Tertullian and the

“Heretical” Origins of the

“Orthodox” Trinity

ANDREW MCGOWAN

Tertullian’s allegiance to the New Prophecy (later known as “Montanism”)

has often been connected only to his advocacy of ascetic “discipline,” and con-
sidered irrelevant to his treatment of doctrine. In the treatise Against Praxeas
he defends and articulates trinitarian belief, insisting on continuity between his
recent defense of the Paraclete and the older Rule of Faith. This work indicates
that monarchian Christians at Carthage were substantially the same as the
“psychic” majority opposed to the New Prophecy. Thus what was to become
“orthodox” Christian theology depended on the “heretical” New Prophecy at
this particular place and time.

INTRODUCTION: TERTULLIAN’S DUAL PERSONAE

At times there seem to have been two Tertullians. In at least one sense there
really were; although historians have sometimes tried to understand the
complex figure of the first major author in Latin Christianity by conflation
with a near-contemporary jurist of the same name, this Tertullian was not
the same person as that ancient legal authority cited in the Digest.1 The

My thanks go to Graeme and Paulene Blackman, Joan Branham, Tim Gaden, Kim
Power, Lawrence Wills and an anonymous JECS reader for various forms of assis-
tance with this article, to Christopher Beeley and Stephen Davis for the invitation
to present an earlier version at the SBL Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
consultation in San Antonio in 2004, and to Lewis Ayres for the suggestion that it
might usefully appear in this number of JECS. I offer it, conscious of its inadequa-
cies, in memory of Richard Norris.
1. See T. D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study, rev. ed. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1985), 22–29 and 325. See also the sketch of scholarly approaches
in Laura Nasrallah, An Ecstasy of Folly: Prophecy and Authority in Early Christian-
ity, HTS 52 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 97–101.

Journal of Early Christian Studies 14:4, 437–457 © 2006 The Johns Hopkins University Press
438    JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

Carthaginian Christian apologist, connected both with the foundations

of orthodox trinitarian theology and with the Phrygian “New Prophecy”
later known as “Montanism,” is nothing if not a rhetor; but adding the
role of a lawyer to make sense of a character both brilliant and contradic-
tory is less convincing than it may be attractive.2
It has actually been more common to interpret the complexities and
contradictions of the one North African Christian writer by further sepa-
ration, rather than conflation. Scholarship both ancient and modern has
almost created dual theological personae out of the one historical sub-
stantia in order to deal with a thinker who came ultimately to be seen as
both a pillar of orthodoxy and a promoter of heresy.
One traditional way of dividing Tertullians goes back at least as far as
Jerome, namely to draw clear distinctions between an early, “orthodox,”
Tertullian and a late, “Montanist,” one.3 By positing a sort of epistemo-
logical break between two phases of his life, the “orthodox” Tertullian
could be isolated chronologically, a sort of father of the church pro tem-
pore. Yet this approach also fails historical tests; even Tertullian’s latest
works are “orthodox” in later theological terms, and are important to
the emergence of that orthodoxy, despite also showing the clear influence
of the New Prophecy.4 For that matter, the idea of a transformation from
orthodox theologian to heretical polemicist depends on the view that there
were two quite separate churches or groupings, “Catholic” and “Mon-
tanist,” across whose distinct borders one could clearly and definitively
move. It seems far more likely that there was profound contention among
and within a network of small communities at Carthage, rather than a
clear “schism” between two.5

2. I note that “Montanism” is a term of late origin and unsatisfactory connotation.

A brief summary of the development of this heresiological label can be found in Anne
Jensen, “Prisca—Maximilla—Montanus: Who Was the Founder of ‘Montanism’?” SP
26 (1993): 147–50 (along with the more controversial suggestion that Montanus was
a secondary figure in the movement). I have attempted to minimize its employment,
except when referring to conventional heresiological and scholarly use.
3. Vir. ill. 53.4; see Barnes, Tertullian, 42. This view seems to be reflected in the
sequential presentation of the opus in CCL, with the opera catholica followed in a
second part by the opera montanistica.
4. The influence of Tertullian on the tradition is often acknowledged; see notably
Adolf von Harnack, “Tertullian in der Literatur der alten Kirche,” in Kleine Schriften
zur alten Kirche (Leipzig : Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik,
1980), 1:247–81, and also E. E. Evans, Q. Septimii Florentis Tertulliani Adversus Prax-
ean Liber: Tertullian’s Treatise Against Praxeas (London: S.P.C.K., 1948), 23–30.
5. On this point see, notably, Douglas Powell, “Tertullianists and Cataphrygians,”
VC 29 (1975): 33–54; also (with some important differences) René Braun, “Tertullian
et le Montanisme,” Approches de Tertullien (Paris: Institut d’études augustiniennes,
 MCGOWAN/ORIGINS OF THE “ORTHODOX” TRINITY    439

Another interpretive approach has employed a subtler form of division

to produce “parallel,” rather than “serial,” Tertullians. In this case, a pair
of voices or characters is discerned according to topic: on the one hand,
the Catholic theologian Tertullian, architect of the Western churches’ doc-
trine of the Trinity; on the other, Tertullian, the peculiar Montanist ethicist.
Tertullian the dogmatist begins to resemble the subject of his doctrinal
writings: an eternal verity accessible through timeless reflection, rather
than a variable and historical figure.
A clear distinction is thus made not only between ecclesial or theological
groupings, but between theory and practice, or doctrine and discipline.6
Since Montanism is often thought to have agreed with catholic Christianity
as to theology, but to have differed from it on matters of ascetic practice,
the more strictly doctrinal Tertullian seems to remain timelessly sound, in
contrast to a disciplinary twin who tends towards increased sectarian idio-
syncrasy. Historical and systematic theologians can thus make quite strong
claims for the profound influence of the former Tertullian on subsequent
Western trinitarian theology, without the apparent need to deal with the
status of the latter as a “heretic,” or even with the relationship between a
given writing and Tertullian’s movement towards the New Prophecy.
This study seeks to reconsider these pairs of Tertullians and some of
the other distinctions they embody through consideration of the treatise
Against Praxeas, which reflect the tensions already mentioned. The first
main part of this study thus examines the treatise and its distinctive con-
tent, reviewing the influence or importance of the New Prophecy in its
trinitarian argument. The second part considers the Carthaginian Christian
community as reflected in Tertullian’s writings, and attempts to suggest
a different approach to issues such as the relationship between the New
Prophecy and the Rule of Faith, the role of the Paraclete, and the respec-
tive places of doctrina and disciplina in Tertullian.
To question the usual interpretive categories in Tertullian’s case is also
to question those of “heresy” and “orthodoxy” themselves, and more
particularly in this case those of “Montanism” and “Catholicism.” The
alternative offered here is not so much a different grand schema classify-
ing Christianities and dividing individuals or works between them, but
an attempt to pay closer attention to the specifics of theory and practice

