Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J. F.

Buch: The Way to Nicea

Titel: The Way to Nicea

Stichwort: Tertullian: Denken in Bildern (Beispiel); Wurzel, Schössling, Frucht

Kurzinhalt: This passage shows how much Tertullian's mind is tied to images

Textausschnitt: 45a Therefore, although the Son is a substance emitted, or extruded, from the substance of the Father, their intimate union of knowledge and love, and the non-separation of the Son from the Father, constitute them as one. To explain this non-separation Tertullian draws on familiar images, used also by the Montanists:

"For God brought forth the Word, as the Paraclete also teaches, as the root brings forth the shoot, as the spring brings forth the stream, as the sun brings forth the beam. And these manifestations are emissions [probolas] of those substances from, which they proceed. And I would not hesitate to say that the shoot is the son of the root, the stream the son of the spring, the beam the son of the sun; because every source is a parent and everything that is brought forth from a source is its offspring. Much more is this true of the Word of God, who received the name of Son in the proper sense. But the shoot is not separated and removed from the root, nor the stream from the spring, nor the beam from the sun; neither is the Word removed and separated from God. Therefore, using these comparisons, I declare that it is my view that God and his Word, the Father and the Son, are two: for the root and the shoot are two things, but conjoined; the spring and the river are two manifestations, but undivided; the sun and the beam are two aspects, but they cohere. If one thing comes out of another, it is necessarily a second thing, different from that out of which it came, but it is not on that account separate from it. But where there is a second [person], there are two [persons], and where there is a third, there are three. For the Spirit is third, with God and the Son, as the fruit is third, coming from the root and the shoot, and the stream is third, coming from the spring and the river, and the point of light is third, coming from the sun and the beam. Nothing, however, is exiled from its source, from which it draws its properties. This conception of the trinity, as moving out from the Father in closely connected sequence, is in no way opposed to the monarchy, and it preserves the order of the divine economy".1 (Fs)

46a This passage shows how much Tertullian's mind is tied to images: the Son is other than the Father because a substance is emitted, or extruded, from a substance, and he proceeded, or came out; God is one, however, because two things are conjoined, two manifestations are undivided, two aspects cohere, because nothing is exiled from its source, and because the phases are tightly-woven. Elsewhere he says: