Justin Martyr: A Very Early Testimony to the Trinity
The earliest record we have of testimony among church leaders to the doctrine defining God as specifically triune comes from Justin Martyr. He was born in about 114 A.D. in a city of Samaria called Flavia Neopolis, known today as Nablous. He accepts the charge from the Greeks, whose gods he has exposed as frauds, that he, from their perspective, is an “atheist” from their perspective in chapter six of his “First Apology”:
Hence we are called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of his sort are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity. But both Him, and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, knowing them in reason and truth, and declaring without grudging to every one who wishes to learn, as we have been taught.
Indeed, that doctrine, as all major doctrines – such as the depravity of man, eternal punishment, eschatology (judgment at the end of history), the indwelling of the church by the Holy Spirit (the second person of the Trinity), and salvation (from sin through conversion and fellowship with the Church – has been carried on down through the centuries throughout the world.
It is good that the Scriptures have been preserved. (Indeed, if all Bibles on earth were lost, the Bible could be put back together through the quotations found in the writings of the Church Fathers.) And from the Scriptures directly and from the doctrines affirmed by Church leaders and the creeds down through, we have a reliable message from God through His inspired prophets and apostles.
Thanks be to God for His Word and His faithful Churches which affirm the one true God. Praise to the Father! Praise to His only Son! Praise to the Spirit! Praise to the Three in One!
And, sadly, but rightly, anathema to those who deny Him.
17 Oct., 2022
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