Trinity.

[dizerner]

https://carm.org/early-trinitarian-quotes — quotes before Nicea

[Paidion]

Several sources that I consider to be generally well-informed and trustworthy suggested that 1 John 5:7 was not to be found until Erasmus made a spurious addition to a TR manuscript. Thus, I was surprised to find a strong allusion, if not a partially direct quote from the verse in Cyprian's fairly well-known treatise On the Unity of the Church. The translation that I have says:

..."He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. The Lord says, “I and the Father are one;” (Jn.10:30) and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, “And these three are one” (1Jn. 5:7 [?]). And does any one believe that this unity which thus comes from the divine strength and coheres in celestial sacraments, can be divided in the Church, and can be separated by the parting asunder of opposing wills? He who does not hold this unity does not hold God’s law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation."

Your sources were mistaken. I John 5:7 was found in the text of manuscripts of 1 John as early as the tenth century (but no earlier). I wasn't aware of the quote from Cyprian. Are you sure that was Cyprian? Cyprian lived in the third century from 200 A.D. to 258 A.D., and there were Trinitarian thoughts in that century, though they didn't catch on to the extent that they became a teaching of the church until the fourth century. If it was Cyprian, he wasn't quoting the Johannine Comma (1 John 5:7). Rather it was the one who first inserted the Comma into the text who was quoting Cyprian.

The Johannine Comma (1 John 5:7)

Here are some facts, which taken together make it almost impossible to maintain that it was part of the original letter which we call “1st John”.

1. Out of the many hundreds of manuscripts which contain 1st John, there are only eight known Greek manuscripts which contain the passage.

2. Of the eight, four of them include it not as part of the text, but as a marginal note.

3. Seven of the eight date from the 14th to 18th centuries.

4. The other one is a variant reading of a 10th century manuscript.

5. During the Trinitarian controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries, no Greek father quoted the passage in support of Trinitarianism. Was that because it did not exist at that time?

If the passage were original, how can it be explained that it was absent from the many hundreds of early Greek manuscripts, and not present in even one of them?

Further details about the Johannine Comma can be obtained from:

http://www.bible-researcher.com/comma.html

According to the "Bible-Researcher" (the link above):

The earliest instance of the passage being quoted as a part of the actual text of the Epistle is in a fourth century Latin treatise entitled Liber Apologeticus (chap. 4), attributed either to the Spanish heretic Priscillian (died about 385) or to his follower Bishop Instantius. Apparently the gloss arose when the original passage was understood to symbolize the Trinity (through the mention of three witnesses: the Spirit, the water, and the blood), an interpretation that may have been written first as a marginal note that afterwards found its way into the text. In the fifth century the gloss was quoted by Latin Fathers in North Africa and Italy as part of the text of the Epistle, and from the sixth century onwards it is found more and more frequently in manuscripts of the Old Latin and of the Vulgate.

[dizerner]

Here's an online copy of On the Unity of the Church: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050701.htm or https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.o ... e/cyprian/

Interesting to have such an early quote. This site tries to make a case for the comma: http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/1j ... egesis.htm. Gregory of Nazanzius (a Greek Church Father from the fourth century) discusses the comma at length. This article makes some interesting points. I don't find it quite compelling... I don't think the context really calls for it and I think the Spirit is seen as abiding on earth for the time being.

[Paidion]

As concerns the doctrine of the Trinity, the earliest references that I'm aware of are from the second century. Theophilus of Antioch makes reference to the concept in his Letter to Autolycus (Book 2, ch. 15):

In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His wisdom.

Steven, I thank you for this quote from Theophilos. I was unaware of it. I have learned something new. I have heard teachers say that Tertullian of the third century coined the word "τριαδος" (trinity). Obviously they were mistaken. Appararently Theophilos of the early second century was the first to use the word. It is doubtful that he had the concept of THE Trinity that developed later. He seemed to be using "trinity" in reference to aspects of God, his very essence, his word (logos, the expression of Himself) and his wisdom. That seems closer to modalism or "oneness" doctrine than classical trinitarianism. Many who claim to be trinitarians are actually modalists. Historically, modalism predated the advent of trinitarianism.

