Last Welcome everyone. I bet you were never expecting this. I have fellow
Christian great debater with me, Jaydyre Jay. How you doing. What's up,
Michael? I'm doing good. Glad to be here with you. We
had some we found some common ground because we both have had some recent Islamic
interactions and so when you reached out, I was happy to come back on,
to come on and have a conversation about this contentious period. So really
glad to be here. Oh, I'm I'm super happy to have you here.
I really appreciate it. One of the things I do focus on is
trying to find common ground among Christians and show the world that we are not
as divided as people think we are. I think you and I probably agree
on more than we disagree. And since since something came up that I thought
we could stream on, I was like, yeah, let's do it.
Let's let's have a stream to break all streams. And this is what I
was happy, though happy to do. So for those you know when you
said, you know you agreed with the monarchy view of the triad and all
that, and I was I was like, yeah, we can definitely,
you know, we can work from there for sure, and you know,
especially when it comes to opposing Islamic claims of the fact that there's not the
Trinity and deity of Christ in the first, second, and third centuries.
I mean, I think I think it's going to be really clear after today's
discussion that absolutely isn't the case. The Trinity is absolutely there. Yeah,
So let me give everyone a backstory why we're here today. So, both
Jay and I have been dealing with Muslims in the past few months. We
both had debates with the infamous Daniel L. Kikichu, which I want to
talk about briefly here. By the way, for any of you have not
seen Jay's debate with Daniel Kikichu, when this dream is over, you need
to watch that because Jay wiped the floor with him. It was phenomenal.
I was in the back cheering. I was like, Wow, I didn't
expect this to be this good. So I was super pleased with that,
and I was really impressed by your knowledge on the topic and your argumentation and
how you got you basically demonstrated he was arguing, as you said it in
a circle. It was a perfect line you kept using on them. What
brought us here today so recently, two Muslims were on the PVD podcast,
very very big popular podcast. They were debating two Christians, brother Rashid and
Robert Spencer. The two Muslims were Daniel Kikichu, who both Jay and I
have debated, and Jake the Muslim metaphysician, and a lot of claims were
made by the Muslim side. One claim really stood out, which is that
Jake said, prior to Nicia, there was no trinity. It was an
evolved tradition. It came about later. And when I heard that, I
was like, You've got to be kidding me that that's just that's just not
true. I'm thinking of like church fathers that are just popping into my head.
I'm like, what about this one? What this one? What about
this one? I'm like, Jay, what were your thoughts when you heard
that? Yeah, exactly, you know, this is a common Muslim refrain.
I got into Muslim apologetics. Maybe it's kind of it's all still kind
of new to me. It's only about four years that I've really started debating
Muslims. And I remember the maybe the first time we had that debate.
That was one of the first things they said. And I'm just like it
would take you. I mean, if you were really serious about that,
it would take you nowadays, with the ease of information, I mean,
you could go to New Advent, you could go to you know, websites
pretty easily and check and see within five to ten minutes if there were Trinitarian
citations prior to Nice Sea. And one thing I'd like to do today is
hopefully go beyond just the kind of a quote mind not that it's necessarily wrong
to have a quote mind showing it, but we can go a lot more
into depth because it turns out in the first, second, and third century,
there's a wide swath of references to these things throughout not just this or
that specific church father, but many church fathers throughout the Roman Empire, in
a lot lot of different important sees and even obscure fragments that are all relevant
to see that there's a there's a sort of a wide picture scope that we
can get that they absolutely confess both the deity of Christ and the deity of
three persons, even if they don't use the phrase trinity. Which I'd like
to talk to about that a little bit more because that relates to the Muslim
debates because they always say, well, where is the word trinity in the
modele? Where is where is trinity? And you know, ignatious or whatever,
as if the word itself has to be there when you can have the
concepts there exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself. And yeah,
we will, we will definitely get into that. I'm gonna just let you
go all out because when I saw the stream they made the Muslims made the
case that that Christians are all super divided, and I remember thinking, who
could I do a stream with to show one that Christians are more unified than
people think but also knows the Patristic Father as well. And the first person
that off in my head with Jay Dyer because I'm not seeing all your stuff,
but when I've seen you do trinitarian stuff or church history stuff, you're
you're knowledgeable on that stuff. And I was like, we're both streamers,
we both do YouTube. I've been studying church fathers a lot. As I
said, I recently read this book by Michael left Bird which I'll bring up
Jesus among the Gods, which he does a lot of great stuff on there
about early church belief in the Trinity, and I was like, this will
be a perfect way to just eat the easily debundant. Just as you said,
quote after quote, there is so much we can go through. I
mean, it's just so much to say that there was no trinitarian theology prior
to then I see it. It's just it was mind blowing to me.
There's also too this. Since that's such a common objection, maybe this stream
can become like the de facto go to stream when people say, hey,
you know, I got this Muslim, I got this, Joe's witness whatever.
You know, they're saying there's no such thing as a trinity before and
I see you boom, You've got this stream. We're going to have all
the evidence it out for you. We most certainly will. And if everyone
who was interested in Jay's Jay Dare's channel is a link below. He talks
about Theatristic Fathers at times, and again, Jay and I don't agree on
everything. That's fine. We are both Christians, we both profess christ we
both believe in the Trying God, and there's more we agree on. And
work today is about agreement, unity and the Body of Christ and working together
to combat just errors. And thank you for the Chuper chat another great Daniel
Daniel apologetics. Uh, this live stream is my pleasure machine. Did you
did you see the recent debate between Matt Diller, Hunty and Kikichu where big
pleasure machine that's apostate profit and I went into a whole big analysis of that
and it just goes all right. Yeah. I put that clip up when
it got really heated on Twitter and I got a lot of views from that,
so that was amazing. Yeah, all right, So what I figure
we'll do is I will put up the PbD podcast here. Uh, let
me put this up here, So yeah, we'll hey this, and then
we're going to talk about Justin Martyr a little bit because that's one guy who's
specifically brought up. We're going to cover that extensively. And then I'm gonna
let Jay go wild here and he's just gonna go through a patristic father here,
patristic father there, and he'll share his screen if he wants to.
But there's a lot to cover here, and just everyone's aware, we're not
going to cover every trinitarian quote from church Father because if we were three out
exactly exactly, there's so many. But we're going to give you a really
good survey you can use to combat, as Jay said, Muslim Jovia witnesses
anti trinitarians who make this bogus claim that the Trinity didn't exist before Nice out.
So if anything else you want to add, Jay or else, we
can get right into it. No, I'm good, I'm ready, ready
when you are all right. Yeah, I put it a little bit further
back so people don't accuse us of taking this out of context. They're finishing
up the last thoughts they had before they jump into the trinitarian aspect and people
are start rejecting it after the finding these little details and side. I want
to give them an opportunity to respond and then we can go to the next
issue. Yeah. I'd like to respond because Robert brought up Apostolic succession and
claims that these doctrines have been held you know since the beginning of Jesus.
Jesus proclaimed his message to the apostles, and they passed it on to early
church fathers and then all the way down the line, and it's been this
consistent message throughout, but on very core doctrines which Daniel and I would actually
like to spend more time on what he called the ninety five percent, which
is actually monotheism. Unfortunately, we believe that Christians, Trinitarian Christians, are
representing a veiled form of polytheism. And you claimed that this was the consistent
message over time. Well, let's see what Justin Martyr, your own saint,
says. He's in the beginning of the second century. He was born
in the year one hundred. In his famous dialogue with Tripho, chapter fifty
six, he says this, let's see if his theology is the same as
yours, Robert, I shall attempt to persuade you, since you have understood
the scriptures of the truth of what I say that there is and that there
is said to be another God and Lord, subject to the Maker of all
things, who is also called an angel, because he announces to men whatsoever
the Maker of all things, above whom there is no other God, wishes
to announce them. So Justin Martyr says that Jesus is a second God,
is another God, separate and distinct, and he is a lesser divinity.
