I stand corrected on that point. I see elsewhere he uses the term "His offspring, the First-begotten Word," in CHAP. XXXVI of the same book.
Where in the bible does it ever refer to the "first begotten word"?
At least you're no longer touting the Apostolic Fathers as examples of non-Trinitarian thought, I guess?
My answer to this would be the question, "what Bible"? There was a variety of opinions for the first 400 years or so of Christianity about what constituted the New Testament, and I'm not even talking about the Gnostics. Just compare the Pe****ta to the Codex Sinaiticus to the Ethiopian Orthodox New Testament, for example. Scripture was not the sole basis of Christian thought, but merely one support for it out of a multitude that included the body of liturgical prayer, oral traditions that for the most part didn't get added into the New Testament (except for the story of the adulterous woman which was added into the Gospel of John around the 180's or somewhere around there), and a line of teaching from Apostles to bishops, and bishops to students.
One issue with homoousios was that it appeared to deny any possibility of subordination, or hierarchy, as between the Father and the Logos, quite irrespective of the issue of eternality. As Jesus said "the Father is greater than I." The formulations God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (also non-biblical) spring directly from the adoption of homoousious. It is worrying that one non-biblical word can engender more non-biblical phrases, and on account of which, people have been put to death as heretics by Nicene creedalists.
Oh, one point I forgot to make here: We Trinitarians do believe there is a hierarchy between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It's not a hierarchy of divinity, but of relations. The Father is the
arche (source) of the Trinity, and it is from Him that the Godhead flows. The Son is begotten of the Father, and though He is completely equal to the Father in power and divinity, nonetheless the Father is still greater than the Son in terms of the relationship between the two because of the Father's being the origin of the Divine Essence. The Son is begotten of the Father and distinct (but not separate) from Him, and therefore the Father is greater than the Son.
This is one difference between the East and the West on this issue. Whereas the West believes in Divine Simplicity and makes the Divine Essence the source of the three Persons of the Trinity, therefore saying "There is one God because there is one Divine Essence", the East has not historically held to this view, instead choosing to say "There is one God because there is one Father."
I believe he is a propagandist with limited intelligence. It is also a reason why heresies arise i.e. due to the inability of the elect to repudiate them.
If anything, heresies arose because some people were too smart for their own good and started trying to fit the divine mystery into neatly compartmentalized boxes. If you look at Christian history, most heresies from the first thousand years of Christianity came out of the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, which is where all the intellectual centers were. Rome (more or less) stayed orthodox for the first 700 years or so because they were far enough removed from those discourses to not immediately get caught up in any of it.
When the church gets given over to people of limited intelligence then heresies arise.
So was Christ incompetent, the Apostles, the Holy Spirit, or yes?
What was the reason for so many centuries of vainglorious debate on the composition of Christ when Islam and Goths, Vandals and Huns etc was knocking at the door, destroying and devouring every nation in which such "debate" had ever arisen?
I'm quite sure you and I both agree that knowing exactly Who it is that we follow is a very important question to ask.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" says that he was separated from the Father.
That's the Arian interpretation (and oddly enough the Calvinist interpretation as well), yes. This isn't a debate thread, so I'll let this point go.
"As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." Sent = separation.
The Holy Spirit is sent from the Father. Is the Spirit separate from Him as well?
I think it is obvious that Jesus "separated from God" as an implicit feature of the incarnation.
Discussing the Incarnation gets into quite the involved conversation, but for the reader of this thread, I would heartily recommend St. Athanasius the Great's "
On the Incarnation" for an excellent embodiment of Orthodox thought on the matter.