Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8bljj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-26T02:08:17.438Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Montanism and Its Trinitarian Significance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Jaroslav Pelikan
Jaroslav Pelikan
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It has become almost a commonplace of both historical and systematic theology to interpret the doctrine of the Trinity as an elaboration of the christological faith and formulations of the early church. That is true of such radically divergent interpreters of that doctrine's origin as Adolf Harnack and G. L. Prestige. Both these scholars agree in seeing the trinitarian dogma as a response to the question whether, in Harnack's words, “the divine that has appeared on earth and reunited men with God is identical with that divine which created heaven and earth, or whether it is a demigod.” Or, as Prestige elaborates the thesis: “If the godhead was not unitary, it was as simple to conceive of three Persons as of two; hence the deity of Christ carried the weight of trinitarian controversies without any necessity for extending the range of dispute, and as a matter of history, the settlement of the problems connected with the Father and the Son was found to lead to an immediate solution of the whole trinitarian difficulty.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , June 1956 , pp. 99 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1956

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Harnack, Adolph, [Grundrisz der] Dogmengeschichte (4th ed.; Tuebingen, 1905), p. 192Google Scholar; Prestige, G. L., God in Patristic Thought (2nd ed.; London, 1952), pp. 80–81Google Scholar. See the summary of various historians on this interpretation in Ruesch, Theodor, Die Entstehung der Lehre vom Heiligen Geist (Zuerich, 1952), pp. 15–21Google Scholar; and the comments of Barth, Karl, Kirchliche Dogmatik, I-1 (Munich, 1932), 332.Google Scholar

2. Seeberg, Alfred, Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit (Leipzig, 1903)Google Scholar, a work that anticipated many of the conclusions of more recent Formgeschichte.

3. Loofs, Friedrich, Theophilus von Antiochien adversus Marcionem und die anderen theologischen Quellen bei Irenaeus (Leipzig, 1930), pp. 120–122Google Scholar; Macholz, Waldemar, Spuren binitarischer Denkweise im Abendlande seit Tertullian (Jena, 1902), pp. 35–57Google Scholar; Kirk, K. E., “The Evolution of the Doctrine of the Trinity” in Rawlinson, A. E. J. (ed.), Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation (London, 1928), pp. 157–237Google Scholar, with Prestige, 's wry comments, op. cit., pp. xxii–xxiv.Google Scholar

4. Harnaek, Adolf “Tertullian in der Literatur der alten Kirche,” Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie (1895), pp. 545–579.Google Scholar

5. Bonwetsch, G. N., Geschichte des Montanismus (Erlangen, 1881)Google Scholar, and Texte zur Geschichte des Montanismus (Bonn, 1914)Google Scholar; de Labriolle, Pierre, La crise montaniste (Paris, 1913)Google Scholar, and Les sources de l'histoire du Montanisme (Fribourg and Paris, 1913)Google Scholar; Schepelern, Wilhelm, Der Montanismus und die phrygischen Kulte, tr. by Baur, W. (Tuebingen, 1929).Google Scholar

6. Epiphanius, , Panarion, XLVIII, 2Google Scholar (Labriolle, , Sources, pp. 131–133Google Scholar); Didymus, , De Trinitate, III, 41Google Scholar (ibid., p. 155); Cyril of Jerusalem, Katacheseis, XVI, 8 (ibid., p. 89).

7. Labriolle, , La crise montaniste, pp. 39–40Google Scholar; Schepelern, , op. cit., pp. 152–156Google Scholar, on the use of the Ich-Form in ecstatic speech. Epiphanius, , Panarion, XLVIII, 4Google Scholar (Labriolle, , Sources, p. 120Google Scholar); on musical instruments as an analogy for divine inspiration, cf. the passages in Seeberg, Reinhold, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, I (4th ed.; Basel, 1953), 340Google Scholar, note 1.

8. Eusebius, , Hist, ecc., V, 16Google Scholar (Labriolle, , Sources, p. 74Google Scholar). Interpretation of the oracle in Zahn, Theodor, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, II (Erlangen and Leipzig, 1890), 964–966Google Scholar; and in Labriolle, , La crise montaniste, pp. 69–71Google Scholar. This use of rēma rather than of logos would seem to bear some relation to the fact that Tertullian often used sermo instead of verbum or ratio in John 1; cf. Roensch, Hermann, Das Neue Testament Tertullians (Leipzig, 1871), pp. 250–251Google Scholar, for a collection of such passages, and the discussions of Loofs, Theophilus, p. 443Google Scholar, and Waszink, J. H., “Observations on Tertullian's Treatise against Hermogenes,” Vigiliae Christianae, IX (1955), 139–141.Google Scholar

9. On the parallelism of dynamis and pneuma, see the note in Ruesch, , op. cit., p. 75Google Scholar, and the controversy between the Greek interpretation of Leisegang, Hans, Pneuma Hagion (Leipzig, 1922), pp. 23 ffGoogle Scholar. and the more Hebraic interpretation of von Baer, Heinrich, Der Heilige Geist im den Lukasschriften (Stuttgart, 1926), pp. 48–49, 71–74Google Scholar, On the ambiguity in the use of “Father” for God, see von Engelhardt, Moritz, Das Christentum Justins des Maertyrers (Erlangen, 1878), p. 393Google Scholar; and Lohmeyer, Ernst, “Probleme paulinischer Theologie I,” Zeitschrift fuer die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, XXVI (1927), 169–172.Google Scholar

10. Hippolytus, , Philosophoumena, VIII, 12Google Scholar (not “19,” as Labriolle, has it, Sources, pp. 57–58)Google Scholar; Pseudo-Tertullian, Adversus tomnes haereses, VII (ibid., p. 51).

