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Arianism (
Arius' trinitarian theology, later given an extreme form by
There was a controversy between two interpretations of Jesus's divinity (
Arianism is also used to refer to other
Origin
Some early Christians that were counted among Orthodoxy denied the eternal generation of the Son, seeing the Son as being begotten in time. These include
Arius had been a pupil of Lucian of Antioch at Lucian's private academy in Antioch and inherited from him a modified form of the teachings of Paul of Samosata.[26] Arius taught that God the Father and the Son of God did not always exist together eternally.[27]
Condemnation by the Council of Nicaea
Emperor
Of the roughly 300 bishops in attendance at the Council of Nicaea, two bishops did not sign the Nicene Creed that condemned Arianism.[34] Constantine the Great also ordered a penalty of death for those who refused to surrender the Arian writings:
In addition, if any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. As soon as he is discovered in this offence, he shall be submitted for capital punishment. ...
— Edict by Emperor Constantine against the Arians[35]
Ten years after the Council of Nicaea,
Beliefs
Little of Arius's own work survives except in quotations selected for polemical purposes by his opponents, and there is no certainty about what theological and philosophical traditions formed his thought.[40] The influence from the One of Neo-Platonism was widespread throughout the Eastern Roman Empire and this influenced Arius.[41][42][43][44][45]
Arius's basic premise is that only God is independent for his existence. Since the Son is dependent he must therefore be called a creature.[46] Arians put forward a question for their belief: "has God birthed Jesus willingly or unwillingly?" This question was used to argue that Jesus is dependent for his existence since Jesus exists only because God wants him to be.[8]
Arianism taught that the Logos was a divine being begotten by God the Father before the creation of the world, made him a medium through whom everything else was created, and that the Son of God is subordinate to God the Father.[47] The Logos is an inner attribute of God that is wisdom, while Jesus is called Logos only because of resemblance with the inner Logos of God.[8]
A verse from Proverbs was used for the creation of the Son: "The Lord created me at the beginning of his work."
Arians do not believe in the traditional doctrine of the
Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords/masters—yet for us there is one God (Gk. theos – θεός), the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord/Master (kyrios – κύριος), Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
The creed of Arian Ulfilas (c. 311–383), which concludes the above-mentioned letter by Auxentius,[54] distinguishes God the Father ("unbegotten"), who is the only true God, from the Son of God ("only-begotten"); and the Holy Spirit, the illuminating and sanctifying power, which is neither God the Father nor the Lord Jesus Christ:
I, Ulfila, bishop and confessor, have always so believed, and in this, the one true faith, I make the journey to my Lord; I believe in only one God the Father, the unbegotten and invisible, and in his only-begotten Son, our Lord/Master and God, the designer and maker of all creation, having none other like him. Therefore, there is one God of all, who is also God of our God; and in one Holy Spirit, the illuminating and sanctifying power, as Christ said after his resurrection to his apostles: "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be clothed with power from on high"[58] and again "But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you";[59] Neither God nor Lord, but the faithful minister of Christ; not equal, but subject and obedient in all things to the Son. And I believe the Son to be subject and obedient in all things to God the Father.
— Heather & Matthews 1991, p. 143
A letter from Arius (c. 250–336) to the Arian Eusebius of Nicomedia (died 341) states the core beliefs of the Arians:
Some of them say that the Son is an eructation, others that he is a production, others that he is also unbegotten. These are impieties to which we cannot listen, even though the heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths. 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 as 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. We are persecuted because we say that the Son has a beginning but that God is without beginning.
— Theodoret: Arius's Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, translated in Peters' Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, p. 41
Principally, the dispute between
- has the Son always existed eternally with the Father or was the Son begotten at a certain time in the past?
- is the Son equal to the Father or subordinate to the Father?
