AboutBrenda Martin Expertise I love to study and have made a point of finding out all there is to know about Early Christianity,how it was founded, and why,what happened after it was established,where it all went wrong, and why Christianity is struggling today.Having been a protestant I can give you its history, and now being one of Jehovah`s witnesses I can give you its history also.
Experience I have been speaking to people about this for over 30 years so that has given me experience.
I have also studied the church fathers, and from every quote I can find they definitely believed in the Trinity, even though the word trinity didn't get invented till Tertullian.
Also one can see from the early church fathers that they all believed in a literal hell and that books such as the Apocalypse of Peter was popular. This apocryphal book never made it into the canon, but its very existence in the early second century shows how early Christians definitely believed in a literal hell.
You claim to be a Jehovah's Witness. How can you justify that know what the early church fathers believed?
-Joshua
Answer HI Joshua, you said--"THE CHURCH FATHERS DEFINITELY BELIEVED IN THE TRINITY"
Regarding the Trinity. Historian J. N. D. Kelly, himself a Trinitarian, admits that the earliest church fathers were all firm monotheists. He writes: “The evidence to be collected from the Apostolic Fathers is meagre, and tantalizingly inconclusive. . . . Of a doctrine of the Trinity in the strict sense there is of course no sign.”—Early Christian Doctrines.
The Church of the First Three Centuries states:-
“The modern popular doctrine of the Trinity . . . derives no support from the language of Justin [Martyr]: and this observation may be extended to all the ante-Nicene Fathers; that is, to all Christian writers for three centuries after the birth of Christ. It is true, they speak of the Father, Son, and prophetic or holy Spirit, but not as co-equal, not as one numerical essence, not as Three in One, in any sense now admitted by Trinitarians. The very reverse is the fact. The doctrine of the Trinity, as explained by these Fathers, was essentially different from the modern doctrine. This we state as a fact as susceptible of proof as any fact in the history of human opinions.”
Early church Fathers, such as those mentioned below, said nothing about a Trinity.
Novatian (c. 200-258 C.E.)
Irenaeus (c. 130-200 C.E.):
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215 C.E.)
Ignatius,middle of the first century C.E. to early in the second century.
Polycarp of Smyrna- last third of the first century
Hermas
Papias is also said to have known the apostle John. Likely he wrote early in the second century, but only fragments of his writings exist today. In them he says nothing about a Trinity doctrine.
The book Second Century Orthodoxy, by J. A. Buckley, notes:
“Up until the end of the second century at least, the universal Church remained united in one basic sense; they all accepted the supremacy of the Father. They all regarded God the Father Almighty as alone supreme, immutable, ineffable and without beginning. . . .
“With the passing of those second century writers and leaders, the Church found itself . . . slipping slowly but inexorably toward that point . . . where at the Council of Nicaea the culmination of all this piece-meal eroding of the original faith was reached. There, a small volatile minority, foisted its heresy upon an acquiescent majority, and with the political authorities behind it, coerced, cajoled and intimidated those who strove to maintain the pristine purity of their faith untarnished.”
"THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS ALL BELIEVED IN A LITERAL HELL, EARLY CHRISTIANS DEFINITELY BELIEVED IN A LITERAL HELL".
When did professed Christians adopt the belief in such an afterlife? Certainly not during the time of Jesus and his apostles. The French Encyclopædia Universalis states: “The [apocryphal] Apocalypse of Peter (2nd century C.E.) was the first Christian work to describe the punishment and tortures of sinners in hell.”
Among the early Church Fathers, however, there was disagreement over hell.
Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Cyprian believed that hell was a fiery place.
Origen and theologian Gregory of Nyssa thought of hell as a place of separation from God—of spiritual suffering.
Augustine of Hippo, on the other hand, held that suffering in hell was both spiritual and sensory—a view that gained acceptance.
“By the fifth century the stern doctrine that sinners will have no second chance after this life and that the fire which will devour them will never be extinguished was everywhere paramount,” wrote Professor J.N.D. Kelly.
The most gratifying lesson from the CATACOMBS comes in their answer on early Christian beliefs and customs. The pagans worshiped gaudily in ornate temples with magnificent idols and accompanied with all the frills of incense and candles. Not so the Christians. The typical pagan view of them was: “Why have they no altars, temples and sacrifices?”
The HISTORIAN GIBBON points to this complete disdain for idolatry by the Christians and of the wit of some of their writers who expressed ridicule of the pagans for their bowing before the works of their own hands. The marked contrast between Christian and pagan then can be seen from the epitaphs of each. Whereas the heathen extolled their lives of indulgence and sounded an “eat, drink and be merry” note, Christians usually engraved the name and a few words DENOTING THE RESTFUL SLEEP INTO WHICH THE DEAD HAD FALLEN and frequently made reference to their hope in the resurrection. One inscription reads: “You, well-deserving one, having left your [relations], lie in peace—in sleep. You will arise; a temporary rest is granted you.”
But these facts will alert one to the realization that those Christians so close to the apostolic church held beliefs markedly different not only from pagans then but from many professed Christians now. Surely if they ridiculed the idolatry of the Romans of the first three centuries, they would not condone the recognition paid to images by the church with headquarters in the same city today, simply because it professes to be Christian. If they believed in a resurrection until which time they would sleep it is UNTHINKABLE that they could reconcile their faith to a teaching in an afterdeath “purgatory”, hell-fire or, for that matter, consciousness in any form”
You are mistaken therefore, the Early Christians believed they went to sleep after death & the resurrection was their hope.
I did do my research before becoming one of Jehovah’s Witnesses & I found the Apostolic Fathers did NOT teach the Trinity, & the Early Christians most definitely did NOT believe in Hell.
