Notes

1. From The Princeton Theological Review, iii. 1905, pp. 529-557; iv. 1906, pp. 1—36, 145-167.

2. The generous but qualified praise of Vincent, “Commonitorium,” xviii. [24] stands almost alone by the side of J erome’s. a Sitzungsberichte der koniglich preussischen Akademie der Wissenscha/ten zu Berlin, June, 1895, p. 545: ” Tertullian in der Litteratur der alten Kirche.”

3. Loe. cit.

4. Even were this motive not operative it would not follow from the use of Praxeas’ name that he and the book were contemporaneous. Josephus controverted Apion and Origen Celsus only after a considerable interval of years. The same seems to be true of the use of Fronto’s name in the ” Octavius” of Minucius Felix. (See Harnack,” Chronologie,” ii. p. 326, and note; and compare what is said by Hagemann, ” Die Riimische Kirche,” pp. 235-236.)

5. Hagemann’s attempt (” Die Riimische Kirche,” pp. 234, sq.) to identify Praxeas with Callistus is only a part of his general attempt so to manipulate the facts as to make Callistus the real protagonist for fundamental Christian truth and Tertullian the real errorist. In the prosecution of this endeavor he gives to Callistus all that belongs rightfully to Tertullian (and more). He speaks of him (p. 128) as setting forth “the doctrine of the unity of nature of the Father and Son and the doctrine of the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ, with a completeness of formal development such as they received later through the instrumentality of the General Councils only after long and bitter controversies,” and as thus more than a hundred years in advance of the Church at large refuting Arianism and establishing for Rome a triune creed (see especially pp. 101 and 128). On the other hand, he represents Tertullian as, under the influence of Hippolytus, so misunderstanding Callistus that, under the nick-name of Praxeas, he treats his epoch-making orthodox definitions as if they were Monarchian.

6. “Against Praxeas,” i. lta duo negotia diaboli Praxeas Romre procuravit: prophetiam expulit et hreresim intulit, paracletum fugavit et patrem crucijixit.

7. ” Phil011ophumena,” ix. 1 : µi-yur-ro11 -ra.po.xov «o.T,I; 1rlwTo. Toll «6<Tµo11 h, 1ra.u, roi:s 11’1.0’Toi:s Wa.XMPTtt.

8. Do., ix. 6.

9. See Harnack, ” History of Dogma,” iii. p. 53, note 2; Domer, ” Doctrine of the Person of Christ,” Div. I. vol. ii. p. 3.

10. Harnack (” Chronologie,” ii. pp. 285-286, 296) sets the date of the book at e. 21~218.

11. “Philosophumena,” ix. 7.

12. 18 At the Synod of Sirmium, A.I>. 357. See Hahn, “Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche,” a § 161. The idea is that the ” man” a.lone “suffers” (patitur): the Logos incarnate in the “man” only co-suffers (compatitur) with it. The Spirit, say the Arians at Sardica, A.I>. 343, “did not Cf. suffer, but the man ( /1p{Jpw1ros) which it put on suffered ”· because as it is immediately explained; this is “capable of suffering.” Hahn, ’« Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche,” s p. 189.

13. 14 • Cf. Rolffs in the “Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristiichen Literatur,” XII. iv. pp. 94 sq. 1a “Against Praxeas,” chap. vii.

14. Chap. xxvii.

15. Chap. xxix. “Filius quidem patitur, pater vero compatitur.” “Compassus est pater filio.”

16. We are here drawing upon Lipsius’ admirable article, “On Tertullian’s Tract Against Praxeas,” published in the Jahrbucher fur deutsche Theologie, xiii. (1868), pp. 701-724. For the present matter see especially p. 710.

17. Lipsius, as above, p. 721, instances these two terms as “expressions which meet us here for the first time.” Both terms appear in Hippolytus’ “Contra Noetum,” and if that tract an~edates Tertullian’s this would be an earlier appearance; and each appears once in earlier literature. °2 Chap. ii.

18. Chap. ii. Cf. chap. iii.

19. Chap. ii.

20. That Tertullian owed his Trinitarianism to Montanism was already suggested by the younger Christopher Sand in the seventeenth century-

21. Chap. 21. It seems to have been written about the end of A.D. 197.

22. “Contra N oetum.” Cf. “Philosophumena,” ix.

23. On Tertullian’s relations to the anti-Modalistic writings of Hippolytus, Bee Harnack in the Zeitschrift fur die historische Theologie, 1874, pp. 203 sq.

24. The general dependence of Tertullian on the Apologists is very marked. Loofs says justly: ” Tertullian’s general conception of Christianity is determined by the apologetical tradition ” (Herzog, ” Realencyklopiidie fiir protestantische Theologie und Kirche,” 3 xii. p. 264, line 46); and again: ” Novatian and Tertullian were much more strongly influenced than Irenams by the Apologists: their general conception of Christianity received its color from this influence ” (Sitzungsberichte der koniglich preussichen Akademie der Wi.,8enachaften au Berlin, June, 1902, p. 781).

25. rl. obv KaKOV 1rotii,, rlo~ai’wv TOP Xpurrov;

26. This is, briefly, what appears to be the meaning of the Rule of Faith, or the Rule of Truth, in the writings of Tertullian as of the other early Fathers. There has been much discussion among scholars as to the exact relation of the conception to Scripture, on the one hand, and to the Baptismal Creed - what we know as “The Apostles’ Creed” - on the other. Kunze, in his “Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis,” seems greatly to have advanced the matter. It seems clear that the Rule of Faith means the common fundamental faith of the Church, as derived from Scripture and expressed especially in the Baptismal Creed. That is to say, it is (1) the authoritative teaching of Scripture as a whole; (2) but this teaching conceived as the common faith of the whole Church; (3) most commodiously set out in brief in the Apostles’ Creed. This may be sharply expressed by saying that the Rule of Faith was supposed to be the Scriptures, and the Creed was supposed to be the Rule of Faith. In the East the consciousness that the Rule of Faith was merely the teaching of the Scriptures as drawn from them and confessed by the Church, in the West the consciousness that the Apostles’ Creed was a summary setting forth of the Rule of Faith, tended to rule the usage of the term. Accordingly the tendency was in the East to see most pointedly the Scriptures thro’U(Jh the Rule of Faith, or, if you will, the Rule of Faith in the Scriptures; in the West to see the Apostolicum in the Rule of Faith, or, if you will, the Rule of Faith through the Apostolicum. On Tertullian’s conception of the relation of the Rule of Faith to Scripture see especially Kunze, p. 178.

27. He carries back the Rule of Faith to the teaching of Christ (” De Prrescriptione,” ix. xiii. Cf. xx. xxi. xxvii. etc.).

