Hippolytus Of Rome

Hippolytus was a presbyter in the Church in Rome who flourished circa 170-236 A.D. He was involved in the schism that took place in the church of Rome for some time, attacked the theologies of Zephyrinus and bishop Callistus. He is most known for his magnum opus, Refutation of All Heresies. He was eventually martyred in Rome, whose statue survives to this day.

Apparently, he was amongst the first to use the word "person" to describe the relationship between the three members of the Trinity. I will provide excerpts of it below, followed by the Greek text, and a passage from the later Boethius to add to the point.



  “For the Father indeed is One, but there are two Persons, because there is also the Son; and then there is the third, the Holy Spirit.”  

πατηρ μεν γαρ εις, προσωπα δε δυο οτι και ο υιος, το δε τριτον το αγιον πνευμα. 

"For that is what, brethren, the Scriptures signify to us. This is the economy (dispensation) that the blessed John gives us his testimony in his Gospel, and acknowledging that this Word is God, thus saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". - For therefore if "the Word" was with God, being God, what then? Should anyone say that there are two gods? Indeed, I shall not speak of two gods, but of one, of two persons however, and also of the third economy, the grace of the Holy Spirit. For the Father is indeed one, but indeed there are two persons because the Son also, and also the third, the Holy Spirit. The Father commands, the Logos executes, and the Son is shown (i.e. manifested), through whom the Father is believed. the economy of the harmony is led back to One God."

  For if He alleges of his own account when he said "I and the Father are one," let him attend his mind and learn that he did not say, "I and the Father am one," but "are one." For "are one" is not said of one person but of two. He indicated two persons but one power.

 The next excerpt that would confer with Hippolytus' use of the word prosopon = person, is a Latin writer of the sixth century under the Gothic King of Rome, Theoderic, named Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius: 
 
"For the word 'person' seems to be borrowed from a different source, namely from the masks (personae) which in comedies and tragedies used to represent the people concerned...The Greeks, too, call these masks 'prosopa' from the fact that they are placed over the face and conceal the countenance in front of the eyes: παρα του προς τους ωπας τιθεσθαι (from being put up against the face).  But since, as we have said, it was by the masks they put on that actors respresented the individual concerned in a tragedy or comedy - Hecuba or Medea or Simo or Chremes, - so also of all other men who could be clearly recognized by their appearance the Latins used the name 'persona', the Greeks 'prosopa'."

There are few theories on the etymology of the English word person. One possible derivative as per Boethius is that it derives from the Latin persona, which means a "personage," "an assumed character," coming from the earlier sense of the "mask," "false charade," made either of clay or wood, elaborately decorated with exaggerated facial expressions that were first used in Roman theatres. It eventually came down to mean a distinct personality. Some say it ultimately derives from the verb personare - "to sound through," whilst others allege that the word persona is inherited from the Etruscan corruption of the Greek word prosopon, which could mean either a "face" or even a "staged mask" of Greek theatres. Either way, it's theatrical derivative is beyond dispute.  

P.S. Forgive my sloppy translation of the Greek text 

Tertullian's Testimony of the Holy Trinity

Many years back - probably summer of 2005 - I was heavily engrossed in the study of the patristics. I remember, as I was researching on the Pre-Nicean formulations of the Trinity, I've had the occasion to dig up such precious excepts from such a vast goldmine. The study of the Early Christians has been the most rewarding and enriching experience to me intellectually and to my faith spiritually. 

I'd like to share with you all a favorite passage of mine about the Trinity from a very prolific writer of North Africa in the 3rd century, a lawyer by the name of Tertullian. He flourished in the Roman province of Carthage in North Africa around c. 160-230 A.D. His writings are absolutely incendiary, articulating the gospel against his pagan detractors, heretics, and Judaizers with such a ferocious fervor. His wrote apologies to the Roman senate, exhortations to Christians in highly refined Latin. In the beginning of the 3rd century (211) he seems to have come under the influence of the Montanist sect, a charismatic movement that stressed on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and of the End Times.

The Christological formula of Jesus Christ "being of the same substance as the Father," seems to have originated with Tertullian. The precise word he uses is consubstantialis = "consubstantial" which in itself of the translation of the Greek homoousios = "of the same substance," i.e. Jesus's relation to His Father; and that the generation was from the Father, "begotten not made," hence Jesus was not part of God's creation as the later Arians held. This formula eventually found its way into the Nicean Creed of the famous Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 to deal with the Arian controversy - that had erupted in the city of Alexandria in Egypt by a presbyter from Libya by the name of Arrius -  presided by the Emperor Constantine and the 318 presbyters in attendance.

