The evolution of early Christian theology: The monarchians (part 4 of 8)

Part 3: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-evolution-of-early-christian_0560481137.html

     In the last two posts of this series on the evolution of early Christian theology, we’ve seen how the ‘proto-orthodox’ theologians of the second and third centuries held to Logos theory. They believed that the Father alone is the true God, and that the Son is a second god who comes forth from the Father, yet is subordinate to the Father, so that there is still only one absolute God. However, Logos theory was not the only theology or Christology during this period; there were other competing views, subsumed under the label of Monarchianism, whose adherents argued forcefully that the Father is the only god, and there is no second god. In this post, we’ll look at the different types of Monarchianism in the second and third centuries AD, the arguments set forth by the Monarchians, and the counter-arguments by Logos theorists.

    Dynamic Monarchianism

The first type of Monarchianism which we’ll examine is Dynamic Monarchianism, also known as adoptionism. This is the view that Jesus was a man who was chosen by God to be the Messiah, but that he did not pre-exist his birth or have a divine nature (as either a god or God). This view was considered Monarchianism in the second and third centuries because, unlike Logos theorists, the proponents of Dynamic Monarchanism held to strict monotheism and identified the Father as strictly the only god.

    Although Logos theorists condemned this as a heresy, the fact is that this view is actually more ancient than Logos theory. Although Logos theory was innovated by Justin Martyr in the mid-second century, the first hints of adoptionism can be found already in the writings of the New Testament. In Romans 1:3-4, Paul set down a creed that may have been circulating before he wrote it down, [1] which states:

God... promised beforehand... concerning His Son, who was born from the seed of David, according to flesh, who was appointed Son of God in power, according to spirit of holiness, by resurrection from the dead, Jesus the Messiah our Lord.

Paul also states that Jesus became Lord because of his death and resurrection (Rom. 14:9). The book of Acts also records Paul as stating that the resurrection is when the Father begot Jesus (13:33). The gospels of Matthew and Luke both state that Jesus was begotten and became Son of God, not at the beginning of creation as the Logos theorists taught, but because of his miraculous conception (Matt. 1:18-20; Luke 1:32-35). The anonymous epistle to the Hebrews argues, using Old Testament references, that the Son was created inferior to the angels, in every way like his brethren, but became superior to the angels because of his resurrection (1:3-14; 2:6-9, 14-17).

    Adoptionism did not cease with the canonical writings of the New Testament. As described in the first post of this series, the Odes of Solomon were a first- or early second-century hymnal that referred to the Messiah as “the man who humbled himself, but was exalted because of his righteousness” (41.12); it describes his deification as being “named the Son of God” and being made “in the likeness of the Most High” (36.3-5). Like the Dynamic Monarchians of the later second and third centuries, the Odes described the Logos as a power or attribute of the Father, “the thought which He has thought concerning His Messiah,” rather than a pre-existent person (7.7-8; 9.3; 12.5).

    The second-century work The Shepherd of Hermas also promotes adoptionism. This book describes in a parable how Jesus, because of his righteousness, was filled with the Holy Spirit (a.k.a. “Son of God”) and thereby became co-heir with the Holy Spirit (Sim. 5). Despite this adoptionist parable, the Shepherd of Hermas was so influential that it was accepted as canon even by some later Logos theorists, including Irenaeus of Lyons (Adv. Haer. 4.20.2).

    At the time of Justin Martyr, the first Christian writer who is known to have propounded Logos theory, Dynamic Monarchianism (that is, adoptionism) was the view of most Christians. We know this because Justin himself states, “For there are some, my friend, of our race, who admit that [Jesus] is Messiah, while holding him to be a man of men; with whom I do not agree, nor would I, even though most of those who have the same opinions as myself [i.e., most Christians] may say so” (Dial. 48). However, after this, Logos theory increased in popularity and adoptionism seems to have fallen out of favor.

    Nevertheless, during the later second century, there was one known teacher of Dynamic Monarchianism, named Theodotus of Byzantium. Unlike some other adoptionists, Theodotus accepted the virgin birth, but he used several Scriptural proof-texts (e.g. Deut. 18:15; John 8:40; 1 Tim. 2:5) to argue that Jesus was only a man (Hippolytus, Haer. 7.23; Epiphanius, Pan. 54). He believed that the spirit of Messiah descended upon Jesus at his baptism because of his righteousness, and that after his resurrection he became a god, although some of his followers did not accept this (Hippolytus, Haer. 7.23). The name ‘Dynamic Monarchianism’ comes from Theodotus’ claim that Jesus’ miracles were the result of “divine power” (dynamis) which came upon him at his baptism.

    In the period immediately after Theodotus’ death, little is known about Dynamic Monarchianism, other than that it was still held by some Christians, as evidenced by the fact that Origen’s and Novatian’s writings mention this sect existing in their time (Origen, Comm. on John 2.2; Novatian, On the Trinity 30). There was another resurgence of Dynamic Monarchianism when an adoptionist named Paul was elected to be bishop of Antioch in AD 260; he was excommunicated for his beliefs in AD 268, but by popular favor remained in power until AD 272, when the ‘orthodox’ bishops petitioned the Roman emperor Aurelius to forcibly remove him from the episcopate (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 7.27, 29-30.19).

    Arguments for and against Dynamic Monarchianism

Unfortunately, no original writings from Dynamic Monarchians of the second and third centuries have survived to the modern day. Nevertheless, we can still reconstruct some of the arguments that were made for Dynamic Monarchianism based on the ‘proto-orthodox’ polemics written against it. According to Origen and Novatian, they argued as follows:

Now there are many people who wish to be pious and are troubled [by John 1:1] because they are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into false and impious doctrines... they deny the divinity of the Son, making his individual nature and essence to be different from the Father, so that they are separable from one another. (Origen, Comm. on John 2.2)

And those who contend that Christ is man only, conclude on the other hand thus: If the Father is one, and the Son another, but the Father is God and Christ is God, then there is not one God, but two Gods are at once introduced, the Father and the Son; and if God is one, by consequence Christ must be a man, so that the Father may rightly be the one God. (Novatian, On the Trinity 30)

This argument can be summarized in logical form as follows:

P1. The Son is God. (assumption)

P2. The Father is God. (premise)

P3. The Father is not the Son. (premise)

C1. Therefore, there are two Gods, the Father and the Son. (from P1-P3)

P4. There is only one God, the Father. (premise)

C2. Therefore, there are two Gods and there is only one God, the Father. (from C1, P4)

P5. But it is impossible for something to be simultaneously true and not true. (unstated premise)

C3. Therefore, the Son is not God. (from P1-P5, by reductio ad absurdum)

Although the Dynamic Monarchians would not have formulated their argument exactly like this, it’s evident from the writings of Origen and Novatian that this is (at least in part) what motivated their belief that the Son is not God.

    How did Origen and Novatian counter this argument? As we saw in the last post, both of them agreed with all of the premises of this argument; they both believed that the Father is God, that the Father is not the Son, and that the only God is the Father. Thus, rather than argue that the Son is the same God as the Father, as trinitarians believe, they argued that the Son is a lesser god than the Father. In their view, there is only one true God, the Father, but the Son is a god in a different sense than the Father is God, so that there is still only one absolute God, the Father (Origen, ibid.; Novatian, ibid.). It’s hard to say whether this actually refutes the Dynamic Monarchian argument, or whether it adequately reconciles Logos theory with monotheism, but these two Logos theorists believed that it does.

    In the fourth century AD, the bishop Epiphanius of Salamis also records several Scripture-based arguments for Dynamic Monarchianism that were used by the second-century adoptionist Theodotus of Byzantium. Theodotus cites several passages from the Scriptures that refer to Jesus as “a man,” including Deuteronomy 18:15 [1], Isaiah 53:3 [2], John 8:40 [3], Acts 2:22 [4], and 1 Timothy 2:5 [5]; as well as 1 Corinthians 8:6 [6]. Arguing against this, Epiphanius cites John 8:56-58 to show that Jesus existed before Abraham, alongside other passages that refer to Jesus as “Son of God” to show that Jesus is fully divine [7] (Panarion 54.1.9-6.4).

    Modalistic Monarchianism

The other type of Monarchianism is Modalistic Monarchianism, also known as modalism or Sabellianism. This is the view that Jesus just is the same God as the Father, contrary to what Dynamic Monarchians and Logos theorists believed; but unlike trinitarians, modalists believe that the Father and Son are merely modes, or personalities, of the same God. As such, these modalists held to the monarchy of the Father (his unique identity as the only god) without denying that Jesus is also God.

    Unlike Dynamic Monarchianism, however, belief in modalism does not date back to the first century AD. Instead, the first writer to express some belief in modalism was Melito of Sardis, who was the bishop of Sardis until his death in AD 180. In his homily On the Passover, written in the mid-second century, Melito writes:

For He was born as a Son, and led as a lamb, and slaughtered as a sheep, and buried as a man, and rose from the dead as God, being God by His nature and a man. He is all things. He is law, in that He judges; He is word, in that He teaches; He is grace, in that He saves; He is the Father, in that He begets; He is the Son, in that He is begotten; He is sheep, in that He suffers; He is human, in that He is buried; He is God, in that He is raised up. This is Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Peri Pascha 8-10)

Although he was probably not the first modalist, Melito’s writings are the earliest surviving work that teaches Modalistic Monarchianism.

