Athenagoras, Theophilus, Diognetus on the Trinity
The following excerpt is taken from Michael F. Bird’s Jesus Among the Gods: Early Christology in the Greco-Roman World, published by Baylor University Press, Waco, TX in 2022], pp. 151-155. This is from section II. Jesus and Intermediary Figures, 4. Jesus and the “In-Betweeners”: Comparing Early Christologies and Intermediary Figures. All emphasis will be mine.
Athenagoras of Athens wrote his Embassy ca. 177-76 CE as a defense of Christianity addressed to emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Commodus.
Athenagoras utilized the Hellenistic philosophical tradition to argue for the unity and aseity of God, a rejection of both polytheism and pantheism, and rebuffed the charges of atheism against Christians. He complained, “Now if Plato is no atheist when he understands the Creator of all things to be the one uncreated God, neither are we atheists when we acknowledge him by whose Logos ail things were created and upheld by his Spirit and assert that he is God” (Leg. 6.2; cf. 4.2; 10.1, 5; 18.2).
Importantly, he defended the idea of God having a Son, the “Logos of the Father, in ideal form and in operation; for in his likeness and through him ail things came into existence, which presupposes that the Father and the Son are one” (Leg. 10.2). If God is “mind” (nous), then the Logos is his eternal reason (logikos), one with God, not created, but proceeding from him in a manner like Wisdom in Prov 8.22 (Leg. 10.3-4).
Between God, the Son/Logos, and Spirit, Athenagoras refers to their “powerful unity in spirit,” a “power in unity and diversity in order,” and “unity in power yet distinguished in order” (Legat. 10.2, 5; 24.2). He said that those who are prepared for judgment know the oneness, communion, oneness, and variety in unity between the Father, Son, and Spirit (Leg. 12.3).
Athenagoras also used analogies to buttress the unity in the Godhead:
We say that there is God and the Son, his Logos, and the Holy Spirit, united in power yet distinguished in order as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, since the Son is mind, Logos, and wisdom of the Father, the Spirit an effluence like light from fire
Notable is that Athenagoras differentiates the true, uncreated, and eternal God from the created order and posits the Son and Spirit on the God-side of that distinction (Leg. 6.2; 10.1, 5; 15.1; 18.1-19.3). In his argument, the divinity of God is not that of angels, a deified man, a daemon, or a created deity, so that the Son shares in Gods unique, unitary, and uncreated divine nature (Leg. 10.5; 24.2-5; 27.1-30.6).
Athenagoras, then, identifies God as the uncreated Demiurge with the Son/Logos as his chief agent, and describes their unity in being through psychological and pyrological metaphors. John’s Logos Christology is undoubtedly constitutive for the incipient trinitarianism of Athenagoras, and he intensifies the shared divinity between the two.
According to Frey, the interweaving of Johannine texts (i.e., John 1.2,10.30,14.10) means that Athenagoras “does not focus on the creatorship of the one God, but on the co-creatorship of the Logos” combined with “a deliberate stress on the unity between God and the Logos, against any idea of a plurality of divine beings or a split between God and Christ.”98
Bishop Theophilus ofAntioch wrote to his pagan friend Autolycus to convince him of the truth of the Christian religion ca. 180 CE. Among other things, like critiques of human deification and idolatry, he explains the divinity of the Logos:
Therefore God, having his own Logos innate in his own bowels, generated him together with his own Sophia, vomiting him forth before everything else. He used this Logos as his servant in the things created by him, and through him, he made ail things. He is called Beginning because he leads and dominates everything fashioned through him.
It was also the “Logos of God” speaking through Moses that caused Moses to Write about the Creative work of the Logos in Gen 1.1 (Autol. 2.10). In regards to reconciling God’s omnipresence with anthropomorphic descriptions of God walking in paradise, Theophilus retorted:
The God and Father of the universe is unconfined and is not present in a place, for there is no place of his rest. But his Logos, through whom he made ail things, who is his power and wisdom, assuming the role of the Father and Lord of the universe, was present in paradise in the role of God and conversed with Adam. For the divine scripture itself teaches us that Adam said that he “heard the voice.” What is the “voice” but the Logos of God, who is also his Son—not as the poets and mythographers describe sons of gods begotten of sexual union, but as the truth describes the Logos, always innate in the heart of God. (Autol. 2.22)
Theophilus then explains the Logos’ divinity using the mind-thought metaphor:
For before anything came into existence he had this as his Counsellor, his own Mind and Intelligence. When God wished to make what he had planned to make, he generated this Logos, making him external, as the firstborn of all creation. He did not deprive himself of the Logos but generated the Logos and constantly converses with his Logos.
