The trinity

[Minimalist]

How so?

Within the broad contours of proto-orthodoxy, then, one can see development and variety. As time progressed, theologians became more entranced with the mystery of the Trinity and developed a more highly refined vocabulary for dealing with it. But that was long after the major issues had been resolved, of whether Christ was man but not God (Ebionites; Theodotians), God but not man (Marcionites, some Gnostics), or two beings, one man and one God (most Gnostics). The proto-orthodox opted for none of the above. Christ was God and man, yet he was one being, not two.

Once that was acknowledged, the details still had to be worked out. And they were worked out for centuries. If it were easy, it would not be a mystery. Theologians began to be obsessed with the question of how and in what way Christ could be both human and divine, completely both. Did he have a human soul but a divine spirit? Did he have a divine soul instead of a human soul? Was his body really like everyone else’s body? How could God have a body? Was he subordinate to the Father, as in Origen? If he was not subordinate to the Father, why was he the one sent, rather than the other way around? And so on, almost ad infinitum.

In this earlier period, however, the debates were both more basic and more fundamental. As a result, the alternatives within the proto-orthodox tradition—as opposed to the alternatives that separated the proto-orthodox from everyone else—were less clear and less obvious. All that was to change when the protoorthodox found themselves to be the last ones standing and were forced then to move forward into the orthodox forms of Christianity of the fourth and fifth centuries.


--Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities pgs 156-157