EARLY HETERODOXY by River of Life Bible Fellowship (ABFI)

ON THE GODHEAD:

E A R LY H E T E R O D O X Y FIRST EDITION

J.L. ANTONIC

Dedicated to all who still seek.

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2

EARLY HETERODOXY

PROLOGUE .....................................................................................................9 Adoptionism (~100 - 400 AD) .................................................................................10 Aëtius of Antioch (~350 AD) ...................................................................................11 Alexander of Alexandria (to ~328 AD) ....................................................................12 Apollinaris (~ 381 AD) ............................................................................................13 Arius (265 - 336 AD) ..............................................................................................14 Athanasius of Alexandria (~300 - 373 AD) ..............................................................15 Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430 AD) ..........................................................................16 Basil of Caesarea (329 - 379 AD) ............................................................................17 Cappadocian Fathers, the (329 - 394 AD) ................................................................18 Celestius / Caelestius of Rome (to 431 AD) ...............................................................19 Cerinthus (50 - 100 AD) ..........................................................................................20 Chalcedonianism (451 AD) ......................................................................................21 Clement of Alexandria (150 - 215 AD) .....................................................................22 Clement of Rome (to 100 AD) ..................................................................................23 Docetism (~200 - 300 AD) ......................................................................................24 Donatus (to 355 AD) ...............................................................................................25 Dyophysitism (533 AD - Present) ..............................................................................26 Ebion (~100 AD) ....................................................................................................27 Epiphanius of Salamis (~320 - 403 AD) ...................................................................28 Eusebius of Caesarea (~260 - 399 AD) ....................................................................29 Eusebius of Nicomedia (~341 AD)...........................................................................30 Eutyches (375 - 454 AD)..........................................................................................31 Gnosticism (~100 - 400 AD) ....................................................................................32 Gregory of Nazianzus (329 - 391 AD).....................................................................33 Gregory of Nyssa (335 - 395 AD) ...........................................................................34 Heiracas/Heirax (~300 AD) ...................................................................................35 Hippolytus of Rome (170 - 235 AD) .........................................................................36 Ignatius (35 - 108) ..................................................................................................37 Irenaeus (125 - 202 AD) .........................................................................................38 Jerome (~342 - 420 AD) .........................................................................................39 John the Apostle (to 100 AD) ..................................................................................40 Justin Martyr (~100 - 165 AD) .................................................................................41

Lucian of Antioch (240 - 312 AD) .............................................................................42 Mahomet / Muhammad (570 - 632 AD) ..................................................................43 Manichaeus (216 - 274 AD) .....................................................................................44 Marcellus of Ancyra (to 374 AD) .............................................................................45 Marcion (85 - 160 AD) ............................................................................................46 Monarchianism (~150 - 400 AD) .............................................................................47 Monophysitism (449 - 681 AD) ................................................................................48 Montanus (428 - 431 AD) .......................................................................................49 Neoplatonism (~230 - 529 AD) ...............................................................................50 Nestorius (428 - 431 AD) ........................................................................................51 Noetus (160 - 245 AD)............................................................................................52 Novatian (200 - 258 AD) ........................................................................................53 Origen (185 - 253 AD)............................................................................................54 Papias (60 - 130 AD) ..............................................................................................55 Paul of Samosata (200 - 275 AD) ............................................................................56 Pelagius (354 - 418 AD) ..........................................................................................57 Philo of Alexandria (20 BC - 50 AD) ........................................................................58 Photinus (to 376 AD) ...............................................................................................59 Plotinus (to 270 AD) ................................................................................................60 Polycarp (69 - 155 AD) ...........................................................................................61 Porphyry (234 - 305 AD) ........................................................................................62 Pneumatomachians (to 360 AD) ..............................................................................63 Praxeas (~ 206 AD) ...............................................................................................64 Proclus Lycius (412 - 485 AD) ..................................................................................65 Proclus of Constantinople (390 - 446 AD) .................................................................66 Sabellius (~215 AD) ................................................................................................67 Shepherd of Hermas, The (~150 - 199 AD) ..............................................................68 Simon Magus (to ~75 AD) ......................................................................................69 Tatian (120 - 185 AD) .............................................................................................70 Tertullian (~160 - xxx AD) .......................................................................................71 Trinitarianism (~221 - Present) .................................................................................72 Valentinus (100 - 160 AD) ........................................................................................76 SOURCES ......................................................................................................77

APPENDIX 1 .................................................................................................78 1. Referenced Councils and Synods ..........................................................................78 APPENDIX 2 .................................................................................................79 2. Referenced Writings ............................................................................................79 APPENDIX 3 .................................................................................................80 3. Ideological Groupings .........................................................................................80 APPENDIX 4 ..................................................................................................81 4. Contemporary Theologians ..................................................................................81 INDEX ...........................................................................................................82 5. Theological Terms ...............................................................................................82 EPILOGUE .....................................................................................................84

PROLOGUE “But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets: And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust. And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void to o ence toward God, and toward men” - The Apostle Paul, Acts 24:14-16

The study of early Christology, the theological discipline focusing on the person and work of Jesus Christ, holds signi cant importance for Christians today for several reasons. Throughout history, various interpretations and challenges to Christology have emerged, some of which continue to surface in di erent forms today. Studying early Christology, including the heresies and orthodox responses, equips Christians to identify and address contemporary theological errors that undermine core beliefs about Jesus Christ. Early Christological discussions, councils, and creeds played a crucial role in de ning and clarifying core Christian beliefs about Jesus' divinity, humanity, and their interaction. Understanding these early developments helps Christians understand how the Church has historically engaged with diverse philosophical and religious worldviews, providing valuable insights for contemporary interfaith dialogue and apologetics. Christology isn't merely an academic pursuit; it signi cantly impacts various aspects of Christian life, including worship, ethics, and evangelism. Understanding the early Church's emphasis on Jesus' dual nature as both God and human provides a framework for Christians to understand the signi cance of his life, death, and resurrection for their salvation and how to live in response. The challenges faced by early Christians in explaining and defending their beliefs about Jesus o er guidance for Christians navigating a pluralistic, skeptical, and often hostile modern world. In essence, understanding early Christology provides a stronger foundation for Christian faith, helps navigate theological and ethical challenges, and equips believers to engage meaningfully with the world around us.

- J.L. Antonic

ADOPTIONISM (~100 - 400 AD) Adoptionism is a non-trinitarian doctrine that teaches Jesus of Nazareth was a man approved by God to become the Christ. It asserts that because Jesus lived a sinless life, he was adopted by God as his Son. Some of the earliest followers of Jesus held this view.

Adoptionism, also called Dynamic Monarchianism, is an early Christian nontrinitarian theological doctrine, subsequently revived in various forms, which holds that Jesus was adopted as the Son of God at his baptism, his resurrection, or his ascension. Adoptionism held that Christ was a mere man, miraculously conceived, but constituted the Son of God simply by the in nitely high degree in which he had been lled with divine wisdom and power. It denies the eternal pre-existence of Christ, and denies the constant hypostatic union of the eternal Logos to the human nature of Jesus while a rming the belief "that God exalted Jesus to be his Son by raising him from the dead”. Adoptionism a rms that although Jesus is not equal to the Father, He is divine, having been raised by God to divine status upon his adoption, and has been divine ever since. When this adoption was reputed to take place has shifted over time covering such points as His birth, baptism, resurrection, ascension, or even before his birth - before Creation itself began. The Adoptionist view was taught at Rome about the end of the 2nd century by Theodotus, who was excommunicated by Pope Victor, and taught somewhat later by Artemon, who was also excommunicated, but by Pope Zephyrinus. About 260 it was again taught by Paul of Samosata. The 2nd-century work Shepherd of Hermas may also have taught that Jesus

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was a virtuous man lled with the Holy Spirit and adopted as the Son

AËTIUS OF ANTIOCH (~350 AD) Aëtius of Antioch, Syria, was the founder of Anomoeanism, an Arian sect. His followers were also called Aëtians. His chief disciple, Eunomius, became the eventual leader of the Anomoean Arians.

Aetius was disparaged as an atheist by his trinitarian enemies. He was, however, aligned with Arius in his main thought - that the homoousia, the doctrine that the Son (therefore the Begotten) is essentially God, is self-contradictory, since the idea of unbegottenness is just that which constitutes the nature of God. He studied successively under the Arians. In 350, he was ordained a deacon by Leontius of Antioch, but was shortly afterwards forced by the trinitarian party to leave that town. In 356, he went to Alexandria with Eunomius to advocate Arianism. Eunomius was ordained Bishop of Cyzicus in 360 AD, but Constantius II had him deposed. His Confession is a short work (from 383 AD) which still survives: “We believe in the 'the one and only true God' ... reverencing him as he really is: both by nature and in glory 'one God', beginninglessly, everlastingly, unendingly ‘only’. We also believe in 'the Son of God' 'the only begotten God', 'the rstborn of all creation’. After him we believe in 'the Counsellor, the Spirit of truth', the teacher of godliness: he was brought forth by the Only God through the Only begotten and was made subject to him … After these things, we also believe in the resurrection to be brought about through the Saviour…”

“The Aetians and Eunomians made the (three) beings so unlike each other that the third being now becomes the creation of a created being, with the result that the third being is not able to see the other two. They di er here from Arius’ saying that the three are unequal

but similar, “these two” maintains that they are both unequal and dissimilar.” - M. Servetus

ALEXANDER OF ALEXANDRIA (TO ~328 AD) Alexander was the 19th Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt. He was the strongest opponent to Arianism at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, held by Constantine the Great. He was a mentor to Athanasius of Alexandria for whom the Athanasian Creed is named.

Alexander taught against his contemporary, Arius, maintaining that the Christ pre-existed his incarnation as the Eternal Son, also applying the title “Word” from John 1 to the same, and that his essence was con-substantial (homoousian) with the Father such that both could be deemed God the Father and God the Son, respectively. Each being of the same divine essence, but distinct in person, Alexander maintained that the Son of God was indeed God the Son and existed before creation, not as “logos” or “divine plan” as maintained by Arius, but as the Eternal Son and as such he either co-created with the Father or alone created our present material reality. Alexander a rmed that the “we” in Genesis was God taking counsel with the Eternal Son. The con ict between Arius and Alexander began in earnest when the latter declared the unity of the Trinity in one of his sermons. Arius immediately responded by labeling Alexander's statement Sabellian, which had already been rejected by that time. The controversy quickly escalated, and Arius developed ever-increasing support for his position to the point that Alexander found himself having to summon two separate assemblies of his priests and deacons to discuss the matter. The con ict culminated when Constantine’s Council of Nicea ruled in Alexander’s favor. The ruling was later overturned by the emperor’s son Constantius II, himself an Arian. Constantine even reversed himself and was baptized an Arian Bishop, Eusebius of

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Nicomedia, before dying in 337 AD.

A P O L L I N A R I S ( ~ 3 81 A D ) Apollinarianism was a Christological position, proposed by Apollinaris of Laodicea, that taught that Jesus had a human body and soul, but a divine mind instead of a human rational mind.

Apollinarianism held that the divine Logos replaced Jesus' human rational mind. This view was based on Apollinaris' belief that humans have three parts: a physical body, a "lower" soul, and a "higher" soul or spirit. Apollinarians believed that Jesus had a human body, a "lower" human soul, and a divine spirit. In Apollinarianism, Jesus’ human nous (intellect) was replaced by the divine Logos. (A divine mind in a human body.). The Christology proposed by Apollinaris of Laodicea was condemned by the First Council of Constantinople in 381. The church rejected Apollinarianism because it compromised Jesus' true humanity. The church taught that Jesus is fully human and fully God, and that he had to be made like his brothers. Modern Christian philosopher William Lane Craig proposes a Neoapollinarian Christology in which the divine Logos completes the human nature of Christ. Craig says his proposal is tentative, and he welcomes critique and interaction from other scholars: “What I argue in my Neo-Apollinarian proposal is that the Logos brought to the human body just those properties which would make it a complete human nature – things like rationality, selfconsciousness, freedom of the will, and so forth. Christ already possessed those in his divine nature, and it is in virtue of those that we are created in the image of God. So when he brought those properties to the animal body – the human body – it completes it and makes it a human nature. Against Apollinarius, I want to say that Christ did have a complete human nature. He was truly God and truly man. Therefore his death on our behalf as our

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representative before God was e cacious.”

ARIUS (265 - 336 AD) Arius was a Cyrenaic presbyter and ascetic. He has been regarded as the founder of Arianism, which holds that Jesus Christ was not coeternal with God the Father, but was rather created by God the Father.

Arius argued that "if the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence: and from this it is evident, that there was a time when the Son was not. It follows, necessarily, that he [the Son] had his substance from nothing. Arius emphasized the supremacy and uniqueness of God the Father, meaning that the Father alone is in nite, eternal, and almighty, and therefore the Father's divinity must be greater than the Son's. Arius maintained that the Son possessed neither the eternity nor the true divinity of the Father but was rather made "God" only by the Father's permission and power. Arius argued for the supremacy of God and maintained that the Son of God was simply the oldest and most beloved creature of God, made from nothing, because of being His direct o spring. Arius taught that the pre-existent Son was God's rst production (the very rst thing that God ever did in his entire eternal existence up to that point), before all ages. He insisted that only God the Father had no beginning, and that the Father alone was in nite and eternal. Arius maintained that the Son had a beginning. Thus, said Arius, only the Son was directly created and begotten of God; furthermore, there was a time that he had no existence. He was capable of his own free will, said Arius, and thus "were He in the truest sense a son, He must have come after the Father, therefore the time obviously was when He was not, and hence He was a nite being.” Arius appealed to Scripture, quoting verses such as John 14:28: "the Father is greater than I”, as well as Colossians 1:15: "the rstborn of all creation. Thus, Arius insisted that the Father's Divinity was greater than the Son's, and that the Son was under God the Father, and was neither co-equal nor co-eternal with Him as

later trinitarians would assert.

ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA (~300 - 373 AD) Athanasius I of Alexandria was the 20th patriarch of the Church at Alexandria from 328 373 AD. He was exiled and deposed by the churcc ve times and restored by 4 different Roman Emperors. He was the chief proponent of Trinitarianism against Arianism.

