This is from a book by D Bernard that I am pasting here for informational and study purposes.
THE ROAD TO NICEA
In the Old Catholic Age (c. A.D. 170 to 325), Christendom
shifted from the biblical belief in one God toward
a form of trinitarianism.1 The trinitarians of that age divided
the personality of God in tritheistic fashion, and they
denied the full deity of Jesus Christ by subordinating the
second person of their trinity to the first person.2
By 300, some form of trinitarianism and trinitarian
baptism had become dominant in Christendom, but orthodox
trinitarianism as we know it today had yet to be formulated
clearly or established solidly. We will discuss how
such a formulation occurred in the fourth century, focusing
particularly on the two ecumenical councils crucial
to this process: the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 and the
Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381.
In the second and third centuries most Christians affirmed
the absolute oneness of God and the full deity of
Jesus Christ and did not think in trinitarian categories.3
We can label this belief generically by the term modalism.
The most prominent teacher of modalism in the third
century was Sabellius, who held that Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit were modes (designations, manifestations, not persons)
of the one God and that Jesus was the incarnation
9
The Road to Nicea
The Trinitarian Controversy
of the undivided Godhead.4
In the view of prominent church historians such as
Adolph Harnack, modalism was once the majority view
and was the most significant rival to trinitarianism from
about A.D. 180 to 300.5 Although "the process is quite in
obscurity,"6 by the end of the third century it appears that
church leaders had mostly rejected modalism in favor of
making a personal distinction between God the Father
and Jesus Christ.
The nature of this distinction was not clear, however.
The Greek Apologists, prominent Christian philosophical
writers in the second century, had spoken of Jesus primarily
as the Logos (Word). By and large, they viewed
the Logos as a second divine person subordinate to the
Father. They called both persons God, but they did not
view the Logos as coequal or coeternal with the Father.
Tertullian and Origen were leading opinion makers in
the third century whom the institutional church nevertheless
ultimately condemned as heretics. They argued in
favor of a trinity of persons in the Godhead, but they too
subordinated Jesus to the Father. They moved closer to
the later trinitarian formulation, however"Tertullian by
emphasizing that the three persons were of one substance
and Origen by introducing the doctrine that the Father
and Son were coeternal.
Around 318 a controversy erupted in Alexandria,
Egypt, over the nature of the second person. The conflict
arose over the teachings of Arius (280?-336), a presbyter
(preacher) in Alexandria, who derived much of his
thinking from his teacher, Lucian of Antioch.
Like the Christians of earlier times, Arius emphasized
the absolute oneness of God, using biblical passages such
10
as Deuteronomy 6:4, and he therefore rejected the trinitarian
thinking that was becoming predominant. Like the
trinitarians, however, he used a threefold baptismal formula
and believed that Jesus was a second person called
the Logos or Son. His way of reconciling these conflicting
views was to deny that Jesus was God. He held, in the
words of Louis Berkhof, that the Son was "created out of
nothing before the world was called into being, and for
that very reason was not eternal nor of the divine essence."7
To Arius Jesus was the first and most exalted created
being; the supreme agent of God; in effect, a demigod.
Jehovah"s Witnesses today espouse essentially the same
view.
Arius"s view was similar to that of the Greek Apologists
of the second century and to that of the dynamic
monarchians, a dissident group in the third century. It
was a logical extension of the idea of subordination that
was inherent in trinitarianism thus far, for it acknowledged
that Jesus was divine but not deity.
While Arius was devoted to monotheism, he vehemently
opposed modalism (Sabellianism), and "he protested
against what he believed to be the Sabellianism of
his bishop, Alexander."8 He objected to Alexander"s stress
on the deity of Christ, although Alexander was actually a
trinitarian rather than a modalist.
