Does Money Measure Value and Store Value?

Does Money Measure Value and Store Value?

Thomas Allen

    In Money (1878), Francis Walker discusses his concept of money. He identifies what he considers the basic functions of money: a medium of exchange (it facilitates exchanges), a common denominator (this function should not be confused with money as a measure of value), and a standard for deferred payments (it is a standard of value for paying debt). Walker rejects two functions of money that most economists hold: money as a measure of value and money as a store of value. At least before the demise of money’s connection to gold in 1971, most economists disagree with Walker on these two functions.

Measure of Value
    Under the gold standard, when an economist claims that gold is a measure of value, he means that the value of goods and services are compared with the value of a specific weight and fineness of gold. This comparison results in the price of the good or service. For example, between 1837 and 1934, the US dollar was defined as 23.22 grains of fine (pure) gold or 25.80 grains of standard gold, which was 90 percent pure. Thus, a theater ticket that cost $10 had the same value as 232.2 grains of gold.
    According to Walker, when most economists are describing money as a measure of value, they are really describing it as a common denominator. Although some use the two terms interchangeably, they are really two different things. Moreover, “they have no necessary relation to each other.”
    Walker defines the value of money the way that adherents of inconvertible paper money define the value of money. That is, the value of a gold coin is the value of what it can purchase. According to Walker, the value of a gold coin is determined by its use as a medium of exchange and is independent of its gold content. (Presumably, if the gold content of a gold coin were doubled or halved, its purchasing power would not change. Even Walker and the opponents of gold know that this is absurd.) To most adherents of the gold standard, the value of a gold coin is the value of the material of which it is made, although some of them argued against this notion by claiming that the quantity of gold coins was the primary determinant their value. Others, such as George Weston, argue that the value of the gold coin determines the value of its metal content, and the value of the gold coin is determined by the supply of metallic and paper money. To illustrate the difference between the two, today, the value of the dollar is the value of a dollar’s worth of goods. Between 1837 and 1934, the value of a dollar was the value of 23.22 grains of gold. The latter definition is superior to the former because it defines the value of the dollar independently of itself. The former defines the value of the dollar in terms of itself.
    Walker argues that when values are measured, they may be expressed relatively to each other as a scale of numbers. Perceiving money as providing a scale of value instead of a measure of value, was not original with Walker. Dugald Stewart had earlier argued this notion. Like Stewart, Walker seems to believe that gold is the best form or type of money. Yet, if his argument that money does not measure value, but merely provides a scale for relative values is correct, then the material of which the money is made is irrelevant. Like Stewart, Walker does not consider money as capital but as an aid in enumeration and arithmetic. Many economists, especially today, and even in the nineteenth century, concur with Walker and Stewart. Thus, for example, if item A has a value of 1 and item B, of 5, then item B is worth 5 times more than A.
    He notes that advocates of Ideal Money, which is inconvertible paper money, maintain that money merely provides a common denominator by which the relative values of various goods can be compared. Advocates of Real Money, which is full-weight metallic coin either gold or silver, maintain that money provides a common measure of value to which various goods are compared and measured. (Ironically, while supporting the adherents of Ideal Money on money being merely a numeric that compares but measures nothing, he abhors inconvertible paper money.)
    Instead of money measuring value, Walker argues that money merely provides a common denominator. If money is merely a numeric, as today’s money essentially is, although it does measure value, albeit poorly, what purpose do such apparent units of measure as the dollar, pound, franc, mark, or peso, serve? Walker does not say. If money merely provides a common denominator, then the coin or paper note would only need a number stamped on it. Adding “dollar,” “pound,” “franc,” “mark,” or “peso” is superfluous and can be confusing (misleading one to believe that value is being measured). Why make a $10 gold coin twice the size of a $5 gold coin and a $20 gold coin twice the size of a $10 gold coin, if the coin does not measure value? Why not just use paper money with numbers and no units printed on them? Yet Walker abhors inconvertible paper money.
    Following the lead of Prof. Rogers, Walker compares measuring value to measuring distances. If the distance between A and B is 1 and the distance between B and C is 10, then the distance between B and C is ten times greater than the distance between A and B. However, one does not know if the distance is in zeptometers (an extremely short distance) or in zettameters (an extremely long distance). Without a unit of measure, one does not know whether the distances are short or long. Moreover, a unit of measure is needed to ensure that the relative values are understood correctly. Thus, the distance between A and B compared with B and C is much greater than it appears if the distance between A and B is in zeptometers and B and C is in zettameters. Instead of the relative distance between B and C being ten times greater than A and B, it is 10 to the 43rd power greater (an enormous number). (Another example of the inadequacy of relative comparisons occurs with corporate profits. Corporation X has a 100 percent increase in profit compared with the previous year, while corporation Y has only a 1 percent increase in profit. In relative terms, corporation X appears to have a greater profit. However, when absolute profits are considered, a different story is revealed. Corporation X had a profit of $1 the previous year and $2 this year; thus, it had an increase in profit of 100 percent. Corporation Y had a profit of $1 billion last year and $1.01 billion this year, which is an increase in profit of 1 percent. Of the two which did the best?)
    When comparing values, a measure of value, that is a unit of value, is also needed. For example, the US dollar had a value of 23.22 grains of gold and the British pound had a value of 113 grains of gold. Thus, the value of the British pound was about 4.86 times greater than the value of the US dollar. One needs to know whether prices are being compared in dollars or pounds or both. The relative values may be the same, but the absolute values may not be. For example, if item X costs £2 and item Y costs £1, then item X costs twice as much as item Y. If item A costs $2 and item B costs $1, then item A costs twice as much as item B. Although both X and A have twice the value of Y and B respectively, X is worth 4.86 times A and 9.72 times B. Thus, more than a common denominator is needed to estimate value or even to measure relative differences. A unit of measure, i.e., a unit of value, is also needed. Furthermore, that unit of value must have value in and of itself.
    As shown above, when distance or value is being compared, more than a numeric value is needed. Moreover, that unit of measure must possess what is being measured.
    Walker does admit that to measure value, a value must be used. Nevertheless, that value can be relative and expressed as a pure number without reference to any common value. He states, “Value is a relation. Relations may be expressed, but not measured.” He illustrates this with distance by claiming that the relationship between a furlong and a mile cannot be measured but can only be expressed as 8 to 1. (By definition, a mile equals eight furlongs. However, as discussed above, if no units of measure are attached to the relative numbers, one has no clue about the distances being expressed.)
    Furthermore, Walker uses seigniorage as an argument that money does not measure value. Because of seigniorage, the monetary value stamped on the coin exceeds the value of its metal content. This is true. Seigniorage may cause the coin to be overvalued domestically, but not necessarily so. If the seigniorage is too high, coins will exchange based on the value of their metal content and not based on the monetary value stamped on them — even if such exchanges are illegal. Nevertheless, the seigniorage premium disappears once the coin leaves the country of issue. Outside the country of issue, its purchasing power is that of its metal content and not that which is stamped on it.
    Unlike Walker, most economists argue that to measure and compare values of various items, these items have to be compared with a common item, which under the gold standard is a specific weight and fineness of gold. Moreover, this standard to which items are compared has to have value in and of itself, which is often called “intrinsic value.” Walker argues that money cannot measure value because unlike the yardstick or meterstick, its value is not fixed, even for a gold coin. (Even the definition of the meter has changed several times since it was first invented. Therefore, the measure of distance has changed over time, although minutely.) It varies with time, place, and circumstances. This is true. Being subjective, value is not constant — not even for money regardless of the material of which it is made. Moreover, relative values vary with time, place, and circumstances. Yet nothing cannot measure something as Walker seems to argue. If it could, unitless numbers on paper could serve as money as well as full-weight gold coin. Moreover, paper money would be much cheaper to manufacture. However, Walker presents a convincing argument that inconvertible paper money is vastly inferior to gold coin. (Nevertheless, he uses inconvertible paper money to argue against the notion that money can measure value and has to have value in and of itself to do so.)

Store of Value
    Most economists who support the gold standard assert that one of the important functions of money is to serve as a store of value. Some even claim that this is the most important function of money.
    Contrary to the assertion of these economists, Walker argues that money does not serve as a store of value. About this function of money, or more correctly, lack of it, he agrees with the proponents of inconvertible paper money.
    The store of value is closely related to the measure of value. If money does not and cannot measure value, it need not store value. However, if money is the measure of value, then it needs to be able to store value so that it can measure value. That is, money has to have value in and of itself to measure value. Value can only be measured against value and with value.
    Walker identifies money serving as the standard for deferred payments as an important function of money; that is, money serves as the payment for debt. Why would anyone give up something of value, whatever is lent, in exchange for payments of no value? To function as payment for debt, money has to be able to transfer value through time and often through space. Even inconvertible paper money transfers value through time to a highly limited degree.
    Furthermore, money functioning as a medium of exchange implies that money is a store of value. It must store value so that it can carry value from its receipt to its expenditure so that little or no value is lost. Also, why would anyone sell his goods or labor in exchange for that which has no value? Evidently, Walker believes that people are willing to make such exchanges. Contrary to Walker’s belief, money’s function as a medium of exchange cannot be separated from its function as a store of value. This is true not only for full-weight metallic coin but also for inconvertible paper money. (Generally, losing value over time at various rates, inconvertible paper money stores value poorly and becomes a poor medium of exchange.)
    Moreover, Walker states, “When a commodity comes to serve as a store of value, it ceases to be money.” Gold in hoards, treasures, plate, and ornamentation is not money. (At the other extreme is Murray Rothbard, who claims that gold is money whatever its form.) Walker is unclear whether gold coins held in reserves by banks for payment of their notes and checkable deposits are money. Based on his argument, bank reserves should not be considered money.
    On the other hand, being a good economist, he asserts that gold’s ability to be used as a store of value is an important attribute that qualifies it as money. Is this not confusing? Gold stores value, but once it is coined and used to buy something or pay a debt, it ceases to store value. However, if the recipient puts the coin in his pocket and does not spend it for a year, i.e., hoards it, it ceases being money and becomes a store of value. (This is akin to the gold-is-sterile argument against the gold standard.)
    To add to the confusion of gold being either money or ornamentation, i.e., a store of value, Walker describes the use of gold as jewelry, such as ring-money worn as rings or necklaces, being used as money. Presumably, when the owner was wearing the ring-money on his finger, it was a store of value, but not money. However, when he took the ring off and bought an item with it, the gold ring ceased storing value and became money. (How long does a gold coin have to remain in one’s purse before it ceases being money and becomes a store of value? Walker does not say.)
    In summary, Walker argues that money does not measure value; it merely serves a common denominator by which the values of various goods and services are compared. Furthermore, money does not and cannot store value, although the material of which it is made can often store value. On these two points, most economists who support the gold standard disagree. However, most economists who support inconvertible paper money agree with Walker.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Mencken on Utopia

Mencken on Utopia

Thomas Allen

    In 1926, H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote Notes on Democracy in which he expressed his views on democracy and related issues. He was a journalist, satirist, and critic and a libertarian and one of the leaders of the Old Right. In his book, he describes utopia, pages 115-124. Below is an overview of his discussion of utopia; my comments are in brackets.
    Mencken notes that in the United States, “every office-holder, when he takes oath to support the Constitution, must swear on his honour that, summoned to the death-bed of his grandmother, he will not take the old lady a bottle of wine. He may say so and do it, which makes him a liar, or he may say so and not do it, which makes him a pig.” [When Mencken wrote, the Constitution contained an amendment that prohibited the sale of alcohol — the Prohibition amendment. Much of Mencken’s hostility toward democracy and, to a slightly lesser degree, toward religion, seems to result from Prohibition. At least, Prohibition is often his prime example of democracy run amuck.]
    In spite of this dilemma, “idealists, chiefly professional Liberals, . . . argue that it is the duty of a gentleman to go into politics.” To which, Mencken replies that this remedy “is quite as absurd as all the other sure cures that Liberals advocate. When they argue for it, they simply argue . . . that the remedy for prostitution is to fill the bawdy-houses with virgins. . . . [This] device would accomplish very little: either the virgins would leap out of the windows, or they would cease to be virgins.” Then he adds, “The same alternatives confront the political aspirant who is what is regarded in America as a gentleman — that is, one who is not susceptible to open bribery in cash. The moment his leg goes over the political fence he finds the mob confronting him, and if he would stay within he must adapt himself to its tastes and prejudices. In other words, he must learn all the tricks of the regular mountebanks.” That is, he must either respond to the mob and serve it or lose his job.
    Mencken supports his argument with some examples. He notes, “It is an axiom of practical politics, indeed, that the worst enemies of political decency are the tired reformers — and the worst of the worst are those whose primary thirst to make the corruptible put on incorruption was accompanied by a somewhat sniffish class consciousness.” One example is Theodore Roosevelt entering “politics as a sword drawn against demagogy.” Yet he became a “violent and shameless demagogue.” [We may be seeing the same happening with Donald Trump. He entered the political arena as an outsider who was going to “drain the swamp,” end American foreign entanglements and wars, rebuild America, and control and limit immigration. Yet he has expanded America’s wars and filled his administration with swamp monsters. Most of the real outsiders that he appointed, he has since removed. He continues America’s Israeli-first foreign policy instead of adopting an America-first foreign policy. He is beginning to soften on immigration and give into the establishment on that issue and others. He is acting ever more like the typical establishment politician.]
    Mencken admits that a gentleman may enter politics under democracy. However, “it is almost impossible for him to stay there and remain a gentleman.” He continues, “The haughty amateur, at the start, may actually make what seems to be a brilliant success, for he is commonly full of indignation, and so strikes out valiantly, and the mob crowds up because it likes a brutal show. . . . If he retains his rectitude he loses his office, and if he retains his office he has to dilute his rectitude with the cologne spirits of the trade.” [Much of what Mencken is describing can be written about Donald Trump, a gentleman by Mencken’s definition and an amateur politician. Will he remain a gentleman or will he become another sleazy politician catering to the mob, or, more correctly, the minority that manipulates the mob? This minority resides in the old news media, the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties, the military-industrial complex, most big businesses and big banks, the globalists, and a host of their demagogues.]
    In a democracy, “the man of native integrity is either barred from the public service altogether or subjected to almost irresistible temptations after he gets in. The competition of less honourable men is more than he can bear. He must stand against them before the mob, and the sempiternal prejudices of the mob run their way.”
    Democracy in the United States is worse than it is in Great Britain because the United States have no aristocracy to check the mob. For the most part, American Presidents were not intellectuals, and most avoid intelligent men. Likewise, has been the average American governor.
    Moreover, “[t]he judiciary, under the American system, sinks quite as low.” The U.S. Supreme Court “carries on its dull and preposterous duties quite outside the stream of civilized thought, and even outside the stream of enlightened juridical thought.” Furthermore, “few American judges ever contribute anything of value to legal theory. . . . The Constitution apparently has no more meaning to them than it has to a Prohibition agent. They have acquiesced almost unanimously in the destruction of the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and supinely connived at the invasion of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth.” [What would Mencken think about what the Supreme Court has done to the Bill of Rights in recent decades with the War on Drugs and the War or Terrorism?] America’s mediocre judiciary results from the average judge being a trailer instead of a leader when he was a practicing lawyer. [When the judiciary does lead with its activist judges, the results are usually worse than when it restricts itself to being a follower.] “The judicial office is not attractive, as a rule, to the better sort of lawyers.” Moreover, “judges are so often chosen for purely political reasons, even for the Supreme Court of the United States, that the lawyer of professional dignity and self-respect hesitates to enter into the competition. Thus the bench tends to be filled with duffers, and many of them are also scoundrels, as the frequent complaints against their extortions and tyrannies testify.” [An example of such a Supreme Court judge was Earl Warren, whom President Eisenhower appointed to pay Warren for delivering California's convention delegation to Eisenhower. Warren’s court was notorious for tyrannical, despotic rulings that are still destroying the country.] Mencken notes, “In the States, where judges are commonly elected by popular vote, the shyster has every advantage over the reputable lawyer, including that of yearning for the judicial salary with a vast and undivided passion. And when it comes to the Federal courts, once so honourable, he has every advantage again, including the formidable one of knowing how to crook his knee gracefully to the local dispenser of Federal patronage (in the South often a worthless Negro) and to the Methodist wowsers of the Anti-Saloon League.” [America’s judiciary, especially the federal courts, has deteriorated even more since Mencken wrote.]
    Mencken admits that the shyster does not always prevail. “[A] man of unquestionable integrity and ability occasionally gets to the bench, even of the State courts.” [Today, many State courts, especially the higher courts, have a larger percentage of competent judges of integrity than the federal courts.]

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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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 6

The Arian Controversy

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.]

The Arian Controversy
    The principal actors in the Arian controversy were Arius and Alexander. Arius (250 or 256 – 336) was a presbyter in Alexandria and an ascetic. Alexander (d. 326 or 328) was the Bishop of Alexandria. After the Council of Nicaea, Athanasius (c. 296–298 – 373) would become an important actor. When Alexander died, Athanasius became the leader of the opposition to the Arians.
    In the years before the Council of Nicaea in 325, Christianity was becoming sharply divided into two primary camps on the issue of the Trinity: the Arians and the Athanasians. Arius led the Arians, and Alexander and later Athanasius led the Athanasians. Both sides appealed to the ante-Nicene Fathers to show the antiquity of their dogma. Both sides read into the writings of the early Fathers, dogmas unknown to the Fathers. Eventually, the Athanasians would prevail, and beginning with the Council of Nicaea, they developed what eventually became the Trinity Doctrine.
    The controversy began with Arius protesting Alexander’s, the Bishop of Alexandria and Arius’ superior, Sabellian-like concept of the Trinity. About the Trinity, Arius credited Alexander as saying, “‘Always God, always the Son; as the Father, so is the Son; the Son is unbegotten of the Father; neither in thought, nor the least point of time, does God precede the Son; always God, always the Son’” (p. 287). Alexander maintained that “the Son was eternal and wholly uncreated” (Walker, p. 115). His description of the Trinity was a move away from the orthodox concept of the Trinity. Alexander demanded Arius to abandon his (Arius’) views of the Trinity and to embrace his (Alexander’s) views. Because Arius could not assent to Alexander’s Sabellian-like doctrine, Alexander assembled a council, which condemned Arius and drove him from Alexandria in 320.
    Arius asserted that Alexander had anathematized “‘all the Oriental bishops,’ since they asserted that ‘the Father existed before the Son’” (p. 271), except three whom Alexander pronounced as ignorant heretics.
    After Arius left Alexandria, he went to Palestine where Eusebius of Caesarea (260/265 – 339/340), Bishop of Caesarea, befriended him. Later Eusebius of Nicomedia (died 341), Bishop of Berytus (Beirut) and later Bishop of Nicomedia, also befriended Arius. Afterwards Eusebius of Nicomedia wrote many letters defending Arius. Consequently, Arians were often called Eusebians.
    In defense of Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia stated, “‘He never heard that there were two unbegotten. We affirm that there is one unbegotten [the Father], and another [the Son] who did in truth proceed from him, yet who was not made out of his substance, and who does not at all participate in the nature or substance of him who is unbegotten. We believe him [the Son] to be entirely distinct in nature and in power’” (p. 293).
    Arius claimed that his views of the Father and the Son were those received from tradition. That is, “‘the Father existed before the Son’” (p. 294). On “the supremacy of the Father and his priority of existence” (p. 295), tradition was on the side of the Arians. About “[t]he new doctrine embraced by the orthodox concerning the generation of the Son, . . . [the Arians claimed] was pure Manichaeism and Valentinianism” (p. 295). (Manichaeism rejected the historical Jesus. According to Manichaeism, Jesus Christ was “an aeon or persistent personification of Light in the world. . . . Christ appeared to be man, to live, suffer, and die to symbolize the light suffering in this world” [Arendzen]. Valentinianism held that Christ had three figures or dimensions: spiritual, psychic, and body.)
    While Arius was soliciting support, so was Alexander. In his extant letters, Alexander acrimoniously attacks Arius and Eusebius in the harshest terms.
    Discord had reached such heights that Emperor Constantine was induced to intervene. Although he blamed both sides, he placed most of the blame on Alexander. To Constantine, the controversy was merely a frivolous dispute about words. In spite of the Emperor urging reconciliation, the dispute grew more intense. Finally, Constantine ordered the bishops throughout the Empire to assemble in council and resolve the issue. In 325, the council convened in Nicaea — thus, it was called the Council of Nicaea, Nicene Council, or Nicaean Council, which Lamson called the Council of Nice.
    The ante-Nicene Fathers maintained the “strict and proper inferiority of the Son” (p. 299). Except for Origen, they believed “that the Son was begotten in time, and not from eternity” (p. 299). Based on Platonic influences, the Fathers also believed that the Son “had a sort of metaphysical existence in the Father from eternity; in other words, existed as his Logos, Wisdom, or Reason; that is, as an attribute, which was afterwards converted into a real person by a voluntary act of the Father” (p. 299).
    Arius accepted the tradition that the Son was begotten and was not eternal and that the Son was inferior to the Father. Also, the Son “is by his own will unchangeable, ever remaining unalterably good” (p. 301). However, he rejected the mysticism of the Fathers about the Son, the Logos. This point distinguished the doctrine of Arius from that of the Fathers.
    “The characteristic dogma of Arius was, that the Son was originally produced out of nothing; and, consequently, there was a time when he did not exist. . . . he was a great pre-existent spirit, the first and chief of all derived beings; that this spirit became afterwards united with a human body, and supplied the place of the rational soul” (pp. 299-300). Thus, the distinguishing characteristic Arius’ Christology was that “Christ was a created being” (Walker, p. 114). Therefore, Christ “was not of the substance of God, but was made like other creatures of ‘nothing.’ Though the first-born of creatures, and the agent in fashioning the world, He was not eternal. ‘The Son has a beginning, but . . . God is without beginning’” (Walker, pp. 114-115). He believed that Christ was “God in a certain sense, . . . but a lower God, in no way one with the Father in essence or eternity. In the incarnation, this Logos entered a human body, taking the place of the human reasoning spirit. . . . Christ was neither fully God nor fully man, but a tertium quid [intermediate between the two] between.” (Walker, p. 115). According to Arius, “the human soul was wanting in Jesus Christ, and he was a compound being only in the sense in which all human beings are; that is, he consisted of a body, and one simple, undivided, and finite spirit” (p. 300). (“Some of the preceding Fathers attributed a human soul as well as body to Jesus; which, however, was so absorbed in the divine part of his nature, that they were, in a strict sense, one spirit, and not two, as modern Trinitarians affirm, or imply” [p. 300]).
    Arius appealed to the Scriptures and used scriptural terminology to describe his doctrine. Such an appeal brought the Arians “under suspicion of evasion and of narrow and bare literalness, while the orthodox were made to appear the advocates of broader and freer views, and of more accurate and straightforward statement” (p. 300n). (Apparently, according to the Athanasians, the Bible should not be read and understood literally. It should be read and understood using human speculation and philosophy. The Athanasian’s attitude toward relying on a strict literal reading of the Scriptures to support one’s doctrine is prima facie evidence that they were convinced that the Scriptures supported Arian’s position better than it did theirs.)
    Arius stated, “‘We must either suppose two divine original essences without beginning, and independent of each other; or we must not shrink from asserting that the Logos had a beginning of his existence; that there was a moment when he did not as yet exist’” (p. 301). In favor of Arius’ position was the “‘expression “made” applied to Christ (as Acts ii. 36, and Heb. iii. 2), or in which he is styled the First-born’” (pp. 301-302).
    Arius never intended “‘to lower the dignity of Christ, but would ascribe to him the greatest dignity which a being could have after God, without entirely annihilating the distinction between that being and God’” (p. 302). He believed that he was defending the old doctrine of the Church and was merely simplifying it.
    Athanasius accompanied Bishop Alexander to the council at Nicaea. Afterwards, he became a zealous champion of what would develop into the new orthodoxy of the Trinity.
    Arriving at a doctrine that would be generally acceptable, but also exclude the Arians proved a great difficulty. The Council had to condemn the Arian dogma that the Son “was produced out of nothing, and that there was a time when he did not exist” (p. 306) and had to affirm the opposite doctrine. Selecting terms that the orthodox could employ, but that the Arians could not without changing their sentiments proved difficult.
    The first proposal was “to make use only of Scriptural expressions, such as, ‘Christ is the Wisdom and the Power of God,’ the ‘Brightness of his Glory;’ or others of a similar character” (p. 306). As the Arians found this approach acceptable, it was abandoned. A creed was offered, but as it contained no term to which the Arians would object, it was disapproved because it was “no sufficient test of orthodoxy” (p, 307). Then the Council discovered that “the Arians had great dread of the term ‘consubstantial’” (p. 307). Thus, this word was placed in the previously rejected creed, and other modifications were made. Then the Council adopted the creed.
    As expected, the Arians objected. They argued “that the language in question was new; that it had not the sanction of the sacred writings or of antiquity” (p. 307). Moreover, many bishops were forced to sign the creed. Thus, the Nicene Creed was adopted. It read:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down, and became incarnate and became man, and suffered, and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the heavens, and will come to judge the living and dead, And in the Holy Spirit. But as for those who say, There was when He was not, and, Before being born He was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or created, or is subject to alteration or change — these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes (Creed of Nicaea).

