[Note: I am not promoting a religion, a church system, nor a set of beliefs. I am merely reporting history as I find it.] The early, Ante-Nicene Church Fathers spent much time fighting heresies. Their writings are recognized by all Christian denominations. Even the Watchtower Society accepts them, but they dishonestly do not quote the portions which hurt their non-Trinitarian doctrine. Later on I will post material which shows how the Watchtower Trinity brochure, "Should You Believe in the Trinity?" used deception and dishonest practices. Year 150 AD, Polycarp of Smyrna, a student of the Apostle John said this regarding the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: "I praise you for all things, I bless you, I glorify you, along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, with whom, to you and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and to all coming ages. Amen" (Martyrdom of Polycarp 14). It is fascinating to note how Polycarp is glorifying Jesus (who he says is everlasting) along with the Father, and the Holy Spirit. Though the word "Trinity" was not used, clearly, Polycarp, as a first generation Christian appears to believe in the concept. Year 160 AD, Mathetes "[The Father] sent the Word that he might be manifested to the world . . . This is he who was from the beginning, who appeared as if new, and was found old . . . This is he who, being from everlasting, is today called the Son" (Letter to Diognetus 11). Mathetes, like Polycarp, declares Jesus to be "from everlasting" an expression that means he has no beginning, and thus part of God. Year 170 AD, Tatian the Syrian "We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man" (Address to the Greeks 21). Year 177 AD, Melito of Sardis "It is no way necessary in dealing with persons of intelligence to adduce the actions of Christ after his baptism as proof that his soul and his body, his human nature, were like ours, real and not phantasmal. The activities of Christ after his baptism, and especially his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the deity hidden in his flesh. Being God and likewise perfect man, he gave positive indications of his two natures: of his deity, by the miracles during the three years following after his baptism, of his humanity, in the thirty years which came before his baptism, during which, by reason of his condition according to the flesh, he concealed the signs of his deity, although he was the true God existing before the ages" (Fragment in Anastasius of Sinai's The Guide 13). Year 180 AD, Irenaeus, student of Polycarp: "His own hands. For with Him were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks, saying, "Let Us make man after Our image and likeness; " [Gen. 1:26]" (Against Heresies 4:20:1). Note: So, now we see the "Spirit" introduced as always with God as is Jesus. The Fathers mostly dealt with Jesus divinity because he was the most attacked by various heresies. Year 180 AD, Irenaeus "Proofs From The Apostolic Writings, That Jesus Christ Was One And The Same, The Only Begotten Son Of God, Perfect God And Perfect Man ." (Against Heresies, Book III, ch. 16, Chapter Title) Now, we have St. Clement of Alexandria. He was Bishop of the Church founded by the Bible writer, St. Mark. St. Clement was a contemporary of Irenaeus, specifically detailed the Trinity formula, and used the word Trinity in the year 190 AD. This predates the Council of Nicea by 135 years, and is only about 90 years after the Apostle John and St. Ignatius death. This is hardly enough time for a false doctrine to take over the early church. Year 190 AD, Clement Of Alexandria [note: Clement NEVER calls Jesus a creature.] "There was then, a Word importing an unbeginning eternity; as also the Word itself, that is, the Son of God, who being, by equality of substance, one with the Father, is eternal and uncreated." (Fragments, Part I, section III) Year 190 AD, Clement Of Alexandria "I understand nothing else than the Holy Trinity to be meant; for the third is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the second, by whom all things were made according to the will of the Father." (Stromata, Book V, ch. 14) Year 190 AD, Clement Of Alexandria "When [John] says: 'What was from the beginning [1 John 1:1],' he touches upon the generation without beginning of the Son, who is co-equal with the Father. 'Was,' therefore, is indicative of an eternity without a beginning, just as the Word Himself, that is the Son, being one with the Father in regard to equality of substance, is eternal and uncreated. That the word always existed is signified by the saying: 'In the beginning was the Word' [John 1:1]." (fragment in Eusebius History, Bk 6 Ch 14; Jurgens, p. 188) Then there is St. Justin Martyr, who likewise detailed the divinity of Jesus in no uncertain terms in his fight against heresies, as most all the early Church Fathers did. I have literally dozens of cases where he was explicitly clear, and like St. Irenaeus and others spoke of the Holy Spirit as a person. The historical evidence is that the early Christians believed in what we would call the Trinity, and it was non-Trinitarian forces that were constantly developing weird new ideas to influence the Church, but they all eventually failed. Again, this clear teaching being taught by 170 to 190 AD is too soon after the death of the Apostle John and the first disiples, such as St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, and St. Irenaeus, for a generalized apostasy to have allowed such a doctrine to be fully developed. It seems to me that the Watchtower Society got yet another one wrong again. Jim Whitney
The Earliest Trinity Statements
by Amazing1914 86 Replies latest jw friends
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lovelylil
Amazing,
That information is very good. I never really read much from the early church fathers but I agree that the WT does not understand the divine nature of Christ. Like your material brings out he was always with Jehovah, having no beginning and was in essence or nature God. I think the goal of the WT in writing the NWT bible was to hide the divinity of Christ. I remember reading the book of John in another bible translation and boy, were my eyes opened. It is very clear in scripture that Christ was of divine nature. Even the Pharisees knew Jesus meant this when he said he was Gods son. They told him he blasphemed by saying he was God's own son, making himself equal to God. So they knew Jesus was saying he was Equal to God. Not the same person as Jehovah but the same in nature, the bible clearly shows this even without reading the info. you provided although it is good info. The NT testifies in other texts besides book of John to this fact also. All the scriptures in the NWT that show Christ's divinity have been seriously altered.
