The task of defending the Nicene Creed fell to Athanasius, successor to Alexander of Alexandria. Controversially appointed as Bishop of Alexandria in AD 328, whilst still less than thirty years old,[1] he was influenced by Western theologians he had met whilst in Rome during a politically advantageous flight from his diocese.
Infamous for his use of violence and intimidation against opponents, Athanasius became leader of the Nicene faction, openly defying Constantine and mocking the Arians as ‘Ariomaniacs.’ Exiled five times over 17 years (largely for political reasons), he was supported by the desert monks of Egypt and numerous firebrands among the Alexandrian clergy. Although despised for his unscrupulous methods, Athanasius was never accused of heresy.
Athanasius began the attack on Arius in his famous book On the Incarnation, which deals with the fall of man and his need of a saviour. Instead of arguing the proof-texts of Arius (which he found too difficult) Athanasius sought to demonstrate that the logic of the Scriptures as a whole made the incarnation of the Word inevitable.
Athanasius was not as concerned with the expression of theology so as the preservation of its principles. He defended the Nicene Creed because in his mind the alternative – Arianism – constituted an unintelligible attempt to explain the reconciliation of God to man. According to Arius the Logos was simply manifested in Christ the Son, but Athanasius was convinced that unless the Son was considered co-eternal and co-equal with the Father, he could have no personal relationship with the beings he came to save. It was under Athanasius’ leadership that the battle for Christ’s deity became irrevocably politicised.
Following their victory in AD 325, the Nicenes found it difficult to maintain consistent imperial support. Constantine’s favour swung back and forth between Arian and Nicene parties as he struggled to contain their destructive influences. Constantine himself cared little for the debate (which he could not understand anyway) and his unstable temper led to frequent changes of mind.
Both sides were adept at persuading Constantine to their cause, but carelessness and overconfidence occasionally caused them to overstep the mark, bringing imperial recrimination. Sometimes, the Emperor’s favour could be won back by heavy lobbying; at other times the punishment had to be borne until Constantine softened, as he invariably did.
At some point Constantine must have realised that the Council of Nicaea had failed. Its consensus was a sham and the divisions he had hoped to repair were even deeper than before. In AD 332 he attempted reparations with Arius, swinging away from the uncompromising bishops who had been so vocal at Nicaea and embracing a revised version of Arianism himself.
We also know that Arius’ own beliefs were under revision, for he modifies and qualifies his “official” statements from time to time. Athanasius followed each new twist and turn with an unflinching gaze, carefully recording the development of Arian Christology in a series of letters that survives to this day.
By AD 336, four councils had declared Arius orthodox, and preparations were made to receive him into the church. Unfortunately, he died on the night before his formal reconciliation, leaving Athanasius to crow over his corpse with snide allusions to Judas.[2] Many Nicenes hoped this would bring an end to the heresy, but Arius was no longer central to Arianism, and his Christology had become a movement which rumbled on under its own momentum.
The debate continued to rage even after Constantine’s own death in AD 337. He was survived by his three sons: Constantine II (A Nicene Christian), Constantius II (An Arian), and Constans (Another Nicene). Each had been granted a third of the empire, in which their favoured Christology was upheld as orthodox. Local councils were convened in different regions, all condemning their own definition of heresy while affirming idiosyncratic definitions of orthodoxy.
During this period, Arianism was increasingly refined. The 4th Arian Confession (AD 341) rejects the idea that there was a time when Christ did not exist and affirms the Son as a direct product of the Father’s own subsistence:
But those who say, that the Son was from nothing, or from other subsistence and not from God, and, there was time when He was not, the Catholic Church regards as aliens.[3]
The 5th Arian Confession (AD 344) goes further:
But those who say,
(1) that the Son was from nothing, or from other subsistence and not from God;
(2) and that there was a time or age when He was not, the Catholic and Holy Church regards as aliens.
Likewise those who say,
(3) that there are three Gods:
(4) or that Christ is not God;
(5) or that before the ages He was neither Christ nor Son of God;
(6) or that Father and Son, or Holy Ghost, are the same;
(7) or that the Son is Ingenerate; or that the Father begat the Son, not by choice or will; the Holy and Catholic Church anathematizes.
