Arianism

Arianism was a major theological movement of the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.E., eventually deemed heretical in the Christian Roman Empire. The conflict between Arianism and orthodoxTrinitarian beliefs was the first major doctrinal confrontation in the Christian church after the legalization of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine I. Named after an Alexandrian priest named Arius, Arianism spawned a great controversy that divided the Empire and defined the limits of Christian orthodoxy for centuries to come.

Arius taught that although God the Son indeed pre-existed as a divine being before the creation of the Universe, he was not "co-eternal" with God the Father. The opposite position, championed by bishop Athanasius, held that the Father and Son existed together with the Holy Spirit from the beginning. A further disagreement involved the question of whether the Son and the Father were of the "same substance," or not.

Several emperors supported Arianism, while others sought to suppress it. The contoversy involved not only emperors, priests, and bishops, but simple believers throughout the Christian empire. Bitter disputes among popular church leaders led to mob violence and political turmoil, and thus Constantine to convene the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea in 325. The Nicean Creed rejected the tenets of Arianism, but did not put an end to the controversy. In the end the Athanasian version of Trinitarianism prevailed and has since been the virtually uncontested doctrine in all major branches of Christianity.

Arianism was the first form of Christianity to make major inroads with the Germanic tribes, and many of the "Barabarians" who eventually conquered Rome were actually Arian Christians. As a result of Arianism being successfully taught to the Germanic tribes by the missionary Ulfilas, Arian Christianity lingered for several centuries in western Europe, especially among the Goths and Longobards.

Beliefs

Because most contemporary written material on Arianism was written by its opponents, the nature of Arius' teachings are difficult to define precisely today. In one of the few surviving lines thought to express Arius' own words, he states:

God has not always been Father; there was a moment when he was alone, and was not yet Father: later he became so. The Son is not from eternity; he came from nothing.

Nearly all sources agree that Arianism affirmed God's original existence as a solo Being, rather than a Trinity. In this statement Arius also affirms that the Son was created ex nihilo, just as the rest of creation. Therefore he cannot be of the same substance as God. At the Council of Nicea these opposing concepts were expressed in two Greek words that are nearly indistuishable to English readers: homousius (same substance) and homoiusius (similar substance) It is no exaggeration, then, to say that the Roman Empire was nearly torn asunder by a single "i." Some Arians, however, rejected the term "homoiusius" as conceding too much.

A letter representing the latter type of Arianism, from the later fourth century Arian bishop of Milan, Auxentius[1], also survives. It speaks of:

"One true God... alone unbegotten, without beginning, without end, eternal, exalted, sublime, excellent, most high creator, epitome of all excellence... who, being alone, not to the division or diminution of His divinity, but to the display of His goodness and power by His will and power alone... did create and beget, make and establish, an only-begotten God [Christ].

Christ is described as:

Author of all things existed [made to exist] by the Father, after the Father, for the Father, and for the glory of the Father... He was both great God and great Lord and great King, and great Mystery, great Light and High Priest, the providing and law-giving Lord, Redeemer, Savior, Shepherd, born before all time, Creator of all creation.

Auxentius went on to praise the efforts of the Germanic Arian missionary Ulfilas in tones that provide a glimpse into the better antagonism between the Arian and Anthanasian parties:

In his preaching and exposition he asserted that all heretics were not Christians, but Antichrists; not pious, but impious; not religious, but irreligious; not timid but bold; not in hope but without hope; not worshipers of God, but without God, not teachers, but seducers; not preachers, but liars; be they Manichaeans, Marcinonists, Montanists, Paulinians, Psabbelians, Antropians, Patripassians, Photinans, Novatians, Donatians, Homousians, Homoiousians, or Macedonians.

The History of Arianism

In 321, Arius was denounced by a synod at Alexandria for teaching a heterodox view of the relationship of Jesus to God the Father. Because Arius and his followers had great influence in the schools of Alexandria — counterparts to modern universities or seminaries — their theological views spread, especially in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Council of Nicea and its aftermath

By 325, the controversy had become significant enough that Emperor Constantine called an assembly of bishops, the First Council of Nicea, which condemned Arius' doctrine and formulated the Nicene Creed, which is still recited in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and some Protestant services. The Nicene Creed's central term, used to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son, is homoousios, meaning "of the same substance" or "of one being". (The Athanasian Creed is less often used but is a more overtly anti-Arian statement on the Trinity.)

Constantine exiled those who refused to accept the Nicean creed — Arius himself, the deacon Euzoios, and the Libyan bishops Theonas of Ptolemais and Secundus of Mamarica — and also the bishops who signed the creed but refused to join in Arius' condemnation, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicea. The Emperor also ordered all copies of the Thalia, the book in which Arius had expressed his teachings, to be burned. This ended the open theological debate for a few years, though under the surface, opposition to the Nicean creed remained.

