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 XVIII.—The Designation of the One God in the Prophetic Scriptures. Intended as a Protest Against Heathen Idolatry, It Does Not Preclude the Correlative Idea of the Son of God. The Son is in the Father.

But what hinders them from readily perceiving this community of the Father’s titles in the Son, is the statement of Scripture, whenever it determines God to be but One; as if the selfsame Scripture had not also set forth Two both as God and Lord, as we have shown above.218    See above ch. xiii. p. 607. Their argument is: Since we find Two and One, therefore Both are One and the Same, both Father and Son.  Now the Scripture is not in danger of requiring the aid of any one’s argument, lest it should seem to be self-contradictory. It has a method of its own, both when it sets forth one only God, and also when it shows that there are Two, Father and Son; and is consistent with itself. It is clear that the Son is mentioned by it.  For, without any detriment to the Son, it is quite possible for it to have rightly determined that God is only One, to whom the Son belongs; since He who has a Son ceases not on that account to exist,—Himself being One only, that is, on His own account, whenever He is named without the Son. And He is named without the Son whensoever He is defined as the principle (of Deity) in the character of “its first Person,” which had to be mentioned before the name of the Son; because it is the Father who is acknowledged in the first place, and after the Father the Son is named. Therefore “there is one God,” the Father, “and without Him there is none else.”219    Isa. xlv. 5. And when He Himself makes this declaration, He denies not the Son, but says that there is no other God; and the Son is not different from the Father. Indeed, if you only look carefully at the contexts which follow such statements as this, you will find that they nearly always have distinct reference to the makers of idols and the worshippers thereof, with a view to the multitude of false gods being expelled by the unity of the Godhead, which nevertheless has a Son; and inasmuch as this Son is undivided and inseparable from the Father, so is He to be reckoned as being in the Father, even when He is not named. The fact is, if He had named Him expressly, He would have separated Him, saying in so many words: “Beside me there is none else, except my Son.” In short He would have made His Son actually another, after excepting Him from others.  Suppose the sun to say, “I am the Sun, and there is none other besides me, except my ray,” would you not have remarked how useless was such a statement, as if the ray were not itself reckoned in the sun? He says, then, that there is no God besides Himself in respect of the idolatry both of the Gentiles as well as of Israel; nay, even on account of our heretics also, who fabricate idols with their words, just as the heathen do with their hands; that is to say, they make another God and another Christ. When, therefore, He attested His own unity, the Father took care of the Son’s interests, that Christ should not be supposed to have come from another God, but from Him who had already said, “I am God and there is none other beside me,”220    Isa. xlv. 5, 18; xliv. 6. who shows us that He is the only God, but in company with His Son, with whom “He stretcheth out the heavens alone.”221    Isa. xliv. 24.

CAPUT XVIII.

Sed hanc societatem nominum paternorum in Filio ne facile perspiciant, perturbat illos Scriptura, si quando unicum Deum statuit; quasi non eadem et deos et dominos duos proposuerit, ut supra ostendimus. Ergo quia duos et cum, inquiunt, invenimus, ideo ambo unus atque idem, et Filius et Pater. Porro, non periclitatur Scriptura, ut illi de tua argumentatione succurras, ne sibi contraria videatur. Habet rationem, et cum unicum Deum statuit, et cum duos Patrem et Filium ostendit; et sufficit sibi. Filium nominari ab ea constat. Salvo enim Filio recte unicum Deum potest determinasse, cujus est Filius. Non enim desinit esse qui habet Filium ipse unicus, 0177B suo scilicet nomine, quotiens sine Filio nominatur; sine Filio autem nominatur, cum principaliter determinatur ut prima persona, quae ante Filii nomen erat proponenda; quia Pater ante cognoscitur, et post Patrem Filius nominatur. Igitur unus Deus Pater, et alius absque eo non est. Quod ipse inferens , non Filium negat, sed alium Deum: caeterum alius a Patre Filius non est . Denique, inspice sequentia hujusmodi pronuntiationum, et invenies fere ad idolorum factitatores atque cultores definitionem earum pertinere; ut multitudinem falsorum deorum unio divinitatis expellat, habens tamen Filium quanto individuum et inseparatum a Patre, tanto in Patre reputandum, etsi non nominatum. Atquin si nominasset illum, separasset, ita dicens, «Alius praeter me non est, nisi 0177C Filius meus.» Alium enim etiam Filium fecisset, quem de aliis excepiset. Puta solem dicere: «Ego sol, et alius praeter me non est, nisi radius meus,» nonne denotasses vanitatem , quasi non et radius in sole deputetur? Itaque praeter semetipsum non esse alium Deum, hoc propter idololatriam tam nationum quam Israelis, etiam propter haereticos, qui, sicut nationes manibus, ita et ipsi verbis idola fabricantur, id est, alium Deum, et alium Christum. Igitur et cum se unum pronuntiabat, Filio Pater procurabat, ne ab alio Deo Christus venisse credatur, sed ab illo qui praedixerat: Ego Deus, et alius absque me non est; qui se unicum, sed cum Filio ostendit, cum quo coelum solus extendit.