The immediate cause of the contention between them
was Arius"s interpretation of Proverbs 8:22-31, a passage
that personifies wisdom as an attribute of God. Beginning
with the second-century Apologists, theologians commonly
identified wisdom in Proverbs as a second divine
person, the Son-Logos. Verse 22 says, "The LORD possessed
me in the beginning of his way, before his works
The Road to Nicea
11
The Trinitarian Controversy
of old." Since the Hebrew word translated as "possessed"
can mean "created" or "brought forth," Arius interpreted
the passage to mean that God created the Son at a certain
point in time before the creation of the world.
Alexander called a synod in Alexandria, which excommunicated
Arius and his friends in 321. Arius obtained
the support of Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, however,
and continued the controversy. Both Alexander and Arius
enlisted a number of bishops to their respective sides,
and the dispute threatened to disrupt the Christian church
throughout the Roman Empire.
News of the controversy reached Emperor Constantine,
who had little interest in or understanding of the crucial
theological issue at stake"the deity of Jesus"but
was concerned that the dispute could cause division in
his empire. Constantine had long realized that paganism
was dying and that only Christianity could provide the
religious, cultural, and philosophical unity his diverse
empire needed. In 313, after he defeated his rival Maxentius
in 312, he and his coemperor Licinius granted freedom
of worship to Christians. In 324 he defeated Licinius
and became the sole Roman emperor, and that same year
he publicly embraced Christianity. He delayed his baptism
as a Christian until shortly before his death in 337, however,
on the theory that he could continue to sin and then
receive remission of sins in the end. As an example of his
morals, in 326 he executed his son, nephew, and wife for
reasons that are unclear.
Will Durant explained Constantine"s political interests:
He cared little for the theological differences that
12
agitated Christendom"though he was willing to suppress
dissent in the interests of imperial unity.
Throughout his reign he treated the bishops as his
political aides; he summoned them, presided over their
councils, and agreed to enforce whatever opinion their
majority should formulate. . . . Christianity was to him
a means, not an end.9
Walter Nigg similarly concluded, "Constantine . . .
treated religious questions solely from a political point of
view."10
Initially, Constantine sought to resolve the dispute
between Arius and Alexander by appealing to both parties
to forgive one another and to seek peace and unanimity.
He told them the controversy was "of a truly insignificant
character, and quite unworthy of such fierce contention"
and "an unprofitable question" that "was wrong in
the first instance to propose" and that was on "subjects
so sublime and abstruse."11
Eventually he realized that the problem could not be
resolved so easily. At the urging of his close advisor, Bishop
Hosius of Cordova, he summoned the first ecumenical
council of postapostolic Christendom to deal with the matter
and paid the expenses for the delegates.
The Road to Nicea
__________________ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
The council convened in 325 in Nicea (also known
as Nicaea and Nice; now Isnik, Turkey), a crossroads of
commerce in Bithynia (northwest Asia Minor) twenty miles
from the imperial court in Nicomedia. Around 250 or 300
bishops attended,12 about one-sixth of the total number
in Christendom, and almost all of them were from the
Greek-speaking lands bordering the eastern Mediterranean.
Only seven Western delegates attended, including
two representatives from the bishop of Rome, who
was not present. Each bishop had several people in his
entourage, so the total number in attendance was approximately
fifteen hundred to two thousand. The council lasted
about six weeks.
Constantine opened the council at his summer residence
as the honorary presiding officer. His advisor Hosius,
the most prominent Western delegate, served as chairman.
Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea sat at the emperor"s right
hand, a position of honor.
Three factions soon became apparent. First there were
the Homoousians, a minority led by Alexander of
Alexandria and Athanasius (300?-373), his aide and later
his successor as bishop. Although Athanasius was a young
man (about 25) and of low ecclesiastical rank (archdeacon),
he became the champion of this party because of
his brilliance, eloquence, and decisive leadership in the
postNicene era. The Homoousians argued that the Father
and the Son were homoousios, or "of the same substance,"
and to support this view Alexander and Athanasius advocated
the eternal generation of the Son as taught by
Origen.
