arius

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+---
+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.