Jake’s central argument is that if the Trinity were clearly taught by Jesus and the Bible, we should find recognizable Trinitarians within the first three centuries. He then defines “Nicene” using six propositions, including eternal generation/procession and the eternal equality of the three persons, and uses those criteria to judge the ante-Nicene writers. That gives us the target. And honestly, Part III is where Jake’s argument starts developing a rather serious case of theological whiplash. The writers he examines repeatedly give him precisely what his thesis says should not be there: pre-existence, divine Sonship, Logos theology, triadic baptism, Father-Son-Spirit language, Christ as God, divine creative agency, and, in Theophilus and Athenagoras… language moving remarkably close to later Trinitarian formulation.
The problem isn’t that every second-century apologist was a fully developed Nicene theologian. They weren’t. The problem is Jake repeatedly treats “not yet Nicene” as equivalent to “therefore fundamentally non-Trinitarian,” while the historical evidence is considerably messier—and, inconveniently for his thesis, considerably more Trinitarian in trajectory. Let me begin with Jake’s strongest point. Yes, Justin Martyr is not Athanasius. There. I said it. A second-century Christian did not possess a time machine, sneak into Alexandria in 318, steal Athanasius’s notes, attend Nicaea, memorize homoousios, travel back to 150, and then submit a doctoral thesis entitled “Why My Colleagues Are All Doing Trinitarianism Wrong.”
Of course the language develops. But that observation does not prove that the underlying theology was invented centuries later. That is the enormous distinction Jake repeatedly blurs. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for example, notes that Justin’s Logos theology is hierarchical and “not, properly, trinitarian,” while simultaneously emphasizing that Jesus was already being worshipped alongside God in early Christianity. That is a much more historically responsible conclusion: development without invention.
Quadratus of Athens
Jake begins cautiously here because, frankly, he doesn’t have much material to work with. Quadratus’ Apology is largely lost. What survives is a small fragment preserved by Eusebius, in which Quadratus speaks of Christ’s miraculous works and calls Him “Our Saviour.” Jake admits that we know very little about Quadratus’s theology. The chapter therefore cannot possibly function as negative evidence for the non-existence of Trinitarian theology. This is important. The argument from silence strikes again…. If only a fragment survives, then: “Quadratus does not explicitly teach Nicene Trinitarianism” is true.
But: “Quadratus therefore did not believe anything resembling Trinitarian Christianity” doesn’t follow. That’s not historical reasoning. That’s theological archaeology conducted with an empty shovel. And the irony is delicious: Jake’s own method elsewhere condemns arguments from silence, yet here a mutilated literary witness is effectively recruited as evidence for what Quadratus didn’t believe. That simply won’t do. Scholars to keep in view the broader methodological point is consistent with work by Eusebius, Johannes Quasten, Henry Chadwick, J.N.D. Kelly, Everett Ferguson, and William R. Schoedel: fragments tell us what survives, not everything an author believed. Quadratus therefore gives us positive Christological evidence but insufficient negative evidence. So, the verdict…. Quadratus cannot carry Jake’s argument. The evidence is simply too fragmentary.
Aristides of Athens
Now things become considerably more interesting. Jake observes that Aristides describes God as uncreated, invisible, immortal, and incomprehensible, while Christ becomes incarnate, visible, and dies. Therefore, Jake argues, Aristides cannot be Trinitarian. But this is essentially the ancient equivalent of saying: “Jesus got tired. God doesn’t get tired. CHECKMATE.” Who remembers Ahmed Deedat’s stale arguments that sounded like this… Except Christians had already been arguing about Christ’s divine and human existence for a very long time. Aristides says: “The Christians, then, trace the beginning of their religion from Jesus the Messiah; and he is named the Son of God Most High.” And in the Syriac form of the text, the language is even more striking: God comes down from heaven and assumes flesh.
Jake actually acknowledges the extraordinary Christological material. The problem is his inference. Aristides is describing God transcendently and Christ incarnationally… That isn’t automatically a contradiction. The Christian claim is precisely that the Son becomes incarnate. So when Aristides says God is invisible and then describes Christ becoming visible, the relevant question isn’t: “Did Aristides contradict himself?” The real question is rather, “How does Aristides understand the relationship between divine transcendence and incarnation?” And Jake himself admits the obvious answer available to a Trinitarian… “Trinitarians also accept that God is not born in some sense and is not ignorant. However, they accept that Jesus is God and was born of Mary and did not know everything in his human nature.” Exactly. You have just described the problem and then supplied the orthodox answer (Thanks).
