tion of it, which has been constituted in just as many names as it has pleased God to em- ploy. But it remains so firm and stable in its own state, notwithstanding the introduction into it of the Trinity, that the Son actually has to restore it entire to the Father; even as the apostle says in his epistle, concerning the very end of all: "When He shall have de- livered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; for He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet;"' following of course the words of the Psalm: " Sit Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool."^ "When, however, all things shall be subdued to Him, (with the ex- ception of Him who did put all things under Him,) then shall the Son also Himself be sub- ject unto Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."^ We thus see that the Son is no obstacle to the Monarchy, although it is now administered by* the Son; because with the Son it is still in its own state, and with its own state will be restored to the Father by the Son. No one, therefore, will impair it, on account of admitting the Son (to it), since it is certain that it has been com- mitted to Him by the Father, and by and by has to be again delivered up by Him to the Father. Now, from this one passage of the epistle of the inspired apostle, we have been already able to show that the Father and the Son are two separate Persons, not only by the mention of their separate names as Father and the Son, but also by the fact that He who de- livered up the kingdom, and He to whom it is delivered up — and in like manner. He who subjected (all things), and He to whom they were subjected — must necessarily be two dif- ferent Beings.
CHAP. v. THE EVOLUTION OF THE SON OR WORD OF GOD FROM THE FATHER I5Y A DIVINE PROCESSION. ILLUSTRATED BY THE OPERA- TION OF THE HUMAN THOUGHT AND CON- SCIOUSNESS.
But since they will have the Two to be but One, so that the Father shall be deemed to be the same as the Son, it is only right that the whole question respecting the Son should be examined, as to whether He exists, and who He is and the mode of His existence. Thus shall the truth itself ^ secure its own sanction* from the Scriptures, and the inter- pretations which guard ' them. There are «Apud.
5 Res ipsa.
6 Formam, or shape. " Patrocinantibus.
some who allege that even Genesis opens thus in Hebrew: " In the beginning God made for Himself a Son." * As there is no ground for this, I am led to other arguments derived;^ from God's own dispensation, « in which Hei^ existed before the creation of the world, up t*) % the generation of the Son. For before all things God was alone — being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Him- self. Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say. His own Reason. For God is rational, and Reason was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself. This Reason is His own Thought (or Con- sciousness) "^ which the Greeks call loyoq, hy which term we also designate Word or Dis- course " and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the mere simple interpreta- tion of the term, to say that the Word '= was in the beginning with God; although it would be more suitable to regard Reason as the more ancient; because God had not Word '^ from the beginning, but He had Reason '* even be- fore the beginning; because also Word itself consists of Reason, which it thus proves to have been the prior existence as being its own substance. '5 Not that this distinction is of any practical moment. For although God had not yet sent out His Word,"^ He still had Him within Himself, both in company with and included within His very Reason, as He silently planned and arranged within Himself everything which He was afterwards about to utter '7 through His Word. Now, whilst He was thus planning and arranging with His own Reason, He was actually causing that to be- come Word which He was dealing with in the way of Word or Discourse. ^^ And that you may the more readily understand this, con- sider first of all, from your own self, who are made " in the image and likeness of God," '' for what purpose it is that you also possess reason in yourself, who are a rational creature, as being not only made by a rational Artificer, but actually animated out of His substance. Observe, then, that when you are silently con- 8 See St. Jerome's Qnoestt. Hchr. in Genesim, ii. 507. 9" Dispositio" means" mutual relati<ins in the Godhead." See lip. Bull's Dc/. Fid. Niccn., ()xford translation, p. 516.
"J Sensus ipsius.
'■ Sermonem. [He always calls the Logos not Verbum, but Sermo, in this treatise. A masculine word w.-js better to exhibit ou( author's thought. So Erasmus translates Logos in his N. Testa- ment, on which see Kaye, p. 51b.]
'-' Sermoncn.
^i Scrnumalis.
'■» Rationalis.
'5 i.e., " Reason is luauitcslly prior to the Word, which it dic- tates" (Bp. Kaye, p. 501).
'6 Sermonem.
•7 Dicturus. Another reading is " daturus," about to give.
'8 Scrmone.
CHAP. VII.]
AGAINST PRAXEAS.
versing with yourself, this very process is carried on witiiin you l)y your reason, which meets you with a word at every inoveineut of 3'our thought, at every impulse of your con- ception. Whatever you think, there is a word; wliatever you conceive, there is reason. You must needs speak it in your mind; and while you are speaking, you admit speech as an inter- locutor with you, involved in which there is this very reason, whereby, while in thought you are holding converse with your word, you are (by reciprocal action) producing thought by means of that converse with your word. ThuSj in a certain sense, the word is a second person within you, through which in thinking you utter speech, and through which also, (by reciprocity of process,) in uttering speech you generate thought. The word is itself a differ- ent thing from yourself. Now how much more fully is all tliis transacted in God, whose image and likeness even you are regarded as being, inasmuch as He has reason within Himself even while He is silent, and involved in that Reason His Word! I may therefore without rashness first lay this down (as a fixed principle) that even then before the creation of the universe God was not alone, since He had within Himself both Reason, and, inhe- rent in Reason, His Word, which He made .second to Himself by agitating it within Him- self.
CHAP. VI. THE WORD OF GOD IS ALSO THE WIS- DOM OF GOD. THE GOING FORTH OF WISDOM TO CREATE THE UNIVERSE, ACCORDING TO THE DIVINE PLAN.
This power and disposition' of the Divine Intelligence - is set forth also in the Scrip- tures under the name of 2o0m, Wisdom; for what can be better entitled to the name of Wisdom.^ than the Reason or the Word of God? Listen therefore to Wisdom herself, constituted in the character of a Second Per- son: " At the first the Lord created me as the beginning of His ways, with a view to His own works, before He made the earth, before the mountains were settled; moreover, before all the hills did He beget me;"" that is to say, He created and generated me in His own intelligence. Then, again, observe the dis- tinction between them implied in the compan- ionship of Wisdom with the Lord. "When He prepared the heaven," says Wisdom, "I was present with Him; and when He made His strong places upon the winds, which are the clouds above; and when He secured the fountains, (and ail things) which are beneath I " Mutual relations in the Godhead." - Sensus.
3 Sapientius.
the sky, I was by, arranging all things with Him; I was by, in whom He delighted; and daily, too, dicl I rejoice in His presence." ^ Now, as soon as it pleased God to put forthi into their respective substances and forms the things which He had planned and ordered. within Himself, in conjunction with His Wis- ' dom's Reason and Word, He first put forth the Word Himself, having witliin Him His own inseparable Reason and Wisdom, in order that all things might be made through Him through whom they had been planned and disposed, yea, and already made, so far forth as (they were) in the mind and intelli- gence of God.' This, however, was still want- ing to them, that they should also be openly known, and kept permanently in their proper forms and substances CHAP. VII. THE SON BY BEING DESIGNATED WORD AND WISDOM, (ACCORDING TO THE IM- PERFECTION OF HUMAN THOUGHT AND LAN- GUAGE) LIABLE TO BE DEEMED A MERE AT- TRIBUTE. HE IS SHOWN TO BE A PERSONAL BEING.
Then, therefore, does the Word also Him- self assume His own form and glorious garb,* His 07vn sound and vocal utterance, when God says, "Let there be light."' This is the .perfect nativity of the Word, when He pro- ceeds forth from ijod-^formeti^ by Him first to devise and think out all tilings under the name of Wisdom — "The Lord created or formed'^ me as the beginning of His ways;" '" then afterward ^begotten, to carry all into effect — " When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him." " Thus does He make Him equal to Him: for by proceeding from Himself He became His first-begotten Son, because begotten before all things; '-.and His only-begotten also, because alone begot- ten of God, in a way peculiar to Himself, from the womb of His own heart — even as the Father Himself testifies: "My heart," says He, "hath emitted my most.excellent Word." '3 The Father took pleasure ever- more in Him, who equally rejoiced with a re- ciprocal gladness in the Father's presence: ' " Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Phee;" '■* even before the morning star did 1 * Ornatum.
