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. 7.3.15-16)
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 [ousia]; 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 [ousia], 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 ousia 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.
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