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QUESTION: In the NT, Jesus makes statements such as “my Father is greater than I” (Jn 14:28), “my will, but thine, be done” (Lk 22:43), and “no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows” (Mt 24:36). In some sense, is the Father greater than the Son and the Holy Spirit. And in some sense, is the Son greater than the Holy Spirit?
TERTULLIAN (c.155–220) was a prominent Christian theologian from Carthage and the first Christian to produce a large amount of writing in Latin. He is often referred to as the Father of Latin Christianity and as the Founder of Western Theology. His writings are the first to use the word “trinity.” Although a prolific author of dogmatics and apologetics, Tertullian’s most famous works are refutations of heresies. This includes Against Praxeas, where Tertullian first introduces the concept of One God consisting of three Persons. It is from that we take our reading.
READING: While the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, in as much as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. [Tertullian, Against Praxeas, Ch. 2]
For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than I.” In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the angels.” Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, in as much as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too, who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is another. Happily the Lord Himself employs this expression of the person of the Paraclete, so as to signify not a division or severance, but a disposition (of mutual relations in the Godhead); for He says, “I will pray the Father, and He shall send you another Comforter… even the Spirit of truth,” thus making the Paraclete distinct from Himself, even as we say that the Son is also distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of the order observed in the Economy. [Tertullian, Against Praxeas, Ch. 9]
Then there is the Paraclete or Comforter, also, which He promises to pray for to the Father, and to send from heaven after He had ascended to the Father. He is called “another Comforter,” indeed; but in what way He is another we have already shown, “He shall receive of mine,” says Christ, just as Christ Himself received of the Father’s. Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are one essence, not one Person, as it is said, “I and my Father are One,” in respect of unity of substance not singularity of number. [Tertullian, Against Praxeas, Ch. 25]
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