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 3

From Justin Through Clement of Alexandria

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.]

From Justin to Clement of Alexander
    Like Justin, the Fathers who followed were not Trinitarians. They did not believe in an undivided, coequal, coeternal three being God.
    Tatian (c. 120 – c. 180) was a theologian and a sophist, who taught rhetoric and philosophy. He was educated in the Greek religion and philosophy and was a disciple of Justin Martyr. Sometime after his conversion to Christianity, he founded an ascetic and heretical sect.
    Tatian described “God alone as without beginning, invisible, ineffable, the original cause of all things visible and invisible” (p. 116). He does not apply this description to the Son. His concept of the Logos was similar to Justin’s. However, Tatian did not distinctly associates the Logos with Christ. Nevertheless, he did assert “that God was born in the form of man” (p. 117n). “Tatian regarded the Son as originally and from eternity in and with God, not as a real being or person, but only as an attribute, or by virtue of his power of begetting him; in him and with him, only as all things created were; that is, not as the actual, but as the possible” (p. 116). According to Tatian, the Son had a beginning as a real substance or person; the Father produced the Son. Moreover, after his production, the Son was “a being distinct from the Father, and subordinate to him” (p. 116).
    Theophilus of Antioch (d. 183-5) was the Bishop of Antioch (c. 169 – c. 183). In regards to the Father and the Son, he taught a doctrine similar to Tatian. He described “God as Supreme, ‘the true and only God,’ ‘without beginning’ ‘invisible,’ ‘unbegotten’ and, as such, immutable” (p. 118). The Son he described “as inferior, having, as a real being or person, a beginning, ‘visible,’ ‘begotten,’ and therefore, according to his philosophy, not possessing the attribute of immutability” (p. 118).
    According to Theophilus, the Logos was with God Himself; the Logos of God was what reason was in man. This Logos was God’s helper in creation, and through the Logos as His minister, God made all things.
    Moreover, God the Father “‘cannot be confined to space, or be found in place’” (p. 118). The theophanies in the Old Testament were the Logos, that is, the Son. (However, Theophilus did not apply his concept of the Logos to Christ.)
    About the Logos, Theophilus wrote, “‘Of him, before the creation, God took counsel, he being his own reason, or wisdom. And when he willed to create what he had designed, he begot this Logos, the emitted first-born of every creature; not emptying himself of Logos (Reason), but begetting it, and always holding converse with his own Logos (Reason).’ Thus the uttered or begotten Logos or Reason of God became a real person, having a proper subsistence in himself, without diminishing, or taking from, God’s understanding, Logos or Reason” (pp. 118-119). In this way, Theophilus made a marked distinction between the internal and begotten Logos.
    Furthermore, Theophilus contended that only the true God, the Father, was to be worshiped. He believed that the Son was “begotten, or produced from the reason of the Father, a little before the creation of the world; thus becoming a distinct being subject to the will of the Father, and not entitled to equal adoration” (p. 119).
    “Theophilus was the first Christian writer who used the term ‘Trias,’ Trinity, in reference to the Deity: but it is deserving of remark, that, to adopt the modern phraseology, the three ‘distinctions,’ or three ‘somewhats,’ designated by it, are, according to him, ‘God, his Logos, and his Wisdom’” (p. 120). By Wisdom, he may have meant Spirit, though Spirit was usually considered synonymous with the Logos or Word. Yet he did not assert that the three were equal.
    Athenagoras (c. 133 – c. 190) was a Greek philosopher who converted to Christianity, after which he wrote apologies for Christians and a treatise on the Resurrection. According to Athenagoras, the Son of God “‘is the Logos (Reason) of the Father in idea and operation.’ ‘Through it all things were made.’ ‘The Son of God is the understanding and reason of the Father.’ ‘God from the beginning being eternal reason, had in himself the Logos (Reason), being always rational’” (pp. 121-122). Thus, the “attribute reason, or wisdom, was eternal, but not the Son as a personal being” (p. 122).
    Like most of the other ante-Nicene Fathers, Athenagoras maintained the supremacy of the Father, who was “‘unbegotten and eternal’ [and who] created all things by his Logos, or Reason” (p. 122). To Athenagoras, the Holy Spirit was “something flowing out from God, as rays flow from the sun, and are re-absorbed, that is, not as a person, but an influence” (p. 123). The Logos “is the eternal reason of God. . . . The Holy Spirit is the Divine Wisdom, the bond of unity between the Father and the Son” (Pressense, p. 250).
