Chapter 3: Enter Arius
3
Enter Arius
Few figures in ancient church history have had more written about them, especially in the last twenty years, than Arius (ca. 256–336). This development is singularly ironic, since so little definitive information has survived from the fourth century about him. The research path back to Arius is further complicated (as we noted above) by the fact that most of what we do know of him stems from the writings of his theological and ecclesiastical opponents. One can only conjecture how much their opposition to his views has distorted the picture presented by his loyal and highly spirited opposition. Hence, Hanson observed, “Directly Arian sources untainted by pro-Nicene prejudice are rare.”77 The surviving paper trail of genuine, unadulterated Arian materials is, as Frances Young described it, “limited.”78
Of Arius himself information is equally meager. According to Epiphanius he was born in Libya, “in the time of Constantine, the great and blessed emperor.”79 Not surprisingly, when Arius developed his theological posture, he was able to draw considerable support from the Libyan bishops (who were linked institutionally with Alexandria). Both Epiphanius and Sozomen implicated Arius in the Meletian schism that was ripping apart the Alexandrian church in the late third and early fourth century.80 Arius was ordained a deacon (ca. 311) by Bishop Peter, and when he supported the Meletian “church of the martyrs” against the “Catholic Church” of Peter, Arius was anathematized and excommunicated from the Catholic Church. He subsequently repented of his schismatic tendencies and was restored to fellowship and office by the martyred Peter’s successor, Achillas, who also ordained Arius as presbyter (priest) by AD 313.81 From Sozomen’s report one should conclude that Arius was a priest in good standing in the Alexandrian church when the controversy that carries his name broke out. Bishop Alexander, who succeeded Achillas, held him in high regard and described Arius as “a most expert logician . . . [who] was not lacking in such knowledge.”82 If we ask what being a “logician” meant in this context, it seems to reflect the idea that he was skilled in Platonic philosophy and critical thinking.83 Subsequent commentators, like Theodoret, who supported the Nicene theology, impugned his motives and depicted Arius as being motivated by envy and a lust for power.84 Epiphanius, the heresy-hunter, simply described him as a tool of the devil.85
The actual outbreak of the theological controversy in Alexandria is shrouded in conflicting testimonies. Socrates suggested that Arius reacted negatively to a sermon on the Holy Trinity preached by Bishop Alexander. He thought it sounded too much like a popular second- and third-century heresy called Sabellianism (which had the tendency to reduce the Trinity into one singular entity). In Socrates’s mind, Alexander tried to explain too much about the mystery of the unity of the Holy Trinity, in his “too philosophical“ discourse. Arius responded to Alexander by saying, “If . . . the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence: and from this it is evident, that there was a time when the Son was not. It therefore necessarily follows, that He had His subsistence from nothing.”86 Epiphanius reported that a complaint had been lodged with Alexander about Arius’s teaching and that was what prompted his inquiry into Arius’s theology.87 Sozomen blamed Arius’s love for logical speculation and theological novelty for the eruption of controversy, and doing so “under the pretext of piety, and of seeking the more perfect discovery of God . . .”88 Hence, Arius developed a doctrine that “no one before him had ever suggested; namely, that the Son of God was made out of that which had no prior existence, that there was a period of time in which he existed not; that, as possessing free will, he was capable of vice and virtue, and that he was created and made.”89 Theodoret also impugned Arius’s motives, suggesting that after he had “been enrolled in the list of the presbytery, and entrusted with the exposition of the Holy Scriptures, [Arius] fell a prey to the assaults of jealousy, when he saw that the helm of the high priesthood was committed to Alexander. Stung by this passion, he sought opportunities for dispute and contention.”90 In a similar way, Rufinus reported, “A presbyter of Alexandria named Arius, a man religious in appearance and aspect rather than in virtue, but shamefully desirous of glory, praise, and novelties, began to propose certain impious doctrines regarding the faith of Christ, things which had never before been talked about. He tried to sever and divide the Son from the eternal and ineffable substance or nature of God the Father, something which upset very many in the church.”91 Whatever one concludes about Arius’s motives, and they might simply have been to make an honest theological inquiry, it is clear that his reshaping of Trinitarian doctrine was the spark that ignited an explosion that nearly blew the fourth-century church apart.