* Ornatum.
^Conditus. [See Theophilus To Autolycus,c&p..\. note i, p. 98, Vol. n. of this series. Also /hid. p. 103, note 5. On the whole subject, Bp. Bull, De/ensio Fid. Nicance. Vol. V. pp. 585- 9 Condidit.
'3 Ps..xlv. I. See this reading, and its application, fully disa cussed in our note 5, p. 66, of the Anti-Marcion, Edin.
AGAINST PRAXEAS.
[chap. viii.
beget Thee. The Son likewise acknowledges the Father, speaking in His own person, under the name of Wisdom: "The Lord formed Me as the beginning of His ways, with a view to His own works; before all the hills • did He beget Me." ' For if indeed Wisdom in this passage seems to say that She was created by the Lord with a view to His works, and to accomplish His ways, yet proof is given in another Scripture that "all things were made by the Word, and without Him was there nothing made;"- as, again, in another place (it is said), " By His word were the hea- vens established, and all the powers thereof by His Spirit " ^ — that is to say* by the Spirit (or Divine Nature) which was in the Word: thus is it evident that it is one and the same power which is in one place described under the name of Wisdom, and in another passage under the appellation of the Word, which was initiated for the works of God,* which "strengthened the heavens;" ^ "by which all things were made,"^ "and without which nothing was made."' Nor need we dwell any longer on this point, as if it were not the very Word Himself, who is spoken of under the name both of Wisdom and of Reason, and of the entire Divine Soul and Spirit. He be- came also the Son of God, and was begotten when He proceeded forth from Him. Do you then, (you ask,) grant that the Word is a cer- tain substance, constructed by the Spirit and the communication of Wisdom? Certainly I do. But you will not allow Him to be really a substantive being, by having a substance of His own; in such a way that He may be re- garded as an objective thing and a person, and so be able (as being constituted second to God the Father,') to make two, the Father and the Son, God and the Word. For you will say, wliat is a word, but a voice and sound of the mouth, and (as the grammarians teach) air when struck against,^ intelligible to the ear, but for the rest a sort of* void, empty, and incorporeal thing. I, on the contrary, con- tend that nothing empty and void could have come forth from God, seeing that it is not put forth from that which is empty and void;* nor could that possibly be devoid of substance which has proceeded from so great a sub- stance, and has produced such mighty sub- stances: for all things which were made through Him, He Himself (personally) made. How could it be, that He Himself is 3Ps. xxxiii. 6.
* Prov. viii. 22.
* Offensus.
nothing, without whom nothing was made?" How could He who is empty have made things which are solid, and He who is void have made things which are full, and He wao is incorpor- eal have made things which have body? For although a thing may sometimes be made different from him by whom it is made, yet nothing can be made by that which is a void and empty thing. Is that Word of God, then, a void and empty thing, which is called the Son, who Himself is designated God? " The Word was with God, and tlie Word was- God." 9 It is written, " Tiiou shalt not take God's name in vain." '^ This for certain is He " who, being in tne form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." " In what form of God? Of course he means in some form, not in none. For vvho will deny that God is a body, although " God is a Spirit?" '- For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form.'^ Now, even if invisible things, whatsoever they be, have both their substance and their form in God, whereby they are visible to God alone, how much more shall that which has been sent forth from His substance not be without sub- stance! Whatever, therefore, was the sub- stance of the Word that I designate a Person, I claim for it the name of Son; and while I recognize the Son, I assert His distinction as second to the Father."* CHAP. VIII. — THOUGH THE SON OR WORD OF GOD EMANATES FROM THE FATHER, HE IS NOT, LIKE THE EMANATIONS OF VALENTINUS, SEP- ARABLE FROM THE FATHER. NOR IS THE HOLY GHOST SEPARABLE FROM EITHER. IL- LUSTRATIONS FROM NATURE.