Athanasius's theology centered on the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and the Trinity, particularly defending the Nicene Creed against Arianism. Athanasius strongly defended the doctrine of the trinity, which a rms that God exists as three co-equal persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. He insisted that the Son is "of the same substance" (homoousios) with the Father, meaning Jesus is fully God, not a created being. This was a direct contradiction to the Arian view that Jesus was a created being, subordinate to the Father. He emphasized that Christ, as the divine Logos, became fully human to redeem humanity from sin and corruption, restoring the divine image within believers. Athanasius believed that the Incarnation, the Son of God taking on human esh, was essential for salvation. His core belief was that only God could save humanity, and since Jesus saves, Jesus must be God. “Further, Athanasius's creed begged many important questions. It stated that Jesus was divine but did not explain how the Logos could be 'of the same stu as the Father without being a second God.” (Armstrong, p. 131) For centuries, the Athanasian Creed was widely believed to have been written by Athanasius, especially because it strongly supported the orthodox view of the Trinity that he championed. So while the Athanasian Creed is named for him, Athanasius had no hand in drafting its actual content. The creed likely originated in the late 5th or early 6th century in Southern Gaul (modern-day France), long after Athanasius's death in 373. Despite the scholarly consensus, the name "Athanasian Creed" has persisted, largely due to the creed's

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strong defense of Trinitarian theology, which aligns with Athanasius's legacy.

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO (354 - 430 AD) Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, “Augustine”, was a Berber theologian and philosopher. He became the Bishop of Hippo Regius in the Roman province of Numidia, modern-day Algeria, North Africa. He is the most important Latin Church Father of the Patristic Period.

In his youth, Augustine was drawn to the doctrines of Manichaeus, and later to the Hellenistic philosophy of Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386, Augustine developed a novel approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Augustine wrote his seminal work “On the Trinity” (est. ~400 - 417 AD) to discuss the Trinity in the context of the Logos. In it, he developed what has become known as the 'psychological analogy' of the Trinity. This work is celebrated by proponents of the creedal formulations determined by the Council Constantinople. Augustine was not preoccupied, as Plato and Descartes were, in detailed e orts to explain the metaphysics of the soul-body union. It su ced for him to admit they are metaphysically distinct: to be a human is to be a composite of soul and body, with the soul superior to the body. In his De perfectione justitiae hominis, written against Pelagius, Augustine strongly a rmed the existence of original sin, the need for infant baptism, the impossibility of a sinless life without Christ, and the necessity of Christ's grace. Augustine has been beati ed by the Catholic Church as the patron saint to an eclectic

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assignment of brewers, printers, theologians, philosophers, and those with sore eyes.

BASIL OF CAESAREA (329 - 379 AD) Basil of Caesarea is one of the three Cappadocian Fathers. Also called Saint Basil the Great was an early Roman Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia from 370 until his death in 379

Basil “took the distinction between kerygma and dogma very seriously. In one of his letters, he a rmed that there were two theological traditions, both of which derived from the apostles. The kerygmatic gospel was clear and knowable; the dogmatic gospel was silent and mystical.” Kerygma was the public teaching of the Church, based on the scriptures. Dogma, however, represented the deeper meaning of biblical truth, which could only be apprehended through religious experience and expressed in symbolic form. Beside the clear message of the Gospels, a secret or esoteric tradition had been handed down 'in a mystery' from the apostles; this had been a 'private and secret teaching' which our holy fathers have preserved in a silence that prevents anxiety and curiosity ... so as to safeguard by this silence the sacred character of the mystery. The uninitiated are not permitted to behold these things: their meaning is not to be divulged by writing it down.’ Behind the liturgical symbols and the lucid teachings of Jesus, there was a secret dogma which represented a more developed understanding of the faith. Basil said, these elusive religious realities could only be suggested in the symbolic gestures of the liturgy or, better still, by silence.’ Basil reverted to the distinction that Philo had made between God's essence (ousia) and his activities (energeiai) in the world: 'We know our God only by his operations (energeiai) but we do not undertake to approach his essence.' This would be the keynote of all future

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theology in the Eastern Church.” (Armstrong, p. 134-135)

C APPADOCIAN FATHERS, THE (329 - 394 AD) The Cappodician Fathers are a group of three theologians of Cappadocia in eastern Turkey. They were Basil of Cesarea, his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianus.

“The Cappadocians, as they are called, were all deeply spiritual men. They thoroughly enjoyed speculation and philosophy but were convinced that religious experience alone could provide the key to the problem of God. Trained in Greek philosophy, they were all aware of a crucial distinction between the factual content of truth and its more elusive aspects.” (Armstrong, ) The Cappadocians employed a formula that Athanasius had used in his dispute with Arius: God had a single essence (ousia) which remained incomprehensible to us - but three expressions (Hypostases) which made him known. Instead of beginning their consideration of God with his unknowable ousia, the Cappadocians began with mankind's experience of his Hypostases. Because God's “ousia” is unfathomable, we can only know him through those manifestations which have been revealed to us as Father, Son and Spirit. This did not mean that the Cappadocians believed in three divine beings, however, as some Western theologians imagined. Like “hypostasis”, “prosopon” meant the exterior expression of somebody's inner nature, or the individual self as it was presented to an onlooker. So when the Cappadocians said that God was one ousia in three Hypostases, they meant that God as he is in himself was One: there was only a single, divine self-consciousness. But when he allows something of himself to be glimpsed by his creatures, he is three prosopoi. Thus the Hypostases Father, Son and

Spirit should not be identi ed with God himself.

C E L E S T I U S / C A E L E S T I U S O F R O M E ( T O 4 31 A D ) Celestius of Rome was a pupil and follower of Pelagius, and a controversial opponent of both Augustine and Jerome. Augustine s writings on original sin were provoked as a response to the works of Celestius and Pelagius.

Celestius went much further in his doctrines than Pelagius in stating that the sin of Adam, as chronicled in the Biblical Book of Genesis, had only harmed himself, and not all of humanity. Celestius denied that Christian goodness is due to grace, for this would imply that if any Christian sinned, it was because God's grace had failed. In 411 AD, Celestius faced a council in Carthage to defend his views. His accuser, the deacon Paulinus of Milan, listed six of Celestius' ideas to be counted as heresies, but it is worth noting there is no recorded con rmation that Celestius identi ed his views in the same way. Celestius refused to retract his views, and when the above six points were condemned, the synod denied him ordination. In 417, Celestius appeared before Pope Zosimus and presented a statement of faith which Zosimus declared orthodox. In it, he maintained that the notion of original sin was not binding on infants. Albeit, he did call for their “baptism for the remission of sin” citing that the Lord had determined “that the kingdom of heaven should only be conferred upon baptized persons”. He maintained that since, by nature, infants lack the faculty to repent, remission is “necessarily conferred by the gift of grace”. He also maintained that sin is not born with a man by nature, which would disparage God as Creator, but instead, is an act committed. At the First Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, Celestius was condemned again. Despite this, the teachings of Pelagius and Celestius were taken up by the Bishop Julian of

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Eclanum (ca. 386 - 454 AD).

CERINTHUS (50 - 100 AD) Cerinthus was an early Gnostic who relied not on the four gospels now in the New Testament, but in an altogether different gnostic gospel identical to the Gospel of the Ebionites called the Gospel of Cerinthus, though he was not its author.

According to Irenaeus, Cerinthus was a man educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, who claimed angelic inspiration. Cerinthus denied that the Supreme God made the physical world. In his interpretation, a form of Adoptionism, Cerinthus distinguished between the man Jesus and the Christ. Similar to the Ebionites, he maintained that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but was a mere man, the biological son of Mary and Joseph. He taught “the Christ” descended upon Jesus at baptism and guided him in ministry and the performing of miracles, but left him at the cruci xion - never to embody the esh. Cerinthus taught that the visible world and heavens were not made by the supreme being, but, like the Neo-Platonists, by a lesser power (Demiurge) distinct from him. He taught that this power was ignorant of the existence of the Supreme God. Cerinthus taught that the demiurge was more like Philo's logos than the egotistical evil demiurge taught by Valentinus. Cerinthus was a contemporary opponent of the Apostle John. According to early Christian sources, such as Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, the Apostle John wrote his gospel speci cally to refute the teachings of Cerinthus. He also may have written his First and Second Epistles to warn the less mature in faith and doctrine about the changes Cerinthus was making to the

original gospel message.

C H A L C E D O N I A N I S M ( 4 51 A D ) Chalcedonianism refers to those branches of Christianity which af rm the theology described by the 4th Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. These consist of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Calvinism.

“The bishops at Chalcedon were under intense pressure from the emperor to produce a new creed, because he wanted to be able to call himself a new Constantine, presiding over the writing of a creed as Constantine had done at Nicaea in 325. […] the Chalcedonian De nition […] includes descriptions of heresies that had arisen since 381 (Nestorianism— which regarded Christ not as God the Son incarnate but as a man inspired by God, and Eutychianism—which truncated the full humanity of the incarnate Son by refusing to accept his consubstantiality with us). Then the De nition concludes with a paragraph that gives speci city and terminological precision to the church’s articulation of the incarnate Christ.” (Fairbairn D., 2021) The Chalcedonian doctrine of the Hypostatic Union states that Jesus Christ has two hypostatic natures, divine and human, possessing a complete human nature while remaining one divine person (Gk. prosopon): He was begotten before the ages from the Father according to his deity, but in the last days for us and our salvation, the same one was born of the Virgin Mary, the bearer of God (Theotokos), according to his humanity.He is one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, and Only Begotten, who is made known in two natures (physeis) united unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably. The distinction between the natures (physeis) is not at all destroyed because of the union, but rather the property of each nature (physis) is preserved and concurs together into one person (prosopon) and subsistence (hypostasis). He is not separated or divided into two persons (prosopa), but he is one and the same Son, the Only Begotten, God the Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the way the prophets spoke of him from the beginning, and

Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and the Council of the fathers has handed the faith down to us.

C L E M E N T O F A L E X A N D R I A ( 15 0 - 215 A D ) Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria, was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem.

Clement was in uenced by Hellenistic philosophy to a greater extent than any other Christian thinker of his time, and in particular, by Plato and the Stoics. It’s suggested that he was familiar with pre-Christian Jewish esotericism and Gnosticism as well. According to Clement, there is no way of empirically testing the existence of God the Father, because the Logos has revelatory, not analysable meaning. God had no beginning, and is the universal rst principle. Although Christ, like a human, is made in the image of God, he alone shares the likeness of God the Father. Christ is both sinless and apathetic, and thus by striving to imitate Christ, one can achieve salvation. He argues against the Gnostics that faith in Christ, not esoteric knowledge (γνῶσις), is how one comes to know God. Clement contends that while both are important, the fear of God is foremost, because through faith one receives divine wisdom. To Clement, scripture is an innately true primitive philosophy that is complemented by human reason through the Logos. He also asserts that Marcionites cannot become martyrs, because they do not believe in the divinity of God the Father, so their su erings are in vain. His critics challenged his alleged belief that Christ, as Logos, was in some sense created, as well as his perceived ambivalence toward docetism, the heretical doctrine that Christ's earthly body was an illusion. Clement dates the birth of Christ to 25 April or May, 4–2 BC,

and the creation of the world to 5592 BC.

CLEMENT OF ROME (TO 100 AD) Clement was an early Bishop of Rome, being preceded in that of ce by Cletus and Linus, who oversaw that church from 92 - 100 AD. Clement I was consecrated by the Apostle Peter. He is possibly the same Clement mentioned by Paul in Phillipians 4:3.

Peter ordained two bishops, Linus and Anacletus, for the priestly service of the community, devoting himself instead to prayer and preaching, and thus it was to Clement that he entrusted the Church as a whole, appointing him as his direct successor. Depending on the source, Clement is either considered to the second, third, or fourth successor to the bishoprick of Rome, after the Apostle Peter. The 2nd-century Shepherd of Hermas mentions a Clement whose o ce it was to communicate with other churches; most likely, this is a reference to Clement I. The only known genuine extant writing of Clement is his letter To the Corinthians (a.k.a. First Clement) around 96 AD in response to a dispute in which certain presbyters of the Corinthian church had been deposed. In this epistle, Clement does not espouse a clear Christology, but he does demonstrate sympathy for synergism while also stressing the importance of justi cation by faith. This letter is found in the Codex Alexandrinus manuscript. The pseudoepigraphical books of 2

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and 3 Clement are not attributable to Clement of Rome and thus they remain apocryphal.

The term "Docetism" comes from the Greek word δοκεῖν/δόκησις/dokeĩn, which means "to seem". Some sources say that the Bishop Serapion of Antioch (197-203 AD) found the doctrine in the Pseudoepigraphical Apocryphal Gospel of Peter.

Docetism is one of the earliest Christian sectarian doctrines, and its origins can be traced back to the New Testament. It became a more fully developed position in Gnosticism, a 2nd century religious dualist system of belief. Docetists believed that Jesus's physical existence was an illusion, and that he was immune from human experiences like hunger, thirst, su ering, and death. Docetism is broadly de ned as the teaching that claims that Jesus' body was either absent or illusory. The roots of Docetism lie in the Greek belief that matter was evil and that God was incapable of su ering. It appears to have arisen over theological contentions concerning the meaning, gurative or literal, of a sentence from the Gospel of John: "the Word was made Flesh”. The term 'docetic' is rather nebulous. Two varieties were widely known. In one version, as in Marcionism, Christ was so divine that he could not have been human, since God lacked a material body, which therefore could not physically su er. Jesus only appeared to be a eshand-blood man; his actual body was a phantasm. Other groups who were accused of docetism held that Jesus was a man in the esh, but Christ was a separate entity who entered Jesus' body in the form of a dove at his baptism, empowered him to perform miracles, and abandoned him upon his death on the cross.

The Council of Chalcedon in 451 contradicted Docetism. Other opponents of Docetism included Polycarp, Irenaeus, and Tertullian.

DOCETISM (~200 - 300 AD)

DONATUS (TO 355 AD) Donatus Magnus, also known as Donatus Casae Nigrae, was consecrated in 313 AD as Bishop of Carthage and Primate of North Africa. His correspondence and written works are lost to history.