Another quote is from the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria (Book 5, ch. 14; pardon the lengthy quote):

For I pass over Plato; he plainly, in the Epistle to Erastus and Coriscus, is seen to exhibit the Father and Son somehow or other from the Hebrew Scriptures, exhorting in these words: “In invoking by oath, with not illiterate gravity, and with culture, the sister of gravity, God the author of all, and invoking Him by oath as the Lord, the Father of the Leader, and author; whom if ye study with a truly philosophical spirit, ye shall know.” And the address in the Timaeus calls the creator, Father, speaking thus: “Ye gods of gods, of whom I am Father; and the Creator of your works.” So that when he says, “Around the king of all, all things are, and because of Him are all things; and he [or that] is the cause of all good things; and around the second are the things second in order; and around the third, the third,” I understand nothing else than the Holy Trinity to be meant; for the third is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the second, by whom all things were made according to the will of the Father.

This quote sounds more like classic trinitarianism, though I'm not certain that it is. The word "holy trinity" may be used in the sense of a "holy trio", that is of three, each of which are divine. The Holy Spirit, being one of the three was not necessarily conceived by Clement, as being a distinct person. Nor does he state that the three comprise one God or that each of them WAS God.

As if in this way also one were not All, in that All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. How they are susceptible of number without division, will be shown as our treatise proceeds...

I can see why some have deemed Tertullian of the third century to have been either a trinitarian or a proto-trinitarian, as your quote of him indicates. However, even that quote doesn't prove him to have been a classic trinitarian. Though he affirms the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be of the same "substance" or essence, he considers them to be a monarchy comparable to a human monarchy in which there is only one king. Likewise Tertullian's "trinity" is a monarchy. There in only one God, the Father, but two other Individuals who are of the same essence, but form a "unity" as a monarchy is a single united power in a dominion.

As for myself, however, if I have gleaned any knowledge of either language, I am sure that μοναρχία (orMonarchy) has no other meaning than single and individual rule; but for all that, this monarchy does not, because it is the government of one, preclude him whose government it is, either from having a son, or from having made himself actually a son to himself [This was a belief of Praxeus against whom he was writing] or from ministering his own monarchy by whatever agents he will. Nay more, I contend that no dominion so belongs to one only, as his own, or is in such a sense singular, or is in such a sense a monarchy, as not also to be administered through other persons most closely connected with it, and whom it has itself provided as officials to itself. If, moreover, there be a son belonging to him whose monarchy it is, it does not forthwith become divided and cease to be a monarchy, if the son also be taken as a sharer in it; but it is as to its origin equally his, by whom it is communicated to the son; and being his, it is quite as much a monarchy (or sole empire), since it is held together by two who are so inseparable. Therefore, inasmuch as the Divine Monarchy also is administered by so many legions and be a son belonging to him whose monarchy it is, it does not forthwith become divided and cease to be a monarchy, if the son also be taken as a sharer in it; but it is as to its origin hosts of angels, according as it is written, “Thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him;” and since it has not from this circumstance ceased to be the rule of one (so as no longer to be a monarchy), because it is administered by so many thousands of powers; how comes it to pass that God should be thought to suffer division and severance in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, who have the second and the third places assigned to them, and who are so closely joined with the Father in His substance, when He suffers no such (division and severance) in the multitude of so many angels? Do you really suppose that Those, who are naturally members of the Father’s own substance, pledges of His love, instruments of His might, nay, His power itself and the entire system of His monarchy, are the overthrow and destruction thereof? equally his, by whom it is communicated to the son; and being his, it is quite as much a monarchy (or sole empire), since it is held together by two who are so inseparable.

[StevenD]

Greetings Paidion (and anyone else following the thread),

The text containing the allusion to 1 John 5:17 is generally regarded as authentic Cyprian. One reason for saying so is having repetitively heard the motivational phrase “he can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.” Though this sentence might conceivably by heard rolling off the lips of well-meaning adherents to some form of apostolic succession, it precedes the portion resembling 1 John 5:17 by merely a few sentences. (Thanks to Dizerner for providing a link.)

Your suggestion that the roots of the Johannine Comma may stem from Cyprian’s treatise is one possible explanation, but by no means a certain conclusion. While you may be correct, I certainly haven’t sufficiently evaluated the data as to be persuaded myself. Then again, I don’t see the legitimacy of the trinitarian concept of God hanging from 1 John 5:17 either.

Tertullian’s identification of God’s rule as a monarchy is not a unitarian monarchy as he explicitly accounts for three distinct persons within his formulation of the Trinity (see quote that I presented). The longer citation that you provided also appears to qualify the nature of the monarchy to which Tertullian refers as a kind of monarchy that “is held together by two who are so inseparable”, namely the rule of the Father and the Son.

