Introduction
In previous instalments we saw that the Arians could trace their Christology through a long tradition held by prominent church elders in good standing. But appeals to the past were becoming difficult to justify as innovation gathered apace. Some generally approved writings from an earlier time contained beliefs now regarded as heterodox. The church of the early 4th Century had no official position on these works and no theological benchmark against which they could be assessed.
The Heart of the Debate
J. C. McDowell correctly identifies this as the most significant aspect of the Christological debate:
In A.D. 318 there was no universally recognised orthodox answer as to the question of how divine Christ is (e.g., Origen and Tertullian). The frontiers of orthodoxy were not so rigidly demarcated as they later became, and important currents of thought flowed outside the main channel.
This is one of the reasons why the controversy lasted for so long.
Of course certain positions were declared untenable, for example Sabellianism, and Adoptionism. But within these very broad limits no doctrine could properly be said to be heretical (Arius’ views were regarded as no more than a radical version of an acceptable theological tradition by Eusebius of Caesarea, for example).[1]
The Nicenes were troubled by difficulties arising from the Christology of highly regarded church fathers such as Justin, Irenaeus and Tertullian, whose writings were for the most part still considered orthodox.
Justin’s Christology distinguished the Father from the Son to such an extent that Irenaeus’ Christology-a possible reaction to it-seems dangerously Modalistic by comparison. Tertullian followed with a Christology so far in the opposite direction that he was accused of teaching tritheism, and wrote a lengthy discourse (Adversus Praxean) which some have seen as a direct attack on Irenaeus himself.[2]
The Arians were not so far removed from Irenaeus’ Christology, and reluctant to speculate about the nature of Christ’s begettal. Ambrose mocked them for it, but what would he have done if they had answered with the words of Irenaeus himself?
If anyone asks us, ‘How then was the Son produced by the Father?’ we reply to him, that no man understands that production, or generation, or calling, or revelation or by whatever other name one may describe his generation. For it is in fact altogether indescribable.[3]
This response was considered acceptable not only by Irenaeus’ contemporaries, but by those who immediately followed him. Nor is there any reason to believe that it would have been rendered unacceptable if invoked by the Arians themselves, for it was not their work but the work of an older, greater man. If Irenaeus wrote such things and was still considered orthodox, the Arians might have argued, how can we, who merely repeat them, be accused of heresy?
Earlier terms of reference could be considered quite ambiguous and even heretical when placed in the context of a later discussion. This was even more likely if they had been closely identified with a specific idea, or set of ideas, which was now considered unorthodox. Alternatively, a new heresy could be wrapped in the language of an older, acceptable orthodoxy and thereby rendered palatable to the church.
A modalist could borrow the words of Irenaeus; a tritheist could benefit from Tertullian’s terminology and even argue he was being misunderstood in the way Tertullian had been.
Herein lay a crucial aspect of the rationale which had led to the condemnation of phrases such as ‘of one torch from another’, or ‘as a lamp divided into two.’
Another aspect (perhaps even more significant) was the shocking realisation that the original source of this language-none other than the great Justin Martyr-was now vulnerable to legitimate accusations of heresy, and with him, all those who deferred to his work as a touchstone of orthodoxy.
Chadwick explains the problem:
In arguing against Hellenized Jews who held that the divine Logos is distinct from God only in the refined sense in which one can distinguish in thought between sun and sunlight, Justin had urged that the analogy of one torch lit from another was a much more satisfactory picture because it did justice to the independence (later theology, from Origen onwards, would have used the technical term hypostasis) of the Logos. Such language was disturbing.
One of the central issues in the conflict with Gnosticism had been the question whether of there is more than one ultimate first principle. The orthodox had insisted that there is no first principle other than God the Creator, no coequal devil, no coeternal matter, but a single monarchia. Justin’s language appeared to prejudice this affirmation and to be insufficiently protected against the accusation of ditheism.[4]
In the era of Justin and his contemporaries, such language had been perfectly orthodox. In the theological climate of Arianism it was associated with Hieracas the Manichean, a heretic now considered the greatest enemy of Athanasius (aside from Arius). By condemning Hieracas the Arians hoped to establish common ground with the Nicenes and avert a larger confrontation.
The Arians’ formula was constructed partly from Arius’ lyrical sermons and partly from philosophical speculations apparently influenced by Tertullian, but mostly from a collection of proof texts such as Proverbs 8:22:
The Lord created me as the beginning of his way, before his works of old.