    Irenaeus (130 – 202) became the Bishop of Lyons in 177. He wrote five books against the Gnostic heretics. Unlike most Christian writers of his era, he avoided abstract metaphysics of the Platonist Fathers.
    According to Irenaeus, the Son had a second existence and was inferior to the Father. However, he did not discuss the mode of the Son’s generation because he considered it inexplicable. No one knew the Son’s generation except “‘the Father who begat and the Son who was begotten’” (p. 124). However, in his arguments against Gnosticism, he connected the Son with the terms “always” and “eternal.”
    Always, he was careful “to distinguish the Son from the ‘One true and only God,’ who is ‘supreme over all,’ and ‘besides whom there is no other’” (p. 124). The Father is above all and is the head of Christ. Further, he declared that the Church “‘has received from the Apostles and their disciples this belief in one God the Father, supreme over all . . . and in one Jesus Christ . . . and in the Holy Spirit, that through the prophets preached the dispensations.’” (p. 125). Thus, the “Father ‘sends,’ the ‘Son is sent:’ the Father ‘commands,’ the Son executes, ministering to his will. The Father grants, the Son receives, power and dominion” (p. 125). Consequently, Irenaeus did not conceive “of the Son as numerically the same Being with the Father, or as, in any sense, his equal” (p. 125).
    Like the Apostolic Fathers, Irenaeus held that Jesus Christ had one nature and that he “suffered in his whole nature” (p. 126). Jesus was the Logos of God, and the Logos became flesh and suffered. Thus, Jesus “suffered in his most exalted nature” (p. 127). (Modern Trinitarians maintain that Jesus Christ has two natures, divine and human. Whenever Jesus fails to act divinely, such as his lack of omniscience in not knowing the time of the end [Mark 8:32], Trinitarians claim that he was acting in his human nature. Also, only Jesus’ human nature died on the cross because God, being eternal, cannot die. Thus, this dual nature of Christ gives them an easy escape in ignoring or explaining away the clear teachings of the Bible that contradict their dogma.) “Like the old Fathers generally, before the time of Origen, Irenaeus did not attribute to the Saviour a rational human soul but supposed that the Logos supplied the place of it” (p. 127). He held “1. That the Son was really divine; 2. That this divine element was perfectly joined to humanity in Jesus Christ” (127n). Thus, Christ was “God, God and man” (p. 127n).
    Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240) was a presbyter and later became a Montanist. He has been called “the father of Latin Christianity” and “the founder of Western theology.” (Montanists believed that the Spirit of truth, the Paraclete whom Jesus had promised in the Gospel of John, was manifesting himself to the world through Montanist prophets; they also taught a rigorous legalistic moralism and asceticism.)
    Tertullian maintained the supremacy of the Father. However, he believed “that the Son is entitled to be called God, on the principle, that ‘whatever is born of God is God,’ just as one born of human parents is human” (p. 129). Although he states that the Son possessed “‘unity of substance’ with God” (p. 129), Tertullian “never meant to express a numerical unity of essence, but only a specific, that is, a common nature” (p. 129). He supposed that “the Son to be in some sort divine by virtue of his birth, and of one substance with God, as he is a spirit, and God is spirit. At the same time, he regarded him as a different being from the Father, that is, numerically distinct from him” (p. 129). However, this distinction did make two Gods: “‘[T]he Son is subordinate to the Father as he comes from him as the principle, but is never separated’” (p. 130n). Still, “God and Christ are two things, two species, two forms” (p. 130). Tertullian observed, “‘The Father is different from the Son (another), as he is greater; as he who begets is different from him who is begotten; he who sends, different from him who is sent; he who does a thing, different from him by whom (as an instrument) it is done’” (p. 130). Furthermore, the Son is inferior to the Father. According to Tertullian, “‘The Father is a whole substance; the Son a derivation, and portion of the whole, as he professes, saying, “The Father is greater than I”’” (p. 131).
    Although he admits to “the pre-existence of the Son, [he] expressly denies his eternity” (p. 131). He states, “‘There was a time when the Son was not.’ . . . ‘Before all things, God was alone.’ . . . [N]othing existed without or beyond himself. ‘Yet he was not alone; for he had his own reason, which was in himself, with him. For God is rational’ a being endued with reason” (p. 131). Moreover, the Father was “‘more ancient, nobler, and more powerful than the Son’” (p. 132).
