From: An Examination of the Divine Testimony Concerning the Character of the Son of God 1824
As many persons appear to be confirmed in the belief of the doctrine of the Trinity, and are deterred from a diligent examination of the subject, by the supposition that almost all pious christians in every age have believed it, it is desirable that such a mistake should be corrected. The following quotations will serve to shew that many of the primitive christians did not believe that the Son of God was either self-existent or eternal.
Irenaeus who was but second from John says, "John, declaring the one God Almighty, and the only begotten, Christ Jesus by whom all things were made," &c. [Historical View of Heresies, page 53] He exhibited a creed which embraced the general belief of Christians in that age. He says, "The church, which is dispersed through the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles, and their immediate successors, the belief in one God, The Father Almighty, the maker of the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, made flesh for our salvation, &c. That to Christ Jesus our Lord, and God and Saviour and King, according to the good pleasure of the invisible Father, every knee shall bow," &c. [Historical View of Heresies, page 76]
How evident it is from this creed, that "the general belief of christians" in the primitive ages, agreed with that of the apostle Paul, "to us there is but one God, THE FATHER." How evident it is that they believed that the Son was begotten, and that all his dignity and exaltation was "according to the good pleasure of the invisible Father."
Ignatius who lived in the first century, says, "If any one say there is one God, and doth not confess Jesus Christ, but thinks the Lord to be a mere man, and not the only begotten God, the wisdom and word, &c. he is a serpent," &c. [Historical View of Heresies, page 69] "In the Shepherd of Hermas, a writer cotemporary with Clemens Romanus," is the following passage: "God," says he, "placed that holy Spirit, which was created first of all, in the body in which he might dwell," &c. [Stuart's Letters to Miller, p. 19.] Justin Martyr, who lived about the middle of the second century, says, "God in the beginning, before any thing was created, begat a Rational Power, from himself; which is called by the Holy Ghost, Glory of the Lord, and sometimes Son, Wisdom, Angel, God, Lord, Logos.—All the above names he bears, because he ministers to the will of the Father, and was begotten by the will of the Father." Clemens Alexandrinus says, "There is one unbegotten being, the Almighty God. And there is one begotten before all things, by whom all things were made." He also calls the Logos "the first created wisdom;" and he "who approximates the nearest to the only Almighty." "The older by birth," &c.
Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, a little after the middle of the second century, says, "The Son of God is cteated and made—and as he is a created being, he existed not before he was made." Again; "God was not always Father; the Son was not always: but the supreme God was once without the Logos, and the Son was not, before he was begotten; for he is not eternal, but came into being afterwards." Lucian, a presbyter of Antioch at the close of the third century, asserts that he was begotten before all ages, (or worlds,) and that he was "the first born of every creature." Methodius, bishop of Tyre about the end of the third century, calls the Logos "the first begotten of God." Novatian says, "God the Father—creator—unoriginated, invisible, immense, immortal, eternal, the only God—from whom, when he pleased, the Word his Son was born." [Stuart's Letters to Miller]
Is it possible for language to express more fully, that these primitive christians did not believe that the one Almighty God consists of a trinity of persons? Is it possible for words to declare more explicitly, that the Word or Son, is, in his highest nature, a distinct being from the Father, and dependent on him for all things? "The first born of every creature," and most glorious of all dependent intelligences.
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