From: Church of the First Three Centuries
By: A. W. Lamson
I offer a very short synopsis of this great book that is in the Library of Congress as food for thought before launching into my subject on the Triune God. The book is titled:
THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES OR NOTICES OF THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF THE EARLY FATHERS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY AND ILLUSTRATING ITS LATE ORIGIN AND GRADUAL FORMATION
By Alvan Lamson, D.D.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865
PREFACE
I have not written as an organ of any party. I have wished simply to make the volume a repository of facts, particularly connected with the opinions of Christians of the first three centuries, on the nature and rank of the Son and the Spirit; and I have spared no pains in the endeavor to give the exact expressions of the great church teachers of the period included in my survey, with copious and minute references. I offer the book as a help to inquirers who may wish to know what the early Fathers really thought and said.
Clement of Rome
1st Century Rome. Paul mentions him in Philippians 4:3, and 1 Corinthians. His letters contain no trace of divinity of the Son nor the Spirit. He shows God as the supreme sovereign ruler of all and Christ as a distinct being, other than God and altogether subordinate.
Hermas of Rome
2nd Century Rome. Mentioned by Paul in Romans 16:14. Both Clement and Hermas’ letters were read in the early churches. He wrote that God appears as supreme and infinite, and the Father made use of the Son as His instrument in creating and ruling the world.
Polycarp
Bishop of Smyrna to the Philippians, 147 A.D. A disciple of the Apostles. Conversed with those who had seen the Lord, was an especial disciple of John and was ordained by him. John was in the habit of relating to him his experiences in the Lord. Died by martyrdom. He wrote that the Father was separate from the Son; God as supreme and the Son as subordinate.
Barnabas
Companion of Saint Paul. He recognized Jesus as preexistent as God’s instrument of creation. The Father’s supremacy is maintained; if Jesus is referred to at all, he is clearly distinguished from the Supreme God and with no intention of coequality. No mention of the Holy Spirit.
Justin Martyr
Philosopher and first disciple of the cross. Genuine Christian and native of Palestine, 1st Century, about the time of John the Evangelist. He claimed Jesus not from eternity but created and numerically different from the Father.
Anti-Nicene Fathers
Content that the Father and Son are neither equal nor numerically one. The Son is not an object of prayer nor should be addressed directly.
Tatian the Syrian
170 A.D. Claimed Christ had a beginning and was subordinate to the Father.
Theophilus of Antioch
169 A.D. Claimed the Son was begotten in time and was the instrument of the Father in creation. He said the Father alone is the object of supreme worship.
Athenagorus
160 A.D. He claimed the supremacy of the Father.
Irenaeus
177 A.D. He claimed that the Son was a separate being from the Father and completely subordinate.
Tertullian
200 A.D. Claimed the Father and Son were two separate beings, the Son inferior and not equal.
Hippolytus
220 A.D. He said the Son was inferior to the Father and that they were two separate beings.
Origen
195 A.D. Claimed the Father and Son were two separate beings. The Father the greater, and the Son not an object of worship nor to be addressed in prayer. Claimed the Holy Spirit inferior to the Son.
Arius
2nd Century. Arius taught the Son was relatively inferior to the Father, from whom he was derived, and entitled to only inferior homage. He was not uncaused as the Father was. He had a beginning; the Father had none. He was a minister to the Father and in all things subject to His will. Arius was fluent, bland, persuasive of speech, fearless, sincere, abounding in zeal, had the courage of a martyr, pure and moral, and had a vast following. He was totally non-trinitarian.
The Trinitarians believed: “Always God, always the Son: as the Father, so is the Son: The Son is unbegotten as the Father; neither in thought, nor the least point of time, does God precede the Son; always God, always the Son.” Arius said he could not assent to their belief and hence was driven from the city as an atheist.
Arius wrote a letter to the Bishop of Rome:
“Our faith we have received from tradition and learned from you. That the Father existed before the Son, we learned it from you and preached it in the church!”
The letter was signed by Arius, five other priests, six deacons, and two bishops.
Eusebius
Native of Palestine, 270 A.D. Instructed in Christian faith and baptized. A diligent student, secular knowledge, and knew Greek. He believed the Father preceded the Son and existed before the Son. He said as a Bishop, all must confess this! He was a diligent inquirer, a collector of Christian documents of olden times. He had a multitude of writings which have since perished. Who knew better than Eusebius the old faith of the early Christians, yet he was no trinitarian. He continued to be a friend of the Arians and his heart appeared to be with them.
He belonged to the moderate party and was anxious to restore peace between the church and the Arians, but such a creed was not what the majority, who were determined to cut off Arius from the communion of the church, wanted. They were, for a time, at loss for some epithet to apply to the Son, which the orthodox could use and the Arians could not—until it was at length discovered from a letter of Eusebius that the latter objected to saying that “Consubstantial with the Father,” upon which they eagerly pounced upon the term as exactly suited to their purpose.
Constantine, who was moreover sincerely desirous to accommodate matters, readily adopted the word and advised the rest to do the same. Eusebius, after a good deal of hesitation, subscribed the symbol in its new dress, containing the obnoxious word and two or three others which, from his tenderness for the Arians whom he was reluctant to condemn, he had avoided introducing into his proposed creed.
He tells his people that he long resisted, but that his scruples as to the use of the term “Consubstantial” and “Begotten not made” were at length removed by the exposition given by the council of the sense in which they were to be taken: that is, as implying that the Son had no resemblance or community with the things made by Him (as the agent of the Father in the creation of the material universe); that He is of like substance with the Father though not a part of His substance; resembling Him but not identical with Him.
Many of the moderns claimed Eusebius an Arian and that he makes the Son far less than the Father and of a different substance, proving he was not sound on the Trinity. He died 340 A.D.