Divinity of Christ
St. Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the church at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness and fullness of God the Father, and predestined before the beginning of time that it should be always for an enduring and unchangeable glory, being united and elected through the true passion by the will of the Father, and Jesus Christ, our God: Abundant happiness through Jesus Christ, and his undefiled grace [Letter to the Ephesians, Greeting (c. A.D. 110)].
For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb of Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Spirit [ibid., 18].
The Church is beloved and enlightened by the will of him who wills all things that are according to the love of Jesus Christ our God [Letter to the Romans, Greeting (c. A.D. 110)].
St. Aristides of Athens
[Christians] are those who more than all the nations on the earth have found the truth. For they know God, the Creator and fashioner of all things through the only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit [Apology 15 (c. A.D. 140)].
Tatian the Syrian
We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales, when we say that God was born in the form of a man [Address to the Greeks 21 (c. A.D. 170)].
St. Melito of Sardis
It is not necessary in dealing with persons of intelligence to reason that the actions of Christ after his baptism are proof that his soul and his body, his human nature, were like ours, real and not phantasmal. The activities of Christ after his baptism, and especially his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the deity hidden in his flesh. Being God and also perfect man, he gave positive proofs of his two natures: of his deity, by the miracles during the three years following after his baptism, and of his humanity, in the thirty years that came before his baptism, during which, by reason of his condition according to the flesh, he concealed the signs of his deity, although he was the true God existing before the ages [fragment in St. Anastasius of Sinai’s The Guide 13 (c. A.D. 170)].
St. Irenaeus of Lyons
The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the Passion, and the Resurrection from the dead, and the Ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and his [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one” [Eph 1:10], and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and king, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess” [Against Heresies 1:10:1 (c. A.D. 189)].
Nevertheless, what cannot be said of anyone else who ever lived, that he is himself God and Lord . . . may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth [ibid., 3:19:1–2].
St. Clement of Alexandria
Since the Word was from the beginning, he was and is the divine source of all things; but because he has now assumed the name Christ, consecrated of old, and worthy of power, he has been called by me the New Song. This Word, then, the Christ, the cause of 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 God and man—the author of all blessings to us [Exhortation to the Heathen 1 (c. A.D. 195)].
For it was not without divine care that so great a work was accomplished in so brief a space by the Lord, who, though despised in terms of his humble appearance, was in reality adored, the expiator of sin, the Savior, the clement, the divine Word, he that is truly the most manifest Deity, he that is made equal to the Lord of the universe; because he was his Son [ibid., 10].
Tertullian of Carthage
God alone is without sin. The only man who is without sin is Christ; for Christ is also God [Treatise on the Soul 41 (c. A.D. 210)].
Thus the nature of the two substances displayed him as man and God—in one respect born, in the other unborn; in one respect fleshly, in the other spiritual; in one sense weak, in the other exceeding strong; in one sense dying, in the other living [The Flesh of Christ 5:6–7 (c. A.D. 210)].
That there are two Gods and two Lords is something we will never say; it is not as if the Father and the Son were not God, nor the Spirit God, and each of them God; but formerly two were spoken of as Gods and two as Lords, so that when Christ would come, he might be acknowledged as God and be called Lord, because he is the Son of him who is both God and Lord [Against Praxeas 13 (c. A.D. 218)].
Origen of Alexandria
He in the last times, divesting himself [of his glory], became a man, and was incarnate although he was God, and while made a man remained the God that he was [Fundamental Doctrines Preface 4 (c. A.D. 225)].
St. Hippolytus of Rome
Only the Logos of this God is from God himself; thus the Logos is also God, being the substance of God [Refutation of All Heresies 10:29 (c. A.D. 227)].
For Christ is the God above all, and he has arranged to wash away sin from human beings, rendering the old man regenerate [ibid., 10:30].
Novatian of Rome
If Christ was only man, why did he lay down for us this rule of believing, “And this is life eternal, that they should know you, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent”? If he did not wish to be understood to be God, why did he add, “And Jesus Christ, whom you have sent,” unless he wished to be received as God? Because if he did not wish to be understood to be God, he would have added, “And the man Jesus Christ, whom you have sent”; but, in fact, he did not, nor did Christ deliver himself to us as Christ only, but associated himself with God, as he wished to be understood by this to be God also, as he is. We must therefore believe, according to the rule prescribed, in the Lord, the one true God, and consequently in him whom he has sent, Jesus Christ, who would not have linked himself to the Father if he had not wished to be understood to be God also: for he would have separated himself from him if he did not wish to be understood to be God [The Trinity 16 (c. A.D. 235)].
St. Cyprian of Carthage
[If a heretic were validly baptized,] he also was made the temple of God. I ask, of what God? If of the Creator, he could not be, because he has not believed in him. If of Christ, he could not become his temple, since he denies that Christ is God. If of the Holy Spirit, since the three are one, how can the Holy Spirit be at peace with him who is the enemy of the Son or of the Father? [Letters 72:12 (c. A.D. 255)].
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus
There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is his subsistent wisdom and power and eternal image: perfect begetter of the perfect begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, only of the only, God from God, image and likeness of Deity, efficient Word, wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and power formative of the whole creation, true Son of true Father, invisible of invisible, and incorruptible of incorruptible, and immortal of immortal and eternal of eternal. And there is one Holy Spirit, having his subsistence from God, and being made manifest by the Son, to men: image of the Son, perfect image of the perfect; life, the cause of the living; holy fount; sanctity, the supplier, or leader, of sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all. There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Therefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; or anything added on, as if at some former period it was nonexistent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change the same Trinity abides ever [Declaration of Faith (c. A.D. 265)].
Arnobius of Sicca
“Is that Christ of yours a god, then?,” some raving, wrathful, and excited man will say. “A God,” we will reply, “and the God of the inner powers” [Against the Heathen 1:42 (c. A.D. 305)].
Lactantius
He became both the Son of God through the Spirit, and the Son of man through the flesh—that is, both God and man [Divine Institutes 4:13 (c. A.D. 307)]. We, on the other hand, are [truly] religious, who pray to the one true God. Someone may perhaps ask how, when we say that we worship one God only, we also assert that there are two, God the Father and God the Son—which has driven many into the greatest error... [thinking] that we confess that there is another God, and that he is mortal. ...[But w]hen we speak of God the Father and God the Son, we do not speak of them as different, nor do we separate them, because the Father cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father [ibid., 4:29].
Council of Nicaea I
We believe... in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father. By whom all things were made, both in heaven and in earth [Nicene Creed (A.D. 325)]. But those who say, “There was a time when he [the Son] did not exist,” and “Before he was born, he did not exist,” and “Because he was made from nonexisting matter, he is either of another substance or essence,” and those who call “God the Son of God changeable and mutable,” these the Catholic Church anathematizes [original appendix to the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325)].
St. Patrick
Jesus Christ is the Lord and God in whom we believe, and whose coming we expect will soon take place, the judge of the living and the dead, who will render to everyone according to his works [Confession of St. Patrick 4 (c. A.D. 452)].
