what heresy was the athanasian creed a response to
Christian-History.org does non receive whatsoever personally identifiable information from the search bar beneath.
The Trinity: Is the Nicene Creed Heretical?
If you read and understood the concluding department of the early Church building definition of the Trinity, you are at present an extremely rare person. Y'all actually understand the Apostles Creed! It'southward very likely you're the only i in your church who does!
Ad:
Calvinist traditions, some simply passed on from Roman Cosmic divines, have twisted our agreement of Scripture far away from what was "one for all delivered to the saints." Paul Pavao points out the ruptures in our current foundations and builds on "God'due south house foundation" instead in Rebuilding the Foundations, free at Smashwords and 99¢ on Kindle.
The study I put into these articles has resulted in a book called Decoding Nicea. It is available anywhere books are sold. If you like what is on these "Nicea" pages, the book goes into more detail.
But now yous've got a problem. The Nicene Creed's version of the Trinity is considered heresy in some places.
What happened is simple to explain.
Heresy and Heresies
At the time of the Council of Nicea, the discussion "heresy" meant division more than a fake opinion.
The Athanasian Creed
The controversy over the Trinity did non die down after Nicea. For the next 50 to 60 years in that location were Arian bishops and Arian sects within the Church building.
Constantius, emperor of Rome after his begetter Constantine, was as involved in the affairs of the Church as his father had been. Constantius, however, leaned toward the Arian view, and Arian bishops and churches thrived nether his reign.
In society to overcome the Arian opposition the Nicene bishops allied with a third viewpoint in the Church, the modalists. Modalism had been around since the 2nd century. Modalists not only believed that the Son was of the same substance as the Father, they believed the Son was the Father. They did not believe in the Trinity.
In opposition to the Arians these two points of view united and gradually became ane. This new signal of view took the thought from the modalists that the Male parent and the Son were exactly the same, but it too took from the Nicene view of the Trinity that they are separate persons.
That view is summed upwardly in a creed from A.D. 361 (36 years after Nicea) chosen the Athanasian Creed.
Athanasius, who could not attend the Quango of Nicea considering he was not yet a bishop, headed upwardly the battle for the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity confronting Eusebius of Nicomedia and Arius subsequently the Council of Nicea. Information technology is highly unlikely that he wrote the Athanasian Creed, merely it was named subsequently him.
The Athanasian Creed reads:
We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Begetter, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
So far, so adept. This is definitely the Trinity of Nicea. However, it and then continues:
So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God. So too the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord; and however at that place are not iii Lords but one Lord.
Perchance you can tell the difference between that wording—for which no Scripture can be institute—and this from the Nicene Creed, well-nigh straight quoted from 1 Corinthians 8:6:
We believe in one God, the Male parent … and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God …
1 Corinthians 8:6 and the Nicene Creed say that the one God is the Male parent, every bit nosotros saw in The Definition of the Trinity (part I of this series of pages). They also say that Jesus Christ is the one Lord.
The Athanasian Creed, on the other hand, says all three persons of the Godhead are the one God and all 3 are the one Lord. This is the "mystery" of the mod view, but the modernistic view did not exist until the 4th century! In its place, the early churches—and, according to them, the apostles likewise—had a articulate explanation of the Trinity. It is true that the explanation is difficult, only it is articulate.
The trouble is, the Nicene Creed has been interpreted every bit though information technology's the Athanasian Creed since the fourth century . If you sympathize homoousios and the Nicene Creed, then you're almost 17 centuries out of date! Ouch!
Quote Mining and the Jehovah's Witnesses
"Quote mining" is the practice of finding quotes to back up your viewpoint, pulled from works that don't back up it.
The most well-known example of quote mining is a mutual joke. The Bible says "Judas went out and hung himself" (Matt. 27:five). Information technology also says, "Go, and do likewise" (Luke 10:37). Obviously, these quotes do not go together, and the Bible does not teach that yous should hang yourself.
