Henry Barclay Swete provides an extensive quote from church father Hippolytus'
Contra Noetum 8. He then writes:
"It must be confessed that this, perhaps the earliest
apologia for the Church doctrine of the Trinity, halts
here and there; neither of the terms 'economy' and
'person,' which Hippolytus uses perhaps for the first
time, suggests the existence of *eternal relations in
the life of God*, and the Divine Unity appears to be
secured by a *subordinationism* which it is difficult
to reconcile with the essential equality of the
persons" (
The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church: A
Study of Christian Teaching in the Age of the
Fathers. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966), page 103.
Hippolytus also believed that God once existed alone, having nothing contemporaneous with himself (
Contra Noetum 10.1-2); however, he declares that "alone though he was," God was "manifold" (
autos de monos wn polus hn) in the sense that "he was not Word-less (
oute alogos) nor Wisdom-less (
oute asofos) nor Power-less (
oute adunatos) nor Mind-less (
oute abouleutos). But everything was in him, and he was himself the All."
So his words indicate that the Logos residing in God from all eternity was not a distinct
persona. Furthermore, according to Hippolytus, God voluntarily wills the Logos into existence (
Contra Noet 10.3). That also suggests the Logos was not an eternal person, and one historian (W.H.C. Frend) even says that Hippolytus thought of the Son as a "creature."
Granted, Hippolytus does consider Christ to be "God." The question, however, is what he means by this term. As Robert Wilkens observed some years ago, the pre-Nicenes believed that Christ was in some sense "God," but they did not think that he was "fully God."
So in
Contra Noetum 11, we read:
"And thus there appeared another beside Himself. But when I say another, I do not mean that there are two Gods, but that it is only as light of light, or as water from a fountain, or as a ray from the sun. For there is but one power, which is from the All; and the Father is the All, from whom comes this Power, the Word. And this is the mind which came forth into the world, and was manifested as the Son of God."