The Positive Tradition of the First Four Centuries — Article 2: The Ante-Nicene Fathers

ARTICLE 2: THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS

1. Their Clear and Definite Profession of Faith in the Blessed Trinity

The Ante-Nicene Fathers acknowledged in the One Godhead three real Persons of coequal power, that is to say, not essentially subordinated one to the other. Hence it requires no special argument to prove that these Fathers professed the Catholic dogma of the Trinity. Of course any explicit and emphatic assertion, in their writings, of the Divinity of Jesus Christ must be of special weight. We shall have to confine ourselves to a few salient quotations.

a) Eminent among the “Apostolic Fathers” is St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was exposed to wild beasts at Rome under Trajan, some time between A. D. 98 and 117.¹ In his much-discussed Epistles,² Ignatius frequently avers his faith in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, whom he calls “our God.” In combating the absurd heresy of the Docetae,³ he insists particularly on Christ’s twofold nature, the divine and the human. “There is one physician,” writes St. Ignatius, “fleshly and spiritual, generate and ingenerate, God and come in flesh, eternal life in death, from Mary and from God, first passible and then impassible.”⁴

The truth that there are three Persons in the Godhead is clearly professed also by Athenagoras (about 170), who is called “the Christian Philosopher of Athens.”⁵ He says: “Who would not be astonished to hear those called atheists, who speak of the Father as God, and the Son as God, and the Holy Ghost; showing both their power in unity (τὴν ἐν ἑνώσει δύναμιν) and their distinction in order (τὴν ἐν τάξει διαίρεσιν)?”⁶

St. Irenaeus of Lyons⁷ deserves special mention, because he not infrequently refers to the Holy Ghost as “Wisdom.” Take, for instance, this passage: “Adest ei [scil. Deo Patri] semper Verbum et Sapientia, Filius et Spiritus, per quos et in quibus omnia libere et sponte fecit — There is present to Him [i. e., God the Father] always the Word and the Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, through whom and in whom He has made all things freely and of His own accord.”⁸

Of the many dicta of Clement of Alexandria,⁹ which could be quoted in support of our thesis, we select but one. “The Lord,” he says, “apparently despised, but in reality adored, the Reconciler, the Saviour, the Meek, the Divine Logos, unquestionably true God, measuring Himself with the Lord of the Universe [i. e., God the Father], because He was His Son, and the Logos was in God.”¹⁰

b) Of occidental witnesses, let us adduce at least a few besides Irenaeus. Tertullian (born about 160) in his usual rugged style writes: “Custodiatur oeconomiae sacramentum, quae unitatem in trinitatem disponit, tres dirigens: Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum. Tres autem non statu, sed gradu; nec substantia, sed forma; non potestate, sed specie. Unius autem substantiae et unius status et unius potestatis, quia unus Deus, ex quo et gradus isti et formae et species, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti deputantur — Let the mystery of the dispensation be guarded, which distributes the unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the Three, viz., the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; Three not in condition, but in degree, not in substance, but in form, not in power, but in aspect; but of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, because God is one, from whom these degrees, and forms, and aspects derive.”¹¹

The dogmatic encyclical of Pope Dionysius, which we have already mentioned above,¹² rejects both extremes, Sabellianism as well as Tritheism. “Sabellii impietas,” says this holy Pope, “in eo consistit, quod dicat Filium esse Patrem et vicissim; hi vero [tritheitae] tres deos aliquomodo praedicant, cum in tres hypostases invicem alienas, omnino separatas, dividunt sanctam unitatem (μονάδα). Necesse est enim divinum Verbum Deo universorum esse unitum et Spiritum Sanctum in Deo manere ac vivere… . Credendum est in Deum Patrem omnipotentem et in Iesum Christum Filium eius et in Spiritum Sanctum — The impiety of Sabellius consists in this, that he says that the Son is the Father and the Father the Son, but they [the Tritheists] in some sort preach three Gods, as dividing the Holy Monad into three subsistences foreign to each other and utterly separate. For it must needs be that with the God of the universe the Divine Word is united, and the Holy Ghost must repose and live in God… . We must believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ His Son, and in the Holy Ghost.”¹³

2. Vague Expressions

The very confidence with which the Fathers of the fourth century defended the faith against Arius, is sufficient warrant for the orthodoxy of the Ante-Nicene period.

