The first Christians had a problem.
You probably know that the first Christians were also Jews. In the world of the Roman Empire, Jews were famous for the fact that they worshipped only one God. To them, God was like Willy Wonka’s Everlasting Gobstopper. One is all you get, because one is all you need. But for those Jews who embraced Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, this presented a bit of a problem. This is because following Jesus as Messiah and Savior also meant participating in worship that put Jesus at the center of the adoration. In other words, from the very beginning of the life of the Church, Christians have always worshipped Jesus.
What does it mean to worship Jesus? In Jewish thought, worship means two things: submission and service. To worship God was to submit to the will of God, and to serve God, in the temple and in the world. But with the coming of Jesus, and the belief that He was in fact the Christ (which is just the Greek word for Messiah, or “anointed one”), early Christian worship included Jesus. In a practical sense, this meant conducting sacraments in the name of Christ, reciting statements of faith that make Christ the object of faith, singing songs to (or about) Christ, and praying to Christ in ways that ask for His presence and intervention in the lives of individuals and the Church. Thus Christians now saw themselves as submitting to, and serving, Jesus Christ.
So here’s the problem. Since the early Christians were also Jews, they were not about to give up their conviction that they must worship only one God. But their experiences with the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus compelled them to believe that they should also worship Jesus. In fact, they came to believe that they must worship Jesus, that worshipping Jesus was worshipping God, and if they did not worship Jesus, they would somehow be rejecting God (see Lk. 10:16). However, they soon had to answer the question, How can you call yourself a good Jew and worship Jesus? In other words, how do you reconcile monotheism (the worship of one God) with the worship of Jesus? How can you claim to worship only one God and yet also worship Jesus Christ?
The Church’s solution to the problem is what we call the doctrine of the Trinity, and we can already see the early formulations of it in Scripture passages such as 1 Corinthians 8:6 and Philippians 2:6-11. The early theologians and bishops all justified the worship of Christ on the basis of their belief in His divine nature. In other words, the essence of who Christ is has always existed as the divine Word of God (see Jn. 1:1-5). But this Word also became human (see Jn. 1:14), so that it can be said that Christ has two natures, divine and human. Because He has a divine nature, He is worthy of our worship. Because He has a human nature, He is one of us.
Alternative Solutions to the Problem
As you might guess, there was quite a bit of disagreement and debate in the early Church over how to solve the problem of Christian monotheism. And as you might also guess, alternative solutions to the problem were proposed. These alternative solutions would come to be called heresy when the majority of early bishops discerned that they did not represent the interpretation that was most faithful to the whole witness of Scripture and prior tradition. As we will see, orthodoxy, or correct doctrine, would be defined to oppose and exclude these alternatives.
Specifically, some attempted to solve the problem by saying that Jesus and the Father are one and the same. They believed that Jesus was simply the Father wearing a fleshy disguise, and that the life and ministry of Jesus was nothing more than a manifestation of the Father walking among us. In other words, they said God is one because Jesus is the Father. However it didn’t take very long for the opponents of this interpretation to ask whether that meant that the Father died on the Cross. The response was that the humanity of Jesus, including His passion, was an illusion. Other early heretics called Gnostics also took the approach that the humanity of Jesus was an illusion, because they believed that divinity could not come into contact with the material world. This means that those who took this approach accepted the idea of the divine nature of Christ, but they denied the reality of His human nature.
Others attempted to solve the problem by rejecting the practice of worshipping Christ. These maintained that Christ Himself is not worthy of worship because He is not divine. In other words, God is one because Jesus is not God. Some of them taught that He was a prophet, like the ones in the Old Testament. Others taught that He was a man who was so perfectly obedient to God that God adopted Him as His son, and gave Him the gift of a permanent indwelling of a divine or angelic spirit. Some said it was the Holy Spirit, others called it the Christ Spirit, others said it was an angel. But the point is that whatever it was that made Jesus unique among humanity was not His by nature, but it was given to Him. People who believed this are called Adoptionists because they believe that Jesus is not the Son of God by nature, but by adoption. They taught that it was at Jesus’ baptism that He became the Son of God, and that He was not the Son of God before that. This means that those who took this approach accepted that Jesus was truly human, but they denied that He was divine.
The solution that the Church accepted was the “middle way” between these two extremes. In fact, the third century theologian Novatian would remark that the true Christ was being crucified again between these two thieves, trying to steal His humanity on one side, and His divinity on the other. The Church would affirm that Jesus Christ is both divine and human. In other words, Jesus Christ is God, but He is not the Father.
Good News and Bad News in the Fourth Century
The good news is that in the fourth century, the last and worst of the persecutions came to an end with the reign of the Emperor Constantine, who was (arguably) the first Christian emperor. In the year 312, he defeated his enemies at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge outside of Rome to become the emperor of the western empire. This allowed him to issue the Edict of Milan in the year 313, granting freedom of religion to the Christians. By the end of the year 324, he had conquered the eastern empire to become the sole emperor. The persecutions were over, and the Church had a friend on the throne.
The bad news is that the Church in the eastern empire was facing a controversy that threatened to lead to schism. Adoptionism had taken on a new form, in the person of a priest named Arius. His understanding of Jesus was basically adoptionist, however he had apparently accepted the idea of the preexistence of Christ, probably because he could not ignore John 1. So Arius taught that when the man Jesus was adopted by God, He was indwelt by the preexistent Word and, in a sense, became divine. In other words, Jesus was not divine by nature, but was rewarded with a kind of quasi-divinity, but a divinity that was not the same divinity as God the Father. Arius and his bishop accused each other of heresy, and the fight was on.
