Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 7

The Nicene Creed and Its Aftermath

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

Nicene Creed and Its Aftermath
    What did the Council of Nicaea mean when it declared “that the Son was consubstantial with the Father” (p. 332)? It “intended to assert that the Son was ‘in all respects like the Father,’ and, ‘unlike all creatures made by him,’ in opposition to Arius, who maintained that he was a creature, and therefore not strictly divine” (pp. 332-333). Thus, “[i]t expressed, not numerical identity of substance, but sameness of kind. One man is of the same substance or nature with another, as they belong to the same order of beings. So the Son of God is of the same substance with the Father: he partakes, in common with him, of a divine, though not of the same individual, nature. Divine begets divine, as human begets human. The distinction between person and being was unknown to the Fathers: it is a refinement of latter times. The Father and Son had the same specific nature, yet constituted distinct subsistences, persons, beings” (p. 333). Basically, this was the doctrine of the ante-Nicene Fathers, unless by the expression “‘of a different substance,’ which some of them applied to the Son, they mean to teach something more than that he had an individual existence distinct from the Father” (p. 333).
    When it condemned Paul of Samosata, the Second Council of Antioch had used the term “consubstantial.” However, the Council rejected it, declaring “that the Son was not consubstantial with the Father” (p. 334).
    According to Athanasius, “consubstantial” as used in the Nicene Creed meant that the “ Son has ‘no similitude to creatures, nor is cognate with them’: he is the ‘true offspring of the substance of the Father.’ — ‘The substance of the Father was the beginning, the root, and fountain of the Son, who has a true likeness to Him that begat him; and is not separated from the Father, as we are, by being of a substance foreign to his’” (p. 334). Further, “[o]ne man ‘is of the same nature with another as regards substance.’ But ‘a man and a dog are of different natures: therefore what is of the same nature is consubstantial; what is of a different nature is of another substance,’ or not consubstantial” (p. 334). Thus, “Christ was by birth God, as man is by birth man. There is one species of divinity, as one species of humanity, and, as all men are of the same substance (that is, all human), so the Father and Son are of the same substance (that is, both divine)” (p 335).
    The Council of Nicaea did not change the notion of the Son being subordinate to the Father, and, therefore, the Son was not equal to the Father. The doctrine of the Son being subordinate to the Father was maintained until the time of Augustine. (Amazingly, around 400 years [Q&A] were needed for Christians to discover that the Scriptures taught that the Son was eternal and equal to the Father. Obviously, the Trinity Doctrine is not clearly taught by the Scriptures if 400 years are needed to discover it.) The Son was “begotten, dependent, and derived” (p. 336). It maintained the notion that the Father and the Son were two beings.
    After the Council of Nicaea issued its decree, orthodoxy began undergoing a real and important change. By introducing the term “consubstantial,” which was “capable of a sense very different from that originally attributed to it by the Platonists and Platonizing Fathers” (p. 336), the Council inadvertently started this change. At the time of the Nicene Creed was adopted, “consubstantial” was “understood to express only specific sameness of nature” (p. 336). Afterwards, it came “to signify individual identity” (p. 336).
    The ante-Nicene Fathers taught “the supremacy of the Father, and the real and proper inferiority of the Son, without qualification; making them, in fact, two beings” (p. 336). Moreover, “the Son was voluntarily begotten of the Father before the creation of the world, but not from eternity.” (p. 336-337). Later, the Trinitarians “asserted, not simply an equality of nature between the Father and Son, but their individual and numerical identity; though this was not originally the doctrine of Athanasius, nor of the Church till some time after the middle of the fourth century” (p. 336). Also, according to these later Trinitarians, the Son was necessarily begotten from eternity. By the time that the Athanasian Creed was formulated, Athanasius, the greatest of all the Nicene Fathers, was no longer a Trinitarian in the sense of that Creed.
    In response to the accusation that the Council of Nicaea had introduced two Gods, the orthodox Trinitarians initially replied “that they worshipped the one only and true God, who is over all, supreme; that the Son was inferior, another, different, different in essence, the minister of the Father, and in all respects subject to his will, and entitled, therefore, to only inferior homage” (p. 237). When Arians began taking advantage of these arguments, orthodoxy changed its defense. They argued that the Father and the Son “were of one individual essence, and, therefore, there was only one object of supreme worship” (p. 337),
    In response to the many passages of Scriptures that calm that the Son is inferior to the Father, “the fiction of the two natures in Jesus Christ was introduced, and then all [the older] difficulties vanished” (p. 337). Thus, the “Son, as God, was co-equal with the Father; as man, he was inferior: as God, he could send; as man, he could be: in his human nature, he could pray to himself in his divine; as man, he could assert that he was ignorant of the day of judgment, which, as God, he knew” (p. 338). (“Controversy had still to settle what had been the conditions of Christ’s human life, and in what relations his humanity stood to his divinity. This was the remarkable conclusion at which the Church arrived, that the two natures were so far united in one person, that it was proper to honour Mary as the mother of God; but that as there were still two natures, it was not necessary to affirm that God was crucified” [p. 337n]).
    The Nicene Creed only mentioned the Holy Spirit in very general terms. Was the Holy Spirit subordinate to the Father and the Son, which was the doctrine of the ante-Nicene Fathers? Was the Holy Spirit “a mode of divine operation” (p. 339)? Was it a creation of God or God Himself? Some theologians did not “‘attribute to the Spirit the name of God, because the Scripture does not expressly so call him’” (p. 339). In 381, the Council of Constantinople answered these questions by “declaring that the Holy Spirit is to be worshipped and glorified together with the Father and Son” (p. 339).
    Over time, the Nicene Creed was modified such that the Son became eternal and equal to the Father in a numerical one of essence. Along with the Holy Spirit, they became three Gods in one God — a Triune God. (Except for some terminology that only those versed in religious jargon can distinguish, what is the difference between the Trinity Doctrine and Sabellianism? One uses “person” where the other uses “manifestation.” Nevertheless, Sabellianism does a better job of maintaining monotheism than does the modern Trinity Doctrine, which relies heavily on assertions.)
    The Nicene Council left Christianity with curses from which it has yet recovered. In its attempt to avoid the Scylla of Sabellianism and the Charybdis of Arianism, it converted “‘what was before a scholastic subtlety into an article of the Catholic faith’” (p. 341). With the Nicene Creed “Emperor Constantine (the first of the Caesars who acknowledged the faith of the cross), left to the world a pernicious example of intolerance and bigotry, which subsequent times have but too faithfully imitated” (p. 352). (Well illustrating such intolerance were the religious wars of Europe beginning with the Reformation where first the Catholic Church tried to suppress the Protestant heretics, and then Protestants tried to purge their ranks of heretics, i.e., those who disagreed with their particular brand of Christianity.)
    Membership in the early Church did not require a certain belief in the nature of Christ. Hase wrote, “The only condition of admission to the Church, was a promise to live a new life, and an acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah. In this acknowledgment free scope was given to all those views of the nature of the Messiah, which prevailed among the people, from a simple recognition of him as the Son of David, and a man filled with the Spirit of God, to a belief in him as an angel, and an impersonation of some one of the attributes of Jehovah” (Hase, p. 41). About the early Christians, Pressense writes, “Christians were then specially anxious that religion should not be regarded as consisting in a correct opinion with regard to God. Religion was to them essentially a moral and living principle, without, however, . . . being on that account vague and uncertain. . . . The Christian faith at this time, as always, has for its great object Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Saviour of the world” (Pressense, p. 195). How things changed. After the Council of Nicaea, one could not join the church without consent to the Nicene Creed. Over time the Creed was modified into the Trinity Doctrine. Most denominations require a belief, or at least no statement of unbelief, in the Trinity Doctrine. Most still condemn as heretics those who do not adhere to the Trinity Doctrine — even to proclaiming that they are not true Christians. Thus, the early church displayed much more religious tolerance within Christianity than the Catholic Church ever has and than most Protestant denominations until the eighteenth century or even today.

