Praxeas had Buffered imprisonment ("de jactati
mart] rii iuflatus, ob solum et simplex et breve carceris tsediura," is the polemical notice of it), and with the credit attaching to a confessor he preached his false doctrine at Rome. Whether the doctrine met with re- sistance, toleration, or favor is not told, but that Prax- eas's endeavors to propagate it had hut little effect we an- entitled to infer from the silence of Bippolytus. There i-. however, very great difference of opinion re- garding this point : Gieseler says that. Praxeas appears !•■ have been unmolested in Rome on account of his doctrine (Compend. i. 218); Newman, that he met with the determined resistance which honorably distinguishes the primitive 1 torn an Church in its dealings with heresy {Hist. ofArians, p. 130); Milman, that the indignation of Tertullian at the rejection of his Montanist opinions urged him t" arraign tin- pope, with what justice, to what extent, we know not, as having embraced the Pa- tripassian opinions of Praxeas | Hist.of Latin Chi i.<iimi- ity, i. 49 j < .1. 1867 I. The two latter mention, as if in- clined to it, Beausobre's supposition that, in the words t » t the continuator of the /•< Pratsi .-. //<• ret., " Praxeas quidem hseresim introduxit, quam Victorinus corrobo- rare cnravil." we should read Victor for Yictorinus.
One would he rather inclined t.. substitute Zephyrinus. '1 he Refutation of Heresies was called forth by this very controversy, and Hippolytua details carefully the tenets of Noetus. and the action of the bishop of Koine with regard to them. Had Praxeas prepared the way to any considerable extent for Noetus. Bome notice ol
his influence would surely have been given, whereas all that < .-in he said is. that in the separate trad against
.Noetus the opening words will include, but without Darning, disciples oi Praxeas joining Noetus. It iseasj to suppose that Victor, discovering the heresy of Prax- eas, and not wishing, for his own sake, to disgrace ■
upon whose information he had acted, and by wh
perhaps he had be, n influenced in the matter of the Montanists, quietly sent Praxeas from Rome. From Rome Praxeas went into Africa. (We take "hie quo- que" in l'i rtullian's •• IT in i, .i \ t rant a\en;e Praxeans hie quoque Buperseminatce," etc., to mean Carthage; and that Tertullian speaks of hitn.-elf iii " per quem i ra- l he date at which Praxeas arrived at Rome, and the length of his May there, are not accu- rately known, hut he reached Africa before Tertullian i Montanist | Tertull. I dv. I'm ■. c. i I. Dif-
ferenl date-. fr ,\.l>. 199 to 205, are assigned for this
latt. r evi ut. The history of the Montanists is best un- derstood by supposing Praxeas to have been at Rome in Victor'.- time, and the date of Tertullian's Montanism to have been the earlier date. In Africa Praxi a dispute, probably with Tertullian. acknowledged his
error, and delivered to the Church a formal recantation. But he returned again to his errors, and Tertullian, now a Montanist, wrote hi- tract in confutation of them.
Praxeas taught that there i- only one divine Person, that the Word and the Holy Ghost are not distinct
substance.-: arguing that an admission of distinct Per- sonalities necessarily infers three Gods, and that the identity of the Persons i- required to preserve the di- vine monarchy. He applied tie- titles which in Holy Scripture arc' descriptive of deity to the Father alone; and urged particularly the words from tin- Old Testa- ment, "I am God, and beside me there is no god," and from the New Testament the expressions,"] and my Father are one." •• He who hath s< en me hath Been the Father," "I am in my father, and m\ Father in me." While Tertullian unhesitatingly charges Praxeas with holding Patripassian tenets as necessarily following from hi- principles, Praxeas himself appears not to have gone so far. "Ergo nee compassus est Pater Filio; sic enim directam blasphemiam in Patrem veriti, diminui earn hoc modo sperant, concedentes jam Patrem et 1 i- lium duos esse; si Filius quidem patitur, Pater vero compatitur. Stulti et in hoc. Quid est enim compati, quam cum alio pati? l'orro. si impassibilis Pater, uti- que et incompassibilis. Aut si compassibilis, utique passibilis" (Tertull. Adv. Prax. c. \\i\ I.
I be course of controvi rsy brought out. in the exam- ple of the Praxeans, the second and altered position which Monarchians are obliged to assume when pressed by the difficulties of their original position. It is shown, as Tertullian remarks, that they are driven to conclu- sion- involving the elements of Gnosticism. The Prax- eans. when confuted on all sides on the distinction between the Father and the Son. distinguished the Person of Jesus from the Christ They understood ••the Son to be flesh — that is, man— that i-. Jesus; and the Father to be spirit that is, God- that i-. Christ."
Thus Tertullian says. ••Hun who contend that the Fa- ther and the Son are one and the same do in tact now begin to divide them rather than to unite them. Such a monarchy as this they learned, it may he. in the school of the Valentinus" (pbid. v. xxvii). Now this separation of Jesus from Christ was common to all the Gnostics. They were unanimous in denying that Christ was born. .It -us and Christ ware to them two separate beings, and the seon Christ descended upon Jesus at his baptism. The difference between them and the Praxeans appear.- to he that they would not say that Jesus was the Son of Cod. whereas the Praxeans are represented as arguing from the angel's words to Mary that the holy thing born of her was the flesh, and that therefore the flesh was the Son of God. Ter- tullian shows in opposition to them that the Word was incarnate by birth. \\i Praxean doctrine, then, in its