How Greek philosophical categories replaced the Hebrew declaration of one YHWH, and produced the same kind of covering that Jesus did to Yeshua, Lord did to YHWH, and Church did to Ekklesia.
Document 2 of 13
The previous document established the foundation. The Sh’ma declares one YHWH, echad, unified wholeness containing differentiation without fracturing into separate beings. The Hebrew covenant text never describes the divine nature in any other way. One being. One name. One I am. Expressing himself in the registers the covenant requires without becoming multiple beings in the process.
This document examines what happened to that foundation in the fourth and fifth centuries CE, and why what happened to it is the same kind of covering mechanism that this body of work has been documenting throughout. The same pattern. The same result. The Hebrew declaration replaced by a framework built from outside the Hebrew covenant text. The one YHWH covered by a formula the Hebrew text never used and a vocabulary the covenant writers never employed.
The councils did not set out to replace the Hebrew declaration of one YHWH. They set out to protect what they understood to be true. But the categories they used to protect it were not from the Hebrew text, and the categories changed what was being protected into something the Hebrew text does not say.
The background is essential. By the third century CE the ekklesia, the called-out assembly of all flesh constituted by the cross, had become institutionalized. What had been a proclamation had become a religion. What had been the testimony of YHWH about his Son had become the property of an institution managing access to that testimony. And within that institution fierce theological debates had broken out about the nature of the one the testimony proclaimed.
The most significant debate was sparked by a teacher in Alexandria named Arius, who taught approximately 318 CE that the Son was the first and greatest of YHWH’s creations, subordinate to the Father, divine in a secondary sense, the agent through whom YHWH created everything else but not himself the uncreated divine being. Arius was not inventing a new position from nothing. He was drawing on Greek philosophical categories that distinguished between the highest divine being and subordinate divine emanations, a framework inherited from Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy that had been flowing through educated Greek-speaking culture for centuries.
The institutional church recognized that Arius was wrong. Yeshua is not a created being. The I am before Avraham was is not a secondary divine emanation. The one in whom God was reconciling the world to himself is not a subordinate agent. These instincts were correct. But the response to Arius was built on the same Greek philosophical vocabulary that Arius was using, and the response, built on Greek categories to defeat a Greek-category argument, produced a framework that the Hebrew covenant text never declared.
Council of Nicaea — 325 CE — convened by Emperor Constantine
What it decided: Declared the Son to be homoousios, of the same substance as the Father. Produced the Nicene Creed establishing the Son as true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father.
What it cost: The word homoousios does not appear in the Hebrew covenant text or anywhere in the Greek New Testament. It is a philosophical term from Greek metaphysics, ousia meaning substance or being, homo meaning same. The council used a Greek philosophical category to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son that the Hebrew text describes simply as one, echad. The homoousios framework required two distinct substances to be declared the same substance, which presupposes two distinct beings whose sameness must then be philosophically established. The Sh’ma does not establish the sameness of two beings. It declares one being. The framework shifted the foundation from declaration to philosophical argument.
Council of Constantinople — 381 CE
What it decided: Expanded the Nicene framework to include the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity, proceeding from the Father, worshiped and glorified together with Father and Son. Established the full Trinitarian formula of three persons, one substance.
What it cost: The framework of three persons, hypostaseis in Greek, personae in Latin, applied to the divine nature is not found in the Hebrew covenant text. Hypostasis means underlying substance or subsistence, a philosophical term for a distinct mode of being within a shared nature. The Hebrew text does not speak of YHWH as having three hypostaseis. It speaks of one YHWH expressing himself in multiple registers of the same divine reality. The council’s framework was philosophically sophisticated and sincerely intended to protect the full deity of Yeshua and the Spirit. But it replaced the Hebrew declaration with a Greek philosophical architecture that required the oneness of YHWH to be explained and defended rather than heard and received.
The consequence of replacing the Hebrew declaration with the Greek philosophical framework is the same consequence that runs through every covering this body of work has examined. Once the framework is in place, the text must be read through it rather than the framework being tested against the text. The Sh’ma, YHWH is one, becomes a theological puzzle to be solved within the Trinitarian framework rather than the foundation the framework should have been built on. How can three persons be one being? What is the relationship between the persons? How does the Son proceed from the Father and how does the Spirit proceed from both? These questions are generated by the Greek philosophical framework. The Hebrew text does not generate them. The Hebrew text generates only the declaration, one YHWH, echad, and the command to hear it.
This is the same mechanism as the other four coverings. Jesus replaced Yeshua with a label that had no declaration, and the declaration YHWH saves disappeared from the Son’s name. Lord replaced YHWH with a title of authority, and the declaration behold the hand behold the nail disappeared from six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight occurrences of the divine name. Christ replaced Mashiach with a surname, and the covenantal title that connected Yeshua to the entire covenant testimony disappeared into a two-word name. Church replaced Ekklesia with a building, and the called-out assembly of all flesh disappeared into a walled institution with exclusion mechanisms. And homoousios and hypostasis replaced echad, and the simple, direct, foundational declaration of one YHWH disappeared into a philosophical framework that has required sixteen hundred years of theological argument to maintain and has produced forty-six thousand denominations each arguing about how to interpret it correctly.
The Trinitarian formula is the same kind of covering as the other four. It replaced a Hebrew declaration with a Greek philosophical framework. It took what the text simply declares and made it something that must be explained, defended, and argued about. The Sh’ma does not argue. It declares. Hear.
This document does not argue that the councils were malicious or that the men who attended them were not sincere. They were sincere. They were trying to protect what they rightly recognized, that Yeshua is not a created being, that the Spirit is not a lesser divine emanation, that the one the gospel proclaims is the fullness of the divine being entering the creation. These instincts were correct. The problem was not the instinct. The problem was the vocabulary used to defend it. Greek philosophical categories cannot carry Hebrew covenant declarations without changing what is being carried.
The Hebrew covenant text does not need homoousios. It has echad. It does not need hypostasis. It has registers, Av, I am, incarnate, Spirit — modes of the same divine expressing himself in the ways the covenant requires. It does not need a council to establish the full deity of Yeshua. It has before Avraham was, I am. He who has seen me has seen the Father. I and the Father are one. God was in Mashiach reconciling. The text declares what the councils were trying to protect, but it declares it in the Hebrew covenant vocabulary of the Sh’ma, not in the Greek philosophical vocabulary of Nicaea. And when the Greek vocabulary replaced the Hebrew declaration, what was being protected was subtly but significantly changed into something the original declaration never said.
The twelve documents of this series are not a defense of any council’s position or an attack on any council’s position. They are a return to the text, to the Sh’ma, to the I am, to the echad that the covenant testimony has been declaring since the first word was written before the creation began. Not three persons in a formula. Not a philosophical argument about substance and subsistence. One YHWH. In every register simultaneously. The same one. Always. Hear.
The councils used Greek categories to defend a Hebrew declaration, and the categories changed what was being defended. The declaration does not need defending. It needs hearing.
Homoousios replaced echad.
Hypostasis replaced registers.
Three persons replaced one YHWH.
Same mechanism. Same result.
A Hebrew declaration covered by a framework built from outside the Hebrew text.
The Sh’ma does not argue.
It declares.
YHWH is one. Echad. Hear.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams