Logos-Christology Archives » From Daniel to Revelation

2023-02-042023-02-04

Did Philo influence the Bible’s description of the Son of God?

Purpose

The Old Testament (OT) presents only one God. But then Jesus Christ appeared and claimed to be the “only-begotten Son” of God (John 3:16; 10:36), to have received all authority in heaven and on earth (John 17:2; Matt 28:18), and even implied to be the “I am” of the OT (John 8:58). This “I am” may be understood as “the angel of the LORD” who appeared to Moses “in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush,” who is also called “God” and who said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exo 3:2, 4, 14).

So, the writers of the New Testament (NT) had to figure out who Jesus is relative to God. They wrote things of Jesus that Jesus never said of Himself, such as that:

- He is the “Logos” (John 1:1), the image of God (Col 1:15), and the “mediator … between God and men” (1 Tim 2:5).
- He was “in the beginning with God” (John 1:1).
- God created and still maintains all things through Him (e.g., John 1:3; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2-3; 1 Cor 8:6).
- God gave Him all authority in heaven and on earth (John 17:2; Matt 28:18).

As Christians, we like to think that this message of the only begotten Son of God is unique to the New Testament. It is then a little disquieting to discover that, before the NT was written, Greek philosophy, as interpreted by Philo, also spoke about a Logos who always existed, through whom God created all things, who is the image of God and the mediator between the Uncreated and created.

Given these similarities, the Internet Encyclopaedia article on Philo (IE) claims that the NT descriptions of Jesus are derived from Greek philosophy via Philo and therefore that Christianity is based on Greek philosophy. The purpose of this article is to evaluate this claim. For this purpose, this article discusses the similarities and differences between Philo’s Logos and Jesus Christ and attempts to explain why such concepts existed even before the New Testament was written.

Summary

Philo

Philo of Alexandria was a Jewish philosopher who wrote a few decades before the NT was written. “Philo was thoroughly educated in Greek philosophy. … He had a deep reverence for Plato and referred to him as ‘the most holy Plato’.” But Philo was also committed to the Jewish faith. By using “an allegorical technique for interpretation of the Hebrew (Bible),” he produced a synthesis of the Old Testament and Greek philosophy.

Foundations of Christianity

Philo is not important for Judaism. “Philo’s primary importance is in the development of the philosophical and theological foundations of Christianity.”

IE claims that the Christian theologians of the second and third centuries (the Apologists) used Philo’s synthesis of the Old Testament and Greek philosophy to formulate the Logos theology. To explain:

The church began as a Jewish-dominated movement. After the church became Gentile-dominated in the second century, Logos Theology became the standard explanation of who Jesus Christ is and of His relationship with God. We cannot deny that that theology was substantially influenced by Greek philosophy.

But IE goes much further and even claims that Philo may have influenced the New Testament itself, particularly the writings of Paul, the gospel of John, and the epistle to the Hebrews.

By reading the Greek philosophy of his day into the Old Testament, Philo gave Greek philosophy a Biblical appearance. Therefore, what IE effectively claims is that Christianity grew out of Greek philosophy via Philo.

God

First, consider some of Philo’s views concerning God, namely:

- - No other being, not even the Logos, is able to fully understand the One who exists without cause: Only God is able to fully understand God.
  - God also created time and, therefore, for Him, “nothing is past and nothing is future, but everything is present only.”
  - “There never was a time when he did not create.”

The Logos

Philo’s most important doctrine

When Philo lived, “the notion of the Logos was deeply ingrained in Greek philosophy” and Philo included the Logos in his interpretation of the Old Testament. Philo’s entire philosophical system hinges on his doctrine of the Logos. The Logos was his means of synthesizing the Old Testament and Greek philosophy. Furthermore, IE claims that it was also Philo’s doctrine of the Logos that created “the foundation for Christianity, first in the development of (Paul’s letters) and (the books) of John, later in the Hellenistic Christian Logos and Gnostic doctrines of the second century.”

The Logos in the Old Testament

Philo found the Logos in the Old Testament in:

- - “The Word of the LORD” that is often said to come to the prophets and by which “the heavens were made,”
  - The personified “Wisdom” (Proverbs), and in
  - The Angel of the Lord.

A Personal Being

“Logos” is the common Greek word for “word,” “speech,” “principle,” or “thought.” But, in Greek philosophy, the word Logos had a very specialized meaning, namely, “a rational, intelligent and thus vivifying principle of the universe.”

IE claims that Philo, by introducing the concept of the Logos into Judaism, has transformed the Logos from a metaphysical theoretical entity into a humanlike being and mediator between God and men.

Other prominent scholars (Ronald Nash, RPC Hanson, Rowan Williams) disagree. They say that “Philo’s Logos is not a person or messiah or savior but a cosmic principle … a metaphysical abstraction.” The descriptions in Philo of “an individually subsistent Logos, distinct from the Father” are not literal but metaphorical.

My understanding is that Philo illogically describes the Logos as both a “metaphysical abstraction,” as in Greek philosophy, and as a Personal Being, as he interprets the Logos in the Old Testament to be. Rowan Williams adds, “To look for a clear definition or identification of the Logos in his writings would be … fruitless” (RW, 124)¹.

Has always existed.

Both Philo’s Logos and Jesus Christ have always existed:

Philo holds that “the Logos … constitutes the manifestation of God’s thinking, acting.” Consequently, the Logos has been brought into existence by God but always existed (because God has always existed and never began to think or do).

Similarly, in the NT, the Son was “begotten,” meaning that He has been brought into existence by God. At the same time, the Son “was” in “the beginning” (John 1:1-2) and is “the First and the Last” (Rev 1:17), implying that He has always existed.

Literally first in time

Since, in both Philo and the NT, the Logos has always existed, the Logos has existed first in time. For that reason, Philo described the Logos as “the first-begotten Son of the Uncreated Father.” Jesus Christ, similarly, is “the ‘first-born’ of God” (Col 1:15; Heb 1:6), although this might also be interpreted symbolically

Uniquely Generated

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos has been uniquely generated:

Philo used “begotten” and “created” as synonyms but he says that the Logos is neither uncreated as God nor created as men. In other words, He was generated differently from created beings.

The NT, by saying that the Son is “the only begotten” and not only “the first begotten” as in Philo, makes a distinction between “begotten” and “created” and indicates that the Son was uniquely generated.

Direct Agent of Creation

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos is the direct Agent of creation:

In Philo, “the direct agent of creation is not God himself … but the Logos. … the Logos … was used as an instrument and a pattern of all creation.”

In the NT also, God created all things through the Logos (John 1:1-3; cf. Col 1:16; Heb 1:2; 1 Cor 8:6).

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos maintains the universe:

In Philo, “the Logos is the bond holding together all the parts of the world” and “produces a harmony … between various parts of the universe.”

Similarly, in the NT, God maintains all things through His Son (Heb 1:3; Col 1:17).

Subordinate

Both Philo’s Logos and Jesus Christ are subordinate to God:

In Philo, the Logos is “inferior to God” (Davis). “The supreme being is God and the next is Wisdom or the Logos of God” (IE).

In the NT, the Father sent the Son and Jesus said, “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). See – The subordination of the Son.

However, the orthodox teaching of the church accepts that the Son is functionally subordinate to the Father. The real question is whether the Son is also ontologically subordinate to the Father:

In Philo, “the ontology of the Logos would most closely resemble an emanation from the divine essence” (Davis). Therefore, He is also ontologically subordinate to the High God.

The Bible nowhere explicitly teaches anything about the substance of God or ontological equality.

Mediator

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos is the mediator between God and man:

Philo described the Logos as the “mediator between God and the world,” “continually a suppliant (pleading) to the immortal God on behalf of the mortal race,” “to procure forgiveness of sins, and a supply of unlimited blessings.”

Similarly, in the NT, “there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5; cf. Heb 8:6; 9:15).

The Light of the World

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos illuminates the soul. In Philo, “the Logos … in the mind of a wise man … allows preservation of virtues” (IE). Similarly, John wrote: “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.”

The Logos in our God.

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos is our God:

In Philo, “God is revealed to His creation through the Logos.” Due to “the utter transcendence of the First Principle [the One who exists without cause],” “man’s highest union with God is limited to God’s manifestation as the Logos.” For Philo, the Logos is the only experience of God that man will have. Effectively, therefore, the Logos is our God.

Similarly, in the NT, God “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” but the Son is “the (visible) image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). As the direct Agent of our creation and our continued existence, and since we will never be able to “see” or directly experience God, the Son is effectively the God of all created things.

Cannot become Flesh

Philo would never have accepted that the Logos “became flesh” (John 1:14) because “Philo disdained the material world and physical body. The body was for Philo … ‘an evil and a dead thing’.”

Philo also taught that “a wise man … should be free of … pleasure, desire, sorrow, and fear.” But Jesus suffered sorrow and fear. Philo would never have tolerated such thinking.

Man’s Mind

For Philo, “the reasoning capacity of a human mind is” an indivisible part of the Logos. For this reason, the “Logos is apportioned into an infinite number of parts.” For that reason also, the human mind is imperishable and has the power of free will.

Did Philo influence the NT?

The following support the view that Philo influenced the NT:

1) The NT says things about Christ that Christ never said of Himself but which Philo did say about the Logos, for example, that God created and maintains all things through Him.