The fact that Aristides doesn’t provide the later Chalcedonian vocabulary doesn’t solve the question. It merely demonstrates that Aristides is not writing a fifth-century Christological definition. The real problem for Jake is that Aristides explicitly places Christian knowledge of God “through the only begotten Son and the Holy Spirit.” That is not Nicene precision. But it is hardly Unitarian simplicity either… There is one God, the Creator, the only-begotten Son, the Holy Spirit, incarnation, salvation, and Christian worship. That is precisely the sort of proto-Trinitarian conceptual ecosystem from which later dogmatic precision emerges. And the conceptual categories that make Nicene language possible! So, the overall verdict? Aristides does not give us a Nicene Creed. He does give us a remarkably high Christology embedded within a triadic Christian theology.
Justin Martyr: Jake’s Main Event
Now we arrive at Jake’s favorite punching bag. Justin. And I actually agree with Jake on something important. Justin is not Nicene… But here’s where the argument goes off the rails. Jake treats Justin’s subordinationism as though discovering subordinationism in Justin proves that the Trinity itself had not yet emerged. It doesn’t. It proves that second-century Christian reflection on the relationship between Father and Son was still developing. That’s a much smaller claim. And Justin gives us an extraordinary amount of evidence that makes Jake’s thesis increasingly difficult to maintain. Justin calls Christ “God.” He identifies Christ as the pre-existent Logos. He says Christ appeared to Moses. He says Christ created through the Father. He identifies Christ as Lord.
He places Father, Son and Spirit together in baptism. He describes Christ as worthy of worship. He identifies Christ with the divine figure appearing to Abraham. And he repeatedly insists that Christianity remains monotheistic. As I have said over and over again! The historical problem is therefore not: “Was Justin Nicene?” No. He wasn’t. Again! The historical problem is… Why does Jake think a non-Nicene second-century Christology proves that the Trinity was invented rather than developed? That’s one heck of a leap!
What about Justin’s “other God” language
I mentioned this earlier, but let me repeat it again. Jake’s favourite passage is Dialogue 56: “another God and Lord subject to the Maker of all things”. That is undeniably subordinationist language. But notice something important. Justin does not say that “Jesus is merely a human prophet.” He says the Logos is divine. He says the Logos is pre-existent. He says the Logos is Creator’s agent. He says the Logos appeared to Moses. He says the Logos is God. He says the Logos became incarnate. So what has Jake actually demonstrated? Not that Justin had low Christology. He has demonstrated that Justin has a high Christology combined with hierarchical Logos theology. And that is precisely what serious scholarship recognizes.
The Stanford Encyclopedia describes Justin’s scheme as hierarchical, but also acknowledges that Justin’s Logos is the pre-human Jesus and that the early Christian worship of Jesus predates the later Logos theories. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Likewise, the Cambridge discussion of Justin’s interpretation of Genesis 18 describes the Logos as numerically distinct from the Father while still sharing the Father’s will and exercising divine authority. (Cambridge University Press). So Jake isn’t wrong about Justin’s subordinationism. He’s wrong about what that subordinationism proves.
The Justin problem becomes even bigger
Justin says “For Christ is King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and angel, and man…” That’s not exactly the language of someone trying to demote Jesus into the category of “merely human messenger.” Justin also says Christ existed before the heavenly bodies and became incarnate. And then he gives us the baptismal formula: “in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit.” Now, Jake’s response is essentially: “Yes, but he doesn’t explain this in Nicene metaphysical categories.”
Correct. But again: That isn’t the same argument…. A doctrine can exist conceptually before its technical terminology stabilizes. The doctrine of the incarnation did not suddenly begin existing because someone eventually wrote hypostatic union on a piece of parchment. The word came later. The theological problem came earlier. And here’s the funny part Jake’s six Nicene criteria include:
- full divinity,
- distinct persons,
- Father unbegotten,
- eternal procession,
- one Most High God,
- all eternally true.
Fine….. But if you construct a test that requires a second-century writer to affirm the final fourth-century solution to fourth-century controversies, then you have guaranteed the result before examining the evidence. It’s like asking whether Newton was Einsteinian. “Newton wasn’t Einsteinian.” Correct…. “Therefore Newton didn’t understand gravity.” Immmm..… No. That’s not how intellectual history works.