Like third-century Novatianism, the Donatists were rigorists; the church must be a church of "saints" (not “sinners”). Sacraments administered by “traditores” (lit. “Surrenderers” those who relinquished their texts to the state) were held as invalid because Donatus argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry and prayers to be e ective. In 313, Pope Miltiades found him guilty of re-baptizing clergy who had lapsed, an act which led to a schism within the church. As such, he became the de facto the leader of a new Berber Christian sect bearing his name as the Donatists from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Augustine of Hippo campaigned against Donatism as bishop; and through his e orts, orthodoxy gained the upper hand. According to Augustine and the church, the validity of sacraments was a property of the priesthood independent of individual character. In uenced

by the Old Testament, he believed in discipline as a means of education.

DYO P H YS I T I S M ( 5 3 3 A D - P R E S E N T ) The doctrine of Dyophysitism explains that Jesus had two distinct natures, one fully human and one fully divine. The term itself wasn't used before the late 19th century but the concept, articulated by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, is now a majority view.

Those who subscribe to the "two natures after the union" formula on either Chalcedonian and Nestorian side were referred to as “Dyophysites”. The Chalcedonian de nition of dyophysitism states that the two natures are completely and perfectly united in the one person and hypostasis of Jesus Christ, in union with each other and co-existing without mixture, confusion or change; the Nestorian de nition, on the other hand, holds that the two natures are united in a Prosopic union,

Dyophysitism is rejected by the Oriental Orthodox churches, who hold to Miaphysitism – that Jesus Christ is of two natures united into one composite nature – while rejecting Monophysitism as heresy along with other extant denominations.

EBION (~100 AD) Ebion was the presumed eponymous founder of an early Christian group known as the Ebionites. According to Epiphanius, Ebion was born in a place called Cochabe in Bashan, Transjordan. Jerome is reputed to believe that Ebion lived at the time of John the Apostle.

Tertullian is the rst writer noted for mentioning Ebion. This he does a number of times, mainly related to the notion that Jesus was a man and not divine, writing that, “(If Jesus) were wholly the Son of a man, He should fail to be also the Son of God, and have nothing more than 'a Solomon' or 'a Jonas,'--as Ebion thought we ought to believe concerning Him.” Ebionites claimed that Jesus was not divinely born of a virgin but was the actual human son of Mary and Joseph. In Against all Heresies, Ebion is cited by Tertullian as being a successor to Cerinthus, an early gnostic. Michael Servetus in The Restoration of Christianity also connects Ebion to Cerinthus and too claims that he taught Jesus was a completely human being, devoid of the substance of deity. Gospel of the Ebionites was an apocryphal gospel which now exists only as seven brief quotations in a heresiology known as the Panarion, by Epiphanius of Salamis. Epiphanius is believed to have come into possession of a gospel that he attributed to the Ebionites when he was bishop of Salamis, Cyprus. He alone among the Church Fathers identi es Cyprus as

one of the "roots" of the Ebionites.

EPIPHANIUS OF SALAMIS (~320 - 403 AD) Epiphanius of Salamis was the Bishop of Salamis, Cyprus at the end of the fourth century AD. He is best known for composing the Panarion, a compendium of eighty heresies, which included also pagan religions and philosophical systems.

Ephiphanius was known for his impetuous zeal. For example, during a visit to Palestine in 394 or 395, while preaching in Jerusalem, he attacked Origen's followers and urged the Bishop of Jerusalem, John II, to condemn his writings. He describes his enemy as "a toad noisy from too much moisture which keeps croaking louder and louder.” He compares the Gnostics to a particularly dreaded snake "with no fangs." The Ebionites, a Christian sect that followed Jewish law, were described by Epiphanius as "a monstrosity with many shapes, who practically formed the snake-like shape of the mythical many-headed Hydra in himself. He also writes against Arius. He urged John II to be careful of the "o ence" of images in the churches. He noted that when travelling in Palestine he went into a church to pray and saw a costly curtain with an

image of Christ or a saint which he tore down.

EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA (~260 - 399 AD) Eusebius Pamphilius was Bishop of Caesarea Maritime (314 AD)and is known for his work “Ecclesiastical History”.

Eusebius is related in his views to Origen. Like Origen, he started from the fundamental thought of the absolute sovereignty (monarchia) of God. God is the cause of all beings. But he is not merely a cause; in him everything good is included, from him all life originates, and he is the source of all virtue. God sent Christ into the world that it may partake of the blessings included in the essence of God. Similar to Tertullian, Eusebius characterized the Son as to the Father as a ray of sunlight but held to the nuance that although the ray comes from the sun as its source, it, like the Son of God, is also distinct from its source, the Father. Eusebius is fairly unusual in his preterist, or ful lled, eschatological view. Saying "the Holy Scriptures foretell that there will be unmistakable signs of the Coming of Christ. Eusebius was called on by Arius who had been excommunicated by his bishop Alexander of Alexandria. An episcopal council in Caesarea pronounced Arius blameless. Eusebius enjoyed the favor of the Emperor Constantine. Because of this he was called upon to present at the Council of Nicaea in 325. He was again summoned before a synod in Tyre at which Eusebius of Caesarea presided. Athanasius, foreseeing the result, went to Constantinople to bring his cause before the Emperor. Constantine called the bishops to his court, among them Eusebius. Athanasius was condemned and exiled at the end of 335. Eusebius remained in the Emperor's favour throughout this time and more than once was exonerated with the explicit approval of the Emperor Constantine. After the Emperor's death (c. 337), Eusebius wrote the Life of Constantine, an important historical work because of eyewitness accounts

and the use of primary sources.

E U S E B I U S O F N I C O M E D I A ( ~ 3 41 A D ) Eusebius of Nicomedia was the Arian Bishop who baptized Constantine the Great in 337 AD just before his death. Initially ordained Bishop of Berytus (Beirut), Phoenicia he transferred to Nicomedia before moving to Constantinople in 338 AD.

Eusebius’ long and desperate defense of Arius at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, angered Emperor Constantine I. After which, Eusebius was said to begrudgingly "subscribe with hand only, not heart” when signing the Nicene Confession. It was a huge blow to the Arian party since it was surmised that the participants were evenly split. Despite this, a few months after the council, he was sent into exile due to his continual contacts with Arius and his followers. After the lapse of three years, he succeeded in regaining the imperial favor by convincing Constantine that Arius and his views do not con ict with the proclaimed Nicene Creed. After his return in 329, he brought the whole machinery of the state government into action in order to impose his views upon the Church. He was able, by no small feat, to dislodge and exile three key opponents who espoused the First Council of Nicaea: Eustathius of Antioch in 330, Athanasius of Alexandria in 335 and Marcellus of Ancyra in 336. Athanasius was regarded as a "man of God" by Constantine,

and both Eustathius and Athanasius held top positions in the church.

E U T YC H E S ( 37 5 - 4 5 4 A D ) Eutyches, a 5th-century leader of a monastery in Constantinople, is associated with Monophysitism. Eutychianism teaches that Jesus' human nature was essentially dissolved by his divine nature.

Eutyches was an opponent of Nestorius and Nestorianism, opposing him sharply in 431 at the Council of Ephesus. Eutyches was condemned for having adopted a polar opposite view of Nestorianism, where the two natures (Greek: hypostases) of Christ fuse together to form one, single Divine nature, also known as Monophysitism. Eutychianism— diminishes the full humanity of the incarnate Son by refusing to accept his consubstantiality with our own humanity. It teaches that Jesus' human nature was essentially dissolved, or perhaps overwhelemed by his divine nature. He did not intend to deny Christ's full manhood, but to stress His uniqueness. This view was condemned by both the Council of Chalcedon and the third Council of Ephesus. Ironically, although Eutychus eventually recanted his views, his explanations deemed unsatisfactory, and he was deposed from his priestly o ce and excommunicated. Eutyches is not to be confused with either Eutychius Proculus or the Eutychus found in the

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Acts of the Apostles 20:7-22.

GN OSTICISM (~100 - 400 AD) Gnosticism is an amalgamation of religious and philosophical systems that originated before Christianity, ourished between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, and emphasized personal, experiential knowledge (gnosis) as a path to salvation.

Gnosticism was a prominent heretical movement of the 2nd-century Christian Church, partly of pre-Christian origin. Gnostic doctrine taught that the world was accidentally created and ruled by a lesser evil divinity, (The Demiurge), and that Christ was an emissary of the remote supreme divine being (The Monad), of whom esoteric knowledge (gnosis) enabled the redemption of the human spirit. Gnostics believe that the material world is awed and evil and that true salvation involves escaping this material realm. They believe humans possess a divine spark or fragment (Aeons) of the true God (The Monad), trapped in the material body, and that gnosis allows them to recognize and reunite with their divine origin. Gnosticism was not a monolithic belief system. There were diverse schools of thought and interpretations of Gnostic concepts. Irenaeus recollects that the Simonians were a Gnostic sect that considered Simon Magus their founder and traced their doctrines back to him. The Essenes of Qumran, had some beliefs that pre gured Gnostic ideas. Their texts, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, show some parallels to Gnosticism, particularly in their dualistic worldview and emphasis on esoteric knowledge. The Apostle John’s writings seem to directly contradict Gnostic ideas by emphasizing Jesus's physical presence and his coming "in the esh". This directly contradicts the Gnostic belief

that Jesus only appeared to be human.

G R E G O RY O F N A Z I A N Z U S ( 3 2 9 - 3 91 A D ) Gregory of Nazianzus was a friend and collague of Basil of Caesarea and his younger brother Gregory, the Bishop of Nyssa. The three together are collectively referred to as the Cappadocian Fathers.

“Gregory of Nazianzus, also known as Gregory the Theologian or Gregory Nazianzen, was an early Roman Christian theologian and prelate who served as Archbishop of Constantinople from 380 to 381. He is widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age. […] (He) explained that contemplation of the Three-in-One induced a profound and overwhelming emotion that confounded thought and intellectual clarity. ‘No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendour of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Three than I am carried back into the One. When I think of any of the Three, I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are lled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me.’ For many Western Christians, […]the Trinity is simply ba ing. This could be because they consider only what the Cappadocians would have called its kerygmatic qualities, whereas for the Greeks it was a dogmatic truth that was only grasped intuitively and as a result of religious experience. Logically, of course, it made no sense at all. In an (early) sermon, Gregory of Nazianzus …explained that the very incomprehensibility of the dogma of the Trinity brings us up against the absolute mystery of God; it reminds us that we must not hope to understand him. It should prevent us from making facile statements about a God who, when he reveals himself, can only express his nature in an

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ine able manner.” (Armstrong, p. 137-138)

GREGORY OF NYSSA (335 - 395 AD) Gregory, the Bishop of Nyssa, was the younger brother of Basil of Caesarea and friend of Gregory of Nazianzus whom together are referred to as the Cappadocian Fathers.

“Gregory of Nyssa said, ‘every concept of God is a mere simulacrum, a false likeness, an idol: it could not reveal God himself.’ Christians must be like Abraham, who, in Gregory's version of his life, laid aside all ideas about God and took hold of a faith which was 'unmixed and pure of any concept'. In his Life of Moses, Gregory insisted that 'the true vision and the knowledge of what we seek consists precisely in not seeing, in an awareness that our goal transcends all knowledge and is everywhere cut o from us by the darkness of incomprehensibility'. We cannot 'see' God intellectually, but if we let ourselves be enveloped in the cloud that descended upon Mount Sinai, we will feel his presence. […] One should not think of God splitting himself up into three parts; that was a grotesque and indeed blasphemous idea. God expressed himself wholly and totally in each one of these three manifestations when he wished to reveal himself to the world. Thus the Trinity gives us an indication of the pattern of ‘every operation which extends from God to creation': as Scripture shows, it has its origin in the Father, proceeds through the agency of the Son and is made e ective in the world by means of the immanent Spirit. But the Divine Nature is

equally present in each phase of the operation.” (Armstrong, p. 134 - 136)

HEIRACAS/HEIRAX (~300 AD) Hierachas/Hierax of Leontopolis was an Egyptian ascetic, theologian, calligrapher, and Bible Commentator. He was the head of a monastic order called Hieracites which only admitted celibates.

Hierax may be called the connecting link between Origen and the Coptic monks. A man of deep learning and prodigious memory, he seems to have developed Origen's Christology in the direction of Athanasius. Arius recalls that Hierachas speaks of the “Christ coming from the Father as one torch [lit] from another, or as a lamp divided into two”. Thus, Heirax held that the Son was a torch lighted at the torch of the Father, that Father and Son are a bipartite light. He repudiated the ideas of a bodily resurrection and a material paradise, and on the ground of 2 Tim. 2:5 questioned the salvation of even baptized infants, "for without knowledge no con ict, without con ict no reward." In addition to his view of the relationship between the Father and the Son, Heirax taught that there was no bodily resurrection, only the resurrection of the soul, and that the Holy Spirit was to be identi ed with Melchizadek. He also insisted on virginity as the speci cally Christian virtue and that anything pleasurable, including sex and marriage, was forbidden by Christ.

Heirax was beheaded in Rome with Justin Martyr for refusing to sacri ce to Roman idols.

H I P P O LY T U S O F R O M E ( 17 0 - 2 3 5 A D ) Hippolytus was reputedly either a Bishop or Priest of Rome and one of the most important second–third century Christian theologians. His main written contribution is a ten book series called Refutation of all Heresies of which, books 2 and 3 are lost to history.

Various legends circulate about Hippolytus including one that identi es him as a priest of the Novatianist schism. Hippolytus' was an opponent of Modalism. Origen is reputed to have heard him preach. Hippolytus championed the Logos doctrine of the Greek apologists, most notably Justin Martyr, which distinguished the Father from the Logos ("Word"). Hippolytus is an important gure in the development of Christian eschatology. In his biblical compendium and topical study On Christ and the Antichrist and in his Commentary on the Prophet Daniel Hippolytus gave his interpretation of the second advent of Christ. Hippolytus did not subscribe to the belief that the Second Coming was imminent. In his commentary on Daniel he criticizes those who predict the Second Coming in the near future and then says that six thousand years must pass from Creation before the Second Coming. He also says that Christ was born 5500 years after Adam, so 500 years have to pass from the birth of Christ "to the consummation of the six thousand years, and in this way the end will begin. During the persecution at the time of Emperor Maximinus Thrax, Hippolytus and Pontian

were exiled together in 235 to Sardinia, likely dying in the mines.

IGNATIUS (35 - 108) Ignatius of Antioch, also known as Theophorus, was a disciple of the Apostle John, an Apostolic Father, an early Christian bishop, and a Martyr for his faith. Tradition hols that Apostle Peter appointed Ignatius to the See of Antioch.

Ignatius wrote seven epistles on his way to Rome where he was martyred. He wrote epistles to the Ephesians, the Magnesians, the Trallians, the Romans, the Philadelphians, the Symyrneans, and to his friend and fellow Johannine disciple, Polycarp. To each of the Christian communities he addressed, he exhorted them to obedience to their respective bishops and to avoid false teachers. In his Epistle to the Ephesians he writes: “For some are in the habit of carrying about the name [of Jesus Christ] in wicked guile, while they yet practice things unworthy of God, whom ye must ee as ye would wild beasts. For they are ravening dogs who bite secretly, against whom you must be on your guard, inasmuch as they are men who can scarcely be cured. There is one Physician who is possessed of both esh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in esh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; rst possible and then impossible, - even Jesus Christ, our Lord. […] But our Physician is the only true God, the unbegotten and unapproachable, the Lord of all, the Father and begetter of the onlybegotten Son.” The unattributed work Martyrium Ignatii claims to be an eye witness of the events leading up to his martyrdom at the hands of the Romans. The book tells the story of Ignatius' death and the events leading up to his death, the book also implies that Ignatius was one of the children Christ held in Matt. 18:2. The Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church of

Alexandria says that he was thrown to the wild beasts and devoured.

I R E N A E U S ( 12 5 - 2 0 2 A D ) Irenaeus, a Greek from Smyrna (Izmir), was the bishop of Lugdunum (Lyon) and is noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France. He is reputed to have heard the Apostle John preach.

Irenaeus exercised wide in uence on the generation which followed. Both Hippolytus and Tertullian freely drew on his writings. Irenaeus wrote his best-known work Against Heresies around 180 as a refutation of gnosticism. While the original Greek version is lost, a full 3rd century Latin version, still exists. In it, Irenaeus talks about the Valentinian Gnostics and their predecessors, who he says go as far back as the magician Simon Magus. In contrast to these, Irenaeus argued that “true gnosis” is in fact knowledge of Christ, which redeems rather than escapes from bodily existence. Irenaeus's emphasis on the unity of God is re ected in his corresponding emphasis on the unity of salvation history. Irenaeus sees the Incarnation of Christ as the new Adam was intended by God before he determined that humanity would be created. Irenaeus emphasizes that salvation occurs through the Incarnation, which bestows incorruptibility on humanity. “Irenaeus believed that God, being in nite and transcendent, cannot be perceived by mortal senses or comprehended by human understanding. In order to become visible and understandable by nite creatures, God must make himself nite. Accordingly, the Son takes the form of a human being - a real human being, not an apparition - who reveals the divinity

of God as directly and completely as humans can stand.” (Zerner & Hughes, p. 43)

JEROME (~342 - 420 AD) Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus aka Jerome of Stridon was an early Christian priest, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin in a work called the Latin Vulgate, as well as his commentaries.

Jerome learned Hebrew and copied for himself a Hebrew Gospel, of which fragments are preserved in his notes. It is known today as the Gospel of the Hebrews, which the Nazarenes considered to be the true Gospel of Matthew. Jerome translated parts of this Hebrew Gospel into Greek. Jerome believed that the study of Scripture was essential for understanding Christianity. He famously said, "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ”. He stressed the need to translate the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek texts, rather than relying solely on existing Latin translations. Jerome’s own Latin Vulgate was revised by Desiderius Erasmus beginning in the year 1516 AD. He was a strong advocate for the perpetual virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus. He believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the power of priests to forgive sins. Although he taught that the Devil and the unbelieving will be eternally punished (unlike Origen), he believed that the punishment for Christian sinners, who have once believed but sin and fall away, will be temporal in nature.He acknowledged the authority of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) as the successor of St. Peter. “St Jerome believed that the word hypostasis meant the same as ousia and thought that the Greeks believed in three divine essences.” (Armstrong, p. 136) Jerome defended against Arianism and also Pelagianism against which, in his Dialogus

contra Pelagianos, he claimed Pelagius denies the inherited e ects of Adam's sin.

JOHN THE APOSTLE (TO 100 AD) John the Apostle was the youngest of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, the son of Zebedee and Salome, and the brother of the Apostle James. He contributed ve books to the New Testament canon, writing them in his nal years from a Roman prison on the island of Patmos.

The Gospel of John is an evangelistic, multi-front polemic written, in part, to compete with an early Hermetic Gnosticism; “(It) sets out to interpret the Christian story and Christian experience to the new world of Hellenism by translating the Gospel into a form intelligible to Greek modes of thought…the actual key to the understanding of the Gospel (being) found in ‘a transmutation of Jewish and Christian ideas into their Greek equivalents” (G.H.C. MacGregor, The Gospel of John, 1928) The Gospel of John, Neoplatonism, and Philo of Alexandria all feature the concept of the "Logos," but with distinct interpretations. John's Gospel presents Jesus as the divine Logos, God's Word made esh, while Philo, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, used "Logos" to describe an intermediary being between God and the world. Neoplatonism, particularly in the writings of Plotinus, also employed "Logos" as a divine principle, but with a hierarchical structure where the One is the ultimate source. While John's concept of Logos is unique, some scholars suggest possible in uence from Philo's philosophical ideas and the broader Hellenistic intellectual landscape, including Neoplatonism. Michael Servetus’ The Restoration of Christianity, cites Irenaeus’ Adversus haereses a rming that in the days of the John the Apostle, John’s writing was focused on combatting two major heresies, that of Simon Magus, and also of the Ebionites. “Of the four gospels, John’s took longer to win universal acceptance among catholic Christians than the others because (almost from its rst publication) some Gnostic schools treated it as though it supported

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their positions.” - F.F. Bruce “The Canon of Scripture”

J U S T I N M A R T Y R ( ~ 10 0 - 16 5 A D ) Justin, known posthumously as Justin Martyr, also known as Justin the Philosopher, was an early Christian apologist and philosopher. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue did survive.

Unsatis ed in his early studies Justin sought a belief system that would a ord theological and metaphysical inspiration. This he found in Platonism. Years later, he renounced both his former religious faith and this philosophical background, choosing instead to re-dedicate his life to the service of the Divine. Despite this turn toward Christianity, Justin retained sympathy for “…the old philosophers and law-givers (who) had only a part of the Logos, while the whole appears in Christ.” Philosophy was to him an operation of the Word—in fact, through his identi cation of the Word with Christ, it was brought into immediate connection with him. Justin Martyr became a proto-trinitarian, believing that God exists as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. While a rming the divinity of the Son, Justin also observed his subordination. He viewed the Father as the ultimate source and summit of divinity, with the Son and Spirit in secondary and tertiary positions, respectively. Justin identi ed Jesus as the Logos (Word) of God, which he understood as God's self-expression and the instrument of creation describing described Christ as “Lord and God the Son of God” who is “deserving to be worshipped as God and as Christ.”(Dial. 63.5; 128.1). He used analogies like a thought from a mind or a re kindling re to explain how the Son is begotten from the Father but not a separate substance. Justin also recognized the Holy Spirit as a distinct person within the Godhead, and he worshipped the Spirit alongside the Father and the Son.

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Justin was beheaded in Rome with Hierax for refusing to sacri ce to Roman idols.

L U C I A N O F A N T I O C H ( 2 4 0 - 312 A D ) Lucian of Samosata (Samsat, Turkey) was a Christian presbyter, theologian and martyr. He was noted for both his scholarship and ascetic piety. He was also known as “Lucian the Martyr”.

Lucian is cited by both Arius and Eusebius of Caesarea as a proponent of their views. He was a founder of a theological school. Epiphanius associates Lucian with heretical views about Christ's human soul held by Arians (but also by others) and relates that the Arians venerated Lucian as their martyr and that Lucian lived together with Eusebius at Nicomedia. Associated with Lucianism is also the Creed of the Dedication passed at the Council of Antioch in 341. It was most likely brought up by the Homoiousian party. In their opposition against the Homoian party supported by Emperor Constantius II, the Homoiousians claimed the legacy of Lucian and adopted the de nition of 341 as their creed. After the deposition of Antioch's bishop Paul of Samosata, he fell under suspicion for heresy, and was excommunicated. According to tradition, Lucian was arrested at Antioch during the Roman Persecution under Maximinus Daia was and sent to Nicomedia, where he endured many tortures over nine months of imprisonment. He was twice brought up for examination, and both times defended himself ably and refused to renounce his Christian faith. His death is uncertain. He might have been starved to death. Another, more likely, possibility is that he was beheaded. There is a late tradition of uncertain origin that he had been drowned in the sea and that his body was returned to land by a dolphin after which he

was buried.

MAHOMET / MUHAMMAD (570 - 632 AD) (Mahomet / Muhammad / Mohamed) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. He is held by his followers to be the last and nal prophet of the Old Testament Semitic God, YHWH, whom they call “Allah”.

The Qu’ran (Koran) is the religious text of Islam. The Quran refers to Christians and Jews as "People of the Book," recognizing the divine revelations they received. In it, Jesus is upheld as a rabbi, a good teacher, and a prophet of God but they reject both the divinity of Christ and his atonement for sin on the cross. Muslims deny Jesus' cruci xion and resurrection, believing he was saved by God and ascended into heaven. Although Muhammad accepted the virgin birth of Christ, muslims hold the teachings of Muhammad superior to Christ and sharia law higher than Mosaic Law. Notably, Muhammad was a rejector of the later Christian doctrine of the trinity and sought to return and reform the faith back to strict monotheism. Islam, with its strict monotheism (Tawhid), rejects the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, considering it polytheism. Muhammad rejected the notion of a tripartite Godhead or of a tri-personal God who shares a single divine essence. Islam strongly rejects the Christian doctrines of Jesus' divinity and the Trinity, viewing them as contradictory to the concept of Allah's oneness. Muslims believe that the original message of Jesus was altered or distorted over time, particularly criticizing the Apostle Paul for introducing doctrines viewed as objectionable. The Qu-ran was drafted between 610 and 632 AD with its most reliable 'Uthmanic Codex'

being nalized arounod 650 AD by the third Caliph, Uthman ibn A an.

Manichaeus or “Mani”, was a Persian and founder of the Manichaeism: a gnostic, ascetic and dualist religion that included elements from Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Babylonian religion, and Christianity. Augustine embraced Manichaeism before Christianity.

Mani claimed to have received revelations as a youth and began preaching at an early age. He viewed himself as the nal successor in a long line of prophets, including Zoroaster, the Buddha, and Jesus, claiming to o er a universal message designed to surpass all previous revelations. Manichaeism's core tenets included dualism, believing in two opposing forces of good (light) and evil (darkness). This cosmic con ict resulted in the material world, where human souls were seen as trapped fragments of divine light. Salvation was achieved through knowledge (gnosis) and ascetic practices to purify the soul. Manichaeism recognized Jesus as a prophet but held a docetic view, denying his physical nature and resurrection. Followers were expected to follow strict asceticism to liberate the light within, anticipating a nal victory of light over darkness. According to Manichaean beliefs, Jesus the Messiah was born at his baptism, when God the Father openly acknowledged his divine sonship Arius maintained that Manichaeans taught that Christ, as the o spring of the Father, was a one-in-essence-portion of the Father. Michael Servetus recalls Hilary, who agreed with Arius, asserting that Manichaeus’ a rmation was that “the Son was a portion of the

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Father’s substance”.

M A N I C H A E U S ( 216 - 2 74 A D )

M A R C E L L U S O F A N C Y R A ( T O 374 A D ) Marcellus was the Bishop of Ancyra in Galatia and a loyal friend and colleague of Athanasius. Their relationship was complex as they fell out of and back into communion.

“In 339 AD, Marcellus argued that argued that the Logos could not possibly be an eternal divine being. He was only a quality or potential inherent within God: as it stood, the Nicene formula could be accused of tritheism, the belief that there were three gods: Father, Son and Spirit. Instead of the controversial term “homoousion”, to mean “of the same nature”, Marcellus proposed the compromise term “homoiousion”, to suggest “of like or similar nature”. The tortuous nature of this debate has often excited ridicule, notably by Gibbon who found it absurd that ‘Christian unity should have been threatened by a mere diphthong’. What is remarkable, however, is the tenacity with which Christians held on to their sense that the divinity of Christ was essential, even though it was so di cult to formulate in conceptual terms. Like Marcellus, many Christians were troubled by the threat to the divine unity. Marcellus seems to have believed that the Logos was only a passing phase: it had emerged from God at the creation, had become incarnate in Jesus and, when the redemption was complete, would melt back into the divine nature, so that the One God would be all in all. Eventually Athanasius was able to convince Marcellus and his disciples that they should join forces, because they had more in common with one another than with the Arians.” (Armstrong, p. 130-131) The Council of Constantinople (336 AD), under the Arian presidency of Eusebius of Nicomedia, deposed Marcellus. Although the Council of Serdica (343 AD) formally declared his book Asterius the Sophist free of heresy, he was not reinstated. The Synod of Antioch (344 AD) excommunicated Marcellus again and drew up the Macrostich, a

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creed which listed their beliefs and objections to Marcellus's doctrines (among others).

Marcion of Sinope was an early Christian theologian. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ, who was distinct from the “vengeful God” (demiurge) that had created the world. He considered himself a follower of the Apostle Paul. He is one of the earliest formers of a New Testament canon, a feat he was criticized for accomplishing unilaterally.

