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In
my discussion of Arius and his much-maligned Christology,
I noted that the presbyter was not attempting
to introduce a new Christological model,
but merely defending one which had already existed
before his time. This model is seen most clearly
in the work of men such as as Justin Martyr and
Tertullian.
Adversus Praxeus (which was quite possibly
written against Irenaeus, as Stuart G. Hall suggests)
contains a highly detailed precis of Tertullian's
own Subordinationist Christology. One might be
tempted to say that it contains many similiarities
with Arian Christology. In fact, it is virtually
identical.
From Chapter 4 of Against Praxeas:
Look to it then, that it be not you rather
who are destroying the Monarchy, when you overthrow
the arrangement and dispensation of it, which
has been constituted in just as many names as
it has pleased God to employ. 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 delivered up the kingdom
to God, even the Father; for He must reign till
He has put all enemies under His feet;'
following of course the words of the Psalm:
'Sit You on my right hand, until I make Your
enemies Your footstool.'
'When, however, all things shall be subdued
to Him, (with the exception of Him who did put
all things under Him,) then shall the Son also
Himself be subject to 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 committed
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 delivered 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 different
Beings.
"Two different Persons... two different Beings."
Now, if I
tried to suggest that the Father and the Son are
two different beings
as well as
being two different persons,
I would be told that I don't understand the
Trinity at all. But here we have Tertullian affirming
that the two are more
than just different persons - they are different
beings! (This despite his conflicting claims
that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit comprise one
God in three persons.)
Later (in Chapters 8), Tertullian presents a series
of analogies which reveal his understanding of the
ontological relationship between Father and Son;
the Father is the root, while the Son is the tree;
the Father is the fountain, while the Son is the
river; the Father is the Sun, while the Son is the
ray. This is how he tries to explain that "the Trinity,
flowing down from the Father through intertwined
and connected steps, does not at all disturb the
Monarchy, whilst it at the same time guards the
state of the Economy."
Just how he can say this after insisting that the
Father and Son are two entirely different beings,
is quite another matter. Trinitarians will doubtless
perform one of their famous logic-bending feats
in order to reconcile these contradictory declarations,
but those of us who understand that logic and reason
cannot be permitted to contradict themselves, know
better.
Tertullian elaborates in Chapter 5:
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 interpretations which guard them. There are
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 He existed before the creation of the
world, up to 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 Himself but Himself.
Yet not even then was He alone, for He had with
Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is
to say His own Reason.
[...]
Whatever you think there is a word, whatever you
conceive there is reason. You must needs speak
it in your mind, and while you are speaking you
admit speech as an interlocutor with you, involved
in which is this very reason whereby, while in
thought you are holding converse with your word,
you are producing thought by means of that converse
with your word. Thus, in a certain sense, the
word is a second with you. Now how much more
fully is all this 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.
The final paragraph is refreshingly direct. It certainly
contains nothing that I would disagree with. Indeed,
the Christadelphian interpretation of John
1:1-3 uses identical language, expressing
identical thoughts. The essential difference with
Tertullian's model, of course, is that he believes
the Son to have been literally created before all
things - just as the
Arians did.
Thus far, Tertullian presents God's Reason (in
the absence of His spoken Word), but no pre-existent
Christ. No literal personality of the Reason of
God, and certainly no literal personality of His
Word. Nothing "external to Himself." (Tertullian
views Christ as "external" to the Father; this is
Subordinationist language, and the Arians would
later take hold of it.) The only sense in which
God is "Not alone", is that which has immediate
reference to the presence of His Reason - and, as
Tertullian has already pointed out, human beings
are "Not alone" in exactly the same sense. There
is no duality of persons before the generation of
the Son, let alone a Triune Godhead.
Now Chapter 6, in which he affirms the literal
creation of the Son, by reference to
Proverbs 8:22
- a standard Arian proof text - using the very same
argument which Arius would later employ:
This power and disposition of the Divine Intelligence
is set forth also in the Scriptures under the
name of Sofia, 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
Person:
'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
distinction between them implied in the companionship
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 all things) which are beneath the sky, I
was by, arranging all things with Him; I was by,
in whom He delighted; and daily, too, did I rejoice
in His presence.'
Now, as soon as it pleased God to put forth into
their respective substances and forms the things
which He had planned and ordered within Himself,
in conjunction with His Wisdom's Reason and
Word, He first put forth the Word Himself, having
within 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 intelligence of God. This, however,
was still wanting to them, that they should also
be openly known, and kept permanently in their
proper forms and substances.
This is no mere figure of speech. We know from his
clear statements in the previous chapters, that
Tertullian believed the Son to have had a literal
beginning in time; a literal creation - before which
he did not exist, except as an
idea in the mind of God.
