Against Praxeas 26
Summary: The 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.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:277–279
Propter unum Philippi sermonem et domini responsionem ad eum uidemur Iohannis euangelium decucurrisse, ne tot manifeste pronuntiata et ante et postea unus sermo subuertat, secundum omnia potius quam aduersus omnia, etiam aduersus suos sensus, interpretandus. ceterum ut alia euangelia nunc interponam, quae (de) natiuitate dominica fidem confirmant. sufficit eum, qui nasci habebat ex uirgine, ab ipso adnuntiali angelo filium dei determinatum: spiritus dei superueniet in te, et uirtus altissimi obumbrabit te: propterea quod nascetur ex te sanctum uocabitur filius dei. uolent quidem et hic argumentari, sed ueritas praeualebit. nempe, inquiunt, (filius dei deus est, **« et uirtus altissimi altissimus est), nec pudet illis inicere, quod, si esset, scriptum fuisset. quem enim uerebatur, ut non aperte pronuntiaret: (deus superueniet, et altissimus obumbrabit te? dicens autem (spiritus dei, etsi spiritus dei ♦*, tamen non directo deum nominans, portionem totius intellegi uoluit, quae cessura erat in filii nomen. hic spiritus dei idem erit sermo. sicut enim Iohanne dicente: sermo caro factus est, spiritum quoque intellegimus in mentione sermonis, ita et hic sermonem quoque agnoscimus in nomine spiritus. nam et spiritus substantia est sermonis, et sermo operatio spiritus, et duo unum sunt. ceterum alium Iohannes profitebitur. carnem factum, alium angelus carnem futurum, si non et spiritus sermo est et sermo spiritus. sicut ergo sermo dei non est ipse, cuius est, ita nec spiritus, et si dei dictus est, non tamen ipse est, cuius est dictus. nulla res alicuius ipse est, cuius est. plane cum quid ex ipso est et sic eius est, dum ex ipso sit, potest tale quid esse, quale et ipse, ex quo est et cuius est. et ideo spiritus deus et sermo deus. quia ex deo, non tamen ipse, ex quo est. quod(si) deus dei tamquam, substantiua res, non erit ipse deus, sed hactenus deus, qua ex ipsius dei substantia [quae et substantiua res est] et ut portio aliqua totius, multo magis uirtus altissimi non erit ipse altissimus, quia nec substantiua res est. quod est spiritus, sicut nec sapientia, nec prouidentia. (ut) et haec enim substantiae non sunt, sed accidentia uniuscuiusque substantiae, et uirtus spiritui accidit nec ipsa erit spiritus. his itaque rebus, quodcumque sunt, spiritu dei et sermone et uirtute, conlatis in uirginem, quod de ea nascitur filius dei est. hoc se et in istis euangeliis ipse testatur statim a puero: non scitis, inquit, quod in patris mei me esse oportet? hoc et satanas eum in temptationibus nouit: si filius dei es, hoc et exinde daemonia confitentur: scimus qui sis, filius dei. patrem et ipse adorat. Christum se dei a Petro agnitum non negat. exultans in spiritu ad patrem: confiteor, inquit, tibi, pater, quod absconderis haec a sapientibus. hic quoque patrem nemini notum nisi filio adfirmat. et patris filium confessurus confessores et negaturus negatores suos apud patrem, inducens parabolam filii, non patris, in uineam missi post aliquot seruos et occisi a malis rusticis et a patre defensi, ignorans et ipse diem et horam ultimam soli patri notam. disponens regnum discipulis, quomodo et sibi dispositum dicit a patre, habens potestatem legiones angelorum postulandi ad auxilium a patre si uellet, exclamans quod se deus reliquisset, in patris manibus spiritum ponens, et post resurrectionem spondens missurum se discipulis promissionem patris, et nouissime mandans ut tinguerent in patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum, non in unum. nam nec semel, sed ter, ad singula nomina in personas singulas tinguimur.
