Deification in the Early Fathers

Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and Athanasius all taught that men become gods. Not paraphrased — quoted, with the citation, so you can open the text and check.

A Note on Method

Patristic quotations circulate through apologetics on both sides in truncated, garbled, and occasionally invented form. That is a real problem, and it damages whoever repeats it.

So every quotation on this page was checked against the primary text before it was published, and each carries its work, book, and section so you can verify it yourself. One quotation frequently cited on this subject — a line attributed to Clement of Alexandria — is NOT here, because it could not be confirmed against the source in the same way. If it cannot be verified, it does not appear. That rule costs a good line occasionally. It is worth it.

The Charge — Stated Fairly

Latter-day Saints teach that the faithful may become like God — joint-heirs with Christ, inheriting all that the Father has. This is presented as the clearest proof that the Restoration is not Christian at all: a pagan intrusion, invented on the American frontier, foreign to everything the Church believed for eighteen centuries.

It is a strong-sounding charge, and it has one weakness. It is a HISTORICAL claim — that the early Church did not teach this — and historical claims can be checked.

The Bible Says It First

Before any father is quoted, note that the fathers were not inventing a theme. They were commenting on one.

John 10:34–35

“Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken…”

Accused of blasphemy for making Himself the Son of God, the Lord’s defense was to quote Psalm 82:6 — “Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High” — and to add that the scripture cannot be broken. He did not soften it or explain it away. He leaned on it.

The Rest of the Chain

Romans 8:16–17 — “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.”

2 Peter 1:4 — “partakers of the divine nature.”

1 John 3:2 — “we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

Revelation 3:21 — “will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”

Revelation 21:7 — “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.”

Matthew 5:48 — “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

Read Revelation 21:7 once more and ask what is being withheld. ALL THINGS. That is the promise as John recorded it, and every attempt to shrink it has to explain what “all” excludes.

What the Fathers Wrote

Now the testimony. Four passages, each verified against the primary text.

Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies IV.38.4 (c. 180 AD)

“we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods”

Irenaeus, Against Heresies Book V, Preface

“who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 124 (c. 155–160 AD)

“all men are deemed worthy of becoming gods, and of having power to become sons of the Highest”

Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation 54.3 (c. 318 AD)

“For He was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father”

Consider who these men are. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John — two handshakes from the apostles. Justin Martyr was writing within about sixty years of the last apostle’s death. Athanasius is the hero of Nicaea, the man Trinitarian Christianity credits with saving orthodoxy from Arius.

That last one carries the whole argument. The chief defender of the Nicene faith, in the treatise Christendom still reads, wrote that God was made man SO THAT MEN MIGHT BE MADE GOD. If that sentence is blasphemy, the blasphemer is Athanasius, and the Trinitarian tradition has been quoting him with approval for seventeen hundred years.

What This Does and Does Not Establish

Be exact here, because overreach on this subject is how bad quotations get into circulation in the first place.

These fathers were not Latter-day Saints, and this page does not claim they were. They wrote of deification as participation in the divine life by grace, and they did not address the questions the Restoration later answered. Quoting them proves what it proves — no more.

But what it proves is exactly what the charge denies. The charge is that the doctrine of men becoming gods is a nineteenth-century American invention foreign to historic Christianity. Irenaeus wrote “then at length gods” around 180 AD. Justin wrote “becoming gods” around 155. Athanasius wrote “that we might be made God” around 318. Joseph Smith was born in 1805. The charge is not weakened by these quotations. It is DATED out of existence by them.

The Verdict

The accusation was historical, so it can be answered historically, and it has been.

This is what David wrote: ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most High. This is what Jesus did when charged with blasphemy: quoted that psalm and said the scripture cannot be broken. This is what Peter promised: partakers of the divine nature. This is what John saw: sitting with Christ in His throne, inheriting all things. This is what Irenaeus wrote two generations from the apostles: at first merely men, then at length gods. This is what Athanasius wrote: He was made man that we might be made God.

Reject the doctrine of deification and you have not rejected Joseph Smith. You have rejected Psalm 82, John 10:34, Romans 8:17, 2 Peter 1:4, Revelation 3:21 and 21:7 — and you have parted company with Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and the man who defended Nicaea. The Restoration did not invent this teaching. It recovered a promise that had been in the text the whole time, and that the earliest Christians read exactly as it was written.