28. In Hippolytus the term and its synonyms are of very important occurrence (see Kunze, p. 129), and except in the “Little Labyrinth” the form ” Rule of Truth ” is the one he employs. 82 A similar judgment is expressed by Bethune-Baker, “The Meaning of Homoousios in the ’ Constantinopolitan’ Creed,” in ” Texts and Studies,” J. A. Robinson, ed., vii. 1, pp. 73—74, note.

29. 83 ” Necesse est igitur pauca de Christo ut deo.” 84 “Your philosophers … Zeno … Cleanthes … and we too (et nos autem) … .” 86 Kunze, p. 197, has some excellent remarks on the relative places taken by philosophy and Scripture in the thinking of such men as Irenreus and Tertullian. They wished to be purely Biblical; and the influence of philosophy “was exerted only through the medium of their understanding of the Bible, through the filter of Bible interpretation.” “This was true, for example,” he adds, “of their Logos theory. As certain as it is that in this matter extraChristian influences are recognizable, it is equally certain that for Tertullian, and especially for Irenreus, the Logos idea and its corollaries would have formed no part of the regula had they not found word and thing alike in the Scriptures.”

30. 36 Cf. the parallel statements in “De Prrescriptione” 13. 37 ” Against Praxeas,” chap. xvi.: ” Fortasse non credenda de patre, licet scripta.” 38 Chap. xiv.

31. °4 Chap. vi.: “lam, ut primum deus voluit ea, qure cum sophire ratione et sermone disposeuerat intra se, in substantias et species suas edere, ipsum primum protulit sermonem, habentem in se individuas suas, rationem et sophiam, etc. So also chap. xii. “The first statement of Scripture is made, indeed, when the Son had not yet appeared: ’ And God said, ” Let there be light,” and there was light.’ Immediately there appears the Word, ‘that true light… . From that moment God willed creation to be effected in the Word Christ.’ .•.” ’ 41 Chap. ix. 42 Chap. xxvi.

32. The real meaning of this phraseology will be discussed further on in this article.

33. Chap. v.: God was alone” up to the generation of the Son.” Cf. chaps. vi. xiii. Cf. ” Against Hermog.,” iii.: Fuit autem tempus cum … Filius non fuit … ; and see Bull’s long discussion of this passage in his ” Denfensio Fidei Nicaenre,” iii. x. (E.T. 1851, pp. 509f.). The real meaning of this too will be discussed later.

34. Chap. xvi.:” The Scripture informs us that He who was made less (than the angels) was so affected by another and not Himself by Himself.” Cf. chaps. iv. xxiii. The insistence of the Apologists on the origination of the Logos in an act of the will of God was their protest against the blind evolutionism of the Gnostics, and often was but their way of saying that creation was not a necessary process but a voluntary act on God’s part; that is to say, it hangs together with their cosmological conception of the Logos. Cf. Hagemann, ” Die Romische Kirche,” p. 194. On the whole subject compare Domer, ” Doctrine of the Person of Christ,” Div. I. ii. p, 460, and Bethune-Baker, “An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine,” p. 159, note,2 and pp. 194-195. 46 Chap. iv. Cf. chaps. xxii. xxiii. 47 The as yet unprolated Logos Tertullian wishes to distinguish from the uttered Logos or Sermo, as the unuttered Logos or Ratio; cf. chap. v. 48 Cf. Stier, p. 100. 4,0 Cf. Stier, p. 71. 50 Chaps. iv. xvi. xviii.

35. 61 Chap. xiv. 62 The Rule of Faith, which originates in the teaching of Christ and comes to us in the apostolic proclamation, and which is, therefore, ” absolutely one, alone, immovable and irreformable,” according to “De Vel. Virg.,” 1, “prescribes the belief that there is one only God … who produced all things out of nothing through His -own Word first of all sent forth; that this Word is called His Son … was made flesh and … having been crucified, rose again the third day, ascended into the heavens, sat at the right hand of the Father; sent instead of Himself the power of the Holy Ghost to lead such as believe on Him ” (” De Prrescriptione,” xiii.). Or as Tertullian sets forth the items in “Against Praxeas,” 2, relatively to the matters in hand in that tract, this aboriginal Rule of Faith teaches that ” there is one God ”; that “this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things Were made and without whom nothing was made ”; and that this Son has ” sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the Sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son and in the Holy Ghost.” Tertullian obviously looks

36. 53 On the early opinions as to the Spirit, besides Dr. Swete’s book on this precise subject, see Kahnis, ” Lehre vom heiligen Geiste,” pp. 168 f.; Nosgen “Geschichte der Lehre vom heiligen Geiste,” chap. i.; Harnack, i. p. 197, note, and ii. p. 209, note 1 ; Scott, “Origin and Development of the Nicene Theology,” Lecture V. 64 Scott, pp. 274, 284. “The doctrine of the Holy Spirit,” says Scott, p. 285, note, “was not developed in the second century, but it was plainly present in the Church, both East and West. The theological statement of the Spirit in the second century did not use the term hypostatic; but all that was meant later by that term is clearly involved in the teachings of the Apologists and the anti-Gnostic writers.” Tertullian ” first called the Spirit ’ God,’ but he only uttered what the Church had ever believed.” · 56 On Tertullian’s doctrine of the Spirit, see Kahnis, pp. 255 f.; Scott, p. 284; Harnack, ii. p. 261, note 4 ; Stier, p. 92, note. The most distinctive passages seem to be found in” Against Praxeas,” ii. iii. iv. viii. ix. xi. xiii. xxvi. xxx. 66 This characteristic of the Apologists’ construction is its most marked

37. 57 Tertius enim est spiritus a deo et filio, sicut tertius a radice fructus ex frutice, et tertius a fonte rivus ex flumine, et tertius a sole apex ex radio. 58 Stier, p. 92, note; Harnack, ii. p. 261, note 4.

38. ~9 E.g., chaps. iv. viii. ix. xi. xii. xxi. sq.

39. (1) The interest with which we seek Tertullian’s answer to the first of these questions, great enough in itself, has been largely increased by a suggestion made by Dr. Charles Bigg, which has been taken up and given additional significance by Prof. Adolf Harnack. Dr. Bigg suggested 61 that Tertullian may have borrowed the word ” persona” which he applies to the distinctions in the deity, not from the schools, but from the law courts. Harnack added to this the further suggestion 62 that the term ” substantia” in Tertullian may well have had a similar origin. On these suppositions it was thought possible 60 As originally printed in The Princeton Theological Review, January, 1906. 61 ” The Christian Platonists of Alexandria,” p. 165. 62 Theolog. Litteraturzeitung, 1887, No. 5, p. 110.

40. 63 See especially E.T. ii. p. 257, note, 282; iv. pp. 57,122 sq., 144 sq. Soi German 1st ed., 1887, ii. p. 307. 65 German, as above, p. 288.

