Here are a few more references for you:
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (1951). II, 384, 389: "The formula used was "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" or some synonymous phrase; there is no evidence for the use of the triune name… The earliest form, represented in the Acts, was simple immersion… in water, the use of the name of the Lord, and the laying on of hands. To these were added, at various times and places which cannot be safely identified, (a) the triune name (Justin)…"
Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (1962), I 351: "The evidence… suggests that baptism in early Christianity was administered, not in the threefold name, but 'in the name of Jesus Christ' or 'in the name of the Lord Jesus.'"
Otto Heick, A History of Christian Thought (1965), I, 53: "At first baptism was administered in the name of Jesus, but gradually in the name of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (1898). I, 241: "[One explanation is that] the original form of words was "into the name of Jesus Christ" or 'the Lord Jesus,' Baptism into the name of the Trinity was a later development."
Irenaeus (c. 202) in discussing Mark xiii. 32, says, "If any one inquire the reason wherefore the Father, communicating to the Son in all things, hath been declared by the Son to know alone the hour and the day, one could not find at present any [reason] more suitable or more becoming, or more free from danger, than this (for the Lord is the only true (yerax) Master), [that it is] in order that we may learn through him that the Father is over all things.
For the Father, he says, is greater than I. And so the Father is announced by our Lord to have the pre-eminence in regard to knowledge, for this purpose, that we also should leave perfect knowledge and such questions to God'' ('adv. Haer.' 11. 28. 8).
The interpretation of Origen (253) is free from all ambiguity though it needs to be guarded carefully.
" I admit," he says " that there may be some who maintain that the Saviour is the most High God over all (ο μεγιστος επι πασι θεος) but we do not certainly hold such a view, who believe him when he said himself:
The Father who sent me is greater than I" (' c. Cels.' VIII. 14) ; and again : " Clearly we assert that the Son is not mightier than the Father, but inferior (ουκ ισχυροτερον αλλ υποδεεστερον). And this we say as we believe him when he said. The Father who sent me is greater than I"
(id, c.15. Comp. 'In Joh. T.' vi. 23 ; viii. 25).
The language of Tertullian (f c. 220), like that of Origen, leaves no doubt as to the sense in which he understood the words. "The Father," he says, " is the whole substance (tota substantia), the Son is an outflow and portion of the whole (derivatio (c. 14) totius et portio), as he himself
declares:
because the Father is greater than I ... The very fact that the terms Father and Son are used shews a difference between them; for assuredly all things will be that which they are called, and will be called that which they will be ; and the different terms cannot be ever interchanged " (' c. Prax.' 9). c. 15. Comp. ' In Joh. T.' vi. 23 ; viii. 25).
NOVATIAN (c. 250) is scarcely less bold in his mode of expression: " It is necessary that [the Father] have priority (aprior sit) as Father, since He who knows no origin must needs have precedence over (antecedat) him who has an origin. At the same time [the Son] must be less, since he knows that he is in Him as having an origin because he is born " ('De Trin.' l. 31.
The words quodammodo, aliquo pacto, found in the common texts are mere glosses).
Basil: Wherefore also the Lord said thus, My Father is greater than I, clearly inasmuch as He is Father (καθο πατηρ). Yea, what else does the word Father signify unless the being cause and origin of that which is begotten of Him? " ('c. Eunom.'I. 25. Comp. ' c. Eunom.' I. ao). This idea he expresses elsewhere more fully : "The Son is second in order (ταξει) to the Father, because he is from (απο) Him, and [second] in dignity (αξιωματι), because the Father is the "origin' and cause of His Being " (' c. Eunom.' III. i).
At first the Christian Faith was not Trinitarian. . . It was not so in the apostolic and sub-apostolic ages, as reflected in the New Testament and other early Christian writings. The Encyclopedia of Religion And Ethics
Theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity. The Encyclopedia of Religion
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taught in the Old Testament. . . "is not. . . directly and immediately the word of God." The New Catholic Encyclopedia
There is no evidence that any sacred writer even suspected the existence of a Trinity within the Godhead. . . Even to see in the Old Testament suggestions or foreshadowings or 'veiled signs' of the trinity of persons, is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers. Jesuit Edmund Fortman The "Triune God"
Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament. The Encyclopedia of Religion The New Encyclopedia Britannica
The New Testament does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology
To Jesus and Paul the doctrine of the trinity was apparently unknown; . . . they say nothing about it. Yale University professor E. Washburn Hopkins "Origin and Evolution of Religion"
Jesus Christ never mentioned such a phenomenon, and nowhere in the New Testament does the word 'Trinity' appear. The idea was only adopted by the Church three hundred years after the death of our Lord. Historian Arthur Weigall "The Paganism in Our Christianity"
‘Newton laid the blame for the rise of the pagan doctrines about demons in the Church at the door of his ecclesiastical nemesis Athanasius, whom he also saw as responsible for introducing Trinitarianism "Paradoxical questions concerning Athanasius",
According to most scholars, Newton was a monotheist who believed in biblical prophecies but was Antitrinitarian. 'In Newton's eyes, worshipping Christ as God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin'. (British Journal for the History of Science) (Avery Cardinal Dulles. The Deist Minimum. January 2005.)