This was nothing new. Tertullian had used the same verse for the same purpose more than a century earlier. He had even said the Son was created in a certain moment; not eternally generated (as Origen and others believed) but in the instant immediately preceding the rest of creation:
Then, therefore, does the Word also Himself assume His own form and glorious garb, sound and vocal utterance, when God says, ‘Let there be light.’ This is the perfect nativity of the Word, when He proceeds forth from God, formed by Him first to devise and think out, and afterwards begotten to carry all into effect –
‘When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him.’
‘Thus does He make Him equal to Him: for by proceeding from Himself He became His first-begotten Son, because begotten before all things; and His only-begotten also, because alone begotten of God, in a way peculiar to Himself, from the womb of His own heart — even as the Father Himself testifies: ‘My heart,’ says He, ‘has emitted my most excellent Word.’
‘The father took pleasure evermore in Him, who equally rejoiced with a reciprocal gladness in the Father’s presence: ‘You art my Son, today have I begotten You; even before the morning star did I beget You.’
The Son likewise acknowledges the Father, speaking in His own person, under the name of Wisdom:
‘‘The Lord formed Me as the beginning of His ways, with a view to His own works; before all the hills did He beget Me.’[5]
Yet, despite the closeness of their ontological relationship, the Arians did not see Jesus as possessing the same substance as God. This point was to be the axis upon which the entire controversy turned. To counter it, and the Tertullianist arguments advanced in its support, the Nicenes had to find some way of affirming the generation of the Son from the Father without admitting a difference in substance between the two.
They found their solution in the same formula the Arians had publicly denied: ‘a flame from a flame’, or as the Nicene Creed would later express it, ‘light from light.’ Its polemical value was enormous, for it enabled the Nicenes to condemn the Arians on two grounds:
(a) Their rejection of the original ‘flame from flame’ analogy, which could now be conveniently construed as an attack on Nicene Christology.[6]
(b) Their rejection of the belief that the Son is of the same substance as the Father, against which the ‘light from light’ analogy was undeniably effective.
Thus, by the mere rephrasing of a heretical analogy, the Nicenes were able to anathematize a conservative theological movement which had committed no other crime than faithful adherence to an outdated Christology.
Nicaea
The first Ecumenical Council met at Nicaea in AD 325. The level of attendance is open to debate. Eusebius says more than 250 bishops attended. Athanasius gives the figure of 300 on one occasion but amends this to 318 in another account. Eustathius claims ‘over 270.’[7] All three were all present at the council, so this discrepancy is perplexing. Stranger still is the consensus for Athanasius’ figure of 318 among Christians of a much later period.[8] It is curiously specific for an era which seems to have preferred round figures.
Modern authorities have seen a Biblical connection. J. W. C. Wand is one of many who observe that 318 corresponds to Gen 14:14.[9] L. D. Davis points out that in Greek, 318 is a cipher for ‘TIH’, widely interpreted by early Christians as representative of Jesus and the cross.[10] Thus there were theological reasons for preferring 318 regardless of historical data, which helps to explain why six subsequent church councils unerringly recall the figure and appeal to it as authoritative.[11]
Representation at Nicaea was unbalanced. The Western contingent was very small; only four or five bishops from the Latin West were able to attend, not counting Hosius of Cordoba and the two Roman presbyters Vitus and Vincent, who attended as the personal delegates of Silvester I. The remaining company was composed of Eastern bishops from almost every imaginable area within the Middle East. Chief among them were Alexander of Alexandria, Eustathius (Bishop of the Syrian capital), Marcellus of Ancyra and Macarius of Jerusalem – all stridently opposed to the Arian view. On their side, Arius and his friends were led by the irrepressible Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia and his brilliant namesake, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea.
Contemporary accounts reveal that the pro-Arian faction seized the initiative almost immediately, proposing a creed incorporating essential elements of Arian theology. But violent protest arose from the opposing side; bishops read aloud passages from Arius’ work, arguing his formulations were extreme and intolerable to the majority. Eusebius of Caesarea intervened with a compromise proposal, recommending the acceptance of the baptismal creed employed in his diocese. While this was recognised as being orthodox by Constantine and the majority of the bishops, there were a few who disagreed.