Tatian
Tatian actually makes Jake’s developmental argument even more obvious. Tatian speaks about “the heavenly Logos” that was with the Father and participated in creation. He describes the Logos as pre-existent and as the “Framer’ of angels. He uses the imagery of the Logos proceeding from the Father’s Logos-power. So again… High Christology? Yes. Nicene metaphysics? No. And Jake repeatedly treats those as mutually exclusive. They aren’t. Tatian’s theology is clearly influenced by the intellectual environment of Middle Platonism and the broader Logos tradition. That makes his theology hierarchical. But the crucial point is that Christianity is now doing something historically significant, and that is that Jesus is being integrated into a sophisticated account of God’s relation to creation. This is key! The Logos is not merely “God’s plan.” The Logos is personal enough to create, reveal, speak, become incarnate and mediate God’s activity. That’s theological development. Not theological nothingness.
Melito of Sardis
Melito is where Jake’s argument starts doing gymnastics. Because Melito says things about Christ that are astonishingly high. For example: “the man was God.” And “God has been murdered.” As well as.. “he was buried as a man, and rose from the dead as God, being God by his nature and a man.” That’s huge. Jake admits this. Then Melito says that “He is father, in that he begets. He is son, in that he is begotten.” Now Jake says this is a clear case of Modalism!
And here, unlike some of the earlier cases, Jake actually has a serious point. Melito’s language is difficult. Very difficult. Scholars such as Alistair Stewart-Sykes, Stuart George Hall, Johannes Quasten and Bonner have wrestled with precisely this issue. The text does contain language that can sound modalistic. But notice what happens next. Jake uses Melito’s ambiguity to support the proposition that “The Trinity wasn’t there.” Yet Melito simultaneously gives us one of the strongest Christological affirmations in the entire second century. This means Melito isn’t evidence for the idea that “Jesus was merely a creature.” He is evidence for “Second-century Christians were wrestling intensely with how to express the unity of God and the deity of Christ.”
And that’s precisely the historical problem that eventually produces more refined Trinitarian language. This is why my pal James White is much more positive about Melito’s Christology, while Stewart-Sykes and Hall are considerably more cautious. That disagreement itself is revealing. The scholarly debate is over how to interpret Melito’s extremely high Christology—not whether Melito had a low Christology. That’s a rather important distinction.
Athenagoras — and Jake’s “Oops, Almost Trinity” Moment
Athenagoras is probably the most uncomfortable witness in the entire chapter for Jake’s thesis. Why? Because Athenagoras says that “God the Father, and God the Son, and the Holy Spirit” and speaks of “their power in union and their distinction in order.” And then mentions that “the Father and the Son being one.” And “the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son.” This is not a vague triadic reference…. This is sophisticated theological reflection. The Plea explicitly speaks of Father, Son and Spirit, their unity, their distinction and the Logos. Modern scholarship recognizes the significance of this passage. (MDPI). Indeed, the Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Philosophy describes Athenagoras’ formulation as probably the earliest surviving doctrine that can be called Trinitarian. (Ebrary).
Now Jake’s answer is, “Yes, but Athenagoras is still a two-stage Logos theologian.” Fair enough. There is real subordinationist language. Athenagoras calls the Logos the Father’s “first product” and describes the Spirit as an “effluence.” That is not Nicene theology. But again… As I showed before, people… Jake has just demonstrated development. He hasn’t demonstrated invention. Athenagoras is wrestling with difficult ideas like divine unity, Fatherhood, Sonship, Logos, Spirit, unity, distinction, creation, divine power. That’s not “the Trinity doesn’t exist.” That’s the theological machinery being assembled!
Theophilus of Antioch
Now we reach the moment where Jake’s argument becomes particularly difficult to sustain. Because Theophilus gives us the word τριάς (triad). He writes:
“the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His wisdom.”
Yes, Jake correctly observes that trias doesn’t automatically mean the fully developed Nicene doctrine. No one disputes the fact… Correct. But here’s the thing. Nobody needs it to. The historical significance of Theophilus is precisely that Christian theological language is moving toward explicit triadic terminology. Stuart Parsons notes that Theophilus is the first known Christian writer to use trias in this way (Cambridge University Press). And contemporary scholarship is more nuanced than Jake’s binary. Recent scholarship describes Theophilus as evidencing implicit Trinitarianism, while also recognizing that this is not identical to later explicit Nicene doctrine (trinityflorida.academia.edu). That is exactly the distinction Jake needs but repeatedly refuses to make…. Theophilus is not Nicene. Theophilus is not therefore non-Trinitarian in the broad historical sense. Those propositions can both be true. And that is precisely why doctrinal development matters.