Now John Behaar, who I'm sure you would know, is a famous Eastern
Orthodox authority. Today he comments on this passage, and he says this as
it is not God himself who thus appeared and spoke with man the word of
God, who did all of these things. For Justin quote another God and
Lord besides the Maker of all, who was also called his Angel, as
he brings messages from the Maker of all, above whom there is no other
God than he says about this passage. The divinity of Jesus Christ, another
God, is no longer that of the Father himself, but subordinate to it
a lesser divinity. Now that's just one example. Justin Martyr, who you
would consider a saint. You may even pray to that, as the Eastern
Orthodox pray today that saints. But the reality is that your theology according to
you, on the Trinity is actually more correct than the person that you're praying
to. And I can go through a whole more list of on key doctrines
like the doctrine of the incarnation, the atonement, and the Trinity itself that
the early Church authorities like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and on and
on up until the fourth century, never preached the doctrine of the Trinity,
Sir, So when you make the claim that your message has been consistent without
what we see in the very beginnings on the fundamental point of who God is,
you did not have the same doctrine to get to the fourth century.
And that's why Christianity, because at his very beginning was very comfortable with development.
Oh who is God is a man? God, There's a God and
man at the same time. So if you can have those sorts of developments,
of course you can have developments about how laws are applied and whether or
not we should be celebrating LGBTQ and all of that. That's your history,
sir, not at all all right. So that is the full clip.
I played it all the way through just to give you guys kind of an
idea of what we're dealing with here. There was a lot of topics discussed
in this podcast, that wasn't it. They didn't spend that much time on
the Trinity at this point. They kind of went back and forth on plenty
of topics. But what Jay and I want to do is we want to
address this claim that Jake made, which is that there was no doctrine of
the Trinity in Justin Martyr Tretoli and Arenaius, any of the church fathers prior
to Nicea guys, that's just a monsterly false. I don't know anybody to
say that. Like, what are your thoughts on that, Jay, Yeah,
just opening thoughts. A couple of things that I think were word concept
fallacies when the Church Fathers at the time of Nicia, for example, when
they use the phrase in the Creed God from God, light from Light,
that's very similar to the phraseology of justin that Jesus the logos is God from
God, the Father. And the reason that it's not multiple gods is that
the word God is not a specific now that only picks out the divine nature.
This is actually an argument that Muslims use where they collapse any term or
predicate of the divinity to only refer to the essence of God or the unitarian
nature of God. So we all agree that God's essence or nature is one,
but the word God, even in scripture for example, is generic.
It can pick out a divine person, it can pick out the divine nature,
it can pick out a divine energy, and it can even pick out
non divine created things like angels, demons, or humans. So the word
God is a generic term that it's meaning or referent is determined partially in terms
of the context and the intention of the writer, much like the phrase angels.
So when Justin is calling Jesus the Angel of the Lord, this is
an apologetic argument. He makes a lot of use of against Trypho, where
he's trying to say, Hey, your texts in the Old Testament demonstrate this
distinct person, this distinct second hypostasis. That's not God the Father or Yahweh,
but sent by God the Father Yahweh, and has the name and the
nature of God the Father, and is also called by derivation Yahweh. That
Angel the Lord is the logos the second person of Godhead. So I think
Jake misunderstood the phrase God from God must therefore signify by theism or try theism
in terms of the trinity. It doesn't. And then se secondly the phrase
subordination. Things can be subordinated in different ways, so the word subordinate does
not necessitate ontological or metaphysical diminished status. So the assumption was that if the
Father, for example, of Jesus says is greater than I greater, how
right if we look at the other passages, Jesus says that he has all
the same works and powers that the Father has all the Father has he's given
to the son, so we don't we wouldn't want to say that that it's
an ontological or metaphysical subordination, but there could be what we call an ordinal
or a causal subordination there where the Father is the first in the triad,
he's the source, he's the cause, and then the son, in the
terms of the doctrine of the eternal generation, derives his existence from all eternity
from the Father. So that derivation, though, does not necessitate a lesser
status in terms of his deity, powers, operations, etc. Yeah,
and I love the way you were that you've done that in past ums.
You're very good at wording and explaining these terms here, so I do appreciate
you going into that because you're very good at explaining, like you know,
with modes or subordination, that these don't have one meaning. That you're used
in different ways. And if you look in the Old Testament, the word
eloheim is used of God, it's used of demons, it's used of Samuel
when he's said and angels. It's used of multiple ways. It's not just
one way. But let's pull up the quote here from Justin Martyr I want
to talk a little bit about this, because that was one guy he specifically
brought up. So you can see here this is on New Advent when I
pull this quote right up here, and this is the party's talking about here
where Justice is replying to Tripho, and he says, I shall attempt to
persuade you since you've understood scriptures of the truth of what I say that there
is and that there is said to be another God, and the Lord's subject
to the maker of all things, who is called an angel. Now here's
the thing I say about church fathers. Most of them don't really have the
gift of brevity. Sometimes it takes a while for them to get their thoughts
out and elaborate on certain things. And sometimes they've been misunderstood by even scholars
in the past because of this. Often you've got to keep reading. It's
you just can't see a quote and go aha, see this explains his whole
theology. No, because if you go down further, he continues to elaborate
on these things. Chapter fifty six is quite long. But when we get
down to chapter sixty one, what does Justin say Here? He says,
I shall give you another testimony my friends. From the scripture is that God
begot before all creation of beginning, who was a certain rational power proceeding from
himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the
Lord, now the Son again, Wisdom again an angel, then God,
and then Lord and Logos. And on another occasion he calls himself Captain when
he appeared in human form through Joshua, the Son of Nothing, For he
can be called by all those names, since he ministered to the Father's will,
and since he was begot of the Father by an act of will,
just as we see happening among ourselves. For when we give out some word,
we beget the word, yet not by a decision so as to lessen
the word, which remains in us when we give it out. And just
as we see also happening in the case of fire, which is not lessened
when it is kindled another, but remains the same. And that which has
been kindled by it, likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that
from which it was kindled. The Word of Wisdom, who is himself,
this God, the God and of the Father of all things, Word and
Wisdom, in power and glory of the beginner, we bear evidence to me,
or will bear evidence to me. And you can see right in this
section Justin is continuing his thoughts when he says talking about Jesus being God being
an angel, he then goes back to the whole ontological discussion and this is
fire from fire, this is God from very God. Where are we getting
ideas that we see in the nice and Creed, Well, it's coming from
church fathers, like justin, God of God, of God, very light,
of very light, being of one substance with the Father. You know,
if you go to a traditional church, you're going to say the Nicene
Crean every week like I do. You're going to see something like this.
And the Nicene Crean didn't come Danova out of nothing, It came from church
father. He's like Justin. In this very section you can see very similar
language. He's using fire as a metaphor. The sun is fire from fire,
Father from sun kind of thing. They're the same substance. It's not
something that is entirely different. And again, as I said, sometimes it
takes a while for a church father to really get to explain his whole theology.
Here. You just can't take one quote and go Aha. You see
he says, it's another God. Well, that's not what he meant by
God. He does not have this polytheistic outlook, or he's not like an
arian. He then goes on to explain this is fire from fire, and
you can also see this in Justin's first apology. Justin's first Apology. Again,
I've read this so many times because I've had the deal with Jesus mythesis
basically saying things like, oh, this is just prooved that Jesus was just
like pagan deities, and I'm like, all right, let's go back through
this again. That's not what Justin is saying. But in this he's very
clearly pointing out that Christians are basically believing in one God who is three persons.
So he deals with the charge of atheism. In chapter six he says,
hence we are called atheists, and we confess that we are atheists so
far as the gods of this sort are concern He's talking of the Roman gods,
but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteous
and temperance and other virtues, who is free from own purity, but both
him and the Son who came forth from Him, and taught us these things,
and the host of the other good angels who follow are made like to
Him and the Prophetic Spirit. We worship an a door, knowing them in
reason and truth, declaring without grudging to everyone who who wishes to learn and
have been taught. If we go to chapter thirteen, Justin goes further into
this. So he's talking more about Christ. He says, for example,
let me pull it up here on my thing. He says, our teacher
of these things is Jesus Christ, who is the son of the True God
himself, and holding him in second place, and the Prophetic Spirit in the
third, we will prove, for they proclaim our madness to consistentness, that
we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable eternal God,
the creator of all. For they do not discern the mystery that is herein
to which as we make it plain to you, we pray, pray you
to give heed. So basically he's sorry wrong chapter that I was on fourteen.