Marcionism was a dualistic belief system that originated in the second and third centuries AD founded by Marcion of Sinope around 144 AD . A Docetic teaching that Christ was so divine that he could not have been human, and since God lacked a material body, which therefore could not physically su er. Jesus only appeared to be a esh-and-blood man; his body was a phantasm. Marcionism anticipated the dualism of Manichaeism and was eventually absorbed by it. Marcion concluded that many of the teachings of Jesus were incompatible with the actions of Yahweh, characterized as the belligerent god of the Hebrew Bible. Marcion responded by developing a ditheistic system of belief around the year 144. This notion of two gods—a higher transcendent one and a lower world-creator and ruler— allowed Marcion to reconcile his perceived contradictions between Christian Covenant theology and the gospel proclaimed by the New Testament. Marcionites accepted some parts of the New Testament but rejected the Old Testament, and taught that Christ was the Son of a di erent God than the God of the Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament was wrathful and righteous, while the God of the Gospel was only love and mercy. The Pauline traditions of the Gospel were the essence of religious truth“. Marcion advocated his own version of the Bible. Marcion rejected the entire Old Testament and only accepted certain New Testament books. Others like Marcion followed, and it became apparent that the church needed to establish an accepted list against which anyone, especially false teachers, could be measured.”Speci cally, Marcion's canon, potentially the rst Christian biblical canon ever compiled, contained eleven books: a shorter version of the

Gospel of Luke (known as the Gospel of Marcion) and ten Pauline epistles.

M A RC I O N ( 8 5 - 16 0 A D )

M O N A R C H I A N I S M ( ~ 15 0 - 4 0 0 A D ) Monarchianism is a 2nd and 3rd-century Christian theological movement emphasizing the unity of God (the "monarchy" of God) over the Trinity doctrine. It was primarily a response to the dif culty of reconciling the unity of God with the full deity of Christ.

Monarchianism prioritized the unity of God and rejected the idea of three distinct persons in the Trinity. It opposed the doctrine of an independent, personal subsistence of the Logos and a rmed the sole deity of God the Father. Thus, it represented the extreme monotheistic view. Though it regarded Jesus Christ as Redeemer, it clung to the numerical unity of the deity. Two main forms of Monarchianism existed: Dynamic (Adoptionism) and Modalistic (Modalism) Dynamic Monarchianism (Adoptionism) In this view, taught by Theodotus, Artemon, and by Paul of Samosata, “Christ was a mere man, miraculously conceived, but constituted the Son of God simply by the in nitely high degree in which he had been lled with divine wisdom and power.”(Eds. Britannica, 2015) They held that Jesus not inherently divine but was a human being adopted by God as his son and then empowered by God's Spirit at his baptism or at some other point. Modalistic Monarchianism (Modalism) emphasized that God is one person who manifests himself in di erent "modes" or roles, such as “Father”, “Son”, and “Holy Spirit”, which are simply titular designations of the same subject, the one God. Modalists thus rejected the idea of distinct persons within the Godhead. This view, taught by Sabellius and Praxeas, was opposed by Tertullian in the tract Adversus Praxean (c. 213) and pejoratively labeled “Monarchian”. Modern arguments against modalism are that “while one person may be both a father and a son, one cannot be one’s own father or son.” (Ehrman) Another challenge was that a “mode” or “role” is not as su cient as a “person” to atone for the sins

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of real humans. (ed.)

M O N O P H YS I T I S M ( 4 4 9 - 6 81 A D ) Monophysitism is a Christological doctrine that teaches that Jesus Christ had only one divine nature, rather than both a divine and human nature. The term comes from the Greek words monos, meaning "one", and physis, meaning “nature".

Monophysitism is associated with both Apollinaris and Eutyches, the latter taught that Jesus' human nature was essentially dissolved by his divine nature. Two monophysite schools of thought are thus termed Eutychianism and Apollinarianism. Monophysitism asserted that the person of Jesus Christ has only one, divine nature rather than the two natures, divine and human, that were established at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Coptic and Armenian Orthodox churches and the Jacobite Syrian Church are commonly called the Oriental Orthodox or Monophysites. The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglicanism, Lutheranism and all mainstream Protestant denominations, reject the doctrine and hold to the Dyophysitism of the 451 Council of Chalcedon.

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Monophysitism is not to be confused with Monothelitism which posits that Jesus Christ had only one will, despite having two natures (divine and human). The orthodox Christian belief, was known as Dyothelitism, which held that Jesus had both a divine and a human will, corresponding to his two natures. The doctrine of Monothelitism was condemned as heretical by the Third Council of Constantinople (680-681 AD), which a rmed that Christ possesses both a divine and a human will.

M O N TA N U S ( 4 2 8 - 4 31 A D ) Montanus of Pepuza, Phrygia (Anatolia) is the founder of the Christian sect of Montanism. Montanus was a self-proclaimed prophet who emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit, in a manner which set him apart from the church at large.

Montanus arose in Phrygia in modern Turkey, who claimed to be a divine avatar. 'I am the Lord God Almighty, who descended to a man,' he used to cry; 'I am Father, son and Paraclete.' His companions Priscilla and Maximilla made similar claims. Montanists placed emphasis on the prophetic ministry as equal in weight to the Apostolic writers even surpassing the rule of the rising clergy class. The teachings of Montanism included that every true Christian had to have recognizable spiritual gifts and the highest aspiration was the o ce of Prophet. According to textual scholar Alexander Souter (1846-1918), “Among the tenets of Montanism were the assertion of prophetic gifts in opposition to the regularly constituted ministry; […] Montanism was a erce apocalyptic creed which painted a fearsome portrait of God. Not only were its adherents obliged to turn their backs upon the world and lead celibate lives but they were told that martyrdom was the only sure path to God. Their agonising death for the faith would hasten the coming of Christ: the martyrs were soldiers of God engaged in a battle with the forces of evil. This terrible creed appealed to a latent extremism in the Christian spirit Montanus was heavily attacked by other early church theologians and seen as a heretic. Tertullian, himself a Montanist, recollects how his adversary Praxeas opposed the Montanist prophets in Rome, successfully thwarting their ministry and in uence there. Montanism left

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Italyand spread gradually in the west eventually reaching Africa.

NEOPL ATONISM (~230 - 529 AD) Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy, founded by Ammonius Saccas and his pupil Plotinus, that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion which stretched to the sixth century.

Saccas and Plotinus' interpretation of Plato was so distinct from those of his predecessors that it introduced a new period in the history of Platonism called Neoplatonism. After Plotinus there are three distinct intellectual periods: the work of his student Porphyry (third to early fourth century); that of Iamblichus (third to fourth century); and the period in the fth and sixth centuries, when the academies in Alexandria and Athens ourished until the closing of the Athens academy by by Emperor Justinian in 529 AD. Neoplatonism maintains a doctrine of Monism, which posits that all of reality can be derived from a single principle, "the One” - an impersonal Monad, containing no division, multiplicity, or distinction and beyond all categories of being and non-being. The “One” is not merely the sum of all things but is itself "prior to all existence". Plotinus o ers a parallel alternative to the Christian notion of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). The metaphysics of emanation he describes are similar to the metaphysics of Creation, describing the absolute transcendence of “the One” or of the Divine, as the source of being for all things. The rst of these emanations is the “Nous” (Divine Mind, Logos, Order, Thought, Reason), identi ed metaphorically with the Demiurge in Plato's Timaeus. From Nous proceeds the World Soul, which Plotinus subdivides into upper and lower, identifying the lower aspect of Soul with nature. From the world soul proceeds individual human souls, and nally, matter, at the lowest level of being and thus the least perfected level of the cosmos. Plotinus asserted the ultimately divine nature of material creation since it ultimately derives from the One, through the mediums of Nous and the

world soul.

N E S T O R I U S ( 4 2 8 - 4 31 A D ) Nestorianism was named after Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople from 428–431 AD. His chief rival was Cyril of Alexandria.

Nestorianism asserts that Christ was two persons, divine and human, functioning in parallel (in what might be called a moral rather than a hypostatic union). It was condemned as heresy at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, and Nestorius was banished to a monastery. Nestorianism a rms that Jesus Christ was both fully God and fully man in two “loosely united divine and human natures. A brief de nition of Nestorian Christology can be given as: "Jesus Christ, who is not identical with the Son but personally united with the Son, and who lives in him, is one hypostasis and one nature: human. Nestorius' own teaching is that the Word (which is eternal), and the Flesh (which is not), came together in a hypostatic union, deemed 'Jesus Christ’. Jesus thus being both fully man and God, of two essences (οὐσία/ousia) but of one person (prosopon). He also teaches that Mary was Christotokos and not Theotokos. He suggested that the title denied Christ's full humanity, arguing instead that Jesus had two persons (dyoprosopism), the divine Logos and the human Jesus. As a result of this prosopic duality, he proposed Christotokos ('Christ-Bearer') as a more suitable title for Mary.

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Nestorianism became a distinct sect following the Nestorian Schism, beginning in the 430s AD and it was eventually condemned as heretical by the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD).

N O E T U S ( 16 0 - 2 4 5 A D ) Noetus was a presbyter of the church of Asia Minor (present day Turkey). He was a native of Smyrna (modern Izmer, TK), where he became a prominent representative of the Christology called modalistic monarchianism, or critically, patripassianism.

The views of Noetus of Smyrna are discovered almost unanimously through his chief contemporary critic Hippolytus of Rome. In his attributed works Against Noetus and Refutation of all Heresies. He states that Noetus alleges “that Christ was the Father Himself, and that the Father Himself was born, and su ered, and died.”, thus leading to the critique of “patripassianism”. Gnostic text expert, M. David Litwa, PhD, Th.M, M.Div, in his book “Found Christianities” suggests that Noetus emphasized the unity of God who appears in two modes or forms whose relationship appears to be like a Father and Son supported by John 10:30 and John 14:9. He also that Noetus taught a “theology of paradox” which claims that “God in Christ died, and yet God did not die, he was born and yet unborn, was visible and (also) invisible.” There is no evidence of Noetus’ teachings on the Holy Spirit. In defense of his dogma, Noetus is quoted as saying “What evil, then, am I doing in glorifying Christ?” But the small council repudiated and excommunicated him, after which he founded a school to teach his doctrines. Noetus’ theology was then adopted in part by the New Prophecy movement in Rome. Through his disciples Cleomenes and Praxeas, his theology was accepted by Roman bishops Zephyrinus and Callistus. These men ful lled the o ce

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that later became the papacy.

N OVAT I A N ( 2 0 0 - 2 5 8 A D ) Novatian (Gk: Νοβατιανός, Lat: Novatianus) was a Phrygian scholar, priest, and theologian. He is considered by the Catholic Church to have been an antipope between 251 and 258. Some Greek authors give his name as Novatus.

Novatian was a trinitarian. In his teaching, however, subordinationism and the unity of God as God the Father, not three, play an important role. He was heavily in uenced by Tertullian, and he made heavy use of his writings. Novatian's writings defended the Father as the creator of the world to combat the teachings of the Gnostics. Novatian also defended the unity of the godhead and humanity in Jesus, and wrote about a distinction between the Son and the Father, to combat Marcionites, Modalists and Adoptionists. Novatian believed that the role of the Holy Spirit was solely to be the source of blessings given during Baptism. Novatian held a strict view concerning the readmission to communion of lapsi claiming hose baptized Christians who had denied their faith or performed the formalities of a ritual sacri ce to the pagan gods under the pressures of the persecution sanctioned by Emperor Decius in AD 250, should not be allowed back into the Church. Novation was consecrated bishop by three bishops of Italy and declared himself to be the true Pope. Following the letters of Saint Cyprian of Carthage and Ambrose who both wrote against them, he and his followers were excommunicated by a synod held at Rome. Although Cyprian conceded that Novatian a rmed the baptismal question: "Do you believe in the remission of sins and in the life eternal, through the Holy Church?", because Novatian refused to recognize Cornelius as the rightful successor to Peter's throne, Cyprian argued that Novatian was a schismatic apostate. The Church of Rome then declared the Novatianists heretical. Though Novatian is said to have su ered martyrdom under Emperor Valerian I (253–260),

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Novatianism survived until the 8th century.

O R I G E N ( 18 5 - 2 5 3 A D ) Origen of Alexandria (aka Origen Adamantius) was the rst to propose the ransom theory of atonement in its fully developed form, and he also signi cantly contributed to the development of the concept of the Trinity.

Almost all information about Origen's life comes from a lengthy biography of him in Book VI of the Ecclesiastical History written by the Christian historian Eusebius (c. 260 – c. 340) Origen was a student of Platonist Ammonius Saccas at the philosophical school in Alexandria where he was a peer of Plotinus. Origen founded the Christian School of Caesarea, where he taught logic, cosmology, natural history, and theology, and became regarded by the churches of Palestine and Arabia as the ultimate authority on all matters of theology. Origen produced a massive quantity of writings because of the patronage of his close friend Ambrose of Alexandria, who provided him with a team of secretaries to copy his works, making him one of the most proli c writers of his time. Origen of Alexandria introduced the doctrine of eternal generation, positing the Son’s eternal begetting by the Father, a notion that presupposes metaphysical duality and departs from apostolic witness. The late British Theologian J. N. D. Kelly noted, “Origen’s doctrine is thoroughly Platonic and sets the pattern for later Trinitarian theology.” Argument over the orthodoxy of Origen's teachings spawned the First Origenist Crisis in the late fourth century, in which he was attacked by Epiphanius of Salamis and Jerome. In 543, Emperor Justinian I condemned him as a heretic and ordered all his writings to be burned. He was tortured for his faith during the Decian persecution in 250 and died three to four

years later from his injuries.

Papias was a Greek Apostolic Father, Bishop of Hierapolis, and author who wrote Λογίων Κυριακῶν Ἐξήγησις (Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord) in ve books.

Papias was a disciple of The Apostle John and a leader in the early church. Papias, along with Ignatius and Polycarp, was considered among the disciples of John, perhaps even his scribe. Irenaeus and the majority of other fragments about Papias a rm that Papias knew John the Apostle. This testimony is particularly weighty given that it is even earlier than Eusebius and plainly states that Papias was a “hearer of John” (Haer. 5.33. 4). It is from Papias that we learn that Mark’s gospel is based on the preaching of Peter. Papias also says that Matthew originally composed his gospel in Hebrew (which at the time could refer either to Hebrew as we know it or to Aramaic, a Semitic language spoken in Israel at the time of Christ). Generally speaking, Irenaeus views Papias favorably, while Eusebius seems to be more critical of him. Some have suggested this is because Papias was a “chiliast”, which in today’s theological terminology might most closely resemble a premillennialist. Irenaeus was a fellow chiliast, but Eusebius was not. Over the years, the reliability of Papias has been questioned by modern scholarship. It is interesting to note, however, that, although Irenaeus and Eusebius disagree on some of the ner points of interpretation in Papias, neither one disputes the essential teaching about Christ as preached by the apostles. This gives further evidence that, from the earliest days of

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Christianity, the risen Jesus was worshiped as God in the esh.