Conclusion
    As shown above, the Trinity Doctrine did not begin to develop until Greek philosophy was applied to Christianity. The Apostolic Fathers had no conception of the Trinity. When the Greek philosophy of Plato was applied to the Scriptures, then the Trinity Doctrine began to develop. Logos ceased to mean the spoken word and became God’s reason, a second God, the Son. Thus, the Logos-doctrine, which is the foundation on which the Trinity Doctrine is built, entered Christianity.
    Next came the thought of a trinity and the notion of the eternal existence of the Logos, the Son. This was followed by the Son having both a divine and human nature with a rational human soul. Also, the possibility of the Son’s eternal generation began to occur.
    When the Arian controversy started, orthodoxy held that the Son was pre-existing, but he had a beginning, was inferior to the Father, and a distinct being and, therefore, a different essence. When Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria began teaching more oneness of the Father and Son, Arius accused him of Sabellianism — thus, began the Arian controversy. Although Arius thought that he was defending the doctrine of the Trinity as it existed then, Alexander and others disagreed. Arius had stripped the Trinity of its Platonic metaphysics. The Arian controversy peaked with the Council of Nicaea, which issued the Nicene Creed. Among other things, the creed declared the Father and the Son to be one substance. The Nicene Creed was as close to, if not closer to, Sabellianism, which the church had condemned, as it was the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity that existed before its adoption.
    By the Council of Nicaea in 325, the divinity of the Son was declared, and he was made eternal and the Father’s equal (as Nicene Creed was later interpreted and revised). In 381, the Council of Constantinople amended the Nicene Creed to declare the divinity of the Holy Spirit. In 431, the Council of Ephesus defined the personal unity of Christ and declared Mary the Mother of God. (This is one aspect of the Trinity Doctrine that the Protestants ignore, and where the Catholics are logically correct. If Mary is the mother of Christ Jesus, and if Christ Jesus is God, then Mary has to be the mother of God. If she is not the mother of God, then one or both premises have to be incorrect.) The Trinity Doctrine was completed in 431 by the Council of Chalcedon, which defined the two natures of Christ, divine and human. (Distinguishing the difference between the Trinitarian version of Jesus having a dual nature, human and divine, and the version of some of the old heresies is difficult.)
    With the acts of these four councils, all the ante-Nicene Fathers became de facto heretics, if not de jure, heretics, because their doctrine of the Son is more unitarian, monotheistic, than trinitarian, tritheistic. They believed that the Son had a beginning, that is, he is not eternal. Moreover, the Son was inferior to the Father. (Based on the criteria that Alford sets out in his manual on the Trinity [Alford, pp. 98-101], all the Fathers discussed above, with the possible exception of Dionysius of Rome, were unitarians, strictly speaking. Furthermore, nearly all, if not all, other ante-Nicene Fathers were also unitarians. Moreover, based on their writings, the Trinity Doctrine, and Alford’s criteria, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Peter, and Paul appear to be heretics and unitarians.)
    Without the application of Platonism to the Scriptures, it is doubtful that the Trinity Doctrine as is exists today would have ever been developed. Without the Platonist interpretation of the Scriptures, most likely orthodox Christianity would have remained monotheistic religion in the Old Testament sense instead of becoming a tritheistic religion with a Triune God. Of the Fathers discussed above, it most likely would follow the teachings of Clement of Rome, Polycarp, or Artemon. (Of the Fathers discussed above their Christology was probably the closest to the Scriptures.)

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More religious articles.

Part 6

Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 5

Between Origen and Arius

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

Writers Between Origen and Arius
    The distinction between Tritheism and Monarchianism was becoming sharper. Because their mode of defending the unity of God, Monarchians were often accused of Patripassianism and “the denial of the divinity of Christ, by maintaining that the Logos as a separate subsistence formed no part of his nature” (p. 253).
    During this era, Tritheism, was becoming the orthodoxy while Monarchianism in the form of Sabellianism was becoming its chief opponent. However, in attacking the Monarchians, some opponents, such as Dionysius of Alexandra and Methodius of Olympus, laid the foundation of Arianism.
    In its hostility toward Sabellius, Paul, and their kindred, “the doctrine of the self-subsisting personality of the Logos, or Son, was more strenuously insisted on than ever” (p. 257). This emphasis on the self-subsisting personality of the Son contributed to the rise of Arianism, which strongly contrasted with the Monarchian doctrine of Sabellius and Paul.
    Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 264) was Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria between 248 and 264. He was a student of Origen, and about 232, he became the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria.
    In his dispute with the Sabellians, Dionysius became tainted with heresy. He was charged “with placing the Son in the rank of ‘a creature’ in repelling the errors of Sabellius, going into the opposite extreme; making not only a ‘diversity of persons’ but a ‘difference of substance’” (p. 258). Thus, he was accused of sowing the seeds of the Amonoeans, who were a branch of the Arians. (Amonoeans “made a clear distinction between God and Christ. God was the deity that always had existed, Christ was only created by him. From this, God and Christ could not be considered equal or similar. In consequence, Christ was also denied the consubstantiality, that of two natures in him; a human and a divine” [“Amonoean”].)
    According to Dionysius, “‘the Son of God is something made and begotten; neither is he by nature (a son) proper, but is in substance foreign to the Father, as is the husbandman to the vine, or the shipbuilder to the ship; and being a creature, he was not before he was begotten’” (pp. 258-259). Although he maintained the subordination of the Son, he held that the Logos “is not simply the second person of the Trinity in His virtual existence. . . . He is already God” (Pressense, p. 363). “‘Dionysius summed up his doctrine in this formula: ‘We expand the indivisible Monas [one deity] into the Trias [three deities], and we bring back the Trias undiminished to the Monas.’ This singular formula sets aside absolutely the idea that the Son is of a different nature from the Father” (Pressense, p. 364).
    “As to the term ‘consubstantial’ Dionysius says that he did not find it in the Scriptures, and he therefore felt justified in rejecting it” (p. 259). He used consubstantial in the sense, for example, a human progeny is of the same genus with the parent. “In this sense, consubstantiality did not imply numerical identity” (p. 260). Thus, following the older Fathers, Dionysius held that the “the Father and the Son might be pronounced ‘consubstantial,’ as they were beings of the same specific nature (that is, both divine), though as distinct from each other as Peter and John, or the husbandman and the vine, the maker of the ship and the ship” (p. 260).
    Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213 – 270) was a student of Origen and Bishop of Pontus. He claimed that the Father and the Son, “are one in substance, and distinct only in thought” (Pressense, p. 358). Nevertheless, he seemed to consider the Logos as created or produced. Therefore, he was charged “with depressing the Son to the rank of a ‘creature,’ or ‘work,’ — something produced” (p. 261). Except for the eternity of the Son, which Origen held, Gregory seemed to have adopted all of Origen’s views of the Son. Gregory believed that the Son “to be of inferior dignity to the Father, and did not believe in their numerical identity” (p. 261).
    Theognostus (c. 210 – c. 270) was an Alexandrian theologian and a disciple of Origen. According to Theognostus, “‘[t]he substance of the Son is not anything procured from without, nor accruing from nothing; but it sprang from the Father’s substance, as radiance from light, or vapour from water; for neither is the vapour, nor the radiance, the water itself, or the sun, nor is it foreign to it. The Son is an effluence from the substance of the Father, without the substance of the Father undergoing any partition; for as the sun remains the same and is not diminished by the rays which flow out from it, so neither does the substance of the Father undergo any change through the Son who bears its image’” (p. 262). He considered the Logos to be a creature, “yet he affirms that He [the Son] neither came forth from nothing nor from any created source, but from the very bosom of God” (p. 359).
He used “consubstantial” before the Council of Nicaea used it. However, he does not assert “numerical identity of substance in the sense of the later Athanasian orthodoxy” (p. 262).
    Pierius (d. after 309) was a Christian priest in Alexandria and the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. He believed that the Father and Son were two substances and two natures. The Holy Spirit was “‘inferior in glory to the Father and Son’” (p. 263).
    Methodius (d. c. 311) was the Bishop of Olympus in Lycia and later of Tyre of Phoenicia. He disagreed with Origen on several points, but apparently not with his doctrine of the Trinity, which was the orthodoxy at this time.
    According to Methodius, “the Father was the principle out of which the Logos, which was before in him, proceeded” (p. 264). Apparently, he knew nothing “of the eternity of the Son, as a self-subsistent being” (p. 264). To him, the Son was “‘first begotten of God — before the ages’” (p. 264). In power and dignity, the Son was inferior to the Father. Later, Methodius was condemned for supporting Arianism.
    Lucian of Antioch (c. 240 – 312) was a presbyter and theologian. Most of the Arian leaders were his disciples — therefore, followers of Arius were often called Lucianists. He rejected the Sabellian principle that the Logos had no separate personality and was not a self-subsistent being.
    Cyprian (c. 200 – 258) was the Bishop of Carthage. He declared God to be One and Supreme and that He was without a partner or equal. Of the Son, he believed him to be “the ‘Word,’ or the ‘Son of God,’ who is ‘sent,’ is the ‘Power of God, his Reason, his Wisdom, and Glory’ (p. 269). When Cyprian “speaks of the Holy Spirit as becoming ‘clothed with flesh’” (p. 269), he confounds the Spirit with the Logos as did many early Fathers. At other times, Cyprian “distinguishes the Spirit from the Logos, making it inferior in dignity to Christ himself” (p. 269).
    Although he called Christ God, he meant the Son of God and clearly denied his supremacy. The Father sanctified and sent the Son into the world. God the Creator is the Father of Christ. “Cyprian never thought of a numerical identity of the Father and Son, but regarded them as two distinct beings, the Father being the Fountain and Giver of all the power and dignity possessed by the Son” (p. 220).
    About the Christians of the first three centuries, Lamson writes, “The ancient Christians had not learned that refinement of logic by which he who sends and he who is sent are made one. They went on the assumption, that they must necessarily be two” (p. 270). (Lamson may have meant this statement sarcastically. Liking the sophistication of Athanasius and later Trinitarians, these ignorant Christians’ belief in two beings was necessary: one to send and the other to be sent. Unlike the later Athanasians, they did not realize that one could send oneself and give the appearance of two by merely changing the title or office [mode or manifestation?] of the sender and sent. This notion of the Trinitarians seems to be approaching the heresy of Sabellianism.)
    Novatian (c. 200–258) was a scholar, theologian, and presbyter of the Church of Rome. He wrote more than most on the doctrine of the Trinity.
