Church Fathers: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 3: 3.01.63 Tertullian - Against Praxeas - Ch 30-End

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Church Fathers: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 3: 3.01.63 Tertullian - Against Praxeas - Ch 30-End



TOPIC: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 3 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 3.01.63 Tertullian - Against Praxeas - Ch 30-End

Other Subjects in this Topic:

The Writings of Tertullian

Part Second - Anti-Marcion (Cont.)

VII. Against Praxeas. (Cont.)

Chap. XXX. - How the Son Was Forsaken by the Father upon the Cross. The True Meaning Thereof Fatal to Praxeas. So Too, the Resurrection of Christ, His Ascension, Session at the Father’s Right Hand, and Mission of the Holy Ghost.

However, if you persist in pushing your views further, I shall find means of answering you with greater stringency, and of meeting you with the exclamation of the Lord Himself, so as to challenge you with the question, What is your inquiry and reasoning about that? You have Him exclaiming in the midst of His passion: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” (Mat_27:46) Either, then, the Son suffered, being “forsaken” by the Father, and the Father consequently suffered nothing, inasmuch as He forsook the Son; or else, if it was the Father who suffered, then to what 627 God was it that He addressed His cry? But this was the voice of flesh and soul, that is to say, of man - not of the Word and Spirit, that is to say, not of God; and it was uttered so as to prove the impassibility of God, who “forsook” His Son, so far as He handed over His human substance to the suffering of death. This verity the apostle also perceived, when he writes to this effect: “If the Father spared not His own Son.” (Rom_8:32) This did Isaiah before him likewise perceive, when he declared: “And the Lord hath delivered Him up for our offences.” (this is the sense rather than the words of Isa_52:5, Isa_52:6) In this manner He “forsook” Him, in not sparing Him; “forsook” Him, in delivering Him up. In all other respects the Father did not forsake the Son, for it was into His Father’s hands that the Son commended His spirit. (Luk_23:46) Indeed, after so commending it, He instantly died; and as the Spirit117 remained with the flesh, the flesh cannot undergo the full extent of death, i.e., in corruption and decay. For the Son, therefore, to die, amounted to His being forsaken by the Father. The Son, then, both dies and rises again, according to the Scriptures. (1Co_15:3-4) It is the Son, too, who ascends to the heights of heaven, (Joh_3:13) and also descends to the inner parts of the earth. (Eph_4:9) “He sitteth at the Father’s right hand” (Mar_16:19; Rev_3:21) - not the Father at His own. He is seen by Stephen, at his martyrdom by stoning, still sitting at the right hand of God, (Act_7:55) where He will continue to sit, until the Father shall make His enemies His footstool. (Psa_110:1) He will come again on the clouds of heaven, just as He appeared when He ascended into heaven. (Act_1:11; Luk_21:37) Meanwhile He has received from the Father the promised gift, and has shed it forth, even the Holy Spirit - the Third Name in the Godhead, and the Third Degree of the Divine Majesty; the Declarer of the One Monarchy of God, but at the same time the Interpreter of the Economy, to every one who hears and receives the words of the new prophecy;118 and “the Leader into all truth,” (Joh_16:13) such as is in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, according to the mystery of the doctrine of Christ.





Chap. XXXI. - Retrograde Character of the Heresy of Praxeas. The Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity Constitutes the Great Difference Between Judaism and Christianity.

But, (this doctrine of yours bears a likeness) to the Jewish faith, of which this is the substance - so to believe in One God as to refuse to reckon the Son besides Him, and after the Son the Spirit. Now, what difference would there be between us and them, if there were not this distinction which you are for breaking down? What need would there be of the gospel, which is the substance of the New Covenant, laying down (as it does) that the Law and the Prophets lasted until John the Baptist, if thenceforward the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not both believed in as Three, and as making One Only God? God was pleased to renew His covenant with man in such a way as that His Unity might be believed in, after a new manner, through the Son and the Spirit, in order that God might now be known openly,119 in His proper Names and Persons, who in ancient times was not plainly understood, though declared through the Son and the Spirit. Away, then, with120 those “Antichrists who deny the Father and the Son.” For they deny the Father, when they say that He is the same as the Son; and they deny the Son, when they suppose Him to be the same as the Father, by assigning to Them things which are not Theirs, and taking away from Them things which are Theirs. But “whosoever shall confess that (Jesus) Christ is the Son of God” (not the Father), “God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” (1Jo_4:15) We believe not the testimony of God in which He testifies to us of His Son. “He that hath not the Son, hath not life.” (1Jo_5:12) And that man has not the Son, who believes Him to be any other than the Son.





POSTSCRIPT.