It has been asserted that Subordinationist, i. e., Arianizing views with regard to the relations of the Three Divine Persons were current “among the apologists and most of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.”¹⁴ Petavius even ventured to affirm that the majority of the Ante-Nicene Fathers were not in full accord with the Nicene Creed.¹⁵ But before the first edition of his work on the Trinity (1644–1650) was completed, the great dogmatist found himself constrained to moderate this harsh judgment. In his “Praefatio ad Libros de Trinitate” he explains the apparent dissent of many of the Ante-Nicene Fathers as a mere “modus loquendi.” A number of learned theologians¹⁶ subsequently undertook the defense of these Fathers against so grievous an accusation, and they may be said to have acquitted themselves on the whole victoriously. It must be admitted, however, that the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, composed at a time when dogmatic terminology still lacked that precision which was imparted to it by the Nicene Creed, expressed themselves “with an unsuspicious yet reverent explicitness,”¹⁷ which is apt to arouse the suspicion of heresy. But whenever such ambiguous terms and phrases admit of a Catholic interpretation, the rules of Patristic hermeneutics compel us to prefer the orthodox to the heretical sense, so long as the latter is not positively established. It is almost impossible to imagine that such a brilliant phalanx of theologians as Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, etc., should have lapsed into material heresy in regard to a fundamental dogma of the Christian faith. “In such a fundamental dogma, such an error in such quarters would be incompatible with the infallibility of the Church.”¹⁸ As a matter of fact, upon closer scrutiny most of the “incorrect and unadvisable terms and statements in some of the early Fathers,”¹⁹ can be offset by parallel texts from the same Fathers which are clearly and unmistakably orthodox. It must be admitted, however, that prior to the Nicene Council the dogmatic formulation of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity was still in process of development, and theological speculation on the subject of the Logos, influenced by Platonism and Stoicism, frequently went astray and unconsciously scattered the seeds of future heresies.

Cardinal Franzelin reduces the incorrect and unadvisable terms and statements found in the early Fathers on the subject of the Blessed Trinity to four categories, which we will briefly review.

a) By insisting too strongly on the character of the Father as the source and principle of the two other Persons, some Ante-Nicene writers created the impression that they held the Son to be God in a less strict sense than the Father, — as it were “God in the second place”; and the Holy Ghost, “God in the third place.” Thus St. Justin writes that the Son is “in the second place (ἐν δευτέρᾳ χώρᾳ)” and the Holy Ghost “in the third order (ἐν τρίτῃ τάξει).”²⁰ Tertullian, on the other hand, upon whom fell the task of coining a Latin terminology, which he accomplished with rare ability, calls the Father “the totality of substance (tota substantia),” while he refers to the Son as “derived from the whole substance (derivatio totius et portio).”²¹

In connection herewith a few of the Fathers reserve the name “Deus super omnia” (God above all things), or “Very God”²² to the Father, while they speak of the Son as θεός ἐκ θεοῦ, or simply θεός without the article.²³ Novatian (A. D. 250), who in his otherwise excellent work on the Trinity endeavored to harmonize the doctrine of the Divinity of the Son with that of the unity of the Godhead, misconceives the Consubstantiality of Father and Son.²⁴

It is plain that all these utterances, and a number of others which could be cited from Ante-Nicene writings, can be interpreted in an Arian sense; but it is equally certain that they must not be thus interpreted. So long as the general teaching of any writer is such that the true Catholic doctrine may be reasonably presumed to underlie an occasional incorrect expression, we have no right to accuse him of favoring heretical tenets. Now, it is an article of faith that the Father, as the First Person of the Blessed Trinity, has His Divine Nature from Himself,²⁵ whereas the Logos-Son and the Holy Ghost have the same numerical Divine Nature by immanent procession from the Father. It is this idea the Fathers in their crude language wished to express.²⁶

b) There are certain other Patristic texts which seem to represent active generation on the part of the Father as “voluntary,” as if the Father could be conceived without the Son. This might easily suggest the heretical conclusion that the Son is a mere creature of the Father, or at most a God of inferior rank. But all such utterances must be read in the light of the thesis which their respective authors were then and there defending against their heterodox opponents. When the exigencies of the conflict made it necessary to refute the error that the process of divine Generation implied external compulsion, or blind necessity, or corporeal division, the Fathers rightly insisted that “Pater voluntate seu voluntarie genuit Filium — The Father begot the Son voluntarily.” But they did not employ “voluntarie” in the sense of “libere.” What they meant was that the Father begot His Divine Son as “willingly” as He is the infinite God. Later on, when the Arians and Eunomians began to propagate the heretical error that the Son is a creature, the product of a free act of creation on the part of the Father,²⁷ the Patristic writers met the new difficulty by the declaration that the Procession of the Son from the Father is as necessary as the vital process in the bosom of the Godhead.