If we inquire into the roots and antecedents of Arius’s theological posture, several popular suggestions are forthcoming. In a letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, written in the midst of this controversy, Arius describes the recipient as “a fellow Lucianist.”92 This implies that both men studied with the fabled Bishop Lucian of Antioch, who was martyred for his faith in 312. The Arian historian Philostorgius listed some of the disciples of Lucian and gave credence to a theological school emerging under his tutelage, but Arius was not mentioned among them.93 Adolf von Harnack represents an older scholarly consensus that concluded “this school is the nursery of Arian doctrine, and Lucian, its head, is the Arius before Arius.”94 From this assertion is deduced that Lucian (like Arius) professed a Christology that was centered in the conception of Christ as the Logos (John 1:1–17), or Word of God; said Christology was assumed to have been subordinationist in its emphasis; subordinationism suggested that Jesus Christ is subordinate to (or less than) God the Father and served under the Father’s authority and direction (cf. John 5:19). More recent scholarship, like that of Frances Young, Rowan Williams, and John Behr, suggests that since almost nothing is known about Lucius of Antioch, it is not particularly helpful to look to him as the “Arius before Arius.”95 Yet, if there were theological kinship between Arius and his “fellow Lucianists,” this association would amply explain the wide reception of Arius’s theology in Syria and Asia Minor. In this sense, Arius was probably more a participant in an older theological tradition than a founder of a new one.
It seems that we are on much firmer ground if we look for the roots of Arius’s theological innovations within the eclectic theological traditions and diverse trajectories within Alexandria and the Alexandrian church itself. For example, Arius’s theological predecessor in Alexandria, by about fifty years, was the creative and eclectic theologian Origen. A Platonist and a Christian theologian, Origen also taught what appeared to be a mild subordinationism.96 The conflict between Alexander and Arius may be understood as an inter-family squabble among the theological descendants of Origen. If that were the case, then Arius belongs on the progressive side of the Origenist camp, and Alexander represents the more conservative aspect of it. The subordination of the Son to the Father was much more commonplace in the early fourth century than it was thereafter; hence, Hanson observed, “With the exception of Athanasius, virtually every theologian, East and West, accepted some form of subordinationism at least up to the year 355.”97
This debate is frequently couched as a struggle over biblical hermeneutics: how do you interpret the Bible? The particular exegesis of Proverbs 8:22–25 figures largely in the connection between the Alexandrians and Origen. In his On First Principles (De Principiis) Origen looks upon this passage as a description of the pre-incarnate Logos’ (Word’s) relationship with God the Father, and in this sense the Wisdom passage is brought alongside John 1:1–17 as an explanation of the birth of the Logos (or Wisdom) of God.98 John 1:14, in most English versions, reads “the only Son of the Father”; however, in New Testament Greek the phrase is more literally rendered, “the only begotten Son of the Father.” The “only begotten” section is represented by the Greek word monogenas, which means “only one born out of.” Proverbs 8:22, in which the voice of Wisdom is speaking, is taken by the Origenists as a statement by the pre-incarnate Logos of God: “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.” A synthesis of these two passages gives the impression that the Logos (Wisdom, Second Person of the Trinity) was “born” (John 1:14) or “created” (Prov 8:22) by God the Father as the first act of creation. It would be on the basis of this exegesis that the Arians would eventually conclude that (1) the Son, created by God the Father, is a creature Who is superior to all other creatures; and (2) there was a time when the Father existed and the Son did not exist. Hence, Jaroslav Pelikan reports, “in his account of Arian doctrine, Hilary [of Poitiers] said that ‘they maintain that [Christ] is a creature, because of what is written in Prov. 8:22.’”99 Epiphanius echoed this same textual connection in his Panarion: “Arius took his cue from Origen.”100 And more specifically, later in the same work:
Now therefore, Arius, inspired by a diabolical energy, and knowing no restraint of tongue or shame, raised his voice against his own Master. His starting point was his attempt to interpret the words of Solomon in Proverbs: “the Lord created me the beginning of his ways. Before the world he established me in the beginning, before making the earth and before making the abysses, before all the hills he produced me.” This became the introduction to his error; he and his disciples were not ashamed to call a creature him who created everything, the Word begotten from the Father outside time and without beginning. From that point on, from that one passage, driving his malignant doctrine into many evil paths [he] and his successors attempted countless blasphemies against the Son of God and the Holy Spirit.101
