Summary: “The evolution of early Christian theology”

    Over the past two months, we’ve been examining the history of early Christian theology during the first four centuries AD, to see how theology evolved during this period and why trinitarianism eventually came to be viewed as the only ‘orthodox’ position. I thought it would be good to have a shorter summary of the history of early Christian theology, since these last eight posts have been pretty long — altogether, more than eighty pages of text! So in this post, I’ll summarize all of the main points from the past eight posts, but without including citations or excerpts from primary writings, to keep it relatively short.

    Summary

The traditional view of the history of early Christian theology goes something like this: ever since the early days of the Church, all Christians were agreed on the main points of trinitarian theology, that is, that there is one God and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-equal and co-eternal Persons within the one God. But in the fourth century, a heretic named Arius came up with a new doctrine that said that the Son is created and less than the Father. Although he managed to gain a lot of followers, the bishops got together at the Council of Nicaea and unanimously condemned him, creating a creed that expressed the traditional faith of trinitarianism, only using a few new words like “essence” to counter the Arian heresy. After Nicaea, all the orthodox Christians got along in agreement on the doctrine of the Trinity.

    However, the actual history of early Christian theology is much more complex than this simplified caricature. The earliest Christians, rather than believing in trinitarianism, believed that God was the Father of Jesus alone, and that Jesus was subordinate to the Father. This is exemplified in the writings of Clement and Polycarp, who were bishops in the late first century and early second century; they never referred to Jesus as “God,” only the Father. Christians were divided on the issue of Jesus’ pre-existence; some writers, such as the author of the Odes of Solomon, believed that he pre-existed his birth only as an impersonal plan in God’s mind, whereas others, such as the author of the Apocalypse of Isaiah, believed that he was a high-ranking heavenly being who was born.

    At this time, in the late first and early second centuries, there was little discussion on the Holy Spirit. It’s unclear whether most Christian writers considered it/him to be a person, and those who did — like the authors of Shepherd of Hermas and Apocalypse of Isaiah — considered him to be an angel, not equal to God in any way. There was no clear doctrine of the Son or the Holy Spirit that was accepted by orthodox Christians at this point, merely a general agreement that they were subordinate to God, who is the Father.

    In the second century, there was a new development in Christology. As a result of Hellenistic influence, Christians began to see Jesus as a being who was created at the beginning of time, through whom God created the world. In the Platonic worldview, God is too transcendent to deal directly with creation, so He creates a Demiurge, the Logos, through whom He creates and interacts with the material universe. Because many Christian apologists in the later second century came from Hellenistic philosophical backgrounds, they began to see Jesus as the Logos-demiurge, a ‘second god’ subordinate to the God and Father.

    The first Christian writer who is known to have supported Logos theory was Justin Martyr, an apologist of the mid-second century. Justin argued in his book Dialogue with Trypho that God is so transcendent that He cannot interact with His creation, and so all of the appearances of “God” in the Old Testament must be the Logos-demiurge. This, in Justin’s view, was evidence for Christianity over against Judaism because it showed that there was a second god (Jesus) subordinate to the one God. However, he admitted that most average Christians in his day did not agree with him, and instead considered Jesus to be a human who did not pre-exist his birth.

    In the late second century, immediately after Justin, all of the ‘proto-orthodox’ catholic theologians were Logos theorists: Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras of Athens, Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian of Carthage. These theologians began to use the terms “trinity” and “essence” to describe the relationships between God, His Son, and His Spirit, but they used them in a very different way. Whereas, for trinitarians, the Trinity is God, for these theologians, God is a member of the ‘trinity;’ and the Father alone possesses all of the divine essence, but He derives the Son and Spirit out of His own essence. For them, the Son/Logos is a created being subordinate to the one God, the Father.

    After this period, a new Christology began to emerge, known as one-stage Logos theory or subordinationism. In this view, the Son/Logos exists eternally alongside God, who is the Father, but the Son is still a second god or demiurge subordinate to Him. The first theologian who may have held this view was Irenaeus of Lyons, at the turn of the third century; but he was not very clear on his view of the Logos, though he definitely believed that the one God was the Father.

    The first person to clearly hold to subordinationism was Origen of Alexandria, the first systematic theologian who lived in the mid-third century. Origen believed that the Son is eternally begotten by the Father, and is a second god subordinate to God, the Father, who is only divine by participation within the Father. Origen was likely the most influential Christian theologian during his own lifetime and the decades after his death, so his doctrine of subordinationism was subsequently accepted by many Christians. His contemporaries in the West, Hippolytus of Rome and Novatian of Rome, also held to subordinationism and believed that the one God was the Father alone, although it’s not clear whether they thought the Son was created or eternally begotten.

    After the mid-third century, several new sects began to develop. Although subordinationism continued to be the majority position, modalism (the view that the Father and the Son are the same person, God) and bi/trinitarianism (the view that the Father and the Son are separate persons but co-equal) began to rise in influence. The first bi/trinitarian was Gregory Thaumaturgus, a disciple of Origen who lived in the late third century, who still referred to the Father as the one God, but argued that God gave an equal power to the Logos.

    By the early fourth century, these three sects were in tension with one another. The subordinationist unitarians were the oldest, largest, and most influential sect, including politically influential theologians like Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Lactantius. The modalists were a smaller but still influential sect, including Marcellus of Ancyra and Eustathius of Antioch. The bi/trinitarians were newer and smaller still; in fact, the only certainly bi/trinitarian theologians of the early fourth century were the bishops of Alexandria, Alexander and Athanasius.

    In the year 318, Alexander of Alexandria began to make public statements about the Son having no beginning and denouncing all the subordinationist theologians of the East. One of his presbyters, Arius, took umbrage at this, believing that if the Son had no beginning, then he could not have been begotten. (It doesn’t seem that Arius thought that the Son was created in time, but was referring to the Father as the metaphysical “beginning” or cause of the Son.) In response, Alexander examined Arius’ theology and found it to be ‘heretical,’ excommunicating him from the church of Alexandria and sending word to the surrounding churches to refuse communion with Arius.

    In desperation, Arius sent a letter to his influential subordinationist friend Eusebius of Nicomedia asking him for help. Eusebius began to write to other churches, telling them Arius’ side of the story and asking them to admit him. However, Alexander also sent an encyclical letter to all the churches of the East, accusing Arius of saying that there was a time when the Son did not exist. Arius and his fellow radical subordinationists tried to make peace with Alexander, but he ignored their attempts at reconciliation and continued to spread accusations against Arius.

    Meanwhile, in the year 324, the Roman emperor Constantine defeated all other claimants to the throne and united the Empire. After politically unifying the Empire, he wished to religiously unify the Empire, and sent letters to Alexander and Arius ordering them to make peace with one another over their “small and insignificant questions.” But when they refused, Constantine summoned a council of sixty bishops to Antioch in 325, which condemned Arius and also excommunicated three of his subordinationist supporters, including the widely influential Eusebius of Caesarea.

    Constantine also summoned a more general council of several hundred bishops to the city of Nicaea in Asia Minor. This council virtually unanimously condemned Arius, for several theological and political reasons, including the anti-‘Arian’ propaganda of Alexander of Alexandria and the fact that Eusebius of Caesarea (the leader of the classical subordinationists) was in a precarious position after the council at Antioch. However, the creed produced by the council did not advocate trinitarianism specifically. On the contrary, it included language that would be acceptable to all three sects — subordinationists, modalists, and bi/trinitarians — to avoid further division and conflict, and make the decision more unanimous against Arius.

    However, the fragile peace established by Nicaea would not last long. The classical subordinationists, who were the majority party in the East, saw the Nicene Creed as too accommodating to the modalists and trinitarians. Even Constantine reversed his policies soon after the council, and allowed Arius to return in 327, and to be reinstated as presbyter in 335 (although Arius suddenly died the night before he was to be reinstated). That same year, in 335/6, two councils of Eastern bishops condemned and excommunicated Athanasius of Alexandria (the leader of the trinitarians) and Marcellus of Ancyra (the leader of the modalists). This broke the peace that had been established by the Council of Nicaea.

    The first order of business for the subordinationist bishops of the East was to draft an alternative to the Nicene Creed that was more conducive to their beliefs. They did this in 341 at a council in Antioch, where they created a new creed called the Dedication Creed; this creed avoided the term homoousios (“one in essence”) and refused to call the Son “true God,” though it also condemned Arius’ views. In response, the Western bishops — who were also mostly subordinationists, but more friendly to trinitarians and modalists — drew up their own document at the Council of Serdica in 343, which condemned the Dedication Creed and re-affirmed the Nicene Creed, though it was likewise explicitly subordinationist, saying that “no one denies that the Father is greater than the Son... the very name of the Father is greater than that of the Son.”

    This conflict between the Western and Eastern church continued for four decades, never quite reaching a consensus between the two. Although there were a few times when peace seemed to have been reached, like at the Council of Constantinople in 360, this was quickly shattered. As a result of the evangelism of pro-Nicene trinitarians like Athanasius of Alexandria, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus, trinitarianism began to grow in popularity in both the East and the West during the 360s and 70s. Nevertheless, this consensus was growing only slowly, and there was still a lot of tension between East and West during this period.

    The conflict was quickly and forcefully brought to an end by the pro-Nicene emperor Theodosius I, who ascended to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire in the year 379. On February 27, 380, he passed an imperial edict declaring that only those who believe in “the singular Deity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in equal Majesty and in a Holy Trinity” were true “Catholic Christians,” and all others were “Heretics” who were considered criminals by the state.

    To formalize this decree, Theodosius summoned a council of about 150 pro-Nicene bishops to the city of Constantinople (no anti-Nicenes or non-trinitarians were allowed to attend). They settled on a specific trinitarian interpretation of the Nicene Creed, and came up with a slightly modified creed now known as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which was more conducive to trinitarianism. Now having the authority of both imperial law and ecumenical council behind him, Theodosius declared that all churches must be presided over by trinitarian bishops, and forbade the “heretics” from meeting publicly in any town. Trinitarian Christianity was now the official religion of the Roman Empire.

    Conclusion

The history of early Christian theology is much more complicated than most Christians today believe. Trinitarianism was not always believed by Christians; on the contrary, most of the earliest Christians saw God as the Father alone, until the fourth century. The earliest Christians viewed Jesus as the foremost (mere) human, the Messiah of God, who is subordinate to God. As time went on, more Christians began to see Jesus as the Logos-demiurge of Hellenistic Platonism, who was created in the beginning as subordinate to the one God, the Father. However, trinitarianism did not become a major theological sect until the fourth century, and only became the official ‘orthodox’ view by the decree of the Roman emperor Theodosius I.

    Seeing as trinitarianism was not the view of the earliest Christians, and it only became official ‘orthodoxy’ after Theodosius I forced the Church to adopt it as such, it’s inadvisable to unquestioningly take it as the truth. Instead, we should turn back to the New Testament to see what the earliest, inspired Christians actually believed about God and Jesus.

