We cannot conclude our discussion of Trinitarian doctrine without studying the development of this doctrine from the origins of the Church through the Council of Nicaea.

It is here that the question may arise: do the dogmas of the Church evolve? To which we might answer that, while they do not evolve as regards their content — which would be a “transformist” evolution — they do develop in terms of the awareness the Church progressively acquires of them (a homogeneous development, or development in the same direction). Thus, over time the terminology has been enriched so as to express more precisely what the Church has always believed. The term “Trinity” thus emerges as a way of defining the mystery that there is one God in Three distinct Persons who share one and the same nature or substance.

This is an important point to clarify, because many sects attempt to attack the Trinitarian doctrine by claiming that it was unknown to the early Christians and that it was only through the influence of paganism upon Christianity that this doctrine was “invented”. One example of these attacks I have taken from the publications of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who write:

“The Council of Nicaea did assert that Christ was of the same substance as God, which laid the basis for later Trinitarian theology. But it did not establish the Trinity, for at that council nothing was said about the holy spirit being the third person of a triune Deity…

For many years there had been much opposition, on a Biblical basis, to the developing idea that Jesus was God. In an effort to resolve the dispute, Roman Emperor Constantine convoked all the bishops to Nicaea.…

What role did the unbaptised Emperor play at the Council of Nicaea? The Encyclopædia Britannica relates: ‘Constantine himself presided, actively guiding the discussions, and personally proposed […] the crucial formula expressing the relation of Christ to God in the creed issued by the council, that the Son was of the same substance as the Father […] Overawed by the emperor, the bishops, with two exceptions only, signed the creed, many of them much against their inclination.’”[1]

The pamphlet, in summary, maintains that the Trinitarian doctrine is the product of a political manoeuvre by the Emperor Constantine, who ultimately compelled the bishops to acknowledge that Christ was God — almost against their will.

Nothing is better, then, than to study the testimony of the Fathers prior to Nicaea, in order to understand what the true development of Trinitarian doctrine was throughout history.

The Didache (65–80 A.D.)

It is an excellent testimony to the thought of the primitive Church, and we mention it because it includes a reference to how the Trinitarian baptismal formula was used by the early Church.

“Now concerning baptism, baptize thus: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit in living water.”[2]

The Martyrdom of Polycarp (155 A.D.)

It is one of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers that makes use of the beautiful doxologies that express the Trinitarian dogma so clearly.

“To Him [Jesus Christ] be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.”[3]

The Shepherd of Hermas (141–155 A.D.)

“The Holy Spirit, who is pre-existent, who created all creation — God made Him dwell in the flesh which He desired. Now this flesh, in which the Holy Spirit dwelt, served the Spirit well, walking in holiness and purity, without defiling the Spirit in any way whatsoever. Since it had lived in a noble and pure manner, and had laboured with the Spirit in every work, conducting itself bravely and boldly, God received it as a partner with the Holy Spirit; for the conduct of this flesh pleased God, in that it was not defiled upon the earth while possessing the Holy Spirit. He therefore took His Son and the glorious angels as counsellors, that this flesh, which had served the Spirit blamelessly, might have some place of habitation, and that it might not appear that the reward of its service was lost; for all flesh that is found undefiled and unspotted, in which the Holy Spirit has dwelt, shall receive a reward.”[4]

On the basis of this text Quasten explains: “According to this passage, it would seem that for Hermas the Trinity consists of God the Father, a second divine person — the Holy Spirit — whom he identifies with the Son of God, and finally the Saviour, elevated to share in His fellowship as a reward for His merits. In other words, Hermas regards the Saviour as the adoptive Son of God with respect to His human nature.”

Ignatius of Antioch (? – 107 A.D.)

Among the names with which Saint Ignatius designates Jesus are: Jesus Christ (112 times), Christ Jesus (33), Lord (34), God (13), Christ (7), Jesus (3), Saviour, Son of God, High Priest, Door of God, Teacher, Thought of God, Logos, Mouth of God, Knowledge of God[5].

“Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which has been blessed in the greatness of God the Father’s fullness: to her who was predestined before the ages to serve forever for an enduring and unchangeable glory, united and chosen through the true Passion by the will of God the Father and of Jesus Christ our God; to the Church which is in Ephesus of Asia, worthy of all felicitation — abundant greeting in Jesus Christ and in blameless joy.”[6]

“There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in flesh; both of Mary and of God; first passible and then impassible — even Jesus Christ our Lord.”[7]

“For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost. He was born and baptized, that by His passion He might purify the water.”[8]

“Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which has obtained mercy through the majesty of the Most High Father and of Jesus Christ His only Son: the Church beloved and enlightened by the will of Him who wills all things that are, according to the faith and love of Jesus Christ our God.”[9]

Further on in the same Epistle to the Romans:

“Suffer me to be a follower of the passion of my God.”[10]

“I glorify Jesus Christ the God who has made you thus wise; and I am aware that you are perfected in immovable faith, as if nailed in the flesh and in the spirit to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[11]

For Saint Ignatius, Christ stands above time and is timeless — which is contrary to the Arian theology adopted by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who deny that Christ exists from all eternity.

