I should say to this that if
Celsus had considered the saying, ‘I and my Father are one’, and the prayer uttered
by the Son of God in the words, ‘As I and thou are one’, he would not have
imagined that we worship another besides the supreme God. ‘For the Father’, he
says, ‘is in me and I in the Father.’ (Origen, Against Celsus, 8.12, in Origen:
Contra Celsus [trans. Henry Chadwick; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1953], 460)
If, however, anyone is perturbed
by these words lest we should be going over to the view of those who deny that
there are two existences (hypostases), Father and Son, let him pay
attention to the text ‘And all those who believed were of one heart and soul’, that
he may see the meaning of ‘I and my Father are one’. Accordingly, we worship
but one God, the Father and the Son, and we sill have a valid
argument against the others. And we do not worship to an extravagant
degree a man who appeared recently as though he did not exist previously. For
we believe him who says, ‘Before Abraham was I am’, and who affirms, ‘I am the
truth.’ None of us is so stupid as to suppose that before the date of Christ’s
manifestation the truth did not exist. Therefore we worship the Father of the
truth and the Son who is the truth; they are two distinct existences, but one
in mental unity, In agreement, and in identity of will. Thus he who has seen
the Son, who is in effulgence of the glory and express image of the Person of
God, has seen God in him who is God’s image. (Origen, Against Celsus, 8.12,
in Origen: Contra Celsus [trans. Henry Chadwick; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1953], 460-61)
This translator’s trinitarian
bias may be reflected in his placement of the comma: he has “one God, the Father
and the Son” instead of “one God, the Father, and the Son.” But it is the
latter that best fits a careful reading of Origen’s extant writings. However,
Origen does argue that despite their numerical distinctness, God and the
Logos/divine Son can be called “one God” (Origen, Dialogue, 58-60
[1-3]). (Dale Tuggy, “How to Be a Monotheistic Trinitarian,” in Monotheism,
Heresy, and the Bible: Essays on Biblical Unitarianism [Nashville: Theophilus
Press, 2026], 241 n. 60)
The person of Jesus holding “the second place of honor”
after God the Father:
Then next, as if it were his
object to fill up his book with padding he wanted to regard Jonah as a god
rather than Jesus; he prefers Jonah who preached repentance to the single city
of Nineveh before Jesus who preached repentance to the whole world and had more
success than Jonah. He wanted us to regard as a god the man who performed the
portentous and incredible feat of spending three days and three nights in the
belly of the whale. But him who accepted death for mankind, to whom God bore
witness by the prophets, Celsus would not regard as worthy of the second place
of honour after the God of the universe, the position given to him on account
of the great deeds which he did in heaven and on earth. (Origen, Against
Celsus, 7.58, in Origen: Contra Celsus [trans. Henry Chadwick;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953], 442-43)
We have learnt who the Son of God
is, even that he is an effulgence of his glory and the express image of his
person and 'a breath of God's power and a clear emanation of the glory of the
Almighty', and further 'an effulgence from everlasting light and an unspotted
mirror of the working of God and an image of his goodness';1 and we know that
Jesus is the Son come from God and that God is his Father. There is nothing in
the doctrine which is not fitting or appropriate to God, that He should cause
the existence of an only-begotten Son of this nature. No one would persuade us
to think that such a person as Jesus is not the Son of the unbegotten God and
Father.
If Celsus misunderstood certain
people who do not confess that the Son of God is Son of Him who created this
universe, that is a matter between him and those who agree with this doctrine.
Jesus, then, is not an author of sedition but of all peace. For he says to his
disciples: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.' Then as he knew
that the men who are of the world and not of God would make war on us, he went
on to say, Not as the world gives peace do I give peace to you.' And although
we may be troubled in the world, we take courage because of him who said: ' In
the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the
world.' We affirm that this person is Son of God—yes, of God to whom, if we may
follow Celsus' words, we pay very great reverence; and we know His Son
who has been greatly exalted by the Father.
But we may grant that some of
those among the multitude of believers take a divergent view, and because of
their rashness suppose that the Saviour is the greatest and supreme God. But we
at least do not take that view, since we believe him who said: ' The Father who
sent me is greater than I.’ Consequently we would not make Him whom we now call
Father subject to the Son of God, as Celsus falsely accuses us of doing.