Also I read something before about the "should you believe the trinity" brochure. I know the WT was very dishonest in writing this. I heard that they altered a lot of the quoted information. I am not saying I am a full believer in the Trintiy. But the point of that Christ is not a created being, I agree with trinitarians on.
In your research paper you are doing, have you put in there quotes only from the early church fathers to prove the divinity of Christ, or did you quote scripture too? Because there are many, many bible texts that prove this. If you want, I could research all of them and email them to you if you want to include them in your paper. I know most by heart so it will only take a day to compile together and send it. You may already have this information but I don't know? I still don't believe the Holy Spirit is a person in the same sense as Jehovah and Jesus but perhaps once I read your final research I will have a better understanding of why you feel this way. I gave you my thoughts previous to this on what I believe about the Holy Spirit. But as far as Christ, I have a lot of information from the bible about his divinity.
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inquirer
Hmmm, still no quote before 150 AD that there is a belief in the trinity. :)
Even if there was people believing in the trinity in the first century, Paul was aware of people preaching "another Jesus." :( -
Amazing1914
Lovelylil,
My paper will have a number of scriptures, but is focused on the person of the Holy Spirit. Although, I will deal somewhat with the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity as a necessary consequence of the paper.
I have a ton of material, which could be made into a book. But, I don't want to go that far right now. However, I suppose that I can next post some more on the Holy Spirit. Some of it will be scripture, and some of it can be some grammar errors, and some of it logical errors made by the WTS.
Some examples of Watchtower folly: The claim of "personification" by the Society to explain away the pronouns "He, Him, or His" with reference to the Holy Spirit are without any basis. Personification is rarely used outside the poetic books of the Bible. Also, it is unlikely that all of the Christian Bible writers would have employed this writing style suddenly when it came to the Holy Spirit. In an attempt to cover its rear, the Society also claims that the pronouns "He, Him, and His" are used for grammatical agreement. However, since Holy Spirit is a neuter term, then Greek grammar would require neuter pronouns, like "It." The Society had to use such deception because they had to attack the person of the Holy Spirit as not even being a person. Even Arius of the "Arian heresy fame" did not stoop to depersonalizing the Holy Spirit.
Inquirer,
Hmmm, still no quote before 150 AD that there is a belief in the trinity. :) ... Even if there was people believing in the trinity in the first century, Paul was aware of people preaching "another Jesus." :(
Your assertion that there is no quote before 150 AD is meaningless. All of the evidence throughout the Christian world, from Rome to Alexandria, Egypt, throughout Asia Minor show that the early Father fought against heresies that attacked the divinity of Jesus ... not the other way around. There is no evidence of any Ante-Nicene Father preaching anything that resembles the Arian heresy or anything that resembles Watchtower nonsense about Jesus nature. The Trinity was well understood prior to 150 AD, but the term "Trinity" was not yet coined. Much the same as the term "Theocratic" was not around. It is nothing more than a functional term. The early Fathers dealt with both the economic Trinity and the Ontological Trinity. Yet, the Watchtower cleverly sidesteps this distinction and they focus only on the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. Every wonder why?
Jim Whitney
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SickofLies
Fro those who follow FSM, here's an interesting point to ponder.
We all know that the Pasta reigns aupreme, and He created all, but are the meat balls co-eternal and all power full as well or are they just a creation by the Pasta?
Everyone knows that the Pasta and the meat balls are one, but they are obviously not one and the same, however, it could be argued that they both have the same importance. For instance, the meat balls could just be another epression of the Pasta.
Perhaps this is why we must be baptized in the name of the Pasta, the meat ball and the sauce.
Some also argue that the sauce is just what the Pasta uses to acomplish his divine and delicous will, but I think it is more, I think the sauce is a further expression of His almight power and shows how mysterous and unknowable He truly is.
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jwfacts
Some good quotes, I hope you dont mind if i steal some.
A Christian would say that the earliest Trinity statements are in the bible. Jesus is clearly called God and creator in the NT. From the death of Jesus the Church fathers also referred to Jesus as God. The word Trinity did not appear until Irenaeus in 180, a necessity to distinguish the Christian God from other definitions that were being developed. -
Narkissos
The historical evidence is that the early Christians believed in what we would call the Trinity
This is only true if "Trinity" is not defined by the standards of Nicea-Constantinople but includes the notions they rejected, such as tritheism, subordinatianism, modalism, etc.
If, for instance, the word "trinity" can embrace such different doctrines as:
- three individuals of the god-kind;
- one almighty God and one (or two) lesser gods;
- three manifestations of the only God,then, indeed, there was a strong "trinitarian" component in early Christianity from the 2nd-century onward. But its "trinity" is nothing but an artificial and anachronistic blend of the "heresies" which the Church Fathers were supposed to fight against.
One factor that must not be forgotten is the Gnostic segment of early Christianity, where the idea of Christ as a heavenly revealer, coming from the divine sphere above the created world to rescue the divine scattered and emprisoned in the world, was really essential. Keeping the general thrust of this doctrine while avoiding its most explosive consequences (especially that we are divine) was, imo, one of the first concerns of the earliest Church Fathers, and contributed substantially to the forming of the Trinity doctrine.
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Mary
Inquirer said: Hmmm, still no quote before 150 AD that there is a belief in the trinity. :) Even if there was people believing in the trinity in the first century, Paul was aware of people preaching "another Jesus." :(
I agree with Inquirer on this.......the writings of the NT weren't started until at least 20 years after Jesus died and when someone charismatic dies early in life, it doesn't take much to deify them and make them in to something they weren't. If we didn't have the mass media that we do today that can expose, write and report in the blink of an eye, I'm sure Elvis would have been made "a god" by now (and practically has been in some people's minds) and he hasn't even been dead 30 years yet. Ditto for Princess Diana.
While I believe that Jesus was a good person and (possibly) the Messiah, I don't believe that he was "God" and I doubt that he ever actually told his followers that he was. I think that after he died, his followers deified him and as time went by, pretty soon they had him being God Himself. 150 AD is 120 years after Jesus died. Alot of things, opinions and reality can change in 120 years.
Just my two cents.
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Blueblades
Amazing, Have you researched the book, "THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY" Christianity's Self - Inflicted Wound, by Anthony F. Buzzard and Charles F. Hunting.
The book is concerned with a single question. Does the Bible teach that God is one unique person, the sole creator of the universe, or is the Godhead composed of two or three coequal partners?
Amazing, I believe that the information in this book would be very useful in your subject matter.
Blueblades
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jschwehm
What I found fascinating when I did similar research was how at first there was no question about Jesus' divinity but the question was whether Christ was really human. (If the early Church believed that Jesus was a mere human and that the deification of Christ was an add on later, one might think it would have occurred the other way around.)
The Gnostics taught that the all holy God could never defile Himself by taking on evil human material nature. The Gnostics taught that the good god had created our spiritual souls and the bad god had created our physical bodies. This lead to all kinds of teachings such as Jesus the man was merely possessed by God. The early Church fought this by emphasizing Jesus' humanity.
Later, the Arians came along and began questioning Jesus' divinity but it came after the Gnostics. I think this is particularly revealing in that the denial of Christ's divinity came centuries later. Clearly, the early Christians understood Jesus to be God in the flesh. They may not have used the word "Trinity" or defined it as completely as they would eventually do in the third and fourth centuries but they certainly refer to Jesus as God. In Justin Martyr you see a rather advanced explanation of Jesus' nature that anticipates the coming definitions of the incarnation and the Trinity in future centuries.
At the Council of Nicea, the Bishops overwhelmingly condemned the Arians and identified the understanding that Jesus is almighty God as the teachings of the Apostles. The vote was not even close.
Jeff S.