2) Since the word Logos had a very specialized meaning in Greek philosophy, and given the pervasive influence of Greek philosophy at the time, John’s description of Jesus Christ as “the Logos,” must mean that John identified the Son of God as the Logos of Greek Philosophy.

3) There are many other similarities between Philo’s Logos and the Biblical Son of God. For example, both have an origin, have always existed, are the direct Agent of creation, are subordinate to God, have been uniquely generated, and are the mediator between God and man.

The differences between them do not take away the astounding similarities or our duty to explain these similarities.

Possible Explanations

So, how do we explain the similarities?

The Bible is not inspired.

In the view of Critical Scholars (theologians who do not believe in the supernatural), the NT is simply the result of the evolution of human thought and the reliance on Philo is proof thereof.

A Different Logos

An alternative is to argue that the differences between Philo’s Logos and the NT’s Son of God are great and that Philo, consequently, did not influence the NT writers. However, the similarities between them are too substantial and too specific to deny the influence of Greek philosophy.

Teaching Mechanism

A fourth possibility is that the writers of the NT used concepts from Philo to explain Jesus Christ to Greek readers in their own language. However, the similarities are too extraordinary (out of the ordinary, e.g., eternal, creator) to be simply explaining truths in Greek thought forms.

To oppose pagan theology

Nash proposes that the significant number of similarities between Philo and the letter to the Hebrews can be explained as that the writer of Hebrews uses the language of philosophy to describe the Christian message as better than philosophy; not bring philosophy into Christianity.

This may be part of the answer but it is very far from explaining all the similarities. For example, the description of the Logos in both as the direct Agent of creation cannot simply be an argument that Christ is a better mediator than the mediators of pagan philosophy.

Therefore, I propose that:

Greek Philosophy was inspired.

Observations:

1) The large number of significant conceptual similarities between Philo and the NT means that Philo was right in some respects about the Logos. Since Philo’s writings were based on Greek philosophy, it means that Greek philosophy was right in some respects.

3) In contrast to the multiplicity of gods in the Greek pantheon, Greek philosophy is monotheistic. Where did the Greek philosophers get this?

I propose as follows:

Firstly, to prepare the non-Jewish world to receive “the kingdom of God” from the Jews, God, through His Holy Spirit, inspired Greek philosophers, either through contact with Judaism or directly through the Holy Spirit, to move away from Greek polytheism to monotheism and with many truths concerning the nature of God.

Secondly, to make it easier for the writers of the NT to understand who Jesus is, God inspired Philo to harmonize Greek philosophy with the Old Testament.

Thirdly, through His Holy Spirit, God inspired the writers of the NT to selectively accept Philo’s teachings and to explain Jesus Christ as the Logos of Greek philosophy, as harmonized with the Old Testament by Philo.

I would like to support this proposal as follows:

Firstly, nothing prevents the Holy Spirit from using Pagan philosophers for revealing truths to the people of the world.

Secondly, the Logos Theology that the second-century church fathers developed explicitly explains Jesus Christ as the Logos of Greek philosophy. See – The Apologists. That implies that they assumed that Greek philosophy was inspired.

Thirdly, the Nicene Creed is influenced by Greek philosophy. RPC Hanson described words substance (ousia), same substance (homoousios), and hypostasis as “new terms borrowed from the pagan philosophy of the day” (RH², 846). These concepts do not appear in the Bible.

Fourthly, since the Arian Controversy was caused by objection to these pagan concepts in the Nicene Creed, the “discussion and dispute between 318 and 381 were conducted largely in terms of Greek philosophy” (RH, xxi)³.

Fifthly, even today many philosophical concepts from ancient Greek philosophy, such as that God is immanent, transcendent, simple, immutable, impassable, and timeless, are generally accepted by church theologians even though NOT stated in the Bible. This is called Classical Theism.

– END OF SUMMARY –

Who is Philo?

Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC to 40 AD), also called Judaeus Philo, was a Jew who lived and wrote in Alexandria, Egypt at the same time as when Jesus lived in Judea. Philo, therefore, wrote a few decades before the New Testament was written. At the time, Alexandria had the largest Jewish community outside of Palestine.

Compared to Greek philosophy, Roman philosophy was relatively poorly developed. Consequently, the intellectual world in the Roman Empire generally, and the Jewish community in Alexandria specifically, held Greek philosophy in high regard. “Philo was thoroughly educated in Greek philosophy as can be seen from his superb knowledge of classical Greek literature. … He had a deep reverence for Plato and referred to him as ‘the most holy Plato’” (The Internet Encyclopaedia article on Philo). [The remainder of this article refers to this article as IE.]

But Philo was also a committed Jew. Consequently, through his writings, he attempted to justify Judaism in terms of Greek philosophy. To do this, he interpreted the Old Testament through the eyes of Greek philosophy. “Philo uses an allegorical technique for interpretation of the Hebrew (Bible). … Using this allegorical method, Philo seeks out the hidden message beneath the surface of any particular text and tries to read back a new doctrine into the work of the past” (IE).

In this way, he produced “a synthesis of” the Old Testament and Greek philosophy. He “fused Greek philosophical concepts with Hebrew religious thought” (IE).

He thought that this would be appropriate because he regarded Moses as a philosopher. In fact, in his view, “Moses … ‘had reached the very summit of philosophy’” (IE). He, therefore, presents Moses as “the teacher of … all Greek philosophers.” “For Philo, Greek philosophy [with its monotheistic view of God] was a natural development of the revelatory teachings of Moses” (IE). He describes “the philosophical Platonic or Stoic ideas (as) nothing but the deductions made from the biblical verses of Moses” (IE).

[In this article, I use square brackets when I insert an explanation in a quote.]

Foundations of Christianity

Philo is not important for Judaism. “Jewish tradition was uninterested in philosophical speculation and did not preserve Philo’s thought” (IE). “Philo’s primary importance is in the development of the philosophical and theological foundations of Christianity” (IE).

Logos Theology

IE claims that, by producing a synthesis of the Old Testament and Greek philosophy, Philo developed concepts that were used by Christian theologians (the Apologists) in the second century to formulate Logos Theology. The church began as a Jewish-dominated movement but after the church became Gentile-dominated in the second century, Logos Theology became the standard explanation of Jesus Christ relative to God. IE mentions “Clement of Alexandria, Christian Apologists like Athenagoras, Theophilus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Origen” as Christian theologists who used Philo’s concepts. In support of this, IE notes that “the church preserved the Philonic writings … Eusebius also promoted the legend that Philo met Peter in Rome. Jerome (345-420 C.E.) even lists him as a church father.”

Adam Davis (The Logos of Philo and John – A Comparative Sketch) confirms that “one cannot deny that the Philonic Logos … influenced the early church. … Important figures such as Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Justin Martyr all incorporate threads of Philo into their work.”

RPC Hanson wrote: “Ever since the work of Justin Martyr, Christian theologians had tended to use the identification of the pre-existent Son with some similar concept in contemporary Middle Platonism” (RH, 22-23).

The Bible

But IE goes much further and claims that Philo may have also influenced the New Testament itself:

“He may have influenced Paul, his contemporary, and perhaps the authors of the Gospel of John … and the Epistle to the Hebrews” (IE).

“By developing this doctrine (of the Logos), (Philo) … provided the foundation for Christianity, first in the development of (Paul’s letters) and (the books) of John, later in the Hellenistic Christian Logos and Gnostic doctrines of the second century” (IE).

Trinity Doctrine

Since IE claims that Philo “laid the foundations for the development of Christianity … as we know it today,” we can assume that IE implies that Philo also laid the foundation for the Trinity doctrine that was developed in the fourth and fifth centuries. Regarding that period, RPC Hanson stated:

“All Greek-speaking writers in the fourth century were to a greater or lesser degree indebted to Greek philosophy. … If any writer had had a higher education … he … would have sucked in certain fundamental assumptions in the process.” (RH, 858-9)

“It would of course be absurd to deny that discussion and dispute between 318 and 381 were conducted largely in terms of Greek philosophy” (RH, xxi).

“Until we reach the Cappadocians, acceptance of philosophy by the theologians is eclectic and opportunist” (RH, 860). “The Cappadocians, however, present us with a rather different picture. They had all probably had an intenser education in philosophy than other theologians of the fourth century. They were all in a sense Christian Platonists.” (RH, 863)

Based on Greek philosophy

By reading the Greek philosophy of his day into the Old Testament, Philo gave Greek philosophy a Biblical cloak. What IE effectively claims is that Christianity grew out of Greek philosophy. Many scholars hold the same view still today. For example:

“In his history of philosophy textbook that is still widely used, even in some evangelical colleges, W. T. Jones claims that the “mysticism of the Fourth Gospel was grounded in the Platonism of Hellenistic Alexandria.” (Ronald Nash – Professor of Philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary-Orlando)

Philo’s view of God

First, consider some of Philo’s views concerning God:

Only God knows Himself.

For Philo, “God’s essence is beyond any human … cognition” (IE). We cannot say what God is. We can only say “what God is not” (IE) [e.g., immortal, invisible, immaterial]. “Strictly speaking, we cannot make any positive or negative statements about God: ‘He alone can utter a positive assertion respecting himself, since he alone has an accurate knowledge of his own nature’” (IE). “It is not possible for God to be comprehended by any being but himself” (IE).

This is perhaps comparable to the NT’s description of “the invisible God” (Col 1:15), “who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim 6:16; cf. Rom 1:20).

God exists outside time.

Philo also argued that “God is the creator of time also … (for God) nothing is past and nothing is future, but everything is present only” (IE).

Creator Eternally

Philo argued that the world was created but has no beginning: “According to Philo, (God) did not begin to create the world at a certain moment” (IE) but has always been creating: “God is continuously ordering matter by his thought … there never was a time when he did not create” (IE). “Philo contends that … any description of creation in temporal terms, e.g., by Moses, is not to be taken literally, but rather is an accommodation to the biblical language” (IE).

The ancients had no inkling of the universe as we understand it today. For them, this world was the universe. Therefore, whenever we read of “the world” in Philo’s writings, we must think of the universe.

Note that these philosophers could argue that things (such as the ‘world’ in the example above) can have an origin, meaning to be caused by something else, but, at the same time, have always existed. Origen, for example, argued this way about God’s unique Son. In contrast, Arius stated that “there was when He (the Son of God) was not.”

Philo’s view of the Logos

Philo’s most important doctrine

When Philo lived, “the notion of the Logos was deeply ingrained in Greek philosophy” (Davis). Philo included the Logos in his interpretation of the Old Testament:

“The pivotal … doctrine in Philo’s writings on which hinges his entire philosophical system, is his doctrine of the Logos. … (On this,) all other doctrines of Philo hinge” (IE).

As stated above, Philo’s purpose was to synthesize the Old Testament with Greek philosophy. He did that through his description of the Logos:

“By developing this doctrine (of the Logos), he fused Greek philosophical concepts with Hebrew religious thought” (IE).

Furthermore, IE claims that it was “by developing this doctrine (of the Logos) (that Philo) … provided the foundation for Christianity, first in the development of (Paul’s letters) and (the books) of John, later in the Hellenistic Christian Logos and Gnostic doctrines of the second century.”

The Logos in the Old Testament

Philo obtained the idea of the Logos from Greek philosophy. But where did he find the Logos in the OT?

Firstly, he found it in the often-used phrase, “the Word of the LORD.” For example, the Old Testament often says that “the Word of the LORD” came to a prophet (e.g. Jer 1:2; Ezek 1:3; and Jonah 1:1), or that something was done by “the Word of the LORD.” For example: “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made” (Psa 33:6; cf. Gen 1:3, 6,9; 3:9, 11; Psa 32:9; Psa 106:20; Psa 147:15; Zech 5:1-4; Jer 1:4-19, 2:1-7; Ezek 1:3; Amos 3:1).

Secondly, “in the so-called Jewish wisdom literature, we find the concept of Wisdom … which could be to some degree interpreted as a separate personification … (hypostatization)” (IE).

We may agree that these were simply figures of speech and poetic language describing God’s words, actions, or wisdom, but Philo’s allegorical methods allowed him to identify these with the Logos of Greek philosophy.

Thirdly, Philo identified the Logos as the Old Testament Angel of the Lord (Gen 31:13; 16:8; etc.). Philo described “the Logos (as) the first-born and the eldest and chief of the angels” and as the Father’s “archangel.”

Philo also saw the Logos as referred to as theos in the Old Testament. He says, “when the scripture uses the Greek term for God ho theos, it refers to the true God, but when it uses the term theos, without the article ho, it refers not to the God, but to his most ancient Logos.” However, “Philo … explains that to call the Logos ‘God’ is not a correct appellation.”

Does the New Testament describe the Son as ‘the word of the Lord’, ‘the Wisdom of God’, or as the ‘Angel of the Lord’? Perhaps

Revelation, which John has also written, says of Jesus Christ, “His name is called The Word of God” (Rev 19:13).

The NT says that “we preach … Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:23-24) but we should not necessarily interpret that literally.

I am not aware of any direct identification in the NT of Jesus Christ as the Old Testament Angel of the Lord.

A Personal Being

“Logos” is the common Greek word for “word,” “speech,” “principle,” or “thought.” But, in Greek philosophy, the word Logos had a very specialized meaning. “Through most schools of Greek philosophy, this term was used to designate a rational, intelligent and thus vivifying principle of the universe. This principle was deduced from an understanding of the universe as a living reality and by comparing it to a living creature.” (IE)

But IE claims that Philo, by introducing the concept of the Logos into Judaism, has transformed “the Logos … from a metaphysical [theoretical] entity into … (a) anthropomorphic [humanlike] being and mediator between God and men:” For Philo, “the Logos is thus more than a quality, power, or characteristic of God; it is an entity eternally generated” (IE).

In contrast, Ronald Nash states that “Philo’s Logos is not a person or messiah or savior but a cosmic principle … a metaphysical abstraction.” In this, Nash is supported by RPC Hanson⁴ (RH) and Rowan Williams⁵ (RW):

After a longish and involved discussion, RW states that the descriptions in Philo of “an individually subsistent Logos, distinct from the Father” are not literal but metaphorical (RW, 122).

Similarly, RH states that Philo “does not make the same division between the Logos and God as did the Arians” (RH, 60).

My own understanding is that Philo illogically describes the Logos as both a “metaphysical abstraction,” as in Greek philosophy, and as a Personal Being, as he interprets the Logos in the Old Testament to be. This understanding is supported by the following:

Nash states: “It is impossible … to find any clear or consistent use of the word (Logos) in his many writings. For example, he used the word to refer to:

- - - Plato’s ideal world of the forms, …
    - The mind of God, …
    - A principle that existed somewhere between the realms of God and creation, … (and to)
    - Any of several mediators between God and man, such as the angels, Moses, Abraham, and even the Jewish high priest.”

RPC Hanson confirms, “Philo’s Logos-doctrine is confused and obscure” (RH, 60).

Rowan Williams adds, “To look for a clear definition or identification of the Logos in his writings would be … fruitless” (RW, 124)

Does not exist without a cause.

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos has an origin:

In Greek philosophy, the Logos is God’s thinking, which is also His acting. Philo seems to say more or less the same thing:

“The Logos … constitutes the manifestation of God’s thinking, acting” (IE).

He similarly describes the Logos as “the Divine Mind.” But then he creates a little distance between God and the Logos by saying that the Logos is “the expression of this act of God (to create), which is at the same time his thinking” (IE).

Since Philo describes the Logos as the “manifestation of God’s thinking-acting,” “the Logos has an origin,” meaning that He does not exist without cause but exists because the Father has brought Him into existence.

Similarly, in the NT, the Son was “begotten,” meaning that He does not exist without a cause.

Has always existed.

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos has always existed:

In Philo, since God has always existed and has always thought and acted, the Logos has “eternal generation,” meaning that He has always existed.

Similarly, in the NT, the Son “was” in “the beginning” (John 1:1-2) and is “the First and the Last” (Rev 1:17). “His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity” (Micah 5:2). And the Arians liked to add, “From everlasting I was established” (Prov 8:23).

Ontologically Subordinate

Both Philo’s Logos and Jesus Christ are subordinate to God:

In Philo, the Logos is “inferior to God” (Davis). “The supreme being is God and the next is Wisdom or the Logos of God” (IE).

Here I need to divert a little. Some regard any kind of order or hierarchy among the persons of the Trinity as heresy. But that is not the orthodox teaching. The NT also provides clear indications of the subordination of the Son. For example:

- The Father created all things through the Son.
- The Father sent the Son.
- The miracles which Jesus performed were performed by God “through Him” (Acts 2:22).
- Jesus said, “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
- After His ascension, God “seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Eph 1:17-21).
- After sin and the consequences of sin have been vanquished, “the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).

Therefore, the orthodox teaching of the church accepts functional subordination but prohibits that the Son be described as ontologically inferior to the Father. For that reason, several theological dictionaries define “subordinationism” with respect to ontology only. For example:

Subordinationism is “the doctrine that in essence and status the Son is inferior to the Father” (Millard Erickson, “Subordinationism,” in Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986) 161.)

Augustus Strong stated that “the subordination of the person of the Son to the person of the Father is perfectly consistent with equality” (See Glenn Peoples).

So, this section will only concern itself with the question of whether the Son is ontologically equal to the Father:

In Philo, “the ontology of the Logos would most closely resemble an emanation from the divine essence” (Davis), and “an extension of a divine being” (IE). Therefore, He is also ontologically subordinate to the High God.

The Bible nowhere teaches anything about the substance of God or ontological equality, except if we interpret “only-begotten” literally. That is what the Nicene Creed does. It interprets “begotten” as that He came from the substance of the Father and, therefore, that creed concludes, He is of the same substance as God. This idea, however, originates from “pagan philosophy” (RH, 846); not from the Bible. The anti-Nicenes of the fourth century warned that humans must not assume to understand what “begotten of God” means, that we should not interpret this literally as if God begat a Son like human beings begat children and that we should not introduce non-Biblical words or thoughts.

So, in Philo, the Logos is ontologically inferior compared to the Trinity doctrine, in which He is ontologically equal. But that is a difference between Philo and the Trinity doctrine; not between Philo and the NT.

Literally first in time

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos literally existed first in time:

It was already shown above that Philo described the Logos as eternal. Therefore, He “exists … before everything else.” For that reason, Philo described the Logos as the ‘first-born’ and as “the first-begotten Son of the Uncreated Father.”

Jesus Christ, similarly, is “the ‘first-born’ of God” (Col 1:15; Heb 1:6), although this might also be interpreted symbolically. Revelation 3:14 refers to Jesus as “the Beginning of the creation of God,” which also implies that He was the first being that God brought forth.

Uniquely Generated

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos has been uniquely generated:

Philo describes the Logos as both “eternally begat” and “eternally created.” In other words, Philo used “begotten” and “created” as synonyms. In another place, similarly, he describes the Logos as “neither unbegotten nor begotten as are sensible things.” In other words, all created things are “begotten.” Therefore, he described the Logos as “the first-begotten” and not as “the only begotten,” as we find in the New Testament.

However, Philo does describe the Son’s origin as unique but uses different words to do that. He says, namely, that the Logos is neither uncreated as God nor created as men.

The NT, by saying that the Son is “the only begotten,” makes a distinction between “begotten” and “created” and indicates that the Son was uniquely generated.

Direct Agent of Creation

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos is the direct Agent of creation:

In Philo, “the direct agent of creation is not God himself … but the Logos. … the Logos … was used as an instrument and a pattern of all creation.” “God … orders and shapes the formless matter through the agency of his Logos into the objects of the sensible world.” (The idea that the Logos is a “pattern of all creation” is a remnant from the Greek philosophy. At another place, Philo similarly states that “the sensible universe … is the image of the Logos.”)

The NT also describes Jesus Christ as God’s direct Agent of creation, namely, God created all things through the Logos (John 1:1-3; cf. Col 1:16; Heb 1:2; 1 Cor 8:6).

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos maintains the universe:

In Philo, “the Logos is the bond holding together all the parts of the world” and “produces a harmony … between various parts of the universe.” (This still relates to the idea that the Logos (the Word) is the thoughts of God through which all things are created and maintained.)

Similarly, in the NT, God maintains all things through His Son (Heb 1:3; Col 1:17).

The Light of the World

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos illuminates the soul:

In Philo, the Logos illuminates the human soul and nourishes it with a higher spiritual food (Wikipedia). “The Logos … in the mind of a wise man … allows preservation of virtues” (IE).

Similarly, Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness” (John 8:12). And John wrote: “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:4, 9).

Mediator

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos is the mediator between God and man:

Philo described the Logos as “neither being uncreated as God, nor yet created as you, but being in the midst between these two extremities.” His role is appropriate for that position, for “the Philonic Logos is the bridge between the infinite God and finite creation” (Davis); “mediator between God and the world” (IE). As mediator:

When interacting with God, He is “a paraclete;” “continually a suppliant (pleading) to the immortal God on behalf of the mortal race,” “to procure forgiveness of sins, and a supply of unlimited blessings” (IE).

When interacting with the human race, He is “the ambassador, sent by the Ruler of all, to the subject race” (IE), “a messenger” (IE), and the source of hope and wisdom for mankind. [For Philo, that the Logos was sent to the human race does not mean that He literally became a human being as in the New Testament, but that God sends a ‘stream of his own wisdom’ to men. “Through the Logos of God, men learn … everlasting wisdom.”]

Similarly, in the New Testament, “there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5; cf. Heb 8:6; 9:15). Everything that the creation receives from God, including existence, sustenance, knowledge, and salvation, flows through His Son. Also, through Christ, we draw near to God and worship Him. But this does not mean that the Son has to plead with the Father for us:

“I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you” (John 16:26-27).

The Logos in our God.

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos is our God:

In Philo, “though God is hidden, his reality is made manifest by the Logos that is God’s image and by the sensible universe” (IE). “God is revealed to His creation through the Logos” (Davis).

“Philo believed that man’s final goal and ultimate bliss is in the ‘knowledge of the true and living God’” (IE). However, due to “the utter transcendence of the First Principle [the One who exists without cause],” “man’s highest union with God is limited to God’s manifestation as the Logos” (IE).

For the same reason – “the utter transcendence of the First Principle” – when the Bible says that man was made “in the image of God” (Gen 9:6), Philo argues that it is not possible that man is made after “the preeminent and transcendent Divinity.” Therefore, man was made after the image of “the second deity, the Divine Logos of the Supreme being”.

One could say that, for Philo, the Logos is the only experience of God that man will have. The Logos, therefore, is effectively our God.

Similarly, in the New Testament, God “alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” but the Son is “the exact representation” of God’s nature (Heb 1:3); “the (visible) image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). Therefore, Jesus said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). As the direct Agent of our creation and ur continued existence, and since we will never be able to “see” or directly experience God, the Son is effectively our God.

Cannot become Flesh

Philo does not have a concept of the incarnation as we find in the New Testament. On the contrary, “Philo disdained the material world and physical body. The body was for Philo as for Plato, ‘an evil and a dead thing’, wicked by nature and a plotter against the soul.” “He belittled the body as a tomb of the soul” (Nash). Philo, therefore, would never have accepted that the Logos “became flesh” (John 1:14).

This is confirmed in that “Philo adopts the Stoic wise man as a model for human behavior. Such a wise man … should be free of irrational emotions (passions), pleasure, desire, sorrow, and fear, and should replace them by rational … emotions; joy, will, compunction, and caution.” But Jesus suffered both sorrow and fear. Jesus “not only becomes man but participates in a full range of all that is human, including that He suffered, was tempted to sin, and died. Philo would never have tolerated such thinking.” (Nash)

In support of this point, C.H. Dodd noted⁶ that Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), one of the most prominent theologians of the early church, wrote⁷ that he read John 1:1-5, 10 and 13 in “some books of the Platonists,” “not in so many words, but in substance” but that he found nothing in these books about the incarnation of the Logos (John 1:10-12, 14).

Man’s Mind

For Philo, “the reasoning capacity of a human mind is but a portion of the all-pervading Divine Logos.” It is “indivisible from the Divine Logos.” For this reason, “this Logos is apportioned into an infinite number of parts in humans.” Consequently, the human mind “has divine essence … (and) is imperishable. By receiving this, humans received … the power of spontaneous will free from necessity.”

I would say that this is an aspect where the NT deviates from Philo.

Did Philo influence the New Testament?

The question is: Does the New Testament say things about Christ that Christ never said of Himself but which Philo did say about his Logos? Considering the discussion of Philo’s theology above, the answer must be “Yes!”

For example, Jesus never said that He created all things or that He maintains all things, but Philo made these claims about the Logos and these claims eventually found a prominent place in the New Testament.

Since the word Logos had a very specialized meaning in Greek philosophy, and given the pervasive influence of Greek philosophy at the time, John’s description of Jesus Christ as “the Logos,” coupled with His description of the Logos as existing with God “in the beginning” and as the direct Agent of creation (John 1:1-3), all of which are consistent with Philo’s logos as discussed above, must mean that John identified the Son of God as the Logos of Greek Philosophy. Furthermore, since Philo has “numerous expressions implying that the Logos is a being in its own right” (RW, 117), John, in all likelihood, specifically had Philo’s Logos in mind. This conclusion is made undeniable by the many similarities between Philo’s Logos and the Biblical Son of God:

In both Philo and the NT, the Logos has an origin, has always existed, is subordinate to God, has existed first in time, has been uniquely generated, is the direct Agent of creation, maintains the universe, illuminates the soul, and is the mediator between God and man.

It is also possible to argue, in both Philo and the NT, that the Logos is a personal Being, and is “our God.”

There are also many important differences between Philo’s Logos and the NT’s Son of God, such as that Philo’s theology does not allow for the incarnation of the Logos, that “the reasoning capacity of a human mind is but a portion of the … Logos,” and many others not discussed above, but these differences do not take away the astounding similarities or our duty to explain these similarities.

Possible Explanations

So, how do we explain the similarities? Why did such concepts exist before the New Testament was written?

The Bible is not inspired.

Critical Scholars (theologians who do not believe in the supernatural or miracles but who, unfortunately, dominate the academic world) believe that the NT is simply the result of the evolution of human thought. Consequently, they claim that the writers of the NT were not really inspired in this regard but simply found Philo’s speculations a good explanation of who Christ is. Nash states:

“Various writers have attempted to undermine the authority of the New Testament by affirming that some of its teachings were borrowed from pagan philosophical systems of the day.”

A Different Logos

An alternative is to argue that the differences between Philo’s Logos and the NT’s Son of God are great and that Philo, consequently, did not influence the NT writers.

Ronald Nash adopts this approach. He proposes, for the following reasons, that “Philo’s Logos could not possibly function as a direct influence on the biblical concept of Logos:”

(1) “The Logos of the New Testament is a specific, individual, historical person. Philo’s Logos is not a person or messiah or savior but a cosmic principle … a metaphysical abstraction.”

(2) “It is impossible … to find any clear or consistent use of the word (Logos) in his many writings.”

(3) Philo could never have believed in anything like the Incarnation of the Logos.

(4) “Philo’s Logos could never be described as the Book of Hebrews pictures Jesus: suffering, being tempted to sin, and dying.”

(5) “The repeated stress in Hebrews of Jesus’ compassionate concern for His brethren (i.e., Christians) is incompatible with Philo’s view of the emotions.