PA P I A S ( 6 0 - 13 0 A D )

PAUL OF SAMOSATA (200 - 275 AD) Paul of Samosata was patriarch of Antioch from 260 to 268 and the originator of the Paulianist heresy named after him. He was also accused of corruption on a grand scale as well as suggestions of impropriety with his female consorts.

Paul of Samosata’s teaching is a form of Monarchianism, which emphasised the oneness of God. Paul taught that Jesus was born a mere man, but that he was infused with the divine Logos or word of God. Hence, Jesus was seen not as God-become-man but as manbecome-God. As such he is also seen as an early advocate of Adoptionism. “Wonder not that the Saviour had one will with God. For as nature manifests the substance of the many to subsist as one and the same, so the attitude of love produces in the many a unity and a sameness of will which is manifested by unity and sameness of approval and well-pleasingness”. (Paul of Samosata, Discourses to Sabinus of Spoleto) The Synod of Antioch (269 AD) deposed Paul as bishop and elected Domnus I as his successor. However, because the synod had acted without consulting the clergy or the people, its authority was in question, enabling Paul to claim continued possession of his bishopric. At the Council of Nicea (325 AD), Athanasius of Alexandria explained that despite the fact that the followers of Paul of Samosata baptised in the name of the Trinity, they did not make it in the orthodox sense, making their baptism invalid. The Paulianists were thus commanded to be rebaptized by the Bishop of the Catholic Church. Their deaconesses and other clergy were stripped of their o ce and merged back into the laity. Combining these events with their founder’s death (275 AD) the Pauliansts faded out of the ecumenical

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record.

P E L AG I U S ( 3 5 4 - 418 A D ) Pelagius was a late fourth/early fth century theologian, reputedly of Celtic origin, who was active between 390 and 418. He was highly educated, spoke and wrote Latin and Greek with great uency, and was well versed in theology. When Alaric sacked Rome in 410, Pelagius and his follower Celestius ed to Carthage, where he continued his work.

Pelagius promoted a system of doctrines which denied original sin and emphasized human choice in salvation (synergism). He believed that God gave the power of free will to all men, not just Christians, in such a way that no one was forced into sin. For Pelagius, "grace" consisted of the gift of free will, the Law of Moses, and the teachings of Jesus. Pelagians saw baptism of infants as useless because they had no sin. Pelagius was followed in discipleship by Celestius/Caelestius of Rome, however he claimed that many works of his pupil did not represent his own views. In December 415, at the Synod of Disopolis, Pelagius distanced himself from his Celestius, by anathematizing his positions and explaining to the synod that he believed God(’s involvement) was not necessary for salvation because every human is created by God and further, that he "could not see" how God would have made humans fallen creatures. Although those who followed him may have modi ed his teachings, his death in 418 AD did not end “Pelagianism”. Because little information remains with regard to Pelagius' actual doctrine, some of his doctrines possibly were subject to revision and suppression by his

enemies. He was chie y opposed by Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, and Orosius.

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA (20 BC - 50 AD) Philo of Alexandria was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. Philo represents the apex of Jewish-Hellenistic syncretism. His work attempts to combine Plato and Moses into one philosophical system.

Philo received a thorough education in the Hellenistic culture of Alexandria and the culture of ancient Rome, to a degree in Ancient Egyptian religion, in the literary traditions of Judaism, and in Greek philosophy. Philo was more uent in Greek than in Hebrew and read the Jewish Scriptures chie y from the Greek Septuagint (LXX). Philo interprets the characters of the Bible as aspects of the human being and the stories of the Bible as episodes from universal human experience. For example, Adam represents the mind and Eve, the senses. Noah represents tranquility, a stage of "relative"—incomplete but progressing—righteousness. He bases his doctrines on the Hebrew Bible, which he considers the source and standard not only of religious truth but of all truth. Its pronouncements are the (holy word, godly word, righteous word), uttered sometimes directly and sometimes through the mouth of a prophet, and especially through Moses, whom Philo considers the true medium of God’s revelation. Philo represents the apex of Jewish-Hellenistic syncretism attempting to combine both Plato and Moses into one philosophical system. For example, Philo identi ed the angel of the Lord (in the singular) with the Logos.He argued that, like the Monad of the Neoplatonists, God has no attributes— is in consequence, nameless — and, therefore, God cannot be perceived by man. Furthermore, he posited that God cannot change: God is always the same. God needs no other being for self-existence or the creation of material things and God is self-su cient. God can never perish, is self-existent, and has no relations

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with any other being.

P H O T I N U S ( T O 376 A D ) Photinus was a Christian bishop of Sirmium from 343 to 357 AD in Pannonia Secunda, (modern Serbia). He grew up in Ancyra in Galatia, where he was a student and later a deacon of bishop Marcellus.

Photinus is considered a heresiarch by Catholic, Orthodox, and many Protestant Churches. His name became synonymous in later literature for someone asserting that Christ was not God. By the time of Augustine, a "Photinian" was anyone who believed Christ was a mere man. Photinus voiced his own theological system, according to which Jesus was not divine and the Logos did not exist before the conception of Jesus. He held that the one God is the Father, and that the man Jesus is his unique Son and Messiah. He did not believe that Jesus always existed, or that he was involved in the creation of the cosmos - thus before the incarnation there is no Son, and God is Father and Word. According to New Advent, “In his Trinitarian doctrine he is a Modalist Monarchian, and in his Christology a Dynamistic Monarchian, combining the errors of Theodotus with those of Sabellius. But it is clear that his views were partly motived by the desire to get away from the Ditheism which not only the Arians but even the Eastern moderates were unable to avoid, and he especially denounced the Arian doctrine that the Son is produced by the Will of the Father.” Synods held in 345 and 347 excommunicated Photinus, but Photinus remained in o ce, due to his popular support. Photinus appealed to emperor Constantius II. At another synod in Sirmium in 351, Photinus argued with the semi-Arian Basil of Ancyra and was deposed on charges of Sabellianism and Adoptionism. While in exile, he wrote several lost theological works. including "Contra Gentes" and "Libri ad Valentinianum", according to Jerome; he wrote a

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work in both Greek and Latin against all the heresies, and an explanation of his Creed.

PLOTINUS (TO 270 AD) Plotinus was a Greek Platonist philosopher, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher was the selftaught philosopher Ammonius Saccas, who belonged to the Platonic tradition.

Plotinus, and Origen were two prominent contemporaries late antiquity, and likely knew each other, as they were both students of Ammonius Saccus. While there's no explicit record of extensive interactions, scholars suggest they engaged in philosophical dialogues or were at least aware of each other's work. Plotinus's student, Porphyry, mentions Origen three times in his Life of Plotinus. In it, he documuents Origen's presence in Plotinus's lectures, suggesting some level of familiarity. Their philosophical approaches, particularly in how they viewed the relationship between the divine and the material, have some interesting parallels, indicating a shared intellectual heritage. Origen, after his philosophical studies, became a Christian theologian, while Plotinus founded the philosophical school of Neoplatonism. Despite their di erent paths, they both drew from the same philosophical foundation taught by Ammonius Saccas. Plotinus wrote the essays that became the Enneads over a period of several years from c. 253 until a few months before his death seventeen years later. He assigned the task of editing the enormous collection of his unstructured notes and essays used in his lectures and debates to Porphyry. Plotinus' philosophy had an in uence on the development of Christian theology. In A History of Western Philosophy, philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote that: “Plotinus, accordingly, is historically important as an in uence in moulding the Christianity of the Middle Ages and

of theology”.

P O LYC A R P ( 6 9 - 15 5 A D ) Polycarp, who became a Christian under the direct tutelage of the Apostle John, who ordained him the Bishop of Smyrna. The sole surviving work attributed to him is the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians.

Polycarp was converted to Christianity by apostles, was consecrated a presbyter, and communicated with many who had seen Jesus. Polycarp’s student, Irenaeus wrote that he had had the good fortune, when young, to know an aging Polycarp. In particular, he had heard the account of Polycarp's discussion with John and with others who had seen Jesus. Polycarp calls Jesus the "Son of God" and the "eternal high priest”. Highlighting Jesus’ sinlessness, he defended the doctrines of the incarnation and the death of Christ on the cross. While Polycarp's soteriology is not clear; though he cites Ephesians 2:8 to say salvation is by grace rather than works, he later encourages good works. We do not know if he was a monergist or a synergist. Polycarp called immoral people to repent, yet he deemed heresy a more serious issue than immorality calling false teachers like Marcion and the Docetists the " rstborn of Satan." According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he died a martyr at the hands of the Romans appearing before proconsul Statius Quadratus who commanded him to renounce Christ. “The Romans had threatened Polycarp with beasts and with re, but nothing would make him turn against Christ. After his prayer, the men lit the pyre, which sprang up quickly. But even the re wouldn’t touch him as it formed an arch around Polycarp’s body. The Romans didn’t know what to make of this. In the end, the Romans commanded an executioner was commanded to stab him. A great quantity of blood put out the remaining re, and Polycarp

bled to death.” (Voice of the Martyrs)

PORPHYRY (23 4 - 305 AD) Poryphyry of Tyre was a Neoplatonic philosopher and student of Plotinus. He edited and published the Enneads which is reputed to be the only extant collection of Plotinus works.

Porphyry’s Isagoge is an introduction to logic and philosophy. Porphyry is well-known for his anti-Christian polemics. Through works such as Philosophy from Oracles and Against the Christians (which was banned by Constantine the Great), he was involved in a controversy with early Christians. Porphyry wrote Against the Christians (Κατὰ Χριστιανῶν; Adversus Christianos) which consisted of fteen books. Some thirty Christian apologists, such as Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, Augustine, Jerome, etc., responded to his challenge. According to Jerome, Porphyry, taught that Daniel related entirely to the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and was written by an unknown individual living in the second century BC. Against Porphyry, Jerome identi ed Rome as the fourth kingdom of chapters two and seven. He also refuted Porphyry's application of the little horn of chapter seven to Antiochus. Everything known about Porphyry's arguments is found in these refutations, largely because Theodosius II ordered every copy burned in AD 435 and again in 448. He famously said, "The gods have proclaimed Christ to have been most pious, but the Christians are a confused and vicious sect."

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He sometimes wrongly credited, instead of Juan De Oria, with “Porphyry’s Rule” which, applying to all things, states “From any essential commonality, a concept may be abstracted which has an absolute and irreducible meaning.” De Oria quoted Porphyry as saying, “Genus is predicated equally of all species” which cannot be substantiated.

PNEUMATOMAC HIANS (TO 360 AD) Pneumatomachian (lit. “Enemy of the Spirit) is a perjorative designation for an Anti-Nicene Creed belief called “Macedonianism” after Macedonius I, the Semi-Arian bishop of Constantinople. His proponents denied the trinity, and both the personality of the Holy Spirit and its consubstantiality with the Father.

The Semi-Arian cohort known as Macedonians, were a 4th-century Christian sect who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. They believed the Holy Spirit was a created being, not equal to God the Father and God the Son in the Trinity. The pejorative term "Pneumatomachian" literally translates to "spirit- ghters" in Greek, re ecting their opposition to the orthodox view of the Holy Spirit's divinity. Macedonianism, like Arianism, applied a form of subordinationism, but instead of applying it to the Son, they applied it to the Holy Spirit. They believed the Holy Spirit was created by the Father and the Son, and thus was not co-equal or co-eternal with them. What is left to history of this belief is mostly lost, with only argumentation extant from the polemics of Athanasius of Alexandria, and Basil of Caesarea. This belief was deemed heresy, by the First Council of Constantinople in 381 AD and was subsequently suppressed

by Emperor Theodosus I.

Praxeas was a priest from Asia Minor, in Rome about 206. Little is known about the life of Praxeas, but it is surmised from the etymology of his name that he was a Greek. His teaching was revived with Sabellius.

All we know of Praxeas’ teaching can only be surmised by inference when reading Tertullian’s work against him, Adversus Praxeas. Praxeas’ activity Rome exposing Montanist prophets, provoked Tertullian’s ire saying “Praxeas managed two pieces of the devil’s business at Rome; he drove out prophecy and brought in heresy: he put the paraclete to ight and cruci ed the Father.” Praxeas’ contention was “that the Father Himself descended into the Virgin, that He likewise was born of her, and Himself su ered; even that He Himself is Jesus Christ.” Translator A. Souter, comments that Praxeas “insisted on divine unity to such a degree that he destroyed the Trinity. Crudely expressed, his position was that the Father alone was God, and that all the experiences undergone by Jesus in his earthly life were undergone by the Father. The other two persons in the Trinity were reduced to mere modality.” Praxean Christology taught that the Father was incarnate as Christ unwittingly suggesting that it was actually the Father who both died su ered for sins on the cross, as the Son. Praxeans contended that “it is not as regards (Christ’s) divine nature, but as regards his human nature that we speak of him as dead. […] if the Son indeed su ers, the Father su ers with him.” Citing the facts that God can neither su er, die, nor bear the atonement for sin, Tertullian condemned this view as both “patripassian” and “patricompassian”.Praxeas observed monarchy in the Godhead which Tertullian claimed was not actually injurious to the concept of Trinity on account of the “economy” of persons within it. Though this economy was accepted by later Trinitarians, the monarchy and its subordinationism of

Praxeas were not.

PRAXEAS (~ 206 AD)

P R O C L U S LYC I U S ( 412 - 4 8 5 A D ) Proclus Lycius, called “Proclus the Successor”, was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major classical philosophers of late antiquity. Schooled in Alexandria, he was known for his synthesis of Platonic philosophy and religious thought.