In chapter 12 of the same letter (i.e. Against Praxaes) Tertullian continues his rant against Praxaes’ unitarian concept of Deity opposed to a trinitarian concept that accounts for three persons within God. (As Tertullian’s address is a bit strong, I would point out that drawing from his words isn’t intended to generate any animus here)

If the number of the Trinity also offends you, as if it were not connected in the simple Unity, I ask you how it is possible for a Being who is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to speak in plural phrase, saying, “Let us make man in our own image, and after our own likeness” (Gen. 1:26); whereas He ought to have said, “Let me make man in my own image, and after my own likeness,” as being a unique and singular Being? In the following passage, however, “Behold the man is become as one of us” (Gen. 3:22), He is either deceiving or amusing us in speaking plurally, if He is One only and singular. Or was it to the angels that He spoke, as the Jews interpret the passage, because these also acknowledge not the Son? Or was it because He was at once the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, that He spoke to Himself in plural terms, making Himself plural on that very account? Nay, it was because He had already His Son close at His side, as a second Person, His own Word, and a third Person also, the Spirit in the Word, that He purposely adopted the plural phrase, “Let us make;” and, “in our image;” and, “become as one of us.”

From a historical point of view, it appears that the term Trinity represents more than a provincial pre-Nicene designation. Admittedly, the voices of Tertullian and Cyprian both resonate with one another as North African churchmen. Alexandria wasn’t so distant, thus Clement’s material was perhaps accessible as well. I’m not sure how to account for the Antiochian usage of the word Trinity by Theophilus apart from an acknowledgment that the term circulated on a larger scale than merely the western region of the early church as witnessed during the second and early third centuries.

-sd

[Homer]

This quote of Justin:

"For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water" (First Apol., LXI).

I am wondering if the "in" is the Greek preposition eis, "into", which would echo Jesus' commission:

Matthew 28:19 (NASB)

19. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,

In Jesus' command the "in" is eis, literally "into the name of", and since in the ANE the name strongly represented "person" this would seem to be strong scriptural support for a Trinitarian concept. It does not seem likely Jesus would have said "into a person, another person, and a thing".

[Paidion]

In Jesus' command the "in" is eis, literally "into the name of", and since in the ANE the name strongly represented "person" this would seem to be strong scriptural support for a Trinitarian concept. It does not seem likely Jesus would have said "into a person, another person, and a thing".

"into the name of", so one name, one Person, eh Homer? One Person who reveals Himself in three ways. But that's modalism—not trinitarianism. Those who believe in classic trinitarianism proclaim that there are THREE divine Persons, and they mean THREE distinct Individuals.

[jriccitelli]

Paidion should know this by now (or years ago from reading old posts here). Any good book on Theological definitions, even secular ones, state and understand the position of Monotheism, Trinitarianism and Modalism (with these we agree and know). Three persons in One is not a contradiction of One God, and so neither are the 'three names' in the One God'. We would all be Modalists if it were not for the distinction Jesus made with the three names, and the conversations He had with the Father. All the verse noted above exclaims is that the three names are the same 'One'. That they are 'persons with identities' is confirmed in 'other' verses.

As much as I deplore having to delve into the piles of ancient writers and commentators that are so easily taken out of context, and require a familiarity with the whole of their argument and context, and it may for some seem benefiting, if only to refute and defend the misinformation of each and in every topic. But In this area of doctrine it is well established that Tertullian and Justin both held to a strict Monotheism. They each defended their position based on the fact and Doctrine of the One God, of whom Jesus must be One also. They each argue in defense of the plurality within the One God, never dividing the substance of the One.

TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS. Beginning in 131:2-8;
We however as always, the more so now as
better equipped through the Paraclete, that leader into all truth, 3
believe (as these do) in one only God, yet subject to this dispensation
(which is our word for "economy") that the one only God
has also a Son, his Word who has proceeded from himself, by
whom all things were made; and without whom nothing has been
made : 4 that this <Son> was sent by the Father into the virgin
and was born of her both man and God, Son of man and Son of
God, and was named Jesus Christ: that he suffered, died, and
was buried, according to the scriptures,5 and, having been raised
up by the Father and taken back into heaven, sits at the right
hand of the Father 6 and will come to judge the quick and the
dead 7 : and that thereafter he, according to his promise,8 sent
from the Father the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the
faith of those who believe in the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit. That this Rule has come down from the beginning

