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In this post I will be quoting from Origen’s De Principiis to show how this brilliant theologian interpreted the words of our Lord to the rich young ruler that God alone is good (cf. Mark 10:17-18; Matthew 19:16-17; Luke 18:18-19). Origen explained this in respect to the Father being the unbegotten Source/Fountainhead of Deity, from which all the essential divine qualities such as goodness originate. Origen taught that the Son and the Holy Spirit eternally and fully possess

I continue from where I left off from Book II of Origen’s commentary on John: Origen: Trinity, Creatio Ex Nihilo & the Church as Spiritual Israel. 22. The Word Was in the Beginning, I.e., in Wisdom, Which Contained All Things in Idea, Before They Existed. Christ's Character as Wisdom is Prior to His Other Characters. So many meanings occur to us at once of the word arche. We have now to ask which of them we should adopt for our text, In the beginning was the Word. It is pla

In this post I will be quoting from the Commentary on John (Origen). The citations that I will be providing will help the readers see that Origen affirms, The Monarchy (monarchia) of the Father, that he is the unbegotten Source of Divinity. Christ is the uncreated Wisdom of God, being the timelessly begotten Son of the Father. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. Christ is God the Word who appeared to the OT prophets

NOTES FOR ANTHONY ROGERS’ REBUTTAL In their zeal against and hatred of Mary’s perpetual virginity, rabid anti-Catholic calvinists such as Anthony Rogers will cite Psalm 69:8 to prove that the blessed Mother of our Lord (Cf. Luke 1:43) had biological children after giving birth to Christ. This is because there are elements of this Psalm which are applied to Jesus. I.e. Psalm 69:9 is quoted in John 2:17 (cf. 12-16) and Romans 15:3, with Psalm 69:22-23, and 25 being referenced i

Having established that Luke-Acts emphatically teach that salvation comes from trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts, Animal Sacrifices & Christ's Death Pt. 1), and not by the Law and/or the sacrificial system prescribed by Moses, we can now address the verses in question. Here they are one more time: “Then on the next day, Paul took the men and purified himself with them. And he went into the temple, announcing when the days of purification would be complete and an offerin

In a desperate attempt of trying to find ways to undermine the necessity and sufficiency of the death of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, some Muhammmadans have begun to appeal to the following verses from the book of Acts https://bloggingtheology.net/2017/04/05/did-earliest-christians-believe-alleged-crucifixion-to-be-indispensable/: “When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. On the next day Paul went with us to James, and all the elders were present

In this post I will provide some of the data from rabbinic sources showing that the Jews believed in the intercession of deceased prophets and righteous, holy men. For instance, rabbinic authorities state that the reason why Rachel was buried close to Bethlehem is because she would intercede for her descendants when the Babylonians would take them into captivity, an event which occurred centuries after her death: As for me, when I came from Padan, etc.. Although I burden

The excerpts cited here are taken from The Antient Syriac Version of the Epistles of St. Ignatius to St. Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans Together with Extracts from His Epistles, Collected from the Writings of Severus of Antioch, Timotheus of Alexandria, and Others: Edited with an English Translation and Notes : Also the Greek Text of These Three Epistles, Corrected According to the Authority of the Syriac Version. All emphasis will be mine. “... Expect Him who is a

The following translation is taken from: Trallians – Roberts-Donaldson English Translation (Shorter and Longer Recensions). It contains the shorter (Syriac) and longer recensions of St. Ignatius’ letter to the Trallans. The post quotes the shorter recension first. All emphasis will be mine. Shorter and Longer Versions Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the holy Church which is at Tralles, in Asia, beloved of God, the Father of Jesus Christ, elect, and worthy of God,

The translation employed here is taken from Ephesians – Roberts-Donaldson English Translation (Shorter and Longer Recensions) It contains the shorter (Syriac) and longer recensions of St. Ignatius’ letter to the Romans. The post quotes the shorter recension first. All emphasis will be mine. Shorter and Longer Versions Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which is at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness and fulness of God th