English · Claude translation
Because of a single saying of Philip's and the Lord's answer to him we seem to have run through John's Gospel, so that one saying should not overturn so many plain declarations before and after it, a saying which must be interpreted in accordance with all of them rather than against all of them, and even against its own meaning. But to bring in now the other Gospels, which confirm faith in the Lord's birth: it is enough that he who was to be born of the virgin was defined as the Son of God by the very angel who announced him: “The Spirit of God will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore what will be born of you will be called holy, the Son of God.” They will want to argue here too, but the truth will prevail. “Of course,” they say, “the Son of God is God, … and the power of the Most High is the Most High”; and they are not ashamed to suggest what, if it were so, would have been written. For whom was he afraid of, that he should not openly declare, “God will come upon you, and the Most High will overshadow you”? But by saying “the Spirit of God” (although the Spirit of God is God …), yet not naming God directly, he wished to be understood a portion of the whole, which was to pass into the name of the Son. This Spirit of God will be the same as the Word. For as, when John says, “The Word was made flesh,” we also understand the Spirit in the mention of the Word, so here too we recognize the Word also under the name of the Spirit. For the Spirit is the substance of the Word, and the Word is the operation of the Spirit, and the two are one. Otherwise John will declare one who was made flesh, and the angel another who was to be flesh, if the Spirit is not also the Word and the Word the Spirit. As, then, the Word of God is not the one whose Word he is, so neither is the Spirit, even if he is called “of God,” the one whose Spirit he is called. Nothing that belongs to someone is itself the one to whom it belongs. Clearly, when something is from someone and is his in that it is from him, it can be of such a kind as he is himself, from whom it is and whose it is. And so the Spirit is God and the Word is God, because from God, yet not the very one from whom he is. And if God from God, as a substantive thing, will not be God himself, but God to this extent, that he is from the substance of God himself, and as a portion of the whole, much more will the power of the Most High not be the Most High himself, since it is not even a substantive thing, as the Spirit is; just as neither wisdom nor providence is. For these too are not substances but accidents of a substance, and power is an accident of the Spirit and will not itself be the Spirit. So when these things, whatever they are, the Spirit of God, the Word, and the power, were brought into the virgin, what is born of her is the Son of God. This he himself also testifies in these Gospels, from boyhood: “Did you not know,” he says, “that I must be in my Father's house?” This Satan too knew about him in the temptations: “If you are the Son of God”; this the demons too thereafter confess: “We know who you are, the Son of God.” He himself worships the Father. He does not deny that he was recognized by Peter as the Christ of God. Rejoicing in the Spirit, he says to the Father, “I confess to you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise.” Here too he affirms that the Father is known to no one but the Son. And as the Son of the Father he will confess before the Father those who confess him and deny those who deny him; he introduces the parable of the son, not of the father, sent into the vineyard after several servants and killed by the wicked tenants, and avenged by the father; he himself does not know the day and the last hour, known to the Father alone; he appoints a kingdom for his disciples, as he says it was appointed for himself by the Father; he has power to ask the Father for legions of angels for help if he wished; he cries out that God had forsaken him; he lays his spirit in the Father's hands; and after the resurrection he promises to send his disciples the promise of the Father; and last of all he commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, not into one. For we are dipped not once but three times, at each name, into each person.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations and allusions are Luke 1:35, John 1:14, Luke 2:49, 4:3, 4:41, Mark 1:24, Luke 9:20, 10:21-22, 12:8-9, 20:9-15, Mark 13:32, Luke 22:29, Matt 26:53, 27:46, Luke 23:46, 24:49, and Matt 28:19. The asterisks and the sign ♦ in the digital text mark gaps, shown as “…”; “is God” after “the Spirit of God” is supplied from the sense. The editor deletes “quae et substantiua res est” (“which is also a substantive thing”); it is omitted. Here spiritus (“Spirit”) is used of the divine nature of the Son, not of the Holy Spirit. The last sentence describes baptism by triple immersion. The digital text's stray “f” and “ei quo” are corrected.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (letter misread in the digital text; stray letter in the digital text): patris filium f confessurus → patris filium confessurus; ei quo est → ex quo est.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Prax. 26 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praxean/26/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Prax. 26 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praxean/26/).
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