Against Praxeas.

 Chapter I.—Satan’s Wiles Against the Truth. How They Take the Form of the Praxean Heresy. Account of the Publication of This Heresy.

 Chapter II.—The Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity and Unity, Sometimes Called the Divine Economy, or Dispensation of the Personal Relations of the Godh

 Chapter III.—Sundry Popular Fears and Prejudices. The Doctrine of the Trinity in Unity Rescued from These Misapprehensions.

 Chapter IV.—The Unity of the Godhead and the Supremacy and Sole Government of the Divine Being. The Monarchy Not at All Impaired by the Catholic Doctr

 Chapter V.—The Evolution of the Son or Word of God from the Father by a Divine Procession. Illustrated by the Operation of the Human Thought and Consc

 Chapter VI.—The Word of God is Also the Wisdom of God. The Going Forth of Wisdom to Create the Universe, According to the Divine Plan.

 Chapter VII.—The Son by Being Designated Word and Wisdom, (According to the Imperfection of Human Thought and Language) Liable to Be Deemed a Mere Att

 Chapter VIII.—Though the Son or Word of God Emanates from the Father, He is Not, Like the Emanations of Valentinus, Separable from the Father.  Nor is

 Chapter IX.—The Catholic Rule of Faith Expounded in Some of Its Points.  Especially in the Unconfused Distinction of the Several Persons of the Blesse

 Chapter X.—The Very Names of Father and Son Prove the Personal Distinction of the Two. They Cannot Possibly Be Identical, Nor is Their Identity Necess

 Chapter XI.—The Identity of the Father and the Son, as Praxeas Held It, Shown to Be Full of Perplexity and Absurdity. Many Scriptures Quoted in Proof

 Chapter XII.—Other Quotations from Holy Scripture Adduced in Proof of the Plurality of Persons in the Godhead.

 Chapter XIII.—The Force of Sundry Passages of Scripture Illustrated in Relation to the Plurality of Persons and Unity of Substance. There is No Polyth

 Chapter XIV.—The Natural Invisibility of the Father, and the Visibility of the Son Witnessed in Many Passages of the Old Testament. Arguments of Their

 Chapter XV.—New Testament Passages Quoted. They Attest the Same Truth of the Son’s Visibility Contrasted with the Father’s Invisibility.

 Chapter XVI.—Early Manifestations of the Son of God, as Recorded in the Old Testament Rehearsals of His Subsequent Incarnation.

 Chapter XVII.—Sundry August Titles, Descriptive of Deity, Applied to the Son, Not, as Praxeas Would Have It, Only to the Father.

 Chapter XVIII.—The Designation of the One God in the Prophetic Scriptures. Intended as a Protest Against Heathen Idolatry, It Does Not Preclude the Co

 Chapter XIX.—The Son in Union with the Father in the Creation of All Things. This Union of the Two in Co-Operation is Not Opposed to the True Unity of

 Chapter XX.—The Scriptures Relied on by Praxeas to Support His Heresy But Few. They are Mentioned by Tertullian.

 Chapter XXI.—In This and the Four Following Chapters It is Shewn, by a Minute Analysis of St. John’s Gospel, that the Father and Son are Constantly Sp

 Chapter XXII.—Sundry Passages of St. John Quoted, to Show the Distinction Between the Father and the Son. Even Praxeas’ Classic Text—I and My Father a

 Chapter XXIII.—More Passages from the Same Gospel in Proof of the Same Portion of the Catholic Faith. Praxeas’ Taunt of Worshipping Two Gods Repudiate

 Chapter XXIV.—On St. Philip’s Conversation with Christ. He that Hath Seen Me, Hath Seen the Father. This Text Explained in an Anti-Praxean Sense.

