Virginia Corwin: Virginia Corwin was born in Orange, New Jersey, on August 17, 1901, She graduated from Wellesley College in 1923 and received the B.D. from Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1929; at Union she was a Kent Fellow. In 1930 she came to Smith College as an Instructor of Religion and Biblical Literature. Prof. Corwin entered Yale University in 1932 and received her Ph.D. from it in 1937. Her dissertation was on St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch; Yale University Press published a revision of the text in 1960. Prof. Corwin taught at Smith until 1939 when she went to Western Reserve University as Harkness Professor of Biblical Literature and acting head of the Department of Religion. In 1942 Miss Corwin returned to Smith College as an Associate Professor of Religion and was made Professor of Religion in 1953. She retired from Smith College in 1966. After Prof. Corwin’s retirement she was visiting professor at Claremont College in California and at Wells College in New York.
On Ignatius (107): “If one term must be chosen to indicate the tendency of his thought, Ignatius must be said to be Monarchian.” (“St Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch” New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960, pg. 126.)
Jaroslav Pelikan: (December 17, 1923 – May 13, 2006) was an American scholar of the history of Christianity, Christian theology, and medieval intellectual history at Yale University.
“… enabled Christianity to clam an affinity with the non-Jewish tradition as well as with the Jewish and formulate such doctrines as the Trinity on a more inclusive basis than that provided the Jewish monotheism alone.” (The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), The University of Chicago Press, 1971 pg 26.)
“… Tertullain admits that "the simple people… Who are always the majority of the faithful… Shy at the economy," that is, at the distinction between Father and Son. He conceded that even orthodox believers could speak of the relations within the Trinity in such a way as to emphasize the monarchy at the expense of the economy. This judgment is substantiated by the sources, especially if one pays attention to what has been called the "hymnological theology of the congregation, … .” Whether or not they were actually quoting hymns or liturgies, many of the passages in ancient Christian writers which sound like Modalistic Monarchianism also sound like snatches from the language of adoration. "He who is impossible suffers and does not take revenge, he who is in mortal dies and does not answer a word," said Malito of Sardis; and again: "He who appeared as a lamb, remained the shepherd." In some of the same words Ignatius praised "the invisible, who for our sake became visible, the impassible, who became subject to suffering on our account and for our sake endured everything." Such phrases as "God is born," "the suffering God," or "the dead God" had so establish themselves in the … usage of Christians that even Tertullian, for all his hostility to the Monarchians, could not avoid speaking this way.” (The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), The University of Chicago Press, 1971, pg 177.)
“This liturgical language found its echo in the exegesis of the passages of identity. The salvation accomplished by Christ was the work of God, as Isaiah 63:9 (Septuagint) said: "Not an intercessor, nor an angel, but the Lord himself" in a simple and undifferentiated sense was the Savior; Christ as Lord was Yahweh.” (The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), The University of Chicago Press, 1971 pg 177.)
Professor Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930): (born 7 May 1851 – 10 June 1930) was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian and prominent Church historian. He produced many religious publications from 1873 to 1912 (in which he is sometimes credited as Adolf Harnack). He was ennobled (with the addition of von to his name) in 1914. Harnack traced the influence of Hellenistic philosophy on early Christian writings and called on Christians to question the authenticity of doctrines that arose in the early Christian church. … In the 19th century, higher criticism flourished in Germany, establishing the historical-critical method as an academic standard for interpreting the Bible and understanding the historical Jesus … and represents a reappraisal of tradition. Besides his theological activities, Harnack was a distinguished organizer of sciences.
