Trinity Maker Terullian

Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus) was a ecclesiastical writer in the second and third centuries, born probably about 160 A.D. at Carthage, being the son of a centurion in the proconsular service. He was evidently by profession an advocate in the law-courts, and he shows a close acquaintance with the procedure and terms of Roman law, though it is doubtful whether he is to be identified with a jurist Tertullian who is cited in the Pandects. He knew Greek as well as Latin, and wrote works in Greek which have not come down to us. A pagan until middle life, he had shared the pagan prejudices against Christianity, and had indulged like others in shameful pleasures. His conversion was not later than the year 197, and may have been earlier. He embraced the Faith with all the ardour of his impetuous nature. He became a priest, no doubt of the Church of Carthage. Monceaux, followed by d'Ales, considers that his earlier writings were composed while he was yet a layman, and if this be so, then his ordination was about 200. His extant writings range in date from the apologetics of 197 to the attack on a bishop who is probably Pope Callistus (after 218). It was after the year 206 that he joined the Montanist sect, and he seems to have definitively separated from the Church about 211 (Harnack) or 213 (Monceaux). After writing more virulently against the Church than even against heathen and persecutors, he separated from the Montanists and founded a sect of his own. The remnant of the Tertullianists (As he left both the Catholic and Montanist churches to form his own.) was reconciled to the Church by St. Augustine. A number of the works of Tertullian are on special points of belief or discipline. He lived to the year 220 A.D. 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. He obtained his trinity from Plato's work of Timaeus but twisted it's meaning to fit his mold. His use of trinitas (Latin: 'Threeness') emphasised the manifold character of God. In his treatise against Praxeas, who taught patripassianism (The Biblical teaching that there is only one God.) 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 coeternal 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." He helps to develop the terrible doctrine of the depravity of the human race (inherited sin or original sin) was taught by Tertullian. It was based on Stoic teachings. The sin of the first man meant that the nature transmitted to the whole race derived a sinful tendency. "There is then, besides the evil which supervenes on the soul from the intervention of the evil spirit, an antecedent and in a certain sense natural evil, which arises from its corrupt origin. For, as we have said before, the corruption of our nature is another nature, having a god and father of its own, namely, the author of corruption." (De Anima) There is also the fact, according to Tertullian, that every soul has its demon, like that of Socrates. Here clearly there are pagan beliefs mixed with Christian ones in many of Tertullians words, ideas and concepts. Tertullian did not emphasize the doctrine of vitium originis. (Middle English, from Old French, from Latin vitium.) Literally morally wrong in principle or practice; "attempts to