Trinity - History

History

Ignatius of Antioch is seen providing early support for the Trinity around 110, exhorting obedience to "Christ, and to the Father, and to the Spirit." Justin Martyr (AD 100–ca.165) also writes, "in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit." However, the first of the early church fathers recorded as actually using the word Trinity was Theophilus of Antioch writing in the late second century. He defines the Trinity as God, His Word (Logos) and His Wisdom (Sophia) in the context of a discussion of the first three days of creation. The first defence of the doctrine of the Trinity was in the early third century by the early church father Tertullian. He explicitly defined the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and defended the Trinitarian theology against the "Praxean" heresy.

Although there is much debate as to whether the beliefs of the Apostles were merely articulated and explained in the Trinitarian Creeds, or were corrupted and replaced with new beliefs, all scholars recognize that the Creeds themselves were created in reaction to disagreements over the nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These controversies, however, were great and many, and took some centuries to be resolved.

Of these controversies, the most significant developments were articulated in the first four centuries by the Church Fathers in reaction to Adoptionism, Sabellianism, and Arianism. Adoptionism was the belief that Jesus was an ordinary man, born of Joseph and Mary, who became the Christ and Son of God at his baptism. In 269, the Synods of Antioch condemned Paul of Samosata for his Adoptionist theology, and also condemned the term homoousios (ὁμοούσιος, "of the same being") in the sense he used it.

Sabellianism taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are aspects of how humanity has interacted with or experienced God. In the role of the Father, God is the provider and creator of all. In the role of the Son, God is manifested in the flesh as a human to bring about the salvation of mankind. In the role of the Holy Spirit, God manifests himself from heaven through his actions on the earth and within the lives of Christians. This view was rejected as heresy by the Ecumenical Councils.

Arianism, which was coming into prominence during the 4th century along with Trinitarianism, taught that the Father came before the Son, and that the Son was a distinct being from the Holy Spirit. In 325, the Council of Nicaea adopted the term homoousios to define the relationship between the Father and the Son that from then on was seen as the hallmark of orthodoxy. This was further developed into the formula "three persons, one being".

Saint Athanasius, who was a participant in the Council, stated that the bishops were forced to use this terminology, which is not found in Scripture, because the Biblical phrases that they would have preferred to use were claimed by the Arians to be capable of being interpreted in what the bishops considered to be a heretical sense. They therefore "commandeered the non-scriptural term homoousios to safeguard the essential relation of the Son to the Father that had been denied by Arius."

Moreover, the meanings of "ousia" and "hypostasis" overlapped then, so that hypostasis for some meant essence and for others person. Athanasius of Alexandria (293–373) helped to separate the terms.

The Confession of the Council of Nicaea said little about the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit was developed by Athanasius in the last decades of his life. He defended and refined the Nicene formula. By the end of the 4th century, under the leadership of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus (the Cappadocian Fathers), the doctrine had reached substantially its current form.

The Ante-Nicene Fathers, although likely foreign to the specifics of Trinitarian theology because they were not defined until the 4th century, nevertheless affirmed Christ's deity and referenced "Father, Son and Holy Spirit". Trinitarians view these as elements of the codified doctrine.

By the end of the 4th century, as a result of controversies concerning the proper sense in which to apply to God, Christ and the Holy Spirit terms such as "person", "nature", "essence", and "substance", the doctrine of the Trinity took the form that has since been maintained in all the historic confessions of Christianity.