The Trinity in History

The Trinity in History or A History of the Trinity: The so-called Holy Trinity in its Liberal formulation of three separated persons is neither Biblical nor historical. It is a mystery invented primarily in the 19th century. While the trinity is often used and the "persons" are separately described there is no early view that the Godhead was separated into three Beings any more than mankind is triplets because he is a body "person" and a soul and a spirit "person."

Most historical documents on the Holy Spirit and the "trinity."

The Sabbath for "worship" rather than rest, the tithe and the one god in three persons all derive from Babylon.

Poor image showing Ishtar-sin-shamash

See Rubel Shelly and Baptizing Santa: Thinking of the S.O.N. God as the S.U.N. god

Max Lucado Cosmic Christmas and the Shamash Connection.

The Son of God is the Word of the Father in thought and actuality. By him and through him all things were made, the Father and the Son being one. It is easy to compile a long lists of things the "Spirit" has done all by Himself while the "Son" is idling on a chair. This is used to prove that the Spirit is the "third person of the Godhead." However, all of these arguments work better if we acknowledge that Jesus is the name of the invisible Spirit God who guided all of the apostles into all truth. In Matthew 28, the Father, Son and Spirit (not names) all have one name -- Jesus or Jehovah-Saves. To baptize in the name of three manifestations--

Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Acts 2:38

This is not a formula for magic.

And when the invisible Lord "appeared" to Saul:

And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. Acts 22:8

Jesus promised to guide Paul as He had promised to guide the other apostles through the Spirit. But Paul recognized this Spirit as Lord or Jesus Christ.

What follows is a tiny collection of scholarly quotations which you may find useful if anyone wants to defend the Catholic "trinity of persons" which most earlier Catholics and the Restoration Movement leaders rejected. Many of us have compromised but it is encouraging that so many are boldly returning to the Words of Christ and have given up trying to attract God with enthusiasm (believed to be Spirit) which was invented by Philo to mean "filled with the demon gods of madness." Paul to the Corinthians agreed that their speaking and singing would be seen as madness.

Trinity Palmyra

 

The Trinity in History: The spirit in History Antiphon (480 - 411 BC)

"Often at such an hour as this,

when the body has given up the struggle,
its salvation is the spirit,
which is ready to fight on in the conscience that it is innocent.

"On the other hand, he whose conscience is guilty has

no worse enemy than that conscience;
for his spirit fails him which his body is still unwearied,
because it feels that what is approaching him
is the punishment of his iniquities.
But it is with no such guilty conscience that I come before you. (Antiphon On the murder or Herodes 5.93)

A History of the Trinity Paul

> For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; Rom 1:9

> But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should

serve in newness of spirit,
and not (serve) in the oldness of the letter. Rom 7:6

> O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Romans 7:24

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then

with the mind I myself serve the law of God;

but with the flesh the law of sin. Romans 7:25

> THERE is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but (walk) after the Spirit. Romans 8:1

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Romans 8:2

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: Romans 8:3

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh (external body), but after the Spirit (internal mind). Romans 8:4

> This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Epesians 4:17

> Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained,

let us walk by the same rule,

let us mind the same thing. Ph.3:16

> How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,

purge your conscience from dead works
to serve the living God? Heb.9:14

This happens at Baptism:

The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the request for a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: 1 Pet 3:21

Suneidesis (g4893) soon-i'-day-sis; from a prol. form of 4894; co- perception, i.e. moral consciousness; - conscience.

Suneido (g4894) soon-i'-do; from 4862 and 1492; to see completely; used (like its prim.) only in two past tenses, respectively mean. to understand or become aware, and to be conscious or (clandestinely) informed of: - consider, know, be privy, be ware of.

> But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. John 4:23

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth John 4:24

I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth:

for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. Ps.138:2

> For we are the circumcision,

which worship God in the spirit,

and rejoice in Christ Jesus,

and have no confidence in the flesh. Phil 3:3

 

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit,

and watching thereunto with all perseverance

and supplication for all saints; Eph 6:18

 

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith,

praying in the Holy Spirit, Jude 20NKJV

> I was in the Spirit on the Lords day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Re.1:10

> And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not:I am thy fellowservant,

and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus:
worship God:
for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Rev 19:10

Paul began by comparing his flesh and his spirit, he ends by speaking of his flesh and his spirit which has been freed from all external religious rituals.

The only way Paul knew how to get into Christ was by reckoning the body dead and the spirit alive in and through baptism in connection with the finished work of Christ. He repeated this to the Galatians in the form of parallelism:

What: For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:26

How: For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put (been clothed) on Christ. Galatians 3:27

Why: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28

A History of the Trinity CLEMENT... 95 AD

the Bishop of Rome was pre-trinitarian (that means before the concept was developed and promoted) and said, .."Christ being originally Spirit became flesh." 

The Trinity in History 115 AD Ignatius of Antioch (d.117 A.D.)

Ignatius was a disciple of the apostle John. In 117 AD he was led from Antioch to Rome to be martyred for his faith. Along the way, he wrote seven letters -- six were addressed to various churches, the seventh to Polycarp, another disciple of John (Lightfoot, p.97). In these letters, he refers to Jesus as "God" twelve times.

"Far removed is the Father of all from those things which operate among men, the affections and passions.
He is simple, not composed of parts, without structure, altogether like and equal to himself alone.
He is all mind, all spirit, all thought, all intelligent, all reason . . . all light, all fountain of every good, and this is the manner in which the religious and the pious are accustomed to speak of God" (Iraneus, Against Heresies 2:13:3 [A.D. 189]).