When Emperor Constantine subsequently reported that the disagreement in the Alexandrian church had to do with the exegesis of “a certain passage of divine Scripture,” perhaps he too was referencing this discussion over the meaning of Proverbs 8:22–25.102
Hence, Sozomen reported that Arius “fell into absurd discourses, so that he had the audacity to preach in the church what no one before him had ever suggested; namely, that the Son of God was made out of that which had no prior existence, that there was a period of time in which he existed not; that, as possessing free will, he was capable of vice and virtue, and that he was created and made; to these, many other similar assertions were added as he went forward into the arguments and the details of inquiry.”103 Both Sozomen and Epiphanius report that Bishop Alexander drew together the presbytery of priests and bishops to hear Arius’s doctrine and to judge its veracity.104 But some of the other clergy blamed Bishop Alexander for being too lenient, in “not opposing the innovations at variance with doctrine.”105 Determined to use persuasion instead of force or excommunication, Alexander “sat down as a judge with some of his clergy, and led both sides into a discussion.”106 Sozomen reported, “Arius defended his assertions, but the others contended that the Son is consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father.”107 When the debate had concluded both sides claimed victory, and the net result was an awkward theological standoff. Hence, “the council was convened a second time, and the same points contested, but they came to no agreement amongst themselves.”108 Sozomen asserts that the debate was further complicated by the fact that Alexander, as judge, seemed to incline first towards the teaching of one party and then the other.109 If that unsupported allegation is true, it may have been a feature of the bishop’s fact-finding approach, for his own written assertions show no equivocation regarding what would become orthodox doctrine. Socrates indicates that it was at this time that the Meletians joined with the Arians in opposing Bishop Alexander;110 whether this was a strategic alliance (“the enemy of my enemy is my friend”) or one based on theological doctrine is unclear.
At the end of the second council meeting, Alexander demanded that Arius receive the doctrine that Christ is consubstantial (of the same substance) and co-eternal with the God the Father, and reject his former statements to the contrary.111 Arius “could not be persuaded to compliance, and many of the bishops and clergy considered his statement of doctrine to be correct. Alexander, therefore, ejected him and the clergy who concurred with him in sentiment from the church.”112 Sozomen included a list of ten clergy (bishops, presbyters, and deacons) who were excommunicated that day. “Many of the people, likewise, sided with them; some, because they imagined their doctrines to be of God; others, as frequently happens in similar cases, because they believed them to have been ill-treated and unjustly excommunicated.”113 The Arians, as we might now appropriately call them, began to ardently seek support for their point of view, both within and beyond Alexandria. Socrates’s metaphor is an apt one: “From a little spark a large fire was kindled: for the evil which began in the church at Alexandria, ran throughout all Egypt, Libya, and the upper Thebes; and at length diffused itself over the rest of the provinces and cities.”114
Alexander, for his part, began a letter-writing campaign and sent an encyclical letter to “the ministers of the Catholic Church.” This letter is preserved in Socrates’s Church History. It not only named and denounced Arius and those who followed him (the list was getting longer!) but also gave a lengthy summation of “the dogmas which they have invented.” The gist of his long summary amounts to three main points against the Arians: (1) they deny that God has always existed as a consubstantial Trinity; (2) they assert that the Logos, or Son of God, was created before time and is not of the same substance as the Father; and (3) they hold that the Word or Son is a creature and is therefore susceptible to change. Theodoret, in his Church History, preserves a letter that Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, wrote to his counterpart and namesake in Constantinople during this same period. It, too, is a lengthy letter that lists the excommunicated and apostates, and is full of denunciations and doctrinal summaries of what the Arians affirmed. Alexander’s letter stated, “I have stirred myself up to inform you of the unbelief of certain persons who say that ‘there was a time when the Son of God was not’; and ‘He who previously had no existence subsequently came into existence; and when at some time He came into existence He became such as every other man is’ . . . ‘We are also able,’ say these accursed wretches, ‘to become like Him, the sons of God; for it is written—I have nourished and brought up children [Isa 1:2].’”115 These and many other assertions are registered in the letter to Constantinople, and they parallel the same points registered in the earlier encyclical letter of Alexander. In this later letter, however, we begin to glimpse some of the slogans or catch phrases of Arius’s doctrine.
