Tertullian’s Paradoxical God-Man

Noted 2nd -3 rd century AD African writer and apologist Tertullian had much to say in respect to Christ being the God-Man, plainly teaching that there is one divine Person who took on flesh and became Man. He was also a passionate opponent of the heresy of modalism, which taught that the three divine Persons of the Trinity are actually one and the same Person, namely, the Father, who manifested himself in these different modes or ways.

In his refutation to one such heretic, Tertullian appeals to both the Old and New Testaments to prove that there always have been three distinct Persons of the Father, the Son and the Spirit, and that these three were already distinct from one another from before creation. Tertullian sets out to prove that it is the Son alone who became a human being, not the Father or the Holy Spirit. Tertullian also believes that in certain passages the phrase “Holy Spirit” does not refer to the third Person of the Trinity, but points to the Son’s divine essence which is spiritual by nature, in contrast to flesh. Tertullian clearly states that there are three distinct divine Persons, one of whom is named the Holy Spirit. Tertullian emphatically taught that there is one divine substance distributed among three distinct, yet inseparable divine Persons in the all-holy Trinity.

Tertullian will even cite a slew of biblical texts to demonstrate that Jesus is both God and Man, highlighting places where either his Deity or Humanity are in view. Some of the verses which he quotes to affirm that Christ was/is truly human include the words of our Lord stating that he was ignorant of the day or hour. Since Tertullian mentions this in passing he doesn’t bother to explain how he harmonizes or reconciles this with his belief in Christ’s perfect, essential Deity which he possesses in union with both the Father and the Spirit.

All emphasis will be mine.

Chapter 26. A Brief Reference to the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. Their Agreement with St. John, in Respect to the Distinct Personality of the Father and the Son

In addition to Philip’s conversation, and the Lord’s reply to it, the reader will observe that we have run through John’s Gospel to show that many other passages of a clear purport, both before and after that chapter, are only in strict accord with that single and prominent statement, which must be interpreted agreeably to all other places, rather than in opposition to them, and indeed to its own inherent and natural sense. I will not here largely use the support of the other Gospels, which confirm our belief by the Lord’s nativity: it is sufficient to remark that He who had to be born of a virgin is announced in express terms by the angel himself as the Son of God: The Spirit of God shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you; therefore also the Holy Thing that shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God. Luke 1:35 On this passage even they will wish to raise a cavil; but truth will prevail. Of course, they say, the Son of God is God, and the power of the highest is the Most High. And they do not hesitate to insinuate what, if it had been true, would have been written. Whom was he so afraid of as not plainly to declare, God shall come upon you, and the Highest shall overshadow you? Now, by saying the Spirit of God (although the Spirit of God is God,) and by not directly naming God, he wished that portion of the whole Godhead to be understood, which was about to retire into the designation of the Son. The Spirit of God in this passage must be the same as the Word. For just as, when John says, The Word was made flesh, John 1:14 we understand the Spirit also in the mention of the Word: so here, too, we acknowledge the Word likewise in the name of the Spirit. For both the Spirit is the substance of the Word, and the Word is the operation of the Spirit, and the Two are One (and the same). Now John must mean One when he speaks of Him as having been made flesh, and the angel Another when he announces Him as about to be born, if the Spirit is not the Word, and the Word the Spirit. For just as the Word of God is not actually He whose Word He is, so also the Spirit (although He is called God) is not actually He whose Spirit He is said to be. Nothing which belongs to something else is actually the very same thing as that to which it belongs. Clearly, when anything proceeds from a personal subject, and so belongs to him, since it comes from him, it may possibly be such in quality exactly as the personal subject himself is from whom it proceeds, and to whom it belongs. And thus the Spirit is God, and the Word is God, because proceeding from God, but yet is not actually the very same as He from whom He proceeds. Now that which is God of God, although He is an actually existing thing, yet He cannot be God Himself (exclusively), but so far God as He is of the same substance as God Himself, and as being an actually existing thing, and as a portion of the Whole. Much more will the power of the Highest not be the Highest Himself, because It is not an actually existing thing, as being Spirit — in the same way as the wisdom (of God) and the providence (of God) is not God: these attributes are not substances, but the accidents of the particular substance. Power is incidental to the Spirit, but cannot itself be the Spirit. These things, therefore, whatsoever they are — (I mean) the Spirit of God, and the Word and the Power — having been conferred on the Virgin, that which is born of her is the Son of God. This He Himself, in those other Gospels also, testifies Himself to have been from His very boyhood: Did you not know, says He, that I must be about my Father’s business? Luke 2:49 Satan likewise knew Him to be this in his temptations: Since You are the Son of God. This, accordingly, the devils also acknowledge Him to be: we know You, who You are, the Holy Son of God. His Father He Himself adores. When acknowledged by Peter as the Christ (the Son) of God, Matthew 16:17 He does not deny the relation. He exults in spirit when He says to the Father, I thank You, O Father, because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent. Matthew 11:25 He, moreover, affirms also that to no man is the Father known, but to His Son; and promises that, as the Son of the Father, He will confess those who confess Him, and deny those who deny Him, before His Father. Matthew 10:32-33 He also introduces a parable of the mission to the vineyard of the Son (not the Father), who was sent after so many servants, Matthew 21:33-41 and slain by the husbandmen, and avenged by the Father. He is also ignorant of the last day and hour, which is known to the Father only. Matthew 24:36 He awards the kingdom to His disciples, as He says it had been appointed to Himself by the Father. Luke 22:29 He has power to ask, if He will, legions of angels from the Father for His help. Matthew 26:53 He exclaims that God had forsaken Him. Matthew 27:46 He commends His spirit into the hands of the Father. Luke 23:46 After His resurrection He promises in a pledge to His disciples that He will send them the promise of His Father; Luke 24:49 and lastly, He commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, not into a unipersonal God. And indeed it is not once only, but three times, that we are immersed INTO THE THREE PERSONS, at each several mention OF THEIR NAMES.