    After Melito, the next known teacher of modalism was Praxeas, around the turn of the third century, who was vehemently opposed by Tertullian in his polemic Against Praxeas. Regarding Praxeas’ beliefs, Tertullian writes:

He says that the Father Himself came down into the virgin, was Himself born of her, Himself suffered, indeed was Himself Jesus Christ... In the course of time, then, the Father forsooth was born, and the Father suffered, God Himself, the Lord Almighty, whom in their preaching they declare to be Jesus Christ. (Against Praxeas 1; 2)

This view is called Modalistic Monarchianism because, according to Tertullian, Praxeas’ followers claimed, “We maintain the monarchy of God” (Against Praxeas 3).

    Sabellius, a priest who preached in Rome until he was excommunicated in AD 220, developed this view further. According to Hippolytus:

He, and the Sabellians who derive from him, hold that the Father is the same, the Son is the same, and the Holy Spirit is the same, so that there are three names in one entity. Or, as there are a body, a soul and a spirit in a man, so the Father, in a way, is the body; the Son, in a way, is the soul; and as a man’s spirit is in man, so is the Holy Spirit in the Godhead. Or it is as in the sun, which consists of one entity but has three operations, I mean the illuminating, the warming, and the actual shape of the orb. The warming, or hot and seething operation is the Spirit; the illuminating operation is the Son; and the Father is the actual form of the whole entity. (Panarion 62.1.4-7).

Another modalist from about the same time as Sabellius was Noetus, a presbyter in Asia Minor. His later contemporary, Hippolytus of Rome, wrote a polemic titled Against Noetus which states,

He alleged that Christ was the Father Himself, and that the Father was born, and suffered, and died... they say without shame that the Father is Himself Christ, Himself the Son, Himself was born, Himself suffered, Himself raised Himself. (Against Noetus 1; 3)

Noetus was excommunicated for his beliefs by a council of other presbyters, but his followers continued to preach modalism (Against Noetus 1). This doctrine was apparently still around by the mid-third century, because Novatian describes and argues against this view in his work On the Trinity (26-28).

    Arguments for and against Modalistic Monarchianism

Unfortunately, no writings from the second and third centuries AD arguing for Modalistic Monarchianism have survived to the modern day, so as with Dynamic Monarchianism, we simply have to trust that the modalists’ opponents have accurately recorded their arguments. Origen and Novatian both describe a logical argument that was put forth by the modalists:

Now there are many people who wish to be pious and are troubled [by John 1:1] because they are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into false and impious doctrines... they deny that the Son has an individual nature distinct from the Father, by confessing him to be God whom they refer to as “Son” in name only. (Origen, Comm. on John 2.2)

By this very fact they wish to show that Christ is God, the Father, in that he is asserted to be not man only, but also is declared to be a god. For thus they say, “If it is asserted that God is one, and Christ is God, then,” they say, “if the Father and Christ are one God, Christ will be called the Father.” (Novatian, On the Trinity 26)

And those who say that Jesus Christ is the Father argue as follows: If God is one, and Christ is God, then Christ is the Father, since God is one. (Novatian, On the Trinity 30)

This argument can be summarized in logical form as follows:

P1. There is only one God. (premise)

P2. The Father is God. (unstated premise)

P3. Christ is God. (premise)

C1. Therefore, the Father and Christ are one God. (from P1-P3)

P4. If two things are the same God, then they are numerically identical. (unstated premise)

C2. Therefore, Christ just is the Father. (from C1, P4)

The modalists would not have formulated their argument exactly like this, but their commitment to strict monotheism was certainly part of what motivated their belief, unlike the Logos theorists who believed that there were two or three gods (but only one God).

    Modalistic Monarchians also employed several Scriptural arguments to support their beliefs. According to Novatian, they claimed that John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”) proves that Christ is the Father (On the Trinity 27). The Logos theorists, pointing to the fact that there is a plural verb (“we are”) and that “one” is neuter, argued that this shows that Christ and the Father are one in will and ‘agree as one,’ not that they are one person [8] (Origen, Contra Celsum 8.12; Novatian, On the Trinity 27; Hippolytus, Against Noetus 7). The modalists also argued that John 14:9 (“he who has seen me has seen the Father”) was supportive of their beliefs, but Novatian argued that this only shows Christ to be “the image of God,” not that he is God Himself, the Father (On the Trinity 28).

    Other passages that were employed by the Sabellians, according to Hippolytus, were Exodus 20:3, Isaiah 44:6, 45:14, and Baruch 3:35-36, to show that there is only one God; as well as Romans 9:5, to show that Christ is called God (Against Noetus 2). In response, Hippolytus admits that the Father is the only God, and that Christ is called “God” (Against Noetus 3-6). However, he responds, Christ is called “God” because “he who is over all is a god;” but Christ is only over all because it has been given to him by the Father, and furthermore (citing John 20:17) the Father is still the God of Christ (Against Noetus 6). Again, it’s hard to say whether this counter-argument actually refutes the argument made by the Modalistic Monarchians so as to reconcile Logos theory with monotheism, but Hippolytus believed that it does.

    Conclusion

Two-stage and one-stage Logos theories were not the only theological contenders in Christianity during the second and third centuries AD. There were also two factions of Monarchians, which, based on what we can discern from the writings of Logos theorists, appear to have had quite a few adherents during this period. Dynamic and Modalistic Monarchianism agreed on two points: the monarchy (sole deity) of the Father, and that the Logos was not a pre-existent person, but a power or idea in the mind of God; but they also held diametrically opposing viewpoints about Jesus, whom they believed to be only a man (Dynamic Monarchianism) or God Himself, the Father (Modalistic Monarchianism).

    Unfortunately, we have very few writings from the Monarchians because of preservation bias in the later Church, which saw Monarchianism as heretical, but we can still reconstruct their beliefs and arguments from the writings of their opponents. These polemics against Monarchianism show us that it was not a fringe belief, but a real opposition to Logos theory which had many adherents, including bishops (such as Paul of Samosata) and presbyters (such as Noetus).

    In the next post, we’ll look at how these different sects of the second and third centuries AD developed in the pre-Nicene period, setting the scene for the controversy which led to the Council of Nicaea.

Part 5: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-evolution-of-early-christian.html

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[1] “Theodotus says, ‘The Law also said of him, “The Lord will raise up unto you a prophet of your brethren, like me; hearken to him.” But Moses was a man. Therefore the Messiah whom God raised up was this person but, since he was one of them, was a man just as Moses was a man.’” (Panarion 54.3.1)

[2] “Then Theodotus says in turn, ‘Isaiah also called him a man, for he said, “A man acquainted with the bearing of infirmity; and we knew him afflicted with blows and abuse, and he was despised and not esteemed.”’” (Panarion 54.5.1)

[3] “He said, ‘Christ said, “But now you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth.” You see,’ he said, “that Christ is a man.’” (Panarion 54.1.9)

[4] “Theodotus, however, says, ‘The holy apostles called him “a man approved among you by signs and wonders;” and they did not say, “a god approved.”’” (Panarion 54.5.9)

[5] “His next allegation is that ‘The apostle called him the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.’” (Panarion 54.6.1)

[6] “And in confirmation of these statements he says, ‘If there exist many so-called gods and many so-called lords, yet to us there is one God, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus the Messiah, through whom are all things and we for him.’” (Panarion 54.6.3)

[7] Apparently, Epiphanius was unaware that he was incorrectly reading fourth-century creedal definitions of “Son of God” back into first- and second-century texts, in which context “Son of God” simply referred to a righteous man or king of Israel (cf. 2 Sam. 7:14; 1 Chron. 28:5-6; Psa. 2:6-7; 82:6; 89:6, 20, 26-27; Wisdom 2.13-18; Sirach 4.10; 51.10; Philo, Conf. 145-147; Luke 1:32-33; John 1:49).

[8] This is markedly different than the argument from John 10:30 employed by trinitarians later on, who argued instead that this shows that Christ and the Father are “one essence.”

The evolution of early Christian theology: Third-century theologians (part 3 of 8)

Part 2: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-evolution-of-early-christian.html

    “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.” (John 1:1) This single verse from the Bible produced endless volumes of speculation during the first few centuries of Christianity. As we saw in the last post in this series on the evolution of early Christian theology, the earliest Christians interpreted the Logos as God’s plan or purpose regarding the Messiah (Odes of Solomon 7.7-8; 9.3; 16.19). In contrast, the apologists of the latter half of the second century AD believed (largely due to the influence of Platonism) that the Logos was Jesus in a pre-existent state, and that this Logos was generated from God’s own rationality at the beginning of creation (two-stage Logos theory).

    However, around the turn of the third century AD, a one-stage Logos theory arose and became dominant among Christian theologians. Under this theory, the Logos was always a personal being, and always existed with the Father, being ‘eternally generated’ by Him. In this article, we’ll take a look at the third-century theologians who taught this, and the disputes that arose as a result.