…. and in particular this one which supposes itself to possess
truth unadulterated while it thinks it impossible to believe in one
God unless it says that both Father and Son and Holy Spirit are
one and the same: as though the one <God> were not all <these
things> in this way also, that they are all of the one, namely by
unity of substance, while none the less is guarded the mystery of
that economy which disposes the unity into trinity, setting forth
Father and Son and Spirit as three, three however not in quality
but in sequence, not in substance but in aspect, not in power but
in <its> manifestation, yet of one substance and one quality and
one power, seeing it is one God from whom those sequences and
aspects and manifestations are reckoned out in the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. How they admit of
plurality without division the discussion will show as it proceeds.
(132:1-3, proceeding)
3. For all the simple people, that I say not the thoughtless and
ignorant (who are always the majority of the faithful), since the
Rule of the Faith itself brings <us> over from the many gods of
the world to the one only true God, not understanding that while
they must believe in one only <God> yet they must believe in
him along with his economy, shy at the economy. They claim
that the plurality and ordinance of trinity is a division of unity -
although a unity which derives from itself a trinity is not destroyed
but administered by it. And so <people> put it about that by
us two or even three <gods> are preached, while they, they claim,
are worshippers of one God - as though unity irrationally summed
up did not make heresy and trinity rationally counted out
constitute truth. "We hold", they say, "to the monarchy": and
even Latins so expressively frame the sound, and in so masterly
a fashion, that you would think they understood monarchy as (133)

Well as they pronounce it: but while Latins are intent to shout out
" monarchy ", even Greeks refuse to understand the economy.
But if I have gathered any small knowledge of both languages,
I know that monarchy indicates neither more nor less than a
single and sole empire, yet that monarchy because it belongs to
one man does not for that reason make a standing rule that he
whose it is may not have a son or must have made himself his
own son or may not administer his monarchy by the agency of
whom he will. Nay more, I say that no kingdom is in such a
sense one man's own, in such a sense single, in such a sense a
monarchy, as not to be administered also through those other
closely related persons whom it has provided for itself as officers
and if moreover he whose the monarchy is has a son, it is not ipso
facto divided, does not cease to be a monarchy, if the son also
is assumed as partner in it, but it continues to belong in first
instance to him by whom it is passed on to the son: and so long as
it is his, that continues to be a monarchy which is jointly held
by two who are so closely united. Therefore if also the divine
monarchy is administered by the agency of so many legions and
hosts of angels (as it is written, Ten thousand times ten thousand
stood before him and thousand thousands ministered unto him),1 yet
has not therefore ceased to belong to one, so as to cease to be a
monarchy because it has for its provincial governors so many
thousand authorities, how should God be thought, in the Son
and in the Holy Spirit occupying second and third place, while
they are to such a degree conjoint of the Father's substance,
to experience a division and a dispersion such as he does not
experience in the plurality of all those angels, alien as they are
from the Father's substance? Do you account provinces and
family connexions and officials and the very forces and the whole
trappings of empire to be the overthrow of it? You are wrong if
you do. I prefer you to busy yourself about the meaning of a fact
rather than the sound of a word. Overthrow of monarchy you
should understand as <taking place> when there is superimposed
another kingship of its own character and its own quality, and
consequently hostile, when another god is introduced to oppose
the Creator, as with Marcion, or many gods according to people
like Valentinus and Prodicus: then is it for the overthrow of the
monarchy when it is for the destruction of the Creator'

And such it is when you divide, or separate the One God, His Kingdom, and His King. Yet for us there is ONLY ONE KING.

The only problem I see with Tertullian’s defense above is that a Kingdom has Only One King, not two. Tertullian does not address this, and he shouldn’t have to, since he is only trying to explain that a monarchy can delegate, and regulate through a multiplicity of rule. Only to show that a monarchy can do so, in contrast to a polytheistic system that cannot function as One (I don’t believe T. is trying to explain 'how much the One is One' in this particular discourse). Another point is human kings and others are Kings one at a time. A son does not become king until the other ceases to be King, like David and Solomon. We also see the dividing of kingdoms and allegiance to kings in these cases divided when a kingdom is divided, this is not so with God. Other kingdoms are not Eternal, they die, are fallible, and are not Holy, etc. Only God is above All of this, and He is King for Eternity.

I have said before, the term Trinity does not begin or end the Doctrine of Gods Oneness, or in the Doctrine of Jesus Divinity, it is simply a word to define a particular argument against the other increasingly defined and forming arguments. Tertullian continues to ground his argument (in which he defines as trinity) on the doctrine and Law of the One God, and against the command to have or follow other gods (just as I have).

Paidion, and any other concept that does not believe Jesus is God / and that God alone is God / and that there is no other God, the others all demand that 'Jesus is a creature standing next to God who is not God'. Thus they would also have two kings (and lords), one having to cease being King if the other takes over as King (or Lord). Two cannot 'also' be The King. So, for us: there is but One KING eternal, not two.

