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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
_______________________________
[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.
No comments:
Post a Comment