Against Praxeas 16
Summary: From the beginning it was the Son, not the Father, who acted in history, judged, appeared to Adam, Abraham, Moses, and in the furnace, and took on human feelings; the invisible Father did none of these things.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:256–258
Nec putes sola opera mundi per filium facta, sed et quae a deo exinde gesta sunt. pater enim, qui diligit filium et omnia tradidit in manu eius, utique a primordio diligit et a primordio tradidit, ex quo [a primordio] sermo erat apud deum et deus erat sermo. cui data est omnis potestas a patre in caelis et in terra; non iudicat pater quemquam), sed omne iudicium tradidit filio, a primordio tamen. omnem enim dicens potestatem et: omne iudicium et omnia per eum facta et omnia tradita in manu eius, nullam exceptionem temporis permittit, quia omnia non erunt, si non omnia temporis fuerint. filius itaque est. qui et ab initio iudicauit, turrem superbissimam elidens linguasque disperdens, orbem totum aquarum uiolentia puniens. pluens super Sodomam et Gomorram ignem et sulphurem, deus a deo. ipse enim et ad humana semper colloquia descendit, ab Adam usque ad patriarchas et prophetas, in uisione, in somnio, in speculo, in aenigmate ordinem suum praestruens ab initio, semper quem erat persecuturus in fine. ita semper ediscebat, et deus, in terris cum hominibus conuersari, non alius quam sermo, qui caro erat futurus; ediscebat autem, ut nobis fidem sterneret, ut facilius crederemus filium dei descendisse in saeculum, (cum) et retro tale quid gestum cognosceremus. propter nos enim sicut scripta sunt ita et gesta sunt, in quos aeuorum fines decucurrerunt. sic etiam adfectus humanos sciebat iam tunc, suscepturus etiam ipsas substantias hominis, carnem et animum, interrogans Adam quasi nesciens: ubi es, Adam? paenitens, quod hominem fecisset, quasi non praesciens; temptans Abraham, quasi ignorans, quid sit in homine; offensus, reconciliatus eisdem, et si qua haeretici adprehendunt quasi deo indigna ad destructionem creatoris, ignorantes haec in filium competisse, qui etiam passiones humanas et sitim et esuriem et lacrimas et ipsam natiuitatem ipsamque mortem erat subiturus, propter hoc minoratus a patre modicum citra angelos. sed quae haeretici quidem nec filio dei deputabunt conuenire, tu ipsi patri inducis, quasi ipse se deminorauerit propter nos, cum scriptura alium dicat ab alio minoratum, non ipsum a semetipso. quodsi et alius qui coronabatur gloriam et honorem, alius qui coronabat, (coronabat) utique filium pater. ceterum quale est, ut deus omnipotens ille inuisibilis, quem nemo uidit hominum nec uidere potest, ille qui inaccessibilem lucem habitat, ille qui non habitat in manu factis, a cuius conspectu terra contremescit, montes liquescunt ut cera, qui totum orbem manu adprehendit uelut nidum, cui caelum thronus et terra scabellum, in quo omnis locus, non ipse in loco, qui uniuersitatis extrema linea est, ille altissimus in paradiso ad uesperam deambularit, quaerens Adam, et arcam post introitum Noe clauserit, et apud Abraham sub quercu refrigerauerit, et Moysen de rubo ardenti uocarit, et in fornace Babylonii regis quartus apparuerit? quamquam filius hominis est dictus et in imagine et speculo et aenigmate scilicet et haec, nec de filio dei credenda fuissent, si scripta non essent, fortasse non credenda de patre, licet scripta, quem isti in uuluam Mariae deducunt et in Pilati tribunal imponunt et in monumentis Ioseph recondunt. hinc igitur apparet error illorum. ignorantes enim a primordio omnem ordinem diuinae dispositionis per filium decucurrisse, ipsum credunt patrem et uisum et congressum et operatum et sitim et esuriem passum — aduersus prophetam dicentem: deus aeternus non sitiet nec esuriet omnino: quanto magis nec morietur nec sepelietur? — et ita, unum deum semper egisse *, id est patrem, quae per filium gesta sunt,
English · Claude translation
And do not think that only the works of the world were made through the Son, but also the things done by God from then on. For the Father, who loves the Son and has given all things into his hand, loves him from the beginning and has given them from the beginning, from the time when the Word was with God and the Word was God. To him has been given all power by the Father in heaven and on earth; “the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,” yet from the beginning. For by saying “all power” and “all judgment,” and that all things were made through him and all things given into his hand, he allows no exception of time, since they will not be all things unless they are things of all time. So it is the Son who judged from the beginning too, dashing down the proudest tower and confusing the languages, punishing the whole world by the violence of the waters, raining fire and sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah, God from God. For it was he who always came down to converse with men, from Adam down to the patriarchs and prophets, in vision, in dream, in mirror, in riddle, preparing from the beginning the course he was to follow to the end. So he was always learning, even as God, to converse with men on earth, being none other than the Word who was to be flesh. And he was learning in order to lay a foundation of faith for us, so that we might more easily believe that the Son of God had come down into the world, knowing that something of the kind had been done in former times too. For as they were written for our sake, so they were done for our sake, “on whom the ends of the ages have come.” So he already knew human feelings too, being about to take on the very substances of man, flesh and soul, questioning Adam as if he did not know, “Where are you, Adam?”; repenting that he had made man, as if he had not foreknown; testing Abraham, as if ignorant of what is in man; offended with the same people, and reconciled; and whatever else the heretics seize on as unworthy of God, to destroy the Creator, not knowing that these things befitted the Son, who was to undergo even human sufferings, thirst and hunger and tears, and birth itself and death itself, being for this reason made a little lower than the angels by the Father. But what even the heretics will not reckon fitting for the Son of God, you bring upon the Father himself, as if he had lowered himself for us, when Scripture says that one was made lower by another, not himself by himself. And if one was crowned with glory and honor, and another crowned him, the Father, surely, crowned the Son. Besides, how could it be that God Almighty, that invisible one, whom no man has seen or can see, he who dwells in light unapproachable, he who does not dwell in things made with hands, at whose sight the earth trembles and the mountains melt like wax, who grasps the whole world in his hand like a nest, whose throne is heaven and the earth his footstool, in whom is every place while he is not in a place, who is the outermost boundary of the universe, that he, the Most High, should have walked in paradise in the evening looking for Adam, and shut the ark after Noah went in, and rested under the oak with Abraham, and called Moses from the burning bush, and appeared as the fourth in the Babylonian king's furnace (although he was called Son of Man), in image, of course, and mirror and riddle? These things would not have been credible even of the Son of God if they had not been written; perhaps they are not credible of the Father even though they are written; the Father whom these people bring down into Mary's womb, set before Pilate's judgment seat, and shut up in Joseph's tomb. Here, then, their error appears. For, not knowing that from the beginning the whole order of the divine arrangement has run its course through the Son, they believe that it was the Father himself who was seen, who met with men, who acted, who suffered thirst and hunger (against the prophet who says, “The eternal God will not thirst, nor hunger at all”; how much less will he die or be buried!), and so that one God, namely the Father, always did … what was done through the Son,
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations and allusions are John 3:35, 1:1, Matt 28:18, John 5:22, Gen 11 (Babel), Gen 7, Gen 19:24, 1 Cor 10:11, Gen 3:9, 6:6, 22:1, Ps 8:5 (Heb 2:7), 1 Tim 6:16, Acts 7:48, Ps 97:5 (96:5 Vulg.), Isa 10:14, Isa 66:1, Gen 3:8, 7:16, 18:1-8, Exod 3:4, Dan 3:25, and Isa 40:28 (in an Old Latin form). The asterisk in the digital text marks a gap, shown as “…”. The sentence runs on into ch. 17. The editor deletes the second “a primordio”; it is omitted. The digital text's “in, uisione” and “inten-ogans” are corrected.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (letters misread in the digital text; stray punctuation in the digital text): in, uisione → in uisione; inten-ogans → interrogans.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Prax. 16 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praxean/16/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Prax. 16 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praxean/16/).
Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)
Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text