For Constantine, these were minor theological points that stood in the way of uniting the Empire, but for the theologians, it was of huge importance; for them, it was a matter of salvation.[12]
For the theologians of the 19th century it was already obvious that in fact Arius and Alexander/Athanasius did not have much to quarrel about, the difference between their views was very small, and that the end of the fight was by no means clear during their quarrel, both Arius and Athanasius suffering a great deal for their own views. Arius was the father of
Guido M. Berndt and Roland Steinacher state clearly that the beliefs of Arius were acceptable ("not especially unusual") to a huge number of orthodox clergy; this is the reason why such a major conflict was able to develop inside the Church, since Arius's theology received widespread sympathy (or at least was not considered to be overly controversial) and could not be dismissed outright as individual heresy.[3]
Homoian Arianism
Arianism had several different variants, including
- The Second Sirmian Creed of 357
- The Creed of Nice (Constantinople) 360
- The creed put forward by Acacius at Seleucia, 359
- The Rule of Faith of Ulfilas
- The creed uttered by Ulfilas on his deathbed, 383
- The creed attributed to Eudoxius
- The Creed of Auxentius of Milan, 364
- The Creed of Germinius professed in correspondence with Ursacius of Singidunum and Valens of Mursa
- Palladius's rule of faith
- Three credal statements found in fragments, subordinating the Son to the Father
Struggles with orthodoxy
First Council of Nicaea
In 321, Arius was denounced by a synod at Alexandria for teaching a heterodox view of the relationship of Jesus to God the Father. Because Arius and his followers had great influence in the schools of Alexandria—counterparts to modern universities or seminaries—their theological views spread, especially in the eastern Mediterranean.[63]
By 325, the controversy had become significant enough that the Emperor
The focus of the Council of Nicaea was the nature of the Son of God and his precise relationship to God the Father (see
In the Arian view, God the Father is a
According to the teaching of Arius, the preexistent Logos and thus the incarnate Jesus Christ was a begotten being; only the Son was directly begotten by God the Father, before ages, but was of a distinct, though similar, essence or substance from the Creator. His opponents argued that this would make Jesus less than God and that this was heretical.[70] Much of the distinction between the differing factions was over the phrasing that Christ expressed in the New Testament to express submission to God the Father.[70] The theological term for this submission is kenosis. This ecumenical council declared that Jesus Christ was true God, co-eternal and consubstantial (i.e., of the same substance) with God the Father.[75][h]
Constantine is believed to have exiled those who refused to accept the Nicaean Creed—Arius himself, the deacon Euzoios, and the Libyan bishops Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais—and also the bishops who signed the creed but refused to join in condemnation of Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea. The emperor also ordered all copies of the Thalia, the book in which Arius had expressed his teachings, to be burned. However, there is no evidence that his son and ultimate successor, Constantius II, who was a Semi-Arian Christian, was exiled.[citation needed]
Although he was committed to maintaining what the Great Church had defined at Nicaea, Constantine was also bent on pacifying the situation and eventually became more lenient toward those condemned and exiled at the council. First, he allowed Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was a protégé of his sister, and Theognis to return once they had signed an ambiguous statement of faith. The two, and other friends of Arius, worked for Arius's rehabilitation.[77][78][79]
At the
Aftermath of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea did not end the controversy, as many bishops of the Eastern provinces disputed the
Constantius used his power to exile bishops adhering to the Nicene Creed, especially St Athanasius of Alexandria, who fled to Rome.[82] In 355 Constantius became the sole Roman emperor and extended his pro-Arian policy toward the western provinces, frequently using force to push through his creed, even exiling Pope Liberius and installing Antipope Felix II.[83]
The
But since many persons are disturbed by questions concerning what is called in Latin substantia, but in Greek ousia, that is, to make it understood more exactly, as to 'coessential,' or what is called, 'like-in-essence,' there ought to be no mention of any of these at all, nor exposition of them in the Church, for this reason and for this consideration, that in divine Scripture nothing is written about them, and that they are above men's knowledge and above men's understanding;[85]
As debates raged in an attempt to come up with a new formula, three camps evolved among the opponents of the Nicene Creed. The first group mainly opposed the Nicene terminology and preferred the term homoiousios (alike in substance) to the Nicene homoousios, while they rejected Arius and his teaching and accepted the equality and co-eternality of the persons of the Trinity. Because of this centrist position, and despite their rejection of Arius, they were called "Semi-Arians" by their opponents. The second group also avoided invoking the name of Arius, but in large part followed Arius's teachings and, in another attempted compromise wording, described the Son as being like (homoios) the Father. A third group explicitly called upon Arius and described the Son as unlike (anhomoios) the Father. Constantius wavered in his support between the first and the second party, while harshly persecuting the third.