    The new, unscriptural term “consubstantial” caused reluctance of some bishops to assent to the new creed — especially Eusebius of Caesarea. He assented after the phrase “‘of the substance [consubstantial] of the Father’” (p. 308) was explained to him to mean “‘the Son is of the Father, but not as being part of the Father,’ that is, ‘not part of his substance’” (p. 308). Thus, he concluded “‘that the expression, of the substance of the Father, implies only that the Son of God does not resemble, in any one respect, the creatures which he has made; but that to the Father, who begat him, he is in all points perfectly similar’” (p. 308).
    The Nicene Creed did not declare the numerical equality of the Father and the Son. It did not declare the Son equal to the Father. Further, it did not declare the Son eternal.
    Thus, the ante-Fathers could interpret the Nicene Creed as upholding their concept of the Trinity. Athanasians could (and did) use it to develop what eventually became the Trinity Doctrine. Moreover, the Sabellians would have had little problems in accepting the Creed as they could easily explain it as supporting their concept of the Trinity. (Many of Origen’s disciples saw the Creed as Sabellian.) However, the Arians and the Artemonites would have to abandon their beliefs to adhere to this Creed.
    Athanasius interpreted the Nicene Creed to mean that the Father alone is self-existent and absolute God. The Son and Holy Spirit are derived and subordinate. The Son is derived by eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit, by eternal procession. 
    The anathemas annexed to the Creed “prohibited the use of expressions not found in the Scriptures. Yet the creed contained such expressions” (p. 308).
    Later, Arius convinced Constantine of his orthodoxy and, under the order of the Emperor, was readmitted to the Church. Meanwhile, Constantine banished Athanasius after having found him guilty of various crimes. Later, Athanasius’ banishment was commuted, and he became the off-and-on Bishop of Alexandria. He became a vigorous opponent of the Arians and did not hesitate to call them all sorts of evil names.
    To Athanasius, the primary issue was salvation. “The Greek conception of salvation had been, . . . the transformation of sinful mortality into divine and blessed immortality — the impartation of ‘life.’ . . . Only by real Godhead coming into union with full manhood in Christ could the transformation of the human into the divine be accomplished in Him, or be mediated by Him to His disciples” (Walker, p.118). To him “the great error of Arianism was that it gave no basis for a real salvation” (Walker, p. 118).
    About Athanasius’ character, Lamson wrote, “His piety and love of truth we have no disposition to call in question; yet the history of his life would seem to authorize the suspicion, that he was influenced rather by motives of pride and ambition than by a desire to promote the peace of the church. He would set all Christendom in a flame sooner than relinquish the patriarchal throne of Alexandria” (p. 331). (Far too many church leaders are guided more by pride and ambition than by the love of Jesus and the truth.)
    For decades following its adoption, the Nicene Creed aroused a great deal of turmoil. Its two major opponents were the Arians and the disciples of Origen who objected to it for being a Sabellian creed.
    After the death of Constantine (337), Arianism revived and prospered for a while. As it grew, schisms occurred. One faction, the Semi-Arians or Homoiousians, maintained “that the Son was, in all respects, of like substance with the Father” (p. 323). The other faction was the strict Arians, who were dominated by the Aetians, Eunomiaus, and Anomceans. They believed that the Son “of a different substance, and wholly unlike the Father” (p. 323). By uniting with the Semi-Arians, the Athanasians eventually overcame the Arians. Arianism ceased to exist after 660, at least publicly.

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 5    Part 7

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

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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,

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

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“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.

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