Scripture
I. Old and New Testament Parallels of God the Father and God the Son
Exodus 3:14 – God says “I AM who I AM” – John 8:58 – Jesus says “Before Abraham was, I AM” in reference to Himself.
Deut. 4:2; 12:32 – the Lord God commands that we not add or take away from His word – Rev. 22:18-19 – Jesus so commands us not to add or take away from His word.
Deut. 32:39; 1 Sam. 2:6 – the Lord kills and makes alive again and raises up – John 5:21 – the Son raises and gives life.
Deut. 32:39 – neither is there any that can deliver out of God’s hand – John 10:28 – nor shall any pluck out of Jesus’ hand.
Deut. 32:43 – rejoice, ye heavens, with Him, and let all the angels of God worship Him – Heb. 1:6 – the “Him” is Jesus the Son.
2 Sam. 22:3 – God is the horn of salvation – Luke 1:68-69 – Jesus is the horn of salvation.
Psalm 19:7 – the law of the Lord is perfect – Gal. 6:2 – fulfill the law of Christ.
Psalm 24:10 – the Lord is the King of glory – 1 Cor. 2:8 – Jesus is the Lord of glory.
Psalm 45:7 – Therefore God, your God, has anointed you. God calls someone else God. This someone else is His eternally begotten Son – Heb. 1:9 – Therefore God, your God, has anointed you. cf. Heb. 1:8, 10.
Psalm 62:12 – the Lord God renders to each according to his work – Matt. 16:27; Rev. 22:12 – Jesus so renders to each according to his work.
Psalm 71:5 – the Lord God is our hope – 1 Tim. 1:1 – the Lord Jesus Christ who is our hope.
Psalm 89:27 – I will make him the first-born, the highest (“elyon” which refers to God) of the kings of the earth – John 18:36-27 – Jesus is this first-born king.
Psalm 97:9 – the Lord God is above all – John 3:31 – Jesus is above all.
Psalms 110:1 – the Lord (Yahweh) said to my Lord – Jesus = Yhwh – Acts 2:34-36 – God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ.
Psalm 148:1-2 – the angels worship the Lord God – Heb. 1:6 – the angels worship Jesus. Only God is worshiped.
Prov. 3:12 – who the Lord loves He corrects – Rev. 3:19 – who Jesus loves He corrects.
Isaiah 7:14 – a virgin will bear a Son named Emmanuel which means “God is with us” – Matt. 1:23 – this Son is Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.
Isaiah 9:6 – the child to be born shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 25:8 – God swallows up death in victory – 2 Tim. 1:10 – Jesus abolishes death and brings life and immortality.
Isaiah 40:8 – the Word of God shall stand forever – Matt. 24:35 – the Words of Jesus shall not pass away.
Isaiah 42:8 – God gives His glory to no other – John 17:5; Heb. 1:3 – yet Jesus has the same glory as the Father.
Isaiah 43:14 – the Lord God is redeemer – Titus 2:14 – Jesus is the redeemer.
Isaiah 44:6 – the Lord God is the first and the last – Rev. 1:17; 2:8; 22:13 – Jesus is the first and the last.
Isaiah 45:19 – I, the Lord God, did not speak in secret – John 18:20 – Jesus said “I have said nothing secretly.”
Isaiah 45:23 – to God, every knee shall bow and every tongue swear. Phil. 2:10-11 – at Jesus’ name every knee should bow and tongue confess.
Isaiah 48:17 – God is the Holy One – Acts 3:14 – Jesus is the Holy One.
Isaiah 60:19 – God is everlasting light – Revelation 21:23 – Jesus the Lamb is eternal light.
Jer. 17:10 – the Lord searches the hearts and repays us according to our deeds – Rev. 2:23 – Jesus searches the hearts and repays us according to our deeds.
Ezek. 1:26-28; Daniel 7:9 – God’s glorious appearance – Rev. 1:13-16 – Jesus’ glorious appearance.
Ezek. 34:11-31 – God the Father is the shepherd of the flock – John 10:7-29 – Jesus is the shepherd of the flock.
Ezek. 34:16 – God seeks to save that which was lost – Luke 19:10 – Jesus seeks to save that which was lost.
Ezek. 34:17 – God judges between cattle, rams and goats – Matt. 25:32 – Jesus judges and separates the goats from the sheep.
Ezek. 43:2 – God’s voice was like a noise of many waters – Rev. 1:15 – Jesus’ voice was like the sound of many waters.
Dan. 2:47 – the Lord is the God of gods and the Lord of Lords – Rev. 17:14 – Jesus the Lamb is the Lord of Lords.
II. Jesus Christ’s Witnesses Claim that Jesus is God
John 1:1 – John writes, “the Word was God.” This is clear evidence of Jesus Christ’s divinity. (Note: in the Jehovah’s bible, the passage was changed to “Word was a god.” This is not only an embarrassing attempt to deny the obvious divinity of Christ, but it also violates the first commandment and Isaiah 43:10 because it acknowledges that there is more than one God).
John 1:2-3 – He (the Word) was in the beginning with God and all things were made through Him (the Word who was God).
John 1:14 – the Word (who is God) became flesh (Jesus) and dwelled among us, full of grace and truth.
John 1:18 – the Greek word for “only-begotten” is “monogenes” which means unique, only member of a kind. It does not mean created.
John 1:51 – the angels of God – Matt. 13:41 – Son of Man’s angels; 2 Thess. 1:7 – Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His angels.
John 3:5 – Jesus says without baptism one cannot enter into the Kingdom of God – Col. 1:13 – Paul says this is Jesus’ Kingdom.
John 6:68-69 – Peter confesses that Jesus is the Son of God who has the words of eternal life.
Acts 2:36 – God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ – Acts 4:24 – Sovereign Lord who made heaven and earth. This means Jesus is God.
Acts 3:15 – Peter said the men of Israel “killed the Author of Life.” This can only be God – Acts 14:15 – who made all things.
Acts 20:28 – to care for the Church of God which He obtained with His own blood. This means God shed His blood. When? When He died on the cross. This means Jesus is God.
Rom. 1:1 – Paul is an apostle of the Gospel of God – Rom. 15:19 – Paul preached the Gospel of Christ.
Rom. 7:22 – Paul says he delights in the law of God – Gal. 6:2 – Paul says fulfill the law of Christ.
Rom. 8:9 – Paul refers to both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ.
Rom. 9:5 – Jesus Christ is God over all, blessed forever.
Rom. 11:36 – God for from Him through Him and to Him are all things – Heb. 2:10 – Jesus for whom and by whom are all things.
1 Cor. 15:9 – Paul says he persecuted the Church of God – Matt. 16:18; Rom. 16:16 – it is the Church of Jesus Christ.
1 Cor. 15:28 – God may be all in all – Colossians 3:11 – Christ is all and in all.
Gal. 1:5 – God the Father to whom be the glory forever – 2 Peter 3:18 – to Jesus Christ be the glory both now and forever.
