For David H, #510 above
I couldn't find your quote by Polycarp. Please give citations for all quotes.
Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.)
Justin, whom the trinitarian The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (p. 770) called “the most outstanding of the ‘Apologists,’” wrote:
God alone is unbegotten and incorruptible, and therefore He is God, but all other things after him are created and corruptible {Justin has just concurred that the world was begotten by God} .... take your stand on one Unbegotten, and say this is the Cause of all. - ANF 1:197 (‘Dialogue’). [ANF is the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Eerdmans, 1993.]
But,
Jesus Christ is the only proper Son who has been begotten by God, being His Word and first-begotten - ANF 1:170 (‘Apology’).
And thus do we also, since our persuasion by the Word, stand aloof from them (i.e., the demons), and follow the only unbegotten God through His Son - ANF 1:167 (‘Apology’).
Nevertheless, in Justin’s picture, as later in Tertullian’s, the generation of the Logos takes place only with a view to the world’s creation. The Son, therefore, is not co-eternal with God; Moreover, he exists to provide a mediator between God and the cosmos in creation and revelation, as the language of John 1:3 and 1:18, not to mention 1 Corinthians 8:6, seemed to suggest. Thus, the Logos theology appeared to introduce a ‘second God’ {deuteros theos ‘a second god’ was the well-known term used by Philo and many of the second century Christian writers - see the LOGOS study} inconsistently with the principle of monotheism; and further, it suggested that the Logos represented a secondary grade or kind of divinity. It ‘subordinated’ the Son to the Father. - p. 84, A History of the Christian Church, Walker (trinitarian), Scribner’s, 1985 printing.
The trinitarian The Encyclopedia of Religion, Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987, tells us:
“ ... another sentence from {Justin Martyr} ... ‘There is, as has been said, another god and lord {the Son of God} below the Creator of the universe’ ” - Vol. 9, p. 15.
Justin Martyr (c. 100 - c. 165) in a dialogue with the Jew Trypho says:
God begat before all creatures a Beginning, [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 {'a god,' anarthrous theos}, and then Lord and Logos .... 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 .... The Word of Wisdom ... speaks by Solomon {Prov. 8:22-30} the following: ‘.... The Lord {‘Jehovah’, original Hebrew manuscripts - cf. ASV} made me the beginning of His ways for His works.’ ANF 1:227-228 (‘Dialogue’).
And later in the same dialogue with Trypho Justin again relates the words of Wisdom, the pre-existent Son of God,
‘The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works ...’ You perceive, my hearers, if you bestow attention, that the Scripture has declared that this Offspring was begotten by the Father before all things created... - ANF 1:264 (‘Dialogue’).
A saying of Justin Martyr indicates what lack of clarity there was with regard to the development of the doctrine of the Trinity as late as the middle of the second century .... He admits that Christians indeed reject the false pagan gods, but, he goes on to say, they do not deny the true God, who is the Father of justice and chastity and of all other virtues, and who will have nothing to do with that which is evil. He then says, ‘Both him {The Father, God alone} and the Son who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of other good angels who follow and are made like to Him, and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, because we honor {them?} in reason and truth.’ As if it were not enough that in this enumeration angels are mentioned as beings which are honored and worshiped {but see the WORSHIP study} by Christians, Justin does not hesitate to mention angels before naming the Holy Spirit. The sequence in which the beings that are worshiped are mentioned (God the Father, Christ, the {OTHER} angels, the Spirit) is noteworthy. - pp. 43, 44, A Short History of Christian Doctrine, Lohse (trinitarian), Fortress Press, 1985.
Respected church historian, Robert M. Grant (trinitarian), likewise notes concerning the above:
“[Justin] ... identifies the God whom Christians worship as ‘most true and Father of justice.... And he goes on to speak of reverencing and worshiping ‘the Son who came from him and taught us these things, and the army of other good angels who follow and resemble him, as well as the prophetic spirit.’” - p. 59 [quoting from “The First Apology of Justin,” Ch. VI]. “This is why Justin could place the ‘army of angels’ ahead of the ‘prophetic spirit,’ as we have seen: for him the Spirit was not ... personal [in fact Grant calls the Spirit ‘it’ - p. 63].” - p. 62, Greek Apologists of the Second Century, The Westminster Press, 1988.
Trinitarian scholar Dr. H. R. Boer tells us that the very first Christians to really discuss Jesus' relationship with God in their writings were the Apologists,
Justin and the other Apologists therefore taught that the Son is a creature. He is a high creature, a creature powerful enough to create the world but, nevertheless, a creature. In theology this relationship of the Son to the Father is called subordinationism. The Son is subordinate, that is, secondary to, dependent upon, and caused by the Father. - p. 110, Boer, A Short History of the Early Church, Eerdmans (trinitarian), 1976.
“The modern popular doctrine of the Trinity ... derives no support from the language of Justin [Martyr]” - Alvan Lamson, The Church of the First Three Centuries.
Justin Martyr’s ‘Apology’ and ‘Dialogue {With Trypho}’ “are preserved but in a single ms (Cod. Paris, 450, A.D. 1364)” - Britannica, 14th ed.
