While they don't deal with the topics of John 1:1 directly, certain concepts can be inferred from the language they employ regarding God. It becomes fairly clear from their appellations for Deity that both God Most High, the Father God and Jesus Christ are deemed God. The phrase 'God the Father who is God, Jesus Christ, who is God and the Holy Ghost, who is God,' appears almost like a mantra throughout the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. Clement of Rome and Ignatius both refer to Jesus Christ repeatedly as 'our God,' or as 'God, who is our Saviour Himself,' and the blood of Jesus Christ is also termed 'the blood of God.' They also, of course, refer to Christ as 'the Son of God Most High,' or 'the Son of the Most High Father,' etc. And Ignatius also refers to Jesus Christ as being 'God Himself being manifested in human form' and as being 'eternal and invisible,' which is language associated with the God of the Old Testament. Likewise, Aristides refers to Jesus Christ as 'he is named the Son of God Most High. And it is said that God Himself came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh.'
While such language would indicate that the early Christians believed that God the Father and Jesus Christ were both in some way God, and that Jesus Christ was somehow God manifest in the flesh, it doesn't on its own allow for a clear interpretation of John 1:1. The writings of Justin Martry, however, provide the theological framework necessary to clearly elucidate and delineate the language of the early Christian authors and make sense of how they understood the references in John 1:1.
Justin Martyr was an early Christian apologist who wrote between about 120-165 AD. Most of his writings are lost to us, but there are a handful that remain. Among these, The Dialog with Trypho is most relevant to this discussion. This is a set piece in which Justin is reporting a dialog he had with a Jewish man named Trypho in which he tries to convince Trypho that Christianity is the new law, and he goes at great lengths to establish this fact using the Old Testament. I'm not going to quote copious amounts of this document. It's available on line should anyone wish to read it in its entirety, but I am going to summarize the relevant portions of it.
During a segment of this dialog, Justin explains very clearly what he believes to be the Christian concept of God, and he supports this concept in detail using portions of the Old Testament. His explanation brings complete clarity to John 1:1, though it is clearly at odds with modern theologians who insist and presume that early Christianity and Judaism subscribed to the same supposition of strict monotheism through which they interpret the Bible.
According to Justin Martyr, God the Father (or God Most High) and Yahweh (or Jehovah) were two, in his words, 'numerically distinct' Gods. God the Father was the supreme God, and Yahweh was the first born and preminent of his Sons. The God who appeared to Moses in the burning bush was not God Most High, but was Yahweh, the Son of God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was not God Most High, but was Yahweh, the Son of God. The God who oversaw and interacted with and who was worshiped by the House of Israel was not God Most High, but was Yahweh His Son. Yahweh was the Word, and Jesus Christ was literally Yahweh made flesh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob come to earth as a mortal to redeem his people at the behest of his Father, God Most High. This conception of Deity is made very clear by Justin in the dialog, and it is reiterated with equal clarity in his First Apology. This concept of God Most High and His Son, Yahweh, is also consistent with the apellations of God expressed by the Apostolic Fathers and other early Christian authors. Based upon this understanding of early Christian beliefs, John 1:1 could best be written as follows: In the beginning was the Word (or Yahweh), and the Word was with God Most High, and the Word was Yahweh, the God of Israel.
Beyond Justin Martyr, there were other early Christian writers in the first three centuries of Christianity that described God similarly. El Elyon had become for them God the Father, and Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, the Son had become identified with Jesus Christ. I will now take a moment and review some of these. However, most of their arguments begin with a reference to Deuteronomy 32:8-9, and we must begin with a brief discussion of how these passages have been preserved for us in order to understand their viewpoint, so I will do that first.
In the King James Bible and other versions which are based largely upon the Masoretic Texts (MT) or the Septuagint, Deutoronomy 32:8-9 is rendered as follows: "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he seperated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people."
This version is based upon the later Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible, and it is distinctly at odds with the early verisons of the Hebrew texts uncovered at Qumran. It is believed that the earlier Hebrew versions of the text are more correct and the later version was an editorial modification. The older version reads as follows: "When the Most High (El Elyon) divided to the nations their inheritance, when he seperated the sons of men, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the sons of God. For the Lord's (Yahweh's) portion is his people."
