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| The Son by Being Designated Word and Wisdom, (According to the Imperfection of Human Thought and Language) Liable to Be Deemed a Mere Attribute. He is Shown to Be a Personal Being.
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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 Attribute. He is Shown to Be a Personal Being.
Then, therefore, does the Word also Himself assume
His own form and glorious garb,7823
His own
sound and vocal utterance, when God says, “Let there be
light.”7824
This is the perfect
nativity of the Word, when He proceeds forth from
God—formed7825
| 7825 Conditus. [See
Theophilus To Autolycus, cap. x. note 1, p. 98, Vol. II. of this
series. Also Ibid. p. 103, note 5. On the whole subject, Bp.
Bull, Defensio Fid. Nicænæ. Vol. V. pp.
585–592.] | by Him first to
devise and think out all things under the name of
Wisdom—“The Lord created or formed7826
me as the beginning of His
ways;”7827
then afterward
begotten, to carry all into effect—“When He prepared
the heaven, I was present with Him.”7828
Thus does He make Him equal to Him: for by proceeding from Himself He
became His first-begotten Son, because begotten before all
things;7829
and His
only-begotten also, because alone begotten of God, in a way peculiar to
Himself, from the womb of His own heart—even as the Father
Himself testifies: “My heart,” says He, “hath emitted
my most excellent Word.”7830
| 7830 Ps. xlv. 1. See this reading, and its
application, fully discussed in our note 5, p. 66, of the
Anti-Marcion, Edin. | The Father
took pleasure evermore in Him, who equally rejoiced with a reciprocal
gladness in the Father’s presence: “Thou art my Son,
to-day have I begotten Thee;”7831
even before
the morning star did I beget Thee. 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.”7832
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;”7833
as, again, in
another place (it is said), “By His word were the heavens
established, and all the powers thereof by His Spirit”7834
—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 God7835
which “strengthened the heavens;”7836
“by which all things were made,”7837
“and without which nothing was made.”7838
Nor need we dwell any longer on this point,
as if it were not the very Word Himself, who is spoken of under the
name both of Wisdom and of Reason, and of the entire Divine Soul and
Spirit. He became also the Son of God, and was begotten when He
proceeded forth from Him. Do you then, (you ask,) grant that the
Word is a certain substance, constructed by the Spirit and the
communication of Wisdom? Certainly I do. But you will not allow Him to
be really a substantive being, by having a substance of His own; in
such a way that He may be regarded as an objective thing and a person,
and so be able (as being constituted second to God the Father,)
to make two, the Father and the Son, God and the Word. For you will
say, what is a word, but a voice and sound of the mouth, and (as the
grammarians teach) air when struck against,7839
intelligible to the ear, but for the rest a sort of void, empty, and
incorporeal thing. I, on the contrary, contend that nothing empty and
void could have come forth from God, seeing that it is not put forth
from that which is empty and void; nor could that possibly be devoid of
substance which has proceeded from so great a substance, and has
produced such mighty substances: for all things which were made through
Him, He Himself (personally) made. How could it be, that He Himself is
nothing, without whom nothing was made? How could He who is empty have
made things which are solid, and He who is void have made things which
are full, and He who is incorporeal have made things which have body?
For although a thing may sometimes be made different from him by whom
it is made, yet nothing can be made by that which is a void and empty
thing. Is that Word of God, then, a void and empty thing, which is
called the Son, who Himself is designated God? “The Word was with
God, and the Word was God.”7840
It is written,
“Thou shalt not take God’s name in vain.”7841
This for certain is He “who, being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
God.”7842
In what form of
God? Of course he means in some form, not in none. For who will deny
that God is a body, although “God is a Spirit?”7843
For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own
kind, in its own form.7844
| 7844 This doctrine of the
soul’s corporeality in a certain sense is treated by Tertullian
in his De Resurr. Carn. xvii., and De Anima v. By
Tertullian, spirit and soul were considered identical.
See our Anti-Marcion, p. 451, note 4, Edin. | Now, even if
invisible things, whatsoever they be, have both their substance and
their form in God, whereby they are visible to God alone, how much more
shall that which has been sent forth from His substance not be without
substance! Whatever, therefore, was the substance of the Word
that I designate a Person, I claim for it the name of Son; and
while I recognize the Son, I assert His distinction as second to the
Father.7845
| 7845 [On Tertullian’s
orthodoxy, here, see Kaye, p. 502.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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