Based on these differences, Nash sees “no need to postulate a conscious relationship between Philo (or Alexandrian Judaism) and the New Testament use of logos.”

I cannot support this argument: Yes, the Logos in the NT is very different from that described by Greek philosophy or by Philo, but, as discussed, the description of the Son as the Logos, who was with God in the beginning, through whom God created all things (John 1:1-3) is too specific and too similar to that of Philo to deny the influence of Greek philosophy.

Both are based on the Old Testament.

A third possible explanation is that Philo and the New Testament came to the same conclusions because they used the same source, namely, the Old Testament.

However, it is very unlikely that the NT could have derived these truths simply by interpreting the Old Testament. The NT is a quantum leap from the Old Testament. It cannot simply be an interpretation of it. And it was a quantum leap and a leap in the direction of the Logos of Greek philosophy.

And Philo did not derive these truths merely by interpreting the Old Testament. He derived his thoughts on the Logos explicitly from Greek philosophy.

Teaching Mechanism

A fourth possibility is that the writers of the NT used concepts from Philo to explain Jesus Christ to Greek readers in their own language. GotQuestions, following this approach, states that “John’s Gospel begins by using the Greek idea of a ‘divine reason’ or ‘the mind of God’ as a way to connect with the readers of his day.” However, the similarities between Philo and the NT, as discussed above, are too specific and of too extraordinary a nature to be simply explaining truths in Greek thought forms. These are major conceptual similarities.

To oppose pagan theology

Nash notes “a number of fascinating connections between the author of the Book of Hebrews (whom he takes to be Apollos) and Alexandrian Judaism.” He proposes that both the author and his audience were trained in Philo’s philosophy before their Christian conversion and that “the writer argues that … Christ is a better Logos (or mediator) than any of the mediators available to them in their former beliefs.” In other words, “the writer of Hebrews does not use this philosophical background to introduce Alexandrian philosophy into Christian thinking; rather he uses Christian thinking to reject his former views.”

Nash concludes that the Christian community’s “application of the concept of logos to Jesus Christ did not amount to an introduction of pagan thinking into Christianity. On the contrary, their Christian use of Logos was developed in conscious opposition to every relevant aspect of Philo’s philosophy.”

Nash implies that John refers to Jesus Christ as the logos for the same reason.

Therefore, I propose that:

Greek Philosophy was inspired.

Observations:

1) The large number of significant conceptual similarities between Philo and the NT means that Philo was right in some respects about the Logos. Philo did not develop new ideas. He largely read the ideas of Greek philosophy into the Old Testament. So, when we say that Philo was right in some respects, then we are really saying that Greek philosophy was right in some respects.

2) God elected Israel to take His message to the nations of the world. So, God worked particularly and extraordinarily with the Jewish nation. But that does not mean that the Holy Spirit was not working with and inspiring people from other nations as well. God is always working with all peoples and all nations. He has prophets in other nations as well. For example, at the time of Christ, the wise men came from the east.

3) In contrast to the multiplicity of gods in the Greek pantheon, Greek philosophy is monotheistic. That was a quantum leap. Where did the Greek philosophers get this? It is not impossible that he learned this from contact with Judaism.

Proposal:

I propose as follows:

Firstly, to prepare the non-Jewish world to receive ‘the kingdom of God’ from the Jews, God, through His Holy Spirit, inspired Greek philosophers, either through contact with Judaism or directly through the Holy Spirit, to move away from Greek polytheism to monotheism and with many truths concerning the nature of God. Greek philosophy, therefore, was a combination of revealed truth and human wisdom.

Secondly, to make it easier for the writers of the NT to understand who Jesus is, God inspired Philo to harmonize Greek philosophy with the Old Testament.

Justifications:

I would like to support this proposal as follows:

Firstly, many of the teachings of the NT, for example, that God created all things through His Son, did not come from the Old Testament or from anything that Jesus said. We would assume, therefore, that, after Christ’s ascension, God’s Holy Spirit inspired the Bible writers to understand these things (John 16:12). The pagan philosophers were earnestly trying to understand the nature of reality. Nothing prevents the Holy Spirit from using them to reveal truths to the people of the world.

Secondly, the Logos Theology which the second-century church fathers developed went beyond what the Bible teaches and explicitly explains Jesus Christ as the Logos of Greek philosophy:

For example, they taught that the Logos is the ‘mind’ or ‘wisdom’ of God that always was part of God. However, God is unable to interact directly with physical matter. Therefore, when God decided to create the physical universe, His Logos became a separate reality (hypostasis) through whom God could create and maintain all things. See – The Apologists.

RPC Hanson states: “Ever since the work of Justin Martyr, Christian theologians had tended to use the identification of the pre-existent Son with some similar concept in contemporary Middle Platonism” (RH, 22-23).

Their development of Logos Theology implies that these church fathers assumed that Greek philosophy was inspired. If these Gentile church fathers, who lived in the same Greek culture as the Jewish writers of the NT, assumed that Greek philosophy was inspired, then it is possible that the writers of the NT did the same.

Thirdly, the Nicene Creed is influenced by Greek philosophy. RPC Hanson described the words substance (ousia), same substance (homoousios), and hypostasis as “new terms borrowed from the pagan philosophy of the day” (RH, 846). These words and concepts do not appear in the Bible.

Abbreviations

RH = RPC Hanson, RPC Hanson – The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God – The Arian Controversy 318-381

RW = Rowan Williams – Arius, Heresy & Tradition, 2001

The real dispute and main meaning of the Nicene Creed of AD 325

Summary

Purpose

It is often said that the Council of Nicaea was called to determine whether Jesus is God. But that does not accurately describe the dispute prior to Nicaea or the meaning of the creed. The purpose of this article is to identify the fundamental point of disagreement that led to the Nicene Creed of AD 325 and to establish what the attendees at the council understood the creed to say.

The Two Phases of the Arian Controversy

The Arian Controversy of the fourth century consisted of two phases:

The first phase began around AD 318 in Alexandria and came to an end during the Nicene Council when Arius’ Christology was presented but rejected.

The second phase was caused by how the Nicene Creed as formulated and lasted for another about 50 years after that meeting. In this second phase of the Controversy, Arius was no longer of significance. It was a dispute between four different views of the ontological relationship between the Father and the Son:

1. 1. 1. Same substance (homoousian)
    2. Different substance (The Arius view)
    3. Similar substance (homoiousian)
    4. God’s substance is not revealed. Therefore, we should not formulate doctrines that refer to God’s substance. This was the majority view in the decades after Nicaea.

How the delegates in 325 understood the Creed

This point is that, through the debates of that long second phase of the Arian Controversy and even after that second phase was brought to an end, many new concepts were developed, for example with respect to the Holy Spirit and the meaning of the word hypostasis. Therefore, to read the Nicene Creed of 325 using concepts and definitions that were developed later will fail to reveal its true meaning. It is only possible to understand the Creed of AD 325 when one understands how the delegates in 325 understood the Creed. For this reason, this article focuses on the development of the doctrine of God prior to the Nicene Creed of 325.

The Apostolic Church

The Bible associates the Son with God in many ways, including to describe Him as subordinate to the Father. In the view of many, the Bible’s description of the relationship between God and His Son is inadequate: We should not simply repeat what the Bible says but develop a more advanced description.

However, in the Apostolic Church of the first century, while Jews remained the majority in the church, Christians did not attempt to explain the relationship between God and His unique Son in more detail.

Logos-Christology

Somewhere during the second century, Gentiles became the majority in the church. The Gentile Christian theologians of the second and third centuries (also called the Apologists) identified the Son of God of the New Testament as the Logos of Greek philosophy. In this Logos-Christology:

Created substances, including spirit beings, did not always exist and exist only by God’s grace. Uncreated substances, in contrast, are inherently eternal; always existed and must necessarily always exist.

The Logos have always existed ‘inside’ God.

When God decided to create, the Logos was emitted from God to become a separate reality (hypostasis). This events was interpreted as that the Son of God was “begotten.”

The Logos was God’s “wisdom,” but that He was “begotten” did not leave God without His wisdom; God and His Logos always remained integrated.

Since the Logos was part of the uncreated substance of God from “the beginning,” He:

- - - Is of the same uncreated substance as the Father,
    - Has always existed,
    - Must necessarily always exist, and
    - Is subordinate to the Father. As B.B. Warfield noted, “The dominant neo-Stoic and neo-Platonic ideas deflected Christian thought into subordinationist channels.” (cf. Irenaeus and Tertullian or Origen.)

Sabellianism

Sabellianism (Modalism) was the first challenge to Logos-Christology. Due to Logos-Christology, Christianity was often accused of having two or three gods. Sabellianism was one attempt to explain how God might be three and one at the same time (Kevin Giles). However, the church fathers rejected this Christology early in the third century.

The Christology of the Nicene Fathers

With Modalism formally condemned, Logos-Christology was the theology with which the church entered the fourth century.

At Nicaea, there were three parties:

The Arius-group taught that the Son was created from nothing. In other words, they rejected Logos-Christology which taught that the Son is the Logos that always was inside God. After Sabellianism, Arius’ Christology was the second great challenge to Logos-Christology.

The Origenists, led by Eusebius of Caesarea were the majority at Nicaea and maintained the traditional Logos-theology.

