---
title: Arianism
description: >-
  I'm summarising what I've learned recently about Arianism: the heresy par
  excellence, named for the early-fourth-century Alexandrian priest, Arius. I'll
  conclude with some reflections on why we still need to reject Arian
  temptations and affirm Nicene orthodoxy today.
pubDate: 2025-10-09
---

Arianism neither started nor ended with Arius. When he preached in the 320s, he,
like so many of his contemporary Alexandrians, only followed Origen in
subordinating the Son to the Father. In Alexandria, there was a strong emphasis
on the absolute transcendence and perfection of God, and therefore the
difference between that and the Jesus who was born, was tempted, suffered and
died. Arius was unremarkable in that respect. He was only remarkable in drawing
the logical conclusion: since God is indivisible, ingenerate, immutable, eternal
and impassible, but the Son of God was begotten, born of a woman, was tempted,
suffered and died, it follows that the Son of God is not fully God. The image of
the Father, sure, but not sharing in his Godhead: that wouldn't do justice to
the Father's Godhead.

The movement later characterised as 'Arianism' did not share all his teaching.
In particular, the idea that the Son was begotten in time -- that 'there was
when he was not' -- was a slur, and respectable Arians accepted that the Son is
eternal. Some historians deny that there was any coherent movement worth calling
'Arianism', however, I think the creeds and councils of the fourth century show
that there was a theological movement, self-consciously and unashamedly
associated with Arius, which privileged God's transcendence over the Godhead of
the Son. So, although the name 'Arianism' is certainly intended to be
derogatory, and there was surely no conspiracy to follow Arius as such, I think
the term 'Arianism' is meaningful and has a referent.

Whether or not individual bishops completely agreed with Arius theology, very
many were sympathetic to his pro-transcendence leaning. So, when he applied his
considerable arts of persuasion to influential likeminded bishops like Eusebius
of Nicomedia, he succeeded in establishing a considerable alliance behind him.
What had already been a theological strain was forced by the heat of controversy
to coalesce into a faction.

Arius and his supporters were set back temporarily by the Council of Nicaea in
325, when the emperor Constantine personally backed the homoousion under the
impression this would resolve the dispute. But Nicaea lost influence very
quickly, and the Eusebian faction gained ground. By 328, Arius himself had been
reconciled into the church by Constantine. And through the 330s, Eusebius of
Caesarea, another Arian sympathiser, repeatedly engineered the exile of key
supporters of Nicaea, including Eustathius, Marcellus and Athanasius.

In this period, it may be fair to characterise Athanasius as standing more or
less alone in fighting against Arianism. This changed somewhat in the 340s, when
he gathered the support of the bishop of Rome and many other western bishops in
his cause. He remained anathema in the East.

He still had a great deal of sympathy back in Egypt, however. The imperial
administration had installed Gregory of Cappadocia, a stalwart Arian, in place
of Athanasius as bishop of Alexandria from 339 until 346. Yet when Athanasius
returned to reclaim his see in 346, he was greeted with, according to Gregory of
Nazanius, 'universal cheers ..., nightlong festivities, the whole city gleaming
with light, and both public and private feasting'. And when Arius was exiled
again, and another Arian, George of Cappadocia, again installed in his place in
356, the results were riots. When George attempted to carry out one of his key
roles as bishop -- distributing money to widows -- many widows had to be beaten
to accept money from his hands. After five years, George was lynched in 361. The
people of Alexandria were roundly behind their local hero, and did not take
kindly to Rome imposing their agenda on them by force.

While Egypt held strong for Athanasius, the Arian party became ever more
triumphant in the rest of the Empire. In 358 and 359, a series of fraught
councils in East and West produced conflicting resolutions, and the emperor
Constantius resolved in 360 to get the situation under control. He called a
council to Constantinople and ensured an even result. These were the homoean
creeds, asserting that while the Son is like the Father, we cannot and must not
say anything about their ousia.

These creeds have subsequently been called the 'Arian' creeds. The reason for
describing the homoean party as 'Arian' is, first, that they explicitly rejected
Nicaea and the homoousion, and second, they failed to affirm the full Godhead of
the Son, saying only that the Son is 'like the Father' and that he is 'God from
God', pointedly omitting the Nicaean elaboration, 'true God from true God'.

The councils of 358-360 were chaotic. Councils overrode councils. The emperor
rejected creeds and forced his own ones through. Swathes of bishops were
banished or deposed. Amidst all the chaos, Athanasius found himself making
unexpected friends: the Cappadocian Fathers, including Basil 'the Great', while
preferring 'homoiousion' or 'like essence' to his Nicene 'homoousion' or 'same
essence', ended up on his side against the triumphant homoeans. The violence of
those councils bred hostility, and with a common grudge, a coalition had
suddenly formed against the homoeans and around Nicaea.

