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Here is where we can compile significant quotes of writers or speakers from places other than scripture that speak of the deity of Christ. Remember to list your source.
Please only post here if you truly believe in the deity of Christ.
Thank you!
This space is reserved for future outstanding quotes that get listed here. Let me know if you think a quote in this thread is especially outstanding and should be added here for easy reference.
I came across this which goes along with what I believe about the eternal Son being begotten from within the Father when God said, “Let there be Light.” This expresses an eternal existence and yet a begettal of what Gregory of Nyssa calls the only begotten Light.
It is therefore clearly shown that the Father of truth did not make the truth at a time when it was not; but, being the fountain of light and truth, and of all good, He shed forth from Himself that Only-begotten Light of truth by which the glory of His Person is expressly imaged; so that the blasphemy of those who say that the Son was a later addition to God by way of creation is at all points refuted.
from: http://www.ccel.org/ccel….ghlightPlease remember that this site is just to put quotes from extra-Biblical sources that show an eternal Sonship and thus the deity of Christ. Thanks!
More from Gregory of Nyssa regarding the eternal sonship and deity of the Son:
Since, then, the Godhead is very life, and the Only-begotten God is God, and life, and truth, and every conceivable thing that is lofty and Divine, while the creation draws from Him its supply of good, it may hence be evident that if it is in life by partaking of life, it will surely, if it ceases from this participation, cease from life also. If they dare, then, to say also of the Only-begotten God those things which it is true to say of the creation, let them say this too, along with the rest, that He has a beginning of His being like the creation, and abides in life after the likeness of souls. But if He is the very life, and needs not to have life in Himself ab extra, while all other things are not life, but are merely participants in life, what constrains us to cancel, by reason of what we see in creation, the eternity of the Son? For that which is always unchanged as regards its nature, admits of no contrary, and is incapable of change to any other condition: while things whose nature is on the boundary line have a tendency that shifts either way, inclining at will to what they find attractive901901 Reading with Oehler, τοῖς κατὰ γνώμην προσκλινομένη. The reading προσκινουμένοις, found in the earlier editions, gives a tolerable sense, but appears to have no ms. authority.. If, then, that which is truly life is contemplated in the Divine and transcendent nature, the decadence thereof will surely, as it seems, end in the opposite state902902 Or (if πάντως be constructed with ἀντικείμενον), “will end, as it seems, in that state which is absolutely opposed to life.”.
Now the meaning of “life” and “death” is manifold, and not always understood in the same way. For as regards the flesh, the energy and motion of the bodily senses is called “life,” and their extinction and dissolution is named “death.” But in the case of the intellectual nature, approximation to the Divine is the true life, and decadence therefrom is named “death”: for which reason the original evil, the devil, is called both “death,” and the inventor of death: and he is also said by the Apostle to have the power of death903903 Cf. Heb. ii. 14. As, then, we obtain, as has been said, from the Scriptures, a twofold conception of death, He Who is truly unchangeable and immutable “alone hath immortality,” and dwells in light that cannot be attained or approached by the darkness of wickedness904904 Cf. 1 Tim. iii. 16.: but all things that participate in death, being far removed from immortality by their contrary tendency, if they fall away from that which is good, would, by the mutability of their nature, admit community with the worse condition, which is nothing else than death, having a certain correspondence with the death of the body. For as in that case the extinction of the activities of nature is called death, so also, in the case of the intellectual being, the absence of motion towards the good is death and departure from life; so that what we perceive in the bodiless creation905905 i.e.the order of spiritual beings, including angels and human souls. Of these S. Gregory argues that they are capable of an ἀκινησία πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθόν which is death in them, as the absence of motion and sense is bodily death: and that they may therefore be said to have an end, as they had a beginning: so far as they are eternal it is not by their own power, but by their mutable nature being upheld by grace from this state of ἀκινησία πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθόν. On both these grounds therefore—that they have an end, and that such eternity as they possess is not inherent, but given ab extra, and contingent—he says they are not properly eternal, and he therefore rejects the proposed parallel. does not clash with our argument, which refutes the doctrine of heresy. For that form of death which corresponds to the intellectual nature (that is, separation from God, Whom we call Life) is, potentially, not separated even from their nature; for their emergence from non-existence shows mutability of nature; and that to which change is in affinity is hindered from participation in the contrary state by the grace of Him Who strengthens it: it does not abide in the good by its own nature: and such a thing is not eternal. If, then, one really speaks truth in saying that we ought not to estimate the Divine essence and the created nature in the same way, nor to circumscribe the being of the Son of God by any beginning, lest, if this be granted, the other attributes of creation should enter in together with our acknowledgment of this one, the absurd character of the teaching of that man, who employs the attributes of creation to separate the Only-begotten God from the eternity of the Father, is clearly shown. For as none other of the marks which characterize the creation appears in the Maker of the creation, so neither is the fact that the creation has its existence from some beginning a proof that the Son was not always in the Father,—that Son, Who is Wisdom, and Power, and Light, and Life, and all that is conceived of in the bosom of the Father.
