Tuesday 5 March 2024

Strikingly Trinitarian patterns in Ante-Nicene writings

I'll just leave these here, without comment for now, as a handy reference tool for anyone who wants to use it. The sources are easy to find online with any standard search engine. 

 

Clement of Rome (30-100 CE)

“Have we not one God and one Christ and one Spirit of grace that was shed upon us?" (46:9)

(Clement here reflects Paul's usage in 1 Cor 8:6 and Eph 4:4-6.)

By the way, the personal quality of the Holy Spirit is conveyed by Clement like this: “For the Holy Ghost saith, ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom…" (13:2-3)

(Clement here reflects Paul's usage in 1 Corinthians 1:32 to 2:4.)

Ignatius (40-115 CE)

“Be zealous, therefore, to stand squarely on the decrees of the Lord and the Apostles, that in all things whatsoever you may prosper, in body and in soul, in faith and in love, in the Son and the Father and the Spirit… Submit to the bishop and to each other's rights, just as did Jesus Christ in the flesh to the Father, and as the Apostles did to Christ and the Father and the Spirit...” (Ignatius to Magnesians 13)

Polycarp (69-155 CE)

“I praise thee, I bless thee, I glorify thee, together with the eternal and heavenly Jesus Christ thy beloved Son, with whom to thee and the Holy Spirit be glory both now and for ever. Amen.”

Papias (70-150 CE) 

“those who are saved… ascend through the Spirit to the Son, and through the Son to the Father”

Justin Martyr (110-164 CE)

"But both Him, and the Son… and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore."

Athenagoras (c 175AD)

‘For, as we acknowledge a God, and a Son his Logos, and a Holy Spirit, united in essence’

Irenaeus (125-203 CE)

 “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”

Clement of Alexandria (145-220 CE)

"I understand nothing else than the Holy Trinity to be meant; for the third is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the second, by whom all things were made according to the will of the Father."

“and praising thank the Alone Father and Son, Son and Father, the Son, Instructor and Teacher, with the Holy Spirit, all in One, in whom is all, for whom all is One, for whom is eternity”

Tertullian (160-230 CE)

“For the very Church itself is, properly and principally, the Spirit Himself, in whom is the Trinity of the One Divinity--Father, Son. and Holy Spirit.”

Hippolytus (c. 170-c. 236)

“For it is through this Trinity that the Father is glorified. For the Father willed, the Son did, the Spirit manifested. The whole Scriptures, then, proclaim this truth.”

Origen (185-253/4 CE)

“From all which we learn that the person of the Holy Spirit was of such authority and dignity, that saving baptism was not complete except by the authority of the most excellent Trinity of them all, i.e., by the naming of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and by joining to the unbegotten God the Father, and to His only-begotten Son, the name also of the Holy Spirit.”

Cyprian (200-257 CE)

 “and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, "And these three are one."

 

 

 

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