If any man from this shall think that I am introducing some Tvpolio?.// — that is to say, some prolation '5 of one thing out of another,:is Valentinus does when he sets forth JEon from .^on, one after another — then this is my first reply to you: Truth must not therefore refrain from the use of such a term, and its reality and meaning, because heresy also employs it. The fact is, heresy has rather taken it from Truth, in order to mould it into its own coun- 9 John i. I.
■3 This doctrine of the soul's corporeality in a certain sense is treated by Tertullian in his De Kesurr. Carn. xvii., and De Aninia v. By Tertullian, s/'irit and soul were considered identi- cal. See our A nti-Marcion, p. 451, note 4, Edin.
'4 [On Tertullian's orthodoxy, here, see Kaye, p. 502.] '5" The word TrpofJoAjj properly means anything which proceeds or is sent forth from the substance of another, as the fruit of a tree or the rays of the sun. In Latin it is translated by prMatin^ etnissio, or rr/itio, or what we now express by the word t/cT'e/n/i- ment. In Tertullian's time, \'alpntinus had given the term a material signification. Tertullian, therefore, has to apologi/c for usinj; it, when wrilinx aj,'ainst I'raxeas, the forerunner of tlit Sabellians" (Newman's Aiiaiti. ii. 4; reprint, p. loi).
CHAP. IX.]
AGAINST PRAXEAS.
terfeit. Was the Word of God put forth or not? Here take your stand with me, and flinch not. If^ He was put forth, then ac- knowledge that 'the true doctrine has a prola- tion; ' and never mind heresy, when in any point it mimics the truth. The question now is, in what sense each side uses a given thing and the word wliich expresses it. Valentinus divides and separates his prolations from their Author, and places them at so great a dis- tance from Him, that the ^on does not know the Father: he longs, indeed, to know Him, but cannot; nay, he is almost swallowed up and dissolved into the rest of matter.^ With us, however, the Son alone knows the Father,^ and has Himself unfolded "the Father's bosom."* He 'has also heard and seen all tilings with the Father; and what He has been commanded by the Father, that also does He speak. s And it is' not His own will, but the Father's, which He has accomplished,* which He had known most intimately, even from the beginning. " For what man knoweth the things which be in God, but the Spirit which is in Him?" 7 But the Word was formed by the Spirit, and (if I may so express myself) the Spirit is the body of the Word. The Word, therefore, is both always in the Father, as He says, "I am in the Father;"* and is always with God, according to what is written, " And the Word was with God;" » and never separate from the Father, or other than the Father, since " I and the Father are one." '" This will be the prolation, taught by the truth," the guardian of the Unity, wherein we declare that the Son is a prolation from the Father, without being separated from Him. For God sent forth the Word, as the Para- clete also declares, just as the root puts forth the tree, and the fountain the river, and the sun the ray.'^ For these are npoftolai, or emanations, of the substances from which they proceed. I should not hesitate, indeed, to call the tree the son or offspring of the root, and the river of the fountain, and the ray of the sun; because every original source is a parent, and everytliing which issues from the origin is an offspring. Much more is (this true of) the Word of God, who has actually received as His own peculiar designation the name of Son. But still the tree is not severed from the root, nor the river from the fountain, nor the ray I )rpo/3oAi;.
=■ See Adv. Valentin, cc. xiv. xv.
5 John viii. 26.
7 I Cor. ii. II.
* John xiv. II. S John i. I.
«' Literally, the irpo|SoA^, " of the truth."
