What did the Early Church
Fathers teach that John 1:1 meant? Did they teach a Unitarian
Logos, a personified plan of God? Or did the teach that the Logos
was a title of the pre-incarnate Son of God? Read the following quotations to see for yourself. The links
accompanying each quote are to the online Ante-Nicene Fathers at CCEL.
It is not the purpose of this
article to prove the early church fathers
believed in the Trinity. I have undertaken that task here.
Instead, this list of citations is intended to demonstrate that the
early church fathers were not Unitarians because each clearly taught
that the Son pre-existed His human birth.
It has been
alleged that these fathers invented the pre-existence of Christ due to
the influence of neo-Platonism or Gnosticism. It will suffice here
to say that such a view is becoming less and less convincing to modern
Patristic scholars. The more that is learned about 2nd Temple
Judaism and Christianity in its earliest years, the less likely it seems
that the old "history of religions" theories can account for
primary Christian doctrines. I commend to the reader Larry
Hurtado's One Lord, One God and Lord Jesus Christ as but
two examples of modern scholarship that roundly disputes the outdated
"pagan influence" arguments.
These
Christian thinkers, some of them writing very early in the Christian
era, reflect the teaching of the first Christians. While they are not
inspired and should be read with discernment, they are vital links to
the earliest Christian interpretations of Scripture, and may well - in
the case of Ignatius, for example - reflect direct Apostolic teaching.
Justin
Martyr: Dialog with Trypho
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.iv.lviii.html
“'He is called God, and He is and shall be
God.' And when all had agreed on these grounds, I continued: ‘Moreover,
I consider it necessary to repeat to you the words which narrate how He
who is both Angel and God and Lord, and who appeared as a man to Abraham,
and who wrestled in human form with Jacob, was seen by him when he fled
from his brother Esau’”
Ignatius:
Epistle to the Tarsians
http://ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-28.htm#P2648_435849
How could
such a one be a mere man, receiving the beginning of His existence from
Mary, and not rather God the Word, and the only-begotten Son? For
"in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God."
Ignatius:
Epistle to the Magnesians
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.iii.html
Jesus
Christ, who was with the Father before the beginning of time.
Irenaeus:
Against Heresies Book I
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.ii.ix.html
Having first of all distinguished these three — God, the Beginning, and
the Word — he again unites them, that he may exhibit the production of
each of them, that is, of the Son and of the Word, and may at the same
time show their union with one another, and with the Father. For ‘the
beginning’ is in the Father, and of the Father, while ‘the Word’ is
in the beginning, and of the beginning. Very properly, then, did he say,
‘In the beginning was the Word,’ for He was in the Son; ‘and the
Word was with God,’ for He was the beginning; ‘and the Word was
God,’ of course, for that which is begotten of God is God.”
Irenaeus:
Against Heresies Book III
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.vii.html
"And again when the Son speaks to Moses, He says, ‘I am come
down to deliver this people,’ (Exodus 3:8 - the burning bush). For it is
He who descended and ascended for the salvation of men."
Clement
of Alexandria: Fragments Part 1
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.vi.iv.ix.html
"There was; then, a Word importing an unbeginning eternity; as
also the Word itself, that is, the Son of God, who being, by equality of
substance, one with the Father, is eternal and uncreate."
Tertullian:
Against Praxeas
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.ix.xii.html
"[God speaks in the plural ‘Let us make man in our image’]
because already there was attached to Him his Son, a second person, his
own Word, and a third, the Spirit in the Word....one substance in three
coherent persons. He was at once the Father, the Son, and the
Spirit."
Hippolytus:
Against Noetus
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-18.htm#P3415_1067404
Let us believe then, dear brethren, according to the tradition of
the apostles, that God the Word came down from heaven,... He now, coming
forth into the world, was manifested as God in a body, coming forth too as
a perfect man.
Hippolytus:
Dogmatical and Historical Fragments
http://ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-18.htm#P3712_1172813
These things
then, brethren, are declared by the Scriptures. And the blessed John, in
the testimony of his Gospel, gives us an account of this economy
(disposition) and acknowledges this Word as God, when he says, "In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God." If, then, the Word was with God, and was also God, what
follows? Would one say that he speaks of two Gods? I shall not indeed
speak of two Gods, but of one; of two Persons however, and of a third
economy (disposition), viz., the grace of the Holy Ghost. For the Father
indeed is One, but there are two Persons, because there is also the Son;
and then there is the third, the Holy Spirit. The Father decrees, the
Word executes, and the Son is manifested, through whom the Father is
believed on. The economy of harmony is led back to one God; for God is
One. It is the Father who commands, and the Son who obeys, and the Holy
Spirit who gives understanding: the Father who is above all, and
the Son who is through all, and the Holy Spirit who is in all.
And we cannot otherwise think of one God, but by believing in truth in
Father and Son and Holy Spirit. For the Jews glorified (or gloried in)
the Father, but gave Him not thanks, for they did not recognise the Son.