Of course, this is why it was so dangerous and destructive to the Jews to worship like the pagans with loud rituals which was the "burden" Jesus came to lift. Because "worship" is in "spirit" it is a rejection of Christ's teaching to try to worship Him with our bodies in wild action.

In the new model of the trinity, the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son. Careless readers might see this as three, co-equal god persons. If the Son is a person and proceeds from the Father then He is junior to and inferior to the Father. This is solved if the reader will understand the Trinity from the early Catholic view. By analogy, my words proceed from my mind and are therefore personified as my "sons."

"Jesus Christ . . . was with the Father before the beginning of time, and in the end was revealed. . . . Jesus Christ . . . came forth from one Father and is with and has gone to one [Father]. . ..

There is one God, who has manifested HIMSELF by Jesus Christ his Son,

who is his eternal Word, not proceeding forth from silence, and who in all things pleased him that sent him" (Letter to the Magnesians 6-8).

The priest, who had been added after Mount Sinai to keep the people away from God's presence, ignored the Word and invented loud ceremonies. The persecuted prophets, on the other hand, honoed Christ Who spoke to them (1 Peter 1:11):

"The prophets, who were men of God, lived according to Jesus Christ. For that reason they were persecuted, inspired as they were by his grace to convince the disobedient that there is one God, who manifested himself through his son, Jesus Christ, who is his Word proceeding from silence, and who was in all respects pleasing to him that sent him" (Letter to the Magnesians 8:1).

When John wrote, the church had misinterpreted the other writers. His gospel account corrects the view which Paul also corrected when He identified the Spirit as Jesus Christ in Spirit in all of His letters. Ignatius would have understood first hand what John clearly said:

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another (of the same kind) Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; John 14:16

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: John 14:17
but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. John 14:18

John's account of the gospel was written around 100 A. D. and

"The author was not using the Greek word logos in the same way as Philo: he appears to have been more in tune with Palestinian than Hellenized Judaism. In the Aramaic translations of the Hebrew scriptures known as the targums, which were being composed at this time, the term Membra (word) is used to describe God's activity in the world. It performs the same function as other technical terms like "glory," "Holy Spirit" and "Shekinah" which

emphasized the distinction between God's presence in the world,
and the incomprehensible reality of God itself.

Like the divine Wisdom (Sophia), the "Word" symbolized God's original plan for creation. When Paul and John spoke about Jesus as though he had some kind of preexistent life, they were not suggesting that he was a second divine "person" in the later Trinitarian sense. They were indicating that Jesus had transcended temporal and individual modes of existence. Because the "power" and "Wisdom" that he represented were activities that derived from God, he had in some way expressed "what there was from the beginning." (Karen Armstrong, A History of God, p. 89).

"In his letter To Alabius: That there are not Three Gods, Gregory of Nyssa outlined his important doctrine of the inseparability or coinherence of the three divine persons or hypostases.

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... the Divine Nature is equally present in each phase of the operation... The three persons do not exist side by side in the divine world." (Armstrong, Karen, History of God, 116-117)

Wisdom in the book of Proverbs is "Sophia" which in Gnosticism is connected to Zoe and between the two of them the world was dominated through weak, powerless musical sub-leaders. The Gnostics still arrive at this view because Wisdom is treated Just like the Word, as God's first-created "creature." If the "Word" is the second person of the creation then "Wisdom" as the second person of the Godhead, is a female and has a right to dominate the more rational but inferior males through the use of what the Hypostasis of the Archons clearly describes as a "musical worship team." None of us have to be embarassed if we understand symbolic language.

The Trinity in History Justin Martyr 140 (c.100-165 AD)

"God begot before all creatures a Beginning, who was a certain rational power from himself and whom the Holy Ghost calls . . . sometimes the Son, . . . sometimes Lord and Word ... We see things happen similarly among ourselves,

for whenever we utter some word, we beget a word, yet not by any cutting off, which would diminish the word in us when we utter it.

We see a similar occurrence when one fire enkindles another. It is not diminished through the enkindling of the other, but remains as it was." (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 61).

Of course, Justin being a student would understand that Christ was either the expression of the One God by speaking His word, or, Christ was actually a created, second "person." This would deny that the Word was truly God:

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning (chief or corner) of the creation of God; Revelation 3:14

In Hebrew, the spirit which hovered was the wind, because God (the Word) said that He did it all alone. Otherwise "spirit" is the mental functions of a rational being but not of a separate person.

Ruwach (h7307) roo'-akh, roo'-akh; from 7306; wind; by resemblance breath, i. e. a sensible (or even violent exhalation; fig. life, anger, unsubstantiality; by extens. a region of the sky; by resemblance spirit of a rational being including its expression and functions

Ruwach (h7306) roo'-akh; a prim. root; prop. to blow, i. e. breathe; only (lit.) to smell or (by impl. perceive (fig. to anticipate, enjoy): - accept, smell, * touch, make of quick understanding.

The Spirit was not another person in the Old Testament, nor would it be in the New Testament. In prophesing of Messiah who would be Emmanuel or "God with us," Isaiah defined "spirit."

AND there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: Isaiah 11:1

And the spirit (7307) of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; Isaiah 11:2

And shall make him of quick understanding (7306) in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: Isaiah 11:3

In the New Testament, Spirit means God Himself or it means the same mental disposition as the Hebrew:

Pneuma (g4151) pnyoo'-mah; from 4154; a current of air, i.e. breath (blast) or a breeze; by anal. or figurative (Parabolic of) a spirit, i.e. (human) the rational soul, by implication: vital principle, mental disposition, etc., or (superhuman) an angel, doemon, or (divine) God, Christ's spirit, the Holy Ghost: - ghost, life, spirit (-ual, -ually), mind. Comp. 5590.