A second faction was the Arian minority, led by Bishop
Eusebius of Nicomedia and Arius. Eusebius proposed an
Arian creed, signed by eighteen bishops, that the council
immediately rejected. The Arians found support in some
statements of Origen indicating that the Son was of a different
substance from the Father.
The third group, the majority, did not fully understand
the issues but wanted peace. In general, they took an
intermediate position, but it is difficult to characterize
them as a whole. Philip Schaff explained, "Many of them
had an orthodox instinct, but little discernment; others
were disciples of Origen, or preferred simple biblical
expression to a scholastic terminology; others had no
firm convictions, but only uncertain opinions."13 Many of
them were reluctant to condemn Arius or adopt the
Homoousian position. Many seemed to embrace both
strands of Origen"s teaching: that the Son was a second
eternal person in the Deity and that the Son was subordinate
to the Father. Because of these views, historians
sometimes characterize many in this group as Semi-Arians
or Origenists.
Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, a leader of this third
group, proposed a compromise creed used as a baptismal
confession in his city. It simply said that Jesus is "the
16
Word of God, God of God, . . . the first-born of all creatures,
begotten of the Father before all time."14 Most Of
the bishops were happy with this formula, Constantine
approved it, and the Arians were willing to subscribe to
it, but Alexander and Athanasius objected strongly, for it
did not resolve the issue at hand.
Finally, Constantine, wishing to obtain the most unanimous
decision possible and evidently prompted by Hosius,
advocated inclusion of the key word: homoousios. This
term had a checkered history. It originated with the Gnostic
Valentine, quoted by Irenaeus. Origen used it in a trinitarian
manner, while some Sabellians used it against trinitarianism.
At a synod in Antioch in 264 that deposed Paul
of Samosata, a dynamic monarchian, followers of Origen
condemned this word because of its use by Paul."15
The word was unacceptable to the Arians. The Origenists
were also uncomfortable with it, because to them
it implied Sabellianism, namely, that as to His deity Jesus
was actually the Father Himself.16 Some of them proposed
instead the word homoiousios, roughly meaning "of like
substance." The difference between the two positions was
literally one iota, one Greek letter.
In the end, the position of Athanasius prevailed. Hosius
announced a modified version of Eusebius of Caesarea"s
creed that included the language required by the
Athanasian party, and the council adopted it. Otto Heick
concluded of Athanasius, "At Nicea his eloquence was so
convincing that the small minority of the Homoousians
prevailed over the large and influential majority of Arians
and Semi-Arians."17
The intervention of Constantine was also decisive.
According to Berkhof, "after considerable debate the
emperor finally threw the weight of his authority into the
balance and thus secured the victory for the party of
Athanasius."
Constantine enforced the decision of the council by
threatening to banish all dissenters. In the end, only Arius
and two bishops refused to sign the creed passed by the
council, and they went into exile. Two other bishops,
including Eusebius of Nicomedia, refused to sign the
attached condemnatory clause and were deposed But as
Jaroslav Pelikan, author of the most comprehensive church
history in the twentieth century, observed, "All the rest
saluted the emperor, signed the formula, and went right
on teaching as they always had. In the case of most of
them, this meant a doctrine of Christ somewhere between
that of Arius and that of Alexander."
The council also decided upon various matters of
church and clergy discipline and established a uniform
method to determine the date for Easter. Some bishops
proposed a rule of celibacy for all preachers, including
married men. The council decided that men who married
before they entered the ministry could continue to live
with their wives, but unmarried men were not to marry
after ordination.
The Council of Nicea is of immense historical significance
as (1) the first ecumenical council of postapostolic
Christendom, (2) the first (but not final) official step in
the formulation of orthodox trinitarianism, and (3) the
prime development in the merger of church and state.
The Roman emperor pronounced the decrees of the council
to be divinely inspired, promulgated them as laws of
the empire, and made disobedience punishable by death.