If we ask what Athanasius was doing during these early phases of the “Arian controversy,” the historical record greets us with a disturbing silence. He had been ordained as a deacon in the church of his native city, and as such was very likely employing his considerable intellectual and literary abilities in the service of his father in the faith, Alexander, who was also his bishop. Athanasius had a passion for theological truth, as he was given to see the truth, and a willingness to debate theological doctrine when he believed truth was being assailed—these characteristics are amply documented in his subsequent anti-Arian writings—hence, it is difficult to imagine that he sat on the sidelines when Alexander called two separate theological councils in his diocese. It seems more likely that as Alexander’s assistant, young Athanasius was in the thick of things and played a lively part in the theological debates that were raging in Alexandria. Furthermore, it is very likely that, functioning as Alexander’s secretary, he penned the theological epistles that the bishop issued to the church as a result of these debates. Contemporary scholars claim to see the hand of Athanasius at work in both of these letters sent out under Alexander’s signature.116
The Deposition of Arius (Depositio Arii), which was probably written in 322, is an encyclical letter issued by Alexander that was probably penned by Athanasius, who was serving as his scribe and assistant. The letter names the Arians who were anathematized and excommunicated in Alexandria and explains their theological innovations.117 In a tightly worded paragraph, the writer enumerated the Arians’ heresies:
The novelties they have invented and put forth contrary to the Scriptures are these following:—God was not always a Father, but there was a time when God was not a Father. The Word of God was not always, but originated from things that were not; for God that is, has made him that was not, of that which was not; wherefore there was a time when He was not; for the Son is a creature and a work. Neither is He like in essence to the Father; neither is He the true and natural Word of the Father; neither is He His true Wisdom; but He is one of the things made and created, and is called the Word and Wisdom by an abuse of terms, since He Himself originated by the proper Word of God, and by the Wisdom that is in God, by which God has made not only all other things but Him also. Wherefore He is by nature subject to change and variation, as are all rational creatures. And the Word is foreign from the essence of the Father, and is alien and separated therefrom.118
Central to this characterization of Arian theology are the twin assertions that the Son of God has a beginning and is a rational creature. The same epistle attacked Eusebius of Nicomedia for interjecting himself into this affair and for writing various churches urging the acceptance of Arius and his doctrinal innovations.
During this period, Epiphanius reports, “Arius spent a long time in the city [of Alexandria] . . . So Arius worked schisms and ruined many people by stealing them away one by one. Later when he had been caught, brought to judgment in the city, and excommunicated, he fled from Alexandria and made his way to Palestine. Upon his arrival, he approached each of the bishops with flattery and wheedling in order to acquire many collaborators for himself. Some received him while others rejected him.”119 At this point, Arius began to receive support from some of the leading bishops in that region, including two men both named Eusebius: the one the bishop of Nicomedia, who would become a lifelong supporter; the other the bishop of Caesarea and famous church historian (sometimes called Eusebius Pamphilus), who would subsequently change sides at the Council of Nicaea.