"No one can bring forth a son older than herself."
Cassian represents the Constantinoplitan patriarch (Nestorius) as teaching that Christ is a mere man (homo solitarius) who merited union with the Divinity as the reward of His Passion.
God alone was without beginning, unoriginate; the Son was originated, and once had not existed. For all that has origin must begin to be.
Such is the genuine doctrine of Arius. Using Greek terms, it denies that the Son is of one essence, nature, or substance with God; He is not consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father, and therefore not like Him, or equal in dignity, or co-eternal, or within the real sphere of Deity. The Logos which St. John exalts is an attribute, Reason, belonging to the Divine nature, not a person distinct from another, and therefore is a Son merely in figure of speech.
Arius maintains in his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, that the Son "is no part of the Ingenerate." Hence the Arian sectaries who reasoned logically were styled Anomoeans: they said that the Son was "unlike" the Father. And they defined God as simply the Unoriginate.
The man Jesus, said Paul of Samosata, was distinct from the Logos, and, in Milton's later language, by merit was made the Son of God. The Supreme is one in Person as in Essence.
Arius and his followers, the Arians, believed if the Son were equal to the Father, there would be more than one God.
Arianism regained momentum and survived until the reigns of Gratian and Theodosius, at which time, St. Ambrose set to work stamping it out.
(J. B. Lightfoot. The Apostolic Fathers—Part II. Vol. ii. Sec. I. pp. 90, et seqq.
1Jn 5:1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born <G1080> of God: and every one that loveth him that begat <G1080> loveth him also that is begotten <G1080> of him.
"Religion and Politics at the Council at Nicaea," by Robert M. Grant. The Journal of Religion, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Jan., 1975), pp. 1-12
monotheism, that the Originative Principle is strictly and Personally One and one only (in contrast to the plurality), see Newman, Arians4, p. 112 note).
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Chapter VI.—After the Death of Procopius Valens constrains those who composed the Synod, and All Christians, to profess Arianism.
Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church (1947), page 58: "The trinitarian baptismal formula,,, was displacing the older baptism in the name of Christ."
The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1957), I, 435: "The New Testament knows only baptism in the name of Jesus… which still occurs even in the second and third centuries."
Encyclopedia Biblica (1899), I, 473: "It is natural to conclude that baptism was administered in the earliest times 'in the name of Jesus Christ,' or in that 'of the Lord Jesus.' This view is confirmed by the fact that the earliest forms of the baptismal confession appear to have been single-not triple, as was the later creed."
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1920), II 365: "The trinitarian formula and triune immersion were not uniformly used from the beginning… Baptism into the name of the Lord [was] the normal formula of the New Testament. In the 3rd century baptism in the name of Christ was still so widespread that Pope Stephen, in opposition to Cyprian of Carthage, declared it to be valid."
Cook, The Holy Bible (A.D.1611) p.213-214;
See: "Religion and Politics at the Council at Nicaea," by Robert M. Grant. The Journal of Religion, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Jan., 1975), pp. 1-12
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (1951). II, 384, 389: "The formula used was "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" or some synonymous phrase; there is no evidence for the use of the triune name… The earliest form, represented in the Acts, was simple immersion… in water, the use of the name of the Lord, and the laying on of hands. To these were added, at various times and places which cannot be safely identified, (a) the triune name (Justin)…"
Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (1962), I 351: "The evidence… suggests that baptism in early Christianity was administered, not in the threefold name, but 'in the name of Jesus Christ' or 'in the name of the Lord Jesus.'"
Otto Heick, A History of Christian Thought (1965), I, 53: "At first baptism was administered in the name of Jesus, but gradually in the name of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (1898). I, 241: "[One explanation is that] the original form of words was "into the name of Jesus Christ" or 'the Lord Jesus,' Baptism into the name of the Trinity was a later development."
Irenaeus (c. 202) in discussing Mark xiii. 32, says, "If any one inquire the reason wherefore the Father, communicating to the Son in all things, hath been declared by the Son to know alone the hour and the day, one could not find at present any [reason] more suitable or more becoming, or more free from danger, than this (for the Lord is the only true {yerax) Master), [that it is] in order that we may learn through him that the Father is over all things.
For the Father, he says, is greater than I. And so the Father is announced by our Lord to have the pre-eminence in regard to knowledge, for this purpose, that we also should leave perfect knowledge and such questions to God'' ('adv. Haer.' 11. 28. 8).
The interpretation of Origen (253) is free from all ambiguity though it needs to be guarded carefully. " I admit," he says " that there may be some who maintain that the Saviour is the most High God over all (ο μεγιστος επι πασι θεος) but we do not certainly hold such a view, who believe him when he said himself:
The Father who sent me is greater than I" (' c. Cels.' VIII. 14) ; and again : " Clearly we assert that the Son is not mightier than the Father, but inferior (ουκ ισχυροτερον αλλ υποδεεστερον). And this we say as we believe him when he said. The Father who sent me is greater than I"
(id, c.15. Comp. 'In Joh. T.' vi. 23 ; viii. 25).
