Part 4: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-evolution-of-early-christian_0186429235.html
So far in this series of blog posts, we’ve looked at the progression of theological views within the church up to about the mid-third century AD. In this post, though, we’re going to shift the focus away from specific theological views in the church, toward looking at how all of these different sects interacted in the fourth century and how, ultimately, trinitarianism came out on top. The title of this blog post is “pre-Nicene sects,” but that’s a bit of a misnomer, because although the sects that I’ll be describing here originated in the pre-Nicene period, they stayed around within the mainstream church for decades afterward as well. So, what sects were involved in the Nicene and post-Nicene controversies?
Subordinationists
The first of the main Christian sects of the fourth century was subordinationism. This is the view that Jesus is a god, the Logos, who exists co-eternally with the Father, but subordinate to the Father, so that the Father is the only true (absolute) God. As I showed in the third post of this series, this was the view held by the ‘proto-orthodox’ Christian writers of the third century, including Origen and Novatian. The subordination of the Son to the Father continued to be held by many theologians in the fourth century, and influenced many of the creeds written during this period (as I will show in another post).
One of the foremost subordinationists of the fourth century was Eusebius of Caesarea. Although today he is mostly remembered as a historian, he was also an influential theologian during his day, and wrote a systematic theology titled Ecclesiastical Theology, which was itself influenced strongly by Origen’s strain of subordinationism. Eusebius taught that both the Father and the Son are properly called “God” (in his view, the Holy Spirit cannot be called “God;” ET 3.6.3) but regarding the charge that this makes two Gods, he argued:
If the notion of proclaiming two gods makes them afraid, let them know that even when the Son is confessed by us to be God, the former [the Father] would still be the one and only God, the only one without source and unbegotten, the one who possesses the divinity as His own, and who has become the cause of being and of being in such a way for the Son himself. (ET 1.11.1)
Like Origen, Eusebius believed that Jesus was God, but only by “participating in the Father’s divinity itself, which pours into him like a fountain;” and this is “a divinity which is not his own” (ET 1.2 cf. Origen, Comm. on John 2.2). He also thought that the distinction between ho theos (the God) and theos (God) in John 1:1 was significant, and the fact that John only referred to the Logos as “God” rather than “the God” showed that Jesus is not “the God who is over all” (ET 2.17.1-3 cf. Origen, ibid.). Eusebius also believed that, although Jesus is “God,” the title “true God” applies only to the Father: “he himself is Son of God, but not true, as God is. For there is but one true God... ‘and the Logos was God,’ but not the one true God” (Letter to Euphration).
With regard to the subordination of the Son to the Father, Eusebius wrote:
...we neither deem them [the Father and the Son] equally worthy of honor, nor both without source and unbegotten, but deem the one [Father] as unbegotten and without source, while the other [Son] as begotten and having the Father as his source. For this reason, even the Son himself teaches that his Father is also his God, when he says, “I go to my Father and to your Father and to my God and to your God.” [John 20:17] Thus God is shown to be both Father and God of the Son himself. (ET 2.7.3-5)
Some have argued that Eusebius’ subordinationism is merely functional, since elsewhere he does say that the Son is in some way “true God” (though only as the image of the true God; ET 2.23.2-3), not a declension of the one God, the Father (DE 4.3), having been “made like, in the closest way possible, to the archetypal divinity of the Father” (ET 2.17.3). [1]
However, any doubt that he believed the Son to be ontologically lesser than the Father is removed by his Oration in Praise of Constantine, written in AD 335. This Oration describes the Son as the demiurge of Platonism, intermediate between the creation and the transcendent, inapproachable Creator:
For since it was impossible that perishable bodies, or the rational spirits which he had created, should approach the Supreme God, by reason of their immeasurable distance from His perfections, for He is unbegotten, above and beyond all creation, ineffable, inaccessible, unapproachable, dwelling (as His holy word assures us) in the light which none can enter... well has the all-gracious and Almighty God interposed, as it were, an intermediate Power between Himself and them, even the divine omnipotence of His only-begotten Logos… How else, consistent with His own holiness, could He who is far above and beyond all things unite Himself to corruptible and corporeal matter? Accordingly the divine Logos, thus connecting himself with this universe, and receiving into his hands the reigns, as it were, of the world, turns and directs it as a skillful charioteer according to His own will and pleasure. (Oratio 11.12)
But why do I dare essay a hopeless task, to recount the mighty works of the Logos of God and describe an energy which surpasses mortal thought? By some, indeed, he has been termed the Nature of the universe, by others the World-Soul, by others, Fate. Others again have declared him to be the Most High God himself, strangely confounding things most widely different. (Oratio 11.16)
Intermediate, as it were, and attracting the created to the uncreated Essence, this Logos of God exists as an unbroken bond between the two, uniting things most widely different by an inseparable tie. He is the Providence which rules the universe, the guardian and director of the whole; he is the Power and Wisdom of God, the only-begotten god, the Logos begotten of God Himself. (Oratio 12.7)
This theology and Christology is drawn directly from Platonism, in which God is a completely transcendent and unknowable being, only able to create or interact with the material universe through a demiurge. It is also plainly unitarian and subordinationist, in that it identifies the Father alone as the absolute, inapproachable God, and the Son as His ontologically intermediate Logos. Eusebius says that those who consider the Son to be the Most High God are “strangely confounding things most widely different” (cf. Origen, Contra Celsum 8.14).