Before his forced departure for Palestine, Arius composed a letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia. This letter has been preserved for us in the Church History of Theodoret. In this correspondence Arius sought to establish contacts with his “fellow Lucianist” and to complain about the persecution that had fallen upon him in Alexandria. He outlined his own position in this way: “We say and believe, and have taught, and do teach, that the Son was 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.”120 This passage affirms that the Son is and has been created by the Father, in consort with the Son’s own will; and that the Son is not a creature like any other creature (because He is before time). Yet, the Son has a beginning, and hence is not eternal, and is not of the same “substance” as the Father (the Unbegotten). “We are persecuted,” Arius complained, “because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning. This is the cause of our persecution, and likewise, because we say that He [the Son] is of the non-existent. And this we say, because He is neither part of God, nor of any essential being [with God]. For this we are persecuted.”121 During this same period of time (ca. 318–20), Arius composed and propagated his famous theological song-poem known as the Thalia.122
When the reports of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret are taken together, a consensus about the main themes of the theology of Arius emerges. These might be summarized as follows: (1) Arius taught that the Son was begotten and therefore had a beginning; (2) that since God (the Father) is unbegotten, the Son is not of the same substance as the Father; and (3) that the Son is a creature—albeit a special creature—who enables Christians to become children of God. Based on this general consensus it seems possible to speak of Arius’s views as having three significant trajectories that resonated with various themes of fourth-century theology. And “Arianism” (including the thought of Arius and subsequent developments) has been treated from each of these points of view. The first of these is that Arianism was a kind of radical monotheism, which seeks to protect and honor the mystery of the Godhead as inexpressible and unknowable. Secondly, Arianism has been presented and understood as a new way of understanding the complex relationship of the Father and the Son, which was developed (following Origen) at a time when that matter was still an open and unanswered question in Christian theology. And finally, Arianism has been understood from the standpoint of the implications of its approach to Christian salvation (soteriology).123
Exploring and developing each of these alternatives gives us important insight into the inner workings of Arius’s views, such as we understand them, but this task also involves equally large amounts of generalization and the acceptance of various aspects of the picture that Arius’s subsequent commentators (ancient and modern) have given about his position. Taking the “radical monotheism” tack first, Arius seems to be concerned to safeguard the nature and identity of the Unbegotten and ineffable God. Yet, since Christianity affirms a suffering Savior, how is the holy nature of God to be maintained in the face of the suffering and death of God’s Son? Working with passages like John 1:1–17 and Proverbs 8:22–23, as we saw above, Arius postulated a demigod, One who was created by God, as a creature (though far above other creatures) and was therefore capable of suffering. The Son had a free will, therefore His voluntary suffering could be considered meritorious before God. This approach, while not without some problems (which Arius’s critics pointed out), sufficiently protected the nature of God in a way that was somewhat palatable to Christian Platonists and Judeo-Christian monotheists, and embraced the suffering of Christ as a central message of the Christian gospel. For example, as Hanson writes, “We can now perceive the rationale of Arianism. At the heart of the Arian Gospel was a God who suffered. Their elaborate theology of the relation of the Son to the Father which so much preoccupied their opponents was devised in order to find a way of envisaging a Christian doctrine of God which would make it possible to be faithful to the Biblical witness to a God who suffers. This was to be achieved by conceiving of a lesser God as a reduced divinity, who would be ontologically capable, as the High God was not, of enduring human experiences, including suffering and death.”124 This approach was particularly attractive to fourth-century pastors and theologians who were upset by the earlier heresy of Sabellius (in which the monotheism of the Trinity was preserved by urging that the One God went through three separate phases of being).
This first approach also suggests why Arius and the Arians were cautious not to affirm that the Son and the Father had the same substance (homoousia), because the Son was capable of human suffering and the Father was not. Furthermore, as Socrates quotes Arius as saying, “if the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence; and from this it is evident that there was a time when the Son was not. It therefore necessarily follows, that he [the Son] had his substance from nothing.”125 It was for this reason, and others, that Arius and a few cohorts would subsequently refuse to affirm the creed produced at the Council of Nicaea in 325.
