him to adopt a theory of the method of the Incarnation which is probably not well founded on the scriptural text, though it was held by many others besides: this is the next matter to be considered.
II The words of the annunciation to Mary, quoted by Tertullian in the form Spiritus dei superveniet in te, are taken to mean that | God the Word came upon the blessed virgin and was the agent of .
LÀ : is own incarnation.
Since God is spirit (John 4. 24), Holy Spirit in the Scriptures can, he thinks, be a term of substance, denoting, in any particular scriptural text, all or any one of the three divine Persons.
In this particular case a comparison with John 1. 14 is thought to require the identification of spiritus det with the Word who was made flesh.
The following passages present this interpretation directly: there are others where it is implied, and apparently nowhere does Tertullian suggest the possibility of any other.
Adv. Prax. 26: dicens autem, Spiritus dei, etsi spiritus. det [leg. deus], tamen non directo deum nominans portionem. totius intellegi voluit quae cessura erat in. filii nomen. hic spiritus dei. idem erit sermo. | sicut enim Ioanne dicente, Sermo caro factus est, spiritum quoque intellegimus in mentione sermonis, ita et hic sermonem quoque agnoscimus in nomine spiritus. nam et spwitus substantia est sermonis et sermo operatio spiritus, et duo unum sunt.
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
ceterum alium Ioannes profitebitur carnem factum, alium angelus carnem futurum, si non et spiritus sermo est et sermo spiritus.
He proceeds to defend this exegesis at some length, his purpose being to discountenance the monarchian suggestion that it was ipse deus, i.e. the Father, who was incarnate: and he refers to it again in his discussion of their alternative suggestion that the Father is Christ's divine nature, while the Son is his manhood: ibid. 27: certe enim de spiritu sancto virgo concepit, et quod concepit id peperit. id ergo nasci habebat quod erat conceptum et pariundum, id est spiritus, cuius et vocabitur nomen Emmanuel, etc.
This harmonisation of Luke and John is also prominent in the argument of De carne Christi, where the purpose is to maintain, against Marcionites and gnostics, the truth of the human substance of Christ.
As before, his divine substance is described as spirit: the human substance, the flesh, is that of the old Adam, born of the virgin.
Both the divine substance and the human remain each in its own true nature.
De carne Christi, 5: quae proprietas conditionum, divinae et humanae, aequa utique naturae cuiusque veritate dispuncta est, eadem fide et spiritus et carnis. ibid. 14: qua autem spiritus dei et virtus altissimi, num potest infra angelos haberi, deus scilicet et dei filius? ibid. 17: in vulvam ergo deus verbum suum detulit, bonum fratrem, ut memoriam mali fratris eraderet. ibid. 18: ergo iam dei filius ex patris dei semine, id est spiritu, ut esset hominis filius caro ei sola erat ex hominis carne sumenda sine viri semine .
. sic denique homo cum deo, dum caro hominis cum spiritu det» At John 1. 13 he reads ex deo natus est, with suggestions as to the dishonesty of those who read otherwise, and comments:
De carne Christi, 19: et ex deo natus est. merito, quia verbum dei, et cum verbo dei spiritus, et in spiritu dei virtus, et quicquid dei est Christus.
Further, De carne Christi, 20, commenting on Gal. 4. 4 factum ex muliere, he points out the accuracy of the apostle's language.
! Caro sola here must be understood to include anima : he has already said, ibid. 14, sic infra angelos deminutus dum homo fit, qua caro et anima et filius hominis.
INTRODUCTION
The verb factum sets the seal on Verbum caro factum est, and affirms the truth of the flesh born of the virgin. The preposition ex, which the heretics wish to supplant by per, signifies that the substance of Christ's flesh was of a truth derived from his mother, and excludes all docetic views.
Moreover, the description of his mother as mulier, in view of St Luke's reference to the opening of the womb, indicates that the virginity which was conserved at the conception became womanhood at the nativity.
So firmly does Tertullian insist on the verity of Christ's human substance that he will not admit even the secondary suspicion of docetism which was already in his day current in apocryphal legend.
The identification of spiritus dei with the Word who was incarnate, was regarded by Tertullian as part of the received tradition.
