The earliest Christians, are you sure of that?
The proto-orthodox had no concept of Trinity. The Trinity concept came into existance in the 4th century at the Council of Nicea and was later expanded upon int he Athanasian creed in the 6th century. Thats at least 325 years without a doctrine of Trinity within what would become the orthodox chuch alone. Never mind the fact that the earliest Christians were not limited to the proto-orthodox sect of Irenaeous and his buddies.
That's quite simply a false statement. While the doctrine of Christ's deity, the Trinity, etc, was authoritatively defined and explained at the Council of Nicea, the teaching of Christ's deity and the Trinity existed long before 325 (in the Christian view, since Christ and the Apostles).
"Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the Church at Ephesus in Asia . . . predestined from eternity for a glory that is lasting and unchanging, united and chosen through true suffering by the will of the Father in Jesus Christ our God" (
Letter to the Ephesians 1 [A.D. 110]).
"For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with Gods plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit" (ibid.,18:2).
"[T]o the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus Christ, our God, by the will of him that has willed everything which is" (
Letter to the Romans 1 [A.D. 110]).
Tatian the Syrian: "We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man" (
Address to the Greeks 21 [A.D. 170]).
Origen: "Although he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man, he remained what he was: God" (
The Fundamental Doctrines 1:0:4 [A.D. 225]).
Hippolytus of Rome: "For Christ is the God over all, who has arranged to wash away sin from mankind, rendering the old man new" (
Refutation of All Heresies 10:34 [A.D. 228])
Theophilus of Antioch: "It is the attribute of God, of the most high and almighty and of the living God, not only to be everywhere, but also to see and hear all; for he can in no way be contained in a place. . . . The three days before the luminaries were created are types of the Trinity: God, his Word, and his Wisdom" (
To Autolycus 2:15 [A.D. 181]).
Origen: "For it is the Trinity alone which exceeds every sense in which not only temporal but even eternal may be understood. It is all other things, indeed, which are outside the Trinity, which are to be measured by time and ages" (
The Fundamental Doctrines 4:4:1 [A.D. 225]).
Gregory the Wonderworker: "There is one God. . . . There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Wherefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; nor anything superinduced, as if at some former period it was non-existent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides ever" (
Declaration of Faith [A.D. 265]).
Clearly the teachings of Christ's deity and the Trinity were around well before Nicea, and taught by authoritative, orthodox Christian teachers.
The spirit was never with the Church, the spirit is with the people. Truth abandoned the Church as soon as man-made beliefs became more important than Christ's message.
The Spirit is with what people? Christians? Do not Christians compose the Church? Is not the Church to be organized with leaders who teach and act authoritatively, binding and loosing, acting as the pillar and ground of the truth?
Quite a lot plainer actually. Along the lines of "God is three forms in one, and three forms alone" would be best.
How are you defining "form"? Generally the Trinitarian term for Father, Son and Holy Spirit individually is "Person".
Valentinians believed in over 30 aspects of God that were one.
Yeah....so what? Valentius was a heretic who was excommunicated by the early Church; I wouldn't look to him for a lot of spiritual guidance
.
Just because it says that three aspects of God are in fact only aspects of a single source does not mean that those three alone exist.
If no other "aspect" (i.e. Person) is mentioned in Scripture or in the Tradition of the Church preserved since the Apostles, why are we to assume that there are more? Even if you were to posit that (which would be a hypothesis with no evidence, as far as I can tell), the verse is still quite plainly Trinitarian: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three in one. That's the EXACT terminology used by orthodox Christians to decribe the Trinity. Also, something doesn't have to be explicitly spelled out in Scripture in order to be doctine.
Nor does it even vaguely suggest that those three forms are somehow distinct from one another to the extent that God is tri-form in nature.
Scripture quite clearly distinguishes between the three of them as distinct from one another, and acting interdependently of one another:
"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My (Jesus') name, He will teach you all things, and bring to remembrance all things that I said to you." John 14:26
FerventGodSeeker