Another theologically (and politically) influential bishop of the fourth century, Eusebius of Nicomedia, was also a subordinationist. He was distantly related to the family of the Roman emperor Constantine I, and is even thought to have baptized Constantine on his deathbed; he was also Archbishop of Constantinople (i.e., de facto religious leader of the East) for the last two years of his life, until his death in AD 341. Eusebius of Nicomedia was an avid subordinationist and ally of Arius. In a letter to the archbishop of Tyre, Paulinus, he wrote:
These opinions [that the Son is not one essence with the Father] we advance not as having derived them from our own imagination, but as having deduced them from Scripture, whence we learn that the Son was created, established, and begotten with respect to his essence and his unchanging, inexpressible nature, in the likeness of the one for whom he has been made. The Lord himself tells us this: “God created me the beginning of his ways” [Proverbs 8:22] (Letter to Paulinus 4)
Despite his disagreement with the statement that Jesus is homoousion (one essence) with the Father, Eusebius of Nicomedia signed the Nicene Creed, though he disagreed with the Council’s decision to excommunicate Arius.
Yet another subordinationist from this period was Lactantius, the religious advisor to the emperor Constantine I who died about AD 325. In his Divine Institutes, an apologetic book meant to convince the pagan constituents of the Empire of Christianity, he argued that there was only one true God, the Father:
[Hermes Trismegitus] wrote books, and those in great numbers, relating to the knowledge of divine things, in which he asserts the majesty of the Supreme and only God, and makes mention of Him by the same names which we use — God and Father. (Divine Institutes 1.6)
I have, as I think, sufficiently taught by arguments, and confirmed by witnesses, that which is sufficiently plain by itself, that there is only one King of the universe, one Father, one God. (Divine Institutes 1.7)
Only one, therefore, is to be worshipped, who can truly be called Father. (Divine Institutes 4.3)
Lactantius did not accept the Holy Spirit as a separate person as the Son, but identified the Son as both the Logos and Spirit of God. With regard to the generation of the Son, he writes:
Since God was possessed of the greatest foresight for planning, and the greatest skill for carrying out in action; before He commenced the business of the world — inasmuch as there was, and always is, in Him the fountain of full and most complete goodness — in order that goodness might spring as a stream from Him and might flow forth afar, He produced a Spirit like Himself, who might be endowed with the perfections of God, the Father. But how He willed that, I will endeavor to show in the fourth book. (Divine Institutes 2.9)
God, therefore, the Contriver and Founder of all things (as we have said in the second book) before He commenced the excellent work of the world, begot a pure and incorruptible Spirit, whom He called His Son. And although He had afterward created by Himself innumerable other beings, whom we call angels, yet this first-begotten was the only one whom He considered worthy of being called by the divine name, as being powerful in his Father’s excellence and majesty... Hermes, in the book which is entitled The Perfect Logos, made use of these words: “The Lord and Creator of all things, whom we have thought right to call God... made the second god visible and sensible.” (Divine Institutes 4.6)
Thus, in Lactantius’ view, the Son’s existence and godhood is entirely by the will of the Father. Because of this, he should be considered a subordinationist. It’s unclear from his writings whether he held to a two-stage or one-stage theory of the Logos.
