Was Jesus's deity invented in the 4th century?
One of the most
commonly held atheistic myths is that Christianity as we know it today was not
invented until the fourth century, after the council of Nicea
in 325 A.D. It is said that the early Christian church thought of Jesus Christ
as just a good moral teacher, and did not worship Him until the 4th century
when the Trinity and deity of Christ were ‘invented’. The book, and recently
released movie, The Da Vinci Code, make this very
claim (among other very bizarre assertions). No one believed in the Divinity of Jesus Christ in
the early Church, Brown says, but that this idea was invented and promulgated
by the emperor Constantine who gained control of the
This
claim is absolute nonsense. History is quite
clear on the matter, and it weighs heavily against Brown’s view. Our
examination of this question, using biblical sources, the writings of the early
church fathers, and secular sources, will clearly establish that Jesus was
worshipped as God no later than the early second century (113 A.D.). The Bible was
completed in the first century and, as we have seen, it clearly teaches the
divinity of Jesus Christ. Let us look at non-biblical proofs for the deity of
Jesus Christ.
1.
Early Christian sources
Even though many
acknowledge that the Bible says clearly that Jesus is God, some people have
claimed that the Bible was edited long after it was originally penned. Such
claims fly in the face of volumes of documents written by the early church
fathers, who cited verses liberally from New Testament gospels and letters in
their own writings. Since many of these writings can be definitively dated to
the first and second centuries, such claims of rewriting are
obviously false.
The
following texts from Christian writers who lived between New Testament times
and the reign of
Clement of
Clement of
Brothers, we ought so to think of Jesus Christ, as
of God, as "Judge of the living and the dead"[1]
Ignatius (30-107 A.D.) who was born
before Christ died, consistently spoke of the deity of Jesus Christ. Ignatius
was a disciple of the apostle John and bishop of
To the Ephesians:
Ignatius opens his first epistle by telling the Ephesian
church it is ". . . united and elect in a true passion, by the will of the
Father and of Jesus Christ our GOD"
Next comes a very
interesting passage, "There is one only physician, of flesh and of spirit,
generate and ingenerate, GOD IN MAN, true Life in death, Son of Mary and
Son of God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus
Christ our Lord" (7:2).
Near the end of the
letter, Ignatius explains the effect of the birth and death of Jesus. "From
that time forward every sorcery and every spell was dissolved, the ignorance of
wickedness vanished away, the ancient kingdom pulled down, when GOD appeared
in the likeness of man unto the newness of everlasting life" (19:3).
To the Romans:
Ignatius opens this letter, ". . . to the church that is beloved and
enlightened through the will of Him who willed all things that are, by faith
and love toward Jesus Christ our GOD . . . . abundant greetings in Jesus
Christ our GOD in blamelessness" (introduction).
To the Smyrnaeans: Ignatius begins this
epistle by exclaiming, "I give glory to Jesus Christ the GOD who
bestowed such wisdom upon you" (1:1).
To Polycarp: Ignatius tells Polycarp, "Await Him (Jesus) that is above every
season, the Eternal, the Invisible, who became visible for our sake, the
Impalpable, the Impassible, who suffered for our sake, who endured in all ways
for our sake" (3:2).
The fact that Ignatius was
not rebuked, nor branded as teaching heresy by any of the churches or Christian
leaders he sent letters to proves that the early church, long before 107 A.D.,
accepted the deity of Christ.
Polycarp (69-155 A.D.) was another disciple of the apostle John. After Ignatius was executed, Polycarp collected together his seven epistles and sent
them to the church at
In his epistle, Polycarp tells the Philippians
they can "gain great advantage" by reading the letters of Ignatius
(13:2). So we have a second disciple of the apostle John upholding and
promoting the teachings of the previously quoted disciple.
Near the end of his short epistle, Polycarp
prays, ". . . may He (God the Father) grant unto you a lot with and
portion among His saints, and to us with you, and to all that are under heaven,
who shall believe on our Lord and GOD Jesus Christ and on His Father
that raised Him from the dead (12:2).
