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A woodcut illustration depicting Tertullian.
Quintus Florens Tertullian
(Anglicised to Tertullian).
160 A.D. - 220 A.D.
Church Father and Theologian.
This File: August 2011.
User: Serge Lachinov.
(Wikimedia Commons)
God, Who made the world out of nothing through His Son, the Word, has corporeity, though He is a spirit (De praescriptione, vii.; Adv. Praxeam, vii.). However, Tertullian used 'corporeal' only in the Stoic sense, to mean something with actual existence, rather than the later idea of flesh.
In the statement of the Trinity, Tertullian was a forerunner of the Nicene doctrine, approaching the subject from the standpoint of the Logos doctrine, though he did not state the immanent Trinity. His use of Trinitas (Latin: 'Threeness'), emphasised the manifold character of God. In his treatise against Praxeas, who taught patripassianism in Rome, he used the words, " Trinity and economy, persons and substance." The Son is distinct from the Father, and the Spirit from both the Father and the Son (Adv. Praxeam, xxv). "These three are one substance, not one person; and it is said, 'I and my Father are one' in respect not of the singularity of number but the unity of the substance."
The very names "Father" and "Son" indicate the distinction of personality. The Father is one, the Son is one, and the Spirit is one (Adv. Praxeam, ix). As regards the question whether the Son was co-eternal with the Father, many believe that Tertullian did not teach that. The Catholic Encyclopedia comments that, for Tertullian: "There was a time when there was no Son and no sin, when God was neither Father nor Judge".
Similarly, J.N.D. Kelly has stated: "Tertullian followed the Apologists in dating his “perfect generation” from his extrapolation for the work of creation; prior to that moment, God could not strictly be said to have had a Son, while, after it, the term, “Father”, which, for earlier theologians, generally connoted God as author of reality, began to acquire the specialised meaning of Father and Son.".
Ichthys (also Ichthus or Ikhthus /ˈɪkθəs/), from the Koine Greek word for fish: ἰχθύς, (capitalized ΙΧΘΥΣ or ΙΧΘΥϹ) is a symbol consisting of two intersecting arcs, the ends of the right side extending beyond the meeting point so as to resemble the profile of a fish, used by early Christians as a secret Christian symbol and now known colloquially as the "sign of the fish" or the "Jesus fish."
This Fish symbol was used in the early Church, when the Christians were being persecuted by the Romans. Christians then needed to be careful, when dealing with strangers, for fear of identification as a Christian and persecution.
When you encountered someone, you would draw an arc on the ground. If the other person drew a reverse arc over yours, it would form the Fish symbol.
Both people would then know that they could safely talk about being a Christian.
Español: Dibujada por Fibonacci, modificando un poco el
código fuente de dominio público de Lupin.
(Wikimedia Commons)
As regards the subjects of subordination of the Son to the Father, the New Catholic Encyclopedia has commented: "In not a few areas of theology, Tertullian’s views are, of course, completely unacceptable. Thus, for example, his teaching on the Trinity reveals a subordination of Son to Father that, in the later crass form of Arianism, the Church rejected as heretical."
In soteriology, Tertullian does not dogmatise; he prefers to keep silence at the mystery of the Cross (De Patientia, iii). The sufferings of Christ's life, as well as of the Crucifixion, are efficacious to redemption. In the water of Baptism, which (upon a partial quotation of John 3:5) is made necessary (De baptismo, vi.), humans are born again; the Baptised does not receive the Holy Spirit in the water, but is prepared for the Holy Spirit. Humans are little fishes — after the example of the ichthys (fish), Jesus Christ — are born in water (De baptismo, i). In discussing whether sins committed subsequent to Baptism may be forgiven, Tertullian calls Baptism and Penance "two planks" on which the sinner may be saved from shipwreck — language which he gave to the Church (De penitentia, xii).
With reference to the 'Rule of Faith', it may be said that Tertullian is constantly using this expression, and, by it, means now the authoritative tradition handed down in the Church, now the Scriptures themselves, and, perhaps, a definite doctrinal formula. While he nowhere gives a list of the books of Scripture, he divides them into two parts and calls them the instrumentum and testamentum (Adv. Marcionem, iv.1).
He distinguishes between the four Gospels and insists upon their Apostolic origin as accrediting their authority (De praescriptione, xxxvi; Adv. Marcionem, iv.1–5); in trying to account for Marcion's treatment of the Lucan Gospel and the Pauline writings, he sarcastically queries whether the "shipmaster from Pontus" (Marcion) had ever been guilty of taking on contraband goods or tampering with them after they were aboard (Adv. Marcionem, v.1).
PART FOUR FOLLOWS.
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