The third group was led by Alexander of Alexandria. A letter in which Alexander explained Arius’ ex-communication shows that Alexander also continued the traditional Logos theology of the previous century.

In conclusion:

All the delegates at Nicaea, except the Arius-group, maintained the traditional Logos-Christology.

This means that, at the time, the Nicene Creed was formulated and interpreted on the basis of Logos-Christology.

This further means that the word “begotten” in the creed must be understood as that the Logos, who always was inside God, was begotten (emitted) from God and became the Son of God.

The Nicene Creed – Four issues

This analysis allows us to read the Nicene Creed from the perspective of the delegates at Nicaea.

Since more than 80% of the words in the creed are about Jesus Christ, the issue before the council was about Him; not about the Father or about the Holy Spirit.

Analyzing the creed, including the anathemas, shows that it addresses four issues about the Son:

(1) HOW He was generated in eternity past, namely that He was not made from nothing, as Arius claimed, but that He is the only being ever “begotten” of the essence of the Father;

(2) WHAT His nature now is, namely, of the same substance (homoousion) as the Father.

(3) Whether He always existed, and

(4) Whether He is mutable (subject to change)

It is proposed that, of those four issues, the primary issue of dispute was how the Son was generated, namely, whether He was generated out of nothing (as Arius said) or out of the substance of God, as the creed suggests. This is justified as follows:

(a) Most of the words in the Nicene Creed that were added in response to the Arian controversy are about this.

(b) After the meeting, Eusebius, the leader of the majority Eastern Greek delegation, identified this as the foundational matter. See – Eusebius of Caesarea’s explanation of the Nicene Creed.

(c) All the other differences (whether He always existed, what His substance is, and whether He is mutable) are consequences of this fundamental difference.

(d) That He always existed and that He is immutable are only mentioned in the anathemas, implying that these are not fundamental issues.

Homoousios

The word homoousios is the most controversial aspect of the Nicene Creed but it does not reflect the primary issue of dispute prior to the Council of Nicaea. One indication of this is that the Origenists, who were in the majority at Nicaea and who also opposed Arius, resisted this word to the last and only accepted it because of the pressure from the emperor. (See Eusebius’ explanation for more detail.)

The Son is God.

The creed does not identify the Son as “God” in the sense of the Ultimate Reality:

Both the Nicene and Athanasian creeds open with the standard Unitarian language:

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty …
And in one Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. 1 Cor 8:6).

“Almost all the Eastern theologians believed that the Son was in some sense subordinated to the Father before the Incarnation.”¹

“The initial debate was not about the rightness or wrongness of hierarchical models of the Trinity, which were common to both sides.”²

Most delegates to the Nicene Council held to the traditional Logos-Christology in which the Son is subordinate to the Father.

Conclusion

The main point of the creed, with respect to the controversy with Arius, is that the Son was begotten out of the eternal, uncreated substance of the Father. That principle is foundational to everything else the creed says about the Son.

– END OF SUMMARY –

Purpose of this article

In his excellent book, Decoding Nicea, Paul Pavao wrote:

“It is commonly said that the Council of Nicea was called to determine whether Jesus was God. … But if we really want to understand Nicea, then that description will not suffice. It would be more accurate to say that the Council of Nicea met to determine what the Son of God was made of.”

The purpose of this article is to explain this somewhat strange statement by identifying:

- - The fundamental point of disagreement that led to the Nicene Creed of AD 325 and
  - What the attendees at the council understood the Creed to say.

The Two Phases of the Arian Controversy

The Arian Controversy of the fourth century consisted of two phases:

The first phase began around AD 318 in Alexandria with a dispute between presbyter Arius and his bishop Alexander. After this dispute spread to some other African provinces, Emperor Constantine the Great called the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 to bring an end to the controversy. At the Council, Arius’ Christology was presented but soon rejected.

Thereafter, however, the council meeting continued and became a dispute between the two other parties at Nicaea over how the creed must be formulated. As Eusebius of Caesarea explained, the minority party of Alexander of Alexandria, because they enjoyed the protection of the emperor, was able to include words from pagan philosophy (substance – ousia, same substance – homoousion, and hypostasis) to the Nicene creed even though the majority was uncomfortable with these terms:

As Bettenson stated, “The decisions of Nicaea were really the work of a minority.”³

And as the reformed website Bible.ca states: “We will grant … that a majority opposed the Nicene creed. … The majority who opposed the creed were not aligned with Arius!”

These terms “borrowed from the pagan philosophy” (RH, 846) created a new problem and the second phase of the Arian Controversy that continued after Nicaea for more than 50 years.

While the first phase of the Arian Controversy focused on Arius’ theology, the second phase was a dispute between four different views of the ontological relationship between the Father and the Son:

(1) Same substance (homoousian – as per the Nicene Creed);

(2) Different substance (heteroousian – the view which Arius preferred);

(3) Similar substance (homo-i-ousian – attempted to find a view midway between the homoousians and the heteroousians); and

(4) The fourth view was that we should not formulate doctrines that refer to God’s substance because the Bible does not say anything about God’s substance. This is known as the homoian (or homoean) view which simply taught that the Son is similar to the Father.

Homoian Domination

During the 50 years of the second phase of the Controversy, a series of further church councils considered and approved various alternatives for homoousion, but the homoian view became the dominant view. This view was accepted, for example, in the Second Sirmian Creed of 357 and the Creed of Nice (Constantinople) of 360.⁴

At the Council of Constantinople in 360, 35 years after Nicaea, the homoian view was formally accepted as the official creed of the Christian Church. Its creed rejected the term homoousion and banned all use of ousia in theological discussions. (Steven Wedgeworth)

With the homoian creed, the church returned to the theology of Origen, who warned against attempts to overly define God:

“If then, it is once rightly understood that the only-begotten Son of God is his Wisdom existing in substance, I do not know whether our curiosity ought to advance beyond this” (De Principiis. I:2:1-2. c. AD 230).

Post Nicaea Developments

Through the debates of that second phase of the Arian Controversy, many new concepts were developed, for example:

The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, “God,” p. 568, states that the teaching of the three Cappadocian Fathers “made it possible for the Council of Constantinople (AD 381) to affirm the divinity of the Holy Spirit, which up to that point had nowhere been clearly stated, not even in Scripture.”

“Finally, following the authoritative example of St. Basil the Great, it became accepted to understand by the word Hypostasis the Personal attributes in the Triune Divinity.” (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p. 94-95) (To understand what this means, see Why the Nicene Creed uses ousia and hypostasis as synonyms.

Many other Trinitarian concepts were developed even after the Creed of Constantinople in 381. For example:

A German theologian named Gieseler stated that the first person who asserted “the numerical sameness of nature in the three divine persons” was Augustine.⁵ (For an explanation, see Should homoousion in the Nicene Creed be translated as “same substance” or as “one substance?”)

How did the delegates in 325 understand the Creed?

Given the significant development of the Trinity doctrine during the fourth and fifth centuries, reading the Nicene Creed of 325 using concepts and definitions that were later developed will fail to reveal its true meaning. It is only possible to understand what the creed of AD 325 means when one understands the nature of the controversy at that time and what the delegates in 325 understood the creed to say.

Furthermore, the Nicene Creed of 325 was formulated by a minority and only accepted by the majority due to pressure from the emperor. And, as we see in the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea, the majority (re)defined the terms “substance” and “same substance” in a way that made it possible for them to accept the creed. Therefore, to understand what the Creed meant at the time, we need to determine what meaning that majority assigned to it.

For this reason, this article focuses on the development of the doctrine of God prior to the Nicene Creed of 325. It provides a brief overview of the Christology of:

- - The Bible,
  - The Apostolic Church,
  - The Apologists (Logos-Christology)
  - Sabellianism,
  - The Nicene Fathers, and
  - Arius.

The Bible

The Bible associates the Son with God. For example:

The church is commanded to baptize believers “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19).

He will be honored equally with the Father, has life in Himself like the Father, and in Him, all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form (John 5:23; 26; Col 2:9). These are indications of divinity.

But the Bible also describes the Son as subordinate to the Father. For example:

He received honor equal with the Father, life in Himself, and the fullness of Deity the Father (John 5:22; 26; Col 1:19).

The Bible describes the Father as His God (e.g., Eph 1:3; Rev 3:12) and as His Head (e.g.,1 Cor 11:3).

This creates the challenge to explain the tension between the divinity and subordination of the Son.

R.P.C. Hanson stated:

“The Bible does not give us a specifically Christian doctrine of God.”

It almost seems as if Hanson is saying that the Bible’s description of the relationship between God and His Son is inadequate and we need to develop a more advanced description.

The renowned ecclesiastical historian, Philip Schaff (1819 – 1893) stated:

“At the beginning of the fourth century the problem of how to preserve the Godhood of Christ and at the same time his subordination to the Father … had not been solved.”⁶

If Schaff could say that with respect to the fourth century, he would have said the same of the first century.

Development within the Bible

While the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not clearly state the divinity or even only the pre-existence of Christ, John and Paul present a much higher Christology. Perhaps the reason is that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written earlier and only describe the literal historical events as seen from the perspective of people on earth, while John and Paul, who wrote later, were assisted by the Holy Spirit (John 16:12-13) to understand more clearly who the Son is relative to the “one God” of the Bible. In other words, even in the New Testament, we see a development of thought on the question of the relationship between the God of the Bible and His only-begotten Son.