41. 66 Bethune-Baker, in his “The Meaning of Homoousios in the ’ Constantinopolitan’ Creed,” in” Texts and Studies,” J. A. Robinson, ed., vii. 1, pp. 21 sq., and especially in his “An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine,” pp. 138 sq., gives a lucid statement of the theory, and adopts it up to a certain point, but remarks that ” the conceptions and expressions of Tertullian were by no means entirely controlled by legal usage… .”

42. 67 The introduction of ” substance ” instead of ” nature ” appears to have been due to an attempt to attain greater precision of terminology. Augustine, “De Trinitate,” Book VII. chap. vi. § 11 (” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,” Series I. iii. p. 112), explicitly testifies that this use of “substance” was of comparatively recent origin: “The ancients also who spoke Latin, before they had these terms, which have not long come into use, that is, essence or substance, used for them to say nature. In an earlier treatise, ” De Moribus Manichaeorum” (A.D. 388), chap. ii.§ 2, Augustine had made the same remark (” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,” Series I. iv. p. 70) : “Hence is the new word which we now use derived from the word for being - essence namely, or, as we usually say, substance - while, before these words were in use, the word nature was used instead.” The whole matter is exhibited again in” De Haer.,” xlix.: ” The Arians, from Arius, are best known for the error by which they deny that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are of one and the same nature and substance, or to speak more precisely, essence, called in Greek ovo-la.”; and again, in the ” Contra Sermon. Arian.” xxxvi., ” The Arians and Eunomians dub us Homoousiani, because against their error we defend the Father, Son and Holy Spirit by the Greek word oµoovo-iov, that is, as of one and the same substance, or to speak more precisely, essence, which is called ouo-la. in Greek; or, as it is more plainly (planius) expressed, of one and the same nature.” That is Nature is the common word; Essence the exact one but stilted; Substance the nearest natural equivalent of Essence. The word ” essentia ” was as old as Cicero (Seneca,” Epistulae Morales.,” lviii., ad init.; cf. Quintilian, “Inst.,” 2. 14, 2; 3. 6. 23; 8. 3. 33), but never commended itself to the Roman ear, which esteemed it harsh and abstract: it was left, therefore, to an occasional philosopher to employ and then scarcely without apologies (Seneca, ” Epistulae Morales,” lviii. § 6; Quintilian, 2. 14, 1. 2). The more concrete “substantia” (apparently a poet-Augustan word, cf. Quintilian, 2. 15. 34) became, therefore, the ueual term in careful writing. The two are constantly used as exact synonyms: e.g., Apuleiu!, “De Platone et eiue Dogmate,” I. vi. writes: “The ovo-ltu which we call essentire, [Plato] says are two, by which all things are produced, even the world itself. Of these one is conceived by thought only, the other may be attained by the senses… And primre quidem substantire vel essentire. • • .” Nature was simply the popular term and was held to be less exact, and

43. E.g., briefly, by Seeberg, “Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte,” 1895, i. pp. 85—87; and very copiously by J. Stier, “Die Gottes- und Logos-Lehre Tertullians,” 1899, pp. 74-78. Even Loofs says (” Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte,” 2d ed. p. 87): “These formulas show that [Tertullian] learned something in the course of his polemics, but are so thoroughly explicable as formalistic reworking of the Apologetic and Asian Tradition, that there is no need to derive them artificially from the juristic usage (against Harnack, ii. p. 288) .” • 69 Cf. Dorner,” Doctrine of the Person of Christ,” I. ii. p. 59: “As he gazed on the incarnate Logos, he felt certainly convinced of His personality. For it was not a mere impersonal power, but a divine subject, that had become man in Christ,” etc. Cf. also p. 24, note 2.

44. 10 Chaps. iii. viii. ix.

45. Chaps. ix. xiii. 72 Chap. ii.: ” Custodiatur olKovoµlas sacramentum, qure unitatem in trinitatem disponit, tres dirigens patrem et filium et spiritum,- tres autem non statu, sed gradu, nee substantia, sed forma, nee potestate, sed specie, - unius autem substantire et unius status et unius potestatis.” 78 Bethune-Baker, ” An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine,” p. 139, note 2 (cf. “The Meaning of Homoousios in the ‘Constantinopolitan’ Creed,” in” Texts and Studies,” J. A. Robinson, ed., vii. 1, pp. 17-18), remarks, to be sure: “Tertullian seems, however, to avoid the use of personm in this connexion ” - that is to say, when ” speaking as regards the being of God of one substance and three persons ” - ” using tres alone to express ’ the three ’ without adding ’ persons ’ in the case of the Trinity; just as later Augustine, while feeling compelled to speak of three’ persons,’ apologized for the term and threw the responsibility for it upon the poverty of the language (” De Trinitate,” v. 10, vii. 7-10). Tertullian has the definite expression only when it cannot well be omitted- e.g. when supporting the doctrine of the Trinity from the baptismal commission, he writes, ‘nam nee semel, sed ter, ad singula nomina in personas singulas tinguimur’ (” Against Praxeas,” chap. 26).” There seems, however, to be as frequent use of the term as there would be any reason to expect, and Tertullian explains (eh. xii.) that when he speaks of the distinction as ” one ” or ” another ” it is on the ground of ” personality.” See the long list of Passages in Harnack, iv. p. 123. 74 Chap. :xi.

46. • but- and it is in this ” but ” that the whole case lies - but ” under the following dispensation, or oLKovoµLa, as it is called - that this one God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself … who also sent from heaven, from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the Sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Ghost.” This is Tertullian’s anti-Monarchian Confession of Faith. His complaint is that men behaved as if the unity of the Godhead could be preserved in no other way than by representing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost as the very selfsame person, thus in their zeal for the unity neglecting the sacramentum oikonomiae,18 which distributes the unity into a Trinity. On the contrary, he insists,79 although the true God is one only God, He must yet be believed in with His own oLKovoµ(a - which with its numerical order and distribution of the Trinity is a support to, not a breach of, the true unity; because, he exn Chap. xii. ad in,it.

47. Cha.p. xii. ad fin,. Cf. xiii., ne!l.r the beginning. Cf. Domer, as cited, Div. I. vol. ii. p. 24, note.2 n Chap. ii. 18 Chap. ii. 1’11 Chap. ill.

48. 81 Chap. xxvi.

49. (2) It may remain, no doubt, a question whether Tertullian did not conceive this distinction of persons to have been the result of those movements of the divine substance by which successively the Logos and the Spirit proceeded from the fontal source of deity, so that the economy was thought of as superinduced upon a previous monarchy. It is thus, indeed, that he has been commonly understood.88 In this case, while certainly he would take the personal distinctions seriously, he might be supposed not to look upon them as rooted essentially in the very being of God. God in Himself would be conceived as a monad: God flowing out to create the world and to uphold and govern it, as becoming for these purposes a triad. The ” invisible God ” would be a monad; the ” visible God ” - the God of the world-process - would become a triad. It may be that it was after a fashion somewhat similar to this that Tertullian was naturally inclined to think of God and the distinctions he conceived to exist in His being; that is to say, his thought may have run most readily in the molds of what has come tb be called an economic as distinguished from what is known as an immanent Trinitarianism. It was along these lines that the Logos speculation tended to carry him, and his hearty acceptance of that speculation as the instrument with which to interpret the deposit of Christian truth might well lead him to conceive and speak of the Trinitarian distinctions as if they were merely” economical.” But the deposit of gg So, e.g., Domer, Hagemann, Harnack, Stier.

50. 89 Op. cit., iv. p. 122. 90 Op. cit., ii. pp. 260-261. Similarly Loafs remarks: “These formulas anticipate the later orthodoxy: it is all the more necessary to emphasize how strongly subordinationist they are: … the ’ economical ’ trinity here is just as little an eternal one as in the case of the older theologians of Asia Minor” (” Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte,” 2d ed., p. 89).

51. 01 Op. cit., p. 95, note. 92 iv. p. 121. 9a P. 81.

52. 94 “Die Romische Kirche,” pp. 173sq. On p. 175 Hagemann writes as follows: ” With the last idea ” - the idea namely that the serrno is inseparable from the ratio, and therefore even before creation God was not “alone,” but His ” Word ” included in his ” reason ” was with him - ” Tertullian was advancing on the right road to the recognition of the eternal and personal existence of the Word in God. The Word has its ground in the Being of God, falls in the circle of His inner life, is inseparably given with Him. But he had shut himself off from the full and right understanding of the manner itself, by introducing into the investigation from the start the world-idea. He could not maintain, therefore, the full and eternal existence of the Word, without at the same time admitting the full and eternal existence of the world itself; and since this was to him an impossible idea, he could not carry through the former in its whole strictness. To him the Logos hung together with the world, and his conception of the latter was decisive for the conception of the former also. To be sure, he came near to the conviction of the eternity and the full divine nature of the Logos; but just as he was about to reach the goal, the world-idea hinderingly intruded in the way. No doubt it is to be said that his insight in this matter was injuriously affected by too great dependence on the Apologists.” Again, on p. 177, summing up: “Enough: in order not to allow also the eternity of the world, he had sacrificed the eternity of the Son and taught, as a progressive realization of the world-idea, so also a progressive hypostatizing of the Logos.”

53. 95 e.g., “Defensio Fidei Nicaenre,” III. ix. 3 (E. T. 1730, p. 419). Dorner does not shrink from this assimilation of the preexistence of the Logos and of the world: to Tertullian, he affirms explicitly. “In the first instance He has a mere ideal existence in the inner essence of God, like the world-idea itself” (Div. I. vol. ii. p. ·64), and therefore “became a person for the first time, at, and for the sake of, the creation of the world” (pp. 73-74). “There is no place,” in Tertullian’s view, he says, “for a real, hypostatic Sonship in the inner, eternal essence of God: all that he has tried to point out, is the existence in God of an eternally active potence of Sonship ” (p. 63), a “real potence of Sonship, … impersonal but already a personific principle” (p. 69). It does not appear what purpose these latter phrases serve beyond exhibiting a possible doubt in Domer’s own mind whether it is quite adequate to Tertullian’s thought to represent him as assigning no more real preexistence to the Logos than to the world- whether, in other words, the Logos, in his view, did not exist in some more teal form than mere potentiality.

54. 96 ” Die christliche Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit und Menschwerdung Gottes,” i. p. 110, where a sober estimate of the value of the work may be found. Cf. also Schaff, “History of the Christian Church,” ii. p. 544. Meier (” Die Lehre von der Trinitiit,” ii. pp. 7~77) looks upon Bull’s effort to save the doctrine of the Trinity as a counsel of despair in the midst of a general decline of faith in this doctrine. Under the feeling that the doctrine could not be based on Scripture, since it is nowhere taught explicitly in Scripture, Bull undertook to show that it had for it at least the consistent testimony of antiquity. Even so, however, it was only a curtailed doctrine that he undertook the defense of. ” Bull found himself also forced to make concessions; he perceived himself that he could maintain only the consubstantiality and the eternity of the Son, while allowing that differences existed as to special points -

55. 97 “De Trinitate,” I. v. 8, quoted in Bull, “Introduction,” 7 (E. T. 1851, p. 9). 99 This is the enumeration given by Petavius, “De Trinitate,” I. v. 8.

56. 99 See above, pp. 30—31. 100 This passage is discussed by Bull in Book III., chap. x., §§ 5-8. At an earlier point - III. v. 5- he had expounded the same passage more briefly, but not less effectively.

57. 101 There may be a reminiscence here, and there certainly is a parallel, of the passage in Plato’s ” Sophist,” § 263 E, where thought is called ” the unuttered conversation of the soul with itself,” and we are told that “the stream of thought flowing through the lips is called speech.” 102 ” Ita secundus quodammodo in te est sermo, per quem loqueris cogitando, et per quem cogitas loquendo; ipse sermo alius est.” 108 ” Ante universitatis constitutionem.”

58. 104 It is interesting to observe how closely Marcellus of Ancyra, in this portion of his system, reproduced the thought of Tertullian in this chapter. To Marcellus, says Loofs (Sitzungsberichte der koniglich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin:’ 1902, i. pp. 768-769), “the Logos is eternal. … And this Logos of God is without any ’)‘Eve,m. Before the time of the creation of the world, He was simply in God; the one God, along with whom was nothing,’ had not yet spoken’ (,io-vxla TLS ~v). When, however, God addressed Himself to create the world, TOTE o M’)‘os 1rpoEMwv E’)‘<vETo Toil Koo-µ,ou w-o,.,,Tf,s, o Kai 1rplrr,pov ivliov P01/TWS 6110µ,at!JJP ah6v. This 1rpoeM«v in sequence to which came in the 1rpos Tov Oeov ,Iva, of which Jno. i. 1 speaks, did not, however, bring to a close the EP o,,;, ,!,,a,: the Logos remains livvaµ” EP T4l 8E4), and only <PEP’Y•l’f was He 1rpos Tov 8e6v; 1rpofiM•v opao-nKfj EVEP’Y••‘l-. How this is to be understood, Marcellus - with all sorts of cautions - has illustrated by the analogy of the human Logos: lv ’)‘ap io-T, Kai rabTo T<i) av8p,J}1r<f! o M’)‘os Kai oM,v! ‘X.!JJP•toµevos uip<f!, ~ µ,6vr, Tfj Trjs 1rpa/;E!JJs EPEP’Y•lq,.” This reads (so far) almost like an exposition of the fifth chapter of the tract, ” Against Praxeas.”