    Nevertheless, after he became a Montanist, he described the Godhead in terms approaching the modern Trinity Doctrine. He wrote, “‘All are of one, by unity of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded which distributes the unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; three, however . . . not in substance but in form; not in power but in appearance, for they are of one substance and one essence and one power, inasmuch as He is one God from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ He describes these distinctions of the Godhead as ‘persons,’ meaning by the word not our [Trinitarians] usage in the sense of personalities, but forms of manifestation” (Walker, p. 69). (Did he come to this conclusion by studying the Scriptures or was it a special revelation to a Montanist?) Ironically, while some Trinitarians claim Tertullian’s Montanist statement supports the Trinity Doctrine, others claim that Montanists were hostile to Trinitarian ideas — even Tertullian, expressed his disdain toward Trinitarians with his Monarchian explanation of the trinity.
    Tertullian also believed Christ consisted of two natures: divine and human. “We see His double state, not intermixed but conjoined in one person, Jesus, God and man” (Walker, p. 69).
    To the objections that he and the others like him were advocating two or three Gods, Tertullian replied that the number and deposition of the Trinity were not a division of the unity. His solution was a monarchy. Monarchy was “one rule or dominion, but may be administered through many officials; or the monarch may associate his son with him, all power still emanating from him. The monarchy then remains. So with the divine monarchy” (p. 134-135). The heavenly King’s use of “‘the Son and Spirit, who are second and third to him, and of a similar nature as begotten of his substance’” (p. 135) does not destroy the monarchy. Tertullian noted “that the Son does ‘nothing without the Father’s will;’ that all his ‘power was received from the Father’ who granted it.” Under Tertullian’s explanation, Christ lacks supreme divinity and numerical identity with the Father. Tertullian’s unity is that “the Son was of Divine origin, and his will always harmonized with the will of the Father, which is no unity at all in the later Athanasian [Trinitarian] sense” (p. 135).
    Hippolytus (170 – 235) was a Roman presbyter and Bishop of Pontus and an apologist for what was the considered orthodoxy. About 220, he wrote A Refutation of All Heresies.
    About the Trinity, Hippolytus believed in strict subordination. “He asserted that ‘God caused the Logos to proceed from him when he would and as he would’” (p. 238). He believed in “the superiority of the Father, and the dependent and derived nature of the Son” (p. 212). Like other ante-Nicene Fathers, he believed that God used a subordinate being or instrument in creating the world; this subordinate being was the Logos, the Son: “‘This sole and universal God first, by his cogitation, begets the Word (Logos), . . . the indwelling Reason of the universe.’ — ‘When he (the Logos) came forth from Him who begat him, being his first-begotten speech, he had in himself the ideas conceived by the Father. When, therefore, the Father commanded that the world should be, the Logos accomplished it in detail, pleasing God’” (p. 213). Thus, “God is the Original: he commands, and the Son, or Logos performs” (p. 213). Yet, the Logos “is not confounded with the world, since it exists antecedently to it, and proceeds not from nothing, but from the Father Himself, . . . but He does not possess a distinct existence from all eternity. He exists first as the creative thought, then He becomes the instrument of creation, the sovereign agent of the Divine will, to call into life contingent beings. He is thus a person, not simply an idea” (Pressense, pp. 406-407). Hippolytus conceived of the Logos to be a person, not simply an idea. The Father alone produced the Logos “not simply as an utterance or sound, but as the inner thought of the universe” (Pressense, p. 407).
    To explain away the appearance of two Gods, Hippolytus declared, “‘There are not, then, two Gods, but one God in two persons. The third economy is the grace of the Holy Spirit.’ The Father commands, the Son obeys, the Holy Spirit enlightens. The Father is over all, the Son acts by all, the Holy Spirit is in all” (Pressense, p. 408). (Later, following Hippolytus’ method of a mere assertion to reduce two Gods to one, the Trinitarians would reduce three Gods to one by merely declaring them to be one God.)
    The Fathers between Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria introduced the thought of a trinity. Also, they advanced the notion of God’s reason, the Logos, which or who later became the Son and Christ, existing from eternity with the Father. Thus, they continued the Platonization of Christianity.
    However, they still maintained the supremacy of the Fathers and the subordination of the Son and struggle with the notion of two Gods, ditheism, or three Gods, tritheism. Moreover, like most earlier Fathers, most continued to “believed that Christ did not possess a human rational soul, the Logos supplying its place” (p. 135).