The evolution of early Christian theology: Triumph of trinitarianism (part 8 of 8)

Part 7: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-evolution-of-early-christian_01643517408.html

    In the last post, we looked at the disputes between the Western and Eastern Church which arose after the Council of Nicaea, and the creeds which were produced as a result of this conflict. These creeds show that trinitarianism was by no means the majority opinion, even decades after the Council of Nicaea (which was never intended to advocate trinitarianism anyway). By the year 361, this conflict still showed no signs of being resolved, and subordinationism was still the majority position in both the East and the West. How, then, was this conflict resolved in favor of trinitarianism only twenty years later? That is the question that we will try to answer in this final post on the history of early Christian theology.

    The Cappadocian theologians

During the 360s and 370s, several new and influential trinitarian theologians began to crop up in the West and the East, in the tradition of Athanasius of Alexandria. In the West, one such theologian was Ambrose the bishop of Milan, who argued that the Son was equal to the Father (De fide 4.78-96) and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together comprised one God (De fide 1.6-10). In the East, one such theologian was Epiphanius the bishop of Salamis, who argued the same (Panarion 51.21.30; 62.3.8; 76.18.7-9, 54.4-6). However, arguably the most influential trinitarians in the East during this period were the three ‘Cappadocian Fathers’: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus.

    The Cappadocian theologians were strong advocates of trinitarianism who argued at length for the equality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and their single Godhood. The first, Basil of Caesarea, was particularly influential. Basil was initially a Homoiousian, and attended the 360 Council of Constantinople in the entourage of leading ‘semi-Arian’ Basil of Ancyra. [1] However, he became a pro-Nicene trinitarian by the influence of his mentor Dianius, the bishop of Caesarea, who died in 362. [2] Finally, in 370/1, he became bishop of Caesarea, and spent the rest of his life fighting for the reconciliation of East and West and the acceptance of trinitarianism.

    Basil of Caesarea was a firm believer in the equality of the Son with the Father, unlike the subordinationists who (at the time) were the majority party in the East. This can be seen in the second chapter of his book On Faith (De fide), which articulates the relationship between the Father and the Son:

The Father is the principle of all, the cause of being for whatever exists, the root of the living. From him proceeded the source of life; the Wisdom, the Power, and the indistinguishable Image of the invisible God; the Son who was begotten from the Father; the living Logos; He who is both God and with God; He who exists essentially; He who exists before the ages, not a late addition; He who is Son, not something possessed; He who is Maker, not something made; He who is Creator, not a creature; who is everything that the Father is...

Therefore, the very designation “Son” teaches us that He shares in the nature [of the Father], not created by a command but having shone forth from the Father’s substance and been conjoined to Him instantaneously beyond all time, His equal in goodness, His equal in power, sharing in His glory. And indeed what is He but the seal and image that reveals within Himself the whole Father?

Basil also argued that the Holy Spirit is equal to the Father and the Son in his book On the Holy Spirit (10.24; 17.41-43). With regard to the relationship between the three Persons, Basil says that they comprise one ousia and three hypostases, and that the relationship of ousia to hypostasis is like the relationship of “living being” to a “particular human” (Ep. 236.6). In other words, the three share the essential characteristic of being God, but are three separate existences.

    Basil also argued at length that his belief that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are separate and co-equal was not polytheism. Consider the following passages from his On the Holy Spirit and Against Sabellius:

For we do not count by way of addition, gradually making increase from unity to multitude, and saying one, two, and three; nor first, second, and third. For “I, God, am the first, and I am the last.” [Isaiah 44:6] And we have never, even at the present time, heard of a second God... We do not fritter away the theology in a divided plurality, because one Form, so to say, united in the invariableness of the Godhood, is beheld in God the Father, and in God the Only-begotten.

For the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; since such as is the latter, such is the former, and such as is the former, such is the latter; and here is the Unity. So that according to the distinction of Persons, both are one and one, and according to the community of the Nature, one. How, then, if one and one, are there not two Gods? Because we speak of a king, and of the king’s image, and not of two kings. The majesty is not cloven in two, nor the glory divided. (On the Holy Spirit 18.45)

For even if they are two in number, they are not disjoined in nature. Nor does anyone who says “two” introduce estrangement [between them]. There is one God because there is one Father. But the Son is also God, and there are not two Gods because the Son has identity with the Father. For I do not behold one Godhood in the Father and another in the Son; nor is one nature this and the other that. So then, in order to make clear for you the distinctness of the Persons, count the Father by Himself and the Son by Himself, but in order to avoid secession into polytheism, confess one essence in both. In this way both Sabellius [modalism] falls and the Anhomoian shatters. (Against Sabellius 3)

In Basil’s view, like that of the subordinationists and earlier Logos theorists, the Father is most properly called “God.” However, the Son is also essentially God by virtue of being the Son and Image of the Father. Thus, there is only one God (the Father) but the Son and the Holy Spirit are also God because they share the entire essence of His Godhood. In this way, Basil believes that he has preserved monotheism while also affirming the separateness and co-equality of the three Persons — although it’s questionable whether this actually removes the charge of polytheism.

    The second Cappadocian theologian was Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of Basil of Caesarea. Gregory was mentored and taught by his older brother Basil, and was ordained bishop of Nyssa in Cappadocia by him in the year 372. He was convicted of maladministration by a council of Homoian ‘Arians’ in 375, deposed by a synod at Nyssa in 376, and exiled by the anti-Nicene Eastern emperor Valens; however, he was allowed to return to his episcopate upon the death of Valens in 378. [3] Gregory was a prolific writer and wrote many treatises on the Trinity (over against subordinationism), most notably his book Against Eunomius.

    Gregory of Nyssa’s theology is identical to that of Basil. He states that the Son and Holy Spirit are not lesser than the Father, and says, “we know of no differences by way of superiority or inferiority of attributes in the Divine nature” (On the Holy Trinity). In On the Holy Spirit and On the Faith, he argues that the Holy Spirit is fully divine and in no way inferior to the Father and the Son. With regard to the relationships between the Persons, he says that the one ousia is like the general descriptor “human” and the three hypostases are analogous to specific humans, such as “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy” (Ep. 38.1-3). [4] In other words, like his brother Basil, Gregory believed that the three share the essence of being God, but are three separate existences.

    This reasonably opens Gregory’s theology up to the charge of tritheism. After all, if the one ousia is like the characteristic of being human, and the three hypostases are like three human persons, but three human persons are considered to be three humans, then doesn’t this mean that the three Persons are three Gods? Gregory responds to this accusation in his short treatise On “Not Three Gods.” In this writing, he argues that multiple human persons (for example, Luke and Stephen) should actually be considered one human, because of the shared ousia of humanity! It is merely an “abuse of language,” he says, to refer to more than one person as more than one ‘human.’ Therefore, the three Persons are properly considered one God. This is a very strange argument, and as with Basil, it is questionable whether it actually removes the charge of polytheism from Gregory of Nyssa’s theology.

    The third Cappadocian theologian was Gregory of Nazianzus, who was a close friend of Basil of Caesarea. Gregory was ordained as bishop of Sasima by Basil in 372, but disliked his episcopate and fled to a mountain retreat. He returned to Nazianzus in 373 to help his ailing father, where he took over the episcopal duties; but when the people tried to declare him bishop in 374, he fled again to a monastery where he remained until 378. [5] He returned again in 379 when he heard that Basil was dying, and read the eulogy at his funeral. That same year, a council at Antioch asked him to go to Constantinople to convert the people to trinitarianism, to which he reluctantly agreed. Finally, he was declared archbishop of Constantinople (i.e., de facto religious leader of the East) by the pro-Nicene emperor Theodosius I in 380.

    Gregory of Nazianzen’s theology was somewhat different than that of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa. He agreed that all members of the Trinity were co-eternal and co-equal — “in the Trinity there is nothing created, nor in servitude, nor accidental... for in the one-in-essence Persons there is nothing greater or less with regard to essence” (Oration 40.42). However, rather than trying to articulate the relationships between the Persons, he instead argued that the Divine essence is unknowable, and so it is futile to try to know how He, paradoxically, comprises three hypostases (Orations 28.6ff; 29.3; 38.7-8; 40.41). When describing God as the Trinity, he says the following:

One Godhood and Power, found in the Three in unity, and comprising the Three separately, not unequal in essences or natures, neither increased nor diminished by superiorities or inferiorities; in every respect equal, in every respect the same; just as the beauty and greatness of the heavens is one; the infinite conjunction of Three infinite Ones, each God when considered by Himself; just as the Father, so also the Son, and just as the Son so also the Holy Spirit; the Three, One God when considered together; each God because one-in-essence; One God because of the Monarchy.

No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illuminated by the splendor of the Three; no sooner to I distinguish Them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any One of the Three, I think of Him as the Whole, and my eyes are filled, and most of what I am thinking escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that One so as to attribute a greater greatness to the Rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see only one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the Undivided Light. (Oration 40.41)

As you can clearly see from this passage, Gregory of Nazianzus does not even make an attempt to explicate a logically coherent doctrine of the Trinity. Instead, he simply accepts it as a beautiful, paradoxical, incomprehensible ‘mystery.’

    In summary, the three Cappadocian theologians all had a clearly trinitarian theology, and their influence was integral to the acceptance of trinitarianism in the East. Basil of Caesarea had a theology very similar to modern-day ‘social trinitarianism,’ that is, the belief that the three Persons of the Trinity are three different divine selves who comprise one God by virtue of their shared essential characteristic of being God. Gregory of Nyssa had the same theology, using the analogy of three human persons with a shared ‘human nature’ to describe the three Persons. When defending against the charge of polytheism, he argued, strangely, that multiple human persons should actually be considered one human. The third Cappadocian, Gregory of Nazianzus, does not even try to articulate a doctrine of the Trinity, but accepts it as paradoxical and incomprehensible.

    Further attempts at reconciliation (362 - 379)

Now that we have examined the theology of the ‘Cappadocian Fathers,’ we can return to looking at the history of the post-Nicene conflict between East and West. As we saw in the last post, there was a sincere attempt at reconciliation from 357 to 360, culminating in the 360 Council of Constantinople when the subordinationist Creed of Nike-Thrace was accepted as an ecumenical creed. However, this attempt at peace suffered a severe setback upon the death of the anti-Nicene emperor Constantius II, when violent conflict erupted in the streets of Alexandria (where the ‘Arian controversy’ first began).

    Following his third exile, Athanasius was re-established as bishop of Alexandria by a council in 362, only a few months after the ‘Arian’ bishop George was put to death by a mob of Athanasius’ supporters. Athanasius was exiled again by the pagan emperor Julian in October of the same year, but was allowed to return by Julian’s successor Jovian in 363. Jovian, who was firmly pro-Nicene, called another council of 20 bishops to Antioch where the Nicene Creed was re-affirmed. However, Jovian died in February 364 and was succeeded by Valens, an anti-Nicene.

    The doctrinal conflict between East and West continued after the accession of Valens. In 365, a council was convened at Lampsacus, composed of Eastern supporters of the late Basil of Ancyra. This council denounced the creed of the 360 Council of Constantinople and instead supported the Dedication Creed of Antioch (see previous post), advocating the use of the word homoiousios (“like in essence”). Another council in Antioch in 367 also supported the Dedication Creed, denouncing the Nicene Creed. In the West, the pro-Nicene party continued to be the majority, as evidenced by the 369 Council of Rome and the 370 Council of Alexandria which both advocated the Nicene Creed over against the Dedication Creed.