But basically he's pointing out in here that we have basically placed Jesus Christ
on the same level with the Father, the Creator. It's not this idea
that he is subordinate or less or somehow of a different substance. Justin is
very clear. This is fire of fire, God of God, very substance.
Now, Jay rightly pointed out that the son is subordinate to the Father
in like a causal aspect or like an economical aspect is so often used Trinitarian
language, but he's not subordinate in ontological aspect. I know the doctor Joshua
Sigawati, who's another monarchical Trinitarian, says they share all in the same divine
essence, all ontological intrinsic properties, and so there's nothing there that would be
distinct or different. Jay, is there anything you want to say about Justin
or any of these passages, anything you want me to go to. No,
I think you stated exactly the way I would describe it. It was
good. Yeah, And I want to put up some quotes here as well,
and then I'm gonna let Jay go all out on here. But I
would do one thing I would say, is that a lot of what you
saw there in Justin that Michael was just going through, You're going to find
a lot of similar passages in a lot of these other church fathers that we
look at. So it's not like, well, this is just justin speculation,
and maybe he helped develop the Trinity. He played a role as a
prominent martyr, and he's called in our tradition Justin the philosopher, So he
was a pre eminent apologist. But he's just one of you know, dozens
as we'll see. So this is not just an outliers what I'm trying to
say exactly. That's definitely well, I said, we're going to get to
that. Before we do, I want to get this some quotes, because
Jake brought up a quote from John bar Okay, and I will say,
when I go through this scholarship, I have seen some scholars accused Justin of
this. I don't think it's a consensus you because there's a lot of pushback
which will cover here. So for example, Thomas White says, it's helpful
in this respect to consider briefly some key ideas of early Trinitarian thought. Not
and Justin Martyr erinais respectively. Justin Martyr clearly affirms that Jesus Christ is the
pre existence son of God, and he attributes personal agency to the son as
one really distinct from the eternal Father in person, not in name. Only
Justin is not there for a Unitarian theologian, and his thought, when judged
by later standards, is unambiguously proto Trinitarian. And he notes in his work
by that he basically means the work he's just not using the word trinity,
but he's clearly teaching the theol that we see after the church fathers come up
with the work. One thing I'd add to is he didn't say which John
Barret book he's pulling for. He's probably pulling from Way to Nicea, which
I have. And it's also disingenuous to give the impression that Bara was saying
that, you know, Justin is some kind of Unitarian or Trideist. In
that book, you know, I think he goes on to argue, I'm
not at my normal home, so I don't have my library. But in
that book he goes on to argue because it's all about the path to Nicia,
and so actually the book is the defense of the very things that we're
talking about today. So he's not the book is not Father Bear admitting that,
oh, they're all anti Trinitarians. And then now by Nicia becomes the
Trinity. That's not what the book's about ja. Are you saying that in
a Muslim quote minds something? I don't think it's ever happened. Are you
sure? I know it's hard to believe because we know that they always strive
to have the most scholarly accurate on a sourcing. But yes, in this
case, well, here's another great quote. So this scholar here Bukar,
he's basically responding to earlier scholars that accused Justin of being more US subordinationists or
a Unitarian. And in this section of his book he states Justin himself clearly
states that God alone is the object of worship and honor. Father, son,
and Spirit are certainly included in Justin's scholar expedition of Christian doctrine. Justin
is well acquainted with the Christian Trinitarian profession of faith to give an account of
the sunny deploys of Christological reading of Biblical Theophanes, which enables him to proclaim
Christ as the Lord who appeared to the patriarchs and prophets before being incarnate from
the Virgin Speak about the spirit, he adopts a variety of approaches, one
of which is the adaptation of early Jewish and Christian forget I pronounce this word
angeological speculations. I believe now in this book, as I said, he's
responding to people who've accused Justin of not being trinitarian, and he notes the
problem is that sometimes Justin diffuses words like an angel or spirit differently depending on
context. And that's happened where scholars will say, well, if he's saying,
you know, like an angel's a spirit, he's saying Jesus is a
spirit, then he's saying that Jesus is not God. But that's just not
true. And again this has been addressed by a lot more recent modern scholarship.
Here another great scholar I'm not going to quote, but he has a
great chart in his book, Tarmo Toomb and as you can see on this
chart, he differentiates this between oneness doctrines. Paulytheist in Triune at the top
of his list in the first three centuries of Christianity, who do we see
there? Lo and behold Justin Martyr he labels as trinitarian, along with Tertullian,
Arenaeus another other church fathers that Jake said did not profess to trinity.
And actually he puts Novaian in there, which I actually might be wrong about
this. I thought he was not fully Trinitarian, but toomb Thems to think
he is. So I'm gonna go back and read in Novaian. After looking
at this and going, well, maybe I was wrong about it. I
thought maybe I misunderstood something in it. But it's my understanding that the Novationists
did profess the Trinity because when one of the arguments for that is that when
Novationists were received back into the church, if they came back to the church,
they didn't have to be necessarily rebaptized or undergo even reordination, because the
idea was that the Trinitarian profession was at least still there because there were a
schism. But I could be wrong about that. Well, I was recently
reading in this book about this whole topic, and he labeled novation In like
the opening Preludist, someone who was considered heretical for some things. But I
have seen scholars say no, he did a firm Trinitarian theology. So that's
something I want to go back and check. One thing I would add is
that to a lot of the quotes, when you see people like Jake or
Daniel when they come to these texts, and the Church fathers. They'll take
quotes about the eternal generation of the sun and assume that that means that there's
a temporal causation. So they actually make a lot of the same moves that
the Aryans made at this time, or Paul of Samisada, which who many
of these church fathers that we're going to look at, that's who they're responding
against. And so the irony is that they're they're making the very arguments of
the Unitarians and the Aryans and Paul Samasada that the Church Fathers are arguing against,
and they're arguing that the Church fathers are arguably their position of Unitarianism,
which is ironic. All right, So if you want to share your screen
now, we can start going through some of these church fathers, because Jake
Dinnages bring up Justin Martyr, which, as we've shown, he's clearly Trinitarian,
and that's just again, ladies and gentlemen, the tip of the iceberg.
Go through his second apology, go through more of the first apology.
You see very clearly him basically laying down trinitarian theology for example, and one
more quote in first apology, chapter sixty one, he says for in this
name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our
Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. They then receive the washing
of water, talking about baptism Trinitarian baptism formula in the first Apology. But
if you want to get your screen up here, Jay, I'll let you
go through some of these other church fathers. Sure now remember and if I
forgot one of the people he listed, remind me he said that Erin as
Ertullian, justin Marty don't teach trinity. Did he list anybody else? I
don't recall him listing any of us. I'll double check while you're going through
this. Yeah. Yeah, So one thing I would say too to the
audiences, keep in mind that the word trinity or trinitass which I think there's
some debate as to whether Tertullian or one of the other church fathers used the
first. Maybe Theofulist I can't remember, but most people think it was Hertullian
that used it first. But there's some debate about the dating of like Tertullian's
text. But most of these texts, as we said that we're going to
go through here, they're all dated prior to Nicia. I'll have one reference
that's post Nicia, and I'll explain why that's there. But they're not in
chronological order. They're just in the order that I through and found them.
