Biblical Hebrew Forum

[dano AT ott.net]

 From:           	"dan-ake mattsson" <dan-am AT online.no>
To:             	Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject:        	Re[2]: Translations and Arian Bias
Date sent:      	Sun, 4 Apr 1999 10:25:16 +0200
Send reply to:  	"dan-ake mattsson" <dan-am AT online.no>

>
>
> Peter Kirk wrote:
>
> >But your quote from Theophilus even more clearly shows than Dan-Ake
> >was wrong to write of Athanasius: "He felt free to change the meaning
> >of words instantly, in order to use them in the creed about Jesus.
> >Thus the words "to create" and "to be born" which were synonyms before
> >Nicaea, were at the council at Nicaea changed to be antonyms."
> >Theophilus is clearly (assuming you have given a good concordant (!)
> >translation of his Greek) making a distinction between "[God] begat
> >him, emitting him" used of the Logos and "created... made" used of the
> >things in which God and the Logos cooperated. So Theophilus, in the
> >2nd century, agreed with Athanasius and with the orthodox
> >interpretation of Colossians 1:15 (and Proverbs 8:22,23, of wisdom)
> >that the Logos/firstborn was not created, not a part of creation, but
> >came into being in some other way ("begotten") before the beginning of
> >creation. Perhaps Theophilus' use of "begat" is connected with the
> >-TOKOS part of PRWTOTOKOS in Col 1:15 - perhaps Theophilus understood
> >PRWTOTOKOS THS KTISEWS as "one begotten first of God, with authority
> >over creation". If so, he probably read something into Paul (or
> >pseudo-Paul).
> >
> >Or perhaps (to get back to some Hebrew) both (pseudo-)Paul and
> >(pseudo-??)Theophilus took the idea of the Logos or the Christ being
> >begotten from QFNFNIY of Prov 8:22. This verb QNH (often translated
> >"create") certainly can mean "give birth" as in Genesis 4:1, oddly
> >enough used clearly in this sense only of the literally firstborn
> >among all men, Cain; see also Ps 139:13 where the verb is used in the
> >context of birth, and Exo 15:16 where "give birth" would be
> >appropriate.
> >
>
> Peter,
>
> Most of the Ante-Nicene Fathers believed that Logos (the Son) was
> subordinated to the Father and at the same time they believed in the
> "Son's" eternal generation. I put "Son" in quotation marks because, from
> one point of view it is wrong to say that the Ante-Nicene Fathers believed
> in the "Son´s" eternal generation. Strictly speaking, they did not believe
> that the Son was eternal, but the reason of God, from which the Son came
> forth (or was articulated), was eternal. E.J. Fortman,1972, "The Triune God
> A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity, Grand Rapids:  p 50,
> wrote: "If God must have His Logos from eternity, must he also have His
> Son? Later theology and dogma will say yes unequivocally, but the
> apologists are not quite clear on this point and rather seem to say no. For
> them, if the origination of Logos from God is eternal, the generation of
> the Logos as Son seems rather to be pre-creational but not eternal, and it
> is affected by the will of the Father." It does not seem that you are
> familiar with the Fathers' view of eternal generation which you need to be
> to understand the words of Theophilus.

This caught me by quite a bit of surprise.. IMHO somebody hasn't done a study of the eternity of Jesus in its totality.. I will quote some interesting comments..

110 AD Irenaeus "For I have shown from the scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. (Irenaeus Against Heresies, chapter xix.2)

110 AD Ignatius of Antioch "There is then one God and Father, and not two or three; One who is; and there is no other besides Him, the only true [God]. For "the Lord thy God," saith [the Scripture], "is one Lord." And again, "Hath not one God created us? Have we not all one Father? And there is also one Son, God the Word. For "the only-begotten Son," saith [the Scripture], "who is in the bosom of the Father." And again, "One Lord Jesus Christ." And in another place, "What is His name, or what His Son’s name, that we may know? " And there is also one Paraclete. For "there is also," saith [the Scripture], "one Spirit," since "we have been called in one hope of our calling." And again, "We have drunk of one Spirit," with what follows. And it is manifest that all these gifts [possessed by believers] "worketh one and the self-same Spirit." There are not then either three Fathers, or three Sons, or three Paracletes, but one Father, and one Son, and one Paraclete. Wherefore also the Lord, when He sent forth the apostles to make disciples of all nations, commanded them to "baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," not unto one [person] having three names, nor into three [persons] who became incarnate, but into three possessed of equal honour." (Letter to the Philadelphians 2).