59. (3) There has been enough adduced incidentally in the course of the discussion so far, to make it clear that Tertullian in insisting on the distinction of persons in the Godhead - and in carrying this distinction back into eternity- had no inten- 105 In support of this take such a statement as the following from the thirteenth chapter: “You will find this,” says Tertullian, “in the Gospel in so many words: ’ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.’ He who was is One: and He with whom He was is another.” As it is probable that by the words ” in the beginning ” Tertullian understood eternity, here is an explicit assertion of a distinction of persons in eternity. Again, in chap. viii., he says: “The Word, therefore, was both in the Father always, as He says, ’ I am in the Father,’ and with the Father always, as it is written, ’ And the Word was with God.’ ” 106 E. T. p. 545.

60. 107 “Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte,” p. 88. 108 iv. p. 57, note: cf. ii., pp. 257, note,2 259. 109 ii. p. 257 note.2

61. 116 Chap. viii. 111 I.e., this is a doctrine supported by the Montanistic prophecies.

62. 121 Cf. Dorner, “Doctrine of the Person of Christ,” Div. I. vol. ii. pp. 108, 186, 460. Dorner somewhat misses the point by failing to see that Tertullian recognized the eternity of the personal distinction and so distinguished between the unprolated and the prolated Logos (see below, pp. 69 sq.): but even Dorner perceives that there was some limit to Tertullian’s subordinationism: “An Arian Subordinationism was … foreign to his mind” (p. 74; cf. p. 108).

63. 122 Chap. viii. ad fin. 12a III. ix. 11 (E. T. p. 503). 124 Irenreus makes use of the simile of God’s hands to explain his conception of the relation of the Son and Spirit to God. Cf. IV. praef. § 4: “Man

64. (4) With this conception of the relation of the prolations to the divine essence Tertullian was certainly in a position to do complete justice to the deity of our Lord. Had the prolate Logos been to him a ” middle substance ” - something between God and man in its very nature - then it no doubt would have been impossible for him to do full justice to our Lord’s deity as the incarnation of this Logos. But seeing that the Logos was to him God Himself prolated, one in substance with the primal deity itself, no question of the complete deity of the incarnated Logos could arise in his mind. “Nor shall we approximate,” he says,125 ” to the opinions of the Gentiles, who, if at any time they be forced to confess God, yet will have other Gods below Him. The Godhead, however, has no gradation, for It is only one ” and can, therefore, ” in no case be less than Itself.” Accordingly he is constant in declaring the Son, as He is God, to be “equal with” the Father.126 All that is true of the Father, therefore, he would have us understand, is true also of the Son: they are not only of the same substance, but of the same power also; and all the attributes of the one belong also to the other.” The names of the Father,” he says 121 - ” God Almighty, the Most High, the Lord of Hosts, the King of Israel, He that Is - inasmuch as the Scriptures so teach, these, we say, belonged also to the Son, and in these the Son has come, and in these has ever acted, and thus manifested them in Himself to men… . When, therefore, you read Almighty God, and Most High, and God of Hosts, and King of Israel, and He that Is, consider whether there be not indicated by these the Son also, who in His own right is God … was moulded by God’s hands, i.e., by the Son and Spirit to whom He said, Let us make,” etc. Cf. also IV. 20. 1; V. 1. 3; V. 5. 1; V. 28. 4. At a later date the Sabellians employed the figure of the alternately outstretched and withdrawn arm and hand as a figure of their notion of the successive movements of the divine revelation (Dorner, Div. I, vol. ii. pp. 155, 159, 168). Augustine in Joannem, § 53. 2-3, in criticising this Sabellian use of it, recognizes the propriety of the figure in itself. 125 “Against Hermogenes,” vii. (Bull, E. T. pp. 580—581). 126 “Against Praxeas,” chaps. vii. xxii.; “De Resurrectione Carnis,” chap. vi. 127 “Against Praxeas,” chap. xvii. (Bull, E.T. p. 198).

65. 1 2s “Against Marcion,” iv. 25 (Bull, loc. cit.). 1 29 “Against Praxeas,” xiii. xv. °13 Chap. xiv.

66. 1s1 We are here quoting Bull, II. vii. 5 (E. T. p. 200), where, as well as pp. 536 sq., the meaning of ” portio ” is discussed. It is discussed also in Hageman, pp. 182 sq., who suggests, with a reference to De virg. vel., chap. 4, ad fin., that it is a technical logical term, and imports the ” specific ” as distinguished from the ” general,” in which case the Logos as a portio of the deity would rather be a “particularization” of deity than a “fragment” of deity. Domer (Div. I. vol. ii. p. 78) thinks that the employment of such “inappropriate physical categories of the Son ” is due to the ” somewhat physical character of [Tertullian’s] view of God,” and ” should be set rather to the account of his mode of expression, than of his mode of thought”: it “really disguised Tertullian’s proper meaning” (cf. pp. 121-122). From the manner in which Tertullian uses the term ” portio ” it would seem probably to be a technical term in the Logos Christology and that would imply its currency in the debates of the day. It is interesting to observe in a “Sermon of the Arians” in “Augustini Opera Omnia,” Migne ed., 1841, viii. coll. 677—684, which was in circulation in North Africa early in the fifth century what looks very much like a repudiation of the phraseology by the Arians-for Arianism was very much only the Logos Christology run to seed, the ” left ” side of the developing schemes of doctrine. In this document, at chap. 23, it is said: “The Son is not a part or a portion of the Father, but His own and beloved, perfect and complete, only-begotten Son. The Spirit is not a part or a portion of the Son, but the first and highest work (opus) of the only-begotten Son of God, before the rest of the universe.” Augustine (” Contra Sermon. Arian.,” xxvii. 23) answers only: ” But what Catholic would say the Son is a part of the Father or the Holy Spirit part of the Son? A thing they [the Arians] think is to be so denied as if there were a question between us and them on it.” It looks very much as if the whole past history of the use of this phraseology was out of memory in the opening fifth century.

67. 1 32 “Against Marcion,” iii. 6, ad fin. 193 Cf. Bull, II. vii. 6 (E. T. pp. 201 sq.). is4 “Against Praxeas,” chap. xiii. 1 35 “Against Praxeas,” xiii. med. 186 “Against Hermogenes,” vii. (quoted above).