    Irenaeus of Lyons

The first Christian theologian who propounded a one-stage Logos theory was Irenaeus of Lyons, who was the bishop of Lyons in France until his death in AD 202. His writing career was contemporaneous with some proponents of two-stage Logos theory, including Theophilus of Antioch and Tertullian of Carthage. Irenaeus’ most famous work is Against Heresies (Adv. Haer.), which he authored in AD 180, intending it to be a comprehensive refutation of all the views which he deemed ‘heretical.’

    Although whether Irenaeus was a one- or two-stage Logos theorist is debated among scholars, several passages from Against Heresies suggest that he believed that the Son eternally existed alongside the Father. For example, consider the following excerpts:

But there is only one God, the Creator, He who is above every principality, and power, and dominion, and virtue; He is Father, He is God, He the Founder, He the Maker, He the Creator, who made those things by Himself, even through His Logos and Wisdom... He is the Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Through His Logos, who is His Son, through him He is revealed and manifested to all those to whom He is revealed; for only those to whom the Son has revealed Him know Him. But the Son, eternally co-existing with the Father, from of old, yea, from the beginning, always reveals the Father to angels, archangels, powers, virtues, and to all whom he wills that God should be revealed. (Adv. Haer. 2.30.9)

For with [God] were always present the Logos and Wisdom, the Son and Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom He also speaks, “Let us make man after our image and likeness” [Genesis 1:26]... I have largely demonstrated that the Logos, namely the Son, was always with the Father. (Adv. Haer. 4.20.1)

In these passages, Irenaeus demonstrates his belief that the Father alone is the only God, while at the same time stating that the Logos (Son) and Wisdom (Spirit) always existed with the Father. Furthermore, he repudiates the view held by two-stage Logos theorists that the generation of the Logos was analogous to speaking, in which a word first exists in the mind and then is uttered (Adv. Haer. 2.13.8; 2.28.4-6).

    Nevertheless, there is some ambiguity as to Irenaeus’ views, which has led to debate among scholars. Although he states that the Spirit/Wisdom was “always present” with God, he also says that Proverbs 8:22, “The Lord created me at the beginning of His ways in His work,” refers to the Spirit (Adv. Haer. 4.20.3). Elsewhere, he argues that no one can possibly understand how or when the Logos was generated, and quotes Isaiah 58:3 to this effect (Adv. Haer. 2.28.5-6). It appears that Irenaeus may have wavered back and forth between two- and one-stage Logos theory, or perhaps held neither of these views.

    Irenaeus’ views on the identity of the one God are far more clear than his views on the generation of the Logos. According to him, “the Father Himself is alone called God... moreover, the Scriptures acknowledge Him alone as God, and yet again, since the Lord confesses Him alone as his own Father, and knows no other” (Adv. Haer. 2.28.4). And again:

He is the only God, the only Lord, the only Creator, the only Father, alone containing all things, and Himself commanding all things into existence. (Adv. Haer. 2.1.1)

Therefore neither would the Lord, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the apostles, have ever named as God, definitely and absolutely, him who was not God, unless He were truly God; nor would they have named any one in his own person Lord, except God the Father ruling over all, and His Son who has received dominion from his Father over all creation (Adv. Haer. 3.6.1) 

Wherefore I do also call upon you, Lord God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob and Israel, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah... who is the only and the true God, above whom there is none other God... give to every reader of this book to know You, that You are God alone, to be strengthened in You, and to avoid every heretical, and godless, and impious doctrine. (3.6.4)

...neither the prophets, nor the apostles, nor the Lord Messiah in his own person, did acknowledge any other Lord or God, but the God and Lord supreme. The prophets and the apostles confessing the Father and the Son; but naming no other as God [than the Father], and confessing no other as Lord [than the Son]. And the Lord himself handing down to his disciples, that He, the Father, is the only God and Lord, who alone is God and ruler of all. (3.9.1)

We do indeed pray that these men may... cease blaspheming their Creator, who is both God alone and the Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. (3.25.7)

There are further statements in Against Heresies to this effect (e.g., 2.9.1; 3.15.3; 4.1.1-2), but this should suffice to show that Irenaeus considered the Father alone to be the true God, and was in this sense a unitarian. He also repeatedly described how the Son is subordinate to and lesser than the Father, and was given authority by the Father (Adv. Haer. 2.28.6, 8; 3.6.1; 3.12.9; 5.18.2). Yes, he refers to the Son as “God,” but he clarifies that this is because he is the visible image of God and begotten of God, not because he is God Himself (Adv. Haer. 4.6.6; Dem. 47).

    Irenaeus also reports the existence of a creed which the entire Church (that is to say, all of the sects which he considered ‘orthodox’) held to in his day. This creed states:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and sea and all the things in them; and in one Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, which proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God (Adv. Haer. 1.10.1)

This creed is unitarian, identifying the one God as the Father alone, and the “one Jesus” as the Son of that God. Although some trinitarians might argue that this creed is not explicitly unitarian, based on the way in which Irenaeus refers to the Father elsewhere, we can be fairly certain that it was identifying the Father alone as the one God. As such, not only Irenaeus, but the entire ‘orthodox’ (non-Gnostic) Church at the turn of the third century AD was unitarian in its theology.

    Hippolytus of Rome

Hippolytus of Rome was another third-century theologian, a student of Irenaeus, who wrote during the early third century and died in AD 235. Although several of his works survive today, his primary works are Against Noetus, a polemic against modalism, and his Refutation of All Heresies (Haer.). Like Tertullian, his writings might at first seem to be trinitarian when read in light of the later creeds. For example, consider the following passage:

If, then, the Logos was with God and was also God, what follows? Would one say that there are two Gods? I shall not, indeed, speak of two Gods, but of one; of two persons, however, and that a third economy is the grace of the Holy Spirit. For though the Father is one, there are two persons, because there is also the Son; and then there is the third, the Holy Spirit. The Father decrees, the Logos executes, and the Son is manifested, through whom the Father is believed on. This economy of harmony leads back to the one God, for there is one God. (Against Noetus 14)

This statement certainly seems trinitarian, or at least binitarian, and if this were taken out of context it might very well be. However, at the end of this passage, Hippolytus clarifies that by “one God” he refers to the Father alone:

Now the Father’s own Logos, knowing the economy and the will of the Father, that the Father seeks to be worshipped in no other way than this, gave this charge to the disciples after he rose from the dead: “Go and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” [Matthew 28:19] By this he showed that anyone who omits one of these fails to glorify God perfectly. For it is through this trinity that the Father is glorified. (Against Noetus 14)

When Hippolytus says, “This economy of harmony leads back to the one God, for there is one God,” he is evidently referring to the fact that “it is through this trinity that the Father is glorified.” Therefore, Hippolytus would today be classed as a unitarian, as he believed that the Father alone was the one God, and the purpose of the ‘trinity’ (of which God is a member) is to glorify God, the Father. We see this meaning of the word ‘trinity’ (trinitas) in the earlier writings of Theophilus and Tertullian.

    Unlike his teacher, Irenaeus of Lyons, Hippolytus held clearly to the two-stage theory of the Logos’ generation. In Against Noetus, he says:

God, subsisting alone, and having nothing contemporaneous with Himself, determined to create the world... Beside Him there was nothing, but He, while existing alone, yet existed in plurality. For He was neither without reason, nor wisdom, nor power, nor counsel. And all things were in Him, and He was the All. When He willed, and as He willed, He manifested His Logos in the times determined by Him, and by him He made the world... He begat the Logos...

And thus there appeared another beside Himself. But when I say “another,” I do not mean that there are two Gods, but that it is only as light from light, or as water from a fountain, or as a ray from the sun. For there is but one power, which is from the All; and the Father is the All, from whom comes this power, the Logos. And this is the mind which came forth into the world and was manifested as the Son of God. (Against Noetus 10-11)

Taken in isolation, Hippolytus’ statement that God “while existing alone, yet existed in plurality” might seem to be trinitarian (or at least binitarian). However, he immediately makes clear that by “plurality,” he means that God had reason and counsel within Himself, not that there were multiple persons within God. As he states later, “the Father is the All” who existed alone in the beginning. Then, the Father manifested His reason as the Logos by a free act, not out of necessity (Against Noetus 16), and “another appeared beside Himself.” This is a straightforward recitation of the tenets of two-stage Logos theory. But, Hippolytus says, this does not show that there are two Gods, because the Logos’ power is from the Father who is the one God.

    As far as I can tell, Hippolytus was the last ‘orthodox’ theologian to promote two-stage Logos theory. Despite believing that the Son came into existence some finite time ago, however, he still refers to the Logos as “God” (or “a god”) in Against Noetus 14 and elsewhere. Did he consider the Son to be the same God as the Father, and how can “God” have been created? Well, Hippolytus actually explains what he meant by calling the Logos “God” in his Refutation of All Heresies:

Therefore this supreme and solitary Deity [the Father], by an exercise of reflection, brought forth the Logos first... and He formed the ruler of all [Adam] and fashioned him out of all composite substances. The Creator did not wish to make him a god, and failed in His aim; nor an angel — be not deceived — but a man. For if He had willed to make you a god, He could have done so. You have the example of the Logos. His will, however, was that you should be a man, and He has made you a man. (Haer. 10.)