Next, in Chapter 7, Tertullian explains how the
Son came to be:
Then, therefore, does the Word also
Himself assume His own form and glorious garb,
sound and vocal utterance, when God says, “Let
there be light.” This is the perfect nativity
of the Word, when He proceeds forth from God,
formed by Him first to devise and think out,
and afterwards 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 begotten
of God, m a way peculiar to Himself, from the
womb of His own heart -- even as the Father Himself
testifies: 'My heart," says He, "has emitted
my most excellent Word.'
The father took pleasure evermore in Him, who
equally rejoiced with a reciprocal gladness in
the Father's presence: 'You art my Son,
today have I begotten You; even before
the morning star did I beget You.' 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 heavens 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.'"
Tertullian's generation of the Son definitely
has a beginning in time,
and his use of the Wisdom passages in the OT demonstrate
that he believed the Son to have been literally
created - just as the JWs believe today,
and just has Arius had done in the 3rd Century AD.
There is no "eternal Sonship" here, nor is there
an "eternal begetting" or an "eternal generation."
Let us summarise what we have learned of Tertullian's
Christology:
- The
Son has first existed only in the mind
of God, in the form of His thought.
- Later,
God speaks - then (and only then)
does Christ exist in a literal, personal way.
- The
Son owes his existence to God's decision
to speak His Word; he is formed by God.
- He
has a "nativity" - this is the point at which
he literally comes into being as a personal
entity.
- He
is later "begotten" - this is the point at which
he is born as Jesus Christ, in Bethlehem.
This is clearly Arianism by another name. Indeed,
it is the very Christology for which Arius himself
was criticised.
Anyone who tries to claim that Tertullian was a
100% orthodox Trinitarian (or even a semi-orthodox
Trinitarian) is either lying, misreading Tertullian,
or fooling himself. Tertullian was an Ontological
Subordinationist, and his precise use of Ontological
Subordinationist language (which he carefully explains
to his reader, every step of the way), proves this
beyond any shadow of a doubt. Yes, he was a pre-Arian
Arian.
In closing, I would like to present a lengthy citation
from Stuart G. Hall's celebrated and frequently
reprinted work, Doctrine
and Practice in the Early Church:
The term 'economy' (Gk oikonomia, Lat.
dispensatio) sums up Tertullian's idea. The
term needs care. Originally referring to household
administration or 'stewardship', it came
to be used in ancient theology to refer to God's
dispensations for creating and saving the world;
among the Greeks in particular 'the oikonomia
by itself often meant the saving work of Christ
in the flesh - what moderns often refer to broadly
as 'the incarnation.'
In modern theology 'economic trinitarianism'
is a doctrine of the Trinity in which God is three
in his works, but one in his being; it means that
to us he operates in a threefold way, but may
in himself be one and simple. It contrasts with
'immanent' or 'essential' trinitarianism,
where the being of God in himself has a threefold
quality. That is not what Tertullian, or any other
ancient writer means by oikonomia, though it can
be debated whether Justin, Irenaeus or Tertullian
is an economic trinitarian in the modern sense.
Justin probably is: in eternity the Father is
one, and his logos becomes another beside him
for and in creation. Irenaeus is not (though sometimes
said to be), because he repudiates the 'economic'
models used by Justin, even though he regards
the inner being of God as beyond our knowledge
and is not strictly an essentialist either. Origen
we shall find (p. 106) to be an essentialist:
God, his Son and his Spirit are co-eternal and
eternally distinct.
Tertullian uses the figure of the Word being put
forth at creation just as the apologists do: the
immanent reason (ration) of God is always with
him, and that already meant that God was not along,
but had as it were another beside himself even
before the creation of the world (Prax. 5); still
the 'complete birth of the Word' was when
he 'came forth from God' with the sound,
'Let there be light' (Prax. 7.) He is
perhaps an 'economic trinitarian' trying
to be an 'essentialist.'
Kelly and Grillmeir also argue (though far more
strongly than Hall does) that Tertullian (along
with Irenaeus and Hippolytus) was indeed an economic,
and that, consequently, his Christology was defective.
Wiley takes it a step further, observing that Tertullian's
reaction against Monarchianism led him dangerously
close to the opposite extreme (tritheism.) Tertullian
himself lamented that he was repeatedly accused
of preaching two or three gods, and we know that
he was certainly not alone in this regard.
Accusations of tritheism? Hmmmm. Not exactly what
we'd expect from a Christian community in which
the deity of Christ was accepted as the normative
belief, is it?
If the Christians of Tertullian's day were attacking
him for what they perceived to be tritheism, it
can scarcely be claimed that Trinitarianism was
taught by the apostles and accepted as "orthodoxy"
before the Council of Nicaea. |
