Thanks for the long reply.
If I may, how do you trace actual textual quotes or references in the early fathers? Also, are there online sources you use in tracing Old Latin and Syriac? If not, can you recommend what to purchase in hardcover? It's been awhile since I increased my library, but that stuff would be useful.
Amazing.
Also amazing.
Is this your own work, or did you build on the work of others here?
Thanks again for the replies. It's excellent.
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It may be questioned whether
any Ante-nicene father distinctly affirms either the numerical Unity or the Coequality of the Three Persons; except
perhaps the heterodox Tertullian, and that chiefly in a work written after he had become a Montanist” - pp 17-18, Cardinal Newman,
The Development of Christian Doctrine.
And as even many trinitarian scholars and historians of today admit, the very first writers (the “Apostolic Fathers” who wrote from the time of the Apostles up to about 150 A. D.) made
no changes in the understanding of God. In fact, even when changes
began to be made in the latter half of the second century, Christ was still not considered equal to God (who was the Father alone). And the trinity concept wasn’t developed until the 4th century (325) when in Nicaea a partial such doctrine was first forced upon the church by a Roman Emperor. The completed doctrine was further forced upon the church in the late 4th century (381) by another Roman Emperor (see the HIST study) and has completely dominated Christendom ever since.
Of all the thousands of NT manuscript copies which still exist today there are only a very small number (mostly fragments) which are not from this completely
trinitarian-dominated time period (381 A.D. to present). Any changes made by copyists in this time period would, obviously, be
trinitarian changes! And it is well known that from 325 A. D. (when the emperor, who presided over the Nicene council, and his trinitarian advisors had the anti-trinitarians banished and persecuted and their anti-trinitarian writings
burned - see the HIST study) onward the Roman church began systematically destroying (and changing) writings and manuscripts which were considered non-trinitarian or otherwise “heretical”!
There are other problems associated with the existing copies of the writings of these very early Christians.
First, unlike the writings of Holy Scripture, there are very few existing manuscripts of the writings of the first Christians. For many of these writers there are only one or two manuscripts available, and they are often of relatively late date (many hundreds of years after the original was composed). In other words, instead of having the original words of the ancient writers themselves, we have copies of copies, etc.
many times over. Justin Martyr’s important ‘Dialogue with Trypho,’ for example, exists only in a copy made over a thousand years after the original was written.
Second, the copyists very often did not take the same care or have the same reverence for these manuscripts as they did for the scriptures themselves. They would sometimes change the wording and even add their own thoughts and beliefs to the original writings in order to provide greater authority for these beliefs in an attempt to persuade others.
Furthermore, the manuscripts of the Church Fathers have suffered the usual
transcriptional modifications to which all ancient manuscripts were subject; this was especially true for Biblical passages where the tendency of scribes was to
accommodate readings to the
Byzantine textual tradition.” - p. xxxvi,
The Greek New Testament, United Bible Societies (1971 ed.) [The Byzantine textual tradition is of relatively late date and very trinitarian. - RDB]
Fortunately, there are thousands of manuscripts of NT Scripture remaining today (some of quite early date) which can be compared. This helps greatly in the process of determining what the original writings most likely were.
It should be no surprise, then, that there are a
great number of changes, additions, deletions, etc. to be found in the very few remaining (mostly late date) manuscripts of the non-scriptural writings of the earliest Christian writings, and they are almost impossible to isolate and positively identify because of the extreme rarity of still existent manuscripts for comparison.
Third, since trinitarians have ruled the world of Christendom in every way, politically, economically, numerically (99% of all professing Christians even today are trinitarian), etc. for over 1600 years now, it should not be too surprising that trinitarians are the ones who have written the modern translations of the existing manuscript copies of these ancient writers. And these
trinitarian translators have written their translations for
trinitarian publishers who publish for a
trinitarian market! Surely we wouldn’t expect them to translate an ambiguous or vague passage (and the trinitarian translators themselves have admitted that these writings are full of such passages) in a
non-trinitarian way if they could find another (even if much less probable),
trinitarian, interpretation. (They even admit that they have purposely done so. See Preface, Vol. 5,
ANF)
“It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Christian theologians of the second and third centuries, even theologians of the rank of Origen...came to see the Logos [the Word, Christ] as
a god of second rank.” -
The Encyclopedia of Religion, Macmillan Publ., 1987, Vol. 9, p. 15.
But when trinitarian translators find Jesus called
theos (“a god”) in these earliest writings, they most often translate it as “
God” instead!
So, after more than 1500 years of trinitarian dominance, redefinition, rewording, and selective translating, it should not be surprising that the trinitarian translations of the existing copies of the manuscripts of those early Christian writers will at times
appear trinitarian. What would be very surprising would be, given the above conditions, that there would be
any support for a
non-trinitarian doctrine still left in modern trinitarian translations of the writings of these earliest Christians!
Now let's see if any of that truth still remains in the trinitarian-reworked letters of the Apostolic Fathers and the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Trinitarian scholar, minister, and missionary, H. R. Boer admits: The very first Christians to really discuss Jesus’ relationship to God in their writings were the Apologists.
“Justin and the other Apologists therefore taught that the Son is a
creature. He is a high creature, a creature powerful enough to create the world, but nevertheless,
a creature. In theology this relationship of the Son to the Father is called Subordinationism. The Son is subordinate, that is, secondary to,
dependent upon, and
caused by the Father.” - p. 110,
A Short History of the Early Church, Eerdmans (trinitarian), 1976.
Other respected trinitarian scholars agree.
“Before the Council of Nicaea (AD 325)
all theologians viewed the Son as in one way or another
subordinate to the Father.”112-113,
Eerdman’s Handbook to the History of Christianity (trinitarian), 1977; and p. 114,
The History of Christianity, A Lion Handbook, Lion Publishing, 1990 revised ed.
“The formulation ‘One God in three persons’ was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith prior to the end of the 4th century. But it is precisely this formulation that has first claim to the title the Trinitarian Dogma. Among the Apostolic Fathers [those very first Christians who had known and been taught by the Apostles and their disciples], there had been nothing even
remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective.” -
New Catholic Encyclopedia, p. 299, v. 14, 1967.
Alvan Lamson is especially straightforward:
“The modern popular doctrine of the Trinity ... derives no support from the language of Justin [Martyr]: and this observation may be extended to
all the ante-Nicene Fathers; that is, to all Christian writers for three centuries after the birth of Christ. It is true, they speak of the Father, Son, and ... Holy Spirit, but not as co-equal, not as one numerical essence, not as Three in One, in any sense now admitted by Trinitarians. The very reverse is the fact.” - Alvan Lamson,
The Church of the First Three Centuries.
