Did the Early Christians Believe Jesus Is God?

Justin Martyr, The Second Apology Direct teaching

And His Son, who alone is properly called Son, the Word, who also was with Him and was begotten before the works, when at first He created and arranged all things by Him, is called Christ, in reference to His being anointed and God’s ordering all things through Him;

Tertullian, Against All Heresies Direct teaching

He asserts that Jesus Christ is God the Father Almighty.

Gregory Thaumaturgus, A Sectional Confession of Faith Direct teaching

and in one Lord Jesus Christ, true God, that is, Image of the true God, Maker of all things seen and unseen, Son of God and only-begotten Offspring, and Eternal Word, living and self-subsistent and active.

Novatian, Treatise Concerning the Trinity Direct teaching

...rist is both Lord and God, who was not otherwise seen by Abraham except that as God the Word He was begotten of God the Father before Abraham himself. Moreover, Scripture says that the same Angel and God visits and consoles the same Hagar when she is driven out with her son from Abraham's dwelling. For when in the desert she had exposed the infant, because the water had fallen short from the pitcher, and when the lad had cried out, and she had lifted up her weeping and lamentation, Scripture says, "God heard the voice of the lad from the place where he was." Having said that it was God who heard the voice of the infant, it adds: "And the angel of the Lord called Hagar herself out of heaven," showing that He was an angel whom it had called God, and declaring Him to be Lord whom it had presented as an angel. This Angel and God also promises Hagar herself greater consolations, saying, "Fear not; for I have heard the voice of the lad from the place where he was. Arise, take up the lad, and hold him; for I will make of him a great nation." Why does this angel, if he is only an angel, claim for himself this right of saying, "I will make of him a great nation," since surely this kind o

Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse Direct teaching

...the Father's proper invisibility and to remove from an angel the lower status proper to him, it was only God the Son, who also is God, who was seen by Abraham and was believed to have been received with hospitality. For He symbolically anticipated what He was later to become. He was made a guest of Abraham, since He was going to be among the sons of Abraham. And He washed the feet of his children as a way of showing what He was, returning among the children the hospitality that the Father had formerly entrusted to Him. From this also, so that there might be no doubt that it was He who was the guest of Abraham at the destruction of the people of Sodom, it is declared: "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven." For the prophet also spoke in the person of God: "I have overthrown you, as the Lord overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." Therefore the Lord overthrew Sodom, that is, God overthrew Sodom. But in the overthrow of Sodom, the Lord rained fire from the Lord. And this Lord was the God seen by Abraham. And this God was the guest of Abraham, certainly seen because He was also touched. But the Father, being invisible, was certainly

Lactantius, The Epitome of the Divine Institutes Direct teaching

On this account He sent the prophets beforehand to announce His coming, that when the things which had been foretold were fulfilled in Him, then He might be believed by men to be both the Son of God and God.

Caius, Fragments Supporting witness

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.

Gregory Thaumaturgus, A Sectional Confession of Faith Supporting witness

John 1:1 And we worship Him who was made man on account of our salvation, not indeed as made perfectly like in the like body, but as the Lord who has taken to Himself the form of the servant.

John 1:1 Direct teaching

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Philippians 2:11 Direct teaching

and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Romans 9:5 Direct teaching

To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

Philippians 2:6 Supporting witness

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

Cyprian, Treatises Direct teaching

Worship Jesus the Lord. How great is the Lord Jesus, and how great is His patience, that He who is adored in heaven is not yet avenged on earth!

Apostolic Constitutions, Apostolic Constitutions Supporting witness

For You alone are holy, You alone are the Lord Jesus, the Christ of the God of all created nature, and our King, by whom glory, honour, and worship be to You.

Gregory Thaumaturgus, A Sectional Confession of Faith Direct teaching

And we anathematize those who constitute different worships, one for the divine and another for the human, and who worship the man born of Mary as though He were another than the God of God.

Arnobius, Against the Heathen Supporting witness

Do these, then, hear with offended ears that Christ is worshipped, and that He is accepted by us and regarded as a divine person?

