- there are 70 faces to 
Post by alon on Aug 13, 2019 17:17:49 GMT -8
Developement of the Concept of the “Trinity”
Since the late second century, controversy has raged concerning the nature of the Godhead. Is God a solitary person—simply manifested in three forms? Or do separate personalities exist, each of whom possesses the nature of deity? Are there two members of the Godhead (ditheism), or three (Tinitarianism)?
Trinity is not anywhere in our translations of the Bible. But is the term “Godhead” even in the Bible? Two Greek words are translated Godhead:
G2304- θεῖος theîos, thi'-os; godlike (neuter as noun, divinity):—divine, godhead.
G2320 θεότης theótēs; divinity (abstractly):—godhead.
But here Strong’s shows the Catholic influence that guided all his work. Vine’s distinguishes between these two words:
Theiotes, the attributes of God, His Divine nature and properties; theotes indicates the Divine essence of Godhood, the personality of God" (W. E. Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words).
It would appear then that the term “Godhead” was made up to support the Catholic doctrine of a Trinity.
Matthew 24:4-5 (ESV) And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.
Barely two decades later the shaliach Rav Shaul wrote:
Galatians 1:6 (ESV) I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—
So it did not take long for heretical teachings to start to infiltrate the early sect of the Notsarim. He further writes that false brothers added to the dangers he faced:
2 Corinthians 11:13,26 English Standard Version (ESV) For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. … on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers;
By the late 1st cen things had gotten out of hand to the point leaders in the synagogues were contending with apostolic authority and turning believers out:
3 John 9-10 (ESV) I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.
Famed historian Edward Gibbon wrote of a “dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church” (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1821, Vol. 2, p. 111).
The Notsarim became marginalized and scattered, a minority to these new "Christians." A very different religion, now compromised of many concepts and practices rooted in ancient paganism (known as syncretism, mixing of religious beliefs common in paganism) became increasingly prominent. Historian Jesse Hurlbut says of this time of transformation:
“We name the last generation of the first century, from 68 to 100 A.D., ‘The Age of Shadows,’ partly because the gloom of persecution was over the church, but more especially because of all the periods in the [church’s] history, it is the one about which we know the least. We have no longer the clear light of the Book of Acts to guide us; and no author of that age has filled the blank in the history … For fifty years after St. Paul’s life a curtain hangs over the church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises, about 120 A.D. with the writings of the earliest church fathers, we find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul” ( The Story of the Christian Church, 1970, p. 33).
This new and very different “church” grew in power and influence, and within a few centuries came to dominate the Roman Empire itself! By the second century, the Notsarim had largely been scattered by waves of deadly persecution. They held firmly to biblical truth, though persecuted by both Rome and Christianity, which in reality taught “another Jesus” and a “different gospel:”
2 Corinthians 11:4 (ESV) For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
Tertullian, c.155 – c.240, called "the father of Latin Christianity” and "the founder of Western theology" was a Christian author from Carthage. He originated new theological ideas, advancing development of early Church doctrine. The first writer in Latin known to use the term Trinity (Latin trinitas), however "Tertullian's trinity [is] not a triune God, but rather a triad or group of three, with God as the founding member.” (The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). A similar word had been used earlier in Greek, though Tertullian gives the oldest use of the term as incorporated into the Nicene Creed; or as amended in the Athanasian Creed, in which equality of the three persons of the Trinity is explicitly stated. Other Latin formulations first appearing in his work are "tres personae, una substantia" "three persons, one substance" ('consubstantial' in English); itself from the Koine Greek "treis hypostases, homoousioi.”
The "substance" of Tertullian however was influenced by Stoic philosophy. It was a material substance not referring to a single God, but to the sharing of a portion of the substance of the Father (the only being who was fully God) with the Son and, through the Son, with the Holy Spirit. He wrote his understanding of the three members of the Trinity after becoming a Montanist, the late 2nd cen movement known as “The New Prophecy." Any time I hear of a “new prophecy,” I tend to get really suspicious.
Within the “church” and the assembly of believers (Notsarim) different ideas about Christ’s divinity led to division and conflict. The Ebionim split from the Notsarim in the late 1st cen because they believed Yeshua a created being. But in the church, this set the stage for further development of the doctrine of the Trinity. In those early decades and centuries after Yeshua’s ascension, several ideas sprang up concerning the exact nature of Yeshua and God. Was Yeshua man or God, or God appearing as a man? Was He an illusion, a mere man who became God? Was He created by the Father, or did He exist eternally with the Father?