1992), 246–57; and William Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions and Testimonia: Epi-
graphic Sources Illustrating the History of Montanism, PMS 16 (Macon, GA: Mercer
University Press, 1997), 54–56.
6. Jaroslav Pelikan, “Montanism and Its Trinitarian Significance,” CH 25 (1956):
104.
440    JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

in one local setting—Tertullian’s Carthage—among the variety of early

Christian communities and theologies. Although I will suggest, as some
others have done, that the New Prophecy was relevant to the development
of Tertullian’s understanding of God as Trinity, the precise meaning of such
a conclusion may be found to have shifted somewhat along the way.

THE TRINITY AND TERTULLIAN’S AGAINST PRAXEAS

Interpreting Against Praxeas

Tertullian’s most influential piece of writing on the trinitarian God, the
treatise Against Praxeas, dates from well into the period of his clear influ-
ence from the New Prophecy.7 Despite its influential place in the history
of orthodox dogma, Against Praxeas is characteristically “Montanist,”
peppered with references to the Holy Spirit as “Paraclete,” and naming
the New Prophets, Prisca, Maximilla, and Montanus.
The difficulty of an apparently “heretical” work setting the scene for
later trinitarian theology has been approached more or less in two ways,
hinging on whether or not the influence of the New Prophecy is actually
seen as relevant to Tertullian’s doctrine of God as Trinity. Many commen-
tators, pursuing the distinctions already mentioned, have tended to regard
the trinitarian formulations of Against Praxeas as effectively free of such
influence. Such conclusions assert more continuity than change between
Tertullian’s earlier, non-“Montanist,” forays into trinitarian discourse and
this work. In doing so they have recourse either to the supposed concep-
tual isolation of his doctrine from the New Prophecy or to the view that
Montanism was itself doctrinally “orthodox”—or merely nondescript.8
Either way, the New Prophecy is then seen as irrelevant to the Trinity, in
Against Praxeas and elsewhere.
Conversely, there have been suggestions that the teaching of Tertullian’s
Against Praxeas really is different from his earlier thinking about God, and
thus reflects the influence on Tertullian of the Phrygian prophetic move-
ment.9 If this were the case, the alleged changes could almost support a

7. That is, the second decade of the 200s; compare Barnes’s judgment (Tertullian,
55), and that of E. Dekkers in CCL 2:1627–28.
8. Thus Evans, Tertullian’s Treatise Against Praxeas, 5; cf. Pelikan, “Montanism,”
104. Pelikan seems more open to the idea of Montanist influence in his later and
briefer discussion in The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doc-
trine: 1. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600) (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1971), 105.
9. B. B. Warfield traced this suggestion to the seventeenth century and Christopher
Sand (Studies in Tertullian and Augustine [New York and Oxford: Oxford University
 MCGOWAN/ORIGINS OF THE “ORTHODOX” TRINITY    441

quite different, revisionist form of the “serial” distinction between Ter-

tullians, wherein he moves from a catholic binitarianism to a Montanist
trinitarianism. Given the undoubted influence of Tertullian’s writing in the
West, the New Prophecy could then be said to have contributed to the
subsequent history of dogma.10
Such different conclusions already show that even careful comparison of
Against Praxeas with Tertullian’s earlier thought and writing has not pro-
duced incontestable results, and is probably insufficient to determine the
question.11 While the analysis of his theological development over time can-
not be avoided, any approach to the progress of Tertullian’s thought must
consider not just its part in a longer golden thread of orthodox doctrinal
development, but its place among the beliefs and practices that constituted
the Carthaginian Christian community in the early third century.

Tertullian and Praxeas

The purpose of Against Praxeas is to oppose the theology of a teacher
otherwise unknown by that name at least,12 perhaps to be identified with
the Roman bishop Callistus.13 Yet the historical Praxeas is distant in space
and time; despite the personalized nature of the charges made against him,
his “real” identity is somewhat beside the point, and his persona functions
in this text as a representative figure or rhetorical device through which
local issues and persons can be addressed.

Press, 1930], 15 n.23). More recently, its advocates have included Friedrich Loofs,
Theophilus von Antiochen adversus Marcionem und die anderen theologische Quellen
bei Irenaeus, TU 46/2 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1930), 119–22; and K. E. Kirk, “The
Evolution of the Doctrine of the Trinity,” in Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation,
ed. A. E. J. Rawlinson (London: Longmans, 1928), 157–237, particularly 214–15.
10. Perhaps in part through the so-called school of Hippolytus—a complex ques-
tion of influence that cannot be pursued here. An impressive reconstruction of rela-
tions between Tertullian and the Hippolytan corpus has been made by Allen Brent:
Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century: Communities in Tension
before the Emergence of a Monarch-Bishop, VCSupp 31 (Leiden: Brill, 1995). I am
nonetheless inclined to favor the alternative view (including Tertullian’s use of Con-
tra Noetum) given by Manlio Simonetti, e.g., in “Due note su Ippolito,” Ricerche
su Ippolito, Studia Ephemeridis “Augustinianum” 13 (Rome: Institutum patristicum
“Augustinianum,” 1977), 126–36.
11. See Pelikan, “Montanism,” 105.
12. The anonymous Adversus omnes haereses attributed (falsely) to Tertullian does
mention him (8.4).
13. The identification is attractive if unprovable, and might make too much of
combining Praxeas’s obscurity and Tertullian’s interest. See, for a recent renewal of
this suggestion, Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church, 525–35; and for a slightly
different approach to Callistus’s presence in the treatise, Ronald E. Heine, “The Chris-
tology of Callistus,” JTS (n.s.) 49 (1998): 58–60.
442    JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