c) A further source of misunderstanding is the Patristic teaching that the Logos was begotten for a very definite purpose, namely, to serve as the instrument of creation. This seems to place the Son on a plane of undue subordination to the Father. Those who held this view accentuated it by making a distinction between the Λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and the Λόγος προφορικός. “The view of the Logos as Endiathetic and as Prophoric, as the Word conceived and the Word uttered, the Word mental and the Word active and effectual … came from the Stoics, and is found in Philo.”²⁸ With certain restrictions it admits of an orthodox interpretation, provided that those who employ the words do not dispute that the ministerial relation of the Logos, though subordinate with regard to origin, is truly divine, and that the Prophoric Word does not lose His Divine Nature and Sonship in consequence of the Creation and the Incarnation, but retains both in unaltered identity with the Endiathetic Word. St. Irenaeus, in demonstrating against the Gnostics that God did not need to employ angels in creating the universe, extols the “ministry of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” as a divine ministry to which “all angels are subject,” and significantly adds: “Hic Pater fecit ea per semetipsum, … hoc est per Verbum et Sapientiam suam — The Father made these things by Himself, that is, by His Word and Wisdom.”²⁹ St. Theophilus of Antioch (about 180), was, so far as we know, the first Christian theologian who did not hesitate to use the terms Λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and προφορικός.³⁰ But his use of them, though incautious, is quite orthodox, as appears from the subjoined passage in the second of his three books Ad Autolycum: “Cum voluit Deus ea facere, quae statuerat, hoc Verbum genuit prolatitium (προφορικόν), primogenitum omnis creaturae, non ita tamen, ut Verbo vacuus fieret, sed ut Verbum gigneret et cum suo Verbo semper versaretur — When God purposed to make all that He had deliberated on, He begat this Word as external to Him, being the First-born antecedent to the whole creation; not, however, Himself losing the Word [that is, the Internal], but begetting it, and yet everlastingly communing with it.”³¹ Two other representatives of the Ante-Nicene period, Hippolytus and Tertullian, boldly venture a step farther and describe the intra-divine γέννησις as a mere conception, and the temporal γένεσις, which manifests itself ad extra, as the birth of the Logos, claiming that the full Sonship of the Logos did not begin until after His temporal birth. This is no doubt speculation gone astray, but it does not trench on dogma, though Hippolytus, as we have already remarked, did incur a degree of blame for his ditheistic vagaries.

d) The fourth group of incautious Ante-Nicene expressions culminates in the teaching that the Father alone, by His very Nature, — i. e., because of His immensity, — is invisible, while the Son (and this is true of the Holy Ghost also) can manifest Himself visibly, and has in matter of fact so manifested Himself in the Old Testament theophanies and in the Incarnation. Petavius held that this theory necessarily entails the heretical inference that the Son is inferior to the Father. But we cannot share this view. It may be that the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers in question³² did not distinguish sharply enough between “apparition” (apparitio) and “mission” (missio). But there can be no doubt that in speaking as they did they had in view only “mission.” For while the First Person of the Divine Trinity, who proceeds from none, can be conceived only as “sending,” and never as “sent,” the distinctive personal character of the Logos-Son supplies a congruous reason why He should be “sent” into the world by the Father, from whom He proceeds by eternal generation. The writers with whom we are here concerned do not ascribe the attribute of immensity or immeasurableness exclusively to the First Person of the Trinity; they merely observe that the Logos in His visible manifestation (i. e., according to His humanity), is not immense nor immeasurable.

3. Some Ante-Nicene Writers Whose Orthodoxy Remains Doubtful

Though, as we have seen, the evidence at hand does not warrant a summary indictment of the Ante-Nicene Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, all of them cannot be successfully cleared of the charge of heresy.

Some modern writers hold that even the Didache, or “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” the oldest literary monument of Christian antiquity outside of the New Testament canon, must be the work of an Ebionitic or Monarchianistic writer, because it contains no formal profession of faith in the Divinity of Jesus Christ and the Atonement.³³ But Funk has conclusively shown in the “Prolegomena” to his edition of this much-discussed work,³⁴ that the Didache ranks Christ higher than a mere man.