Apostolic Church

In the Apostolic Church of the first century, while Jews remained the majority in the church, Christians did not attempt to explain the relationship between God and His unique Son in more detail. They were simply repeating the verbal accounts of the disciples and the written gospels and letters, once these have become available. (For a further discussion, see Jewish Dominated Church)

Logos-Christology

Somewhere during the second century, Gentiles became the majority in the church. Gentile Christians, in order to explain their religion to their fellow Gentiles people of the empire, needed an explanation of the God of the Bible. Greek philosophy was still a dominant force in the culture of the Roman empire and the Gentile Christians were themselves very familiar with that philosophy. In that Greek philosophy, God’s Logos (word, mind, wisdom, or reason) existed through two stages:

1. 1. First, inside of the high God but
  2. When God determined to create, God’s Logos was emitted and became a separate being through whom God created all things and communicated with the creation.

Based particularly on the “wisdom” of Proverbs 8 and the “Word” of John 1, the Gentile Christian theologians of the second and third centuries (also known as the Apologists) thought and explained that the Son of God of the New Testament is the same as the Logos of Greek philosophy. As B. B. Warfield, stated:

“In the 2nd century, the dominant neo-Stoic and neo-Platonic ideas deflected Christian thought into subordinationist channels, and produced what is known as the Logos-Christology.”⁷

The following is an overview of the Logos-Christology of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, quoting some early Christian writers:

Uncreated Substances

Logos-Christology distinguished between created and uncreated substances. Created substances, including spirit beings, did not always exist and exist only by God’s grace. Uncreated substances, in contrast, is inherently eternal. Uncreated substances, therefore, always existed and must necessarily always exist. For example:

“The Deity is uncreated and eternal … while matter is created and perishable.”⁸

Inside God

On the basis of John 1:1, Logos-Christology agreed that the Logos existed inside God from the “beginning.” For example:

“God was in the beginning … was alone, but … the Logos … was in him.”⁹

“’In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God’, showing that at first God was alone, and the Word was in him.”¹⁰

Begotten Son

As stated, in Greek philosophy, the Logos was emitted from God to become a separate being. In Logos-Christology, this event was described as that the Logos was “begotten” of God to become a distinct being; identified as “the only-begotten Son of God” who later became the man Jesus Christ. For example:

“But when God wished to make all that he determined, he begot this Logos, uttered, the firstborn of all creation (Col 1:15).”¹¹

As Biblical proof, they used verses such as, “My heart has emitted a good Word” (Psm 45:1) and “I begat you out of my bosom before the dawn” (Psm 110:3).

“The only-begotten Son of God is his Wisdom existing in substance.”¹²

Integrated

This, however, did not leave God without His wisdom; God and His Logos always remained integrated. For example:

“The Father has not divested him … of the Logos power.”¹³

“Always conversing with his Reason.”¹⁴

Same Substance

Since the Son was begotten from the uncreated substance of God, He is of the same uncreated substance as the Father. It is not clear whether the Logos theologians used the exact word homoousios which we find in the Nicene Creed, but the concept is similar. For example:

“The Logos … came into being … not by abscission [i.e., cutting off], for what is cut off is separated from the original substance.”¹⁵ (In other words, the Son has not been separated from the uncreated substance of the Father.)

“We employ language which makes a distinction between God and matter … For we acknowledge a God and a Son, his Logos, and a Holy Spirit, united in essence.”¹⁶

In an analogy, Tertullian stated that, like the sun and a sunbeam, the Father and the Son are “two forms of one undivided substance.”¹⁷

“For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as [the Son] himself acknowledges: ‘My Father is greater than I’” [John 14:28].¹⁸

Always Existed

Since the Logos was part of the uncreated substance of God “in the beginning,” He always existed and must necessarily always exist. There never was a time that He did not exist. For example:

“The Son of God is the Logos of the Father … He is the first product of the Father, not as though he was being brought into existence, for from the beginning God, who is the eternal Mind, had the Logos in himself.”¹⁹

Subordinate

Since, in Logos-Christology, the Son is part of the substance of the Father, Father and Son have the same substance qualitatively but the Son is ontologically (in terms of substance) subordinate to the Father. It follows that the Son is subordinate to the Father in all respects. As B.B. Warfield (quoted above) noted:

“The dominant neo-Stoic and neo-Platonic ideas deflected Christian thought into subordinationist channels.”

R.P.C. Hanson wrote:

“The conventional Trinitarian doctrine with which Christianity entered the fourth century … (made) the Son into a demi-god” (Hanson).

And as Philp Schaff stated:

“The Nicene fathers still teach, like their predecessors, a certain subordinationism, which seems to conflict with the doctrine of consubstantiality. But we must distinguish between a subordination of essence (ousia) and a subordination of hypostasis.”²⁰

In other words, Schaff stated that, while Father and Son were regarded as equal in essence (substance), the hypostasis (Person) of the Son is subordinate to the hypostasis of the Father.

For a further discussion of Logos Christology, see The Apologists by R.P.C. Hanson.

Sabellianism

Due to Logos-Christology, Christianity was often accused of having two or three gods. Tertullian stated:

They are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods. (Tertullian. Against Praxeas. 3. c. AD 210.)

Sabellianism (Modalism) was the first challenge to Logos-Christology. Sabellianism was an attempt to defend Christianity against the accusation of polytheism.

Kevin Giles (The Academic Journal of CBE International) stated:

“One of the first suggestions as to how God might be three and one at the same time was that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were merely successive modes of revelation of the one God. … This error, which was called modalism, was rejected by the Church Fathers.”

Wikipedia states that Modalism has been mainly associated with Sabellius, who taught a form of it in Rome in the 3rd century. This had come to him via the teachings of Noetus and Praxeas.

Tertullian condemned Modalism (c. 213, Tertullian Against Praxeas 1, in Ante Nicene Fathers, vol. 3). Sabellius was excommunicated in AD 220. (GotQuestions).

The Christology of the Nicene Fathers

With Modalism formally condemned, Logos-Christology was the theology with which the church entered the fourth century.

“Among those who were, three basic “parties” were discernible: Arius and the Lucianists, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia; the Origenists, led by Eusebius of Caesarea, already highly reputed; and Alexander of Alexandria, with his following.” (Erickson) (God in Three Persons, Millard J. Erickson, p82-85)

Arius and the Lucianists

The quote from Erickson above refers to “Arius and the Lucianists.” Arius was the main spokesperson of this Christology, but he did not invent it. Pavao noted, “all the major players of the early Arian Controversy were trained in the school of Lucian.” (Pavao, Paul. Decoding Nicea (p. 273). Kindle Edition.) And Boer (A Short History of the Early Church, Harry R. Boer, p113) described Arius as “a disciple of Lucian.” Lucian was martyred in 311 or 312; at the very end of the Great Persecution.

While Logos-Christology taught that the Son is the Logos that always was inside God, “Arius and the Lucianists” taught that the Son was created from nothing. In other words, the Arius-delegation rejected Logos-Christology. The first great challenge to the Logos-Christology of the Apologists was Sabellianism. The second great challenge was the Lucian Christology which Arius proclaimed.

The Origenists, led by Eusebius of Caesarea

This group was the majority at Nicaea and maintained the traditional Logos-theology:

“The most important of the Eastern bishops were present, but the West was poorly represented” (God in Three Persons, Millard J. Erickson, p82-85).

“The great majority of the Eastern clergy were ultimately disciples of Origen. Future generations have tended to dub them “Semi-Arian.” In fact they were simply concerned with maintaining the traditional Logos-theology of the Greek-speaking Church” (Frend, W.H.C. The Rise of Christianity. see also, Bible.ca).

Alexander of Alexandria, with his following

Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, where the dispute with Arius began, explained Arius’ ex-communication in a letter (The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus. I:6.). In that letter, he explains what Arius taught and why his views were rejected. But it is also clear from that letter that Alexander continued the traditional Logos theology of the previous century. For example:

He stated that “the Son is the Word and Wisdom of God.”

And he used verses that were often used by Logos theologists, but which we would not necessarily today associate with the Son:

- - - - “My heart has dictated a good Word,” and,
      - “I begat thee out of my bosom before the dawn”? [45:1; 110:3, LXX]

Conclusion

All the delegates at Nicaea, except the Arius-group, maintained the traditional Logos-Christology. R.P.C. Hanson, a great authority on the Arian Controversy, wrote:

“The theological structure provided by the Apologists lasted as the main, widely-accepted, one might almost say traditional framework for a Christian doctrine of God well into the fourth century, and was, in differing form, the basic picture of God with which the great majority of those who were first involved in the Arian Controversy were familiar and which they accepted.” (link)

This means that the Nicene Creed was formulated and interpreted at the time on the basis of Logos-Christology. This further means that the word “begotten” in the creed must be understood as that the Logos, who always was inside God – part of God’s uncreated substance – was emitted from God (when God wanted to create) and became the Son of God.

Nicene Creed

This analysis allows us to read the Nicene Creed from the perspective of the delegates at Nicaea.

Since more than 80% of the words in the creed are about Jesus Christ, the issue before the council was about Him; not about the Father or about the Holy Spirit. The question is, what did they dispute about the Son?