Though he was committed to maintaining what the church had defined at Nicea, Constantine was also bent on pacifying the situation and eventually became more lenient toward those condemned and exiled at the council. First he allowed Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was a protégé of his sister, and Theognis to return once they had signed an ambiguous statement of faith. The two, and other friends of Arius, worked for Arius' rehabilitation. At the synod of Tyre in 335 they brought accusations against Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, the primary opponent of Arius; after this, Constantine had Athanasius banished, since he considered him an impediment to reconciliation. In the same year, the synod of Jerusalem readmitted Arius to communion, and in 336, Constantine allowed Arius to return to his hometown. Arius, however, died on the day he was scheduled to depart from Constantinople. Eusebius and Theognis remained in the Emperor's favour, and when Constantine, who had been a catechumen much of his adult life, accepted baptism on his deathbed, it was from Eusebius of Nicomedia.

The theological debates reopen

The Council of Nicea had not ended the controversy, as many bishops of the Eastern provinces disputed the homoousios, the central term of the Nicene creed, as it had been used by Paul of Samosata, who had advocated a monarchianist Christology. Both the man and his teaching, including the term homoousios, had been condemned by synods in Antioch in 269.

Hence, after Constantine's death in 337, open dispute resumed again. Constantine's son Constantius II, who had become Emperor of the eastern part of the Empire, actually encouraged the Arians and set out to reverse the Nicene creed. His advisor in these affairs was Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had already at the Council of Nicea been the head of the Arian party, who also was made bishop of Constantinople.

Constantius used his power to exile bishops adhering to the Nicene creed, especially Athanasius of Alexandria, who fled to Rome. In 355 Constantius became the sole Emperor and extended his pro-Arian policy toward the western provinces, frequently using force to push through his creed, even exiling Pope Liberius.

As debates raged in an attempt to come up with a new formula, three camps evolved among the opponents of the Nicene creed. The first group mainly opposed the Nicene terminology and preferred the term homoiousios (alike in substance) to the Nicene homoousios, while they rejected Arius and his teaching and accepted the equality and coeternality of the persons of the Trinity. Because of this centrist position, and despite their rejection of Arius, they were called "semi-Arians" by their opponents. The second group also avoided invoking the name of Arius, but in large part followed Arius' teachings and, in another attempted compromise wording, described the Son as being like (homoios) the Father. A third group explicitly called upon Arius and described the Son as unlike (anhomoios) the Father. Constantius wavered in his support between the first and the second party, while harshly persecuting the third.

The debates between these groups resulted in numerous synods among them Serdica in 343, the council of Sirmium in 358 and the double council of Rimini and Selecia in 359, and no less than fourteen further creed formulas between 340 and 360, and the pagan observer Ammianus Marcellinus commented sarcastically: "The highways were covered with galloping bishops." None of these attempts were acceptable to the defenders of Nicene orthodoxy: writing about the latter councils, Saint Jerome remarked that the world "awoke with a groan to find itself Arian."

After Constantius' death in 361, his successor Julian, a devotee of Rome's pagan gods, declared that he would no longer attempt to favor one church faction over another, and allowed all exiled bishops to return; this had the objective of further increasing dissension among Christians. The Emperor Valens, however, revived Constantius' policy and supported the "Homoian" party, exiling bishops and often using force. During this persecution many bishops were exiled to the other ends of the Empire, (e.g., Hilarius of Poitiers to the Eastern provinces). These contacts and the common plight subsequently led to a rapprochement between the Western supporters of the Nicene creed and the homoousios and the Eastern semi-Arians.

Theodosius and the Council of Constantinople

Valens died in the Battle of Adrianople in 378 and was succeeded by Theodosius I, who adhered to the Nicene creed. This allowed for settling the dispute

Two days after Theodosius arrived in Constantinople, November 24, 380, he expelled the Homoian bishop, Demophilus of Constantinople, and surrendered the churches of that city to Gregory Nazianzus, the leader of the rather small Nicene community there, an act which provoked rioting. Theodosius had just been baptized, by bishop Acholius of Thessalonica, during a severe illness, as was common in the early Christian world. In February he and Gratian published an edict that all their subjects should profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria (i.e., the Nicene faith).

Although much of the church hierarchy in the East had opposed the Nicene creed in the decades leading up to Theodosius' accession, he managed to achieve unity on the basis of the Nicene creed. In 381, at the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople, a group of mainly Eastern bishops assembled and accepted the Nicene Creed, which was supplemented in regard to the Holy Spirit. This is generally considered the end of the dispute about the Trinity and the end of Arianism among the Roman, non-Germanic peoples.

