Christian Understanding of Trinity3

TRINITY : M. M. NINAN
9. Trinity through History
Gregory of Neocaesarea (213 –
270 AD).
The first creed in which it appears is
that of Origen's pupil, Gregory of
Neocaesarea, also known as
Gregory Thaumaturgus or Gregory
the Wonderworker, (213 – 270 AD).
In his Ekthesis tes pisteos composed
between 260 and 270, he writes
"There is therefore nothing created, nothing greater or less
(literally, nothing subject) in the Trinity (oute oun ktiston ti, he
doulon en te triadi), nothing superadded, as though it had not
existed before, but never been without the Son, nor the Son
without the Spirit; and this same Trinity is immutable and
unalterable forever".
This formula, states clearly the distinction between the Persons
in the Trinity, and emphasizing the eternity, equality, immortality,
and perfection, not only of the Father, but of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit.
St. Hippolytus ( ? – 236AD )was a Martyr, presbyter and
antipope (Pope Zephyrinus198-217).
Hippolytus had combated the heresy of
Theodotion and the Alogi; in like fashion he
opposed the false doctrines of Noetus, of
Epigonus, of Cleomenes, and of Sabellius,
who emphasized the unity of God too onesidedly
(Monarchians) and saw in the
concepts of the Father and the Son merely
manifestations (modi) of the Divine Nature
(Modalism, Sabellianism). Hippolytus, on the
contrary, stood uncompromisingly for a real
difference between the Son (Logos) and the
Father, but so as to represent the Former as
a Divine Person almost completely separate from God (Ditheism)
and at the same time altogether subordinate to the Father
(Subordinationism). closes his work against Noetus with the
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