# Early Christians Who Called Jesus God: Evidence Before Nicaea

> A Megiddo mosaic, dated 200 to 299, offers a table to God Jesus Christ. John and Ignatius say the same before Nicaea in 325.

- Canonical: https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/early-christians-called-jesus-god
- Religions: Christianity
- Denominations: none
- Beliefs: none
- Tags: jesus, history, trinity
- Updated: 2026-11-06
- Author: [Paul Ambrose](https://apologetics.wiki/author/hi-its-paul)


Early Christians called Jesus God before the Council of Nicaea in 325. A mosaic at Megiddo, dated 200–299, records a gift “to God Jesus Christ,” and [John 1:1](/bible/john/1/1) and Ignatius already use that name for him.

## Key Points

- The [Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine catalog, MEGI0001](https://search.inscriptionsisraelpalestine.org/inscriptions/megi0001), dates the Megiddo mosaic from 200 to 299 and translates it: “The god-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”
- The catalog’s source for that Greek and that English is Tepper and Di Segni, *A Christian Prayer Hall of the Third Century CE at Kefar ’Othnay (Legio): Excavations at the Megiddo Prison 2005* (Israel Antiquities Authority, 2006). The find is the Megiddo Prison dig in northern Israel, not a Jerusalem inscription.
- The catalog does not give the year 230. Some reports propose about 230. This page uses 200–299. That range, and any year inside it, is before Nicaea in 325.
- The Greek datives Θεῷ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ are three words in the same case. The catalog’s English is one recipient, “to God Jesus Christ,” not a reconstructed creed.
- [John 1:1](/bible/john/1/1) says the Word was God. [John 20:28](/bible/john/20/28) is Thomas saying “My Lord and my God” to Jesus. Other “God” lines have real variants or punctuation choices, and this page states them.
- Ignatius, in the English of the [Epistle to the Ephesians](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0104.htm), greets the church in “Jesus Christ, our God,” chapter 1 speaks of “the blood of God,” and chapter 18 says “our God, Jesus Christ.” That is not a claim that every Ignatian sentence is equally explicit.
- [Pliny, Letters 10.96](https://www.attalus.org/pliny/ep10b.html), says former Christians met and recited a hymn to Christ “as though he were a god.” Pliny is a Roman official. The sentence is not itself a Christian confession.

## The Megiddo Mosaic

The catalog entry MEGI0001 is a Greek mosaic from Megiddo, headed as a third-century votive. Its date fields are a terminus post quem of 200 CE and a terminus ante quem of 299 CE. The transcription it prints is ΠροσήνικενΠροσήνεγκεν Ἀκεπτοῦς ⸱ ἡ φιλόθεος τὴν τράπεζαν ⸱ Θεῷ ⸱ Ἰησοῦ ⸱ Χριστῷ μνημόσυνον. The translation it prints, from Tepper and Di Segni, is: “The god-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”

The same bibliography names the excavation: a Christian prayer hall at Kefar ’Othnay (Legio), dug at the Megiddo Prison in 2005. Megiddo is in northern Israel. The catalog does not place the mosaic in Jerusalem. Its current-location line says no provenance is provided for where the floor is kept now, so this page does not name a museum.

The doubled first word is how the catalog prints a misspelled verb beside the corrected form Προσήνεγκεν, “has offered.” The translation uses that corrected verb. This page does not add a letter-by-letter drawing beyond the line the catalog prints. The floor measures 67 by 80 centimeters on that entry.

## What the Greek Says

Θεῷ, Ἰησοῦ, and Χριστῷ are dative. In this sentence the dative is the person to whom the table is offered. Three matching datives, and the catalog’s English “to God Jesus Christ,” read as one recipient. The line is not “to God” and then, separately, “for Jesus.” It does not take a modern paraphrase to see the name. Akeptous is called φιλόθεος, god-loving, and the memorial is μνημόσυνον.

That is identity language and gift language. It is not the later technical sentence “of one being with the Father.” A donor in a prayer hall did not carve a council’s vocabulary into the floor. The floor does say God Jesus Christ.

## What One Floor Does Not Prove

The report calls the room a Christian prayer hall, and the object is a table, τράπεζαν. A table set in that room, offered to Jesus Christ as a memorial, is the furniture of a meal. Christian writers use “table” for the Lord’s supper. Worship, and a meal of that kind, is a likely reading of a prayer-hall floor. It is not a proof, from one artifact, of every later proposition about the Spirit, the two natures, or the word the creed uses for the Son’s relation to the Father. The floor is one early, datable, public line. It sits with the New Testament, with Ignatius, and with a Roman report. None of the four replaces the others.

## Where the New Testament Says God

The strongest lines are the ones that predicate God of Jesus, in a fair translation, with the Greek and the context kept in view. A verse that calls him Lord is not automatically one of those lines. Lord can carry the divine name, and it can mean master. This page does not inflate Lord into God.