“…Look for Him who is above time — the Timeless, the Invisible — who for our sake became visible; the Impalpable, the Impassible — who for our sake became passible — who for our sake endured in every way.”[12]

Aristides (2nd century)

He left behind an apology of the faith which was long considered lost, until in 1878 the Mekhitarists of San Lazzaro in Venice published a manuscript from the tenth century. Subsequently in 1889, the American scholar Rendel Harris discovered a complete Syriac translation of this apology. In it, Aristides makes use of the Trinitarian formula, mentioning the three Divine Persons.

“He had twelve disciples, who after His ascension into the heavens went forth to the provinces of the Empire and taught His greatness — even as one of them came through our own land proclaiming the doctrine of truth. They know God the Creator and Maker of all things in His Only-begotten Son and in the Holy Spirit, and they worship no other God beside Him.”[13]

Athenagoras of Athens (2nd century)

Athenagoras, even without using the term “Trinity”, is quite explicit in defining it. He also rejects subordinationism and the tendency that would later take form in Arianism — the view of Christ as a created being — as may be deduced from the following text, written around 177 A.D.:

“And if your excellent intelligence should wish to inquire what is meant by ‘the Son’, I shall state briefly that He is the first offspring of the Father, not as having been brought into existence — for, since God is eternal Mind, He had the Logos within Himself from the beginning, being eternally rational — but as proceeding forth from God when all material things lay yet in formless nature, as inert earth and the heavier mixed with the lighter, to be the Idea and working principle over them.”[14]

Here is his way of explaining the Trinity:

“So then we are not atheists, worshipping as we do one God the uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, illimitable, comprehensible only by mind and reason… Who, then, should not be struck with astonishment to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order, called atheists?”[15]

Tatian the Syrian (2nd century)

His discourse against the Greeks has come down to us — a work in which he attacks polytheism.

“We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of man. Do you who mock us compare your own myths with our narratives.”[16]

Melito of Sardis (2nd century)

Following the discovery of a manuscript around 1930, his Homily on the Passion was published in 1940 — a work in which Saint Melito presents a remarkably lucid Christology in which the concept of the divinity and pre-existence of Christ dominates his entire theology.

“For, as a Son he was born, as a Lamb he was led, as a Sheep he was slain, as a Man he was buried — yet he rose from the dead as God, being by nature both God and Man. He is all: as He judges, He is Law; as He teaches, He is Word; as He saves, He is Grace; as He begets, He is Father; as He is begotten, He is Son; as He suffers, He is the sacrificial Sheep; as He is buried, He is Man; as He rises again, He is God. This is Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever.”[17]

In the following text he affirms the pre-existence of Christ:

“He is the firstborn of God, who was begotten before the morning star, who made the light to rise, who made the day bright, who parted the darkness, who set firm the first foundation, who suspended the earth, who dried up the deep, who stretched out the firmament, who adorned the world.”[18]

In the fragments transmitted to us by Anastasius of Sinai he speaks of the two natures of Christ and of how He is at once true Man and true God.

“It is by no means necessary, when dealing with intelligent persons, to cite the actions of Christ after His baptism as proof that His soul and body, His human nature, were like ours — true and not phantasmal. The activities of Christ after His baptism, and especially His miracles, gave proof to the world of the divinity hidden in His flesh. Being God and perfect man besides, He gave positive indications of His two natures: of His divinity, through the miracles during the three years after His baptism; of His humanity, in the thirty years prior to His baptism, during which, by reason of His condition according to the flesh, He concealed the signs of His divinity, though He was indeed the true God who existed before the ages.”[19]

Irenaeus of Lyon (140 A.D. – 202 A.D.)

In his celebrated treatise Against Heresies he expresses clearly the Trinitarian faith of the Church in one God the Father, one Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit. He maintains that Jesus Christ is for Christians “Lord and God and Saviour and King”. Particularly significant is his testimony that this doctrine is preached and believed by all the Churches of the world, as though they shared one mouth and one heart — for this testimony predates the Council of Nicaea by a considerable margin.

“I.5. The One Faith of the Church

10,1. The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the Apostles and their disciples this faith: in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advent, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and His future manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father to gather all things in one, and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord and God and Saviour and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess to Him.

He shall judge and send into eternal fire those who are wicked, including the evil spirits, the apostate angels, and the wicked, unjust, impious, and blasphemous men; but will, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love — some from the beginning of their Christian course, and others from the date of their repentance — and will surround them with everlasting glory.

10,2. As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points of doctrine just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed but one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world. But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shineth everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth. And the leader in any church who is very powerful in speech will not say things beyond these — for no disciple is above the Master — nor will the one who is weak in speech diminish the tradition: being one and the same faith, neither does the one who is able to say much about it increase it, nor does the one who can say little diminish it.”[20]

He interprets the passage in which God says “Let us make man in our image and likeness” as God addressing the Son and the Holy Spirit. He affirms that Christ is begotten, but that no one knows the mysteries of this generation — and so it is vain for the Gnostic heretics to attempt to explain it.