When I first got my church father set back in the day, I remember
thinking when the cheft said the first volume are two. It has all these
weird guys I'd never heard of, because I'd heard of Jerome, and i'd
heard of Augustine, and I've heard Ambrose and Basil. That you've got this
list of all these guys that some of them are kind of wacky, some
of them are good. We're solid for their time. But I never really
understood, well, why are these characters in here? Now I understand years
later, you know a lot of apologetics and debate. It's because so many
of these people in this early period are going to be attesting to the controversial
doctrines that we're talking about today. Controversial not for Christians but for the you
know, Muslims and people that take issue with it. So we're gonna have
a lot of people that you haven't heard of, but they're figures that are
very valuable for their historical witness and sometimes a sort of historical witness, by
the way, does not mean that they're all correct, that they're all infallible,
or that they we don't believe the Church fathers are infallible or that they
didn't make theological mistakes at times. And some of these people even ended up
deviating and becoming heterodox, like Tatian or even a Tertillion himself ended up going
outside of the Church of his time and becoming a Montonist. So the first
quote we'll look out here is I think you actually put your screen back in
a shared While you do that, I do want to put up this super
chat. I think you'll appreciate this. Jay, thank you for the very
generous super chest spaghetti. Sam. Hey, Jay and Michael, thank you
everything you guys do. You were both instrumental in my journey to Christ from
Islam. So it's exciting to see you brothers working on a project together.
May God bless you, bless you both and strengthen you in your work.
Really appreciate that, Samon. Yeah, I'm really glad to be working with
Jay again. I think we have more in agreement and I want to celebrate
that. Okay, can we see that quote there? Yep? They got
right there, all right. So our first quote here is from Athenagoras,
and this is late second century, and this is from the doctor document called
the Plea, and this is kind of an early apologetic defense work. And
you'll notice that he states again this is this is very early late second century,
so one eighties, one nineties. We are not atheists. In fact,
we acknowledge one God, but we also acknowledge, as he says here,
the logos from the God, and that logos is also united to that
third person, the Holy Ghost. And so this is just a great I'm
not going to read this whole passage, but you know you'll see here that
we have the trinitarian formula of worshiping Father's son and Holy Ghost. So Athenagoris
as an excellent attestation here. You know, it's you know, it's funny.
Jay, I literally have that quote pulled up just in case you didn't
have it. I'm like, that was like the first one I was going
to go to. Is perfect. Yeah, I mean, and I want
to remind your too. Remember this is not exhaustive. So there's like like
Michael, so there's so many of these that you really have to kind of
you know, suss them out. So let's go to the next one here,
number two. This is from the apology of Saint Aristides, and he's
another second century church father. And what you'll notice about this text is that
we don't just find the reference to the du to Christ, but you'll notice
also virgin birth and the incarnation of the Son of God. So the Christians
and trace the beginning of their line the religion from Jesus the Messiah. He
is named Son of God most hot and it is said that God came down
from heaven. So notice he is referred to as fully divine, and from
a Hebrew virgin. He clothes himself with flesh. So notice this is a
fully orthodox confession of the incarnation, virgin birth, human nature, and that
he's fully divine. And again that is from the Apology of Saint Aristides.
So the next quote I'll pull up here is number three, and this is
from the late two hundreds the writer called Arnobius, and Arnobius writes that it
is agreed that Christ performed all those miracles which he wrought without any aid from
external things, without the observance of any ceremonies, without any definite mode of
procedure, but solely by the inherent might of his authority, as was the
proper duty of the True God. And so the miracles of Christ in this
early apologetic treatise late two hundreds, as you can see here, the miracles,
according to him, attest to the divine status of the Son of God.
Now, not every quote, by the way, is necessarily going to
be trinitarian. In fact that sometimes we'll see a writer in a couple of
paragraphs he might mention father and son, and then a little bit down in
the work he'll mention, for example, the Holy Spirit. And it's just
like Michael said, we do that because we want to see the full context.
You know, if we just quote mind and we found, for example,
a church father saying, you know, as say many of the post
Apostolic writers in their letters, like Ignatious or Clement, you know, they
might I think Ignacious for example, starts many letters like uh, you know,
from God, our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And you might say, oh, well, he didn't mention holy Spirit,
so he doesn't believe in the Holy Spirit. Well no, if you go
down later in the letter, he does. So it's not like there's some
law that you have to mention, you know, father and son together in
spirit altogether, or else you don't believe in the trinity. These are just
kind of, you know, kind of silly arguments that people pull up.
Are So the next one, number four, this is Saint Afra at the
Persian and this is late two hundreds, and you'll notice that he talks about
the unbelief of Jews and Gentiles, and then he says that exodustry, I
am God, there is none beside me. You shall worship no other God.
And then he says, if you are, you are opposing God,
and that you call a man God. Concerning these things, as far as
I can tell, I will instruct you about them, that while we grant
that he is a man, Christ is fully man, and while we honor
him and we call him God and Lord, yet not in any novel fashion.
In fact, Jesus our Lord, is God, the Son of God,
the King, the King's son, the light of light. And of
course, in I think the Orthodox Church, Saint Afred has a pretty famous
role. He's very highly regarded. And so you'll notice here again just a
sampling from his Persian work, The demonstrations, and so we'll move on to
the next one. Here number five. This is the very famous church father
that was the tutor and the mentor to Athanasius. So you might have heard
of Athanasius and Anthonatius because he's sort of the pre eminent church father at the
Council of Nicia, but his mentor prior to Nicia in the two hundreds was
Saint Alexander of Alexandria. Now Alexander in the two hundreds famously argued that if
God is an eternal father, then by necessity he must have an eternal son
if the word father is to mean anything. And this is an argument that
Saint Athanasius picks up in his trinitarian apologetics. But you'll notice he says that
here the deity of Christ brings us to what here the knowledge of the Trinity.
So again pre Nicia, pre Athanasius, this is mid two hundreds,
Saint Alexander of Alexandria that the that the incarnation of Christ brings us to the
knowledge of the Trinity. Sorry, and again remember that not every quote has
to have Trinity present, because when you read these writings, and in fact,
Alexander is kind of you could argue he's the father of the father of
Nicia, and so the trinitarian apologetics that Athanasius argues so forcefully in all of
his writings is really just from his mentor Alexander, again from the mid two
hundreds. Next one is This one's a little odd, but I thought it
was worth putting in here. No excuse me, not this one. I'm
thinking of the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas here in chapter This
is I think chapter twelve, and it notices that the deity of Christ.
And this is believed to have been written anywhere from between seventy to one twenty
a d. But you'll notice here all three persons are reference. We have
a reference to Christ here as that Moses is a type of Christ. And
then we have the phrases in those famous Messianic prophecies that we've made so much
use of over the years against Muslims and in the podcast that we've done with
people like Sam Shamun. We noticed that the personal Spirit speaks here, and
this is chapter twelve. I think there's also a chapter six which says the
same thing. But you'll notice that the Lord sits at my right hand.
This is, of course, referring to the ascension of Christ. This is
sided many times the New Testament about Christ when he ascends right sitting around,
and will make your enemies your footstool. But all so behold how David calls
him Lord and Son of God. And then there was a I thought the
Holy Spirit was mentioned in here. Somewhere does it not mention the spirit.
Maybe holy Spirit is mentioned in the other paragraph, but it does note that
it uses the reference, for example of Colossians that all things are to him
for him. So this is another deity passage pointing out the deed to Christ.
So let's move on to the next one here, and I'm number seven.
This is a lesser known fragment of a writer around the year two hundred
named Caius, and Caius has sided in Eusebius. And so this two hundred
era fragment gives attestation to the deity Christ. The apostles themselves received and taught
the things which these men now maintain. So here we have mid Is about
two hundred and the bishop Rick. The apostolic succession that goes from thirteenth in
Rome, from Peter to his successor zeph Rhinus in the day of Caius writing
this, and that's relevant two because you'll notice that Jake made the comment that
there's not apostolic succession, but here we have a reference in the Fragment of
Caius. But you'll also notice, I think in the next section if you
if you go to the Fragment of Caius and you scroll down to chapter three,
I thought I had that one on here. Maybe I didn't clip that
one, but chapter three of Caius mentions the deity of the Holy Spirit as
well. I don't know if I should pull that up or not. Let
me see, let me go, Yeah, you can pull real quick.