[John 1:1](/bible/john/1/1) says the Word was God. The sentence has already called the Word God in the predicate, with the Word distinguished from God in the clause before it. Jehovah’s Witnesses read the clause as “a god.” [What Does John 1:1 Mean?](/jehovahs-witnesses/john-1-and-the-word) stays with that Greek. The King James line is “the Word was God.”

[John 1:18](/bible/john/1/18) is a real variant. The Greek this site prints is μονογενὴς θεὸς. Its word line glosses μονογενής as unique, and the noun is God. Older English said only begotten. The King James, from a text that reads Son, prints “the only begotten Son.” The note on this site says the King James Greek does not include God there and adds Son. Both readings are real. A page that hides either one is not describing the verse.

[John 20:28](/bible/john/20/28) is Thomas, speaking to Jesus: “My Lord and my God.” The context is address. Jesus answers him. It is not an exclamation tossed past Jesus to the Father.

[Acts 20:28](/bible/acts/20/28) in the King James is the church of God, purchased with his own blood. Manuscripts differ on “God” and “Lord,” and on how the blood phrase is read. The variant is why the verse needs a caveat. The edition difference in the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Bible at this verse is [How the New World Translation (Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Bible) Changes John 1:1 and Other Verses About Jesus](/jehovahs-witnesses/how-the-new-world-translation-changes-verses-about-jesus).

[Romans 9:5](/bible/romans/9/5) in the King James joins “Christ” to “who is over all, God blessed for ever.” Greek sentences of this period were not punctuated with a modern comma. A stop before “God” can make the last words a doxology to the Father. The grammar is readable of Christ, and it is readable the other way. It is not the clearest line on this page.

[Titus 2:13](/bible/titus/2/13) says “the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” The Granville Sharp pattern, one article with two singular nouns joined by “and,” is the usual way Greek names one person twice. It is a strong pattern, not a mathematical proof, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ reading of two persons is answered on [Is Jesus “Our Great God and Savior” in Titus 2:13?](/jehovahs-witnesses/titus-2-13-our-great-god-and-savior). [2 Peter 1:1](/bible/2-peter/1/1) is the same construction: “our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

[Hebrews 1:8](/bible/hebrews/1/8) cites “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever” in a paragraph about the Son. Some translators read “God is your throne.” Either English still places that citation in the writer’s sentence about the Son, beside the worship of the angels in the same chapter.

[1 John 5:20](/bible/1-john/5/20) ends “this is the true God, and eternal life.” The nearest name is Jesus Christ. The pronoun can be read of the Father. The referent is disputed, and the verse is not the plainest one here. It is a different sentence from the later addition in [1 John 5:7](/bible/1-john/5/7), which [Does the Trinity Depend on 1 John 5:7?](/christianity/does-the-trinity-depend-on-1-john-5-7) treats on its own.

## Ignatius of Antioch

The [Epistle to the Ephesians](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0104.htm), in the Roberts and Donaldson English on New Advent, greets the church “in the will of the Father, and Jesus Christ, our God.” Chapter 1 tells the readers they are “stirring up yourselves by the blood of God.” Chapter 18 says, “For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost.” Those lines call Jesus God. They are early, and they are explicit.

The Ignatian letters exist in a shorter form and a longer form. Scholars generally use the middle recension. This page quotes those English phrases and does not treat every line of the longer printing as equally secure. It does not say that every genuine sentence in Ignatius is an explicit “Jesus is God.” Chapter 7’s “God existing in flesh,” as that longer English prints it, is not used here. A separate Greek edition of Ignatius was not opened, so this page does not print a Greek line for him beyond the English.

## Not All of These Are the Earliest Church

The mosaic and the New Testament are the earliest opened lines. The writers below are still before Nicaea in 325. They are not the apostles, and they do not speak for every church of their decade. The English is the Ante-Nicene Fathers, a nineteenth-century translation of works that survive in later manuscripts. Where a Greek or Latin edition was not opened, this page does not invent one.

The Greek that was opened is this:

| Line | Greek opened on this page | Second check |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Megiddo, MEGI0001 | ΠροσήνικενΠροσήνεγκεν Ἀκεπτοῦς ⸱ ἡ φιλόθεος τὴν τράπεζαν ⸱ Θεῷ ⸱ Ἰησοῦ ⸱ Χριστῷ μνημόσυνον | The [catalog](https://search.inscriptionsisraelpalestine.org/inscriptions/megi0001) credits Tepper and Di Segni, 2006, for that transcription and for the English. A second full reprint of the tesserae was not retrieved. |
| [John 1:1](/bible/john/1/1) | καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος | This site’s SBL Greek. The King James predicate is “the Word was God.” |
| [John 20:28](/bible/john/20/28) | Ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου | This site’s SBL Greek. The comparison of editions on [the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ page](/jehovahs-witnesses/how-the-new-world-translation-changes-verses-about-jesus) records the same sentence in Nestle 1904, Westcott and Hort, and Scrivener. |

[Justin, First Apology, chapter 63](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm), says the Son “is called Angel and Apostle” and that “the first-begotten Word of God, is even God.” Angel there means a messenger. The same sentence calls him God. That is not the later claim that he is a created archangel.

[Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 3, chapter 19](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103319.htm), says Jesus “is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word.” The chapter heading in that English calls him very God and very man.

[Tertullian, Apology, chapter 21](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0301.htm), says, “Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled,” and that what has come forth from God “is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one.” The Latin was not opened beside this English.

[Hippolytus, Against Noetus](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0521.htm), in the section numbered 8 in that English, says a person must acknowledge “Christ Jesus the Son of God, who, being God, became man.” The treatise is printed under his name. This page did not open a Greek manuscript of it.

[Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0136.htm) was opened for the line sometimes treated as a doxology. Chapter 8 says, “Let us then continually persevere in our hope, and the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ.” It does not call him God. Chapter 12 prays to “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Son of God.” Son of God is not the sentence “Jesus is God.” Polycarp is not listed with the lines above.

Clement of Alexandria and Origen are not quoted. A primary page of each was not opened, so this page does not borrow a sentence about them. The Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas are not used. A Lord line, or a line that calls Jesus a servant, is not a God line, and no sentence of theirs that says Jesus is God was opened.

## What Pliny Reported

Pliny wrote to Trajan about Christians in his province. In [Letters 10.96](https://www.attalus.org/pliny/ep10b.html) he reports what people who had left the church told him: on a stated day they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak and to recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, “as though he were a god,” and to bind themselves by an oath against theft and adultery, not to a crime. He calls the whole matter a superstition. He is a Roman governor, not a bishop writing a creed.

The sentence is still evidence. Around the early second century, a Roman official heard that Christians addressed Christ as a god. “As though” is his distance from the claim. It is not a Christian formula, and it is not Nicaea.

## Before the Council of Nicaea

Nicaea met in 325. The mosaic’s catalog range ends in 299. John, Ignatius, and Pliny are earlier still. The council did not invent the sentence that Jesus is God. Christians were already offering him a table, predicating God of him, and, in a Roman’s report, singing to him as to a god.

What Nicaea added was a term for a dispute about how the Son relates to the Father. “One being” is philosophical language for that relation. Calling Jesus God, and worshipping him, is earlier and simpler. A writer can use the earlier language without yet using the council’s term. This page does not claim that every church writer before 325 already spoke the creed of 381, or that a functional exaltation of Jesus is the same sentence as that creed. It does claim that the deity of Christ was already being said, in so many words, before the council. Jesus is God. The council confessed a claim the church was already making.

## What This Page Does Not Quote

Clement of Alexandria and Origen stay unquoted, for the reason above. The Didache and Barnabas stay unquoted. The witnesses this page prints are the Megiddo catalog, the New Testament lines, Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Pliny. Polycarp was opened and does not supply an explicit “Jesus is God” sentence.

## Frequently Asked Questions

**Did Nicaea Invent the Claim That Jesus Is God?**

No. The mosaic, John, and Ignatius use “God” for Jesus before 325. Nicaea answered a later argument about the Son’s relation to the Father. It did not mint the claim.

**Is the Mosaic Dated to the Year 230?**

The catalog’s date is 200–299. This page does not treat 230 as the year. A proposal of about 230 still falls inside that range, and still falls before 325.

**Does John 1:18 Say God or Son?**

Both readings exist. The Greek this site prints is μονογενὴς θεὸς, unique God on its word line. The King James prints Son. The variant is stated because it is real.

**Does Every “Lord” Mean God?**

No. This page stays with lines that use God, and it says when punctuation or a variant changes the force.

**Is Pliny’s Letter a Christian Confession?**

No. It is a Roman official telling the emperor what former Christians said they used to do. The hymn “to Christ, as though he were a god” is his report of their practice.

## Keep Reading

- [Is Jesus God?](/christianity/is-jesus-god)
- [Did Jesus Ever Claim to Be God?](/christianity/deity-of-christ)
- [The Trinity](/christianity/the-trinity)
- [What Does John 1:1 Mean?](/jehovahs-witnesses/john-1-and-the-word)
- [Is Jesus Michael the Archangel?](/jehovahs-witnesses/is-jesus-michael-the-archangel)
- [How Has the New World Translation (Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Bible) Changed? 1984 vs 2013](/jehovahs-witnesses/how-has-the-new-world-translation-changed)
- [Should Jesus Be Worshipped?](/jehovahs-witnesses/should-jesus-be-worshipped)
- [Was Jesus a Real Person?](/christianity/did-jesus-exist)

## Passages Quoted on This Page

### John 1:1

King James Version.