    In the early 370s, several failed attempts at reconciliation were made by the Cappadocian theologian Basil of Caesarea. He sent several letters to Athanasius of Alexandria, [6] but despite their agreement on trinitarian theology, his letters were ignored. Basil then sent two letters (Epp. 90; 92) to the bishops of the West, but the bishop of Rome, Damasus, refused to accept them and sent back a letter requiring Basil to sign a statement of faith. Feeling somewhat insulted, Basil refused to sign the statement, but he continued expressing his desire for peace (Ep. 156).

    Despite Damasus’ rejection, in 374, spurred on by Valens’ persecution of pro-Nicenes like himself, Basil sent another letter to the Western bishops asking them to petition the Western emperor Valentinian I for help (Ep. 243). Unfortunately, this too was ignored by Damasus, who again sent back a letter (titled Ea gratia) with a trinitarian statement of faith for Basil to sign. [7] Finally, in 377, Basil sent a defiant letter asking the Western bishops to write to all those in the East with whom they disagreed, in a final attempt at reconciliation (Ep. 263). Unfortunately, any response to this letter — if there was one — has not survived.

    In spite of the failure of Basil’s attempts at reconciliation, a consensus was slowly beginning to grow between the West and the East in favor of the Nicene Creed and trinitarianism. This was largely as a result of the evangelism of the Cappadocian theologians. In 376, a council at Iconium in Asia Minor concluded in favor of the Nicene Creed and condemned those who denied the full divinity of the Holy Spirit. Another council at Antioch in 379, which was attended by about 150 participants including Gregory of Nyssa, drafted a (lost) pro-Nicene creed that included anti-‘Arian’ statements. However, there still remained a large (perhaps majority) Homoiousian party in the East, as evidenced by the 378 Council of Carian Antioch which condemned homoousios in favor of homoiousios.

    The conclusion of the conflict (380/1)

By the end of the 370s, the conflict between the Western and Eastern Church was beginning to decrease, but only gradually. However, political factors would soon forcefully bring this controversy to an end. On August 9, 378, the anti-Nicene Eastern emperor Valens was killed in battle, which diminished the political power of the Homoiousians and made it possible for exiled pro-Nicenes, like Gregory of Nyssa, to return to their episcopates. This was compounded by the fact that the pro-Nicene trinitarian Theodosius I became emperor of the East in early 379 (after a short interregnum).

    Unlike earlier emperors, who were mostly only indirectly involved in the religious controversies of the fourth century, Theodosius I was willing to forcibly promote his favored doctrine of pro-Nicene trinitarianism. On February 27, 380, Theodosius — along with the emperor of the West, Gratian, and his coregent Valentinian II — issued the following edict, known as the Edict of Thessalonica:

Emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius Augustuses. Edict to the people of Constantinople.

It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our mercy and moderation, should continue to profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pope Damasus and by Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness.

According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the singular Deity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in equal Majesty and in a Holy Trinity. We order the followers of this law to embrace the name of Catholic Christians. But as for the others, since, in our judgment they are demented and insane, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of Heretics, and shall not presume to give to their assemblies the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation, and in the second the punishment of our authority which, in accordance with the will of Heaven, we shall decide to inflict.

This edict established trinitarian Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Orthodoxy was to be defined by the doctrine of Pope Damasus and Peter of Alexandria (the successor to Athanasius) — that is, the single Deity and co-equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Those who agreed with this doctrine were to be called “Catholic Christians,” while all others were officially branded “Heretics” and considered criminals by the state.

    Although this was technically not yet imperial law, since there was no way to enforce it within the churches, the writing was on the wall. In November of 380, Theodosius entered Constantinople and deposed the ‘Arian’ bishop Demophilus, who chose to be exiled rather than affirm the Nicene Creed. In his place, Theophilus established the Catholic Gregory of Nazianzus as archbishop of Constantinople, making him the de facto religious leader of the East. Soon afterward, on January 10, 381, he passed another edict known as Nullis haereticis which forbade the "heretics" (that is, any non-trinitarian) from meeting publicly within any town. [8]

    Having declared that all non-trinitarians were non-Christians, forbidden from meeting in any town, Theodosius called an ecumenical council to Constantinople to formalize this decree within the Church. The council was attended by about 150 pro-Nicenes. Thirty-six ‘semi-Arians’ tried to attend, but were denied admission when they refused to affirm the Nicene Creed and the homoousios — which just shows how the conclusion of the council was already decided at the outset. [9] In the end, the Nicene Creed was officially re-affirmed, and a slightly modified creed was drafted:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

And [we believe] in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one-in-essence with the Father; through Him all things were made;

for us humans, and for our salvation, He came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and became fully human; for our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered death and was buried. He rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures; He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father; He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.

And [we believe] in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who in unity with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets; and [we believe] in one holy Catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

This creed, known as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, merely affirmed what had already been decreed by Theodosius, that is, that trinitarianism was the only ‘orthodox’ theology. Initially, this creed wasn’t considered very important — in fact, it was only first mentioned 70 years later at the Council of Chalcedon, which led some scholars to doubt its authenticity, although most accept it as authentic [10] — but what was most important was that one specific interpretation of the Nicene Creed, that of trinitarianism, was now the only officially ‘orthodox’ view.

    Immediately after the Council of Constantinople ended, in July 381, Theodosius issued another official edict (known as Episcopis tradi) which declared that all churches must be headed by trinitarian bishops. This edict began by saying, “We now order that all churches be handed over to the bishops who profess Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of a singular Majesty, of the same Glory, and of one Splendor; who establish no difference by sacrilegious separation, but the order of the Trinity by recognizing the Persons and uniting the Godhood.” Thus, trinitarian Christianity was definitively established as the official religion of the Roman Empire, by the authority of ecumenical council and imperial law.

    Conclusion

As a result of the intervention of the Roman emperor Theodosius I, the conflict which began over sixty years prior was concluded in favor of trinitarian theology; but at what cost? If the same thing happened today, it would be considered an outrage that the government was involved in what should have been a purely religious theological debate. Trinitarianism was not even the original teaching of the church, rather, it was the newest theology, barely a century old at that time! Had Theodosius not become involved, it’s hard to say what the outcome of the ‘Arian controversy’ would have been. Due to the influence of the Cappadocians, trinitarianism would likely still have won, but not as forcefully.

    In light of the fact that ‘orthodox trinitarian doctrine’ is largely ‘orthodox’ only because of political influence, and it wasn’t advocated by any known Christian writer until the third or fourth century, should we really accept it unquestioningly? Or should we return to the actual texts of the New Testament to see what the earliest Christians really believed about the nature of God and Jesus? If you are a Protestant, the answer should be obvious; if you are Catholic or Orthodox, the question is still a legitimate one. Since trinitarianism simply did not exist until the late third century, it cannot have been revealed by God in the first century, nor taught by Jesus and his disciples.

______________________________

[1] Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1995), 22.

[2] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd., 1988), 680.

[3] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 715-716.

[4] With regard to Basil’s Epistle 38 being attributed to Gregory of Nyssa, see J. Zachhuber, “Again: The 38th Letter of Basil of Caesarea as the work of Gregory of Nyssa,” ZAC 7, no. 1 (2003), 73-90; Giulio Maspero et al., “Who Wrote Basil’s Epistula 38? A Possible Answer through Quantitative Analysis,” in Gregory of Nyssa: Contra Eunomium III, eds. Johan Leemans and Matthieu Cassin (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 579-594.

[5] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 702-703.

[6] Epp. 61; 66; 67; 69; 80; 82.

[7] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 758.

[8] See a translation of Nullis haereticis here.

[9] Socrates, Ecclesiastical History 5.8.5-10; Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History 7.7.2-5.

[10] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 812-815.

The evolution of early Christian theology: Post-Nicene disputes (part 7 of 8)

Part 6: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-evolution-of-early-christian_02102111985.html

    In the last post, we looked at the history of the ‘Arian controversy’ and the Council of Nicaea. Although it’s often thought that Arius was an arch-heretic who went against the established orthodoxy of trinitarianism, the writings from the fourth century paint a very different picture. Arius was actually theologically conservative, continuing in the tradition of Alexandrian Logos theology, and was persecuted by his bishop Alexander because he thought the terminology that Arius used to describe the Son was too extreme. There were a number of theological and political reasons why Arius was almost unanimously condemned at Nicaea, which I discussed in the last post, but none of them have to do with the actual correctness of his theology. Furthermore, the Nicene Creed did not advocate trinitarianism, but merely managed to establish an uneasy alliance between subordinationism, modalism, and trinitarianism.

    The traditional view of Arius and Nicaea is most definitely a case of history written by the victors. However, Nicaea was not the end of the story for Arius or the doctrine that was wrongly named after him. After about a decade of the uneasy alliance established by Nicaea, a full-blown conflict erupted between the Eastern and Western church. In this post, we’ll look at the conflict between East and West in the mid-fourth century, and how this began to lead to the truimph of trinitarianism.

    The aftermath of Nicaea

Following the Council of Nicaea, Arius and two ‘Arian’ bishops were excommunicated by the church and exiled by the emperor Constantine. At the end of the year 325, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea were also excommunicated and exiled when Constantine discovered that they were continuing to allow ‘Arians’ in their congregations, contrary to the imperial order. Constantine also sent a warning letter to Theodotus of Laodicea, who had been previously excommunicated at the Council of Antioch and reinstated at the Council of Nicaea, telling him not to make the same mistake as Eusebius and Theognis.

    However, as time went on, Constantine gradually became more lenient toward those who had been exiled. Constantine reconvened the Council of Nicaea in late 327, and in a letter dated November 27, 327, he invited Arius to come to the court at Nicaea. Arius sent back a letter claiming that his beliefs were orthodox, and asking to be reconciled to the church. There was then a second session of the Council of Nicaea, in which Arius was found to be within the bounds of orthodoxy. Unfortunately, the details of the 327 Council of Nicaea have been lost to history, but from the surviving records, we can reconstruct that this council did actually occur, and Arius was re-admitted to the church. [1] Although this did not cancel the anathemas of the first session, it effectively reversed the ban on ‘Arians.’

    Having heard of this turn of events, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea wrote to Constantine, recanting and asking him to re-admit them as he did for Arius. Constantine reinstated them to their episcopates in Nicomedia and Nicaea and, in early 328, sent a letter to Alexander of Alexandria, ordering him to allow Arius back into his church. However, before this letter could reach Alexander, he died of old age and was succeeded by the staunchly anti-‘Arian’ Athanasius. As a result, Arius was never reinstated as presbyter, even though he was re-admitted to the church.

    Some time after this, for reasons unknown, Constantine again turned against Arius. In a letter that can be securely dated to 333, he wrote an edict declaring that all of Arius’ writings should be burned, and anyone who hides one of his works put to death. At the same time, he also sent a letter to Arius and his followers, surprisingly full of venom and invective, a strange turn of events given Constantine’s earlier attempts at peace. Perhaps Arius had written something critical of Constantine that caused this change of heart.

    Whatever the reason for Constantine’s change of heart, in the year 335, Arius was called to a council of about 200 bishops in Jerusalem, which again declared him to be orthodox and again re-admitted him to the church (Athanasius, De synodis 21). However, the day before he was officially reinstated as a presbyter, he suddenly and mysteriously died. Over the next few decades, several legends about his death cropped up among church historians, but unfortunately we cannot know for certain how or why Arius died. [2]

    In the same year, there was an investigation into the trinitarian bishop Athanasius of Alexandria by a council at Tyre, attended by 60 bishops, on the charges of breaking a sacred chalice, mistreating ‘Arians,’ and even murder. He was deposed by this council, but pleaded his case in front of Constantine, who ordered the council to reconvene in his presence. Constantine found Athanasius to be guilty and exiled him to Gaul. However, the modalist Marcellus of Ancyra disagreed with this ruling, so his own beliefs were called into question at another council in Constantinople the next year (336), where he was deposed and exiled for holding Monarchian beliefs.

    The events of 335-6 were very significant for the continuing ‘Arian controversy.’ By excommunicating the foremost trinitarian bishop, Athanasius of Alexandria, as well as one of the most influential modalists, Marcellus of Ancyra, the subordinationist bishops of the East broke the fragile peace that had been forged by the Council of Nicaea. By doing this, the Eastern church was in effect declaring that the true orthodoxy was their version of subordinationism (which, to be sure, was not ‘Arian’).

    On the other hand, the Western church at this time was much more favorable toward trinitarians and modalists, though many bishops there were also subordinationists. This is shown by the fact that, after Athanasius was exiled for a second time in 338, both he and Marcellus of Ancyra were re-instated by a council of Western bishops in 340. The doctrinal differences between the East and West led to decades of conflict in the mid-fourth century.

    The Dedication Council of Antioch

Most of the conflict between the East and West took place at councils. Large numbers of bishops from one side of the debate would gather together, form a creedal statement that agreed with the beliefs of their side, and anathematize anyone who believed otherwise. The first conciliar creed from the post-Nicene conflict was drafted at the Dedication Council of Antioch (341). This council of 90 Eastern bishops was officially called by Constantius II, a ‘semi-Arian’ and the successor to Constantine in the East, to dedicate a new church; however, it primarily dealt with theological issues.

    Altogether, the Dedication Council drafted four creeds. The first creed objected to the term “Arian,” which apparently had been used to describe them by their theological opponents, and began like so:

We have not been followers of Arius — how could bishops, such as we, follow a presbyter? — nor did we receive any other faith beside that which has been handed down from the beginning. But, after taking on ourselves to examine and to verify his faith, we admitted him rather than followed him; as you will understand from our present avowals.

The Eastern bishops objected to the term “Arian” because, although they had re-admitted Arius to the church at the Council of Jerusalem in 335, they were not followers of Arius; they merely considered him to be within the bounds of orthodoxy. This council also drew up a creed intended to replace the Nicene Creed, now known as the Dedication Creed:

We believe, conformably to the evangelical and apostolic tradition, in one God, the Father Almighty, the Framer and Maker and Provider of the universe, from whom are all things.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, only-begotten god, through whom are all things, who was begotten before all ages from the Father, god from god, whole from whole, only from only, perfect from perfect, king from king, Lord from Lord, living Logos, living Wisdom, true Light, Way, Truth, Resurrection, Shepherd, Door, both unalterable and unchangeable; exact image of the Godhood, essence, will, power and glory of the Father; the firstborn of every creature, who was in the beginning with God, the Logos-god, as it is written in the Gospel, “and the Word was god;” through whom all things were made and in whom all things consist;

who in the last days descended from above, and was born of a virgin according to the Scriptures, and was made man, mediator between God and man, and Apostle of our faith, and Prince of life, as He says, “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me;” who suffered for us and rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of the Father, and is coming again with glory and power to judge the living and the dead.

And in the Holy Spirit, who is given to those who believe for comfort, and sanctification, and initiation, as also our Lord Jesus Christ enjoined His disciples, saying, “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit;” namely of the Father who is truly Father, and the Son who is truly Son, and of the Holy Spirit who is truly Holy Spirit, the names not being given without meaning or effect, but denoting accurately the peculiar subsistence, rank, and glory of each that is named, so that they are three in existence [hypostasis], and one in agreement.

Holding then this faith, and holding it in the presence of God and Christ, from beginning to end, we anathematize every heretical heterodoxy. And if any teaches, beside the sound and right faith of the Scriptures, that time, or season, or age, either is or has been before the generation of the Son, let him be anathema. Or if anyone says, that the Son is a creature like one of the creatures, or an offspring like one of the offspring, or a work like one of the works, and not as the Holy Scriptures have handed down concerning the articles which have been treated one after another, or if he teaches or preaches anything beyond what we received, let him be anathema. For all that has been delivered in the Holy Scriptures, whether by prophets or apostles, we truly and reverently both believe and follow.

    This creed made several intentional revisions to the Nicene Creed to make it more acceptable to subordinationism, and less to the other factions. The Dedication Creed omits the statement that the Son is “true god from true god,” merely saying that he is “god from god.” It also says that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different in “rank and glory.” Contrary to the Nicene Creed, which specifies that the Father and the Son are only one hypostasis, this creed states that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate hypostases, and are merely one in agreement. Finally, whereas the Nicene Creed says without qualification that the Son is not a creature, the Dedication Creed says that the Son is not “a creature like one of the creatures” or “an offspring like one of the offspring,” which is an Arian statement. [3]

    Although this creed was meant to replace the Nicene Creed, it evidently wasn’t satisfactory to the bishops who wrote it, because several months later, the council of 90 bishops was reconvened at Antioch, and they wrote an entirely new creed:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator and maker of all things; from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.

And in His only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who before all ages was begotten from the Father, god from god, light from light, through whom all things were made in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, being Logos, and Wisdom, and Power, and Life, and true Light;

who in the last days was made man for us, and was born of the holy virgin; who was crucified, and died, and was buried, and rose again from the dead the third day, and was taken up into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of the Father; and is coming at the consummation of the age, to judge the living and the dead, and to render to everyone according to his works; whose kingdom endures indissolubly into the infinite ages; for he shall be seated on the right hand of the Father, not only in this age but in that which is to come.

And in the Holy Spirit, that is, the Paraclete; which, having promised to the Apostles, he [Jesus] sent forth after his ascension into heaven, to teach them and to remind of all things; through whom also shall be sanctified the souls of those who sincerely believe in him.

But those who say that the Son was from nothing, or from another essence and not from God, and, there was a time when he was not, the catholic Church regards as aliens.

This creed, known as the Fourth Creed of Antioch, made several changes from the Dedication Creed. It expands on who the Holy Spirit is, and removes the anathemas on those who call the Son a “creature” or “work.” It also states that the Son’s reign will “endure indissolubly into the infinite ages,” which is an intentional slight against Marcellus, who believed that the Son’s reign would end when he was absorbed back into the Father. Finally, it removes all reference to the word ousia and its cognates.

    However, neither the Dedication Creed nor the Fourth Creed were ‘Arian.’ In fact, they were both explicitly anti-‘Arian,’ anathematizing anyone who claimed that the Son is “from nothing” or “from another essence” (ousia), or that there was a “time or season or age... before the generation of the Son.” Both of these creeds represented the majority position in the East at that time, which was non-‘Arian’ subordinationism.

    The Council of Serdica/Philippopolis

The creeds from the 341 Council of Antioch were offensive to those in the West, who saw the Eastern bishops as ‘Arianizing.’ Therefore, in 343, another council was summoned to Serdica by the emperors Constans and Constantius II, as well as Ossius of Cordoba, with the intent of resolving the debate. This time, there were representatives from both the West (about 94 bishops) and the East (about 76 bishops), in an attempt to draft a creed acceptable to both sides of the debate.

    However, far from resolving the debate, the Council of Serdica was an absolute fiasco which only served to further divide the West from the East. The Western bishops insisted on allowing Athanasius of Alexandria (trinitarian) and Marcellus of Ancyra (modalist) to participate in the council, because they had been reinstated by a previous council of Western bishops at Rome. The Eastern bishops, who had previously excommunicated both of these individuals, saw this as a slight against them and refused to participate in the council. Therefore, the Easterners left the council and fled to Philippopolis, where they held their own, separate council.

    The creed produced by the Western Council of Serdica was written specifically to counter the Dedication Creed of 341. Here are the main highlights from this Western creed:

We declare those men excommunicate from the catholic church who say that Christ is god, but not true god; that he is the Son, but not true Son; and that he is both begotten and made; for such persons acknowledge that they understand by the term “begotten,” that which has been made; and because, although the Son of God existed before all ages, they attribute to Him, who exists not in time but before all time, a beginning and an end...

We do not say that the Father is Son, or that the Son is Father; but that the Father is Father, and the Son of the Father is Son. We confess that the Son is Power of the Father. We confess that the Logos is Logos of God, the Father, and that beside him there is no other [Logos]. We believe the Logos to be true god, and Wisdom and Power... We use the word firstborn with respect to his human nature. But he is superior in the new creation, inasmuch as He is the firstborn from the dead.

We confess that God exists; we confess the divinity of the Father and of the Son to be one. No one denies that the Father is greater than the Son; not on account of another essence, nor yet on account of their difference, but simply from the very name of the Father being greater than that of the Son.

The words uttered by our Lord, “I and my Father are one,” are by those men [the Easterners] explained as referring to the concord and harmony which prevail between the Father and the Son; but this is a blasphemous and perverse interpretation. We as catholics, unanimously condemned this foolish and lamentable opinion... we believe and maintain that those holy words, “I and my Father are one,” point out the oneness of essence [ousia] which is one and the same in the Father and in the Son.

We also believe that the Son reigns with the Father, that his reign has neither beginning nor end, and that it is not bounded by time, nor can ever cease. For that which always exists never begins to be, and can never cease.

We believe in and we receive the Holy Spirit, the Paraklete, whom the Lord both promised and sent. We believe in it as sent. It was not the Holy Spirit who suffered, but the manhood with which he clothed himself; which he took from the virgin Mary, which being man was capable of suffering; for man is mortal, whereas God is immortal.

This creed is very interesting in a number of ways. First, it explicitly repudiates the Dedication Creed for saying that Jesus is “god from god” but omitting “true god from true god;” it also condemns the interpretation that the Son and the Father are one in agreement, rather than one in hypostasis or essence, which was also said in the Dedication Creed.

    Second, this creed also states that “no one denies that the Father is greater than the Son... simply from the very name of the Father being greater than that of the Son.” This is a clearly subordinationist statement, and it shows that the majority of Western bishops were also subordinationists, despite their disagreement with the Eastern subordinationists. The subordinationist nature of this creed probably contributed to Athanasius’ rejection of it.

    Third, this creed seems to say that it was the Holy Spirit which was incarnated, became human, and suffered. Although this is mostly irrelevant to the overall theology and Christology of the creed, it highlights just how much variability there was in the incarnation theories of the fourth century. It was considered perfectly orthodox at this time to say that the Holy Spirit became flesh in Jesus.