I just want to say, and notice, like how many Like we're just
thinking, like Jay's remembering, oh yeah, this one in chapter three,
Oh yeah, this other guy. Because there's just so much less in gentlemen,
Every week, I attend an evening prayer service and we always sing the
False Hillern. It's a very old hymn. I looked it up. Scholars
date at two Bay. Basically they think that Diocletian persecution so pre Nicia around
basically the end of the third century, turn of the fourth century. What
do we say in the foss hilleron we praise God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit right then and there, pre nice and early hymn, Saint
Basil said, as it was a long standing tradition by the time he came
on to the scene. So, yeah, there's a there's another just another
phrase I just thought up off the top of my head, thinking of just
another one. There's so many here. So here we remember. So chapter
one here mentions the deity of Christ, the word Christ, the Word of
God. And then when we scroll down to three, you have the reference
to the dictated by the Holy Spirit. Now he's talking about certain groups that
don't believe this, but he's saying that they think themselves, why, easier
than the Holy Spirit, because they don't believe that the Holy Spirit spoke and
inspired this scriptures. So in other words, we have a reference to the
personhood and agency of the Holy Spirit. And so the Holy Spirit is not
a force. Again, if you when we when we read the whole context
of these fathers, we find them teaching exactly what we say. Let's move
on to number eight. This is probably well known to a lot of people.
This is the letter of Saint Clement of Rome to the Corinthians. And
you'll notice here in chapter forty two, the apostles preached the Gospel to us
from the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, from God. Christ was therefore
sent forth by God by this appointments in an order the way according will of
God, having never received these orders, fully assured by the Resurrection, and
established in the Word of God, with the full assurance of the Holy Spirit.
So we have Father, Son and Holy Spirit there. But that's not
the only quote. We also want to look at. Is that the First
Clement or second Clement. It's I'm sorry, it's the letter of Clement to
the Corinthians. So let me see I can pull it up over here we
need to. It's the first letter. And because New Advent was kind of
going with the line of reasoning that the rest of them are potentially spurious,
I just I just stuck to the first epistle. Yeah. One thing I
will say about the second Epistle though even a lot of scholars don't think Clement
actually wrote that. However, they still dated to the second century exactly.
And it's again it calls Jesus God. Right, Yeah, that's that's a
great point. Yet even the even the a lot of the pseudopograa and sort
of the you know, doubted text from this period as well, back up
a lot of what we're saying. I just I just tended to focus on
the ones that were less controversial, But you're you're right that they also make
that same point now here, and I think I'll see forty it's not twenty
six. Forty six is the other great passage where we have he says that
you are the elect of God. Why are there strives, tumult schisms?
Are they not? Have we not all one God in Christ? Is there
not one spirit of grace poured out upon us all? And not one calling
in Christ? We do not divide the members of Christ. But you'll notice
so between forty two and forty six you have the reference to the deity of
Christ and to the Holy Spirit, and thus all three persons referred to as
divine, and you could say triadic basically. Yeah, there's the rest of
that one. So we'll move on now to number ten. This is an
interesting one because a lot of people aren't familiar with He was actually the Bishop
of Rome in the mid two hundreds. Is the Saint Dionysius of Rome,
and he actually wrote this is really important because he wrote it treat us at
that time against the Sabellians, much Tertullian had written against the Sibelians, and
so any of the treatises against the Sibelians in this pre Nicing period are crucial
because there's some of the most forceful and consistent Trinitarian theological argumentation. And so
you'll notice in this passage against the Sibelians from Saint Dionysius of Rome again two
hundreds, it would truly be unjust a dispute against those that divide and ran
the monarchy. He's talking about the monarchy of God the Father and in the
Church of God, as we're into three powers and distinct substances. Now he's
saying that if you split God into three distinct substances in the sense of tri
theism, he's twice calling that tri theism, and then that three deities,
you would destroy the Trinity. So he's not saying that he's a modalist.
He's speaking against tri theists. But he goes on to say that those who
preachadis the Word of God among you, so to speak, are opposed to
the opinion of Sabellius Now this is important because remember Sabellian is a modalist,
and modalists essentially teach Unitarianism, and so it's not absolutely identical to the Muslim
view of God, but it's a version of Unitarianism. Where As probably everybody
knows Sabellius and his followers, there was more radical guys like Praxeis and the
others. Thing they taught that the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
were just masks or names for an absolutely simple Unitarian God. So notice that
these bishops, in this case the Bishop of Rome, and we'll see later
there's also this also occurs with the Bishop of Alexandria at this time, are
explicitly reject rejecting the Unitarian argumentation. That was the very thing that Jake said.
Supposedly, these church fathers of this time period were Unitarian developing a Trinitarian
or tritheistic God. According to Jake's argument, that's not what's going on here.
In fact, he says that as he defines the Sabellian position, he
says that the Son is the Father, and the Father isn't the Son.
They divide the unity into three different substances, absolutely separated from one another,
and he says that it is essential that the divine words should be united to
the God of all, and that the holy spirits should abide and dwell in
God, and the Divine Trinity should be reduced and gathered into one. So
he's talking about the errors of the civilians, and he's saying that the correct
view that the Church of Rome at this time holds is the Trinitarian confession,
as for indeed rightly know that the Trinity is declared in the Divine Scriptures.
So here you have a two hundreds arabishop of Rome confessing that the Trinity is
the doctrine of the Scriptures. He's not arguing this from Greek philosophy. He
believes that this is a extegetical argument. And many of the Church fathers,
You'll notice this is another important point. The Church fathers are using the same
Extrajesus we do when they cite the texts. They're citing the text that we
site. They're citing the text that we site that they believe teaches the Trinity,
and they are fully aware that it doesn't use the word of Trinity,
because it doesn't have to. The fathers of this period extity in the Scripture
is the exact same way that we do. This one, I think is
one of the really strong ones, but it's not the only one. So
we'll move on to another quote. I think this is also Dionysia. This
is Dionysius quote to Rome writing to Bishops Sixtus in his epistle, and he
says that he's talking about the heresy of certain groups that would baptize and rebaptize
in weird ways. He talks about it again the Sabellian heretics. You notice
here that's the modalist Unitarians of that time. For since the doctrine which lately
says been foot set foot in May the city of Metapolis, or full blasted
me against Almighty God and the fall of our Lord Us Christ, full unbelieved
towards the only begotten son and the firstborn of every creature, the word made
man. So here we have John One's logos theology, which takes away the
perception of the Holy Spirit. So here you have again trinitarian confession from Pope
Dionysius of Rome. Next one, This one is a little weird, but
I'm including it because it could potentially you could possibly read it in a correct
way. It is also possible that it might be read in a heterodox way
because the language is a little ambiguous, but I'm including it just because it
is an early reference in the Shepherd of Hermus to the to the deity of
Christ and the incarnation. So although his terminology is a little ambiguous here he
does you could read this as the Holy Spirit basically deifying the flesh that the
Son of God assumed. And so shopherd of Hermas again dated very early in
this like around believes to be around one hundred or ninety one hundred. You
know, I can't remember it's a ninety one hundred. I think it's would
be after the Dedcay, but yeah, it would be a ninety one hundred
something around there. So you'll notice that a lot of this, what it's
talking about is the Holy Spirit's relationship to the flesh that Christ took on,
right, And it's talking about that flesh being in some way partaking of the
Holy Spirit and being a tabernacle within which the Holy Spirit could can dwell as
you see here. But it does include this notion of the deity of Christ
in this triadic relationship between father, son and Spirit. So it is an
early attestation to the Triadic Confession. So next one up is, uh,
let's see, is this skipped a thirteen. I don't see a thirteen.
I think this is supposed to be thirteen. Let's see if this is,
this is ignacious and so this is fourteen. So I think the last two
we're just there's another one that I've forgot to. I know what it is.
Thirteen is a discussion of Hippolytus of Rome on the Holy Theophany. And
this is relevant because Holy Theophany, of course, is you know, in
the Orthodox Church, it's a feast, a very early feast. It's it's
a it's a feast here in Rome as well in the early two hundreds.
And Hippolitus also was a controversial Bishop of Rome, but he ended up being,
in our view, a saint, so he ended up on the good
side of things. And his discourse on the Theophany here, which is the
feast of christ baptism. If you don't know, the church has always seen
I'm talking about you in the audience, if you don't know, the theophany
is really a manifestation of the divine So when we talked about the Old Testament,
Angel the Lord appearing. You know that the cloud, the fire.