As personification, Paul treated His own inner nature or spirit as a separate person fighting his outward nature or body. In the same way, God swore by Himself and communed with Himself because there was no one else.

The Trinity in History: Tatian born AD 120, , Syria, died April 173

To the Greeks: Our God did not begin to be in time: He alone is without beginning, and He Himself is the beginning of all things. God is a Spirit, (John 4:24) not pervading matter, but the Maker of material spirits, ( [Over again Tatian asserts spirits to be material, though not fleshly; and I think with reference to 1 Cor. xv. 44.]) and of the forms that are in matter; He is invisible, impalpable, being Himself the Father of both sensible and invisible things.

Him we know from His creation, and apprehend His invisible power by His works. (Rom 1:20)

Chapter V.-The Doctrine of the Christians as to the Creation of the World.

God was in the beginning; but the beginning, we have been taught, is the power of the Logos.

For the Lord of the universe, who is Himself the necessary ground (hyypostasi) of all being, in as much as no creature was yet in existence, was alone;

but in as much as He was all power, Himself the necessary ground of things visible and invisible,
with Him were all things; with Him, by Logos-power, the Logos Himself also, who was in Him, subsists.

And by His simple will the Logos springs forth; and the Logos, not coming forth in vain, becomes the first-begotten work of the Father.

Him (the Logos) we know to be the beginning of the world. But He came into being by participation,
not by abscission;
for what is cut off is separated from the original substance, but that which comes by participation,
making its choice of function, (The above seems the simplest rendering of this difficult passage, but several others have been proposed. does not render him deficient from whom it is taken.

For just as from one torch many fires are lighted, but the light of the first torch is not lessened by the kindling of many torches, so the Logos, coming forth from the Logos-power of the Father,

has not divested of the Logos-power Him who begat Him.

I myself, for instance, talk, and you hear; yet, certainly, I who converse do not become destitute of speech by the transmission of speech,

but by the utterance of my voice
I endeavour to reduce to order the unarranged matter in your minds.

And as the Logos

([Matter not eternal. He seems to have understood Gen. i. 1, of the creation of matter; and verse 2, as beginning the history of our planet and the visible universe.])

begotten in the beginning, begat in turn our world, having first created for Himself the necessary matter, so also I, in imitation of the Logos, being begotten again,

( [Supposed to be a personal reference to his conversion and baptism. As to "confused matter," it should be kindred matter, and must be set over "kindred spirit." See p. 71, cap. xiii., infra.])

and having become possessed of the truth, am trying to reduce to order the confused matter which is kindred with myself. For matter is not, like God, without beginning, nor, as having no beginning, is of equal power with God ; it is begotten, and not produced by any other being, but brought into existence by the Framer of all things alone.

The Trinity in History: POLYCARP 150 AD

Pastor at Smyrna (Turkey) ..was Apostle John's disciple...he personally knew Phillip & his 4 daughters ..corresponded with Ignatius and yet was never recognized by any of the great trinitarian writers...said, .."the coming of our Lord in flesh.."

The Trinity in History : Clement of Alexandria (b. AD 150, Athens--d. between 211 and 215)

Chapter II.-Our Instructor's Treatment of Our Sins.

Now, O you, my children, our Instructor is like His Father God, whose son He is, sinless, blameless, and with a soul devoid of passion;

God in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father's will, the Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the Father's right hand, and with the form of God is God.

He is to us a spotless image; to Him we are to try with all our might to assimilate our souls.

He is wholly free from human passions; wherefore also He alone is judge, because He alone is sinless. As far, however, as we can, let us try to sin as little as possible. For nothing is so urgent in the first place as deliverance from passions and disorders, and then the checking of our liability to fall into sins that have become habitual.

Wherefore the Word, the Instructor, has taken the charge of us, in order to the prevention of sin, which is contrary to reason. 

"I have sufficiently demonstrated that we are not atheists, since we acknowledge one God, unbegotten, eternal, invisible, incapable of being acted upon, incomprehensible, unbounded, who is known only by understanding and reason, who is encompassed by light and beauty and spirit and indescribable power,

by whom all things, through his word, have been produced and set in order and are kept in existence" (Plea for the Christians 10)

When Athenagoras speaks of the Son as the first thing God created, he did not speak of the Son as a separate divine person. Rather, God's thought gives rise to the word as the product of His Mind or Spirit. They are propelled out by his breath or spirit:

"The Son of God is the Word of the Father in thought and actuality. By him and through him all things were made,
        the Father and the Son being one.
        Since the Son is in the Father
        and the Father is in the Son by the unity and power of the Spirit,

"the Mind and Word of the Father is the Son of God.

