A Source Book for Ancient Church History

by Joseph Cullen Ayer

(c) Hippolytus, Adversus Noetum. (MSG, 10:804.)

The following is from a fragment which seems to be the conclusion of an extended work against various heresies.

Some others are secretly introducing another doctrine who have become the disciples of a certain Noetus, who was a native of Smyrna, and lived not very long ago. This man was greatly puffed up with pride, being inspired by the conceit of a strange spirit. He alleged that Christ was the Father himself, and that the Father himself was born and suffered and died.… When the blessed presbyters heard these things they summoned him before the Church and examined him. But he denied at first that he held such opinions. Afterward, taking shelter among some and gathering round him some others who had been deceived in the same way, he wished to maintain his doctrine openly. And the blessed presbyters summoned him and examined him. But he resisted, saying, “What evil, then, do I commit when I glorify Christ?” And the presbyters replied to him, “We, too, know in truth one God; we know Christ; we know that the Son suffered even as He suffered, and died even as He died, and rose again on the third day, and is at the right hand of the Father, and cometh to judge the living and the [pg 178] dead. And these things which we have learned we assert.” Then, after refuting him, they expelled him from the Church. And he was carried to such a pitch of pride that he established a school.

Now they seek to exhibit the foundation of their dogma, alleging that it is said in the Law, “I am the God of your fathers; ye shall have no other gods beside me” [i.e., of Moses, cf. Ex. 3:6, 13; 20:3]; and again in another passage, “I am the first and the last and besides me there is none other” [cf. Is. 44:6]. Thus they assert that God is one. And then they answer in this manner: “If therefore I acknowledge Christ to be God, He is the Father himself, if He is indeed God; and Christ suffered, being Himself God, and consequently the Father suffered, for He was the Father himself.”

(d) Tertullian, Adv. Praxean, 1, 2, 27, 29. (MSL, 2:177 f., 214.)

Tertullian is especially bitter against Praxeas, because he prevented the recognition of the Montanists at Rome when it seemed likely that they would be treated favorably. The work Adversus Praxean is the most important work of Western theology on the Trinity before the time of Augustine. It was corrected in some important points by Novatian, but its clear formulæ remained in Western theology permanently. The work belongs to the late Montanistic period of Tertullian.

Ch. 1. In various ways has the devil rivalled the truth. Sometimes his aim has been to destroy it by defending it. He maintains that there is one only Lord, the Almighty Creator of the world, that of this doctrine of the unity he may fabricate a heresy. He says that the Father himself came down into the Virgin, was Himself born of her, Himself suffered, indeed, was Himself Jesus Christ.… He [Praxeas] was the first to import into Rome this sort of perversity, a man of restless disposition in other respects, and above all inflated with the pride of martyrdom [confessorship] simply and solely because of a short annoyance in prison; when, even if he had given his body to be burned, it would have [pg 179] profited him nothing, not having the love of God, whose very gifts he resisted and destroyed. For after the Bishop of Rome had acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla, and in consequence of the acknowledgment had bestowed his peace on the churches of Asia and Phrygia, Praxeas, by importunately urging false accusations against the prophets themselves and their churches, and insisting on the authority of the bishop's predecessors in the see, compelled him to recall the letter of peace which he had issued, as well as to desist from his purpose of acknowledging the said gifts. Thus Praxeas did two pieces of the devil's work in Rome: he drove out prophecy and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete and he crucified the Father.

Ch. 2. After a time, then, the Father was born, and the Father suffered—God himself, the Almighty, is preached as Jesus Christ.

Ch. 27. For, confuted on all sides by the distinction between the Father and the Son, which we make while their inseparable union remains as [by the examples] of the sun and the ray, and the fountain and the river—yet by help of their conceit of an indivisible number [with issues] of two and three, they endeavor to interpret this distinction in a way which shall nevertheless agree with their own opinions; so that, all in one person, they distinguish two—Father and Son—understanding the Son to be the flesh, that is the man, that is Jesus; and the Father to be the Spirit, that is God, that is Christ.

Ch. 29. Since we[61] teach in precisely the same terms that the Father died as you say the Son died, we are not guilty of blasphemy against the Lord God, for we do not say that He died after the divine nature, but only after the human.… They [the heretics], indeed, fearing to incur blasphemy against the Father, hope to diminish it in this way, admitting that the Father and the Son are two; but if the Son, indeed, suffers, the Father is His fellow-sufferer.