According to Hippolytus, if God had wanted to make Adam a god, He could have, because of the fact that He made the Logos a god! Thus, in his view, the Logos is not the one God — that is a title belonging to the Father alone — but was made to be a god by the Father. Hippolytus finishes his Refutation of All Heresies by saying to the ‘heretics’:

[If you become a Christian] you shall escape the boiling flood of hell’s eternal lake of fire... by being instructed in knowledge of the true God... And you shall be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by passions or lusts, and never again wasted by disease. For you have become a god: for whatever sufferings you did undergo while being a man, these He gave to you, because you were of the mortal mould; but whatever it is consistent for God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon you...

Be not inflamed, therefore, O you men, with enmity toward one another, nor hesitate to retrace with all speed your steps. For Christ is the god above all, and he has arranged to wash sin away from human beings, regenerating the old man... And provided you obey His solemn injunctions, and become a faithful follower of Him who is Good, you shall resemble Him, inasmuch as you shall have honor conferred onto you by Him. For the Deity does not, by condescension, diminish anything of the divinity of His divine perfection by having made you even God, unto His glory! (Haer. 10.30)

Therefore, Hippolytus believed that God could confer divine honor onto a created being and make him god (or God). The Logos, Christ, is the example of this, because God has made him “the god [or God] above all.” Hippolytus was most certainly a unitarian by the modern definition.

    Origen of Alexandria

Origen of Alexandria was a prolific Christian writer during the first half of the third century, until his death in AD 254. He was the first to write a systematic theology, setting down all of the teachings of what was considered ‘orthodox’ Christianity in his day in his book, On First Principles (De Principiis). He also authored an influential defense of Christianity against the critic Celsus, titled Against Celsus (Contra Celsum). During his life, he was venerated as a great teacher and apologist of Christianity.

    Origen was the first theologian to clearly articulate a one-stage Logos theory (unlike Irenaeus, who was unclear in his views). Like previous Christian writers, he applied Proverbs 8:22 (“the Lord created me at the beginning of His ways”) to the Son, but interpreted it very differently:

For He [the only-begotten Son of God] is termed Wisdom according to the expression of Solomon: “The Lord created me, the beginning of His ways, and among His works, before He made any other thing.” [Proverbs 8:22]... He is also styled Firstborn, as the apostle has declared: “he is the firstborn of every creature.” [Colossians 1:15] The Firstborn, however, is not by nature a different person than Wisdom, but one and the same. Finally, the apostle Paul says that “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” [1 Corinthians 1:24]

If, then, it is rightly understood that the only-begotten Son of God is His wisdom hypostatically existing... who can suppose or believe that God, the Father, ever existed even for a moment of time without having generated His Wisdom? For in that case he must say either that God was unable to generate Wisdom before He produced her, so that He afterward called into being her who did not formerly exist; or else that He possessed the power indeed, but was unwilling to use it, which cannot be said of God without impiety. Both of these suppositions, it is obvious to all, are alike absurd and impious...

For this reason we have always held that God is the Father of His only-begotten Son, who was indeed born of Him, and derives from Him what he is, but without any beginning, not only such as may be measured by any divisions of time, but even that which the mind alone can contemplate within itself, or behold, so to speak, with the naked powers of the understanding. And therefore we must believe that Wisdom was generated before any beginning that can be either comprehended or expressed. And since all the creative power of the coming creation was included in this very existence of Wisdom... she was created the beginning of the ways of God, inasmuch as she contained within herself either the beginnings, or forms, or species of all creation. (De Principiis 1.2.1-2)

According to Origen, because the Son is equivalent to Wisdom, and God was never without His wisdom, it’s impossible that God could have ever been without His Son. Origen believed that God has all of His attributes essentially, not contingently, (De Principiis 1.1.6) and as such He cannot cause His wisdom to become a person (as the two-stage Logos theorists believed). Instead, His Wisdom must have always been a person. Consequently, in his view, the Son is generated in an “eternal [aidios] and everlasting begetting, as brightness is begotten from light.” (De Principiis 1.2.4)

    Origen also held a more exalted view of the Son than the theologians and apologists before him. Earlier Christian writers rarely if ever assigned the title “Almighty” (Pantokrator) to the Son, but Origen argues that this title is proper for the Son, citing Jesus’ prayer to the Father, “All that are mine are Yours, and all that are Yours are mine,” to show that the Son has dominion over everything the Father does (De Principiis 1.2.10 cf. John 17:10). However, Origen also says that the Son’s dominion was given to him by the Father, and that he is fundamentally subordinate to the Father:

Him we affirm to be Son of God, yes, of that God which (to use the words of Celsus) “we most highly reverence”; and he is the Son who has been most highly exalted by the Father. We grant that there may be some among the multitudes of believers who are not in agreement with us, and incautiously assert that the Son is the Most High God; however we do not hold with them, but rather believe him who said: “The Father is greater than I.” [John 14:28] We would not, therefore, make Him whom we call Father inferior to the Son of God, as Celsus accuses us of doing...

Here, again, Celsus quotes from some most obscure sect of heretics, and ascribes them to all Christians. I call it “a most obscure sect,” because although we have often contended with heretics, we are unable to discover from what set of opinions he has taken this quote, if indeed he has quoted it from any author... For we... do declare that the Son is not mightier than the Father, but inferior to Him. And this belief we ground upon the saying of Jesus himself, “The Father who sent me is greater than I.” [John 14:28] ...

But when we affirm the Savior to be “God,” the Logos, and Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Truth, we certainly say that he is Lord over all things which have been subjected to him in this capacity, but not that his dominion extends over the God and Father who is Ruler over all. (Contra Celsum 8.14-15)

In this excerpt from Against Celsus, Origen takes Celsus to task for claiming that Christians believe the Son to be the Most High God. He states that Christians believe the Son to be inferior to the Father, having been given his entire dominion by the Father, and says that he is not aware of even a single sect of ‘heretics’ that makes Jesus out to be the Most High God.

    Origen’s belief in the subordination of the Son does not shine through as much in On First Principles as in Against Celsus. However, this isn’t because he changed his mind about the Son’s subordination. Rather, it’s because On First Principles was redacted by a trinitarian, Rufinus, in the fourth century, who stated in the preface to his translation of the book, “Wherever I have found in his [Origen’s] books anything contrary to the truth concerning the Trinity... I have either omitted it... or set it down in terms agreeing with the rule of faith.” Fortunately, several fragments from On First Principles (Peri Archon) that were omitted by Rufinus have been found:

the Savior… is an image of God’s goodness, but not goodness itself. And perhaps also the Son, while being good, is yet not good purely and simply. And just as he is the image of the invisible God, and in virtue of this is himself a god, and yet is not He of whom Christ himself says, “that they may know thee, the only true God.” [John 17:3] So he is the image of the goodness, and yet not, as the Father is, good without qualification. (Peri Archon 1.2.13)

Now this Son was begotten of the Father’s will, for he is the “image of the invisible God” and the “effulgence of his glory and the impress of his substance,” “the Firstborn of all creation,” a created thing [ktisma], Wisdom. For Wisdom herself says: “God created me in the beginning of his ways for his works”... and I would dare to add that, as he is a likeness of the Father, there is no time when he did not exist. (Peri Archon 4.4.1)

But someone will inquire whether it is true that God is known by Himself in the same way in which He is known by the only-begotten, and he will decide that the saying, “My Father who sent me is greater than I,” is true in all respects; so that even in His knowledge the Father is greater, and is known more clearly and perfectly by Himself than by the Son. (Peri Archon 4.4.8)

These fragments show that Origen’s subordinationism was not just a misunderstanding. On the contrary, Origen’s belief that the Son is subordinate to the Father so pervaded the original manuscript of On First Principles that later trinitarians, like Rufinus, simply omitted or altered the offending passages.

    Origen believed that the Son was “God” or “a god,” but not in the same sense that the Father is God; he is worshipped not because he is God Himself, but because he is the image of God, and we worship the Father through him (Contra Celsus 8.12-13). Responding to the charge that this makes two Gods, he states, “Christ Jesus was in the form of God, being other than the God in whose form he existed... a god distinct from this God in whose form he existed... we confess two gods... [but] the power is one... we must formulate the doctrine carefully, and show in what sense the two are one God... That is why we understand, in this sense, ‘I and the Father are one.’” (Dialogue with Heraclides)

    What exactly did Origen mean by this? He evidently thought that Jesus was a god in a different sense than the Father is God, but his statement that “the two are one God” and quotation of John 10:30 is confusing. Elsewhere, however, he interprets John 10:30 to mean that “while they [the Father and the Son] are two separate existences, they are one in unity of mind, in harmony, and in identity of will” (Contra Celsum 8.13). Because the Son is in unity with the Father, and his power is derived from the Father, “the power is one.” Whether this truly preserves Origen’s monotheism from the charge of two Gods is questionable, but it does show in what sense Origen believed the Son to be a god.