The second approach to understanding and characterizing Arius’s views is no less complex than the first. The theological heritage of Origen of Alexandria is an important background of this approach; that means, in part, that a mild subordination of the Son to the Father and the Father’s will was not untenable or theologically unacceptable. Williams offers “three basic theological points” that characterize the thought of Arius and his followers: “(i) The Son is a creature, that is, a product of God’s will; (ii) ‘Son’ is therefore a metaphor for the second hypostasis [“person”], and must be understood in the light of comparable metaphorical usage in Scripture; and (iii) the Son’s status, like his very existence, depends upon God’s will.”126 This picture of a God-dependent, “begotten Son” of the Unbegotten Father squares well with some of the Scriptures that were under discussion in this controversy, and explains the relationship between Father and Son in a manner that fits well with the common use of those terms. Because of this linguistic connection, Arius’s “solution” to the problem posed by Alexander’s sermon on the Trinity also had some significant traction in the early fourth-century church.
Third, Arianism could be viewed from the standpoint of the theology of salvation (soteriology). Building from passages like Philippians 2:5–11 and 2 Corinthians 2:9, as well as many gospel passages that evidence the human characteristics of Christ the Redeemer, Arius may have postulated an approach to salvation that stressed the importance of conformity of one’s will with that of the Father and a willingness to live one’s life as a servant. This approach would have fit well with the developing Eastern Orthodox theology of deification (theosis), which stressed that through abandonment of one’s own will and dedication to God, through grace, believers could become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4). It was through His obedient and selfless ministry and dedication that Jesus as the Son of God became a “partaker of the divine nature.” Alexander quoted an Arian slogan in his letter, which—following Isaiah 1:2—affirmed “we are also able . . . to become like Him, the Sons of God; for it is written—I have nourished and brought up children.”127 This path, which Jesus trod before us, has been laid open to us by Him and His revelation. This approach resonated well with the spirituality of apatheia (the cultivation of a selfless will), which was embraced by Eastern monks, ascetics, and clergy.128
The role of Eusebius of Nicomedia (d. AD 341) in the so-called Arian controversy has been undergoing (like most aspects of this topic) recent review and revision. David Gwynn, for example, challenges Athanasius’s assertion that there were those “around Eusebius” (the “Eusebians”) who embraced the Arian cause and schemed against him by using both church and state to silence his defense of the Nicene theology. In his rendition of this group and its teaching, Gwynn asserts that they “were in fact neither a ‘party’ nor ‘Arian.’”129 Gwynn mounts an interesting argument, indicating that the “Eusebians” were more a feature of Athanasius’s polemical writings than a fact of history.
It is clear, however, that Eusebius interjected himself in the dispute that was raging in the Alexandrian church in several ways. He wrote to Alexander and urged him to reinstate Arius (ca. 320). In the same year he wrote to Paulinus of Tyre explaining the new theology to him in very positive tones. Eusebius also urged Paulinus—if he were of like mind—to write at once to Alexander.130 What motives are to be ascribed to Eusebius in these matters is unclear. Charles Kannengiesser views this as an example of the willezurmacht (“will-to-power”) on the part of Eusebius,131 but it is also clear that he had both sympathy and a theological kinship with Arius, his “fellow Lucianist.”