“If, then, any one ask us: ‘How then was the Son produced by the Father?’ we reply that no man understands that production, or generation, or calling, or revelation, or by whatever name one may describe His generation, which is in truth altogether indescribable. Neither Valentinus, nor Marcion, nor Saturninus, nor Basilides, nor angels, nor archangels, nor principalities, nor powers, possesses this knowledge; but the Father only who begat, and the Son who was begotten. Since therefore His generation is unspeakable, those who strive to set forth generations and productions do not know what they are saying.”[21]

He is more explicit still in Book III, where he again declares Christ to be God, Lord, eternal King, Only-begotten, and the Word made flesh:

“That no one among the sons of Adam is called God or Lord in his own person — that this has been demonstrated by the Scriptures; and that He alone, among all men of His time, is proclaimed God and Lord, eternal King, Only-begotten, and Word made flesh, by all the Prophets and Apostles and by the Spirit itself, is a fact that all who have received even a small portion of the truth are able to see.”[22]

He teaches that Christ is true Man and true God:

“The Scriptures would not testify to these things concerning Him, if, like all other men, He was a mere human being. But the fact that He had a generation supremely noble, from the Most High Father, and also experienced a birth from a virgin, the divine Scriptures do testify of both concerning Him: that He is a man without form or comeliness, and liable to suffering; that He sat upon the foal of an ass; that He received for drink vinegar and gall; that He was despised among the people, and descended even to death; but also that He is a holy Lord, a wonderful Counsellor, comely in appearance, the mighty God, coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men. These are the things the Scriptures prophesy of Him.

As man, He was such in order to be tempted; as Word, in order to be glorified; the Word remained quiescent so that He could be tempted, dishonoured, crucified, and die, dwelling in that man who overcomes and endures (the suffering), conducts himself as a good man, rises again and is taken up into heaven. This is the Son of God, our Lord, Word existing from the Father and Son of Man, because He was born of the Virgin Mary; He had His origin from human beings, since she herself was a human being; He underwent generation as man, and thus became Son of Man.”[23]

Nearly a century and a half in advance, he opposes the heresy of Arianism — which would claim there was a time when the Son was not with the Father. He also pre-emptively rejects modalism by distinguishing the three Divine Persons:

“That the Word, that is, the Son, has always been with the Father, we have demonstrated in many ways. And that His Wisdom also, that is, the Spirit, was with Him before the creation.”[24]

However, there are scholars who hold that he is not entirely free from subordinationism — which might be considered heterodox in light of later theology.

“If, for example, anyone seeks the reason why only the Father knows the day and the hour, although He communicates everything to His Son, the Lord Himself has stated it, and no one can invent another without risk (of error), because only the Lord is the Master of truth; and He has told us that the Father is above all things, for He said: ‘The Father is greater than I’ (Jn 14:28).

The Lord, then, has presented the Father as superior to all with respect to knowledge, so that we, while we walk in this world (1 Cor 7:31), may leave to God the full understanding of such questions; for if we attempt to investigate the depth of the Father (Rom 11:33), we run the risk of asking whether there is another God above God.”[25]

“The Father upholds both all things and His own Word; the Word, upheld by the Father, gives the Spirit to all as the Father wills: to some He gives, according to their rank in creation, the created spirit; to others He gives the spirit of adoption, that is, the one from the Father. Thus the one God and Father is shown forth, who is above all, and through all, and in all. The Father is above all, and He is the head of Christ (1 Cor 11:3); the Word is through all things and He is the Head of the Church; the Spirit is in us all, and He is the living water (Jn 7:38–39) which God grants to those who rightly believe in Him and love Him, and know that there is ‘one Father, who is above all, and through all, and in all’.”[26]

Clement of Alexandria (150–215 A.D.)

In his work The Protrepticus, or Exhortation to the Greeks, he writes:

“The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause of our most ancient beginning — for He was in God — and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man.

He alone is God and Man, and the source of all good things. It is through Him that we are taught to live well and are then sent on to eternal life… He is the New Song, the manifestation — which has now been made to us — of the Word who existed in the beginning and before the beginning. The Saviour, who existed before, has appeared only recently.

He who has appeared is in Him who is, for by the Word who was with God — the Word through whom all things were made — He has appeared as our Teacher; and He who granted us life in the beginning, when as our Creator He formed us, now that He has appeared as our Teacher, has taught us to live well, so that afterwards, as God, He might abundantly furnish us with eternal life.”[27]

In his commentary on the First Epistle of John he writes: “The Son of God, being, by equality of substance, one with the Father, is eternal and uncreated”[28]. In his Exhortation to the Greeks he deepens his theology of the Logos, affirming that the divine Word is “evidently true God”, and adds that He stood “on the same level” as the Father — which would prove that he had no subordinationist inclinations.

“Despised in appearance but in reality adored — the Expiator, the Saviour, the divine Word, He who is absolutely and evidently true God, He who is placed on the same level as the Lord of the Universe because He is His Son, and the Word was in God.”[29]

In The Paedagogus (a three-book work that continues the Protrepticus), in chapter 2 of Book I, he writes:

“…my children, our Instructor is like God His Father, whose Son He is, sinless, blameless, and with a soul devoid of passion; God in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father, and the Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the Father’s right hand, and who in the form of God is God. He is to us a spotless image…”[30]

Theophilus of Antioch (? – c. 200 A.D.)

Just as Tertullian would be the first to use the Latin term Trinitas, Saint Theophilus was the first to use the Greek word Τριάς (Trias) to express the union of the three Divine Persons in God.