"And if, in your exceedingly great wisdom, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by `the Son,' I will tell you briefly: He is the first- begotten of the Father, not as having been produced,

for from the beginning God had the Word in himself, God being eternal mind and eternally rational, but as coming forth to be the model and energizing force of all material things" (Plea for the Christians 10:2-4)

But to us there is but one God,

> the Father,

of whom are all things, and we in him; and

> one Lord Jesus Christ,

by whom are all things, and we by him. 1 Cor 8:6

Invisible Deity	Manifestations (Personae)
	The Father	Of whom are all things	And We In Him
One God
	Son or Lord	By whom are all things	We BY Him

If this speaks of TWO persons (people)

        then God IS NOT Lord
        Then the Lord IS NOT God

BUT:

And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jn.20:28

In Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him,

	Lord		Heart
Thou shalt love the	God	With all thy	Soul
	Has Spirit		Mind or Spirit

 

Paul always spoke of Jesus Christ in His invisible nature instructing, and guiding him into all truth as the Spirit. Jesus Christ, therefore, is the Spirit or the expression of God's Mind:

But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 1 Cor 2:10

For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God (which is in Him). 1 Cor 2:11

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 1 Cor 2:12

Which things also we speak, not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 1 Cor 2:13

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually (figuratively or parabolically) discerned. 1 Cor 2:14

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Cor 2:16

Because God's Spirit is to God what our spirit is to us, when our spirit is informed and motivated by God's Spirit then we have a Spirit. This Spirit is not a "Ghost" but the Mind of Jesus Christ. And Jesus said that

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63

By defining "spirit" as bodily enthusiasm pumped up in order to impress the audience into returning, we are actually quenching the Spirit obtainable only through His Word and placing our bodies squarely in the place Jesus should stand if He is among us. To the Jews, this presence was only there when the name of God was honored by reading and singing His words. To that end, the rabbi were forbidden to allegorize or "applicate" the Word to situations not included in the Word.

A History of the Trinity: BOETHUS 180 AD

had a confrontation with Smyrna Presbyters (in Asia Minor) for preaching Jesus Christ was God, contrary to trinitarians...He said, "the Father took flesh of Mary and became son. The son was the Manhood, the Father was the Godhead." 

Theophilus, 180 AD Syrian Bishop of Antioch, mentions the term, "Trinity."

Doctrine of the trinity.

And first, they taught us with one consent that God made all things out of nothing; for nothing was coeval with God: but He being His own place, and wanting nothing,
........... and existing before the ages, willed to make man by whom He might be known;
........... for him, therefore, He prepared the world.
........... For he that is created is also needy; but he that is uncreated stands in need of nothing.

God, then, having His own Word internal within His own bowels,
........... begat Him, emitting Him
........... along with His own wisdom before all things.

He had this Word as a helper in the things that were created by Him, and by Him He made all things.

He is called "governing principle", because He rules, and is Lord of all things fashioned by Him.
He, then, being Spirit of God, and governing principle, and wisdom, and power of the highest,
came down upon the prophets, and through them spoke of the creation of the world and of all other things. (This was the Spirit of Christ, 1 Peter 1:11; Revelation 19:10)

For the prophets were not when the world came into existence,

but the wisdom [Spirit in this instance is Sophia] of God which was in Him, and
........... His holy Word which was always present with Him.

Wherefore He speaks thus by the prophet Solomon:

"When He prepared the heavens I (Wisdom or Sophia) was there,
and when He appointed the foundations of the earth I was by Him as one brought up with Him." [ [Ps. cxix. 130. Note this tribute to the inspired Scriptures and their converting power; I might almost say their sacramental energy, referring to John vi. 63.]

The Trinity in History: IRENAEUS 190 AD

to a trinity Pastor in Gaul (France) said, "The Son of God became the Son of Man." "The Son of God existed before he appeared in the world and before the world was made." "One of the three angels which appeared to Abraham was the Son of God."...and said of water baptism.."we have received baptism for the remission of sins in the name of God the Father, and in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was incarnate and died and rose again, and in the Holy Spirit."

"For I have shown from the scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord.

But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself,

may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. (Irenaeus Against Heresies, chapter xix.2)

See Against Heresies Book IV.

In The History of the Trinity Schaff notes that

Irenaeus goes no further than the baptismal formula and the trinity of revelation; proceeding on the hypothesis of three successive stages in the development of the kingdom of God on earth, and of a progressive communication of God to the world. He also represents the relation of the persons according to Eph. 4:6; the Father as above all, and the head of Christ; the Son as through all, and the head of the church; the Spirit as in all, and the fountain of the water of life. [Haer. V. 18, 2.] Of a supramundane trinity of essence he betrays but faint indications.

The Trinity in History: TERTULLIAN PRAXEAS 200 AD

(the following are Tertullian's words about what Praxeas believed) ...."As in respect to the O.T., they hold to nothing else but "I am God and there is none other beside me, so in respect to the gospel they defend the response of the Lord to Phillip.."I and the Father are one, he who seeth me seeth also the Father" and again "I am in the Father and the Father in me". He (Praxeas) asserts that Jesus Christ is God and Father Almighty....so that all in one person they (the Praxeans) distinguish two, Father and Son, understanding the Son to be the flesh , that is man, that is Jesus, and the Father to be Spirit, that is God, that is Christ."....Praxeas views were said to be those of the majority of the Christians of that day.

A History of the Trinity Tertullian (c.-200 AD) 

But, first, I shall discuss His essential nature, and so the nature of His birth will be understood. We have already asserted that

God made the world, and all which it contains,
        by His Word, and Reason, and Power. 

It is abundantly plain that your philosophers, too, regard the Logos-that is, the Word and Reason-as the Creator of the universe.

For Zeno lays it down that he is the creator, having made all things according to a determinate plan; that his name is Fate, and God, and the soul of Jupiter, and the necessity of all things.

Cleanthes ascribes all this to spirit, which he maintains pervades the universe.

And we, in like manner, hold that the Word, and Reason, and Power, by which we have said God made all,

have spirit as their proper and essential substratum, in which
        the Word has in being to give forth utterances, 
        and reason abides to dispose and arrange, 
        and power is over all to execute.

We have been taught that He (reason) proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated;
        so that He is the Son of God,
        and is called God from unity of substance with God.
        For God, too, is a Spirit.

Even when the ray is shot from the sun,    

it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray,
because it is a ray of the sun-there is no division of substance, but merely an extension.

Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled.

The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities;

so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one.
In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God,

He is made a second in manner of existence-in position, not in nature;

and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb,

is in His birth God and man united.

The Trinity in History Gregory Thaumaturgus [A.D. 205-265]

And we, indeed, without ambiguity apprehend that our soul dwells in us in union with the body;

but still, who has ever seen his own soul?

who has been able to discern its conjunction with his body? This one thing is all we know certainly, that there is a soul within us conjoined with the body.

Thus, then, we reason and believe that the Word is begotten by the Father, albeit we neither possess nor know the clear rationale of the fact.

The Word Himself is before every creature-eternal froth the Eternal, like spring from spring, and light from light.

The vocable Word, indeed, belongs to those three genera of words which are named in Scripture, and which are not substantial,-namely, the word conceived, the word uttered, and the word articulated.

The word conceived, certainly, is not substantial. The word uttered, again, is that voice which the prophets hear from God, or the prophetic speech itself; and even this is not substantial.

And, lastly, the word articulated is the speech of man formed forth in air (aere efformatus), composed of terms, which also is not substantial.

But the Word of God is substantial, endowed with an exalted and enduring nature, and is eternal with Himself, and is inseparable from Him, and can never fall away, but shall remain in an everlasting union.

The Trinity in History: ZEPHYRINUS 210 AD

Bishop of Rome..."The Father did not die but the Son....I know one God, Christ Jesus, begotten and susceptible of suffering and beside him I know no other."

215 AD....SABELLIUS...Preached in North Africa & the Middle East..(Gregory Thaumaturgas says of Sabellius) ...."But some treat the Holy Trinity in an awful manner, when they confidently assert there are not three persons...Wherefore we clear ourselves of Sabellius, who says the Father and the Son are the same.".....He asserted that Father, Son and Holy Ghost were not distinct persons but modes of one divine person...hence the term modalistic monarchianism.

213 AD. After Praxeas went to North Africa, the next Carthage Pastor commanded that all heretics be rebaptized into the Trinity.

217 AD. Rome, Italy .... after the church split, Jesus name believers were allowd for a times to enter the Rome Church, even though the church practiced Trinity.

220 AD...CALLISTUS...Pastor of Rome Church said, ...."The Word is the Son Himself, the Father himself, there is only one and the same indivisible Spirit, except in name. The Father is not one and the son another, they are one and the same ...The Spirit, made flesh in the virgin, is not other than the Father, but one and the same hence the Scripture says, Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me."

220 AD... HIPPOLYTUS...presented Christ as subordinate to the Father and attacked Callistus..."For the Father indeed is One, but there are two persons, because there is also the Son; and there is the Third, the Holy Spirit.."

230 AD. Asia Minor ....Two different church councils convened and confirmed that hereitcal baptism (in Jesus Name not Trinity) was invalid.

240 AD...BERTYLLUS...of Bostra(Bozrah), Syria, ...Eusebius says of him, ...."Beryllus taught that our Lord and Savior did not exist as a distinct person before the incarnation; and that the divinity of the Father dwelt in him." ...thus Beryllus rejected Greek Logos teaching of the pre-existence and independent hypostasis (substance) of the Son.

265 AD... DIONYSIUS...Bishop of Rome....spoke of those who opposed Sabellius saying, ...many.."divide and cut to pieces and destroy that most sacred doctrine of the Church of God, the Divine Monarchy, making it as it were three powers and partitive substances and godheads three."

272 AD....PAUL of SAMOSATA.... (SYRIA) was ousted as Pastor of the Antioch Church in Syria by the Trinity believers. Accusations against him included: ....striking his thigh and stamping the platform when preaching, ...his congregation frequently clapping hands, ....waving hankerchiefs, ....shouting, ....dancing, or ....leaping during the preaching.

A History of the Trinity Lactantius (307 AD)

"When we speak of God the Father and God the Son, 

we do not speak of them as different,
nor do we separate them,

because the Father cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father, since the name of 'Father' cannot be given without the Son, nor can the Son be begotten without the Father. . . . They both have one mind, one spirit, one substance; but

the former [the Father] is as it were an overflowing fountain,

the latter [the Son] as a stream flowing forth from it. The former as the sun, the latter as it were a ray [of light] extended from the sun"

Jesus claimed that all of the authority bound up in the images of Father, Son and Spirit was now bound up in Him as full Deity (Mat 28:19; Col. 2:9). Therefore, after Pentecost and beyond for hundreds of years the church followed Peter's lead in Acts 2:38 and baptized in the name of Jesus: the "name" of Father is Jesus, the "name" of Son is Jesus and the "name" of the Spirit is Jesus. There is no other name given! Therefore, it is tragic when we worship three "names" which are not names. In our household, "the name of the wife, and of the mother and of the grandmother, is Katy." Wife is not a name; mother is not a name; grandmother is not a name.

On the other hand, Lactantius noted, and Alexander Campbell agreed that:

"We, on the other hand, are truly religious, who make our supplications to the one true God.

"Some one may perhaps ask how, when we say that we worship one God only, we nevertheless assert that there are two, God the Father and God the Son--which assertion has driven many into the greatest error . . . [thinking] that we confess that there is another God, and that He is mortal. . . .

[But w]hen we speak of God the Father and God the Son,
we do not speak of them as different,
nor do we separate each, because the Father cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father" (Divine Institutes, 4:28-29).

The "spirit" was still not thought of as a third member of the God family.

325 AD....COUNCIL OF NICEA .... required all Oneness, Monotheistic, or Jesus Name believers to be rebaptized for re-ordination or have their property confiscated; thus oneness beleivers went underground.

The Trinity in History Council of Nicea 325

See notes by Socrates Scholasticus.

The first interest in the idea of a triad of gods did not occur until Constantine demanded a council to settle the problems with Arius who denied that Jesus was the presence of God in a visible form. The word "homoousios" had been used to define Son and Father as One and not two gods. Therefore, Arius was defeated, the Son was defined as God but later editions muddied the waters:

"We believe in one God,

the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, i.e., of the nature of the Father. God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, of one substance (Greek: homoousios) with the Father, by whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh and assumed man's nature, suffered and rose the third day, ascended to heaven, (and) shall come again to judge the quick and the dead.

And in the Holy Ghost. But the holy and apostolic church anathematizes those who say that there was a time when he was not, and that he was made from things not existing, or from another person or being, saying that the Son of God is mutable, or changeable."

This refuted the modern formulation of three persons so defined that they can stand side by side or face to face and comprise a standing committee for the government of the universe. Those who explained Nicea wrote:

"Thus also the declaration that "the Son is consubstantial with the Father" having been discussed,

it was agreed that this must not be understood in a corporeal sense,

or in any way analogous to mortal creatures;

inasmuch as it is neither by division of substance,

nor by abscission nor by any change of the Father's substance and power."

This creed defined Jesus as not just a man but God. It does not speak of three "persons" in the eternal sense. There is no reference to the Holy Ghost as a separate person in the Godhead, but almost as an afterthought it merely expresses a belief in the Holy Ghost. Therefore, the issue was over the Father and Son while the Spirit was not really under consideration.

330 AD... MARCELLUS of Ancyra...he attacked Eusebius of Caesarea(see next note) by saying, " ...(He) is said to conceived God as one and believed that the one God expanded himself in the offices of Son and Holy Ghost and at the end of time there will be no distinction between these offices, and God will be all in all" ...he opposed Arianism (Jesus simply a man)

340 AD.... EUSEBIUS of CAESAREA...cites Matthew 28:19 eighteen times in his writings prior to the 325 AD. council of Nicea. His quotes before the council read, ...."Go ye and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in my name, teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I commanded you. The phrase "in the name of the Father, and of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost." did not appear in Eusebius' writings until after the 325 AD. council.

345 AD....PHOTINUS...Bishop of Sirmium..(N.E. Yugoslavia) was a disciple of Marcellus and said, ...."that Jesus Christ was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary; that a certain portion of the Divine Substance, which he called the Word, descended upon and acted through the man Jesus Christ; that on account of this association of the Word with the human nature Jesus was called the Son of God, and even God himself ...and held that Jesus existed before the incarnation only in the mind of God."

The Trinity in History Basil The Great 368 

John used the word Logos (in the Greek versions) or Word to show that Christ's creative speaking or discourse is the way His Mind projects Spirit power from His figurative Lips. God "rides upon the wings of the spirit" and He "covers us with His feathers." Yet, we know that God is illustrating His infinite power with human-like, finite, parable words. If we do not get it then we know that Jesus is still hiding the Truth from us.

Chapter 16

That the Holy Spirit is in every conception separable from the Father and the Son, alike in the creation of perceptible objects, in the dispensation of human affairs, and in the judgment to came.

37. Let us then revert to the point raised from the outset, that in all things the Holy Spirit is inseparable and wholly incapable of being parted from the Father and the Son. St. Paul, in the passage about the gift of tongues, writes to the Corinthians,

"If ye all prophesy and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all; and thus are the secrets of the heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth."

If then God is known to be in the prophets by the prophesying that is acting according to the distribution of the gifts of the Spirit, let our adversaries consider what kind of place they will attribute to the Holy Spirit.

Let them say whether it is more proper to rank Him with God or to thrust Him forth to the place of the creature. Peter's words to Sapphira, "How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit OF the Lord? Ye have not lied unto men, but unto God," show that sins against the Holy Spirit and against God are the same; and thus you might learn that in every operation the Spirit is closely conjoined with, and inseparable from, the Father and the Son.

380 AD....PRISCILLIAN....Bishop of Avila..& other Southern Spainish & French Bishops ...."affirms Christian faith in Father, Son, and Spirit to be belief in one God Christ: He is God, Son of God, Savior, was born in the flesh, suffered and rose for the love of mankind....In Christ the Father is known. God is invisible; none has seen him at anytime. So he came in name and form to such that he could make himself known." 

The Trinity in History Gregory of Nazianz (380 AD)  

"What was in the beginning? 'The Word,' he says. . . 

Why the Word? So that we might know that he proceeded from the mind.
Why the Word? Because he was begotten without passion.

Why the Word? Because he is image of the Father who begets him, showing forth the Father fully, in no way separated from him, and subsisting perfectly in himself, just as our word entirely befits our thought" (Eulogies and Sermons 16:3).

"He is called Son because he is identical to the Father in essence; and not only this, but also because he is of him. He is called only-begotten not because He is a unique Son . . . but because he is Son in a unique fashion and not in a corporeal way.

He is called Word because he is to the Father
what a word is to the mind" (Orations 30:20). (Paul agrees: 1 Corinthians 2).

380 AD....PRISCILLIAN....Bishop of Avila..& other Southern Spainish & French Bishops ...."affirms Christian faith in Father, Son, and Spirit to be belief in one God Christ: He is God, Son of God, Savior, was born in the flesh, suffered and rose for the love of mankind....In Christ the Father is known. God is invisible; none has seen him at anytime. So he came in name and form to such that he could make himself known."

