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In the book of Acts is narrated the content of the early preaching of the apostles, the effect on the hearers and the ones in authority. All through the book of Acts, the main message of the apostles was that "Jesus is the Christ (i.e. the Messiah/ the Anointed One)" and that "God has raised this Jesus from the dead and made him Lord" as can be seen from the following passages. Nowhere did they claim that Jesus was God. All the preaching of the earliest church was meant to be heard and understood by the simplest of people, who were totally alien to the hair-splitting distinctions about the nature of Jesus and the concept of the Trinity as argued for by the Gentile-background theologians of the fourth century. In the words and language the earliest church used, the most natural meaning that comes out is that Jesus was a man just like us, and God had raised from the dead, and exalted to His right hand and made him Lord over all. The phrases bringing out these points are italicized in the following verses. All these verses, when read as they are, without Trinity-colored goggles on, clearly show that the earliest church did not claim that Jesus was God in the flesh:

So the main theme of their preaching was that "Jesus has risen from the dead" and that "Jesus is the Christ (=Messiah). Nowhere did they preach that "Jesus was God." If they would have done so, the Jews in religious authority, who were always looking for ways and means of doing away with them, would have immediately charged them with blasphemy and have them stoned to death. A number of times charges were brought against the apostles and the early Christians, but never was a charge of blasphemy for proclaiming Jesus as God laid against them.

In Acts 4:1-3, the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. If this was their reaction to the proclaiming of resurrection from the dead, what would have their reaction been if the apostles would have proclaimed Jesus as God?

All they could do was put Peter and John in jail because it was evening. If Peter and John had proclaimed Jesus=God, they would have been stoned to death there and then! In the questioning on the next day, the only question asked is "By what power or name they had done the miracle!" On hearing their defense and seeing the healed man standing there, they could say nothing. All they could do was warn them to speak no longer in Jesus’ name! Is this what they would have done if Peter and John were proclaiming Jesus=God? No way! All hell would have broken loose! In concluding their defense, Peter and John replied, "we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." They were simple, unschooled men who could not keep their mouths shut regarding what they had seen and heard, not sophisticated urbanites who knew how to put on an act.

In Acts 5:17 and 18, the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. Is this all they would have done if the apostles would have proclaimed Jesus=God? After hearing the stinging indictment from Peter and the other apostles, they were furious and wanted to put them to death (Acts 5:33). THEY WANTED TO PUT THE APOSTLES TO DEATH! Are we to believe that all of them would have missed seeing the big stick lying right in front of them with the words "Blasphemy" written on it in big bold letters (and also underlined and italicised, in font size 24 and in red color); a stick perfectly suited for doing the very thing they wanted to do so badly? Would Gamaliel, a respected teacher of the law who would have known Leviticus 24:14-16, have argued to "Leave them alone," if they would have committed blasphemy? After this (Acts 5:42), day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ, (and not that Jesus is God).

Next comes Stephen. Some Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia had to secretly persuade some men to say, "We have heard Stephen speak words of blasphemy against Moses and against God." (Acts 6:11) If Stephen would have proclaimed Jesus=God, would there have been any necessity of "secretly pursuading some men to come up with a false testimony? They would have had a perfect, readymade charge against him. And what is the charge that the false witnesses came up with? "We have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us." This is nothing as compared with Jesus=God! Are we to believe that they were such idiots that they overlooked a readymade, powerful, real, outright charge of blasphemy, and came up with a weak, flimsy one?

Even at the end of his long, stinging speech, it was when he said that he saw the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, did they stone him. There was no charge of blasphemy laid on him; the act was done to give vent to out-of-control-emotions.

Next comes Saul, who was to later become Paul. After his conversion, he grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ (Acts 9:22). After many days had gone by, the Jews conspired to kill him (Acts 9:23). Why "conspire to kill him?" If he would have proclaimed "Jesus=God", they would have had a perfect, readymade charge to have him killed! Similarly later on in 9:29, he talked and debated with the Grecian Jews, but they "tried to kill him." TRIED TO KILL HIM? They could have had him killed legally if he would have proclaimed "Jesus=God". They couldn’t. Because he didn’t.

