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By COGwriter
Is God a trinity or a family?
Is the trinity a teaching from the Bible or traditions of men?
What can we learn from scripture, early church history, and councils of men?
Was the modern trinity the teaching of the Bible or the early faithful leaders of the Christian church?
If it was not part of the early church, when did it become accepted?
This article will attempt to answer those questions from the Bible, early writings, and writings from trinitarian supporters.
A related sermon is available: Trinity: Fundamental to Christianity or Something Else?
This Subject is Important
Traditional Roman Catholics generally believe what Thomas Aquinas wrote in the 13th century:
It is impossible to believe explicitly in the mystery of Christ, without faith in the Trinity ... Wherefore just as, before Christ, the mystery of Christ was believed explicitly by the learned, but implicitly and under a veil, so to speak, by the simple, so too was it with the mystery of the Trinity. And consequently, when once grace had been revealed, all were bound to explicit faith in the mystery of the Trinity (The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. Second and Revised Edition, 1920. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Knight. Nihil Obstat. F. Innocentius Apap, O.P., S.T.M., Censor. Theol. Imprimatur. Edus. Canonicus Surmont, Vicarius Generalis. Westmonasterii. APPROBATIO ORDINIS. Nihil Obstat. F. Raphael Moss, O.P., S.T.L. and F. Leo Moore, O.P., S.T.L. Imprimatur. F. Beda Jarrett, O.P., S.T.L., A.M., Prior Provincialis Angliæ).
That is wrong.
One can believe in Christ and know the mystery about Him without belief in the Greco-Roman trinity.
Consider further that the Roman Catholics also teach that their trinity did not clearly come from the Bible and cannot be fully understood:
In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together. ... The Vatican Council has explained the meaning to be attributed to the term mystery in theology. It lays down that a mystery is a truth which we are not merely incapable of discovering apart from Divine Revelation, but which, even when revealed, remains “hidden by the veil of faith and enveloped, so to speak, by a kind of darkness” (Const., "De fide. cath.", iv). (Joyce G.H. The Blessed Trinity. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV Copyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton Company Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight).
Thus, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the trinity is a mystery and not a biblical term, but only a supposedly revealed doctrine. And, as will be shown below, the modern trinity was 'revealed' through several councils, the first one called for by a pagan Emperor.
One reason that is important to understand is that according to the Apostle Paul, the mystery of Christ had been revealed by his time:
1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles -- 2 if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, 3 how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets. (Ephesians 3:1-5, NKJV throughout unless otherwise noted or in quotes from others.)
Since the mystery of Christ had now been revealed by the Spirit by the time of the Apostle Paul (the Epistle to the Ephesians was written c. 61 A.D.), and the trinity did not come to have massive acceptance until some time in the 4th century, knowledge of the trinity is not, nor was it ever, needed to believe in the mystery of Christ.
The mystery of Christ has to do with Jesus emptying Himself of His divinity to become human (Philippians 2:5-7), the calling of Gentiles and Israelites, how the Father and Son are one (John 17:22), that Jesus lives in the lives of those who are converted, and that since He is the firstborn of many brethren (Romans 8:29), we may be glorified/deified with Him once He returns (John 17:10; Romans 8:17,29;2 Thessalonians 1:10).
None of that is a matter of the trinity. The trinity is NOT the mystery of Christ.
What about Protestants on the trinity? Although Protestants often claim sola Scriptura--doctrine comes from the Bible alone--that is not the position of various prominent Protestant scholars related to the trinity. Notice the following:
The term "Trinity" is not a Bib. term, and we are not using Bib. language when we define what is expressed by it as the doctrine that there is one only and true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three coeternal and coequal Persons, the same in substance but distinct in subsistence. A doctrine so defined can be spoken of as a Bib. doctrine only on the principle that the sense of Scripture is Scripture. And the definition of a Bib. doctrine in such un-Bib. language can be justified only on the principle that it is better to preserve the truth of Scripture than the words of Scripture. The doctrine of the Trinity lies in Scripture in solution; when it is crystallized from its solvent it does not cease to be Scriptural, but only comes into clearer view. Or, to speak without figure, the doctrine of the Trinity is given to us in Scripture, not in formulated definition, but in fragmentary allusions; when we assemble the disjecta membra into their organic unity, we are not passing from Scripture, but entering more thoroughly into the meaning of Scripture. We may state the doctrine in technical terms, supplied by philosophical reflection; but the doctrine stated is a genuinely Scriptural doctrine. In point of fact, the doctrine of the Trinity is purely a revealed doctrine. That is to say, it embodies a truth which has never been a discovered, and is indiscoverable, by Revealed natural reason. (Orr J, et al, editors. THE INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BIBLE ENCYCLOPAEDIA, Vol 5. Howard-Severance Company, 1915, p. 3012)
It is indeed true that the name "Trinity" is nowhere to be found in the Holy Scriptures, but has been conceived and invented by man. (Luther, Martin. The Sermons of Martin Luther, Church Postil, 1522; III:406-421, PC Study Bible formatted electronic database Copyright © 2003, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
That Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three distinct persons in one divine essence and nature, are one God, who has created heaven and earth ... Concerning these articles there is no contention or dispute, since we on both sides confess them. Therefore it is not necessary now to treat further of them. (Luther Martin. The Smallclad Papers. 1537. Translated by F. Bente and W. H. T. Dau Published in: _Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, pp. 453-529).
Luther called the Athansen Creed the grandest production of the Christian Church since the times of the apostles (Mueller, John Theodore. The Lutheran Confessions. circa 1953, p.5).
Those who deny the Triune God and His redemptive work are outside the church and without hope of salvation (Mueller, John Theodore. The Lutheran Confessions. circa 1953, p.6).
It is interesting to notice that Martin Luther saw no reason to explain much on the Godhead as both sides (the Protestants and the Roman Catholics, but not the Bible) confessed a trinune divinity. The 5th century Athansen/Athanasian Creed creed discusses the belief in the Trinity and the writing about it concludes with:
This is the catholic (general) faith; which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved (p.6).
Thus, the position of the Roman Catholics and the founder of the Protestant Reformation seems to be that salvation is not possible for those who do not accept the trinity. That is blasphemous.
Furthermore, the Apostle John warned that there was a doctrine of antichrist that denied that Jesus truly came in the flesh. If Jesus was not fully human while on earth (and this is discussed in the article Binitarianism: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning), does not modern trinitarianism actually deny Jesus' humanity (an article of further interest might be Doctrines of Antichrist)?
John wrote the Jesus BECAME FLESH:
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, (John 1:14)
Scripture teaches that Jesus emptied Himself to be human:
5 ... Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, thought [it] not something to be seized to be equal to God, 7 but emptied Himself, having taken the form of a servant, having been made in the likeness of men, (Philippians 2:5-7, LSV)
That meant emptying Himself of His divinity.
But because of a council decision in the 5th century, both Roman Catholics and the Protestants teach that Jesus was 'fully human and fully God.' Therefore, they reject that Jesus emptied Himself of His divinity (Philippians 2:7), thus they deny that He has truly came in the flesh. There is even a book with a related improper title (Casey, Michael. Fully Human, Fully Divine: And Interactive Christology. Liquori: Liguori Publications, 2004).
Before going further, let us notice something that the New Testament teaches about the Godhead:
1 For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ... 8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; (Colossians 2:1-3,8-9)
The duality of the Godhead, the view known as Binitarianism is what the scriptures support. But the Bible warns to not let believers be cheated by deceit and philosophy, which is what the trinity is sadly based upon.
Jesus' half-brother Jude wrote:
3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 3-4)
The trinity was NOT part of the original faith, acceptance of the trinity is NOT part of salvation, to the contrary, trinitarians deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ when they blend things together and claim Jesus was fully God after He emptied Himself of His divinity. DON'T BE DECEIVED-GOD IS NOT A CLOSED TRINITY.
If they were faithful, they would NOT have changed the faith --but would have continued in it (1 John 2:19).
But Doesn't the Bible Say God is One?
The current trinitarian view is that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct co-equal personages composed of the same substance. And that, when Jesus was on the earth He was fully human and fully God.
Trinitarians claim that the trinity is the only proper explanation of the Godhead and that God is one trinity. One being manifested in three ways.
Yet, Jesus pointed out that He and the Father have different wills in Luke 22:42.
Jesus also said that the Father was greater than He when He was on the earth:
28 ... My Father is greater than I. (John 14:28)
19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. (John 5:19)
30 I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me. (John 5:28)
If Jesus was fully God while on the earth, He of Himself could have done everything possible.
But that is NOT what Jesus taught.
Some claim, well, that was only because He was on the earth.
However, the Apostle Paul made it clear that even when Jesus returns He will still be subordinate to the Father.
28 Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:28)
The Father and Son are clearly different--they are NOT THE SAME OR CO-EQUAL. Like Jesus said of the Sadducees of old, trinitarians err by not knowing the scriptures or the power of God (Matthew 22:29, KJV).
One Family
Since God is not one trinity, how is God one since various scriptures say God is one (e.g. Galatians 3:20b)?
God is one family, now consisting of the Father and the Son. Father and Son denote a family relationship.
Notice how Christians are to be one and part of that one family:
20 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: (John 17:20-22)
Christians are to one with the Father and Son as they are one!
Notice that Jesus taught how two can be one:
4 And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' 5 and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." (Matthew 19:4-6)
Married people become one family.
That is essentially the binitarian view of the Godhead. Like a husband and wife are two separate people, but one family that can have offspring, the Father and Son are one family that can have offspring who will become part of the God family.
Both the Old and New Testaments teach that God considers married couples to be one (Malachi 2:14-15; Mark 10:8). And that God wants Godly offspring (Malachi 2:15), which the New Testament refers to as brethren Romans 8:29)--that is a family relationship--that is how God is one.
God calls us to be in His family:
18 'I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the Lord Almighty." (2 Corinthians 6:18)
More will be added to the Godhead family (the truly converted) after the first resurrection as the brethren of Jesus:
9 Jesus … 10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, (Hebrews 2:9-11, NJKV, OSB)
Yes, those who are converted are to be Jesus’ brethren in the family of God as one.
1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (1 John 3:1-2)
Christians are begotten, but not yet born now, children of God. But with the first resurrection, Christians will be deified (see What is Your Destiny? Deification? Did the Early Church Teach That Christians Would Become God?).
This is also consistent with something consistent with what Irenaeus of Lyon wrote in the 2nd century:
For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality. (Irenaeus. Against Heresies. Book III, Chapter 19. Translated by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885)
Teacher, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself. (Book V, Preface.)
In the late second century, Church of God leader Theophilus of Antioch wrote:
if I call Him Wisdom, I speak of His offspring (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book 1, Chapter 3)
For the sun is a type of God, and the moon of man. And as the sun far surpasses the moon in power and glory, so far does God surpass man. And as the sun remains ever full, never becoming less, so does God always abide perfect, being full of all power, and understanding, and wisdom, and immortality, and all good. But the moon wanes monthly, and in a manner dies, being a type of man; then it is born again, and is crescent, for a pattern of the future resurrection.
In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the three of God {Note: trinity is NOT a translation of the Greek here}, and His Word, and His wisdom. And the fourth is the type of man, who needs light, that so there may be God, the Word, wisdom, man. (Book 2, Chapter 15)
The God and Father, indeed, of all cannot be contained, ... the Word of God, who is also His Son ... the first-born of all creation ... The Word, then, being God, and being naturally produced from God, whenever the Father of the universe wills, He sends Him to any place. (Book 2, Chapter 22)
Christians are to be born in God's family at the resurrection.
Augustine of Hippo wrote the following in the 5th century:
The whole family of God, most high and most true, has therefore a consolation of its own -- a consolation which cannot deceive, and which has in it a surer hope than the tottering and falling affairs of earth can afford. (Augustine. The City of God, Book 1, Chapter 29. Translated by Marcus Dods. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887)
Even though the Greco-Roman Catholics did not fully grasp it, a family understanding of the Godhead is not a new idea as the above supports.
God is a family currently consisting of the Father and the Son:
5 For to which of the angels did He ever say:
"You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You"?And again:
"I will be to Him a Father,
And He shall be to Me a Son"? (Hebrews 1:5)
The Father-Son relationship is a family relationship. And the Apostle Paul wrote:
14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19).
Hence, God’s family is not limited to a closed trinity and will have others added to it. The Bible refers to those who will part of it as brethren--that is also a family relationship! God's people will become filled with all the fullness of God when deified at the first resurrection. If one is filled with "all the fullness of God" does not that suggest that they will be also God as part of the Family of God?
Notice also the following from the 20th century Church of God sources:
God is a family.
More accurately, "God" is the family name of the eternally creating class of beings who have designed, are sustaining and will forever rule all reality -- spiritual and physical reality, known and unknown reality, reality that does exist and reality that does not yet exist. That's what we are heir to. The family of God! Everything! Forever!
The concept that God is a family is as bold as it is thrilling. It is almost a "revolution."
To state that God is a family seems like outright heresy compared to the twisted maze of pagan doctrines which have established themselves as the respectable religious systems of this world. Nevertheless, it is true -- God is a family. Because, as incredible as it appears to our materialistically hardened eyes, the Bible explicitly teaches that God is a family -- and that the purpose of every human life is to join that "very family circle of God" (Rom. 8:15, Phillips).
The God family can and will comprise an almost infinite number of individual distinct sons. Ephesians 3:14-15 proclaims that the whole family in heaven and earth is named after God the Father. Or, in other words, the whole family is named the God family.
At the present time today -- there are only two beings in the God family: 1) God the Father -- the Possessor of heaven and earth (Gen. 14:19; Isa. 66:1; John 5:19) -- the Father of Jesus Christ. 2) The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- the active Creator of heaven and earth -- the One who became Jesus Christ. ...
We are joint heirs with Christ, and as a result, we will be glorified together with Him (Rom. 8:17). (Kuhn R. The God Family. Good News, April 1974)
God is a family of persons, that is the governor, the ruler of the entire world. ...
Now, the word for God is, in the Hebrew which back there, as Moses wrote it, and the word is 'Elohim'. And 'Elohim' is a uniplural word that means more than one person. It is a kingdom of persons. You read in the New Testament, in John the first chapter and the first verse, and there you read;
"In the beginning was the Word [now, we read later that all things were made by Him. But also we read in John the first chapter and the first few verses that]...the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
Now, how could the Word be with God and also be God? There are two different persons altogether. When Jesus was on earth, He prayed to the Father in heaven. There was a family relationship. He called Him the Father. ...
He was begotten of the Father and the only begotten Son. He didn't begat Himself. (Armstrong HW. Requirements for God's Kingdom. Radio broadcast June 26, 1979)
Now he didn't make mother Eve out of the dust of the ground. He made mother Eve from Adam.
And now those two united and became one -- but not one person -- one family. God is one -- but not one person. God is two persons - God and the Word, but God is one family -- because God is a family and not a person. And God is a family that's composed of -- it starts with now two persons.