The learned Dr. Holmes, the translator of the Second volume of the Edinburgh series, to which our arrangement has given another position, furnished it with a Preface as follows:

“This volume contains all Tertullian’s polemical works (placed in his second volume by 628 Oehler, whose text we have followed), with the exception of the long treatise Against Marcion, which has already formed a volume of this series, and the Adversus Judæos, which, not to increase the bulk of the present volume, appears among the Miscellaneous Tracts.

“For the scanty facts connected with our author’s life, and for some general remarks on the importance and style of his writings, the reader is referred to the Introduction of my translation of the Five Books against Marcion.

“The treatises which comprise this volume will be found replete with the vigorous thought and terse expression which always characterize Tertullian.

“Brief synopses are prefixed to the several treatises, and headings are supplied to the chapters: these, with occasional notes on difficult passages and obscure allusions, will, it is hoped, afford sufficient aid for an intelligent perusal of these ancient writings, which cannot fail to be interesting alike to the theologian and the general reader, - full as they are of reverence for revealed truth, and at the same time of independence of judgment, adorned with admirable variety and fulness of knowledge, genial humour, and cultivated imagination.”

Dr. Holmes further adorned this same volume with a dedication to a valued friend, in the following words:

“The Right Rev. Father in God, W. I. Trower, D.D., late Lord Bishop of Gibraltar, and formerly Bishop of Glasgow and Galway:

My Dear Lord,

In one of our conversations last summer, you were kind enough to express an interest in this publication, and to favour me with some valuable hints on my own share in it. It gives me therefore great pleasure to inscribe your honoured name on the first page of this volume.

I avail myself of this public opportunity of endorsing, on my own account, the high opinion which has long been entertained of your excellent volumes on The Epistles and The Gospels.

Recalling to mind, as I often do, our pleasant days at Pennycross and Mannamead,

I remain,

My dear Lord,

Very faithfully yours,

Peter Holmes.”

Mannamead, March 10, 1870.





Elucidations.

I.

(Sundry doctrinal statements of Tertullian. (et seqq.), supra.)

I am glad for many reasons that Dr. Holmes appends the following from Bishop Kaye’s Account of the Writings of Tertullian:

“On the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, in order to explain his meaning Tertullian borrows illustrations from natural objects. The three Persons of the Trinity stand to each other in the relation of the root, the shrub, and the fruit; of the fountain, the river, and the cut from the river; of the sun, the ray, and the terminating point of the ray. For these illustrations he professes himself indebted to the Revelations of the Paraclete. In later times, divines have occasionally resorted to similar illustrations for the purpose of familiarizing the doctrine of the Trinity to the mind; nor can any danger arise from the proceeding, so long as we 629 recollect that they are illustrations, not arguments - that we must not draw conclusions from them, or think that whatever may be truly predicated of the illustrations, may be predicated with equal truth of that which it was designed to illustrate.”

“‘Notwithstanding, however, the intimate union which subsists between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we must be careful,’ says Tertullian, ‘to distinguish between their Persons.’ In his representations of this distinction he sometimes uses expressions which in after times, when controversy had introduced greater precision of language, were studiously avoided by the orthodox. Thus he calls the Father the whole substance - the Son a derivation from or portion of the whole.”121

