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 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 Ascension, Session at the Father’s Right Hand, and Mission of the Holy Ghost.

However, if you persist in pushing your views further, I shall find means of answering you with greater stringency, and of meeting you with the exclamation of the Lord Himself, so as to challenge you with the question, What is your inquiry and reasoning about that?  You have Him exclaiming in the midst of His passion: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”419    Matt. xxvii. 46. Either, then, the Son suffered, being “forsaken” by the Father, and the Father consequently suffered nothing, inasmuch as He forsook the Son; or else, if it was the Father who suffered, then to what God was it that He addressed His cry?  But this was the voice of flesh and soul, that is to say, of man—not of the Word and Spirit, that is to say, not of God; and it was uttered so as to prove the impassibility of God, who “forsook” His Son, so far as He handed over His human substance to the suffering of death.  This verity the apostle also perceived, when he writes to this effect: “If the Father spared not His own Son.”420    Rom. viii. 32. This did Isaiah before him likewise perceive, when he declared: “And the Lord hath delivered Him up for our offences.”421    This is the sense rather than the words of Isa. liii. 5, 6. In this manner He “forsook” Him, in not sparing Him; “forsook” Him, in delivering Him up. In all other respects the Father did not forsake the Son, for it was into His Father’s hands that the Son commended His spirit.422    Luke xxiii. 46. Indeed, after so commending it, He instantly died; and as the Spirit423    i.e., the divine nature. remained with the flesh, the flesh cannot undergo the full extent of death, i.e., in corruption and decay. For the Son, therefore, to die, amounted to His being forsaken by the Father. The Son, then, both dies and rises again, according to the Scriptures.424    1 Cor. xv. 3, 4. It is the Son, too, who ascends to the heights of heaven,425    John iii. 13. and also descends to the inner parts of the earth.426    Eph. iv. 9. “He sitteth at the Father’s right hand”427    Mark xvi. 19; Rev. iii. 21.—not the Father at His own. He is seen by Stephen, at his martyrdom by stoning, still sitting at the right hand of God428    Acts vii. 55. where He will continue to sit, until the Father shall make His enemies His footstool.429    Ps. cx. 1. He will come again on the clouds of heaven, just as He appeared when He ascended into heaven.430    Acts i. 11; Luke xxi. 37. Meanwhile He has received from the Father the promised gift, and has shed it forth, even the Holy Spirit—the Third Name in the Godhead, and the Third Degree of the Divine Majesty; the Declarer of the One Monarchy of God, but at the same time the Interpreter of the Economy, to every one who hears and receives the words of the new prophecy;431    Tertullian was now a [pronounced] Montanist. and “the Leader into all truth,”432    John xvi. 13. such as is in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, according to the mystery of the doctrine of Christ.

CAPUT XXX.

Alioquin si ultra pergas , potero tibi durius respondere, et te cum ipsius Domini pronuntiatione committere, uti dicam: Quid de isto quaeris? Habes ipsum exclamantem in passione: Deus, meus, Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti? Ergo aut Filius patiebatur a Patre derelictus, et Pater passus non est, qui Filium dereliquit; aut si Pater erat qui patiebatur, ad quem Deum exclamabat? Sed haec vox carnis et 0195B animae, id est hominis, non Sermonis, nec spiritus, id est non Dei, propterea emissa est, ut impassibilem Deum ostenderet, qui sic Filium dereliquit, dum hominem ejus tradidit in mortem. Hoc et Apostolus sensit, scribens (Rom., VIII, 32): Si Pater Filio non pepercit. Hoc et Esaias (Is., LIII, 6) prior pronuntiavit: Et Dominus eum tradidit pro delictis nostris. Sic reliquit, dum non parcit; sic reliquit, dum tradit . Caeterum, non reliquit Pater Filium, in cujus manibus Filius spiritum suum posuit. Denique posuit, et statim obiit: Spiritu enim manente in carne, caro omnino mori non potest. Ita, relinqui a Patre, mori fuit Filio. Filius igitur et moritur (I Cor., XV, 3 et seq.) et resuscitatur a Patre, secundum Scripturas. Filius ascendit in superiora coelorum, qui et descendit 0195Cin interioraterrae: hic sedet ad dexteram Patris, non Pater ad suam. Hunc videt Stephanus cum lapidatur , adhuc stantem ad dexteram Dei, ut 0196A exinde sessurum, donec (Ps. CIX, 2) ponat illi Pater omnes inimicos sub pedibus suis. Hic et venturus est rursus super nubes (I Cor., XV) coeli, talis qualis et ascendit. Hic interim acceptum a Patre munus effudit, Spiritum Sanctum, tertium nomen divinitatis, et tertium gradum majestatis , unius praedicatorem monarchiae, sed et oeconomiae interpretatorem, si quis sermones novae prophetiae ejus admiserit, et deductorem omnis veritatis, quae est in Patre et Filio et Spiritu Sancto, secundum christianum sacramentum.