So far, however, as any authentic record with which we are familiar
goes, Jesus himself was a Unitarian. All the disciples were Unitarians.
Paul was a Unitarian. The New Testament is a Unitarian book from
beginning to end. The finest critics of the world will tell you that
there is no trace of any other teaching there. And so, for the first
three hundred years of the history of the Church, Unitarianism was its
prevailing doctrine.

I have no very good memory for names. So I have brought here a little
leaflet which contains some that I wish to speak of. Among the Church
Fathers, Clement, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and
Lactantius, all of them in their writings make it perfectly clear and
unquestioned that the belief of the Church, the majority belief for the
first three centuries, was Unitarian. Of course, the process of thought
here and there was going on which finally culminated in the doctrine of
the Trinity. That is, people were beginning more and more to exalt, as
they supposed, the character, the office, the mission of Jesus; coming
more and more to believe that he was something other than a man, that
he was above and beyond humanity.

But one other among the Fathers, Justin Martyr, one of the best known
of all, takes care to point out explicitly his belief. I will read you
just two or three words from it. He says: "There is a Lord of the Lord
Jesus, being his Father and God, and the Cause of his existence."

This belief, then, was universal, practically universal, throughout the
first three centuries. But the process of growth was going on which
finally culminated in the controversy which was settled by the Council
of Nicaea, held in the early part of the fourth century; that is, the