These ideas all had their proponents. The unity of belief of the Notsarim was lost as new pagan beliefs borrowed or adapted from other religions replaced the teachings of Yeshua and His shaliachim. However the Notsarim still existed almost completely as they were in the time of Yeshua and the shaliachim. Fourth century church father Epiphanius gives a good description of the Notsarim: "We shall now especially consider heretics who... call themselves Nazarenes; they are mainly Jews and nothing else. They make use not only of the New Testament, but they also use in a way the Old Testament of the Jews; for they do not forbid the books of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings..., and they profess all the dogmas pertaining to the prescriptions of the Law and to the customs of the Jews, except they believe in [Messiah] ... They differ from the Jews because they believe in Messiah, and from the Christians in that they are to this day bound to the Jewish rites, such as circumcision, the Sabbath, and other ceremonies."
The Notsarim were however conspicuously absent from the intellectual and theological debates of these early centuries. So what we see are debates not between truth and error, but between error and more errors. This fact, so critical for understanding is seldom recognized by scholars. A classic example was the dispute over the nature of Christ that led Emperor Constantine to convene the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325.
Though held to be the first “Christian” Roman Emperor, Constantine was in fact a worshiper of Solus Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun. Only baptized on his deathbed, he was vehemently anti-Semitic. He in an edict referred to “the detestable Jewish crowd” and “the customs of these most wicked men.” Customs, we might note, given by God or rooted in biblical principles and practiced by the Notsarim.
Historian Henry Chadwick in The Early Church attests, “Constantine, like his father, worshipped the Unconquered Sun.” As to the emperor’s embrace of Christianity, Chadwick admits, “His conversion should not be interpreted as an inward experience of grace … It was a military matter. His comprehension of Christian doctrine was never very clear.” Constantine’s deathbed baptism itself “implies no doubt about his Christian belief (1993, p. 122, 127)” it being common for rulers to put off baptism to avoid accountability for things like torture and executing criminals. This justification hardly helps his case for genuine conversion, as a confession of faith is itself a covenant with Elohe Yeshuathi God of My Salvation (Psalm 18:46) not to willfully sin.
Professor of Church History Norbert Brox confirms Constantine never converted to Christianity: “Constantine did not experience any conversion; there are no signs of a change of faith in him. He never said of himself that he had turned to another god … At the time when he turned to Christianity, for him this was Sol Invictus (the victorious sun god)” ( A Concise History of the Early Church, 1996, p. 48).
Since the late second century, controversy has raged concerning the nature of the Godhead. Is God a solitary person—simply manifested in three forms? Or do separate personalities exist, each of whom possesses the nature of deity? Are there two members of the Godhead (ditheism), or three (Tinitarianism)?
Trinity is not anywhere in our translations of the Bible. But is the term “Godhead” even in the Bible? Two Greek words are translated Godhead:
G2304- θεῖος theîos, thi'-os; godlike (neuter as noun, divinity):—divine, godhead.
G2320 θεότης theótēs; divinity (abstractly):—godhead.
But here Strong’s shows the Catholic influence that guided all his work. Vine’s distinguishes between these two words:
Theiotes, the attributes of God, His Divine nature and properties; theotes indicates the Divine essence of Godhood, the personality of God" (W. E. Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words).
It would appear then that the term “Godhead” was made up to support the Catholic doctrine of a Trinity.
Matthew 24:4-5 (ESV) And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.
Barely two decades later the shaliach Rav Shaul wrote:
Galatians 1:6 (ESV) I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—
So it did not take long for heretical teachings to start to infiltrate the early sect of the Notsarim. He further writes that false brothers added to the dangers he faced:
2 Corinthians 11:13,26 English Standard Version (ESV) For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. … on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers;
By the late 1st cen things had gotten out of hand to the point leaders in the synagogues were contending with apostolic authority and turning believers out:
3 John 9-10 (ESV) I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.
Famed historian Edward Gibbon wrote of a “dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church” (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1821, Vol. 2, p. 111).
The Notsarim became marginalized and scattered, a minority to these new "Christians." A very different religion, now compromised of many concepts and practices rooted in ancient paganism (known as syncretism, mixing of religious beliefs common in paganism) became increasingly prominent. Historian Jesse Hurlbut says of this time of transformation:
“We name the last generation of the first century, from 68 to 100 A.D., ‘The Age of Shadows,’ partly because the gloom of persecution was over the church, but more especially because of all the periods in the [church’s] history, it is the one about which we know the least. We have no longer the clear light of the Book of Acts to guide us; and no author of that age has filled the blank in the history … For fifty years after St. Paul’s life a curtain hangs over the church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises, about 120 A.D. with the writings of the earliest church fathers, we find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul” ( The Story of the Christian Church, 1970, p. 33).