Arianism in the early medieval Germanic kingdoms

However, during the time of Arianism's flowering in Constantinople, the Goth convert Ulfilas (later the subject of the letter of Auxentius cited above) was sent as a missionary to the Gothic barbarians across the Danube, a mission favored for political reasons by emperor Constantius II. Ulfilas' initial success in converting this Germanic people to an Arian form of Christianity was strengthened by later events. When the Germanic peoples entered the Roman Empire and founded successor-kingdoms in the western part, most had been Arian Christians for more than a century.

The conflict in the 4th century had seen Arian and Nicene factions struggling for control of the Church; in contrast, in the kingdoms these Arian Germans established on the wreckage of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, there were entirely separate Arian and Nicene Churches with parallel hierarchies, each serving different sets of believers, the Germanic elites being Arians, and the majority population being trinitarian. Many scholars see the persistence of the Germans' Arian religion as a strategy to differentiate the Germanic elite from the local inhabitants and maintain their group identity against the local culture.

While most Germanic tribes in general were tolerant regarding the trinitarian beliefs of their subjects, the Vandals tried for several decades to force their Arian belief on their North African trinitarian subjects, exiling trinitarian clergy, dissolving monasteries, and exercising heavy pressure on non-conforming Christians.

For more information on these Arian kingdoms, see the articles on the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Burgundians, and Lombards. (The Franks were unique among the Germanic peoples in that they entered the empire as pagans and converted to Nicene Christianity directly.) By the beginning of the 8th century, these kingdoms had either been conquered by Nicene neighbors (Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians) or their rulers had accepted Nicene Christianity (Visigoths, Lombards).

"Arian" as a polemical epithet

In many ways, the conflict around Arian beliefs in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries helped firmly define the centrality of the Trinity in mainstream Christian theology. As the first major intra-Christian conflict after Christianity's legalization, the struggle between Nicenes and Arians left a deep impression on the institutional memory of Nicene churches. Thus, over the past 1,500 years, some Christians have used the term Arian to refer to those groups that see themselves as worshipping Jesus Christ or respecting his teachings, but do not hold to the Nicene creed.

In 1553, the Spanish scholar and Protestant reformer Michael Servetus, who is viewed by many Unitarians as a founding figure, was sentenced to death and burned at the stake by his fellow reformers, including John Calvin, for the heresy of Antitrinitarianism, a Christology that is similar in many ways to Arianism.

Like the Arians, many groups have embraced the belief that Jesus is not the one God, but a separate being subordinate to the Father, and that Jesus at one time did not exist. Some of these profess, as the Arians did, that God made all things through the pre-existent Christ. Some profess that Jesus became divine, through exaltation, just as the Arians believed. Drawing a parallel between these groups and Arians can be useful for distinguishing a type of unbelief in the Trinity. But, despite the frequency with which this name is used as a polemical label, there has been no historically continuous survival of Arianism into the modern era. The groups so labelled do not hold beliefs identical to Arianism. For this reason, they do not use the name as a self-description, even if they acknowledge that their beliefs are at points in agreement with, or in broad terms similar to, Arianism.

Those whose religious beliefs have been compared to or falsely labeled as Arianism include:

Unitarians, who believe that God is one as opposed to a Trinity, and many of whom believe in the moral authority, but not the deity, of Jesus.
Jehovah's Witnesses, who do have some similar beliefs to Arius, namely, that Jesus had a pre-human existence as the Logos. However, Arius viewed the Holy Spirit as a person, whereas Jehovah's Witnesses do not attribute personality to the spirit. Jehovah's Witnesses also, unlike Arians, deny belief in a disembodied soul after death, eternal punishment of the unrepentantly wicked, and episcopacy: doctrines to which the Arians did not obviously object.

Christadelphians, who believe that Jesus' pre-natal existence was a conceptual Logos, rather than a literal Logos.
Followers of the various churches of the Latter Day Saint movement, who believe in the unity in purpose of the Godhead but that Jesus is a divine being separate from God the Father.
Muslims, who believe that Jesus (generally called Isa), was a prophet of the one God, but not himself divine.
Isaac Newton, who was a closet Arianist, somewhat ironic since he was a fellow of Trinity College at Cambridge.

For more on the theology of these groups, see their respective articles.

Bibliography

Athanasius of Alexandria, History of the Arians Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII
Ivor J. Davidson, A Public Faith, Volume 2 of Baker History of the Church, 2005, ISBN 0801012759
J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 1978, ISBN 006064334X
William C. Rusch, The Trinitarian Controversy, (Sources of Early Christian Thought), 1980, ISBN 0800614100
John Henry Newman, Arians of the Fourth Century, 1871
Schaff, Philip Theological Controversies and the Development of Orthodoxy, History of the Christian Church, Vol III, Ch. IX
Williams, Rowan, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, rev. edn. 2001, ISBN 0802849695

External links

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Arianism
Holy Arian Catholic and Apostolic Church (Arian Catholic viewpoint)
Believe: Arianism
Jewish Encyclopedia: Arianism

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