Clement of Alexandria
    Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215) was a philosopher before he became a Christian. He was a presbyter and became the head of the Catechetical or Theological School in Alexandria. He advanced the application of Greek philosophy, primarily that of Plato and the Stoics, to Christianity. As Philo had interpreted Judaism by philosophy into scientific dogma, so Clement interpreted Christianity. He was somewhat gnostic as he was inclined to equate knowledge of and about God to salvation. (Later, many clergymen would act the same way when they thought that salvation depended on believing the Trinity Doctrine.)
    His residence was Alexandria, where “the Jewish, the Oriental, and the Grecian culture, mingled with the old Egyptian superstitions” (p. 140). The people of these cultures were generally hostile to the religion of Jesus. Also, the home of Philo and the Platonist school were in Alexandria.
    Clement believed that the Son existed before the world. Although he gave the Son the title God, he did not ascribe to him supreme, underived divinity. Moreover, like the other early Fathers, he did not believe that the Son had a personal existence from the beginning.
    “The Fathers ascribed to the Son a sort of metaphysical or potential existence in the Father: that is, they supposed that he existed in him from all eternity as an attribute his logos, reason, or wisdom; that, before the formation of the world, this attribute acquired by a voluntary act of the Father a distinct personal subsistence, and became his instrument in the creation” (pp. 148-149). Likewise, Clement held that the Logos was the reason or wisdom of God. That is, the Logos was an attribute of the Father.
    Moreover, the Son was inferior to the Father. (For passages from Clement’s writings asserting the Son’s inferiority, see Lamson, pp. 150-151. For additional description of God the Father, the Logos, and the Son and their relationship, see Pressense, pp. 257-260.) “Clement believed God and the Son to be numerically distinct; in other words, two beings, the one supreme, the other subordinate” (p. 150). He conceived of the Son, or Logos, as the image of God as man is the image of man. Thus, his view of the Logos was like that of his predecessors. Like them, he had no concept of the eternal generation of the Son as do Trinitarians.
    To Clement, the Logos was “the source of all the intelligence and morality of the human race — the teacher of mankind everywhere” (Walker, p. 78). God was the giver of philosophy to the Greeks. He declared, “‘For this was a schoolmaster to bring the Hellenic mind, as the law the Hebrews, to Christ” (Walker, p. 78). Moreover, his “view of Christ’s life is almost Docetic” (Walker, p. 78). (Docetists believed “that Jesus Christ had appeared as a phantom form, that he had not had a real or natural body, and that his crucifixion had only been an illusion. . . . Consequently, Christ’s resurrection and ascension into heaven were denied” [“Docetism”]. Thus, “. . . Christ only ‘appeared’ or ‘seemed[’] to be a man, to have been born, to have lived and suffered” [Arendzen].)
    Clement advanced the notion that being from the Father, who is the supreme God, the Son was God. Since he was from God, his nature was divine. Also, he encouraged the use of Greek philosophy in understanding 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 2    Part 4

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.

More religious articles.

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
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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,

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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.

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Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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