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho Supporting witness

and the King shall desire thy beauty: because he is thy Lord, and thou shalt worship Him.’ Therefore these words testify explicitly that He is witnessed to by Him who established these things, as deserving to be worshipped, as God and as Christ.

Luke 4:8 Direct teaching

And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”

Matthew 4:10 Supporting witness

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Hebrews 1:6 Supporting witness

And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.

Psalms 97:7 Supporting witness

All worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship him, all you gods!

Ignatius of Antioch, Connection to John 1:18 Direct teaching

one God, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His eternal Word, not proceeding forth from silence.

Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians Direct teaching

...he mind and reason. He is surrounded by light, beauty, spirit, and indescribable power. Through His Word, He created the universe, arranged it, and keeps it in being. I have already shown this clearly. And I say, "His Word," because we also acknowledge a Son of God. No one should think it absurd that God should have a Son. The poets, in their fictions, present the gods as no better than men. But our way of thinking is not like theirs, either about God the Father or about the Son. The Son of God is the Word of the Father, in idea and in action. For all things were made after His pattern and through Him, and the Father and the Son are one. And since the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son, in unity and power of spirit, the Son of God is the understanding and reason of the Father. But if, because of your great intelligence, you wish to ask what is meant by the Son, I will explain briefly. He is the first product of the Father, not as if He had been brought into existence. For from the beginning, God, who is the eternal mind, had the Word in Himself, because He was from eternity endowed with reason. But the Word came forth to be the idea and active power of all materia

Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness

But the Greeks speak of Him as the Logos, more befittingly than we do as the word, or speech: for Logos signifies both speech and reason, inasmuch as He is both the voice and the wisdom of God.

Tertullian, Apology Direct teaching

proving that He was the Logos of God, that primordial first-begotten Word, accompanied by power and reason, and based on Spirit, — that He who was now doing all things by His word, and He who had done that of old, were one and the same.

Tertullian, Against Praxeas Supporting witness

Colossians 1:15 and His only-begotten also, because alone begotten of God, in a way peculiar to Himself, from the womb of His own heart — even as the Father Himself testifies: My heart, says He, has emitted my most excellent Word.

Novatian, Treatise Concerning the Trinity Supporting witness

Then it remains that He must have descended, of whom the Apostle Paul says, He who descended is the same who ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things, that is, the Son of God, the Word of God.

Gregory Thaumaturgus, Declaration of Faith Direct teaching

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.

Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians (Long Version) Supporting witness

He, being begotten by the Father before the beginning of time, was God the Word, the only-begotten Son, and remains the same for ever;

1 John 1:1 Direct teaching

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

John 1:18 Direct teaching

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

John 1:3 Direct teaching

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Hebrews 1:2 Supporting witness

Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

Tertullian, Against Praxeas Direct teaching

... He must be understood to have become flesh in this sense: that He came to be in the flesh, and was manifested, and was seen, and was handled by means of the flesh, since all the other points also must be understood in this way. For if the Word became flesh by a change and transformation of substance, then it follows at once that Jesus must be a substance made up of two substances, flesh and spirit, a kind of mixture, like electrum, made of gold and silver. Then it begins to be neither gold, that is, spirit, nor silver, that is, flesh. One is changed by the other, and a third substance is produced. Therefore, on this view, Jesus cannot be God, for He has stopped being the Word, which was made flesh. Nor can He be Man incarnate, for He is not truly flesh, and it was flesh that the Word became. Being made up of both, then, He is actually neither one. He is rather some third substance, very different from either. But the truth is that we find Him clearly presented as both God and Man. The very psalm we quoted indicates, concerning the flesh, that God became man in the midst of it. “He therefore established it by the will of the Father.” Certainly, then, He is in every respect both

