Late 2nd - Early 3rd Century Flashcards
What ideas came from the Jewish background to support the pre-existence of Jesus?
Law as Pre-existant, pre-existant wisdom (Jewish wisdom literature) and
pre-existant messeah and pre-existent spirit.
What is the possible Jewish background for the term Logos (OT & Targums)?
Found in OT: “word of the Lord” and in the use in the Jewish Targums
(paraphrases of Scripture) of the memra (“word”) of the Lord as an
intermediary between God and his world
What are the two important meanings of the word logos that Ferguson highlights from the Greek side?
1) as the reason in the mind, the rational word
2) as the word on the tongue, the spoken word
Fill in the blanks: ‘In philosophy there was Stoic speculation about the ___________________________ (sometimes expressed by logos) that gave ________________ to the universe.’
rational principle
order
What is the affirmation John makes about the Logos that is ‘not found in either the Greek or Jewish backgrounds’?
He declared that the Logos became incarnate as a specific historical person.
‘Modalism is the name for the view that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were’ what?
…Successive modes of activity and revelation of the one God.
What was the ‘one implication of the Modalistic identification of the Father and Son’ that led to the use of ‘the term “patripassianism”’?
That the Father suffered on the cross
Who was ‘the most important representative of Modalism’?
Sabellius
Above all, what does Irenaeus want to avoid “assigning” to the generation of the Word?
A beginning and production
Irenaeus returns to his point that we shouldn’t think of the generation of the Word along the lines of the analogy of human speech. Who, according to Irenaeus, does and does not understand the Son’s “production, or generation, or calling, or revelation”?
No one understands it - Generation of the Word is affirmed but without speculation
If creation didn’t occur by angels, or other gods, or powers, or whatever, then who was responsible for creation according to Irenaeus in 4.20.1?
Hands of God = Son and Holy Spirit create
- Creation = work proper to God, therefore Son and Spirit are equal to Father in divinity, this is the logic he uses to argue that all three are equal, creation is also how he argues they are one because distinguishes the three because of their different roles
Though it is One God who creates, Irenaeus assigns distinct roles or activities to each of the members of the Trinity. Creation occurs as the result of the Father’s will, it is his decision to create (4.20.1), what are the two different aspects of creation that Irenaeus says in 4.20.2 God did by his Word and by his Wisdom?
Son/Word- Creates; brings everything into being
Spirit/Wisdom - Adorns; forms them into meaningful whole
Irenaeus moves to show that the Holy Spirit also “was present with [God the Father], anterior to all creation.”
1- What verses does he quote in order to prove the eternal existence of the Holy Spirit?
2- How do these verses go about proving the Spirit’s eternal existence?
3 - And the identification of the Spirit with what figure is crucial to the success of Irenaeus’ argument?
1- Proverbs alluding to wisdom
2 - If the spirit creates, it cannot be a created being and is eternal
3- WISODM : ID of the Spirit as Wisdom establishes his eternality
Name and Example of the 2-Stage Logos Theology.
Theophilus of Antioch
Theophilus gives an excellent illustration of what has come to be called 2-stage Logos theology. Indeed, Theophilus is the first writer in whom we find such a division in the existence of the Word of God. Where did “the Word, that always exists” reside prior to creation (“before anything came into being”)?
The word resided within the heart of God -Psalm 44:1 in the Septuagint