Epiphanius of Salamis labeled the party of Basil of Ancyra in 358 "Semi-Arianism". This is considered unfair by Kelly who states that some members of the group were virtually orthodox from the start but disliked the adjective homoousios while others had moved in that direction after the out-and-out Arians had come into the open.[86]
The debates among these groups resulted in numerous synods, among them the
After Constantius's death in 361, his successor
Council of Constantinople
It was not until the co-reigns of Gratian and Theodosius that Arianism was effectively wiped out among the ruling class and elite of the Eastern Empire. Valens died in the
Two days after Theodosius arrived in Constantinople, 24 November 380, he expelled the
Although much of the church hierarchy in the East had opposed the Nicene Creed in the decades leading up to Theodosius's accession, he managed to achieve unity on the basis of the Nicene Creed. In 381, at the
Among medieval Germanic tribes
During the time of Arianism's flowering in
The conflict in the 4th century had seen Arian and Nicene factions struggling for control of Western Europe. In contrast, among the Arian German kingdoms established in the collapsing Western Empire in the 5th century were entirely separate Arian and Nicene Churches with parallel hierarchies, each serving different sets of believers. The Germanic elites were Arians, and the Romance majority population was Nicene.[97]
The Arian Germanic tribes were generally tolerant towards Nicene Christians and other religious minorities, including the Jews.[4]
The apparent resurgence of Arianism after Nicaea was more an anti-Nicene reaction exploited by Arian sympathizers than a pro-Arian development.
The Franks and the Anglo-Saxons were unlike the other Germanic peoples in that they entered the Western Roman Empire as Pagans and were converted to Chalcedonian Christianity, led by their kings, Clovis I of the Franks, and Æthelberht of Kent and others in Britain (see also Christianity in Gaul and Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England).[102] The remaining tribes – the Vandals and the Ostrogoths – did not convert as a people nor did they maintain territorial cohesion. Having been militarily defeated by the armies of Emperor Justinian I, the remnants were dispersed to the fringes of the empire and became lost to history. The Vandalic War of 533–534 dispersed the defeated Vandals.[103] Following their final defeat at the Battle of Mons Lactarius in 553, the Ostrogoths went back north and (re)settled in south Austria.[citation needed]
From the 5th to the 7th century
Much of south-eastern Europe and central Europe, including many of the
From the 16th to the 19th century
Following the
The antitrinitarian wing of the
In 1683, when Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, lay dying in Amsterdam—driven into exile by his outspoken opposition to King Charles II—he spoke to the minister Robert Ferguson, and professed himself an Arian.[110]
In the 18th century the "dominant trend" in
A similar view was held by the ancient anti-Nicene Pneumatomachi (Greek: Πνευματομάχοι, "breath" or "spirit" and "fighters", combining as "fighters against the spirit"), so called because they opposed the deifying of the Nicene Holy Ghost. Although the Pneumatomachi's beliefs were somewhat reminiscent of Arianism,[113] they were a distinct group.[113]
Today
The teachings of the first two ecumenical councils—which entirely reject Arianism—are held by the
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses are often referred to as "modern-day Arians",[120][121] usually by their opponents,[122][123][124] although Jehovah's Witnesses themselves have denied these claims.[125] Significant similarities in doctrine include the identification of the Father as the only true God and of Jesus Christ as the first creation of God and the intermediate agent in the creation of all other things. They also deny the personhood of the Holy Spirit, which some Arians historically affirmed. Jehovah's Witnesses exclusively worship and pray to God the Father, or Jehovah, only through Jesus the son as a mediator.[125][126]
Iglesia ni Cristo
While Iglesia ni Cristo's christology has parallels with Arianism in that it affirms that the Father is the only true God and denies the preexistence of Christ. Thus, Iglesia ni Cristo is Socinian rather than Arian in its Christology.[127]
Other Socinian groups
Other Biblical Unitarians such as the Christadelphians[128] and Church of God General Conference[129] are also typically Socinian rather than Arian in their Christology.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The LDS Church teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate beings united in purpose: "the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost)... are three physically separate beings, but fully one in love, purpose and will",