Justin Martyr (100-165 A.D.). As his surname implies, Justin was executed for his
Christian faith. His major work
is now known as The First Apology of Justin Martyr. In this book, he
refers to Jesus as the Logos (or Word, see John 1:1).
In The Apology, he states that the Church proclaims, ". . .
the teachings of the Logos, because He is divine." In reference to
the Logos, he writes, "It is only reasonable that we worship Him .
. ."[4]
Justin further declares, ". . . the Father of the universe has a
Son, who--since He is the First-Begotten Logos of God--is true Deity"
(Dods, p. 106). Elsewhere, in his book, Dialogue
with Trypho, Justin proclaims, "For Christ
is King, and Priest, and GOD and Lord . . ."[5]
Tatian (110-172 A.D.), the
early apologist wrote, "We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle
tales when we announce that God was born in the form of man."[6]
Melito
(died 190 AD), bishop of
The fourth century
church historian, Eusebius, lists several books that were written by Melito. One of them was titled, GOD in Bodily Form
(Eusebius, p. 186).
Irenaeus (120-202 A.D.) wrote that Jesus was "perfect God and perfect man"; "not
a mere man…but was very God"; and that "He is in Himself in His own
right…God, and Lord, and King Eternal" and spoke of "Christ Jesus,
our Lord, and God, and Saviour and King."
In his book, Against False Gnosis, Irenaeus
asserts that the Church believes ". . . in one Christ Jesus, our Lord, the
Son of God, was incarnate for our salvation. . . that to Christ Jesus, our Lord
and GOD and Saviour and King, every knee should bow . . ..” [8]
In one of his letters, Irenaeus wrote,
"So GOD BECAME MAN and the Lord Himself saved us, giving the sign of the
Virgin . . ."[9]
Tertullian (145-220 A.D.). In Tertullian's day, Christians were being
charged with being ". . . worshippers of a mere human being." Tertullian responded, "We must make, therefore, a
remark or two about Christ's divinity."
He continues, "He is the Son of God and is called GOD from
unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit . . . . Thus Christ is
Spirit of Spirit and GOD OF GOD . . . . in His birth GOD AND MAN united".
Later in the book, he asserts, "Surely Christ has a right to reveal Deity,
which was in fact His own essential possession."[10]
In another book, Against Praxes, Tertullian
declares, "this One was sent by the Father into the Virgin, and was born
of her, MAN AND GOD, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and called Jesus
Christ" (Fremantle, p. 345).
Clement of Alexandria (ca. 210 AD) wrote : “This Word, then, the Christ, the cause of
both our being at first (for He was in God) and of our well-being, this very
Word has now appeared as man, He alone being both, both God and man--that
Author of all blessings to us. . . . This is the New Song, the manifestation of
the Word that was in the beginning, and before the beginning.”[11]
Caius (180-217 A.D.), a
Roman Presbyter, wrote of the universal Christian attestation to the deity of
Christ in his refutation of Artemon, who maintained
that Christ was only a man. Note that before 217 A.D., Caius
appealed to much earlier writers, all of whom taught Christ’s deity:
"Justin and Miltiades, and Tatian and Clement, and many others,—who is ignorant of the
books of Irenaeus and Melito,
and the rest, which declare Christ to be God and man? All the psalms,
too, and hymns of brethren, which have been written from the beginning by the
faithful, celebrate Christ the Word of God, ascribing divinity to Him….