It can be referred to in controversy with the Jews:
Adv. Iud.
1 3: cum virgo Maria a verbo dei praegnans inveniretur : and it finds a place in the regula veritatis.
Adv. Prax. 2: hunc (sc. sermonem) missum a patre in virginem et ex ea natum.
It is in fact found in a large number of writers, both before and after Tertullian, and probably until the fourth century was the accepted view, as will appear from the following citations:
HzRMas, Szmil. v. 6:
TO 7rveÜua TO &yLov TO Tpoóv, TO krícav Tácav THY kríaiv, kat@Kioev 0 Oeds eis aápka ty éBovreTo. airy obv 7 aáp£, €v 7) KaT@KNTE TO TveÜüua TO ayLov, é&oUNevae TH TvEvpaTL
Karas, €v cEeu"voTnTL Kal adyvela TopevOcioa, pndev ÓXws paaívaca TO Tvedpma.
Hermas as a theologian need not be taken seriously, and the terms in which he introduces this theory show that it was not received from the Church tradition, but was his own invention, of which he is somewhat proud.
It is vaguely adoptionist, but the adoption is not of the divine person described as "Holy Spirit", but only of the humanity which had faithfully served the Spirit.
It is * One does not rashly disagree with St Augustine, but it is difficult to avoid a suspicion that there is something constructively docetic or Apollinarian in the statement post partum virgo mansit, if it is meant (as Augustine does mean it) in the physiological sense indicated in the Protevangelium of James.
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
possible that he had Luke 1. 35 in mind, though the text is not quoted—indeed Hermas does not quote texts, and his verbal knowledge of the Scriptures is probably less than that of any other reputable author.
PsEUDO-CLEMENT, Epist. ii. 9:
XpiaTÓs 0 KUplos 0 a'Gcas Huds, OY uev TO 7rpoTov 7rveüpa, éyévero cape, Kal obTos Nuas ékáXeoev.
The reference to Luke 1. 35 is not explicit: but that the homilist was acquainted with John 1. 14 and 4. 24 is too evident to admit of denial, and the association of these texts with the words of the Annunciation is probable.
JusriN Martyr evidently interprets Luke in the light of John, and it was probably from him that Tertullian copied this exegesis, as he copied so much else. Having quoted the angelic message— as his custom is, in a free paraphrase—he comments:
Apol. i. 33: To wvedpa oiv kai T?v OUvajgav THY Tapa Tod 0co0 ovdév GAA vojoar Oéwis 7) TOV Xoyov .
. kai TOTO €A0óv émi tiv mapÜévov xal émickidcav ov 81a cvvovoías GAG Sia Óvváueos eyxvpova karéoTnoce.
In his discussion of the eucharist he draws a parallel between the Incarnation, and the consecration of the sacrament, apparently meaning that as the Word of God was the agent of the Incarnation, so the word of Christ is the effective means of the consecration of the eucharist : ibid. 66: ... Sua Xóyov 0€o0 capKoTroinels 'Inaoüs Xproros
0 coT)p "GOV Kal cápka xai alua vmép cwTnpias "v éco yev.
He refers again to the subject:
Dial. 100: rrapOévos yap obca Eva xai d$0opos, Tov Xóyov TOV d/rü TOD pews TVANABodca, Tapaxony kai Üávarov éreke: miotiw O6 Kal yapav Xa8o0ca Mapia 1 vrapÜévos, ebaryyexiCouévov av7? L'aBpunr ayyédou ote Ilveüpa xupiov, kré .
. amexpivato l'évovró ow xarà TO phd cov' kai bua tavTns ryeyevyntat ovTos.
This passage (which incidentally introduces the preposition dua=per, to which he objects) was known to Tertullian, who summarises it:
INTRODUCTION
De carne Christi, 17: in virginem. adhuc. Evam irrepserat verbum aedificatorium mortis: in virginem aeque introducendum erat dei verbum exstructorium vitae.