68. 137 Bull, IV. ii. 5 (E. T. pp. 580-581) treats with great care the apparent contradiction between Tertullian’s assertion in “Against Hermogenes,” vii., that “the Godhead has no gradations,” and the assertion in ” Against Praxeas,” ii., that the persons of the Godhead are three ” not in state but in gradation.” Tertullian, Bull tells us, means in the latter passage by “gradation, order, but not greater or less Godhead.” “For,” continues Bull, “whom he acknowledges to be three in gradation, Them he denies to be different in state. But with Tertullian, as we have seen, for a thing not to be different from another in state, means, not to be set under it, but to be on a par and equal to it. Hence in the same passage, presently after, he expressly says, that the three Persons of the Holy Trinity are all of one power; and consequently that no One of Them is more powerful or excellent than Another. Therefore the Godhead ’ has no gradation,’ that is, ’ is in no case less than Itself,’ as Tertullian distinctly explains himself; yet there are gradations in the Godhead, that is, a certain order of the Persons, of whom One derives His origin from Another; in such wise that the Father is the first Person, existing of Himself; the Son second from the Father, whilst the Holy Ghost is third, who proceeds from the Father through the Son, or from the Father and the Son.” This is a very favorable specimen of Bull’s reasoning: and Tertullian’s language may be made consistent with itself on this hypothesis. On the whole, however, it seems more likely that the real state of the case in Tertullian’s thought was that indicated in the text. In the Godhead there are no gradations: but after prolations grades of being are instituted. ms Chap. xxvii.

69. (5) It scarcely seems necessary to add a separate detailed statement of how Tertullian conceived of the Holy Spirit. 139 Accordingly we must not understand the phrase “Homo Deo mixtus,” which occurs in the “Ap0logy,” chap. :xxi., to imply that the two substances Were ” mixed,” so as to make a tertium quid. What he means to say is only that Jesus Christ was neither man nor God alone, but the two together. Cf. BethuneBaker, “The Meaning of Homoousios in the ’ Constantinopolitan ’ Creed,” in “Texts and Studies,” J. A. Robinson, ed., vii. 1, p. 22, note. ao Chap. xxix. ad init.

70. u1 ii. p. 261, note 4• 142 Cf. Nosgen, ” Geschichte der Lehre vom heiligen Geiste,” p. 21. 143 “Against Praxeas,” chap. ii. ad fin., cf. chap. iii. near end, chaps. viii. xi. ad fin., xiii. xxx. Cf. Stier, op. cit., p. 92, note.

71. 4 ” Against Praxeas,” chaps. ii. ad fin., iii. ad fin., iv. ad init., viii. ix. ad init., etc. 145 Chap. iv. ad init.

72. 146 Chap. viii. ad fin. 141 He seems to be the first in writings which have chanced to come down to us to apply the name ” God ” to the Spirit; but this is mere accident. 148 Chap. xxx. ad fin. 149 Chap. xiii. med. 160 E.g., chaps. ii. ad init., et fin., iii. ad fin., viii. ad fin., ix. ad init., xiii. med., xxv. xxx.

73. 1 Chap. xxv. ad init.

74. u2 “Contra Noetum,” chap. 14. us ” Ad Auto!.,” ii. 15. Here the term Tpla.r firet occul”!l in connection with distinctions in the Godhead; and it is customary, therefore, to say that here first it is applied to express the Trinity. So, e.g., Kahnis, Harnack, Loofs, Seeberg. As Nosgen (pp. 13-14) points out, however, it is by no means certain that the word here has any technical import. 1H E.g., “Against Praxeas,” chaps. ii. iii. xi. xii. etc.

75. 155 “Contra Noetum,” chaps. 8 and 14. 156 “Ad Grrec.,” 5.

76. 7 pignora = pledges of his love, i.e., his close relations.

77. 158 Chap. xxix. 159 Chap. v. 1 60 “De Architectura,” I. ii. 1. 161 ” Ad Att.,” vi. 1. 162 ” Inst.,” I. viii. 9. 168 This sense is discussed by Daniel, as below, note iee, under his divi-

78. 164 Chap. ii. See the note of Lightfoot on the passage in his great work on “Ignatius” (II. ii. p. 950). 165 “Historia Ecclesiastica,” iv. 15; McGiffert’s Translation, p. 189a. 166 An account of the several attempts to trace the history of the word is given by Gass in the article referred to in the next note. The more important are: von Colin in Ersch and Gruber sub. voc. <Economia; H. A. Daniel in his “Tatianus der Apologet,” pp. 159 sq.; Miinscher in his “Dogmengeschichte,” iii. pp. 137 sq.; Gass’s own extended article; and Lightfoot in his posthumously published volume entitled “Notes on Epistles of St. Paul,” p. 319 (on Eph. i. 10), with which should be compared his notes on Col. i. 25, lgn. ” ad Eph.” xviii. (II. i. p. 75), and” Martyr. Polycarp.,” ii. (II. ii. p. 950). The discussion of Gass is by far the fullest, but needs the preceding ones to supply the earlier . philological development, and Lightfoot’s clear statement as a supplement. See also the Bishop of Lincoln’s (Kaye’s) “Account of the Writings of Justin Martyr,” pp. 173, sq., and Baur’s “Dreieinigkeit,” i. p. 178, note. Hagemann “Die Romische Kirche,” pp. 136, 150, 167, 175, etc., as per index) constantly represents the olKovoµla. as (even in Tertullian) merely “the sum of the divine acts which have reference to the government of the world,” ” the sum of the ex-

79. 167 In an article on “Das patristische Wort o!Kovoµla.,” in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift fur wissenschajtliche Theologie, xvii. (1874), pp. 478sq.

80. 168 As originally printed in The Princeton Theological Review, April, 1906.

81. 169 Cf. Bethune-Baker, “An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine,” p. 129. 110 This is a very obscure phrase: otKovoµlas •r,}v a.!pEtrLIJ 1rpotr>.afJ6v. Clericus declared that in his day it had never been successfully explained. Daniel (p. 164) explains: “What has arisen through participation, as one light is kindled from another, has of course part in the nature of the thing from which it is derived, and is of the same nature with it; but does not make the thing from which it is taken any poorer in this nature.” Baur translates the whole passage thus: ” What is cut off is separated from the substance, but what is distinguished as a portion, what by free self-determination receives the reconomy,

82. 171 “Or. c. Gr.” 8. 172 ii. 209, note 1 at the end. 173 ii. p. 203, note 2•

83. 1u Op. cit., p. 275. 11e P. 145. 115 P.279.

84. 177 General discriminations like this must, of course, not be pressed to extremes. See, e.g., Purves, op. cit., p. 277. Cf. Bethune-Baker, “An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine,” p. 125. 178 For the point of view of the text cf., e.g., Nosgen, “Geschichte der Lehre vom heiligen Geiste,” pp. 24 sq.: “Precisely with this Church father [TertullianJ there begins, on the ground of Christian experience, to break through the recognition of the inner necessity of the Holy Spirit for the nature of the Triune God… His interest in the third Person of the Trinity hangs on the fact that the Holy Spirit leads the children of God (credentes agat) .

85. . Accordingly it must not be made a reproach to him that he permits the immanent relation statedly to shine through only as the background of the self-revelation of the Triune One… It is precisely because he does this that he first marked out definitely the point of departure from which the peculiarity of the Holy Spirit as God and as trinitarian Person could be really grasped.” Cf. Kahnis, p. 296.

