Arianism
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- This article is about theological views like those of Arius. Aryan is an unrelated linguistic and ethnic concept. Arians may also refer to Polish brethren.
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[edit] Origin
Arianism refers to the theological positions made famous by the theologian Arius (c. 250-336 AD), who lived and taught in Alexandria, Egypt, in the early 4th century. The controversial teachings of Arius dealt with the relationship between God the Father and the person of Jesus Christ, a relationship known as the doctrine of the Trinity.
Arius taught that God the Father and the Son did not exist together eternally. Further, Arius taught that the pre-incarnate Jesus was a divine being created by (and possibly inferior to) the Father at some point, before which the Son did not exist. In English-language works, it is sometimes said that Arians believe that Jesus is or was a "creature"; in this context, the word is being used in its original sense of "created being".
Of all the various disagreements within the Christian Church, the Arian controversy has held the greatest force and power of theological and political conflict, with the possible exception of the Protestant Reformation. The conflict between Arianism and the Trinitarian beliefs was the first major doctrinal confrontation in the Church after the legalization of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine I.
The controversy over Arianism began to rise in the late third century and extended over the greater part of the fourth century and involved most church members, simple believers, priests and monks as well as bishops, emperors and members of Rome's imperial family. Yet, such a deep controversy within the Church could not have materialized in the third and fourth centuries without some significant historical influences providing the basis for the Arian doctrines. Most orthodox or mainstream Christian historians define and minimize the Arian conflict as the exclusive construct of Arius and a handful of rogue bishops engaging in "heresy". Of the roughly three hundred bishops in attendance at the Council of Nicea, only three bishops did not sign the Nicene Creed. Arianism's roots can be found in the beliefs and views of other heterodox Christian believers and sects which had emerged beginning in the first century. There is some irony in that the Roman Catholic Church canonized Lucian of Antioch as a brilliant and talented early Christian leader and martyr, yet Lucian taught a very similar form of what would later be called Arianism. Arius was a student of Lucian's private academy in Antioch. The Ebionites, among other early Christian groups, also may have maintained similar doctrines that can be associated with formal Lucian and Arian Christology.
While Arianism continued to dominate for several decades even within the family of the Emperor, the Imperial nobility and higher ranking clergy, in the end it was Trinitarianism which prevailed theologically and politically in the Roman Empire at the end of the fourth century. Arianism, which had been taught by the Arian missionary Ulfilas to the Germanic tribes, was dominant for some centuries among several Germanic tribes in western Europe, especially Goths and Longobards, but ceased to be the mainstream belief by the 8th Century AD. Trinitarianism remained the dominant doctrine in all major branches of the Eastern and Western Church and within Protestantism, although there have been several anti-trinitarian movements, some of which acknowledge various similarities to classical Arianism.
[edit] Beliefs
Because most contemporary written material on Arianism was written by its opponents, the nature of Arius' teachings is difficult to define precisely today. The letter of Auxentius[1], a 4th century Arian bishop of Milan, regarding the missionary Ulfilas, gives the clearest picture of Arian beliefs on the nature of the Trinity: God the Father ("unbegotten"), always existing, was separate from the lesser Jesus Christ ("only-begotten"), born before time began and creator of the world. The Father, working through the Son, created the Holy Spirit, who was subservient to the Son as the Son was to the Father. The Father was seen as "the only true God." 1Corinthians 8:5-6 was cited as proof text:
- "Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth — as in fact there are many gods and many lords — yet for us there is one God (theos), the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord (kyrios), Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist." (NRSV)
A letter from Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia succinctly states the core beliefs of the Arians:
- "Some of them say that the Son is an eructation, others that he is a production, others that he is also unbegotten. These are impieties to which we cannot listen, even though the heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths. But we say and believe and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten; and that he does not derive his subsistence from any matter; but that by his own will and counsel he has subsisted before time and before ages as perfect God, only begotten and unchangeable, and that before he was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, he was not. For he was not unbegotten. We are persecuted, because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning." (Peters, Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, p. 41)
[edit] The Council of Nicea and its aftermath
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. 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 Original Nicene Creed [2], forms of which are 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, or Consubstantiality, 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 Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais — 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 First Synod of Tyre in 335 AD, 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 AD, 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.
[edit] 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 the Synods of 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 and installing Antipope Felix II.
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 the Council of Sardica in 343, the Council of Sirmium in 358 and the double Council of Rimini and Seleucia in 359, and no less than fourteen further creed formulas between 340 and 360, leading the pagan observer Ammianus Marcellinus to comment 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.
[edit] 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[1] that all their subjects should profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria (i.e., the Nicene faith), or be handed over for punishment for not doing so.
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 of 381 [3], which was supplemented in regard to the Holy Spirit, as well as some other changes, see Comparison between Creed of 325 and Creed of 381. This is generally considered the end of the dispute about the Trinity and the end of Arianism among the Roman, non-Germanic peoples.
[edit] Arianism in the early medieval Germanic kingdoms
However, during the time of Arianism's flowering in Constantinople, the Gothic 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 Arian German kingdoms 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 were Arians, and the majority population Nicene. Many scholars see the persistence of the Germans' Arian religion as a strategy to differentiate the Germanic elite from the local inhabitants and culture and to maintain their group identity.
Most Germanic tribes were generally tolerant of the Nicene beliefs of their subjects. However, the Vandals tried for several decades to force their Arian belief on their North African Nicene subjects, exiling Nicene 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. 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).
The Franks were unique among the Germanic peoples in that they entered the empire as pagans and converted to Nicene Christianity directly.
[edit] "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. It is almost always used as a term of abuse. 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 and do not use the label a self-description, even if they acknowledge that their beliefs are at points in agreement with, or in broad terms similar to, Arianism.
[edit] See also
- Arius (Presbyter of Alexandria (256 - 336 A.D.))
- Arian Catholicism
- Germanic Christianity
- Protestantism
- Semi-Arianism
- Anomoean, extreme sect of pure Arians
- Christology
[edit] Bibliography
- Athanasius of Alexandria, History of the Arians Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII
- Mark Belletini, Arius in the Mirror: The Alexandrian Dissent And How It Is Reflected in Modern Unitarian Universalist Practice and Discourse http://firstuucolumbus.org/sermons/ariuspaper.htm
- Ivor J. Davidson, A Public Faith, Volume 2 of Baker History of the Church, 2005, ISBN 0-8010-1275-9
- J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 1978, ISBN 0-06-064334-X
- William C. Rusch, The Trinitarian Controversy, (Sources of Early Christian Thought), 1980, ISBN 0-8006-1410-0
- John Henry Newman, Arians of the Fourth Century, 1833
- 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 0-8028-4969-5
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- Arius Denied the Trinity Articles on God is 1 not 3
- CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Arianism
- Holy Arian Catholic and Apostolic Church (Arian Catholic viewpoint)
- Believe: Arianism
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Arianism
- Concise Summary of the Arian Controversy [4]