What immediately follows is a citation of John 1.1-3, to which Theophilus explains:
Since the Logos is God and derived his nature from God, whenever the Father of the universe wills to do so he sends him into some place where he is present and is heard and seen
(Autol. 2.22). Theophilus offers an instance of exegesis of John 1.1-3 that accents the ontological unity between God and his Logos.
The Epistle to Diognetus is ordinarily placed among the apostolic fathers even though it is generically closer to the apologists, while the homiletical additions in chapters 11-12 resemble the interpretive style of 2 Clement, Melito of Sardis, and Hippolytus of Rome. Dating the epistle is notoriously difficult, though most commentators prefer a date in the late second century.99
At one point, the unknown author explains that the Creator “established among humans the truth and the holy, incomprehensible word from heaven and fixed it firmly in their hearts, not, as one might imagine, by sending them some subordinate, or angel, or ruler or one of those who manage earthly matters, or those entrusted with the administration of things in heaven.” Instead, he sent them the one by whom he created the world, sustains its operations, and commands its obedience, namely, the Son (Diogn. 7.2).
It could be the case that the “word” is brought by being taught by the Son rather than by an angel or another intermediary figure. But more likely, the true, holy, and incomprehensible word is none other than the Logos conceived as God’s instrumental, integrative, and sustaining force over creation, and the Logos too is God’s supreme agent in redemption (Diogn. 7.3-5). The acute point of Johannine influence is that no one else apart from the Logos/ Son is involved in creation and the Logos/Son is explicitly differentiated from other intermediary figures.
The final two chapters of Diognetus, most likely secondary to the work, include a homily on the Word. The author claims that love for the “Word” emerges from knowledge of the “Word to the disciples.” For it was to the disciples that “the Word appeared and revealed these things” (Diogn. 11.2). The Word, though “dishonored by the chosen people,” was still “preached by apostles and believed in by Gentiles,” and thus through apostolic proclamation the Word “appeared to the world” (Diogn. 11.3).
This Word has its origins “from the beginning,” and, though ancient, it is always new when born in the hearts of saints. Further: “This is the Eternal One, who today is accounted a Son, through whom the church is enriched and grace is unfolded and multiplied among the saints” (Diogn. 11.4-5). The commanding Word makes his instruction known through his disciples and their disciples, and those who accept it will receive its grace and increase in love for it (Diogn. 11.7-9). In the church’s liturgical and catechetical life “the Word rejoices as he teaches the saints, the Word through whom the Father is glorified” (Diogn. 12.9).
The apologists stand out as those who engaged in philosophical exposition of the divine Logos as part of their theological explication of God’s Word in the Jewish Scriptures and in Johannine prologue. Justin refers to the Stoic idea of the logikos sperrnatikos for the implanting of God’s word in human hearts, which is none other than the germinal roots of the truth about Christ.
Further, Justin, Athenagoras, and Theophilus ail make a clear use of the Stoic distinction between logos endiathetos (word in mind) and logos prophorikos (word expressed) to explain the relationship of God the Father to the Logos. That said, the Word-Mind analogy can be explained in modalist, Arian, or pro-Nicene senses.100
The author of Diognetus and Athenagoras differentiate the Logos/Son from other intermediary figures of the heavenly hierarchy.101 One detects too an explicit engagement with philosophy apparent in the citations of Plato, Aristotle, and others, as well as a creative interaction with scriptural traditions about God’s own Wisdom, Word, and Law.102 The apologists enterprisingly identified Christ with God’s Logos and amplified the Johannine tradition by accenting the unity of God with his Logos.
Further Reading
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