It is somewhat more difficult to disprove the recent charge that Hermas, the author of The Shepherd, “the longest and for form and contents the most remarkable of the writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers,”³⁵ constantly identifies the Person of the Son with that of the Holy Ghost.³⁶ Though various attempts have been made to save the orthodoxy of the “Shepherd,”³⁷ we can hardly escape the conclusion that he “bases the difference between the Son and the Holy Ghost on the fact of the Incarnation, the Son of God in His pre-existence being none other than the Holy Ghost.”³⁸ There is some doubt as to whether Hermas is guilty of identifying the Holy Ghost, or the Son of God respectively, with the Archangel Michael, as charged by Funk. True, the “Shepherd” attributes identical functions to the Holy Ghost and the Archangel Michael, but he draws a distinction between them in regard to rank.³⁹

St. Hippolytus of Rome, the rival of Pope St. Callistus (A. D. 217–222), and one of the first antipopes known to history, in his controversies with Noetus and Sabellius championed Ditheistic views and even went so far as to refer to the Logos as θεὸς γεννητός,⁴⁰ which caused Callistus to accuse him and his followers of being Ditheists: “Δίθεοι εἶεν.”⁴¹ Hippolytus retorted with the counter-charge of Modalism, saying that Callistus “falls sometimes into the error of Sabellius, and sometimes into that of Theodotus,” which, says Bardenhewer, “can only mean that on the one hand Callistus maintained the equality and unity of nature in the Father and the Son, without denying, as did Sabellius, the distinction of Persons; and on the other maintained the perfect humanity of the Redeemer, without denying his divinity, as did Theodotus.”⁴²

Origen’s Trinitarian teaching is rather enigmatic. In the mind of this learned writer the Hellene seems to wrestle with the Christian, the pagan philosopher with the Catholic believer. St. Jerome⁴³ accuses him of Arianism, and the brilliant defense of Origen’s orthodoxy by Pamphilus, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and Eusebius, and among modern writers by Vincenzi, has not fully dispelled this indictment. In his writings, Origen appears in a twofold role. Whenever he speaks as a simple witness to ecclesiastical Tradition, he voices the Catholic truth;⁴⁴ but when he speaks as a philosopher endeavoring to clear up the mysteries of the faith, he does not scruple to represent the Son of God as a κτίσμα θεοῦ and as a “second God” (δεύτερος θεός) — a name which Plato had applied to the world as fashioned by the Demiurge. To do full justice to Origen’s position, it will be well to distinguish, as Athanasius does,⁴⁵ between what he states θετικῶς, as a witness to Tradition, and what he writes as a philosopher “inquiring and exercising himself,” as Newman renders the term.⁴⁶ The Tractatus Origenis de Libris SS. Scripturarum, consisting of twenty homilies which have reached us in an Orleans manuscript of the tenth, and in another of St. Omer belonging to the twelfth century, discovered and edited by Batiffol in 1900, are not the work of Origen nor of Novatian. The well-developed Trinitarian terminology of these homilies clearly indicates a Post-Nicene composition. Weyman has shown that the Latin text is original, but the true author has not yet been ascertained.⁴⁷

Readings

On the Trinitarian teaching of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, see especially Franzelin, De Deo Trino, thes. 10–11, Romae 1881; Heinrich, Dogmatische Theologie, Vol. IV, §§ 231–232, Mainz 1885; Kuhn, Christliche Lehre von der hl. Dreieinigkeit, §§ 12–18, Tübingen 1857; Duchesne, Les Témoins Antinicéens du Dogme de la Trinité, Paris 1882; Petavius, De Trinitate, lib. I, c. 3–5, and the “Praefatio”; Thomassin, De Trinitate, c. 37–47; Prud. Maranus, De Divinitate Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, ll. 2–4; B. Jungmann, Dissertationes Selectae in Historiam Ecclesiasticam, Vol. I, pp. 358 sqq., Ratisbonae 1880; B. Heurtier, Le Dogme de la Trinité dans l’Épître de St. Clément de Rome et le Pasteur d’Hermas, Lyon 1900; J. Tixeront, History of Dogmas, English tr., Vol. I, St. Louis 1910; E. Krebs, Der Logos als Heiland im ersten Jahrhundert. Ein religions- und dogmengeschichtlicher Beitrag zur Erlösungslehre, Freiburg 1910; F. Diekamp, Über den Ursprung des Trinitätsbekenntnisses, Münster 1910.