What we are told about Praxeas and the origins of this dispute comes
from the introductory section of Tertullian’s work:
For he was the first to import this kind of perversity to Rome out of
Asia—a man who was generally restless, and puffed up with boasting of his
status as a “martyr” . . . at that time the Roman bishop was in the process
of acknowledging the prophecies of Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla, and
because of that acknowledgement was offering peace to the churches of
Asia and Phrygia. Praxeas, however, by maintaining lies concerning these
prophets and their churches, and by advocating the decisions of the bishop’s
predecessors, forced him both to recall letters of peace that had already
been sent, and to hold back from his proposal to receive the spiritual gifts.14

It is apparent that the New Prophecy was far from being a side issue in
Tertullian’s attitude. Yet the rest of the treatise is not explicitly concerned
with Praxeas’s political opposition to the Phrygian prophets and their fol-
lowers, but rather with his monarchian theological teaching. According
to Praxeas the one God had been manifest in different forms at different
times, but not as distinct persons; hence “the Father himself descended
into the virgin, was himself born of her, himself suffered, in the end him-
self was Jesus Christ.”15
Tertullian somewhat ponderously narrates the impact at Carthage of
Praxeas’s activity as a version of the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds
(cf. Matt 13.24–30), wherein his opponent’s teaching had appeared some
years before and then lain dormant as seed, being revived close to the time
of writing. Before reaching the point in his narrative where the seeds of
monarchian falsehood sprouted anew, Tertullian inserts one autobiographi-
cal detail: “Subsequently the acknowledgement and defense of the Paraclete
separated us from the psychici”—using a favorite term for the mediocre
Christians.16 Thus Tertullian invokes allegiance to the Trinity (or at least
to one person thereof) as the basis for his adherence to the New Prophecy
itself. By contrast, the achievement of Praxeas was perversely binitarian:
he both “drove out the Paraclete and nailed up the Father.”17
Tertullian’s close connection of Praxeas’s opposition to the New Proph-

14. Prax. 1.4–5 (CCL 2:1159). Translations herein are mine, based on the texts
given in CCL 1–2.
15. Prax. 1.1 (CCL 2:1159). I use “monarchian,” rather than the modern term
“modalist,” as closer to the terminology of the dispute itself. David Rankin points
out that Tertullian could also technically be seen as a “monarchian” but in a differ-
ent sense: “Tertullian’s Vocabulary of the Divine ‘Individuals’ in adversus Praxean,”
Sacris erudiri 40 (2001): 5–46.
16. Prax. 1.7 (CCL 2:1160).
17. Prax. 1.5 (CCL 2:1160): . . . paracletum fugavit et patrem crucifixit.
 MCGOWAN/ORIGINS OF THE “ORTHODOX” TRINITY    443

ecy and his monarchian doctrine of God has often been downplayed,
supposedly more a piece of rhetorical opportunism than of theological
substance.18 This conclusion proceeds in large part from the conventional
distinction between Tertullian’s ethical and dogmatic interests; we might
thus attribute the former accusation against Praxeas to Tertullian’s sectar-
ian persona, and the latter to his orthodox one. Yet the possibility raised
by Tertullian’s own account, that the two issues were actually far from
incidental to one another, deserves to be taken more seriously.

The Trinity in Against Praxeas

Against Praxeas is not so much a single sustained thesis as a collection
of related arguments that address a set of objections to the triune God. 19
Tertullian’s main goal throughout is to allay fears that the real existence
of a second divine person would undermine the principle of a single divine
power or monarchia. In arguing thus he affirms and explicates his under-
standing of the oikonomia of God, which here means not the “economic”
Trinity of later theology, but God’s internal and eternal self-disposition,
whereby Word or Son and Spirit are extensions or emanations of God’s
own being.20 The existence of the visible and passible Son does not destroy
the unity of God, but guarantees the necessary invisibility and transcen-
dence of God the Father.
Tertullian’s arguments touch on a range of exegetical points as well as
philosophical issues. In particular, he interprets scriptural texts concerning
the Word and Wisdom of God so as to apply them to Christ as an actual
substantia, here meaning a person or something actually existent,21 and
conversely takes aim at interpretations of texts used by the monarchians
to claim the personal identity of Father and Son.

18. See Pelikan, “Montanism,” 106.

19. This summary is intended only as a sketch. On the trinitarian theology and
particularly the vocabulary of Adversus Praxean, see the magnum opus of J. Moingt,
Theologie trinitaire de Tertullien, 4 vols. (Paris: Aubier, 1966–69); E. F. Osborn, Ter-
tullian, First Theologian of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997),
120–39; Robert Markus, “Trinitarian Theology and the Economy,” JTS (n.s.) 9 (1958):
89–102; and Kevin B. McCruden, “Monarchy and Economy in Tertullian’s Adversus
Praxean,” Scottish Journal of Theology 55 (2002): 325–37, as well as the discussion
in Evans, Tertullian’s Treatise Against Praxeas, 38–75.
20. Tertullian uses this Greek term (2. 1, 4; 3.1). The different understandings of
“economy” in this early trinitarian theology are analysed by G. L. Prestige, God in
Patristic Thought, 2nd ed. (London: S.P.C.K., 1952), 97–106.
21. See Evans, Tertullian’s Treatise Against Praxeas, 38–44; and René Braun, Deus
Christianorum: Recherches sur le vocabulaire doctrinal de Tertullien, 2nd ed. (Paris:
Institut études augustiniennes, 1977), 167–99, especially 182, 192–93.
444    JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