“The three days which were before the luminaries are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His Wisdom.”[31]

“God, then, having His own Word internal within His own bowels, begat Him, emitting Him along with His own wisdom before all things. He had this Word as a helper in the things that were created by Him, and by Him He made all things… He is called the Beginning, because He is the ruler and sovereign of all things fashioned by Him.”[32]

“God, then, the Father and Creator of all, is unbounded and is not contained in any place, for there is no place of His rest; but His Word, through whom He made all things, being His Power and Wisdom, assuming the person of the Father and Lord of all, went to the garden in the person of God, and conversed with Adam. For the divine writing itself teaches us that Adam said that he heard the voice. But what else is this voice but the Word of God, who is also His Son? Not as the poets and mythologists talk of the sons of gods begotten from sexual union, but as truth expounds, the Word of God, that always exists, residing within the heart of God. For, before anything came into being, He had Him as a counsellor, being His own mind and thought. But when God wished to make what He had deliberated on, He begat this Word, uttered, the first-born of all creation — not Himself being emptied of the Word, but having begotten the Word and always conversing with His Word. And hence the holy writings teach us, and all the spirit-bearing men, one of whom, John, says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God — showing that at the first God was alone, and the Word in Him. Then he says: And the Word was God.”[33]

Tertullian (c. 160–220 A.D.)

He was the first to apply the Latin term Trinitas (Trinity) to the three divine Persons. In De Pudicitia (On Modesty) he writes:

“…For the Church itself is, properly and principally, the Spirit Himself, in whom is the Trinity of the One Divinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”[34]

In Adversus Praxean (Against Praxeas) he gives an even fuller account of Trinitarian doctrine:

“But we, as we indeed always have done (and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete, who leads men into all truth), believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, or οἰκονομία, as it is called, that this one God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. We believe Him to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her — being both God and Man, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. This is the rule of faith which has come down to us from the beginning of the Gospel, even before all the older heresies.”[35]

Further on in the same chapter he writes:

“…The heresy, which supposes itself to possess the pure truth, thinks that one cannot believe in One Only God in any other way than by saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the very selfsame Person. As if in this way also One were not All, in that 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 Persons — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect.”[36]

This text is particularly important because it expounds Tertullian’s conception of the Trinity: Three Persons, but not three natures — not different in power but in aspect. This is confirmed also by chapter 4 of the same work, where he again affirms that the Son is “of the substance of the Father”: Filium non aliunde deduco, sed de substantia Patris[37], and that the Spirit is “from the Father through the Son”: Spiritum non aliunde deduco quam a Patre per Filium[38].

“If the plurality of the Trinity scandalizes you, as though it were not bound together in the simplicity of unity, I ask you: how is it possible that a Being who is purely and absolutely one and singular should speak in the plural: ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness’? Should He not rather have said: ‘I make man in my image and likeness’, since He is a unique and singular Being? Yet in the passage that follows we read: ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us.’ Either God deceives us or mocks us by speaking in the plural if He is single and singular; or was He perhaps addressing the angels, as the Jews interpret it, because they do not acknowledge the Son? Or was it because He was at once Father, Son, and Spirit that He spoke in the plural, regarding Himself as multiple? Certainly, the reason is that He had at His side a second Person, His Son and His Word, and a third Person, the Spirit in the Word. That is why He deliberately used the plural: ‘Let us make… our image… one of us.’ For with whom was He making man? In whose likeness was He making him? He was speaking, on the one hand, with the Son, who was one day to clothe Himself in human flesh; and on the other, with the Spirit, who was one day to sanctify man — as though He were speaking with so many ministers and witnesses.”[39]

He continues later in the same chapter:

“…Now, if He too is God, according to John (who says: the Word was God), then you have two Beings: one that commands the thing to be made, and another that executes the order and creates. In what sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another, I have already explained: on the ground of Personality, not of Substance — in the way of distinction, not of division. But although I must everywhere hold one only substance in three coherent and inseparable (Persons).”[40]

In the foregoing text Tertullian employs the term “person” to explain that the Word (Logos) is distinct from the Father “in the sense of person, not of substance — for distinction, not division” — a term he likewise applies to the Holy Spirit, whom he calls “the third Person”.

For all that Tertullian contributed to developing precise terminology for Trinitarian doctrine, he was not entirely free from subordinationism — to the point of interpreting that the Son was not eternal, which is one of the errors of Arianism.

“It was then that the Word received His manifestation and His complement, that is, sound and voice, when God said: ‘Let there be light!’ This is the perfect birth of the Word, when He proceeded from God. He was first produced by Him in thought under the name of Wisdom: ‘The Lord created me the beginning of His ways.’ Then He was begotten with a view to action: ‘When He made the heavens, I was near Him’ (Prov 8:27). Consequently, making Him His Father from whom He was Son by proceeding from Him, He became the first-born, because He was begotten before all things, and the Only-begotten, because He alone was begotten of God.”[41]

Origen (185–254 A.D.)

In 1941, papyri were discovered at Toura (near Cairo). There a complete account is presented of a dispute that arose when the opinions of Heraclides regarding Trinitarian doctrine had caused concern among his fellow bishops, who summoned Origen to set the matter right. This disputation took place in the presence of the people and the bishops around the year 245.

