Early Trinitarian Formulas
The biblical speech of Father, Son and Spirit can only set the course for the later receptions in the elaboration of a doctrine of the Trinity. Especially the ritual practice and prayer practice of the early Christians became formative.
The earliest clearly trinitarian-structured formulas are found as baptismal formulas and in baptismal creeds, which use three questions and answers to prepare and then carry out the transfer to Father, Son and Spirit.
Trinitarian formulas are also found in the celebration of the Eucharist: Through the Son, thanks are given to the Father, then the descent of the Spirit is requested. The final doxology glorifies the Father through the Son and with the Spirit (or: with the Son through the Spirit).
The regula fidei of Irenaeus, which was used among other things in the catechesis on baptism, also has a Trinitarian structure.
Theological development in the 2nd and 3rd century
Christian theology was not clearly defined in the first centuries, since according to the New Testament concept each Christian community was responsible for itself before God and no supra-congregational unions existed. So there were soon numerous disputes with the variants of Christology and Trinity, such as Adoptianism (the man Jesus was adopted by God via the Holy Spirit at baptism) or Docetism (Jesus was purely divine and appeared only as a man). Among various attempts to differentiate from Gnosticism and Manichaeism with their effects on Christianity were some - like modalistic monarchism (the Father and the Son are different forms of being of the one God in the 'oikonomic history of salvation', so that, exaggeratedly formulated, God himself died on the cross) - which were later condemned as heresy.
Justin
Justin Martyr uses numerous Trinitarian formulas.
Irenaeus
Irenaeus of Lyon develops - among others based on the prologue of the Gospel of John (1,1-18 ELB) - a Logos theology. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is equated with the pre-existent Logos as the essential agent of creation and God's revelation. Irenaeus also elaborates an independent pneumatology. The Holy Spirit is God's wisdom. The Spirit and the Son do not come forth by emanation, which would place them on a different ontological level with the Father, but by "spiritual emanation."
Tatian
Tatian tries an independent special way, whereby the spirit also appears as a servant of Christ, the Logos, and is subordinated to a world-beyond-unchangeable God.
Athenagoras
The Greek word trias for God Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which is still the usual word for the Christian Trinity in the Eastern Churches, is first mentioned in the second half of the 2nd century by the apologist Athenagoras of Athens:
"They [Christians] know God and His Logos, know what is the unity of the Son with the Father, what is the communion of the Son with the Father, what is the Spirit, what is the unity of this triad, the Spirit, the Son, and the Father, and what is their distinction in unity."
Tertullian
In the Western Church, a few decades after Athenagoras of Athens had spoken of "trias", the corresponding Latin word trinitas was probably introduced by Tertullian, at least it is documented for the first time by him. It is a specially created neologism from trinus - threefold - to the abstract Trinitas - Trinity. A lawyer by training, he explained the essence of God in the language of Roman jurisprudence. He introduces the term personae (plural of persona - party in the legal sense) for Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For the totality of Father, Son and Holy Spirit he used the term substantia, which denotes the legal status in the community. According to his account, in the substantia God is one, but in the monarchia - the reign of the one God - three personae, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are active. According to another version, Tertullian borrowed the metaphor "persona" from the theatre of Carthage, where actors held masks (personae) in front of their faces, depending on the role they were to play.
Theological development in the 4th to 7th century
Doctrines of the Trinity - Council of Nicaea (325)
The opposites in the Trinity conceptions from the late 2nd century on can be summarized under the currents of Monarchianism, Subordinatianism and Tritheism. Under the influential but sweeping fighting term Arianism, a variety of Subordinatianism appeared with Arius, which postulates the three hypostases God, Logos-Son, and Holy Spirit, but subordinates Logos and Holy Spirit to God, but denies true deity to the Logos-Son as created and with beginning-Jesus thus comes into a middle position between divine and human. This teaching was rejected by the first Council of Nicaea (325) as false doctrine. The hoped-for agreement failed to materialize. After the Council of Nicaea, a decades-long theologically and politically motivated dispute ensued between supporters and opponents of the Nicene Creed. The 'anti-Nicene' current gained many supporters in the years after Nicaea, especially among the higher clergy and the Hellenistically educated in the eastern part of the Roman Empire at court and in the imperial house, so that 360 the majority of bishops voluntarily or coercedly agreed to the new, 'Homoean' confessional compromise formula (see under Arian Controversy). Various 'anti-Nicene' synods convened, formulating various 'non-Nicene' Trinitarian confessions of faith between 340 and 360.
Pneumatology - Niceno-Constantinopolitanum (381)
In addition to the question of the Trinity, which had been in the foreground at the Council of Nicaea, the question of the status of the Holy Spirit was added in the middle of the 4th century. Is the Spirit of God a person of the divine Trinity, an impersonal power of God, another name for Jesus Christ or a creature?
The Macedonians (after one of their leaders, Patriarch Macedonios I of Constantinople) or Pneumatomachen (Spirit-fighters) held that the Son of God was begotten of God, thus also in consubstantiality with God, but that the Holy Spirit was created.
