Ante-Nicene writers on the deity of Christ

(Sorted by author date; grouped by author → document.) Authors above in this color are discussed in the Watchtower brochure “Should You Believe In The Trinity? p. 7”. Links below point to Early Christian Writings.

1. 👤 Ignatius of Antioch — c. 35–108 A.D. [] 🔝
   • ➜ To the Ephesians
   • Chapter 0 — “by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ our God” — 📖
   • Chapter 1 — “having your hearts kindled in the blood of God” — 📖
   • Chapter 7 — “There is one only physician, of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate, God in man, true Life in death, Son of Mary and Son of God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord.” — 📖 [passible means: capable of feeling or suffering.]
   • Chapter 15 — “Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God” — 📖
   • Chapter 17 — “we have received the knowledge of God, which is Jesus Christ” — 📖
   • Chapter 18 — “For our God, Jesus the Christ, was… conceived in the womb by Mary” — 📖
   • Chapter 18 — “For the Son of God, who was begotten before time began” — 📖
   • Chapter 19 — “when God appeared in the likeness of man” — 📖
   • ➜ To the Romans
   • Chapter 0 — “which are according to the love of Jesus Christ our God” — 📖
   • Chapter 0 — “[I wish] abundance of happiness unblameably, in Jesus Christ our God.” — 📖
   • Chapter 3 — “For our God, Jesus Christ, now that He is with the Father, is all the more revealed [in His glory].” — 📖
   • Chapter 6 — “Permit me to be an imitator of the passion of Christ, my God.” — 📖
   • ➜ To the Trallians
   • Chapter 7 — “continue in intimate union with Jesus Christ our God” — 📖
   • Chapter 10 — “Mary then did truly conceive a body which had God inhabiting it. And God the Word was truly born of the Virgin” — 📖
   • ➜ To the Smyrnaeans
   • Chapter 1 — “I glorify God even Jesus Christ” — 📖
   • Chapter 10 — “ye have received as servants of Christ, who is God” — 📖
   • ➜ Ignatius to Polycarp
   • Chapter 3.2 — “Look for Him who is above all time, eternal and invisible, yet who became visible for our sakes; impalpable and impassible, yet who became passible on our account; and who in every kind of way suffered for our sakes.” — 📖 [passible means: capable of feeling or suffering.]
   • Chapter 8 — “I pray for your happiness for ever in our God Jesus Christ” — 📖
   • ➜ To the Magnesians
   • Chapter 6 — “He, being begotten by the Father before the beginning of time, was God the Word, the only-begotten Son” — 📖
   • Chapter 8 — “there is one God, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His eternal Word” — 📖
   • ➜ To the Philadelphians
   • Chapter 4 — “there is but one unbegotten Being, God, even the Father; and one only-begotten Son, God, the Word and man; and one Comforter, the Spirit of truth” — 📖
   • Chapter 6 — “If any one … confesses Christ Jesus, but thinks the Lord to be a mere man, and not the only-begotten God, and Wisdom, and the Word of God, … preaches deceit and error for the destruction of men.” — 📖
   • Chapter 6 — “If any one confesses the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost” — 📖
   • Chapter 6 — “If any one confesses these things, and that God the Word did dwell in a human body, being within it as the Word, even as the soul also is in the body, because it was God that inhabited it” — 📖
2. 👤 Polycarp of Smyrna — c. 69–155 A.D. [] 🔝
   • ➜ To the Philippians
   • Chapter 12.2 — “may He grant unto you a lot and portion among His saints, and to us with you, and to all that are under heaven, who shall believe on our Lord and God Jesus Christ and on His Father that raised him from the dead.” — 📖
   • ➜ The letter of the Smyrnaeans about the martyrdom of Polycarp
   • Chapter 14:3 — “For this cause, yea and for all things, I praise Thee, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, through the eternal and heavenly High-priest, Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, through whom with Him and the Holy Spirit be glory both now [and ever] and for the ages to come. Amen.” — 📖
   • Chapter 21:1 He was apprehended by Herodes, when Philip of Tralles was high priest, in the proconsulship of Statius Quadratus, but in the reign of the Eternal King Jesus Christ.” — 📖
3. 👤 Justin Martyr — c. 100–165 A.D. [] 🔝
   • ➜ First Apology
   • Chapter 6 — “But both Him, and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things…), and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore…” — 📖
   • Chapter 13 — “Jesus Christ … we reasonably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove … we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all” — 📖
   • Chapter 61 — “For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water.” — 📖
   • Chapter 63 — “For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God.” — 📖
   • ➜ Dialogue with Trypho
   • Chapter 34 — “… that reference is made to the everlasting King, i.e., to Christ. For Christ is King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and angel, and man, and captain, and stone, and a Son born… so I prove from all the Scriptures.” — 📖
   • Chapter 36 — “I wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts” — 📖
   • Chapter 48 — “For when you say that this Christ existed as God before the ages” — 📖
   • Chapter 56 — “He who is said to have appeared to Abraham…is called God” — 📖
   • Chapter 56 — “one of the three, who is both God and Lord” — 📖
   • Chapter 59 — “this same One, who is both Angel, and God, and Lord, and man” — 📖
   • Chapter 63 — “deserving to be worshipped, as God and as Christ.” — 📖
   • Chapter 64 — “in order that you may recognise Him as God coming forth from above, and man living among men” — 📖
   • Chapter 68 — “which expressly prove that Christ was to suffer, to be worshipped, and [to be called] God…and to be God” — 📖
   • Chapter 71 — “this very man who was crucified is proved to have been set forth expressly as God, and man” — 📖
   • Chapter 113 — “Joshua…seeing he was neither Christ who is God, nor the Son of God” — 📖
   • Chapter 115 — “our Priest, who is God, and Christ the Son of God the Father of all.” — 📖
   • Chapter 118 — “For He is the chosen Priest and eternal King, the Christ, inasmuch as He is the Son of God” — 📖
   • Chapter 124 — “Now I have proved at length that Christ is called God” — 📖
   • Chapter 126 — “But if you knew, Trypho,” continued I, “who He is that is called at one time the Angel of great counsel, and a Man by Ezekiel, and like the Son of man by Daniel, and a Child by Isaiah, and Christ and God to be worshipped by David, and Christ and a Stone by many, and Wisdom by Solomon, and Joseph and Judah and a Star by Moses, and the East by Zechariah, and the Suffering One and Jacob and Israel by Isaiah again, and a Rod, and Flower, and Corner-Stone, and Son of God, you would not have blasphemed Him who has now come, and been born, and suffered, and ascended to heaven; who shall also come again, and then your twelve tribes shall mourn. For if you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable God.” — 📖
   • Chapter 128 — “And that Christ being Lord, and God the Son of God, and appearing formerly in power as Man, and Angel, and in the glory of fire as at the bush, so also was manifested at the judgment executed on Sodom, has been demonstrated fully by what has been said.” — 📖
4. 👤 Mathetes (Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus) — 2nd c. [] 🔝
   • ➜ To Diognetus
   • Chapter 7 — “He sent Him, as a king might send his son who is a king. He sent Him, as sending God; He sent Him, as [a man] unto men;” — 📖
5. 👤 Theophilus of Antioch — c. 120–190 A.D. [] 🔝
   • ➜ To Autolycus (Book II) (c. 180 A.D.)