More from Gregory to those who think that the Son was created:
If, then, man, who is himself a created being, thinks that the Spirit and the Only-begotten God20492049 and the Only-begotten God. One Cod. reads here υἱ& 231·ν (not θεόν), as it is in S. John i. 18, though even there “many very ancient authorities” (R.V.) read θεὸν. The Latin of Hervetus implies an οὐκ here; “et unigenitum Deum non esse existimant;” and Glauber would retain it, making κτιστὸν = θεὸν οὐκ εἶναι. But Krabinger found no οὐκ in any of his Codd. are likewise created, the hope which he entertains of a change to a better state will be a vain one; for he only returns to himself20502050 πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἀναλύων, as explained above, i.e. εἰς τὸ ὁμογενὲς ἑαυτὸν εἰσαγάγῃ.. What happens then is on a par with the surmises of Nicodemus; he, when instructed by our Lord as to the necessity of being born from above, because he could not yet comprehend the meaning of the mystery, had his thoughts drawn back to his mother’s womb20512051 S. John iii. 4. So that if a man does not conduct himself towards the uncreated nature, but to that which is kindred to, and equally in bondage with, himself, he is of the birth which is from below, and not of that which is from above. But the Gospel tells us that the birth of the saved is from above.
Much easier to read here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel….ghlight
Like I have said many times here…God cannot die and that is why God, as the Son had to take on flesh so that He could be tempted and that He could die.
From Ignatius:We have also as a Physician the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began,537 but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For “the Word was made flesh.”538 Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passible body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts.
From here:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.ii.vii.htmlJustin Martyr:
Chapter LXI—Wisdom is begotten of the Father, as fire from fire.
“I shall give you another testimony, my friends,” said I, “from the Scriptures, that God begat before all creatures a Beginning,2167 [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos; and on another occasion He calls Himself Captain, when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun). For He can be called by all those names, since He ministers to the Father’s will, and since He was begotten of the Father by an act of will;2168 just as we see2169 happening among ourselves: for when we give out some word, we beget the word; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the word2170 [which remains] in us, when we give it out: and just as we see also happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled [another], but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled. The Word of Wisdom, who is Himself this God begotten of the Father of all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the Begetter, will bear evidence to me, when He speaks by Solomon the following: ‘If I shall declare to you what happens daily, I shall call to mind events from everlasting, and review them. The Lord made me the
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beginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting He established me in the beginning, before He had made the earth, and before He had made the deeps, before the springs of the waters had issued forth, before the mountains had been established. Before all the hills He begets me. God made the country, and the desert, and the highest inhabited places under the sky. When He made ready the heavens, I was along with Him, and when He set up His throne on the winds: when He made the high clouds strong, and the springs of the deep safe, when He made the foundations of the earth, I was with Him arranging. I was that in which He rejoiced; daily and at all times I delighted in His countenance, because He delighted in the finishing of the habitable world, and delighted in the sons of men. Now, therefore, O son, hear me. Blessed is the man who shall listen to me, and the mortal who shall keep my ways, watching2171 daily at my doors, observing the posts of my ingoings. For my outgoings are the outgoings of life, and [my] will has been prepared by the Lord. But they who sin against me, trespass against their own souls; and they who hate me love death.’2172From here:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.iv.lxi.htmlThanks Keith, it is nice to know someone is watching out for me and also looking at this thread…I fixed it
Here is another quote, this time from Tatian:
Chapter V.—The Doctrine of the Christians as to the Creation of the World.
God was in the beginning; but the beginning, we have been taught, is the power of the Logos. For the Lord of the universe, who is Himself the necessary ground (ὑπόστασις) of all being, inasmuch as no creature was yet in existence, was alone; but inasmuch as He was all power, Himself the necessary ground of things visible and invisible, with Him were all things; with Him, by Logos-power (διὰ λογικῆς δυνάμεως), the Logos Himself also, who was in Him, subsists.433 And by His simple will the Logos springs forth; and the Logos, not coming forth in vain, becomes the first-begotten work of the Father. Him (the Logos) we know to be the beginning of the world. But He came into being by participation,434 not by abscission; for what is cut off is separated from the original substance, but that which comes by participation, making its choice of function,435 does not render him deficient from whom it is taken. For just as from one torch many fires are lighted, but the light of the first torch is not lessened by the kindling of many torches, so the Logos, coming forth from the Logos-power of the Father, has not divested of the Logos-power Him who begat Him. I myself, for instance, talk, and you hear; yet, certainly, I who converse do not become destitute of speech (λόγος) by the transmission of speech, but by the utterance of my voice I endeavour to reduce to order the unarranged matter in your minds. And as the Logos,436 begotten in the beginning, begat in turn our world, having first created for Himself the necessary matter, so also I, in imitation of the Logos, being begotten again,437 and having become possessed of the truth, am trying to reduce to order the confused matter which is kindred with myself. For matter is not, like God, without beginning, nor, as having no beginning, is of equal power with God; it is begotten, and not produced by any other being, but brought into existence by the Framer of all things alone.
From here:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.iii.ii.v.htmlNow from Athenagoras as He describes the 'Logos' and the unity of God and the Spirit as the effluence of God:
Chapter X.—The Christians Worship the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
That we are not atheists, therefore, seeing that we acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, illimitable, who is apprehended by the understanding only and the reason, who is encompassed by light, and beauty, and spirit, and power ineffable, by whom the universe has been created through His Logos, and set in order, and is kept in being—I have sufficiently demonstrated. , for we acknowledge also a Son of God. Nor let any one think it ridiculous that God should have a Son. For though the poets, in their fictions, represent the gods as no better than men, our mode of thinking is not the same as theirs, concerning either God the Father or the Son. But the Son of God is the Logos of the Father, in idea and in operation; for after the pattern of Him and by Him727 were all things made, the Father and the Son being one. And, the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son, in oneness and power of spirit, the understanding and reason (νοῦς καὶ λόγος) of the Father is the Son of God. But if, in your surpassing intelligence,728 it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by the Son, I will state briefly that He is the first product of the Father, not as having been brought into existence (for from the beginning, God, who is the eternal mind [νοῦς], had the Logos in Himself, being from eternity instinct with Logos [λογικός]); but inasmuch as He came forth to be the idea and energizing power of all material things, which lay like a nature without attributes, and an inactive earth, the grosser particles being mixed up with the lighter. The prophetic Spirit also agrees with our statements. “The Lord,” it says, “made me, the beginning of His ways to His works.”729 The Holy Spirit Himself also, which operates in the prophets, we assert to be an effluence of God, flowing from Him, and returning back again like a beam of the sun. Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,730 and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order, called atheists? Nor is our teaching in what relates to the divine nature confined to these points; but we recognise also a multitude of angels and ministers,731 whom God the Maker and Framer of the world distributed and appointed 134to their several posts by His Logos, to occupy themselves about the elements, and the heavens, and the world, and the things in it, and the goodly ordering of them all.
Tertullian's view:
We have already asserted that God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word, and Reason, and Power. It is abundantly plain that your philosophers, too, regard the Logos—that is, the Word and Reason—as the Creator of the universe. For Zeno lays it down that he is the creator, having made all things according to a determinate plan; that his name is Fate, and God, and the soul of Jupiter, and the necessity of all things. Cleanthes ascribes all this to spirit, which he maintains pervades the universe. And we, in like manner, hold that the Word, and Reason, and Power, by which we have said God made all, have spirit as their proper and essential substratum, in which the Word has in being to give forth utterances, and reason abides to dispose and arrange, and power is over all to execute. We have been taught that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated; so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun—there is no division of substance, but merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled.105 The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities; so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, 35is in His birth God and man united.