From 360 onwards the question was taken up by 'Old Nicetics' and 'Nine Nicetics'. Athanasius wrote his Four Letters to Serapion. The Tomus ad Antiochenos, written by Athanasius after the Regional Synod at Alexandria in 362, explicitly rejected the creatureliness of the Holy Spirit, as well as the essence-separateness of the Holy Spirit from Christ, and emphasized his belonging to the 'holy trinity'. Shortly afterwards came from Gregory of Nyssa a sermon on the Holy Spirit, and a few years later from his brother Basil the treatise On the Holy Spirit; his friend Gregory of Nazianzus delivered in 380 the Fifth Theological Discourse on the Holy Spirit as God. Almost simultaneously Didymus the Blind wrote a treatise on the Holy Spirit. The Greek theology of the fourth century uses the Greek word hypostasis (reality, essence, nature) instead of person, which is often preferred in theology even today, since the modern term person is often mistakenly equated with the ancient term persona.
Hilarius of Poitiers wrote in Latin about the Trinity and Ambrose of Milan published his treatise De Spiritu Sancto in 381.
In 381 the first Council of Constantinople was convened to settle the hypostasis dispute. There, the Niceno-Constantinopolitanum, related to the Nicene Creed, was adopted, which especially expanded the part concerning the Holy Spirit and thus emphasized the equal Trinity more than all previous confessions.
| […] We believe in the Holy Spirit, who is Lord and makes alive, who comes out of the father, who is worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son, who has spoken through the prophets, […] |
The Niceno-Constantinopolitanum formulated the Trinitarian doctrine, which is still recognized today by the Western as well as by all Orthodox churches and was adopted in all Christological disputes of the next centuries.
Nestorianism
Nestorianism is the Christological doctrine that the divine and human natures are divided and unmixed in the person of Jesus Christ, and thus a form of the doctrine of two natures. It is named after Nestorius, who was Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431 and was a major proponent of it. Mary is venerated in Nestorianism as the "Christ-bearer" but not as the God-bearer. The doctrine was condemned as heresy at the Council of Ephesus in 431. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 it was rejected and the doctrine of two natures was adopted, according to which the divine and human natures of Christ are - according to the famous adverbs - unmixed and unchanged, undivided and unseparated.
Council of Chalcedon
At the Council of Chalcedon the Christological questions connected with the doctrine of the Trinity were specified.
Augustine
While both the Eastern and Western traditions of the Church have seen the Trinity as an integral part of their doctrine since the Council of Constantinople, there are nuances: the Eastern tradition, based on the theology of Athanasius and the Three Cappadocians, places somewhat more emphasis on the three hypostases; the Western tradition, based on Augustine of Hippo's interpretation of the Trinity a few decades later in three volumes, emphasizes rather the unity.
Augustine of Hippo argues that it is only through the Trinity that love can be an eternal trait of God. Love always needs a counterpart: a non-trinitarian God could therefore only love after he had created a counterpart whom he could love. The triune God, however, has from eternity the counterpart of love in himself, as Jesus describes it in Joh 17,24 ELB.
Filioque dispute
Different opinions about the relations between Father, Son and Spirit finally led to the Filioque controversy. The original Greek text, which the Council had established as dogma, reads: "... and to the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Life-Giver, who proceeds from the Father ..." The Synod of Toledo in 447 approved the phrase, "... that the Spirit also is the Helper, not the Father Himself nor the Son, but proceeding from the Father and the Son. So unbegotten is the Father, begotten the Son, not begotten the Helper, rather proceeding from the Father and the Son." This formulation became accepted in the Roman Church from the 9th century onwards, but was not acceptable in the Orthodox Church, since it was a unilateral modification of the decision of a universally recognized ecumenical council, and since it contradicted the ancient interpretation of the Trinity.
The Filioque dispute was one of the main causes of the Oriental Schism (1054) and it has not been settled to this day.
Athanasian Creed
Then, in the 6th century, the Athanasian Creed, named after but not composed by Athanasius of Alexandria, emerged in the West. The theology of this creed is strongly based on the theology of the Western church fathers Ambrose († 397) and Augustine († 430) and was further developed by Bonaventure of Bagnoregio († 1274) as well as Nicolaus Cusanus († 1464).
| But this is the Catholic faith: We worship the one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, without confusion of persons and without separation of essence. Another is the person of the father, another the son's, another that of the Holy Spirit. But Father and Son and Holy Spirit have only one Godhead, equal glory, equal eternal majesty. […] Therefore, whoever wishes to be blessed must believe this of the Most Holy Trinity. |
Today most church historians regard the Niceno-Constantinopolitanum of 381 as the first and essential binding confession of the Trinity. The Athanasian Creed, which is about two hundred years younger and only widespread in the West, has never had the theological or liturgical significance of the Niceno-Constantinopolitanum, even in the Western Church.
Synod of Toledo (675)
The Catholic Church formulated the doctrine of the Trinity as dogma in the 11th Synod of Toledo in 675, confirmed it in the 4th Lateran Council in 1215, and never questioned it thereafter.
