other · 200 · Rome
Everything known about Praxeas comes from Tertullian's Adversus Praxean, written against him about 213. He came from Asia to Rome, persuaded the bishop against recognising the New Prophecy, and taught that Father and Son are one and the same — so that it was the Father who was born of the Virgin and the Father who suffered, which is why the position is called patripassianism. Tertullian, who by then was a Montanist himself and had two scores to settle, put both into one sentence: he drove out prophecy and brought in heresy, put the Paraclete to flight and crucified the Father. Even the name is uncertain. Praxeas means busybody in Greek, and it may be a nickname Tertullian gave him rather than the name he was born with; some have argued the target is really Callistus or Noetus under a mask. This dataset grades the event traditional for that reason. What survives from the quarrel is not Praxeas but the vocabulary Tertullian built to answer him: one substance, three persons, the words the Latin church has used ever since.
What is left of a man whose only trace is the book against him?
A doctrine, a nickname, and one of the most quoted sentences in Latin theology.