Irenaeus of Lyons
This is where Jake’s methodology really begins to wobble. Irenaeus is important because he is not simply another speculative apologist. He is deeply concerned with core constituents that would bring life to the doctrine of the Church. Concepts like apostolic tradition, the rule of faith, the unity of God, and the persons of the Father, Son, and Spirit. He goes into creation, incarnation, redemption, recapitulation. He is also fighting Gnostic systems that divide the Creator from the Redeemer. That context matters enormously. What amazes me is that views on redemption, creation, and other points of the faith went through the same development as the Christian community searched for valuable ways to describe scriptural realities…. Some of which we even try to communicate today.
Irenaeus’ God is one
And that one God acts through His Word and Spirit. His famous “two hands” imagery identifies the Son and Spirit as God’s own agents in creation. This is not Justin’s simple Middle-Platonic “second God” scheme. And this is where John Behr, Michel René Barnes, Jackson Lashier, and Denis Minns become extremely important. Lashier’s dissertation argues that Irenaeus possesses a significantly more developed Trinitarian theology than older scholarship has allowed (e-Publications). Minns, meanwhile, emphasizes the primitive and economically focused character of Irenaeus’s theology (Bloomsbury). Those aren’t identical interpretations. But neither warrants Jake’s simplistic conclusion.
Here’s the crucial historical development for Justin. He speaks of the Father and the Logos evident in the acts of creation. For Athenagoras, he highlights the work of the Father, Son, and Spirit. He affirms their unity and distinction. Theophilus then clarifies the distinction between God (Father), Logos (the Son), and Wisdom (Spirit), which sheds light on the “Trinity”. Irenaeus speaks of One God, the Father, Son and Spirit, acting inseparably in creation and salvation… Do we have Nicaea yet? Nope…. we don’t… Do we have the raw conceptual trajectory? Absolutely. And even Jake’s own cited scholarship concedes that Irenaeus cannot simply be reduced to a crude Unitarian model. Lashier explicitly argues that Irenaeus’s theology develops beyond the earlier apologists toward a more mature understanding of divine unity and the eternal relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit (e-Publications).
Minucius Felix
Minucius is the weakest witness for Jake, and ironically Jake knows it. Minucius doesn’t provide developed Trinitarian or Nicene theology. But he does provide a striking Christian monotheism in which God creates and orders everything through Word, Wisdom, Power… Jake himself concedes that this could be a glimpse of Trinitarian theology. But then he immediately dismisses it because it doesn’t look Nicene. The question is never answered: HOW did these Christian thinkers get these “triadic patterns”? It is again just assumed they were all…welll….anything but Trinitarian.
Again… same methodological problem (You will see I probably repeat this problem so many times it is hard to count). Minucius is not a fourth-century theologian. His purpose in Octavius is apologetic rather than systematic. And his emphasis on the transcendence of God does not establish that he denied the Son’s deity. It establishes that he is working within the same developing apologetic environment as the other writers.
The fatal methodological problem
Jake’s argument can essentially be reduced to: If doctrine X was clearly taught, writers in period Y should express doctrine X with later technical precision. But that’s an extraordinarily poor model of doctrinal development. I am being generous and very kind in my wording here. Consider the absurdity if we applied it elsewhere. If the New Testament teaches the doctrine of the incarnation, where is the phrase “hypostatic union”? If the New Testament teaches Christ’s two natures, where is “one person in two natures, without confusion, change, division or separation”? If the New Testament teaches the resurrection, where is the later technical vocabulary of Christian eschatology? If the New Testament teaches canon, where is the formal 27-book table of contents? Technical formulation is not identical to doctrinal existence.
And this is where Lewis Ayres (peace be upon him) becomes important… Ayres’ work on the Nicene period demonstrates that fourth-century Trinitarian theology cannot simply be portrayed as someone suddenly inventing a doctrine in 325. The fourth-century debates were about how to interpret and articulate inherited Christian convictions, especially concerning divine unity and the Son’s relation to the Father. That’s precisely what the second century shows us. Not a finished cathedral. But certainly not an empty building site either… There are already walls. There are foundations. There are doors. There are people arguing about where to put the windows. Jake looks at the building and says: “Aha! No cathedral!” Well… yes. It’s not finished. That was rather the point.
The really inconvenient evidence: worship
This is where Larry Hurtado’s work is particularly devastating to any simplistic “late invention” narrative. The early Christian movement already placed Jesus within devotional practices associated with God. The question therefore isn’t merely, “Did Justin define homoousios?” The question is; Why were Christians worshipping Jesus in a monotheistic Jewish-Christian environment at all? Hurtado’s work argues that devotion to Jesus belongs remarkably early to Christianity. The Stanford Encyclopedia likewise notes that recent scholarship has demonstrated that Jesus was worshipped alongside God in the earliest known Christianity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). That means the historical trajectory is not from Jewish monotheism to paganism and then the doctrine of the Trinity as Jake’s apologetic framework sometimes suggests. It is considerably more complicated. And any simplistic ideas like Jake’s would not account for the overall schema of things. It was rather Jewish monotheism to the exalted Jesus and His divine identity/deity to Logos theology and a Triadic theological reflection which brings increasingly precise Trinitarian grammar. That is development for the 168-time.