Ultimately the debate came down to the question of Christ’s preexistence. Based on John 1:1, Arius had to admit that the Word of God was preexistent. However he maintained that the Word was not eternally preexistent, but was in fact created by the Father before He created everything else. This meant that whatever divinity might be ascribed to Jesus after His adoption as the Son of God, it was still the case that (for Arius) Christ was a created being, and therefore not eternal. The “campaign slogan” for the followers of Arius became, There was a time when He was not, meaning that they believed there was a time when Christ did not exist.
However, the bishop and his supporters would eventually argue that if there was a time when the Son did not exist, then that would mean that there was a time when the Father was not a Father. Since they believed God could not change (from not a Father to being a Father), it was assumed that Arius’ interpretation of Christ would compromise the very definition of God. In addition, most of the bishops of the Church also recognized that such an understanding of Christ would have implications for salvation, to the point where believing Arius would mean believing in the wrong Christ—one who could not save.
The Apostle John described Christ as the divine Word who became flesh (see Jn. 1:1, 14). But Arius’ Christ was a man who became a god. The Christ of the Church comes down, in the sense that He starts out divine and acquires a human nature (see also Phil. 2:6-11). But Arius’ Christ is elevated, since He starts out human and acquires a measure of divinity, though not the same level of divinity as the Father. The Christ of the Church is both human and divine. But Arius’ Christ is somewhere in between humanity and divinity. The Christ of the Church is divine by nature, and we can become sons and daughters of God by adoption if we identify with Christ (see Jn. 1:10-12). But Arius’ Christ is really no different from the rest of us, since He must earn His own adoption by works. For Arius, to call Christ “Savior” would only mean that He set an example for us, showing us the way to earn our own adoption.
The Council and the Creed
As you can see, these are two very different ways of understanding Christ. What is more, they are not the kind of interpretations that can coexist, because they each have implications for the Church’s understanding of salvation. Arianism, in all its forms, naturally leads to diminishing the divinity of Christ and a salvation by works. So of course the Bishop of Alexandria would not back down. Arius would also not back down, since he believed that what the Church was teaching meant that Christians were worshipping two Gods. He argued, if both the Father and the Son are eternal . . . wouldn’t that make them Brothers?
The new emperor Constantine wrote to both Arius and his bishop, asking them to reconcile, but his letters did not sway either side. So the emperor called a meeting. Based on earlier Church tradition, the emperor called a Church council—but this time it was to be a worldwide council of bishops. In reality, very few bishops from the west were able to attend, but nevertheless they were all invited and so we call this the first ecumenical, or worldwide council of the Church, the Council of Nicaea, in the year 325.
Despite the myths you might hear, Constantine did not decide what books would be in the Bible, nor did he invent the doctrine of the Trinity. But he did attend the council and participate in the debates, though he was not a theologian. The main question at hand was the question of Christ’s eternity. Is the Son eternal as the Father is eternal? Or was there a time when the Son did not exist? The result of the council was the creation of a statement of faith, which outlines the basics of what the Church believes. This was the beginning of the Nicene Creed, which we say in Mass every week. It was actually completed at the second ecumenical Council of Constantinople in the year 381, but for the most part, the Creed that we profess in worship is the result of the Church’s definition of the answer to the problem with which it began. How can we call ourselves monotheist, and also worship Christ? The answer is the doctrine of the Trinity (for a more detailed treatment of this topic, see my book Trinity 101, forthcoming from Liguori Publications).
Notice that the creed affirms that Jesus Christ is begotten (or “born”) before all ages. This is an affirmation that He is in fact eternal, and that there was no time when He did not exist. The creed also clarifies that to be begotten does not mean that He is a created being (begotten, not made). The creed affirms His divine nature (true God from true God), as well as His human nature (He became man and suffered death). The fact that He came down from heaven means that we believe He is God who became human, and not a man who became a god.
And then there’s that word, consubstantial. For some people it may be new, replacing the phrase “one in being.” But the “new translation” is actually the original, because the word consubstantial is really just the English word that is made out of a Latin word, that is the direct translation of the original Greek text of the Creed. So what does it mean? First of all, the literal meaning of con-substantial is “same substance.” This is the conviction that the Son, Jesus Christ, is of the same substance as the Father. That substance is divinity itself. In other words, the Son is not only divine, He is the same divinity as the Father—not a lower order of divinity as Arius had implied. That means that He is also equally eternal with the Father. So if you want a quick and easy way to remember what consubstantial means, remember this: same divinity, same eternity.
That’s it. It may seem simple, but it’s extremely important because this is where the rubber meets the road. This is how we can claim to worship only one God, and still worship Jesus Christ. We worship one God because we worship only one divinity—and that one divinity is shared by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the core of the doctrine of the Trinity, and it is the core of the very definition of what it means to be a Christian. Anyone who cannot in good conscience affirm this, cannot call himself a Christian. What the Church Fathers and the bishops of the councils defined still defines the boundaries of orthodoxy. In fact, I would argue that the Nicene Creed is a summary of the New Testament and early Church tradition, and as such it defines Christianity itself.
James L. Papandrea is Assistant Professor of Church History at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. He regularly teaches for the Archdiocese of Chicago in the deacon formation program and the Chicago Catholic Scripture School. He is the author of several books, including The Wedding of the Lamb: A Historical Approach to the Book of Revelation, Novatian of Rome and the Culmination of Pre-Nicene Orthodoxy, Reading the Early Church Fathers, and the forthcoming Trinity 101.
The post What Does Consubstantial Mean? (And Why is it in Our Creed?) appeared first on Catholics United for the Faith - Catholics United for the Faith is an international lay apostolate founded to help the faithful learn what the Catholic Church teaches..