We have but One King for all eternity, One Savior, One God and One Lord:
"The LORD reigns for ever and ever" (Exodus 15:18)
'The LORD is King forever and ever; Nations have perished from His land. 17 O LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear... (Psalm 10)
'The voice of the LORD makes the deer to calve And strips the forests bare; And in His temple everything says, "Glory!" 10 The LORD sat as King at the flood; Yes, the LORD sits as King forever. 11 The LORD will give strength to His people; The LORD will bless His people with peace' (Psalm 29)
'To make known to the sons of men Your mighty acts And the glory of the majesty of Your kingdom. 13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And Your dominion endures throughout all generations' (Psalm 145)

Do you believe this? WHO is the King of ALL, and WHO's Kingdom is everlasting and for eternity?

[TheEditor]

Hi JR,

I would have to agree with your general spirit on this as you appear to lament posting Tertullian. I went through the trouble of reading the entirety of that treatise. Tertullian appears to say that his is the minority opinion, and not a few times used terms such as "uneducated", "perverse-minded" and etc. when referring to those not grasping his view of the doctrine. Also, it appears that Tertullian teaches a subordinationism that would be rejected by trinitarian evangelicals like yourself as well as teaching that the Son was not co-eternal with the Father; so I am left to wonder exactly what your quoting Tertullian accomplishes? Alot of this sounds like so much high-minded philosophizing and I can't imagine how it effects one's walk with God as much as one iota.

Regards, Brenden.

More Tertullian (so that we can all fall asleep much more easily)

"He [God] existed before the creation of the world, up to the generation of the Son. For before all things God was alone - being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself. Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say, His own Reason. For God is rational, and Reason was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself. This Reason is His own Thought (or Consciousness) which the Greeks call λόγος, by which term we also designate Word or Discourse and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to say that the Word was in the beginning with God; although it would be more suitable to regard Reason as the more ancient; because God had not Word from the beginning, but He had Reason even before the beginning; because also Word itself consists of Reason, which it thus proves to have been the prior existence as being its own substance. Not that this distinction is of any practical moment."

"For although God had not yet sent out His Word, He still had Him within Himself, both in company with and included within His very Reason, as He silently planned and arranged within Himself everything which He was afterwards about to utter through His Word. Now, whilst He was thus planning and arranging with His own Reason, He was actually causing that to become Word which He was dealing with in the way of Word or Discourse. And that you may the more readily understand this, consider first of all, from your own self, who are made “in the image and likeness of God,” (Gen_1:26) for what purpose it is that you also possess reason in yourself, who are a rational creature, as being not only made by a rational Artificer, but actually animated out of His substance."

"Observe, then, that when you are silently conversing with yourself, this very process is carried on within you by your reason, which meets you with a word at every movement of your thought, at every impulse of your conception. Whatever you think, there is a word; whatever you conceive, there is reason. You must needs speak it in your mind; and while you are speaking, you admit speech as an interlocutor with you, involved in which there is this very reason, whereby, while in thought you are holding converse with your word, you are (by reciprocal action) producing thought by means of that converse with your word. Thus, in a certain sense, the word is a second person within you, through which in thinking you utter speech, and through which also, (by reciprocity of process,) in uttering speech you generate thought. The word is itself a different thing from yourself. Now how much more fully is all this transacted in God, whose image and likeness even you are regarded as being, inasmuch as He has reason within Himself even while He is silent, and involved in that Reason His Word! I may therefore without rashness first lay this down (as a fixed principle) that even then before the creation of the universe God was not alone, since He had within Himself both Reason, and, inherent in Reason, His Word, which He made second to Himself by agitating it within Himself."


"Now, observe, my assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that They are distinct from Each Other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated as well as every perversely disposed person, as if it predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. I am, moreover, obliged to say this, when (extolling the Monarchy at the expense of the Economy) they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is different, but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than I.” (Joh_14:28) In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the angels.” (Psa_8:5) Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too, who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is another."

[Paidion]

Thanks for the Tertullian quote, Brenden. Perfectly clear, eh?

About as clear as modern trinitarianism:

1. There is one God only.
2. God is three distinct persons.
3. Each person is to be worshipped. Yet you are worshipping just one God.
3. The Father is God; The Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God... God is not the Father; God is not the Son; God is not the Holy Spirit.
4. God was born on earth as a human being.
5. God is a Trinity.
6. The Trinity was NOT born on earth as a human being.
7. The great Creator became my Saviour (hymn)
8. There is one God, the Father... and one Lord, Jesus Christ ... (1 Cor 8:6)

A good trinitarian believes all eight! There is no inconsistency at all (in his mind).