In Pisidian Antioch, after Paul finished speaking, the Jews were filled with jealousy and talked abusively against what he was saying (Acts 13:45). They incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region (Acts 13:50). And to do all this, they never used the argument "This Paul is making Jesus equal to God!" They didn’t because they couldn’t. Paul and Barnabas had never preached that "Jesus is God."

Similarly in Iconium, the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers (Acts 14:2). No mention about any preaching about "Jesus is God." In Lystra, the Jews who came from Antioch and Iconium had to "win the crowd over". If Paul and Barnabas had preached "Jesus=God," there would have been no need to put in any effort to "win them over!"

When Paul and Barnabas arrived back at Antioch, they found that some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: "Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved." (Acts 15:1) Now we are supposed to believe that these people, extremist Jews and thorough hardliners, completely ignored and glossed over the huge blasphemy of making Jesus equal with God, and pick on a trivial issue, about which most Jews anyway knew and agreed that "it is not necessary for Gentiles to be curcumcised to be saved." There were Gentiles at that time, known as "God-fearers" or "God-fearing Gentiles" such as Cornelius (Acts 10:1-2,22). Paul addresses them as such in Acts 13:26, "Brothers, children of Abraham, and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent." They are further mentioned in Acts 13:50, 17:4, and 17:17. These Gentiles were attracted by Jewish monotheism and moral standards which were higher than those prevailing in the surrounding Greek, pagan cultures and religions. They prayed to God as did the Jews (Acts 10:2) and followed many of the Jewish customs, but did not go the whole way and become Jews by becoming circumcised. Circumcision after infancy was fraught with danger of infection in those days, and these God-fearing Gentiles were not ready for that. The Jews agreed that such people are considered righteous by God and will be saved. Peter calls Cornelius "a righteous man" in Acts 10:22. Now we are expected to believe that the few extremist hardline Jews from Jerusalem, completely ignored that Paul was preaching Jesus=God, and picked on a trivial issue like the one they chose, on which they would not even have the support of the vast majority of their own people! The case simply doesn’t stand. The simple fact is that Paul was not preaching Jesus=God, the church at Antioch did not believe that Jesus was God. They believed like the other apostles, that Jesus was a man whom God had raised from the dead and highly exalted at His right hand because of the righteous life he had led. Else the extremist, hardline Jews would not have let go of the issue which would have been a far bigger one than whether it is necessary for Gentiles to be circumcised to be saved.

Need we go on? The same story repeats in Thessalonica where again the Jews who were jealous had to round up some bad characters from the marketplace, form a mob and start a riot in the city (Acts 17:5). Would they have to do all this if Paul was preaching "Jesus=God"? Their charge was that Paul was preaching that there was "another king" (17:7). In Athens, Paul was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols (17:16). Taking the inscription to "an unknown God", Paul spoke about the God who had created everything. He called them to repent from their idol worship (17:30) adding, "For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." (17:31) Here atleast, in Greek Athens, we could have expected Paul to proclaim Jesus=God if he believed that, since he would not have run into any trouble of the kind he would have got from the Jews for proclaiming Jesus=God. The Greeks were anyway used to worshiping many gods and one more wouldn’t have made any difference. Indeed that is what they thought Paul was preaching at first when they said, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods" in 17:18. But here too, Paul only proclaims the resurrection of Jesus and the necessity of worshiping the true God who created everything. Not one word about "Jesus is God."

In Corinth too, Paul was opposed because he was preaching that "Jesus was the Christ/ the Messiah/ the Anointed One", not because he was preaching "Jesus is God". In the later attack on Paul in 18:13 too, the charge was that "This man is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law." Not one word about Paul claiming that Jesus was God.

Next, in Ephesus, what does Paul focus on? He focuses on the Kingdom of God (19:8). He preached that "man-made gods are no gods at all" (19:26).

Again later on in Greece, the Jews had to plot against Paul (20:3). Would they have needed to plot against him if he would have preached Jesus=God? They would have had a readymade open-and-shut case against him and could have sent him to his death easily. So why did they need to plot? Because there too, Paul never preached Jesus=God. Paul mentions that there were "many" such plots in v 19.