86. 179 Cf., e.g., Harnack, “Chronologie,” ii. pp. 213, 223.

87. 1 80 “Contra Noetum,” chap. 14. 1s~ Chap. 7. 181 Chaps. 3, 4, 8, 14. 186 Chap. 8. 182 Chap. 4, no fewer than three times. 181 Chap. 6. 1ss Chap. 3. 188 Chap. 6. 184 Chap. 11.

88. 1s9 Chap. 17. 191 Chap. 12. 102 Chap. 9. °19 Chap. 14.

89. 193 Chap. 14. That the personality of the Holy Spirit is here denied is held by Meier, “Die Lehre von der Trinitat,” i. p. 88; Harnack, E. T. ii. p. 262, note; Nosgen, “Geschichte der Lehre vom heiligen Geiste,” p. 20. Cf. also J. Sjoholm, ” Hippolytus och Modalismen,” Lund: 1898. On the other hand, see Dollinger,” Hippolytus and Callistus,” E. T. pp. 193-194, and Hagemann, “Die Romische Kirche,” pp. 268sq. 19~ Chap. 7. 195 Tjj ov11aµE& ,co;l Tjj o,a0iuE& rf/s Oµo,f,po11la.s i11 ’“(&POµd/a.; 196 E.g., chaps. 8 and 16. 197 Chap. 7 ad fin.

90. 198 Chap, 10, ad init., a.lm’>s Ii~ µoPos &11 1r0Ms ,iv. w 199 olin -yo.p ll;\o-yos, oliTE llrroq,os, oliTe a.Mwa.Tos, olin a.flofil,euTos ,iv, 1rtivTa. /ii ,iv a.67-cil, O.V’TOS l’i~ ,iv TO 1rav. 200 ” Philosophumena,” x. 33 (xxix.) - Evli,ti8eTos Tov 1ra.11Tos }..o-y,rrµ,bs. 201 “Contra Noetum,” chap. l0-a.px11-ro11 ica.l rruµ,flou}..o,, ica.l lp-ytirrw. 202 Chap. 11. 208 On the extreme emphasis put by Hippolytus on the divine will, of. Hagemann,” Die Romische Kirche,” p. 197: “No one of the earliest representatives of Christian science lays such stress on the will of God as Hippolytus. With great emphasis, often several times in succession in almost identical phrases, he repeats, when speaking of the origin of the Logos or of creation in general, the formula in which he expresses his proposition that the whole revelation of God ad extra is grounded in His will, that He can create or not create,

91. 204 ” Philosophumena,” x. 33. (xxix.). 2:o5 Ibid.

92. 206 “Contra Noetum,” chap. 16. 201 Cf. also chap. 6, where Christ is said to have been “appointed almighty by the Father.” 208 There seems no real reason for doubting the authorship of this book by Novatian, though Hagemann (pp. 371 sq.) doubts it, and Quarry even ascribes it to Hippolytus. Cf. Harnack, “Chronologie,” ii. pp. 396 sq., note 1, and p. 400, note 2. Harnack dates it c. 240 (p. 399).

93. 209 Cf. Harnack in the Sitzungsberichte der koniglich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1895, ii. p. 562, and “Chronologie,” ii. pp. 399—400. 210 “De virr. inlust.,” chap. 70. 211 E.g., Loo:Vs “Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte,” p. 105: “There is scarcely a thought that cannot be pointed out in Tertullian.” But Harnack, ” Chronologie,” ii. pp. 399—400, recognizes that in any event Jerome’s statement is overdrawn, though he finds a real connection between the two books. 212 We have the support in this, at least, of Hagemann, “Die Romische Kirche,” p. 379. 218 Novatian’s own phrase is always Rule of Truth, although the title of his treatise has Rule of Faith, whence Kunze infers that the title is not from his own hand (” Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis,” pp. 5-6). Novatian, remarks Kunze (p. 178), makes use of the Roman Baptismal Creed (Apostolicum), but evidently ” only the Trinitarian formula stood to him as a formula, and we may even say that to him the notion of regula

94. Chap. xxi. 21a Chap. xxx. near the beginning.

95. 219 All these phrases are from chap. xxxi. °22 Chap. xxvii. 221 Cf. Bull, iii. 17, E. T. pp. 541 sq., and see Nosgen, p. 26, note 2. Novatian is treated by Bull, especially pp. 131, 297, 479, 528, 582, 597, 607, E.T. The best that can be said for him is there said.

96. 222 Speaking of the Logos doctrine, Prof. L. L. Paine says truly: “In this view the subordination element is vital, and it became the governing note of the whole Logos-school” (” Evolution of Trinitarianism,” p. 31). Where Prof. Paine is wrong is in not perceiving how deeply this subordinationism was contrary to the fundamentals of the Christian faith: and by this failure he is led to do grave injustice alike to Athanasianism -in which he discerns more subordinationism than really existed in it - and to Augustinianism - whose reproach to him is that it is determined to be rid of subordinationism. Prof. Paine, in other words, misconceives both the historical development and. its meaning. 228 Bull, Defensio Fidei Nicaenre,” Conclusion, ad init., E. T. p. 655.

97. 224 On the great influeJ’.!.Ce of Novatian’s treatise see Bethune-Baker, (” An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine,” p. 191. 225 Chap. vi. or §§ 26-27 (” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,” Second Series, iv. pp. 167-168).

98. 226 Sitzungsberichte der koniglich preussischen .Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1895, ii. p. 563. 227 Callistus, Novatian, Dionysius. 228 ” Historia,” III. vii. 229 Cf. Harnack, iv. pp. 5, 11 and 50,121; and Sitzungsberichte der koniglich preussischen .Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1895, ii. p. 564, especially the former references where the matter is argued. See also Gams, “Kirchengeschichte von Spanien,” II. i. p. 140. When Socrates (III. vii.) tells us that on Hosius’ visit to Alexandria in 324 r,)v 1r,pl ovalas nl v1ronria,ws ..-~-rohrra, l:°‘1T’fO-&P, we are tempted to see not only a priming of the Alexandrians