See also
References
Notes
- ^ "Arius wanted to emphasise the transcendence and sole divinity of God [...]. God alone is, for Arius, without beginning, unbegotten and eternal. In the terminology of negative theology, Arius stresses monotheism with ever-renewed attempts. God can only be understood as creator. He denies the co-eternal state of the Logos with God since otherwise God would be stripped of his absolute uniqueness. God alone is, and thus he was not always Father. [...] Following Proverbs 8:22–25, Arius is able to argue that the Son was created. For Arius the Logos belongs wholly on the side of the Divine, but he is markedly subordinate to God. [...] The strong support that Arius received outside of the Egyptian metropolis, and from a whole series of prominent bishops, proves that in this historical situation, the theological ideas of Arius were not especially unusual. [...] According to Alexander, Arius has assigned the Logos a place among created beings (which Arius explicitly denies); from that, he draws the conclusion that the Son/Logos of Arius is merely a man.47 [...] This view is still to be found in the realm of popular scholarship and most recently led to the idea that 'Arianism', as a theology without a doctrine of the Trinity that sees Christ merely as a man, could form a possible bridge to Islam. [...] After the Synod of Nicaea, the debate shifted and became a debate over unity and trinity in the Trinitarian notion of God—a debate which is considered, unjustly, to be a further 'Arian controversy'. [...] Only after researchers began to position Arius within the Origenist tradition, did it become possible to see that the development after Nicaea was not a conflict between 'Nicenes' and 'Arians', as common opinion claimed, but rather a debate on the nature of divine hypostasis—in particular, on the question whether it was appropriate to speak of one single or three distinct hypostases. A detailed discussion of the complicated sequence of events in this conflict from the beginning of the 330s through the 380s and individual portrayals of the key protagonists would, however, be beyond the scope of this chapter." Berndt & Steinacher 2014
- Christian Church, started by Arius, bishop of Alexandria (d. 336), who taught that the Son is not equivalent to the Father (ὁμοούσιος gr:homoousios ≅ lt:consubstantialis), thereby provoking a serious schism in the Christian Church, which in turn affected the fortunes of the Jews in many countries. In view of the fact that most Germanic peoples—such as the eastern and western Goths, as also the Franks, the Lombards, the Suevi, and the Vandals—were baptized into Arian Christianity, and that these tribes settled in widely spread districts of the old Roman empire, a large number of Jews, already resident in those lands, fell under Arian domination. In contrast with the domination of the orthodox church, the Arian was distinguished by a wise tolerance and a mild treatment of the population of other faiths, conduct mainly attributable to the unsophisticated sense of justice characterizing the children of nature, but also traceable in some degree to certain points of agreement between the Arian doctrine and Judaism, points totally absent in the orthodox confession. The very insistence upon the more subordinate relationship of the Son—that is, the Messiah—to God-the-father is much nearer to the Jewish doctrine of the Messiah than to the conception of the full divinity of the Son, as enunciated at Nicaea."[4]
- ^ Arius used the two words as synonyms[7]
- ^ Arius believed that Jesus came into existence before time existed,[7]
- ^ Jesus was considered a creature but not like the other creatures.[8]
- ^ Ambrose of Milan, Epistles iv
- Pantocrator.[70]: 57
- ^ First, the central focus of the creed is the Trinitarian nature of God. The Nicene fathers argued that the Father was always a Father, and consequently that the Son always existed with Him, co-equally and con-substantially. The Nicene fathers fought against the belief that the Son was unequal to the Father, because it effectively destroyed the unity of the Godhead. Rather, they insisted that such a view was in contravention of such Scriptures as John 10:30 "I and the Father are one" and John 1:1 "the Word was God." Saint Athanasius declared that the Son had no beginning, but had an "eternal derivation" from the Father, and therefore was co-eternal with him, and equal to God in all aspects. In a similar vein the Cappadocian Fathers argued that the Holy Spirit was also co-eternal with the Father and the Son and equal to God in all aspects. The Church Fathers held that to deny equality to any of the Persons of the Trinity was to rob God of existence and constituted the greatest heresy.[76]