Against Praxeas is not so much a strong articulation of trinitarian

thought as such, but a robust defence of the transcendence of the Father,
and of the real existence of the Son. Yet Tertullian’s earlier forays into
the same issue are even less distinctly trinitarian. There are certainly ref-
erences to the three-fold nature of God in Tertullian’s previous writings,
but they are largely determined by context and controversial opportunity,
acknowledging and making use of traditional triadic formulae to serve
immediate rhetorical ends, rather than summarizing or serving any strongly
trinitarian conception.22
The closest parallel to the discussion in Against Praxeas is in Tertullian’s
Apology, written about ten years earlier and prior to any sign of influence
from the New Prophecy.23 There he had argued for the identity of two
persons of Godhead, and assimilated the language of “Spirit” in biblical
texts and elsewhere to the Word or Reason of God, rather than to a third
divine person: “We say that [the Word] was projected from God and gen-
erated by this projection, and has therefore been called Son of God, and
called God from unity of nature. For Spirit is also God.”24
In Against Praxeas references to the Holy Spirit in the divine “econ-
omy” do involve some modest clarification or development from those in
the Apology. Yet Tertullian’s concern in the relevant passages still centers
on demonstrating the distinct existences of Father and Son, and his argu-
ment is still primarily expressed as a vindication of the doctrine of two
persons (Prax. 13, 19, 22, etc.). Tertullian also continues to use biblical
references to the “Spirit of God” in arguing for the separate existence of
the Son, rather than taking them to refer to the third person of the Trin-
ity.25 The Holy Spirit is nonetheless presented, somewhat more fully than
in earlier works, as a third entity whose reality is allowed or established
by the same arguments for the possibility of a unity in multiplicity that
allowed the real subsistence of the Son (e.g., Prax. 13.5).
All this is not to say that Tertullian was consciously or deliberately
binitarian at either of these points, but that there was a consistent concern
on his part to assert and defend the real existence of the Son or Word. The
central purpose or argument of Against Praxeas is not the abstract articu-

22. The reference at Or. 25 is a rationalization for a three-fold pattern of daily

prayer; Bapt. 6 simply arises from the trinitarian baptismal formula.
23. Perhaps a little after 197; see Barnes, Tertullian, 33–34, 55.
24. Apol. 21.11 (CCL 1:124).
25. This is in contrast with Irenaeus who can, as Brent points out (Hippolytus and
the Roman Church, 532–34), identify Wisdom with the Holy Spirit (Haer. 4.20.3).
Yet Irenaeus also makes similar interpretive moves as Tertullian, identifying “Spirit”
with the Son (3.10.2), with somewhat different interests and arguments in mind.
 MCGOWAN/ORIGINS OF THE “ORTHODOX” TRINITY    445

lation of Tertullian’s understanding of God as Trinity, but opposition to a

monarchianism (also) probably focused specifically on the relation between
Father and Son.26 In any case, there is a sort of development between the
Apology and Against Praxeas in how clearly the place of the Holy Spirit
in the divine “economy” is acknowledged. This change is in itself too
modest to demand the conclusion that such clarity stems altogether from
a new source, but it is real enough not to be dismissed.

The Paraclete’s Proof

There is one feature of Tertullian’s modestly enlarged exposition of the
Trinity in Against Praxeas that is explicitly linked to the influence of the
New Prophecy.27 To support his argument for the possibility of an essen-
tial unity between distinct elements or persons in the godhead, Tertul-
lian evokes a set of images, saying that “God produced the Word, as the
Paraclete also teaches (quemadmodum etiam Paracletus docet), as a root
produces new growth, a spring a river, and the sun a ray of light; for these
also are kinds of ‘projections’ of those things from which they proceed.”28
Comparison with other references to the teaching of the Paraclete in Ter-
tullian suggests he is actually attributing this three-fold image to an utter-
ance of one of the New Prophets.29
The significance of this oracle and its influence has often been down-
played on the grounds that these are fairly obvious metaphors, at least
partly gleaned from tradition, and could have been used without reference
to the Paraclete’s endorsement.30 Certainly the ray of light metaphor had
already been used in the Apology (21.12), although only as a basis for
arguing the possible unity of two realities or persons—sun and ray—not of
three. The two further images of plant and water, and the extension of all
three metaphors to a third stage, are new elements in Against Praxeas.

26. Tertullian seems to be defending his position against accusations of teaching

two Gods, rather than three: see Prax. 13.1; 13.5; 19.8.
27. The fact that many of the references to the Paraclete in Against Praxeas do not
mention or refer to Montanus is irrelevant, pace Pelikan (see “Montanism,”105). On
this see William Tabbernee, “‘Will the Real Paraclete Please Speak Forth!’: The Catho-
lic-Montanist Conflict over Pneumatology,” in Advents of the Spirit: An Introduction
to the Current State of Pneumatology, ed. B. Hinze and D. L. Dabney (Milwaukee,
WI: Marquette University Press, 2001), 97–118.
28. Prax. 8.5 (CCL 2:1167).
29. See Pud. 21.7; Fug. 9.4; Res. 11.2; Exh. Cast. 10.5.
30. The light metaphor is traditional, going back at least to Athenagoras, who
speaks of the Holy Spirit as a beam of light from the Father as sun (Leg. 10). Cf.
also Philo, Gig. 25–27. Those who hold different opinions about the relationship
between Tertullian’s and Hippolytus’s works could press this point about originality
and influence more strongly; see Simonetti, “Due note su Ippolito.”
446    JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

In the discussion following, these images are expanded within Tertul-

lian’s argument into more complex three-fold analogies for the three per-
sons of the Trinity:
For the Spirit is a third from God and the Son, just as the fruit is a third
from the root out of the new growth, and the canal is a third from the
spring out of the river, and the point of light is a third from the sun out of
the beam: nothing, however, is cut off from the source from which it derives
its properties.31

The context suggests, however, that the elaboration of the images must
be taken as Tertullian’s own, rather than as derived immediately from an
oracle.
It is difficult to assess the metaphors or their alleged prophetic origin
as evidence for how the New Prophecy influenced Tertullian’s trinitar-
ian theology. If a judgment depended on the belief that Tertullian could
not have produced these word-pictures without the prophetic utterance,
the case would not be particularly strong. It is possible to see the differ-
ences between earlier and later accounts as themselves organic develop-
ments, predictable shoots and fruit from an existing theological root, just
as Tertullian’s thought on the divine “economy” more generally seems
to develop over time.32 The relation between the imagery and the rest
of the discussion is real, but not necessarily crucial. For that matter, the
images themselves have also been judged as relatively unimportant, some
commentators suggesting that they contribute little to the substance of
Tertullian’s argument.33
Yet such questions of how the influence of the New Prophecy is evi-
dent in Tertullian’s evolving doctrina on that divine self-disposition have
perhaps unreasonably displaced inquiry into how Tertullian himself pres-
ents the importance and role of the Paraclete and of the New Prophecy
in this controversy. What is most striking is not necessarily any specific
contribution exclusively attributable to the oracle and clearly external to