    Meanwhile, while this creed was being drafted by the Western bishops at Serdica, the Eastern bishops came up with their own statement of faith at Philippopolis. Their creed was really just a copy of the Fourth Creed of Antioch with a few new anathemas attached, including an anathema against those who say that “he himself [Christ] is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” This was probably an intentional slight against Marcellus and his modalistic views, since his presence at the Council of Serdica was part of the reason that the Easterners refused to participate.

    The events after the Council of Serdica merely served to further divide the East and the West. The Western bishops at Serdica sent a letter to all the other bishops, accusing the Easterners of being “Arian madmen” and urging the other bishops to cease communion with them. They also sent a letter to the church at Alexandria, and another nearly identical letter to the bishops of Egypt and Libya, telling them to re-admit Athanasius and cease communion with the ‘Arian’ bishop George of Alexandria. The Eastern bishops also sent an encyclical letter to all other bishops, re-affirming their decisions at the 341 Council of Antioch and denouncing Athanasius and Marcellus.

    The “Long-Lined Creed” of 344

After the fiasco at Serdica, another council was held in Antioch by the Eastern bishops in 344. This council produced another creed identical to the Fourth Creed of Antioch from 341, but with a number of appended statements defending this creed against the criticisms of Western bishops. Because of the lengthy appendix to the creed, it is known as the Ekthesis Macrostichos or “Long-Lined Creed.” Here are a few of the most pertinent statements from the appendix to the creed:

(3) And again, in confessing the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be three beings and three persons, according to the Scriptures, we do not make three Gods; since we acknowledge the self-complete and ingenerate and unbegun and invisible God to be one only, the God and Father of the only-begotten, who alone has being in Himself, and alone generously grants this to all others.

(4) And again, in saying that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the one only God, the only ingenerate, we do not therefore deny that Christ also was god before ages... For we acknowledge that though he is subordinate to his Father and God, yet being before ages begotten from God, he is perfect god according to nature and true.

(5) We also abhor and anathematize those who make a pretense of saying that he was but the mere word of God and non-existent, having his essence in another — as if pronounced, as some speak, or as if mental — holding that he was not Messiah or Son of God or mediator or image of God before ages, but that he first became Messiah and Son of God when he took our flesh from the virgin, not quite four hundred years ago. For they will have it that Christ then began his kingdom, and that it will have an end after the consummation of all and the judgment. Such are the disciples of Marcellus and Scotinus [sic: Photinus] of Ancyra in Galatia, who, equally with Jews, rejected Christ’s existence before ages and his godhood and unending kingdom, upon pretense of supporting the divine Monarchy.

...we believe, then, in the all-perfect trinity most holy, that is, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and calling the Father God, and the Son god. Yet we confess in them not two Gods, but one dignity of Godhood, and one exact harmony of dominion; the Father alone being head over the whole universe wholly, and over the Son himself; and the Son subordinated to the Father, but excepting Him, ruling over all things after him, which through himself have come to be, and granting the grace of the Holy Spirit unsparingly to the saints at the Father’s will.

This much, in addition to the faith before published in epitome, we have been compelled to draw forth at length, not in any over-zealous display, but to clear away all unjust suspicion concerning our opinions among those who are ignorant of our affairs; and that all in the West may know, both the audacity of the slanders of the heterodox, and as to the Easterners, their ecclesiastical mind in the Lord, to which the divinely inspired Scriptures bear witness without violence.

The Long-Lined Creed propounds a specific version of subordinationism, in which the Father is the only God, and the Son is a subordinate god because God has “generously granted” secondary divinity to him. It also condemned Marcellus and Photinus’ views that the Son was the literal, or “mere,” word of God before becoming incarnate rather than the personal Logos of Logos theory.

    The next year (345), this creed was brought by a delegation of Eastern bishops to the pro-Nicene Western emperor Constans at a council in Milan. However, like the Council of Serdica, this council failed to reconcile the East and West. Before the Long-Lined Creed could be presented, the Western bishops asked the delegation of Eastern bishops to denounce Arius as a heretic, which they refused to do. This was probably not because they agreed with Arius, since his views were anathematized in the Long-Lined Creed itself, but because of the perceived injustice of being suspected to be ‘Arian.’ [4] Whatever the reason, the council was aborted, and East and West remained divided.

    Despite the continuing doctrinal differences between the East and the West, both sides agreed on the condemnation of Photinus of Sirmium, who believed that Jesus was a ‘mere man.’ He was anathematized by the Western Council of Milan in 345 and another council at Milan in 347, as well as an Eastern council at Sirmium in 347/8. Around the same time, the stuanchly anti-Nicene bishops Valens and Ursacius wrote a letter to the bishop of Rome, Julius, in which they recanted their condemnation of Athanasius and denounced the “Arian heresy.” It’s clear that during the years 345-350, there was a sincere attempt at reconciliation, although the doctrinal differences between East and West continued to persist.

    The Sirmian Council of 357

In the year 350, the pro-Nicene emperor of the West, Constans, was killed in a coup by his general Magnentius. This prompted immediate action from Contans’ brother Constantius II, the emperor of the East. After a prolonged series of battles, Constantius defeated Magnentius in 353 and became sole ruler of the Roman empire.

    These events sent ripples through the Christian world, because Constantius was both an anti-Nicene and a ‘semi-Arian.’ Like his father and predecessor Constantine, Constantius wished to unify the empire religiously as well as politically, so he immediately set out to bring the bishops of the West into agreement with the East. He summoned a council at Arles in Gaul, in which he demanded that the bishops denounce Athanasius and affirm the anti-Nicene George as bishop in Alexandria; according to Hilary of Poitiers, he also asked the bishops to sign the following statement of faith:

There is one ingenerate God, the Father; and one only Son, god from god, light from light, firstborn of all creation; and one Holy Spirit, the Comforter. [5]

Although this statement is fairly innocuous, many of the bishops in the West thought (rather irrationally) that a strongly ‘Arian’ sentiment was hiding behind it. Hilary of Poitiers claims that this statement actually intended to say that the Son “was made out of nothing, there was a time when he did not exist, and before he was begotten he did not exist.” [5] This highlights the extent to which distrust had permeated both the West and the East at this time. Even innocuous statements like this, perfectly orthodox within themselves, were considered to be somehow hiding ‘heresy.’

    Two years later in 355, Constantius II summoned another council at Milan, composed of 30 Western bishops and an uncertain number of Eastern bishops. At this council, he required all the bishops to re-affirm the condemnation of Athanasius and to sign a statement of faith. This statement of faith has unfortunately been lost, but given Constantius’ anti-Nicene tendencies, it likely favored the Eastern party. The three bishops who failed to sign the statement of faith, including the bishop of Milan, Dionysius, were exiled, and Dionysius was replaced by Auxentius, an anti-Nicene. [6] Athanasius himself was exiled later that year for failing to attend the Council of Milan. [7]

    This sudden turn of events brought about by Constantius allowed the more extreme, ‘Arian’ wing of the Eastern party to express their views without fear of condemnation. This is exemplified by the Council of Serdica which took place in the year 357. This council involved only a small group of bishops; the only ones who were certainly present are Ossius of Cordoba (Western pro-Nicene), Potamius of Lisbon (Western anti-Nicene), Germinius, Valens, and Ursacius (all Eastern anti-Nicenes). [8] They produced the following creed:

It is held for certain that there is one God, the Father Almighty, as also is preached in all the world.

And His one only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, generated from Him before the ages; and we may not speak of two Gods, since the Lord Himself has said, “I go to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.” [John 20:17] On this account He [the Father] is God of all, as also the Apostle taught: “Is He God of the Jews only, is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also; since there is one God who shall justify the circumcision from faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.” [Romans 3:29, 30] And everything else agrees, and has no ambiguity.

But since many persons are disturbed by questions concerning what is called in Latin substantia, and in Greek ousia, that is, to make it understood more exactly, as to “one in essence,” [homoousios] or what is called, “like in essence,” [homoiousios] 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. And because no one can declare the Son’s generation, as it is written, “Who shall declare His generation?” [Isaiah 53:8] For it is plain that only the Father knows how He generated the Son, and only the Son how he has been generated by the Father.

And it is unquestionable that the Father is greater. For no one can doubt that the Father is greater in honor and dignity and Godhood, and in the very name of Father, the Son himself testifying, “The Father that sent me is greater than I.” [John 14:28] And no one is ignorant that it is catholic doctrine that there are two persons of Father and Son, and that the Father is greater, and the Son subordinated to the Father together with all things which the Father has subordinated to Him. And the Father has no beginning, and is invisible, and immortal, and impassible; but the Son has been generated from the Father, god from god, light from light, and that his origin no one knows but the Father only, as said before. And the Son himself, our Lord and god, took flesh, that is, a body, that is, humanity, from Mary the virgin, as the angel preached beforehand. And as all the Scriptures teach, and especially the apostle himself, the doctor of the Gentiles, Christ took humanity from Mary the virgin, through which he has suffered.

And the whole faith is summed up, and secured in this, that a trinity should ever be preserved, as we read in the gospel, “Go and baptize all the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” [Matthew 28:19] And entire and perfect is the number of the trinity; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, was sent forth through the Son, and came according to the promise, that he might teach and sanctify the apostles and all believers.

This creed, known as the Second Sirmian Creed, is obviously subordinationist, and rejects both the terms homoousios and homoiousios. It is surprising that Ossius of Cordoba, a pro-Nicene who presided over the Council of Nicaea, assented to this creed; however, he was over ninety years old at this point, and may not have been in his right mind. Hilary of Poitiers, a pro-Nicene critic of this creed, refers to it as “Ossius’ lunacy” and “the blasphemy of Sirmium” (De synodis 11; Lib. con. Const. 23).

    The Second Sirmian Creed of 357 was not obviously ‘Arian’ in that it did not explicitly state that the Son had a beginning, or that the Son was produced out of nothing. Nevertheless, it was so radically subordinationist and anti-Nicene that it was even considered too extreme by most Easterners. Despite the uncompromising nature of this creed, it also showed a way out of the conflict by providing a benchmark for orthodoxy; those who supported the “blasphemy of Sirmium” were ‘Arians,’ and those who opposed it were ‘orthodox.’ [9]

    Attempts at reconciliation (358 - 361)

In the year 358, Eudoxius, the bishop of Antioch and an ‘Arian,’ summoned a council to Antioch which supported the Second Sirmian Creed. In the same year, Basil, the bishop of Ancyra, summoned a council of 14 bishops to Ancyra which condemned the Second Sirmian Creed and supported instead the term homoiousios (“like in essence”) to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son. These two councils defined the sects that would dominate the East over the next two decades: the Homoians, or ‘Arians,’ and the Homoiousians, or ‘semi-Arians.’ There was also a third, smaller sect, led by the bishop Aetius, which declared that the Son is anhomoios (“unlike”) the Father, and was known as the Anhomoians or ‘neo-Arians.’