. . .
Here again he takes these notions
from some unknown and very undistinguished sect, and bases on them an objection
to all Christians. I say ' very undistinguished' since it is not clear even to
us who have often taken part in controversy with heretics which is the opinion
from which Celsus has taken these ideas—if, at least, he did take them from
some source, and did not invent them or add anything as an inference of his
own. It is obvious that we, who maintain that even the sensible world is made
by the Creator of all things, hold that the Son is not mightier than the
Father, but subordinate. And we say this because we believe him who said, 'The
Father who sent me is greater than I.'
None of us is so idiotic as to
say, The Son of man is lord of God. We affirm that the Saviour,
especially when we think of him as divine Logos, Wisdom, Righteousness, and
Truth, is Lord of all that has been subjected to him, in so far as he is these
things, but not that he is also lord of the God and Father who is mightier than
he. And since the Logos is not master of those who are unwilling, and as there
are still some bad beings, not only men but also angels and all daemons, we
maintain that he is not yet made master of these, since they do not yield to
him of their own free will. However, if we take 'master' in another sense, he
is master even of them— just as we say that man is master of the irrational
animals without making their mind subject to him because he tames and masters
certain lions and beasts which have been broken in. Yet he does all in his
power to persuade even those who do not now obey, that he may be master of them
also. Therefore in our opinion Celsus' words are false when he attributes to us
the saying Who else will overcome that God who is mighty?
. . .
We who belong to the church named
after Christ alone say that none of these things is true. He seems to be
attributing to us sayings which are nothing to do with us in order to be
consistent with what he said earlier. It is our purpose not to worship any
merely assumed God, but to worship the Creator of this universe and of all else
which is not sensible or visible. (Origen, Against Celsus, 8.14-16, in Origen:
Contra Celsus [trans. Henry Chadwick; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1953], 462, 463)
Like other second and third
century theologians, Origen does call the Son “God,” as he does so often, in
striking contrast to the New Testament. But unlike many later theologians, he’s
careful to explain his use of terms. He thinks this Son is eternal, and that he
is divine and in a derived way. But he never says that the Son’s divinity makes
him the same god as his Father. (Dale Tuggy, “How to Be a Monotheistic Trinitarian,”
in Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible: Essays on Biblical Unitarianism [Nashville:
Theophilus Press, 2026], 242)
The difference between “the God” and “a God”
(12) But since the proposition,
“In the beginning was the Word,” has been placed first, perhaps it indicates
some order; in the same manner, next, “And the Word was with God,” and third,
“And the Word was God.” Perhaps he says, “And the Word was with God,” then,
“And the Word was God,” that we might understand that the Word has become God
because he is “with God.”
(13) John has used the articles
in one place and omitted them in another very precisely, and not as though he
did not understand the precision of the Greek language. In the case of the
Word, he adds the article “the,” but in the case of the noun “God,” he inserts
it in one place and omits it in another.
(14) For he adds the article when
the noun “God” stands for the uncreated cause of the universe, but he omits it
when the Word is referred to as “God.” And as “the God” and “God” differ in these places, so, perhaps, “the Word” and “Word” differ.
(15) For as the God who is over
all is “the God” and not simply
“God,” so the source of reason in each rational being is “the Word.” That reason which is in each rational being would not
properly have the same designation as the first reason, and be said to be “the Word.”
(16) Many people who wish to be
pious are troubled because they are afraid that they may proclaim two Gods and,
for this reason, they fall into false and impious beliefs. They either deny
that the individual nature of the Son is other than that of the Father by
confessing him to be God whom they refer to as “Son” in name at least, or they
deny the divinity of the Son and make his individual nature and essence as an
individual to be different from the Father.
(17) Their problem can be
resolved in this way. We must say to them that at one time God, with the
article, is very God, wherefore also the Savior says in his prayer to the
Father, “That they may know you the only true God.” On the other hand,
everything besides the very God, which is made God by participation in his
divinity, would more properly not be said to be “the God,” but “God.” To be sure, his “firstborn of every creature,”
inasmuch as he was the first to be with God and has drawn divinity into
himself, is more honored than the other gods beside him (of whom God is God as
it is said, “The God of gods, the Lord has spoken, and he has called the earth”).