We believe in the Orthodox Church, those are divine manifestations of God in time
and space, particularly the second person of the Godhead. So we don't think
that it's, you know, the person of the Father. It is explicitly
the person of the Son. As Jesus argues in John five to the Pharisees,
no man sees God at any time, but he says by implication to
the Pharisees there that the Son of Man was basically I was the one basically
talking to Moses and talking to Abraham. And so you'll notice there that the
feast of they ofteny. In this this brief homily, here is an argumentation
proving the not just the deity of the Son and is a divine the divinity
of the Sun becoming acarnate, but also the Triadic confession that the Holy Spirit
is necessary when we do the baptismal confession, right, we baptize the name
of the Father's Son and the Holy Spirit. This early early uh homily on
the Thofen, he is really making the trinitarian argumentation that we would make again
in two hundreds. So that was also and als a rom Refutation of all
Heresies. Chapter ten, he says, the word alone of this God is
from God himself, wherefourth also the word is God being the being of God.
So there's another early quote from a policy thank you. Yeah, there's
there's a lot in all, just has quite a bit. He's also got
a commentary on Daniel, which is pretty fascinating. There's all kinds of references
to the Messianic prophecies and how they're fulfilled in the deed of Christ and his
writings. But yeah, I feel free to bust in with anything that I've
missed or that you think should be mentioned. Next up, I think this,
So this is ignacious savaniant. These are pretty well known. These are
dated anywhere from one hundred to one fifty in terms of the manuscripts that are
present. And let's see the first one here fourteen. Will notice that he
says, greetings in you know, the God, the Father, and our
Lord, Jesus Christ, and then our much beloved God, Jesus Savior,
the followers of God, the Blood of God. So we're talking about the
incarnate Christ here. And then companion to this quote is the next quote here,
which I think, yeah, this is the same letter, or this
might be to the Magnesians, but he says, for it's a habit of
carrying about the name of Jesus Christ and wicked guile somewhere in the habit of
doing this while they practice unworthy of God. And then he goes on to
say that there is one physician who is possessed of flesh and spirit and not
made God, existing in the flesh both of Mary and of God. Possible
and then impossible, our Lord Jesus Christ, again clearly, clear as day
called God. And I think also in this previous one to the Ephesians,
if you go down to chapters four and five, he references the personhood and
deity of the Holy Spirit as well. Let me make sure if that's right.
Trying to think if I wrote anything down on Ignacious, I have stuff
on the dedicate. We can get too later. But yeah, yeah,
I think that I kind of one one dedicate quote here. But so I
think I have this wrong, that I'm actually taught it's actually not Ignacious four
and five. I think it's the discourse on Theophany has a reference to the
Holy Spirit. Anyway, I'll move on past that to the next one in
my list, So just so you guys can see there there is so much
and sometimes confusing because there's just so much to juggle when it comes to quote
from the Church fathers, to say we don't have this trinitarian theology and the
Church is like ignoring an embarrassment of riches that we have. Exactly sixteen.
This is ignacious letter to the Magnesians. And you'll notice the triad present here
as well. Study therefore to be established in the doctrine of the Lord and
the Apostles, and so that so all things, whatever you do, my
prosperant flesh and spirit, and faith in love in the Son and the Father,
and in the Spirit the beginning, in the end, and again he
says, Jesus Christ to the Father, according to the flesh, the Apostles,
to the Father, and to the Spirit. So again this is very
early letter to the Magnesians, a clear triadic reference. Now the ones in
Irenaus, there's so many that I just kind of have it. Yeah,
right, So when we get to Irenais, which is like one ad a
d when he does against Harris Ces. Yeah, when Jake brought up Aaronais,
I was like, are you kidding? That one was really absurd because
first of all, you know, against Harris's is like five or six hundred
pages. The first two or three hunter pages is him recounting all the Gnostic
sects of that time and all the variations of them. And then by about
books four and five and six he gets into you know, strict theology,
and so you'll notice God the Father in his words. So here we have
the deity of Christ. But again there's so many of these. So this
is the example I have here is five eighteen. But i'll just list a
few for you if you want to go. Book two point one refers to
the monarchia of the Father. Book three one and two refers to the triadic
personal reality of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Book five eight refers to
the deity and divinity of the Holy Spirit. Book five eighteen refers to the
deity of Christ. And so there's just really too many in Iranaisis against heresies.
But you can find those pretty easily if you just start looking through them.
Next one is another really early witness. This is a fragment from one
one eighty eight, and this is the epistle to Aristides. Actually I think
it's a it's a full brief epistle, but he says, the child leaped
and left at our caresses and words, and we need have been the motherfield
farewell he had shown us on or we testified as who he is a divine
leader. And then he goes on to say that we made speed to depart
in all earnestness, we reported jerusum all that we've seen. Behold then the
great things that we have told you regarding Christ, Christ, our Savior,
who was made known to God and man. And so this is just an
early reference to the divine leader, the person of Christ in this Julius Africanus
of one eighty a d. Nineteen is excuse me, this is this is
the fragment. This is Fragment nineteen. We don't know who this is.
It's just a fragment from this time period. It might be Julius Africanist.
I'm not sure. But the fragment says, for we know that the measure
of these words are not ignorant, grace and faith giving, thanks to the
Father who is episode honest his creatures, and the Savior of all, to
whom be glory majesty with the Holy Spirit. Again very early you can find
this on here. Yeah, and this is a this is a great website.
It goes through so many of the letters in the works of the Church
fathers, and it's all it's all open access. You can just go check
this stuff out. And so yeah, we're using the site, so you
guys can just go through some of this stuff if you want and just see
over and over again, Church Father, if the church fault, you have
these Trinitarian formulas over and over again, calling Jesus God, talking up the
Holy Spirit or the Prophetic Spirit, talking about the monarchy of the Trinity.
It's all there. One of the earliest most important treatises for the doctor doctor
at Trinity proper that in terms of its kind of breadth and scope, is
Tritullian's work written around one ninety, which is actually a large defense of the
Trinity. So I remember we're told by Jake and the Muslims that the Trinity
doesn't exist prior and Icia. But they'll also turn around some times to say
that Tertullian invented the Trinity, which is also not true. But you'll notice
in the book is called the Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity and Unity. This
is against Praxius. And remember Praxius was an early radical Sabellian or Modalist.
So the very position that Jake and these people are saying is true, this
unitarian modalist type of position, is actually the very thing that Tertullian's against Praxius
is arguing against. And they themselves even admit this when they turn around half
the time and say that Tertullian invented the Trinity, So it can't you can't
have it both ways. He's not an anti trinitarian, anti trinitarian, and
everybody knows that he's very important for the early development trinquet with regards to Trutulian.
Sometimes and Muslims will say, oh, this just all came from Greek
philosophy. Well, Tertullian was adamant against us in Greek philosophy. He's famous
for saying, what has Athens to do? What you do with Jerusalem?
Yeah, he thought fate that, Yeah, these two were really incompatible.
That the points of the earliest systematic defender of the trinity, exactly as you're
saying, really says that it's nothing to do with philosophy, and he relies
heavily on argumentation from scripture, as do all of these church fathers at this
time. Remember this is this is church fathers at this time. Doing extradus
is the way we do, right, So they're not doing you know,
you notice they don't do them the Muslim apologetic of picking and choosing. They'll
look at Okay, if Jesus says, for example, that he's of the
Father or the Father's greater, they'll also balance that out, as you saw
with Michael using the later passages in Justin they balance out that those relationships between
the persons. Okay, This next one is an early epistle in the mid
two hundreds, but it's a product of an entire synod. And this is
the product of the Synod of Antioch in two seventy two, and it's the
Epistle of Malchion. And the reason that it's relevant is because oh wait,
excuse me, this is I gotta go back to Yeah, this is it.
Let me just pull it up from over here. Yeah, yeah,
no worries. I mean again, when we're going through church father guys,
I mean they did not have the give of brevity. They go very long
and very hard, and sometimes you're like, wait, where was that?
