Is Jesus God?

Ignatius of Antioch d. c. 110 ADLetter to the Ephesians 18.2

Our God, Jesus the Christ, was carried in the womb by Mary according to God's plan, of the seed of David and of the Holy Spirit. He was born and baptized so that by his suffering he might cleanse the water.

Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, calls Jesus God over a dozen times in seven short letters written on the way to his death.

Ignatius of Antioch d. c. 110 ADLetter to the Ephesians 7.2

There is one physician, both fleshly and spiritual, born and unborn, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first able to suffer and then beyond suffering: Jesus Christ our Lord.

A poem-like confession in pairs: what Christ is as man and as God.

Pliny the Younger (pagan governor) c. 61–c. 113 ADLetter to Trajan 10.96.7

They declared that the whole of their fault or error was this: they were in the habit of meeting on a fixed day before dawn and singing a hymn among themselves to Christ as to a god, and of binding themselves by an oath, not to some crime, but not to commit theft, robbery or adultery, not to break faith, not to refuse to return a deposit when asked.

An outside witness. The Roman governor of Bithynia reports what interrogated Christians told him, about eighty years after the crucifixion.

Justin Martyr c. 100–c. 165 ADFirst Apology 63.15

Those who say the Son is the Father are shown to know neither the Father nor that the Father of all has a Son, who, being the Word and the firstborn of God, is also God. He appeared before in the form of fire and in an image without a body to Moses and the other prophets; and now, in the times of your rule, he became man through a virgin.

Justin identifies the God who spoke to Moses from the bush as the Son. The library's Greek prints a misprint (θεὶς for θεός).

Tertullian c. 155–c. 220 ADApology 21.11–13

We have learned that he was brought forth from God, and begotten by being brought forth, and is therefore called Son of God and God, from unity of substance; for God too is spirit. When a ray is put out from the sun, it is a portion of the whole, but the sun will be in the ray, because it is the sun's ray; the substance is not separated but extended. So spirit from spirit and God from God, as light kindled from light. ... So what has come forth from God is God and God's Son, and the two are one.

Written for Roman officials. "God from God, light from light" here comes over a century before the Nicene Creed.

Arius (quoted by Athanasius) c. 256–336 ADThalia, quoted in Athanasius, Against the Arians 1.5

God was not always Father; there was a time when God was alone and was not yet Father. Later he became Father. The Son was not always. For all things came to be from nothing, and all are creatures and things made; so the Word of God himself came to be from nothing, and there was when he was not, and he was not before he came to be, but he too had a beginning of being created. For, he says, God was alone, and the Word and Wisdom did not yet exist. Then, wishing to create us, he made one being and named him Word and Wisdom and Son, so that he might create us through him.

The view Nicaea condemned, in Arius's own words as his opponent preserves them. Arius did call the Son "God" in a lesser sense: a perfect creature, not one of the creatures.

Council of NicaeaThe Creed of Nicaea, preserved in Socrates, Church History 1.8

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father ... But those who say "there was when he was not" and "before he was begotten he was not" and "he came to be from nothing" ... these the catholic Church anathematizes.

The creed of 325 with its anathema, as Eusebius sent it home to his church. The longer creed recited today is the revision of 381.