 I believe the following passage is from Contra Praxeam, "Against Praxeas" an arch-heretic who had taught that the persons of the Trinity were one: in that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are really one person rather than three. This doctrine was immediately seen as heretical, an indubitable precursor to the doctrine of the Modalists today. Tertullian referred to this warped view of the Trinity as "Patripassianism," which means "Father-who-suffers-ism," in reference to the inevitable conclusion deriving from the understanding that since all the members of the Trinity are one person, God the Father therefore must have suffered on the cross, since the Father and the son were one person. Tertullian, though distinguishes the personhood of both while still maintaining the essential oneness of divinity shared by all the three distinct persons of the Holy Trinity.

Let us dispense now to my rambling and let us get right into the text:

 

"The Word, therefore, is both always in the Father, as He says, "I am in the Father;" and is always with God, according to what is written, "And the Word was with God;" and never separate from the Father, or other than the Father, since "I and the Father are one." This will be the prolation, taught by the truth, the guardian of the Unity, wherein we declare that the Son is a prolation from the Father, without being separated from Him. For God sent forth the Word, as the Paraclete also declares, just as the root puts forth the tree, and the fountain the river, and the sun the ray. For these are probolai, or emanations, of the substances from which they proceed. I should not hesitate, indeed, to call the tree the son or offspring of the root, and the river of the fountain, and the ray of the sun; because every original source is a parent, and everything which issues from the origin is an offspring. Much more is (this true of) the Word of God, who has actually received as His own peculiar designation the name of Son. But still the tree is not severed from the root, nor the river from the fountain, nor the ray from the sun; nor, indeed, is the Word separated from God. Following, therefore, the form of these analogies, I confess that I call God and His Word -- the Father and His Son -- two. For the root and the tree are distinctly two things, but correlatively joined; the fountain and the river are also two forms, but indivisible; so likewise the sun and the ray are two forms, but coherent ones. Everything which proceeds from something else must needs be second to that from which it proceeds, without being on that account separated: Where, however, there is a second, there must be two; and where there is a third, there must be three. Now the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son; just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root, or as the stream out of the river is third from the fountain, or as the apex of the ray is third from the sun. Nothing, however, is alien from that original source whence it derives its own properties. In like manner the Trinity, flowing down from the Father through intertwined and connected steps, does not at all disturb the Monarchy, whilst it at the same time guards the state of the Economy."

The term, "prolation" meant "bringing forth," i.e. in reference to the generation of the Son from the Father: The Father prolates His Logos in order to create the universe. The Son is neither inseparable ("non-separatum") from the Father, nor is He distinct from His true essence. Tertullian refers to this position as "custos unitatis," a guard of unity. One cannot distinguish the root from the fruit ("radix fruticem"), fountain from the spring ("fons fluvium), and the radiance from the sun ("sol radium"), in the same way the Word cannot be distinguished from the Father ("Deo Sermo"). Note well that Tertullian uses the Latin word sermo in translating the Greek Logos, meaning "Word"; the Latin vulgate, on the other hand, renders the Greek as Verbum. It is quite evident that Tertullian was using an older, more ancient translation of the Latin Bible, centuries before Jerome's translation of the Vulgate. Tertullian would have this characteristically old Latin rendition of the Psalm, "eructavit cor meum sermonem optimum," "my heart has uttered a good word," or literally, "my heart has vomited out an excellent speech" (Psalm 44:2). Sermo is more than just "Word," it is the speech, the rational thought, and the embodiment of the mind of God. The Father and the Son are conjoined: coniunctae: sharing in the oneness of essence: substantia.

It seems somewhat unclear as to the usage of the Greek term probolai, which Tertullians transliterates it, leaving the word in its original. The LS Lexicon defines it as "putting forward," "projecting forward," "jutting out;" therefore, in this context probolai would seem to connote an emanation. The concept seems to be similar to that of prolatio as discussed above. To reiterate, the Father generates the Son from Himself, and also the Holy Spirit; the three are distinct but all proceed from the same parent source: from the same co-equal and co-aeval substance.

This understanding of the "prolation" goes back to the Christian philosopher from Athens named Athenagoras around A.D. 160-180, when he describes the generation of the Holy Spirit as an "outflow from God, flowing out and returning like a ray of the sun" (Athenagoras, Embassy, 10). Like Tertullian, Athenagoras, though affirming the euality of the persons in essence and being, are still distinct by rank: "Who then would not be amazed hearing those called atheists who call God Father and Son and Holy Spirit, proclaiming their power in unity and in rank their diversity?" (ibid.). Tertullian echoes that line of reasoning in affirming, "Everything which proceeds from something else must needs be second to that from which it proceeds."