The biggest irony of Part III
Jake’s own evidence repeatedly gives us: Quadratus – Christ is Savior. Aristides – Christ is Son of God Most High, pre-existent and incarnate; Christianity knows God through the Son and the Holy Spirit. Justin – Christ is pre-existent Logos, God, Creator-agent, Lord, Messiah and object of Christian worship. Tatian – The pre-existent Logos creates humanity and angels. Melito – Christ is God by nature, Creator, incarnate, and the one who is raised as God. Athenagoras – Father, Son and Spirit possess unity and distinction. Theophilus – God, Word and Wisdom are explicitly called a Triad. Irenaeus – The one God acts through Father, Son and Spirit, with an increasingly integrated theology of salvation and divine identity. Minucius Felix – God creates and orders through Word, Wisdom and Power. And after presenting all of that, Jake concludes, “Where are the Trinitarians?” Mate… They’re standing in the pages. They just haven’t all learned the fourth-century vocabulary yet.
The distinction Jake desperately needs
Jake’s theory needs three categories to work. It goes as follows:
1. Fully Nicene Trinitarian – Father, Son and Spirit are one God, co-equal and co-eternal, with fully developed metaphysical terminology. First century? Rare to nonexistent.
2. Developing/Proto-Trinitarian – Father, Son and Spirit are integrated into Christian worship, Scripture, creation, salvation and divine identity, but the metaphysical explanation remains incomplete or hierarchical. Second century? Absolutely.
3. Non-Trinitarian – Christ is merely human or merely a creature and is excluded from the divine identity. That is not an adequate description of the entire second-century apologetic corpus. And that threefold distinction destroys Jake’s false binary.
The verdict on Part III of Jake’s story…
Jake has demonstrated something historians already knew… Second-century Christianity was not fourth-century Christianity. Congratulations…. (No shock at all)… But he has not demonstrated therefore that the Trinity was invented in the fourth century. That conclusion simply does not follow. In fact, Part III repeatedly undermines the very thesis it is supposed to establish. The Apologists are not standing at the beginning of Christianity saying “Listen… Jesus was simply a prophet, and God is simply the Father.” Instead, they are wrestling with an increasingly difficult question, which is: “How can Christians confess one God while simultaneously proclaiming the pre-existent, divine Logos/Son and speaking of the Holy Spirit within the divine economy?. THAT is the freakin question! And that question is already visible from Justin to Tatian to Melito to Athenagoras to Theophilus to Irenaeus. Now, I am not saying they knowingly developed each other’s ideas until they arrived at a Nicene corpus. No, they tried instead to make sense of the Biblical complexity and shape their understanding of God in that order. The terminology therefore develops…. No surprise. The conceptual precision develops. The philosophical vocabulary develops. The pneumatology develops. The doctrine of divine generation develops. The language of unity and distinction develops. But the theological problem is already there. That is precisely why Nicaea happened, people!
Not because Constantine woke up one morning and thought, “You know what Christianity needs? A Trinity.” Rather, because centuries of Christian reflection had generated increasingly precise answers to a question that was already embedded in Christian Scripture, worship, and theology. If your argument is: “Therefore the Trinity was absent from early Christianity and was fabricated centuries later.” Then you’ve changed the question halfway through the game. The second-century evidence is far more inconvenient than that….believe me! It is the only sure way to make it collectively fit. It gives us one God, Father, Son and Spirit; a pre-existent divine Logos; Christ identified as God; Christ involved in creation; Christ appearing to Israel; triadic baptism; triadic worship; divine Sonship; divine agency; and increasingly explicit language of unity and distinction. And by Theophilus, we even have the word τριάς.
No, Theophilus isn’t Athanasius. But neither is a seed a tree. You don’t prove that the oak was invented in 300 CE merely because the second-century acorn didn’t have branches. That, essentially, is the problem with Jake’s Part III.
Jake has mistaken development for invention, incompleteness for contradiction, and the absence of later terminology for the absence of earlier theological substance. And once that methodological confusion is removed, the apologetic evidence looks rather different. Nicaea did not drop the Trinity into Christianity from outer space. It inherited a problem Christianity had already been wrestling with for centuries; and supplied a more precise vocabulary for defending the church’s confession.
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