Perhaps Constantius might have been able to force his way, but he died in
only 361. His replacement was Julian. While Julian's reign was short, he brought
about a sharp change in direction.

Julian, 'the Apostate', had converted from Christianity to paganism, and during
his reign, the alliance between Church and Empire was briefly severed. In a
deliberate attempt to sow chaos, he refused to mediate on behalf of the Church
and allowed all banished bishops to return from exile. At one time, there were
five competing bishops all in Antioch.

One result of this severance was that bishops were free to form their own
alliances and make their own case. As a result, the Nicene alliance emerged from
Julian's brief reign decisively stronger.

The Nicene alliance would have to wait until 379 for a sympathetic emperor. But
once Theodosius acceded, the Nicene victory was absolute and irreversible. He
decreed that all clergy had to agree to the Nicene Creed, and called a council
to amend and affirm the Creed.

This did not mean that Arianism died out. Eusebius of Nicomedia had sponsored a
mission to the Goths, and, being outside of the emperor's grasp, they held
strong to their Arian convictions for centuries after. Indeed, when the Goths
later took possession of large parts of the Western Empire, Arians may well have
significantly outnumbered Nicenes in the West, long after the matter was settled
within the Empire. And certain theologies today, which seek to reduce Jesus to a
mere emanation from or pointer towards a transcendent God, or a religious genius
or a spiritual guru, rather than the real presence of God, are Arian in so far
as they seek to protect the transcendence of God at the cost of his choice to
dwell with us in Jesus Christ.

So it's worth considering what's lost in the difference between the Nicene faith
which is now indisputably Christian orthodoxy, and Arianism in all its forms. If
a preacher today elides away Jesus' full Godhead, what does it matter?

Three problems arise in consequence. One is that, if Jesus is not true God, then
his miracles are meaningless. This is particularly problematic for those who
want to read the Gospels as mere myth without affirming the truth of any of its
particular historical content. If Jesus is not true God, then the miracles lose
their mythic function. If Jesus is not true God, then a story about him healing
someone far away has nothing to do with me. But if Jesus is true God, if he is
Emmanuel, then his healings have the power to function as a mythic sign,
pointing to something about God's plans to redeem the world. For his miracles to
work as myth, whether or not they are true history, Jesus must be true God.

Secondly, if Jesus is not true God, then what kind of salvation can he offer? If
a mere man can save us from our sin, what does that mean about sin? If we can be
saved by a religious genius, a guru, someone specially in-touch with the
spiritual reality, then salvation is no more than fixing up the material world.
How's that going, two thousand years on? Has the Church made any progress in
translating Jesus' teaching into universal peace? No doubt the Church has done
some good -- but it doesn't seem credible that the Church is about to fix the
world's problems by following Jesus' self-help agenda. In contrast, if Jesus is
God, we can affirm the biblical notion that sin is a crime against God, which
separates us from him. Since it is a crime against God, only God can bring about
reconciliation. And since God has proven that he is bringing about that
reconciliation in Jesus Christ, we can hold strong to our trust in his promise
not simply to fix the world according to its own rules -- for that would be
impossible -- but to change the rules in a second creation.

Finally, if Jesus is not true God, then we have no way of knowing anything at
all about his relationship to God. If he is not true God, then all we can see in
Jesus is a man. We can guess at some super-spiritual connection if we like,
seeing his words, deeds and miracles as evidence of some semi-divine status. But
that would be pure guesswork, in other words, wishful thinking, in other words,
fantasy. Athanasius called it 'mania': pulling wild theological claims out of
your own head with no substantial basis in reality. But if Jesus is true God,
and God gives humans the gift of the Holy Spirit to recognise that Godhead, then
we can know that Jesus is true God by seeing him for what he is. This is not
fantasising without a grounding in reality, this is the most basic form of
knowing: seeing and believing. If Jesus is not God, then Christian faith is
fantasy, but if Jesus is true God, then Christian faith can stand firm.

With Arius, we have a religion that reduces the Gospels to fairy stories with no
relevance for you or me, a religion that reduces the Church to a struggling
self-help movement, and a religion that rests on fantasy. But if we stick to
Nicene orthodoxy, instead, we have a religion that reads the Gospels as true
myth, real history profused with life-changing theology; a religion that can
have hope for the world as still needing God's work of reconciliation to be
perfected, yet containing within it anticipations of that future, including in
the Church; and a religion that rests on true faith, certain knowledge derived
not from wishful thinking but encountering the very essence of God in Jesus
Christ.