The Jehovah'south Witnesses circulate a tract that quotemines the early Christians in much the same manner, quoting Tertullian (without saying where) as maxim, "In that location was a time when the Son was not … Before all things, God was alone."
Was Tertullian a pre-Arius Arian? This is Arian terminology for sure.
What the Watchtower does non tell you is that those two quotes are from completely carve up works. It is dishonest to put two quotes from separate writings together like that.
They likewise do non tell you that later "God was alone," Tertullian went on to add together, "Yet fifty-fifty and then he was not alone." Only two sentences later on!
Tertullian is very clear that while in eternity past the Logos was non yet the Son, he did exist inside of God. After God begat him, just so was called the Son and God chosen the Begetter. ( This is explained fully on this page. )
That is quote mining. Neither Tertullian nor whatsoever other early on Christian author supported the Watchtower's view of the Trinity.
The differences betwixt the Trinity in the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds are a lot less than the differences between the Nicene Creed and the Arian heresy. Information technology's important to address them notwithstanding …
… for these reasons:
- Information technology'southward simply worth understanding what the apostles taught about the Trinity; or at least what the early churches said they taught.
- Jehovah's Witnesses love to "quote mine" the early Christians to support their view of the Trinity, which is merely revived Arianism.
When the Jehovah's Witnesses quote the Ante-Nicene fathers, they aren't making upwards the quotes; they're just leaving out the ones they don't similar. If you don't understand the early Christian view, yous'll be confused by the quotes they use.
Proverbs eight:22 and Psalm 45:1
In almost every case, anything an early Christian writer says, he backs up with Scripture. These men—who didn't have a Bible, but sets of scrolls they had to reference—were masters of the Word. Tertullian, our guide in all this, was no exception.
After explaining the idea of the Give-and-take existence begotten by God in eternity by, Tertullian produces Scripture to dorsum this up. Ii of those Scriptures were commonly quoted in the 2nd and tertiary centuries.
But they're almost unknown to us.
Proverbs viii:22
Tertullian applies Proverbs viii:22 to the Trinity (specifically to the Son). Remember, "the Word" is the Logos that was inside God before all things, but which God "made second to himself by agitating it within himself" (Against Praxeas. ch. 5.)
What tin be better entitled to the name of Wisdom than the Reason or Word of God?
Mind therefore to Wisdom herself, constituted in the graphic symbol of a second Person. "At outset the Lord created me equally the beginning of his ways, with a view to his own works. Before he made the earth, before the mountains were settled, moreover, earlier all the hills did he beget me."
That is to say, he created and generated his own intelligence. (ibid. vi)
The early Christians almost exclusively used a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) called the Septuagint (abbreviated Lxx). This translation is also used regularly by New Attestation writers, which accounts for differences y'all come across between Old Testament verses and their quotes in the New Testament.
Isn't Wisdom a Woman in Proverbs?
Dissimilar English language, most other languages assign gender to nouns, even inanimate objects. For example, in German a cup is chosen "her," while the coffee in it is called "him."
He, she, and it don't have the same meaning in German that they exercise in English.
The same is true of Hebrew . The word sophia is feminine, just equally the equivalent Weisheit in German is feminine.
It is for this reason that Wisdom is a woman in Proverbs. Information technology'south simply grammar.
The early Christians, Greek-speakers, knew this, and they didn't hesitate to believe that the Logos of God was also the Sophia of God.
So Proverbs viii:22 as quoted by Tertullian—and the other early Christian writers who address the Trinity—is a little different than what you read in your Bible.
At least Proverbs 8:22 seems similar to our translations. Psalm 45:1, the second verse, will exist almost unrecognizable to yous.
Psalm 45:1
The King James Version has Psalm 45:1 as: "My heart is inditing a skilful matter."
You probably don't even know what that could possibly hateful. I know I didn't. The Holman Christian Standard Bible has: "My center is moved past a noble theme."