For neither is safe to say that the Son is from nothing, (since this is no where spoken of Him in divinely inspired Scripture,) nor again of any other subsistence before existing beside the Father, but from God alone do we define Him genuinely to be generated…
Nor may we, adopting the hazardous position, ‘There was once when He was not,’ from unscriptural sources, imagine any interval of time before Him, but only the God who has generated Him apart from time; for through Him both times and ages came to be…[4]
We see here that that the Arians tried hard to define their Christology in terms acceptable to both sides of the debate. They were not entirely successful (sometimes gaining the support of liberal Nicenes at the expense of the more conservative Arians) but although the language was subject to variation, the essential lineaments of Arian Christology never really changed.
Clearer still is the growing Arian preference for unambiguous Scriptural statements and the rejection of unbiblical terminology. This enabled them to avoid being drawn into speculative debates about aspects of the Godhead not explicitly revealed in Scripture. Consequently, Arian confessions became shorter while Nicene confessions became longer.
The divided empire gave Arianism some breathing space to redefine itself and prepare for the next great battle against Nicene Christology. This was made easier by the deaths of the Nicene emperors. Constantine II had been killed in battle against Constans in AD 340 while Constans was murdered by Magentius, a former bodyguard, in AD 350. Having outlived his brothers, Constantius II established Arianism as official Christology[5] but was killed en route to fight his half-uncle, Julian the Apostate, in AD 361.
Julian reigned for less than 10 years, during which time he promoted paganism and undermined Christianity. He introduced sweeping changes to eliminate corruption, reduce bureaucracy and reverse Constantine’s reforms. An edict of ‘religious tolerance’ (similar to Constantine’s Edict of Milan) restored paganism to its former position as a privileged faith.
Additional legislation reopened pagan temples and restored property to pagans. Exiled bishops were recalled in the hope that their return would spark new disputes and revitalise the old ones.[6] But although dampened, the Arian/Nicene controversy continued to smoulder beneath the surface of a repressed Christian community. Three Cappadocian churchmen – Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, and his brother, Basil of Caesarea – emerged as champions of the Athanasian legacy.
Following almost two decades of political unrest, Theodosius I came to power as co-Augustus of the East in AD 378. With the assent of his fellow rulers he declared Trinitarianism the only orthodox position of the church[7] and convened a new ecumenical council in AD 381: the Council of Constantinople. The latter decision was necessitated by longstanding inadequacies in the Nicene Creed, which had established the deity of Christ without elaborating on the nature of the Holy Spirit or defining an explicit Trinity.
R. E. Rubenstein observes that a lack of definitive vocabulary made it difficult to work through these issues and establish consensus:
Even great theologians such as Athanasius still used terms like ‘essence’ (ousia) and ‘being’ (hypostasis) interchangeably, sometimes exchanging these words with other terms like ‘person’ (prosopon.) The Nicene Creed itself anathematised not only those who denied that the Father and son were ‘one in essence’ but those who denied that the Father and son were one in ‘being’.[8]
The Cappadocians proposed a delineation between ousia and hypostasis; essence and being. Under their definition, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate beings, each with his own individual characteristics – they are three hypostases. But they are one and the same in essence – they are homoousios.
Adopting an idea of Origen, that easterners would appreciate, Basil of Caesarea described Jesus as a “sharer of [God’s] nature, not created by fiat, but shining out continuously from his ousia”.[9] The Holy Spirit, which the Arians and some Nicenes considered a principle or person lower down the scale of divinity than either the Father or Son, was said to share the same divine essence. The Holy Spirit is a third individual being (or Person) ‘consubstantial’ with the Father and the Son.
In other words, lest any should suggest that he was degrading the third member of the Trinity, Basil reassured his contemporaries that the Holy Spirit shared the same divine ousia possessed by the Father and Son. While all three are separate hypostases (‘person’ or ‘being’), together they constituted the Godhead, melded into a consubstantial ‘one’ by virtue of their shared ousia (‘essence’ or ‘substance’).