For the first time a political ruler convened an ecclesias-
tical council, became a decisive factor in determining doctrine,
and instituted a church creed. For the first time
Christendom adopted a written creed other than Scripture
and made subscription to it mandatory. And for the first
time the state inflicted civil penalties on people who did
not conform to church dogma.
__________________ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
There is no room in the Hebrew Bible for trinitarism at all.
Shema Yisrael -- "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" -- is perhaps the most famous of all Jewish sayings.
The Shema is a declaration of faith, a pledge of allegiance to One God. It is said upon arising in the morning and upon going to sleep at night. It is said when praising God and when beseeching Him. It is the first prayer that a Jewish child is taught to say. It is the last words a Jew says prior to death.
The Talmud says that when Jacob was about to reveal the end of days to his children, he was concerned that one of them might be a non-believer. His sons reassured him immediately and cried out, "Shema Yisrael."
The Torah records Moses including the Shema in his farewell address to the Jewish people.
We recite Shema when preparing to read the Torah on Sabbaths and festivals. And we recite Shema at the end of the holiest day of Yom Kippur when we reach the level of angels.
Shema is contained in the mezuzah we affix to the doorpost of our home, and in the tefillin that we bind to our arm and head.
The cry of Shema has always symbolized the ultimate manifestation of faith in the gravest situations.
Throughout the ages, the cry of Shema has always symbolized the ultimate manifestation of faith in the gravest situations. With the Shema on their lips, Jews accepted martyrdom at the Inquisitor's stake and in the Nazi gas chambers.
What is the deeper meaning of this historic affirmation of Judaism's central creed? SHEMA: "HOW-TO"
We are commanded to say the Shema twice each day: once in the morning and again in the evening. This requirement is derived from the verse: "And you should speak about them when you... lie down and when you get up" (Deut. 6:7). The Talmud explains that when you "lie down and when you get up" does not refer to the literal position of one's body, but rather designates the time of day to say the Shema (Brachot 10b).
In technical terms, the time for reciting the evening Shema starts at nightfall (about 40 minutes after sundown) and continues until midnight (or if necessary, until dawn the next day). The time for the morning Shema starts about an hour before sunrise (from when you can recognize a friend from four cubits away), and continues until about 8 a.m. (the end of three complete seasonal hours).
The Shema speaks of loving God, learning Torah, and passing on Jewish tradition to our children.
The full Shema is comprised of 3 paragraphs from the Torah. The first paragraph, Deut. 6:4-9, contains the concepts of loving God, learning Torah, and passing on Jewish tradition to our children.
These verses also refer specifically to the mitzvot of tefillin and mezuzah. While praying, we wear tefillin as a visible sign of God close to our hearts and close to our brains, to show that our every thought and emotions are directed toward God. The mezuzah scroll is affixed to our doorposts to show that we are secure in God's presence.
The second paragraph, Deut. 11:13-21, speaks about the positive consequences of fulfilling the mitzvot, and the negative consequences of not.
The third paragraph, Numbers 15:37-41, speaks specifically about the mitzvah to wear tzitzit, and the Exodus from Egypt. Tzitzit are a physical reminder of the 613 commandments in the Torah. This is derived from the numerical value of the word tzitzit (600), plus the five knots and eight strings on each corner, totaling 613. GOD'S UNITY
A primary theme of the first verse is the Oneness of God: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" (Deut. 6:4).
Further, as written in a Torah scroll, the letters "Ayin" and "Daled" of the first verse are enlarged -- encoded to spell out the Hebrew word Aid -- "witness." When we say the Shema, we are testifying to the Oneness of God.
Why is "oneness" so central to Jewish belief? Does it really matter whether God is one and not three?
Is it possible that the same God who gives us so much goodness one day, can make everything go wrong the next?
Events in our world may seem to mask the idea that God is One. One day we wake up and everything goes well. The next day everything goes poorly. What happened?! Is it possible that the same God who gives us so much goodness one day, can make everything go wrong the next? We know that God is good, so how could there be so much pain? Is it just "bad luck"?