110 AD Ignatius of Antioch "Chapter VI.—Abstain from the Poison of Heretics. "I therefore, yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ, entreat you that ye use Christian nourishment only, and abstain from herbage of a different kind; I mean heresy. For those [that are given to this] mix up Jesus Christ with their own poison, speaking things which are unworthy of credit, like those who administer a deadly drug in sweet wine, which he who is ignorant of does greedily take, with a fatal pleasure leading to his own death. I therefore, yet not I, out the love of Jesus Christ, "entreat you that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment." For there are some vain talkers and deceivers, not Christians, but Christ-betrayers, bearing about the name of Christ in deceit, and "corrupting the word" of the Gospel; while they intermix the poison of their deceit with their persuasive talk, as if they mingled aconite with sweet wine, that so he who drinks, being deceived in his taste by the very great sweetness of the draught, may incautiously meet with his death. One of the ancients gives us this advice, "Let no man be called good who mixes good with evil." For they speak of Christ, not that they may preach Christ, but that they may reject Christ; and they speak of the law, not that they may establish the law, but that they may proclaim things contrary to it. For they alienate Christ from the Father, and the law from Christ. They also calumniate His being born of the Virgin; they are ashamed of His cross; they deny His passion; and they do not believe His resurrection. They introduce God as a Being unknown; they suppose Christ to be unbegotten; and as to the Spirit, they do not admit that He exists. Some of them say that the Son is a mere man, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but the same person, and that the creation is the work of God, not by Christ, but by some other strange power." (The Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians, Chap. VI)

150 AD Justin Martyr "But if you knew, Trypho," continued I, "who He is that is called at one time the Angel of great counsel, and a Man by Ezekiel, and like the Son of man by Daniel, and a Child by Isaiah, and Christ and God to be worshipped by David, and Christ and a Stone by many, and Wisdom by Solomon, and Joseph and Judah and a Star by Moses, and the East by Zechariah, and the Suffering One and Jacob and Israel by Isaiah again, and a Rod, and Flower, and Corner Stone, and Son of God, you would not have blasphemed Him who has now come, and been born, and suffered, and ascended to heaven; who shall also come again, and then your twelve tribes shall mourn. 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. For Moses says somewhere in Exodus the following: `The Lord spake to Moses, and said to him, I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, being their God; and my name I revealed not to them, and I established my covenant with them.' And thus again he says, `A man wrestled with Jacob,' and asserts it was God; narrating that Jacob said, `I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'" (Dialogue of Justin with Trypho, A Jew, Chap. CXXVI [See also The First Apology of Justin, Chap. XIII; XXII; LXIII; Dialogue of Justin with Trypho, A Jew, Chap. XXXVI; XLVIII; LVI; LIX; LXI; C; CV; CXXV; CXXVIII)

170 AD Tatian the Syrian "We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man" (Address to the Greeks 21).

177 AD Athenagoras "The Son of God is the Word of the Father in thought and actuality. By him and through him all things were made, the Father and the Son being one. Since the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son by the unity and power of the Spirit, the Mind and Word of the Father is the Son of God. And if, in your exceedingly great wisdom, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by `the Son,' I will tell you briefly: He is the first- begotten of the Father, not as having been produced, for from the beginning God had the Word in himself, God being eternal mind and eternally rational, but as coming forth to be the model and energizing force of all material things" (Plea for the Christians 10:2-4).

177 AD Melito of Sardis "It is no way necessary in dealing with persons of intelligence to adduce the actions of Christ after his baptism as proof that his soul and his body, his human nature, were like ours, real and not phantasmal. The activities of Christ after his baptism, and especially his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the deity hidden in his flesh. Being God and likewise perfect man, he gave positive indications of his two natures: of his deity, by the miracles during the three years following after his baptism, of his humanity, in the thirty years which came before his baptism, during which, by reason of his condition according to the flesh, he concealed the signs of his deity, although he was the true God existing before the ages" (Fragment in Anastasius of Sinai's The Guide 13).