    According to him, the Son was inferior to the Father and, therefore, not his equal. He testified “to the old doctrine of the undivided supremacy of the Father, and the derived nature and inferiority of the Son. The Spirit he places still lower” (p. 291). Novatian described God the Father as “‘the most perfect Creator of all things.’ . . . ‘Maker of all things, containing all; moving, vivifying all.’ . . . — ‘without origin and without end,’ whom ‘no words can adequately describe and no mind comprehend;’ [and is] ‘immutable, one, without equal, unbegotten, infinite, incorruptible, and immortal’” (p. 272). Like other ante-Nicene Fathers, he never applied these epithets to the Son. “Novatian believed Christ to be both God and man, but not in the modern or Athanasian sense” (p. 272). In Christ, the Divinity of the Word was “united by ‘concretion’; or commixture with human nature, constituting an indivisible unity” (p. 272). Although Christ was God and man, he was not the supreme God, He was “man as born of man, God as born or begotten of God, according to the doctrine of the old Fathers, that what is born of God is God, that is, divine, consubstantial with God, as what is born of man is man, that is, human, consubstantial with man, numerical identity being excluded, there being only identity of kind or species” (p. 272). Thus, he is man who is of man and is God who is of God. “So Christ is God and man. He has his origin from God, and sustains the same relation to him as a human being sustains to its father” (pp. 272-273). Nevertheless, the Son was inferior to the Father and dependent, and he was a distinct being from the Father.
    Unlike the Trinitarians who followed, Novatian read the Bible in its most natural and obvious sense. For example, when Christ said that the “Father is greater than I,” Christ literally meant what he said: His Father was superior to him. Christ was stating that he was a distinct being from the Father, and that he occupied a second place. (Novatian was unaware of the two-natures doctrine that the Trinitarians would later develop to explain away any comment that Jesus made about himself that conflicted with the Trinity Doctrine.)
    About omnipresence, Novatian held that “the Father himself, the supreme one, the only true God, is infinite, and cannot be contained within any limits of place; cannot ascend or descend, but contains and fills all things. Not so the Son, who is capable of ascending and descending, and can be enclosed within space” (p. 275). Thus, God the Father is omnipresent; the Son of God is not.
    To explain the Father as God and Christ as God without having two Gods and without resorting to Sabellianism, Novatian resorted to the Logos-doctrine. Thus, the Son is “a divine being, having, after he was begotten, a distinct personal subsistence, but being subordinate to the Father, not co-equal and co-eternal with him” (p. 275). The Father is one God “‘of whom, when he willed, the Word or Son was begotten.’ He was ‘always in the Father,’ as his unbegotten virtue or energy, but had no distinct personal subsistence. . . . ‘The Father precedes him’ (the Son), in that as Father, he must be prior, since ‘he who has no origin must of necessity precede him who has an origin’” (p. 276). Further, “‘[i]f he [the Son] were not begotten, there would be two unbegotten, and so two Gods’” (p. 276) Since the “‘Son does nothing of his own will, or his own counsel, but in all things obeys the precepts and commands of the Father’” (p. 276), there are not two Gods, but one God. (For more of Novatian’s arguments to save the unity of God, see Lamson, pp. 275-276.) This is a brief sketch of his explanation of two Gods not being two Gods. In short, “supreme divinity is not to be ascribed to Christ. He is not co-equal, or co-eternal with the Father. . . . Christ was God, but not the one infinite God; not self-existent; not having a personal, individual being from eternity, but deriving his origin, divinity, power, and authority from the only Supreme and Unbegotten God, the self-existent and Eternal One” (pp. 276-277).
    Novatian asserted the inferiority of the Spirit. He did not consider the Spirit to be God or Lord. Moreover, he did not give the Spirit a personality and certainly did “exalt the Spirit into one of three co-equal persons” (p. 277).
    Dionysius of Rome (d. 268) was the Bishop of Rome, i.e., the Pope between 259 and 268. He repudiated the opinions of Tertullian, Hippolytus, Sabellius, and Dionysius of Alexander. In opposition to the Sabellians, he declared that the Deity consisted of three divine persons and not three manifestations. He rejected the notion of three distinct divinities. “He asserts His [Logos] eternal divinity. ‘It is not lawful to divide into three deities the glorious and divine Monad [one, unity]. It is necessary that the Word should be united to the God of the universe, that the Holy Spirit should dwell and abide in Him, and that the sacred Triad [a group of closely related three] should be resolved at length into a sublime unity in the Almighty God, the Creator of all Beings. We must believe in one God, the Father Almighty, in Jesus Christ His Son, and in the Holy Spirit. The Word [Logos] is one with the God of the universe. Thus do we hold fast at once the divine Triad and the holy doctrine of the divine unity’” (Pressense, p. 417). He was closer to stating what would become the Trinity Doctrine than the other ante-Nicene Fathers. Dionysius “is the forerunner of the school of authoritative metaphysics. With him, the age of free doctrinal creations seems to pass away” (Pressense, p. 418). (Thus, religious liberty died in Christianity until the after the Reformation.)
    Arnobius (d. c. 330) was a Christian teacher and apologist. “[H]e maintained the supremacy of the Father, and makes the Son a different being and subordinate” (p. 278). God the Father is “‘alone unbegotten, immortal, and everlasting,’ the ‘Father, Governor, and Lord of all things’” (p. 278). God the Father sent Christ, the Son, who spoke by the command of the Father. Christ “‘giver of immortality,’ as the ‘Supreme King has appointed him to that office’” (p. 278).
    Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) was a student of Arnobius and a teacher and writer. He believed that the Son was not eternal, but was begotten by the Father. The Son was the firstborn and was alone worthy of the divine nature. However, the Son was subordinate to the Father. Therefore, the Son was not eternal or equal to the Father. Moreover, the Son “is of a ‘middle nature or substance between God and man’” (p. 280). Christ “‘taught that there is one God, who alone is to be worshipped; neither did he once call himself God. . . . Because he was thus faithful, assuming nothing to himself, but fulfilling the commands of him that sent him, he received the dignity of a perpetual priesthood, and the honours of the highest king, and the power of judge, and the name of God’” (p. 280). Thus, the Fathers and Son are “two beings, entirely distinct, one [the Father] first and supreme, the other [the Son] subordinate; one giving, the other receiving” (p. 281). Unity existed with the Father and the Son; they are one in will, affection, and consent: “‘[T]he Son faithfully obeys the will of the Father, nor ever does nor did anything except what the Father has willed or commanded’” (p. 281). However, at times Lactantius seemed to consider the Father and the Son to be one of mind, spirit, and substance.
    Lactantius denied the personality of the Holy Spirit. However, at times, he confounds the Spirit with the Logos.
    The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity between Origen and Arius showed as much, if not more, support for Arius as for Alexander and Athanasius. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity that had developed before the Arian controversy differed significantly from the Trinity Doctrine that developed after the Council of Nicaea. When the Arian controversy began, the doctrine of the Trinity declared the Son to be pre-existing. Nevertheless, the Father preceded him, i.e., unlike the Father who had no beginning and was, therefore, eternal, the Son had a beginning and was, therefore, not eternal. (Origen was an exception as he speculated about “‘beginningless’ creation, and a ‘beginningless generation of the Son’” [p. 285].) Therefore, the Son was not coeternal with the Father as maintained by the Trinity Doctrine. Further, the Son was inferior to the Father and was a distinct being from the Father, i.e., of a different essence or substance. Because he was begotten of God, the Son “partook in some sort of the same specific nature (that is, a divine), just as an individual of our race partakes of the same nature or essence with the parent from whom he sprang (that is, a human)” (p. 284). Again, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity just before the Council of Nicaea differed significantly from the modern Trinity Doctrine. Moreover, the Son was both God and man, but not in the Athanasian sense. The Holy Spirit was not eternal and was subordinate to the Son and the Father. Furthermore, it lacked a personality.