On this matter Quasten comments in Patrology I:

“Heraclides did not like Origen’s formula of ‘two gods’ as the only way to express clearly the distinction between Father and Son. It implied too grave a danger of polytheism. In the discussion, Origen makes this observation: ‘Since our brothers are scandalised at hearing that there are two Gods, this matter deserves to be handled with delicacy.’

“He then turns to Scripture to demonstrate in what sense two can be one. Adam and Eve were two; yet they formed one flesh (Gen 2:24). He next cites Saint Paul who, speaking of the union of the just man with God, says: ‘He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him’ (1 Cor 6:17). Finally, he invokes as witness Christ Himself, because He said: ‘I and the Father are one.’ In the first example there was unity of ‘flesh’; in the second, of ‘spirit’; in the third, of ‘divinity’. ‘Our Lord and Saviour — Origen observes —, in His relation to the Father and God of the universe, is not one flesh, nor one spirit, but something far more exalted than flesh and spirit: one God.’”

Thus Origen defends the divinity of both Father and Son against monarchianism and modalism.

Quasten also reproduces an interrogation by Origen of Heraclides, which reached the following agreement:

Origen said: Is the Father God?

Heraclides answered: Yes.

Origen said: Is the Son distinct from the Father?

Heraclides answered: How could He be simultaneously Son and Father?

Origen said: The Son, who is distinct from the Father — is He also God?

Heraclides answered: He also is God.

Origen said: In this way, then, do the two Gods form one?

Heraclides said: Yes.

Origen said: Consequently, we affirm that there are two Gods?

Heraclides answered: Yes, but the power is one.

A definition which, though far earlier than Nicaea and without the benefit of its precise terminology, manages to express the same conviction. Thus, with this agreement reached before the people and the bishops, Christ is proclaimed God — yet as a Person distinct from the Father. The individuality of the Divine Persons is thereby defended against modalism, and fears are allayed that acknowledging both Christ and the Father as God might lead to polytheism.

Origen frequently uses the term Trinity,[42] holds that the Son proceeds from the Father, and since God is eternal concludes that this act of generation is likewise eternal — so the Son has no beginning and there was no time when He did not exist (a position that pre-emptively opposes the heresy of Arianism, which would later assert the contrary: that there was a time when the Son did not exist[43]).

“One cannot conceive of light without radiance. And if this is true, there was never a time when the Son was not the Son. Yet He will not be — as we said of the eternal light — without birth (for that would seem to introduce two principles of light), but is, so to speak, the radiance of the unbegotten light, having this same light as its principle and source, truly born of it. Nevertheless, there was no time when He was not. Wisdom, proceeding from God, is likewise begotten of the same divine substance. Under the figure of a bodily emanation, she is called: ‘a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty God’ (Wis 7:25). These two comparisons clearly show the community of substance between Father and Son. For every emanation seems to be homoousios — that is, of the same substance — with the body from which it emanates or proceeds.”[44]

He employs the word ὁμοούσιος (homoousios), meaning “of the same substance”, which would later be so central to the Council of Nicaea in solemnly defining that the Father and the Son share one and the same nature. He also refers to Christ with the expression θεάνθρωπος (God-Man).

Nevertheless, Origen has certain obscure texts that appear to incline toward subordinationism. Among those who accuse him of having fallen into this error is Saint Jerome; however, other Church Fathers, such as Saint Athanasius and Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, defend him. One of the texts where he appears to tend in that direction is the following:

“We who believe the Saviour when He says: ‘The Father who sent me is greater than I’, and for this very reason do not permit the appellation ‘good’ to be applied to Him in its full, true and perfect sense, but attribute it to the Father, giving thanks and condemning whoever would glorify the Son excessively — we say that the Saviour and the Holy Spirit transcend all created things by an absolute and incomparable superiority; but we also say that the Father transcends them to the same or even a greater degree than they themselves transcend the most perfect of creatures.”[45]

Justin Martyr (100–165 A.D.)

In his Dialogue with Trypho he refers to Christ as “God begotten of the Father of the universe”, and draws on Genesis passages in which God speaks in the first-person plural to demonstrate the plurality of the divine Persons. He dismisses there the idea that God was speaking with angels — since it is inconceivable that man was made by them — and likewise dismisses the suggestion that He was speaking with the elements of the earth. He concludes that God was speaking with Christ, who was with the Father before all creatures. Even so, he appears to show some tendency toward subordinationism.

“I will now offer you, my friends, another testimony from the Scriptures, that God begat before all creatures a beginning, a kind of rational Power from Himself, which is also called by the Holy Spirit the Glory of the Lord, and sometimes Son, sometimes Wisdom, sometimes Angel, sometimes God, sometimes Lord and Word; and He also called Himself Captain General when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nun. For He possesses all these titles from the fact that He is at the service of the Father’s will, and was begotten of the Father by His will… But it will be the word of Wisdom Himself who will give me His testimony — being that very God begotten of the Father of the universe, who subsists as Word and Wisdom and Power and Glory of the Begetter…

