Against Praxeas 9
Summary: Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct but not divided: the Son is “another” by distinction, not separation; Christ himself calls the Paraclete “another Advocate.”
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:239–240
Hanc me regulam professum, qua inseparatos ab alterutro patrem et filium et spiritum testor, tene ubique, et ita quid quomodo dicatur agnosces. ecce enim dico alium esse patrem et alium filium et alium spiritum, — male accipit idiotes quisque aut peruersus hoc dictum, quasi diuersitatem sonet et ex diuersitate separationem protendat patris et filii et spiritus sancti; necessitate autem hoc dico, cum eundem patrem et filium et spiritum contendunt, aduersus oikonomian monarchiae adulantes — non tamen diuersitate alium filium a patre, sed distributione, nec diuisione alium, sed distinctione, quia non sint idem pater et filius, uel modulo alius ab alio (alii.) pater enim tota substantia est, filius uero deriuatio totius et portio, sicut ipse profitetur: quia pater maior me est. a quo et minoratus canitur in psalmo modicum quid citra angelos. sic et pater alius a filio, dum filio maior, dum alius qui generat, alius qui generatur, dum alius qui mittit, alius qui mittitur, dum alius qui facit, alius per quem fit. bene, quod et dominus usus hoc uerbo in persona paracleti non diuisionem significauit, sed dispositionem: rogabo enim, inquit, patrem, et alium aduocatum mittet uobis, spiritum ueritatis, sic alium a se * paracletum, quomodo et nos a patre alium filium, ut tertium gradum ostenderet in paracleto, sicut nos secundum in filio propter oikonomiae obseruationem. ipsum, quod pater et filius dicuntur, nonne alius ab alio (alius) est? utique enim omnia quod uocantur, hoc erunt, et quod erunt, hoc uocabuntur, et permiscere se diuersitas uocabulorum non potest omnino, quia nec rerum. quarum erunt uocabula. est, est, non, non; nam quod amplius est, hoc a malo est.
English · Claude translation
Keep hold everywhere of this rule, which I have professed, by which I testify that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are inseparable from one another, and so you will recognize what is said and how. For see, I say that the Father is one, the Son another, and the Spirit another (every uneducated or perverse person takes this saying wrongly, as if it sounded like diversity and from diversity implied a separation of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; but I say it of necessity, since they contend that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are the same, flattering the monarchy against the economy); yet the Son is other than the Father not by diversity but by distribution, other not by division but by distinction; because the Father and the Son are not the same, differing from each other even in measure. For the Father is the whole substance, while the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as he himself confesses: “Because the Father is greater than I.” By him he is also sung in the psalm as made a little lower than the angels. So the Father too is other than the Son, being greater than the Son; the one who begets is other than the one begotten, the one who sends other than the one sent, the one who makes other than the one through whom it is made. It is well that the Lord too, using this word of the person of the Paraclete, indicated not division but arrangement: “I will ask the Father,” he says, “and he will send you another Advocate, the Spirit of truth”; thus the Paraclete is other than himself, as we say the Son is other than the Father, so that he might show the third degree in the Paraclete, as we show the second in the Son, out of regard for the economy. Does not the very fact that they are called Father and Son mean that the one is other than the other? For surely all things will be what they are called, and will be called what they will be; and the difference of names cannot be confused at all, since neither can that of the things whose names they will be. “Yes, yes; no, no; for whatever is more than this is from the evil one.”
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are John 14:28, Ps 8:5 (Heb 2:7), John 14:16, and Matt 5:37. The words “the Son is … a derivation and portion of the whole” and “differing in measure” reflect Tertullian's pre-Nicene subordinationist language, translated as written. The asterisk in the digital text (after “a se”) marks a possible gap; the sense is complete.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Prax. 9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praxean/9/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Prax. 9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praxean/9/).
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