    That Origen believed the Son to be a god lesser than the Father is confirmed by his commentary on John 1:1 (“and the Word was theos”):

Now there are many people who wish to be pious and are troubled [by John 1:1] because they are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into false and impious doctrines. Either they deny that the Son has an individual nature distinct from the Father, by confessing him to be God whom they refer to as “Son” in name only; or they deny the divinity of the Son, making his individual nature and essence to be different from the Father, so that they are separable from one another. (Commentary on John 2.2)

In response to these monarchians, who either deny that the Son is a different person from the Father (modalism) or deny the divinity of the Son, what does Origen do? Unlike later trinitarians, he does not argue that the Son and the Father are the same God, and that this solves the problem. On the contrary, he argues the opposite:

To such people we have to say that God, with the article, [Greek: ho theos] is True God; and so the Savior says in his prayer to the Father, “That they may know you, the only true God“ (John 17:3). But all that is beyond the True God is made ‘God’ [or: a god] by participation in His divinity, and is not properly called “the God” [ho theos] but “God” [theos, a god].

To be sure, the Firstborn of all creation, who was the first to be with God and to attract to himself divinity, is more exalted than the other gods beside him [Christians], of whom God is the God, as it is said, “The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and called the earth.” [Psalm 49:1] It was by his [the Son’s] ministry that they [Christians] became gods, for he drew from God that they might be deified, sharing ungrudgingly with them according to his goodness.

The True God is then “the God.” [ho theos] The others are gods formed after Him as images of the prototype. But again, the archetypal image of the images is the Word with the God [ho theos], who was “in the beginning.” By being “with the God” he continues to always be a god. [theos] But he would not have this if he were not with the God, and he would not always remain a god if he did not continue in unceasing contemplation of the depths of the Father. (Commentary on John 2.2)

This is extremely different than the view held by trinitarians, who believe that John 1:1 shows that the Son is the same God as the Father. Origen, on the other hand, believed that the difference between ho theos and theos in John 1:1 was significant, and that it was saying that the Logos was “a god” by virtue of being “with the God.” Therefore, despite believing that the Son existed eternally in the past, Origen was a unitarian who believed that the Father is the only true God, and that the Son is a lesser god who derives his power from the Father.

    Novatian of Rome

Novatian was a Christian priest and theologian who lived in Rome in the middle of the third century, during the Decian persecution. For one year, from AD 250-251, during an interim in which there was no bishop (because of persecution), he was appointed to be one of several leaders of the church in Rome. Afterward, there was a schism in the Roman church in which some Christians backed Novatian as bishop of Rome, and others supported another priest named Cornelius. This schism was not the result of theological disputes, but on the issue of whether Christians who had denied Christ (because of the persecution) should be allowed to be re-baptized. Ultimately, Cornelius was accepted as bishop.

    Because Novatian was accepted as bishop of Rome by so many, and his only point of disagreement with his opponents was regarding the baptism of the lapsed, we can be sure that his theology reflects the orthodoxy of the mid-third century AD. So what were his views about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit? Fortunately, one of his surviving works titled On the Trinity deals precisely with this very question. Despite the book’s name, however, Novatian in no way defended the trinitarianism of later creeds. On the contrary, he believed that the Father alone is truly God:

The Rule of truth requires that we should first of all believe in God, the Father and Lord Almighty, that is, the perfect Founder of all things… And over all these things He Himself, containing all things and having nothing vacant beyond Himself, has left room for no superior God… Him, then, we know and acknowledge to be God, the Creator of all things. Lord on account of His power, Parent on account of His discipline. Him, I say, who spoke and all things were made, He commanded and all things went forth…

Him [the Father] alone the Lord [Jesus] rightly declares good, [Mark 10:18] and of His goodness the whole world is witness… And thus He [the Father] is declared to be one, having no equal. For whatever can be God, must necessarily be the Highest. But whatever is the Highest must certainly be the Highest in such sense as to be without any equal… This God [the Father], then, setting aside the fables and figments of heretics, the Church knows and worships…

The same Rule of truth teaches us to believe, after the Father, also on the Son of God, Messiah Jesus, the Lord our God, but the Son of that God who is both one and only, to wit the Founder of all things, as has already been expressed above. (On the Trinity 1-9)

Thus God, the Father, the Founder and Creator of all things, who alone knows no beginning, invisible, infinite, immortal, eternal, is one God; to whose greatness or majesty or power, I would not say that nothing can be preferred, but nothing can be compared... the Father is proved to be one God, while by degrees in reciprocal transfer that majesty and divinity are again returned and reflected as sent by the Son himself to the Father, who had given them, so that reasonably God, the Father, is God of all, and the source also of His Son himself whom He begot as Lord.

Moreover, the Son is God of all else, because God the Father put him before all, whom He begot. Thus the mediator of God and men, Messiah Jesus, having the power of every creature subjected to him by His own Father, inasmuch as he is god; with every creature subdued to him, found at one with his Father God, has, by abiding in that condition that he moreover “was heard,” briefly proved God, His Father, to be one and only and true God. (On the Trinity 31)

Novatian makes clear that, in his view, the Father is absolutely unequaled and there can be no other God beside Him. The Son’s authority and dominion are not his in and of himself, but were given to him by the Father. In this sense, Novatian was obviously a unitarian, not a trinitarian, despite the title of his book.

    Nevertheless, he also referred to Jesus as “the Lord our god,” and argued at length that the title “god” is applicable to Jesus (On the Trinity 11-21). How is this compatible with his strictly monotheistic belief that the Father alone is the one God? Apparently, this troubled Novatian (or at least his opponents) as well, because he spends an entire chapter at the end of the book arguing that Jesus can be another god without threatening the unique Deity of the Father:

It is most faithful that Jesus Christ the Son of God is our Lord and god… What, then, shall we say? Does Scripture set before us two Gods? How then does it say that “God is one”? Or is not Christ god also? How, then, is it said to Christ, “My Lord and my god”?… And in the first place, we must turn the attack against them who undertake to make against us the charge of saying that there are two Gods.

It is written, and they cannot deny it, that “there is one Lord.” What, then, do they think of Christ? That he is Lord, or that he is not Lord? But they do not doubt absolutely that he is Lord; therefore, if their reasoning is true, here are already two Lords.

And Christ is called the “one Master.” Nevertheless we read that the Apostle Paul is also a master. Then, according to this, our Master is not one, for from these things we conclude that there are two masters. How, then, according to the Scriptures, is “one our Master, even Christ”?

In the Scriptures there is “one called Good, even God”; but in the same Scriptures Christ is also asserted to be good. There is not, then, if they rightly conclude, one Good, but even two goods. How, then, according to the scriptural faith, is there said to be only one Good?

But if they do not think that it can by any means interfere with the truth that there is one Lord, that Christ is also Lord, nor with the truth that one is our Master, that Paul is also our master, or with the truth that one is Good, that Christ is also called good; on the same reasoning, let them understand that, from the fact that God [the Father] is one, no obstruction arises to the truth that Christ is also declared to be a god. (On the Trinity 30)

Novatian’s argument here is obvious: just because there is one person deserving of a title in an absolute sense does not mean that other people cannot also be called by that title. Christ is called “our only Master,” but Paul is also a master; thus, in one sense, there is one (absolute) Master, but two masters. To use a modern analogy, the CEO of a company is the only person in the company who is absolutely boss, but people lower in the hierarchy can also be called “Boss” in a relative sense. Therefore, just because “God is one” does not mean that Jesus, to whom the Father has subjected all other things, cannot be called a god.

    That Novatian did not believe the Son to be God, but merely ‘God’ or a god, is confirmed in the last chapter of his book. Here, he describes a number of counterpossibles in which case the Son would have been a second God. He states:

Assuredly [the Logos is] a god proceeding from God, causing a person second to the Father as being the Son, but not taking from the Father that characteristic that He is one God. For if he [the Logos] had not been born... he would make two unborn beings, and thus would make two Gods. If he had not been begotten... they not being begotten, would reasonably have been given two Gods. Had he been formed without beginning like the Father... this would have made two Beginnings, and consequently two Gods also. Had he been invisible... he would have shown forth two Invisibles, and thus also he would have proved them to be two Gods. If incomprehensible, or whatever other attributes belong to the Father, reasonably, we say, he would have given rise to two Gods... But now, whatever he is, he is not of himself... and therefore he declared that God is one. (On the Trinity 31)

Because the Logos does not have the attributes which properly belong to the one God, the Logos is not a second God, but is merely ‘God’ or a god, and therefore this does not threaten the monotheistic creed that “God is one.” Novatian, then, was definitively a unitarian, as he believed that the Father is the only one who is God, and that the Son is not the same God as the Father, but a god given authority by the Father.

    Finally, what was Novatian’s view on the generation of the Logos? Although his opinion about this is not exactly clear, he appears to have been a one-stage Logos theorist, following Origen. In the last chapter of On the Trinity, he describes his view of the Logos’ generation:

[The Son], then, since he was begotten from the Father, is always in the Father. And I thus say always, not that I may show him to be unborn, but born. But he who is before all time must be said to have always been in the Father, for no time can be assigned to him who is before all time. And he is always in the Father, unless the Father is not always Father; only that the Father precedes him — in a certain sense — since it is necessary — in some degree — that He should exist before He is Father. This is because it is essential that He who knows no beginning must go before him who has a beginning. (On the Trinity 31)

So, did Novatian believe that the Son is eternally generated from the Father, or that the Son began to exist some finite time ago? Again, it’s not entirely clear, because he seems to contradict himself. You can decide for yourself whether he was a two-stage or one-stage Logos theorist. Either way, it is interesting that the statement, “God should exist before He is Father,” was considered perfectly orthodox less than a century before Arius was condemned as a heretic for making precisely this claim.