Chapter 27. The Distinction of the Father and the Son, Thus Established, He Now Proves the Distinction of the Two Natures, Which Were, Without Confusion, United in the Person of the Son. The Subterfuges of Praxeas Thus Exposed

But why should I linger over matters which are so evident, when I ought to be attacking points on which they seek to obscure the plainest proof? For, confuted on all sides on the distinction between the Father and the Son, which we maintain without destroying their inseparable union — as (by the examples) of the sun and the ray, and the fountain and the river — yet, by help of (their conceit) an indivisible number, (with issues) of two and three, they endeavour to interpret this distinction in a way which shall nevertheless tally with their own opinions: so that, all in one Person, they distinguish two, Father and Son, understanding the Son to be flesh, that is man, that is Jesus; and the Father to be spirit, that is God, that is Christ. Thus they, while contending that the Father and the Son are one and the same, do in fact begin by dividing them rather than uniting them. For if Jesus is one, and Christ is another, then the Son will be different from the Father, because the Son is Jesus, and the Father is Christ. Such a monarchy as this they learned, I suppose, in the school of Valentinus, making two — Jesus and Christ. But this conception of theirs has been, in fact, already confuted in what we have previously advanced, because the Word of God or the Spirit of God is also called the power of the Highest, whom they make the Father; whereas these relations are not themselves the same as He whose relations they are said to be, but they proceed from Him and appertain to Him. However, another refutation awaits them on this point of their heresy. See, say they, it was announced by the angel: Therefore that Holy Thing which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God. Luke 1:35 Therefore, (they argue,) as it was the flesh that was born, it must be the flesh that is the Son of God. Nay, (I answer,) this is spoken concerning the Spirit of God. For it was certainly of the Holy Spirit that the virgin conceived; and that which He conceived, she brought forth. That, therefore, had to be born which was conceived and was to be brought forth; that is to say, the Spirit, whose name should be called Emmanuel which, being interpreted, is, God with us. Matthew 1:23