- ^ Early in his reign, during a serious illness, Theodosius had accepted Christian baptism. In 380 he proclaimed himself a Christian of the Nicene Creed, and he called a council at Constantinople to put an end to the Arian heresy (which, contrary to Nicene doctrine, claimed Jesus was created), which had divided the empire for over half a century. At Constantinople, 150 bishops gathered and revised the Nicene Creed of A.D. 325 into the creed we know today. Arianism has never made a serious challenge since.[91]
- ^ The inhibiting and paralyzing force of superstitious beliefs penetrated to every department of life, and the most primary and elementary activities of society were influenced. War, for example, was not a simple matter of a test of strength and courage, but supernatural matters had to be taken carefully into consideration. When Clovis said of the Goths in southern Gaul, 'I take it hard that these Arians should hold a part of the Gauls; let us go with God's aid and conquer them and bring the land under our dominion', [note: see p. 45 (Book II:37)] he was not speaking in a hypocritical or arrogant manner but in real accordance with the religious sentiment of the time. What he meant was that the Goths, being heretics, were at once enemies of the true God and inferior to the orthodox Franks in their supernatural backing. Considerations of duty, strategy, and self-interest all reinforced one another in Clovis's mind. However, it was not always the orthodox side that won. We hear of a battle fought a few years before Gregory became Bishop of Tours between King Sigebert and the Huns, [note: Book IV:29] in which the Huns 'by the use of magic arts caused various false appearances to arise before their enemies and overcame them decisively.[104]
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The pagan Ammianus Marcellinus says of the councils under Constantius: "The highways were covered with galloping bishops;" and even Athanasius rebuked the restless flutter of the clergy.
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Most of them were Christians, but, crucially, they were not Catholic Christians, who believed in the doctrine of the Trinity, that God is one God but three distinct persons of the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. They were rather Arians, who believed that Jesus was lesser than God the Father (see Chapter Six). Most of their subjects, however, were Catholics.
- ^ Ferguson 2005, p. 200.
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Further reading
- Ayres, Lewis (2004). Nicaea and its Legacy: An approach to fourth-century trinitarian theology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
- Belletini, Mark. "Arius in the Mirror: The Alexandrian dissent and how it is reflected in modern Unitarian Universalist practice and discourse". Sermons. Columbus, OH: First Unitarian Universalist Church. Archived from the original on 16 February 2007. Retrieved 18 September 2006.
- Brennecke, Hanns Christof (1999). "Arianism". In Fahlbusch, Erwin (ed.). Encyclopedia of Christianity. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans. pp. 121–122. ISBN 0-8028-2413-7.
- Davidson, Ivor J. (2005). "A Public Faith". Baker History of the Church. 2. ISBN 0-8010-1275-9.
- Newman, John Henry (1833). "Arians of the Fourth Century". newmanreader.org.
- Parvis, Sarah (2006). Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy 325–345. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199280131.
- Rodriguez, Eliseo (29 July 2014). The Doctrine of the Trinity is Dead: The original gospel. Lost Fundamental Doctrines. Vol. 1. ISBN 978-1490922164.
- Rusch, William C. (1980). The Trinitarian Controversy. Sources of Early Christian Thought. ISBN 0-8006-1410-0.
External links
- Documents of the Early Arian Controversy Chronological survey of the sources
- English translations of all extant letters relating to early Arianism
- A map of early sympathizers with Arius
- Barry, William (1913). . Catholic Encyclopedia.
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Arianism
- Concordia Cyclopedia: Arianism (page 1) (page 2) (page 3)
- The American Cyclopædia. 1879.
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- The Arians of the fourth century by John Henry "Cardinal" Newman in "btm" format
- Concise Summary of the Arian Controversy
- Arianism Today Archived 1 January 2019 at the Wayback Machine