    Conclusion

From the late second century up to the mid-third century AD, one-stage Logos theory — the belief that the Son is eternally generated by the Father — supplanted a belief in two-stage Logos theory (that the Son was created at the beginning of time). However, even though theologians during this period believed that the Son existed eternally, they were all unanimous in their claim that the Father is the only true God, and that the Son is only ‘God’ or a god, and is lesser than the Father. Today, this is known as the 'heresy' of subordinationism, the view that the Son is co-eternal with but subordinate to God, the Father. Up to the mid-third century, a progression in the direction of trinitarianism can be seen, but no ‘orthodox’ theologian yet dared to assert that the Son was the Most High God equal to the Father.

    In the next post in this series, we’ll take a look at some of the opposing theories about the relationship between the Father and the Son during the second and third centuries. Also, what did theologians at this time believe about the Holy Spirit?

Part 4: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-evolution-of-early-christian_0186429235.html

The evolution of early Christian theology: Second-century apologists (part 2 of 8)

Part 1: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-evolution-of-early-christian.html

     In this series of posts, we’re looking at the evolution of Christian views on God (the Father), the Son, and the Holy Spirit, during the first several centuries of Christianity. As we saw in the first post, there are no writings from the first or early second century AD that advocate trinitarianism (one God in three persons); instead, all of these texts identify the Father alone as the one true God, and the Son and Holy Spirit as subordinate to Him (unitarianism). These texts are divided on the issue of whether Jesus existed consciously before his birth, as well as if the Holy Spirit is an angel subordinate to God or an impersonal power of God.

    In the later second century, however, an increase in Hellenistic influence led to several new theories about the nature of Jesus and his relationship to God. In this post, we’ll take a look at the theory which prevailed among Christian theologians for most of the second century, now known as two-stage Logos theory.

    Two-stage Logos theory

In the first century, there was very little focus on the Son as the Logos (Word). The only text which consistently refers to the Son as the Logos is the Odes of Solomon, which interprets the pre-incarnate Logos as an impersonal plan or purpose in the mind of God — “the holy thought which God has thought concerning His Messiah” (Odes 7.7-8; 9.3; 16.19; 41.11-15). This interpretation of Logos is based on the Hebraic understanding of “the word,” which in the Hebrew Bible always refers to an impersonal (occasionally personified) attribute of God. [1]

    However, in the mid-second century, there were a number of Hellenistic philosophers who were converted to Christianity and became prolific Christian writers: most prominently, Theophilus of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Tatian of Adiabene, and Clement of Alexandria. [2] These writers imported into Christianity ideas from Hellenistic philosophy, especially Platonism. One tenet of Platonism the idea that God is too transcendent to directly deal with the material world, and so He acts through a personal demiurge, the Logos. Through the lens of Platonism, the second-century Christian apologists re-interpreted the Logos of the Bible as referring to the Logos of Platonism. [3]

    The second-century apologists were especially influenced by the writings of Philo of Alexandria, a first-century Hellenistic Jew who incorporated the concept of the Logos as demiurge into his Judaism. According to Philo, there were two different stages in the Logos’ existence: the internal (endiathetos) Logos and the uttered (prophorikos) Logos. Philo wrote that:

Logos has two aspects, one resembling a spring and the other its outflow. Logos in the understanding resembles a spring, and is called ‘Reason,’ while utterance by mouth and tongue is like its outflow, and is called ‘Speech.’ (Migr. 70-71)

‘Sound’ is a figure for the uttered Logos, and ‘father’ for the ruling mind, since the internal thought is by its nature father of the uttered, being senior to it, the secret begetter of what it has to say. (Abr. 83)

For the Logos is twofold in the universe as well as human nature. In the universe we find it in one form dealing with the incorporeal and archetypal ideas from which the intelligible world was framed, and in another with the visible objects which are the copies and likenesses of these ideas and out of which this sensible world was produced. With man, in one form it resides within, in the other it passes out from him in utterance. (Mos. 2.127)

Thus, for Philo, the Logos existed first internally as a thought in the mind of God, and subsequently was ‘uttered’ and became the agent of creation. It is in this sense that Philo could speak of the Logos as “neither being uncreated nor created” (Her. 205-206). The uttered Logos came into being in the beginning and is the most ancient of God’s creations (LA 3.175), but the internal Logos always existed in the mind of God, so the Logos can neither be said to be created nor uncreated.

    James D. G. Dunn has cogently argued that Philo’s Logos is not a personal demiurge, but the personification of God’s reason. [4] Nonetheless, as we will see, the Christian apologists of the second century adapted his two-stage Logos theory to fit their theology, taking the uttered Logos to be the personal demiurge, which (in their view) later became Jesus the Messiah.

    Justin Martyr

The first second-century Christian writer to advocate two-stage Logos theory was Justin Martyr, who wrote in the mid-second century and died in AD 165. Only three of his works survive today: his First Apology, Second Apology, and Dialogue with Trypho. Throughout his writings, he expresses a belief that Jesus pre-existed his birth as the Logos (1 Apol. 5; 2 Apol. 6; 13); however, he admits that this belief was not held by most of his Christian contemporaries (Dial. 48). Furthermore, he repeatedly states in no uncertain terms that the Father alone is the one God:

We are not atheists, worshipping as we do the Maker of this universe... also we reasonably worship [Jesus], having learned that he is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, as we will prove. For they proclaim our madness to be in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, creator of all. (1 Apol. 13)

[We baptize in] the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe... For no one can utter the ineffable name of God... And in the name of Jesus the Messiah, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Spirit. (1 Apol. 61)

We bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus the Messiah, and through the Holy Spirit. (1 Apol. 67)

[The prophets] both glorified the Creator, the God and Father of all things, and proclaimed His Son, the Messiah sent by Him. (Dial. 7)

Justin Martyr used Father as the title of the one true God, not as one third of a triune God (2 Apol. 6 cf. 1 Apol. 8; 46; Dial. 60; etc.). He clearly believed that the Father alone is the absolute God, and that the Son and Spirit are second and third to Him. The Son, in his view, is “the Son and Apostle of God, the Father of all” (1 Apol. 12; 63).

    Nevertheless, in his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin did also refer to Jesus as “god and lord of hosts” and argued at length that these titles were applicable to Jesus (Dial. 36-38; 55-63). How can this be reconciled with his belief that the Father alone is God? Elsewhere in the Dialogue, he explains that there are two gods, and god, the Son, is subject to God, the Father, and is only a god because the Father made him so.

I shall attempt to persuade you of the truth of what I say, that there is, and that there is said to be, another god and lord subject to the Maker of all things, who is also called an angel because he announces to men whatsoever the Maker of all things — above whom there is no other God — wishes to announce to them. (Dial. 56)

Jesus the Messiah [is] the lord of hosts according to the will of the Father (Dial. 85)

There is another Lord in heaven, who also is Lord of the lord [Jesus] on earth, as He is Father and God, and the cause of his [Jesus’] power and of his being lord and god. (Dial. 129)

Thus, Justin’s view was thoroughly unitarian; he believed that the Father was the only absolute God, and that Jesus was a god, subordinate to the one true God, because the Father willed it.

    Justin was also significantly influenced by the Platonist idea that God is so thoroughly transcendent that He cannot interact with His creation. According to him, “he who has but the smallest intelligence will not venture to assert that the Maker and Father of all things, having left all super-celestial matters, was visible on a little portion of the earth” (Dial. 60; 127). As a result, he interpreted all of the theophanies (appearances of God) in the Old Testament as appearances of the second god, the Logos (Dial. 55-60, 75).

    Justin also argued for two-stage Logos theory — that is, that the Logos (who later became Jesus) was generated in the beginning out of God’s thought:

I shall give you another testimony, my friends, from the Scriptures, that God begot before all creatures a Beginning, who was a certain rational power proceeding from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, “the Glory of the Lord,” “the Son,” “Wisdom,” “an angel,” “god,” and “lord” and “Logos”... for he can be called by all those names, since he ministers to the Father’s will, and was begotten by an act of the Father’s will.

This is just as we see happening among ourselves; for when we speak some word [logos], we beget the word; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the rational power [logos] within us, when we speak the word. And we also see this happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it kindles another, but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled. (Dial. 61)

This is very similar to Philo’s description of God uttering the Logos. And to remove all doubt that this is what Justin intended to say, he adds that this is the same as when a human speaks a word; the word first exists (in some sense) as a rational power within one’s mind, and subsequently comes into existence (in another sense) when it is uttered. He is also at pains to show that the Father’s rationality was not lessened by uttering the Logos, and uses the analogy of a fire lighting a smaller fire, which does not lessen the first fire (cf. Dial. 128).

    Justin also states elsewhere that the words of Proverbs 8:22, “The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works,” apply to the Logos, who was begotten and created at the beginning of time (Dial. 129). Therefore, Justin Martyr was a unitarian who believed that the Father was the absolute God, and that the Logos (the Son) was begotten as an act of the Father’s will at the beginning of creation. The Logos is a god, but not the same God as the Father, and subordinate to the Father. This is most definitely not trinitarianism, but the same view which would later be condemned as ‘Arianism.’

