Richard Brumback - Tertullian's Trinitarian Monarchy in Adversus Praxean: A Rhetorical Analysis

Tertullian’s Adversus Praxean is often regarded as a treatise championing the plurality of persons in the Trinity in the face of monarchianism. Were this text solely intended to undercut modalistic theology, its challenge would have been simply to demonstrate the unreasonable and unsound nature of Praxeas’ thought. The core of the work, however, is Tertullian’s constructive explication of plurality in relation to divine unity. Adversus Praxean has been mined for terminology and expressions which have shaped subsequent Trinitarian theology. However, this work must be examined not only for its vocabulary, but also for the rhetorical structure that comprehensively reveals his Trinitarian model. This essay argues that the treatise addresses both plurality and unity in order to provide a robust response to modalism while resolving the ostensible antinomy between number and singularity in God. A rhetorical analysis will be made of the centerpiece of Tertullian’s monarchical theology—his generalized illustration of a monarchy—in which the constitutive elements are programmatic for his exposition. Composed of three propositions addressing the existence and administration of the monarchy, this illustration carries the burden of his argument for manifold realities in a monotheistic frame. Utilizing this metaphor in conjunction with the philosophical and theological stock of his time, the resulting Trinitarian paradigm is a synthesis of both relational and economic models; the former secures the means of expressing essential unity, while the latter admits true distinction without undermining oneness. We shall see that Adversus Praxean is an attempt to provide an adequate articulation of a divine monarchy which maintains the unity of God (against polytheism) while upholding necessary distinctions (against modalism), all in accord with Scriptural and confessional data.