Then it remains evident that the Church of Rome, from which the self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century, borrowed the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, did not hold it from the apostles of Jesus Christ.
Confirmatur.—As a confirmation of this last and very important consequence, we are to prove,
1st. That in the Church of Rome, herself, the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ was established only at about the year 180.
Remark.—By the Church of Rome, we mean only the church whose bishop (who after centuries assumed the title of Pope,) was at Rome, and which, then, did not extend farther than the province of Rome, and a few other occidental places.
2d. That in the council of Nice, held in 325, despite the efforts of the Bishop of Rome; and despite the tyranny of the emperor Constantine I., who invoked the council at his own expense, attended, surrounded, and enforced it with military force, it was with the greatest difficulty that the Church of Rome obtained, from the bishops who composed it, a decision in favor of the doctrine she held, that Jesus Christ was God himself.
3d. That it was only long after the council of Nice that its decision, in favor of the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, prevailed among the churches which depended on the Emperor of Constantinople, and on the Bishop of Rome.
4th. We will also present a succinct view of the large number of Christians, who, without the pale of the communion of Rome, preserved the former belief that Jesus Christ was not God.
1st. We prove that in the Church of Rome herself, the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ was established only at about the year 180.
Bergier himself makes the following confession: "An ancient author, who is believed to be Caïus, bishop of Rome, who had written against Artemon, and of whom Eusebe has related the words, Ecclesiastical History, book 5, chap. 22, seems to confound together the Theodotians and the Artemonians.... They maintain, he says, that their doctrine is not new; that it has been taught by the apostles, and that it has been followed in the church until the pontificates of Victor and of Zephyrine his successor, but that since that time the truth has been altered."
Bergier adds, "The Theodotians believed that Jesus Christ was a man, and not God, that Jesus Christ was above the other men only by his miraculous birth, and by his extraordinary virtues." Also, Bergier says, that, although Theodote was a native of Bysance, he resided in Rome, where he preached the same doctrine as Theodote, at least in regard to Jesus Christ being a man and not God.