Phil. 2:6-7 – Jesus was in the form of God, but instead of asserting His equality with God, emptied Himself for us.
Col. 1:15 – Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the “firstborn” of all creation. The Greek word for “first-born” is “prototokos” which means eternal preexistence (it never means created).
Col. 1:26 – God’s saints – 1 Thess. 3:13 – at the coming of Jesus Christ with all His saints.
Col. 2:9 – in Jesus Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. He is the whole and entire fullness of the indivisible God in the flesh.
Titus 1:1 – Paul says he is a servant of God – Rom. 1:1 – Paul says he is a servant of Jesus Christ.
Titus 1:3-4 – God our Savior = Christ our Savior = Jesus Christ is God.
Titus 2:11 – the grace of God that has appeared to save all men – Acts 15:11 – through the grace of Jesus we have salvation.
Titus 2:13 – we await our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
Titus 3:4 – 3:6 – great God and Savior Jesus Christ = God our Savior = Jesus Christ our Savior = Jesus is God.
Heb. 1:6 – when God brings His first-born into the world, let all the angels of God worship Him. Only God is worshiped.
Heb. 1:8 – God calls the Son “God.” But of the Son He says, “Thy Throne Oh God is forever and ever.”
Heb. 1:9 – God calls the Son “God.” “Therefore, God, Thy God has anointed Thee.”
Heb. 1:10 – God calls the Son “Lord.” “And thou, Lord, didst found the earth in the beginning and the heavens are your work.”
Heb. 13:12 – Paul says Jesus sanctifies the people with His blood – 1 Thess. 5:23 – the God of peace sanctifies the people.
2 Peter 1:1 – to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
1 John 5:20 – “that we may know Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”
Jude 4 – Jude calls Jesus Christ our only Master and Lord. Our only Master and Lord is God Himself.
Rev. 2:8 – the angel of the church in Smyrna wrote, “The words of the First and the Last, who died and came to life.” See Isa. 44:6.
Rev. 22:6 – the Lord God sends angels – Rev. 22:16 – Jesus sends angels.
III. Jesus Christ Claims to be God
Matt. 4:7; Luke 4:12 – Jesus tells satan, “you shall not tempt the Lord your God” in reference to Himself.
Matt. 5:21-22; 27-28; 31-32; 33-34; 38-39; 43-44 – Jesus makes Himself equal to God when He declares, “You heard it said…but I say to you..”
Matt. 7:21-22; Luke 6:46 – not everyone who says to Jesus, “Lord, Lord.” Jesus calls Himself Lord, which is God.
Matt. 9:2; Mark 2:5; Luke 5:20; 7:48 – Jesus forgives sins. Only God can forgive sins.
Matt. 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5 – Jesus says that He is “Lord of the Sabbath.” He is the Lord of God’s law which means He is God.
Matt. 18:20 – Jesus says where two or three are gathered in His name, there He is in the midst of them.
Matt. 21:3; Luke 19:31,34 – Jesus calls himself “Lord.” “The Lord has need of them.”
Matt. 26:64; Mark 14:62; Luke 22:70 – Jesus acknowledges that He is the Son of God.
Matt. 28:20 – Jesus said He is with us always, even unto the end of the world. Only God is omnipresent.
Mark 14:36 – Jesus calls God “Abba,” Aramaic for daddy, which was an absolutely unprecedented address to God and demonstrates Jesus’ unique intimacy with the Father.
Luke 8:39 – Luke reports that Jesus said “tell how much God has done for you.” And the man declared how much Jesus did.
Luke 17:18 – Jesus asks why the other nine lepers did not come back to give praise to Him, God, except the Samaritan leper.
Luke 19:38,40 – Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. If these were silent, the very stones would cry out.
John 5:18 – Jesus claimed to be God. The Jews knew this because Jesus called God His Father and made Himself equal to God. This is why Jesus was crucified.
John 5:21-22 – Jesus gives life and says that all judgment has been given to Him by the Father.
John 5:23 – Jesus equates Himself with the Father, “whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.”
John 6:38 – Jesus says, “For I have come down from heaven.”
John 8:12 – Jesus says “I am the light of the world.” – 1 John 1:5 – God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
John 8:19 – Jesus says, “if you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
John 8:23 – Jesus says that He is not of this world. Only God is not of this world.
John 8:58 – Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Exodus 3:14 – “I AM” means “Yahweh,” which means God.
John 10:18 – Jesus says He has the power to lay down His life and take it up again – Gal. 1:1 – God raised Jesus to life.
John 10:30 – Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” They are equal. The Jews even claimed Jesus made Himself equal to God. Jesus’ statement in John 14:28, “the Father is greater than I,” cannot contradict John 10:30 (the Word of God is never in conflict). Jesus’ statement in John 14:28 simply refers to His human messianic role as servant and slave, which He, and not the Father or the Holy Spirit, undertook in the flesh.
John 10:36 – again, Jesus claims that He is “the Son of God.”
John 10:38; 14:10 – “the Father is in me and I am in the Father” means the Father and Son are equal.
John 12:45 – Jesus says, “He who sees Me sees Him who sent Me.” God the Father is equal to God the Son.
John 13:13 – Jesus says, “You call me Teacher and Lord and you are right for so I AM.”
John 14:6 – Jesus says “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” Only God is the way, the truth and the life.
John 16:15 – Jesus says, “all things that the Father has are Mine.” Jesus has everything God has which makes Him God.
John 16:28 – Jesus says that “He came from the Father and has come into the world.”
John 17:5,24 – Jesus’ desire is for us to behold His glory which He had before the foundation of the world.
John 20:17 – Jesus distinguishes His relationship to the Father from our relationship by saying “My Father and your Father.”
Rev. 1:8 – God says He is the “Alpha and the Omega.” In Rev. 22:13, Jesus also says He is the “Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the beginning and the end.” The only possible conclusion one can reach is that Jesus is equal to the Lord God.
Rev. 1:17 – Jesus says again, “I am the First and the Last.” This is in reference to the God prophesied by Isaiah in Isaiah 44:6, 41:4, 48:12.
Rev. 1:18 – Jesus, the First and the Last, also says “I died, and behold, I am alive for evermore.” When did God ever die? He only did in the humanity of Jesus Christ our Lord and God.
Rev. 2:8 – Jesus again says, “The words of the First and the Last, who died and came to life.” When did God die and come to life? In our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
IV. Jesus’ Miracles Testify that He is God
Matt. 1:23; Mark 1:27,35 – Jesus was conceived in the virginal womb of the Blessed Mother.
Matt. 3:16-17; Mark 1:10-11; John 1:32 – God’s Spirit descends upon Jesus and the Father declares Jesus to be His Son.
