Against Praxeas

Contents

1. 1Praxeas brought to Rome the heresy that the Father himself was born and suffered, and also turned the bishop of Rome against the New Prophecy; Tertullian announces his refutation.
2. 2Against Praxeas, Tertullian sets out the rule of faith: one God under an “economy,” Father, Son, and Spirit, three in degree, form, and aspect but one in substance, condition, and power.
3. 3Simple believers fear that the Trinity divides God's “monarchy,” but a monarchy is not destroyed by being administered through a son or through officers; it is overthrown only when a rival god is set against the Creator.
4. 4Because the Son comes from the Father's substance and will hand the kingdom back to the Father, as Paul says, the Trinity preserves the monarchy; the same passage shows that Father and Son are two.
5. 5Before creation God was never alone, for he had within himself his Reason, which is also his Word; as reason and inner speech in the human mind, the Word was a second with God.
6. 6Scripture calls the Word “Wisdom,” begotten before creation and present with God in making the world; when God willed to create, he first put forth the Word, through whom all things were made.
7. 7The Word, conceived in God's mind as Wisdom, was fully born when God spoke at creation; he is not an empty sound but a real substance and person, the Son, second to the Father.
8. 8The Son was “put forth” from the Father, not separated as in Valentinus' system, but as a shoot from a root, a river from a spring, a ray from the sun; the Spirit is third, and the Trinity preserves the monarchy.
9. 9Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct but not divided: the Son is “another” by distinction, not separation; Christ himself calls the Paraclete “another Advocate.”
10. 10No one can be his own father or son; the Monarchians' claim that God made himself his own Son abolishes both Father and Son, and God's omnipotence proves nothing unless Scripture shows he did it.
11. 11Praxeas must show from Scripture that God is his own Son; instead Scripture everywhere distinguishes the one who speaks, the one spoken to, and the one spoken of, showing the three persons.
12. 12God's plural “Let us make man” and “one of us” show that the Word and the Spirit were with him; in creation one person commands and another makes, one substance in three persons, distinct but not divided.
13. 13Scripture calls both Father and Son “God” and “Lord,” yet Christians do not speak of two gods: the one name was used in the Old Testament so that Christ might be recognized as God, and it is now kept as one, as sun and ray are one substance.
14. 14God said no one could see his face and live, yet patriarchs and prophets saw God and lived: the invisible one is the Father, while the Son was seen, in visions and figures, before his incarnation.
15. 15The New Testament too distinguishes the invisible Father, whom no one has seen, from the visible Son, whom the apostles saw and touched; the Son was always the one seen and always acted by the Father's will.
16. 16From the beginning it was the Son, not the Father, who acted in history, judged, appeared to Adam, Abraham, Moses, and in the furnace, and took on human feelings; the invisible Father did none of these things.
17. 17The divine names, God Almighty, Most High, Lord of hosts, King of Israel, He Who Is, belong to the Son too, since he came in the Father's name and received all things from him.
18. 18When Scripture says there is only one God, it excludes idols and false gods, not the Son, who is included in the Father as the ray in the sun.
19. 19God “alone” stretched out the heavens in contrast to angels and other powers, not to his Wisdom and Word, the Son, who made all things with him; Father and Son are two by arrangement, not separation, and remain one God.
20. 20Monarchians rely on three sayings of Jesus against the whole of Scripture; but the few must be read in the light of the many and the earlier.
21. 21John's Gospel from its first verse distinguishes the Word from God the Father; throughout, Jesus speaks of the Father as another who sent him, loves him, gives him judgment and life, and draws believers to him.
22. 22Throughout John 7–10 Jesus speaks of the Father who sent him as another witness; “I and the Father are one” uses the neuter “one thing,” not “one person,” and so shows two united, not one.
23. 23At Lazarus' tomb and in the voice from heaven, Son and Father speak to each other, the Son on earth and the Father in heaven; they are two persons, not one God changing roles, and it was the Son, not the Father, who was betrayed and glorified.
24. 24When Jesus tells Philip “he who has seen me has seen the Father,” he means that the invisible Father is known through the Son's works and words, not that he himself is the Father; he says “I am in the Father,” not “I am the Father.”
25. 25In John's Gospel Christ promises “another” Paraclete, calls the Father the vinedresser, and after the resurrection speaks of ascending “to my Father and your Father”; the Gospel itself says it was written so that we might believe that Jesus is the Son.
26. 26The other Gospels confirm that Christ is the Son: the angel announces the Spirit and power of the Most High coming upon Mary, and Jesus throughout speaks of the Father as another, ending with baptism into three names, by triple immersion.
27. 27Praxeas' followers split Jesus (the flesh, the Son) from Christ (the Spirit, the Father); Tertullian answers that the Word did not change into flesh but put it on, so that Jesus is one person with two substances, God and man, unconfused, each acting in its own way.
28. 28“Christ” means “anointed,” a title, not a proper name; Scripture shows that the Father anointed the Son, and if Christ were the Father there would have to be another God above him.
29. 29Christ died in his human, not his divine, substance; the Monarchians blaspheme by making the Father suffer and be accursed, and even their claim that the Father “suffered with” the Son makes him passible.
30. 30Christ's cry “My God, why have you forsaken me?” shows that the Son, not the Father, suffered and died; the Son rose, ascended, sits at the Father's right hand, and poured out the Holy Spirit, the third person.
31. 31To believe in one God without the Son and the Spirit is the Jewish faith; the gospel reveals one God in three persons, and those who confuse Father and Son deny both, like the antichrists John condemns.