Early Christianity on: Monarchianism (Full Script)

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Early Christianity on Monarchianism

Post-Apostolic Church

INTRO

This is the second video in a series on what the Pre-Nicene Christians wrote about the Divinity.

The early Christians wrote a lot about the three Persons of the Divinity.  One of the reasons they wrote so much is because of a doctrine that began to arise as early as the second century.  This belief says that there is one God in one Person and is called Monarchianism.  The Pre-Nicene Church wrote against this belief extensively.  So before we can discuss what early Christianity said about the Persons of God, let us first analyze Monarchianism and see what it claims the nature of God is like.

MONARCHIANISM

Justin Martyr was the first to write about this belief and he immediately opposed it.

They who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God.  (Justin Martyr.  AD 160.  ANF, vol 1, page 184.)

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.ii.lxiii.html)

Hippolytus wrote about an event when the church dealt with a person who was a popular Monarchianist.

Some others are secretly introducing another doctrine, who have become disciples of one Noetus, who was a native of Smyrna and who lived not very long ago.  This person was greatly puffed up and inflated with pride, being inspired by the conceit of a strange spirit.  He alleged that Christ was the Father Himself, and that the Father Himself was born, suffered, and died....  From his other actions, the proof is already given to us that he did not speak with a pure spirit.  For he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is cast out from the holy inheritance.  He alleged that he was himself Moses and that Aaron was his brother.  When the blessed presbyters heard this, they summoned him before the Church, and examined him....  After examining him, they expelled him from the Church.  (Hippolytus.  AD 205, vol 5, page 223.)

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iii.iv.ii.iv.html, 1)

It is very likely that Praxeas was one of Noetus' students.  Against him, Tertullian wrote,

[Praxeas] says that the Father Himself came down into the virgin, was Himself born of her, Himself suffered, indeed was Himself Jesus Christ....  He was the first to import this kind of heretical perversion into Rome from Asia.  (Tertullian.  AD 213.  ANF, vol 3, page 597.)

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.ix.i.html)

This heresy supposes itself to possess the pure truth in thinking that one cannot believe in one and only God in any other way than by saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the very same Person.  (Tertullian.  AD 213.  ANF, vol 3, page 598.)

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.ix.ii.html)

The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity they assume to be a division of the Unity....  They are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods, while they give themselves above all the credit of being worshippers of the one God.  (Tertullian.  AD 213.  ANF, vol 3, page 599.)

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.ix.iii.html)

Why would someone believe in Monarchianism?  Hippolytus wrote,

They seek to exhibit the foundation of their dogma by citing the word in the law, "I am the God of your fathers.  You shall have no other gods besides Me,"* and again in another passage, "I am the first and the last.  Beside me there is none other."**  Thus they say they prove that God is one....  But the case does not stand like this.  For the Scriptures do not set forth the matter in this manner.  (Hippolytus.  AD 205.  ANF, vol 5, page 223-224.)

* Ex 3:6, 20:3.

** Is 44:6.

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iii.iv.ii.iv.html, 2)

Here are a few Pre-Nicene Christian writings directly opposing Monarchianism.  Tertullian wrote,

Monarchians... say He Himself made Himself a Son to Himself....  A father needs to have a son in order to be a father.  Likewise, for a son to be a son, he must have a father.  However, it is one thing to have and another thing to be.  For instance, in order to be a husband, I must have a wife.  I can never be my own wife.  In like manner, in order to be a father, I have a son, for I never can be a son to myself.  (Tertullian.  AD 213.  ANF, vol 3, page 604.)

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.ix.x.html)

Origen wrote about the Monarchians,

[They say] that the Son did not differ in number from the Father, but that both were one, not only in point of substance but in point of subject [that is, Person], and that the Father and the Son were said to be different in some of their aspects but not in their Person.  Against such views we must in the first place present the leading texts which prove the Son to be another [Person] than the Father, and that the Son must of necessity be the son of a Father, and the Father, the father of a Son.  (Origen.  AD 228.  ANF, vol 9, page 402.)

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf09.xv.iii.vi.xxi.html)

Novatian wrote,

For thus they say, "If it is asserted that God is one, and Christ is God," then say they, "If the Father and Christ be one God, Christ will be called the Father." In this they are proved to be in error, not knowing Christ, but following the sound of a name.  (Novatian.  AD 235.  ANF, vol 5, page 636.)

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.vi.iii.xxvii.html)

How serious did the Pre-Nicene Christians view Monarchianism?  They viewed it as blasphemy.  Tertullian wrote,

You blaspheme because you allege not only that the Father died, but that He died the death of the cross.  For "cursed are they which are hanged on a tree,"*  After the law, this is a curse which is compatible to the Son (only as "Christ has been made a curse for us,"** but certainly not the Father).  However, since you convert Christ into the Father, you are chargeable with blasphemy against the Father.  (Tertullian.  AD 213.  ANF, vol 3, page 626.)

* Deut 21:23.

** Gal 3:13.

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.ix.xxix.html)

Dionysius of Rome wrote,

Sabellius... blasphemes in saying that the Son Himself is the Father, and vice versa.  (Dionysius of Rome.  AD 265.  ANF, vol 7, page 365.)

(www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.vii.ii.html, 1)

CONCLUSION

This has been a brief look at Monarchisnism and how the Pre-Nicene Christians rejected the teaching that there is one God in one Person.  In the next video, we will look at their detailed evidence regarding the Persons of God.

Blessings and so forth.