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There’s a popular idea that the earliest Christians didn’t see Jesus as divine’ that the idea of His divinity crept in slowly over a long period of time. Some have even argued that it came about through the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., almost 300 years after Jesus died!
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Ignatius of Antioch was a major figure in the early church and wrote a series of letters in the first decade of the 2nd century (or early 100s A.D.) to various church communities as he was on his way to be martyred in Rome. In these letters, he tried to persuade them of a number of ideas (for instance, that they should not follow Jewish practices, that they should obey their bishop, even that they shouldn’t interfere with his martyrdom), but whenever he speaks about Jesus’ divinity, it’s always something he mentions matter-of-factly as if they all just believed it. Here are five citations from Ignatius about the divinity of Jesus:
1. God-and-Man in One Agreed
“There is only one Physician –
Very Flesh, yet Spirit too;
Uncreated, and yet born;
God-and-Man in One agreed,
Very-Life-in-Death indeed,
Fruit of God and Mary’s seed;
At once impassible and torn
By pain and suffering here below:
Jesus Christ, whom as our Lord we know.”
-Ignatius to the Ephesians, 7
2. God in Human Form
“The age-old empire of evil was overthrown, for God was now appearing in human form to bring in a new order, even life without end. Now that which had been perfected in the Divine counsels began its work; and all creation was thrown into a ferment over this plan for the utter destruction of death.”
-Ephesians 19
3. Son of Man and Son of God
“[Be] united in faith and in Jesus Christ (who is the seed of David according to the flesh, and is the Son of Man and Son of God).”
– Ephesians 20
4. With the Father from All Eternity
“Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from all eternity and in these last days has been made manifest.”
– Magnesians 6
5. Eternally with That One
“Jesus Christ – who came down from the one and only Father, is eternally with that One, and to that One is now returned.”
– Magnesians 7
These quotations from Ignatius are excerpted from Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers, available here.