Lactantius also argued that the Father and the Son can be considered one God in their unity (Divine Institutes 4.29). To support this point, he uses the same analogies used earlier by Tertullian in Against Praxeas, that the Father is like a fountain from which a stream (the Son) flows, and the Father is like the sun from which a ray (the Son) proceeds. He also uses a novel analogy: “When any one has a son whom he especially loves, who is still in the house, and in the power of his father, although he concede to him the name and power of a master, yet by the civil law the house is one, and one person is called master” (Divine Institutes 4.29). This analogy clearly shows that, according to Lactantius, the Father is the one absolutely called “God,” but the Son is also God by being a (subordinate) part of His household.
Thus, subordinationism was a major belief during the fourth century, held by theologically and politically influential individuals like Eusebius of Caesarea and Lactantius. Although I’ve only given three examples of subordinationists, the majority of bishops in the East and many in the West were also subordinationists during this period, as I will show in a future post. Unfortunately, not many subordinationist writings from the fourth century have survived, because they were later retroactively declared to be ‘heretical,’ even though they were well within the orthodoxy of their day.
Monarchians
Another sect during the fourth century was the Monarchians, led primarily by the bishop Marcellus of Ancyra. The Monarchians believed that the Father is the only god, and that there is no second god underneath Him, contrary to the subordinationists; they also believed that the Logos did not refer to a second divine being, but to the literal word/reason of God. Within the Monarchians of the fourth century, there were some who believed that Jesus was the same person as the Father, and some who believed that Jesus was only a man who was empowered by the Father’s word. However, the theological and Christological differences between these Monarchians were not as great as it may seem.
The primary proponent of Monarchianism during the fourth century was Marcellus, the bishop of Ancyra in Asia Minor, who played a central role in the Nicene and post-Nicene controversies. Unfortunately, he was later declared a heretic, and so his writings are largely lost to us. Nevertheless, over a hundred fragments from his book Against Asterius have survived, and from them we can reconstruct many of his beliefs. A translation of the surviving fragments from Against Asterius can be found here.
Marcellus believed that God was an absolute “monad” or unity, and that by sending out His word and spirit, “the monad, although indivisible, was expanded into a trinity” (Frag. 47-49). Thus there are not two or three hypostases (existences) but one hypostasis (Frag. 20, 50). He pointed out that in the Old Testament, God used singular pronouns to describe His unique divinity, so there can only be one divine person (Frag. 91, 92, 97). Consequently, the word of God cannot be a second god or Logos-demiurge, but is the literal reason and spoken word of God, similar to a human’s reason and spoken word (Frag. 67, 87-89, 99). Marcellus accuses Origen and the other Logos theorists of using unbiblical ideas from Platonic philosophy (Frag. 22), which was frankly not an incorrect accusation. This became a major point of contention between Marcellus and Eusebius of Caesarea (Against Marcellus 1.1.15, 32; 2.2.7; ET 1.1.4).
Because the word was not a personal demiurge, Marcellus believed that it “was only the word” before it took on flesh (Frag. 5, 7, 8). Therefore, all of the names and titles which are applied to Jesus in the New Testament, including “Jesus” and “Messiah,” must only apply to the human flesh which the word of God inhabited (Frag. 7). In refuting Asterius who believed that Jesus was the first created being, Marcellus replies that “the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15) refers to the fact that Jesus is the first “new man” (Eph. 2:15) and “firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18) to whom God subjected the creation (Frag. 11-15). Thus the statement that, in Jesus, all things were created (Col. 1:16), refers to the new creation (Frag. 16). This is the power and glory which was given to the human flesh after it was resurrected (Frag. 77-80).
Despite his interpretation of these passages, which was very similar to that of earlier Dynamic Monarchians, Marcellus was emphatic that Jesus was not only a man (Frag. 126-128). On the contrary, he states that the spirit of Jesus is identical to God, while by the flesh of Jesus, “the Deity seems to be widened with respect only to energy, such that He is rightly indivisible” (Frag. 73 cf. 104, 105). In other words, God directs the flesh of Jesus like a puppeteer, using His word and energy. Because the flesh of Jesus is merely an extension of God’s power, He will eventually draw this flesh, along with His word and spirit, back into Himself, thus ending the Son’s reign; Marcellus cites 1 Corinthians 15:28 to support this point (Frag. 99-104, 109-111). [2]
Although many disagreed with Marcellus about the end of the Son’s reign, the Western bishops considered him within the bounds of orthodoxy, but they disagreed with the Eastern bishops on this point. Marcellus was excommunicated for his beliefs by a synod of Eastern bishops in AD 336, apparently along with eleven other bishops who shared his views (Epiphanius, Panarion 72.11.1). He appealed this decision to the bishop of Rome, Julius, in a letter dating to AD 340:
Greetings in Christ from Marcellus to his most blessed fellow worker, Julius.
