quotes about Christology in the Ante-Nicene era

Steven Avery

Administrator
Patristics for Protestants
Andrew Beardsley’
Jan 29, 2021
https://www.facebook.com/groups/patristicsforprotestants/permalink/3698894753529626/

Trinity deniers are trying all they can to deny the trinity.
"Andrew Beardsley
It's neither biblical nor historical certainty that it is the original doctrine of the church. Scores and scores of biblical passages are against it. The tides of historical evidence are against it being the orthodox position in the first 300 years of church existence!
“It is impossible to document what we now call orthodoxy (trinity) in the first two centuries of Christianity.” (Heresy and Orthodoxy – In the History of the Church, Pg. 5, Harold Brown)
The Fourth Century Church
- "fourth century Trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God; it was, on the contrary, a deviation from this teaching... Christianity derived from Judaism and Judaism was strictly Unitarian". - The Encyclopedia Americana, 1956, Vol.XXVII, p.294
"The Trinity was not originally taught... (it) is the end result, not the starting point, of a long process of thinking (during) the first four centuries of the Church" - Understanding The Trinity, A.E.McGrath, P.115
- "A formulated Doctrine of the Trinity... did not find a place formally in the theology of the church till the 4th century." - New Bible Dictionary, 1982
- "The belief that in God are three persons who subsist in one nature... was reached only in the 4th and 5th centuries AD." - Dictionary of The Bible, 1995, John L. Mckenzie
- "Trinitarian dogma is in the last analysis a late 4th-century invention." - New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol.14, P.299, 1967
From Wikipedia Encyclopedia:
The first defense of the doctrine of the Trinity was in the early 3rd century by the early church father Tertullian. He explicitly defined the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and defended his theology against "Praxeas", though he noted that the majority of the believers in his day found issue with his doctrine.”
“The Modalists were the successors to the Apostles, NOT the Trinitarians.”
-Professor Friedrich Loofs, Halle University
Ref: “The History of the Primitive Church”
"Modalistic Monarchianism", was once, "embraced by the vast majority of ALL Christians."
-Professor Adolph Harnack, Halle University
Ref: "History of Dogma"
The famed Eastern Orthodox church historian, Jaroslav Pelikan, wrote that “Many of the passages in ancient Christian writers sound like Modalistic Monarchianism” (The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, Vol. 1, pg. 177). Then in the same paragraph, Pelikan cited Ignatius of Antioch (40-113 AD) and Melito of Sardis (130-180 AD) to show that their writings sounded “like Modalistic Monarchianism”. After citing these Ante-Nicene fathers, Pelikan admitted that “Modalistic Monarchianism…turns out to have been a systematization of POPULAR Christian belief in ancient Christian theology (emphasis added)”. (page 179)
Church historian J.N.D. Kelly described the simple theology of Ignatius and the early second century Christians of Asia Minor (about 110 AD) when he wrote, “as an undifferentiated monad in His essential being, the Son and the Spirit being merely forms or MODES of the Father’s self-revelation (emphasis added).” (JND Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 93) Mr. Kelly acknowledged that the second century “…were VERY FAR from having worked the THREEFOLD PATTERN (Trinitarian theology) of the Church’s faith into a coherent scheme (emphasis added)…” (p. 102)
Tertullian (160-225 AD), a Semi-Arian theologian in the West, admitted that even in his day “Oneness” believers are the majority: "The simple, indeed (I will not call them unwise or unlearned), who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the Three in One), on the very ground that their very Rule of Faith withdraws them from the world's plurality of gods to the one only true God...The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity, they assume to be a division of the Unity." - Against Praxeas, 3, rpt. in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers (rpt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), III, 598-599.
Origen (202-253 AD), a Semi-Arian theologian in the East, in his Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 1, Chapter 23 called the Modalists (Oneness) as “THE GENERAL RUN OF CHRISTIANS”. Author Andrew Gallwitz cited Trinitarian church historian Ronald E. Hein to show that “Origen wrote the first portion of his Commentary on the Gospel of John (books 1 and 2) against the Modalists after being rejected as a heretic by the Modalistic Christian majority in Rome”. (Vigiliae Christianae, 65 (2011), Kninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/ 157007210X524277)
Trinitarian historian John Henry Newman himself admitted that the majority of the third century Christians held a Oneness Modalistic theology. (Arians of the Fourth Century, Chapter 1, Section 5, under “Sabellianism”) "
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Nathan Scott
That McGrath quote is out of context and misrepresented.
McGrath is not a denier of the trinity.
I agree with that statement too.
The issue is that the first 300yrs did, in a sense, not teach 4th and 5th century Trinitarian doctrine. Now this is not a problem for us today becuase the teachings of the first 3 centuries were foundational for when became the doctrine of the trinity.
As much as Origen, Tertullian, Martyr, etc. Did not teach the specifics of 4th century trinitarianism, they cannot be said to have denied it, in a sense.
It is tricky because this whole discussion is anachronistic from the start...
 
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