“The really dangerous opponent of the Logos Christology in the period between A.D. 180 and 300 was ... the doctrine which saw the deity Himself incarnate in Christ, and conceived Christ to be God in a human body, the Father become flesh. Against this view ... Tertullian, Origen, Novatian, but above all, Hippolytus (first anti-pope)— had principally to fight. Its defenders were called by Tertullian “Monarchiani”, and, not altogether correctly, “Patripassiani” which afterwards became the usual names in the West (see e.g., Cypr., Ep. 73. 4). In the East they were all designated, after the famous head of the school, “Sabelliani” from the second half of the third century; … Hippolytus tells us in the Philosophumena, that at that time the Monarchian controversy agitated (sic) the whole Church, and Tertullian and Origen testified, that in their day the “economic” trinity, and the technical application of the conception of the Logos to Christ, were regarded by the mass of Christians with suspicion (Adv. Prax. 3). Modalism, as we now know from the Philosophumema [writings of Hippolytus], was ... the official theory in Rome. That it was not … [a] novelty can be proved, but it is very probable, on the other hand, that a Modalistic doctrine which sought to exclude every other only existed from the end of the second century. It was in opposition to Gnosticism that the first effort was made to fix[,] theologically[,] the formulas of a naïve Modalism, and that these were used to confront the logos-christology in order (1) to avert Ditheism, (2) to maintain the complete divinity of Christ, and (3) to prevent the attacks of Gnosticism. An attempt was also made ... to prove Modalism by exegesis. That is equivalent to saying that this form of doctrine [i.e. Modalistic Monarchianism], which was embraced by the great majority of Christians, was supported by scientific authorities, from the end of the second century. ... Against these there appeared, ... the presbyter Hippolytus, .… But the sympathies of the vast majority of the Roman Christians, so far as they could take any part in the dispute, were on the side of the Monarchians, and even among the clergy only a minority supported Hippolytus. ... Bishop Zephyrine, advised by the prudent Callistus, was himself disposed, like Victor, his predecessor, to the Modalistic views; ...” (Harnack, History of Dogma Vol III)
Concerning the Trinity: “in its conception and development a work of the Greek spirit on the soil of the gospel.” (Harnack 1931, 1:20)
Cardinal John Henry Newman: (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and cardinal, who was an important and controversial figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s,[11] and was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2019.
““Noetus was in Asia Minor, Praxeas taught in Rome, Sabellius in Africa. ... their doctrine prevailed among the common people, then and at an earlier date, to a very great extent, and that the true faith was hardly preached in the churches” (Essays and Sketches, Longman, Greenand Co., Toronto, 1948, Vol I, Primitive Christianity 5:2).
“… the sacred text was never intended to teach doctrine, but only to prove it, and that, if we would learn doctrine, we must have recourse to the formularies of the Church; for instance to the Catechism, and to the Creeds.… After learning from them the doctrines of Christianity, the inquirer just verify them by scripture.” (Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Dover Publications, Inc. 2005, a reproduction of 1908, pg 6)
J. N. D. Kelly: (13 April 1909 – 31 March 1997) was a British theologian and academic at the University of Oxford and Principal of St Edmund Hall, Oxford,
“Zephyrinus and Callistus” (A.D. 198-222) “were... conservatives holding fast to a monarchy and tradition which ante-dated the whole movement of thought inaugurated by the Apologists” (Early Christian Doctrines, J. N. D. Kelly, ISBN 06-064334-X, pg 125. )
“...current interpretation of “homoousios” was provided by the affair of the two Dionysii in the sixties of the third century. Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, it will be recalled, had been put to much trouble by an outbreak of Sabellianism in the Libyan Pentapolis. When he took forceful measures to eradicate it, the leaders of the ... group made formal complaint to the Roman pontiff, alleging among other things that the bishop of Alexandria declined to say that the Son was “homoousios with God.” There is little doubt that the Sabellians stood for that ancient and, in popular circles, … , widely established brand of Monarchianism which regarded Jesus Christ as the earthly manifestation of the divine Being. To them the Origenist approach, with its distinction of the three hypostases and its tendency to subordinate the Son, was anathema. When they appealed to “homoousios” as their watchword, they meant by it that the being or substance of the Son was identical with that of the Father. The way in which they invoked “homoousios” in their complaint to the Pope is thus highly significant. It suggests, … it would be recognized and approved at Rome. … His (the Pope’s) formal reply condemned the views reported to him, in particular the separation of the divine being into "three powers and unrelated hypostases and three divinities", and took a markedly. Monarchian line.” (Early christian Creeds, David Mckay Company Inc, NY, 1972, pg’s 246/7)
Philip Schaff: (January 1, 1819 – October 20, 1893) was a Swiss-born, German-educated Protestant theologian and ecclesiastical historian, who spent most of his adult life living and teaching in the United States.