Note the difference, the later version changing 'sons of God' to 'children of Israel,' which has significant implications. In the older version, El Elyon divides the nations among the sons of El, allocating Israel to his son Yahweh. It is believed that this passage within Deutoronomy is one of its oldest components, and it hearkens back to the early Hebrew beliefs that weren't defined by the strict monotheism attributed to later Israelite beliefs, but that is a discussion for another time. Suffice it to say that the oldest parts of the Old Testament contain implications that God Most High, the Father God, was literally a Father and had sons (sons of El or sons of the Elohim), among whom was Yahweh, the God of Israel.
The book of Job provides another example of this. In the prologue to Job we see how the sons of God (sons of Elohim), one of whom is Satan, came to Yahweh to test the loyalty of Job. As this passage is usually rendered in English, it seems to imply that Yahweh was superior to the sons of God; however, that isn't what is connoted by the original Hebrew. The Hebrew can be read as either 'to present themselves before Yahweh' or 'to set themselves against Yahweh,' and it doesn't automatically imply superiority. Thus we are presented with a situation where Yahweh is one among many of the sons of God, and he is challenged by another of the sons of God to test the loyalty of his servant. The sons of Elohim also appear in Job 38 where Yahweh asks Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth...when the morning stars shouted together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" Yahweh is the creator and the sons of God are there as well, linked to the morning stars, which are another symbol of the sons of El from antiquity.
Psalms 29, 58, 82, and 89 also carry on the theme of the sons of Elohim or the sons of Elyon. The most interesting of these is 82 which describes the council of God comprised of the sons of Elyon. The setting is less clear in most English translations, but the Psalm describes a scene where God passes judgement upon the sons of God (sons of Elyon). "You are Elohim, sons of Elyon all of you." The sons of Elohim appear again in Psalm 89: "none among the sons of Elohim is like Yahweh who is a God feared among the council of the Holy Ones." These types of scenes are observed repeatedly in the oldest portions of the Bible, and they are describing situations where the sons of Elyon are sitting in a holy council with God Most High, and Yahweh is among the sons of Elyon. Later portions of the Hebrew Bible seemed to try and distance themselves from these old traditions, mostly, in my opinion, at the behest of the Deutronomic factions and the post exilic reformers, but the same types of imagery and scenes were prevalant in the theophanies of the prophetic authors, nonetheless.
But I can't resist mentioning at this point one of the most unique scenes of the Heavenly Council that I have read among the early Christian texts. The pseudepigraphal work The Ascension of Isaiah, relates how Isaiah was escorted up to the highest heaven, passing angelic sentinals along the way. When he reaches the highest heaven, he is clothed with robes of glory and welcomed into the heavenly council of God. He is met by three personages in human form. The one in the middle is identified to him as God Most High, the one upon the right is identified as the Son of God, the Lord who had lived his life upon the earth and who had returned to take his place upon the right hand of Glory and the third personage is identified as the Holy Spirit. At one point, the angel of the Holy Spirit approaches Isaiah and converses with him, and, to my recollection, it is the only account I am aware of that depicts the person of the Holy Spirit speaking to another face to face as one man speaks to another. Interestingly enough, Origen also reports that his Hebrew teacher identified the two six-winged seraphim in Isaiah's theophany as the only begotten Son and the Holy Spirit. This seems to suggest that this concept of Deity was not singular to early Christianity, but had its roots in ancient Hebrew beliefs as well, and we see such ideas appearing in parts of the Old Testament, the writings of Philo, ect., but that will be a topic for another time.
But anyway, let's end that tangent and get back to the teachings of the early Christian writers on these subjects. Returning to the concept of God proposed by Justin Martyr, it can be demonstrated that the other prominent Christian authors that followed him preserved this idea that God Most High was distinct from Yahweh, and that Jesus Christ was identified with Yahweh. Here is a quick preview of what was taught regarding this topic.
Origen: There may be some individuals among the multitudes of believers who are not in entire agreement with us, and who incautiously assert that the Saviour is the Most High God; however, we do not hold with them.