31. Prax. 8.7 (CCL 2:1168).

32. In a companion piece to this one, I will argue that Tertullian’s development of
the “economy” and of these metaphors actually do reflect concerns specific to this
controversy; see “God in Early Latin Theology: Tertullian and the Trinity,” in God
in Early Christian Thought, ed. Andrew McGowan, Brian Daley, and Richard ­Norris
(Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
33. Osborn insists on their secondary character relative to the “intellectual meta-
phors” of Tertullian’s work (Tertullian, First Theologian, 122–23). See also Evans,
Tertullian’s Treatise Against Praxeas, 81–82, and Pelikan, “Montanism,” 106–7. The
point concerning original influence becomes sharper if Tertullian is believed to be de-
pendent on the Contra Noetum of Hippolytus; see n.10 above.
 MCGOWAN/ORIGINS OF THE “ORTHODOX” TRINITY    447

Tertullian’s prior thinking; it may be the mere fact that the Paraclete is
credited with teaching this image, and is thus ascribed a role not merely
disciplinary but doctrinal.

The New Prophecy and the Trinity

We have already noted the common judgment that “Montanism” was
doctrinally similar or identical to emergent catholic Christianity, and only
ethically idiosyncratic or sectarian. If that were the case, the presumption
of theological sameness or blandness would render moot any question
of supposed influence from the New Prophecy on Tertullian’s trinitarian
thought. Tertullian’s own arguments are actually foundational to that view
of doctrinal identity, for he insists that the Paraclete is not an innovator in
doctrina, but rather upholds the Rule of Faith. And of course Tertullian’s
allegiance to the Rule predates the influence of the New Prophets.34
Less sympathetic writers among the ancients also tended to admit the
closeness of the prophetic movement’s doctrine to that of Christians who
held to the “Rule of Faith”; Hippolytus (meaning here the author of the
Elenchus) describes the “Phrygians” as generally orthodox, and only asceti-
cally extreme, yet also notes that there were some who were monarchian in
theology.35 Although a clearer or more consistent association of the New
Prophecy with monarchianism would certainly have drawn clearer criti-
cism (including Tertullian’s), the possibility of an early or even original
tendency in this direction cannot be dismissed altogether.36
In any case, the alleged dogmatic similarity between the adherents of
the New Prophecy and the wider “catholic” grouping at Carthage and
elsewhere can be presented either with implied scholarly sympathy, mak-
ing the New Prophecy “orthodox,” or else less positively, presenting the
New Prophecy as lacking originality or consistency. The possibility of a
thin monarchian strand amidst a relatively “orthodox” fabric might sup-
port that second account, suggesting a dearth of dogmatic coherence in
the prophetic movement.

34. Jejun. 1.3; Pud. 11.3; Mon. 2.4; and see further below.
35. See Haer. 8.19 (GCS 26:238).
36. See also Ps.-Tertullian, Adversus omnes haereses 7.2. Some commentators see
the original Asian form of the New Prophecy as likely to have been characterized
by mon­archianism, either because it was a useful form of thought for working with
the oracles of the New Prophets (Pelikan, “Montanism,” 101–3), or simply because
that view was typical of late second-century Asian Christianity (thus Alistair ­Stewart-
Sykes, “The Asian Context of the New Prophecy and of Epistula Apostolorum,” VC
51 [1997]: 416–38, esp. 432–33). See also the discussion in Tabbernee, “‘Will the
Real Paraclete Please Speak Forth!’,” 106–9.
448    JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

Yet it is quite misleading to wield the category of doctrinal “orthodoxy”

for early third-century Christianity so as to suggest an entirely clear and
coherent set of beliefs and practices, and still more misleading to assume the
correlation of such thoughts and actions with one identifiable institution.
Few tendencies or communities in third-century Christianity—whether
defined in terms of geography, theological confession, ascetic practice,
or distinct authority and organization—did not encompass a diversity of
(other) elements of practice and thought along with their specific identi-
fying and unifying traits. Comparison with other local situations such as
those at Rome, in Asia, and in Syria suggests that the question of trinitar-
ian belief was far from being settled within those communities otherwise
defined, inevitably somewhat anachronistically, as “catholic.”
Thus it is not necessary to conclude that the New Prophecy had no rele­
vance to Tertullian’s trinitarian thought simply because other Christians
who revered the Phrygian prophets held different views, or because he had
confessed the Trinity (if in a slightly less distinct form?) before he knew of
the New Prophecy. Scholarly assessments of the New Prophecy that exclude
the possibilities of an original or distinctive contribution themselves betray
how the Phrygian movement has been over-defined and essentialized by
its interpreters—such definition being achieved in part via the exclusion
of its key third-century expositor, Tertullian, who for other reasons has
been assigned to a different category in the history of dogma.37
Yet Tertullian’s own theology is of course by far the most significant
surviving “Montanist” articulation of a doctrine of God at any stage,
unless we invoke a prescription against considering it as such. That it
is also arguably original, or that other adherents of the New Prophecy
might not all have argued in the same way, is beside the point. And if it
is difficult to determine the extent of any new or distinct influence on
him, this does not mean that Tertullian’s adherence to the New Prophecy
is irrelevant either to reading Against Praxeas or to its influence on the
subsequent tradition.
To arrive at a more satisfactory answer concerning the importance of
the New Prophecy for Tertullian’s views, one rather neglected and one
more familiar question might now be asked again, and in some closer
relation to each another: first, what was the situation at Carthage regard-
ing the different local tendencies and communities in relation to their
belief about God? And second, how does Tertullian himself understand

37. René Braun points out that Tertullian’s achievement involves “une conception
originale qui porte empreinte de son puissant esprit” in “Tertullian et le Montan-
isme,” 250.
 MCGOWAN/ORIGINS OF THE “ORTHODOX” TRINITY    449

the importance of the New Prophecy in resolving the conflict associated

with Praxeas? By asking these more contextual questions we may hope to
approach a more adequate conclusion about the importance of the New
Prophecy in Against Praxeas and in the doctrinal discourse of early Car-
thaginian Christianity.