11. Bousset, Wilhelm, Kyrios Christos (3rd ed.; Goettingen, 1926), p. 255Google Scholar; on supposed modalism in various early theologians, see the following discussions: Loofs, , Theophilus, pp. 167–169Google Scholar, and Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte (5th ed., edited by Aland, Kurt; Halle, , 1950), I, 72–73Google Scholar; Hamel, Adolf, Kirche bei Hippolytus zu Rom (Guetersloh, 1951), pp. 113–114Google Scholar; Bonwetsch, G. N., Die Theologie des Irenaeus (Gueterslch, 1925), p. 61.Google Scholar

12. Labriolle, , Sources, p. 195Google Scholar, and La crise montaniste, p. 472.Google Scholar

13. Justin, , Apology, I, 6Google Scholar; cf. Engelhardt, , op. cit., p, 87Google Scholar, and Kriebel, Martin, Studien zur aelteren Entwicklung der abendlaendischen Triaiitaetslehre bei Tertullian und Novatian (Marburg, 1932), pp. 75–76.Google Scholar

14. Cf. Labriolle, , La crise montaniste, pp. 525–528Google Scholar, with detailed references to primary and secondary literature; and Schepelern, , op. cit., pp. 42–43Google Scholar, who discusses arguments for and against the credibility of these accounts.

15. Schepelern, , op. cit., pp. 25–28Google Scholar; Bonwetsch, , Geschichte, pp. 69–81.Google Scholar

16. Grant, Robert M., “The Resurrection of the Body,” The Journal of Religion, XXVIII (1948), 204Google Scholar; Bonwetsch, , Geschichte, p. 119Google Scholar. For a general summary of the problem, cf. Labriolle, , La crise montaniste, pp. 458–465Google Scholar, and Sources, pp. lxxviii ff.Google Scholar; Schepelern, , op. cit., pp. 28–33Google Scholar, especially on eschatology, on which see my article, “The Eschatology of Tertullian,” Church History, XXI (1952), 108–122.Google Scholar

17. Loofs, , Theophilus, p. 142.Google Scholar

18. Should Tertullian's quotation of Pliny, 's letter read “Christo et deo”Google Scholar or “Christo ut deo”? Apologeticum, II, 16Google Scholar; Quinti Septimi Florentis Tertulliani Opera, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Vols. I–II (Turnhout, 1954), I, 88Google Scholar. Is “Christo ut deo” the correct reading in Apol. XXIGoogle Scholar (Corpus, I, 123Google Scholar)? Should De spectaculis, XXVGoogle Scholar (Corpus, I, 249Google Scholar) read “deo et Christo” or “deo Christo”? There are analogous textual problems in the Fourth Gospel: singular or plural in 1:13 (Tertullian insisted upon the singular, Roensch, , op. cit., pp. 654–655Google Scholar)? theos or huios in 1:18? interpolations in 3:13 and 17:11?

19. Adversus Praxean, I, 5Google Scholar, (Corpus, II, 1159–1160Google Scholar); I, 7 (Corpus, p. 1160Google Scholar); II, 1 twice (ibid.); VIII, 5 (Corpus, p. 1167Google Scholar); IX, 3 three times (Corpus, pp. 1168–1169Google Scholar); XIII, 5 (Corpus, p. 1175Google Scholar); XXV, 1 twice (Corpus, II, 1195Google Scholar).

20. De virginibus velandis, I, 4Google Scholar (Corpus, II, 1209Google Scholar); De monogamia, III–IVGoogle Scholar (Corpus, II, 1230–1234).Google Scholar

21. De anima, IX, 4Google Scholar (Corpus, II, 792–793Google Scholar); cf. Waszink, J. H., “Introduction” to De Anima, Edited with Introduction and Commentary (Amsterdam, 1947)Google Scholar, and the somewhat gratuitous comments of Scott, C. de Lisle, The Influence of Philosophy on the Mind of Tertullian (London, n.d.), pp. 64–65.Google Scholar

22. Adversus Praxean, I, 5Google Scholar (Corpus, II, 1159–1160Google Scholar); Verhoeven, Th. L., Studiën over Tertullianus' Adversus Praxean (Amsterdam, 1948), p. 167.Google Scholar

23. Adversus Praxean, VIII, 5Google Scholar (Carpus, II, 1167Google Scholar); on probolē, cf. Verhoeven, , op. cit., pp. 137–147.Google Scholar

24. Evans, Ernest (ed.) Tertulliani Adversus Praxean Liber (London, 1948), pp. 81–82.Google Scholar

25. Verhoeven, , op. cit., pp. 107–113Google Scholar; Loofs, , Leitfaden, pp. 121–124.Google Scholar

26. Harnack, Adolf, Die Chronologie der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius, II (Leipzig, 1904), 256–296.Google Scholar

27. Seeberg, , op. cit., pp. 422–424.Google Scholar

28. Harnack, Adolf, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, I (3rd ed.; Freiburg, 1894), 537Google Scholar, n. 1; cf. Macholz, , op. cit., p. 41Google Scholar, n. 2.