    Another council was held at Sirmium in 359, which was attended by both the Homoians (led by Eudoxius and Acacius) and the Homoiousians (led by Basil of Ancyra and George of Laodicea). This council produced a creed which was dated to May 22, 359, and is therefore known as the ‘Dated Creed.’ The two groups present at the council were able to agree on the statement that the Son is “like the Father in all respects.” The Homoiousian group at this council also produced a letter which was strongly critical of the Anhomoians, who claimed that the Son is “unlike” the Father.

    Seeing that a solution to the conflict was at hand, in late 359 the emperor Constantius II summoned a council of about 400 Western bishops to the city of Ariminium in Italy, and another council of about 170 Eastern bishops to Nicomedia, to produce an ecumenical creed that both sides could agree upon. An earthquake occurred at Nicomedia, killing the bishop there, so the Eastern council was moved to the city of Seleucia.

    According to Hilary of Poitiers, the council at Seleucia was composed of about 150 Homoiousians and Homoians, 19 Anhomoians, and a few pro-Nicene Homoousians. [10] A creed was put forth by Acacius, a prominent Homoian, which condemned homoousios, homoiousios, and anhomoios, but this creed was rejected by the majority of bishops in favor of the Dedication Creed of 341. However, when the creed was put forth before the Western bishops in Ariminium, they responded with the following statement:

Ursacius and Valens, Gaius, Germinius, and Auxentius... are still endeavoring to foist their heretical spirit upon the faith of the orthodox. For they wish to annul the creed passed at Nicaea, which was framed against the Arian heresy. They have presented to us a creed drawn up by themselves from without, and utterly alien to the most holy Church, which we could not lawfully receive. Even before this, and now, they have been pronounced heretics and gainsayers by us, whom we have not admitted to our communion, but condemned and deposed them in their presence by our voices.

“Now then, declare what seems good to you, that each one’s vote may be ratified by his subscription.” The bishops answered with one accord. It seems good that the forenamed heretics should be condemned, that the catholic faith may remain in peace.

Thus, the attempted reconciliation at Ariminium and Seleucia was almost as disastrous as the council of Serdica in 343.

    Nevertheless, Constantius II moved a delegation of Western bishops from Ariminium to the city of Nike (Thrace) where they met with the Eastern bishops. The delegation of Western bishops was satisfied when Valens signed a statement condemning Arius and his doctrines, and they signed the explicitly subordinationist and Homoian 'Dated Creed' of 359 which rejected the term ousia, with a single omission of the words "in all respects" after "like the Father." [11] This 'Nikean Creed' was officially adopted as an ecumenical creed by the Council of Constantinople in 360. For the moment, at least, it seemed that peace had been reached.

    However, this fragile peace was broken the very next year in 361, when Constantius died and was succeeded by his pagan cousin Julian. Upon his death, the inhabitants of Alexandria saw that the political climate had changed drastically, and a mob of Athanasius' angry supporters murdered the anti-Nicene bishop George. Athanasius was re-established as bishop in 362. [12] This event brought the West back into conflict with the East.

    Conclusion

Contrary to the traditional view of fourth-century Christianity, the Council of Nicaea was not the defining moment of Christian theology, and it did not show trinitarianism to be the only orthodox position. On the contrary, Nicaea merely established a fragile peace which was broken only a decade later, and subordinationism continued to be the majority position in both the East and the West for many years. Nor was Nicaea considered to be the first ecumenical council, and many creeds were drawn up with the intent of replacing the Nicene Creed.

    Even in the year 361, the conflict between East and West showed no signs of ceasing. Furthermore, there is no indication that trinitarianism was a majority opinion at this point in time. How, then, was the conflict resolved in favor of trinitarianism? This is the question that we will explore in the final post of this series.

Part 8: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-evolution-of-early-christian_02105349936.html

______________________________

[1] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd., 1988), 174-178; Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 74-75; for primary sources see Constantine’s letter to Arius; Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea’s letter to Constantine; Eusebius, Vita Constantini 3.23; Theodoret, EH 1.26.1.

[2] Ellen Muehlberger, “The Legend of Arius’ Death: Imagination, Space and Filth in Late Ancient Historiography,“ Past & Present 227, no. 1 (2015), 3-29.

[3] Arius, Letter to Alexander 2.

[4] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 312.

[5] Ibid., 330-331.

[6] Ibid., 332-334.

[7] Ibid., 342.

[8] Ibid., 343-344.

[9] Ibid., 347.

[10] Ibid., 374-375.

[11] Ibid., 378-380.

[12] Ibid., 385-386; 639.

The evolution of early Christian theology: Arius and the Council of Nicaea (part 6 of 8)

Part 5: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-evolution-of-early-christian.html

    In the last post of this series, we looked at the major sects that existed in Christian theology during the fourth century. Subordinationists, who believed that the Father is the only true God and the Son is subordinate to Him, comprised the oldest and largest sect. Monarchians, who believed that the Father and the Son are numerically identical, were the second-oldest sect. Bi/trinitarians, who believed that the Father and the Son are separate and co-equal, were the newest and smallest sect. Until the second quarter of the fourth century, all of these sects got along relatively peacefully, without much direct conflict.

    However, around AD 325 — the date of the Council of Nicaea — these theological sects began to engage in an open conflict that almost tore apart Eastern and Western Christianity. To understand why this happened, it’s necessary to go back to the beginning of the conflict. At the center of the controversy was a man named Arius, whose doctrine, known as ‘Arianism,’ is today considered by many to be the epitome of heresy. But who was Arius, and what did he believe? Was he really an arch-heretic? And did the Nicene Creed actually establish trinitarianism as the only orthodox doctrine?

    Arius and ‘Arianism’

Arius was a presbyter in Alexandria until his views were found to be heretical, and he was excommunicated by his bishop Alexander of Alexandria in AD 318. After being excommunicated, he managed to convince many other people (including bishops) in the Church of the truth of his heresy. However, at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, his views were unanimously declared to be heretical, contrary to the established orthodoxy of trinitarianism, so he and his followers were excommunicated. Trinitarianism was declared to be the official orthodoxy according to the Nicene Creed, and anyone who disagreed was anathematized.

    This is the traditional view regarding the history of Arius and ‘Arianism.’ However, the primary documents surrounding the ‘Arian controversy’ paint a very different picture, a picture which has only been recovered in the last few decades. Arius was no progressive heresiarch, on the contrary, he was theologically conservative, most of his doctrine having been established by earlier Alexandrian Logos theorists. [1] Nor was his theology as obviously ridiculous or heretical as is often thought. Unfortunately, very few of his writings survive, but the surviving letters that he wrote are helpful in explicating his doctrinal views.

    The following is an excerpt from a letter written by Arius to his theological ally, Eusebius of Nicomedia, in AD 318, complaining about his excommunication by Alexander:

some... say that the Son was “spewed out,” others that he was an “emanation,” still others that he is “jointly unbegotten” [with the Father]. We are not able to listen to these kinds of impieties, even if the heretics [i.e., Alexander] threaten us with ten thousand deaths. But what do we say and think, and what have we previously taught, and what do we presently teach? That the Son is not unbegotten, nor a part of an unbegotten entity in any way, nor from anything [previously] in existence, but that he existed in will and intention timelessly before the ages, fully god, only-begotten, unchangeable.

Before he was begotten, or created, or defined, or established, he did not exist. For he was not unbegotten. But we are persecuted because we have said the Son has a beginning but God has no beginning. We are persecuted because of that and for saying he came from non-being. But we said this since he is not a portion of God nor of anything in existence. (Letter to Eusebius 3-5)

In this letter, Arius says that the Son existed “timelessly before the ages” as “the only-begotten god.” He objects to the view that the Son had no beginning, but it’s not at all clear that he’s referring to a temporal beginning; on the contrary, he seems to be referring to a metaphysical beginning — that is, the Father as the cause of the Son — because he says that the Son existed before time began. Likewise, he argues that the Son “came from non-being,” that is, created ex nihilo. This is not an attempt to degrade the Son, but because he objects to the view that the Son is an “emanation” or “spewed out” from the Father, which would imply that the Father has a material essence that can be divided.

    The same views are expressed in Arius’ letter to Alexander of Alexandria written in AD 320, which appeals his excommunication. In this letter, he describes his beliefs as follows:

Our faith from our forefathers, which we also learned from you, blessed father, is this: We acknowledge one God, alone unbegotten, alone everlasting, alone without beginning, alone true, alone having immortality, alone wise, alone good, alone sovereign, judge, governor, and provider of all, unalterable and unchangeable, just and good, God of the Law and the Prophets and the New Testament; who begat an only-begotten Son timelessly before the ages, through whom He made both the ages and all that was made; who begot him not in appearance, but in reality; and that He made him subsist by His own will, unalterable and unchangeable, the perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures; offspring, but not as one of the other things begotten...

God, being the cause of all that happens, is absolutely alone without beginning; but the Son, begotten timelessly by the Father, and created and founded before the ages, was not in existence before his generation, but was begotten apart from time before all things, and he alone came into existence from the Father. For he is neither eternal nor co-eternal nor co-unbegotten with the Father, nor does he have his essence [ousia] together with the Father, as some speak of relations, introducing two unbegotten Beginnings. But God is before all things as Monad and Beginning of all. Therefore He is also before the Son, as we have learned also from your public preaching in the church.

Therefore he thus has his being from God; and glories, and life, and all things have been given over to him; in this way God is his beginning. For He is over him, as his God and being before him. But if the expressions “from Him” [Rom. 11:36] and “from the womb” [Psa. 110:3] and “I came from the Father, and I have come” [John 16:28], are understood by some to mean that he is part of Him, one in essence [homoousion] or as an emanation, then the Father is, according to them, compounded and divisible and alterable and material, and, as far as their belief goes, the incorporeal God endures a body. (Letter to Alexander 2, 4, 5)

Again, in this letter, Arius objects to the statements that the Son is “without beginning” and “one in essence” (homoousion) with the Father. In his view, if the Son has no beginning, then there are two unbegun beings, and therefore two Gods; and if the Son is homoousion with the Father, then this implies that the Father has a corporeal essence that can be divided, which Arius finds distasteful. Again, it’s not at all clear that Arius believes the Son had a temporal beginning; on the contrary, he says that the Son was begotten “timelessly” and “before the ages,” so it seems that when he speaks of a “beginning,” he’s referring to the Father as the metaphysical beginning (cause) of the Son.

    Finally, there is also a surviving fragment from Arius’ Thalia, which is recorded by Athanasius in De synodis 15:

And so God Himself, as He really is, is inexpressible to all. He alone has no equal, no one similar, and no one of the same glory. We call Him unbegotten, in contrast to those who by nature are begotten. We praise Him as without beginning in contrast to those who have a beginning. We worship Him as timeless, in contrast to those who in time have come to exist.

He who is without beginning made the Son a beginning of created things. He produced him as a Son for Himself by begetting him. He [the Son] has none of the distinct characteristics of God’s own being. For he is not equal to, nor is he one in essence [homoousios] with Him...

So there is a trinity, not in equal glories. Their existences [hypostases] are not mixed together among themselves. As far as their glories, One is infinitely more glorious than the other. The Father in his essence [ousia] is a foreigner to the Son, because He exists without beginning.