180 AD: Theophilus of Antioch Chapter XV. - Of the Fourth Day. "On the fourth day the luminaries were made; because God, who possesses foreknowledge, knew the follies of the vain philosophers, that they were going to say, that the things which grow on the earth are produced from the heavenly bodies, so as to exclude God. In order, therefore, that the truth might be obvious, the plants and seeds were produced prior to the heavenly bodies, for what is posterior cannot produce that which is prior. And these contain the pattern and type of a great mystery. 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 Trinity,. of God, and His Word, and His wisdom." [Triavdo" The earliest use of this word "Trinity." It seems to have been used by this writer in his lost works, also; and, as a learned friends suggests, the use he makes of it is familiar. He does not lug it in as something novel: "types of the Trinity," he says, illustrating an accepted word, not introducing a new one.] "And the fourth is the type of man, who needs light, that so there may be God, the Word, wisdom, man. Wherefore also on the fourth day the lights were made. The disposition of the stars, too, contains a type of the arrangement and order of the righteous and pious, and of those who keep the law and commandments of God. For the brilliant and bright stars are an imitation of the prophets, and therefore they remain fixed, not declining, nor passing from place to place. And those which hold the second place in brightness, are types of the people of the righteous. And those, again, which change their position, and flee from place to place, which also are cared planets, they too are a type of the men who have wandered from God, abandoning His law and commandments." (180 AD, Theophilus of Antioch Chapter XV. - Of the Fourth Day, To Autolycus 2:15)

189 AD Irenaeus of Lyons "For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the Earth, has received from the apostles and from their disciples the faith in one God, Father Almighty, the creator of heaven and Earth and sea and all that is in them; and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who announced through the prophets the dispensations and the comings, and the birth from a Virgin, and the passion, and the Resurrection from the dead, and the bodily Ascension into heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father to re-establish all things; and the raising up again of all flesh of all humanity, in order that to Jesus Christ our Lord and God and Savior and King, in accord with the approval of the invisible Father, every knee shall bend of those in heaven and on Earth and under the earth . . . " (Against Heresies 1:10:1).

190 AD Clement of Alexandria "The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning, for lie was in God, and of our well- being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone. is both God and man, and the source of all our good things" (Exhortation to the Greeks 1:7:1).

215 AD Tertullian "God alone is without sin. The only man who is without sin is Christ; for Christ is also God" (The Soul 41:3).
215 AD Tertullian "The origins of both his substances display him as man and as God: from the one, born, and from the other, not born" (The Flesh of Christ 5:6-7).
225 AD Origen "The specific points which are clearly handed down through the apostolic preaching are these: First, that there is one God who created and arranged all things, and who, when nothing existed, called all things into existence, and that in the final period this God, just as he had promised beforehand through the prophets, sent the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, that Jesus Christ himself, who came, was born of the father before all creatures; and after he had ministered to the father in the creation of all things, for through him all things were made" … "Although he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man, he remained what he was. God" (The Fundamental Doctrines 1:0:4).
228 AD Hippolytus "The Word alone of this God is from God himself, wherefore also the Word is God, being the Being of God. Now the world was made from nothing, wherefore it is not God" (Refutation of All Heresies 10:29).
235 AD Novatian "For Scripture as much announces Christ as also God, as it announces God Himself as man. It has as much described Jesus Christ to be man, as moreover it has also described Christ the Lord to be God. Because it does not set forth Him to be the Son of God only, but also the Son of man; nor does it only say, the Son of man, but it has also been accustomed to speak of Him as the Son of God. So that being of both, He is both, lest if He should be one only, He could not be the other. For as nature itself has prescribed that he must be believed to be a man who is of man, so the same nature prescribes also that He must be believed to be God who is of God . . . Let them, therefore, who read that Jesus Christ the Son of man is man, read also that this same Jesus is called also God and the Son of God" (Treatise on the Trinity 11).
I gots a whole lot more.. but will stop for "brevity"  :)




Pastor Dan Oglesby Community Revival Center Church Where God is Alive and Moving by His Spirit http://www.crcc-oca.org =========================================== For the opportunity of a lifetime go to: http://www.tgeinc.com