Matt. 4:23-24; 9:35;15:30; Mark 1:34; 3:10; 6:5; Luke 4:40; 7:10; 13:13; 14:4; John 4:52 – Jesus miraculously cures illness and disease.
Matt. 7:35 – Jesus cures a deaf person with a speech impediment.
Matt. 8:3; Mark 1:41; Luke 5:13; 17:14 – Jesus cures leprosy.
Matt. 9:21-22; Mark 5:27-34; Luke 8:44 – the hem of Jesus’ cloak cures the woman with the hemorrhage. See also Matt. 14:36.
Matt. 8:13; 9:7; Mark 2:9; Luke 5:25 – Jesus cures those who are paralyzed.
Matt. 8:15; Mark 1:31; Luke 4:39 – Jesus cures Peter’s mother-in-law’s fever.
Matt. 8:26; Mark 4:39; Luke 8:24 – Jesus calms the storm. Even the wind and sea obey Him.
Matt. 8:32; 9:33; 12:22; 15:28; 17:18; Mark 1:26,34; 3:11; 5:13; 7:30; 9:26; Luke 4:35,41; 8:33; 9:42; 11:14 – Jesus has power over demons.
Matt. 9:4; 12:25; Luke 6:8; 11:17 – Jesus knows people’s thoughts.
Matt. 9:25; Mark 5:24; John 11:44 – Jesus raises people from the dead.
Matt. 9:30; 12:22; 20:34; 21:14; Mark 8:25; 10:52; Luke 7:21; 18:42; John 9:11 – Jesus cures the blind.
Matt. 12:13; Mark 3:5; Luke 6:10 – Jesus cures the man with the withered hand.
Matt. 14:19-20; 5:36-37; Mark 6:41-42; 8:7-8; Luke 9:16-17; John 6:11 – Jesus multiplies the loaves and fish and feeds the crowd of thousands.
Matt. 14:26; Mark 6:48; John 6:19 – Jesus walks on water.
Matt. 15:21; 16:21; 17:9,22; 20:18-19; 26:2; Mark 10:33-34; Luke 9:44; 17:25; 18:32-34 – Jesus predicts His passion.
Matt. 17:2; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:29 – Jesus is transfigured in glory.
Matt. 17:27 – Jesus miraculously has a shekel appear in the mouth of a fish.
Matt. 21:2-3; Mark 11:2; Luke 19:30 – Jesus predicts that a colt would be available for Him.
Matt. 21:19; Mark 11:14,20 – Jesus curses the fig tree and it withers.
Matt. 24:34; Mark 13:2; Luke 21:32 – Jesus predicts the fall of Jerusalem which occurred in 70 A.D.
Matt. 26:21-25; Mark 14:18-20; Luke 22:21; John 13:21,26 – Jesus predicts Judas’ betrayal.
Matt. 26:26-28; Mk. 14:22,24; Luke 22;19-20; 1 Cor. 11:24-25 – Jesus changes bread and wine into His body and blood.
Matt. 26:34; Mark 14:30; Luke 22:34; John 13:38 – Jesus predicts Peter’s denial.
Matt. 27:51-54; Mark 15:38-39 – supernatural events occur at Jesus’ death.
Matt. 28:9; Mark 16:9,12,14; Luke 7:14-15; 8:54-55; 24:5,31,36; John 20:14,19,26; 21:1-14 – Jesus rises from the dead.
Mark 14:13; Luke 22:10 – Jesus predicts that a man carrying a jug of water will show them the furnished room for the Passover.
Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51 – Jesus ascends into heaven.
Luke 2:13-14 – the angels praise Jesus’ birth.
Luke 5:7; John 21:6 – Jesus directs the miraculous catch of fish.
Luke 24:31 – Jesus has the ability to vanish out of sight.
John 2:9 – Jesus changes water into wine.
John 13:36; 21:18 – Jesus predicts Peter’s death. Peter was martyred in Rome around 67 A.D.
John 20:19,26 – Jesus has the ability to appear even when the doors are locked.
V. Jesus Christ is Worshiped
Rev. 4:9-11; 5:8,12-14; 7:11-12 – both Jesus and the Father are worshiped. The Greek word for worship is “proskuneo” which always means the worship of God.
Matt. 2:2,11 – the magi who came to see the newborn Jesus came to worship Him.
Matt. 8:2 – a leper came to Jesus and worshiped Him without rebuke.
Matt. 14:33 – the apostles who were in the boat worshiped Jesus without rebuke.
Matt. 28:9 – Jesus’ disciples took His feet and worshiped Him without rebuke.
Matt. 28:17 – Jesus’ disciples saw Him and then worshiped Him.
Mark 5:6 – the man with the unclean spirit ran to Jesus and worshiped Him.
Luke 1:11 – Mary accepts Elizabeth’s declaration “the Mother of my Lord” = the Mother of my God (Elizabeth used the word “Adonai” which means “Lord God”).
Luke 24:52 – as Jesus ascended into heaven, the apostles worshiped Him.
John 9:38 – the blind man who was cured by Jesus worshiped Him.
John 20:28 – Jesus accepts Thomas’ statement “My Lord and my God!” Literally, “the Lord of me and the God of me!” (in Greek, “Ho Kurios mou kai ho Theos mou”).
Tradition / Church Fathers
I. Jesus is God the Son
“We have also as a Physician the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin.” Ignatius of Antioch, To the Ephesians, 7 (A.D. 110).
“For if you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable God.” Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 121 (A.D. 155).
“God was in the beginning; but the beginning, we have been taught, is the power of the Logos. For the Lord of the universe, who is Himself the necessary ground of all being, inasmuch as no creature was yet in existence, was alone; but inasmuch as He was all power, Himself the necessary ground of things visible and invisible, with Him were all things; with Him, by Logos-power, the Logos Himself also, who was in Him, subsists. And by His simple will the Logos springs forth; and the Logos, not coming forth in vain, becomes the first-begotten work of the Father. Him (the Logos) we know to be the beginning of the world. But He came into being by participation, not by abscission; for what is cut off is separated from the original substance, but that which comes by participation, making its choice of function, does not render him deficient from whom it is taken. For just as from one torch many fires are lighted, but the light of the first torch is not lessened by the kindling of many torches, so the Logos, coming forth from the Logos-power of the Father, has not divested of the Logos-power Him who begat Him.” Tatian the Syrian, Oration Against the Greeks, 5 (c. A.D. 175).
“We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales, when we announce that God was born in the form of a man.” Tatian the Syrian, Oration Against the Greeks, 21 (c. A.D. 175).