But God made man so that man could be begotten of Him, and if God's Spirit entered into man with that spirit, just like the woman combined with the man to make the man whole and complete so he could reproduce and have children, now man could be reproduced and become God-- if the Spirit of God came into him, and that would be the mind of God and some of the powers of God. The power of God's love, of God's faith, of God's power, and many of the great attributes of God. (Armstrong HW. Back to the Beginning, God and the Word. Sermon: September 22, 1984)
For God's ultimate supreme purpose of reproducing himself--of recreating himself, as it were, by the supreme objective of creating the righteous divine character ultimately in millions unnumbered begotten and born children who shall become God beings, members of the God family. ...
Once this perfect and righteous character is instilled in man, and man converted from mortal flesh to immortal spirit, then is to come the INCREDIBLE HUMAN POTENTIAL--man being BORN INTO the divine FAMILY of God, restoring the government of God to the earth, and then participating in the completion of the CREATION over the entire endless expanse of the UNIVERSE! … God shall have reproduced HIMSELF untold millions of times over! So, on the sixth day of that re-creation week, God (Elohim) said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). ... He was given a spirit (essence in form) to make the relationship possible. (Armstrong HW. Mystery of the Ages. Dodd Mead, 1985, pp. 102-103)
Is God a Trinity or a family? ...
There is only one God family, yet there are presently two members, and in the future there will be many more. Jesus was called "the firstborn of many brethren" (Rom. 8:29).
Look at yourself. Whether married or single, you are part of a family. You have parents and maybe even children or grandchildren of your own. Yet, you are still one family. It was God who created man and put him on the earth.
He created marriage and the family relationship as a type of His divine family. ...
God is a family. There presently are two members in that God family, God the Father -- the Head of the family, the Lawgiver -- and Jesus Christ the Son -- the Spokesman, the Creator. But the word Elohim is not just dual. There is a dual number in Hebrew, but this would have to be Elohaim. The God family, however, is destined to be truly plural -- to have many members. And this is what the word Elohim describes and allows for.
Belief in a Trinity clouds the real purpose that God has in store for mankind. If we are taught that God is a closed Trinity of three persons, we lose sight of the fact that God's real purpose is to create many more members of the God family. ...
The Apostle John understood God's plans for mankind. Notice what he wrote in I John 3:1:
"Behold, what manner of love the Father [here is the family relationship — not a closed trinity] hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we [already] the [begotten] sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." ...
It is clearly God's plan to bring many sons into His family. "For it became him [God the Father], for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation [Jesus Christ] perfect through sufferings" (Heb. 2:10). ...
Satan wants you to think that God is a limited Trinity — not a growing family or Kingdom into which we may, through the grace of God, enter. (Johnson G. Is God a Trinity? WCG booklet, 1979)
Before going further, consider that the terms trinity, threeness, or trinitarian are not found in the Bible.
Now consider the following that Jesus Himself taught:
27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. (Matthew 11:27)
Note that only the Father and Son know each other (other than those who Jesus reveals)--which shows, for example, that the Holy Spirit, which was not mentioned by Jesus, does NOT of itself know.
Therefore, it should be clear that according to Jesus' words, obviously the Holy Spirit is NOT a co-equal member of a Greco-Roman trinity. Jesus' words are consistent with the binitarian view of the Godhead.
God is ONE family.
The Holy Spirit is used by God as the power of God as the following shows:
38 ... God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, (Acts 10:38)
The Holy Spirit is something God pours out:
17 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; (Acts 2:17)
The Holy Spirit is used by God, it is not a third co-equal member of the Godhead.
Scholars Often Admit the Trinity's Late Acceptance
But could the trinity have been a central doctrine of the New Testament as some have claimed?
No.
Here is what one modern historian has written about it:
Like other doctrines that became central to the faith, however, belief in the Trinity was a historical development, not a "given" from the early years of the faith.
A. The basic notion of the Trinity is that there are three persons in the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are all equally God and of the same substance, but despite the fact there are three persons, together, they compromise only one God, indivisible in nature.
B. This doctrine does not appear to be a doctrine pronounced by the historical Jesus, Paul, or any other Christian writer during the first hundred years or so of Christianity.
C. It cannot be found explicitly stated in the earliest Christian writings. The only passage of the New Testament that declares the doctrine (1 John 5:7-8) was not originally part of the text but was added by doctrinally astute scribes at a later date (it is not found in any Greek manuscripts until the 11th century) (Ehrman B. From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity, Part 2. The Teaching Company, Chantilly (VA), 2004, p. 43).
One other passage that is often cited by trinitarians is Matthew 28:19. But it does not teach the trinity.
It should be explained here that perhaps the reason that the Bible teaches, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19) is that through being begotten by the Holy Spirit through baptism (Luke 3:16), we will ultimately be born in the family of God (this is discussed further below)--and that is part of the relationship between us, the Holy Spirit, the Son, and the Father (this is also consistent with what Theophilus, a second century leader, wrote--more on Matthew 28:19 can be found in the article Is Matthew 28:19 in the Bible?).
Even the Greco-Roman saint and bishop Irenaeus did not teach that Matthew 28:19 endorsed the trinity as he wrote:
And for this reason the baptism of our regeneration proceeds through these three points: God the Father bestowing on us regeneration through His Son by the Holy Spirit. For as many as carry (in them) the Spirit of God are led to the Word, that is to the Son; and the Son brings them to the Father; and the Father causes them to possess incorruption. Without the Spirit it is not possible to behold the Word of God, nor without the Son can any draw near to the Father: for the knowledge of the Father is the Son, and the knowledge of the Son of God is through the Holy Spirit; and, according to the good pleasure of the Father, the Son ministers and dispenses the Spirit to whomsoever the Father wills and as He wills (Irenaeus, St., Bishop of Lyon. Translated from the Armenian by Armitage Robinson. The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, Chapter 7. Wells, Somerset, Oct. 1879. As published in SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO, 1920)
Notice that Irenaeus clearly is teaching that the Father and Son have separate wills and that they dispense the Holy Spirit--one does not dispense a person.
Regarding the New Testament, even a trinitarian scholar has admitted that the Bible has a binitarian view, and does not teach what is now considered to be the trinity:
The binitarian formulas are found in Rom. 8:11, 2 Cor. 4:14, Gal. 1:1, Eph. 1:20, 1 Tim 1:2, 1 Pet. 1:21, and 2 John 1:13 ... No doctrine of the Trinity in the Nicene sense is present in the New Testament ... There is no doctrine of the Trinity in the strict sense in the Apostolic Fathers ... (Rusch W.G. The Trinitarian Controversy. Fortress Press, Phil., 1980, pp. 2-3).
The above book endorses the trinity, yet admits that it was NOT part of the original faith (consider Jude 3).
Yet, most who claim Christianity ignore the Bible and teach the trinitarian tradition that was adopted centuries later by a council of men.
Pagan and Early Trinitarian History
Did you realize that pagan religions sometimes had a form of a trinity of deities?
This dates at least from the time of ancient Babylon:
The ancient Babylonians recognised the doctrine of a trinity, or three persons in one god--as appears from a composite god with three heads forming part of their mythology, and the use of the equilateral triangle, also, as an emblem of such trinity in unity (Beck TD. The mystical woman and the cities of the nations: or, Papal Rome and her secular satellites. 1867. Original from Oxford University, Digitized Aug 15, 2006, pp. 22-23).
The Assyrians did as well:
On one cylinder of translucent green felspar, called amazon stone, winch I believe to have been the signet, or amulet, of Sennacherib himself, is engraved the king standing in an arched frame as on the rock tablets at Bavian, and at the Nahr-el-Kelb in Syria. He holds in one hand the sacrificial mace, and raises the other in the act of adoration before the winged figure in a circle, here represented as a triad with three heads...the triune god, the supreme deity of the Assyrians, and of the Persians, their successors, in the empire of the East.
Of the information as to the religious system of the Assyrians ... It is difficult to understand such a system of polytheism, unless we suppose that whilst there was but one supreme god, represented sometimes under a triune form (Layard AH. Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon: with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert : being the result of a second expedition undertaken for the trustees of the British Museum. Murray, 1853. Original from the Bavarian State Library, Digitized Oct 20, 2009, pp. 160, 637).
Sennacherib is mentioned in the Bible (2 Kings 18:13) and reigned from about 720 BC to about 683 BC.
Furthermore, notice:
Mithra, who was originally subordinate to Ormuzd, and even reduced to the third place in the triad, subsequently rose practically to the first place, supplanting Ormuzd himself. Such a process, by which the mediating member of the trinity, as the special friend and savior of men, should become first and nearest in the thoughts, and affections, and hopes of men, and hence in time first in the divine order of the gods, is most natural, and we have already found it a marked feature of the historical evolution of most of the Ethnic trinities. Thus in the Babylonian triad Marduk, the mediating sun-god, usurps the place of Ea, his father. The same was true of Vishnu-Krishna in the Hindoo trinity, who, in his capacity of god- man and mediator, reduced Brahma to almost a shadow. So Mithraism pushed Ormuzd back into a place of inferiority, or rather he was quietly displaced and forgotten. The triad was practically reduced to unity in the Mithraic faith (Paine LL. The Ethnic Trinities and Their Relations to the Christian Trinity: A Chapter in the Comparative History of Religions. Kessinger Publishing, 1901 Original from the University of California, Digitized Nov 20, 2007, p. 84).
Mithraism entered the Roman Empire about a century before the crucifixion of Jesus and became influential among the emperors, including with Emperor Constantine (see also Do You Practice Mithraism?).
The Bible warns against combining demonic practices with the worship of the true God:
19 What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? 20 Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord's table and of the table of demons. (1 Corinthians 10:19-22)
The Bible also warns to come out of Babylon, which is likely the original human source of the idea of a trinity came from:
1 After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. 2 And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! 3 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury."
4 And I heard another voice from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. 5 For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. (Revelation 18:1-6)
According to Roman Catholic sources, the term trinity, in relation to the Godhead, did not come until the late second/early third century.
Yet, the idea of the trinity was apparently voiced by the heretic Montanus and developed by a famous Gnostic heretic named Valentinus in the mid-2nd century.
One of the so-called Montanist Oracles, spoken by Montanus was:
"I am the Father and the Son and the Paraclete." (Didymus, De trinitate iii. 41. 1.) (Assembled in P. de Labriolle, La crise montaniste (1913), 34-105, by Bates College, Lewston (Maine) http://abacus.bates.edu/Faculty/Philosophy%20and%20Religion/rel_241/texts/montanism.html 01/31/06).
This is one of the first references to a trinitarian view of the Godhead (the other earliest one was from the heretic Valentinus--it is unclear which was first). The paraclete is a term used to signify the Holy Spirit (it is from the Greek term parakletos).
Eusebius records (Eusebius. Church History, Book V, Chapters 18-19) that church leaders in Asia Minor and Antioch, such as Apollonius of Ephesus, that Serapion of Antioch, Apollinaris of Hierapolis, and Thraseas of Eumenia opposed the Montantist heresies (Apollinaris of Hierapolis and Thraseas of Eumenia were Quartodecimans, and Apollonius likely was as well). However, Roman Bishops would not renounce the Montantist heresy until sometime in the third century, and that after Rome accepted certain Montanus beliefs (see Montanists in The Catholic Encyclopedia)!
The Cathecism of the Catholic Church admits the Church (not the Bible) had to come up with terms of "philosophical" (pagan/Greek) origin to explain it::
251 In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop its own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: "substance," "person," or "hypostasis," "relation" and so on (Catechism of the Catholic Church. Imprimatur Potest +Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Doubleday, NY 1995, p. 74).
The trinitarian terminology did NOT come from the Bible, but mainly pagan philosophies.
The word "hypostasis" came from Valentinus: The Gnostic Trinitarian Heretic.
And the word "substance" translated from the Greek homoousion came from the Roman Emperor Constantine.
Yet, even that did NOT supposedly mean what trinitarians now claim it does and that will be addressed later.
Related to hypostasis and the origin of a claimed trinity, here is what it is recorded that a one-time Greco-Roman Catholic bishop named Marcellus of Ancyra wrote, around the middle of the fourth century, where certain aspects of trinitarianism came from--paganism:
Now with the heresy of the Ariomaniacs, which has corrupted the Church of God ... These then teach three hypostases, just as Valentinus the heresiarch first invented in the book entitled by him 'On the Three Natures'. For he was the first to invent three hypostases and three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is discovered to have filched this from Hermes and Plato (Source: Logan A. Marcellus of Ancyra (Pseudo-Anthimus), 'On the Holy Church': Text, Translation and Commentary. Verses 8-9. Journal of Theological Studies, NS, Volume 51, Pt. 1, April 2000, p.95 ).
Irenaeus pointed this out about the Gnostic Valentinus:
Having first of all distinguished these three -- God, the Beginning, and the Word -- he again unites them, that he may exhibit the production of each of them, that is, of the Son and of the Word, and may at the same time show their union with one another, and with the Father. (Irenaeus. Adversus Haeres. Book 1, Chapter 8, Verse 5).
Trinitarians have condemned some of Valentinus' statements, like the above, as "his gnostic corruption of the Trinity" (Forster C. A new plea for the authenticity of the text of the three heavenly witnesses; or, Porson's Letters to Travis eclectically examined, and the ... evidences for 1 John v. 7, eclectically re-surveyed. Deighton, Bell, 1867, p. 8), as opposed to pointing out that this is part of the foundation that ended up resulting in the Greco-Roman acceptance of the trinity.
Valentinus also wrote this in the heretical 'Gospel of Truth',
The Father uncovers his bosom, which is the Holy Spirit, revealing his secret. His secret is his Son! (Valentinus. Gospel of Truth. Verse 17. English translation by Patterson Brown).
Hence, Valentinus looks to be the earliest known professing Christian writer to make clear trinitarian claims (though he, himself, did not come up with the term trinity). The trinitarian Valentinus was denounced by Polycarp of Asia Minor, when Polycarp visited Rome as a heretic (Irenaeus. Adversus Haeres. Book III, Chapter 3, Verse 4) and is considered to have been a heretic by Roman Catholics, Orthodox, most Protestants, and those in the Churches of God.
Furthermore, there were other views of the "trinity" around this time. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes:
Monarchians ... Heretics of the second and third centuries ... All Christians hold the unity (monarchia) of God as a fundamental doctrine. By the Patripassians this first principle was used to deny the Trinity, and they are with some reason called Monarchians. But the Adoptionists, or Dynamists, have no claim to the title, for they did not start from the monarchy of God, and their error is strictly Christological ... The Monarchians properly so-called (Modalists) exaggerated the oneness of the Father and the Son so as to make them but one Person; thus the distinctions in the Holy Trinity are energies or modes, not Persons: God the Father appears on earth as Son; hence it seemed to their opponents that Monarchians made the Father suffer and die. In the West they were called Patripassians, whereas in the East they are usually called Sabellians (Chapman J. Transcribed by Anthony A. Killeen. Monarchians. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X. Copyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York).