The Shema is a declaration that all events are from the One, the only One. The confusion stems from our limited perception of reality. One way of understanding God's oneness is to imagine light shining through a prism. Even though we see many colors of the spectrum, they really emanate from one light. So too, even though it seems that certain events are not caused by God, rather by some other force or bad luck, they in fact all come from the One God. In the grand eternal plan, all is "good," for God knows best.
This runs contrary to the Zoroastrian doctrine of dualism, which propounds the idea of two conflicting powers -- good and evil.
When a Jew says Shema, it is customary to close and cover one's eyes. The other time in Jewish tradition that one's eyes are specifically closed is upon death. Just as at the end of days we will come to understood how even the "bad" was actually for the "good," so too while saying the Shema we strive for that level of belief and understanding.
The Sages tell us that the patriarch Jacob, after a 22-year separation from his son Joseph, finally went down to Egypt to see him. As they reunited, Jacob was saying the Shema. The years of yearning for his long-lost son came out in an emotionally charged burst of "Shema Yisrael!"
Trinitarism has Kept Jews afar from the Gospel for this reason, there is only one God in the Hebrew Bible, there is only one Holy Spirit who is God Himself, the son is the son as flesh is borned from a womb,but the Spirit in him was God Himself, There is therefore only one God, who is Father,Son and Spirit.
__________________
The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. Zephaniah 1:14
פרץ
Well I noticed people stop posting when I post, is there a reason for that ?
If I offend anyone please let me know, I will be gone for good.
Shalom
__________________
The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. Zephaniah 1:14
פרץ
Because of its historical significance, it is important
to examine what the Council of Nicea actually passed.
It was not the Nicene Creed in use today. The original
Nicene formula stated:
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker
of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
begotten of the Father, the only begotten; that is, of
the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of
one substance with the Father; by whom all things
were made both in heaven and on earth; who for us
men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate
and was made man; he suffered, and the third
day he rose again, ascended into heaven; from thence
he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
And in the Holy Ghost.
But those who say: "There was a time when he
was not"; and "He was not before he was made"; and
"He was made out of nothing," or "He is of another
substance" or "essence," or "The Son of God is created,"
or "changeable," or "alterable" "they are
condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic
church.
While this confession was threefold, it was not explicitly
trinitarian, for it did not state that Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost were three distinct persons. Rather, its fundamental
purpose was to affirm the deity of Jesus Christ
against the Arians. The words "of the essence of the Father"
(ek tes ousias tou patros) and "of one substance with
the Father" (homoousion to patri) clearly refute Arianism,
and the condemnatory clause pronounces an anathema
on various Arian formulations.
This creed did not take a clear position relative to
modalism, however, for its key phrases allowed a Sabellian
interpretation. While Athanasius himself did not mean
them in a Sabellian sense, many signers had reservations
about the creed precisely because it seemed too Sabellian.
While there was no organized Sabellian party at the council,
it is plausible that some bishops who adhered to the
creed were essentially modalistic in their thinking. As
Archibald Robertson noted in The Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, the Council of Nicea did not clearly
distinguish itself from modalism.
The phrase "God of God . . . very God of very God"
may imply two divine persons, but it can also be understood
as simply referring to the Incarnation. From a
Oneness perspective, perhaps the most questionable
phrase is the anathema on those who say the "Son of God"
is "changeable" or "alterable," since it implies the doc-
trine of the eternal Son. Modalists and Oneness believers
would agree that "the Word" or "the deity of Jesus" is not
changeable or alterable, which is the intent of the statement,
but technically they would argue that "the Son" has
reference to the Incarnation and so had a beginning.
Since this phrase was not part of the creed itself, since it
strongly affirms the deity of Jesus, and since its intent
was to condemn the Arian position, a modalistic thinker
at the council probably would have had little difficulty
with it.