“After showing that Tertullian’s opinions were generally coincident with the orthodox belief of the Christian Church on the great subject of the Trinity in Unity, Bp. Kaye goes on to say: ‘We are far from meaning to assert that expressions may not occasionally be found which are capable of a different interpretation, and which were carefully avoided by the orthodox writers of later times, when the controversies respecting the Trinity had introduced greater precision of language. Pamelius thought it necessary to put the reader on his guard against certain of these expressions; and Semler has noticed, with a sort of ill-natured industry (we call it ill-natured industry, because the true mode of ascertaining a writer’s opinions is, not to fix upon particular expressions, but to take the general tenor of his language), every passage in the Tract against Praxeas in which there is any appearance of contradiction, or which will bear a construction favourable to the Arian tenets. Bp. Bull also, who conceives the language of Tertullian to be explicit and correct on the subject of the pre-existence and the consubstantiality, admits that he occasionally uses expressions at variance with the co-eternity of Christ. For instance, in the Tract against Hermogenes, (ch. iii. compared with ch. xviii.) we find a passage in which it is expressly asserted that there was a time when the Son was not. Perhaps, however, a reference to the peculiar tenets of Hermogenes will enable us to account for this assertion. That heretic affirmed that matter was eternal, and argued thus: ‘God was always God, and always Lord; but the word Lord implies the existence of something over which He was Lord. Unless, therefore, we suppose the eternity of something distinct from God, it is not true that He was always Lord.’ Tertullian boldly answered, that God was not always Lord; and that in Scripture we do not find Him called Lord until the work of creation was completed. In like manner, he contended that the titles of Judge and Father imply the existence of sin, and of a Son. As, therefore, there was a time when neither sin nor the Son existed, the titles of Judge and Father were not at that time applicable to God. Tertullian could scarcely mean to affirm (in direct opposition to his own statements in the Tract against Praxeas) that there was ever a time when the λόγος, or Ratio, or Sermo Internus did not exist. But with respect to Wisdom and the Son (Sophia and Filius) the case is different. Tertullian assigns to both a beginning of existence: Sophia was created or formed in order to devise the plan of the universe; and the Son was begotten in order to carry that plan into effect. Bp. Bull appears to have given an accurate representation of the matter, when he says that, according to our author, the Reason and Spirit of God, being the substance of the Word and Son, were co-eternal with God; but that the titles of Word and Son were not strictly applicable until the former had been emitted to arrange, and the latter begotten to execute, the work of creation. Without, therefore, attempting to explain, much less to defend, all Tertullian’s expressions and reasonings, we are disposed to acquiesce in the statement given by Bp. Bull of his opinions (Defence of the Nicene Creed, sec. iii. ch. x. (p. 545 of the Oxford translation)): ‘From all this it is clear how rashly, as usual, Petavius has pronounced that, “so far as relates to the eternity 630 of the Word, it is manifest that Tertullian did not by any means acknowledge it.”’ To myself, indeed, and as I suppose to my reader also, after the many clear testimonies which I have adduced, the very opposite is manifest, unless indeed Petavius played on the term, the Word, which I will not suppose. For Tertullian does indeed teach that the Son of God was made and was called the Word (Verbum or Sermo) from some definite beginning, i.e., at the time when He went out from God the Father with the voice, ‘Let there be light’ in order to arrange the universe. But, for all that, that he really believed that the very hypostasis which is called the Word and Son of God is eternal, I have, I think, abundantly demonstrated.” (The whole of Bp. Bull’s remark is worth considering; it occurs in the translation just referred to, pp. 508-545.) - (Pp. 521-525 .)

“In speaking also of the Holy Ghost, Tertullian occasionally uses terms of a very ambiguous and equivocal character. He says, for instance (Adversus Praxean, c. xii.), that in Gen_1:26, God addressed the Son, His Word (the Second Person in the Trinity), and the Spirit in the Word (the Third Person of the Trinity). Here the distinct personality of the Spirit is expressly asserted; although it is difficult to reconcile Tertullian’s words, ‘Spiritus in Sermone,’ with the assertion. It is, however, certain both from the general tenor of the Tract against Praxeas, and from many passages in his other writings (for instance, Ad Martyres, iii.), that the distinct personality of the Holy Ghost formed an article of Tertullian’s creed. The occasional ambiguity of his language respecting the Holy Ghost is perhaps in part to be traced to the variety of senses in which the term ‘Spiritus’ is used. It is applied generally to God, for ‘God is a Spirit’ (Adv. Marcionem, ii. 9); and for the same reason to the Son, who is frequently called ‘the Spirit of God,’ and ‘the Spirit of the Creator’ (De Oratione, i.; Adv. Praxean, xiv., xxvi.; Adv. Marcionem, v. 8; Apolog. xxiii.; Adv. Marcionem, iii. 6, iv. 33). Bp. Bull likewise (Defence of the Nicene Creed, i. 5), following Grotius, has shown that the word ‘Spiritus’ is employed by the fathers to express the divine nature in Christ.” - (Pp. 555, 526.)





II.

(The bishop of Rome, cap. i.)

Probably Victor (a.d. 190), who is elsewhere called Victorinus, as Oehler conjectures, by a blunderer who tacked the inus to his name, because he was thinking of Zephyrinus, his immediate successor. This Victor “acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus,” and kept up communion with the Phrygian churches that adopted them: but worse than that, he now seems to have patronized the Patri-passion heresy, under the compulsion of Praxeas. So Tertullian says, who certainly had no idea that the Bishop of Rome was the infallible judge of controversies, when he recorded the facts of this strange history. Thus, we find the very founder of “Latin Christianity,” accusing a contemporary Bishop of Rome of heresy and the patronage of heresy, in two particulars. Our earliest acquaintance with that See presents us with Polycarp’s superior authority, at Rome itself, in maintaining apostolic doctrine and suppressing heresy. “He it was, who coming to Rome,” says Irenaeus, (Vol. 1. p. 416, this series) “in the time of Anicetus, caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics (viz. Valentinus and Marcion) to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the Apostles.” Anicetus was a pious prelate who never dreamed of asserting a superior claim as the chief depositary of Apostolic orthodoxy, and whose beautiful example in the Easter-questions discussed between Polycarp and himself, is another illustration of the independence of the sister churches, at that period. (Vol. 1. p. 416, this series) Nor is it unworthy to be noted, that the next event, in Western history, establishes a like principle against that other and 631 less worthy occupant of the Roman See, of whom we have spoken. Irenaeus rebukes Victor for his dogmatism about Easter, and reproaches him with departing from the example of his predecessors in the same See.122 With Eleutherus he had previously remonstrated, though mildly, for his toleration of heresy and his patronage of the raising schism of Montanus.123



III.

