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| The Catholic Rule of Faith Expounded in Some of Its Points. Especially in the Unconfused Distinction of the Several Persons of the Blessed Trinity.
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Chapter IX.—The
Catholic Rule of Faith Expounded in Some of Its Points.
Especially in the Unconfused Distinction of the Several Persons of the
Blessed Trinity.
Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith
which I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the
Spirit are inseparable from each other, and so will you know in what
sense this is said. Now, observe, my assertion is that the Father is
one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that They are distinct
from Each Other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every
uneducated as well as every perversely disposed person, as if it
predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among
the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. I am, moreover, obliged to say
this, when (extolling the Monarchy at the expense of the
Economy) they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and
Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from
the Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is
different, but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as
the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their
being.7861
| 7861
“Modulo,” in the sense of dispensation or economy.
See Oehler and Rigault. on The Apology, c. xxi. | For the Father is
the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole,7862
| 7862 “In his
representation of the distinction (of the Persons of the Blessed
Trinity), Tertullian sometimes uses expressions which in aftertimes,
when controversy had introduced greater precision of language, were
studiously avoided by the orthodox. Thus he calls the Father the whole
substance, the Son a derivation from or portion of the whole.”
(Bp. Kaye, On Tertullian, p. 505). After Arius, the
language of theology received greater precision; but as it is, there is
no doubt of the orthodoxy of Tertullian’s doctrine, since he so
firmly and ably teaches the Son’s consubstantiality with
the Father—equal to Him and inseparable from him. [In other
words, Tertullian could not employ a technical phraseology afterwards
adopted to give precision to the same orthodox ideas.] | as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father
is greater than I.”7863
In the Psalm His
inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the
angels.”7864
Thus the Father is
distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as He who
begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too, who sends is
one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is one,
and He through whom the thing is made is another. Happily the Lord
Himself employs this expression of the person of the Paraclete, so as
to signify not a division or severance, but a disposition (of mutual
relations in the Godhead); for He says, “I will pray the Father,
and He shall send you another Comforter…even the Spirit of
truth,”7865
thus making the
Paraclete distinct from Himself, even as we say that the Son is also
distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the
Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of
the order observed in the Economy. Besides, does not the very
fact that they have the distinct names of Father and Son
amount to a declaration that they are distinct in personality?7866
For, of course, all things will be what
their names represent them to be; and what they are and ever will be,
that will they be called; and the distinction indicated by the names
does not at all admit of any confusion, because there is none in the
things which they designate. “Yes is yes, and no is no; for what
is more than these, cometh of evil.”7867
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