Besides, the flesh is not God, so that it could not have been said concerning it, That Holy Thing shall be called the Son of God, but only that Divine Being who was born in the flesh, of whom the psalm also says, Since God became man in the midst of it, and established it by the will of the Father. Now what Divine Person was born in it? The Word, and the Spirit which became incarnate with the Word by the will of the Father. The Word, therefore, is incarnate; and this must be the point of our inquiry: How the Word became flesh — whether it was by having been transfigured, as it were, in the flesh, or by having really clothed Himself in flesh. Certainly it was by a real clothing of Himself in flesh. For the rest, we must needs believe God to be unchangeable, and incapable of form, as being eternal. But transfiguration is the destruction of that which previously existed. For whatsoever is transfigured into some other thing ceases to be that which it had been, and begins to be that which it previously was not. God, however, neither ceases to be what He was, nor can He be any other thing than what He is. The Word is God, and the Word of the Lord remains for ever,— even by holding on unchangeably in His own proper form. Now, if He admits not of being transfigured, it must follow that He be understood in this sense to have become flesh, when He comes to be in the flesh, and is manifested, and is seen, and is handled by means of the flesh; since all the other points likewise require to be thus understood. For if the Word became flesh by a transfiguration and change of substance, it follows at once that Jesus must be a substance compounded of two substances — of flesh and spirit — a kind of mixture, like electrum, composed of gold and silver; and it begins to be neither gold (that is to say, spirit) nor silver (that is to say, flesh) — the one being changed by the other, and a third substance produced. Jesus, therefore, cannot at this rate be God for He has ceased to be the Word, which was made flesh; nor can He be Man incarnate for He is not properly flesh, and it was flesh which the Word became. Being compounded, therefore, of both, He actually is neither; He is rather some third substance, very different from either. But the truth is, we find that He is expressly set forth as both God and Man; the very psalm which we have quoted intimating (of the flesh), that God became Man in the midst of it, He therefore established it by the will of the Father,— certainly in all respects as the Son of God and the Son of Man, being God and Man, differing no doubt according to each substance in its own special property, inasmuch as the Word is nothing else BUT GOD, and the flesh nothing else BUT MAN.

Thus does the apostle also teach respecting His two substances, saying, who was made of the seed of David; Romans 1:3 in which words He will be Man and Son of Man. Who was declared to be the Son of God, according to the Spirit; in which words He will be God, and the Word the Son of God. We see plainly the twofold state, which is not confounded, but conjoined in ONE PERSON — Jesus, God and Man. Concerning Christ, indeed, I defer what I have to say. (I remark here), that the property of each nature is so wholly preserved, that the Spirit on the one hand did all things in Jesus suitable to Itself, such as miracles, and mighty deeds, and wonders; and the Flesh, on the other hand, exhibited the affections which belong to it. It was hungry under the devil’s temptation, thirsty with the Samaritan woman, wept over Lazarus, was troubled even unto death, and at last actually died. If, however, it was only a tertium quid, some composite essence formed out of the Two substances, like the electrum (which we have mentioned), there would be no distinct proofs apparent of either nature. But by a transfer of functions, the Spirit would have done things to be done by the Flesh, and the Flesh such as are effected by the Spirit; or else such things as are suited neither to the Flesh nor to the Spirit, but confusedly of some third character. Nay more, on this supposition, either the Word underwent death, or the flesh did not die, if so be the Word was converted into flesh; because either the flesh was immortal, or the Word was mortal. Forasmuch, however, as the two substances acted distinctly, each in its own character, there necessarily accrued to them severally their own operations, and their own issues. Learn then, together with Nicodemus, that that which is born in the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. John 3:6 Neither the flesh becomes Spirit, nor the Spirit flesh. In one Person they no doubt are well able to be co-existent. Of them Jesus consists — Man, of the flesh; OF THE SPIRIT, GOD — and the angel designated Him as the Son of God, Luke 1:35 IN RESPECT OF THAT NATURE, IN WHICH HE WAS SPIRIT, reserving for the flesh the appellation Son of Man. In like manner, again, the apostle calls Him the Mediator between God and Men, 1 Timothy 2:5 and so affirmed His participation of both substances. Now, to end the matter, will you, who interpret the Son of God to be flesh, be so good as to show us what the Son of Man is? Will He then, I want to know, be the Spirit? But you insist upon it that the Father Himself is the Spirit, on the ground that God is a Spirit, just as if we did not read also that there is the Spirit of God; in the same manner as we find that as the Word was God, so also there is the Word of God. (Against Praxeas)