“62. That same point, my friends, was expressed by the Word of God through Moses, indicating to us that the God who appeared to us spoke in this sense in the creation of man, saying these words: Let us make man in our image and after our likeness… And lest you twist the words I have cited and say what your teachers maintain — that God was speaking to Himself when He said ‘Let us make’, just as we, when about to do something, say ‘Let us make’; or that He was speaking to the elements, that is, to the earth and the other things of which we know man is composed, and said ‘Let us make’ to them — I will now cite other words of that same Moses, from which, beyond any dispute, we must acknowledge that God conversed with someone who was numerically distinct and rational. Here they are: And God said: Behold, Adam has become as one of us, to know good and evil. In saying ‘as one of us’ He indicates the number of those conversing with one another, who are at the very least two. For I cannot hold as true the teaching of what is called a heresy among you, nor are their teachers able to demonstrate that God spoke with the angels, or that the human body is the work of angels. Rather, this offspring, truly emitted by the Father, was with Him before all creatures; and it is with this one that the Father conversed, as the Word made known to us through Solomon, telling us that before all creatures this same one whom Solomon calls Wisdom was begotten by God as a beginning and an offspring.”[46]

Further on he refers to Christ as Lord and God.

“I have proved at length that Christ, who is Lord and God, Son of God, had appeared first in a marvellous way as Man and Angel, and also in the glory of fire, as in the vision of the burning bush, and in the judgment against Sodom.”[47]

In his First Apology he clearly and in order distinguishes the three Divine Persons — which rules out any modalist tendency in Justin[48]:

“And we will demonstrate that we also honour with reason Jesus Christ, who was our teacher in these things and was born for this purpose — the same who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the time of Tiberius Caesar — whom we have learned to be the Son of the very true God, and whom we hold in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third.”[49]

Even more explicit in distinguishing the Person of the Father from that of the Son is chapter 63, where he recognizes in Christ the one who spoke to the Prophets and proclaimed Himself “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”:

“For those who affirm that the Son is the Father prove that they neither know who the Father is, nor have learned that the Father of the universe has a Son, who, being the Word and First-begotten of God, is also God.

It was He who appeared first to Moses and to the other Prophets in the form of fire or in a bodiless image, and who now, in the times of your empire… was born as man of a virgin… Now, what was said from the burning bush to Moses: I am He who is, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, signified that even after their deaths those men still belonged to Christ Himself.”[50]

Gregory Thaumaturgus (213–270 A.D.)

Born around the year 213, he was bishop of his native city of Neocaesarea. He composed a brief creed of faith, of which Quasten comments: “it is confined to the dogma of the Trinity, remarkable for the precision of its concepts, affirming that none of the Divine Persons has ever been without the others, but that they have always existed without change.”

“There is one God, Father of the living Word, of the subsisting Wisdom, of the Power and of the eternal Image; perfect Begetter of the perfect Begotten, Father of the Only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, One of One, God of God, Figure (character) and Image of the Deity, efficient Word, Wisdom that embraces the whole universe and Power that creates the entire world, true Son of the true Father, Invisible of the Invisible, Incorruptible of the Incorruptible, Immortal of the Immortal, Eternal of the Eternal. And there is one Holy Spirit, who has His subsistence from God and was manifested to men through the Son: Image of the Son, perfect Image of the Perfect, Life, Cause of the living, sacred Fount, Sanctity that communicates sanctification, in whom are manifested God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all. There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and majesty, which is neither divided nor separated. There is, consequently, nothing created or servile in the Trinity, nor anything superadded, as though it had not existed in an earlier period and had been introduced later. And so the Son was never lacking to the Father, nor the Holy Spirit to the Son, but, without variation or change, the same Trinity has existed always.”[51]

Novatian (? – 258 A.D.)

One of his writings, On the Trinity (De Trinitate), was composed at a date considerably prior to 250 A.D.

“The Son, since He is begotten of the Father, is always in the Father. And when I say ‘always’, I do not mean that He is unbegotten; I affirm, on the contrary, that He was born. But He who was born before all time must be said always to have been in the Father, for no dates can be assigned to Him who is before all time. He is eternally in the Father, for otherwise the Father would not always be Father. On the other hand, the Father is prior to Him, for the Father must necessarily be before the Son, as Father; since He knows no origin, He must necessarily exist before him who has an origin. The Son, then, is necessarily posterior to the Father, because He Himself acknowledges that He exists in the Father; He has an origin, since He was born, and that from the Father in a mysterious manner; and yet, notwithstanding His birth and origin, He is in all things close (vicinus) to the Father, precisely because of His birth, since He was born of the Father, who alone is without origin. He, then, when the Father willed it, proceeded from the Father; and He who was in the Father, because He proceeded from the Father, is nothing other than the divine Substance. His name is the Word, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. For all things are subsequent to Him, since they come from Him, and consequently He is prior to all things (but after the Father), considering that all things were made by Him. He proceeded from the Father, by whose will all things were made. God, most certainly, proceeding from God, constituting the second Person after the Father, as Son, without thereby depriving the Father of the unity of the divinity.”[52]

Nevertheless, Novatian showed a form of subordinationism: while acknowledging that the divine Persons share the same substance, he also affirmed that the Holy Spirit is inferior to Christ, and Christ inferior to the Father — of whom he says that He appears as “the only true and eternal God; He is the sole source of the power of the divinity. Although it is transmitted to the Son and concentrated in Him, it returns again to the Father through their community of substance”:

“The Paraclete received His message from Christ. But if He received it from Christ, Christ is superior to the Paraclete, for the Paraclete would not have received from Christ unless He were inferior to Christ. This inferiority of the Paraclete proves that Christ, from whom He received His message, is God. Here, then, we have powerful testimony to the divinity of Christ. We see, in effect, that the Paraclete is inferior to Him, and receives from Him the message He delivers to the world.”[53]

Cyprian of Carthage (200–258 A.D.)