 Chapter XXV.—The Paraclete, or Holy Ghost. He is Distinct from the Father and the Son as to Their Personal Existence. One and Inseparable from Them as

 Chapter XXVI.—A Brief Reference to the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. Their Agreement with St. John, in Respect to the Distinct Personality of t

 Chapter XXVII.—The Distinction of the Father and the Son, Thus Established, He Now Proves the Distinction of the Two Natures, Which Were, Without Conf

 Chapter XXVIII.—Christ Not the Father, as Praxeas Said. The Inconsistency of This Opinion, No Less Than Its Absurdity, Exposed. The True Doctrine of J

 Chapter XXIX.—It Was Christ that Died.  The Father is Incapable of Suffering Either Solely or with Another. Blasphemous Conclusions Spring from Praxea

 Chapter XXX.—How the Son Was Forsaken by the Father Upon the Cross. The True Meaning Thereof Fatal to Praxeas. So Too, the Resurrection of Christ, His

 Chapter XXXI.—Retrograde Character of the Heresy of Praxeas. The Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity Constitutes the Great Difference Between Judaism and

Chapter I.—Satan’s Wiles Against the Truth. How They Take the Form of the Praxean Heresy. Account of the Publication of This Heresy.

In various ways has the devil rivalled and resisted the truth.  Sometimes his aim has been to destroy the truth by defending it. He maintains that there is one only Lord, the Almighty Creator of the world, in order that out of this doctrine of the unity he may fabricate a heresy. He says that the Father Himself came down into the Virgin, was Himself born of her, Himself suffered, indeed was Himself Jesus Christ. Here the old serpent has fallen out with himself, since, when he tempted Christ after John’s baptism, he approached Him as “the Son of God;” surely intimating that God had a Son, even on the testimony of the very Scriptures, out of which he was at the moment forging his temptation: “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”1    Matt. iv. 3. Again:  “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence;2    Ver. 6. for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee”—referring no doubt, to the Father—“and in their hands they shall bear thee up, that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone.”3    Ps. xci. 11. Or perhaps, after all, he was only reproaching the Gospels with a lie, saying in fact: “Away with Matthew; away with Luke! Why heed their words? In spite of them, I declare that it was God Himself that I approached; it was the Almighty Himself that I tempted face to face; and it was for no other purpose than to tempt Him that I approached Him. If, on the contrary, it had been only the Son of God, most likely I should never have condescended to deal with Him.” However, he is himself a liar from the beginning,4    John viii. 44. and whatever man he instigates in his own way; as, for instance, Praxeas. For he was the first to import into Rome from Asia this kind of heretical pravity, a man in other respects of restless disposition, and above all inflated with the pride of confessorship simply and solely because he had to bear for a short time the annoyance of a prison; on which occasion, even “if he had given his body to be burned, it would have profited him nothing,” not having the love of God,5    1 Cor. xiii. 3. whose very gifts he has resisted and destroyed.  For after the Bishop of Rome6    Probably Victor. [Elucidation II.] had acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, and, in consequence of the acknowledgment, had bestowed his peace7    Had admitted them to communion. on the churches of Asia and Phrygia, he, by importunately urging false accusations against the prophets themselves and their churches, and insisting on the authority of the bishop’s predecessors in the see, compelled him to recall the pacific letter which he had issued, as well as to desist from his purpose of acknowledging the said gifts. By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome:  he drove away prophecy, and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father.  Praxeas’ tares had been moreover sown, and had produced their fruit here also,8    “The connection renders it very probable that the hic quoque of this sentence forms an antithesis to Rome, mentioned before, and that Tertullian expresses himself as if he had written from the very spot where these things had transpired. Hence we are led to conclude that it was Carthage.”—Neander, Antignostikus, ii. 519, note 2, Bohn. while many were asleep in their simplicity of doctrine; but these tares actually seemed to have been plucked up, having been discovered and exposed by him whose agency God was pleased to employ.  Indeed, Praxeas had deliberately resumed his old (true) faith, teaching it after his renunciation of error; and there is his own handwriting in evidence remaining among the carnally-minded,9    On the designation Psychici, see our Anti-Marcion, p. 263, note 5, Edin. in whose society the transaction then took place; afterwards nothing was heard of him. We indeed, on our part, subsequently withdrew from the carnally-minded on our acknowledgment and maintenance of the Paraclete.10    [This statement may only denote a withdrawal from the communion of the Bishop of Rome, like that of Cyprian afterwards. That prelate had stultified himself and broken faith with Tertullian; but, it does not, necessarily, as Bp. Bull too easily concludes, define his ultimate separation from his own bishop and the North-African church.] But the tares of Praxeas had then everywhere shaken out their seed, which having lain hid for some while, with its vitality concealed under a mask, has now broken out with fresh life. But again shall it be rooted up, if the Lord will, even now; but if not now, in the day when all bundles of tares shall be gathered together, and along with every other stumbling-block shall be burnt up with unquenchable fire.11    Matt. xiii. 30.