Next in Jerusalem, what are the charges brought against Paul by the Jews? The charges were that he "taught all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs" (Acts 21:21, 28). Not one word that Paul was committing blasphemy by equating Jesus with God, a far more serious issue.

When Festus was discussing Paul’s case with King Agrippa, he said, "When his accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected. Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive." (Acts 25:18-19) Even at this late stage, years after the day of Pentecost, years after the apostles had started preaching "Jesus has risen from the dead," Paul was still preaching the same thing – "Jesus has risen from the dead." If he would have preached Jesus=God, would the Jews have left the opportunity of pressing that as the main charge?

In his defense to Agrippa, Paul talking about his pre-conversion days, said, "Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme" (Acts 26:11). TRIED TO FORCE THEM TO BLASPHEME? This is the clearest giveaway statement that the earliest believers did not claim that Jesus was God. If they would have done any such thing, there would have been no need for Paul to "try to force them to blaspheme"; the blasphemy would have been there for him on a platter for the taking!

Continuing his defense, Paul again says that the main content of his preaching was that "they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds" (Acts 26:20); and that was why the Jews seized him in the temple courts and tried to kill him (26:21). Not because he claimed divinity for Jesus. At the end of his defense king Agrippa’s conclusion was that "This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment." (26:31) King Agrippa was well acquainted with the Jewish laws and customs (26:3) and he would have known that equating a man with God would have been blasphemy of the highest order, deserving of immediate death (according to Lev 24:16 - "anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death"). Paul never claimed that Jesus was God.

Christianity was planted and grew up amidst sharp-sighted enemies, who overlooked no objectionable part of the system. They would have immediately leapt upon a doctrine such as the Trinity. It is difficult to believe that such a doctrine as the Trinity (whether in explicit or implicit form) was completely ignored. The Jews prided themselves on an adherence to God's unity. The doctrine of the Trinity would have so jarred against the Unity of God, that they would have immediately pounced on it and attacked it with all vehemence. Yet in all the apostolic writings, which relate so much to objections against Christianity, and to the controversies which grew out of it, not one word is said defending the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus (which would have implied that objections were brought against that doctrine). Not one word is uttered in its defence and explanation, not a word to rescue it from reproach and mistake. Had three divine persons been announced by the first preachers of Christianity, all equal, and all infinite, one of whom was the very Jesus who had lately died on a cross, this peculiarity of Christianity would have overshadowed every other, and the Apostles would had to spend a lot of time and effort to repel the continual assaults which it would have awakened. But not a whisper of objection to the concept of the Trinity reaches our ears from the apostolic age! Neither in the Epistles we see the slightest trace of controversy called forth by the Trinity. In fact, the language of the epistles too, clearly show that the epistle-writers believed that Jesus was a man, not God in the flesh. Let’s look at them, the New Testament epistles first, and then the other writings coming from the first hundred years after Christ, to see that the earliest church did not proclaim Jesus as God.

The epistle-writers never claimed that Jesus was God. From the epistles, Trinitarians of course, advance verses like the following to "prove" that the epistle-writers claimed that Jesus was God:

These are eight of the twelve verses in the New Testament in which Jesus is directly called God in some translations. How these and many others have been mistranslated is thoroughly discussed in section 8 and we will not cover them here. The fact that the epistle-writers mainly claimed Jesus to be the son of God is laid out in section 2 What Jesus claimed himself to be, along with a discussion on what the phrase "son of God" means. Furthermore, the list of verses where the epistle-writers distinguish Jesus (as Lord) from "God" is found in section 1 The New Testament presents Jesus to be a person different from God.

That doesn’t leave us much to discuss from the NT epistles as regards the Trinity or the Divinity of Jesus, except a few interesting statements made by Paul: The first is found in 1 Cor 11:3, where he says, "Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." The order here is clearly God-Christ-man-woman. The similarity of relationship is indicated by the fact that exactly the same phrase is used to describe it: "The head of … is …" To put it in mathematical terms, God is to Christ what Christ is to man and what man is to woman. The relationship is clearly that of a higher order to a lower order. Just as man cannot be Christ and Christ is above man, Christ too cannot be God and God is above Christ. This is corroborated by 1 Cor 15:27-28 (For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.) and Eph 1:22-23 (And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.)