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More religious articles.

Part 4    Part 6

Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 4

Origen; the Monarchians

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

Origen
    Origen (184/185 – 253/254) was a pupil of Clement, a Greek scholar, an ascetic, and later master of the Catechetical School in Alexandria. Although a devoted Christian, he was also an advocate of philosophy because he believed that philosophical and secular literature aided in the investigation of divine truth. Among his many writings were commentaries on the Bible. He applied the “‘allegorical mode of explaining the Grecian mysteries . . . to the Jewish Scriptures’” (p. 187).
    Further, he originated what is now called Biblical criticism. During the early centuries of Christianity, most Christians used the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament. Origen compared the Hebrew text with the Septuagint to correct errors that had crept into the Septuagint.
    In 230, Origen was excommunicated as a heretic. More than anything else, envy, jealousy, and hatred guided his persecutors. About this act, Lamson wrote, “Behold now the most celebrated scholar, biblical critic, and commentator of his times, who knew more than all his persecutors combined, and performed more labour in the cause of Christianity than any dozen of them put together, behold him now an excommunicated man. His heresy served well enough for a pretext, but it was not the cause of his persecution at this time” (pp. 193-194). According to the orthodox Jerome, Origen “was condemned, ‘not on account of the novelty of his dogmas; not on account of heresy, for which he is now barked at by the rabid dogs, but because they could not endure the fame of his eloquence and learning’” (p. 194). In spite of the anathema of the synods of Egypt, the bishops of Caesarea, Jerusalem, Arabia, Phoenicia, and Greece gave him refuge and allowed him to continue his work. About him, Erasmus declared, “‘I acquire more knowledge of Christian philosophy . . . from one page of Origen, than from ten of Augustine” (p. 203).
    “The germ of most of his errors . . . existed in the prevalent modes of thinking” (p. 202). According to Origen, the Scriptures contained three senses: (1) the literal or historical, (2) the allegorical, i.e., moral or mystical, and (3) the spiritual, which is the highest and should not be confounded with the mystical. He was inclined to mystify and allegorize nearly everything in the Bible. As did many of his contemporaries and predecessors, Origen resorted “to mystical senses in order to escape the difficulties of the natural interpretation of Scripture” (p. 206n).
    Like the Fathers who preceded him, Origen, “regarded the Son as the first production of the Father; having emanated from him as light from the sun, and thus partaking of the same substance — that is, a divine” (pp. 214-215). However, “God and the Son constituted two individual essences, two beings” (p. 215). The Father and Son “‘are two things as to their essence, but one in consent, concord, and identity of will’” (p. 215).
    According to Origen, the Son made the Spirit, and the Spirit ranked below the Son. “To the Spirit, the office of redeeming the human race properly pertained; but, it being incompetent to so great a work, the Son, who alone was adequate to accomplish it, engaged” (p. 220).
    When Jesus said, “I and my Father are one.” Origen explained it as meaning a unity of will and affection. As support, he cites Acts 14:32, “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul.”
    Further, “Origen contends that Christ is not the object of supreme worship; and that prayer, properly such, ought never to be addressed to him, but is to be offered to the God of the universe, through his only-begotten Son, who, as our intercessor and high priest, bears our petitions to the throne of his Father and our Father, of his God and our God” (p. 218). He declares, “‘Prayer is not to be directed to one begotten, not even to Christ himself; but to the God and Father of the universe alone, to whom also our Saviour prayed, and to whom he teaches us to pray’” (p.218).
    In summary, “Origen believed God and the Son to be two essences, two substances, two beings” (p. 220). Moreover, “he placed the Son at an immense distance from the Infinite One” (p. 220). Nevertheless, the Son stood “at the head of all God’s offspring, and with them, and for them” (p. 220). Origen claimed that God created, made, and begot the Son, “not from an inner necessity, but ‘by the will of the Father, the first-born of every creature’” (p. 220). Moreover, the Father and the Son “were correlative terms, the one could not subsist without the other, inasmuch as light implied necessarily coeval brightness. And Christ was, to him, as much divine as he was human” (p. 220n). When he said that Christ had a human nature, he meant that Christ possessed a rational human soul, which had been denied since Justin’s development of the Logos-doctrine. “He supposed that the Logos, or divine nature of Christ, became united with a human rational soul before his incarnation” (pp. 228-229). (Also, “[h]e believed all souls to be preexistent, all endowed with freedom” [p. 229]. [For more details on Origen’s view of the soul of Christ, see Lamson, pp. 229ff. For characteristics of Alexandrian theology from which came Origen’s, see Hama, pp. 93-94.])
    Origen regarded the Holy Spirit to be “from the Son, and therefore as subordinate in a still more marked degree” (Pressense, p. 307). The Holy Spirit “is the personification and the hypostasis of holiness, as the Word is of the reason” (Pressense, p. 308).
    Some credit Origen with introducing the Trinitarian notion of eternal generation of the Son, i.e., the eternal Son. (For a discussion on this issue, see Lamson, pp. 221-222). Such a notion was a logical outcome of “the ‘Platonic idea of an endless becoming’” (pp. 222-223). However, Origen was careful “to affirm that the generation of the Son was by act of the ‘divine will’” (p. 223). Nevertheless, Origen greatly advanced the Logos-doctrine of Christology.
    Later both the Arians and the Athanasians would claim that Origen supported their position. However, Origen’s teachings were closer to the Arians than to the Athanasians, who were the orthodox after the Nicene Council.
    In the centuries following his death, Origen was anathematized as a heretic. According to Bunsen “‘Origen’s death is the real end of free Christianity, and, in particular, of free intellectual theology’” (p. 277). Although the Church condemned him, Origen’s philosophy and theology about the Son were essential in the development of the Nicene Creed and the Trinity Doctrine.

The Monarchians
    The Monarchians attempted to avoid ditheism and tritheism by emphasizing that God is one being and one person. Generally, they fall into three groups: the followers of Artemon, Noetus, or Sabellius.
    While the theology of the philosophical Christians, such as Tertullian, Clement of Alexandra, and Origen, were moving forward, the monotheistic Christians, called Monarchians, protested. They accused the philosophical Christians of introducing tritheism, the Trinity. According to the Monarchians, the philosophical Christians taught three Gods. That is, by means of the Logos-doctrine, the philosophical Christians were teaching a plurality of Gods. Monarchians rejected the Logos-doctrine.
    Artemon (fl. ca. 230) was a prominent Christian teacher in Rome and was a leader of the Monarchians in their protest against the philosophical Christians. The style of Monarchianism that Artemon taught has been called Dynamic Monarchianism.
    Artemon believed that Jesus was born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit; therefore, he had to have “something divine in him; a ‘certain divine energy’ uniting itself with him from the first, the divinity of the Father acting in some way in him” (p. 225). Thus, Artemon held the primitive, the ancient, doctrine, which existed before the Logos-doctrine entered Christianity. Many consider his Christology to be a form of Adoptionism — Jesus was the Son of God by adoption.
    Many Monarchians who were called Artemonites were intellects of the scientific culture, who were reflective and philosophical. “[T]heir intellectual tendencies led them to eliminate almost entirely the mystical element from their theology” (p. 226). Thus, the Platonists defended the doctrine of Christ’s divinity while the Aristoteleans contested it. (Honest Trinitarians admit that the Artemonites were close to the truth. “Christians [Trinitarians] are not monotheists, in the conventional sense . . . of ‘the world’s great monotheistic religions’ [i.e., in the Old Testament sense][Fleming, p. 9]. They are tritheists, who worship a Triune God — three Gods who are one God.)
    Noetus (230) was a presbyter of the church of Asia Minor. Like Artemon, he also was a Monarchian, but his theology differed from Artemon’s. “He believed in one God the Father, who manifested himself in the Son, the Logos; not, however, becoming in him a separate personality” (p. 227). His doctrine he believed honored Christ while preserving the unity of God. Noetus was accused of being a Patripassian, (According to the Patripassians, the Trinity is three manifestations or modes of a single divine being.) Noetus’ style of Monarchianism has been called Modalist Monarchianism.
    Beryllus (246), Bishop of Bostras, was another Monarchian whose theology also differed from Artemon’s. He held “that Christ had no personal existence before his appearance on earth, though while on earth the divinity of the Father dwelt in him, having united itself with him at his birth” (p. 228). Like Noetus, he was also considered a Patripassian.
    Sabellius (fl. c. 215) was a priest and theologian. He may have been the “‘most original and acute thinker among the Monarchians’” (p. 254).
    His doctrine was “a trinity of attributes, names, or manifestations” (p. 254). Where Sabellius differed from the orthodox Platonizing Fathers was his denial of “the permanent self-subsistence of the Logos in Jesus Christ” (p. 255). According to Sabellius, the power of God, or Logos, “united itself with the man Jesus, wrought in him, as in no other man, made him sufficient for his great work, and left him when that work was accomplished” (p. 255). For the Platonizing Fathers, the self-subsisting Logos of God was permanently in Christ. Whereas the orthodox distinguished the Holy Spirit from the Logos, Sabellius seemed “to have regarded it simply as the power of God” (p. 255). Sabellius’ doctrine of the Logos was similar to Justin Martyr’s.
    Paul of Samosata (c. 200 – 275) was Bishop of Antioch from 260 to 268. “He held that there was in the divine nature only one hypostasis or person; that Christ was man by nature, yet was higher than other men, as conceived by the Holy Spirit. He first began to exist when born of Mary. The divine Logos united itself with him, and dwelt in him as in no other ever sent of God, but did not, properly speaking, incarnate himself in him; it had in him no personal subsistence. The divine Reason itself, the Wisdom or Power of God, revealed itself in him, as it had never revealed itself in any other prophet. So great was the illumination he hence received, and so was his nature exalted by means of it, that he could with propriety be called the Son of God” (p. 256). Between 269 and 272, the Synod of Antioch condemned and excommunicated Paul. This synod also rejected the term homoousios, ‘consubstantial,’ which, after the Council of Nice [Nicaea], became the very Shibboleth of orthodoxy” (p. 257). Like Artemon, Paul taught Dynamic Monarchianism. (Later his notion of equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would be incorporated into the Trinity Doctrine.)