However, it is not just those who accepted the monarchianism form of the trinity who were heretics.
Earliest Trinitarian Historical Claims
The position of the Roman Catholic Church is that the term 'trinity' (from the Latin trinitas) was developed approximately 85 years after the last book of the Bible was written:
In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together ... The word trias (of which the Latin trinitas is a translation) is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about A.D. 180 ... Afterwards it appears in its Latin form of trinitas in Tertullian ("De pud." c. xxi) (The Blessed Trinity. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV Copyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton Company Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight).
First of all, it should be understood, that claims of Roman Catholic scholars to the contrary, that Theophilus of Antioch (who they consider a saint) did not teach the trinity or that the Holy Spirit was a person. Though Tertullian, who became a Montanist sort of did. However, the leaders of the churches in Asia Minor and Antioch opposed the Montanists--Montanists taught a type of trinity before the Romans ever did.
Tertullian is actually the first to introduce the Latin trinitas into Christian literature. (Rusch W.G. The Trinitarian Controversy. Fortress Press, Phil., 1980, p. 10).
It was not after until Tertullian (over 100 years after the Book of Revelation was written) that professing Christian writers suggested the concept of the trinity close to how it is now understood. It was not part of the true and original faith.
The claim about Theophilus is based on a misunderstood and mistranslated passage in his writings. Here is a mistranslated version of what Theophilus wrote:
In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His wisdom. And the fourth is the type of man, who needs light, that so there may be God, the Word, wisdom, man (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book 2, Chapter XV. Translated by Marcus Dods, A.M. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885).
It is mistranslated because trinity is NOT a Greek word. Thus, the proper translation would be:
In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the three of God, and His Word, and His wisdom. And the fourth is the type of man, who needs light, that so there may be God, the Word, wisdom, man. (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book 2, Chapter XV)
Now the trinitarian may argue that this is just a semantics issue and that Theophilus is actually still talking about the trinity. Well, he is not as the third part is what Theophilus is teaching that man becomes. And that is what Theophilus is teaching--that now man is a fourth, but will become part of God (see Deification: Did the Early Church Teach That Christians Would Become God?), a third part, when humans become God's offspring in His family! And that clearly is a binitarian view-the threeness, if you will of God is that those begotten of the Holy Spirit who do not commit the unpardonable sin will be born-again in the Family of God--we, through the Holy Spirit, become the third part.
We Christians, after we are resurrected and deified, are the 'third' part of the Godhead that Theophilus was referring to.
Lest anyone suggest that I am reading something into Theophilus that he does not mean, he verifies what I concluded when he wrote:
... if I call Him Wisdom, I speak of His offspring (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book 1, Chapter III. Translated by Marcus Dods, A.M. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885).
We are to be God's offspring! We are to be God in the family of God. Paul verified that when he wrote:
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29)
Lest anyone suggest that I am further reading something into Theophilus of Antioch's writings that he does not mean, he verifies what I concluded when he wrote:
For if He had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God ... so that if he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God ... For God has given us a law and holy commandments; and every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtaining the resurrection, can inherit incorruption (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book 2, Chapter XXVII. Translated by Marcus Dods, A.M. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885).
Theophilus did not teach the trinity.
Furthermore, he did not teach that the Holy Spirit was, or somehow was, one of three persons in any trinity. He verified that when he taught the following about the Spirit of God:
... if I say He is Spirit, I speak of His breath ... For as the pomegranate, with the rind containing it, has within it many cells and compartments which are separated by tissues, and has also many seeds dwelling in it, so the whole creation is contained by the spirit of God, and the containing spirit is along with the creation contained by the hand of God (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book 1, Chapters III,V. Translated by Marcus Dods, A.M. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885. Online Edition Copyright © 2004 by K. Knight).
This is my God, the Lord of all, who alone stretched out the heaven, and established the breadth of the earth under it; who stirs the deep recesses of the sea, and makes its waves roar; who rules its power, and stills the tumult of its waves; who founded the earth upon the waters, and gave a spirit to nourish it; whose breath giveth light to the whole, who, if He withdraw His breath, the whole will utterly fail (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book 1, Chapters VII. Translated by Marcus Dods, A.M. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885. Online Edition Copyright © 2004 by K. Knight).
Therefore, do not be sceptical, but believe; for I myself also used to disbelieve that this would take place, but now, having taken these things into consideration, I believe. At the same time, I met with the sacred Scriptures of the holy prophets, who also by the Spirit of God foretold the things that have already happened, just as they came to pass, and the things now occurring as they are now happening, and things future in the order in which they shall be accomplished (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book 1, Chapters XIV. Translated by Marcus Dods, A.M. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885. Online Edition Copyright © 2004 by K. Knight).
It is not totally clear how Theophilus views the Holy Spirit, though life-giving breath may be close. The above writings suggest that it is a manifestation of the power of God, as opposed to a specific person--in no place does he suggest that the Holy Spirit is a separate person. Nor when he mentioned threeness did he speak of the Holy Spirit.
Although it seems to wish to act as if Tertullian (from Carthage in Egypt) only taught its version of the trinity, The Catholic Encyclopedia admits this about Tertullian's understanding of the Godhead:
He says that from all eternity there was reason (ratio) in God, and in reason the Word (Sermo), not distinct from God, but in vulva cordis. For the purpose of creation the Word received a perfect birth as Son. There was a time when there was no Son and no sin, when God was neither Father nor Judge. In his Christology Tertullian has had no Greek influence, and is purely Roman. Like most Latin Fathers he speaks not of two Natures but of two Substances in one Person, united without confusion, and distinct in their operations (Chapman J. Transcribed by Lucy Tobin. Tertullian. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV. Copyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York).
While Tertullian himself also wrote:
The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and unlearned,) who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the Three in One) ... are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods ...
Now, from this one passage of the epistle of the inspired apostle, we have been already able to show that the Father and the Son are two separate Persons, not only by the mention of their separate names as Father and the Son, but also by the fact that He who delivered up the kingdom, and He to whom it is delivered up -- and in like manner, He who subjected (all things), and He to whom they were subjected -- must necessarily be two different Beings. But since they will have the Two to be but One, so that the Father shall be deemed to be the same as the Son ... For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: "My Father is greater than I." In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being "a little lower than the angels." Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son (Tertullian. Against Praxeas, Chapters 3,4-5,9. Translated by Peter Holmes. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885. Online Edition Copyright © 2004 by K. Knight).
In other words, neither of the two earliest sources of the word trinity, according to the Roman Catholics, actually clearly taught the concept the way it is now taught. Also, Tertullian admits that the majority around the early third century did not accept the trinity.
Perhaps I should mention that while earlier portions of chapter 9 from Tertullian are often quoted as THE so-called EARLIEST extra-biblical PROOF of the trinity, the latter statement shown above PROVES that the trinity as now taught (three co-equal persons), was not understood by Tertullian--Tertullian's understanding of scripture is that the Father and Son CANNOT BE CO-EQUAL. The unbiblical concept of the trinity consisting of three co-equal hypostasis (as it is now understood) apparently did not happen until at least the third century. (Interestingly Tertullian broke away from the Roman Church in circa 211 and became a Montantist).
It should be noted that some Roman Catholic scholars also claim that one of the earliest post-New Testament writings supports the trinity. Here is The Catholic Encyclopedia's interpretation of The Letter of the Romans to the Corinthians which it calls First Clement:
There is little intentional dogmatic teaching in the Epistle, for it is almost wholly hortatory. A passage on the Holy Trinity is important. Clement uses the Old Testament affirmation "The Lord liveth", substituting the Trinity thus: "As God liveth, and the Lord Jesus Christ liveth and the Holy Spirit -- the faith and hope of the elect (Chapman J. Transcribed by Gerard Haffner. Pope St. Clement I. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IV. Copyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York).
However, a careful reading of the above rendering simply says that the God and Christ live, but it does not say that about the Holy Spirit--this is because the Holy Spirit is not a being like the Father or the Son.
Interestingly even the Roman Catholics admit, "That "the Father" and "the Son" are distinct Persons follows from the terms themselves, which are mutually exclusive" (The Blessed Trinity, 1912)--this admission is more supportive of the binitarian position than the trinitarian position they now hold.
A binitarian view was still held by Roman leaders in the third century, such Hippolytus.
Here is something he wrote about Bishop Zephyrinus:
Now Callistus brought forward Zephyrinus himself, and induced him publicly to avow the following sentiments: "I know that there is one God, Jesus Christ; nor except Him do I know any other that is begotten and amenable to suffering." And on another occasion, when he would make the following statement: "The Father did not die, but the Son." Zephyrinus would in this way continue to keep up ceaseless disturbance among the people. And we, becoming aware of his sentiments, did not give place to him, but reproved and withstood him for the truth's sake. And he hurried headlong into folly, from the fact that all consented to his hypocrisy--we, however, did not do so--and called us worshippers of two gods, disgorging, independent of compulsion, the venom lurking within him (Hippolytus. Refutation of All Heresies, Book IX, Chapter VI. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1886. Online Edition Copyright © 2005 by K. Knight).
Roman Catholics still consider that Hippolytus is a saint, and a fairly accurate historian. Consider also that the above citation suggests that Zephyrinus was not holding to a trinitarian view of the Godhead, but that Hippolytus basically was holding a binitarian view.
According to The Catholic Encyclopedia around 212 A.D.:
Hippolytus had combated the heresy of Theodotion and the Alogi; in like fashion he opposed the false doctrines of Noetus, of Epigonus, of Cleomenes, and of Sabellius, who emphasized the unity of God too one-sidedly (Monarchians) and saw in the concepts of the Father and the Son merely manifestations (modi) of the Divine Nature (Modalism, Sabellianism). Hippolytus, on the contrary, stood uncompromisingly for a real difference between the Son (Logos) and the Father, but so as to represent the Former as a Divine Person almost completely separate from God (Ditheism) and at the same time altogether subordinate to the Father (Subordinationism). Hippolytus had combated the heresy of Theodotion and the Alogi; in like fashion he opposed the false doctrines of Noetus, of Epigonus, of Cleomenes, and of Sabellius, who emphasized the unity of God too one-sidedly (Monarchians) and saw in the concepts of the Father and the Son merely manifestations (modi) of the Divine Nature (Modalism, Sabellianism). Hippolytus, on the contrary, stood uncompromisingly for a real difference between the Son (Logos) and the Father, but so as to represent the Former as a Divine Person almost completely separate from God (Ditheism) and at the same time altogether subordinate to the Father (Subordinationism). As the heresy in the doctrine of the Modalists was not at first clearly apparent, Pope Zephyrinus declined to give a decision. For this Hippolytus gravely censured him, representing him as an incompetent man, unworthy to rule the Church of Rome and as a tool in the hands of the ambitious and intriguing deacon Callistus, whose early life is maliciously depicted (Philosophumena, IX, xi-xii). Consequently when Callistus was elected pope (217-218) on the death of Zephyrinus, Hippolytus immediately left the communion of the Roman Church and had himself elected antipope by his small band of followers. These he calls the Catholic Church and himself successor to the Apostles, terming the great majority of Roman Christians the School of Callistus. He accuses Callistus of having fallen first into the heresy of Theodotus, then into that of Sabellius; also of having through avarice degraded ecclesiastical, and especially the penitential, discipline to a disgraceful laxity (St. Hippolytus of Rome, 1910).
Zephyrinus' lack of a decision demonstrates that the traditional trinitarian view had not been accepted by all of Roman Catholicism at this time.
Notice that describing God as various modes (as the trinitarians normally now do) led to a split. It should be noted that Hippolytus was a martyr and is still considered a saint by the Romans, yet was possibly some type of binitarian (he made some comments about the Holy Spirit that make his binitarian status a question). Furthermore, the Catholics have written this about him:
Hippolytus was the most important theologian and the most prolific religious writer of the Roman Church in the pre-Constantinian era" (St. Hippolytus of Rome, The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910).
For his views, Hippolytus was called a Ditheist. As The Catholic Encyclopedia also records:
Hippolytus (somewhat diversely in the "Contra Noetum" and in the "Philosophumena," if they are both his) taught the same division of the Son from the Father as traditional, and he records that Pope Callistus condemned him as a Ditheist (Chapman J. Transcribed by Kevin Cawley. Fathers of the Church. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VI. Copyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York).
But history also records that trinitarians did not want to be called Tritheists anymore that binitarians wished to be called Ditheists. The following was written in the fourth century by the trinitarian Gregory Nazianzen (whom the Roman Catholics call a saint and doctor of the church) when talking to a binitarian:
XIII. What right have you who worship the Son, even though you have revolted from the Spirit, to call us Tritheists? Are not you Ditheists? For if you deny also the worship of the Only Begotten, you have clearly ranged yourself among our adversaries. And why should we deal kindly with you as not quite dead? But if you do worship Him, and are so far in the way of salvation, we will ask you what reasons you have to give for your ditheism, if you are charged with it? If there is in you a word of wisdom answer, and open to us also a way to an answer. For the very same reason with which you will repel a charge of Ditheism will prove sufficient for us against one of Tritheism. And thus we shall win the day by making use of you our accusers as our Advocates, than which nothing can be more generous.
XIV. What is our quarrel and dispute with both? To us there is One God, for the Godhead is One, and all that proceedeth from Him is referred to One, though we believe in Three Persons. (Gregory Nazianzen. Fifth Theological Oration. XIII & XIV. Excerpted from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Volume 7. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. American Edition, 1894. Online Edition Copyright © 2005 by K. Knight).
The above provides further evidence that there was a early binitarian presence (though sometimes referred to as Ditheist by the trinitarians). And note that while the trinitarians (according to Gregory Nazianzen) believe in one Godhead in Three Persons, binitarians believe in one Godhead (family) that now consists of two persons (the Father and the Son).
As late as the end of the second century and the beginning of the third, Roman Bishops still were not trinitarian as now understood--at least two bishops at that time tolerated Sabellianism. Notice what one scholar wrote:
Sabellius taught the strict unity of the godhead: "one Person (hypostasis), three names." God is hyiopater, Son-Father. The different names Father, Son, and Spirit, merely describe different forms of revelation; the Son revealed the Father as a ray reveals the sun. Now the Son has returned to heaven, and God reveals himself as the Holy Spirit ... Despite these flaws, Sabelliansim seems to have won the adherence of two bishops of Rome, Victor and Zephyrinus (Brown HOJ. Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody (MA), 1988, p. 103).