Here is the complete Latin text of the original passage from Tertullian:

sermo ergo et in patre semper, sicut dicit, Ego in patre: et apud deum semper, sicut scriptum est, Et sermo erat apud deum: et nunquam separatus a patre aut alias a patre quia Ego et pater unum sumus. [5] haec erit probolh_ veritatis, custos unitatis, qua prolatum dicimus filium a patre sed non separatum. protulit enim deus sermonem, quemadmodum etiam paracletus docet, sicut radix fruticem et fons fluvium et sol radium: nam et istae species probolhai\ sunt earum substantiarum ex quibus prodeunt. nec dubitaverim filium licere et radicis fruticem et fontis fluvium et solis radium, quia omnis origo parens est et omne quod ex origine profertur progenies est, multo  magis sermo dei qui etiam proprie nomen filii accepit: nec frutex tamen a radice nec fluvius a fonte nec radius a sole discernitur, sicut nec a deo sermo. [6] igitur secundum horum exemplorum formam profiteor me duos licere deum et sermonem  eius, patrem et filium ipsius: nam et radix et frutex duae res sunt sed coniunctae, et fons et flumen duae species sunt sed indivisae, et sol et radius duce formae sunt sed cohaerentes. [7] omne quod prodit ex aliquo secundum sit eius necesse est de quo prodit, nec ideo tamen est separatum. secundus autem ubi est, duo sunt, et tertius ubi est, tres sunt. tertius enim est spiritus  a deo et filio, sicut tertius a radice fructus ex frutice et tertius a fonte rivus ex flamine et tertius a sole apex ex radio: nihil tamen a matrice alienatur a qua proprietates suas ducit. ita trinitas per consertos et connexos gradus a patre decurrens et monarchiae nihil obstrepit et oeconomiae statum protegit.

The next translation is even more explicit:

"Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and so will you know in what sense this is said. Now, observe, my assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that They are distinct from Each Other."

Tertullian here pronounces his "regula fidei," the "rule of faith," a popular ecclesiastical phrase in Latin churches of any doctrine from which our salvation hinges. The persons (personae) of the Trinity are one (unum) but also distinct (alium).

The (incomplete) Latin:

Hanc me regulam professum, qua inseparatos ab alterutro patrem et filium et spiritum testor, tene ubique, et ita quid quomodo dicatur agnosces. ecce enim dico alium esse patrem  et alium filium et alium spiritum

Foreign Plant

"I exhort you therefore - yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ - take ye only Christian food, and abstain from strange herbage, which is heresy: for these men do even mingle poison with Jesus Christ, imposing upon others by a show of honesty, like persons administering a deadly drug with honied wine, so that one who knoweth is not, fearing nothing, drinketh in death with a baneful delight" (Ignatius of Antioch, circa 107 A.D., Epistle to the Trallians 6).

The more modern rendition to the passage above is "partake only of christian food, and keep away from every strange plant, which is heresy" (Michael H. Holmes translation).

This passage strikes a certain chord with me. Our appetite for nourishment can only incline towards but two polarized paths: the Christian food versus the foreign plant. The strange herb, the barbaric plant or in the original allotria botane, is any planting whose properties are alien to the substance of the Gospel, whose planting was not of the Father. Those who, however, know the voice, not just any ordinary voice, but the living viva vox of Jesus, naturally turn away from foreign plants; for this self-same word, allotrion, is also found in the passage where Jesus states that His elect sheep "will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers" (John 10:5). There are poisons and noxious plants that harm our bodies and our minds and our souls. The ones that damage the soul are the most pernicious.

I am reminded of a passage in a novel of a contemporary writer, Achilles Tatius, albeit not a Christian like Ignatius. A distraught lover concocts an elixir to remedy the effects of poison in his girlfriend's blood stream. When he gives the potion for her to drink, he prays that the drug would prove true to its prescription and "drive that other wild and barbarous drug out of her head and down to defeat!" (Leucippe and Clitophon, book 4, chapter 17). It is the same with perversions to the faith; we must drive out that manic energy of evil and of the demonic powers - that wild and barbarous plant. But Jesus Christ prepares a cure for us in a form of a potion: a cup of the fruit of the vine, which is the shed blood of Jesus in which there is life from which we derive the remedy of true wisdom.

the elixir to combat evil thoughts and evil habits caused by the inebriation of the foreign elements of this universe is the cup of the doctrine of Jesus Christ and His apostles. Stand true to the apostolic doctrine even as Paul states: "And do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Holy Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). There are two paths: one of light, the other of darkness. The light is the way of Jesus Christ(John 14:6), the darkness is the way of the "strong delusion" of Satan (2nd Thessalonians 2:11). Because it is during the night when the world sleeps: those who are sober are of the day and remain in the light, those, on the other hand, "who are drunk are drunk at night" (1st Thessalonians 5:7).

