Did the Early Church believe Jesus was divine?

[theCardinalbird]

I was wondering what the early church thought of Jesus and his divinity. Did they say anything about Jesus being divine but also man?

 

[Matthew1618]

Absolutely, it was unanimous among the church fathers and even those who held heretical or unorthodox views like the Arians. The apostles believed in his divinity fervently (in 1 Peter, Peter identifies Christ as “our Lord”) while also upholding the fact that he was the human incarnation of God (Paul talks about this in Philippians 2:6 and John speaks of it in John 1:1-14). There are also the writings of the early church fathers which all attest to the divinity of Christ (some notable examples being Ignatius, who literally calls Christ “our God,” Cyprian, Irenaeus, etc). The doctrine of the Hypostatic Union (where Christ is upheld to be one person with both divine and human natures) was affirmed by the First Council of Ephesus, and both sides of the council of Nicaea (the Athanasians and the Arians) both affirmed Jesus’ divinity, but simply debated whether he was of the same “divine substance” as God or of a separate “divine substance” of God. Jesus’ divinity was universally upheld by the early Church.

 

[theCardinalbird]

Was this believed before Constantine made Christianity legal?

 

[Matthew1618]

Yes, much of what is cited (the writings of the apostles and certain church fathers like Ignatius) lived well before Constantine, who made Christianity legal around the third century.

 

[Vico]

I was wondering what the early church thought of Jesus and his divinity. Did they say anything about Jesus being divine but also man?

John 5

18 This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God.

John 14

9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

John 9

57 The Jews then said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”[h] 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

John 20

27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

Phillippians 2

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God,[a] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men.

Council of Nicea, 325 A.D. declared aganist Arianism, the dual nature of Christ, as we say in the Creed.

 

[Dan_Defender]

‘Now may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the eternal high priest himself, the Son of God Jesus Christ, build you up in faith and truth…and to us with you, and to all those under heaven who will yet believe in our Lord and God Jesus Christ and in his Father who raised him from the dead’ - St Polycarp to the Philippians 12:2

 

[PaulfromIowa]

The New Testament is all about the Divinity of Christ. Read the passages about the Transfiguration.

 

[Todd_Easton]

Catholic Answers article, The Divinity of Christ, mentions some early Church Fathers who mention the divinity of Jesus Christ.