“But the Son of God is the Logos of the Father, in idea and in operation; for after the pattern of Him and by Him were all things made, the Father and the Son being one. And, the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son, in oneness and power of spirit, the understanding and reason of the Father is the Son of God. But if, in your surpassing intelligence, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by the Son, I will state briefly that He is the first product of the Father, not as having been brought into existence (for from the beginning, God, who is the eternal mind, had the Logos in Himself, being from eternity instinct with Logos.” Athenagoras, Plea for Christians, 10 (A.D. 177).
“We have already asserted that God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word, and Reason, and Power. It is abundantly plain that your philosophers, too, regard the Logos–that is, the Word and Reason–as the Creator of the universe…And we, in like manner, hold that the Word, and Reason, and Power, by which we have said God made all, have spirit as their proper and essential substratum, in which the Word has inbeing to give forth utterances, and reason abides to dispose and arrange, and power is over all to execute. We have been taught that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated; so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun–there is no division of substance, but merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled. The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities; so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence–in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united.” Tertullian, Apology, 21 (A.D. 197).
“But nothing exists, the cause of whose existence is not supplied by God. Nothing, then, is hated by God, nor yet by the Word. For both are one–that is, God.” Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, I:8 (A.D. 202).
“And thus there appeared another beside Himself. But when I say another, I do not mean that there are two Gods, but that it is only as light of light, or as water from a fountain, or as a ray from the sun. For there is but one power, which is from the All; and the Father is the All, from whom cometh this Power, the Word. And this is the mind which came forth into the world, and was manifested as the Son of God.” Hippolytus, Against the Heresy of One Noetus, 11 (A.D. 210).
“The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God.” Hippolytus, Refutation against All Heresies, 10:29 (A.D. 220).
“Secondly, That Jesus Christ Himself, who came (into the world), was born of the Father before all creatures; that, after He had been the servant of the Father in the creation of all things–‘For by Him were all things made’–He in the last times, divesting Himself (of His glory), became a man, and was incarnate although God, and while made a man remained the God which He was; that He assumed a body like to our own, differing in this respect only, that it was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit: that this Jesus Christ was truly born, and did truly suffer, and did not endure this death common (to man) in appearance only, but did truly die; that He did truly rise from the dead; and that after His resurrection He conversed with His disciples, and was taken up into heaven.” Origen, First Principles, Preface 4 (A.D. 230).
“For Scripture as much announces Christ as also God, as it announces God Himself as man.” Novatian, Concerning the Trinity, 11 (A.D. 235).
“If of Christ; he could not become His temple, since he denies that Christ is God.” Cyprian, To Jubaianus, Epistle 72[73]:12 (A.D. 256).
“But since He [Jesus] is God in reality and without any shadow of doubt, do you think that we will deny that He is worshipped by us with all the fervour we are capable of, and assumed as the guardian of our body? Is that Christ of yours a god, then? some raving, wrathful, and excited man will say. A god, we will reply.” Arnobius, Against the Heathen, 1:42 (A.D. 305).
“He became both the Son of God through the Spirit, and the Son of man through the flesh,–that is, both God and man.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 4:13 (A.D. 310).
“…And in one Lord Jesus Christ,the Son of God,begotten from the Father,only-begotten,that is,from the substance of the Father,God from God,light from light,true God from true God,begotten not made,of one substance with the Father…” Creed of Nicea (A.D. 325).
“Believe also in the Son of God, One and Only, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who was be-gotten God of God, begotten Life of Life, begotten Light of Light, Who is in all things likes to Him that begat, Who received not His being in time, but was before all ages eternally and incomprehensibly begotten of the Father: The Wisdom and the Power of God, and His Righteousness personally subsisting: Who sitteth on the right hand of the Father before all ages.” Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 4:7 (A.D. 350).
“[S]ince the generation of the Son from the Father is not according to the nature of men, and not only like, but also inseparable from the essence of the Father, and He and the Father are one, as He has said Himself, and the Word is ever in the Father and the Father in the Word, as the radiance stands towards the light (for this the phrase itself indicates), therefore the Council, as understanding this, suitably wrote ‘one in essence,’ that they might both defeat the perverseness of the heretics, and shew that the Word was other than originated things.” Athanasius, Defence of the Nicene Council, 20 (A.D. 350).
“But, since in Christ there is the fulness of the Godhead, we have herein a revelation of God the Father joining to raise us in Him Who died; and we must confess that Christ Jesus is none other than God in all the fulness of the Deity.” Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, 1:13 (A.D. 359).
“Thus you cannot add together God the Father and God the Son, and count Them as two Gods, for They Two are One God. You cannot confuse Them together, for They Two are not One Person. And so the Apostolic faith rejects two gods; for it knows nothing of two Fathers or two Sons.” Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, 7:31 (A.D. 359).
“On this account and reasonably, having said before, ‘I and the Father are One,’ He added, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me,’ by way of shewing the identity of Godhead and the unity of Essence. For they are one, not as one thing divided into two parts, and these nothing but one, nor as one thing twice named, so that the Same becomes at one time Father, at another His own Son, for this Sabellius holding was judged an heretic. But They are two, because the Father is Father and is not also Son, and the Son is Son and not also Father; but the nature is one; (for the offspring is not unlike its parent, for it is his image), and all that is the Father’s, is the Son’s. Wherefore neither is the Son another God, for He was not procured from without, else were there many, if a godhead be procured foreign from the Father’s; for if the Son be other, as an Offspring, still He is the Same as God; and He and the Father are one in propriety and peculiarity of nature, and in the identity of the one Godhead, as has been said.” Athanasius, Orations, III:4 (A.D. 362).
“For the radiance also is light, not second to the sun, nor a different light, nor from participation of it, but a whole and proper offspring of it. And such an offspring is necessarily one light; and no one would say that they are two lights, but sun and radiance two, yet one the light from the sun enlightening in its radiance all things. So also the Godhead of the Son is the Father’s; whence also it is indivisible; and thus there is one God and none other but He. And so, since they are one, and the Godhead itself one, the same things are said of the Son, which are said of the Father, except His being said to be Father:–for instance, that He is God, ‘And the Word was God;’ Almighty, ‘Thus saith He which was and is and is to come, the Almighty;’ Lord, ‘One Lord Jesus Christ;’ that He is Light, ‘I am the Light;’ that He wipes out sins, ‘that ye may know,’ He says, ‘that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins;’ and so with other attributes. For ‘all things,’ says the Son Himself, ‘whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine;’ and again, ‘And Mine are Thine.'” Athanasius, Orations, III:4 (A.D. 362).
“Worshipping as we do God of God, we both confess the distinction of the Persons, and at the same time abide by the Monarchy. We do not fritter away the theology in a divided plurality, because one Form, so to say, united in the invariableness of the Godhead, is beheld in God the Father, and in God the Only begotten. For the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; since such as is the latter, such is the former, and such as is the former, such is the latter; and herein is the Unity. So that according to the distinction of Persons, both are one and one, and according to the community of Nature, one. How, then, if one and one, are there not two Gods? Because we speak of a king, and of the king’s image, and not of two kings. The majesty is not cloven in two, nor the glory divided. The sovereignty and authority over us is one, and so the doxology ascribed by us is not plural but one; because the honour paid to the image passes on to the prototype.” Basil, On the Spirit, 45 (A.D. 375).
