I've always argued that we can't prove how the gospels were manufactured (though we know they were manipulated at this very period because of the 'closed' nature of the fourfold gospel which was created at this time). But we can see quite clearly that the Patristic texts were fused together out of conflicting POV. So why isn't it likely that the gospels were similarly manufactured (i.e. fusing together material from hostile parties to forward greater ecumenism).
If we follow the disjointed argument of Against Praxeas we move from citations of a 'Paraclete-revelation' based argument in favor of absolute monarchy back to 'the Son is less than the Father' arguments. We've just seen the clearest articulation of 'the Son is less than the Father' argument back towards - in the next line of chapter 9 - the Paraclete-revelation based argument. We read in what immediately follows:
It suits my case also that when our Lord used this word regarding the person of the Paraclete, he signified not division but ordinance: for he says, I will pray the Father and he will send you another advocate, the Spirit of truth. Thus the calls the Paraclete other than himself, as we say the Son is other than the Father, so as to display the third sequence in the Paraclete as we the second in the Son, and so to preserve the economy. Is not the very fact that they are spoken of as Father and Son <a statement that they are> one thing beside another? Surely all facts will correspond with their designations, and diversity of designation can by no means be confused, since neither can < the diversity> of the things of which they are the designations. " Is" is " is" , and " not" is "not": for what is more than this is on the side of evil.1
So it would seem as if - at least at first blush - that the point of citing 'the Paraclete' is that Tertullian the author is a 'Montanist' and his point now that 'Montanus the Paraclete' is a lesser figure in the Divine Economy. To use the example of Florinus cited in Agapius, instead of having three powers in absolute 'communion' with one another (i.e. the Father being completely 'in' the Son and 'in' the Father) the situation now seems to be the Father 'fully' only in Himself, less in the Son and even less in the Paraclete.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
But can there have actually been 'followers of the Paraclete' in any form that believed that he was less than the Father? I find that kind of nuance unlikely for ecstatic movements. As a result I suspect the 'Montanists' (or whatever they called themselves) HAD TO HAVE BEEN Monarchians. Can it have been otherwise? The Marcionites thought Paul was the Paraclete, Paul was equal to Jesus and likely equal to the Father (he is after all THEIR Father according to 1 Corinthians). Mani was certainly equal to Jesus and superior to Paul. Can't see a 'modest' Paraclete movement.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Against Praxeas's dislike of προβολή and identification of it as Valentinian is from Irenaeus so the likelihood then is that at least one layer of Against Praxeas derives its origins from the Greek writer Irenaeus:
Irenaeus distinctly disapproved of the Gnostic method of illustrating the eternal Word of God by the prolative or generated word of man (generationem prolativi hominum verbi), and attributing to Him just such another beginning and creation (n. 13. 8). The word prolatio (προβολή), used of the emission of aeons in the Gnostic system, had a Valentinian taint. Origen protested against it 1 . But Justin used the expression προβληθὲν γέννημα 2 . Gregory Nazianzen calls the Father the προβολεύς of the Spirit 3 . But Irenaeus objected to it on account of its use in his day, writing, " He who speaks of the mind of God and ascribes to it a special origin (prolationem) of its own, makes God a compound being; implying that God is one thing and original mind another 4 ." https://archive.org/stream/irenaeusoflu ... t_djvu.txt
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote