From: eje@irenaeus.mlo.dec.com (Eric James Ewanco)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: JWs & pre-Nicene proof of the deity of Christ
Date: 19 Aug 92 04:14:22 GMT
Reply-To: ewanco@kalvin.enet.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation

The following is a followup to my post on the Jehovah's Witnesses, and why
their claim that they believe what the pre-Nicene church believed, is wrong.
These quotes show that the early church did in fact believe:
1) That Jesus was God
2) That Jesus was uncreated
3) That God is a trinity

St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing the Ephesians in 110 A.D:
    
    Intro: "The source of your unity and election is genuine suffering
    which you undergo by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ, our
    God."
    
    1:1 "You are imitators of God; and it was God's blood that stirred you
    up once more to do the sort of thing you do naturally and have now done
    to perfection."
    
    7:2: "There is only one physician--of flesh yet spiritual, born yet
    unbegotten, God incarnate, genuine life in the midst of death, sprung
    from Mary as well as God, first subject to suffering then beyond
    it--Jesus Christ our Lord."
    
    18:2: "For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by Mary, in God's
    plan being sprung both from the seed of David and from the Holy
    Spirit."
    
    19:4: "Ignorance was done away with, and the ancient kingdom [of evil]
    was utterly destroyed, for God was revealing himself as a man, to bring
    newness of eternal life."
    
    To the Trallians:
    
    7:1: "Be on your goard, then, against such people. This you will do by
    not being puffed up and by keeping very close to [our] God, Jesus
    Christ, and the bishop and the apostle's precepts."
    
    To the Romans:
    
    Intro: "You have been granted light both by the will of Him who willed
    all that is, and by virtue of your bleieving in Jesus Christ, our God,
    and loving him. . . . To you, then sincerest greetings in Jesus Christ,
    our God, for you cleave to his every commandment--observing not only
    their letter but their spirit--being permanently filled with God's
    grace and purged of every stain alien to it."  (Note, this is also
    evidence for the apostolic preeminence of the See of Rome in matters of
    doctrine.)
    
    6:3: "Let me imitate the Passion of my God."  (Keep in mind that he is
    writing this on his way to martyrdom.) 
    
    
Athanagoras' Plea, written about 177. Chapter 10:
    
       "Let no one think it stupid for me to say that God has a Son.  For
    we do not think of God the Father or of the Son in the way of the
    poets, who weave their myths by showing that gods are no better than
    men.  But the Son of God is his Word in idea and in actuality; for by
    him and through him all things were made, the Father and the Son being
    one.  And since the son is in the Father and the Father in the Son by
    the unity and power of the Spirit, the Son of God is the mind and Word
    of the Father.
    
       "But if, owing to your sharp intelligence, it occurs to you to
    inquire further what is meant by the Son, I shall briefly explain.  He
    is the first offspring of the Father.  I do not mean that he was
    created, for, since God is eternal mind, he had his Word within himself
    from the beginning, being eternally wise. . . .
    
       "Indeed we say that the Holy Spirit himself, who inspires those who
    utter prophecies, is an effluence from God, flowing from him and
    returning like a ray of the sun.  Who, then, would not be astonished to
    hear those called atheists who admit God the Father, God the Son, and
    the Holy Spirit, and who teach their unity in power and their
    distinction in rank?"
    
St. Irenaeus of Lyons, 3rd century, Against Heresies:
    
    I,10:1 "Now the Church . . . receive from the apostles and their
    disciples its faith in one God, the Father Almighty . . . and in one
    Christ Jesus, the son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and
    in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the
    dispensations of God--... and his coming from the heavens in the glory
    of the Father to restore all things, and to raise up all flesh, that
    is, the whole human race, so that every knee may bow, of things in
    heaven and on earth and under the earth, to Christ Jesus our Lord and
    God and Savior and King ..."
    
Letter of Pope St. Dionysius of Rome to Dionysius of Alexandria, A.D. 262

1. It is necessary, however, that the Divine Word be united with the God of
the Universe; and the Holy Spirit must abide and dwell in God.  Therefore the
Divine Trinity must be gathered up and brought together in One, a Summer, as it
were-- I mean, the omnipotent God of the Universe. ... 2. Nor are they less to
be blamed who hold that the Son is a work [creation], and think that the Lord
was made, as if He were one of those things which were truly made. The divine
statements bear witness to a generation suitable and becoming to Him, but not
to any fashioning or making.
   It is a blasphemy, then, and not a common one but the worst, to say that the
Lord is in any way a handiwork.  If if He came to be Son, then once He was not;
but if, as He says Himself, He be in the Father, and if, which you know the
Divine Scripture says, Christ be Word and Wisdom and Power, and these
attributes be powers of God, then He always existed. ... 3. Thus both the
Divine Trinity and the sacred proclamation of the Monarchy will be preserved.

The Trinity, written by Novation, circa 235 A.D.

11. We do not treat of the substance of [Christ's] body in such a way as to 
say that He was only and solely a man; rather, we hold that by the association
of the divinity of the Word in that very corporality, He was, in accord with
the Scriptures, also God.

31. ... [A]ssuredly, [Christ] is God proceeding from God, causing, as Son, a
second Person after the Father, but not taking away from the Father the fact
that God is one.

St. Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 2,15, circa 181 A.D.:
"The three days before the luminaries were created are types of the Trinity:
God, His Word, and His Wisdom." (This is the first use of the term Trinity
referring to the Godhead.)

    

--
/=============================================================================\
| Eric Ewanco - Software Engineer     For the rash and outrageous opinions ex-|
| Digital Equipment Corp, Maynard MA  pressed herein I alone am responsible;  |
| ewanco@kalvin.enet.dec.com          they do not belong to DIGITAL(TM).      |
\==============================- 2 Th 2:15 -==================================/
    "...[T]he greatest and most ancient Church known to all, founded and
    organized at Rome by [] Peter and Paul, [is] that Church which has the
    tradition and faith which comes down to us after having been announced
    to men by the Apostles.  For with this Church, because of its superior
    origin, all Churches must agree ...  and it is in her that the
    faithful everywhere have maintained the Apostolic tradition."
       -- St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, c. 180 A.D., 3,3,3.