6
the wine.
16
By incorporating the Stoic concept of interpenetration of physical bodies, Tertullian
struck a balance between the threeness of the Godhead and the oneness of God.
17
Tertullian`s theory was put into practice by the Bishop of Carthage.
18
Cyprian regarded
Tertullian as the Master, and held Scripture and Tertullian as his only authorities.
19
No North
African tradition had developed until Tertullian. The Bishop was first and foremost a pastor,
applying his theology to the troubles of the day. Cyprian`s understanding of the Trinity was a prime
example of how the Church must also be united. With this triune model in mind, the Bishop worked
unceasingly to hold the Church together solidifying the North African tradition.
20
The road to Nicea ends in the West at Carthage. There is no need to continue. The matter is
settled. Tertullian`s theology essentially put the matter to rest. Nothing new was developed, probably
because nothing more needed to be developed. However, things were different on the other side of
the empire. The Eastern Church, which is separated from the West both by language and by culture,
had to find its own solution to the question. To continue on the road to Nicea, we must return to
the first century and begin in the East in the city of Antioch.
16
Osborn, Tertullian, First Theologian, 139.
17
Ibid., 141; While feeling free to use Stoicism for his own ends, Osborn points out in article
in Vigiliae Christianae, that Tertullian repudiates the idea of a Christian Stoicism. Eric Osborn,
The Subtlety of Tertullian, Vigiliae Christianae. 52, no. 4 (1998): 369.
18
Peter Hinchliff, Cyprian of Carthage: And the Unity of the Christian Church (London: Geoffrey
Chapman Publishers, and imprint of Cassell and Collier Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1974), 116.
19
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 1, The
Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 187;
Hinchliff, 36.
20
Hinchliff, 116.