(b) The Eternal Reason-Logos

Before all things existed God was alone. He was himself his own universe, his own place, everything. He was alone in the sense that there was nothing external to him, nothing outside his own being. Yet even then he was not alone; for he had with him something which was part of his own being, namely, his Reason. For God is rational and Reason existed first with him, and from him extended to all things. That Reason is his own consciousness of himself. The Greeks call it Logos, which is the term we use for discourse; and thus our people usually translate it literally as, 'Discourse was in the beginning with God', although it would be more correct to regard Reason as anterior to Discourse, because there was not Discourse with God from the beginning but there was Reason, even before the beginning, and because Discourse takes its origin from Reason and thus shows Reason to be prior to it, as the ground of its being. Yet even so there is no real difference. For although God had not yet uttered his Discourse, he had it in his own being, with and in his Reason, and he silently pondered and arranged in his thought those things which he was soon to say by his Discourse. For with his Reason he pondered and arranged his thought and thus made Reason into Discourse by dealing with it discursively. To understand this more easily, first observe in yourself (and you are 'the image and likeness of God') that you also have reason in yourself.

134 TERTULLIAN THE TRINITY 135

subject to the 'dispensation' (which is our translation of'economy') that the one only God has also a Son, his own word who has proceeded from himself. . . The perversity [of Praxeas] considers that it has possession of the pure truth in thinking it impossible to believe in the unity of God without identifting the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; failing to see that the one may be all in the sense that all are of one, that is through unity of substance; while this still safeguards the mystery of the 'economy', which disposes the unity into a trinity, arranging in order the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, though these are three not in quality,' but in degree, not in substance but in form, not in power but in manifestation; of one substance, one quality, one power, because God is one and from him those degrees and forms are assigned in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How they admit of plurality without division the following discussions will show. Adversus Praxean, 2

(b) The Distribution of the Monarchy

Now all the simple people (I will refrain from calling them thoughtless and morally deficient)-and they are always the majority of believers-are dismayed by the idea of 'economy'. For the rule of faith brings them from the polytheism of the world at large to the one and only God, and they do not understand that while believing the unity of God they must believe it together with his 'economy'. They assume that the plurality and distribution of the trinity imples a division of the unity; but the truth is that the unity in deriving the trinity from itself is not destroyed thereby, but dispensed. And so they make a to-do about our 'preaching of two or three gods', and claim that they are worshippers of One God: not seeing that a unity unreasonably contracted produces heresy, while a trinity reasonably distributed constitutes the truth. 'We maintain the monarchy,' they say. And the Latins, even the manual labourers, produce the phrase 'sole-sway', with such elocution that you are might suppose their comprehension of monarchy as accurate as their pronunciation. But while the Latins are eager to enunciate 'monarchy', even the Greeks refuse to understand the 'economy'. Whereas if I have collectd any small store of the two languages I am aware that 'monarchy' means simply the rule of one individual; but that monarchy, because it is the rule of one, does not preclude the monarch, who enjoys that rule, from having a son... or administering his monarchy by agents of his own choosing. I could go further, and say that no sovereignty is so much the possession of one person, to such a degree a monarchy, as not to be administered through other closely related persons, whom it has looked out for itself as its functionaries. And if the possessor of monarchy has a son, the monarchy is not straightway divided, it does not cease to be a monarchy, if the son also is brought in as partner in it; it continues to belong primarily to him by whom it is shared with the son, and continues to be a monarchy when it is held by two who are so united. Therefore, if the divine monarchy is administered by so many legions and armies of angels...[Dan. vii. io] it does not therefore cease to be the rule of one...It would be strange then if God should seem to undergo division and dispersion in the assignment of Son and Holy Spirit to second and third place, having their share in the substance of the Father; a division and dispersion which he does not suffer in that crowd of angels, alien as they are from his substance. Do you consider that the component parts of monarchy, its outward proofs, its instruments, and all that gives a monarchy its strength and prestige-do you consider these are destructive of it, as the rule of one? Of course not. I wish you would concern yourself with the sense and not with the sound of a word. You should realize that the destruction of a monarchy means the imposition of another rule of its own rank and quality, and consequently a rival to it: when another God is brought in, in opposition to the Creator...[as with Marcion]. Ibid. 3

See also Adversus Praxean, 8 (quoted above, pp. 120-1).

All the Scriptures give clear proof of the Trinity, and of its distinctions; and it is from these that our principle is deduced, that speaker and spoken of and spoken to cannot be thought of as one and the same, since neither perversity nor deception is consonant with God. . . [e.g. Isa. xlii. 1, xlix, 6, lxi. 1, &c.]. Notice also the Spirit speaking from the standpoint of a third person, concerning the Father and the Son. 'The Lord said unto my Lord', &c. . . . [and Isa. xlv. 1, liii. 1]. These are only a few examples, but the distinction of the Trinity is quite clearly displayed. For there is the Spirit himself who utters the statement: the Father, to whom he speaks: the Son, of whom he speaks.... Ibid. 11

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