Chapter 8

"THEY SHALL WANDER INTO MYTHS"

THE LATER CENTURIES

The fifth century saw a consolidation of the new doctrines concerning God. In noting this Mosheim goes on to describe how the original simple Christian faith was now actually derided:

'In the controversies which in this century agitated nearly all Christendom, many points of theology were more fully explained and more accurately defined, than they had been before. Thus it was with the doctrine of Christ, his person and natures ... For that devout and venerable simplicity of the first ages of the church, which made men believe when God speaks, and obey when he commands, was thought by the chief doctors of this age to be only fit for clowns.' ⁽¹⁶⁵⁾

In his record of the next century Mosheim is even more severe, saying that 'the barriers of ancient simplicity and truth being once torn up, there was a constant progress for the worse'. ⁽¹⁶⁶⁾

It is therefore difficult to disagree with the verdict of Macaulay when he commented: 'In the fifth century Christianity had conquered paganism, and paganism had conquered Christianity. The Church was now victorious and corrupt'. ⁽¹⁶⁷⁾

During the next few centuries the controversy over the Trinity subsided and the doctrine soon became an unchallenged dogma of both the Eastern and Western Churches. With the spread of Christianity into areas where Greek and Latin were not commonly used, and the consequent unavailability of the Biblical records to those people, and especially with the increased power and dominance of the Church, any doubts about the doctrine did not surface or were strangled at birth.

But with the onset of the Reformation and the invention of printing there were opportunities for established beliefs to be questioned once more. In Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland and Poland little communities of Bible-loving Christians sprang up. In almost every case the first orthodox doctrine that they discarded was that of the Trinity. Sadly, in those days the spirit of Theodosius still held sway, and many of those protesters paid for their boldness with their lives. ⁽¹⁶⁸⁾

With the advent of the eighteenth century the power of the European civil and religious authorities to punish those they deemed heretics had passed away. England had reached that stage somewhat earlier. With the removal of such sanctions the anti-trinitarian move gathered pace. Primitive Baptists and Quakers were included in those who dissented from the orthodox faith not to speak of the Unitarian Church which had a substantial following in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and still is of considerable size, especially in the United States. (Unfortunately this latter organisation has abandoned its original biblical belief that Jesus was born by the power of the Holy Spirit acting on Mary for the view that Christ had a human father). The words of William Penn, the founder of the Quaker movement, illustrates these non-conformist views about the Trinity: ⁽¹⁶⁹⁾

'Before I conclude this head, it is requisite that I should inform thee, reader, concerning the origin of the Trinitarian doctrine: Thou mayest assure thyself, it is not from the Scriptures, nor reason, since so expressly repugnant; although all broachers of their own inventions strongly endeavour to reconcile them with the holy record. Know then, my friend, it was born about three hundred years after the ancient gospel was declared; it was conceived in ignorance, brought forth and maintained by cruelty. ⁽¹⁷⁰⁾

In recent times the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Trinity has again come under the theological spotlight. A group of scholars under the editorship of John Hick published The Myth of God Incarnate which questioned many of the basic assumptions underlying the Trinity and its relevance for the Christian world of the post-20th century.

SUMMARY

It now remains for us to bring together the salient features in the development of the Doctrine of the Trinity. We have seen that it was not present in the earliest church, but was formed as a gradual development over the subsequent 400 or so years. It cannot be stressed too strongly that the battle that was finally resolved at the councils of Nicea and ncils, some of which were unrepresentative and ill-run, debated this matter and emerged with findings to become binding on all from that time on. And finally we have seen that for the first time the civil power of the Emperor was invoked to compel acceptance of the new doctrine on pain of severe sanctions.

We have also discovered how that due to the priority of Church authority over the teaching the Bible, coupled with the inaccessibility of the Bible to most people, the new doctrine of the Trinity remained unchallenged for over a thousand years until the Reformation. But once the Bible was available in the mother tongue of its readers, one of the first of the established doctrines to be challenged was the doctrine of the Trinity a challenge that has continued down to the present day.

CHAPTER 8 APPENDICES

REFERENCES

165. Eccles. Hist. Book II, Cent v., ch.3 (italics ours).

166. Eccles. Hist. Book II, Cent vi, Ch. 3

167. Quoted by Stannus, p.7.

168. For a full treatment of this topic see A.Eyre: The Protesters, and Brethren in Christ.

169. Other present-day sects that do not accept the Trinity include the Jehovah's Witnesses, who teach the pre-existence of Jesus but not his equality with the Father. Among other sects the Christadelphians come nearest to the original beliefs.

170. Quoted by Stannus, p.7