THE RULE OF FAITH AND

THE NEW PROPHECY AT CARTHAGE

Simplices and Psychici

Since Praxeas had dissuaded the Roman bishop from recognizing the New
Prophecy and the witness of the Paraclete, as well as having taught the
identity of the Father and Son, Tertullian accused him of a complex impi-
ety: that he both “drove out the Paraclete and nailed up the Father.”38
It might not follow, however, that the refutation of monarchian teach-
ing about the Father and Son would have vindicated the New Prophecy.
If the doctrine of the wider “catholic” church on the Trinity and the views
typical of the New Prophecy were identical, Tertullian’s anti-monarchian
salvo in Against Praxeas would simply have represented a doctrinal tacti-
cal alliance between different ecclesial tendencies; Tertullian and the fol-
lowers of the Paraclete merely shared the common ground of the Rule of
Faith for a time with the lukewarm psychici, contending together against
those under the influence of Praxeas, before resuming their own struggles
over ascetic practice.
In fact the evidence of Against Praxeas and of other works of Tertullian
from the same period suggest a quite different dynamic about the relation-
ships between those respectively influenced by New Prophecy, the Rule
of Faith, and the monarchianism of Praxeas. Some years prior to show-
ing any clear influence from the New Prophecy, Tertullian in the treatise
On the Prescription of Heretics famously invoked a sort of procedural
rule against debating with teachers of error, arguing that contention over
scripture with those who did not adhere to the Rule of Faith was point-
less.39 In Against Praxeas he refers again to the Rule and to the principle
of “prescription,” but then makes an exception:
Still, despite that prescription, everywhere room must yet be granted also
for further discussions, for the instruction and equipment of certain persons,

38. Prax. 1.5 (CCL 2:1160).

39. Tertullian refers back to this treatise (Praescr. 31) at Prax. 2.2; C. H. Turner,
“Tertullianea I. Notes on the Adversus Praxean,” JTS (n.s.) 14 (1913): 563.
450    JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

unless it seem that each error is condemned not after examination but
by prejudice—and in particular this one, which supposes itself to possess
unadulterated truth while it thinks it impossible to believe in one God,
unless it says that Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one and the same.40

Tertullian’s desire to proceed differently in this case and the identity of “cer-
tain persons” both demand some thought. Why would monarchian beliefs
such as those of Praxeas deserve special consideration, rather than being
ruled out of court like the claims of Valentinians and Marcionites?
Tertullian elaborates his point by speaking of the “simplices” or simple-
tons of the church, and the difficulty that they have because of Praxeas’s
teaching. The Rule of Faith, he says, brings over these of simple faith—“not
to call them the thoughtless and stupid, who are always the greater part of
the believers”—“from the many gods of the world to the one true God.”
In other words, these are somehow associated with the Rule, which had
taught them monotheism despite their apparent intellectual limitations.
Yet, Tertullian says, this simple majority does not yet understand that “it
is necessary to believe [in God] as one, but along with his economy,” and
wrongly presumes that “the number and arrangement of the Trinity is a
division of unity.”41
This passage is very revealing. It is not only Praxeas of old, but these
simplices themselves now who argue—clearly not so simplistically, despite
Tertullian’s abusive labelling—that “number and arrangement of the Trin-
ity is a division of unity.” The followers of Praxean falsehood are not a
marginal group disturbing the doctrinal peace of the church; rather Ter-
tullian implies that the majority of the Carthaginian Christians, notion-
ally adhering to a Rule of Faith but somehow distant from its trinitarian
element, are openly or latently monarchian. Thus although Tertullian’s
“prescriptive” logic could have allowed him to dismiss the “simple”
without a hearing, he actually seeks to correct and instruct, rather than
to exclude them. This is the most fundamental reason why “instruction
and equipment” is a better strategy than “prescription”; for it is most of
the membership of the church itself, as Tertullian understands it, that has
fallen prey to this doctrine or is at least at risk from it.42
Across his writings Tertullian deals with just one other errant group via

40. Prax. 2.3 (CCL 2:1161).

41. Prax. 3.1 (CCL 2:1161).
42. In fact as Evans points out, the Hippolytan Refutatio says something similar
about the Roman church (Haer. 9.12); Evans doubts this, but his skepticism involves
the anachronistic view that the monarchians were a “conventicle.”
 MCGOWAN/ORIGINS OF THE “ORTHODOX” TRINITY    451

the same strategy, that is, the strategy of pedagogy rather than prescrip-
tion. This is how elsewhere he treats the psychici, that bulk of mediocre
Christians resistant to the asceticism of the New Prophets. Despite the
kind of personal “separation” he reported, Tertullian always deals with
these in some apparent hope of persuasion (despite the polemics), and the
assumption of a common interest or affinity gone wrong. The unavoidable
conclusion is that the monarchian simplices—the majority of Christian
believers—are actually the same mass of ethically-mediocre psychici. Both
labels are apparently ways of speaking about most of those whom Ter-
tullian (somewhat grudgingly) regards as Christians, however inadequate
their actual faith or practice.
So the monarchian simplices and the “catholic” psychici were actually
the same group, viewed from two different perspectives. This association
of belief and practice sets Tertullian’s attack on the binitarian blasphemy
of Praxeas in quite a different light. If it is too much to say that Carthag-
inian Christianity, apart from the followers of the Paraclete, had lapsed
into a sort of confessional monarchianism, it must at least be allowed that
a certain tendency in the interpretation of the Rule—perhaps the sort of
compromise on trinitarian theology represented by Callistus at Rome—was
entirely real and even temporarily dominant in Carthage. This same group
was identified with the more pragmatic approach to ethics and skepticism
towards the New Prophecy that attracted the label psychici from Tertul-
lian. Driving out the Paraclete and crucifying the Father were linked, and
at one point in early third-century Carthage trinitarian belief might seem
to have depended for its survival on “Montanism.”