He declares the divinity of Christ numerous times:

“If Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, is Himself the high priest of God the Father.”[54]

“If anyone could be baptised by heretics, he could certainly also receive the forgiveness of his sins. If he had received the forgiveness of sins, he could be sanctified. If he were sanctified, he could be made a temple of God. If he were made a temple of God — now I ask you: of which God? Of the Creator? But that is not possible, because he does not believe in Him. Of Christ? One who denies that Christ is God cannot become His temple. Of the Holy Spirit? Since the Three are One, how could the Holy Spirit be reconciled with one who is an enemy of the Son or of the Father?”[55]

“After the resurrection, when the Lord sent the Apostles to the nations, He ordered them to baptise the Gentiles in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit… Christ Himself commanded that the nations be baptised in the complete and united Trinity.”[56]

Dionysius of Rome (? – 268 A.D.)

As Pope from 259 to 268 he combated both modalism and subordinationism. When a complaint was brought before him regarding Dionysius of Alexandria — the bishop — concerning his incorrect manner of speaking about the Trinity, a controversy arose known as “the controversy of the two Dionysii”. The Pope convoked a synod in the year 260 to resolve the matter. In his own name and in that of the synod he wrote a letter in which he condemned the modalist doctrine of Sabellius, as well as the Marcionite opinions that divided the divine monarchy into three distinct hypostases, and also those who represented the Son of God as a creature.

In his letter to Dionysius of Alexandria the Pope calls blasphemy the opinion that holds the Son to be the same as the Father (modalism), but also censures the doctrine apparently supported by catechists of Dionysius of Alexandria who claimed that each Divine Person has a nature distinct from the others.

“I have been informed that some among your catechists and teachers of the divine word teach this principle [referring to those who heretically divide the natures of the Divine Persons]. They are, so to speak, diametrically opposed to the opinion of Sabellius. For he, in his blasphemy, says that the Son is the Father, and vice versa. But they proclaim that there are in some way three Gods, when they divide the Holy Unity into three substances foreign to each other and completely separate.”[57]

He also declares blasphemous the thesis — which would later characterize Arianism — that Christ is a created being, and explains that since Christ is the Word, Wisdom, and Power of God, there could never have been a moment when the Father existed without Him.

“It is blasphemy, then, and not a common blasphemy but the worst, to say that the Lord was in any way a created work. For if the Son came into being, there was a time when He was not; but He always existed, if, as He Himself declares, He is in the Father; and if Christ is the Word and Wisdom and Power — as you know the divine Scripture says — and these attributes are powers of God, then He always existed. But if the Son came into being, there was a time when these attributes did not exist, and consequently there was a time when God was without them, which is utterly absurd.”[58]

“It is necessary, however, that the divine Word [Jesus Christ] be united with the God of the Universe; and the Holy Spirit must abide and dwell in God. Therefore the Divine Trinity must be gathered up and brought together in one, as into a certain head — that is, the God of the Universe, the Omnipotent.”[59]

“We must not therefore divide the wonderful and divine unity into three divinities; nor must we belittle the dignity and exceeding majesty of the Lord by calling Him a work; but we must believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ His Son, and in the Holy Spirit, and hold that to the God of the universe the Word is united.”[60]

Having studied the principal patristic testimonies prior to the Council of Nicaea, there remains nothing but to dismiss the speculations of those sects that assume the Trinitarian doctrine to be a late novelty arising from pagan influences. The Church was faithful in recognising that there is one God — the Father being God, the Son being God, and the Holy Spirit being God — and this truth was understood and taught with greater or lesser clarity throughout the post-apostolic and pre-Nicene era.

The consensus of the Fathers openly rejected both Arianism — which held that Jesus Christ was a lesser, created god subordinate to the Father, who at some point did not exist — and modalism — which held that there is only one Divine Person in God, the Son being the Father and vice versa, manifested in different modes.

Certainly some Fathers did not fully comprehend the Trinitarian mystery and tended toward subordinationism to a greater or lesser degree — something entirely understandable in a matter of such complexity. It is precisely conflicts as serious as Arianism and other heresies that have given the Church the occasion to deepen her understanding of these truths of faith.

