I have checked those quotes and know they are correctly quoted.
Polycarp (AD 69–155) was the bishop at the church in Smyrna. Irenaeus tells us Polycarp was a disciple of John the Apostle. In his
Letter to the Philippians he says,
Now may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
the eternal high priest himself, the Son of God Jesus Christ, build you up in faith and truth...and to us with you, and to all those under heaven
who will yet believe in our Lord and God Jesus Christ and in his Father who raised him from the dead.
[1]
Ignatius (AD 50–117) was the bishop at the church in Antioch and also a disciple of John the Apostle. He wrote a series of letters to various churches on his way to Rome, where he was to be martyred. He writes,
Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, unto her which hath been blessed in greatness through the plentitude of God the Father; which hath been foreordained before the ages to be for ever unto abiding and unchangeable glory, united and elect in a true passion, by the will of the Father
and of Jesus Christ our God; even unto the church which is in Ephesus [of Asia], worthy of all felicitation: abundant greeting in Christ Jesus and in blameless joy.
[2]
Being as you are imitators of God, once you took on new life
through the blood of God you completed perfectly the task so natural to you.
[3]
There is only one physician, who is both flesh and spirit, born and unborn,
God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first subject to suffering and then beyond it, Jesus Christ our Lord.
[4]
For
our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by Mary according to God’s plan, both from the seed of David and of the Holy Spirit.
[5]
Consequently all magic and every kind of spell were dissolved, the ignorance so characteristic of wickedness vanished, and the ancient kingdom was abolished
when God appeared in human form to bring the newness of eternal life.
[6]
For
our God Jesus Christ is more visible now that he is in the Father.
[7]
I glorify Jesus Christ, the God who made you so wise, for I observed that you are established in an unshakable faith, having been nailed, as it were, to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[8]
Wait expectantly for the one who is above time:
the Eternal, the Invisible, who for our sake became visible; the Intangible, the Unsuffering, who for our sake suffered, who for our sake endured in every way.
[9]
Justin Martyr (AD 100–165) was an Christian apologist of the second century.
And that
Christ being Lord, and God the Son of God, and appearing formerly in power as Man, and Angel, and in the glory of fire as at the bush, so also was manifested at the judgment executed on Sodom, has been demonstrated fully by what has been said.
[10]
Permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in order
to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts.
[11]
Therefore these words testify explicitly that He [Jesus] is witnessed to by Him [the Father] who established these things, as
deserving to be worshipped, as God and as Christ.
[12]
The Father of the universe has
a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin....
[13]
For if you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would not have denied that
He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable God.
[14]
Melito of Sardis (died c. AD 180) was the bishop of the church in Sardis.
He that hung up the earth in space was Himself hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that bore up the earth was born up on a tree; the Lord of all was subjected to ignominy in a naked body—
God put to death! ...
n order that He might not be seen, the luminaries turned away, and the day became darkened—because they slew God, who hung naked on the tree.... This is He who made the heaven and the earth, and in the beginning, together with the Father, fashioned man; who was announced by means of the law and the prophets; who put on a bodily form in the Virgin; who was hanged upon the tree; who was buried in the earth; who rose from the place of the dead, and ascended to the height of heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father.[15]
Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 130–202) was bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, which is now Lyons, France. Irenaeus was born in Smyrna in Asia Minor, where he studied under bishop Polycarp, who in turn had been a disciple of John the Apostle.
For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man.... He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God, coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men;—all these things did the Scriptures prophesy of Him.[16]
He received testimony from all that He was very man, and that He was very God, from the Father, from the Spirit, from angels, from the creation itself, from men, from apostate spirits and demons.[17]
Christ Jesus [is] our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father.[18]
Christ Himself, therefore, together with the Father, is the God of the living, who spoke to Moses, and who was also manifested to the fathers.[19]
Carefully, then, has the Holy Ghost pointed out, by what has been said, His birth from a virgin, and His essence, that He is God (for the name Emmanuel indicates this). And He shows that He is a man.... [W]e should not understand that He is a mere man only, nor, on the other hand, from the name Emmanuel, should suspect Him to be God without flesh.[20]
Clement of Alexandria (AD 150–215) was another early church father. He wrote around AD 200. He writes,
This Word, then, the Christ, the cause of both our being at first (for He was in God) and of our well-being, this very Word has now appeared as man, He alone being both, both God and man—the Author of all blessings to us; by whom we, being taught to live well, are sent on our way to life eternal.... The Word, who in the beginning bestowed on us life as Creator when He formed us, taught us to live well when He appeared as our Teacher that as God He might afterwards conduct us to the life which never ends.[21]
For it was not without divine care that so great a work was accomplished in so brief a space by the Lord, who, though despised as to appearance, was in reality adored, the expiator of sin, the Savior, the clement, the Divine Word, He that is truly most manifest Deity, He that is made equal to the Lord of the universe; because He was His Son, and the Word was in God....[22]
Tertullian (AD 150–225) was an early Christian apologist. He said,
For God alone is without sin; and the only man without sin is Christ, since Christ is also God.[23]
Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled.... That which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united.[24]
...
[1] Polycarp, Philippians, 12:2.
[2] Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 0.0. (This is the Greeting.)
[3] Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 1.1.
[4] Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 7.2.
[5] Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 18.2.
[6] Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 19.3.
[7] Ignatius, Letter to the Romans, 3.3. Holmes, AF, 229.
[8] Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 1.1. Holmes, AF, 249.
[9] Ignatius, Letter to Polycarp, 3.2. Holmes, AF, 265.
[10] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 128. Translation from Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, I:264.
[11] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 36. ANF, I:212.
[12] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 63. ANF, I:229.
[13] Justin Martyr, First Apology, 63. ANF, I:184.
[14] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 126. ANF, I:263.
[15] Melito, 5.
[16] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.19.2.
[17] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.6.7.
[18] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1.10.1.
[19] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.5.2.
[20] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.21.4.
[21] Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen, 1.
[22] Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen, 10.
[23] Tertullian, Treatise on the Soul, 41.
[24] Tertullian, Apology, 21.
[25] Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 9.
[26] Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 2.
[27] Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 10.29.
[28] Hippolytus, Exegetical Fragments from Commentaries, On Luke, Chapter 23.
[29] Hippolytus, Against Plato, Section 3.
[30] Hippolytus, Against the Heresy of one Noetus, Section 17.
[31] Origen, De Principiis, Preface, 4.
[32] Origen. Contra Celsus, Book 5, Chapter 11.
[33] Origen, Contra Celsus Book 8, Chapter 15.
[34] Origen, De Principiis, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 2.
[35] Origen, De Principiis, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 4.
[36] Origen, De Principiis, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 10.
Nine Early Church Fathers Who Taught Jesus Is God | Stand to Reason