Ironically, another phrase in the same anathema does
not harmonize with modern trinitarianism. It condemns
those who say the Son is of another "substance" or
"essence," using two Greek words that were basically synonymous
at the time: hypostasis and ousia. But as we
shall see, the official trinitarian formulation of the late
fourth century is "one ousia (substance) and three
hypostases (persons)." Of course, the participants at
Nicea did not use these terms in their later technical sense,
but if the terminology of the Nicene formula is inconsistent
with modern Oneness it is also inconsistent with modern
trinitarianism.
__________________ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Well I noticed people stop posting when I post, is there a reason for that ?
If I offend anyone please let me know, I will be gone for good.
Shalom
Alex, I can only speak for myself in saying that you have never offended me. As far as I can tell your posts should'nt offend anyone. I don't respond to a lot of threads because I just don't have anything to add.
This thread here for instance will not recieve many replies . . . .I don't take offence at that because I know there are many reasons for that. The "One God message" will never win us any popularity prizes, but I really don't feel that folks want us gone because of it . . . .at least not all of them.
I read all of your posts . . .many are very lengthy and thorough and leave little room for comment but inspire further study.
I should login more often to give a "good one" reply to many of the posts on here. Reb is another example with his daily devotions . . .I read them most every day but very seldom reply . . . . .lazy, I guess.
__________________ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Well I noticed people stop posting when I post, is there a reason for that ?
If I offend anyone please let me know, I will be gone for good.
Shalom
Alex...my brother. I have a special place in my heart for Messianic Jews. To be honest ..when I don't respond to Alex's threads it's because of 2 reasons/
1. I may not understand the content well enough to converse.
2. If the subject has caused controvercy in the past I also may leave it alone.
I have zero bad feelings toward you. I promice.
Chuck7
In hindsight, Nicea was a watershed of history, but
at the time it did not settle anything. The Arian controversy
continued unabated; in fact, it intensified. The next
fifty years were a seesaw battle between the Athanasians
and Arians, and during much of this time the Arians seemed
to prevail. Political, ecclesiastical, and theological factors
were all integral parts of the controversy and its ultimate
outcome.
In the political arena, the Arians convinced Constantine
to reopen the issue. Arius sent the emperor a conciliatory
letter with an ambiguous confession of faith that
satisfied him. At Constantine"s behest, another council in
Nicea in 327 pronounced Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia
to be orthodox. By 328 Eusebius of Nicomedia was
back from exile and was one of the emperor"s counselors.
In fact, it was the Arian bishop Eusebius who baptized
Constantine in 337.
Constantine convened a council in Tyre in 335 that
reversed the Council of Nicea, deposed Athanasius (who
had become bishop of Alexandria in 328), sent him into
exile, and reinstated Arius. Eusebius of Caesarea played
a leading role at this council; according to Epiphanius he
presided over it. The night before Arius was to be officially
accepted into communion at the church in Constantinople,
he died at age eighty of an attack like cholera
while attending a call of nature. Athanasius, considered
this event to be the judgment of God and circulated a
gruesome story about the manner of his death, comparing
it to that of Judas.
When Constantine died in 337, his three sons succeeded
him, and they permitted the exiled bishops, including
Athanasius, to return. In the West, Constantine II and
Constans followed the Nicene doctrine, which prevailed
there; in the East, Constantius was a strong advocate of
Arianism, which prevailed there.
In 339 Eusebius of Nicomedia became bishop of Constantinople,
the imperial capital, and Arians dominated
the city for the next forty years. Athanasius was deposed
a second time and fled to Rome, whose bishop supported
him.
Bishop was pitted against bishop, council against
council, creed against creed. Clashes between rival factions
frequently resulted in bloodshed. For example, three
thousand people died in a riot in Constantinople over the
imperial appointment of an Arian bishop. Will Durant
commented, "Probably more Christians were slaughtered
by Christians in . . . two years (342-3) than by all the
persecutions of Christians by pagans in the history of
Rome."