from here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.iv.iii.xxi.html
Quote (Lightenup @ Mar. 03 2012,14:11) Tertullian's view: We have already asserted that God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word, and Reason, and Power. It is abundantly plain that your philosophers, too, regard the Logos—that is, the Word and Reason—as the Creator of the universe. For Zeno lays it down that he is the creator, having made all things according to a determinate plan; that his name is Fate, and God, and the soul of Jupiter, and the necessity of all things. Cleanthes ascribes all this to spirit, which he maintains pervades the universe. And we, in like manner, hold that the Word, and Reason, and Power, by which we have said God made all, have spirit as their proper and essential substratum, in which the Word has in being to give forth utterances, and reason abides to dispose and arrange, and power is over all to execute. We have been taught that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated; so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun—there is no division of substance, but merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled.105 The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities; so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, 35is in His birth God and man united.
from here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.iv.iii.xxi.html
According to Tertullain Jesus was the Word BEFORE He became SonQuote Like the Apologists, Tertullian posited a two-stage existence in the Word: First as immanent within the Father, then as expressed at the Son's generation: There are some who allege that even Genesis opens thus in Hebrew: “In the beginning God made for Himself a Son.” As there is no ground for this, I am led to other arguments derived from God's own dispensation, in which He existed before the creation of the world, up to the generation of the Son. For before all things God was alone – being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself. Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say, His own Reason. For God is rational, and Reason was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself. This Reason is His own Thought (or Consciousness) which the Greeks call logos, by which term we also designate Word or Discourse and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to say that the Word was in the beginning with God; although it would be more suita ble to regard Reason as the more ancient; because God had not Word from the beginning, but He had Reason even before the beginning; because also Word itself consists of Reason, which it thus proves to have been the prior existence as being its own substance…. He became also the Son of God, and was begotten when He proceeded forth from Him (from chs. 5,7).
http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/openhse/trinity1.html#ChristKathy's fragments from Tertullian do not prove that he thought the Word did not exist before He was begotten. On the contrary, he said that the Word had “prior existence as being of its own substance, and became ALSO the Son of God and was begotten….
To accurately represent Tertullian is to say that the Eternal Word became Son in time. This is my belief except I maintain that the Word became Son in His incarnation.
KJ
KJ, have you changed your view again?
Not a necessarily a bad thing of course.
You use to teach that Jesus was and is God, but now you say he is the Word.This is a change in view is it not?
Quote (Lightenup @ Mar. 03 2012,17:11) Tertullian's view: We have already asserted that God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word, and Reason, and Power. It is abundantly plain that your philosophers, too, regard the Logos—that is, the Word and Reason—as the Creator of the universe. For Zeno lays it down that he is the creator, having made all things according to a determinate plan; that his name is Fate, and God, and the soul of Jupiter, and the necessity of all things. Cleanthes ascribes all this to spirit, which he maintains pervades the universe. And we, in like manner, hold that the Word, and Reason, and Power, by which we have said God made all, have spirit as their proper and essential substratum, in which the Word has in being to give forth utterances, and reason abides to dispose and arrange, and power is over all to execute. We have been taught that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated; so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun—there is no division of substance, but merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled.105 The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities; so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, 35is in His birth God and man united.
from here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.iv.iii.xxi.html
LU, understanding the difference between identity and nature will make you see this in a different light.e.g.,
Eve is man (mankind).
Eve is the man.Notice that both sentences are saying different things, but to the untrained eye might be be thought of as the same thing.
I think your view with Jesus and divinity aligns more with the second sentence than the first which of course is wrong in the above example at least.
Quote (Lightenup @ June 12 2011,15:36) Here is where we can compile significant quotes of writers or speakers from places other than scripture that speak of the deity of Christ. Remember to list your source. Please only post here if you truly believe in the deity of Christ.
Thank you!
Hi guys,
I bumped the OP to remind everyone that this is not a discussion thread but a place for those members who believe in the deity of Christ to put quotes that support the deity of Christ.Please let's keep this thread just for quotes from extra-Biblical sources and non HN members. Thanks!
I have made a place for a discussion of these quotes here:
https://heavennet.net/cgi-bin….269;r=1
Any post that does not adhere to this will be requested to be deleted.
I will attempt to move the last three posts from here to the discussion thread so we can discuss them. Both posts are of interest, I'm sure.
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