'2 [Compare cap. iv. supra.'\ from the sun; nor, indeed, is the Word separ- ated from God. Following, therefore, the form of these analogies,*! confess that I call God and His Word — the Father and His Son — two. For the root and the tree are dis- tinctly two things, but correlatively joined; the fountain and the river are also two forms, but indivisi])le; so likewise the sun and the ray are two forms, but coherent ones. Everything which proceeds from something else must needs be second to that from which it pro- ceeds, without being on that account separated. Where, however, there is a second, there must be two; and where there is a third, there must be three. Now the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son; just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root, or as the stream out of the river is third from the fountain, or as the apex of the ray is third from the sun. Noth- ing, however, is alien from that original source whence it derives its own properties. In like' manner the Trinity, flowing down from the Father through intertwined and connected steps, does not at all disturb the Motiarchyy^'^ whilst it at the same time guards the state of the Economy. ^^ CHAP. IX. THE CATHOLIC RULE OF FAITH EX- POUNDED IN SOME OF ITS POINTS. ESPECIAL- LY IN THE UNCONFUSED DISTINCTION OF THE SEVERAL PERSONS OF THE BLESSED TRINITY.
Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are in- separable from each other, and so will you know in what sense this is said. Now, ob- serve, my assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that They are distinct from Each Other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated as well as every perversely dis- posed person, as if it predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among the Father, and th« Son, and the Spirit. I am, moreover, obliged to say this, when (ex- tolling the Mo7iarchy at the expense of the Eco?iomy) they contend for {he identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it. is not by divi- sion that He is different, but by distinjction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. '^ For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation •3 Or oneness of the divine empire.
'4 Or dispensation of the divine tripersonality. See above ch. ii. 15 "Modulo," in the sense of dispensation or economy. See Oehler and Rigault. on The Apology., c. xxi.
AGAIN SI" PR AXE AS.
[ciiAr. X.
nnd portion of the whole,' as He Himself acknowledges: " My Father is greater than I."" In the Psalm His inferiority is de- scribed as being "a little lower than the an- gels." ^ Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too, who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is another. Happily the Lord Himself employs this expression of the person of the Paraclete, so as to signify not a divi- sion or severance, but a disposition (of mutual relations in the Godhead); for He says, "I will pray the Father, and He shall send you another Comforter...even the Spirit of truth,"-* thus making the Paraclete distinct from Himself, even as we say that the Son is also distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of the order observed in the Economy. Besides, does not the very fact that they have the dis- tinct names of Father and Son amount to a declaration that they are distinct in person- ality?= For, of course, all things will be what their names represent them to be; and what they are and ever will be, that will they be called; and the distinction indicated by the names does not at all admit of any con- fusion, because there is none in the things which they designate. " Yes is yes, and no is no; for what is more than these, cometh of evil CHAP. X. THE VERY NAMES OF FATHER AND SON PROVE THE PERSONAL DISTINCTION OF THE TWO. THEY CANNOT POSSIBLY BE IDEN- TICAL, NOR IS THEIR IDENTITY NECESSARY TO PRESERVE THE DIVINE MONARCHY.
So it is either the Father or the Son, and the day is not the same as the night; nor is the Father the same as the Son, in such a way that Both of them should be One, and One or the Other should be Both, — an opinion which the most conceited " Monarchians " maintain. He Himself, they say, made Himself a Son to Himself.^ Now a Father makes a Son, ' " In his representation of the distinction (of the Persons of tlie Blessed Trinity), Tcrtiillian sometimes uses expressions which in aftertimes, when controversy had introduced greater precision of hmjjuaKe, were studiously avoided by the orthodox. Thus he calls the Father the whole substance, the Son a derivation from or por- tion of the whole." (Bp. Kaye, Oit Tertullian, p. 505)..A,fter Arius the language of theology received greater precision; but as it is, there is no doubt of the orthodoxy of Tertulhan's doctrine, since he so firmly and ably teaches the Son's coiisuhsiantiality with the Father — equal to Him and inseparable from him. [In other words, Tertullian could not employ a technical phraseology afterwards adopted to give precision to the same orthodox ideas.]
"John xiv. 28.
5.Aliud ab alio,