Chapter II.—The Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity and Unity, Sometimes Called the Divine Economy, or Dispensation of the Personal Relations of the Godhead.

In the course of time, then, the Father forsooth was born, and the Father suffered, God Himself, the Lord Almighty, whom in their preaching they declare to be Jesus Christ. We, however, as we indeed always have done (and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete, who leads men indeed into all truth), believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, or οἰκονομία , as it is called, that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded12    The Church afterwards applied this term exclusively to the Holy Ghost. [That is, the Nicene Creed made it technically applicable to the Spirit, making the distinction marked between the generation of the Word and the procession of the Holy Ghost.] from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her—being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete,13    The “Comforter.” the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. That this rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the gospel, even before any of the older heretics, much more before Praxeas, a pretender of yesterday, will be apparent both from the lateness of date14    See our Anti-Marcion, p. 119, n. 1. Edin. which marks all heresies, and also from the absolutely novel character of our new-fangled Praxeas. In this principle also we must henceforth find a presumption of equal force against all heresies whatsoever—that whatever is first is true, whereas that is spurious which is later in date.15    See his De Præscript. xxix. But keeping this prescriptive rule inviolate, still some opportunity must be given for reviewing (the statements of heretics), with a view to the instruction and protection of divers persons; were it only that it may not seem that each perversion of the truth is condemned without examination, and simply prejudged;16    Tertullian uses similar precaution in his argument elsewhere.  See our Anti-Marcion, pp. 3 and 119. Edin. especially in the case of this heresy, which supposes itself to possess the pure truth, in thinking that one cannot believe in One Only God in any other way than by saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are the very selfsame Person. As if in this way also one were not All, in that All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation17    οἰκονομία. is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order18    Dirigens. the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition,19    Statu. but in degree;20    See The Apology, ch. xxi. not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect;21    Specie. yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.22    See Bull’s Def. Fid. Nic., and the translation (by the translator of this work), in the Oxford Series, p. 202. How they are susceptible of number without division, will be shown as our treatise proceeds.

CAPUT II.

Itaque post tempus Pater natus, et Pater passus: ipse Deus, Dominus omnipotens, Jesus Christus praedicatur. Nos vero et semper, et nunc magis, ut instructiores per Paracletum deductorem scilicet omnis veritatis, unicum quidem Deum credimus: sub hac tamen dispensatione, quam oeconomiam dicimus, ut unici Dei sit et filius sermo ipsius, qui ex ipso processerit, per quem omnia facta sunt, et 0157A sine quo factum est nihil (Joan., I, 3): hunc missum a Patre in virginem, et ex ea natum hominem et Deum, filium hominis et filium Dei, et cognominatum Jesum Christum: hunc passum, hunc mortuum et sepultum secundum Scripturas, et resuscitatum a Patre, et in coelos resumptum, sedere ad dexteram Patris, venturum judicare vivos et mortuos, qui exinde miserit, secundum promissionem suam, a Patre Spiritum Sanctum Paracletum, sanctificatorem fidei eorum qui credunt in Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum. Hanc regulam ab initio Evangelii decucurrisse, etiam ante priores quosque haereticos, nedum ante Praxeam hesternum, probabit tam ipsa posteritas omnium haereticorum, quam ipsa novellitas Praxeae hesterni. Quo peraeque adversus 0157B universas haeraeses jam hinc praejudicatum sit, id esse verum, quodcumque primum; id esse adulterum, quodcumque posterius. Sed salva ista praescriptione, utique tamen propter instructionem et munitionem quorumdam, dandus est etiam retractatibus locus: vel ne videatur unaquaeque perversitas, non examinata, sed praejudicata damnari, maxime haec, quae se existimat meram veritatem possidere, dum unicum Deum non alias putat credendum, quam si ipsum eumdemque et Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum dicat: quasi non sic quoque unus sit omnia, dum ex uno omnia, per substantiae scilicet unitatem; et nihilominus custodiatur oeconomiae sacramentum, quae unitatem in trinitatem disponit, tres dirigens, Patrem, et Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum. Tres autem 0157C non statu, sed gradu; nec substantia, sed forma; nec potestate, sed specie: unius autem substantiae, et unius status, et unius potestatis; quia unus Deus, ex quo et gradus isti et formae et species, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti deputantur. Quomodo autem numerum sine divisione patiuntur, procedentes retractatus demonstrabunt.