[SeattleUte]

Sometime in the second or third century it dawned on Christians that the most sublime and attractive thing about Christ is that he was a God who suffered and died. (Volumes have been and could still be written on this aspect of Christ's persona and its resonance.) His appeal is in his dual humanity and divinity. Yet making him the Son of God threatened to detract from this sublime symbolism, perhaps reducing him to the greatest of prophets. So there ensued a lot of discussion culminating in bloodshed and even warfare over the nature of the godhead. For a while the ani-trinity movement held the upper hand in early Christianity, at least politically. Constatine's son Constantius was an Arian Christian; Arians were named after Presbyter Arius who like Mormons rejected the trinity, and contended that the Father and the Son were not the same personage. Pelagius was the same, which is why some Mormon mullahs like him so much.

The contrary view held that this definition of the godhead devalued Jesus and threatenecd to take away what most appealed about Christianity. Ultimately, in one of history's most profound ironies, the Arian Visigoths killed Emperor Valens, an erstwhile ally and fellow Arian, in battle, which brought an end to the popularity of Arianism among Roman nobiltiy. Valens was the last Arian emperor.

There's an excellent book called When Jesus Became God that discusses this history.

I think in much the same way Mormons took a while to realize the implication of saying Jesus was the Son. Talmage apparently understood what early Christians came to realize--that the power of Christianity as an idea emanates from God being a suffering, incarnate God. Clearly if, as Talmage decided, Jesus is Jehova, the ancient Hebrews clear back to the patriarchs prayed to Jesus. The answer to this conundrum is the Trinity. The Trinity fits with the original idea of Christ as the Logos, which we see in the Gospel of John. Christ as God's manifestation on earth, the means by which God interfaces with humanity, which is why Logos has been translated into the Word of God as well. As we've discussed here, Mormonism doesn't have as elegantly contructed and refined a doctrin as it could.