Tag Archives: Tertullian

Oneness in Malachi

I will be taking up the pen again (or keyboard) and start discussing articles on Oneness again in the Oneness in … series.  Today’s book of the bible is Malachi.

Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?MAL 2:10

The Prophet Malachi tells the Priests that we all have one (echad) father (אָב) and one (echad) God (אֵל).  Both verbs are used in the singular form giving context to the word echad.  Thus we have only one God according to Malachi.
The Prophet Malachi whose name means “my messenger” or “angel” lived approximately 400 years before the Birth of Christ during the time of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity. Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets, therefore the Post Apostolic Fathers refer to him as “the seal of the prophets.”
The Coffman Commentaries of the Old Testament has this to say of the selected pericope of scripture:
God had emphatically warned Israel against mixed marriages with pagans (Exo. 34:16; Deut. 7:3; and Josh. 22:12,13). Through intermarriages with the heathen they profaned that covenant. Ezra had done his best to eradicate the evil (Ezra 9:10); and, “Nehemiah, too, contended against those who had contracted such marriages,” having found many such violations of God’s law upon his return to Jerusalem (Nehemiah 13:23-28). The important consideration in this desire on God’s part that Israel should not marry foreign wives was that doing so injected an element of paganism into Israel, an injection which had actually been the source of the total apostasy of both the secular kingdoms of Israel before the exile.
The emphasis is mine.  Here we see that the context which contains the verse in question is dealing with the sin of Israel after having just returned from exile.  They have almost immediately profaned their covenant with God by marrying women who were not Jewish.  This is why Malachi states “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?”  He is saying they all have one God who is the father of the Jewish nation.  There is no plurality in the context.  The only God that the priests (and Malachi) know is the one true and living God, YHWH.  The concept of a trinity would not come about for another 600 or so years when Tertullian et.al. would impose their views of a pagan concept of God onto in his words “The simple” as seen in chapter three of Agains Praxeas quoted below.

The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and unlearned,) who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the Three in One), on the ground that their very rule of faith withdraws them from the world’s plurality of gods to the one only true God; not understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must yet be believed in with His own οἰκονομία . The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity they assume to be a division of the Unity; whereas the Unity which derives the Trinity out of its own self is so far from being destroyed, that it is actually supported by it. They are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves pre-eminently the credit of being worshippers of the One God; just as if the Unity itself with irrational deductions did not produce heresy, and theTrinity rationally considered constitute the truth.

Tertullian himself admits that the majority of believers in his day were believers in a Unity or oneness view of God as opposed to Tertullian’s view of the trinity.  He even goes so far as to say that the majority of believers threw accusations against him of being a preacher of two or three gods by preaching his doctrine of trinity.

Malachi as well throws accusations against the unrepentant Israel by stating a fact of God’s inherent quality of being one, not divided into a multiplicity of gods or persons.

Tertullian: A sketch

For today’s post, I’d like to highlight some things about the man who is known as one of the founding fathers of western Christianity, and many say one of the fathers of the doctrine of the trinity.

Tertullian:

  • Born around 160AD and died around 220AD although these dates are not firm.
  • Full name was Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus.
  • He was born in Carthage, a city in North Africa.
  • He was the son of a Roman Centurian and later converted to Christianity.
  • He was a Montanist.

Here is a small excerpt about what Montanists believed:

  • Believed is seeking out persecution as well as corporal punishment.
  • One who has fallen from grace could not be redeemed.
  • In 177AD the movement was banned as heretical.
  • The movement almost completely vanished by the sixth century.

One of Tertullian’s most famous works discussing the trinity is found in ‘Against Praxeas’.  In chapter three he states some enlightening things on his views of Christendom at his time.  According to Tertullian the majority of believers in Christ are ‘simple minded’.  He stated the majority of believers were startled at the doctrine of three-in-one.  Why were they startled?  Because most Christians at this time were under the belief (rightly so) that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, and not a personhood of one god with three persons.  This went against the Judaic beliefs that the Apostles taught as well as the teachings of Jesus Christ Himself!

He stated ‘The very rule of faith withdraws them from polytheism . . .’ which is true based on the teachings of only one God as found in the Sh’ema as well as the teachings of Christ.  Those Gentiles who had just been drawn out of worshipping a pantheon of gods were now rightfully confused.  Is God really three-in-one?  What’s the difference then between the Christian God and the Egyptian god Ra who was also described as three-in-one, or the Hindu god Vishnu who was three-in-one?

Tertullian believed in his own oikonomia, or how he interprets and practices the canon.  This is in line with his strict and rigid code that he practiced as a member of the heretical Montanist movement.

Tertullian writes ‘the numerical order and distribution of the trinity they assume to be a division of the unity . . .’ in chapter three.  Tertullian’s theology implies an order or ranking of the persons of the trinity.  Again he writes ‘in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, who have the second and the third places assigned to them,’.  As you can see, Tertullian without a doubt believes that there is a pecking order in the trinity with God the Father assuming the highest role.  Obviously, the other two hold to a lower position and stature.  If you ask most trinity professing Christians today, they will say almost the same thing Tertullian proposes in his writings.  His teachings have pervaded throughout Christendom to become the de facto standard in the way most Christians believe and perceive of God.

Lastly, in this post I’d like to leave you with Tertullian’s defense against modalists (which he admits is the majority of ‘simple minded’ believers) during his day.  He said because modalists believe in angels who are with God and help perform heavenly tasks and are themselves spirit beings from God why should they be offended and reject a plurality of persons in the Godhead?  So, basically, Tertullian would have them believe in the trinity because there are a multitude of angels so why not a multitude of persons in God.

Well, I believe I’ll stand upon what scripture tells me of the ontological and metaphysical nature of Christ.  Christ was both fully man and fully God.  In fact, I’ll even affirm the highlights from the council of Chalcedon in 451AD which were the following:

  • Christ is truly God
  • Christ is truly man
  • Christ has two natures
  • Christ is one person