Novatian, Treatise Concerning the Trinity Supporting witness

...an himself is claimed to be the Son of God, the same Christ and the Son of God is claimed to be man only. By this they try to exclude, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” and, “You shall call His name Emmanuel,” which is interpreted, “God with us.” For they bring forward what is told in the Gospel of Luke. From it they try to maintain, not what is true, but only what they want it to be: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you; therefore also the Holy Thing which is born of you shall be called the Son of God.” If, then, they say, the angel of God says to Mary, “that Holy Thing which is born of you,” then the substance of flesh and body is from Mary. But he has set forth that this substance, that is, that Holy Thing which is born of her, is the Son of God. “Man himself,” they say, “and that bodily flesh, that which is called holy, is itself the Son of God.” They also say that when the Scripture says “that Holy Thing,” we should understand Christ the man, the Son of man. And when it sets before us the Son of God, we should understand, not man, but God. And yet the divine Scripture easily convicts and exposes the frauds and

Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse Supporting witness

...f is claimed to be the Son of God, they then claim that the same Christ, and the Son of God, is man only. By this they try to exclude, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," and, "You shall call His name Emmanuel," which is interpreted, "God with us." For they bring forward what is told in the Gospel of Luke. From it they try to maintain, not what is true, but only what they want to be true: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you; therefore also the Holy Thing which is born of you shall be called the Son of God." If then, they say, the angel of God says to Mary, "That Holy Thing which is born of you," then the substance of flesh and body is from Mary. But he has declared that this substance, that is, that Holy Thing born from her, is the Son of God. Man himself, they say, that bodily flesh, that which is called holy, is itself the Son of God. They also say that when Scripture says, "that Holy Thing," we should understand Christ the man, the Son of man. And when it sets before us the Son of God, we should understand, not man, but God. And yet the divine Scripture easily convicts and exposes the frauds and artifices of the h

Justin Martyr, The First Apology Supporting witness

...iar with the Father and do not know that the Father of the universe has a Son, who, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. In the past, He appeared to Moses and other prophets as fire and in the likeness of an angel. But now, in the time of your reign, having become Man by a virgin, according to the Father’s plan, for the salvation of those who believe in Him, He endured being scorned and suffering, so that by dying and rising again He might conquer death. What was said from the bush to Moses, "I am that I am, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and the God of your fathers," indicated that they, though dead, are still in existence and belong to Christ Himself. For they were the first to seek God earnestly; Abraham being the father of Isaac, and Isaac of Jacob, as Moses wrote.

Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness

He therefore assumed a body, and was clothed in a garment of flesh, that He might hold out to man, for whose instruction He had come, examples of virtue and incitements to its practice.

Ignatius of Antioch, Connection to John 1:14 Direct teaching

For "the Word was made flesh." Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passible body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts.

Ignatius of Antioch, Connection to John 1:14 Supporting witness

He truly assumed a body; for "the Word was made flesh," and lived upon earth without sin.

John 1:14 Direct teaching

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

1 John 4:2 Supporting witness

Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:

Philippians 2:7 Supporting witness

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

1 John 1:2 Supporting witness

the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—

1 Timothy 3:16 Background

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory.

Novatian, Treatise Concerning the Trinity Direct teaching

...of faith when He said, “And this is eternal life, that they should know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent”? If He had not wanted it to be understood that He also is God, why did He add, “And Jesus Christ, whom You have sent,” unless He wanted to be received as God also? For if He had not wanted to be understood as God, He would have added, “And the man Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” But in fact, He did not add this. Nor did Christ present Himself to us as only man. Instead, He joined Himself with God, because He wanted to be understood by this joining to be God also, as He is. Therefore, according to the rule He gave, we must believe in the Lord, the one true God, and consequently in Him whom He has sent, Jesus Christ. As we have said, He certainly would not have joined Himself to the Father if He had not wanted to be understood as God also. For He would have separated Himself from Him if He had not wanted to be understood as God. He would have placed Himself among men only if He had known Himself to be only man. Nor would He have joined Himself with God if He had not known Himself to be God also. But in this matter He is silent about His being man

Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse Direct teaching

...his, when He said, “And this is life eternal, that they should know You, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent?” If He had not wished that He also should be understood to be God, why did He add, “And Jesus Christ, whom You have sent,” except because He wished to be received as God also? For if He had not wished to be understood to be God, He would have added, “And the man Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” But in fact He neither added this, nor did Christ present Himself to us as man only. Instead, He associated Himself with God, since He wished by this joining to be understood 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. As we have said, He would by no means 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 had not wished to be understood to be God. He would have placed Himself among men only if He had known Himself to be only man. Nor would He have linked Himself with God if He had not known Himself to be God also. But in this case He is sil