Oh yeah, here it is like it's that kind of thing. Yeah,
So the Epistle of Malchion is the Senate of Antioch. I guess Malkion is
presumably Bishop of Antioch, and he this two seventy two, again about fifty
years before Nicias condemning Paul of Samisada. And Paul of Samisada was an early
anti Trinitarian sort of radical, you know, Arian, you could say,
proto Aryan maybe, and Paul Samisada railed against the deity Christ. And this
whole deposition from the Senate of Andioch is predicated on the deity of Christ to
reject the Unitarian theory that Christ is just a man. So again, this
is an anti Aryan, anti Unitarian synod from two seventy two in Antioch.
Because the next quote was from the Epistle two Diagnetis. This is dated one
thirty a d. And we read here that Jesus is God, the Word
made flesh. So again John one theology. I think Malachi three isn't that
the reference to the peering of our Great God of Yahweh. Doesn't they say
the day that Yahweh will appear. I might be wrong what Malachi three two
is, but I think it's a it's a mess and prophecy that's being used
here, but it also refers to the deed of Christ. But he says,
they're not mere human mysteries. The truly incomprehensible Word has established himself in
the in our hearts, in their hearts, the hearts of the believers.
So again, how would he do that if he wasn't fully divine? He
You know, a human person can't establish himself, a mere human man can't
establish himself in human hearts or some proflem So again that's something a Muslim could
not say. This one's really important because this one is let's see, this
is twenty three. Yeah, this is Saint Peter of Alexandria. So I
remember a lot of the two hundreds era theologians that would be very influential at
the Council of Nicia. They're coming out of the bishop or of Antioch.
And this is what produces not just Alexander, but also Athanaceous and one of
the other bishops of Alexandria in the late two hundreds put down this really powerful
argument here. And this is again he says, notice this not this doesn't
just prove trinitarian incarnational relations, but notice this amazing passage here where he says
that they came to the church and the blessed Mother of God, ever virgin.
That's the Theotokos language that's going to be used two hundred years later by
Saint Cyril and Ephesus. Cyril's just repeating his predecessor, Saint Peter of Alexandria
in the two hundreds, saying the exact same phraseology Mother of God. That
means that Jesus is a divine person born of ever virgin Mary. Thus Jesus
is a divine He's the second person of the Godhead. So that's a very
very early two hundred maybe one hundred and fifty years before Cyril or so,
but two hundred years before Ephesus and Chalcedon. You have this amazing confession in
the Acts of Peter of Alexandria. Let's see, I've got this here twenty
four. This is the Polycarp the letter of Polycarp to the Philippians. This
is dated about one eight eight eight. Somewhere in there, you'll notice that
here we have this is a pretty famous one. He says that may the
God and Father, our Lord, Jesus Christ and Christ himself, who was
a son of God and eternal high priest. Again, you couldn't be eternal
high priest if you weren't divine. No human person is an eternal high priest
too, because this is a reference to Christ as the fulfillment of the order
of mal Kisadak. Right, I will be thank you a priest forever recording
the Order of mal Kisadak. So again, this is a famous reference to
the divinity of Christ in the polycarp to the Ephesians. And then the last
one that I had. Again, remember it's just a sampling. This is
a little this is just a sampling. I got even more quotes we could
use, but I mean, like, there's just so much, ladies and
gentlemen. This one I included just because even though it's a little bit after
an I see it's later on in the three hundreds. This is the earliest
full liturgy that we have. And this is relevant because this is the liturgy
again Alexandria, which was so for Nicia and the defense of the Deity of
Christ and eventually the Trinity. Now keep in mind that the original Nicean Creed
does include a reference to the Holy Spirit, contrary to what Bryce and Gray
argued when we had our debate. So you know, when we read Athanasius
and these other church fathers, we've clearly seen many places where they do refer
to the personhood a deity of the Holy Spirit. Because a lot of times
people who are anti Trinitarian will say, okay, well, maybe the church
fathers thought Jesus and the Father were divine, but nobody thought that the Holy
Spirit was divine at Nicea, which is simply not true. Athanaceus in many
many places and his writings refers to the data the Spirit. But this is
the earliest liturgy, which is even more forceful because this means that all the
churches that we're in communion in the jurisdiction of Alexandria, and remember that's a
pretty big prominent church. If you look at Kennon six of Nicia, it
lists Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch and Canon six of Nicia as the three
most pre eminent sees in the church at that time. So that means that
a giant portion of churches in communion with Alexandria again confessing the deed of Christ
would be using this divine liturgy of Saint Mark. So this would be even
more of a common profession, where we have again all kinds of references to
the deity of Christ, calling upon Christ to forgive our sins. You have
the Trisagion. You have the Triadic, you know, where we don't just
call upon the Father, we call upon our Father and Son and Holy Spirit
right here through you, Glory power to all holy and life giving Spirit,
now and forever. And then we have again this is very similar. If
anybody has been to an Orthodox church, you'll notice this is very similar to
the liturgy that we professed in the Orthodox churches. And then here you have
the Trisagian right, the trisagion is a Trinitarian prayer, Holy God, Holy
Mighty, Holy Immortal. That is a reference to the three persons of the
triad in our theology and all the fields of this time. By the way,
I say the same thing, So it's not something that we're making out
post hawk. It's the theology of that time. Again, it's thoroughly trinitarian.
It's not that long. If anybody wants you can go read. You
have the Cherubic hymn also, which has a trinitarian reference the Christ Holy Spirit.
So again the universal Confession of the Church is in communion with one another
at this time, right, all the what we call the Universal Catholic Church
in the Empire at that time. I don't mean necessarily the Roman Callity Church
today, but the Catholic Church in its confession of that time was clearly confessing
trinitarian relationships that we confess today. The Orthodox faith is confessed the true right
believing faith, and Christ is our high priests in Christ is the one who
heals us and saves us. So that's my list. Again, there's many,
many more, but I thought that would be a good sampling of just
the three centuries. Oh absolutely, And if we go back even further,
Mike, I missed this in the Dedicated until Michael if Birds book. He
knows that the Dedicus changes the well known celebrated liturgical formula Hosanna to the Son
of David, to Hosannah to the God of David, an explicit relation to
Jesus. The purported low Christology of Jewish Christianity is an urban myth waiting to
debumped, So he dedicate is very early. It's probably earlier than the Shepherd
of Hermas. It's close to the New Testament. It's definitely first century right
then and there they're saying, yes, Jesus is God. And also in
the Dedicated you have a Trinitarian baptism formula. You baptize in the name of
the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. If you go even back,
it would just go look at the New Testament. Here's a quote from Michael
Patrick Barber in his book The Historical Jesus in the Temple the Devil vote Lord
Lord is applied to Jesus in the Sermon of the Mouth. As Jason Staples
has shown, this expression always represents an allusion to the tetragramatan and the septuagen
in places where it has the Hebrew has otto Nahashem the septuagen as Lord Lord.
And what does Jesus say, Well, when people call on me,
Lord Lord, he's saying that he's the tetragrammaton right there. You can see
the same thing in Matthew fourteen. It's a scene that stands out where Jesus
is exercising something that only the God of the Bible can do, namely walking
on water. And what Barbara does is he goes through and he shows how
Matthew fourteen is directly quoting from Psalm sixty eight about the Psalmist and how he's
writing his relation to God and how it's very similar to that. And you
can just see this when you go through the biblical text, like you see
Mark opening his Gospel saying that someone's gonna come prepare away for the Lord.
You think that's going to be Jesus. But who shows up? John the
Baptist comes and who is he preparing the way for Jesus? And what is
this passage year quoting from It's quoting from Isaiah talking about a voice crying in
the wilderness preparing away for hashaw Right then and there you see this through and
through. One of my favorite ones is actually right here where you see Mark
sixty eight forty nine talk about when Jesus is walking on water again something only
Yahweh can do. It says he meant to pass by them, but when
they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost.