In 353 Constantius became the sole ruler, his two
brothers having been eliminated in war, and the empire
became officially Arian. Athanasius was exiled once again,
and under duress the aged Hosius signed an Arian creed.
Liberius, bishop of Rome, was deposed and replaced by
Felix II, an Arian. Liberius signed an Arian creed to regain
his position but later returned to the Nicene view.
The victorious Arians soon split into factions, which
proved to be their undoing. The extremists followed the
logical implications of Arius"s own position and said that
Christ was "of a different substance" (heterousios) from
the Father or "unlike" (anomoios) the Father"fallible and
capable of sin. The majority said He was "like" (homois)
the Father. Some were willing to say that Christ was
homoiousios with the Father, meaning "of similar substance"
or "like in every respect." They are sometimes
called Semi-Arians, but Athanasius perceived that actually
they were closer to the Nicene position than to Arianism,
and he made conciliatory overtures toward them. The doctrinal
formulation of the three Cappadocians provided a
basis for agreement, and although Athanasius died in 373,
the resulting alliance led to the ultimate triumph of his
basic views at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
__________________ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Historians give much credit for the victory of the
Nicene position to Athanasius personally. He was exiled
no less than five times, but he remained steadfast in his
convictions. Citing his firmness throughout all the theological
battles, Durant said, "To him, above all, the Church
owes her doctrine of the Trinity." Likewise, Heick stated,
"The decisive factor in the victory of homoousianism
was the unfaltering determination of Athanasius during a
long life of persecution and oppression."
Athanasius presented four major arguments for the
true deity of Christ. First, the Scriptures clearly teach the
deity of Jesus. Some of his favorite proofs were John
10:30; 14:9; 14:10. Second, Christians have always worshiped
Jesus. Third, the plan of salvation requires it. Only
if Jesus is truly God can He save us. Only if He is both
God and man can He unite humanity to God. Finally,
Athanasius used Greek philosophy to argue that the Logos
must participate in the essence of God.
To counter Arian arguments from Scripture that Christ
was inferior to the Father, Athanasius consistently said
these biblical examples"such as Christ"s prayer at
Gethsemane and His statement that the Son did not know
all things"related only to the humanity of Christ, not to
the Godhead. He interpreted the key Arian text, Proverbs
8:22, as a reference to the preordained plan for the Incarnation:
"It is true to say that the Son was created too,
but this took place when He became man; for creation
belongs to man." He explained that when the Bible says
Christ is at the right hand of the Father it means "that the
Godhead of the Father is the same as the Son"s," and in
this sense the Father is on the Son"s right hand too. "The
Son reigns in His Father"s kingdom, is seated upon the
same throne as the Father, and is contemplated in the
Father"s Godhead."
Athanasius said, "The Father"s deity passes into the
Son without flow and without division." Moreover, "the
fulness of the Father"s Godhead is the Being of the Son,
and the Son is whole God. . . . The Godhead of the Son
is the Father"s, and it is in the Son . . . for in the Son is
contemplated the Father"s Godhead."
In a modalistic analogy, he compared the Father and
Son to the Roman emperor and the image of the emperor.
Just as to worship the image of the emperor is to worship
the emperor himself, so to worship the Son is to worship
the Father, for the Son is the Father"s image. Similarly,
he compared the Father and the Son to light and radiance
from the light.
On the other hand, Athanasius insisted on differentiating
the three persons, and based on Matthew 28:19,
he advocated a threefold baptismal formula. In distinguishing
the Father from the Son, he compared them to
a well and a river produced from the well. The same water
is present in both, but the well is not the river, nor is the
river the well. They are not separate, yet they are two
visible objects, and they have two names.
The main concern of Athanasius was to vindicate the
deity of Jesus Christ. He believed the Father and the Son
to be distinct persons, but he was unable to articulate the
distinction satisfactorily to his opponents because of his
exaltation of Christ.
__________________ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Trinitarian Controversery In The 4th Century
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