That'due south not close to the LXX rendering. Tertullian gives it as "My heart has emitted my most excellent Give-and-take."
The early church loved that poesy. To them it was a clear reference to the begetting of the Son in eternity past. Here's Tertullian's caption of it:
By proceeding from [God] he became his first-begotten Son, because he was begotten before all things. He besides became his only-begotten because he alone was begotten of God, in a manner unique to himself, from the womb of his own heart. The Father himself testifies: "My heart … has emitted my most excellent Word." (Confronting MarcionII:four)
This sort of teaching about the Trinity is common throughout the writings of the Pre-Nicene Church building. Information technology is what is affirmed past the Nicene Creed when it says, "begotten, non made."
I couldn't resist adding this an ironic side note on who'due south heretical and who's not. If y'all're interested, information technology will open in a new window. (I suppose even if you're not interested it will notwithstanding open in a new window when y'all click on it)
One God, the Father, and Ane Lord, Jesus Christ
We've covered this in The Definition of the Trinity. We now need to accost the conflict between this terminology and that of our modern view.
The Nicene Creed reads, "Nosotros believe in one God, the Father … and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the but-begotten of the Father."
To the early Church, the ane God was the Male parent. Since the time of the Athanasian Creed, not long later on Nicea, the one God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This is more than well-nigh terminology than it is nearly the actual substance of our faith in the Trinity of God . The early Church believed that at that place was one divine essence, and the Son and the Holy Spirit were both of that ane divine essence. Thus the one God, and his divine essence, includes the Son and Holy Spirit.
However, their terminology (and Biblical terminology) is that the one God is the Father. This is the reason that Paul writes, "For u.s. there is but one God, the Begetter … and one Lord, Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. viii:vi). It is also the reason that when Jesus prayed, he prayed, "This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom yous have sent" (John 17:iii).
The reason we give for non using this terminology in modern Christianity is that the Son is regularly chosen God in the Scriptures (e.g., John 1:1; Tit. 2:13; there are many others). If the Son is chosen God, and that repeatedly, how tin the Begetter be called the 1 God, both in Scripture and in the Nicene Creed?
Fortunately, Tertullian did not leave us without an caption on this matter. He addressed information technology straight:
I shall follow the apostle [Paul], and then that if the Male parent and the Son are alike to be invoked, I shall telephone call the Father "God" and invoke Jesus Christ as "Lord."
Only when Christ alone [is invoked], I shall be able to phone call him "God." As the same campaigner says, "Of whom is Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever" [Rom. 9:5].
For I should requite the proper name of "sun" even to a sunbeam, considered past itself. But if I were mentioning the sun from which the ray emanates, I would certainly withdraw the name of sun from the mere beam. For although I do not make 2 suns, still I shall reckon both the sun and its ray to exist as much two things—and two forms of one undivided substance—as God and his Word, as the Begetter and the Son. (ibid. thirteen).
When the Son is mentioned alone, Tertullian says, we can call him God because he is of the substance of the Father. When mentioned together, the Begetter is to be called God, and the Son is to be referred to equally Lord.
This non just answers the question of why the Father is chosen the 1 God in Scripture, it likewise shows that the idea of homoousios was non new at the Council of Nicea. It was in common use even in the 2nd century (or, in Tertullian's case, the early tertiary century).
Are God and the Word Equal?
Jesus said in John 14:28, "The Male parent is greater than I."
Here we discover another difference between the Nicene Trinity and the mod view. We modern Christians empathise Jesus to be referring to himself just during his fourth dimension on earth. He was living in a trunk as a human and submitted to the Father. It is for this reason only that the Begetter was greater than he.
Before and after his time on earth, however, we believe he was in all ways equal to the Father.
The Athanasian Creed agrees, asserting, "In this Trinity none is before or after another, none is greater or less than some other… . the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is … equal to the Father equally touching his divinity, and inferior to the Begetter as touching his manhood."
The Quango of Nicea, however, would not agree.