Despite this, Basil was not prepared to deify the Holy Spirit and his formula above is intended to satisfy readers without inviting closer scrutiny:
It is therefore notable that, while adopting formulae and language which plainly imply the substantial Trinity, Basil does not write of the Holy Spirit as ‘God’ or as ‘consubstantial with the Father’. So in a letter asserting the one essence, he concludes ‘God the Father’ and ‘God the Son’ (Gk theon huion), but ‘the divine Holy Spirit’ (Gk to theion pneuma to hagion). He does not want to expose his case to the retort that it adds unbiblical titles to the Spirit, though there can be no doubt about what he believes.[10]
Basil’s reticence invited charges of heresy from more progressive bishops but he was defended by the now aging Athanasius, who had made great strides in the reconciliation of Nicene and Semi-Arian factions. Yet his conservative views were widespread among the laity, as Gregory Nazianzen admitted:
But, they go on, what have you to say about the Holy Ghost? From whence are you bringing in upon us this strange God, of Whom Scripture is silent? And even they who keep within bounds as to the Son speak thus. And just as we find in the case of roads and rivers, that they split off from one another and join again, so it happens also in this case, through the superabundance of impiety, that people who differ in all other respects have here some points of agreement, so that you never can tell for certain either where they are of one mind, or where they are in conflict.
Now the subject of the Holy Spirit presents a special difficulty, not only because when these men have become weary in their disputations concerning the Son, they struggle with greater heat against the Spirit…[11]
But of the wise men amongst ourselves, some have conceived of [the Holy Spirit] as an Activity, some as a Creature, some as God; and some have been uncertain which to call Him, out of reverence for Scripture, they say, as though it did not make the matter clear either way. And therefore they neither worship Him nor treat Him with dishonour, but take up a neutral position, or rather a very miserable one, with respect to Him. And of those who consider Him to be God, some are orthodox in mind only, while others venture to be so with the lips also.[12]
In AD 451, the Council of Chalcedon finally hammered the Trinity into its current shape: three distinct persons sharing one divine essence, following the Cappadocians’ formulae. It had taken three and a half centuries to achieve a definitive post-apostolic Christology.
J. C. McDowell concludes:
Brought into the open were tensions that had lain underneath the theological surface for years, and it is as the catalyst of this situation Arius is known in hindsight. Therefore, in this sense the popular ecclesial description of Arius as ‘arch-heretic’, or as the founder of archetypal Christian deviation, something aimed at the heart of the Christian confession, is not a wholly fair one…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.[13]
Orthodoxy has chosen to paint Arius as a dangerous radical; the proponent of novel and heretical ideas. But the truth is that he proposed nothing new. His only ‘crime’ was an outdated Christology which, though orthodox in its day, had been rapidly overtaken by new developments.
[1] Contrary to church tradition, which mandated 30 as the minimum age of a bishop; perhaps in emulation of Christ?
[2] “…Arius, who had great confidence in the Eusebians, and talked very wildly, urged by the necessities of nature withdrew, and suddenly, in the language of Scripture, falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst [Acts 1:18], and immediately expired as he lay, and was deprived both of communion and of his life together” To Serapion, concerning the death of Arius, 3.
[3] Athanasius, De Synodis, 25. NPNF, ser. 2, vol. 4, 462.
[4] Athanasius, De Synodis, 26. NPNF, Series 2, vol. 4, 462-464.
[5] It was of this period that Jerome would later write, “The whole world woke up and groaned to find itself Arian”, Dial. Contra Lucif. 19; this extract is cited in J. Stevenson and W. H. C. Frend, eds., Creeds, Councils and Controversies (London: SPCK, 1989).
[6] This strategy proved ineffective, as the bishops merely united against Julian under the common goal of self-preservation.
[7] “Theodosius declared that true Christians were those who believed in ‘the single divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within an equal majesty and an orthodox Trinity’. He named Damasus of Rome and Peter of Alexandria as examples of episcopal orthodoxy and labelled Arians and other dissenters as heretical madmen deserving punishment”. R. E. Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God, (San Diego: Harcourt, 2000), 220.
[8] Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God, 206.
[9] Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God, 206.
[10] S. G. Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, (London: SPCK, 1991), 158-159.
[11] Gregory Nazianzen, Oration XXXII, The Fifth Theological Oration; On the Holy Spirit, 1; reproduced in NPNF, Series 2, vol. 7.
[12] Gregory Nazianzen, Oration XXXII, The Fifth Theological Oration; On the Holy Spirit, 5.
[13] J. C. McDowell, 1994. Arius: A Theological Conservative Persecuted? Retrieved on January 5, 2012, from: www.oocities.org/johnnymcdowell/papers/Arius.doc.
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