IRENAEUS, Haer. v. 1. 3: quemadmodum ab initio plasmationis nostrae in Adam ea quae fuit a deo adspiratio vitae unita plasmati animavit hominem et animal rationale ostendit, sic in fine verbum patris et spiritus dei adunitus antiquae substantiae plasmationis Adae viventem et perfectum effecit hominem capientem perfectum patrem.
Elsewhere (iii. 25. 1) Irenaeus quotes Luke 1. 35, without comment: here, though the texts are not quoted, the identity of Word and Spirit of God is apparently a generally admitted fact which may be referred to without explanation. ro d CLEMENT ALEX., Strom. v. 3. 16, apparently has this theory of the Incarnation in mind, though his purpose is speculative rather than exegetical. The term Aóyos @eov is, he says, the barbarian
(i.e. Hebrew) equivalent of the Platonic i6€a ahnOeias, which is evvonpa ToU coU. vrpoeXBaw 8& o Novos Onpuovpyías altios. émevta Kal éavTov yevvà órav 0 Xóyos cape yévnTat iva Kal 0ca65.
And when the word cometh forth it is the cause of creation.
Afterwards also it begets itself, when the Word is made flesh with a view to becoming visible as well.
HiPPoLvrTUS, Canon Euch. :
. qui est verbum tuum inseparabile[m|] per quem omnia fecisti et beneplacitum tibi fuit: misisti de caelo in matricem virginis, quique in utero habitus incarnatus est et filius tibi ostensus est ex spiritu sancto et virgine natus.
NovATIAN, De trin. 24, has a long discussion of Luke r. 35, which owes much to Tertullian, and in which this sentence occurs:
... ut principalitas nominis istius "'filius dei" in spiritu. sit domini qui descendit et venit: ut sequella nominis in. filio dei et hominis sit, etc.
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
. so that the primary right to the title Son of God is with the spirit of the Lord, who descended and came: and consequently the secondary use of the title is in the Son of God and of man, etc.!
Cyprian, De idol. van. 6: sermo et filius dei mittitur .
. hic est virtus dei, hic ratio, hic sapientia eius et gloria, hic in virginem. illabitur: carnem spiritus sanctus induitur.
Sic cod. German. et iv. MSS. Pamelii: but Fell reads carnem Spiritu sancto cooperante induitur, which is more in keeping with Cyprian's argument, and may be right.
LACTANTIUS, Div. inst. iv. 12: descendens itaque de caelo sanctus ille spiritus. det sanctam virginem cuius utero se insinuaret elegit. at illa divino spiritu hausto repleta concepit et sine ullo attactu viri virginalis uterus intumuit.
Lactantius had certainly read Tertullian, and not always understood him, and it is possible that here he is notgiving the customary
(even if incorrect) interpretation of the angelic message, but has made a thorough identification of the Word and the Holy Spirit.
He has already said (zbzd. 8) that while the angels are silent spirits, created for ministry and not for doctrine, the Son and Word of God, who also is spirit, came forth from God accompanied by voice and sound: between the angels and the Son there is a difference similar to that between the breath that proceeds from the nostrils and that which proceeds from the mouth.
Spirit therefore, to Lactantius, is not the divine substance in the sense that in any text we need to ask which of the three divine Persons is meant by the term: it is no more than a divine activity, and when he refers to "that holy spirit of God" seeking out the holy virgin, he is not referring to Luke 1. 35, but only to his own previous argument, in which he is more anxious to claim the support of Hermes 'lrismegistus and to make debating points against the Jews, than to expound the gospel text.
1 Fausset, Camb. Patr. Text, p. 89, not observing this identification of Word and *' spirit 'of the Lord" , can only make sense of the sentence by straining the grouping of the words.
INTRODUCTION
MARCELLUS OF ANCYRA (ap. EusEB. C. Marc. ii. 2 D235D)* Tí Toivvv jv TO kareAÜ0v Tobro mpd Tod evavOpwrijaat ;
TavTws TOV, pyolv, mveÜua: ei yap TL Tapa cobro éÜcXoi Aéyeuw, ov cwyxop5ae. avT® 0 Tpos Tijv TapÜévov €ipiàs ayyeros, IIvedwa dyiov éseXevoeras eri oc.