Understand that the Monad [eternally] was; but the Dyad was not before it came into existence. It immediately follows that, although the Son did not exist, the Father was still God. Hence the Son, not being [eternal], came into existence by the Father’s will; he is the only-begotten god, and this one is alien from [all] others.

Wisdom came to be Wisdom by the will of the wise God. Hence he is conceived in innumerable aspects. He is Spirit, Power, Wisdom, God’s glory, Truth, Image, and Logos. Understand that he is also conceived of as Radiance and Light. The one who is superior is able to beget one equal to the Son, but not someone more important, or superior, or greater. At God’s will the Son has the greatness and qualities that he has. His existence from when and from whom and from then — are all from God. He, mighty god, partially praises his superior. (Thalia 1-9, 16-31)

Clearly, Arius was not denying Jesus’ divinity, as he is not hesitant to call the Son “fully god” and “mighty god.” He was evidently a subordinationist, but this was well within the orthodoxy of his day.

    So then, what was Alexander of Alexandria’s objection to Arius’ doctrine? In his encyclical letter to all the bishops, regarding the deposition and excommunication of Arius, Alexander complains that Arius and his followers say that “there was a time when he [the Son] did not exist,” and that “his [the Son’s] nature is mutable and changeable” (Encyclical Letter 7, 8). However, both of these charges are explicitly refuted by Arius, who says that the Son was begotten before time and before the ages — so there cannot have been “a time” when he did not exist — and that the Son is “unchangeable.” It seems that Alexander was misinterpreting Arius’ claims, or that Arius’ followers were making different claims than he was; or perhaps Alexander was inventing these charges outright.

     It’s unclear from Arius’ writings whether he believed in a two-stage or one-stage Logos theory. If Alexander is to be believed, then Arius was claiming that there were two Logoi, in which case he believed in a two-stage Logos theory (Encyclical Letter 7). However, as noted above, Alexander was prone to misinterpret (or invent) Arius’ doctrine, so we can’t be certain whether this is accurate. Arius himself says that God existed before He was Father (Letter to Eusebius 3); however, the same claim was made by a one-stage Logos theologian, Novatian of Rome, less than a century earlier (On the Trinity 31), so this isn’t conclusive. Unfortunately, we simply don’t have enough accurate information about Arius’ beliefs to know whether he was a one- or two-stage Logos theorist.

    So then, the controversy surrounding Arius and his views was primarily about what terminology was proper to refer to the Son, and what this terminology means. Is it correct to say that the Son has no beginning (Alexander), or does this imply that the Father isn’t his cause (Arius)? Does the Son exist as an act of the Father’s will (Arius), or does he exist by the Father’s own nature (Alexander)? Is it correct to say that the Son is one in essence (homoousion) with the Father (Alexander), or does that imply that the Father has a corporeal essence which can be divided (Arius)? The answers to these questions aren’t at all clear, nor are Arius’ answers obviously heretical, especially in the fourth century when subordinationism was considered to be well within the range of orthodoxy.

    Before moving on to the history of the ‘Arian controversy,’ it’s important to note that the name ‘Arianism’ is extremely misleading and anachronistic. Arius was not the first subordinationist, and even if he believed that the Son was created at a specific point in time, the two-stage Logos theorists of the second and third centuries proposed this long before him. As recent scholars of this period have acknowledged, Arius was following a specific Alexandrian tradition, not proposing a new doctrine. [1] Later ‘Arian’ bishops insisted that they were not following Arius, a presbyter, but merely what their forebears had taught them. [2] Therefore, throughout this post I will not refer to Arius’ doctrine as ‘Arianism,’ but as “radical subordinationism.”

    The history of the ‘Arian controversy’

As I already showed above, the traditional, simplistic view of the ‘Arian controversy’ is incorrect in its claim that Arius was promoting a new heresy that was contrary to the established orthodoxy. Arius’ views were not new, nor were they obviously heretical, and there was no real ‘established orthodoxy’ in the early fourth century. The debate between Arius and Alexander was really an insignificant debate about terminology. So then, why were Arius’ views so controversial in the first place, and how did this erupt into full-blown conflict?

    From the primary documents of the early fourth century, especially the letters of Arius and Alexander, we can reconstruct the history of the so-called ‘Arian controversy.’ Some time in AD 318, Alexander the bishop of Alexandria made public statements to the following effect:

“God always existed, the Son always existed;” “as soon as the Father existed, so soon the Son existed;” “with the Father co-exists the Son, unbegotten, ever-begotten, unbegotten-begotten;” “God neither precedes the Son in thought nor in a moment of time;” and “God always existed, the Son always existed, the Son being from God Himself.” (Arius, Letter to Eusebius 2)

At the same time, Alexander publicly denounced several fellow bishops, including Eusebius of Caesarea, Theodotus of Laodicea, Paulinus of Tyre, Athanasius of Anazarbos, Gregory of Berytus, Aetius of Lydda, and (if Arius is to be believed) “all those in the East“ with the exception of three bishops, for holding beliefs that he considered to be heretical (Letter to Eusebius 3).

    One of the presbyters underneath Alexander, Arius, thought that these statements implied that the Son was causeless and not begotten from the Father, so he and several other Alexandrian clergy denounced them. In response, Alexander summoned a council of about a hundred like-minded bishops from the surrounding area to examine their doctrine, and eighty of the bishops found them to be ‘heretics’ and excommunicated them (Athanasius, Encyclical Letter 6, 11). Alexander then sent word to the surrounding churches not to accept Arius and his companions (Arius, Letter to Eusebius 2).

    In desperation, Arius wrote to the bishop of Nicomedia, Eusebius, who had studied under Lucian of Antioch together with him (Letter to Eusebius 5). Eusebius sent back to Arius telling him that his doctrine was correct, and began sending letters to the surrounding churches in an attempt to help Arius. By this time, the controversy was beginning to grow, and so Alexander sent an Encyclical Letter to all of the churches that told his side of the story and defended his beliefs against those of Arius. Alexander also told the churches not to accept any letter from Eusebius defending Arius (Encyclical Letter 20).

    After Alexander sent his letter to all the churches, the controversy erupted, with individuals on both sides vainly attempting to mediate the conflict before it grew out of control. Eusebius of Caesarea, a prominent subordinationist, defended Arius’ views in a letter to Alexander (which accused him of misrepresenting Arius) and another letter to Euphration of Balanea. Athanasius of Anazarbos also defended Arius in a letter to Alexander. One priest in Alexandria, George, sent letters to both Alexander and the ‘Arians’ in an attempt to mediate the conflict.

    Around the same time, in c. 321, there was a council held in Bithynia which declared Arius’ views to be orthodox and required Alexander to re-admit him to the church (Sozomen, EH 1.15.10). Arius himself, along with some of his companions, wrote a letter of reconciliation to Alexander which explained why he said what he did. However, Alexander evidently ignored these attempts at reconciliation, so Arius and his compatriots fled to Palestine. There, another council was held, presided over by Arius’ allies Paulinus of Tyre, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Patrophilus of Scythopolis, which allowed him and his followers to form a church in Palestine (Sozomen, EH 1.15.11).

    In 322, political forces became indirectly involved in the controversy. Licinius, the emperor of the West, went to war with Constantine I, the emperor of the East; because Constantine I was a supporter of Christianity, Licinius began to persecute Christians. One edict which Licinius passed prohibited the meeting of bishops, which stopped the ‘Arian controversy’ in its tracks (Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.50-51). This state of affairs lasted for two years, until Constantine I defeated Licinius in 324 and re-unified the Roman empire.

    After the persecution, in 324, Alexander of Alexandria wrote letters to several bishops reminding them of the controversy. To Alexander of Byzantium, he made several demonstrably false claims about the radical subordinationists, such as that they “say that [Jesus] is on the same level as everybody else” and “his nature is changeable;” he also accused them of stirring up persecution against Christians even where there was no persecution from Licinius (Letter to Alexander 4, 5, 10, 59). Alexander also sent another encyclical letter out to every bishop, in which he said the following:

With respect to the orthodox teaching on the Father and the Son: Just as the Scriptures teach us, we confess one Holy Spirit and one catholic Church and the resurrection of the dead, of which our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has become the first-fruits. He was clothed in a body from Mary Theotokos in order to dwell among the human race, he died, he rose from the dead, and was taken up into the heavens, where he is sitting at the right hand of the Majesty.

I have described these only partially in this letter, deciding not to carefully write out each point, because your godly zeal is well aware of these things. This we teach, this we preach; these are the doctrines of the apostolic church. Both Arius and Achillas and those with them have become hostile to these teachings and have been driven out of the church for teaching things which are foreign to the orthodox teaching. As the blessed Paul says, “If anyone preaches a gospel besides the one you received, let him be anathema.” (Letter to Melitius 2, 3)

Obviously these are ridiculous charges; neither Arius nor any other radical subordinationist would deny any part of Alexander’s statement of faith. Nevertheless, about two hundred bishops signed this letter in support of Alexander against Arius. This event must have certainly played a role in the public perception of Arius and the radical subordinationists.

    Meanwhile, the emperor Constantine I, who had just recently defeated Licinius, was shocked and dismayed to find that his newly unified empire was now religiously divided, as Alexander was forcing the other bishops to take sides in the conflict. For this reason, he had his religious adviser Ossius of Cordoba write a letter to both Alexander and Arius, urging them to reconcile:

O glorious Providence of God! How deep a wound did not my ears only, but my very heart receive when it was reported that divisions existed among yourselves more grievous still than those which continued in that country [Africa]! You, through whose aid I had hoped to procure a remedy for the errors of others, are in a state which needs healing even more than theirs. And yet, now that I have made a careful enquiry into the origin and foundation of these differences, I have found the cause to be of a truly insignificant character, and quite unworthy of such fierce contention...

I understand that the origin of the present controversy is this. When you, Alexander, demanded of the priests what opinion they each maintained respecting a certain passage in Scripture, or rather, I should say, that you asked them something connected with an unprofitable question. You then, Arius, inconsiderately insisted on what ought never to have been speculated about at all, or if pondered, should have been buried in profound silence. Hence it was that a dissension arose between you, fellowship was withdrawn, and the holy people were rent into diverse factions, no longer preserving the unity of the one body...

Now forgive one another for both the careless question and the ill-considered answer. The cause of your difference has not been any of the leading doctrines or precepts of the Divine law, nor has any new heresy respecting the worship of God arisen among you. You are really of one and the same judgment; and so it is fitting for you to join in communion and fellowship. As long as you continue to contend about these small and very insignificant questions, it is not fitting that so large a portion of God’s people should be under the direction of your judgment, since you are thus divided between yourselves. In my opinion, it is not merely unbecoming, but positively evil, that such should be the case...

