5
created Word was the incarnate Christ, part of the Godhead but distinct from the Father. In, Contra
Noetum, he explained that The Father is over all, the Son is by all, and the Holy Spirit is in all.
13
A
trinitarian formula was taking shape.
The Roman trinitarian tradition began with Clement and grew with Justin, was challenged by
Theodotus, but was advanced by Hippolytus. With the emergence of Hyppolytus, we journey across
the Mediterranean to Carthage, where great things are brewing.
Carthage
The second stop on the road to Nicea is the ancient African city of Carthage. Two hundred
years before Augustine, a cohesive theory of the Trinity was being formulated and applied. The two
men most responsible for this theology were Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus and Cyprian.
Contemporaneous with Hyppolytus, we first encounter Tertullian, who was working at what
might be considered the apex of ancient trinitarian thought. In Against Praxeas, Tertullian explains
how the Son and the Father were both separate, yet eternally united with the Father; therefore, God
must be three persons in one substance.
14
According to Eric Osborn, Tertullian incorporated Stoic
concepts into a trinitarian framework,
15
Stoics distinguished three different sorts of mixtures. . . .
The third kind of mixture was a total blending . . . which preserves the natures, which unite. The
persistence of the blended constituents was proved from the fact that they could be separated
artificially. An oiled sponge, when placed in a blend of water and wine, will absorb water and leave
13
Hippolytus, Contra Noetum XIV.5, as quoted in Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 345.
14
Tertullian, Contra Praxeas, I-III, XXVII.
15
Eric Osborn, Tertullian, First Theologian of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997), 120-133; Eric Osborn, The Speak to Us Across the Centuries 8: Tertullian, The Expository
Times. 109, no. 12 (1998): 357-58.