It was by his ministry that they became gods, for he drew from God that they
might be deified, sharing ungrudgingly also with them according to his
goodness.
(18) The God, therefore, is the true God. The others are gods formed
according to him as images of the prototype. But again, the archetypal image of
the many images is the Word with the God, who was “in the beginning.” By
being “with the God” he always
continues to be “God.” But he would not have this if he were not with God, and
he would not remain God if he did not continue in unceasing contemplation of
the depth of the Father. (Origen, Book 2, in Commentary on the Gospel
according to John, Books 1-10 [trans. Ronald E. Heine; The Fathers of the Church
80; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989], 98-99)
Origen’s language is not like
that of Muslims, nor like that of later catholic Christians who reserve the term
“God” for the one god or the fully divine “Persons” somehow “in” that god.
Earlier in this book Origen says, citing biblical texts, that “There are
certain gods of whom God is god,” (Commentary on John, 76 [1.12]) and
elsewhere he says that “we do not hesitate to speak in one sense of two gods,
and in another sense of one god.” (Dialogue, 58 [sec. 2]) His looser
god-talk certainly fits his Hellenistic milieu, but it is not radically
different than the Bible, which uses god terminology for humans, Satan, idols,
the alleged gods of polytheistic religions, and angels. (Dale Tuggy, “How to Be a Monotheistic Trinitarian,”
in Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible: Essays on Biblical Unitarianism [Nashville:
Theophilus Press, 2026], 243)
Finally, let’s look at Origen’s On
First Principles. In a passage discussing his view that the Holy Spirit is
eternal, he says that
the Holy Spirit would never have
himself been in the unity of the Trinity, the is, along with God, the
unchangeable Father, and with his Son, unless he had always been the Holy
Spirit. (On First Principles, trans. Behr, 1:73 [1.3-4])
Conditioned by Nicene concerns,
we might think Origen is assuming the Spirit to be equally divine with the Father,
and to be one god with him. But Origen later writes that
the God and Father, holding all
things together, is superior to every being, giving to each, from his own, to
be whatever it is; the Son, being less than the Father, is superior to rational
creatures alone, for he is second to the Father; and the Holy Spirit is still
less, dwelling with the holy ones alone. So that in this way the power of the
Father is greater than the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that the Son is greater
than the Holy Spirit, and again, the power of the Holy Spirit differs greatly
from other holy beings. (Origen, On First Principles, trans. Behr, 2:598
[text no. 6])
The Son and Spirit here are
beings other than God, beings in addition to him, and they are lesser beings,
depending on God for their existence, while he depends on nothing. Nor, as we’ve
just seen, are the Son and Spirit equal to one another. In an uncorrupted,
mature work Origien teaches
that the Holy Spirit is the most
honored of all things made through the Word, and that he is [first] in rank of
all the things which have been made by the Father through Christ. (Commentary
on John, 114 [2.75]. For Origen being the greatest creature is compatible
with being “a god” who has a degree of divinity from God [via the Logos/Son])
In sum, for Origen there is a
Trinity, but it is not a god. Rather, the one true god, the Father, the
ultimate source of all else, is the founding member of that triad (group of
three beings). The Son and Spirit are divine in lesser ways, since they
eternally emanate from and “participate in” God. Of the two, the Son is greater
than the Spirit. God, that is, the Father, is greater even than both Son and
Spirit, and there’s no way to construe this, as so many recent theologians do
with the New Testament, as being a mere matter of function, that is, as functional
subordination without any difference in kind or degree of divinity or
greatness. (Dale Tuggy, “How to Be a Monotheistic Trinitarian,” in Monotheism,
Heresy, and the Bible: Essays on Biblical Unitarianism [Nashville: Theophilus
Press, 2026], 243-45)
Were Tertullian and Origen “trinitarians”?
Yes, in the sense explained above: they believed in the reality of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit spoken of in the New Testament. Did they believe that the
one most high God is tripersonal, that God somehow “is” three eternal and
equally divine “Persons”? No. They were not, then, “trinitarians” in the more
specific, post-fourth-century sense, the sense which has been mandatory for
catholic Christians since 381. (Ibid., 245)
