In the early centuries of Christianity, the problem of the Trinity went through three phases.
In writing this paper, I have relied very heavily upon J. N. D. Kelly's book,
Early Christian Doctrine, 2nd edition
[New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1958, 1960]
so that maybe I should put quotation marks around the whole paper.
Thank you, Dr. Kelly.
Monotheism.
As Christianity spread through the Roman Empire
during the late first century A.D. and early second century A.D.,
it encountered paganism with its belief in many gods (polytheism).
The Christian belief in the one God (monotheism), that it inherited
and shared with Judaism, stood in marked contrast to this paganism.
Early Christian writers stressed this difference. For example,
according to Hermas (The Shepherd of Hermas, Mand.,
I.1), the first commandment is to "believe that God is one,
Who created and established all things, bring them into existence
out of non-existence". In the second century when Christianity
began to infiltrate the educated levels of Roman society, the
Christian Apologists
wrote in defense of the Christian faith. They found
in Greek and Roman philosophy, particularly Platonism, the view
of one God. The Apologists emphasized this similarity with their view of God.
Justin Martyr (c,105-c,165 A.D.)
asserted the Christian belief in the oneness, transcendence, and creative
function of God in language strongly colored by the Platonizing Stoicism
of the middle of the second century. It was Justin's sincere belief
that the Greek thinkers had had access to the writings of Moses.
So Apologists viewed God as everlasting, ineffable and without name,
changeless and impassible, and "ingenerate" (agennetos;
a technical term that expressed God's unique unorignateness
in contrast to the rest of reality).
But in spite of these similarities, the Christian belief in the one God
involved aspects that they did not share. In the Christian view of the
one God, He is "the creator of the universe", the maker
and Father of all things; Himself above being, God is the cause
of all being. Justin says, "We have learned that, being good,
He created all things in the beginning out of formless matter."
[1]
Here he is referring to the teaching of Plato's Timaeus,
which Justin supposed to be akin to, and borrowed from, Genesis.
Of course, Plato regarded pre-existence matter as eternal, but
Justin regarded the heaven and earth which had been created first
as the material out of which God formed the cosmos. Other Apologists
agreed with Justin, although they were more definite as regards
creation ex nihilo.
Tatian (late 2nd century) points out
that the matter out of which the universe was made was itself created by
"the sole artificer of the cosmos", and He created it through His Word.
When Theophilus of Antioch (late 2nd century) declared:
"From nothing God created whatever He willed, as He willed it"
[2],
he was particularly critical of the Platonic notion of the eternity of
matter, arguing that, if it were true, God could not be creator
of all things, and therefore His "monarchy", that is,
His position as the sole first principle, must be discarded.
As Theophilus expressed it,
"The power of God is manifested in this,
that out of things that are not He makes whatever He pleases".
[3]
Athenagoras (2nd century) also spoke of "all things having been
made through His Word". In reply to the charge of atheism, he argues,
"Is it not absurd to level the charge of atheism against us, who distinguish God from matter, and teach that God is one thing and matter is another, and that they are separated by a vast chasm?Irenaeus (c.125-202 A.D.) was also a firm believer in creation ex nihilo [out of nothing], pointing out that
For the Deity is unoriginate and eternal, to be apprehended by understanding and reason alone, whereas matter is originate and perishable." [4]
"men indeed cannot make anything out of nothing,Irenaeus also argued that the very notion of Godhead excludes a plurality of gods.
but only out of material already before them;
God is superior to men in this prime respect,
that He Himself furnishes the material for His creation
although it had no previous existence". [5]
"Either there must be one God Who contains all things and has made every creature according to His will; or there must be many indeternimate creators or gods, each beginning and ending at his place in the series ... But in this case we shall have to acknowledge that none of them is God. For each of them ... will be defective in comparison with the rest, and the title 'Almighty' will be reduced to nought." [6]Thus the Demiurge of Gnosticism cannot be God since Demiurge has another superior to Himself.
These Christian writers all express this doctrine of the one God, the Father and Creator of all things; it formed the background and indisputable premise of the Christian faith. Inherited from Judaism, it was the bulwark against pagan polytheism, Gnostic emanationism and Marcionite dualism.
The Divine Triad.
The problem for Christian theology was
to integrate with this monotheism, intellectually, the new data
of the specifically Christian revelation. In its simplest terms,
these were the convictions that God had made Himself known in
the Person of Jesus, the Messiah, raising Him from the dead and
offering salvation to men through Him, and that He had poured
out His Holy Spirit upon the Church. The writings of the Apostles
expressed the view of God as a plurality of divine Persons: Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. By the second century these writings, not
yet canonized into the New Testament, were exerting a powerful
influence and this triadic pattern of God as three persons was
imprinted on the expressions of the popular Christian faith.
This was clearly visible in Church's liturgy and catechetical
practice. In this primitive period, there were no stereotyped
creeds of the kind that became common after The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325),
but there was in the preaching, liturgy, and teaching of the Church the
message that God had sent His Son, the Messiah Jesus, Who had died and God
had raised Him from the dead on the third day, ascended into heaven,
from whence He sent the Holy Spirit, and He will return in glory.
As the second century advanced, we find more detailed affirmations
of the rule of faith, that is, the teaching inherited from the
apostles and set forth in freely worded summaries. As an illustration,
the following is quoted from Irenaeus' The Demonstrations
of the Apostolic Preaching (Dem. 6.).
"This, then, is the order of the rule of our faith....The liturgy of baptism is in harmony with this threefold division; as prescribed by the Lord's command recorded in Matt. 28:19, baptism is to be administered in the threefold name. Justin Martyr relates that those who are to be baptized "are conducted by us to a place where there is water, and there, in the same manner as we ourselves were regenerated, they are regenerated in turn. In the name of God the Father and master of all things, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, they are washed in the water". [8] Later he adds that baptism is "in the name of God the Father and master of all things", of "Jesus Christ, Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate", and "of the Holy Spirit, Who foretold by the prophets the whole story of Jesus". [9]
God the Father, not made, not material, invisible, one God, the creator of all things: this is the first point of our faith.
The second point is this: the Word of God, Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, Who was manifested to the prophets according to the form of their prophesying and according to the method of the Father's dispensation; through Whom (i.e., the Word) all things are made; Who also, at the end of the age, to complete and gather up all things, was made man among men, visible and tangible, in order to abolish death and show forth life and produce perfect reconciliation between God and man.
And the third point is: The Holy Spirit, through Whom the prophets prophesied, and the fathers learned the things of God, and the righteous were led into the way of righteousness; Who at the end of the age was poured out in a new way upon mankind in all the earth, renewing man to God." [7]
"We received baptism for the remission of sinsThe idea implicit in these early catechetical and liturgical formulae, as in the New Testament writers' use of the same triadic pattern, represent the early, pre-theological phase of Christian belief. This statement is in no way intended to diminish their significance or importance. It was only intended to point out that they are the raw material out which the theologians constructed their more sophisticated statements of the Christian doctrine of the Godhead. [11]
in the name of God the Father,
and in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
Who was incarnate and died and rose again,
and in the Holy Spirit of God". [10]
Before the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), the early theologians of the second
and third centuries attempted to solve the problem of the Trinity. The
following are the main developments:
The Economic Trinity
Trinitarian Theology of Irenaeus
Trinitarian Theology of the Third Century
Modalism
Sabellianism
Roman Theology
Greek Trinitarianism
Clement of Alexandria
Origen
Influence of Origen
[1] J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 2nd Edition,
Harper & Row, Publishers (New York, Evanston and London, 1958, 1960).,
p. 84.