“Now what in the one case the image is by reason of imitation, that in the other case the Son is by nature; and as in works of art the likeness is dependent on the form, so in the case or the divine and uncompounded nature the union consists in the communion of the Godhead. One, moreover, is the Holy Spirit, and we speak of Him singly, conjoined as He is to the one Father through the one Son, and through Himself completing the adorable and blessed Trinity. Of Him the intimate relationship to the Father and the Son is sufficiently declared by the fact of His not being ranked in the plurality of the creation, but being spoken of singly; for he is not one of many, but One. For as there is one Father and one Son, so is there one Holy Ghost. He is consequently as far removed from created Nature as reason requires the singular to be removed from compound and plural bodies; and He is in such wise united to the Father and to the Son as unit has affinity with unit.” Basil, On the Spirit, 45 (A.D. 375).
“Further, that none may fall into error, let a man attend to those signs vouchsafed us by holy Scripture, whereby we may know the Son. He is called the Word, the Son, the Power of God, the Wisdom of God. The Word, because He is without blemish; the Power, because He is perfect; the Son, because He is begotten of the Father; the Wisdom, because He is one with the Father, one in eternity, one in Divinity. Not that the Father is one Person with the Son; between Father and Son is the plain distinction that comes of generation; so that Christ is God of God, Everlasting of Everlasting, Fullness of Fullness. Now these are not mere names, but signs of power manifesting itself in works for while there is fullness of Godhead in the Father, there is also fullness of Godhead in the Son, not diverse, but one. The Godhead is nothing confused, for it is an unity: nothing manifold, for in it there is no difference.” Ambrose, On the Christian Faith, 1:2,16-17 (A.D. 380).
“We believe…in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten from the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father…” Creed of Constantinople (A.D. 381).
“If anyone does not say that the Son of God is true God just as [His] Father is true God [and] He is all-powerful and omniscient and equal to the Father, he is a heretic.” Council of Rome, Tome of Pope Damasus, Canon 12 (A.D. 382).
“At what point, then, does Eunomius assent to the truth? When he says that the Lord Himself, being the Son of the living God, not being ashamed of His birth from the Virgin, often named Himself, in His own sayings, ‘the Son of Man’? For this phrase we also allege for proof of the community of essence, because the name of Son’ shows the community of nature to be equal in both cases. For as He is called the Son of Man by reason of the kindred of His flesh to her of whom He was born, so also He is conceived, surely, as the Son of God, by reason of the connection of His essence with that from which He has His existence, and this argument is the greatest weapon of the truth. For nothing so clearly points to Him Who is the mediator between God and man’ (as the great Apostle called Him), as the name of Son,’ equally applicable to either nature, Divine or Human. For the same Person is Son of God, and was made, in the Incarnation, Son of Man, that, by His communion with each, He might link together by Himself what were divided by nature. Now if, in becoming Son of Man, he were without participation in human nature, it would be logical to say that neither does He share in the Divine essence, though He is Son of God. But if the whole compound nature of man was in Him (for He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin), it is surely necessary to believe that every property of the transcendent essence is also in Him, as the Word Son’ claims for Him both alike–the Human in the man, but in the God the Divine.” Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, 3:4 (A.D. 384).
“In my opinion He is called Son because He is identical with the Father in Essence; and not only for this reason, but also because He is Of Him. And He is called Only-Begotten, not because He is the only Son and of the Father alone, and only a Son; but also because the manner of His Sonship is peculiar to Himself and not shared by bodies.” Gregory of Nazianzen, Oration, 30:20 (ante A.D. 389).
“And Christ also, after having said that I receive not testimony from man’ (c. v. 34), in order that He may not seem to the foolish to clash with Himself, by declaring at one time There is another that beareth witness of Me and I know that his witness is true’ (c. v. 32) (for He pointed to John;) and at another, I receive not testimony from man’ (c. v. 34); He immediately adds the solution of the doubt, But these things I say’ for your own sake, that ye might be saved.’ As though He had said, that I am God, and the really-Begotten Son of God, and am of that Simple and Blessed Essence, I need none to witness to Me; and even though none would do so, yet am not I by this anything diminished in My Essence; but because I care for the salvation of the many, I have descended to such humility as to commit the witness of Me to a man.'” John Chrysostom, Homily on John, VI:7 (c. A.D. 391).
“But if the Son is said to be sent by the Father on this account, that the one is the Father, and the other the Son, this does not in any manner hinder us from believing the Son to be equal, and consubstantial, and co-eternal with the Father, and yet to have been sent as Son by the Father. Not because the one is greater, the other less; but because the one is Father, the other Son; the one begetter, the other begotten; the one, He from whom He is who is sent; the other, He who is from Him who sends.” Augustine, On the Trinity, 4:20 (A.D. 416).
“The Word of God, then, the only-begotten Son of the Father, in all things like and equal to the Father, God of God, Light of Light, Wisdom of Wisdom, Essence of Essence, is altogether that which the Father is, yet is not the Father, because the one is Son, the other is Father. And hence He knows all that the Father knows; but to Him to know, as to be, is from the Father, for to know and to be is there one. And therefore, as to be is not to the Father from the Son, so neither is to know. Accordingly, as though uttering Himself, the Father begat the Word equal to Himself in all things; for He would not have uttered Himself wholly and perfectly, if there were in His Word anything more or less than in Himself.” Augustine, On the Trinity, 15:14 (A.D. 416).
II. God is One in Three Divine Persons
Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the times of Tiberius Caesar; and that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove.” Justin Martyr, First Apology, 13 (A.D. 155).
“[T]he ever-truthful God, hast fore-ordained, hast revealed beforehand to me, and now hast fulfilled. Wherefore also I praise Thee for all things, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, with whom, to Thee, and the Holy Ghost, be glory both now and to all coming ages. Amen.” Martyrdom of Polycarp 14 (A.D. 157).
“For God did not stand in need of these [beings], in order to the accomplishing of what He had Himself determined with Himself beforehand should be done, as if He did not possess His own hands. For with Him were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks, saying, ‘Let Us make man after Our image and likeness;’ He taking from Himself the substance of the creatures [formed], and the pattern of things made, and the type of all the adornments in the world.” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4,20:1 (A.D. 180).