Eusebius points out that this interpretation is constructively Sabellian—this being not the only occasion on which the bishop of Caesarea threw new light on an old-established theory, and procured its tacit rejection by theologians who would have thought him too dangerous a man for their overt agreement:
EUsEB. ibid.: ei 5¢ mveüna elvai $rjoew, dxove Tod cwThpos Xéyovros, IIveüua 0 0cós. aa$ós évreü(cv tod cwrhpos cepi Tov Tatpos eipnxotos, Iveta ó Beds, EAéyyerau MápreXXos avtov Tov tratépa évnvOpwmnkévar eimov.
[ATHANasrUs], Orat. c. Arianos, iv. 32: cadésTepov 8 kai dvaydicBntnTOTEpov TavTos AoyLa po TÓ
Tpós ajT)v tiv Ücorókov mpds ToU ápyayyéXov pnOev Thy évoTnta tov Üe(ov Xóyov xai avOpwrov Seikeve. moi yap, Ivedua aytov, kTé. ibid. 34: év yap tH TavTns vndve 6 Xóyos éavrQ Tv olkov
OemXácaro, bv TpoTov €E ápwíüs tov 'AOàyp ék Ths ys. püXXov dé Üewrépos .. .7) copia wxodopnoey éavri oikov
Mer «ai adrdaxod 0é vaov mpocayopever, Ka0dTL mpémov Dew EV vao KATOLKELD, The writer is controverting a Sabellian theory similar to that discussed by Tertullian, Adv. Prax. 27.
His acquaintance with Irenaeus and (perhaps indirectly) with Tertullian is sufficiently evident.
This seems to be the last appearance of this piece of exegesis: the common-sense objection of Eusebius apparently discredited it.
It has indeed recently been suggested that the two clauses of the Creed "conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary" enshrine this theory of the Incarnation, the former signifying the godhead, the latter the manhood, of Christ: but neither these nor any similar words occur in any creed until the fourth century, the earliest being that presented at Rome by Marcellus of Ancyra (340).
If Marcellus did understand the clauses in that sense (as is possible), evidently neither the Pope nor anyone else did, or this interpretation of Luke 1. 35 would not so soon have become obsolete.
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
Probably the intended meaning of Luke 1. 35 is that the Holy Spirit, exercising the power of the Most High, is the operative agent of the miracle of the virginal conception.
The manner of the Incarnation of the Word is not there under consideration, for the corollary "Wherefore also, etc." is not directly an affirmation of the deity of 76 yevvémevov &yvov, but a statement that he fulfils the prophetic promises concerning the Son of God. This is the interpretation given by Cyril of Alexandria, who attributes to the operation of the Holy Spirit the formation and sanctification of the vads of the Word.
Cyrit ALEX. Comm. in Joa. P. 366a : To) 0€ pakaptov TaSpinr Th Tob mvevpatos évepyeia THY TOD Üciov GwpaTos avatibévtos troinow. ibid.
993B : Aoyiloueda Oe obv PITT: nyedo Bat Te THY cápka hà TOU TVEUHATOS cab? OmoLoTnTa THS adds Kticews
Tov idsov év avr KataxplovTos vaüy Tod Kata vow dytov kai é« tmatpos évtos Xóyov.
(Lk. 1. 35 and Ps. 45. 7 o Oeds €xypiaé ae.) Thus, according to Cyril, the Word is the agent of his own incarnation in the sense that he, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, formed and sanctified for himself his own Temple: but the precise method by which the Word entered into his temple is left a mystery.
Origen, who would offer an explanation of all mysteries, had postulated a previous union between the Word and the preexistent soul of Christ.
In that case the union between the Word (with the soul) and the body conceived by Mary would ke neither more nor less mysterious than the union of any soul with any body: and the previous union, between the Word and the soul, could be supposed to have been analogous. Neither the one union nor the other can be explained; but if, on Origen's creationist presupposition, the earlier union was a fact, the later and analogous fact would present no difficulty.
III Tertullian's discussion of the Incarnation, like his discussion of the holy Trinity, is occasioned always (though never controlled) by the needs of controversy.