   • Chapter 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.” — 📖
   • Chapter 22 — “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…” — 📖
6. 👤 Aristides the Philosopher - c. 125 A.D. [1 book, 1 quote] 🔝
   • ➜ Apology (c. 125)
   • 2 — “And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man.” — 📖
7. 👤 Irenaeus of Lyons — c. 130–202 A.D. [] 🔝
   • ➜ Against Heresies Book 1
   • Chapter 10.1 — “The Church … has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit” — 📖
   • Chapter 10.1 — … “in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow…” — 📖
   • ➜ Against Heresies Book 2
   • Chapter 25.3 — “For thou, O man, art not an uncreated being, nor didst thou always co-exist with God, as did His own Word…” — 📖
   • Chapter 30.9 — “But the Son, eternally co-existing with the Father, from of old, yea, from the beginning…” — 📖
   • ➜ Against Heresies Book 3
   • Chapter 6.1 — “Therefore neither would the Lord, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the apostles, have ever named as God, definitely and absolutely, him who was not God, unless he were truly God; nor would they have named any one in his own person Lord, except God the Father ruling over all, and His Son… For the Spirit designates both [of them] by the name of God-both Him who is anointed as Son, and Him who does anoint, that is, the Father.” — 📖
   • Chapter 6.2 — “Wherefore, as I have already stated, no other is named as God, or is called Lord, except Him who is God and Lord of all, who also said to Moses, "I AM That I AM. And thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He who is, hath sent me unto you;" and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who makes those that believe in His name the sons of God” — 📖
   • Chapter 6.3 — “When, however, the Scripture terms them [gods] which are no gods, it does not … declare them as gods in every sense, but with a certain addition and signification, by which they are shown to be no gods at all.” — 📖
   • Chapter 8.3 — “He indeed who made all things can alone, together with His Word, properly be termed God and Lord: but the things which have been made cannot have this term applied to them, neither should they justly assume that appellation which belongs to the Creator.” — 📖
   • Chapter 9.2 — “But Matthew says that the Magi, coming from the east, exclaimed, “For we have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him;” and that, having been led by the star into the house of Jacob to Emmanuel, they showed, by these gifts which they offered, who it was that was worshipped: myrrh, because it was He who should die and be buried for the mortal human race; gold, because He was a King, “of whose kingdom is no end;” and frankincense, because He was God” — 📖
   • Chapter 9.3 — “For inasmuch as the Word of God was man from the root of Jesse, and son of Abraham, in this respect did the Spirit of God rest upon Him, and anoint Him to preach the Gospel to the lowly. But inasmuch as He was God…” — 📖
   • Chapter 11.8 — “And the Word of God Himself used to converse with the ante-Mosaic patriarchs, in accordance with His divinity and glory.” — 📖
   • Chapter 12.6 — “…should be preached as Christ the Son of God, their eternal King.” — 📖
   • Chapter 19.2 — “For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word…” — 📖
   • Chapter 20.4 — “the Son of God shall come, who is God, and who was from Bethlehem… Thus he indicates in clear terms that He is God” — 📖
   • Chapter 21.1 — “God, then, was made man, and the Lord did Himself save us, giving us the token of the Virgin.” — 📖
   • Chapter 21.4 — “the Holy Ghost pointed out, by what has been said, His birth from a virgin, and His essence, that He is God (for the name Emmanuel indicates this).” — 📖
   • Chapter 21.9 — “that they may learn that from his seed—that is, from Joseph—He was not to be born but that, according to the promise of God, from David’s belly the King eternal is raised up, who sums up all things in Himself” — 📖
   • ➜ Against Heresies Book 4
   • Preface.4 — “Now man is a mixed organization of soul and flesh, who was formed after the likeness of God, and moulded by His hands, that is, by the Son and Holy Spirit, to whom also He said, "Let Us make man."” — 📖
   • Preface.4 — “I have proved, in a variety of ways, that the Son of God accomplished the whole dispensation [of mercy], and have shown that there is none other called God by the Scriptures except the Father of all, and the Son” — 📖
   • Chapter 5.2 — “Christ Himself, therefore, together with the Father, is the God of the living, who spake to Moses, and who was also manifested to the fathers.” — 📖
   • Chapter 6.7 — “...He received testimony from all that He was very man, and that He was very God…” — 📖
   • Chapter 7.1 — “Therefore Abraham also, knowing the Father through the Word, who made heaven and earth, confessed Him to be God; and having learned, by an announcement [made to him], that the Son of God would be a man among men, by whose advent his seed should be as the stars of heaven, he desired to see that day, so that he might himself also embrace Christ” — 📖
   • ➜ Against Heresies Book 5
   • Chapter 17.3 — “He also manifested Himself who He was. For if no one can forgive sins but God alone, while the Lord remitted them and healed men, it is plain that He was Himself the Word of God made the Son of man, receiving from the Father the power of remission of sins; since He was man, and since He was God, in order that since as man He suffered for us, so as God He might have compassion on us, and forgive us our debts…” — 📖
   • Chapter 18.3 — “For the Creator of the world is truly the Word of God: and this is our Lord, who in the last times was made man…” — 📖
   • ➜ Fragments
   • 53 — “With regard to Christ, the law and the prophets and the evangelists have proclaimed that He was born of a virgin, that He suffered upon a beam of wood, and that He appeared from the dead; that He also ascended to the heavens, and was glorified by the Father, and is the Eternal King; that He is the perfect Intelligence, the Word of God, who was begotten before the light; that He was the Founder of the universe, along with it (light), and the Maker of man; that He is All in all: Patriarch among the patriarchs; Law in the laws; Chief Priest among priests; Ruler among kings; the Prophet among prophets; the Angel among angels; the Man among men; Son in the Father; God in God; King to all eternity. For it is He who sailed [in the ark] along with Noah, and who guided Abraham; who was bound along with Isaac, and was a Wanderer with Jacob; the Shepherd of those who are saved, and the Bridegroom of the Church; the Chief also of the cherubim, the Prince of the angelic powers; God of God; Son of the Father; Jesus Christ; King for ever and ever. Amen.” — 📖
   • 54 — “the Man among men; Son in the Father; God in God; King to all eternity … God of God; Jesus Christ our Saviour.” — 📖
8. 👤 Athenagoras of Athens — c. 133–190 A.D. (2nd cent.) [] 🔝
   • ➜ A Plea for the Christians
   • Chapter 10 — “Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order, called atheists?” — 📖
   • Chapter 12 — “they know God and His Logos, what is the oneness of the Son with the Father, what the communion of the Father with the Son, what is the Spirit, what is the unity of these three, the Spirit, the Son, the Father, and their distinction in unity” — 📖
   • Chapter 24 — “For, as we acknowledge a God, and a Son his Logos, and a Holy Spirit, united in essence, the Father, the Son, the Spirit” — 📖
9. 👤 Clement of Alexandria — c. 150–215 A.D. [] 🔝
   • ➜ Exhortation to the Heathen
   • Chapter 1 — “this very Word has now appeared as man, He alone being both, both God and man” — 📖
   • Chapter 1 — “The Word … taught us to live well when He appeared as our Teacher; that as God He might afterwards conduct us to the life” — 📖
   • Chapter 1 — “the Lord Himself shall speak to thee, "who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but humbled Himself," —He, the merciful God, exerting Himself to save man.” — 📖
   • Chapter 9 — “But are ye so devoid of fear, or rather of faith, as not to believe the Lord Himself, or Paul, who in Christ’s stead thus entreats: “Taste and see that Christ is God?” — 📖
   • Chapter 10 — “For the image of God is His Word, the genuine Son of Mind, the Divine Word” — 📖
   • Chapter 10 — “Believe Him who is man and God; believe, O man. Believe, O man, the living God, who suffered and is adored. Believe, ye slaves, Him who died; believe, all ye of human kind, Him who alone is God of all men.” — 📖
   • Chapter 10 — “the Lord, who, though despised as to appearance, was in reality adored, the expiator of sin, the Saviour, the clement, the Divine Word, He that is truly most manifest Deity, He that is made equal to the Lord of the universe; because He was His Son, and the Word was in God” — 📖
   • Chapter 12 — “…join the choir along with angels around the unbegotten and indestructible and the only true God, the Word of God, raising the hymn with us. This Jesus, who is eternal, the one great High Priest of the one God and of His Father, prays for and exhorts men.” — 📖
   • Chapter 12 — “A spectacle most beautiful to the Father is the eternal Son crowned with victory.” — 📖
   • ➜ Paedagogus Book 1
   • Chapter 2 — “God in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father’s will, the Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the Father’s right hand, and with the form of God is God.” — 📖
   • Chapter 3 — “The Lord ministers all good and all help, both as man and as God” — 📖
   • Chapter 5 — “O the great God! O the perfect child! The Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son… it has also called Him—God the Word” — 📖
   • Chapter 6 — “what is learned from Him is the eternal salvation of the eternal Saviour, to whom be thanks for ever and ever. Amen.” — 📖
   • Chapter 7 — “But our Instructor is the holy God Jesus, the Word, who is the guide of all humanity. The loving God Himself is our Instructor.” — 📖
   • Chapter 8 — “The face of God is the Word by whom God is manifested and made known. Then also was he named Israel, because he saw God the Lord. It was God, the Word, the Instructor, who said to him…” — 📖
   • Chapter 8 — “Very clearly, then, we conclude Him to be one and the same God” — 📖
   • Chapter 11 — “His Son Jesus, the Word of God, is our Instructor … The divine Instructor is trustworthy, adorned as He is with three of the fairest ornaments—knowledge, benevolence, and authority of utterance;—with knowledge, for He is the paternal wisdom: “All Wisdom is from the Lord, and with Him for evermore;"—with authority of utterance, for He is God and Creator” — 📖
   • ➜ Paedagogus Book 3
   • Chapter 1 — “For the Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man God.” — 📖
   • Chapter 7 — “For he who has the almighty God, the Word, is in want of nothing” — 📖
   • Chapter 12 — “Steps of Christ, celestial Way; Word eternal, Age unending;” — 📖
   • Chapter 12 — “O footsteps of Christ, O heavenly way, perennial Word, immeasurable Age, Eternal Light” — 📖
   • Chapter 12 — “let me act and speak In all things as Thy Holy Scriptures teach; Thee and Thy co-eternal Word” — 📖
   • ➜ Stromata Book 5
   • Chapter 14 — “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.” — 📖
   • ➜ Comments on 1 John
   • Chapter 1:1 — “For when he says, "That which was from the beginning," he touches upon the generation without beginning of the Son, who is co-existent with the Father. There was; then, a Word importing [implying] 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 uncreated.” — 📖
   • 7. — “Let us obtain the joy laid up, in which Paul exulting, exclaimed, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" To Him belongs glory and honour, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.” — 📖
   • ➜ From: Nicetas Bishop of Heraclea
   • 5. — “so also God the Word, incarnate, is intellectual light” — 📖
   • ➜ Rich Man
   • 34. — “knowing not what a "treasure in an earthen vessel" we bear, protected as it is by the power of God the Father, and the blood of God the Son, and the dew of the Holy Spirit.” — 📖
   • 37. — “And then thou shalt look into the bosom of the Father, whom God the only-begotten Son alone hath declared.” — 📖
10. 👤 Tatian — c. 160 A.D. [] 🔝
    • ➜ To the Greeks
    • Chapter 21 — “We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales, when we announce that God was born in the form of a man.” — 📖
11. 👤 Tertullian — c. 155–240 A.D. [] 🔝
    • ➜ Apology
    • Chapter 21 — “We have been taught that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated; so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun—there is no division of substance, but merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled. The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities; so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united.” — 📖
    • Chapter 23 — “Fearing Christ in God, and God in Christ” — 📖
    • ➜ A Treatise on the Soul
    • Chapter 49 — “For God alone is without sin; and the only man without sin is Christ, since Christ is also God.” — 📖
    • Chapter 55 — “Now although Christ is God, yet, being also man” — 📖
    • ➜ Prescription Against Heretics
    • Chapter 20 — “Christ Jesus our Lord … is man and God …” — 📖
    • Chapter 44 — “ To those who may devote their leisure in reading through these (pages), in the belief of the truth, be peace, and the grace of our God Jesus Christ for ever.” — 📖
    • ➜ Against Marcion Book 2 (c. 208 A.D.)
    • Chapter 27 — “But with us Christ is received in the person of Christ, because even in this manner is He our God … uniting in Himself man and God, God in mighty deeds, in weak ones man” — 📖
    • ➜ Against Marcion Book 3
    • Chapter 8 — “they had started with assuming the incredibility of an incarnate God.” — 📖
    • Chapter 13 — “These [the Magi] having discovered Him and honoured Him with their gifts, and on bended knee adored Him as their God and King” — 📖
    • ➜ Against Marcion Book 5
    • Chapter 9 — “And in Him shall all nations be blessed.” In Solomon was no nation blessed; in Christ every nation. And what if the Psalm proves Him to be even God? — 📖
    • Chapter 11 — “Since Christ, then, is the person of the Creator, who said, “Let there be light,"” — 📖
    • Chapter 12 — “The Creator is not an angel, but God.” — 📖
    • Chapter 19 — “He calls Christ "the image of the invisible God." We in like manner say that the Father of Christ is invisible, for we know that it was the Son who was seen in ancient times (whenever any appearance was vouchsafed to men in the name of God) as the image of (the Father) Himself.” — 📖
    • Chapter 20 — “But since he is truly God, as the Son of the Father, in His fashion and image, He has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, "found in the fashion "and image" of a man." For when he propounded Him as thus "found" in the manners of a man, he in fact affirmed Him to be most certainly human. For what is found, manifestly possesses existence. Therefore, as He was found to be God by His mighty power, so was He found to be man by reason of His flesh” — 📖
    • ➜ On the flesh of Christ
    • Chapter 5 — “Thus the nature of the two substances displayed Him as man and God, —in one respect born, in the other unborn… The powers of the Spirit, proved Him to be God, His sufferings attested the flesh of man.” — 📖
    • Chapter 7 — “But whenever a dispute arises about the nativity, all who reject it as creating a presumption in favour of the reality of Christ’s flesh, wilfully deny that God Himself was born” — 📖
    • ➜ On the resurrection of the flesh
    • Chapter 6 — “And the Word was God also, who being in the image of God, "thought it not robbery to be equal to God.” — 📖
    • ➜ Against Praxeas (c. 213 A.D.)

    [This is Tertullian’s most detailed explanation and defense of the Trinity]

    • Chapter 2 — “We … believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, or oikonomia, as it is called, that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her — being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God” — 📖
    • Chapter 2 — “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” — 📖
    • Chapter 3 — “The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and unlearned,) who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the Three in One), on the ground that their very rule of faith withdraws them from the world’s plurality of gods to the one only true God; not understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must yet be believed in with His own oikonomia. The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity they assume to be a division of the Unity; whereas the Unity which derives the Trinity out of its own self is so far from being destroyed, that it is actually supported by it. They are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves pre-eminently the credit of being worshippers of the One God” — 📖
    • Chapter 3 — “Well, then Latins take pains to pronounce the monarkia (or Monarchy), while Greeks actually refuse to understand the oikonomia, or Dispensation (of the Three in One).” — 📖
    • Chapter 4 — “the introduction into it of the Trinity” — 📖
    • Chapter 5 — “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.” — 📖
    • Chapter 7 — “Is that Word of God, then, a void and empty thing, which is called the Son, who Himself is designated God? "The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” — 📖
    • Chapter 8 — “I confess that I call God and His Word — the Father and His Son — two… Now the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son; just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root, or as the stream out of the river is third from the fountain, or as the apex of the ray is third from the sun. Nothing, however, is alien from that original source whence it derives its own properties. In like manner the Trinity, flowing down from the Father through intertwined and connected steps, does not at all disturb the Monarchy, whilst it at the same time guards the state of the Economy.” — 📖
    • Chapter 9 — “I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and so will you know in what sense this is said. 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.” — 📖
    • Chapter 11 — “distinction in (the Persons of) the Trinity” — 📖, "the distinction of Persons in the Trinity” — 📖
    • Chapter 12 — “If the number of the Trinity…” — 📖, "in the Unity of the Trinity…” — 📖
    • Chapter 12 — “Now if He too is God, according to John, (who says.) "The Word was God,” — 📖
    • Chapter 13 — “For we … do indeed definitively declare that Two Beings are God, the Father and the Son, and, with the addition of the Holy Spirit, even Three, according to the principle of the divine economy … That there are, however, two Gods or two Lords, is a statement which at no time proceeds out of our mouth: not as if it were untrue that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and each is God; but because in earlier times Two were actually spoken of as God, and two as Lord, that when Christ should come He might be both acknowledged as God and designated as Lord, being the Son of Him who is both God and Lord.” — 📖
    • Chapter 13 — “if the Father and the Son, are alike to be invoked, I shall call the Father "God," and invoke Jesus Christ as "Lord." But when Christ alone (is mentioned), I shall be able to call Him "God," as the same apostle says: "Of whom is Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever." For I should give the name of "sun" even to a sunbeam, considered in itself; but if I were mentioning the sun from which the ray emanates, I certainly should at once withdraw the name of sun from the mere beam. For although I make not two suns, still I shall reckon both the sun and its ray to be as much two things and two forms of one undivided substance, as God and His Word, as the Father and the Son.” — 📖
    • Chapter 14 — “it is evident that in early times it was always in a glass, (as it were,) and an enigma, in vision and dream, that God, I mean the Son of God, appeared — to the prophets and the patriarchs, as also to Moses indeed himself.” — 📖
    • Chapter 15 — “For although the Word was God, yet was He with God, because He is God of God” — 📖
    • Chapter 15 — “Moreover, he (Paul) expressly called Christ God, saying: "Of whom are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.” — 📖
    • Chapter 16 — “Thus was He [Christ] ever learning even as God to converse with men upon earth, being no other than the Word which was to be made flesh.” — 📖
    • Chapter 17 — “When, therefore, you read of Almighty God, and the Most High, and the God of hosts, and the King of Israel the “One that is,” consider whether the Son also be not indicated by these designations, who in His own right is God Almighty, in that He is the Word of Almighty God, and has received power over all” — 📖
    • Chapter 25 — “Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are, one essence, not one Person” — 📖
    • Chapter 26 — “Now, by saying “the Spirit of God” (although the Spirit of God is God,) and by not directly naming God, he wished that portion of the whole Godhead to be understood” — 📖
    • Chapter 26 — “…And thus the Spirit is God, and the Word is God, because proceeding from God” — 📖
    • Chapter 27 — “But the truth is, we find that He is expressly set forth as both God and Man” — 📖
    • Chapter 17 — “We see plainly the twofold state, which is not confounded, but conjoined in One Person — Jesus, God and Man.” — 📖
    • Chapter 31 — “What need would there be of the gospel, which is the substance of the New Covenant, laying down (as it does) that the Law and the Prophets lasted until John the Baptist, if thenceforward the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not both believed in as Three, and as making One Only God?” — 📖
12. 👤 Melito of Sardis — c. 160–180 A.D. [] 🔝
    • ➜ Fragments
    • III — “On these accounts He came to us; on these accounts, though He was incorporeal, He formed for Himself a body after our fashion, -appearing as a sheep, yet still remaining the Shepherd; being esteemed a servant, yet not renouncing the Sonship; being carried in the womb of Mary, yet arrayed in the nature of His Father; treading upon the earth, yet filling heaven; appearing as an infant, yet not discarding the eternity of His nature; being invested with a body, yet not circumscribing the unmixed simplicity of His Godhead; … needing sustenance inasmuch as He was man, yet not ceasing to feed the entire world inasmuch as He is God;” — 📖
    • IV — “in the voice of the preacher, the Word; among spirits, the Spirit; in the Father, the Son; in God, God; King for ever and ever.” — 📖
    • IV — “God who is from God; the Son who is from the Father; Jesus Christ the King for evermore. Amen.” — 📖
    • V — “the Lord of all was subjected to ignominy in a naked body-God put to death! … the day became darkened because they slew God, who hung naked on the tree” — 📖
    • VI — “The Lord was subjected to ignominy with naked body-God put to death, the King of Israel slain!” — 📖
    • “we are worshippers of His Christ, who is veritably God the Word existing before all time.” — 📖
    • “For the deeds done by Christ after His baptism, and especially His miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the Deity hidden in His flesh. For, being at once both God and perfect man likewise, He gave us sure indications His two natures: of His Deity … of His humanity … He concealed the signs of His Deity, although He was the true God existing before all ages.” — 📖
13. 👤 Hippolytus of Rome — c. 170–235 A.D. [] 🔝
    • ➜ Fragments of Hippolytus: Dogmatical and Historical
    • “4. Now Christ prayed all this economically as man; being, however, true God.” — 📖
    • “For all, the righteous and the unrighteous alike, shall be brought before God the Word.” — 📖
    • “Yet he will not on that account deny the economy (i.e., the number and disposition of persons in the Trinity).” — 📖
    • “For he who … joins himself to Christ; who denies the enemy, and makes the confession that Christ is God…” — 📖
    • “He who is over all, God blessed, has been born; and having been made man, He is (yet) God for ever. For to this effect John also has said, “Which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” And well has he named Christ the Almighty. For in this he has said only what Christ testifies of Himself. For Christ gave this testimony, and said, “All things are delivered unto me of my Father;” and Christ rules all things, and has been appointed Almighty by the Father.” — 📖
    • “A man, therefore, even though he will it not, is compelled to acknowledge God the Father Almighty, and Christ Jesus the Son of God, who, being God, became man, to whom also the Father made all things subject, Himself excepted, and the Holy Spirit; and that these, therefore, are three. But if he desires to learn how it is shown still that there is one God, let him know that His power is one. As far as regards the power, therefore, God is one. But as far as regards the economy there is a threefold manifestation, as shall be proved afterwards when we give account of the true doctrine.” — 📖
    • Beside Him there was nothing; but He, while existing alone, yet existed in plurality.” — 📖
    • “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 … 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 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.” — 📖
    • “God the Word came down from heaven… in the same manner also did He come and manifest Himself, being by the Virgin and the Holy Spirit made a new man; for in that He had the heavenly (nature) of the Father, as the Word and the earthly (nature), as taking to Himself the flesh from the old Adam by the medium of the Virgin, He now, coming forth into the world, was manifested as God in a body, coming forth too as a perfect man.” — 📖
    • “Though demonstrated as God, He does not refuse the conditions proper to Him as man… And He who as God has a sleepless nature, slumbers on a pillow. 📖 … This is the God who for our sakes became man, to whom also the Father hath put all things in subjection. To Him be the glory and the power, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, in the holy Church both now and ever, and even for evermore. Amen."— 📖
    • “showing Himself to have both those natures in both of which He wrought, I mean the divine and the human, according to that veritable and real and natural subsistence, (showing Himself thus) as both being in reality and as being understood to be at one and the same time infinite God and finite man, having the nature of each in perfection” — 📖
    • “The God of all things therefore became truly, according to the Scriptures, without conversion, sinless man… For with this purpose did the God of all things become man… He remained therefore, also, after His incarnation, according to nature, God infinite… to the intent that He might be believed in as God…” — 📖
    • “And how will they conceive of the one and the same Christ, who is at once God and man by nature?” — 📖
    • “the Creator of all things … was made man in nature … the same was perfect God, and the same was perfect man; the same was in nature at once perfect God and man.” — 📖
    • “"Even Christ," who is God, "our passover was sacrificed for us."” — 📖
    • ➜ Treatise on Christ and Antichrist
    • 6 — “Now, as our Lord Jesus Christ, who is also God” — 📖
    • 45 — “He [John the Baptist], on hearing the salutation addressed to Elisabeth, leaped with joy in his mother’s womb, recognising God the Word conceived in the womb of the Virgin.” — 📖
    • 61 — “by which is meant that the Church, always bringing forth Christ, the perfect man-child of God, who is declared to be God and man” — 📖
    • ➜ Fragments of Hippolytus: Exegetical
    • “Thus is He said to have been saved by the Father, as He stood in peril as a man, though by nature He is God, and Himself maintains the whole creation, visible and invisible, in a state of wellbeing.” — 📖
    • “For as the only begotten Word of God, being God of God, emptied Himself…. ” — 📖
    • “For He who was co-existent with His Father before all time and before the foundation of the world, always had the glory proper to Godhead.” — 📖
    • “NOW, in order that He might be shown to have together in Himself at once the nature of God and that of man” — 📖
    • “And the fourth, viz. God, the Word Incarnate.” — 📖
    • “the stronghold of the three Kings—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” — 📖
    • On Psalm 2 — “When he came into the world, He was manifested as God and man.” — 📖
    • “the Saviour, uniting his Godhead, like pure wine, with the flesh in the Virgin, was born of her at once God and man without confusion of the one in the other. … that denotes the promised knowledge of the Holy Trinity” — 📖
    • Chapter 7.17 — “the heavenly King manifested to all … as God incarnate and man, Son of God and Son of man—coming from heaven as the world’s Judge.” — 📖
    • On Luke 23 — “For, lo, the Only-begotten entered [into Hades], a soul among souls, God the Word with a (human) soul. For His body lay in the tomb, not emptied of divinity; but as, while in Hades, He was in essential being with His Father, so was He also in the body and in Hades. … But of His own will he dwelt in a body animated by a soul, in order that with His soul He might enter Hades, and not with His pure divinity.” — 📖
    • “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God.” — 📖
    • ➜ Refutation of all heresies: Book 10
    • Chapter 29 — “The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God. Now the world was made from nothing; wherefore it is not God” — 📖
    • Address — “For Christ is the God above all.” — 📖
14. 👤 Origen — c. 185–253 A.D. [] 🔝
    • ➜ De Principiis Book 1
    • Chapter 1.8 — “what belongs to the nature of deity is common to the Father and the Son.” — 📖
    • Chapter 3.2 — “From all which we learn that the person of the Holy Spirit was of such authority and dignity, that saving baptism was not complete except by the authority of the most excellent Trinity of them all, i.e., by the naming of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and by joining to the unbegotten God the Father, and to His only-begotten Son, the name also of the Holy Spirit.” — 📖
    • Chapter 3.4 — “the Holy Spirit would never be reckoned in the Unity of the Trinity, i.e., along with the unchangeable Father and His Son, unless He had always been the Holy Spirit.” — 📖
    • Chapter 3.5 — “Nevertheless it seems proper to inquire what is the reason why he who is regenerated by God unto salvation has to do both with Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and does not obtain salvation unless with the co-operation of the entire Trinity; and why it is impossible to become partaker of the Father or the Son without the Holy Spirit.” — 📖
    • Chapter 3.7 — “Moreover, nothing in the Trinity can be called greater or less, since the fountain of divinity alone contains all things by His word and reason” — 📖
    • Chapter 3.7 — “This is most clearly pointed out by the Apostle Paul, when demonstrating that the power of the Trinity is one and the same, in the words, "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; there are diversities of administrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit: withal." From which it most clearly follows that there is no difference in the Trinity, but that which is called the gift of the Spirit is made known through the Son, and operated by God the Father.” — 📖
    • Chapter 4.2 — “in our desire to show the divine benefits bestowed upon us by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which Trinity is the fountain of all holiness” — 📖
    • Chapter 5.3 — “For it was proved that there was nothing compound in the nature of the Trinity” — 📖
    • Chapter 6.1 — “has been done to the best of my ability when speaking of the Trinity.” — 📖
    • Chapter 6.2 — “for there was no goodness in them by essential being, as in God and His Christ, and in the Holy Spirit. For in the Trinity alone, which is the author of all things, does goodness exist in virtue of essential being” — 📖
    • ➜ De Principiis Book 2
    • Chapter 2.2 — “If ... it is impossible for this point to be at all maintained ... that any other nature than the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can live without a body, ... for an incorporeal life will rightly be considered a prerogative of the Trinity alone.” — 📖
    • Chapter 4:3 — “To see, then, and to be seen, is a property of bodies, which certainly will not be appropriately applied either to the Father, or to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit, in their mutual relations with one another. For the nature of the Trinity surpasses the measure of vision” — 📖
    • Chapter 5.3 — “the God-man is born” — 📖
    • Chapter 7.3 — “the apostles could not yet receive those things which the Saviour wished to teach them until the advent of the Holy Spirit, who ... might enlighten them regarding the nature and faith of the Trinity.” — 📖
    • ➜ Contra Celsus Book 1
    • Chapter 46 — “But God is witness of our conscientious desire ... to establish the divinity of the doctrine of Jesus.” — 📖
    • Chapter 56 — “To quote the prophecies at length would be tedious … But attend carefully to what follows, where He is called God: "For Thy throne, O God,…” — 📖
    • Chapter 68 — “And if such were the life of Jesus, how could any one with reason compare Him with the sect of impostors, and not, on the contrary, believe, according to the promise, that He was God, who appeared in human form to do good to our race?” — 📖
    • ➜ Contra Celsus Book 2
    • Chapter 8 — “Now on this point we have, in the preceding pages, offered a preliminary defence, showing at the same time in what respects we understand Him to be God, and in what we take Him to be man.” — 📖
    • ➜ Contra Celsus Book 3
    • Chapter 28 — “But both Jesus Himself and His disciples desired that His followers should believe not merely in His Godhead and miracles” — 📖
    • Chapter 29 — “But with respect to Jesus we would say that, as it was of advantage to the human race to accept him as the Son of God—God come in a human soul and body” — 📖
    • ➜ Contra Celsus Book 4
    • Chapter 5 — “although the Word which was in the beginning with God, which is also God Himself” — 📖
    • Chapter 15 — “But if the immortal God—the Word—by assuming a mortal body and a human soul” — 📖
    • Chapter 18 — “Now the answer to these statements might have respect partly to the nature of the Divine Word, who is God, and partly to the soul of Jesus.” — 📖
    • Chapter 99 — “And may God grant, through His Son, who is God the Word, and Wisdom, and Truth, and Righteousness, and everything else which the sacred Scriptures when speaking of God call Him” — 📖
    • ➜ Contra Celsus Book 5
    • Chapter 3 — “from the one only visible and true God” — 📖
    • Chapter 22 — “the utterances of Him who was God the Word, who was in the beginning with God, shall by no means pass away. For we desire to listen to Him who said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.”” — 📖
    • Chapter 51 — “we listen to the God who speaks in Moses, and have accepted Jesus, whom he testifies to be God as the Son of God” — 📖
    • ➜ Contra Celsus Book 6
    • Chapter 30 — “We have thought it proper to be exact in stating these matters, that we might not appear to be ignorant of those things which Celsus professed to know, but that we Christians, knowing them better than he, may demonstrate that these are not the words of Christians, but of those who are altogether alienated from salvation, and who neither acknowledge Jesus as Saviour, nor God, nor Teacher, nor Son of God.” — 📖
    • Chapter 47 — “then the soul of Jesus and God the Word—the first-born of every creature—are no longer two, (but one).” — 📖
    • Chapter 60 — “the immediate Creator, and, as it were, very Maker of the world was the Word, the Son of God; while the Father of the Word, by commanding His own Son—the Word—to create the world, is primarily Creator.” — 📖
    • Chapter 66 — “In answer to this, we would say that … every one is in light who has followed the radiance of the Word … For “the people that sat in darkness—the Gentiles—saw a great light, and to them who sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up,” — the God Jesus.” — 📖
    • Chapter 67 — “And who else is able to save and conduct the soul of man to the God of all things, save God the Word, who, "being in the beginning with God," became flesh for the sake of those who had cleaved to the flesh, and had become as flesh, that He might be received by those who could not behold Him, inasmuch as He was the Word, and was with God, and was God?” — 📖
    • Chapter 67 — “For God the Word is "difficult to see," and so also is His wisdom, by which God created all things… Now, as we have stated, the Son also is "difficult to see," because He is God the Word, through whom all things were made” — 📖
    • ➜ Contra Celsus Book 7
    • Chapter 17 — “the light of Him who is God the Word is shed forth in no other way than in this. If, then, we consider Jesus in relation to the divinity that was in Him,” — 📖
    • Chapter 42 — “see if Scripture does not give us an example of a regard for mankind still greater in God the Word, who was “in the beginning with God,” and “who was made flesh,” — 📖
    • Chapter 44 — “these things God grants to us, to lead us to that blessedness which is found only with Him through His Son, the Word, who is God.” — 📖
    • Chapter 49 — “But even in regard to those who, either from deficiency or knowledge or want of inclination, or from not having Jesus to lead them to a rational view of religion, have not gone into these deep questions, we find that they believe in the Most High God, and in His Only-begotten Son, the Word and God” — 📖
    • Chapter 65 — “it is easy to know that God and the Only-begotten Son of God, and those whom God has honoured with the title of God, and who partake of His divine nature, are very different from all the gods of the nations” — 📖
    • Chapter 70 — “To explain this fully, and to justify the conduct of the Christians in refusing homage to any object except the Most High God, and the First-born of all creation, who is His Word and God…” — 📖
    • ➜ Contra Celsus Book 8
    • Chapter 6 — “For the Lord of those who are "ambassadors for Christ" is Christ Himself, whose ambassadors they are, and who is "the Word, who was in the beginning, was with God, and was God.” — 📖
    • Chapter 12 — “So entirely are they one, that he who has seen the Son, “who is the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of His person,” has seen in Him who is the image, of God, God Himself.” — 📖
    • Chapter 13 — “Accordingly, we worship with all our power the one God, and His only Son, the Word and the Image of God” — 📖
    • Chapter 15 — “But when we regard the Saviour as God the Word, and Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Truth, we certainly do say that He has dominion over all things which have been subjected to Him in this capacity, but not that His dominion extends over the God and Father who is Ruler over all.” — 📖
    • Chapter 22 — “to the perfect Christian, who is ever in his thoughts, words, and deeds serving his natural Lord, God the Word, all his days are the Lord’s” — 📖
    • Chapter 39 — “He who turns so many men to God is in our view no demon, but God the Word, and the Son of God.” — 📖
    • Chapter 75 — “And those who rule over us well are under the constraining influence of the great King, whom we believe to be the Son of God, God the Word.” — 📖
    • ➜ Commentary on John Book 1
    • 1.6 — “we may perhaps find what he aims at in John; in the beginning the Word, God the Word… none of these plainly declared His Godhead, as John does when he makes Him say, “I am the light of the world,” “I am the way and the truth and the life,” “I am the resurrection,” “I am the door,” “I am the good shepherd;” and in the Apocalypse, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” — 📖
    • 1.9 — “But the Son Himself, the glorified God, the Word, has not yet come” — 📖
    • 1.11 — “Nor must we omit to mention the Word, who is God after the Father of all.” — 📖
    • 1.41 — “surely they ought to ask what is meant when it is said of the Son of God that He was the Word, and God, and that He was in the beginning with the Father, and that all things were made by Him.” — 📖
    • ➜ Commentary on John Book 2
    • 1.1 — “The arrangement of the sentences might be thought to indicate an order; we have first “In the beginning was the Word,” then, “And the Word was with God,” and thirdly, “And the Word was God,” so that it might be seen that the Word being with God makes Him God.” — 📖
    • 1.4 — “He was in the beginning; then we learned with whom He was, with God; and then who He was, that He was God. He now points out by this word "He," the Word who is God” — 📖
    • ➜ Commentary on John Book 6
    • 3 — “just as the Word was not made through any one which was in the beginning with the Father” — 📖
    • 10 — “so we are to understand—the cases are at least analogous if not altogether similar—it is with the Word in the beginning, who is God” — 📖
15. 👤 Caius — 180-220 A.D. [] 🔝
    • ➜ Against the heresy of Artemon

    Preserved in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History v. 28

    • “For who is ignorant of the books of Irenaeus and Melito, and the rest, which declare Christ to be God and man? All the psalms, too, and hymns of brethren, which have been written from the beginning by the faithful, celebrate Christ the Word of God, ascribing divinity to Him.” — 📖
    • “For our merciful God and Lord Jesus Christ was not willing that a witness of His own sufferings should perish, being without the Church.” — 📖

The New Testament Apocrypha

The New Testament Apocrypha is composed of spurious gospels, acts and letters which were written during the early centuries of the Christian Church. They were written by Christians, Gnostics, and heretics. The theological views reflect the chaos that often afflicted the early Church.
Everyone acknowledges that the works in question were frauds, i.e., that were not written by the name of the man put down as the author. For example, the "Acts of Peter" was obviously not written by Peter. But this does not negate the fact that whoever wrote it put into the text what he believed. Thus, they have historical worth in that they reveal what the laity understood about God and Christ. If the Unitarian claim that the concept of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit was not invented until many centuries later, then we would not expect to find Trinitarian statements in the New Testament Apocrypha. But, if the Trinitarians are correct, then we should find the doctrine of the Trinity in this literature as well in the early Fathers. — The Trinity: Evidence and Issues, Robert Morey, p. 459

1. 👤 Second Clement — c. 130-160 A.D. [1 book, 1 quote] 🔝
   • ➜ Second Clement
   • Chapter 1 — “it is fitting that you should think of Jesus Christ as of God,—as the Judge of the living and the dead.” — 📖
2. 👤 Epistula Apostolorum — c. 140-150 A.D. [1 book, 1 quote] 🔝
   • ➜ Epistula Apostolorum
   • 3 — “This know we: that our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ is God the Son of God, who was sent of God the Lord of the whole world, the maker and creator of it, who is named by all names, and high above all powers, Lord of lords, King of kings, Ruler of rulers, the heavenly one, that sitteth above the cherubim and seraphim at the right hand of the throne of the Father … In God, the Lord, the Son of God, do we believe,” — 📖
   • 5 — “They are the symbol of our faith in the Lord of the Christians (in the great christendom), even in the Father, the Lord Almighty, and in Jesus Christ our redeemer, in the Holy Ghost the comforter, in the holy church, and in the remission of sins.” — 📖
3. 👤 Acts of John — c. 150-200 A.D. [1 book, 1 quote] 🔝
   • ➜ Acts of John
   • 43 — “But John spread forth his hands, and being uplifted in soul, said unto the Lord: Glory be to thee, my Jesus, the only God of truth” — 📖
   • 77 — “We glorify thee, and praise and bless and thank thy great goodness and long-suffering, O holy Jesu, for thou only art God, and none else” — 📖
   • 82 — “Jesu Christ, God of the ages, God of truth, that hast granted me to see wonders and signs” — 📖
   • 84 — “... from all these, thou most unholy Satan, enemy of God, shall Jesus Christ our God and of all that are like thee and have thy character, make thee to perish.” — 📖
   • 84 — “He began, then, to sing an hymn and to say:
     Glory be to thee, Father.
     And we, going about in a ring, answered him: Amen.
     Glory be to thee, Word: Glory be to thee, Grace. Amen.
     Glory be to thee, Spirit: Glory be to thee, Holy One.” — 📖
   • XXI — “he baptized them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and his Almighty Father and the Holy Ghost the illuminator.” — 📖
   • 107 — “Let not then our good God be grieved, the compassionate, the merciful, the holy, the pure, … even our God Jesus Christ, who is above every name that we can utter or conceive, and more exalted.” — 📖
   • 108 — “And when he had spoken this unto them, he prayed thus: O Jesu … only merciful and lover of men, only saviour and righteous, only seer of all, who art in all and everywhere present and containing all things and filling all things: Christ Jesu, God, Lord, that with thy gifts and thy mercy shelterest them that trust in thee, … do thou only, O Lord, succour thy servants by thy visitation. Even so, Lord.” — 📖

   In this document John performs several miracles of raising people from the dead, named Lycomedes, Callimachus, Drusiana, Fortunatus. Amidst the raising of these people it is repeatedly stated that this was done by the power of God and in the name of God and the Lord Jesus.

   • 22 Arise in the name of Jesus Christ.
   • 23 raised again by the power of my God
   • 24 Arise and glorify the name of God, for he giveth back the dead to the dead. ... kiss not my feet but the feet of God by whose power ye are both arisen.
   • 25 But Lycomedes said to John: I entreat and adjure thee by the God in whose name thou hast raised us
   • 27 And Lycomedes answered him: My only God is he who raised me up from death
   • 33 I have been sent, then, upon a mission which is not of man's ordering ... but Jesus Christ whom I preach, and by his power will I confound ... by raising up them that lie before you
   • 37 And having thus said, John by the power of God healed all the diseases.
   • 83 Rise up, Fortunatus, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
4. 👤 Acts of Peter — c. 150-200 A.D. [1 book, 1 quote] 🔝
   • ➜ Acts of Peter
   • 3.2 — “Jesus the living God will forgive you that ye did in ignorance.” — 📖
   • 3.2 — “Wherefore I exhort you also, brethren, to believe in the Lord the Father Almighty, and to put all your trust in our Lord Jesus Christ his Son, believing in him” — 📖
   • 3.5 — “And he said: Thou best and alone holy one, it is thou that hast appeared unto us, O God Jesu Christ” — 📖
   • 3.6 — “Ariston falling on his face at Peter's feet, said thus: Brother and lord, that hast part in the holy mysteries and showest the right way which is in the Lord Jesus Christ our God” — 📖
5. 👤 Acts of Paul — c. 150-200 A.D. [1 book, 1 quote] 🔝
   • ➜ Acts of Paul
   • 1.13 — “I also believe that, my brethren, there is no other God, save Jesus Christ the son of the Blessed, unto whom is glory for ever, Amen.” — 📖
   • 2.29 — “O my God, Son of the Most High that art in heaven” — 📖
6. 👤 Attributed to Ignatius — Spurious, dates unknown [] 🔝
   • ➜ To the Tarsians
   • Chapter 1 — “so that only I may see Christ my Saviour and God, who died for me.” — 📖
   • Chapter 4 — “He that was crucified was "the first-born of every creature," and God the Word, who also created all things.” — 📖
   • Chapter 6 — “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?” — 📖
   • ➜ To the Antiochians
   • Chapter 5 — “Whosoever, therefore, declares that there is but one God, only so as to take away the divinity of Christ, is a devil” — 📖
   • ➜ To the Philippians
   • Chapter 2 — “And there is also one Son, God the Word.” — 📖
   • Chapter 2 — “the Lord, when He sent forth the apostles to make disciples of all nations, commanded them to "baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," not unto one [person] having three names, nor into three [persons] who became incarnate, but into three possessed of equal honour.” — 📖
   • Chapter 3 — “And God the Word was born as man, with a body, of the Virgin, without any intercourse of man.” — 📖
   • Chapter 5 — “But if, [on the other hand,] He is both God and man, then why dost thou call it unlawful to style Him “the Lord of glory,” who is by nature unchangeable?” 📖
   • Chapter 6 — “And how can He be but God, who raises up the dead, sends away the lame sound of limb, cleanses the lepers...” — 📖
   • Chapter 7 — “And how, again, does Christ not at all appear to thee to be of the Virgin, but to be God over all, and the Almighty?” — 📖
   • Chapter 9 — “By the first fact He showed that He was God, and by the second that He was also man.” — 📖

Author: Norbert Rennert ©2023 Released under CC BY-NC