Theophilus of Antioch

The next second-century apologist that we will look at is Theophilus of Antioch, who was the bishop of Antioch from AD 169 to 183. Unfortunately, only one of his works survives, an apology written to one of his unbelieving friends, titled To Autolycus. To Autolycus is actually the first Christian text to use the word “trinity” (trias) to refer to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. However, in context, it is clear that Theophilus was not referring to the Trinity of later creeds (one God in three persons), as he defines trias as “God, and His Logos [the Son], and His Wisdom [the Spirit]” (To Autolycus 2.15). Elsewhere, he says:

Who is the Physician? God, who heals and makes alive through His Logos and His Wisdom. God by His own Logos and Wisdom made all things, for “by His Logos were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the Spirit of His mouth.” [Psalm 33:6] (To Autolycus 1.7)

Theophilus did not believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all persons within the one God who is the Trinity. Rather, he referred to the Father alone as God, and believed that the Logos (Son) and Wisdom (Spirit) were intermediates through whom God creates and heals all things.

    When, then, did Theophilus believe that the Logos came into being, or did he believe that he eternally existed? His view on the generation of the Logos is nuanced; he held to the same two-stage Logos theory as Philo, and so he believed that in some sense, the Logos was uncreated, but in another sense, he was created. This can be clearly seen in two passages from To Autolycus:

God, then, having His own Logos internal [endiatheton] within his inner parts, begot him, emitting him along with His own Wisdom before all things. He had this Logos as a helper in the things that were created by Him, and through him He made all things. He [Logos] is called “beginning,” because he rules and is Lord of all things fashioned by himself. (To Autolycus 2.10)

...truth expounds that the Logos, which always exists, resides in the heart of God. For before anything came into being He had him as a counselor, being His own mind and thought. But when God wished to make all that He had determined, He begot this Logos, uttered [prophorikon], the firstborn of all creation...

And hence the holy writings teach us, and all the Spirit-inspired men, one of whom, John, says, “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God,” showing that at first God was alone and the Logos was in Him. Then he says, “The Logos was God; all things came into being through him, and apart from him not one thing came into being.” The Logos, then, being a god, and being naturally produced from God, whenever the Father of the universe wills, He sends him to any place. (To Autolycus 2.22)

Theophilus clearly describes two different stages of the Logos’ existence. In the first stage, the Logos is within God, “being His own mind and thought.” Then, when God decides to create, He brings about the second stage of the Logos’ existence, emitting and begetting him so that He can create through him. Theophilus even uses Philo’s own terminology, referring to the first stage as “internal” (endiathetos) and the second stage as “uttered” (prophorikon).

    Interestingly, Theophilus uses John 1:1 as a proof-text for the two stages of the Logos. In his interpretation, the first stage is represented by the words, “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God,” which refers to when the Logos was internal to God, being His own thought. The second stage is then represented by the words, “and the Logos was God,” which he interprets to mean that God produced the Logos as a separate god.

    With regard to the Spirit, Theophilus makes comparatively few remarks, but he does state that God emitted the Logos “with His own Wisdom,” suggesting that he believed the Spirit was also created at the same time that the Logos was begotten. Therefore, Theophilus’ theology in To Autolycus is undoubtedly non-trinitarian; he did not believe that God was the Trinity, but that God (the Father) was a member of the ‘trinity’ along with two lesser gods, the Logos and the Spirit.

    Athenagoras of Athens

Very little is known about Athenagoras of Athens, another second-century Christian apologist, apart from the two writings that he authored, Embassy for the Christians (Legatio) and On the Resurrection of the Dead. Concerning the one true God and the Logos, Athenagoras writes:

...we acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, illimitable, who is apprehended only by the understanding and reason, who is encompassed by light, and beauty, and spirit, and power, ineffable, by whom the universe has been created through His Logos, and set in order, and kept in being — I have said enough.

I say “His Logos” for we acknowledge also a Son of God. Nor let anyone think it is ridiculous that God should have a Son. For though the poets, in their fictions, represent the gods as no better than men, our mode of thinking is not the same as theirs, concerning either God, the Father, or the Son. But the Son of God is the Logos of the Father, in idea and in operation. For after the pattern of him and through him all things were made, the Father and the Son being one. And the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son, in oneness and in power of spirit, the mind and reason [logos] of the Father is the Son of God.

But if, in your surpassing intelligence, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by the Son, I will state briefly that he is the first product of the Father, not as having been brought into existence — for from the beginning, God who is the eternal Mind had reason [logos] in Himself, being from eternity reasonable — but coming forth to be the idea and energy of all material things. (Legatio 10)

From this passage, it’s clear that Athenagoras believed that the one true God which “we acknowledge” is the Father. Furthermore, he held to two-stage Logos theory, believing that at first “God who is the eternal Mind had reason [logos] in Himself“ and subsequently the Logos “came forth” and became “the first product of the Father.” Athenagoras is reluctant to say that the Logos was brought into existence, because the Father could not have had reason (logos) if the Logos did not exist. Nevertheless, he clearly states that the Logos came into a personal existence a finite time ago.

    Despite the fact that Athenagoras’ theology was clearly non-trinitarian, there is an interesting proto-trinitarian formulation elsewhere in his Legatio:

For we acknowledge a God, and a Son (His Logos), and a Holy Spirit, united in essence; the Father, the Son, the Spirit, because the Son is the intelligence, reason, wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit an effluence, as light from fire.

Here, he refers to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as “united in essence [ousia],” similar to later trinitarian creeds which would state that God is “one essence [ousia] and three persons.” Athenagoras clearly does not mean to say what the later creeds intended by it, which is that all three persons were a singular God; he identifies the Father alone as “a God” and the other two as His intermediaries. Nevertheless, this language would later go on to provide the framework for trinitarian theology.

    Tatian of Adiabene

Tatian of Adiabene was an Assyrian Christian theologian who was convinced of Christianity’s truth by the earlier philosopher, Justin Martyr, whose views we have already seen. Tatian wrote an apology titled Address to the Greeks (Oratio) along with a harmony of the four gospels (the Diatesseron). Strangely, throughout his entire defense of Christianity he never mentions Jesus once, but refers to the Logos in two passages:

God was in the beginning; but the beginning, we have been taught, is the potentiality of the Logos. For the Lord of the universe is Himself the necessary foundation of all being; now inasmuch as He was all potentiality, Himself the necessary foundation of things visible and invisible, with Him were all things. With Him the Logos himself also, who was in Him, subsists by the Logos-potentiality. And by His simple will the Logos springs forth, and the Logos, not coming forth in vain, becomes the first-begotten work of the Father… For just as from one torch many fires are lighted, but the light of the first torch is not lessened by the lighting of many torches, so the Logos, coming forth from the Logos-potentiality of the Father, has not divested [God] of the Logos-potentiality. (Oratio 5)

For the heavenly Logos, a spirit emanating from the Father and a Logos from the Logos-potentiality, in imitation of the Father who begot him made man an image of immortality (Oratio 7)

In these two passages, Tatian makes mention of something which he calls the “potentiality” (dunamis) of the Logos. The Greek word dunamis can refer to either the power of something, or the potentiality for something to exist before it is made. In this context, it refers to potentiality, as Tatian says that all things were with God before they were created inasmuch as their dunamis (potentiality) was within Him. Therefore, when Tatian states that the Logos is from the Logos-potentiality, he is saying that the Logos existed as a potentiality in the mind of God before it “sprang forth” or “came forth,” becoming “the first-begotten work of the Father.”

    Tatian has little concern for the Holy Spirit as a separate person. He interchangeably states that the Logos is the Spirit — or “a spirit”? — and that God, the Father, is the Spirit (Oratio 4; 6; 13; 15). Unlike Theophilus and Athenagoras, he never describes a ‘trinity’ of God, Logos, and Spirit, but leaves the Holy Spirit (as a separate person) out of his writings entirely.

    Clement of Alexandria

Another second- and early third-century apologist was Clement of Alexandria, who was a teacher at the Catechetical School in Alexandria and died in AD 215. Whether he believed in a two- or one-stage Logos theory has been debated among scholars, [5] but the evidence from his writings seems to favor the two-stage view.

    In favor of the view that Clement had a one-stage theory of the Logos (‘eternal generation’), we read in his Stromata that the Son is “the oldest in generation, the timeless and beginningless, the first principle and firstling of existences” (7.1.2), and in his Protrepticus, the post-resurrection Christ is “the eternal [aidios] Son” (12.121). However, Philo also referred to the second stage of the Logos as “the oldest of existences” (Det. 31; 118) and “the oldest and most universal of all created things” (LA 3.175), as well as “the eternal Logos” with reference to its unendingness (Plant. 18), so this terminology is not unprecedented among two-stage Logos theorists. When Clement refers to the Son as “the eternal Son,” it is in the context of his post-resurrection immortality (Protrept. 12.119ff).