Further consider, if the doctrine of the trinity is so critical to being a "Christian" than why did not even the Roman bishops misunderstand it so much? One source claims that the Church of Rome became trinitarian in the third century:
With the election of the new bishop Urban in 222, the leadership of the church passed into the hands of trinitarians. ... the Roman church went trinitarian in A.D. 222. Nearly three centuries later, the trinitarian Roman papacy would begin to exercise papal rule over Western Christendom. (THE FALL OF THE ANCIENT APOSTOLIC CHURCH BY WILLIAM B. CHALFANT. THE ABOVE MATERIAL WAS TAKEN FROM THE SYMPOSIUM ON ONENESS PENTECOSTALISM 1988 AND 1990, AND PUBLISHED BY WORD AFLAME PRESS, 1990, PAGES 351-389. http://www.oocities.org/robert_upci/fall_of_the_ancient_apostolic_ch.htm accessed 05/16/17)
But even that seems a bit early, as some traces of Semi-Arianism were in Rome in the mid-fourth century, and there is no known primary source evidence that Urban was trinitarian. However, Bishop of Rome Dionysius (259-268) was some type of trinitarian according to the 4th century Athanasius (https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/dionysius_of_rome_against_sabellians.htm).
William Durant noted:
From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity ... from Egypt the adoration of the Mother and Child and the mystic theosophy that made Neoplatanism and Gnosticism and obscured the Christian creed; (Durant W. Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization, Part III. Originally 1944. Simon & Shuster 2011; original page 595)
These Ra (or, as he was called in the South, Amon), Osiris, Isis and Horus were the greater gods of Egypt. In later days Ra, Amon and another god, Ptah, were combined as three embodiments or aspects of one supreme and triune deity, (Durant W. The Story of Civilization, PART ONE: OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE. Great Neck, N. Y., March, 1935, p. 201)
It was in Egypt that Gnostic and semi-Gnostic teachers such as Valentinus, Clement, and Origen started to promote the trinitarian doctrine.
According to The Catholic Encyclopedia on Clement of Alexandria, "Clement preceded the days of the Trinitarian controversies. He taught in the Godhead three Terms." The same article also teaches, "Alexandria was, in addition, one of the chief seats of that peculiar mixed pagan and Christian speculation known as Gnosticism. Basilides and Valentinus taught there."
Notice that both Greco-Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars acknowledge that Clement of Alexandria had problems:
Clement of Alexandria, himself infected with Gnosticism (Strom, VI, xvi) (Arendzen JP. Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas. Marcus. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX. Published 1910. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York).
Unlike Irenaeus who detested it, Clement refers to secret tradition, and his affinities to gnosticism seems to go beyond mere borrowing of gnostic terms. (Brown HOJ. Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody (MA), 1988, p. 87).
Origen, who essentially succeeded him as a teacher, taught and may have used a term for trinity. Here one translated passage from his original Greek to Latin (apparently by Rufinus) and then to English:
Moreover, nothing in the Trinity can be called greater or less, since the fountain of divinity alone contains all things by His word and reason, and by the Spirit of His mouth sanctifies all things which are worthy of sanctification ... (Origen. De Principiis, Book 1, Chapter 7. Translated by Frederick Crombie. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04121.htm>.)
Of course, the above disagrees with the words of Jesus who stated, "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). So, not all agreed with Origen's writings. Plus, Rufinus (c. 397 A.D.) admitted to "correcting" translations, so it is not clear what Origen wrote.
But the idea of the trinity really became promoted by a student of Origen's called Gregory the Wonder Worker or Gregory Thaumaturgus:
The first creed in which it appears is that of Origen's pupil, Gregory Thaumaturgus. In his Ekthesis tes pisteos composed between 260 and 270, he writes:
There is therefore nothing created, nothing subject to another in the Trinity: nor is there anything that has been added as though it once had not existed, but had entered afterwards: therefore the Father has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit: and this same Trinity is immutable and unalterable forever (P.G., X, 986).
It is manifest that a dogma so mysterious presupposes a Divine revelation. (Joyce, George. "The Blessed Trinity." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 20 Apr. 2012 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm>.)
An interesting last statement. While not a creed, Gregory claimed to see an apparition of the Apostle John as well as Mary, the Mother of Jesus (and is considered the first such person to do so), so it seems he may have gotten some "revelation" from a claimed Marian apparition. According to other sources, he had the power to cause death by placing his cloke on people, promoted non-biblical positions about Mary, and may have been the first to promote the expression "the Holy Trinity" in one of his writings.
Notice the following that he wrote:
Here the mystery of the Holy Trinity was revealed by the archangel to the Holy Virgin according to the gospel (Gregory Thaumaturgus, Homily concerning the Holy Mother of God, Section 35. Translated from the Armenian by F. C. CONYBEARE The Expositor 5th series vol.3 (1896), p. 173. http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_thaumaturgus_homily.htm viewed 11/13/12).
The gospel never uses the expression trinity, much less "Holy Trinity." But Gregory put his own interpretation on scripture (in this case, he was basically referring to Luke 1:35 which uses the term 'Holy Spirit' but not 'Holy Trinity').
The trinity did NOT come from the Bible, but instead was at least partially 'revealed' by way of what looks to have been a demonic apparition.
Gregory was a major reason that the trinity started to get accepted much outside of Montanist circles (Origen, too, was a factor). For more information on him, check out the article Gregory the Wonder Worker.
Notice the following historical claim related to Edessa of Mesopotamia:
Mar Aphrem went to Edessa ... He especially brought them the doctrine of the Trinity, (Malech GD. History of the Syrian Nation and the Old Evangelical-Apostolic Church of the East From Remote Antiquity to the Present Time. 1910, p. 135)
'Mar Aphrem' is also known as 'St. Ephrem of Syria' and he went to Edessa in or after 363 A.D. (Rusel PS. St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian Confront the Arians. St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institutte, 1994, pp. 9-10). Ephrem reportedly wrote his On the Trinity hymn after moving to Edessa. So, this is an additional report supporting the view that the trinity was not an original belief in Edessa. The historical claim that Aphrem "brought them the doctrine of the Trinity" supports the position that those in Edessa would have been binitarian like other early Christians were.
An apostolic successor from Edessa, who moved to Antioch and was martryed in 312, Lucian of Antioch, was binitarian, which supports the view that others in Edessa had been, and likely still were, until after impacted by Aphrem.
List of Early 'Fathers"
Based upon those we have available writings from, here is a list of early binitarian and trinitarian 'fathers' with their respective centuries:
Binitarians Trinitarians
Ignatius 1st/2nd Valentinus 2nd
Polycarp of Smyrna 1st/2nd Montanus 2nd
Justin Martyr 2nd Tertullian 2nd/3rd
Athenagoras 2nd Gregory the Wonder Worker 3rd
Melito 2nd
Theophilus of Antioch 2nd
Irenaeus 2nd
Hippolytus 3rd
Lucian 3rd/4th
Eusebius 4th
Everyone in that binitarian list is considered to be a saint by at least some of the Greco-Roman Catholics, whereas those listed listed before Gregory in the trinitarian list are ALL considered to be heretics by the Greco-Roman Catholics. Though some Greco-Romans have asserted that several of those listed as binitarian were trinitarian, a careful review of their writings demonstrates that those writings are significantly more in line with a binitarian, and not a trinitarian, view of the Godhead.
The original catholic church clearly was binitarian, not trinitarian.
Perhaps it should be pointed out that in the 3rd century, Origen of Alexandria, who often pushed allegory (though he castrated himself), put forth some type of subordinate trinitarian view which seemed to be a cross between trinitarianism and binitarianism (Origen. De Principiis, Book 1, Chapter 3, Verse 7. In Ante-Nicene Fathers). Origen, himself, did not have Christian “self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7, NJB/EOB) or a biblically “sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7, OSB). But, he himself, did help the movement towards trinitarianism.
Fourth Century, Arius, and Semi-Arians
Dr. Arius was a fourth century teacher from Alexandria who held to the belief that God the Father was supreme in authority to Jesus, and that the Holy Spirit was not the third member of the Godhead. However, he did hold at least one belief that binitarians did not hold--he believed that Jesus had a beginning, while binitarians do not accept that.
His views caused controversy among the Greco-Romans.
Arius' views were one of several reasons that the sun-god worshipping Emperor Constantine forced the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.
Although he did not wish to go to this meeting, Emperor Constantine summoned and forced Dr. Arius to attend this council. According to historical accounts, the attendees at this council were split into three factions:
1) Arians - Supporters of the position of Dr. Arius, about 10% of the attendees.
2) In-Between - Those who held a position between the Arians and Proto-Trinitarians, about 75% of the attendees. Eusebius was the main spokesperson for them.
3) The Proto-Trinitarians - Those who supported the views of Athanasius, about 15% of the attendees. (Feldmeth N. Early Christianity. CD Lecture. Fuller Theological Seminary, c. 2003)
Trinitarians were NOT the majority at Nicea as the historians Henry Bettenson and Chris Mauder admit:
The decisions of Nicaea were really the work of a minority, and they were ... disliked by many who were not adherents of Arius. (Bettenson H, Mauder C. eds., Documents of the Christian Church. London: Oxford University Press, 1943, p. 45)
Notice what a Roman Catholic priest wrote about Athanasius:
Remember the example of St. Athanasius, the great champion for the true Faith in the 4th-Century crisis concerning the Person and nature of Jesus Christ. St. Athanasius stood up against 90% of all the bishops in the Church, and even endured the appearance of being excommunicated by Pope Liberius . . . (Gruner N., Priest. Part II FATIMA: Roadblocks and Breakthroughs. The Fatima Crusader 110, Fall 2014, p. 48)
So, the above account claims that 90% of Greco-Roman bishops did NOT support the trinity. The idea that the trinity was a fundamental part of even the Greco-Roman faith simply does not agree with the facts.
Although, Eusebius led the biggest group, he and his side did not win.
Emperor Constantine was familiar with a trinitarian viewpoint as he had practiced religions like Mithraism, which had a type of triad/trinity leading it (see Do You Practice Mithraism?).
After an impassioned speech by Athanasius, Emperor Constantine arose. And since he was the Emperor (plus he was dressed as a golden "angel"; Feldmeth N. Early Christianity. CD Lecture. Fuller Theological Seminary, c. 2003), his standing was noticed by the bulk of the attendees who correctly interpreted the Emperor as now supporting Athanasius. Athanasius of Alexandria was the big supporter of the trinity and his speech moved Constantine. Because of Athanasius' speech and the Emperor's approval, the bulk of the attendees decided to accept a with a statement on the Godhead that the Arians could not support.
The semi-arian/binitarian Eusebius reported the following:
1. What was transacted concerning ecclesiastical faith at the Great Council assembled at Nicæa, you have probably learned, Beloved, from other sources, rumour being wont to precede the accurate account of what is doing. But lest in such reports the circumstances of the case have been misrepresented, we have been obliged to transmit to you, first, the formula of faith presented by ourselves, and next, the second, which [the Fathers] put forth with some additions to our words. Our own paper, then, which was read in the presence of our most pious Emperor, and declared to be good and unexceptionable, ran thus:—
2. As we have received from the Bishops who preceded us, and in our first catechisings, and when we received the Holy Laver, and as we have learned from the divine Scriptures, and as we believed and taught in the presbytery, and in the Episcopate itself, so believing also at the time present, we report to you our faith, and it is this :—
3. We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God from God, Light from Light, Life from Life, Son Only-begotten, first-born of every creature, before all the ages, begotten from the Father, by Whom also all things were made; Who for our salvation was made flesh, and lived among men, and suffered, and rose again the third day, and ascended to the Father, and will come again in glory to judge the quick and dead. And we believe also in One Holy Ghost: believing each of these to be and to exist, the Father truly Father, and the Son truly Son, and the Holy Ghost truly Holy Ghost, as also our Lord, sending forth His disciples for the preaching, said, Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Concerning Whom we confidently affirm that so we hold, and so we think, and so we have held aforetime, and we maintain this faith unto the death, anathematizing every godless heresy. That this we have ever thought from our heart and soul, from the time we recollect ourselves, and now think and say in truth, before God Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ do we witness, being able by proofs to show and to convince you, that, even in times past, such has been our belief and preaching.
4. On this faith being publicly put forth by us, no room for contradiction appeared; but our most pious Emperor, before any one else, testified that it comprised most orthodox statements. He confessed moreover that such were his own sentiments, and he advised all present to agree to it, and to subscribe its articles and to assent to them, with the insertion of the single word, One-in-essence, which moreover he interpreted as not in the sense of the affections of bodies, nor as if the Son subsisted from the Father in the way of division, or any severance; for that the immaterial, and intellectual, and incorporeal nature could not be the subject of any corporeal affection, but that it became us to conceive of such things in a divine and ineffable manner. And such were the theological remarks of our most wise and most religious Emperor; but they, with a view to the addition of One in essence, drew up the following formula:-- The Faith dictated in the Council.
"We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible:"— "And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, Only-begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God, begotten not made, One in essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things in earth; Who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, was made man, suffered, and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven, and comes to judge quick and dead." "And in the Holy Ghost." "And those who say, 'Once He was not,' and 'Before His generation He was not,' and 'He came to be from nothing,' or those who pretend that the Son of God is 'Of other subsistence or essence ,' or 'created' or 'alterable,' or 'mutable,' the Catholic Church anathematizes."
5. On their dictating this formula, we did not let it pass without inquiry in what sense they introduced "of the essence of the Father," and "one in essence with the Father." Accordingly questions and explanations took place, and the meaning of the words underwent the scrutiny of reason. And they professed, that the phrase "of the essence" was indicative of the Son's being indeed from the Father, yet without being as if a part of Him. And with this understanding we thought good to assent to the sense of such religious doctrine, teaching, as it did, that the Son was from the Father, not however a part of His essence. On this account we assented to the sense ourselves, without declining even the term "One in essence," peace being the object which we set before us, and steadfastness in the orthodox view. ...
11. This we have been forced to transmit to you, Beloved, as making clear to you the deliberation of our inquiry and assent, and how reasonably we resisted even to the last minute as long as we were offended at statements which differed from our own, but received without contention what no longer pained us, as soon as, on a candid examination of the sense of the words, they appeared to us to coincide with what we ourselves have professed in the faith which we have already published.
(Eusebius. Letter on the Council of Nicaea. Translated by John Henry Newman and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace.(Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892
So, the majority at the Council of Nicea did NOT agree that Jesus was the same essence of the Father according to the historian Eusebius. But that is what the trinitarians now believe.
This to a degree solved the Emperor's immediate concern about unity of his version of Christianity, and pretty much drove the Arians out.
Emperor Constantine was heavily involved:
Although Constantine is usually remembered for the steps he took toward making Christianity the established religion of the Roman Empire, it would not be wrong to consider him the one who inaugurated the centuries of trinitarian orthodoxy. It was he who proposed and perhaps even imposed the expression homoousis at the Council of Nicea in 325, and it was he who provided government aid to the orthodox and exerted government pressure against nonconformists. (Brown HOJ. Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody (MA), 1988, pp. 332-333).