The Paraclete and the Rule of Faith

An argument has been made here for the identity of monarchian simplices
and “catholic” psychici from the evidence of Tertullian’s writings. There
is a tension, however, between this apparent connection and the separa-
tion insisted upon at times by Tertullian, and all the more so many of his
commentators, between the doctrina of the Rule of Faith and the disciplina
espoused by the Paraclete. If these were really entirely independent matters,
the practical identity in early third-century Carthage of the Christians of
monarchian tendency and the moderate or “psychic” opponents of the New
Prophecy could be seen as merely coincidental. Yet on closer examination,
Tertullian in Against Praxeas and elsewhere firmly establishes the relation
between the New Prophecy and trinitarian faith theoretically, whatever his
thoughts at some other points about discipline and doctrine.
His account of the Rule of Faith suggests that the work of the ­Paraclete
452    JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

in Carthage was not simply that of authenticating the new prophets them-
selves, or of convincing lukewarm Christians of the benefits of ascetic
rigor, but rather of actually teaching the truth of the Father’s and the
Son’s persons and being. Even though he sometimes downplays the place
of the Paraclete in doctrine in order to defend the continuity between the
New Prophecy and the ancient apostolic faith, Tertullian’s own concep-
tion of the role of the Paraclete clearly encompasses the Rule. He invokes
the temporal priority of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity as one of its
proofs, but not so as to leave the Paraclete on the margins:
We indeed both in the past and all the more so now, as better instructed
through the Paraclete who is the leader into all truth, believe in one God,
but subject to this dispensation that we call the economy: that the one God
has also a Son . . . who then, according to his promise, sent from the Father
the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, as the sanctifier of the faith of those who
believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.43

These affirmations concerning the role of the Paraclete are now clearly
presented as part of the content of that Rule. Although he also affirms
continuity of belief, Tertullian claims a firmer and clearer understanding
of the Rule through the work of the Paraclete, and places the Paraclete
and that work within the Rule itself. Further, if the Paraclete is “sanctifier
of the faith of those who believe”—not identified merely or specifically as
adherents of a particular discipline per se—then those who hold to correct
belief and those who receive the Paraclete’s sanctification are the same.
Others who do not know of the Spirit’s sanctifying work apparently do
not hold to that right belief—precisely what the other evidence confirms
about the Carthaginian situation.
The new dispensation of the Paraclete is thus invoked both as source
of true doctrine and as part of its content. Towards the end of Against
Praxeas Tertullian writes that the Holy Spirit is:
the preacher of one monarchy, but also the interpreter of the economy if
one accepts the words of his new prophecy, and the leader into all truth
which is in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to the
Christian mystery.44

This is not a unique statement among Tertullian’s writings. For him the
Paraclete is that aspect of God’s being that turns theory into practice, link-
ing and unifying disciplina and doctrina. Belief in the Holy Spirit is not

43. Prax. 2.1 (CCL 2:1160).

44. Prax. 30.5 (CCL 2:1204); emphasis in translation mine.
 MCGOWAN/ORIGINS OF THE “ORTHODOX” TRINITY    453

merely a matter of acknowledging the arithmetic involved in the trinitar-

ian economy of God; without the discipline of the Paraclete, the doctrine
will have been absent also.
A not dissimilar crossing of the boundary between disciplina and doc-
trina is performed in the book On the Veiling of Virgins: “What is the
Paraclete’s area of responsibility but this: that disciplina is directed, the
Scriptures revealed, the intellect reformed, the higher things approached.”45
The work of the Paraclete is here again clearly related to the understand-
ing and exposition of faith, not merely to asceticism or other elements of
practice. Or again in the treatise On Monogamy, of virtually identical date
with Against Praxeas,46 Tertullian is very clear about the continuity and
stability of doctrine but gives the Paraclete a role in it:
Moreover the Paraclete, having many things to teach fully which the
Lord deferred to him will, in accordance with that precondition, first
bears witness to Christ himself, as we have faith in him, together with
the whole order of God the Creator, and will glorify Him, and will bring
to remembrance things regarding him. And thus recognized out of this
principal Rule, He will reveal those many things which relate to the
disciplines. . . .47

Tertullian does assert the validity of the Paraclete’s activity by pointing to

its continuity with the Rule of Faith. It would be quite wrong, however, to
imagine him teaching that the Paraclete has nothing to say about doctrine.
Rather, the “witness” of the Paraclete in matters of faith is foundational
for the disciplinary revelation that follows. Tertullian claims, in effect, that
the witness of the New Prophecy to the triune God is distinctive enough
to authenticate the Paraclete’s disciplinary agenda.

Discipline and Doctrine

The idea that the role of the Paraclete was not doctrinal but disciplinary
has often been linked with the view that “Montanism” was theologically
orthodox or merely unoriginal. Tertullian himself seems to be the origin
of the former notion, although we have already noted that his position
has arguably been misunderstood, or at least exaggerated.
The trinitarian theology of the West has at times tended to extrapolate
the place of the Paraclete, just as Tertullian himself admittedly does at
some points in Against Praxeas, by a sort of mathematical analogy that

45. Virg. 1.5 (CCL 2:1209–10).

46. Between 210 and 213; see CCL 2:1627–28, and Barnes, Tertullian, 55.
47. Mon. 2.4 (CCL 2:1230).
454    JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

centers on the oikonomia of God’s self-arrangement or extension. Yet

the confession of a true trinitarian doctrina for Tertullian was apparently
more than drawing a further (third) implication from the possibility of
multiplicity in unity.
The new third elements of those organic metaphors in chapter 2 of
Against Praxeas—fruit, canal, and point of light—might be taken more
seriously as a better expression of his own trinitarianism, for whose under-
standing the fructus of the actual experience of the Paraclete in disciplina,
and not simply the confession of his existence, was necessary.48 Tertullian’s
belief about the Paraclete concerns the activity of the Holy Spirit in the
church, both for doctrine and for discipline. That Spirit is active both in
confirming and strengthening true doctrine and in revealing the “many
things” of a discipline that is equally part of the eternal will of God, but
more recently made known. For Tertullian, a true doctrina recognizes the
work of the Paraclete in the church, and a true disciplina proceeds from the
confession of the one God revealed not only in Creation and in the work
of Christ, but in the activity of the Spirit even in Tertullian’s day. Whether
this trinitarianism is quite the one understood as his legacy bequeathed to
the tradition is debatable.
Tertullian does insist that the Paraclete is not the bearer of theological
novelties; of course his critique of Marcion was founded on this same
point, that God’s truth did not arrive suddenly (see Marc. 3.2.1). Praxeas
receives similar treatment as an innovator, having come along just “yester-
day.”49 Tertullian is at pains to point to how the New Prophecy can actu-
ally be the old-time religion. Across the works in which he demonstrates
the influence of the New Prophecy, Tertullian uses three strategies to argue
this point. These can be demonstrated conveniently and more fully from
the treatise On Monogamy.
One is to downplay the novelty of the New Prophecy as such, depict-
ing the Paraclete as “restorer more than innovator.”50 Another is to claim
biblical warrant for a deferred element of revelation, based on John 16.12
(Mon. 2), provided the point is in accordance with the Rule of Faith.51
Finally, this sort of deferred revelation is often couched as a matter of dis-
ciplina rather than of fides (Mon. 2.3–4), the distinction being used as a
means of assuring continuity and stability of Christian teaching.