    The ambiguity of these extracts, which could represent either one- or two-stage Logos theory, is overshadowed by other passages in Clement that clearly express two-stage Logos theory. Consider the following:

Now an idea is a conception of God, and this the [philosophers] have termed the Logos of God... Now the Logos, coming forth, was the cause of creation; then he also generated himself, when “the Logos became flesh” [John 1:14] that he might be seen. (Strom. 5.3.15-16)

This passage describes both stages of the Logos; it begins as a conception in the mind of God, and subsequently “comes forth” when God decides to create. This is supported elsewhere in Clement where he refers to the second stage of the Logos as “the genuine son of Nous,” where “Nous” is the Platonic world of ideals from which ideas come (Protrept. 10.98; Strom. 4.25.155). Thus, in Clement’s view, the Logos came from an idea in the mind of God.

    Furthermore, quoting from an apparently lost work of Clement, Photius in the ninth century states,

[Clement] reduces the Son to something created... He is further convicted of monstrous statements about two Logoi of the Father, the lesser of which appeared to mortals... for he writes, “The Son is called the Logos, of the same name as the paternal Logos. But this [the paternal Logos] is not the Logos that became flesh, and not the Logos of the Father, but a certain power of God, as if it were an emanation of His Logos that has become mind and pervaded the hearts of men.“ (Photius, Bibliotheca 109)

Here, Clement clearly distinguishes between the two stages of the Logos, the first of which (“the paternal Logos”) is merely a power or attribute of God, and the second of which is the Son that became flesh.  Evidently, then, Clement was a two-stage Logos theorist. He also refers to the Logos as “Wisdom, the first creation of God” (Strom. 5.14) and “the first-created god,” (Exc. ex Theo. 20) and to the Son and Spirit as “those primitive and first-created powers” (Comm. in 1 John 2.1).

    In addition to being an adherent of two-stage Logos theory, Clement believed the Father alone to be the one God, as he referred to the Son as “he who is next to the One who alone is Almighty” (Strom. 7.2.5). According to Clement, the requirement of salvation is to “to know the eternal God, the giver of what is eternal, and by knowledge and comprehension to possess God, who is first, and highest, and one, and good... Next is to be learned the greatness of the Saviour after Him” (Quis div. salv. 8). Yes, the Son is “Savior and Lord of all,” but this is only “by the will of the Almighty Father,” and in this way the Son is “the Father’s power... an energy of the Father” (Strom. 7.2). Clement should, therefore, be considered a unitarian in that he believed the Father alone to be the Almighty God.

    Tertullian of Carthage

Tertullian of Carthage was a prolific Christian writer from the late second and early third century AD. Over two dozen of his writings survive today, and at least a dozen more are known to have been lost. However, he only deals explicitly with the relationship between God and the Logos in his two anti-modalistic polemics, Against Praxeas and Against Hermogenes. Tertullian repeatedly used the word “trinity” (trinitas) to describe the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in fact he uses much of the same terminology used by later trinitarians. Consider the following passage:

All are of one, that is by unity of essence [substantiae]; 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 Spirit. Three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in essence, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one essence, and one condition, 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. (Against Praxeas 2)

At first glance, this seems like standard trinitarian parlance. However, in context, Tertullian is actually saying something quite different than later trinitarians meant by these terms. The following passage is from the ninth chapter of Against Praxeas:

I am, moreover, obliged to say this... that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution; it is not by way of division that he is different, but distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ from one another in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire essence [substantia], but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as he himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than I.” [John 14:28] In the Psalm his inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the angels.” [Psalm 8:5]

In Tertullian’s view, the Father is the entire essence of God, whereas the Son has been derived from a portion of that essence. Elsewhere, he employs the analogy of a river flowing from its source, or a ray coming out of the sun (Against Praxeas 8); the river does not decrease the ‘essence’ of its source, nor the ray the ‘essence’ of the sun, but they are both a part of the ‘essence’ from which they come. The same is true of the Spirit, who in Against Praxeas 8 is said to be like a stream flowing from the river, or the apex of the sun’s ray; he is a part of the essence of the Son, who is in turn part of the essence of God, the Father.

    Thus, in Tertullian’s view, the Son and Spirit are not only functionally subordinate to the Father, but ontologically lesser than Him. This is explicitly stated in Against Praxeas 3, which says that the Son and Spirit “have the second and the third places assigned to them.”

    Because of the inherent subordination of the Son to the Father, although Tertullian does assign the title God to the Son — because he is from the substance of God — he also says, “if the Father and Son are both to be invoked, I shall call the Father ‘God’ and invoke Jesus Christ as ‘Lord’... But when Christ alone is mentioned, I shall be able to call him ‘God’” (Against Praxeas 13). Tertullian believed that the Father alone is absolutely God, whereas Jesus Christ is merely God relative to us, but not relative to the Father. This is dissimilar to the later trinitarian creeds, which were unafraid to call Jesus “God” alongside the Father.

    Furthermore, Tertullian did not believe that the Father’s essence had always been portioned out in this way, but that at some finite time ago, He brought forth the Logos, who in turn brought forth the Spirit:

There are some who allege that Genesis begins thus in Hebrew: “In the beginning God made for Himself a Son.” As there is no ground for this, I am led to other arguments derived from God’s own dispensation, in which He existed before the creation of the world, up to the generation of the Son. For before all things God was alone, being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone because there was nothing external to Him but Himself.

Yet even then He was not alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is, His own reason. For God is rational, and reason was first in Him, and so all things were from Himself. This reason was His own thought... For although God had not yet sent out His reason, He still had it within Himself, both in company with and included in His very reason... you also possess reason in yourself, being a rational creature... Whenever you think, there is a word [logos]; whatever you conceive, there is reason... Thus, in a certain sense, the word [logos] is a second person within you...

I may therefore without rashness first lay this down (as a fixed principle) that even then before the creation of the universe God was not alone, since He had within Himself both reason, and, inherent in reason, His Logos, which He made second to Himself by agitating it within Himself. This power and disposition is also set forth in the Scriptures under the name of Wisdom, for what can be better entitled to the name of Wisdom than the Reason or Logos of God? Listen therefore to Wisdom herself, constituted in the character of a second person: “At the first, the Lord created me as the beginning of His way”... that is to say, He created and generated me in His own intelligence. (Against Praxeas 5-6)

This is the clearest exposition of two-stage Logos theory among all of the second-century apologists. The Logos originally existed as God’s reason, which God then “created and generated” or “sent out” by “agitating it within Himself,” thus creating a “second person.”

    In Tertullian’s view, God was in some sense alone before “the generation of the Son,” because no other person existed alongside Him. However, in another sense, He was not alone because He had reason within Him; not that there was actually a second person within Him at that time, but because He was thinking to Himself. It’s heavily implied that the Son did not exist at that time, which is explicitly stated in Against Hermogenes 3, where Tertullian says:

[God] has not always been Father and Judge, merely on the ground of His having always been God. For He could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with Him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a Judge, and the latter a Father.

    Therefore, Tertullian was definitively not a trinitarian, although he used terminology like trinitas and substantia which would later be co-opted by trinitarian creeds. Rather, he was explicitly a unitarian, stating that the Father was the only one with the entirety of the divine essence, and that the Son was created at the beginning of time from the essence of the Father, as a river flows from its source. [6] The Holy Spirit was then created by and from the Son, as a stream flows from a river. In Tertullian’s own words, “the trinity,” that is, his interpretation of the relationships between God, His Son, and His Spirit, “does not at all disturb the monarchy [of the Father] while it at the same time guards the state of the economy [or hierarchy, i.e. between the three persons].” (Against Praxeas 8)

    Conclusion

In the second half of the second century AD, two-stage Logos theory — the belief that Jesus pre-existed as the Logos demiurge, which was begotten at the beginning of creation — became the dominant Christology. The first to introduce this concept to Christian theology was Justin Martyr, who admitted in the mid-second century that his view (of Christ’s pre-existence as the Logos) was in the minority (Dial. 48). Two-stage Logos theory was further developed by later second-century Christian theologians, all of whom identified the pre-existent Christ with the “uttered Logos” that came into existence at the beginning of creation.

    Furthermore, all of these writers were unanimous in identifying the Father alone as the one absolute God, or, using Tertullian’s terminology, the only one who is the entirety of the divine essence. The Son and Spirit were considered to be gods subordinate to the one God, or, using Tertullian’s terminology, being only part of the divine essence. All of the second-century apologists were all definitely unitarian in their theology, although it can still be seen that between the first and second centuries AD, Christian theology was progressing closer to trinitarianism. In the next post, we’ll look at the belief that the Son is ‘eternally begotten,’ and how this developed out of the two-stage Logos theories of the second century.

Part 3: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-evolution-of-early-christian_0560481137.html

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[1] All instances of the word logos in the Septuagint can be found here.

[2] Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 1.14; Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 2-8; Tatian, Address to the Greeks 42.

[3] Thomas E. Gaston, “The Influence of Platonism on the Early Apologists,” The Heythrop Journal 50, no. 4 (2009), 573-580.

[4] James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 2nd ed. (London: SCM Press, 1989), 220-228.

[5] H. A. Wolfson, “Clement of Alexandria on the Generation of the Logos,” Church History 20, no. 2 (1951), 72-81; M. J. Edwards, “Clement of Alexandria and His Doctrine of the Logos,” Vigiliae Christianae 54, no. 2 (2000), 159-177.

[6] Dale Tuggy, “Tertullian the Unitarian,” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8, no. 3 (2016), 179-199.