[This] doctrine of the Church, then, has been proclaimed so many years ago…”[12]
Novatian (210-280 A.D.) wrote in his On The Trinity, of Jesus being truly a man but that
"He was also God according to the Scriptures…. Scripture has as much
described Jesus Christ to be man, as moreover it has also described Christ the
Lord to be God."[13]
Athanasius (293-373 A.D.), the keen defender of New Testament teaching against the early Arian
heresy, which taught that Jesus Christ was not God, declared of Jesus, "He
always was and is God and Son" and "He who is eternally God… also
became man for our sake."[14]
Alexander of
Augustine (354-430 AD) declared that
Christians "…believe that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, maker
and ruler of the whole creation: that Father is not Son, nor Holy Spirit Father
or Son; but a Trinity of mutually related Persons, and a unity of equal
essence" and that therefore, "the Father is God, the Son is God,
and the Holy Spirit God; and all together are one God."[16]
Proclus wrote, "He
was born of woman, God but not solely God, and man but not merely man…. Christ
did not by progress become God—heaven forbid!—but in mercy He became man, as we
believe. We do not preach a deified man; we confess an incarnate God…Him alone
who was born of a virgin, God and man."[17]
Cyril of Alexandria wrote of Jesus, "For He remained what He was;
that is, by nature God. But…He took it on himself to be man as well"
and "There is nothing to prevent us from thinking of Christ as being the
one and only Son at once both God and man, perfect in deity and perfect in
humanity…He is conceived of as God and is God,..."[18]
These are only a few of the references that could be cited.
2.
Secular sources- The
testimonies from hostile sources.
In
the case for Christ, the value of evidence, particularly from hostile sources,
is tremendous. Hostile sources are considered to be those who were definitely
not followers of Christ; i.e., people who clearly were not out to propagate
favourable belief in Him. Yet, they themselves affirm the early Christians’
belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Pliny the Younger
Pliny the Younger as
governor of Pontus/Bithynia from 111-113 A.D. wrote (in his Letters 10. 96-97)
to Emperor Trajan regarding the early Christian
church, their worship of Christ, and how he persecuted, tortured, and murdered
them:
"They asserted,
however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they
were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a
hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some
crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust,
nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so."[19]
Pliny
was dealing with a situation that was in full swing - Christians refusing to
acknowledge the Roman emperor as god, but instead worshipping a man called
"Christ."
So
what does this prove (if anything) about Christianity?
We
have here a strong, non-biblical evidence that demonstrates that there were
first and second century people who believed Jesus was God and were willing to
die for that belief. Pliny confirms that there were Christians who believed
Christ to be "as a god" as early as AD 112. This
example shows quite clearly that even the Romans knew that Jesus was being
worshipped and wanted to "check and cure" "the contagion of this
superstition" that had "spread not only to the cities but also to the
villages and farms."
So
what, you ask?
Well,
this proves that belief in Jesus' divinity goes back way before the Council of Nicaea in the 4th century AD. In fact, it places belief in
Jesus' divinity in the FIRST CENTURY! If Pliny was executing people for
embracing Jesus' divinity in 112 AD, it had to be the result of a religion or
movement that began before that. The Roman historian Suetonius
confirms the presence of Christians in
Lucian
of Samosta
Another
source of writings comes from Lucian of Samosata who
was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his writings, he notes as
follows in AD 170: "The Christians…worship a man to this day - the
distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on
that account. . . You see, these misguided creatures start with the general
conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of
death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was
impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from
the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship
the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith,
with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them
merely as common property." [20]
We know the man Lucian is writing of, and that man is Jesus. What did Jesus do
to arouse such wrath? He taught that men are brothers from the moment of
conversion which means denying Greek gods, and instead worshipping Jesus, and
living according to His teachings. Though Lucian opposed Christianity, he
acknowledges Jesus, that He was crucified, that Christians worship Him, and
that this was done by faith.
3. Archeology
Although not as early
as the Pliny letter, another secular source indicating that Jesus was
worshipped as God before the fourth century was recently discovered in Megiddo,
Israel.
While digging to expand the
Israeli prison at
Obviously, the discovery of a third century
inscription calling Jesus God discredits the idea that Jesus was not worshipped
until the fourth century.
Conclusion
In conclusion, from the very first, church leaders—immediately after the
time of the apostles up to the Council of Nicaea in
the 4th century and beyond—have consistently believed and taught that Jesus
Christ is God. Therefore, Dan Brown and others are clearly mistaken when they
maintain that the divinity of Jesus was "invented" by Christians in
the 4th century.
Only one logical explanation can be given for this abundant early testimony
to the deity of Jesus Christ. Early church leaders were simply declaring what
was already declared by Jesus Christ and the apostles in Holy Scripture—that Jesus
Christ was indeed God.