48. On this point see further McGowan, “God in Early Latin Theology.”
49. Prax. 2.2 (CCL 2:1160).
50. Mon. 4.1 (CCL 2:1233).
51. Tabbernee speaks of an element of “progressive revelation” (“‘Will the Real
Paraclete Please Speak Forth!’,” 103).
 MCGOWAN/ORIGINS OF THE “ORTHODOX” TRINITY    455

Commentators have often taken these rhetorical strategies at face value

without considering the other evidence for Tertullian’s views.52 In another
work from the same period, the treatise On Fasting, he does point out
that “psychic” objections to the New Prophecy are made not on doctrinal
principle, but for the sake of ethical accommodation:
These take issue with the Paraclete; because of this the New Prophecies are
rejected: not that Montanus and Priscilla and Maximilla preach another
God, nor that they separate Jesus Christ, nor that they overturn any
particular rule of faith or hope, but that they openly teach that one should
fast more often than marry!53

This passage has usually been read as though it indicated commonality of

doctrine and distinctiveness of practice; that the psychici had no cause for
complaint on theological grounds, and thus had to appeal to their differ-
ent stance on issues such as marriage. We have already seen, however, that
both these assumptions are highly questionable; not only are doctrine and
discipline closely related in these debates, but the psychici might well (in
their guise as simplices, as it were) have held views about the nature of
God at odds with those Tertullian attributes to the New Prophets.
So in fact this passage from On Fasting actually demonstrates the dis-
tinctiveness of the doctrina professed by adherents of the New Prophecy,
compared to that of others at Carthage. Tertullian indicates that the objec-
tors attack on the grounds of the New Prophets’ insistence on extensive
fasts and on the exclusion of remarriage, but also that if they had made
theological complaint, it would have been about preaching “another God”
or about the “separation” of the divine persons—both statements describ-
ing a trinitarian theology from a monarchian standpoint. Tertullian says
that the psychici were more concerned about defending their physical
indulgence than their theology, not that they had no doctrinal differences
or qualms regarding the New Prophecy.
There is every reason to believe this doctrinal argument has to do with
the same trinitarian debate revealed in Against Praxeas, where the distinct
subsistence of the Son (and perhaps also that of the Paraclete) offends the
monarchian Christians. On Fasting thus confirms the substantial identity
of the Carthaginian psychici and the simplices, as well as further demon-
strating Tertullian’s understanding of the distinctive trinitarianism of the
New Prophecy.

52. A notable exception is David Rankin, who recognizes the Paraclete’s doctrinal
role for Tertullian; see “Tertullian’s Vocabulary,” 5–6, n.1.
53. Jejun. 1.3 (CCL 2:1257).
456    JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

CONCLUSION

Did the New Prophecy influence the doctrine of the Trinity? It may still
seem that the influence of the Paraclete was not necessary to the ­influential
formulations of Against Praxeas concerning the “economy” of the tri-
une God, or the language of personae and substantia. The similarity of
Tertullian’s trinitarian teaching to that of other writings connected with
the tradition of the Rule of Faith, and indeed his own earlier ones, could
seem to make the more distinctive elements of Against Praxeas ultimately
irrelevant, and the context in a particular Carthaginian dispute beside the
point.
Such a conclusion can really only be drawn, however, if certain elements
of Against Praxeas are taken so far out of Tertullian’s context that his own
understanding is ignored or erased, in still another instance of division or
distinction—sundering the historical Quintus Septimius Florens of Car-
thage from the Tertullian of dogma. Of course “Montanism” and trinitar-
ian theology could have existed without one another, and at most points
did. At this crucial juncture in early third-century Carthage however, in
this piece of writing and for this complex theologian, they did not. For
Tertullian—and if he was right, for the Carthaginian church as a whole
at one point of history—defense of trinitarian faith actually depended on
the followers of the Paraclete.54 That true faith authenticated the New
Prophecy for its adherents, who were the effective witnesses to that faith
and to the Paraclete, and that set of circumstances was necessary to the
contribution Tertullian’s writings were to make to tradition.
Tertullian himself has been described as a “Montanist Catholic.”55 There
is a certain retrospective truth in this combination of anachronisms. To
use terms more meaningful in his time and place, he was a Christian who
adhered to the Rule of Faith, and pursued its lived significance, theoretical
as well as practical, under the aegis of the New Prophecy. In early third-
century Carthage, he was ecclesially marginal precisely because he was
doctrinally orthodox. This combination was necessary to the specifics of
his trinitarian contribution, later as much as then.
We should also acknowledge the irony that Tertullian is a major con-
tributor to some of the categories that fail to do his own work justice and
which have sometimes rendered the life of the early Carthaginian church

54. Thus T. D. Barnes: “Tertullian helped to rescue the Catholic Church from theo-
logical heresy precisely because he was a Montanist” (Tertullian, 142).
55. Christine Trevett, in Montanism: Gender, Authority and the New Prophecy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 69.
 MCGOWAN/ORIGINS OF THE “ORTHODOX” TRINITY    457

more opaque. Not only was his contribution to the construction of “ortho-
doxy” and “heresy” enormously significant, but the more specific distinc-
tion between doctrina and disciplina both undergirds others’ separation
of theology from ethics in his thought, and adds to the whole Western
tradition’s struggle with the relationship between theory and practice. It
is therefore not later categories alone but even some of his own that may
prove inadequate to deal with the theological and ecclesial tensions of the
early third century. Tertullian himself is a remarkable personification of
their limitations as well as of their force, and in some respects author of
his own disjuncture.

Andrew McGowan is Director of the Theological School and

Joan F. W. Munro Lecturer in Theology at Trinity College,
University of Melbourne
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.