Quote:
Originally Posted by awareness
No matter. We have hints of it, and few verses that imply it. So it took 350 years and along comes :
Anthanasius ; speaking from back in the days when Christianity officially became a government sponsored corporation, in 4th century. 350 years for theosis to be discovered? That alone should cause us pause.
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That is wrong. It is found in Irenaeus and other early church fathers, before Athanasius's time.
This is from:
Arthur C. McGiffert, A History of Christian Thought, Vol. 1—Early and Eastern: From Jesus to John of Damascus (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1932)
Participation in God was carried so far by Irenaeus as to amount to deification. 'We were not made gods in the beginning,' he says, 'but at first men, then at length gods.' This is not to be understood as mere rhetorical exaggeration on Irenaeus' part. He meant the statement to be taken literally.
And a while ago I already gave this quote and reference:
Moreover, patristic interpretations adapted antecedent traditions that read Ps. 82:1, 6—7 as summarizing salvation history from Adam's fall to the eschatological restoration of the immortality and glory he lost
See this journal article (THE EARLIEST PATRISTIC INTERPRETATIONS OF PSALM 82, JEWISH ANTECEDENTS, AND THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN DEIFICATION
Carl Mosser
The Journal of Theological Studies
NEW SERIES, Vol. 56, No. 1 (APRIL 2005), pp. 30-74):
http://www.jstor.org/stable/23969235
The author is professor of Christian theology at Gateway Seminary (Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary).