Angelomorphic Christology and the exegesis of Psalm 8:5 in Tertullian's Adversus Praxean: An examination of Tertullian's reluctance to attribute angelic properties to the Son of God

Angelomorphic Christology is a helpful descriptive tool that one can use to outline the doctrine of Christ set forth in the NT. While it is somewhat anachronistic to speak of any "doctrine" appearing in the NT, the language of systematic theology with its various and sundry doctrinal formulations provides a way of structuring the first century apostolic account of Christ. We will therefore use such language in this study. For historical reasons, the personal story of Tertullian opens this investigation. R. G. Collingwood is renowned for thinking of history as the re-telling of factical accounts. The story we are about to "re-tell" represents one of many narratives recounted by ecclesiastical historians. It does not claim to be the last word on the subject. In fact, after this inquiry, we are convinced that many aspects of Tertullian's Christological project remain enshrouded in mystery. The modest goal of this study is simply to provide another perspective with regard to the study of Tertullian's Christology. We must briefly say a word about the sources used in this thesis. In this study, we follow the numbering system used in Evans' text and translation of Adversus Praxean. When citing De Anima, we adhere to Waszink's numbering schema. The works of E. Evans, J. Waszink, J. Pelikan, J. Dani