Glyn Parfitt maintains that when the early Church fathers spoke of Christ being begotten they were often simply saying that Christ was ‘unique’ or
‘special’ (see pages 145-146, 149-150, 153-154, 165, 641 and 810). Whilst no one will argue with the uniqueness of Christ (or His specialness), to say that the early church fathers meant ‘begotten’ to mean this I find is totally unjustifiable.
Along with that which Alexander wrote (as above), take a look at other early Christian’s writings See how they read when ‘unique’ or ‘special’ is substituted instead of literally begotten.
Alexander said;
“We have learnt that the Son is immutable and unchangeable, all-sufficient and perfect, like the Father, lacking only His “unbegotten.” He is the exact and precisely similar image of His Father. For it is clear that the image fully contains everything by which the greater likeness exists, as the Lord taught us when He said, ‘My Father is greater than I.” (The ecclesiastical history of Theodoret, Book 1, Chapter 3, page 39 ‘The Epistle of Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria to Alexander, Bishop of Constantinople’)
Can we say that what Alexander was actually saying was that the Son was lacking in His Father’s ‘un-specialness’ or ‘un-uniqueness’? This would be a nonsensical way to understand what Alexander was saying. It is obviously that he is using this begotten concept as Christ having His source in the Father.
Arius, who represents the opposition to the theology of Alexander, wrote in similar letter regarding his and his follower’s beliefs;
“But we say and believe, and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten; and that He does not derive His subsistence from any matter; but that by His own will and counsel He has subsisted before time, and before ages, as perfect God,
only begotten and unchangeable, and that before He was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, He was not. For He was not unbegotten.” (The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret, Book 1, Chapter 3,
‘Letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia’)
Again this being begotten was regarded as a ‘happening’ (an event). It was not just saying that Christ was ‘special’.
As another example, take the writings of Ignatius. He spoke of those he termed ‘Christ betrayers’. Amongst other things he said that;
“They [the Christ betrayers] also calumniate His being born of the Virgin; they are ashamed of His cross; they deny His passion; and they do not believe His resurrection. They introduce God as a Being unknown; they suppose Christ to be unbegotten; and as to the Spirit, they do not admit that He exists.
Some of them say that the Son is a mere man, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but the same person, and that the creation is the work of God, not by Christ, but by some other strange power.” (Ignatius, Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians, Chap. VI)
This was written by Ignatius around AD 107. He was writing to the early Christians urging them to maintain their faith. There were no objections to his begotten concept of Christ. In fact here (like Alexander did over 200 years later) he condemns those who say that Christ is unbegotten.
Ignatius is said to have been born very soon after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Some say that it was as early as AD 35, although others maintain it was a few years later (the death and resurrection of Jesus was in AD 31).
Whichever date of his birth is assumed, Ignatius certainly lived during the time of the ‘acts of the apostles’. This would have been in the time of such as Peter, Paul, James and John etc. This is something that for very obvious reasons we need to remember. They would have handed down their beliefs personally to those like Ignatius. It is also said that Ignatius was a convert and disciple of John the gospel writer (John is the one who used ‘monogenes’ in respect of Christ). If this is true then he would have known exactly what John believed concerning Christ. He may have even read John’s gospel as it was originally written.
Ignatius also wrote to the Ephesians;
“But our Physician is the only true God, the unbegotten and unapproachable, the Lord of all, the Father and Begetter of the only-begotten Son. We have also as a Physician the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin.” (Ignatius, Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians)
Again there is no way that anyone who is honestly seeking the truth can say that all that Ignatius was saying here of Christ was that He was unique or special.
Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho (or Tryphon) wrote (this was with reference to Christ being the wisdom of Proverbs chapter 8);
“And it is written in the book of Wisdom: 'If I should tell you daily events, I would be mindful to enumerate them from the beginning. The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting He established me in the beginning, before He formed the earth, and before He made the depths, and before the springs of waters came forth, before the mountains were settled; He begets me before all the hills.' When I repeated these words, I added: "You perceive, my hearers, if you bestow attention, that the Scripture has declared that this Offspring was begotten by the Father before all things created; and that which is begotten is numerically distinct from that which begets, any one will admit.” .”(Justin Marty, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter CXXVI, ‘The various names of Christ’)
This very same reasoning can be found throughout the entirety of the early church father’s writings. Masses more could be quoted but they would all say the very same thing. That is that Christ is begotten of the Father therefore He is truly the Son of God. That Christ is the wisdom of Proverbs chapter 8 is also prevalent in the writings of the early Christian writers.
These early church fathers all believed and taught that the Son has His source in the Father therefore they described the Father as the unbegotten and the Son the begotten. This is what made the Son, according to their reasoning, God (Jehovah) Himself.
It must also be said here that if the word ‘begotten’ (as used by the early Christians) only means unique or special, then why is not this concept applied in the Scriptures to the Father or the Holy Spirit? Are they not unique? Are they not special? Are they not co-equal? Why apply it to only the Son?
In summary of the above, it must be said again that even though all these church fathers wrote about the Father being unbegotten and the Son being begotten it brought about no objections from early Christians. This begotten concept appears to have been the predominant faith of early Christianity. In other words it was the norm.
Why I bring this to your notice is because the majority of these early Christians were Greek speaking. If they had thought that these early Christian writers were speaking antagonistically to the New Testament Scriptures would they not have objected? After all, they would have been reading the New Testament Scriptures in their own language.
When debating this begotten concept therefore we need to give this serious consideration. In other words we must ask why they did not object to it. It can only be reasoned that on an issue as big as this one (the deity of Jesus Christ), they believed that what the church fathers wrote was in accordance with the Scriptures. I cannot see that there can be any other conclusion.
If I were using Glyn Parfitt’s method of ‘weight of evidence’ analysis (which I am not) I would probably give this at least a + 5 or even more in favour of the begotten concept. Even though it does not ‘prove’ the concept, it is still a major part of the puzzle.