Thursday, June 11, 2015

THE APOLOGISTS AND LOGOS-CHRISTOLOGY

THE APOLOGISTS
Excerpted from the Bishop's book entitled 'Godhead Theology"


Perhaps the earliest to write a formal defense of the Christian faith was Quadratus, bishop of Athens (dies A.D. 129); however, only a small fragment remains. In this fragment Quadratus is writing about the miracles performed by Christ. We salute the bishop and give him honorable mention here. But since his subject matter is not germane to our topic we will pass on to other apologist of whom we do have some things to say. This section will address those apologist whose writings deal with christology, and the logos-christology in particular.

Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165) 
Among the things that we know about Justin is that He, like so many of the apologist, was a professor of Platonic philosophy. The historians tell us that Justin embraced Christianity without abandoning Platonism; he saw Christianity the true philosophy, the fruition of all the philosopher imagined. Justin was a Platonic philosopher first and a Christian minister second. This was the order in his life and he never gave up the former for the latter. In his first apology, he said the Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Heraclitus were Christians before Christ: “those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them.” ("First Apology of Justin".  1:46, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol 1, page 178, ISB for set: 978-1-56563-082-6)

Justin was profoundly influenced by Plato and Philo and their understanding of God. Christian historian GP Fisher tells us of the Godhead theology of Justin Martyr: “Yet we have presented prominently another conception, Platonic and Alexandrian Jewish, of God as a transcendent, ineffable One, too exalted to be the subject of finite predicates, the ordinary representations of him being merely relative to our finite apprehension. It is only through an intermediate being that He is revealed. It is through the Logos or Word, that God is manifested.… Justin’s particular idea of the Logos is not consonant with that of John (the Apostle), but corresponds to that of Plato and Philo. The Logos of Justin is not, as in the Palestinian sources, including John, the Word of God, but the divine reason.” (Underlining mine.) “The Logos, impersonal in God from the beginning, becomes personal prior to the creation. Justin does not fully succeeded in taking Christ out of the category of creatures. He is begotten, or assumes a person, form of being, by act of God’s will. He was generated from the Father ‘by His power and will.’ The Logos is another ‘in number,” but not in ‘mind’(or ‘will’). There is a personal distinction, but this is not eternal, and it springs from an act of God’s will, anterior to the creation of the world. To the Son, is assigned the second place in relation to the eternal God.… Justin speaks of the Spirit in conjunction with the Father, and Christ in such terms as to naturally imply that the Spirit is regarded as distinct from both although subordinate to them.” 

Justin speaks of the Logos as another God. “Jesus Christ… we reasonably worship him having learned He is the second God of the true God Himself, and upholding him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third…” (from Justin’s First Apology). Then again from the Second Apology: “After God we worship and love the Word ... .”

Justin, the Platonic philosopher, taught Jesus to be a “reasonable” God, but not the mighty God. With Justin we see a clear distinction drawn between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Clearly, Justin taught superior and inferior deity. In his godhead the three hypostases are arranged vertically with the Father at the top, the Son in the middle and the Holy Spirit on the bottom. However, during the time period from Justin (A.D. 100-165) up to the time of Augustine of Hippo (early fifth century), we see this arrangement swinging from the vertical to the horizontal; with all persons in their pantheon becoming coequal and co-eternal over this period.

Justin is accepted as one of the catholic fathers because he represents that half step between true Monotheism and Trinitarianism. He was clearly a subordinationism that is a visible and fully embraced mile marker on the logos-christology’s road to apostasy. It is true that he lacked a the Trinitarian vocabulary, for in his day there was no such animal. The terms: God the Son, Second Person of the Godhead, Eternal Son, Three in One, co-equal and co-eternal, were all term yet to be thought of.

Which raises the question: Why on earth would anyone leave the true and first orthodoxy of the Church (Modalist Monarchian-ism) and embrace a fabricated theology that had to “evolve” into its present form, and which looks to the Greek philosophers for its cradle. Why would one not think that the apostles of our Lord had full truth? 

Athenagoras of Athens, Modalist or Trinitarian? (2nd Century 133-190; Apologist, wrote to Emperor Marcus Aurelius in defense of Christianity.)
Athenagoras is in that "between land." His explanation of God is unbashfully Modalism which is the theology from which he is emerging. He has adopted the term "trinity" (revealing the theology to which he is progressing) but announces that the Son is the thought of the Father. For him the "trinity" is not a "trinity" of self rational persons but of modal aspects of deity. The Son/Word is the thought of the Father; the Holy Spirit is the "Action" or the animation in the universe produced by the "Word" (thought) of the Father. Again, not different moral persons, but different modal manifestations.
He said “I have given sufficient proofs that we are not atheists, but hold God to be one, unbegotten, eternal, invisible, suffering nothing, comprehended by none, circumscribed by none, apprehended by mind and reasoning alone, girt about with light and beauty and spirit and power indescribable, Creator of all things by his Word, their embellisher and master..We do indeed think also that God has a Son - please let no one laugh at the idea of God having a Son! This is not a case of the myths of the poets who make the gods out to be no better than men; we have no such ideas about God the Father or the Son. The Son of God is Word of the Father in thought and power. All things were made through Him and after His fashion. The Father and the Son are one, the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son by the powerful union of the Spirit - the Son of God is Mind and Word of the Father.”

Tertullian (A.D. 160-225)
Tertullian was from Carthage in North Africa.  He coined the word trinity after A.D. 200. GP Fisher on Tertullian: “As Tertullian is the first to use the word ‘Trinity,” so was he the first distinctly to say that tri-personality pertains to the one God as he is in Himself.” Fisher states that Tertullian plants himself of this ground in antagonism to monarchianism. He failed to reach the true Trinitarian dogma that was to be attain as the doctrine as it later developed. “The father and the Son,” we are told by Tertullian, “differs from one another in measure.”

Both Justin and Tertullian taught subordinationism. The letter to a lesser degree than the former. As stated earlier, the Trinitarians as of this time or only nominally so; the thought had not yet fully developed as it would by the time of Augustine (early fifth century). Tertullian must be said to have been an Economical Trinitarian. In this thought, God had not eternally been the Son but became such in His economy. When writing on the Son of God, he, as many others of his time, references sun and sunlight: the Son is to the Father as light from light. Justin would have never excepted this analogy. Tertullian would go on to write of the “begotten Son” in terms of utterance from silence. The Son of God, then, would be God’s word spoken forth from His mind (Tertullian 21:6-14). Athenagoras (A.D. 177), and even Hippolytus of Rome follow the same logic as Tertullian. This, within itself, is not a wrong thought; only when it is further developed and the spoken Word of the Father becomes a separate individual from Him does it crossed the line into error. Truth has boundaries; error has none.


Origen (A.D. 184/185 – 253/254)
Origen is, without doubt, the most capable of the Alexandrian champions. We will not, here, examine his life, but look only at a few matters concerning his Godhead teachings. According to Origen, the mediator between God and the world, through whom the world was made, is the Logos (Fisher). Here, we see Platonic, Alexandria Jewish thought. Origen believed that the Logos was personal and without beginning. Yet in Origen’s idea, the Father is the fountainhead of deity. The Father, moreover, is God as He is, in and of Himself; the Father is “God” with the article affixed to the term; whereas the Son Is God, with the article omitted. He is “the second God.” Origen teaches that Jesus was “another substance or essence” from the Father. In one place Origen calls Jesus “the most ancient of all creatures.” Fisher makes the observation that Origen was solicitous to fend off the Monarchian inference  of the identity of the Father with the Son.

 It needs to be pointed out at this time, that the efforts of these apologists to “fend off” Monarchianism put them on the slippery slope of subordinationism. As a result, Arianism was the first-fruits of the logos-christology that relegated Christ to the role of being only the agent of the Father. Although this doctoring as manifest today in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Armstrongism, and the Way International and should be addressed, we will save it for another time and place.
Apostolically Speaking
☩☩ Jerry L Hayes
(Mar David Ignatius)

Read other essays from the Bishop on the subject of the Godhead:

"The Dual Nature Of Jesus Of Nazareth"

"The Worlds, Made By The Son"

"Hebrews 13:8 vs 1 Corinthians 15:28"

"Glory With The Father"

"Philippians 2:6-8, Answering Trinitarian Objections"

"How Is God One?"

"Hebrew Monotheism"


"The Apostolic Creed"

"Jesus Is Father God"

"Homoousia And The Creed Of Nicaea"

"The Triquetra And Modalism"

"Modalism, Simultaneous Or Sequential?"

"Micah 5:2-4, An Exegesis"


"Elohim, the Plural form For God"

"Can the Deity of Jesus Be called The Son Of God?"

"Mathematical Equation For The Godhead"

"Hebrew Monotheism, Second Edition"

"Jesus, On God's Right Hand"

"The Name of the Deity" (The Tetragrammaton)

"Christology of the Apostolic Church Fathers"

"Christian Modalism challenged by the Greeks"

"The Apologists and the Logos Christology"

"Logos Christology"

"The Seven Spirits of God"

"Historical Numerical Superiority of the Monarchians"

"How Is God One?" Second Edition

"Creed of Nicæa (Creed of the 318) Affirmed"

"Another Comforter (Answering Objections to Modalism)"

"Echad vs Yachid (Answering Objections to Modalism)"

"The Godhead Teaching of Ignatius of Antioch"

"Hebrews 1:8, (Answering Objections to Modalism)"

"Godhead Theology of the Tabernacle of Moses"

"Proper Biblical Understanding of the Word 'Person'"

"Defense of Isaiah 9:6, Answering Objections to Modalism"
https://bishopjerrylhayes.blogspot.com/2017/04/defense-of-isaiah-96.html

Defense of 1 Timothy 3:16 (Answering Objections to Modalism)


Godhead Theology is a study of Christian Godhead theology. ... Was He God or not? In Godhead Theology Bishop Jerry Hayes follows that debate through the first 300 years of the Church's history. Our book is in five sections: Section One ... demonstrates Modalistic Monarchianism as the original orthodoxy of the Chruch; Section Two introduces the Apostolic Creed ... ; Section Three is an affirmation of Modalistic Monarchianism; Section Four is Modalism's responses to objection from the pluralists Trinitarians, Binitarians, Arians and Semi-Arians. Included are two comprehensive indexes: Subject Index and Scripture Index. 613 pages.

Own this classic book today by ordering from the link provided here:https://www.amazon.com/Godhead-Theology-Modalism-Original-Orthodoxy/dp/1516983521/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=Bishop+Jerry+hayes&qid=1554244653&s=books&sr=1-4





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Excerpted from the author's book entitled "Godhead Theology." Published by Seven Millennium Publications. Order your personal copy today: https://www.amazon.com/Godhead-Theology-Modalism-Original-Orthodoxy/dp/1516983521/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=Godhead+theology%2C+Hayes&qid=1554054212&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmrnull





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