This new and very different “church” grew in power and influence, and within a few centuries came to dominate the Roman Empire itself! By the second century, the Notsarim had largely been scattered by waves of deadly persecution. They held firmly to biblical truth, though persecuted by both Rome and Christianity, which in reality taught “another Jesus” and a “different gospel:”
2 Corinthians 11:4 (ESV) For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
Tertullian, c.155 – c.240, called "the father of Latin Christianity” and "the founder of Western theology" was a Christian author from Carthage. He originated new theological ideas, advancing development of early Church doctrine. The first writer in Latin known to use the term Trinity (Latin trinitas), however "Tertullian's trinity [is] not a triune God, but rather a triad or group of three, with God as the founding member.” (The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). A similar word had been used earlier in Greek, though Tertullian gives the oldest use of the term as incorporated into the Nicene Creed; or as amended in the Athanasian Creed, in which equality of the three persons of the Trinity is explicitly stated. Other Latin formulations first appearing in his work are "tres personae, una substantia" "three persons, one substance" ('consubstantial' in English); itself from the Koine Greek "treis hypostases, homoousioi.”
The "substance" of Tertullian however was influenced by Stoic philosophy. It was a material substance not referring to a single God, but to the sharing of a portion of the substance of the Father (the only being who was fully God) with the Son and, through the Son, with the Holy Spirit. He wrote his understanding of the three members of the Trinity after becoming a Montanist, the late 2nd cen movement known as “The New Prophecy." Any time I hear of a “new prophecy,” I tend to get really suspicious.
Within the “church” and the assembly of believers (Notsarim) different ideas about Christ’s divinity led to division and conflict. The Ebionim split from the Notsarim in the late 1st cen because they believed Yeshua a created being. But in the church, this set the stage for further development of the doctrine of the Trinity. In those early decades and centuries after Yeshua’s ascension, several ideas sprang up concerning the exact nature of Yeshua and God. Was Yeshua man or God, or God appearing as a man? Was He an illusion, a mere man who became God? Was He created by the Father, or did He exist eternally with the Father?
These ideas all had their proponents. The unity of belief of the Notsarim was lost as new pagan beliefs borrowed or adapted from other religions replaced the teachings of Yeshua and His shaliachim. However the Notsarim still existed almost completely as they were in the time of Yeshua and the shaliachim. Fourth century church father Epiphanius gives a good description of the Notsarim: "We shall now especially consider heretics who... call themselves Nazarenes; they are mainly Jews and nothing else. They make use not only of the New Testament, but they also use in a way the Old Testament of the Jews; for they do not forbid the books of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings..., and they profess all the dogmas pertaining to the prescriptions of the Law and to the customs of the Jews, except they believe in [Messiah] ... They differ from the Jews because they believe in Messiah, and from the Christians in that they are to this day bound to the Jewish rites, such as circumcision, the Sabbath, and other ceremonies."
The Notsarim were however conspicuously absent from the intellectual and theological debates of these early centuries. So what we see are debates not between truth and error, but between error and more errors. This fact, so critical for understanding is seldom recognized by scholars. A classic example was the dispute over the nature of Christ that led Emperor Constantine to convene the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325.
Though held to be the first “Christian” Roman Emperor, Constantine was in fact a worshiper of Solus Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun. Only baptized on his deathbed, he was vehemently anti-Semitic. He in an edict referred to “the detestable Jewish crowd” and “the customs of these most wicked men.” Customs, we might note, given by God or rooted in biblical principles and practiced by the Notsarim.
Historian Henry Chadwick in The Early Church attests, “Constantine, like his father, worshipped the Unconquered Sun.” As to the emperor’s embrace of Christianity, Chadwick admits, “His conversion should not be interpreted as an inward experience of grace … It was a military matter. His comprehension of Christian doctrine was never very clear.” Constantine’s deathbed baptism itself “implies no doubt about his Christian belief (1993, p. 122, 127)” it being common for rulers to put off baptism to avoid accountability for things like torture and executing criminals. This justification hardly helps his case for genuine conversion, as a confession of faith is itself a covenant with Elohe Yeshuathi God of My Salvation (Psalm 18:46) not to willfully sin.
Professor of Church History Norbert Brox confirms Constantine never converted to Christianity: “Constantine did not experience any conversion; there are no signs of a change of faith in him. He never said of himself that he had turned to another god … At the time when he turned to Christianity, for him this was Sol Invictus (the victorious sun god)” ( A Concise History of the Early Church, 1996, p. 48).
