April DeConick, a scholar specializing in early Christian texts, has this to say about the first two centuries of Christianity:
“Then there are all the polemics among late first and second century Christians about who is worshiping angels, who is asking angels for intercessory favors. Christians or Jews? Then we add to this all the polemics that developed in the late second and third centuries among the rabbis about the TWO POWERS heresy and how authentic Jews only worship YAHWEH. Then we find poor Arius caught in a ferocious battle over whether or not it is desirable to continue to call Jesus an angel and worship him as second in command.
I could go on and on. My point is this. Early Judaism and Christianity were not monotheistic religions, but were at best monolatrous (=worshiped one god but allowed for the existence of other gods). It was because of this that Christianity was able to be born out of Judaism as a Jewish expression of a new form of Yahwehism, and Gnosticism could become the fancy of Jewish intellectuals living in first-century Alexandria. This must mean that the program of some of the post-exilic priests to make Judaism a monotheistic religion DID NOT WORK, as in fact the wisdom literature and Sophia traditions prove in my opinion. This had to wait until the rabbis came along and created what many consider the basis for modern Judaism, and insisted that all forms of worship other than YAHWEH be banned. Whether or not the bishops and church theologians ever really made Christianity monotheistic depends on how well one thinks that the Nicaea decision and later the doctrine of the Trinity really worked.”
Link to post. The comments are definitely worth reading. DeConick also has a follow-up post.
I found this discussion interesting because the general principles can be applied to the history of the Unitarianism that originated in North America. As a child I learned that Unitarianism was all about monotheism, but historically that’s not true — it’s probably more accurate to call the early “Unitarians” here in New England “Arminians” — and in the 19th C., “Unitarian” theology was all over the map, with some “Unitarian” Transcendentalists heading off into various pantheisms, a few spiritualist “Unitarians” taking polytheistic positions, and some Western “Unitarians” headed into non-theistic positions. Presently, individuals in congregations which are the inheritors of this “Unitarian” tradition might hold theological positions that range from extremely polytheistic to radically non-theistic, with only a few genuine unitarians somewhere in the bunch. At this point, our “Unitarian” label is little more than a name, theologically speaking.
Did you mean New England Socinians or Arminians?
Right, I thought Arminian = Methodist…. and that wasn’t where Unitarianism was at then, or now.
Thomas Perchlik and Bill — “Arminian” is a term sometimes used in New England theological history to refer to the general theological stance of religious liberals in the 18th C. So, for example, on the UU Historical Society Web site, in the short biography of John Adams, there is the following paragraph:
“Adams had a life long relationship with First Parish, Braintree (now Quincy). He became a member on January 3, 1773. Late in life, he recalled that the church’s minister, Lemuel Briant (1722-1754), was a Unitarian. Briant’s theology was certainly Arminian, if not Unitarian, though he resisted the label. (Those called Arminians, after the 16th century Dutch theologian, Jacobus Arminius, upheld the role of free will in heeding the call to salvation.)”
“Socinianism,” in the context of New England theological history, would typically refer to anti-trinitarianism. But the 18th C. ministers who later became identified with “Unitarianism” were often more interested in the question of free will than in questions of trinitarian doctrine. It has been argued that “Unitarian” was a misnomer — certainly, it was a term applied to us initially by our theological opponents who wanted to smear us with the worst possible epithet they could think up. Unfortunately for them, we kind of liked the name “Unitarian.” Unfortunately for us, the name “Unitarian” has made it seem as if anti-trinitarianism is our most important theological issue when that’s just not true — questions of free will and the nature of humankind are of greater importance to us then and now.