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More religious articles.

Part 3    Part 5

Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 2

Justin Martyr

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

Justin Martyr
    Justin Martyr (100–165) was an itinerant preacher, a Christian apologist, and a philosopher. Before his conversion to Christianity, he had studied at various schools of Greek philosophy. Among his writings are the Dialogue with Trypho and the Apology.
    Justin was the Church Father primarily responsible for developing the metaphysical notion of the Logos-doctrine of the Son, which became the foundation of the Trinity Doctrine. As discussed below, the Logos-doctrine did not come from the Old or New Testaments. It grew out of the Greek philosophy of Plato.
    Justin and his Platonism along with the Alexandrian School that followed him led the way to introducing “darkness and error into the theology of the period, error which was transmitted to subsequent times, and from the overshadowing effects of which the Christian world has not yet fully recovered” (p. 28).
    Justin developed the Logos-doctrine of Christ and applied it to his fanciful interpretation of the Old Testament. (For examples of these interpretations, see Lamson, pp. 52-53, 55-58.) He was a leader in combining Christianity with Platonic philosophy.
    Moreover, he often used “the allegorical mode of interpretation adopted by Philo and his school. He is perpetually beating about for hidden meanings, and far-fetched and mystical constructions, and typical representations and fanciful resemblances” (p. 56).
    (Philo [25 B.C. – 50 A.D.] was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher. He has been called the Jewish Plato.)
    Justin appeared to have had a greater understanding of Greek poets and philosophers than he had of the Old Testament. He was neither exact nor profound in his writings.
    He promoted the Logos-doctrine or the doctrine of the divine nature of Christ. His doctrine of the Logos is similar to that of Philo and the Alexandrian Platonists. (Lamson wrote that “the original and distinctive features of the doctrine of the Logos, as held by the learned Fathers of the second and third centuries, we must look, not to the Jewish Scriptures, nor to the teachings of Jesus and his Apostles, but to Philo and the Alexandrian Platonists. . . . the doctrine of the Trinity was of gradual and comparatively late formation; that it had its origin in a source entirely foreign from that of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; that it grew up, and was ingrafted on Christianity, through the hands of the Platonizing Fathers; that in the time of Justin, and long after, the distinct nature and inferiority of the Son were universally taught; and that only the first shadowy outline of the Trinity had then become visible” [p. 62].)
    Justin developed the Logos-doctrine in part to rebut Jewish and Heathen accusations about “the humble origin and ignominious death of Jesus as a reproach on Christianity” (p. 63). To overcome the reproach of the cross, Christians had, by Justin’s time, begun emphasizing Jesus’ miraculous virgin birth from which came the notion of the pre-existing Logos.
    Justin describes the Son as “as ‘the Logos, that, before created things, was with God, and begotten, when, through him, he [God] in the beginning created and adorned all things’” (p. 63). Thus, he excluded the “doctrine of the ‘eternal generations’” (p. 64). Also, he considered “the Son as the ‘beginning’ of God’s ‘ways to his works’” (p. 64). Thus, the Son was not eternal. Further, “Christ is ‘the first-born of God’” (p. 65).
    According to Justin, “Socrates knew Christ in part; for he is ‘that reason (logos) which is in all’ and whatever was well said or done by philosophers and legislators is to be attributed to the Logos in part shared by them. . . . This Logos was Christ, who afterwards became flesh” (p. 66). This Logos guided the patriarchs and the prophets and was implanted in every mind.
    “Justin believed this divine principle of reason was converted into a real being. . . . Jesus Christ . . . was the Logos, the first progeny of God, born without commixtion’” (p. 67). The Son is “‘the Logos of God, born of Him in a peculiar manner, and out of the course of ordinary births’” (p. 68).
    Justin used “Logos” in different senses. When he used it with reference to God, he usually meant “reason,” which was “considered as an attribute of the Father; and that, by the generation of the Son, he understood the conversion of this attribute into a real person. The Logos, which afterwards became flesh, originally existed in God as his reason, or perhaps his wisdom or energy. Having so existed from eternity, it was, a little before the creation of the world, voluntarily begotten, thrown out, or emitted, by the Father, or proceeded from him; for these terms are used indiscriminately to express the generation of the Son, or the process by which what before was a quality acquired a distinct personal subsistence” (p. 68). Thus, “the logos, or reason, which once constituted an attribute of the Father, was at length converted into a real being, and that this was done by a voluntary act of the Father” (p. 68). This process by which this conversion occurred was called “generation,” “emission,” and “creation.”
    Justin and other Fathers used “Logos” to express the divine nature of the Son. This notion came from Greek philosophy and not from the Hebrew Scriptures. “Logos” is used in the Septuagint as the translation of the Hebrew word that is translated “word” in English Bibles. Moreover, it does not bear the meaning that Justin and Philo attached to it. Furthermore, the Bible does not hint at “the generation of the Son by the conversion of an attribute of the Father into a real person” (p. 70). Contrariwise, the Old Testament generally describes God anthropomorphically and concretely; it seldom describes Him spiritually (for examples of such descriptions, see Lamson, pp. 71-72).
    In the Old Testament “word” or “Logos” is used in the sense of “speaking”; it is not used in the sense of “reason” as Justin and Philo used it. As such, in the Old Testament “word” or “Logos” is an anthropomorphic act of speaking; it is not used in a metaphysical sense as Justin and Philo used it.
    In the Old Testament, God “wills, and the event corresponds to his will. Here is no allusion to any intermediate agent, to a Son, who receives and executes his commands; a rational power, emanating from his own substance, and forming a link between him and his creatures” (p. 72). This notion of the Son as an intermediate agent came much later.
    The introduction of the Gospel of John comes the closest to supporting the metaphysical notions of Justin concerning the nature of the Son. However, nothing else in John or the other Gospels or Epistles gives any support to his notion. Although Paul’s writings suggest a pre-existing Son, he lacks the metaphysics of John. Mark has Jesus becoming the Son of God by adoption at his baptism. Luke and Matthew have him becoming the Son of God at his conception.
    In developing his Logos-doctrine, Justin drew on sources other than the Scriptures or even the Apostolic Fathers. His notion of Logos corresponded in its essential features with that of the Alexandrian Platonists. (For Trinitarian acknowledgment of the works of the Platonists in developing the Trinity Doctrine, see Lamson, pp. 77-78.)
    According to Philo in his interpretation of the Old Testament, “there is one Supreme God, but [Philo] supposes that there is a second God, inferior to him, and begotten of him, called his reason, Logos. . . .To this Logos, or intelligent nature, emanating from God, as he considers it, he attributes all the properties of a real being, and calls him God’s ‘first born Logos, the most ancient angel’” (pp. 79-80). (Plato used Logos to designate his second principle.) This omnipotent Father granted this archangel “‘the preeminent gift, to stand on the confines of both [the Deity and created], and separate the created from the Creator: he is continually a suppliant to the immortal God on behalf of the mortal race, which is exposed to affliction and misery; . . . being neither unbegotten as God, nor begotten as man, but occupying a middle place between the extremes, being a hostage to both’” (p. 80). Philo applies the title of “God” to him, but not in the highest sense. According to him, God is “the fountain of the Logos, and the Logos [is] his instrument, or minister, in forming, preserving, and governing the world; his messenger, and interpreter of his will to man” (p. 80). Thus, Philo used Logos “in the sense of reason, having a proper subsistence, and distinct from God, though emanating from the fountain of his divinity” (p. 81). Whereas sacred writers used Logos simply as “a mode of action in the Deity,” (p. 81), Philo used Logos as “a real being, his agent and minister in executing his will” (p. 81).
    The ante-Nicene Fathers thought that the Son was inferior to the Father. Therefore, because of his inferiority, the Son had to be distinct from the Father. Even Justin considered the Son distinct from and subordinate to the Father.
    Justin contended that two Gods and two Lords existed. One was the Lord in heaven, who is the “‘Lord of that Lord who appeared on earth.’” (p. 85). God the Father is the Lord in heaven, who is also the Creator. The Lord who appeared on the earth, the Son, is an inferior God, who is the mediator between God and man. Moreover, the Son was the subordinate God, who had no will of his own; he only did what the Creator willed him to do. (For some Biblical citations that Justin used to support his argument of two Gods with one being subordinate to the other, see Lamson, pp. 85-86.)
    According to Justin, the Son was the God who appeared to the patriarchs and was an agent in creation. All the theophanies, the visible appearance of God, in the Old Testament “belong to the Logos, or Christ, not to the Supreme God, whose visible personal appearance upon earth he [Justin] regarded as impossible and absurd” (p. 86).
    Justin stated that Christ is God “‘because he is the first-born of every creature’” (p. 87). Moreover, he is “the ‘Lord of hosts, by the will of the Father giving him the dominion’”(p. 87). Furthermore, Justin declared, “‘Who, since he is the first-begotten Logos of God, is God’ that is, he is God by virtue of his birth: in other words, he derived a divine nature from God, just as we derive a human nature from human parents” (p. 87).
    Nevertheless, the Son was not to be regarded “as an object of direct address in prayer” (p. 87). He was the one whom Christians were to pray through to the Father, God.
    To Justin, the Son was distinct from God the Father, but not distinct “in the modern sense, as forming one of three hypostases, or persons, three ‘distinctions,’ or three ‘somewhats’ — but distinct in essence and nature; having a real, substantial, individual subsistence, separate from God, from whom he derived all his powers and titles; being constituted under him, and subject in all things to his will” (p. 88). Therefore, “[t]he Father is supreme; the Son is subordinate: the Father is the source of power; the Son the recipient: the Father originates; the Son, as his minister or instrument, executes” (pp. 88-89). Thus, the Father and the Son are two in number, but one in will.
    In summary, Justin viewed “the Logos, or Son, as a rational power begotten of God, and his instrument in forming the world, distinct from him, and subordinate” (p. 89). His concept of the Son and Logos cannot be found in the Old Testament or the New Testament. Moreover, the Apostles, the writers of the New Testament, and their immediate successors never alluded to it. However, Philo and the Alexandrian Platonists expressed the same notion of the Logos as Justin. Therefore, Justin derived his concept of the Son and Logos from the Platonic philosophy instead of from the Scriptures. Through him, this Platonic notion of the Logos and the Son entered Christianity.
    Because Justin declared that the Son is subordinate to the Father and that the Son is not eternal, his doctrine falls short of the Trinity Doctrine. According to the Trinity Doctrine, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equal and one numerical essence or substance — the three in One, i.e., the Supreme Being. The ante-Nicene Fathers agreed with Justin that the Son was not equal to the Father, and, unlike the Father, he was not eternal. Moreover, the Son was independent of the Father; they were not the same being.
    (For Justin’s views on the Holy Spirit, see Lamson, pp. 93-95.)
    Strictly speaking, Justin and the other ante-Nicene Fathers were unitarians. They believed that the Son was really distinct from the Father and was inferior to him.
    However, Justin did plant a seed that would eventually mature into the Trinity Doctrine. Thus, his Logos-doctrine eventually changed Christianity from a unitarian, monotheistic, religion to a trinitarian, tritheistic, religion.
    Opinions about the nature of the Son varied. Justin and others believed in Christ’s pre-existence. Others believed in the simple humanity of Jesus. (“The question whether Jesus were the Messiah, the Christ of God, or not, did not involve the question of his nature. . . . [T]he question of Christ’s nature or of his pre-existence had nothing to do with the question of his sufficiency as a Saviour, but all depended on God’s appointment” [p. 100].)

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Part 1    Part 3

Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 1

The Apostolic Fathers

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

Be careful that you don’t let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ. – Colossians 2:8

    The Trinity Doctrine developed over centuries. This article traces that development to the Nicene Creed, which was the first important component of the Trinity Doctrine, from the Apostolic Fathers through the Arian controversy.
    In this article, “Trinity Doctrine” means the Trinity Doctrine as expressed in the Athanasian Creed. “Doctrine of the Trinity” means the orthodox concept of or teaching about the Trinity at that time.
    Being simple and apparently ignorant people, the Apostolic Fathers, Christian writers of the first and early second centuries, believed what the Bible said about the Father and the Son. They had no indication that it contained the Trinity Doctrine, especially like the one of today.
    From Justin Martyr and Philo, the philosophy of the Platonists was applied to the Scriptures. Applying Platonic philosophy to the Scriptures was the first major contribution of the Trinity Doctrine. By applying Platonic philosophy to the Scriptures, Justin discovered that “Logos” no longer meant the spoken word. Using metaphysics, he changed Logos to mean reason — God’s reason. This reason, Logos, became a second God, the pre-existing Son. Thus, the Logos-doctrine entered Christianity. However, the Son had not yet become eternal; he had a beginning. Nor had he become the equal of God the Father; he was still subordinate.
    The Fathers between Justin and Clement of Alexander brought into Christianity the thought of a Trinity and advanced the notion of the eternal existence of the Logos, the Son.
    Origen advanced the unity of the Father and the Son, i.e., the Son was in the Father instead of with the Father. Thus, the Father and the Son were becoming one. Also, he advanced the notion that the Son had both a divine and human nature, that is, Christ possessed a rational human soul, which had been denied since Justin developed the Logos-doctrine. Further, some interpret his works as hinting at the Son having existed from eternity. However, he maintained that the Father was superior to the pre-existing Son and that the Father and the Son were two different substances.
    Between Origen and Arius, the unity of the Father and the Son was becoming more pronounced, although the Son remained distinct from and subordinate to the Father.
    When Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria, began teaching more oneness of the Father and Son, Arius accused him of Sabellianism — thus, began the Arian controversy. Although Arius thought that he was defending the doctrine of the Trinity as it existed then, Alexander and others disagreed. Arius had stripped the Trinity of its Platonic metaphysics. The Arian controversy peaked with the Council of Nicaea, which issued the Nicene Creed. Among other things, the creed declared the Father and the Son to be one substance.
    Some Fathers discussed below were sainted; some were condemned as heretics. By the standard of the Trinity Doctrine, all were heretics with the possible exception of Dionysius of Rome and Alexander of Alexandria. Strictly speaking, nearly all of them were also unitarians.
     Nearly all, if not all, the ante-Nicene Fathers were Early Unitarians. Early Unitarians were strict monotheists. They believed that there is but one God who is infinite, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient — that is the Father. They believed that the Son is not eternal and, therefore, has a beginning and is subordinate to the Father. However, some considered the Son to be of the same substance or essence as the Father; that is, they believed in a common nature, but not numerical unity. Still, others considered him to be of a different substance or essence. In any event, nearly all believed that the Father and Son are two distinct and independent beings. Moreover, they disagreed whether the son is pre-existing. Also, if he became deified, they disagreed about when he became deified: before creation, at conception, with his baptism, or at his resurrection. Many of these Early Unitarians considered the Logos to be God’s reason that became the Son or incarnated in the Son. Thus, the Son was an attribute of God — His reason. None believed that the Holy Spirit is a person in the modern Trinitarian sense; most thought of it as an attribute of God. (For arguments why anyone who does not accept the Trinity Doctrine is not a Trinitarian, but is a Unitarian, see Alford.) Until the about 200 years ago, most unitarians believed in a Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but it was not the Trinity of the Trinity Doctrine of three co-equal, co-eternal Gods being one God — neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit were Deities. Lacking such belief, they are disqualified from being Trinitarians. Early Unitarians should not be confused with Modern Unitarians or Modern Unitarianism (also known as Universal Unitarianism and Rational Unitarianism) as represented by the Unitarian Universal Association. Modern Unitarianism came into being about 200 years ago. Initially, Modern Unitarians began acting like Montanists — receiving divine revelations that superseded the Scriptures. Soon they no longer needed the Scriptures. Before long they became like Jewish rabbis with God conferring with them. Now they no longer recognize God because they have traded theology for ideology. Modern Unitarians are much closer to the liberal Protestants and modernist Catholics than any of them are to most of the ante-Nicene Fathers. Like many liberal and modernist clergy and members of other denominations, Modern Unitarians are mostly ideologues, scientismists, secular humanists, agnostics, and naturalists. (Modern Unitarians should not be confused with today’s traditional Unitarians, who agree with various brands of orthodoxy on most theological issues except the Trinity Doctrine and the natural immortality of the soul. Traditional Unitarians adhere closely to the Christology of Clement of Rome and Polycarp.)
    A heretic is anyone who disagrees with the doctrine of another that is esteemed so highly that it has become dogma — especially if the other is much more powerful than the dissenter. Today, the greatest heresy in Christendom is Protestantism — at least from the Catholic perspective. Conversely, for many Protestants, the greatest heresy is Catholicism — even to the point of the Catholic Church or the Pope being the anti-Christ of Revelation. Moreover, what is orthodoxy in one era can be heresy in another.  (For example, in the early decades of the church, people who taught that man’s soul is innately immortal were heretics. Today, people who teach that man’s soul is not innately immortal are heretics.)

The Apostolic Fathers
    Clement of Rome (d. 99) was a disciple of Peter and later Bishop of Rome (88-99) and is considered the first Apostolic Father. He was the author of two letters: the First Epistle of Clement and the Second Epistle of Clement, which many consider spurious. One ancient collection of canonical Scriptures included his First Epistle.
    According to Clement, prayer was to be addressed only to God the Father and not to Christ, the Son. “God ‘sends;’ Jesus is ‘sent.’ ‘The Apostles preached to us from our Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ from God. Christ therefore was sent from God, the Apostles from Christ; both being fitly done according to the will of God” (p. 5). Clement declared, “‘God has made our Lord Jesus Christ the first-fruits, raising him from the dead’” (p. 5). Thus, the Father made or created the son; therefore, the Son was not eternal as the Trinity Doctrine proclaims. Clement called Christ the “‘sceptre of the majesty of God,’ language which implies instrumentality, not identity or equality of person. The term God is not once applied to him” (p. 6). Clement clearly distinguished Christ from the one and only God (the Father). He writes of the Father as “‘the true and only God’ ‘the great Artificer and Sovereign Ruler of all’ [‘]the All-seeing God and Ruler of Spirits, and Lord of all flesh, who chose our Lord Jesus Christ’” (p. 6). No where in his epistle did Clement teach the supreme divinity of Christ. He taught that Christ was subordinate to the Father and was not his equal as the Trinity Doctrine declares. In summary, Clement declared that God is “the fountain of all power and blessing, and Jesus Christ as his Son, sent by Him to be the Saviour of men. The Father is above all; His glory and majesty are underived; the Son derives from Him his power and dignity, his offices and dominion” (p. 9).
    Hermas (wrote 115 – 140) wrote the Shepherd of Hermas, which was written possibly in the late first century, but more likely in the early to mid second century and which some Apostolic Fathers considered canonical scripture. He is believed to have been the brother Pius, Bishop of Rome. He wrote three books that made up the Shepherd of Hermas: Visions, Commands, and Similitudes.
    According to Hermas, God (the Father) “is the Supreme and Infinite One, the sole independent Creator and Governor of the universe, who alone is Eternal” (p. 13). Thus, the Son was not an eternal being. Moreover, Hermas gave the highest titles and epithets to God and never to the Son. The Son was subject to and received all from the father. Therefore, he was subordinate to God the Father and was not his equal. God created the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Holy Spirit was not eternal, but was created. Some critics identify “Holy Spirit” as Christ in the Shepherd of Hermas. If true, then Christ, the Son, is created and not eternal. However, Hermas did believe in the pre-existence of the Son.
    Polycarp (69 – 155), Bishop of Smyrna, was the author of the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, which was probably written around 110 – 140. The Fathers believed that Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John.
    In his epistle, Polycarp proclaimed “the supremacy of the Father, and the subordination of the Son” (p. 20). He wrote, “‘Him who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and gave him glory and a throne at His right hand; to whom all things in heaven and on earth are made subject, whom every living creature shall worship’ not, however, as supreme” (p. 20). To Polycarp, Christ is the high priest “but not God himself” (p. 21). He did not conceive of “Jesus Christ as equal with God, or as one with Him, except in will and purpose. . . . The Father is separated from the Son by a broad and distinct line; one as supreme, the other as subordinate; one as giving, the other as receiving; the Father granting to the Son a ‘throne at His right hand’” (p. 21). Polycarp had “no metaphysics, no confusion or obscurity, [and] no hair splitting distinctions” (p. 21).
    Barnabas (d. 131) may have been the Barnabas who was a companion of Paul, but most critics reject this Barnabas as the author of the Epistle of Barnabas. Many Fathers considered this epistle to be canonical. Most likely, this epistle was written about the middle of the second century. However, some believe that it was written in the latter part of the first century or the first quarter of the second century.
    Barnabas believed in the pre-existence of the Son, who was “‘God’s instrument in the creation’” (p. 23). However, contrary to the Trinity Doctrine, Barnabas maintained the supremacy of the Father throughout his epistle. He avoided confounding the Son with the Father and never made the Son the equal of the Father. His epistle is void of the Logos-doctrine.
    None of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, of whom the above four are considered, contained the Logos-doctrine. “The absence of all traces of the [Logos-]doctrine in these writings can be explained only on the supposition that the authors ‘did not,’ in the words of Souverain, ‘find it in the Christian religion, nor in the Jewish; and, not having studied in the school of Plato, they could not import it from that school into the Church of Christ.’”(pp. 24-25). For the Apostolic Fathers, “‘[e]very such application of the idea of the Logos was foreign to their minds’” (p. 25). Thus, the Logos-doctrine grew out of Greek speculation and metaphysics, and not out of the Scriptures. Therefore, the foundation of the Trinity Doctrine is Greek speculation and metaphysics — primarily from Plato.

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More religious articles.

Part 2