Some who were formerly convicted of heresy, and whom I confuted at the Council of Nicaea, have dared to write your Reverence that my opinions are neither orthodox nor in agreement with the church, thus endeavoring to have the charge against themselves transferred to me...
Now I, following the sacred scriptures, believe that there is one God and his only-begotten Son, the word which is always with the Father and has never had a beginning, but is truly of God—not created, not made, but forever existent, forever reigning with God and His Father, “of whose kingdom,” as the apostle testifies, “there shall be no end.” [Luke 1:33]
This Son, this power, this wisdom, this true and actual word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is a power inseparable from God, through whom all created things have been made as the Gospel testifies, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made.” [John 1:1, 3]
...Therefore I believe in [the Nicene creed].
I have learned from the sacred scriptures that the Godhead of the Father and of the Son cannot be differentiated. For if one separates the Son, that is, the word, from Almighty God, he must either suppose that there are two gods, which is agreed to be untrue to the sacred scripture, or else confess that the word is not God, which likewise is plainly untrue to the right faith, since the Evangelist says, “and the word was God.” But I understand perfectly that the Father’s power, the Son, is indistinguishable and inseparable. For the Savior Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, says, “The Father is in Me and I am in the Father,” “I and My Father are one,” and, “He that has seen Me has seen the Father.”
This faith, which I have both learned from the sacred scriptures and been taught by godly parents, I preach in God’s church and have now written down for you, keeping a copy for myself. I also request that you enclose a copy of it in your letter to the bishops, so that none of those who do not know me and my accusers well will be deceived by paying attention to what they have written. Farewell! (Epiphanius, Panarion 72.2.1-3.4)
Although this letter clearly articulates Marcellus’ belief in Modalistic Monarchianism, that is, that the Son is merely a power of the Father and identical with the Father, he was formally declared orthodox and reinstated as bishop by a council of Western bishops in AD 340 and again in AD 343, to the dismay of the Eastern bishops. He was excommunicated again by a council of Eastern bishops in AD 344, and died thirty years later in relative obscurity.
Another prominent Monarchian during the fourth century was Photinus, a student of Marcellus, who was bishop of Sirmium in modern-day Serbia during the 340s. He took Marcellus’ teachings one step further, and rather than saying that Jesus was entirely God’s word, argued that Jesus was a man, born of a virgin, who was empowered by God’s word. [3] This was, after all, the logical conclusion of Marcellus’ rejection of Logos theory and his belief that the statements about Jesus in the New Testament apply only to the human flesh. This highlights how similar the beliefs of Modalistic and Dynamic Monarchians were in the fourth century, despite their diametrically opposing views on the identity of Jesus.
Despite the similarity of Photinus’ and his teacher Marcellus’ beliefs, both Western and Eastern bishops were united in their condemnation of Photinus. He was officially deposed by a synod at Sirmium in AD 251, and their creed included several anathemas specifically against his doctrine:
(6) Whoever says that it was according to foreknowledge that the Son was before Mary, and not that, generated before all ages, he was with God, and that through him all things were originated, let him be anathema.
(8) Whoever calls the Son of God the mental or pronounced word, let him be anathema.
(11) Whoever explains, “I, God, am the first, and I the last, and besides me there is no god,” [Isaiah 44:6] which is said for the denial of idols and of gods that are not, to be the denial of the only-begotten as god before ages, as Jews do, let him be anathema.
(14) Whoever says that “Let us make man” [Genesis 1:26] was not said by the Father to the Son, but by God to Himself, let him be anathema.
(27) Whoever does not say that Christ is god, Son of God, as he was before ages, and having served the Father in the framing of the universe, but that he was only called Christ and Son from the time he was born of Mary, and had an origin of being god, let him be anathema. (Athanasius, De synodis 27)
According to the contemporary Western bishop Hilary of Poitiers, this creed was “composed at Sirmium by the Easterns to oppose Photinus” (De synodis 37-39).
Despite being officially deposed, Photinus still enjoyed quite a lot of public support, and his doctrine remained popular in several small circles for the next 150 years. [4] Photinus himself was allowed to return to his episcopate in AD 362 by Julian ‘the Apostate,’ the last pagan ruler of the Roman empire, who told him, “O Photinus, you at any rate seem to maintain what is probably true, and come nearest to being saved, and do well to believe that he whom one holds to be a god can by no means be brought into the womb” (Ep. 55). However, he was again banished in AD 375 by the pro-Nicene emperor Valentinian I (Jerome, De viris illust. 107), after which time his doctrine was largely abandoned in the West.
Binitarians and trinitarians
The third major sect that was involved in the Nicene and post-Nicene controversies was that of the binitarians and trinitarians — the distinction between the two had not yet been fully delineated. This is the view that the Father and the Son are separate but equal individuals, and (with regard to trinitarians) the Holy Spirit is also equal to the other two. Although this sect was the one which ultimately triumphed after the conflicts of the fourth century, it was also much newer than the other two major sects (subordinationism and Monarchianism).
The first theologian to suggest anything like bi/trinitarianism was Gregory Thaumaturgus, a student of Origen, who was bishop of Neocaesarea until his death in about AD 270. Although he was a student and admirer of Origen, he evidently was willing to disagree with his teacher, because, unlike Origen, he believed that the Son was equal to the Father. In his farewell Oration and Panegyric to Origen, written about AD 240, Gregory said:
But let us commit the praises and hymns in honor of the King and Superintendent of all things... to the Champion and Savior of our souls, His first-begotten Logos, the Demiurge and Pilot of all things... For he is himself the Truth, and the Wisdom, and the Power of the Father of the universe, and he is also in Him, and is truly and entirely made one with Him...
the Father of all things has made him [the Logos] one with Himself, and through him almost completely self-describes Himself objectively, and honors him with a power in all respects equal to His own, even as He is also honored. This position He has assigned him, first and only of all creatures that exist, this only-begotten of the Father, who is in Him, and who is the Logos-god. (Oration 4)
To be sure, Gregory was not fully a trinitarian as defined by the later creeds. Like earlier Logos theorists, he used Platonic terminology like “Demiurge” and “Pilot” to describe the Logos, and stated that the Logos is a “creature” (which was forbidden by later creeds). He also stated that the Father has assigned the Logos to his exalted position, not that the Logos has this co-equal position because of his own essence. However, because he was the first to describe the Son as separate and equal to the Father, Gregory Thaumaturgus should be considered the first proto-trinitarian (or proto-binitarian). [5]
Closer in time to the Nicene controversies was Athanasius of Alexandria, who was an anti-‘Arian’ deeply involved in the theological controversies of the fourth century. Although he was probably not the first bi/trinitarian, he was in fact the first to set down his beliefs as such in writing. This is clearly articulated in his Four Orations Against the Arians (Or. con. Ar.):
On this account and reasonably, having said before, “I and the Father are One,” [Jesus] added, “I am in the Father and the Father in Me,” by way of showing the identity of Godhood and the unity of essence. For they are one, not as one thing divided into two parts, nor as one thing twice named... [but] one in propriety and peculiarity of nature, and in the identity of the one Godhead, as has been said.
For the radiance also is light, not second to the sun, nor a different light, nor from participation in it, but a whole and proper offspring of it. And such an offspring is necessarily one light; and no one would say that they are two lights, but sun and radiance are two, yet the light from the sun is one, enlightening all things in its radiance. So also the Godhood of the Son is the Father’s; whence also it is indivisible; and thus there is one God and none other but He. And so, since they are one, and the Godhood itself one, the same things are said of the Son which are said of the Father, except His being said to be “Father.” (Or. con. Ar. III.4)
For God is One and Only and First; but this is not said to the denial of the Son, perish the thought. For He is in that One and First and Only, as being the Only Logos and Wisdom and Radiance of that One and Only and First. And He too is the First, as the fullness of the Godhood of the First and Only, being whole and fully God. This [Isaiah 44:6] then is not said on His account, but to deny that there is other such as the Father and His Logos. (Or. con. Ar. III.6)
For there is but one form of Godhood, which is also in the Logos; and one God, the Father, existing by Himself according as He is above all, and appearing in the Son as He pervades all things, and in the Spirit as in Him He acts in all things through the Logos. For thus we confess God to be one through the Trinity, and we say that it is much more religious than the godhood of the heretics with its many kinds, and many parts, to entertain a belief of the one Godhood in a Trinity. (Or. con. Ar. III.15)
Athanasius denied the Origenist doctrine that the Son is merely a god by "participation" in God, the Father; he also denied that the Father alone is the only God in any real sense, but that both the Son and the Father are, somehow, together the only God. Like earlier Christian writers, Athanasius typically only refers to the Father as "God," but insists that the Father and the Son are somehow one "Godhood" (theotes). He also denies that the Son has been given His co-equal position, but says that the Son is equal in His very essence, and passages which describe the exaltation of the Son (like Phil. 2:9-11) refer to the exaltation of "the [human] body" (Or. con. Ar. I.37-45).
It's unclear whether Athanasius was a trinitarian or binitarian when he first wrote Four Discourses Against the Arians, around AD 340. Although he does speak of "one Godhood in a Trinity" (Or. con. Ar. III.15), he also says that the Father and the Son are the only God to the exclusion of all else (III.6). He gives the Holy Spirit only a passing mention in the doxology at the end of his earlier work On the Incarnation, written around AD 335, and it's not clear from this whether he thought the Holy Spirit should be worshipped.
Later in his life, in response to a group of 'heretics' who did not think that the Holy Spirit was consubstantial (homoousion) with the Son, he wrote four Letters to Serapion (Ep. ad Serap.) in which he developed his doctrine of the Holy Spirit further. In these Letters, Athanasius argued that the Holy Spirit could not have been created, must be more exalted than the angels, and is consubstantial (homoousion) with the Father and the Son (Ep. ad Serap. 1.27; 2.6). However, he doesn't refer to the Holy Spirit as "God" even once in these Letters, or elsewhere in his surviving works. This is a striking omission if he actually considered the Holy Spirit to be co-equal with the Father and the Son, but not conclusive evidence that Athanasius was a binitarian.
Conclusion
Prior to the Council of Nicaea, three major sects had developed in Christian theology, all of which played a major role in the Nicene and post-Nicene controversies. The subordinationists, who believed that Jesus is a god who is fundamentally lesser than God, the Father, were the oldest and largest sect. This sect enjoyed the support of theologically and politically influential figures like Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of Nicomedia. The Monarchians, who believed that the Father is the only god to the exclusion of all others, and that Jesus is either identical to the Father or only an empowered man, were the second oldest sect. The bi/trinitarians, who believed that the Son and the Father are separate but equal, were the newest and smallest sect, but would ultimately triumph, primarily because of the work of their fervent supporter Athanasius of Alexandria.
In the next post, we'll look at the beginning of the 'Arian controversy' which sparked the theological debates of the fourth century. Who was Arius, and what did he believe? Why is he considered an 'arch-heretic' today? And what does the Nicene Creed really teach?
Part 6: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-evolution-of-early-christian_02102111985.html
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[1] Adam R. Renberg, “Is Eusebius of Caesarea a ‘Nicene’? A Contribution to the Notion of Conciliar Theology,” International Journal of Systematic Theology (2022), 1-22.
[2] This was a point of contention during the Nicene and post-Nicene disputes, in which many creeds included a statement about the endlessness of the Son’s reign, in order to intentionally distance themselves from Marcellus’ Christology; in fact, the Nicene Creed’s statement that “there will be no end of his kingdom” may have been added for this very purpose.
[3] Augustine states in the early fifth century, “[At that time] I conceived of my Lord Christ as a man of excellent wisdom, whom no one could be equalled unto; especially, because He was wonderfully born of a virgin, He seemed, in conformity with this, through the Divine care for us, to have attained great eminence of authority, as an example of despising things temporal for the obtaining of immortality... But somewhat later, I confess that I learned how in that saying, ‘The Word was made flesh,’ the Catholic truth is distinguished from the falsehood of Photinus.” (Confessions 7.19)
[4] D. H. Williams, “Monarchianism and Photinus of Sirmium as the Persistent Heretical Face of the Fourth Century,“ The Harvard Theological Review 99, no. 2 (2006), 191-193.
[5] See also Gregory Thaumaturgus’ Declaration of Faith, in which he refers to both the Father and the Son as God (or god), although not the Holy Spirit, and also says that “there is nothing created or in servitude in the trinity;” see Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 40.42, which alludes to this statement.
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