Not only the book of Acts and the NT epistles, even the non-canonical epistles and writings from the first century show that Christians then believed that Jesus was only man, not God in the flesh. These being non-canonical, don’t have the authority of the canonical writings of course; but we examine them anyway for the sake of interest and completeness.

The Didache may be the oldest surviving extant piece of non-canonical literature. It is more of a handbook consisting of instructions for new Christian converts. The first six chapters contains moral instruction under the heading of "two ways", one of life and one of death. The rest (chs 7-15) give descriptions of church ritual, organization, and discipline, including baptism, fasting and communion. There is nothing about the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus in the Didache, the only portion that can possibly be used to support the doctrine of the Trinity being the formula "the name of the Father and of the son and of the holy Spirit" to be used for baptism in chapter 7:

But of course, using the three in one sentence does not make them one, any more than saying "Peter, James and John" in one sentence makes them one. Trinitarians often use the argument that speaking about the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in one sentence "proves" the Trinity. This is akin to saying that using Tom, Dick and Harry in one sentence proves that they are one person!

Clement is supposed to be the third successor of Peter and the fourth bishop of Rome, and probably knew the apostles, certainly Peter, and made a profound impression on the early Church. Although other writings are ascribed to him, it his "First Epistle to the Corinthians" or "1 Clement", written sometime between 75 and 110 A.D, which is not only considered authentic (Catholic Encyclopedia at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04012c.htm), but also the more important – it was included in the "Codex Alexandrinus," the "Codex Constantinopolitanus," and the "Syriac Version" and two incomplete Coptic Versions – manuscripts which were read in those churches at that time. Irenaeus calls it "very powerful"; Eusebius pronounces it "grand and admirable" and says that in several churches it was read publicly at the meetings of the faithful.

The following statements, found in 1 Clement, all clearly show that Clement did not consider Jesus as God. He considered Jesus as "Lord," just like the apostles did:

So devoid of ascribing divinity to Jesus is this epistle that the Catholic Encyclopedia has to grasp at a non-existent straw when it says,

There is nothing about the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus in this. Note the carefully inserted "etc." cutting off the rest of the sentence, which if read in its entirety, clearly shows that Clement considered Jesus to be different from "God." The entire sentence reads

(J.B.Lightfoot’s translation available at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/1clement.html)

2 Clement is not considered authentic so we will not spend much time on it. It is mainly a hortatory letter, exhorting the recipients towards righteousness and godly living in view of the coming Day of Judgment, containing little regarding the nature of Jesus as regards divinity. It maintains a distinction between "God" and Jesus as "Lord" throughout. However, its concluding statement is notable for calling the Father as the "the only God":

This is available at http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-11.htm Again, Polycarp clearly distinguishes between "God" and the "Lord" Jesus Christ.

This is available at http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-13.htm#P911_166347 The distinction between "God" and "Jesus" continues:

This is not the Barnabas of the Book of Acts, but another Barnabas later on, most probably an Alexandrian. The epistle was believed authentic and canonical by Clement, Origen and Jerome, but it is ranked by Eusebius among the "spurious" writings, which, however much known and read in the Church, were never regarded as authoritative. Concerned more with the allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, the epistle doesn’t speak anything about the divinity/ humanity of Jesus. The Catholic Encyclopedia says that "Without explicitly asserting the consubstantiality and the true sonship, he evidently acknowledges the Divine nature of Christ from before the Creation," but this is from the sections in chapters 5 and 6 where the writer says that it was to Jesus that God said, "Let us make man according to our image and according to our likeness." But here too as in the book of John, support can only be drawn for the pre-incarnate existence of Jesus, not for his eternal existence or divinity.

The Gospel of Thomas consists of what are supposed to be sayings of Jesus, and one finds many of them familiar because of their similarity to statements in the four canonical gospels. Only one out of the 114 comes close to being used to support the doctrine of the Trinity. This is no. 30 which says, "Where there are three deities, they are divine. Where there are two or one, I am with that one." The meaning is not clear, and since even Trinitarians don’t believe in "three deities," we will leave it alone.