The Athanasian Creed of 381 is the first demand by Catholics that the triad of gods must be worshipped. At the same time they insisted that while Father is Lord, son is Lord and Spirit is Lord but there are not three Lords. This doctrine forced the division between eastern and western Catholicism in 1054.

400 AD?....COMMODIAN.... a Poet from Southern Gaul (France) ...revealed himself Sabellian in his "Carmen Apologeticum" in which he recognized Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be different designations given to the same person.

John Chrysostom b. AD 347, Antioch, Syria d. Sept. 14, 407

The Test of a Son of God.

[4.] As then we should all run together if we saw one from above bend down

"on a sudden from the height of heaven, promising to describe exactly all things there, even so let us be disposed now.
It is from thence that this Man speaketh to us;

He is not of this world, as Christ Himself declareth, "Ye are not of the world" (John xv. 19), and

He hath speaking within him the Comforter, the Omnipresent,

who knoweth the things of God
        as exactly as the soul of man knoweth what belongs to herself, 

the Spirit of holiness, the righteous Spirit, the guiding Spirit, which leads men by the hand to heaven, 

which gives them other eyes,
fitting them to see things to come as though present, and giving them even in the flesh to look into things heavenly.

To Him then let us yield ourselves during all our life in much tranquillity. Let none dull, none sleepy, none sordid, enter here and tarry; but let us remove ourselves to heaven, for there He speaketh these things to those who are citizens there. And if we tarry on earth, we shall gain nothing great from thence.

The Trinity in History Augustine (416 AD) 

Augustine defines the triad of gods as personae because he can think of no other word to describe something which is three yet one. He wrote a lot about the trinity and yet he said: 

"In the way that you speak a word that you have in your heart and it is with you . . . that is how God issued the Word, that is to say, how he begot the Son.

And you, indeed, beget a word too in your heart, without temporal preparation; God begot the Son outside of time, the Son through whom he created all things" (Homilies on John 14:7) (This means that the Spirit was not a person and did not have sexual intercourse with Mary)

Like the genetic code, human Genome or human "tablet" which must be "read" before a child can be born without four legs, God's "Word" is God's Thought put into action by simply speaking: "He speaks, it is done." If we ignore that Word as God's Thoughts put into action we will ridicule the Scriptures by cutting and pasting and we will create a bunch of spiritual freaks. The belief in a personal incarnation quite naturally leads to the belief that whatever comes out of our mouth is more important than the Word which is clearly treated as the outdated work of the "second" person. Paul would tell the Corinthians that they felt so wise but looked like they were mad or insane.

If the word "son" means that the Word was begotten by God as we tend to believe, then the Spirit "who" proceeds from both the Father and Son would be another son of the Father and a son of the son. Furthermore, the spirit person and the son person would be brothers! And the Father would be the Spirit's grandfather! This is the absolutely logical conclusion to the three-people godhead of paganism, where the "mother" member of the triad godhead was both mother and wife of the son. The extension was naturally that Mary is the mother of God!

"For so thou wilt see how the birth of the Word of God differs from the procession of the Gift of God, on account of which the only-begotten Son

did not say that the Holy Spirit is begotten of the Father, otherwise He would be His brother, but that he proceeds from Him.

Whence, since the Spirit of both is a kind of consubstantial communion of Father and Son, He is not called, far be it from us to say so, the Son of both.

To believe this "three people in one people" is not comprehensible, and for modern Catholics to call it a mystery which we must accept even when it is ridiculous is to charge the entire Godhead with the inability to say what they (He) meant. If, however, we turn to the Lord, the mind will be opened and we will see that Christ is full Deity and lives within the hearts of His people and His name is Jesus. Otherwise, we will be like the Jews who performed great rituals but couldn't understand the Word which is the Mind of Christ which is pure or Holy.:

"But thou canst not fix thy sight there, so as to discern this lucidly and clearly; I know thou canst not. I say the truth, I say to myself, I know what I cannot do; yet that light itself shows to thee these three things in thyself, wherein thou mayest recognize an image of the highest Trinity itself, which thou canst not yet contemplate with steady eye.

"Itself shows to thee that there is in thee a true word, when it is born of thy knowledge, i.e. when we say what we know: although we neither utter nor think of any articulate word that is significant in any tongue of any nation,

but our thought is formed by that which we know; and
there is in the mind's eye of the thinker an image resembling that thought which the memory contained,
will or love as a third combining these two as parent and offspring.

So too, the Bible treats the Spirit as the Mind of both Father and Son. He is not a third god but the Mind or Spirit which ties Father and Son together under the name: Jesus Christ.

"And he who can, sees and discerns that this will proceeds indeed from thought (for no one wills that of which he is absolutely ignorant what or of what sort it is), yet is not an image of the thought: and so that there is insinuated in this intelligible thing a sort of difference between birth and procession, since to behold by thought is not the same as to desire, or even to enjoy will.

"Thou, too, hast been able to discern this, although thou hast not been, neither art, able to unfold with adequate speech what, amidst the clouds of bodily likenesses, which cease not to flit up and down before human thoughts, thou hast scarcely seen. But that light which is not thyself shows thee this too, that these incorporeal likenesses of bodies are different from the truth, which, by rejecting them, we contemplate with the understanding. Trinity, Book 5

A History of the Trinity POPE LEO 447 AD

wrote a letter condemning the Sabellianism of Priscillianists...(thus it was still a prevalent teaching among many believers in that time )

A History of the Trinity BACHIARIUS 450 AD?

of Galacia....held a Sabellian view of the Godhead.