Thus a pagan emperor, proposed and militarily imposed, a doctrine on his own. And this did not come from the Bible into the world's largest churches, but from a pagan (Constantine still honored the pagan sun deities after his supposed conversion to Christianity and was not even baptized into the world's church until his death bed--and even then he insisted upon being buried in a grave dedicated to a pagan deity).
The term "substance" in the orginal Nicene Creed basically comes from a Greek term that was introduced by the pagan sun-worshiping Emperor Constantine.
It should be noted that it is understood, even by some Roman Catholic scholars, like Priest Bellarmino Bagatti, that those considered to be Judeao-Christians did not accept the Emperor’s non-biblical term:
The point of view of the Judaeo-Christians, devoid of Greek philosophical formation, was that of keeping steadfast to the Testimonia, and therefore not to admit any word foreign to the Bible, including Homoousion. (Bagatti, Bellarmino. Translated by Eugene Hoade. The Church from the Gentiles in Palestine. Nihil obstat: Ignatius Mancini, 1 Februari 1970. Imprimi potest: Herminius Roncari, 26 Februari 1970. Imprimatur: +Albertus Gori, die 28 Februarii 1970. Franciscan Printing Press, Jerusalem, 1971, pp. 47-48)
Constantine's Homoousion was not a biblical term. It was not part of the original faith.
But notice the following Roman Catholic writing:
God did not stop speaking once He had given the Church the apostolic deposit of faith. He continued to explain the full meaning of that deposit through the development of doctrine, which continues down through this present age by the work of the Magisterium, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This is how the Church came to understand more clearly, for example, the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity--the truth that God is three Persons in one divine Essence. This most basic of Christian doctrines took several hundred years for the magisterium to define in a way that would do justice to all the various aspects of the revelation that God had given us in Christ. (Thigpen P. The Rapture Trap, 2nd edition. Nihil obstat Joseph C. Price, June 14, 2002. Imprimatur Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua, Archbishop of Philadelphia, June 18, 2002. Ascension Press, 2002, p. 226)
Notice that it is admitted that the New Testament and the original apostles did NOT understand the "mystery of the Trinity" even though this is supposedly is the "most basic of Christian doctrines." It should be noted that it took a non-baptized person in the 4th century to push for it and partially define it--that person was he unbaptized sun-worshiping Emperor Constantine whose then current religion had a trinity of sorts when he pushed for this (see also Do You Practice Mithraism?). Emperor Constantine did not possess God's Holy Spirit, but instead his mind had "been blinded by the god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4, NJB).
It should be noted that the trinity as now taught was not completely adopted until many decades after this 325 A.D. the Council of Nicea. It was not even the necessary position of the bishops of Rome or Constantinople in the middle of the fourth century.t the trinity was a fundamental part of even the Greco-Roman faith simply does not agree with the facts.
And at least one now claimed to be Pope (Liberius) was believed to have been Semi-Arian. Notice what The Catholic Encyclopedia teaches:
The second Formula of Sirmium (357) stated the doctrine of the Anomoeans, or extreme Arians. Against this the Semi-Arian bishops, assembled at Ancyra, the episcopal city of their leader Basilius, issued a counter formula, asserting that the Son is in all things like the Father, afterwards approved by the Third Synod of Sirmium (358). This formula, though silent on the term "homousios", consecrated by the Council of Nicaea, was signed by a few orthodox bishops, and probably by Pope Liberius (Benigni, Umberto. "Council of Rimini." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 11 Jul. 2008 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13057b.htm>).
Pneumatomachi…The majority of this sect were clearly orthodox on the Consubstantiality of the Son; they had sent a deputation from the Semi-Arian council of Lampsacus (364 A.D.) to Pope Liberius, who after some hesitation acknowledged the soundness of their faith (Arendzen, John. "Pneumatomachi." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 11 Jul. 2008 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12174a.htm>)
Notice that the Orthodox bishop of Constantinople, Macedonius, in the fourth century held to some form of Semi-Arian view:
Towards the middle of the fourth century, Macedonius, Bishop of Constantinople, and, after him a number of Semi-Arians, while apparently admitting the Divinity of the Word, denied that of the Holy Ghost (Forget J. Transcribed by W.S. French, Jr. Holy Ghost. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII. Copyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York).
Thus, into the middle of the fourth century, the two major leaders of the Greco-Roman churches endorsed Semi-Arian, non-trinitarian positions. How then can the Greco-Romans and Protestants claim then that the trinity was the original view of the church? It is a historical fact that it was NOT.
Non-Trinitarian Councils
There were at least 8 or 9 non-trinitarian councils after Emperor Constantine's council and one by Emperor Theodosius.
The following Greco-Roman councils that were not commanded by an emperor took binitarian/semiarian positions:
1. Council of Antioch (341)
2. Council of Sirmium (351)
3. Council of Sirmium (358)
4. Council of Ancyra (358)
5. Council of Tarsus (358 or later)
6. Council of Philippopolis (359)
7. Council of Sirmium (359)
8. Council of Rimini and Seleucia (359-360)
Furthermore notice:
367. COUNCIL OF TYANĄ accepted the letter of Liberius pronouncing the Semiarian Bishops to be orthodox. (Johnson CFH, ed. The book of Saint Basil the Great, Bishop of Cappadocia, on the Holy Spirit. Claredon Press, 1892, p. lviii)
A few years later, from 370-380, Demophilus, who was anti-trinitarian, was the Patriarch of Constantinople (List of Patriarchs of Constantinople. Patriarchate of Constantinople, http://patriarchateofconstantinople.com/list-of-patriarchs.html accessed 07/21/21).
Trinitarians, who tend to accept councils of men over scripture, tend to overlook the semi-arian councils or that many early Greco-Roman church leaders were binitarian/semi-arian.
They also tend to overlook that, even though Emperor Constantine was trinitarian, his Council of Nicea did NOT issue a clear trinitarian statement when it condemned the unitarians associated with Arius.
Theodosius
Theodosius was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. He was a warring and murderous leader who became interested in Greco-Roman Christianity.
The bulk of professing Christians until probably around 380 were not trinitarian.
The 5th century historian Sozomen wrote about Demophilus:
About this time the Emperor Valens went to Antioch on the Orontes; while he was on his journey Eudoxius died, after having governed the churches of Constantinople during the space of eleven years. Demophilus was immediately ordained as his successor by the Arian bishops. (Sozomen. The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen: Comprising a History of the Church from A.D. 324 to A.D. 440 ; Translated from the Greek, with a Memoir of the Author ; Also The Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius, as Epitomised by Photius. Bohn, 1855, p. 264)
The official website of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople once admitted that the arians/semi-semiarians ruled that “see” for at least “forty years” in the fourth century (Gregory I of Nazianzen 379-381. © 2010 The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. http://www.patriarchate.org/patriarchate/former-patriarchs/gregory-i-of-nazianzen viewed 04/17/10).
Furthermore, it should be understood that there is no evidence that Constantinople (which was so named in the 4th century) had any claimed “bishops” prior to the fourth century who were actually trinitarians.
The pagan convert Theodosius declared the trinity to be the official policy of his empire in 380 A.D. Of course, that late declaration also supports the view that trinitarianism was not an original catholic belief.
The current Nicene creed, that was adopted at the 381 Council of Constantinople which was convened by Emperor Theodosius, met resistance before acceptance.
Many trinitarians wanted to have unity with the semi-Arians. And that is part of why they, with Emperor Theodosius, convened the Council of Constantinople in May of 381 (First Council of Constantinople. Catholic Encyclopedia). Yet, the Council of Constantinople so offended the semi-Arians that they walked out:
Theodosius called the second ecumenical council at Constantinople in May, 381. This council, after the exit of the thirty-six Semi-Arian Macedonians or Pneumatomachi, consisted of only a hundred and fifty bishops. (Schaff P. History of the Christian Church. § 122. The Final Victory of Orthodoxy, and the Council of Constantinople, 381. https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc3/hcc3.iii.xii.vi.html)
One hundred and fifty bishops met in council, in May, 381, the object of the assembly being, as Socrates plainly states, to confirm the faith of Nicaea, and to appoint a bishop for Constantinople (see THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE). Among the bishops present were thirty-six holding semi-Arian or Macedonian opinions; and neither the arguments of the orthodox prelates nor the eloquence of Gregory, who preached at Pentecost, in St. Sophia's, on the subject of the Holy Spirit, availed to persuade them to sign the orthodox creed. (Hunter-Blair, Oswald. "St. Gregory of Nazianzus." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910)
Notice that many did NOT consider the new creed to be orthodox!
Please understand that Theodosius removed Demophilus from being the Patriarch of Constantinople because he would NOT accept the Emperor’s trinitarian Nicene Creed. The 5th century Greco-Roman historian Socrates Scholasticus wrote:
When the emperor found the Church in this state, he began to consider by what means he could make peace, effect a union, and enlarge the Churches. Immediately therefore he intimated his desire to Demophilus, who presided over the Arian party, and inquired whether he was willing to assent to the Nicene creed, and thus reunite the people, and establish concord. Upon Demophilus's declining to accede to this proposal, the emperor said to him, “Since you reject peace and unanimity, I order you to quit the churches.”
Which when Demophilus heard, weighing with himself the difficulty of contending against superior power, he convoked his followers in the church, and, standing in the midst of them, thus spoke: “Brethren, it is written in the Gospel.' If they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another. ' ' Since therefore the emperor excludes us from the churches, take notice that we will henceforth hold our assemblies without the city. (Socrates Scholasticus, pp. 265-266)
Therefore, consider that: 1) trinitarianism was not the position of the patriarchy of Constantinople, 2) Arian basically meant Semi-Arian above (and this happens in other writings), 3) a Roman emperor removed the patriarch Demophilus for not endorsing the Nicene Creed, and 4) that political considerations, not theological ones, looks to have been the reason to push trinitarianism.
The Roman Emperor Theodosius removed Demophilus because he refused to accept Theodosius’ creed. Theodosius then appointed Gregory of Nazianzus as the Archbishop/Patriarch of Constantinople. "Gregory of Nazianzus ... he infused Hellenism into the early Church" (Gregory of Nazianzus. Wikipedia accessed 08/04/26). With imperial power, Theodosius made his trinitarian position the “broad way.”
Jesus warned that it was the narrow way His people are to take, not the broad way (Matthew 7:13-14)--which has long been the way of the trinitarians. Jesus also taught you could tell the true religious leaders from the false by their fruits (cf. Matthew 7:15-20).
Did Theodosius have fruits of a Christian? What kind of person was Theodosius who mandated what is known as the Nicene creed?
For one, he was a persecutor of those who held to the original catholic date of the Passover on the 14th (called Quartodecimans by historians) as he issued a decree for their death (Gibbon E. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume III, Chapter XXVII. ca. 1776-1788).
And:
To the reign of Theodosius belonged the glory or the infamy of establishing Inquisitors of Faith, who seem to have been specially enjoined to look after the crime of the Quartodecimans (Smith W. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology: Oarses-Zygia. J. Murray, 1890 Item notes: v. 3 Original from Harvard University Digitized Jul 8, 2008, p. 1064)
Theodosius removed the one he thought was the top ecclesiastical leader in his region (Demophilus) and then pushed decisions of his council over scripture. Quartodecimans were murderously persecuted by him, because they held to the biblical date of the Passover as did all early Christians. Theodosius did not act like a true Christian would.
Furthermore, in 390 he brought in a pagan obelisk related to Tuthmosis III from Karnack, Egypt to be placed in a central public location in Constantinople (Kahzdan A, editor-in-chief. Obelisk of Theodosius. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Volume 3. Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 1509). The obelisk was originally part of the worship of the pagan sun-god Amun-Ra. Theodosius had images of himself and his sons added to the base of that obelisk (Kahzdan A, editor-in-chief. Theodosius I. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Volume 3. Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 2051)--hence directly connecting himself to the object of pagan sun-god worship.
A similar obelisk, started by Tuthmosis III, but finished by Tuthmosis IV, was ordered to be brought to Constantinople by Emperor Constantine in 330 A.D. However, that one was delayed and sent to Rome in 337. Currently, that obelisk is at the Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome. So, we see that both Emperors Constantine and Theodosius took steps that promoted sun-god veneration after their alleged conversion to ‘Christianity.’
Here is what The Catholic Encyclopedia says about Theodosius:
Theodosius I Roman Emperor (also known as Flavius Theodosius), born in Spain, ... Theodosius is one of the sovereigns by universal consent called Great. He stamped out the last vestiges of paganism, put an end to the Arian heresy in the empire, pacified the Goths, left a famous example of penitence for a crime, and reigned as a just and mighty Catholic emperor. (Fortescue A. Theodosius I)
No, killing people who held to original catholic views on Passover (as well as for other unscriptural reasons) shows he did not reign as a real Christian emperor. No, by promoting obelisks, he did not stamp out the last vestiges of paganism. He also attempted to put an end to binitarianism and observing Passover the night Jesus would have. Theodosius was not just, did not hold to the original catholic teaching on the Godhead, nor did he “bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8, NJKV, OSB). He was not a real Christian, but a persecuting murderer.
Furthermore, here is something written about Theodosius’ actions in 390 A.D. by a contemporary witness and Greco-Roman theologian named Theodoret who reported:
THESSALONICA ... Here arose a great sedition, ...
The emperor was fired with anger when he heard the news, and unable to endure the rush of his passion, did not even check its onset by the curb of reason, but allowed his rage to be the minister of his vengeance. When the imperial passion had received its authority, as though itself an independent prince, it broke the bonds and yoke of reason, unsheathed swords of injustice right and left without distinction, and slew innocent and guilty together. No trial preceded the sentence. No condemnation was passed on the perpetrators of the crimes. Multitudes were mowed down like ears of grain in harvest-tide. It is said that seven thousand perished. (Theodoret. Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret. Dalcassian Publishing Company, 2019, p. 200)
The same source also said Theodosius was involved in “continual wars” (Ibid).
Edward Gibbon noted:
The fiery and choleric temper of Theodosius was impatient of the dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry; and he hastily resolved, that the blood of his lieutenant should be expiated by the blood of the guilty people. ... Theodosius had despatched the messengers of death, he attempted, when it was too late, to prevent the execution of his orders. The punishment of a Roman city was blindly committed to the undistinguishing sword of the Barbarians; and the hostile preparations were concerted with the dark and perfidious artifice of an illegal conspiracy. The people of Thessalonica were treacherously invited, in the name of their sovereign, to the games of the Circus; and such was their insatiate avidity for those amusements, that every consideration of fear, or suspicion, was disregarded by the numerous spectators. As soon as the assembly was complete, the soldiers, who had secretly been posted round the Circus, received the signal, not of the races, but of a general massacre. The promiscuous carnage continued three hours, without discrimination of strangers or natives, of age or sex, of innocence or guilt; the most moderate accounts state the number of the slain at seven thousand; and it is affirmed by some writers that more than fifteen thousand victims were sacrificed to the names of Botheric. Gibbon E. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, online at https://www.ccel.org/ccel/gibbon/decline.v.iv.html
It was 7,000 men, women, and children.