Proclus Lycius set forth one of the most elaborate and fully developed systems of Neoplatonism. Proclus authored a theology of Plato concerned with the divine hierarchies and their complex rami cations. G.W.F. Hegel called Proclus's Platonic Theology "the true turning point or transition from ancient to modern times, from ancient philosophy to Christianity.” Proclus, like Plotinus and many of the other Neoplatonists, agreed on the three hypostases of Neoplatonism: The One (hen), The Intellect (nous) and The Soul (psyche), and wrote a commentary on the Enneads, of which unfortunately only fragments survive. At other times he criticizes Plotinus' views, such as the prime mover. Unlike Plotinus, Proclus also did not hold that matter was evil, an idea that caused contradictions in the system of Plotinus. While Plotinus maintained that the One immediately causes Intellect he objected that the plurality of Being, as consisting not only of thinker and thought but also of all the Forms, cannot emanate straight away from the complete unity of the One. The particular characteristic of Proclus's system is his elaboration of a level of individual ones, called henads, which exist “superabundantly" beyond being, but also standing at the head of chains of causation (seirai) in some manner giving to these chains their particular character. Theurgy is thus possible because the powers of the gods (the henads) extend through their series of causation even down to the material world. Proclus exerted a great deal of in uence on Medieval philosophy, though largely indirectly, through the pseudonymic works of the late-5th- or early-6th-century Christian Greek author

and commentator Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

PROCLUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE (390 - 4 46 AD) Proclus of Constantinople was the Archbishop of Constantinople from 434 until his death. Renowned for his homiletic abilities, Proclus played a central role in the Nestorian controversy.

Proclus' homilies present clear a rmations of the unity and duality of the natures of Christ in terminology Constas describes as "anticipating the language of Chalcedon". He taught a union of opposites, a union of natures where they remain unconfused, divinity clothed with humanity. While maintaining the two natures he stressed the personal unity of Jesus. For Proclus the Word-made- esh dying sacri cially was essential to secure salvation; no mere man could pay the debt of sin, but man had sinned so man had to pay, necessitating the incarnation of God. Proclus’ homilies, drawn upon existing traditions, became foundational to Byzantine Mariology. His Homily I (delivered in Constantinople in 430) "de ned the rhetoric and rationale for the cult of the Virgin Mary throughout the Byzantine period” (Constas, 2003) eventually becoming attached to the proceedings of the Council of Ephesus. Proclus’ Mariology is an extension of his Christology, whereby the mystery of virginal motherhood safeguards the mystery of the incarnation, rendering Mary and her qualities worthy of e ulgent praise. Proclus was a champion of the traditional title Theotokos, defending its usage with intertwined Christological and Mariological explication. He also upheld the Marian doctrine of perpetual virginity which was opposed by Helvidius and a

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group called the Antidicomarians, so named by Epiphanius of Salamis.

S A B E L L I U S ( ~ 215 A D ) Sabellius was a third-century priest and theologian who most likely taught in Rome, but may have been a North African from Libya

Sabellius taught that God was single and indivisible, with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being three modes or manifestations of one divine Person. Sabellius used the sun's characteristics as an analogy of God's nature. Just as the sun has "three powers" (warmth, light, and circular form), so God has three aspects: the warming power answers to the Holy Spirit; the illuminating power, to the Son; and the form or gure, to the Father.[7] Sabellius used the term "prosopa" which is Greek for "faces" to describe how the person of God has three faces, this idea is found in 2 Corinthians 4:6 "...God’s glory displayed in the face (prosopon singular form of prosopa) of Christ. The Sabellian understanding has been called modalistic monarchianism. A Sabellian modalist would say that the One God successively revealed Himself to man throughout time as the Father in Creation; the Son in Redemption; and the Spirit in Sancti cation and Regeneration. (Because of this focus on God's revelation of himself to man, Modalism is often confused with economic Trinitarianism). By use of the term “as” modalists typically favor incarnation vs indwelling when describing how Christ is One with the Father. “Sabellius, adhering to the unity of God, was unaquainted with [God’s] modes of communication and dispensation. He claimed that the Father himself was the Son, and that the Father himself had su ered death. Therefore he is callled a “patripassian” as were Noetus and Praxeas.” - M. Servetus, The Restoration of Christianity, Book 1 In Against Praxeas, Sabellius is condemned by Tertullian as both a “Monarchian” and “Patripassian”.

A fresco (above) in the catacombs of Domatilla in Rome, Italy features one of the earliest Sabellian inscriptions.

S H E P H E R D O F H E R M A S , T H E ( ~ 15 0 - 19 9 A D ) The Shepherd, is an allegorical Christian literary work of the late rst half of the second century, considered a valuable book by many early Christians which was considered canonical scripture by some of the early Church Fathers such as Irenaeus.

“The Shepherd of Hermas, […] had a great vogue in orthodox circles and was even included in some copies of the New Testament (it is found in the Sinaitic Codex). […] its Christology does not seem to square with any of the Christologies of the New Testament, or with those of contemporary theologians whose occasional documents have reached us. (It) speaks of a Son of God; but this Son of God is distinguished from Jesus. "That Holy Spirit which was created rst of all, God placed in a body, in which it should dwell, in a chosen body, as it pleased him.” (Howell-Smith, A.D. Jesus Not a Myth, pp. 120-121) In the passage: "God made His Holy Spirit, which pre-existed and created all creation, to enter and dwell in the esh which He approved." Some believe therefore that Hermas has a binitarian understanding of God, as it calls the Holy Spirit the Son of God. In Hermas, the Holy Spirit appears to be a divine substance thus making the "tabernacling" of the Holy Spirit in Jesus a reward for the purity of his life. But we must not suspect Patripassianism as Jesus then becomes divine through the power of God. Jesus’ labours on earth to save and to cleanse have gained him a co-inheritance with the Holy Spirit, God's primary Son, so that Jesus now is the second “Son of God” - a virtuous man lled with a holy "pre-existent spirit" and adopted as the Son. In 1532 Michael Servetus reviled the suggestion of two sons, one divine and the other humnan somehow inextricably fused as this third composite son. Hermas has a synergist understanding of soteriology, where both works and faith are needed to be saved. For Hermas baptism is necessary to be saved and warns those who undergo baptism by the danger of postbaptismal sins fearing that those who fall into sin after

baptism, have only one chance of penance.

SIMON MAGUS (TO ~75 AD) Simon Magus, also known as “Simon the Magician:” or “Simon the Sorcerer” was a Samaritan magic user and eventual religious gure rst appearing to history in Acts 8:9-24 as one who “bewitched” the people of Samaria pretending to be the “power of God”.

Although seemingly converted and baptised by Phillip, Simon Magus was sharply chastised by the Apostles for o ering them money so that he could impart the in lling of the Holy Spirit by laying on of hands as the Apostles did. He is later said to have clashed with Peter, eventually turning aside from the Apostle’s Doctrine to reputedly lead the Gnostic movement of his day. According to New Testament Scholar, Bart Ehrman, “Simon Magus […] can’t seem to decide whether he’s a Neoplatonist, a Gnostic heretic or a hardcore Pauline Christian.” Epiphanius, recalls the Gnostic teaching that in the beginning God had his rst thought, his Ennoia, which was female, and that thought was to create the angels. The First Thought then descended into the lower regions and created the angels. But the angels rebelled against her out of jealousy and created the world as her prison, imprisoning her in a female body. Thereafter, she was reincarnated many times, each time being shamed. God then descended in the form of Simon Magus, to rescue his Ennoia, and to confer salvation upon men through knowledge of himself. "And on her account", he says, "did I come down; for this is that which is written in the Gospel 'the lost sheep’." — Epiphanius, Panarion, 21.3.5 Justin Martyr and Irenaeus record that after being cast out by the Apostles, Simon Magus came to Rome where, after having joined to himself to a prostitute, he claimed it was actually he who appeared among the Jews as the Son, in Samaria as the Father and among other nations as the Holy Spirit. He reputedly performed convincing magic acts to

substantiate his claims.

TAT I A N ( 12 0 - 18 5 A D ) Tatian of Adiabene, or Tatian the Syrian or Tatian the Assyrian, was an Assyrian Christian writer and theologian of the 2nd century who ambitiously compiled a harmony of the four gospels into a single Syriac volume called The Diatessaron.

Tatian's most in uential work is the Diatessaron, a Biblical paraphrase, or "harmony", of the four gospels that became the standard text of the four gospels in the Syriac-speaking churches until the 5th-century, after which it gave way to the four separate gospels in the Peshitta version. The starting-point of Tatian's theology is a strict monotheism which becomes the source of the moral life. Originally, the human soul possessed faith in one God, but lost it with the fall. In consequence, under the rule of demons, man sank into the abominable error of polytheism. His Oratio ad Graecos (Address to the Greeks) condemns paganism as worthless, and praises the reasonableness and high antiquity of Christianity. By this monotheistic faith, the soul is delivered from the material world and from demonic rule and is united with God. Tatian upheld that God is spirit (pneuma), but not the physical or stoical pneuma; he was alone before the creation, but he had within himself potentially the whole creation. Some scholars consider Tatian's creation theology as the beginning of teaching "ex nihilo" (creation from “nothing")The means of creation was the “dynamis logike” ("power expressed in words"). At rst there proceeded from God the “Logos” who, generated in the beginning,

was to produce the world by creating matter from which the whole creation sprang.

T E R T U L L I A N ( ~ 16 0 - X X X A D ) Tertullian s full name was Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus and he was a native of the Roman province of Africa, modern day Tunisia. His parents were pagans and he was likely converted as an adult probably after completed training as a lawyer. He is known to have visited Italy but spent most of his life in Carthage, Egypt.

Tertullian, in his work “Against Praxeas” likens the relationship of Christ to the Father such that the Son is like a sunbeam which emanataes from the Father, of the same substance coontaining the same ontological attributes but as yet a only portion of or refraction from the whole source. And in like manner, the Holy Spirit or “paraclete” emanates from them both being again equal in substance but lesser in manifestation and subordinated to source. Tertullian’s bent toward ascetism led him to adopt the doctrine of the Montanists. In his later works, Tertullian accepts the doctrine of the “new prophecy” and inaugurates the rule of individual spiritual gifts, thus undermining the authority of the Old and New Testaments as well that of the Church. (He urges) the Christian in facing persecution, depreciating marriage, making regulations for fasting, and other minor matters. […] Tertullian is one of the most proli c early writers in the Tacitean style, generally viewed as the most di cult to translate. “To him we owe the rst formulation of the doctrine of the

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’

Trinity; to him we owe a great portion of the Christian Latin vocabulary.” (A. Souter)

T R I N I TA R I A N I S M ( ~ 2 21 - P R E S E N T ) The Trinity (from Latin: Trinitas), rst coined by Tertullian in 221 AD, is a doctrine concerning the nature of God galvanizing over the course of several ecumenical councils: Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451), confessed cross three major catholic creeds: The Nicene, Apostles, and the Athanasian.

Trinitarianism is a de nes the nature of God as having one essence/nature (homoousion) existing in three coeternal consubstantial divine persons (hypostases): God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. In Trinitarian doctrine, God exists as three persons but is one being, having a single divine nature. The members of the Trinity are said to be co-equal and co-eternal, one in essence, nature, power, action, and will. As stated in the Athanasian Creed, the Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Spirit is uncreated, and all three are eternal without beginning. The Trinity doctrine exists in three major premutations: Ontological/Immanent, Economic, and Social. The Ontological/Immanent Trinity focuses on “who” God is on the internal, eternal being of God, emphasizing the equality and unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one God. The three persons of the Trinity are distinct but eternally united in one divine being. This perspective explores the relationships between the three persons in terms of their "personal properties”. The Westminster Confession states “It is proper to the Father to beget the Son, and to the Son to be begotten of the Father, and to the Holy Ghost to proceed from the

Father and the Son from all eternity”.

The Economic Trinity focuses on “what” God does. to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. centers on God's actions and roles within creation and salvation history, particularly how the three persons interact in these activities. The three persons of the Trinity are distinct but eternally united in one divine being. This perspective examines how the Father sends the Son, the Son takes on human form and atones for sin, and the Holy Spirit empowers believers.

The Social Trinity focuses on “how” the persons of the trinity relate to one another as a model for human relationships, emphasizing the interpersonal relationships within the Godhead as a pattern for human community. The Trinity's internal relationships provide a pattern for human community and social interaction. This perspective suggests that the Trinity's unity in diversity can be re ected in healthy human relationships characterized by love, respect, and cooperation.

The distinction between the Ontological Trinity and the Economic Trinity was not developed by theologians until the 18th and 20th centuries. While the early Church Fathers recognized these distinct ways the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work, the formal articulation of this distinction into the "economic" and "immanent" language emerged later. Modern Trinitarian theologians maintain that a balanced understanding of the Trinity requires considering all three perspectives: the internal nature of God, the external actions of God, and the

implications of the Trinity for human relationships.

Creedal Articulation The concept of the Trinity, as a fully developed doctrine, emerged in the mid-2nd century with Tertullian and continued beyond, as early Church Fathers grappled with understanding the relationship between Jesus and God based on scripture and tradition. While the early Church recognized the distinct roles of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in salvation, they didn't explicitly or widely use the term “trinity” to describe these roles until the Athanasian Creed. The earliest documented use of which dates to around the 6th century AD.

Pagan In uences While the Trinity is rooted in biblical concepts, the philosophical framework and terminology used to articulate it were heavily shaped by Neoplatonic ideas. The major NeoPlatonic school where Ammonius Saccas taught both Plotinus and Origen was seated in Alexandria - the eventual hotbed of the Alexandrian/Arian controversy wherein “Logos” doctrine became the major consderation of that convocation. Neoplatonism, particularly the philosophy of Plotinus, features a triad of the One, Intellect (Nous), and Soul. This structure, with its emphasis on emanations from a highest principle, resonated with Christian thinkers grappling with the concept of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Several in uential Christian theologians, including Origen of Alexandria, The Cappadocian Fathers, and Augustine of Hippo, were in uenced by Neoplatonism. Augustine, in particular, found Neoplatonism helpful in his journey from Manichaeism to Christianity, especially in his understanding of evil as a privation of good and God's incorporeal nature.

Textual Considerations While the developed doctrine of the Trinity is not explicit in the books that constitute the New Testament, adherants argue that it is implicit in certain texts like writings of the Apostle John. Prooftexts often cited are Gen 1:26, Matthew 3:16-17 and John 1:1-14; along with the disputed texts of Matthew 28:19 and 1 John 5:6-9 found in the protestant KJV and Catholic DR-V tanslations reliant on late revsions of Erasmus’ Latin Vulgate. The last of

these, called the Johannine Comma is a proven textual forgery.