On Sabellius: “His theory broke the way for the Nicene church doctrine, by its full coordination of the three person.” (History of the Christian Church, 100-325, Vol 2, pg. 583)
Karl Barth: 10 May 1886 – 10 December 1968) was a Swiss Reformed theologian. Barth is best known for his commentary The Epistle to the Romans, his involvement in the Confessing Church, including his authorship (except for a single phrase) of the Barmen Declaration, and especially his unfinished multi-volume theological summa the Church Dogmatics[4] (published between 1932–1967). Barth's influence expanded well beyond the academic realm to mainstream culture, leading him to be featured on the cover of Time on 20 April 1962.
““It is obvious that the ancient concept of person, which is the only possible one here, has now become obsolete.” (He is speaking of the Trinity.) “It is also obvious that the only possible definition of the matter in question is not a definition of this ancient concept of person. At the point where earlier dogmatics and even modern Roman Catholic dogmatics speak of persons, we preferred to call the Father, Son and Spirit of God the three distinctive modes of being of the one God subsisting in their relationships one with another.”
Alister E. McGrath: born 1953) is a Northern Irish theologian, Anglican priest, intellectual historian, scientist, Christian apologist, and public intellectual. He currently holds the Andreas Idreos Professorship in Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, and is a fellow of Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford, and is Professor of Divinity at Gresham College. He was previously Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at King's College London and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, and was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, until 2005.
Aside from being a faculty member at Oxford, McGrath has also taught at Cambridge University and is a Teaching Fellow at Regent College. McGrath holds three doctorates from the University of Oxford: a doctoral degree in molecular biophysics, a Doctor of Divinity degree in theology, and a Doctor of Letters degree in intellectual history.
“Earlier we looked at biblical models of God, but nowhere in scripture is God modeled on a committee. The idea of an old man in the sky is bad enough, but the idea of a committee somewhere in the sky is even worse! What, we wonder, might be on their agenda? How often would the chairman have to cast his vote to break a tie between the other two? The whole idea is ludicrous. But how did it develop? Why do some Christians think in this way? The answer is simply that they have been taught about the Trinity so badly that this gross misunderstanding is virtually inevitable.” (Understading the Trinity, ©1988, Zondervan Publishing House, pg 120)
“How can God be three persons and one person at the same time? This brings us to an important point which is often not fully understood.… The word ‘person’ has changed its meaning since the third century when it began to be used in connection with the ‘three fullness of God’. When we talk about God as a person, we naturally think of God as being one person. But theologians such as to Tertullian, writing in the third century, use the word ‘person’ with a different meaning. The word "person" originally derived from the Latin word ‘persona’, meaning an actors mask – and, by extension, the role which he takes in a play.
“By stating that there were three persons but only one God, Tertullian was asserting that all three major roles in the great drama of human redemption are played by the one and the same God. The three great roles in this drama are all played by the same actor: God. Each of these roles may reveal God in a somewhat different way, but it is the same God in every case. So when we talk about God as one person, we mean one person in the modern sense of the word. and when we talk about God has three persons, we mean three persons in the ancient sense of the word. It is God, and God alone, who masterminded and execute the great plan of salvation, culminating in Jesus Christ. It is he who is present and active at every stage of this long history. Confusing these two senses of the word ‘person’ inevitably leads to the idea that God is actually a committee – which, as we saw earlier, is a thoroughly unhelpful and confusing way of thinking about God.” (Understading the Trinity, ©1988, Zondervan Publishing House, pg’s 130/1)
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