The disciples recognised the Son, but not in the Holy Ghost; wherefore
they also denied Him. The Father's Word, therefore, knowing the economy
(disposition) and the will of the Father, to wit, that the Father seeks
to be worshipped in none other way than this, gave this charge to the
disciples after He rose from the dead: "Go ye and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost." And by this He showed, that whosoever omitted
any one of these, failed in glorifying God perfectly. For it is through
this Trinity that the Father is glorified. For the Father willed, the
Son did, the Spirit manifested. The whole Scriptures, then, proclaim
this truth.
But some one
will say to me, You adduce a thing strange to me, when you call the Son
the Word. For John indeed speaks of the Word, but it is by a figure of
speech. Nay, it is by no figure of speech. For while thus
presenting this Word that was from the beginning, and has now been sent
forth, he said below in the Apocalypse, "And I saw heaven opened,
and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him (was) Faithful and
True; and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. And His eyes
(were) as flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a
name written that no man knew but He Himself. And He (was) clothed in a
vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called the Word of God."
See then, brethren, how the vesture sprinkled with blood denoted in
symbol the flesh, through which the impassible Word of God came under
suffering, as also the prophets testify to me. For thus speaks the
blessed Micah: "The house of Jacob provoked the Spirit of the Lord
to anger. These are their pursuits. Are not His words good with them,
and do they walk rightly? And they have risen up in enmity against His
countenance of peace, and they have stripped off His glory." That
means His suffering in the flesh. And in like manner also the blessed
Paul says, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak,
God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin
in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be shown in us,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." What Son of
His own, then, did God send through the flesh but the Word, whom He
addressed as Son because He was to become such (or be begotten) in the
future? And He takes the common name for tender affection among men in
being called the Son. For neither was the Word, prior to incarnation and
when by Himself, yet perfect Son, although He was perfect Word,
only-begotten. Nor could the flesh subsist by itself apart from the
Word, because it has its subsistence in the Word. Thus, then, one
perfect Son of God was manifested.
Theophilus
to Autolycus Book II
http://ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-02/anf02-42.htm#P1669_480398
You will
say, then, to me: "You said that God ought not to be contained in a
place, and how do you now say that He walked in Paradise? "Hear
what I say. The God and Father, indeed, of all cannot be contained, and
is not found in a place, for there is no place of His rest; but His
Word, through whom He made all things, being His power and His wisdom,
assuming the person of
the Father and Lord of all, went to the garden in the person of God, and
conversed with Adam. For the divine writing itself teaches us that Adam
said that he had heard the voice. But what else is this voice but the
Word of God, who is also His Son? Not as the poets and writers of myths
talk of the sons of gods begotten from intercourse [with women], but as
truth expounds, the Word, that always exists, residing within the heart
of God. For before anything came into being He had Him as a counsellor,
being His own mind and thought. But when God wished to make all that He
determined on, He begot this Word, uttered, the first-born of all
creation, not Himself being emptied of the Word [Reason], but having
begotten Reason, and always conversing with His Reason. And hence the
holy writings teach us, and all the spirit-bearing [inspired] men, one
of whom, John, says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God," showing that at first God was alone, and the Word in
Him. Then he says, "The Word was God; all things came into
existence through Him; and apart from Him not one thing came into
existence." The Word, then, being God, and being naturally produced
from God, whenever the Father of the universe wills, He sends Him to any
place; and He, coming, is both heard and seen, being sent by Him, and is
found in a place.
Origen: de
Principiis Book II
http://ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-04/anf04-46.htm#P6684_1358950
Seeing,
then, that all things which have been created are said to have been made
through Christ, and in Christ, as the Apostle Paul most clearly
indicates, when he says, "For in Him and by Him were all things
created, whether things in heaven or things on earth, visible and
invisible, whether they be thrones, or powers, or principalities, or
dominions; all things were created by Him, and in Him; " and as in
his Gospel John indicates the same thing, saying, "In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: the same
was in the beginning with God: all things were made by Him; and without
Him was not anything made.
Origen: de
Principiis Preface
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.vi.v.i.html
The holy Apostles, in preaching the faith of Christ, treated with
the utmost clarity of certain matters which they believed to be of
absolute necessity to all believers...The specific points which are
clearly handed down through the Apostolic preaching [are] these: First,
that there is one God who created and arranged all things...Secondly, that
Jesus Christ himself was born of the Father before all
creatures...Although He was God, He took flesh, and having been made man,
He remained what He was, God
Novation:
A Treatise Concerning the Trinity
http://ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-138.htm#P10444_3289233
And let us
therefore believe this, since it is most faithful that Jesus Christ the
Son of God is our Lord and God; because "in the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. The same was in
the beginning with God."
Pseudo-Gregory
Thaumaturgus: A Sectional Confession of Faith
http://ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-06/anf06-14.htm
And we
anathematize those who constitute different worships, one for the divine
and another for the human, and who worship the man born of Mary as
though He were another than the God of God. For we know that "in
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God."