“And first, they taught us with one consent that God made all things out of nothing; for nothing was coequal with God: but He being His own place, and wanting nothing, and existing before the ages, willed to make man by whom He might be known; for him, therefore, He prepared the world. For he that is created is also needy; but he that is uncreated stands in need of nothing. God, then, having His own Word internal within His own bowels, begat Him, emitting Him along with His own wisdom before all things. He had this Word as a helper in the things that were created by Him, and by Him He made all things. He is called governing principle’ (arche), because He rules, and is Lord of all things fashioned by Him. He, then, being Spirit of God, and governing principle, and wisdom, and power of the highest, came down upon the prophets, and through them spoke of the creation of the world and of all other things. For the prophets were not when the world came into existence, but the wisdom of God which was in Him, and His holy Word which was always present with Him. Wherefore He speaks thus by the prophet Solomon: When He prepared the heavens I was there, and when He appointed the foundations of the earth I was by Him as one brought up with Him.’ And Moses, who lived many years before Solomon, or, rather, the Word of God by him as by an instrument, says, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'” Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, II:10 (c. A.D. 181).
“In the course of time, then, the Father forsooth was born, and the Father suffered, God Himself, the Lord Almighty, whom in their preaching they declare to be Jesus Christ. We, however, as we indeed always have done and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete, who leads men indeed into all truth), believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, or oikonomia, as it is called, that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her–being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. That this rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the gospel, even before any of the older heretics, much more before Praxeas, a pretender of yesterday, will be apparent both from the lateness of date which marks all heresies, and also from the absolutely novel character of our new-fangled Praxeas.” Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 2 (post A.D. 213).
“Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and so will you know in what sense this is said. Now, observe, my assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that They are distinct from Each Other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated as well as every perversely disposed person, as if it predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. I am, moreover, obliged to say this, when (extolling the Monarchy at the expense of the Economy) they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is different, but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. 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, inasmuch as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too, who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is another.” Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 9 (post A.D. 213).
“Happily the Lord Himself employs this expression of the person of the Paraclete, so as to signify not a division or severance, but a disposition (of mutual relations in the Godhead); for He says, I will pray the Father, and He shall send you another Comforter. …even the Spirit of truth,’ thus making the Paraclete distinct from Himself, even as we say that the Son is also distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of the order observed in the Economy. Besides, does not the very fact that they have the distinct names of Father and San amount to a declaration that they are distinct in personality? For, of course, all things will be what their names represent them to be; and what they are and ever will be, that will they be called; and the distinction indicated by the names does not at all admit of any confusion, because there is none in the things which they designate. “Yes is yes, and no is no; for what is more than these, cometh of evil.” Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 9 (post A.D. 213).
“[T]he statements made regarding Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are to be understood as transcending all time, all ages, and all eternity. For it is the Trinity alone which exceeds the comprehension not only of temporal but even of eternal intelligence; while other things which are not included in it are to be measured by times and ages.” Origen, First Principles, 4:28 (A.D. 230).
“”Next, I may reasonably turn to those who divide and cut to pieces and destroy that most sacred doctrine of the Church of God, the Divine Monarchy, making it as it were three powers and partitive subsistences and god-heads three. I am told that some among you who are catechists and teachers of the Divine Word, take the lead in this tenet, who are diametrically opposed, so to speak, to Sabellius’s opinions; for he blasphemously says that the Son is the Father, and the Father the Son, but they in some sort preach three Gods, as dividing the sacred Monad into three subsistences foreign to each other and utterly separate. For it must needs be that with the God of the Universe, the Divine Word is united, and the Holy Ghost must repose and habitate in God; thus in one as in a summit, I mean the God of the Universe, must the Divine Triad be gathered up and brought together. For it is the doctrine of the presumptuous Marcion, to sever and divide the Divine Monarchy into three origins,–a devil’s teaching, not that of Christ’s true disciples and lovers of the Saviour’s lessons, For they know well that a Triad is preached by divine Scripture, but that neither Old Testament nor New preaches three Gods.” Pope Dionysius [regn. 260-268], to Dionysius of Alexandria, fragment in Athanasius’ Nicene Definition 26 (A.D. 262).
“Equally must one censure those who hold the: Son to be a work, and consider that the Lord has come into being, as one of things which really came to be; whereas the divine oracles witness to a generation suitable to Him and becoming, but not to any fashioning or making. A blasphemy then is it, not ordinary, but even the highest, to say that the Lord is in any sort a handiwork. For if He came to be Son, once He was not; but He was always, if (that is) He be in the Father, as He says Himself, and if the Christ be Word and Wisdom and Power (which, as ye know, divine Scripture says), and these attributes be powers of God. If then the Son came into being, once these attributes were not; consequently there was a time, when God was without them; which is most absurd…
Neither then may we divide into three Godheads the wonderful and divine Monad; nor disparage with the name of ‘work’ the dignity and exceeding majesty of the Lord; but we must believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Christ Jesus His Son, and in the Holy Ghost, and hold that to the God of the universe the Word is united. For ‘I,’ says He, ‘and the Father are one; ‘and, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me.’ For thus both the Divine Triad, and the holy preaching of the Monarchy, will be preserved.” Pope Dionysius [regn. 260-268], to Dionysius of Alexandria, fragment in Athanasius’ Nicene Definition 26 (A.D. 262).
“Now the person in each declares the independent being and subsistence. But divinity is the property of the Father; and whenever the divinity of these three is spoken of as one, testimony is borne that the property of the Father belongs also to the Son and the Spirit: wherefore, if the divinity may be spoken of as one in three persons, the trinity is established, and the unity is not dissevered; and the oneness Which is naturally the Father’s is also acknowledged to be the Son’s and the Spirit’s.” Gregory the Wonderworker (Thaumaturgus), Sectional Confession of Faith, 8 (A.D. 270).
“For the kingdom of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is one, even as their substance is one and their dominion one. Whence also, with one and the same adoration, we worship the one Deity in three Persons, subsisting without beginning, uncreate, without end, and to which there is no successor. For neither will the Father ever cease to be the Father, nor again the Son to be the Son and King, nor the Holy Ghost to be what in substance and personality He is.” Methodius, Oration on the Palms, 4 (A.D. 305).
“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 from the Father,only-begotten,that is,from the substance of the Father,God from God,light from light,true God from true God,begotten,not made,of one substance with the Father…And in the Holy Spirit.” Creed of Nicea (A.D. 325).
“Let no one therefore separate the Old from the New Testament; let no one say that the Spirit in the former is one, and in the latter another; since thus he offends against the Holy Ghost Himself, who with the Father and the Son together is honoured, and at the time of Holy Baptism is included with them in the Holy Trinity. For the Only-begotten Son of God said plainly to the Apostles, Go ye, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Our hope is in Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost. We preach not three God; let the Marcionites be silenced; but with the Holy Ghost through One Son, we preach One God. The Faith is indivisible; the worship inseparable. We neither separate the Holy Trinity, like some; nor do we as Sabellius work confusion. But we know according to godliness One Father, who sent His Son to be our Saviour we know One Son, who promised that He would send the Comforter from the Father; we know the Holy Ghost, who spake in the Prophets, and who on the day of Pentecost descended on the Apostles in the form of fiery tongues, here, in Jerusalem, in the Upper Church of the Apostles…” Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 16:4 (c. A.D. 350).