Debate raged over the significance and meaning of the word homoousios (‘one in being’[12]) which was unacceptable to both Arian and anti-Arian Eastern bishops, but considered appropriate by the Latins. In the end, it was the Emperor himself (doubtless guided by Hosius) who succeeded in determining that the orthodox definition of the term, as employed by the Greeks, was included in the Nicene Creed. Ironically, this word originated in Greek philosophy and had been condemned as heretical at the Council of Antioch, convened against Paul of Samosata.[13]
The definitive statement appears in the conclusion of the Creed:
But some say: ‘There was a time in which he was not’, and, ‘Before he was born, he was not’, and, ‘He was created out of nothing’, or they claim that the Son of God is of another substance or another being, or he was created or subject to change or alteration. The Catholic and Apostolic Church declares them excluded from its membership.
Only three refused to sign the Creed: Arius himself, and the bishops Theonas and Secundus, who confessed his Christology. They were excommunicated and exiled to Illyria. Yet Arius’ doctrine continued to spread, for it had not been countered in any serious way.
Conclusion
The popular view is that Nicaea was fatal to Arianism. Not so, argues Hall:
The anathema at the end attacks a series of statements believed to be Arian. In fact Arius could evade most of them. There is no evidence he actually wrote ‘There was when he was not.’ He would certainly deny ‘alterable’ or ‘mutable’, as we have seen.
He appears to have written ‘before he was begotten, he was not’, and, ‘he is from nothing’ (Letter to Eusebius, Theodoret, HE 1.5.4 [New Eusebius 325]); but even there ‘from nothing’ may be what he is accused of and not what he admits to asserting (note what follows, ‘this we do say, that he is neither part of God nor of any lower essence.’)
‘Created’ he did say, but it is not in the original text of N.[14] Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis later claimed, ‘We subscribed to the creed; we did not subscribe to the anathematizing; not as objecting to the creed, but as disbelieving the party accused to be such as was represented’ (Socrates, HE 1.14.3 [New Eusebius 354.]).[15]
This probably meant that they accepted the whole creed, including the anathema at the end, but did not accept that it applied to Arius. Later events would show their opinion was shared by many.
[1] J. C, McDowell, Arius: A Theological Conservative Persecuted?, 1994, retrieved 22.06.11: http://www.geocities.ws/johnnymcdowell/papers/Arius.doc.
[2] ‘Tertullian’s most elaborate doctrine of God and Christ is stated in response to Praxeas, a heretic otherwise unknown to us; since his name means “fixer” or “fraud”, it may be a nickname Tertullian invented; it is not even out of the question that Irenaeus is the person concerned, since Tertullian is in his book Against Praxeas trying to attach heresy to a known opponent of Montanism.’ S. G. Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church (London: SPCK, 1994), 70.
[3] Adversus Haereses II, XXVIII, vi.
[4] H. Chadwick, The Early Church, (London: Penguin), 86.
[5] Adversus Praxean, VII.
[6] As opposed to its original purpose in a repudiation of the heresy with which the analogy was historically identified.
[7] Modern estimates lie between 200 and 330; the most commonly accepted is 225.
[8] Evagrius, Hilary of Poitiers, Jerome and Rufinus.
[9] ‘It was attended by about 300 bishops; Eustathius gives the number as 270, while popular prejudice preferred the number 318, but that was probably arrived at through the mystical connexions of the number of the armed servants of Abraham (Gen. xiv 14).’ J. W. C. Wand, A History of the Early Church to A.D. 500, (London: Methuen Publishing Limited, 1974), 153.
[10] This was a pre-Nicene tradition; we find it as early as Epistle of Barnabas (9:7-9).
[11] ‘How many came? There exist lists of the bishops who signed the final creed and canons, but none seems o be complete or in full agreement with another… Soon after, however, the symbolic number 318 was assigned to the Council, the number of Abraham’s armed servants in Genesis 14:14, a number which in Greek read TIH, symbol of the Cross and Jesus. These 318 of Nicaea will be appealed to in the six subsequent general councils.’ L. D. Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787), Their History and Theology (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1994), 57-58.
[12] The alternative was ‘homoiousius’, meaning ‘similar in being.’ This was the term favoured by Arians. Homoousios defined Father and Son as one being sharing identical substance; homoiousius defined them as separate, individual beings of similar substance.
[13] Paul was a 3rd Century Unitarian. His teachings were condemned by three local church councils.
[14] Hall’s shorthand for the Nicene Creed.
[15] Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, 131.
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