Alexander of Alexandria, Epistles on the Arian Heresy Direct teaching

...of the patriarchs and apostles, and of all the saints. And we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. He was not begotten from things that are not, but from Him who is the Father. He was not begotten in a bodily manner, by excision or division, as Sabellius and Valentinus thought, but in a certain inexplicable and unspeakable manner, according to the words of the prophet quoted above: "Who shall declare His generation?" Isaiah 53:8. Since no nature that is begotten can investigate His subsistence, just as no one can investigate the Father, because the nature of rational beings cannot receive the knowledge of His divine generation by the Father. But men who are moved by the Spirit of truth have no need to learn these things from me. For the words spoken before by Christ on this very matter are sounding in our ears: "No man knows the Father, save the Son; and no man knows who the Son is, save the Father." Matthew 11:27. We have learned that He is, equally with the Father, unchangeable and immutable, lacking nothing, the perfect Son, and like the Father. In this alone He is inferior to the Father: that He is not unbegotten. For He is the exact image of the F

Origen, Commentary on John Supporting witness

...ose other beings called gods. We made this distinction between Him and them by showing that God the Word is, to all the other gods, the minister of their divinity. To this we must add, to remove objections, that the reason in every rational creature holds the same relation to the Reason who was in the beginning with God, and is God the Word, as God the Word holds to God. As the Father, who is Very God and the True God, is to His image and to the images of His image — for men are said to be according to the image, not to be images of God — so He, the Word, is to the reason in every man. Each fills the place of a fountain. The Father is the fountain of divinity. The Son is the fountain of reason. As then there are many gods, but to us there is but one God the Father, and many Lords, but to us there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, so there are many Logoi. But we, for our part, pray that the one Logos may be with us, He who was in the beginning and was with God, God the Word. For whoever does not receive this Logos who was in the beginning with God, or does not attach himself to Him as He appeared in flesh, or does not share in some of those who had a share in this Logos, or whoever, aft

Tertullian, Against Praxeas Supporting witness

...per name than Clothed or Shod. It is only something added to a name. Suppose now that by some means Jesus were also called Vestitus, that is, Clothed, just as He is in fact called Christ from the mystery of His anointing. Would you in the same way say that Jesus was the Son of God, and at the same time think that Vestitus was the Father? Now then, concerning Christ, if Christ is the Father, the Father is an Anointed One, and of course receives the anointing from another. But if He receives it from Himself, then you must prove that to us. But we learn no such thing from the Acts of the Apostles, in that cry of the church to God: "Truly, Lord, against Your holy child Jesus, whom You have anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together." Acts 4:27 These words testify both that Jesus was the Son of God, and that, being the Son, He was anointed by the Father. Christ therefore must be the same as Jesus who was anointed by the Father, and not the Father, who anointed the Son. To the same effect are the words of Peter: "Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both L

Novatian, Treatise Concerning the Trinity Supporting witness

...o is before all time. And He is always in the Father, unless the Father has not always been Father. Only, in a certain sense, the Father also goes before Him, since it is necessary, in some degree, that He should be before He is Father. Because it is essential that He who knows no beginning should go before him who has a beginning. In this way, He is less, since He knows that He is in Him, having an origin because He is born, and being of like nature with the Father in some measure by His nativity. Although He has a beginning in that He is born, since He is born of that Father who alone has no beginning. He, then, when the Father willed it, proceeded from the Father. And He who was in the Father came forth from the Father. And He who was in the Father because He was of the Father was afterward with the Father because He came forth from the Father. That is to say, He is that divine substance whose name is the Word, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. For all things are after Him, because they are by Him. And rightly, He is before all things, but after the Father, since all things were made by Him, and He proceeded from Him by whose will all things wer

Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse Supporting witness

...ods, since He received His beginning by being born from Him who is one God. In this way, being both only begotten and first-begotten of Him who has no beginning, He is the only one, of all things both Source and Head. And therefore He declared that God is one, in that He proved Him to be from no source and from no beginning, but rather the beginning and source of all things. Moreover, the Son does nothing by His own will, nor does He do anything by His own decision. Nor does He come from Himself, but obeys all His Father's commands and precepts. So although His birth proves Him to be a Son, yet His obedience even to death declares Him to be the minister of His Father's will, of whom He is. Thus, by making Himself obedient to His Father in all things, although He also is God, He still shows the one God, the Father, by His obedience, from whom He also drew His beginning. And so He could not make two Gods, because He did not make two beginnings, since from Him who has no beginning He received the source of His birth before all time. For since that which is unborn is the beginning for other creatures, and God the Father alone is this, being beyond a beginning, and He is the one from

Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book II Background

...orth by him (i.e., Nous) as creators of this Pleroma. They conceive of an emission of Logos, or the Word, following the analogy of human feelings, and make bold assumptions about God, as if they had discovered something extraordinary by asserting that Logos was produced by Nous. Everyone clearly perceives that this can logically be affirmed regarding humans. But in Him who is God over all, since He is entirely Nous and entirely Logos, as I have said before, and has nothing in Himself more ancient or recent than another, and nothing conflicting with another, but remains completely equal, similar, and uniform, there is no basis for imagining such production in the mentioned order. Just as he does not err who declares that God is all vision and all hearing (as He sees, He also hears; and as He hears, He also sees), so also does he who affirms that He is all intelligence and all word, and that, in whatever respect He is intelligence, in that He is also word, and that this Nous is His Logos, will still have only an inadequate concept of the Father of all, but will hold far more fitting thoughts about Him than do those who attribute the generation of the word which people express to t

Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book II Supporting witness

But God, being all Mind and all Logos, both speaks exactly what He thinks and thinks exactly what He speaks. For His thought is Logos, and Logos is Mind, and Mind comprehending all things is the Father Himself. Therefore, anyone who speaks of the mind of God and ascribes to it a separate origin makes God a compound Being, as if God were one thing and the original Mind another. Similarly, regarding Logos, when someone assigns him the third place of production from the Father, they misunderstand His greatness; thus, Logos has been separated from God. As for the prophet, he declares about Him, "Who shall describe His generation?" But you claim to explain His generation from the Father and transfer the creation of human words, which happens through a tongue, to the Word of God, and thus you are justly exposed by yourselves as knowing neither things human nor divine.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book II Supporting witness

...he Lord acknowledges Him alone as His own Father and knows no other, which I will show from His own words. When you call this very Being the product of defect and the offspring of ignorance, and describe Him as unaware of things above Him, along with the various other claims you make about Him, consider the terrible blasphemy you are guilty of against Him who truly is God. You seem to assert sincerely enough that you believe in God, but as you are utterly unable to reveal any other God, you claim that this very Being in whom you profess to believe is the product of defect and the offspring of ignorance. This blindness and foolish talk come from the fact that you reserve nothing for God, but you wish to proclaim the birth and creation of God Himself, of His Ennœa, of His Logos, and Life, and Christ, forming these ideas from merely human experience. You do not understand, as I said before, that it is possible, in humans, who are composite beings, to speak in this way of the human mind and human thought: to say that thought (ennœa) springs from mind (sensus), intention (enthymesis) springs from thought, and word (logos) from intention. But which logos? Among the Greeks, there is on

Origen, De Principiis (On First Principles) Supporting witness

Wherefore we have always held that God is the Father of His only-begotten Son, who was born indeed of Him, and derives from Him what He is, but without any beginning, not only such as may be measured by any divisions of time, but even that which the mind alone can contemplate within itself, or behold, so to speak, with the naked powers of the understanding.

Gregory Thaumaturgus, A Sectional Confession of Faith Supporting witness

God the Father, being Himself the perfect Person, has thus the perfect Word begotten of Him truly, not as a word that is spoken, nor yet again as a son by adoption, in the sense in which angels and men are called sons of God, but as a Son who is in nature God.