Impact on Baptismal Formula A modern contention, revived from the primitive Apostolic church is the mode of baptism as the Orthodox Trinitarian mode deviates from the Apostolic model of immersion in Jesus Name. (Acts 2, 8, 10, 19, 22) for favor of a tripartite formula which confesses the trinity. Some catechismic literature asserts that candidates are baptized “into the blessed trinity”. On baptisms speci cally in the name of Jesus, Martin Luther noted, "it is certain the apostles used this formula in baptizing, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles,”. A number of scholars claim that baptism in the tripartite formula is a post-Apostolic Age interpolation and corruption, and that evidence suggest that the "Trinitarian" clause in Matthew 28:19 was added in the 2nd/3rd century. Both Papias and Jerome cite and refer to early Hebrew/ Aramaic Matthew, (sometimes called “Q”) which was quoted being devoid of the tripartite baptismal formula found in the early Greek Manuscripts. Jerome claims to have seen this autograph for himself in a Syrian library.

Theological Criticisms Critics argue that the Bible strongly emphasizes God's oneness (monotheism), while the Trinity’s introduction of a concept of God as “three distinct persons” essentially constitutes tritheism. While Trinitarians nd support for the Trinity in various biblical passages, particularly in the New Testament, opponents argue that the doctrine is not explicitly stated anywhere in the Bible and requires complex interpretation to be derived. Some argue that other interpretations of scripture, such as Arianism or Modalism, o er more coherent explanations of the relationship between God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. However contemplated, critics persist in arguing that the Trinity is a logically incoherent concept, as it posits that one being can be “three distinct persons” simultaneously, which they see as a contradiction arguing that "person" implies individuality and distinctness of being. In 1820, Thomas Je erson asserted that Michael Servetus was martyred by John Calvin “[…] because he could not nd in his Euclid the proposition which has demonstrated that three are one, and one is three.” While trinitarians are comfortable relegating this seeming paradox as a “Divine Mystery”, Je erson again reminds us rather sharply that “Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere abracadabra of the mountebanks [charlatans] calling

themselves the priests of Jesus.” (Tho. Je erson, 1816)

VA L E N T I N U S ( 10 0 - 16 0 A D ) Valentinus was the best known and, for a time, most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian. He founded his school in Rome. According to Tertullian, Valentinus was a candidate for bishop but started his own group when another was chosen.

Valentinus was recollected by Epiphanius of Salamis as having been schooled in Alexandria, Egypt. While there, Valentinus became conversant with Hellenistic Middle Platonism and the culture of Hellenized Jews like the great Alexandrian Jewish allegorist and philosopher Philo. His doctrine is known only in the developed and modi ed form given to it by his disciples, the Valentinians. He taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature received the gnosis (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine “Pleroma”, while those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser or uncertain form of salvation, and that those of a material nature were doomed to perish. In Against Praxeas, Tertullian asserted that Valentinus introduces a concept of “probole” or the projection of one thing from another by stating “from an Aeon, one and another Aeon.” writing that, “Valentinus distinguishes and separates his projections from the Creator, and places them so far from Him that the Aeon does not know the Father; for he longs to know Him, and cannot, nay he is almost swallowed and broken up into the remaining material.” According to Arius, Valentinus pronounced that Christ, as the o spring of the Father, was

simply an emanation.

SOURCES Armstrong, Karen A. (1993). A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. New York: Ballantine Books Bernard, David K. (2015). The Trinitarian Controversy in the Fourth Century. Word A ame Press. (Original work published 1993) Constas, Nicholas (2003). Proclus of Constantinople and the cult of the Virgin in late antiquity: homilies 1–5, texts and translations Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, The (2015, July 10). Monarchianism. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved [July 21, 2025] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Monarchianism Fairbairn, Dr. Donald (2021). The Chalcedonian De nition. Credo Mag Online. https://credomag.com/2021/02/the-chalcedonian-de nition/ Google. (2024). Gemini (Version 2.5) [Large language model]. https://gemini.google.com/ King James Bible. (2017). King James Bible Online. https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org (Original work published 1769). Litwa, M. David (2022). Found Christianities: Remaking the World of the Second Century CE. Bloomsbury Publishing. Servetus, Michael (1553). On Trinity and the Bible, an Annotated Translation of The Restoration of Christianity (Christianismi Restitutio), Books 1 & 2. (Peter Zerner & Peter Hughes, Trans.) Blackstone Editions (2023) Tertullianus, Q.S.F. (213 AD). Adversus Praxeas (Alexander Souter, D. Litt., Trans.) Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, and The Macmillan Company, New York.(1920) Voice of the Martyrs, (2021, August 23). Stories of Christian Martyrs: Polycarp of Smyrna https://www.persecution.com/stories/stories-of-christian-martyrs-polycarp-of-smyrna “Who was Papias of Hierapolis? (n.d.). Retrieved [July 21, 2025], from https://www.gotquestions.org/Papias-of-Hierapolis.html.

Wikipedia. (2025) The Free Encyclopedia. https://www.wikipedia.org

APPENDIX 1 1. REFEREN CED C OUN CIL S AND SYN ODS Year Council / Synod (City)

Major topics

~49 Council of Jerusalem

Gentile circumcision, Mosaic law for Gentiles

325 First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea

381

discipline

First Ecumenical Council of

Completion/expansion of Nicene faith;

Constantinople

Pneumatomachians

431 Council of Ephesus

449

Arian controversy; Pascha/Easter dating;

Second Council of Ephesus (“Robber Council”)

Nestorianism; Theotokos; Pelagian matters referenced

Monophysite triumph; overturned later

Christology—two natures in one person

529 Second Council of Orange (Orange)

Semi-Pelagianism; grace & freedom

Second Ecumenical Council of

Three Chapters; Origenist issues;

Constantinople

Christological clari cations

553

451 Council of Chalcedon

APPENDIX 2 2. REFERENCED WRITINGS Author Augustine of Hippo

Clement of Alexandria Eusebius of Caesarea

Title Confessions

~397–400 AD

City of God (De civitate Dei contra paganos)

~413–426 AD

On the Trinity (De Trinitate)

~400–427 AD

Paedagogus (The Instructor)

~190–200 AD

Protrepticus (Exhortation to the Greeks)

~313–324 AD

Life of Constantine

~337–339 AD

Panarion

Gregory of Nyssa

The Life of Moses

Hermas

The Shepherd of Hermas Refutation of All Heresies (Philosophumena)

Ignatius of Antioch

Irenaeus of Lyon

Justin Martyr

374–377 AD ~390s AD ~100–160 AD ~230 AD

On Christ and the Antichrist

~200–211 AD

Commentary on Daniel

~202–211 AD

To the Ephesians

~107–110 AD

To the Magnesians

~107–110 AD

To the Romans

~107–110 AD

To the Philadelphians

~107–110 AD

To the Smyrneans

~107–110 AD

To Polycarp

~107–110 AD

To the Trallians

~107–110 AD

Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses) Latin Vulgate

Jerome of Stridon

~190 AD

Ecclesiastical History

Epiphanius of Salamis

Hippolytus of Rome

Year (est./range)

Dialogus Contra Pelagianos

~180 AD 382–405 AD 415 AD

Gospel of the Hebrews (fragments cited)

~80–150 AD

Dialogue with Trypho

~155–160 AD

First Apology

~150 AD

Second Apology

~150 AD

Michael Servetus

Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity)

1553 AD

Polycarp of Smyrna

Letter to the Philippians

~120–135 AD

Porphyry

Against the Christians

~270 AD

Against Praxeas

~213 AD

Tertullian

Against All Heresies

~3rd c. AD

Anonymous

Martyrdom of Polycarp

~155–160 AD

Anonymous

Martyrdom of Ignatius

~2nd–3rd c. AD

Anonymous

Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church

~10th–13th c. AD

APPENDIX 3 3. IDEOLOGICAL GROUPINGS Adoptionists / Dynamic Monarchianism – Paul of Samosata (56), notes touching Shepherd of Hermas (68), Cerinthus (20). Arians (incl. Anomoeans/Eunomians) – Aëtius of Antioch (11), Arius (14), Eunomius (under Aëtius), Eusebius of Nicomedia (30); political patrons Constantius II, Constantine appear in the grouping note. Docetists / Docetism – Docetism (24) with links to docetic tendencies in Marcion (46) and Manichaeus (44). Ebionites – Ebion (27), connections to Cerinthus (20) and Johannine polemic (John the Apostle 40). Gnosticism – Gnosticism (32), Valentinus (76), Simon Magus (69), Cerinthus (20). Manichaeans / Manichaeism – Manichaeus (44); note Augustine’s prior adherence. Marcionites / Marcionism – Marcion (46). Modalism (Sabellianism) – Sabellius (67), Noetus (52), Praxeas (64); Anti-modalist responses under Hippolytus (36) and Tertullian (71 / Against Praxeas). Montanism – Montanus (49); association with Tertullian noted in text. Neoplatonism – Neoplatonism (50), Plotinus (60), Porphyry (62), Proclus Lycius (65); Christian engagements via Augustine (16), Basil (17). Nestorianism – Nestorius (51); see Council of Ephesus (Appendix 1, 431 AD). Novatianism – Novatian (53). Pelagianism – Pelagius (57), Celestius (19). Pro-Nicene / Trinitarian (orthodox) – Alexander of Alexandria (12), Athanasius (15), Basil (17), Gregory of Nazianzus (33), Gregory of Nyssa (34), Augustine (16).

APPENDIX 4 4. CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGIANS Theologian

Dates

Selected Intersections Origen (185–253), Plotinus (to 270),

Clement of Alexandria

150–215

Irenaeus (125–202), Tertullian (~160–xxx), Hippolytus (170–235). Plotinus (to 270), Hippolytus (170–235),

Origen

185–253

Sabellius (~215), Noetus (160–245), Paul of Samosata (200–275) Porphyry (234–305) Irenaeus (125–202), Hippolytus (170–235),

Tertullian

~160–xxx

Praxeas (~206), Sabellius (~215), Montanus (428–431)*. Noetus (160–245),

Hippolytus of Rome

170–235

Sabellius (~215), Origen (185–253). Alexander of Alexandria (to 328)

Athanasius

~300–373

Arius (265–336), Eusebius of Nicomedia (~341), Cappadocians (329–395). Athanasius (~300–373),

Cappadocian Fathers

329–394

Basil (329–379), Gregory Nazianzus. (329–391), Gregory Nyssa (335–395). Pelagius (354–418),

Augustine

354–430

Jerome (~342–420), Proclus of Constantinople (390–446). Celestius (to 431),

Pelagius

354–418

Augustine (354–430), Jerome (~342–420).

INDEX 5. THEOLOGICAL TERMS •

Adoptionism – 10; see also Paul of Samosata (56), Shepherd of Hermas notes under “The Shepherd” (~150–199 AD) (68).

•

Arianism / Arians – Arius (14), Aëtius of Antioch (11), Eunomius (not a stand-alone article, but cited under Aëtius), Eusebius of Nicomedia (30).

•

Begotten / Eternally Begotten – discussed across Athanasius (15) and Nicene/ Pro-Nicene entries (Trinitarianism 72; Chalcedonianism 21).

•

Chalcedonian(ism) – 21; see also Dyophysitism (26).

•

Docetism / Docetic – 24; see also Marcion (46) and Manichaeus (44) for docetic trajectories.

•

Dyophysitism – 26; contrast with Monophysitism (48) and Miaphysitism (not a stand-alone article, but treated in Christology notes).

•

Ebionites / Ebion – 27; see also Cerinthus (20) and John the Apostle (40) for polemical context.

•

Gnosticism – 32; see Valentinus (76), Simon Magus (69), Cerinthus (20).

•

Homoousios / Homoousian – treated under Athanasius (15), Arius (14), Cappadocians (Basil 17; Gregory of Nazianzus 33; Gregory of Nyssa 34).

•

Hypostasis / Hypostatic – see Athanasius (15), Cappadocians (17, 33, 34), and Chalcedon (21).

•

Logos – Justin Martyr (41), Origen (54), John the Apostle (40), Philo of Alexandria (58), Neoplatonism (50).

•

Miaphysitism – covered as contrast in Christology notes near Dyophysitism (26) and Monophysitism (48).

•

Modalism / Modalists – Sabellius (67), Noetus (52), Praxeas (64), and anti-Modalist polemics under Hippolytus of Rome (36).

•

Monarchianism – 47; see Dynamic Monarchianism under Adoptionism (10) and gures like Paul of Samosata (56).

•

Monophysitism – 48; see Eutyches (31) and Chalcedonianism (21).

•

Neoplatonism – 50; see Plotinus (60), Porphyry (62), Proclus Lycius (65), and Christian engagements (Augustine 16; Basil 17).

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Nestorianism / Nestorius – 51; see Council of Ephesus (Appendix 1, 431 AD).

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Novatianism / Novatian – 53.

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Pelagianism – Pelagius (57); see Celestius (19).

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Pneumatomachians – 63 (opponents of the Spirit’s divinity); see Cappadocians (18, 33, 34).

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Prosopon (Person) – treated implicitly in Trinitarian entries (Trinitarianism 72; Cappadocians 18/33/34). Trinity / Trinitarianism – 72; see Athanasius (15), Cappadocians (18, 33, 34), Augustine (16).

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EPILOGUE Matthew 16:13-20 (NKJV)

“When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, ‘Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?’

So they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for esh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’

Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus, the Christ.”

Who do YOU say Jesus is?

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E A R LY H E T E R O D O X Y In the centuries following the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the early Church’s expansion beyond its Jewish matrix engendered profound deliberations on reconciling an emergent Hebraic Christology with prevalent Platonic metaphysics. The assertion of Jesus’ dual nature—fully human yet fully divine, sinless and triumphant over death—provoked some of the most exacting theological and philosophical inquiries of the era, many of which continue to resonate today. In fact, some “new theories” that arise in contemporary pulpits often can be traced directly to these historical debates, wherein what one group upheld as venerable orthodoxy another deemed to be heresy with equal vigor. This reference companion, by J.L. Antonic, o ers a comprehensive objective survey of the principal Christological formulations that emerged between AD 100 and 600, illuminating their genesis and enduring signi cance in the history of Christian thought, presenting all

views fairly as part of the broader corpus of Christian heterodoxy.