A papyrus fragment preserving an agraphon of Jesus - sayings of Jesus preserved in oral memory, states "I stood in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in flesh, and I saw all of them drunk and none of them have I found thirsty, and it pains me in my soul, because they are blind, and they do not see" (P. Oxy., 1). whether the above quotation is authentic or apocryphal does not matter. The world lives in a wild dream; the world is intoxicated; the world is bamboozled; I daresay, this is the most intoxicated age history has ever seen!

The only remedy is the good fruit of the Holy Spirit, which brings peace, rest, and happiness whereas the former evil plant just gives false euphoria, but is only a gall mixed with honeyed wine. The Christian food is the only kind that could truly give life and sustenance. Do not mix Jesus Christ with poison, thus administering a deadly drug of heresy, hoodwinking an unsuspecting victim untaught in the oracles of God, who naively accepts it without question, and imbibes the fatal drink of pleasure to their undoing. 

Pauly grimly states that those who suppress that knowledge of God are given over to a reprobate mind. I pray O God to deliver me from any poisonous teachings and the foul plants of this world - as we should all be praying for.

Melito of Sardis: Happy Easter!

Firstly, I wish all eastern Christians happy Easter: Christos anesti ek necron! On this most glorious occasion of our faith, I'd like to share some of the wisdom of the ancients on this self-same occasion of Christ's resurrection. If Christ was not divine, how then could He have managed to raised Himself up from the dead? Melito of Sardis addresses that very issue.

 

Akhmimic text of Melito of Sardis

We've touched on before the prominent bishops of Asia Minor following the death of the last of the apostles. We have covered in some aspects the persons of Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, Papias and Abercius of Hierapolis. The next in line now concerns bishop Melito of Sardis, near Smyrna in Asia Minor around mid-second century. 

The most celebrated ancient church historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Ecclesiastical History, makes mention of the bishop in good detail, commencing thusly: "In these times also flourished Melito, bishop of the church in Sardis, and Apollinaris, the bishop of Hierapolis. Each of these separately addressed discourses as apologies for the faith to the existing emperor of the Romans already mentioned" (Book IV, 26:1). The apologia that Eusebius mentions as being penned under his name is that to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, composed circa A.D. 170.

But the most well-known work of the bishop was that On the Passover (or Peri Pascha), written during the outbreak of the so-called "Quartodeciman controversy" - questions regarding the date of the celebration of Easter, a topic I will not be addressing in this post. In this famous work, Melito beautifully articulates some of the earliest and clearest expressions of the divinity of Jesus Christ and His identification with God the Father. The references to Jesus' divinity are so explicit, unapologetically candid, and fearlessly bold that it defies all the modern opinions to the contrary with regards to the early Christian indubitable belief on the divinity of Christ:

And so he was lifted up upon a tree and an inscription was attached indicating who was being killed. Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling. But listen, as you tremble before him on whose account the earth trembled!
He who hung the earth in place is hanged.
He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place.
He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree.
The Sovereign is insulted.
God is murdered.
The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.
This is the One who made the heavens and the earth,
and formed mankind in the beginning,
The One proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets,
The One enfleshed in a virgin,
The One hanged on a tree,
The One buried in the earth,
The One raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven,
The One sitting at the right hand of the Father,
The One having all authority to judge and save,
Through Whom the Father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.
This One is “the Alpha and the Omega,”
This One is “the beginning and the end”
—the beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible.
This One is the Christ.
This One is the King.
This One is Jesus.
This One is the Leader.
This One is the Lord.
This One is the One who rose from the dead.
This One is the One sitting on the right hand of the Father.
He bears the Father and is borne by the Father.
“To him be the glory and the power forever. Amen.”

As Dr.James White pointed out once: "they certainly knew how to preach back then." How true the sentiment. How lofty the expressions, how exalted the language. Only Jesus Christ, the only-begotten of God is worthy of such an acclaim; only the Son of God could assume such majestic prerogatives; only the suffering servant could be so exalted in His glory. Our ancient fathers have certainly done their bulk of the work in proclaiming the Godhood of Jesus and His Gospel; how much more so do we need messages of like nature in our day and age where such bold proclamations have been watered down to conform our modern religious, political and social sensibilities. The early fathers did not compromise their faith in the face of the menacing emperors, are we not under the same standard to share our faith in boldness?