...as to your subtle disputations on questions of little or no significance, though you may be unable to harmonize in opinion, such differences should be confined to your own private minds and thoughts. And now, let the preciousness of common affection, let faith in the truth, let the honor due to God and to the observance of his law remain immovably among you. Resume your mutual feelings of friendship, love, and respect. Restore to the people their customary embraces; and you yourselves purify your souls, as it were, and once more acknowledge one another. For it often happens that when a reconciliation is effected by the removal of the causes of hostility, friendship becomes even sweeter than it was before. (Letter to Alexander and Arius 4, 6, 9, 10, 14)

However, when Ossius brought this letter to Alexandria, Alexander must have convinced him that the conflict was not so insignificant, because when Ossius appeared in Antioch at the start of the next year (325), he was staunchly anti-‘Arian.’

    At Antioch, he called a council of fifty-nine bishops to determine whether Arius should be allowed to continue leading his church in Palestine. Fifty-six of the bishops condemned Arius and anathematized his beliefs. This was, in fact, the first council to officially anathematize a belief, as well as the first council to compose a creed meant for bishops (as opposed to a baptismal creed). This council also established a modalist, Eustathius, [3] as the bishop of Antioch. The three bishops who disagreed with the consensus — Theodotus of Laodicea, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Narcissus of Neronia — were provisionally excommunicated, unless they repented at the upcoming “magnificent and sacred Council to be held at Ancyra.”

    The “Council to be held at Ancyra” refers to the fact that the emperor Constantine had already called for a more general council to be held at Ancyra in Galatia, later that same year (325), to which he invited all 1800 bishops within the empire. At the last minute, the council was moved from Ancyra — so that it would be more convenient for the European bishops (and Constantine himself) — to the city of Nicaea in the province of Bithynia.

    The Council of Nicaea

Although about 1800 bishops were invited to the council at Nicaea, only between 250 and 300 bishops actually came to the council. [4] The Western bishops probably didn’t see the need to travel so far to decide on what was, at that time, a primarily Eastern issue, and many of the bishops in the East may not have wanted to take sides in such a controversial debate. However, of the bishops that were present, all of the main factions were represented. Eusebius of Caesarea, an influential subordinationist, was at the council; as were Eustathius of Antioch and Marcellus of Ancyra, both modalists; Alexander of Alexandria represented the bi/trinitarians; and Eusebius of Nicomedia, one of the radical subordinationists and an ally of Arius, was also present.

    At the opening of the council, Constantine gave a speech urging the bishops to be united in their judgment, both for the sake of God and for Constantine’s own sake (Eusebius, Vit. Const. 3.12-13). Eusebius of Caesarea, who was in a precarious position after having been provisionally excommunicated at the earlier council of Antioch, then presented his own statement of faith for the council to examine. The statement of faith which he presented reads as follows:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of all things visible and invisible;

and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Logos of God, god from god, light from light, life from life, only-begotten Son, firstborn of every creature, begotten from the Father before all the ages, through whom also all things were made; who for our salvation was made flesh, and lived among men, and suffered, and rose again the third day, and ascended to the Father, and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead;

and we believe also in one Holy Spirit.

We believe each of these is and exists, the Father truly Father, and the Son truly Son, and the Holy Spirit truly Holy Spirit, as also our Lord said when he sent forth his disciples to preach, “Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” [Matthew 28:19] Concerning these we confidently affirm that this is what we maintain, how we think, and what we have held up until now, and that we will maintain this faith unto death, anathematizing every ungodly heresy. (Letter to the Caesareans 4, 5)

It’s important not to anachronistically read this creed as trinitarian. Eusebius of Caesarea was not a trinitarian, but a subordinationist unitarian, and remained so until at least 335 when he wrote the Oration in Praise of Constantine. [5] Far from being trinitarian, this creed identifies the “one God” as “the Father Almighty.” It refers to Jesus as “god from god,” but Eusebius’ other writings tell us that he believed Jesus is “god” in a lesser sense than the Father (ET 1.2; 2.17; Letter to Euphration 3).

    This creed was declared by Constantine and the rest of the council to be perfectly orthodox, and so Eusebius of Caesarea’s provisional excommunication was reversed (Letter to the Caesareans 2, 7). Next, a statement by Eusebius of Nicomedia, one of the radical subordinationists and allies of Arius, was read by the council. According to Ambrose, a late fourth-century Western theologian, this is what happened:

In the letter of Eusebius of Nicomedia, he writes, “If the Son is true God and uncreated, then we begin to confess that he is one in essence [homoousios] with the Father!” When this letter had been read before the council assembled at Nicaea, the fathers put this word into their exposition of faith, because they saw that it was terrifying to their opponents. (Ambrose, De fide 3.125)

According to Eusebius of Caesarea, it was Constantine who suggested that the word homoousios should be put into the creed (Letter to the Caesareans 7). According to the church historian Sozomen, the radical subordinationists at Nicaea disliked this word, not because they were trying to degrade the Son’s status, but because they thought that “one in essence” implied that the Father had a corporeal, divisible essence (EH 1.8.31-32). Eusebius of Caesarea had the same apprehensions about homoousios, but accepted it anyway in the interest of peace, and presumably also because he didn’t want to be excommunicated again (Letter to the Caesareans 9, 10).

    Once the word homoousios had been added to the creed, along with several other additions, the council members were required to sign the creed or face excommunication. Here is the final draft of the Nicene Creed which the council was required to sign (the additions are bolded):

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things seen and unseen;

and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, the only-begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father, god from god, light from light, true god from true god, begotten not made, one in essence [homoousios] with the Father, through whom all things came to be, both the things in heaven and on earth; who for us humans and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, becoming human, who suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven, who is coming to judge the living and the dead;

and in the Holy Spirit.

The catholic and apostolic church condemns those who say concerning the Son of God that “there was a time when he was not” or “he did not exist before he was begotten” or “he came to be from nothing” or who claim that he is of another existence [hypostasis] or essence [ousia], or a creation, or changeable, or alterable.

The similarity between the final Nicene Creed and the creed which Eusebius of Caesarea presented to the council cannot be mistaken; however, the differences have led most scholars to conclude that they both came from a common source, rather than the Nicene Creed being directly derived from Eusebius’ creed. [6]

    Let’s examine the creed itself. Does it proclaim trinitarianism? No, at least not obviously so. It identifies the “one God” as “the Father Almighty,” in line with subordinationism. It also says that the Son is “true god” and “one in essence” with the Father, but this could be understood in a number of ways, and was not offensive to the unitarian Eusebius of Caesarea (Letter to the Caesareans 9-14). With regard to the Holy Spirit, the creed proclaims nothing more than its existence, not saying whether it is God or even a person. The creed also seems to make concessions to the modalists by saying that there is only one hypostasis of the Father and the Son. [7]

    Altogether, it seems that the Nicene Creed was composed in such a way as to make it acceptable to every single faction — subordinationist, modalist, and trinitarian alike — with the sole exception of the radical subordinationists or ‘Arians.’ That this creed is not specifically trinitarian is shown by the fact that it was signed by individuals with theologies as diverse as Eustathius of Antioch (modalist), Eusebius of Caesarea (subordinationist unitarian), and Alexander of Alexandria (trinitarian). The Nicene Creed was never meant to advocate a specific theological position, but merely to eliminate one theological position — that of Arius and his brethren.

    In the end, the Nicene Creed was signed by all but two of the several hundred bishops present at the council. These two bishops, Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais, were excommunicated along with Arius, and exiled by Constantine. Why was the decision so unanimous, given that Arius’ doctrine was not so obviously heretical, as explained above? There are several reasons:

1. Alexander of Alexandria had already run a successful misinformation campaign against Arius by sending his encyclical letters to all the bishops of the East. Despite the egregious misrepresentation of Arius’ views in these letters, they were signed by about two hundred bishops. This certainly impacted the public perception of Arius negatively, which contributed to the decision at Nicaea.
2. The council at Antioch which had met earlier in 325 had already provisionally excommunicated Eusebius of Caesarea, one of the most influential subordinationists in the church. Going into the Council of Nicaea, Eusebius was in a very precarious position, and had to either side against the ‘Arians’ or be cut off from the church. His decision to side against the ‘Arians’ likely influenced many of the other subordinationists at the council to also side against them.
3. Even some of the ‘Arian’ bishops were willing to sign the creed. Athanasius of Alexandria, who was present at the council, reports how many of the ‘Arians’ did not find the language of the creed to be particularly offensive (ad Afros Ep. Syn. 6). Even one of Arius’ staunchest supporters, Eusebius of Nicomedia, eventually signed the creed.
4. The emperor Constantine was set upon unifying the church, and thus strengthening his empire, as he said in his opening speech. He was already going to force a decision by exiling anyone who disagreed with the consensus. Thus, once a clear majority had been determined, it would have been in the best interest of all the bishops to sign the creed.

All of these factors contributed to the decision of the Council of Nicaea and helped to make it (virtually) unanimous. It was a result of the complex interplay between theology and politics, not because there was an 'established orthodoxy' fighting against Arius' new heresy.

    Conclusion

The 'Arian controversy' began as a largely insignificant debate between Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, and his presbyter Arius about what terminology about the Son is proper. For example, is there any sense in which the Son can be said to have a "beginning," and does it imply that the Father has a corporeal essence if we say that the Son is "one in essence" with Him? Despite the original insignificance of this debate, both sides were unwilling to back down, and the controversy rapidly grew out of hand, enveloping the entire Eastern church. The emperor Constantine, having recently unified the Roman empire politically, was set on unifying it religiously as well, and called a council at Nicaea to resolve the debate. Due to a complex interplay of theological and political factors, Arius ended up being unanimously condemned.

        As the church historian R. P. C. Hanson wrote, "The views of Arius were such as in a peculiar manner to bring into unavoidable prominence a doctrinal crisis which had gradually been gathering, without giving one school of thought among those existing at that time complete satisfaction. He was the spark that started the explosion, but in himself he was of no great significance." [8] This assessment is probably correct. Despite the demonization that occurred over the following centuries, Arius was no arch-heretic, merely someone who thought that the existing terminology was inadequate to describe the Son. Nevertheless, he was excommunicated and exiled by the Council of Nicaea for holding 'heretical' beliefs.

    However, the Council of Nicaea was not the end of the story for Arius. Despite the initial calm following the council, the controversy would again grow over the next few decades, this time enveloping both the East and the West. In the next post, we'll take a look at the aftermath of Nicaea and how the ripples from this event ultimately led to the triumph of trinitarianism.

Part 7: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-evolution-of-early-christian_01643517408.html

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[1] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd., 1988), 60-98; Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 95-178; Vladimir Latinovic, “Arius Conservativus? The Question of Arius’ Theological Belonging,” Studia Patristica Vol. XCV (2017), 27-41.

[2] “We have not been followers of Arius — how could bishops, such as we, follow a presbyter? — nor did we receive any other faith beside that which has been handed down from the beginning.” (Dedication Creed AD 341; in Athanasius, De synodis 23)

[3] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 208-217.

[4] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 155-156.

[5] See the previous post in this series where I discuss Eusebius of Caesarea’s theology.

[6] J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. (London: Longman, 1972), 217-226; R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 164; Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 69-70.

[7] Interestingly, this very statement was declared heretical at the Council of Constantinople in 381, which declared, “If anyone does not confess... one Deity in three hypostases, let him be anathema.”

[8] R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, xvii.