His first complaint against the monarchians is that by identifying the Father and the Son, and
INTRODUCTION
by alleging that the expression spiritus dei in the words of the Annunciation signifies the Father, they make the Father both the subject and the agent of his own incarnation (Adv. Prax. 26).
Convicted (rather than convinced) on this point, they now shift their ground and offer a new theory (ibid. 27 ab init.) that both
Father and Son are to be seen in one Person because the Son is the flesh; the man, Jesus, while the Father is the spirit, God,
Christ.
Waiving for the moment the elementary point that the designation Christ is an adjective, not a substantive, and that the fact of One being anointed requires the existence of Another. who anoints, Tertullian refers again to the narrative of the Annunciation.
"By holy spirit did the virgin conceive, and what she conceived, that she brought to birth", that is "holy spirit", namely, the Word.
Flesh is not God, that of it should be said "Tt shall be called holy, the Son of God"; but the Word is in the flesh and is God.
Christ therefore is not two, but one: he cannot be divided or distinguished into two persons or into a father-son relationship in one person. He is wholly the Son, not the Father.
It is possible to enquire how the Word was made flesh, whether by conversion into flesh or by being clothed with flesh.
The answer must immediately be, by being clothed with flesh, zndutus carnem.
For the conversion of one thing into another involves either the destruction of what was, or else a mixture of both, which is neither the one nor the other—as electrum is a mixture of gold and silver, yet is neither.
But the facts recorded in the Gospel narrative, and the balanced statement of St Paul, make it evident that there was no destruction of either divine substance or human, and no mixture of the two: both the divine and the human preserve unimpaired their several characteristics and their appropriate designations:
Adv. Prax. 27: invenimus illum directo et deum et hominem expositum .
. usquequaque filium dei et filium hominis .
. sine dubio secundum utramque substantiam in sua proprietate distantem, quia neque sermo aliud quam deus neque caro aliud quam homo. ibid.: videmus duplicem statum, non confusum sed . Coniunctum, in una persona. deum. et hominem Tesum . . . et adeo salva est utriusque proprietas substantiae ut et spiritus res suas egerit in illo .
. et caro passiones suas functa sit.
X p^ Ve. Atem MERE e ConVvel fume 72,
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
ibid. : quia substantiae ambae in statu suo quaeque distincte agebant, ideo illis et operae et exitus sui occurrerunt.
Tertullian here differs only verbally from himself some ten yearsearlier.
In controversy with Marcionites (De carne Christi, 3) he admits, and even defends, the term conversum, though he means by it precisely what he means here when he rejects it. Marcion, he says, denies the reality of Christ's flesh, on the ground that *if he had been born and had of a truth clothed himself with manhood (hominem vere induisset) he would have ceased to be
God, losing what he was while becoming what he was not": and he denies that God was of a truth changed into man (zm hominem vere conversum).
'lertullian replies that the case is different as between created things and God: ubi erit diversitas divinitatis a ceteris rebus, nisi ut contrarium obtineat, id est ut deus et in omnia converti possit et qualis est perseverare ?
Where will lie the difference between deity and the rest of things, unless the opposite be the case, namely, that God can be changed into all things while remaining like as he is?
It is recorded in Scripture that angels appeared in human flesh, and yet remained angels: God is mightier than they, and will you deprive him of this power, by suggesting that Christ was not capable, while truly clothing himself with manhood (vere hominem indutus), of continuing to be God?
At our Lord's baptism, the Spirit who descended was truly spirit and truly a dove, and had not destroyed his proper substance through his assumption of an alien one. The flesh in which the Son appeared in the theophanies was truly flesh, and the Son was truly spirit: but there is this difference between the theophanies and the Incarnation, that in the theophanies the flesh was created expressly for the occasion, but at the Incarnation, because the flesh was assumed with the intention of dying for man's redemption, it must needs be born of the flesh of the old Adam which was to be redeemed.
The term conversum is thus used in a specialised sense to mean the assumption of something else without the destruction of what already was.
Elsewhere in the same treatise, arguing against the Valentinian theory that the so-called human nature of Christ was not truly human but was derived either from celestial materials or from soul made visible as flesh, he uses similar terms: agnoscunt
dde dao inta ei. .
