Where does Against Praxeas 25 have anything like “the Paraclete also declares”, the local Montanist trigger phrase in Chapter 8?
Where does he say "
the Paraclete doesn't declare", the local non-Montantist trigger phrase?
Who set the rule that Tertullian has to explicitly say this is, and this isn't what Montanus says? Someone separated by nearly 2000 years from Tertuallian and the Montanists, in the twentieth century.
The entire book is permeated from start to finish with peculiar Montanist
interpretations of the economy of the Trinity and the Monarchy of the Father.
The main theme of Advesus Praxaes is Tertullian's Montanist intepretation of the Trinity, and the "unity" or "one-ness" of the Trinity, and interpretations of the related (οἰκονομία) "economy", which was based on the quasi-materialistic concept of
same/shared-substance which in Tertullian's thinking makes possible a unified and undivided (μοναρχία) "Monarchy".
Tertullian of Carthage (circa. 145-225 A.D./C.E.)
"Against Praxaes"
Translated by Alexander Donaldson
Chapter 3
"and since it has not from this circumstance ceased to be the rule of one (so as no longer to be a monarchy), because it is administered by so many thousands of powers; how comes it to pass that God should be thought to suffer division and severance in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, who have the second and the third places assigned to them, and who are so closely joined with the Father in His substance, when He suffers no such (division and severance) in the multitude of so many angels? Do you really suppose that Those, who are naturally members of the Father's own substance, pledges of His love, instruments of His might, nay, His power itself and the entire system of His monarchy, are the overthrow and destruction thereof? You are not right in so thinking. I prefer your exercising yourself on the meaning of the thing rather than on the sound of the word. Now you must understand the overthrow of a monarchy to be this, when another dominion, which has a framework and a state peculiar to itself (and is therefore a rival), is brought in over and above it: when, e.g., some other god is introduced in opposition to the Creator, as in the opinions of Marcion; or when many gods are introduced, according to your Valentinuses and your Prodicuses. Then it amounts to an overthrow of the Monarchy, since it involves the destruction of the Creator...”
Tertullian's "substance" concept, as seen in Chapter 25, cannot be sanitized from it's connection with Chapter 8.
Tertullian of Carthage (circa. 145-225 A.D./C.E.)
"Against Praxaes"
Translated by Dr. Holmes 1870
Chapter 8
"This will be (προβολη) the prolation [Or: "emanation"], taught by the truth, the Guardian [Or: "the Keeper" "the Watchman"] of the Unity [Or: "One-ness"], wherein we declare that the Son is (προβολη) a prolation [Or: "emanation"] from the Father, without being separated from Him. For God sent forth the Word, as the Paraclete also declares, just as the root puts forth the tree, and the fountain the river, and the sun the ray. For these are προβοληαι, or emanations, of the substances from which they proceed. I should not hesitate, indeed, to call the tree the son or offspring of the root, and the river of the fountain, and the ray of the sun; because every original source is a parent, and everything which issues from the origin is an offspring. Much more is (this true of) the Word of God, who has actually received as His own peculiar designation the name of Son. But still the tree is not severed from the root, nor the river from the fountain, nor the ray from the sun; nor, indeed, is the Word separated from God. Following, therefore, the form of these analogies, I confess that I call God and His Word - the Father and His Son - two. For the root and the tree are distinctly two things, but correlatively joined; the fountain and the river are also two forms, but indivisible; so likewise the sun and the ray are two forms, but coherent ones. Everything which proceeds from something else must needs be second to that from which it proceeds, without being on that account separated: Where, however, there is a second, there must be two; and where there is a third, there must be three. Now the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son; just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root, or as the stream out of the river is third from the fountain, or as the apex of the ray is third from the sun. Nothing, however, is alien from that original source whence it derives its own properties. In like manner the Trinity, flowing down from the Father through intertwined and connected steps, does not at all disturb (μοναρχία) the Monarchy, whilst it at the same time guards the state of (οἰκονομία) the Economy."
It doesn't need anything to be explicitly stated about Montanus at all (like Chapter 8 which you say is a Montanist "trigger"), if the Montanist
concept is there, which it certainly is in Chapter 25.
You cannot separate the Montanist interpretation of the substance in Chapter 8 from the same inseparably connected interpretation of "the substance" in Chapter 25 (which is exactly what Tertullian's words "qui tres unum sunt [Variant
"sint"]" is explaining).
The man Montanus as the Paraclete is explicitly "the Interpreter of the (οἰκονομία) economy" in Chapter 31 (cf. "his" in "the sermons of his New Prophecy").
Tertullian of Carthage (circa. 145-225 A.D./C.E.)
Adversum Praxaen 30.5
“This man in the meantime, he has received the gift that came from the Father, which he poured forth, the Holy Spirit [Or: “the Spirit of Holiness”], the third name of the Divinity, and the third stage [Lit., “the third step”] of the Divine Majesty, the Preacher [Or: “the Publisher”] of a unified [Or: “sole” “single”] monarchy, but also the Interpreter of the (οἰκονομία) economy, for anyone, who will permit admittance to HIS sermons of THE NEW PROPHECY, even the Leader of all truth [Or : "the Guide of" "the Conductor of" "the Escort of" cf. John 16:13] which consists in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in accordance with [Or: “according to”] the Christian mystery...”
The theme of substance runs throughout the entire book, which for Tertullian, Montanus is obviously (interpretatorem)
"the Interpreter".
Nope.