> In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

### John 20:28

King James Version.

> And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God.

### John 1:18

King James Version.

> No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

### Acts 20:28

King James Version.

> Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

### Romans 9:5

King James Version.

> Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

### Titus 2:13

King James Version.

> Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

### 2 Peter 1:1

King James Version.

> Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:

### Hebrews 1:8

King James Version.

> But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.

### 1 John 5:20

King James Version.

> And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

### 1 John 5:7

King James Version.

> For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

### Polycarp to the Philippians 2

Ante-Nicene Fathers, New Advent.

[Open on newadvent.org](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0136.htm)

> Judge not, that you be not judged; forgive, and it shall be forgiven unto you; be merciful, that you may obtain mercy; with what measure you measure, it shall be measured to you again; and once more, Blessed are the poor, and those that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

## Sources
Numbered to match the HTML References list. Item 1 is `#ref-1` under `#references`. Scripture links to the King James Version on this site.

1. [Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine, MEGI0001, Megiddo mosaic, transcription and translation](https://search.inscriptionsisraelpalestine.org/inscriptions/megi0001) (The catalog dates the mosaic 200–299 CE and prints the Greek and the English used on this page. It names Yotam Tepper and Leah Di Segni, A Christian Prayer Hall of the Third Century CE at Kefar ’Othnay (Legio): Excavations at the Megiddo Prison 2005 (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2006), as the source of that transcription and translation.)
2. [Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, Greeting, chapter 1, and chapter 18](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0104.htm) (Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, as New Advent prints the epistle. This page quotes the greeting, “the blood of God,” and “our God, Jesus Christ.” It does not treat every sentence of the longer form as equally secure.)
3. [Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96, To Trajan, on the Christians](https://www.attalus.org/pliny/ep10b.html) (English translation as printed on attalus.org. Pliny is a Roman governor reporting what former Christians told him. The letter is not a Christian confession.)
4. [Gospel of John, 1:1; 1:18; 20:28](https://apologetics.wiki/bible/john/1/1). King James Version
5. [Acts of the Apostles, 20:28](https://apologetics.wiki/bible/acts/20/28). King James Version
6. [Letter to the Romans, 9:5](https://apologetics.wiki/bible/romans/9/5). King James Version
7. [Letter to Titus, 2:13](https://apologetics.wiki/bible/titus/2/13). King James Version
8. [Second Letter of Peter, 1:1](https://apologetics.wiki/bible/2-peter/1/1). King James Version
9. [Letter to the Hebrews, 1:8](https://apologetics.wiki/bible/hebrews/1/8). King James Version
10. [First Letter of John, 5:20](https://apologetics.wiki/bible/1-john/5/20). King James Version
11. [First Apology of Justin Martyr, Chapter 63](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm) (Roberts and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, as New Advent prints it. The Greek of this chapter was not opened as a separate edition.)
12. [Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, chapter 19](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103319.htm) (Roberts and Rambaut, Ante-Nicene Fathers. The Greek was not opened as a separate edition.)
13. [Tertullian, Apology, Chapter 21](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0301.htm) (The Ante-Nicene Fathers English. The Latin was not opened as a separate edition.)
14. [Hippolytus, Against Noetus, Section 8](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0521.htm) (Roberts and Donaldson, as New Advent prints the treatise attributed to Hippolytus. The Greek was not opened as a separate edition.)
15. [Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, Chapters 8 and 12](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0136.htm) (Opened in the same English series. Chapter 8 does not call Jesus God. Chapter 12 calls him the Son of God. He is not listed with the explicit lines.)

## See Also
- [Did Chinese Records Confirm Jesus’ Crucifixion? The Darkness and Eclipse Claim](https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/did-chinese-records-see-the-crucifixion-darkness) — Was the darkness at the crucifixion an eclipse that Han dynasty China recorded? What the Han records actually say about AD 30–33.
- [Did Jesus Ever Claim to Be God?](https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/deity-of-christ) — The Gospels record Jesus forgiving sins, saying I am, and accepting Thomas’s Lord and God. Hearers treated those words as blasphemy.
- [Is Jesus God?](https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/is-jesus-god) — Yes. Jesus is God the Son, truly God and truly human, one being with the Father. He is not the Father, and he is not a lesser god.
- [The Resurrection of Jesus: Evidence, Objections, and Creeds](https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/resurrection-of-jesus) — Paul’s creed in 1 Corinthians 15 says Christ died, was buried, and was raised. Historians dispute the appearances.
- [Was Jesus a Real Person?](https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/did-jesus-exist) — Yes. Jesus of Nazareth was a real person, crucified under Pontius Pilate. Paul, the Gospels, Tacitus, and Josephus all place him there.