“I can see no limit to my venture of speaking concerning God in terms more precise than He Himself has used. He has assigned the Names–Father, Son and Holy Ghost,–which are our information of the Divine nature. Words cannot express or feeling embrace or reason apprehend the re suits of enquiry carried further; all is ineffable, unattainable, incomprehensible. Language is exhausted by the magnitude of the theme, the splendour of its effulgence blinds the gazing eye, the intellect cannot compass its boundless extent…When Israel hears that its God is one, and that no second god is likened, that men may deem him God, to God Who is God’s Son, the revelation means that God the Father and God the Son are One altogether, not by confusion of Person but by unity of substance. For the prophet forbids us, because God the Son is God, to liken Him to some second deity….But I cannot describe Him, Whose pleas for me I cannot describe. As in the revelation that Thy Only-begotten was born of Thee before times eternal, when we cease to struggle with ambiguities of language and difficulties of thought, the one certainty of His birth remains; so I hold fast in my consciousness the truth that Thy Holy Spirit is from Thee and through Him, although I cannot by my intellect comprehend it.” Hilary of Poiters, On the Trinity, 2:5,4:42,12:56 (A.D. 359).
“[T]hey ought to confess that the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, as they have been taught by the divine words, and by those who have understood them in their highest sense. Against those who cast it in our teeth that we are Tritheists, let it be answered that we confess one God not in number but in nature. For everything which is called one in number is not one absolutely, nor yet simple in nature; but God is universally confessed to be simple and not composite.” Basil, To the Caesareans, Epistle 8 (A.D. 360).
“For this Synod of Nicea is in truth a proscription of every heresy. It also upsets those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and call Him a Creature. For the Fathers, after speaking of the faith in the Son, straightway added, ‘And we believe in the Holy Ghost,’ in order that by confessing perfectly and fully the faith in the Holy Trinity they might make known the exact form of the Faith of Christ, and the teaching of the Catholic Church. For it is made clear both among you and among all, and no Christian can have a doubtful mind on the point, that our faith is not in the Creature, but in one God, Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible: and in one Lord Jesus Christ His Only-begotten Son, and in one Holy Ghost; one God known in the holy and perfect Trinity, baptized into which, and in it united to the Deity, we believe that we have also inherited the kingdom of the heavens, in Christ Jesus our Lord, hrough whom to the Father be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.” Athanasius, To the Bishops in Africa, 11 (A.D. 372).
“And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.” Epiphanius, Creed (A.D. 374).
“The Substance of the Trinity is, so to say, a common Essence in that which is distinct, an incomprehensible, ineffable Substance. We hold the distinction, not the confusion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; a distinction without separation; a distinction without plurality; and thus we believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as each existing from and to eternity in this divine and wonderful Mystery: not in two Fathers, nor in two Sons, nor in two Spirits. For there is one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things, and we by Him.’ There is One born of the Father, the Lord Jesus, and therefore He is the Only-begotten. There is also One Holy Spirit,’ as the same Apostle hath said. So we believe, so we read, so we hold. We know the fact of distinction, we know nothing of the hidden mysteries; we pry not into the causes, but keep the outward signs vouchsafed unto us.” Ambrose, On the Christian Faith, 8:92 (A.D. 380).
“I have very carefully considered this matter in my own mind…but I have been unable to discover any thing on earth with which to compare the nature of the Godhead…I picture to myself an eye, a fountain, a river, as others have done before, to see if the first might be analogous to the Father, the second to the Son, and the third to the Holy Ghost…Again I thought of the sun and a ray and light. But here again there was a fear lest people should get an idea of composition in the Uncompounded Nature, such as there is in the Sun and the things that are in the Sun. And in the second place lest we should give Essence to the Father but deny Personality to the Others, and make Them only Powers of God, existing in Him and not Personal.” Gregory of Nazianen, 5th Oration (31), 31, 32 (A.D. 380).
“We believe in one God, the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into existence…And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is together worshipped and together glorified…” Creed of Constantinople (A.D. 381).
“For neither the centurion nor that poor woman who for twelve years was wasting away with a bloody flux, had believed in the mysteries of the Trinity, for these were revealed to the Apostles after the resurrection of Christ; so that the faith of such as believe in the mystery of the Trinity might have its due preeminence: but it was her singleness of mind and her devotion to her God that met with our Lord’s approval: ‘For she said within herself, If I do but touch his garment, I shall be made whole.’ This is the faith which our Lord said was seldom found. This is the faith which even in the case of those who believe aright is hard to find in perfection. ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you,’ says God. I do not, indeed, like the sound of those words. For if it be done unto me according to my faith, I shall perish. And yet I certainly believe in God the Father, I believe in God the Son, and I believe in God the Holy Ghost. I believe in one God; nevertheless, I would not have it done unto me according to my faith.” Jerome, Against Luciferians, 15 (A.D. 382).
“But they[ie. Catholics] worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, One Godhead; God the Father, God the Son and (do not be angry) God the Holy Ghost, One Nature in Three Personalities, intellectual, perfect, Self-existent, numerically separate, but not separate in Godhead.” Gregory of Nazianzen, Against the Arians and concerning himself, Oration 33:16 (ante A.D. 389).
“Seest thou that he implies that there is no difference in the gifts of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost? Not confounding the Persons, God forbid! But declaring the equal honor of the Essence. For that which the Spirit bestows, this he saith that God also works; this, that the Son likewise ordains and grants. Yet surely if the one were inferior to the other, or the other to it, he would not have thus set it down nor would this have been his way of consoling the person who was vexed.” John Chrysostom, Homily on 1st Corinthians, 29:4 (c. A.D. 392).
“Since, then, in the case of those who are regenerate from death to eternal life, it is through the Holy Trinity that the life-giving power is bestowed on those who with faith are deemed worthy of the grace, and in like manner the grace is imperfect, if any one, whichever it be, of the names of the Holy Trinity be omitted in the saving baptism–for the sacrament of regeneration is not completed in the Son and the Father alone without the Spirit: nor is the perfect boon of life imparted to Baptism in the Father and the Spirit, if the name of the Son be suppressed: nor is the grace of that Resurrection accomplished in the Father and the Son, if the Spirit be left out :–for this reason we rest all our hope, and the persuasion of the salvation of our souls, upon the three Persons, recognized by these names; and we believe in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Fountain of life, and in the Only-begotten Son of the Father, Who is the Author of life, as saith the Apostle, and in the Holy Spirit of God, concerning Whom the Lord hath spoken, ‘It is the Spirit that quickeneth”. And since on us who have been redeemed from death the grace of immortality is bestowed, as we have said, through faith in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, guided by these we believe that nothing servile, nothing created, nothing unworthy of the majesty of the Father is to be associated in thought with the Holy Trinity; since, I say, our life is one which comes to us by faith in the Holy Trinity, taking its rise from the God of all, flowing through the Son, and working in us by the Holy Spirit.” Gregory of Nyssa, To the City of Sebasteia, Epistle 2 (ante A.D. 394).