Notes

  1. Watchtower Library 2007, Jehovah’s Witnesses — Large pamphlet: How Did the Doctrine of the Trinity Develop? ↩
  2. Didache, VII, 1. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apostólicos, BAC 65, Fifth Edition, Madrid 1985, p. 84. ↩
  3. Martyrdom of Polycarp, XXII, 3. Ibid., p. 688. ↩
  4. The Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude V, 6, 5. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apostólicos, BAC 65, Fifth Ed., Madrid 1985, p. 1020. ↩
  5. Carmelo Granado, Los mil nombres de Jesús, Narcea S.A. de Ediciones, p. 25. ↩
  6. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, I. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apostólicos, BAC 65, Fifth Ed., Madrid 1985, p. 447. ↩
  7. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, VII, 2. Ibid., p. 451. ↩
  8. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, XVIII, 2. Ibid., p. 457. ↩
  9. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, I. Ibid., p. 474. ↩
  10. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, IV, 3. Ibid., p. 477. ↩
  11. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, I, 1. Ibid., p. 488. ↩
  12. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to Polycarp, III, 2. Ibid., pp. 498-499. ↩
  13. Aristides, Apología (Apology), XV, 2. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apologetas Griegos, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 116, Third Edition, Madrid 1996, p. 130. ↩
  14. Athenagoras of Athens, Súplica en favor de los cristianos (Plea for the Christians), 10. Ibid., pp. 660-661. ↩
  15. Ibid., p. 661. ↩
  16. Tatian, Discurso contra los griegos (Address to the Greeks), 21. Ibid., p. 602. ↩
  17. Melito of Sardis, Homilía sobre la Pasión (Homily on the Passion), 8-10. Johannes Quasten, Patrología I, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 206, Fifth Edition, Madrid 1995, pp. 240-241. ↩
  18. Melito of Sardis, Homilía sobre la Pasión (Homily on the Passion), 82. Ibid., p. 241. ↩
  19. Melito of Sardis, Fragment in Anastasius of Sinai, The Guide, ch. 13. William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. I, The Liturgical Press, Minnesota 1970, p. 81. ↩
  20. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, I, 10, 1-2. ↩
  21. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, II, 28, 6. ↩
  22. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, III, 19, 2. ↩
  23. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, III, 19, 2-3. ↩
  24. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, IV, 20, 3. ↩
  25. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, II, 28, 8. ↩
  26. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, V, 18, 2. ↩
  27. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks (Protrepticus), 1, 7, 1. William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. I, The Liturgical Press, Minnesota 1970, p. 176. ↩
  28. Clement of Alexandria, Adumbrationes — Commentary on the First Epistle of John (on 1 John 1:1). New Advent, Fathers of the Church, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0211.htm ↩
  29. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 10, 110, 1. Ibid., p. 177. ↩
  30. Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus, I, 2. New Advent, Fathers of the Church, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02091.htm ↩
  31. Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum, 2, 15. Johannes Quasten, Patrología I, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 206, Fifth Edition, Madrid 1995, p. 236. ↩
  32. Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum, 2, 10. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apologetas Griegos, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 116, Third Edition, Madrid 1996, p. 796. ↩
  33. Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum, 2, 22. Ibid., p. 813. ↩
  34. Tertullian, De Pudicitia (On Modesty), 21. New Advent, Fathers of the Church, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0407.htm ↩
  35. Tertullian, Adversus Praxean (Against Praxeas), 2. New Advent, Fathers of the Church, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0317.htm ↩
  36. Ibid. ↩
  37. Tertullian, Adversus Praxean, 4. Johannes Quasten, Patrología I, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 206, Fifth Edition, Madrid 1995, p. 621. ↩
  38. Ibid. ↩
  39. Tertullian, Adversus Praxean, 12. Ibid., p. 622. ↩
  40. Ibid. ↩
  41. Tertullian, Adversus Praxean, 7. New Advent, Fathers of the Church, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0317.htm ↩
  42. In Ioh. 10,39,270; 6,33,166; In Ies. Hom. 1,4,1 ↩
  43. De princ. 1,2,9s; 2; 4,4,1; In Rom. 1,5 ↩
  44. Origen, In Hebr. frag. 24,359. Johannes Quasten, Patrología I, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 206, Fifth Edition, Madrid 1995, pp. 389-390. ↩
  45. Origen, In Ioh. 13,25. Ibid., p. 390. ↩
  46. Saint Justin, Diálogo con Trifón (Dialogue with Trypho), 61-62. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apologetas Griegos, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 116, Third Edition, Madrid 1996, pp. 409-412. ↩
  47. Saint Justin, Diálogo con Trifón, 128. Ibid., p. 526. ↩
  48. Modalism does not regard the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as divine Persons, but as manifestations of a single God. ↩
  49. Justin Martyr, Apología I (First Apology), 13,3. Ibid., p. 194. ↩
  50. Justin Martyr, Apología I, 63,15. Daniel Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apologetas Griegos, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 116, Third Edition, Madrid 1996, pp. 254-255. ↩
  51. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Exposition of the Faith. Johannes Quasten, Patrología I, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 206, Fifth Edition, Madrid 1995, p. 433. ↩
  52. Novatian, De Trinitate (On the Trinity), 31. Johannes Quasten, Patrología I, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos 206, Fifth Edition, Madrid 1995, p. 529. ↩
  53. Novatian, De Trinitate, 18. Ibid., p. 531. ↩
  54. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter 63,14. William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. I, The Liturgical Press, Minnesota 1970, pp. 232-233. ↩
  55. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter 73,12. Ibid., p. 238. | Note: Cyprian writes around the year 255, more than a century before the earliest manuscripts that contain the interpolation of 1 John 5:7 (the so-called “Comma Johanneum”); his phrase is therefore an independent and primitive testimony. ↩
  56. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter 73,18. Ibid. ↩
  57. Letter of Dionysius of Rome to Dionysius of Alexandria, 1. William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. I, The Liturgical Press, Minnesota 1970, p. 249. ↩
  58. Ibid. ↩
  59. Ibid., 2. ↩
  60. Ibid., 3. ↩