INTRODUCTION
hominem deo mixtum et negant hominem (De carne Christi, 15). His own view is: ibid. 16: sicut terra conversa est in hanc carnem sine viri semine, ita et dei verbum potuit sine coagulo in eiusdem carnis transire materiam.
As earth was changed into this flesh without man's seed, so also the Word of God was able without man's seed to pass into the material of this same flesh.
But evidently, whether he says "change" or "transition", he means nothing of the kind.
The flesh of Christ is truly human flesh, of the substance of Adam, neither created for the occasion, nor derived from celestial materials nor from the Valentinian
"soul-stuff": far less then can it be supposed to have been of divine origin, through any conversion of godhead into flesh, and Tertullian's subsequent rejection of dangerous terminology is a matter of words only.
Moreover, as Christ's human nature is truly human, it is also fully human, consisting of both body and soul.
There are times when the term caro stands by itself, as alone under consideration:
'but it must be supposed then to include anima, since man is carnis animaeque textura (De res. carn. 34, cf. De carni Christi, 14, quoted above).
And, on Tertullian's traducianist theory, the _ Kk soul of Christ, like his body, is of the substance of Adam, being N derived through the blessed virgin from that original soul which c was the breath of God breathed into Adam's nostrils.
\ And finally, what Christ was on earth, that he now remains:
De res. carn. 51: adhuc Iesus ad dexteram patris, homo etsi deus, Adam novissimus etsi sermo primarius, caro et sanguis etsi nostris puriora, idem tamen substantia et forma qua ascendit, talis etiam descensurus.
. hic sequester dei atque hominum appellatus ex utriusque partis deposito commisso sibi, carnis quoque depositum servat in semetipso, arrabonem summae tottus. quemadmodum enim nobis arrabonem spiritus reliquit, ita et a ' nobis arrabonem carnis accepit, et vexit in caelum pignus. totius summae illuc quandoque redigendae.
Still Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, Man albeit God, the last Adam albeit the Word which was in the beginning, flesh and blood albeit more pure than ours, yet the same in the substance and the aspect in which he ascended, and as such he will also come down again. .
. He is called the mediator of
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
God and men because of the deposit of each party entrusted to him; and moreover he conserves in himself the deposit of flesh, as an earnest of the whole sum.
For as he has left with us the earnest of the Spirit, so he has received from us the earnest of the flesh, and has carried it to heaven as a token that the whole sum is some time to be brought thither.
IV In these discussions of the Incarnation the terms substantia, status, forma, proprietas, are still the keywords.
Jesus is one Person: the evident facts of the Gospel narrative as well as the requirements of the doctrine of redemption demand that that be acknowledged: he can only be sequester dei et hominum (De res. carn. 51: Adv. Prax. 27) if he is one, not if he is two.
But he is now two substances.
As before, it is not a question of having substance, of one person possessing two pieces of property, | but of org X his being two substances, And as the divine substance was seen to bé a por» ovcía, a single Thing which each of the three
Persons completely and indivisibly is, human substance (of which Tertullian speaks in precisely similar terms) is assumed by the Word not partially but wholly... It is the substance of Adam, which is the substance of all humanity, that he takes from the holy virgin: for substance is not the same as materia.
Each substance, the divine and the human, carries its own status and has those attributes which are its proprietas.
'The attributes and activities which constitute each status are perceptible (videmus duplicem statum), and present the two not confused but conjoined: the substantiae are not perceptible, but what we observe of the double status indicates that the substantiae also preserve each its proprietas.
; Tertullian offers no *solution"' of the problem or mystery of the .
Incarnation, but merely a statement of it and of the the scriptural. data which have to be taken into account: and his statement is
"t , that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God who has been made flesh, that is, has clothed himself with flesh, is one living conscious
Person "put tw Things e attributes-and-displaying 1 04 the activities of each several Thin , Without confusion of the |
Jn \ Vf Things or division of him the Person, Only so can he be. understood to be the mediator of God and men.
For this is no academic question.
"Tertullian is as conscious as any of the fathers that the reason for the Incarnation was man's