Up to and including the Quango of Nicea, the church believed that God was inherently greater than his Word. The Father is greater than the Son, and that'south an eternal thing. God is always going to be greater than his Word, which is but function of God.
Tertullian writes:
The Father is the entire substance, simply the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as he himself acknowledges: "My Father is greater than I" [John 14:28] ... Thus the Male parent is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as he who begets is ane, and he who is begotten is another." (ibid. 9)
This is a frail upshot to broach, and so allow's non get out it to Tertullian alone.
- A.D. 150: We reasonably worship him, having learned that he is the Son of the true God himself, and property him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the 3rd. (Justin Martyr, First Apology 13)
- A.D. 185: For if anyone should ask the reason why the Father, who has fellowship with the Son in all things, has been declared by the Lord alone to know the hour and the twenty-four hour period, he will discover at nowadays no more suitable, becoming, or safe reason than this: … For "the Father," says he, "is greater than I." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies II:28:8)
- A.D. 225: Grant that at that place may be some individuals among the multitude of believers who are not in entire agreement with united states and who incautiously assert that the Savior is the Near High God. However, nosotros practise not hold with them only rather believe him when he says, "The Begetter who sent me is greater than I." Nosotros would not make him whom nosotros call Father inferior—every bit Celsus accuses us of doing—to the Son of God. (Origen, Against Celsus 8:14)
- A.D. 250: Who does not acknowledge that the person of the Son is 2d after the Male parent … when he finds information technology written: "Because he who sends me is greater than I"? (A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity 26)
- A.D. 300: For it was fitting that he who was greater than all things afterward the Father should have the Father, who solitary is greater than himself, equally his witness. (Methodius, The Banquet of the X Virgins: Discourse VII: Procilla ch. one)
- A.D. 320: The apostolic church believes in one Male parent unbegotten … who is unchangeable and immutable, who is always the same … and in 1 Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God… . That he is equally with the Father unchangeable and immutable, defective in cypher, and the perfect Son, and similar to the Father, we accept learned. In this lonely is he inferior to the Father, that he is not unbegotten … as the Lord himself has taught us when he says, "My Father is greater than I." (Alexander of Alexandria, Letter of the alphabet to Alexander, Bishop of the City of Constantinople, par. 12)
It is clear from these quotes, and from the consistency nosotros see in other the early Christian writings nigh the Trinity, that the idea that the Father is greater than the Son is an eternal idea, non temporary while he was on world.
The idea is unfamiliar to us, but information technology is non that hard to grasp. The Male parent is the one God, and the Son is the Word of that ane God, begotten by him in eternity by. The Word of God, being in some sense "part" of God, says that the Father is greater than he is.
Otherwise he is exactly like God, in that he is of the substance and essence of God, being his Logos.
In fact, even while quoting Jesus equally saying that the Begetter is greater, Tertullian refers to the Son as equal to the Father. Immediately after quoting Prov. 8:22, he writes:
Thus does he brand him equal to him; for past proceeding from himself he became his commencement-begotten Son, because begotten before all things. (ibid. vii)
I don't know how palatable any of that is to you lot, only information technology is history.
For more quotes and a more than thorough give-and-take of this issue, run across my book, Decoding Nicea (link to the right). I have put the chapters on the Trinity online. You tin can read those for gratuitous.
- Go to Part 5: Did the Nicene View Develop Over Time
- Render to Function Iii: Homoousios: The Substance of God
- Or return to master Trinity page
: I get a committee if you buy Xero shoes, which does not increase your toll. Barefoot running/walking is the all-time thing for your feet--if we did not walk on cement, asphalt, and gravel. Normal shoes compress your toes and do a lot of the work your lower leg muscles should be doing. Xero shoes are minimalist and let your toes spread and your feet practise the piece of work they are supposed to do. More info at the link.
Source: https://www.christian-history.org/trinity-heresy.html
0 Response to "what heresy was the athanasian creed a response to"
Post a Comment