Theodosius did not act like a true Christian and most certainly was not a “great” or real Christian. Yet, it was he that used Imperial might to overturn the majority view and push trinitarianism.
Trinity Formally Adopted by Men Influenced by Theodosius
The trinity was formally adopted at the Council of Constantinople in 381--though many in the Roman and Orthodox Churches believed in versions of it prior to this.
But even in 381 it was not exactly the same trinity teaching as now understood. For example, it did not say the Spirit is homoousios ("of one essence") with the Father or that there were three co-equal members of the trinity, as trinitarians commonly teach today.
In spite of this, however, the trinity is considered to be so important that The Catholic Encyclopedia states:
The Trinity is the term employed to signify the central doctrine of the Christian religion (The Blessed Trinity, 1912).
The Council doctrine of the trinity is considered to be so central to the mainstream that they often teach that one is either not Christian or is in a cult if one does not accept this false doctrine. Yet in the early third century, the bishop of Rome (Zephyrinus) would not make a decision about the trinity as being the nature of God. How central to the Christian religion could a doctrine, not fully embraced until a later date, actually be?
A bishop of the Orthodox Church also confirmed the trinity's late acceptance:
... the councils defined once and for all the Church's teaching upon the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith -- the Trinity and the Incarnation. All Christians agree in regarding these things as 'mysteries' which lie beyond human understanding and language ... the first two, held in the fourth century ... formulated the doctrine of the Trinity ... The work of Nicea was taken up by the second Ecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in 381. This council expanded and adapted the Nicene Creed, developing in particular that teaching upon the Holy Spirit, whom it affirmed to be God even as the Father and the Son are God ... It was the supreme achievement of St. Athanasius of Alexandria to draw out the full implications of the key word in the Nicene Cred: homoousios, one in essence or substance, consubstantial. Complementary to his work was that of the three Cappadocian Fathers, Saints...(died 394). While Athanasius emphasized the unity of God -- Father and Son are one in essence (ousia) - the Cappadocians stressed God's threeness: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons (hypostasis) (Ware T. The Orthodox Church. Penguin Books, London, 1997, pp. 20-23).
If this doctrine were originally part of the true Christian Church, it would seem that this would be a charge laid against true Christians (such as Stephen, Peter, and Paul in the Book of Acts)--but it never was. And of course, as even most Roman and Orthodox Catholics admit, the term trinity is not mentioned in the Bible.
To insure that people would be forced into accepting the trinity, Emperor Theodosius’declared:
... let us believe in the one diety of the father, Son and Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since in out judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that the shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of divine condemnation an the second the punishment of out authority, in accordance with the will of heaven shall decide to inflict ... (Theodosian Code XVI.1.2. Cited in Bettenson H, ed., Documents of the Christian Church, London: Oxford University Press, 1943, p. 31).
So the trinity need the force of Roman punishment against non-trinitarians.
One reason imperial force was employed is that the trinity simply was not something that true Christians ever taught.
Yet, hate and violence against those that did not accept it was promoted by the late fourth century Greco-Roman bishop and 'saint' Gregory of Nyssa:
I affirm, then, that it is a lawful thing to hate God's enemies, and that this kind of hatred is pleasing to our Lord: and by God's enemies I mean those who deny the glory of our Lord, be they Jews, or downright idolaters, or those who through Arius' teaching idolize the creature, and so adopt the error of the Jews. Now when the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are with orthodox devotion being glorified and adored by those who believe that in a distinct and unconfused Trinity there is One Substance, Glory, Kingship, Power, and Universal Rule, in such a case as this what good excuse for fighting can there be? (Gregory of Nyssa. Letter 17 to Eustathia, Ambrosia, and Basilissa. Translated by William Moore. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893)
So, before the end of the 4th century there were people teaching that hatred and fighting against those who did not accept a doctrine that was not formally adopted by the Greco-Romans until 381 A.D. was good. That goes against the words of Jesus:
43 You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy. 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: 45 That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust. 46 For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? 47 And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this? 48 Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48, Douay-Rheims)
True saints do not preach hate against those who do not accept changed doctrines.
Historical scholar Jonathan Roberts (who was not in the COG) wrote:
Until Theodosius commanded his subjects to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, and enforced his commands upon them by the most inhumane ways, that doctrine was rejected and resisted by the Greek and Roman followers of the Christos ... That so senseless and unnatural doctrine should have been forced upon any people, by any means, however tyrannical is a mystery even more mysterious than the arithmetic that can make one three, and three one (Roberts JM. Antiquity Unveiled: Ancient Voices from the the Spirit Realms Disclose the Most Startling Revelations, Proving Christianity to be of Heathen Origin ... Published by Oriental publishing co., 1894. Original from the University of Michigan, Digitized May 21, 2007, p. 468).
If the trinity doctrine was originally part of the Christian Church, it would seem that Paul would have mentioned three members of the Godhead in his letters to the churches--he never does. Paul mentions the Father and Jesus in every introduction of every book he wrote (Rom 1:7;I Cor 1:3;II Cor 1:2;Gal 1:3;Eph 1:2; Phil 1:2;Col 1:2;I The 1:1;II Thes 1:2;I Tim 1:2;II Tim 1:2;Ti 1:1;Phi 1:3;Heb 1:1-2;), but he never mentions the Holy Spirit--this is a binitarian position. If the Holy Spirit was a co-equal member of the trinity, could this possibly be blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:28-29)?
Another Council
The Fourth Ecumenical Council, was held in 451, from 8 October until 1 November inclusive, at Chalcedon, a city of Bithynia in Asia Minor.
Here is part of its Declaration of Faith:
The holy, great, and ecumenical synod, assembled by the grace of God and the command of our most religious and Christian Emperors, Marcian and Valentinian, Augusti, at Chalcedon, the metropolis of the Bithynian Province, in the martyry of the holy and victorious martyr Euphemia, has decreed as follows:
Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, when strengthening the knowledge of the Faith in his disciples, to the end that no one might disagree with his neighbour concerning the doctrines of religion, and that the proclamation of the truth might be set forth equally to all men, said, My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. But, since the evil one does not desist from sowing tares among the seeds of godliness, but ever invents some new device against the truth; therefore the Lord, providing, as he ever does, for the human race, has raised up this pious, faithful, and zealous Sovereign, and has called together unto him from all parts the chief rulers of the priesthood; so that, the grace of Christ our common Lord inspiring us, we may cast off every plague of falsehood from the sheep of Christ, and feed them with the tender leaves of truth. And this have we done with one unanimous consent, driving away erroneous doctrines and renewing the unerring faith of the Fathers, publishing to all men the Creed of the Three Hundred and Eighteen, and to their number adding, as their peers, the Fathers who have received the same summary of religion. Such are the One Hundred and Fifty holy Fathers who afterwards assembled in the great Constantinople and ratified the same faith. Moreover, observing the order and every form relating to the faith, which was observed by the holy synod formerly held in Ephesus, of which Celestine of Rome and Cyril of Alexandria, of holy memory, were the leaders, we do declare that the exposition of the right and blameless faith made by the Three Hundred and Eighteen holy and blessed Fathers, assembled at Nice in the reign of Constantine of pious memory, shall be pre-eminent: and that those things shall be of force also, which were decreed by the One Hundred and Fifty holy Fathers at Constantinople, for the uprooting of the heresies which had then sprung up, and for the confirmation of the same Catholic and Apostolic Faith of ours. (Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451). Translated by Henry Percival. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 14. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1900)
Yet, it declared that same substance was the official doctrine, which is NOT how Constantine or Eusebius reportedly understood it, according to Cyril in The Letter of Cyril to John of Antioch:
We confess, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, perfect God, and perfect Man of a reasonable soul and flesh consisting; begotten before the ages of the Father according to his Divinity, and in the last days, for us and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin according to his humanity, of the same substance with his Father according to his Divinity, and of the same substance with us according to his humanity; for there became a union of two natures. (As shown in: Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451). Translated by Henry Percival. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 14. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1900)
Similarly, notice this contradictory statement from a Protestant theologian:
The doctrine of the Trinity is fundamental for the Christian faith, even though the doctrine was not clearly formulated and generally accepted by an ecumenical council until the fourth century ... The Council of Chalcedon, the decisions of which were reaffirmed at the Trullanum of 680-681, gave us the formulation of Christological doctrine we now call orthodox. Why did it take over two centuries for debate to cease on a topic, only to leave us with what was already said in 451?...Is it possible to say that Chalcedon politics created theology? There can be no doubt that political factors played a role, and a very important one ... The formula for laying the trinitarian and Christological controversies to rest was spelled out at Chalcedon in 451, although it took more than two centuries to accomplish this goal (Brown HOJ. Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody (MA), 1988, pp. 127,192-193,194).
Anything that was truly "fundamental for the Christian faith" must have been clear and accepted by the true church from the first century. This fact alone demonstrates the fallacy of the trinity as fundamental for the Christian faith. Furthermore, perhaps it should be pointed out that there were those who whose contested the authority of Chalcedon.
Muslims correctly recognize that the "trinity" was not the belief of early Christians:
The concept of the Trinity, that “God” consists of three persons, who are all “gods” themselves, specifically “God” the Father, “God” the Son, and “God” the Holy Spirit, is the pillar of pagan Christian theology. But it was not always so. Actually, one finds a historic disconnect between the beliefs, on this issue, of the Eastern Church of the Levant and Byzantium and those of the Western Church of Rome, the latter supporting the pagan concept of human divinity and the former making a clear separation between god and man. (Break the Cross. Dabiq, issue 15, Shawal 1437, 31 July 2016, p. 51)
While the above came from a radical portion of Islam, the conclusion that early Christians did not believe God was a trinity is correct--and this is one of the doctrines they point to showing that the bulk that claim Christianity are NOT faithful.
Traditions of Men
Jesus clearly stated that He had a different will than the Father (Luke 22:42). If Jesus was part of the trinity, He could not have a different will than the Father, but since He did have a different will (see also John 5:30;7:16) and would speak different words (John 14:24), He could not be part of the traditionally taught trinity. Jesus also said that the Father knew things that He did not (Mark 13:32)--they thus could not be the same as trinitarians teach. Consider also that the Greco-Roman-Protestant trinity is supposedly composed of three co-equal parts, yet the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is subservient to the Father (cf. John 14:28; Matthew 26:39)--and still will be after He returns (1 Corinthians 15:28), nor does it teach “equality” of the Holy Spirit to the Father (John 14:26) or Jesus (cf. John 15:26).
So how do trinitarians reconcile these and other problems? They do not. Instead they say that the trinity cannot be understood. Notice these admissions from Protestant and Roman Catholic trinitarian scholars:
... the Trinity ... it has proven impossible for Christians actually to understand the doctrine or to explain it in any comprehensive way (Brown HOJ. Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody (MA), 1988, p. 128).
The Vatican Council further defined that the Christian Faith contains mysteries strictly so called (can. 4). All theologians admit that the doctrine of the Trinity is of the number of these. Indeed, of all revealed truths this is the most impenetrable to reason ... The Fathers supply many passages in which the incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature is affirmed. St. Jerome says, in a well-known phrase: "The true profession of the mystery of the Trinity is to own that we do not comprehend it" (De mysterio Trinitatus recta confessio est ignoratio scientiae -- "Proem ad 1. xviii in Isai."). (The Blessed Trinity, The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912).
Actually, it is so impenetrable to reason, that one must deny both logic and biblical revelation to accept it. The trinity is a closed-loop system that essentially denies that any can be made to truly be part of the God Family.
Yet being truly part of the God family is what the Bible teaches.
Concluding Comments
The Bible shows that God is one family consisting of the Father and Son, but that others, called brethren, will be born into it.
Early Christian leaders like Theophilus of Antioch taught that as well.
Notice the following from the third century by Hippolytus of Rome:
1. Some others are secretly introducing another doctrine, who have become disciples of one Noetus, who was a native of Smyrna, (and) lived not very long ago. This person was greatly puffed up and inflated with pride, being inspired by the conceit of a strange spirit. He alleged that Christ was the Father Himself, and that the Father Himself was born, and suffered, and died. You see what pride of heart and what a strange inflated spirit had insinuated themselves into him. From his other actions, then, the proof is already given us that he spoke not with a pure spirit; for he who blasphemes against the Holy Ghost is cast out from the holy inheritance. He alleged that he was himself Moses, and that Aaron was his brother. When the blessed presbyters heard this, they summoned him before the Church, and examined him. But he denied at first that he held such opinions. Afterwards, however, taking shelter among some, and having gathered round him some others who had embraced the same error, he wished thereafter to uphold his dogma openly as correct. And the blessed presbyters called him again before them, and examined him. But he stood out against them, saying, "What evil, then, am I doing in glorifying Christ? "And the presbyters replied to him, "We too know in truth one God; we know Christ; we know that the Son suffered even as He suffered, and died even as He died, and rose again on the third day, and is at the right hand of the Father, and comes to judge the living and the dead. And these things which we have learned we allege." Then, after examining him, they expelled him from the Church. And he was carried to such a pitch of pride, that he established a school. (Hippolytus. Against Noetus. Translated by J.H. MacMahon. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0521.htm>)
Notice that Hippolytus reported that the elders/presbyters of Smyra disfellowshipped someone who claimed that the Father became incarnate as the Son. That is a view that is very close to what many trinitarians now hold to. They say normally that the Father and Son are the same substance as the Nicene Creed claims "one essence with the Father" or "one substance with the Father" (depending on the translation).
The idea that the Father and Son were the same, but simply a different manifestation, was denounced by the church leadership in Smyrna. This is believed to have occurred in the late second century (Monroy MS. The Church of Smyrna: History and Theology of a Primitive Christian Community. Peter Lang edition, 2015, p. 295).
Before going further, Noetus is regarded as a heretic by Roman Catholic, Eaatern Orthodox, Protestant, and Church of God scholars. According to Hippolytus, the presbyters at Smyrna promptly expelled Noetus for his teachings. By contrast, his disciples established a school at Rome that continued for years under the episcopate of Zephyrinus before the movement was finally condemned.
Yet, parts of his doctrine became incorporated in the Nicene Creed.
Furthermore in 381, the expanded Nicene Creed was formally adopted at the Council of Constantinople that Theodosius had called. But since that creed had been changed, it was not original.
Notice something from the 4th edition of Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma:
According to Harnack, the Christian concept of the trinity developed … At first, only the duplex formula “God and Christ” existed … later, the Holy Ghost was added. (Ott L. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 4th edition 1960. Nihil Obstat: Jeremiah O’Sullivan. Imprimatur: +Cornelius, Ep. Corgagienis et Ap. Adm. Roseensis, 7 October 1954. TanBooks reprint 1974, p. 52)
Notice the scholarly admission (Dr. Harnack was a Luthern Protestant scholar) that, “At first, only the duplex formula “God and Christ” existed.” The word “duplex” comes from the Latin word meaning “double” or “twofold.” In other words, we are seeing another admission that some version of binitarianism, NOT trinitarianism, was how the Godhead was viewed by early Christians.
Dr. Ray Pritz correctly observed:
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit was the slowest to develop in the doctrine of the trinity by the Church catholic (Pritz R. Nazarene Jewish Christianity. Magnas, Jerusalem, 1988, p.90).
Which, of course, shows that the Greco-Roman Catholic "sacred tradition" on that did not come from the Bible nor the original apostles.
The doctrine of the trinity as now understood did not develop until the third and fourth centuries, yet had apparent ties to paganism. Notice the following, which was written by a trinitarian scholar:
Three centuries after his martyr's death, Origen was to be posthumously condemned as a heretic by the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553). It is ironic that orthodoxy ultimately condemned him, for it is to Origen that orthodoxy owes the key to its understanding of the Trinity ... Origen frequently uses language that resembles that of pagan Logos-speculation (Brown HOJ. Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody (MA), 1988, pp. 88,89-90).
One of the most astounding historical facts about the trinity is that the first few to come up with it (and Theophilus of Antioch was not one of them) were all later condemned by the Roman Church as heretics (Montanus, Valentinus, Tertullian, and Origen).
It is well known that even at the Council of Nicea in 325 the vast bulk of attendees were not trinitarian.
There were at least 8 or 9 councils that supported a binitarian/semi-arian view of the Godhead between Nicea and the Council of Constantinople.
The vast majority of the preferred the term 'binitarianism', but even the term 'Dualism' and the denial of the trinity shows a binitarian continuity of the true Church of God.
There were at least 8 'Semi-Arian Councils' between the imperial Councils of Nicea and Constantinople.
What was the issue at that Council? The issue was, "was the Holy Spirit a person and part of a divine trinity or not?" At least one trinitarian scholar has admitted:
The language of the New Testament permits the Holy Spirit to be understood as an impersonal force or influence more readily than it does the Son ... The attempt to develop an understanding of the Holy Spirit consistent with the trinitarian passages ... came to fruition at Constantinople in 381. There were a number of reasons why the personhood of the Holy Spirit took longer to acknowledge than the Son: (1) the term pneuma, breath, is neuter in general and impersonal in ordinary meaning; (2) the distinctive work of the Holy Spirit, influencing the believer, does not necessarily seem as personal as that of the Father ... in addition, those who saw the Holy Spirit as a Person, were often heretical, for example, the Montanists; (3) many of the early theologians attributed to the Logos or Word, the revelatory activity later theologians saw as the special, personal work of the Holy Spirit (Brown HOJ. Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody (MA), 1988, p. 140).
In other words trinitarian scholars understand that 1) a concept close to what is trinitarians teach about the Holy Spirit was not widely accepted until the fourth century, 2) normal understanding of koine Greek reveals that the Holy Spirit would be impersonal, not a person, 3) the work of the Holy Spirit can be attributed to an impersonal force from God, 4) second-century heretics were associated with treating the Holy Spirit as a person, 5) early church writers made statements contradicting the current trinitarian view of the Holy Spirit, and 6) after the trinity was accepted, later writers decided statements must support the trinity, hence essentially PROVING that the Holy Spirit as part of a divine trinity WAS NOT an original early Christian teaching. More information is included in the article Did Early Christians Think the Holy Spirit Was A Separate Person in a Trinity?
Here is how one author defined those who were semi-arian:
Semi Arianism ... They rejected the Arian view that Christ was created and had a different nature from God (anomoios dissimilar), but neither did they accept the Nicene Creed which stated that Christ was "of one substance (homoousios) with the Father." Semi Arians taught that Christ was similar ( homoios) to the Father, or of like substance (homoiousios), but still subordinate" (Pfandl, Gerhard. THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY AMONG ADVENTISTS. Biblical Research Institute Silver Spring, MD June 1999, http://www.macgregorministries.org/seventh_day_adventists/trinity.html, 7/12/04).
This definition is consistent with Jesus' statements about Himself and that He was subordinate to the Father (John 14:28; Luke 4:43) as well as Paul's statements (I Corinthians 15:27-28).
The Catholic Encyclopedia defines Semi-Arians this way,
A name frequently given to the conservative majority in the East in the fourth century...showing that the very name of father implies a son of like substance.
Thus it is clear that many held the binitarian view at that time (including no doubt, many who were not true Christians).
Perhaps it should be noted that according to Epiphanius, when Josephus of Scythopolis was converted “during the old age of Emperor Constantine” (Epiphanius. The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Book 1, Chapter 29, 4,1. Translated by Frank Williams. SBP Press, 2009, pp. 133-134), he was the “ONLY” trinitarian in that city as the others who professed Christ were “ALL” arian/semi-arian (Ibid, 5,5, p. 135). This was, of course, years after the Council of Nicea.
Although Greco-Roman Catholic writers have had many definitions of "Semi-Arians" (most of which disagree with the Continuing Church of God position), one that somewhat defines the binitarian view taken in this article would possibly be this one from Epiphanius in the mid-4th Century,
Semi-Arians .... hold the truly orthodox view of the Son, that he was forever with the Father...but has been begotten without beginning and not in time ... But all of these blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and do not count him in the Godhead with the Father and the Son (Epiphanius. The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books II and III (Sects 47-80), De Fide). Section VI, Verses 1,1 and 1,3. Translated by Frank Williams. EJ Brill, New York, 1994, pp.471-472).
The above description is somewhat consistent with those held by the COGs. We believe Jesus was always God and forever with the Father, but once begotten, became the Son. By not considering that the Holy Spirit is a separate Being, some form of binitarians were called the Pneumatomachi as a subset of Semi-Arians. The Catholic historian Epiphanius described them as
A sort of monstrous, half-formed people of two natures" (Epiphanius. The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books II and III (Sects 47-80), De Fide). Section VI, Verses 1,1 and 1,3. Translated by Frank Williams. EJ Brill, New York, 1994, p.471).
Hence, binitarians have long been subject to criticism by those who accepted the Nicene and later Councils. The simple truth is that the Bible teaches a binitarian view, that true Christians have always had a binitarian view, and that binitarianism was taught throughout history (this is documented in more detail in the article Binitarian View).
The True Unity of God
There are also prophetic ramifications of not going along with the ecumenical trinitaritan compromise.
The Greco-Roman saint Gregory of Nyssa taught it was right to HATE and FIGHT those who did not accept Theodosius’ trinitarian position (Gregory of Nyssa. Letter 17 to Eustathia, Ambrosia, and Basilissa. Translated by William Moore. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893).
Furthermore, we pointed out the following from a Roman Catholic seer:
JANE LE ROYER (d. 1798) SISTER MARY OF THE NATIVITY
“Many precursors, false prophets, and members of infernal secret societies, worshippers of Satan, shall impugn the most sacred dogmas and doctrines of our holy religion, shall persecute the faithful, shall commit abominable actions ...
“When the time of the reign of Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the greatest schism the world has ever known. The nearer the time of the end, the more darkness of Satan will spread on Earth, the greater will be the number of children of corruption, and the number of Just will correspondingly diminish. (Culligan, pp.127,128)
Now the above suggests that secret societies will impugn the most sacred dogmas and doctrines of the Roman Catholic religion. Before Jesus comes, who some Roman Catholic mystics sometimes seem to identify as the Antichrist coming (e.g. see Do Certain Greco-Roman Catholic Prophecies About Antichrist Warn Against Jesus?), Roman Catholics teach that a false religion will arise that is “opposed to the unity of God and His Church.” Those in the true Church of God, of course, have long opposed the compromised church and its Godhead teachings.
In other Roman Catholic writings, it is the trinity that is referred to as the unity of God. The Catholic Encyclopedia states:
The Trinity is the term employed to signify the central doctrine of the Christian religion -- the truth that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another … Three Persons are that One Omnipotent God in whom the Apostles believed. Indeed the unity of God is so fundamental ... (Joyce G.H. The Blessed Trinity. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV Copyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton Company)
The Unity and Trinity of God ... The numerical unity or identity of the divine nature in the Three Persons is indicated in the trinitarian formulas (Ott L. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Nihil Obstat: Jeremiah j. O’Sullivan. Imprimatur: +Cornelius Ep. Corgagiensis ei Ap. Amd. Rossensis, 7 October 1954. Reprint TAN Books, Rockford (IL), 1974, pp. 58-59).
There are some Roman Catholic seers that state that the beginning of the end will occur in the 20th century, but that also refer to a group that is a problem for the Roman Catholics, that some call the “secret sect”:
Ven. Sor Marianne de Jesus Torres (17th Century) ... Our Lady told Sister Marianee: “... But this knowledge will only become known to the general public in the 20th Century.
“During this epoch the Church will find herself attacked by waves of the secret sect ...
“Know, beloved daughter, that when your name is made known in the 20th Century, there will be many who do not believe, claiming this devotion is not pleasing to God ...” (Birch, pp. 317,326).
Nun Anne Catherine Emmerich (about 1820): “I heard that Lucifer (if I don’t mistake) will be freed again for awhile fifty or sixty years before the year 2000 A.D. I have forgotten many of the other dates were told (Emmerich AC. The Life of Lord Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations. Schmöger edition, Vol. IV. Nihil Obstat: D. Jaegher, 14 Februari 1914. Imprimatur: A.C. De Schrevel, Brugis, 14 Februari 1914. Reprint TAN Books, Rockford (IL), 2004, pp. 353-354).
I believe that the Philadelphia-portion of the COG is the secret sect that is being discussed above and that we have affected the Roman Catholics in waves, starting with Herbert W. Armstrong–who put out the Plain Truth magazine for between 50-60 years before 2000 A.D. (specifically from February 1934 until his death in January 1986; he also was on radio and/or television from October 9, 1933 until his death). And thus, I suspect that it may have been Herbert W. Armstrong, that the demons had Nun Emmerich falsely identify as Lucifer.
Furthermore, notice also the following Roman Catholic writing:
“In the Middle Ages, the Popes and Councils were successful in destroying the Jewish revolutionary movements which appeared within Christianity in the form of false teaching and which were introduced by seeming Christians but by Jews in secret. The latter then recruited upright and good Christians for the arising heretical movement by persuading the latter in a crafty way.
“The secret Jews organized and controlled in secret manner the movements, which were the creative and driving-force of wicked false teachings, such as those of the ‘Catarensers,’ of the ‘Patarines,’ of the ‘Albignensians,’ of the ‘Hussites,’ … and others.” (Pinay, Maurice. The Plot Against the Church, Part Four Chapter One. Translated from the German and Spanish editions of the same work–originally from the 19th century. 1962 edition, p.236).
There were true Church of God Christians given the labels that the above book referred to.
Now consider that the “false religion” in the Jane le Royer’s prophecy can only be referring to an anti-trinitarian group. Notice she says that this group “appears” just before Antichrist. Thus, if the “false religion” that appears at the end AND the “secret sect” are the same basic group, then the private prophecies are warning about a group with “Jewish practices” that starts causing them problems in the 20th century, that is anti-trinitarian. This clearly describes the old Worldwide Church of God and, in the 21st century, the Continuing Church of God.
(Pixabay image)
Yet, the Roman Catholics do not understand that the unity of God is.
Nor do they seem to realize it can involve unity with God.
Let’s look at a few verses from the Bible that touch on this:
15... He seeks godly offspring. (Malachi 2:15)
6 I said, “You are gods, And all of you are children of the Most High ...” (Psalm 82:6).
15 I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness. (Psalm 17:15)
10 And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. (John 17:10-11)
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. (Romans 6:5)
11 Now if the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead is dwelling within you, He Who raised Christ from the dead will also quicken your mortal bodies because of His Spirit that dwells within you. (Roman 8:11, A Faithful Version)
3 His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:3-4)
Note that Christian are to attain unity with Jesus, who now is God, when we are resurrected. We are to be deified when we become partakers of the divine nature (see also What is Your Destiny? Deification? Did the Early Church Teach That Christians Would Become God?).
Even Martin Luther, while commenting on 2 Peter 1:4, wrote that believers become "deified" (vergöttet in German) by participation in Christ.
The old Worldwide Church of God taught:
GOD GAVE US A HUMAN SPIRIT SO WE COULD BE UNITED WITH GOD. (Armstrong HW. First Day of Unleavened. Sermon Date: April 6, 1985)
Actually the PURPOSE of God’s Church is to reconcile man -- unite man -- with God. ...
Jesus ... came to call sinners OUT of this evil world, and UNITE them with GOD, ... Jesus’ resurrection made possible our resurrection, for he was “the firstborn [by a resurrection] among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). ... we may be now BEGOTTEN into the KINGDOM (Family) of God, and may, by the resurrection, be BORN into the GOD FAMILY! (Armstrong HW. WHERE Is the True Church? Booklet, 1984)
Man ... needed the addition of God’s Spirit to unite with his spirit, begetting him as a child of God -- uniting him with God -- ultimately to be born into the very GOD FAMILY. ... The only real LIFE, inherent and self-containing, lies in the Holy Spirit of God, united with the human spirit. The value of a human life lies in the human spirit and its potential of being united with God’s Spirit -- which is God-mind and God-life. (Armstrong HW. The Only REAL Value of a Human Life. Plain Truth, February 1984)
In the early 2nd century, a Church of God leader named Ignatius of Antioch, whom the Greco-Roman Catholics consider to be a saint, taught deification and that was the ultimate unity of or with God:
Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to the Church of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ which is in Philadelphia, in Asia, to her that hath found mercy and is established in the unity of God, (Ignatius. Letter to the Philadelphians, 0:1)
For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ, these are with the bishop; and as many as have repented, and have entered into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall be of God, (Ignatius. Letter to the Philadelphians, 3:2)
Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and the prophets, and the apostles, and the Church; all these come into the unity of God. (Ignatius. Letter to the Philadelphians, 9:1)
Be strong in the unity of God, possessing his inseparable Spirit, which is Jesus Christ. (Ignatius. Letter to the Magnesians, 15:1)
I salute your godly bishop and your venerable presbytery [and] my fellow-servants the deacons, and all of you severally and in a body, in the name of Jesus Christ, and in His flesh and blood, in His passion and resurrection, which was both carnal and spiritual, in the unity of God and of yourselves. Grace to you, mercy, peace, patience, always. (Ignatius. Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 12:2)
For neither shall I ever have such [another] opportunity of attaining to God; … It is good to set from the world unto God, that I may rise again to Him. (Ignatius. Letter to the Romans, 2:1,2)
Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can attain unto God. (Ignatius. Letter to the Romans, 4:1)
He is the door of the Father, by which enter in Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the prophets, and the apostles, and the Church. All these have for their object the attaining to the unity of God. (Ignatius. Letter to the Romans, 9:2)
So, Ignatius taught that the goal for God’s people was deification and to do a better, eternal, work–and that humans were to attain the unity of God, and that is something that the church assist with.