Origen: But even in regard to those who, either from deficiency of knowledge or want of inclination for from not having Jesus to lead them to a rational view of religion, have not gone into these deep questions, we find that they believe in the Most High God and in His only-begotten Son, the Word and God....
In The Clementine Recognitions during the purported debate between Peter and Simon Magus, while the debaters disagree regarding the exact nature of God, both take the passage of Duetoronomy 32 to mean that there is a distinction between God Most High and Yahweh, the God of Israel. Peter claims Christians worship the God of gods, which is an Old Testament appellation of Yahweh, and then states plainly that Jesus is the God of gods, equating him with Yahweh.
In Eusebius' Proof of the Gospel, it can be seen that this distinction between the two deities is still remembered. I won't quote the entire passages since they are long and tedious. Feel free to read them yourself if you are so inclined. But to sum them up, in Eusebius' views, Yahweh the God of Israel was the Son, the Christ, the Word of God who called people to worship the Father.
Iraneus of Lyons used the same arguments for the pre-existent Christ in his Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, though the distinctions had begun to blur. According to him, it was the Word who said to Moses at the burning bush 'I am He Who is,' a clear indication that the God named with the sacred name was the second God and not God Most High. It was the Son who was the agent of creation, the Son who appeared to Abraham at Mamre, the Son who appeared to Jacob at Bethel and the Word who spoke to Moses and led Israel out of Egypt.
A contemporary of Iraneus, Clement of Alexandria was expounding the Old Testament in the same way. In his treatise, The Instructor, he introduced his instructor as 'The Holy God Jesus, the Word who is the guide of all humanity.' The instuctor led his people out of Egypt, appeared to Abraham, appeared to Jacob, gave the law to Moses, lead his people to the promise land. Clement knew that his instructor was the second God.
The first theologian of the Roman church, Novatian, wrote a treatise on the trinity, and he read the Old Testament the same way. He pointed out several texts in which he found the second God, Yahweh. For example, Hosea 1:7 "I will deliver them by Yahweh their God.' The 'I' in this passage, according to Novatian, was God Most High who was going to deliver his people via Yahweh. Yahweh, this second God, was Christ, the agent of creation, the one appearing in the theophanies, the one who appeared to Abraham, etc. Is it starting to get repetitive yet? While these teachings were abandoned and replaced by the later creeds, they were the original doctrine, and they are consistent with and developed from the ancient and unbroken tradition of reading the Old Testament in this manner. It wasn't until the third and fourth century Christian leadership began to really embrace the Neo-platonic concepts of God and its attendant strict monotheism that their began to arise the conflicts between the concept of God handed down to them from the early Christians and the Greek conception of Deity they had become partial to. But that is a discussion best reserved for John 17. (Foreshadowing. The sign of quality literary works).
The evidence that first Christians identified Jesus with the God of the Jews is overwhelming. It was their customary way of reading the Old Testament. The appearances of Yahweh or the angel of Yahweh were read as manifestations of the pre-existent Christ. The Son of God was their name for Yahweh, and this will be examined more in the following post that examines these concepts within the framework of the New Testatment authors, including what John himself wrote pertaining to this topic.
Of course, I can't end this without referring to one of my favorite little vignettes from the early writers. A little passage from The Discourse on Abbaton that relates part of the creation account, depicting God the Father and His Son languishing over the newly created body of Adam. The account is written as if the Son were speaking, and it goes like this:
In the King James Bible and other versions which are based largely upon the Masoretic Texts (MT) or the Septuagint, Deutoronomy 32:8-9 is rendered as follows: "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he seperated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people."
This version is based upon the later Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible, and it is distinctly at odds with the early verisons of the Hebrew texts uncovered at Qumran. It is believed that the earlier Hebrew versions of the text are more correct and the later version was an editorial modification. The older version reads as follows: "When the Most High (El Elyon) divided to the nations their inheritance, when he seperated the sons of men, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the sons of God. For the Lord's (Yahweh's) portion is his people."