99. 2so ” History of the Arians,” chap. 42. 2s1 Bethune-Baker, ” The Meaning of Homoousios in the ’ Constantinopolitan’ Creed,” in “Texts and Studies,” J. A. Robinson, ed., vii. 1, p. 11, note: ” That Hosius - for many years previously the most influential bishop in the West, the intimate friend and trusted adviser in ecclesiastical matters of Constantine - was the real ’ draftsman ’ of the Creed seems certain.” Loofs, in Herzog, “Realencykloplidie fi.ir protestantische Theologie und Kirche,8 ” viii. p. 378: “That Hosius, the confidant of the emperor, was of great influence here [at the Synod of Nice] lay in the nature of the circumstances, … and the statement of Athanasius that ‘he set forth ( i~WETo) the faith at Nice’ (” History of the Arians,” § 42), although not exact in its affirmation - for the Nicrenum was framed by amendments out of a draft offered by Eusebius of Cresarea - nevertheless is in essence true.” Zahn, ” Marcellus von Ancyra,” p. 23: ” Hosius from the beginning of the Arian controversies exerted the most decisive influence on the course of external events, i.e., on the Emperor. It was due to him that Constantine came forward so positively for the l>µoouo-,os, that Eusebius could speak as if the Emperor were the actual originator of that term. Hosius is said to have raised the question concerning ouo-la. and inr6,na.o-,s on the occasion of his visit to Alexandria, and Athanasius makes his enemies declare of him, ‘It was he that set forth the faith at Nice’ (” History of the Arians,” § 42) - by which he assigns him not merely a share in the development of the Nicene faith, as Hefele supposes (i. p. 280), but a controlling influence in the debates on the faith which took place at Nice, and that means nothing less than in the choice of the formula.” Zahn adds that Socrates’ statement of what happened in Alexandria finds support in the independent report of Philostorgius (i. 7), that Alexander had come to an understanding with Hosius as to the oµoovo-ios before the Synod. It seems clear, in any event, that antiquity thought of Hosius as bearing the prime responsibility for the homoousios in the Nicene Creed. 232 Loofs, in Herzog, ” Realencyklopiidie fiir protestantische Theologie und Kirche,3 ” ii. p. 15, line 16: “The Nicrenum became what it is under Western

100. 233 The same is true also of the Montanists - to whom the function was committed of emphasizing the doctrine of the Spirit in the Church- if we can judge by the example and trust the testimony of Tertullian. Harnack (E. T. iv. pp. 108 sq.) is right in assigning to them an important place in the development of the doctrine of the Spirit : he is wrong in the specific function assigned them in this development. If we can judge by the example of Tertullian, the

101. 234 Harnack CE. T. iv. p. 110), speaking of the development of the doctrine of the Spirit, although he recognizes that in his doctrine of the pre-temporal processio of the Spirit Origen is in advance of Tertullian, for Tertullian does not teach this explicitly (see above, pp. 70—71), yet remarks that “by the ‘unius substantioo,’ which he regards as true of the Spirit also, Tertullian comes nearer the views which finally prevailed in the Fourth Century.”

102. 285 “Against Praxeas,” chaps. xiv.-xvi.

103. 2ss ” De Trinitate,” ii. 237 There is, of course, a stream of better teaching running through the very fathers who denied ” invisibility ” to the prolate Logos in the interests of the Logos speculation. The passage in Ignatius, “Ad Ephes.” (end of chap. iii.) sets the norm of this better mode of speech. See also Melito, Frag., § 13 (Otto, “Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum,” ix. p. 419), and Tertullian himself who, despite his elaborate distinction of ” the Father from the Son by this characteristic, that the Son is visible, the Father invisible,” nevertheless, ” in the very same book and chapter” - viz., the fourteenth chapter of the tract “Against Praxeas,” remarks “that the Son also, considered in Himself, is invisible” (Bull, IV. iii. 9, E.T. pp. 609 sq.). But the doctrine of the like invisibility of the Son with the Father came to its rights only with Augustine. On the whole subject of the patristic ideas of the ” visibility ” of the Logos and the ” invisibility ” of God as such, the discussions - which certainly involve no little special pleading - of Bull, Book iv. chap. iii., are well worth consulting. To the general student of doctrine these discussions of Bull have an additional interest, inasmuch as - although it doubtless would have shocked him to have had it suggested to him - his defense of the subordinationism of the fathers on the ground that they conceived it due not to any difference between the Father and Son in essence or attributes but to an “economy,” is equivalent to attributing to the fathers and adopting for himself the essential elements of what is known in the history of doctrine as the ” Covenant Theology ” - a theology that was being taught by many Reformed theologians in Bull’s day. When Bull says of the fathers (IV. iii. 12, E. T. ii. p. 615): “They by no means meant to deny that the Son of God, equally with the Father, is in His own nature immeasurable and invisible; but merely intimated this, that all such appearances of God, and also the incarnation itself, had reference to the economy which the Son of God undertook ” - he has only in other words enunciated the Covenant idea. When he adds: “Which economy is by no means suited to the Father, inasmuch as He had not His origin from any beginning, and is indebted for His authorship to none” - apart from his unwonted phraseology, he does not necessarily go beyond the Covenant theologians, who were quick to contend that the terms of ” the Covenant ” are themselves grounded in the intrinsic relations of the three Persons. These, they taught, are such as made it proper and fit that each person should assume the precise functions He did assume - as, in a word, made it alone suitable that it should be the Son and Spirit who should be “sent” and not the Father, and the like. The alternatives, in a word, would appear to be either an Arianizing subordinationism or the Covenant theology: all other constructions are half views and inherently unstable.

104. 288 Even Dorner, who does not perceive that Tertullian had in principle separated the Divine Persons as such from the world-process, yet admits that in his “conception of the Three Persons as inwardly connected (as consertos, cohrerentes)” Tertullian’s view “includes a speculative element, to which the later doctrine of the Church was long in attaining ” (” Doctrine of the Person of Christ,” Div. I. vol. ii. pp. 76—77).

105. 239 Cf. the very judicious remarks of Dorner (” Doctrine of the Person of Christ,” Div. I. vol. ii. pp. 327 sq.) on the survivals in the Nicene construction; see also pp. 184, 203—204, 491. °24 Cf. Hagemann, p. 134: “When the origin of the Son out of the essence of God is placed in immediate connection with the creation of the world, there is needed in the way of great logical acuteness only a single unimportant step to set the Son in the sense of an Arius alongside of the world, as creature and Creator. No doubt Origen had guarded against this by ascribing not to the Son only but to the world as well an eternal origin: but the latter necessarily fell away as an open contradiction to the Church, and so nothing remained except either to join the Son so essentially with the Father that now the idea of His deity would come to its full rights and He should be recognized as in His Being wholly independent of the origin of the world, by which there would necessarily be raised again the problem of the unity of essence of the Father and the Son; or else so to connect Him with the temporal origin of the world that He should fall thereby out of the circle of the divine life and be conceived as a kind of created God in Plato’s sense, as an Under-God by the side of or rather beneath the Father, who would embrace the whole divine world in Himself, the one God over all. Already in the case of Dionysius of Alexandria we have noted in theory a tendency to this latter development, even though his faith-consciousness remained free from this evil. In the case of Arius the theory, however, obtained a deci5ive victory over the faith…” In this passage, we conceive, the essential logical relations of Orthodoxy and Arianism to their common basis in the Logos speculation are lucidly set forth. Cf. Dorner, as cited, pp. 267-280, and pp. 454-455.

106. 241 Cf. Dorner, as cited, p. 328.