Chapter Seven
Trinitarian Christianity
ln
Europe
After the decisions which were reached at the Councils of Nicea in
325 AD and of Constantinople in 381 AD had paved the way for
the 'final' formulation and ratification of the doctrine of Trinity - a
doctrine which even Paul himself had not expounded back in the
lst century AD - the doctrinal evolution and transition from Pauline
to Trinitarian Christianity proceeded in leaps and bounds, espe
cially in the Western Roman Empire.
One of the main intellectual stumbling blocks for the new doc
trine's main exponents, however, was what had always been the
impossible task of explaining and reconciling in one person both
the human and the divine aspects which were logically required as
soon as Jesus carne to be regarded not only as a man but also as a
'son' of God. This reconciliation of opposites could only ever be
achieved by flatly stating that there was no contradiction and by
then accepting the doctrine as an act of unconditional and uncriti
cal blind faith. This was not always intellectually satisfying, and
was sometirnes interpreted as in fact being an act of surrender and
an acknowledgement of defeat. Whenever anyone tried to ration
ally explain why or how there was no contradiction, however, they
were often eventually driven to conclude that Jesus must be one or
the other but that he could not be both - which was always the
point at which the Unitarians would gleefully point out that if he
was not one, then he must be the other, and that if he had indeed
possessed all the attributes of a mortal human being, then Jesus
could not possibly have been God as weil.
One of the important figures in the history of early Christianity
in the context of this debate is that of Pope Honorius. A contempo
rary of the Prophet Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of