Note the difference, the later version changing 'sons of God' to 'children of Israel,' which has significant implications. In the older version, El Elyon divides the nations among the sons of El, allocating Israel to his son Yahweh. It is believed that this passage within Deutoronomy is one of its oldest components, and it hearkens back to the early Hebrew beliefs that weren't defined by the strict monotheism attributed to later Israelite beliefs, but that is a discussion for another time. Suffice it to say that the oldest parts of the Old Testament contain implications that God Most High, the Father God, was literally a Father and had sons (sons of El or sons of the Elohim), among whom was Yahweh, the God of Israel.
The book of Job provides another example of this. In the prologue to Job we see how the sons of God (sons of Elohim), one of whom is Satan, came to Yahweh to test the loyalty of Job. As this passage is usually rendered in English, it seems to imply that Yahweh was superior to the sons of God; however, that isn't what is connoted by the original Hebrew. The Hebrew can be read as either 'to present themselves before Yahweh' or 'to set themselves against Yahweh,' and it doesn't automatically imply superiority. Thus we are presented with a situation where Yahweh is one among many of the sons of God, and he is challenged by another of the sons of God to test the loyalty of his servant. The sons of Elohim also appear in Job 38 where Yahweh asks Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth...when the morning stars shouted together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" Yahweh is the creator and the sons of God are there as well, linked to the morning stars, which are another symbol of the sons of El from antiquity.
Psalms 29, 58, 82, and 89 also carry on the theme of the sons of Elohim or the sons of Elyon. The most interesting of these is 82 which describes the council of God comprised of the sons of Elyon. The setting is less clear in most English translations, but the Psalm describes a scene where God passes judgement upon the sons of God (sons of Elyon). "You are Elohim, sons of Elyon all of you." The sons of Elohim appear again in Psalm 89: "none among the sons of Elohim is like Yahweh who is a God feared among the council of the Holy Ones." These types of scenes are observed repeatedly in the oldest portions of the Bible, and they are describing situations where the sons of Elyon are sitting in a holy council with God Most High, and Yahweh is among the sons of Elyon. Later portions of the Hebrew Bible seemed to try and distance themselves from these old traditions, mostly, in my opinion, at the behest of the Deutronomic factions and the post exilic reformers, but the same types of imagery and scenes were prevalant in the theophanies of the prophetic authors, nonetheless.
But I can't resist mentioning at this point one of the most unique scenes of the Heavenly Council that I have read among the early Christian texts. The pseudepigraphal work The Ascension of Isaiah, relates how Isaiah was escorted up to the highest heaven, passing angelic sentinals along the way. When he reaches the highest heaven, he is clothed with robes of glory and welcomed into the heavenly council of God. He is met by three personages in human form. The one in the middle is identified to him as God Most High, the one upon the right is identified as the Son of God, the Lord who had lived his life upon the earth and who had returned to take his place upon the right hand of Glory and the third personage is identified as the Holy Spirit. At one point, the angel of the Holy Spirit approaches Isaiah and converses with him, and, to my recollection, it is the only account I am aware of that depicts the person of the Holy Spirit speaking to another face to face as one man speaks to another. Interestingly enough, Origen also reports that his Hebrew teacher identified the two six-winged seraphim in Isaiah's theophany as the only begotten Son and the Holy Spirit. This seems to suggest that this concept of Deity was not singular to early Christianity, but had its roots in ancient Hebrew beliefs as well, and we see such ideas appearing in parts of the Old Testament, the writings of Philo, ect., but that will be a topic for another time.
But anyway, let's end that tangent and get back to the teachings of the early Christian writers on these subjects. Returning to the concept of God proposed by Justin Martyr, it can be demonstrated that the other prominent Christian authors that followed him preserved this idea that God Most High was distinct from Yahweh, and that Jesus Christ was identified with Yahweh. Here is a quick preview of what was taught regarding this topic.
Origen: There may be some individuals among the multitudes of believers who are not in entire agreement with us, and who incautiously assert that the Saviour is the Most High God; however, we do not hold with them.
Origen: But even in regard to those who, either from deficiency of knowledge or want of inclination for from not having Jesus to lead them to a rational view of religion, have not gone into these deep questions, we find that they believe in the Most High God and in His only-begotten Son, the Word and God....
In The Clementine Recognitions during the purported debate between Peter and Simon Magus, while the debaters disagree regarding the exact nature of God, both take the passage of Duetoronomy 32 to mean that there is a distinction between God Most High and Yahweh, the God of Israel. Peter claims Christians worship the God of gods, which is an Old Testament appellation of Yahweh, and then states plainly that Jesus is the God of gods, equating him with Yahweh.
In Eusebius' Proof of the Gospel, it can be seen that this distinction between the two deities is still remembered. I won't quote the entire passages since they are long and tedious. Feel free to read them yourself if you are so inclined. But to sum them up, in Eusebius' views, Yahweh the God of Israel was the Son, the Christ, the Word of God who called people to worship the Father.
Iraneus of Lyons used the same arguments for the pre-existent Christ in his Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, though the distinctions had begun to blur. According to him, it was the Word who said to Moses at the burning bush 'I am He Who is,' a clear indication that the God named with the sacred name was the second God and not God Most High. It was the Son who was the agent of creation, the Son who appeared to Abraham at Mamre, the Son who appeared to Jacob at Bethel and the Word who spoke to Moses and led Israel out of Egypt.
A contemporary of Iraneus, Clement of Alexandria was expounding the Old Testament in the same way. In his treatise, The Instructor, he introduced his instructor as 'The Holy God Jesus, the Word who is the guide of all humanity.' The instuctor led his people out of Egypt, appeared to Abraham, appeared to Jacob, gave the law to Moses, lead his people to the promise land. Clement knew that his instructor was the second God.
The first theologian of the Roman church, Novatian, wrote a treatise on the trinity, and he read the Old Testament the same way. He pointed out several texts in which he found the second God, Yahweh. For example, Hosea 1:7 "I will deliver them by Yahweh their God.' The 'I' in this passage, according to Novatian, was God Most High who was going to deliver his people via Yahweh. Yahweh, this second God, was Christ, the agent of creation, the one appearing in the theophanies, the one who appeared to Abraham, etc. Is it starting to get repetitive yet? While these teachings were abandoned and replaced by the later creeds, they were the original doctrine, and they are consistent with and developed from the ancient and unbroken tradition of reading the Old Testament in this manner. It wasn't until the third and fourth century Christian leadership began to really embrace the Neo-platonic concepts of God and its attendant strict monotheism that their began to arise the conflicts between the concept of God handed down to them from the early Christians and the Greek conception of Deity they had become partial to. But that is a discussion best reserved for John 17. (Foreshadowing. The sign of quality literary works).
The evidence that first Christians identified Jesus with the God of the Jews is overwhelming. It was their customary way of reading the Old Testament. The appearances of Yahweh or the angel of Yahweh were read as manifestations of the pre-existent Christ. The Son of God was their name for Yahweh, and this will be examined more in the following post that examines these concepts within the framework of the New Testatment authors, including what John himself wrote pertaining to this topic.
Of course, I can't end this without referring to one of my favorite little vignettes from the early writers. A little passage from The Discourse on Abbaton that relates part of the creation account, depicting God the Father and His Son languishing over the newly created body of Adam. The account is written as if the Son were speaking, and it goes like this:
And He took the clay from the hand of the angel, and made Adam according to Our image and likeness. and He left him lying for forty days and forty nights without putting breath into him. And He heaved sighs over him daily, saying, "If I put breath into this [man], he must suffer many pains." And I said unto My Father, "Put breath into him; I will be an advocate for him." And My Father said unto Me," If I put breath into him, My beloved Son, Thou wilt be obliged to go down into the world, and to suffer many pains for him before Thou shalt have redeemed him, and made him to come back to his primal state." And I said unto My Father, "Put breath into him; I will be his advocate, and I will go down into the world, and will fultill Thy command."
I just think the scene sums up nicely the early Christian vision of God Most High and his Son, Yahweh, and the dynamic between the two as depicted in John 1:1 who were, in the words of Justin Martyr, 'two numerically distinct Gods.'
But for now, I'm tired, and I'm going to bed.
Beautiful. Wonderful. I especially liked the Abbaton part. My goodness. This is incredible. Thank you for writing it for me to read. You have a marvelous mastery of words. I learned a LOT and thoroughly enjoyed it.
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