The following is taken from: Romans – Roberts-Donaldson English Translation (Shorter and Longer Recensions). It contains the shorter (Syriac) and longer recensions of St. Ignatius’ letter to the Romans. The post quotes the shorter recension first. All emphasis will be mine. Shorter and Longer Versions Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which has obtained mercy, through the majesty of the Most High Father, and Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son; the Church

The translation used here is taken from: To Polycarp – Roberts-Donaldson English Translation (Shorter and Longer Recensions). It contains the shorter (Syriac) and longer recensions of St. Ignatius’ letter to St. Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna. The post quotes the shorter recension first. All emphasis will be mine. Shorter and Longer Versions Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to Polycarp, Bishop of the Church of the Smyrnaeans, or rather, who has, as his own bishop, God

The following are some of the citations I employed in my talk on the Lord’s death and resurrection with Christian apologist and evangelist Hatun Tash of DCCI ministries. THE MATERIAL IN 1 CORINTHIANS 15:3-8 DATED WITHIN 2-3 YEARS OF JESUS’ RESURRECTION The majority of scholars, both conservative and liberal, believe that this specific tradition which speaks of Jesus’ post-mortem appearances to both disciples and hostile enemies such as James, was formulated within 2-3 years a

The quotations found in this post are taken from Robert E. Winn’s Eusebius of Emesa: Church and Theology in the Mid-Fourth Century, published by The Catholic University of America Press in 2011. Eusebius was the bishop of Emesa and a student of Eusebius of Caesarea. This is significant since we would expect to find the Bishop of Emesa’s Trinitarianism to be in line with that of his mentor. I now quote the section that deals primarily with Eusebius’ Trinitarianism that is fo

We come to the last part of the series: Eusebius on the Trinity Part 2. Chapter 12 (1) And yet the great man who is at once both evangelist and theologian, having mentioned the Word three times in this passage, has not only said that he is Word of God. For he did not say, “In the beginning was the Word of God,” but indefinitely, “In the beginning was the Word,”150 having left it to us to investigate what sort of Word he was. And again, he said, “And the Word was with God,

I continue from where I previously left off: Eusebius on the Trinity Part 1. NOW THAT THE testimonies from the divine Scriptures have been presented, in which it was shown that the Son of God was called not only “Word” before his coming in the flesh (as Marcellus thought) but also many other things, come now, let us consider the remaining idol of Sabellius, which has, as it were, popped up out of the earth.1 For he dared to say that the God who is over all,2 the Father of o

In this series of posts I will quoting from Against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical Theology (Fathers of the Church Patristic Series), translated by Kelley McCarthy Spoerl & Markus Vinzent, and published by The Catholic University of America Press in 2017. It is the refutation of Eusebius of Caesarea against the heretic Marcellus. The aim of citing this work is to show that Eusebius was a Trinitarian who affirmed that the Son and the Holy Spirit are uncreated Divine Hyposta

There are some Christians that believe that there is a specific verse in the book of Isaiah, which explicitly points to the Trinity. It is Isaiah 48:16, the context of which I quote so the readers can see why this passage is taken as evidence for the Trinity. Isaiah 48 “Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name Israel And who came forth from the loins of Judah, Who swear by the name of Yahweh And bring to remembrance the God of Israel, But not in truth or in

The quotations cited here are taken from the online translation of the Zohar: Full Zohar Online. The Zohar states that there will be two Messiahs, one from the line of David and the other from Joseph’s line. The Davidic Messiah is symbolized by a lion whereas the Messiah from Joseph is represented by an ox. These images are taken from specific Old Testament texts such as Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33. The Zohar also ascribes other OT verses to the Messiah, including Isaiah 53

The following excerpt is taken from St. Augustine’s On the Holy Trinity, Book 4. In it, the blessed saint reasons that the Father’s sending of the Son into the world is a sign and reflection of the Father’s having eternally begotten/generated the Son. Augustine takes this economic procession, e.g., the Father’s sending forth the Son to be born of a woman, as indicative of their eternal relationship. It is because the Father eternally begets and the Son is eternally begotten t