And like scholars like Mike Lacono, this is directly referring to joke nine eight
talking about God trampling the waves on the sea. And it says also that
he passes by me. And so the Mark when he's writing this, what
is in view is actually Joe. So you can go through and see this
over and over again, and notice that they're constantly connecting Jesus to God to
hashaw constantly over and over. I did a lecture through the Gospel of John.
We did every chapter, and we noticed when we did that that pretty
much every chapter and John has at least a reference to the deity of Christ
or the Trinity, and sometimes both, you know, in an entire chapter.
So I would if people want to go deeper into that, that's never
ending. Well basically of you know, Old Testament, New destriment references to
the Trinity. And and notice we have some I got so many more quotes.
We didn't even get the Clement of Alexandria or Gregory the Wonder Worker,
so many quotes, the offers of Annikya. There's another great one, Odes
of Solomon. I mean, there's just so much here, ladies and gentlemen.
So for for Jake the Muslim and physician to stand up there and say,
well, there was no Trinity before Nicia and actually bring up fathers like
Justin and Tertolian and Aarinaus. Anyone who's read these fathers, is it to
go what are you talking about these guys are like to say Tertolian wasn't preaching
the Trinity is just mind boggling to me. I don't know where he would
get. Well, the early condemnations of Paul of sam Assada and the Sibelians,
right, I mean, they're so for us. So on the one
hand, you've got the condemnation of the modalist, anti trinitarian excuse of the
Unitarian modalists of the Sibelians, and you've got simultaneously condemnation of the anti Tranitarian
Aryans. So that's really again a confession of the fact that we're not unitarian.
We're not Aryan or Trinitarian exactly, and yet that needs to be pointed
out. So as you can see, it is very easy to bunk this
claim from Muslims. There the Trinity is through the early Church, It's through
the scriptures. And if you want to go even further back, watch Jay's
debate as I mentioned with Daniel Kikachu, where he shows that you can even
see this multipersonal nature of God in the Old Testament. It's not this idea
of this was a later development. This is something that is consistently taught in
scripture. Was it fully revealed in the Old Testament. No, not entirely,
but you can still see the beginnings of them starting to understand that God
is more than one person there. And he did a great job demonstrating that
his debate. Yeah, I think if you know, the way Jesus talks
about his relationship to Moses and his relationship to Abraham gives us an indicator that,
according to Jesus and John five through nine, they knew and had a
relationship with him. They didn't have to have a metaphysical treatise about how the
Trinity works to know that there's Yahweh, there's his angel messenger that some of
these Old Testament patriarchs interacted with, and there's his Spirit, and the spirit
is all throughout the Old Testament as well as a personal agent. Here is
a question in a sub chat for you, Jay, Jesus submitting to the
Father is that like a wife submitting to your husband? But both are equal
and valued as this argument hold up. I mean, I think Paul kind
of makes that analogy. Right. We submit to the Church as the wife
submits to the husband, as Christ submits to the Father. But again,
submission and subordination doesn't necessitate ontological difference, right, So I might have authority
over my wife in a relationship way, but that doesn't mean that in terms
of our nature or our ontology, that I'm more human than she is,
right, Yeah, A good way to put it. Yeah, thank you
for the super chat. Messianic apostate is actually an ex Muslim, so appreciate
you showing up here. Wholesome to see Mike and j Claberty. Yeah,
and I hope we can do more in the future on stuff like this because
I think it's great for Christians to work together and find unity, and I
think that's all I'm all for doing more of that. Very good to see
you two work together. Defind a Trinity one of, if not the most
important doctrines. I'd love to see some unity in stut of division. Totally
agree. Would you would you say, Jay, that the Trinity is the
most essential Christian doctrine or would you say it's equal with other doctrines. I
believe that you know the first seven Council of the Church and might be really
hammer out all of the trinitarian and Christological implicate So really the Trinity is kind
of the foundation and then all the other doctrines like Christology will flow from that.
So I think Trinity and Christology really set the tone for what Christianity is.
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with you on that. Looks like
one of your fans, soy face, no better guests had all the stuff.
One thing I would add to I just remembered. So, uh,
Tonight, I'll be doing a live stream with doctor bo Branson, who I
think is you mentioned that you mentioned the guy that who's the black guy,
that that's the monarch. Doctor Joshua said they've done streams together, and doctor
Branson and I are going to be covering some of this tonight because he had
a debate with Jake in the past that I recommend everybody watch does God Have
a Son? And they'd had a really good interaction on that, and then
doctor Khalil Anani has a really good interaction with Jake too, So people want
to go deeper into the Jake debates, I would suggest those, and then
for those that are interested in what monarchical trinitarianism is, we'll be doing a
live stream on that tonight. What time is that, I think we're est
eight s t okay, So for those of you watching, be sure to
go to Jay's channel tonight to watch that. If you're watching this later,
you can go to Jay's channel now and watch that because we're going to wrap
up this stream here soon. Question here, people who live in glass houses
shouldn't throw stones this Jake not realize he also prays to the dead five times
a day to a guy rotting in Mecca. I'm not sure that's a reference
to you. I'm not up todate on all my understanding Islamic theology. JA,
do you know what this is as in reference to is they think he's
dying in Mecca. I guess that means that he didn't ascend to heaven.
So I guess that's what that person means. I think that he's referring to
them praying to Mohammed, whose body was buried in Mecca. Kind that's what
I'm saying, Like, so he didn't ascend, so he's still Jesus ascended
and Mohammed did not, I guess is what he's saying. Yeah, yeah,
definitely seem to be that case. All right, where's the next one
here? Jay? I applaud your courage. Is amazing that you're showing your
face after how you exposed and I don't know who that is, but I
doubt that he actually exposed and demolished unit. So this is a Marxist communist
to argue that materialism is true because there's no such thing as metaphysics, and
so he didn't understand that that's a metaphysical claim to say that all reality is
material. And yeah, so that that wasn't much of a debate, Yeah,
yeah, pretty sure. All right, anything else you want to say
on trinitarian theology. As I've said, James got to stream the night with
doc doctor Bill Branson, another great scholar. They're going to be covering more
of this. Anything else you want to add before we wrap up here,
Just one comment that the notion of development is a little unclear. In our
view, the trinity is a doctrine that the apostles are handing down, even
if the word trinity is not used. And so what we believe that counsels
are doing is just defining and explicating and getting more precise about what that deposit
of faith that was once for all delivered was. So an argue contrary to
like a Roman Catholic idea of the doctrinal development. We don't think that there's
like an evolving, changing thing. And Jake seemed to have that kind of
an argument when he was saying, Oh, the Trinity is a doctrine that
evolves, and I think it's very important to point out that an argue.
It's not an evolution. It's an explication and getting more precise, but it's
not an evolving doctrine. Yeah. And I would also say that the way
I kind of word it is like you may not see the word in the
Bible omniscience, for example, but clearly you see that taught. And it's
the same with the Trinity. I don't know you can come away from reading
the Gospel of John, especially the Farewell Discourse, and not come away with
a trinitarian theology. Like That's where I point people too, when they say
where does the Bible teach the Trinity? Just read John and if you really
want something specifics, starting John thirteen and go up to John seventeen. You'll
see it. Very monarchical trinitarianism right there. It's all three persons are mentioned,
all refer to as God. I don't know how else you can get
around this. Absolutely totally agree. Yeah, John's so clear. Oh,
yeah, absolutely, so I appreciate you coming on the channel. Jay.
I thought this was gonna be very helpful. I hope people can use this
stream in the future. Muslims make this ridiculous claim and all the quotes we
put up, so you guys can just see it for yourself and go and
get the quotes. This isn't hard to debunk, ladies and gentlemen. For
a Muslim to make the bold claim that the Church didn't teach the Trinity until
I see is just pure and utter nonsense. And I appreciate my guests being
on with me today. We don't agree on everything, that's okay because we
both affirm the essential doctrines. Appreciate from this point for sure, we most
certainly do, and that needs to be celebrated and explored because I think there's
a lot more unity and the Body of Christ than is actually known. And
so it's very honored to have you on today. Jay. I appreciate and
I hope we can do more of this in the future. Appreciate it.
Yeah, God bless you and I have a good day. God bless you
too. God bless you too. Man