For you will say, what is a word, but a voice and sound of the mouth, and air when struck against, intelligible to the ear, but for the rest a sort of void, empty, and incorporeal thing. I, on the contrary, contend that nothing empty and void could have come forth from God, seeing that it is not put forth from that which is empty and void; nor could that possibly be devoid of substance which has proceeded from so great a substance, and has produced such mighty substances: for all things which were made through Him, He Himself (personally) made. How could it be, that He Himself is nothing, without whom nothing was made? How could He who is empty have made things which are solid, and He who is void have made things which are full, and He who is incorporeal have made things which have body?
\n…
\nFor who will deny that God is a body, although \u201cGod is a Spirit?\u201d For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form. Now, even if invisible things, whatsoever they be, have both their substance and their form in God, whereby they are visible to God alone, how much more shall that which has been sent forth from His substance not be without substance! Whatever, therefore, was the substance of the Word that I designate a Person, I claim for it the name of Son; and while I recognize the Son, I assert His distinction as second to the Father.
\n— Against Praxeas VII<\/p>\n
The Son alone knows the Father, and has Himself unfolded \u201cthe Father\u2019s bosom.\u201d He has also heard and seen all things with the Father; and what He has been commanded by the Father, that also does He speak. And it is not His own will, but the Father\u2019s, which He has accomplished, which He had known most intimately, even from the beginning. \u201cFor what man knoweth the things which be in God, but the Spirit which is in Him?\u201d But the Word was formed by the Spirit, and (if I may so express myself) the Spirit is the body of the Word. The Word, therefore, is both always in the Father, as He says, \u201cI am in the Father\u201d and is always with God, according to what is written, \u201cAnd the Word was with God\u201d and never separate from the Father, or other than the Father, since \u201cI and the Father are one.\u201d This will be the prolation, taught by the truth, the guardian of the Unity, wherein we declare that the Son is a prolation from the Father, without being separated from Him. For God sent forth the Word, as the Paraclete also declares, just as the root puts forth the tree, and the fountain the river, and the sun the ray.
\n…
\nEverything which proceeds from something else must needs be second to that from which it proceeds, without being on that account separated. Where, however, there is a second, there must be two; and where there is a third, there must be three. Now the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son; just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root, or as the stream out of the river is third from the fountain, or as the apex of the ray is third from the sun. Nothing, however, is alien from that original source whence it derives its own properties.
\n— Against Praxeas VIII<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Word is a Substantive Being For you will say, what is a word, but a voice and sound of the mouth, and air when struck against, intelligible to the ear, but for the rest a sort of void, empty, and incorporeal thing. I, on the contrary, contend that nothing empty and void could have come forth from God, seeing that it is not put forth from that which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tertullian","tag-doctrine-of-the-trinity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":884,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/tertullian-a-treatise-on-the-soul\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":0},"title":"Tertullian: A Treatise On the Soul","author":"Nemo","date":"December 27, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"A comprehensive treatise on the soul. Its substance, attributes, origin, and final destiny. Tertullian argues that the soul is corporeal, in opposition to the Gnostics, and Plato, with whom (he believes) the Gnostic heresies originated. He critiques pagan philosophers and writers on various opinions about the soul, and strives to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tertullian"","block_context":{"text":"Tertullian","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/tertullian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":784,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/tertullian-on-the-divinity-of-christ\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":1},"title":"Tertullian: On the Divinity of Christ","author":"Nemo","date":"January 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word, and Reason, and Power. ... The Word, and Reason, and Power, by which God made all, have spirit as their proper and essential substratum, in which the Word has in being to give forth utterances, and reason abides\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tertullian"","block_context":{"text":"Tertullian","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/tertullian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":803,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/tertullian-on-time-and-eternity\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":2},"title":"Tertullian on Time and Eternity","author":"Nemo","date":"January 8, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Reason which made the universe out of diverse elements, so that all things might be composed of opposite substances in unity\u2014of void and solid, of animate and inanimate, of comprehensible and incomprehensible, of light and darkness, of life itself and death\u2014has also disposed time into order, by fixing and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tertullian"","block_context":{"text":"Tertullian","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/tertullian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1071,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/hippolytus-on-pythagoras\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":3},"title":"Hippolytus On Pythagoras","author":"Nemo","date":"February 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Pythagoras\u2019 System of Numbers Pythagoras, then, declared the originating principle of the universe to be the unbegotten monad, and the generated duad, and the rest of the numbers. And he says that the monad is the father of the duad, and the duad the mother of all things that are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hippolytus"","block_context":{"text":"Hippolytus","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/hippolytus\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1192,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/novatian-on-the-trinity-iii\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":4},"title":"Novatian: On the Trinity III","author":"Nemo","date":"May 2, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Son was Begotten of the Father Thus God the Father, the Founder and Creator of all things, who only knows no beginning, invisible, infinite, immortal, eternal, is one God; to whose greatness, or majesty, or power, I would not say nothing can be preferred, but nothing can be compared;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Novatian"","block_context":{"text":"Novatian","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/novatian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":913,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/tertullian-the-prescription-against-heretics\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":5},"title":"Tertullian: The Prescription Against Heretics","author":"Nemo","date":"January 1, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Rule of Faith Now, with regard to this rule of faith\u2014that we may from this point acknowledge what it is which we defend\u2014it is, you must know, that which prescribes the belief that there is one only God, and that He is none other than the Creator of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tertullian"","block_context":{"text":"Tertullian","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/tertullian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peqR9l-g7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}