Compared with 1 Corinthians 8:6

The first part of the creed seems to be based on 1 Corinthians 8:6, but notice the section inserted to describe the Son. It is proposed that this additional section specifically affirms what Arius disputed:

1 Corinthians 8:6	Nicene Creed (AD 325)
For us there is but one God, the Father	We believe in one God, the Father Almighty
From whom are all things and we exist for Him	Maker of all things visible and invisible.
And one Lord, Jesus Christ,	And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
	the Son of God, begotten of the Father the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made,
	consubstantial with the Father;
By whom are all things, and we exist through Him	By whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth;

This added section may be divided into two subjects:

Firstly, how the Son was generated in eternity past, namely that He is the only being ever to be begotten of the essence of the Father;

Secondly, what His nature now is, namely, of the same substance (homoousion) as the Father.

This phrase “God from God, light from light, true God from true God” indicates both HOW He was generated and WHAT His nature now is. However, the part of the added section that begins with “begotten” and ends with “begotten not made” seems to form an inclusio, indicating that this part is a unit with the word “begotten” pointing to its main meaning, namely the generation of the Son from the being or substance of the Father.

Compared with the Anathemas

In addition to this added section, which described the Council’s agreed view of Christ, the creed of AD 325 also includes a list of statements that are categorized as heretical, and all of these statements are about Christ. These statements reflect Arius’ Christology. The following table compares the affirmations with Arius’ view:

	Council’s view: (Affirmations)	Arius’ view: (Anathemas)
Before He was generated		There was when He was not – Before being born He was not
How He was generated	Begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made,	He was created out of nothing.
His substance	of one substance with the Father	of a different hypostasis or substance
His nature		subject to alteration or change (mutable)

The Nicene Creed, therefore, basically says 4 things about the Son, namely that He:

- - Always existed.
  - Was begotten from the substance of the Father.
  - Is of the same substance as the Father.
  - Is not subject to change.

The main point of dispute

It is proposed that, of those four issues, the primary issue of dispute was how the Son was generated, namely, whether He was generated out of nothing (as Arius said) or out of the substance of God, as the creed suggests. This is justified as follows:

Firstly, the previous table shows that most of the words that were added in response to the Arian controversy are about HOW He was generated; repeating the word “begotten” three times.

Secondly, all the other differences are consequences of this fundamental difference.

If the Son was created out of nothing, as Arius claimed, then, (a) He did not exist before He was begotten, (b) He consist of created substances, which is a different substance from the Father’s uncreated substance, and (c) He is mutable.

Given how the Council understood “begotten,” namely that the Son is the uncreated Logos that always was inside God but that was emitted from the essence of God to become God’s only begotten Son, means that (a) He always existed, (b) is of the same uncreated substance as the Father and (c) is as unchangeable as God.

Thirdly, that He always existed and that He is immutable are not mentioned in the affirmations; only in the anathemas, implying that these are not fundamental issues.

Fourthly, after the meeting, Eusebius, the leader of the majority Eastern Greek delegation, explained the dispute with Arius and identified Arius’ main argument as that the Son was created out of nothing. It also shows that Eusebius’ response was that, because the Son was begotten from the Father, He came out of the being of the Father and was not created from nothing. (See The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus – Book II (mb-soft.com))

Homoousios

That He is homoousios (of the same substance) as the Father is also mentioned in the affirmations of the creed. For that reason, that may indicate that this was the main point of the creed.

However, the word homoousios was proposed and enforced by the emperor. Eusebius and the other Origenists resisted this word to the last and, in the end, accepted this word only because of the pressure applied by the emperor. (See Eusebius of Caesarea’s explanation of Nicaea for more detail.) In other words, at least from the perspective of the majority at the council, this word does not reflect what they wanted to say in response to Arius’ Christology. For that reason, this word was the cause of the second phase of the Arian Controversy during the 50 years after Nicaea.

The Son is God

It is often stated that that creed identifies Jesus as God (e.g., Bible.ca) but, as R.P.C. Hanson – who studied the Arian Controversy of 20 years – stated, the traditional account of the Arian Controversy is a complete travesty. In fact, the issue was decidedly not whether Jesus is God. As discussed above, all the delegates to Nicaea, except the Arius-group, held to the traditional Logos-Christology in which the Son is subordinate to the Father. As Philip Schaff noted with respect to perhaps the most respected theologian at Nicaea:

“That Eusebius [of Caesarea] was a decided subordinationist must be plain to every one that reads his works with care” (The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Series II, Vol. 1)

As quoted above, Philip Schaff also stated that, while Father and Son were regarded as equal in essence (substance), the Nicene Fathers regarded the hypostasis (Person) of the Son as subordinate to the hypostasis of the Father (Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church. Vol. III. Section 130. Emphasis mine, parentheses his. (pp. 251-252).

The Arius-group denied that the Son always existed and, therefore, had an even lower Christology. Therefore, if we use the word “God” for the Ultimate Reality, then none of the delegates thought of Christ as such. All of them regarded the Son as subordinate to the Father.

This is confirmed by the creed itself which identifies the “one God” of Christianity as the Father alone:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty …
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God …
And in the Holy Ghost. (cf. 1 Tim 2:5; cf. 1 Cor 8:6; John 5:44)

Whereas the Apostles’ Creed declared only that Jesus Christ is God’s only Son, and our Lord, the Nicene Creed added the following declaration dealing with eternal subordination:

“and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things came into being.”

As Schaff makes clear, these statements reflected a belief in the eternal subordination of the Son. The idea that the Son is begotten and the Father unbegotten means that the Father is primary and Sonship secondary. Schaff declares that “all important scholars since Petavius admit subordination in the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity.” (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. III (311–600) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950) 683.

Conclusion

Out of what

At the beginning of the article, I mentioned that Paul Pavao wrote that the main point of the Nicene Creed was “what the Son of God was made of.” I propose that that is not entirely correct. What the Son of God was made of is only a consequence of the question out of what He was generated; out of God or out of nothing.

I propose, therefore, that the main point of the creed is that the Son was begotten out of the eternal, uncreated substance of the Father. That principle is foundational to everything else in the creed. Consistently, the Nicene Creed states three times that the Son was “begotten.”

- - List of all articles on this website
  - Other articles in the series on the historical development of the Nicene Creed

1
RPC Hanson – The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God – The Arian Controversy 318-381, page xix
2
Rowan Williams – Arius, Heresy & Tradition, 2001, Eerdmans Publishing Company, p109
3
Documents of the Christian Church, 2nd Ed 1963, p 41
4
Hanson RPC, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318-381 AD. pp. 558
5
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1981 reprint) p. 463.
6
Prolegomena: “The Outbreak of the Arian Controversy. The Attitude of Eusebius.” The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Series II. Vol. I.
7
Warfield, Benjamin B. “Trinity, 2.” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
8
Athenagoras. A Plea for the Christians. 4. AD 177
9
Tatian, c. AD 165. Address to the Greeks. 5.
10
Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, To Autolycus. II:22. c. AD 168
11
Theophilus, c. AD 168
12
Origen. De Principiis. I:2:1-2. c. AD 230
13
Tatian, c. AD 165. Address to the Greeks. 5.
14
Theophilus, c. AD 168. To Autolycus. II:22.
15
Tatian, c. AD 165. Address to the Greeks. 5.
16
Athenagoras. A Plea for the Christians. 24. Emphasis mine.
17
Tertullian, Against Praxeas. 13
18
Tertullian, Against Praxeas. 9
19
Athenagoras, AD 177 – A Plea for the Christians. 10.
20
Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church. Vol. III. Section 130.

Purpose

Summary

Philo

Foundations of Christianity

God

The Logos

Philo’s most important doctrine

The Logos in the Old Testament

A Personal Being

Has always existed.

Literally first in time

Uniquely Generated

Direct Agent of Creation

Subordinate

Mediator

The Light of the World

The Logos in our God.

Cannot become Flesh

Man’s Mind

Did Philo influence the NT?

Possible Explanations

The Bible is not inspired.

A Different Logos

Teaching Mechanism

To oppose pagan theology

Greek Philosophy was inspired.

Who is Philo?

Foundations of Christianity

Logos Theology

The Bible

Trinity Doctrine

Based on Greek philosophy

Philo’s view of God

Only God knows Himself.

God exists outside time.

Creator Eternally

Philo’s view of the Logos

Philo’s most important doctrine

The Logos in the Old Testament

A Personal Being

Does not exist without a cause.

Has always existed.

Ontologically Subordinate

Literally first in time

Uniquely Generated

Direct Agent of Creation

The Light of the World

Mediator

The Logos in our God.

Cannot become Flesh

Man’s Mind

Did Philo influence the New Testament?

Possible Explanations

The Bible is not inspired.

A Different Logos

Both are based on the Old Testament.

Teaching Mechanism

To oppose pagan theology

Greek Philosophy was inspired.

Observations:

Proposal:

Justifications:

Abbreviations

Other Articles

Summary

Purpose

The Two Phases of the Arian Controversy

How the delegates in 325 understood the Creed

The Apostolic Church

Logos-Christology

Sabellianism

The Christology of the Nicene Fathers

The Nicene Creed – Four issues

Homoousios

The Son is God.

Conclusion

Purpose of this article

The Two Phases of the Arian Controversy

Homoian Domination

Post Nicaea Developments