538 AD....POPE VIGILIUS....wrote a letter to Profuturous of Bracara expressing concern over the persistence of Priscillianism (believers who rejected the Trinity idea) in northwest Spain.

645 AD.....BRAULIO.,..Bishop of Saragossa wrote a Galician presbyter, Fructuosus, who was curious about Priscillian beliefs and seeking Braulio's advice. (thus oneness was still being preached)

692 AD....The QUINISEXT.... speaks of how to admit SABELLIANS back into the Catholic faith

The Trinity in History John of Damascus Book Four 675 Dec. 4, 749

The book "Concerning the Orthodox Faith" Donatus Veronensis caused to be printed at Verona first in Greek only, and presented it to Clement the Seventh in the year 1531

Now we are baptized 64 into the Holy Trinity because those things which are baptized have need of the Holy Trinity for their maintenance and continuance, and the three subsistences cannot be otherwise than present, the one with the other. For the Holy Trinity is indivisible.

Note 64 The Greek theologians, founding on the primary sense of the Greek term Pneuma, and on certain passages of Scripture in which the word seemed to retain that sense more or less (especially Psalm xxxiii. 6. in the Vulgate rendering, verbo Dei coeli formati sunt: et spiritu oris ejus omnis virtus eorum),

spoke of the Holy Ghost as proceeding from the Father like the breath of His mouth in the utterance or emission of His Word.

so the Holy Spirit is like an impulse and movement within that supernatural essence.  

The confusion results from the meaning of SPIRIT. First, it meant wind, then GOD who is pure or holy spirit. Otherwise, it meant the mental disposition of a PERSON. It was never seen as a separated person even as our spirit is not separated. Calvin understood this but still use the word PERSON perhaps because trinitarians use the word PERSONAE and never define God as a POLYTHIST god. Nevertheless, A. Campbell repudiated Calvin for using the word person. However, T. Campbell use the word person because he could not think of another word. 

950 AD....BOGOMILS.....1st headed by a priest and propagated Sabellianism in the Byzantine Empire and were in Constantinople in the 11th century, moved west to Serbia, and had influence in Italy and France. They were catholic but rejected the Trinity. Basilius, who was a Bogomil martyr in Constantinople was quoted saying.."that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are merely titles ascribed to the Father."

1121 AD.... PETER ABELARD....an English nobleman whose writings were condemned as Sabellian by the Synod of Soisson of 1121. His students taught (this says Gerhoh of Reichersberg).." that God was not taken from the Virgin but that the human Jesus was only the dwelling place in which the full plentitude of divinity resided."

1441 AD. The COUNCIL OF FLORENCE condemned Sabellianism.."the holy Roman church condemns....Sabellius who unifies the persons and completely does away with the real distinction among them.'

EUGENIUS IV said, ... the church condemns Sabellius for not distinguishing the Persons of the Trinity.

MICHEAL SERVETUS 1531 AD

a Spainard wrote a paper entitled, ..ON THE ERRORS OF THE TRINITY, he said, "Christ is in the Father as a voice from the speaker. He and the Father are one as the ray and the sun are one light. An amazing mystery it is that God can thus be conjoined with man and man with God. A great wonder that has taken to himself the body of Christ that it should be his peculir dwelling place." John Calvin encouraged the Geneva council to condemn Servetus to death because of his non-belief in the Trinity and infant baptism, ....which they did. 

John Calvin On Genesis John Calvin On the Godhead

"God." Moses has it Elohim, a noun of the plural number. Whence the inference is drawn, that the three Persons of the Godhead are here noted; but since, as a proof of so great a matter, it appears to me to have little solidity, will not insist upon the word; but rather caution readers to beware of violent glosses (adding footnotes to the revealed Word) of this, kind.

"They THINK that they have testimony against the Asians, to prove the DEITY of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

[NOT to prove that God is three Beings external to Himself-not THEMSELVES]

"but in the meantime they involve themselves in the error of Sabellius, because Moses afterwards subjoins that the Elohim had spoken, and that the holy Spirit of the Elohim rested upon the waters.

If we suppose three persons to be here denoted, there will be no distinction between them. For it will follow, both that the Son is begotten by himself, and that the Spirit is not of the Father, but of himself.

For me it is sufficient that the plural number expresses those powers which God exercised in creating the world. Moreover I acknowledge that the Scripture, although it recites many powers of the Godhead, yet always recalls us to the Father, and his Word, and spirit, as we shall shortly see.

"But those absurdities, to which I have alluded, forbid us with subtlety to distort what Moses simply declares concerning God himself, by applying it to the separate Persons of the Godhead. This, however, I regard as beyond controversy, that from the peculiar circumstance of the passage itself,

a title is here ascribed to God, expressive of that powers which was previously in some way included in his eternal essence.

Martin Luther wrote:

From without, I may see what you do, but what your intentions are and what you think, I cannot see. Again, neither can you know what I think except I enable you to understand it by word or sign. Much less can we know what God, in his own inner and secret essence is, until the Holy Spirit, who searcheth and knoweth all things, yea, the deep things of God--as Paul says above--reveals it to us:

as he does in the declaration of this article, in which he teaches us the existence in the divine majesty of the one undivided essence, but in such manner that there is, first, the person which is called the Father; and of him exists the second person called the Son, born from eternity; and proceeding from both these is the third, namely, the Holy Spirit.

These three persons are not distinct from each other, as individual brothers or sisters are, but they have being in one and the same eternal, undivided and indivisible essence. 

Jonathan Edwards was the ultimate Calvinists and had to use care when explaining the Trinity. That is why he explained it to himself.

Jonathan Edwards - Unpublished Manuscript