(These three are one, cap. xxv.. Also cap. xii.)

Porson having spoken Pontifically upon the matter of the text of “the Three Witnesses,” cadit quoestio, locutus est Augur Apollo. It is of more importance that Bishop Kaye in his calm wisdom, remarks as follows;124 “In my opinion, the passage in Tertullian, far from containing an allusion to 1Jo_5:7, furnishes most decisive proof that he knew nothing of the verse.” After this, and the acquiescence of scholars generally, it would be presumption to say a word on the question of quoting it as Scripture. In Textual Criticism it seems to be an established canon that it has no place in the Greek Testament. I submit, however, that, something remains to be said for it, on the ground of the old African Version used and quoted by Tertullian and Cyprian; and I dare to say, that, while there would be no ground whatever for inserting it in our English Version, the question of striking it out is a widely different one. It would be sacrilege, in my humble opinion, for reasons which will appear, in the following remarks, upon our author.

It appears to me very clear that Tertullian is quoting 1Jo_5:7 in the passage now under consideration: “Qui tres unum sunt, non unus, quomodo dictum est, Ego et Pater unum sumus, etc.” Let me refer to a work containing a sufficient answer to Porson, on this point of Tertullian’s quotation, which it is easier to pass sub-silentio, than to refute. I mean Forster’s New Plea, of which the full title is placed in the margin.125 The whole work is worth thoughtful study, but, I name it with reference to this important passage of our author, exclusively. In connection with other considerations on which I have no right to enlarge in this place, it satisfies me as to the primitive origin of the text in the Vulgate, and hence of its right to stand in our English Vulgate until it can be shewn that the Septuagint Version, quoted and honoured by our Lord, is free from similar readings, and divergences from the Hebrew mss.

Stated as a mere question as to the early African Church,126 the various versions known as the Itala, and the right of the Latin and English Vulgates to remain as they are, the whole question is a fresh one. Let me be pardoned for saying: (1) that I am not pleading for it as a proof-text of the Trinity, having never once quoted it as such in a long ministry, during which I have preached nearly a hundred Trinity-Sunday Sermons; (2) that I consider it as practically Apocryphal, and hence as coming under St. Jerome’s law, and being useless to establish doctrine; and (3) that I feel no need of it, owing to the wealth of Scripture on the same subject. Tertullian, himself says that he cites “only a few out of many texts - not pretending to bring up all the passages of Scripture…having produced an accumulation of witnesses in the fulness of their dignity and authority.”

To those interested in the question let me commend the learned dissertation of Grabe on the textual case, as it stood in his day.127 I value it chiefly because it proves that the Greek Testament, elsewhere says, disjointedly, what is collected into 1Jo_5:7. It is, therefore, Holy Scripture in substance, if not in the letter. What seems to me important, however, 632 is the balance it gives to the whole context, and the defective character of the grammar and logic, if it be stricken out. In the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate of the Old Testament we have a precisely similar case. Refer to Psalm 13, alike in the Latin and the Greek, as compared with our English Version. (where it is Psa_14:1-7) Between the third and fourth verses, three whole verses are interpolated: Shall we strike them out? Of course, if certain critics are to prevail over St. Paul, for he quotes them (Rom_3:10) with the formula: “As it is written.” Now, then, till we expurgate the English Version of the Epistle to the Romans, - or rather the original of St. Paul himself, I employ Grabe’s argument only to prove my point, which is this, viz., that 1Jo_5:7 being Scripture, ought to be left untouched in the Versions where it stands, although it be no part of the Greek Testament.







FOOTNOTES



117 i.e., the divine nature.

118 Tertullian was now a [pronounced] Montanist.

119 Coram.

120 Viderint.

121 Kaye, pp. 504-596.

122 Eusebius, B. V. cap. 24. Refer also to preceding note, and to Vol. 1. p. 310, this Series.

123 Vol. 2. pp. 3 and 4, this series, also, Eusebius, B. V. cap. iii.

124 p. 516.

125 “A New Plea for the Authenticity of the text of the Three Heavenly Witnesses:or, Porson’s Letters to Travis eclectically examined, etc. etc. By the Rev. Charles Forster, etc.” Cambridge, Deighton, Bell & Co., and London, Bell & Daldy, 1867.

126 See Milman, Hist. Lat. Christ., 1. p. 29.

127 See Bull’s Works, Vol. V., p. 381.