In the late 2nd century A.D., Irenaeus of Lyon, who claimed to get some teachings from Polycarp of Smyrna and who is considered a saint by the Greco-Roman Catholics, wrote:
... there is none other called God by the Scriptures except the Father of all, and the Son, and those who possess the adoption (Irenaeus. Adversus haereses, Book IV, Preface, Verse 4. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885).
we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; (Irenaeus. Against Heresies, Book IV, 38:4)
For what meant the excess referred to? In the first place, [we must] believe not only in the Father, but also in His Son now revealed; for He it is who leads man into fellowship and unity with God. (Irenaeus. Against Heresies, Book IV, 13:1)
Yes, Christians are to attain unity of God and are to be deified. Yes, the binitarian position is that the Bible only refers to the Father and Son as actually God, but that those who become true children of God will also be deified.
A Church of God leader named Theophilus of Antioch, who the Greco-Roman Catholics also consider to be a saint, also taught about deification and the unity of God in the late 2nd century:
For if He had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God ... so that if he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God ... For God has given us a law and holy commandments; and every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtaining the resurrection, can inherit incorruption (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book 2, Chapters 26, 27, p. 105).
he who acts righteously shall escape the eternal punishments, and be thought worthy of the eternal life from God. ... And Moses, who himself also was a prophet, says, concerning the sole government of God: “Your God is He who establishes the heaven, and forms the earth, whose hands have brought forth all the host of heaven; and has not set these things before you that you should go after them.” And Isaiah himself also says: “Thus saith the LORD God who established the heavens, and founded the earth and all that is therein, and giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. This is the LORD your God.” And again, through him He says: “I have made the earth, and man upon it. I by my hand have established the heavens.” And in another chapter, “This is your God, who created the ends of the earth; He hungereth not, neither is weary, and there is no searching of His understanding.” So, too, Jeremiah says: “Who hath made the earth by His power, and established the world by His wisdom, and by His discretion hath stretched out the heavens, and a mass of water in the heavens, and He caused the clouds to ascend from the ends of the earth; He made lightnings with rain, and brought forth winds out of His treasures.” One can see how consistently and harmoniously all the prophets spoke, having given utterance through one and the same spirit concerning the unity of God, and the creation of the world, and the formation of man. (Theophilus. To Autolycus, Book II, Chapters 34, 35)
Theophilus taught deification, the unity of God with humans, and doing good for those who were real Christians.
Herbert W. Armstrong taught that he restored truths to the Philadelphian portion of the Church of God that the Ephesus era taught–though he also allowed for the Smyrna era taught. Ignatius was part of the Ephesian era and he taught that deification was how Christians attain the unity of God. Theophilus was part era of the Smyrna era and he taught that deification was how Christians attain the unity of God.
Despite claiming to hold to early teachings, the Church of Rome has a different view of the unity of God.
One of the reasons that the original catholics, who were called Paulicians by the Romans, were persecuted after the time of Theodosius, was because they denied the trinitarian “unity of God” (Gibbon E. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 4. BF French, 1830, pp. 5,28,29). The denial of Theodosius’ trinity looks to be another reason some may cite for future persecution.
Furthermore, notice the following Roman Catholic prophecy that was written between 1810 and 1830:
Nursing Nun of Bellay ... Once again, the madmen seem to gain the upper hand! ... their books and their doctrines are swamping the world. But the day of justice will come. ... the Great Monarch ascends the throne of his ancestors. ... All these things shall come to pass once the wicked have succeeded in circulating large numbers of bad books. (Dupont Y. Catholic Prophecy: The Coming Chastisement. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), 1973, p. 51)
Now “madmen” was a term used by Emperor Theodosius for those who refused to accept his trinitarian position. Hence, the above seems to be saying that when books come out that his doctrinal supporters do not like (perhaps such as Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession?, Islamic and Biblical Prophecies for the 21st Century, Who Gave the World the Bible? The Canon: Why do we have the books we now do in the Bible? Is the Bible complete?, and Lost Tribes and Prophecies: What will happen to Australia, the British Isles, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and the United States of America?), this will cause the Church of Rome problems, but lead to the rise of the Great Monarch–who looks to be the coming European Babylonian Beast power. As far as the “throne of his ancestors” goes, may be a reference to the Hapsburgs (Culleton, The Prophets and Our Times, p. 195) and a resurrected final “Holy Roman Empire” (cf. Revelation 13:1-4) that other Greco-Roman Catholic private prophecies have pointed to. So, again it looks like calling the faithful “madmen” is still part of Satan’s plan.
It should be mentioned that other Greco-Roman Catholics seem to feel that prior to the Antichrist coming, some they associate with him will take a non-trinitarian view of the Godhead. Notice the following Greco-Roman Catholic writings:
Athanasius (4th century): But, whereas one heresy and that the last, which has now risen as harbinger of Antichrist, the Arian, as it is called. (Athanasius. Four Discourses of S. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, Against the Arians Discourse 1. Copyright © 2004 by The National Institute for Newman Studies)
Cardinal Newman (19th century): Thus we have found S. Athanasius calling Arianism “the forerunner of Antichrist,” Syn. § 5, [prodromos], præcursor; vid. also Orat. i. §§ 1 and 7; Ap. c. Ar. fin.; Hist. Ar. 77; Cyr. Cat. xv. 9; Basil. Ep. 264; Hilar. Aux. 5, no distinction being carefully drawn between the apostasy and the Antichrist. (Newman JH. Four Discourses of S. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, Against the Arians Discourse 2. Copyright © 2004 by The National Institute for Newman Studies)
Those of us in the Continuing Church of God espouse what Greco-Roman Catholics have termed semi-Arianism or binitarianism (see Binitarianism: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning), deny the Greco-Roman trinitarian unity of God, and our writings and preaching are often clearly opposed to those now taken by the Roman Catholic Church. They will consider us as supporters of the Antichrist, despite our being faithful. See also: Do Certain Greco-Roman Catholic Prophecies About Antichrist Warn Against Jesus and the Church of God?
The old Worldwide Church of God and groups that came (directly or indirectly) out of it, as far as the Greco-Roman Catholics are concerned, have simply recently appeared out of nowhere. Modern Greco-Roman Catholics are normally not willing to accept that we can trace our spiritual roots throughout history, although our ties to the faithfulness to the earliest apostolic successors, like Polycarp, are much stronger than theirs (see, the free eBook, Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession?).
Despite our long history traced to the original apostles, some assert that we are new and not a continuation of the original faith--hence a religion that supposedly has just appeared. Certain Greco-Roman Catholic sources have long claimed those with original biblical beliefs were “secret Jews ... such as those of the Iconoclasts, the Cathars, the Patarines, the Albigensians, the Hussites, the Alumbrados and others” who opposed their church and they stated should be punished (e.g. Pinay M. The Plot Against the Church, Part Four Chapter One. Translated from the German and Spanish editions of the same work. 1962). Note: Iconclasts are those that oppose idols, and those in the Church of God have long opposed the idols and icons that the Greco-Roman Churches bow down before.
It should also perhaps be pointed out that in the 2oth century, the World Council of Churches formed and it does not allow non-trinitarian churches to be members:
By approving the expanded Basis of membership proposed last summer at St. Andrews, the New Delhi Assembly gave greater ecumenical centrality to the doctrine of the Trinity and to the role of the Bible. Hailed both by Evangelical and by Eastern Orthodox leaders, ... the St. Andrews proposal swept through the General Assembly by a 383–36 vote. Its immediate effect was to disqualify Unitarians from WCC membership. (WCC Approves a Trinitarian Basis, Christianity Today, December 22, 1961)
The above also meant that those who held to the Binitarian View of early Christians could also not be members. In the 21st century, that trinitarian requirement has remained in effect based on human councils, called by Roman emperors:
The doctrine of the Trinity as formulated by the fathers of the church in the Nicene* (325) and Constantinopolitan (381) Creeds and in the Chalcedonian council (451; see Chalcedon) was in fact a great effort to preserve the unity of God, not as an abstract arithmetical or quantitative kind of unity which makes of God an eternal solitude, but precisely the Trinitarian unity as the eternal, indivisible and life-giving communion of the three consubstantial, equal and yet distinct persons, avoiding any separation, confusion and subordination among them. It is precisely the uniqueness of the Trinitarian unity that crucifies the human discursive (or lin- ear) way of thinking. ...
The final doxological formula sets the Christocentric affirmation in a Trini- tarian setting, makes the basis totally ac- ceptable to the Orthodox and adds a celebrative element to the fact of and aspiration for unity. ... The 1961 basis has endured. It continues to sufficiently define the WCC’s nature. But the one sentence and each of its key expres- sions are not static abstractions. They are coloured by the horizons which over 50 years of reflective experience have developed: the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, the scriptures as understood, prayed and witnessed, the fellowship of churches and their common calling, even the glory of the Triune God. (Thomas TK. “WCC, Basis of,” in Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, 2nd ed., ed. Nicholas Lossky et al. Geneva: WCC Publications and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002, pp. 1150, 1239).
The WCC only accepts trinitarians.
Also consider that the Vatican's 2020 document, The Bishop and Christian Unity: An Ecumenical Vademecum, is also aimed at trinitarian churches. Notice some direct quotes from that Vademecum:
Firstly, ecumenism is not premised on compromise as if unity should be achieved at the expense of truth. … Though all revealed truths are believed with the same divine faith, their significance depends on their relation to the saving mysteries of the Trinity and salvation in Christ, the source of all Christian doctrines. By weighing truths rather than simply enumerating them, Catholics gain a more accurate understanding of the unity that exists among Christians. … Because we share a real communion as brothers and sisters in Christ, Catholics not only can, but indeed must, seek out opportunities to pray with other Christians. Accessed 12/05/20 http://www.christianunity.va/content/dam/unitacristiani/Documentazione%20generale/2020Vademecum/Vademecum-EN.pdf
Remember that the sun-worshipping Emperor Constantine was a trinitarian. He called the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. and presided over it as a ‘lay bishop,’ despite not even being baptized. Yet, even then, only 10-15% of the bishops who attended were trinitarian. But Emperor Constantine’s push of it was a factor in more adopting it over the next few decades.
The acceptance of the Greco-Roman trinity was a doctrine officially pushed by Emperor Theodosius.
Hence, it looks to be safely concluded that the ecumenical movement wants non-trinitarians out of the way. Non-trinitarians are expected to be targeted (cf. Revelation 13).
When it come to the truth about the unity of God, remember that it is us in the Continuing Church of God, and not the Greco-Roman Catholics, who hold to the original Christian view of the unity of God.
Plus, we in the Continuing Church of God do not wish to be part of a trinitarian confederation, but part of God's family, which is consistent with what the Apostle Paul taught:
14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? 16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
"I will dwell in them
And walk among them.
I will be their God,
And they shall be My people."17 Therefore
"Come out from among them
And be separate, says the Lord.
Do not touch what is unclean,
And I will receive you."
18 'I will be a Father to you,
And you shall be My sons and daughters,
Says the Lord Almighty." (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)
For more on history and warnings against ecumenical compromise, see also the free online book: Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church.
Concluding Comments
The truth is that the trinity is a doctrine of men. It became adopted because of councils of men.
Jesus warned:
16 "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. 17 But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. (Matthew 10:16-17)
9 "But watch out for yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils, and you will be beaten in the synagogues. You will be brought before rulers and kings for My sake, for a testimony to them. (Mark 13:9)
Some true Christians will have the opportunity to give testimony before councils of men. Testimony that will include the truth about the Godhead and human traditions.
Can you be like Jesus?
"Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2) also warned:
3 Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? (Matthew 15:3)
9 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:9)
The trinitarians somewhat remind me of the Samaritans in Jesus' day. They claimed to be worshiping the God of the Bible, but Jesus disagreed:
9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." (John 4:9-10)
21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:21-24)
The trinity is not the truth about the Godhead. It is a false tradition of men to assert that belief in the trinity is required for salvation!
Do you believe the Bible and the position of early Christians or do you prefer the traditions of men?
The trinity did NOT come from scripture, but from paganism, allegorists, and human councils.
We in the Continuing Church of God believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--but as the Bible, and not as any Greco-Roman council of men defines them. We contend for the original faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).
There simply is no verse in the Bible that clearly teaches the Council of Constantinople defined doctrine of trinitarianism.
There are verses in the Bible that teach that the Father is God, that the Word (Jesus) is God, and that the Holy Spirit is used by those in the Godhead. All the accepted writings of those clearly part of the true Church of God show that they taught the same thing.
The first writers who professed Christianity that promoted some version of the trinity were Valentinus and Montanus. Both are now considered to have been major heretics by the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, most Protestants, and all in the Continuing Church of God. And later writers, such as Tertullian and Origen are also considered to heretics by the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, many Protestants, and those in the Continuing Church of God.
On the other hand, Ignatius, Polycarp, Melito, and others considered to have been saints by the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestants, all taught a binitarian view.
While in the late second and throughout the third century, the idea of trinitarianism became to be developed, it was still not accepted in a form that trinitarians now embrace until 381 A.D. Thus, it should be clear that the early Christian church had more of a binitarian, than trinitarian view. Those interested in the original faith (Jude 3) should re-examine their views if they are not binitarian.
While we in the faithful the Continuing Church of God do believe in the Father (who is God), the Son (who is God) and the Holy Spirit (which is a power eminating from the Father and the Son), we do not accept the trinitarian definition of the Godhead as it is biblically inaccurate and a later historical development.
We expect to be further persecuted for holding the biblical Christian position on the Godhead.
A related sermon is available: Trinity: Fundamental to Christianity or Something Else?
An article of possible interest may be Some Doctrines of Antichrist.
Binitarian View: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning Is binitarianism the correct position? What about unitarianism or trinitarianism?
Is The Father God? What is the view of the Bible? What was the view of the early church?
Jesus is God, But Was Made Man Was Jesus fully human and fully God or what?
Virgin Birth: Does the Bible Teach It? What does the Bible teach? What is claimed in The DaVinci Code?
Did Early Christians Think the Holy Spirit Was A Separate Person in a Trinity? Or did they have a different view?
Did the True Church Ever Teach a Trinity? Most act like this is so, but is it?
Was Unitarianism the Teaching of the Bible or Early Church? Many, including Jehovah's Witnesses, claim it was, but was it?
Binitarianism: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning This is a shorter article than the Binitarian View article, but has a little more information on binitarianism.
Back to Early Christianity page
Thiel B., Ph.D. Did the Trinity Come from Scripture or Councils of Men? www.cogwriter.com/trinity-traditions.htm (c) 2026 0807