A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

142 A Source Book for Ancient Church Historysaved and the judge of those who are judged, and sending into [125]eternal fire the perverters of the truth and despisers of His Fatherand His coming.(c) Tertullian, De Virginibus Velandis, 1. (MSL, 2:937).Tertullian gives various paraphrases of the creed. The threemost important are the following and d, e. The date of thework De Virginibus Velandis is about 211, and belongs to hisMontanist period.The Rule of Faith is altogether one, sole, immovable, and irreformable—namely,of believing in one God the Almighty, theMaker of the world; and His Son, Jesus Christ, born of the VirginMary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, on the third day raisedagain from the dead, received in the heavens, sitting now at theright hand of the Father, coming to judge the quick and the dead,also through the resurrection of the flesh. 53(d) Tertullian, Adv. Praxean, 2. (MSL, 2:156.)The work of Tertullian against Praxeas is one of his latestworks, and is especially important as developing the doctrineof the Trinity as opposed to the Patripassianism of Praxeas.To this theory of Praxeas, Tertullian refers in the openingsentence of the following extract, quoting the position ofPraxeas. See below, § 40, b.“Therefore after a time the Father was born, and the Fathersuffered, He himself God, the omnipotent Lord, Jesus Christ53 By a slight change in the order of the words, as suggested by Neander, thelast two clauses might read more clearly: “To judge the quick and also the deadthrough the resurrection of the flesh.”