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