“Having, then, this full assurance, we are baptized as we were commanded, and we believe as we are baptized, and we hold as we believe; so that with one accord our baptism, our faith, and our ascription of praise are to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. But if any one makes mention of two or three Gods, or of three God-heads, let him be accursed. And if any, following the perversion of Arius, says that the Son or the Holy Spirit were produced from things that are not, let him be accursed. But as many as walk by the rule of truth and acknowledge the three Persons, devoutly recognized in Their several properties, and believe that there is one Godhead, one goodness, one rule, one authority and power, and neither make void the supremacy of the Sole-sovereignty, nor fall away into polytheism, nor confound the Persons, nor make up the Holy Trinity of heterogeneous and unlike elements, but in simplicity receive the doctrine of the faith, grounding all their hope of salvation upon the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,–these according to our judgment are of the same mind as we, and with them we also trust to have part in the Lord.” Gregory of Nyssa, To the City of Sebasteia, Epistle 2 (ante A.D. 394).
“We have said elsewhere that those things are predicated Specially in the Trinity as belonging severally to each person, which are predicated relatively the one to the other, as Father and Son, and the gift of both, the Holy Spirit; for the Father is not the Trinity, nor the Son the Trinity, nor the gift the Trinity: but what whenever each is singly spoken of in respect to themselves, then they are not spoken of as three in the plural number, but one, the Trinity itself, as the Father God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God; the Father good, the Son good, and the Holy Spirit good; and the Father omnipotent, the Son omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit omnipotent: yet neither three Gods, nor three goods, nor three omnipotents, but one God, good, omnipotent, the Trinity itself; and whatsoever else is said of them not relatively in respect to each other, but individually in respect to themselves. For they are thus spoken of according to l essence, since in them to be is the same as to be great, as to be good, as to be wise, and whatever else is said of each person individually therein, or of the Trinity itself, in respect to themselves. And that therefore they are called three persons, or three substances, not in order that any difference of essence may be understood, but that we may be able to answer by some one word, should any one ask what three, or what three things? And that there is so great an equality in that Trinity, that not only the Father is not greater than the Son, as regards divinity, but neither are the Father and Son together greater than the Holy Spirit; nor is each individual person, whichever it be of the three, less than the Trinity itself.” Augustine, On the Trinity, 8 Pref (A.D. 416).
“All those Catholic expounders of the divine Scriptures, both Old and New, whom I have been able to read, who have written before me concerning the Trinity, Who is God, have purposed to teach, according to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality; and therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although the Father hath begotten the Son, and so He who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and so He who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity. Yet not that this Trinity was born of the Virgin Mary, and crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven, but only the Son. Nor, again, that this Trinity descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus when He was baptized; nor that, on the day of Pentecost, after the ascension of the Lord, when there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind,’ the same Trinity sat upon each of them with cloven tongues like as of fire,’ but only the Holy Spirit. Nor yet that this Trinity said from heaven, Thou art my Son,’ whether when He was baptized by John, or when the three disciples were with Him in the mount, or when the voice sounded, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again;’ but that it was a word of the Father only, spoken to the Son; although the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as they are indivisible, so work indivisibly. This is also my faith, since it is the Catholic faith.” Augustine, On the Trinity, I:4,7 (A.D. 416).
“But after him the schism of Sabellius burst forth out of reaction against the above mentioned heresy, and as he declared that there was no distinction between the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, he impiously confounded, as far as was possible, the Persons, and failed to distinguish the holy and ineffable Trinity. Next after him whom we have mentioned there followed the blasphemy of Arian perversity, which, in order to avoid the appearance of confounding the Sacred Persons, declared that there were different and dissimilar substances in the Trinity.” John Cassian, The Incarnation of Christ, 2 (A.D. 430).
“In God there is one substance, but three Persons; in Christ two substances, but one Person. In the Trinity, another and another Person, not another and another substance (distinct Persons, not distinct substances)…Because there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost; but yet there is not another and another nature (distinct natures) but one and the same nature.” Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory for the Antiquity and Universality of the Catholic Faith, 37 (A.D. 434).
“But although, dearly-beloved, the actual form of the thing done was exceeding wonderful, and undoubtedly in that exultant chorus of all human languages the Majesty of the Holy Spirit was present, yet no one must think that His Divine substance appeared in what was seen with bodily eyes. For His Nature, which is invisible and shared in common with the Father and the Son, showed the character of His gift and work by the outward sign that pleased Him, but kept His essential property within His own Godhead: because human sight can no more perceive the Holy Ghost than it can the Father or the Son. For in the Divine Trinity nothing is unlike or unequal, and all that can be thought concerning Its substance admits of no diversity either in power or glory or eternity. And while in the property of each Person the Father is one, the Son is another, and the Holy Ghost is another, yet the Godhead is not distinct and different; for whilst the Son is the Only begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, not in the way that every creature is the creature of the Father and the Son, but as living and having power with Both, and eternally subsisting of That Which is the Father and the Son.” Pope Leo the Great (regn. 440-461), Sermon 77:2 (ante A.D. 461).
“Or, if any one should perhaps think that this is done out of veneration for the supreme Trinity, neither so is there any objection to immersing the person to be baptized in the water once, since, there being one substance in three subsistences, it cannot be in any way reprehensible to immerse the infant in baptism either thrice or once, seeing that by three immersions the Trinity of persons, and in one the singleness of the Divinity may be denoted.” Pope Gregory the Great (regn. A.D. 590-604), To Leander Bishop of Hispalis, Letter 43 (A.D. 591).
“These hypostases are within each other, not so that they are confused, but so that they contain one another, in accordance with the word of the Lord: I am in the Father and the Father is in me …We do not say three gods, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. On the contrary, we say only one God, the Holy Trinity, the Son, and the Spirit going back to only one Principle, without composition or confusion, quite unlike the heresy of Sabellius. These Persons are united, not so that they are confused with each other, but so that they are contained within each other. There is between them a circumincession without mixture or confusion, by virtue of which they are neither seperated nor divided in substance, unlike the heresy of Arius. In fact, in a word, the divinity is undivided in the individuals, just as there is only one light in three suns contained within each other, by means of an intimate interprenetration.” John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith, I:8 (A.D. 712).
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