A Response to William Varner’s Claim that 2 Clement 1.1 Proves the Trinity Existed Prior to Nicea

At the 2021 Greek & Hebrew for Life Conference, William Varner of The Master’s University asserted that one reason why New Testament scholars and students should care about and study the Apostolic Fathers is because they provide evidence for the Trinity prior to Nicea.  He mentioned a professor, “one of our own,” who claimed the early Christians did not believe in a Trinity theory prior to a.d. 325.  Those who follow Restitutio, will recognize a veiled reference to Bill Schlegel whom I interviewed in 2018 (Master’s University Prof. Finds Son of God, Loses Job).  Furthermore, I have gone on the record making the case that the kind of Trinity theory Varner, MacArthur, and evangelicalism embraces is nowhere to be found prior to Nicea in my 2019 paper “The Trinity before Nicea” (also available on Youtube here).  In that work, I responded to the various cherry picking quotations of Matt Slick in his article, “Early Trinitarian Quotes,” in which he made the bold and easily refutable assertion that Polycarp, Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen all believed in the Trinity.  However, since the witness of the ante-Nicene fathers is so vast and voluminous, I did not get around to addressing the text Varner brought up from 2 Clement.  In what follows, I’d like to briefly respond to the audacious claim that the author of 2 Clement believed in an kind of Trinity theory.

We begin with the single text Varner cited:

2Clement 1.1
Ἀδελφοί οὕτως δεῖ ἡμᾶς φρονεῖν περὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ὡς περὶ θεοῦ ὡς περὶ κριτοῦ ζώντων καὶ νεκρῶν καὶ οὐ δεῖ ἡμᾶς μικρὰ φρονεῖν περὶ τῆς σωτηρίας ἡμῶν.

Brothers and sisters, we must think this way about Jesus Christ as about God, as about (the) judge of the living and the dead.  And we must not think little about our salvation.

We can read this text several ways.  In fact, when I first encountered it, I thought it was good evidence against the notion that the author of 2 Clement thought Jesus was God.  Why else encourage Christians to think of him as they already thought about God?  Varner’s point, however, was that this text provides evidence of at least an incipient trinitarianism.  Now, if 2 Clement said, “We must think this way about Jesus Christ as God,” instead of “about Jesus Christ as about God,” that would indicate the author’s belief in some form of (probably subordinationist) deity of Christ.  However, the construction here lends itself much more towards the opposite.  Christopher Tuckett agrees when he wrote the following in his commentary on 2 Clement:

“[I]t is doubtful if Christology in itself is the main focus of attention here.  The address is focused not so much on Christology for its own sake, nor on what Christ has achieved through his life and death as such; rather, it is Jesus’ status as judge that is crucial, and the resulting consequences for practical living for the christian.  In any case, the ‘identity’ between Jesus and God implied here is probably more a functional identity than an ontological one.” -Christopher Tuckett, 2 Clement: Introduction, Text, and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 128.

Indeed, the point is not to elevate Jesus to the status of God nor to establish some metaphysical doctrine of consubstantiality, but rather to express the simple truth that when it comes to judgment, Jesus plays the role of God.  This could be because he just is God or a lower divinity or it could be due to the fact that Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28.18).  Jesus does have the authority to judge the living in dead, but it has nothing to do with his nature; it is because God granted him that authority as the prophesied Son of Man. 

We find in John 5 another text that helpfully explains this:

John 5.25–27
25 Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

Yes, Jesus is the judge we will face on the last day.  The Father has granted Jesus the role of resurrecting and judging because he is the Son of Man.  As laid out in Daniel 7.13-14, Jesus’ function as the Son of Man is to receive authority from the Ancient of Days and to rule over all nations forever.  There’s no hint of Jesus actually being God here.  Quite the opposite is true.  God doesn’t directly take on this role, but confers it on his agent.

Let’s get back to 2 Clement 1.1, which said we should think of Jesus as we think of God as of the judge of the living and the dead.  This last phrase “as of the judge of the living and the dead” clearly qualifies what the author has in mind here.  He is not saying we should think of Jesus as of God in every sense, but in the particular sense that he judges.  Last week I coordinated a youth camp.  I could have said to the teenagers in our first meeting, “Think of me as you think of your father for the week, as one who has authority.”  Would anyone hearing this perceive in my statement a claim to ontological oneness with each one’s biological fathers?  The statement is obviously functional not ontological.  They aren’t concerned about my essence, but my authority!

What’s more, we don’t have to guess what 2 Clement teaches about God’s identity.  He clearly specifies that the Father is the only God in the last verse of the book.

2 Clement 20.5
Τῷ μόνῳ θεῷ ἀοράτῳ πατρὶ τῆς ἀληθείας τῷ ἐξαποστείλαντι ἡμῖν τὸν σωτῆρα καὶ ἀρχηγὸν τῆς ἀφθαρσίας δι᾽ οὗ καὶ ἐφανέρωσεν ἡμῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ τὴν ἐπουράνιον ζωήν αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων ἀμήν.

To the only God, invisible, Father of truth, who sent out for us the savior and founder of incorruptibility through whom also he manifested to us the truth and the heavenly life, to him be the glory for ever and ever amen.

This statement clears everything up quite nicely.  The only God is the invisible Father of truth.  This one sent the savior and founder of our salvation.  Like virtually all of the Apostolic Fathers (with the possible exception of Ignatius), 2 Clement does not confuse God and Jesus.  He holds to the clear delineation between the supreme God above all and the savior he sent for us.  Lastly, I would like to conclude with the words of no other than William Varner himself who admitted the following in his own commentary on 2 Clement:

“While this ‘thinking’ about Christ as ‘God’ appears as a rather bold theological declaration, the additional statement places it in a functional context.  Clement does not describe Jesus as the second person in the God-head (an incipient binitarianism) but invokes Jesus as God in his role ‘a judge of the living and the dead.'” -William Varner, Second Clement: An Introductory Commentary (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2020), 51.

This is what I’ve been saying.  The author of 2 Clement “does not describe Jesus as the second person in the God-head” but as playing the role of God (not actually being God) in his judging the living and the dead.  Maybe I’m just missing something here, but in the conference Varner used this text, and only this text, to make his case that Schlegel was wrong and the Apostolic Fathers contain evidence of a Trinity theory prior to Nicea.  I’m not sure why this contradiction exists, but it is at best confusing and at worst disturbing. In conclusion, we shouldn’t use 2 Clement 1.1 to teach that Jesus is ontologically God.  To do so is anachronistic.