CAPUT PRIMUM.

Varie diabolus aemulatus est veritatem. Affectavit illam aliquando defendendo concutere. Unicum Dominum vindicat omnipotentem mundi conditorem, ut et de unico haeresim faciat. Ipsum dicit Patrem descendisse in Virginem , ipsum ex ea natum, ipsum passum, denique ipsum esse Jesum Christum. Excidit sibi coluber, quia Jesum Christum post baptisma Joannis tentans, ut Filium Dei aggressus est; 0155A certus filium Deum habere, vel ex ipsis Scripturis de quibus tunc tentationem struebat: Si tu es filius Dei, dic ut lapides isti panes fiant; item: Si tu es filius Dei, dejice te hinc: scriptum est enim, quod mandavitangelis suis super te (utique Pater) ut te manibus suis tollant, necubi ad lapidem pedem tuum offendas. (Matth. IV, 3-6; Ps. XC, 11). Aut numquid mendacium Evangeliis exprobravit , dicens: «Viderit Matthaeus et Lucas: caeterum, ego ad ipsum Deum accessi, ipsum omnipotentem cominus tentavi. Ideo et accessi, ideo et tentavi. Caeterum, si filius Dei esset, nunquam illum fortasse dignarer?» Sed 0155B enim ipse potius a primordio mendax est (I Joan. III, 8); et si quem hominem de suo subornaverit , ut Praxean. Nam iste primus ex Asia hoc genus perversitatis intulit Romae; homo et alias inquietus, insuper de jactatione martyrii inflatus, ob solum et simplex et breve carceris taedium; quando et si corpus suum tradidisset exurendum, nihil profecisset, dilectionem Dei non habens (I Cor., XIII, 3), cujus charismata quoque expugnavit. Nam idem tunc episcopum romanum, agnoscentem jam prophetias Montani, Priscae, Maximillae, et ex ea agnitione pacem Ecclesiis Asiae et Phrygiae inferentem, falsa de ipsis prophetis et ecclesiis eorum asseverando, et praecessorum ejus auctoritates defendendo, coegit et litteras pacis revocare jam emissas, et a proposito 0156A recipiendorum charismatum concessare. Ita duo negotia diaboli Praxeas Romae procuravit, prophetiam expulit, et haeresim intulit; Paracletum fugavit, et Patrem crucifixit. Fructicaverantavenae praxeanae, hic quoque superseminatae, dormientibus multis (Matth., XIII, 26) in simplicitate doctrinae; traductae dehinc per quem Deus voluit, etiam evulsae videbantur. Denique caverat pristinum doctor de emendatione sua; et manet chirographum apud Psychicos , apud quos tunc gesta res est, exinde silentium. Et nos quidem postea agnitio Paracleti, atque defensio, disjunxit a Psychicis. Avenae vero 0156B illae utique tunc semen excusserant. Ita aliquamdiu per hypocrisin subdola vivacitate latitavit, et nunc denuo erupit. Sed et denuo eradicabitur, si voluerit Dominus, in isto commeatu; si quo minus, die suo colligentur omnes adulteraefruges, et cum caeteris scandalis igni inextinguibili cremabuntur (ibid.).