A regional synod was held in Bithynia. The leaders there “wrote to all the bishops, desiring them to hold communion with the Arians, as with those making a true confession, and to require Alexander to hold communion with them likewise.” When that injunction failed to gain compliance, a commission comprised of Paulinus of Tyre, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Patrophilus, bishop of Scythopolis, was sent to Alexander to urge him to allow the Arians to form a separate church for themselves in Alexandria. This also failed to gain compliance; hence those three bishops granted Arius’s petition and allowed him to establish a church in Palestine.132 Alexander had become a lightning rod for controversy, as Sozomen reported: “Some [bishops] wrote to Alexander, entreating him not to receive the partisans of Arius into communion unless they repudiated their opinions; while others wrote to urge a contrary line of conduct.”133
Socrates reported that news of the debate that was now raging in the Eastern church soon reached the ears of Emperor Constantine. “When the emperor was made acquainted with these disorders, he was very deeply grieved,” he wrote, “and regarding the matter as a personal misfortune, immediately exerted himself to extinguish the conflagration which had been kindled, and sent a letter to Alexander and Arius by a trustworthy person named Hosius, who was bishop of Cordova, in Spain.”134 The historian’s account includes a digest of the letter (the full text of which is carried in the Life of Constantine). Constantine’s letter urges both men to silence and reconciliation, without attempting to resolve the doctrinal issues that separated them. The emperor urged them, “Listen to the counsel of your fellow servant. And what counsel does he offer? It was neither prudent at first to agitate such a question, nor to reply to such a question when proposed: for the claim of no law demands the investigation of such subjects, but the idle useless talk of leisure occasions them. And even if they should exist for the sake of exercising our natural faculties, yet we ought to confine them to our own consideration, and not incautiously bring them forth in public assemblies, nor thoughtlessly confide them to the ears of everybody.”135 A second reason for urging them to lay aside the doctrinal debate was that it was dividing “the people of God”—which was in Constantine’s mind both “unbecoming” and “altogether unlawful.”136 Sozomen characterized Constantine’s epistle in this way: “The Emperor openly charged Arius and Alexander with having originated the disturbance, and wrote to rebuke them for having made a controversy public which it was in their power to have concealed, and for having contentiously agitated a question which ought never to have been invoked, or upon which at least their opinion ought to have been given quietly. He told them that they ought not to have separated from others on account of difference of sentiment concerning certain points of doctrine.”137 Constantine’s letter, while written with considerable piety, seemed more concerned with unity in the church—which fit well his own political agenda—than with the doctrine of the Trinity. Hosius of Cordova, however, seemed to have clearly grasped the significance of the theological debate that was wracking the Eastern church; he soon became an ally of Alexander of Alexandria.
77. Hanson, Christian Doctrine of God, 99.
78. Young and Teal, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, 44.
79. Epiphanius, Panarion 69.1.1, 255.
80. Ibid.; Sozomen, Church History I.15, NPNF, vol. II, 251. Cf. Theodoret, Church History I.2, NPNF, vol. III, 34.
81. Sozomen, Church History I.15, NPNF, vol. II, 251.
82. Ibid.
83. Wiles, Archetypical Heresy, 24.
84. Theodoret, Church History I.2, NPNF, vol. III, 34.
85. Epiphanius, Panarion 69.1.1., 255.
86. Socrates, Church History I.5, NPNF, vol. II, 3.
87. Epiphanius, Panarion 69.3, 256.
88. Sozomen, Church History I.15, NPNF, vol. II, 251.
89. Ibid.
90. Theodoret, Church History I.1, NPNF, vol. III, 34.
91. Rufinus, Church History X.1, 9.
92. Theodoret, Church History I.4, NPNF, vol. III, 41.
93. Philostorgius, Church History II.14, 30.
94. Harnack, History of Dogma, Kindle loc. 22501.
95. Young and Teal, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, 47; Williams, Arius, 167; and Behr, Formation of Christian Theology, vol. 2, pt. 1, 51.
96. Writing in the third century, Origen used theological terminology that was subsequently unsettling to fourth-century Christian theologians and their successors, most notably Jerome.
97. Hanson, Christian Doctrine of God, xix.
98. Origen, On First Principles I.2, ANF, vol. IV, 246.
99. Pelikan, Christian Tradition, 1:193.
100. Epiphanius, Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, 137.
101. Epiphanius, Panarion 69.12, 264.
102. Eusebius, Life of Constantine II.69, NPNF, vol. I, 516.
103. Sozomen, Church History I.15, NPNF, vol. II, 251.
104. Ibid.; Epiphanius, Panarion 69.3, 256.
105. Sozomen, Church History I.15, NPNF, vol. II, 251.
106. Ibid.
107. Ibid.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid.
110. Socrates, Church History I.6, NPNF, vol. II, 5.
111. Sozomen, Church History I.15, NPNF, vol. II, 251.
112. Ibid.
113. Ibid., 251–52.
114. Socrates, Church History I.6, NPNF, vol. II, 3.
115. Theodoret, Church History I.3, NPNF, vol. III, 35–36.
116. Cf. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius, 16, and Gwynn, Eusebians, 66.
117. Among those named here: “Arius, Achilles, Aeithales, Carpones, another Arius, and Sarmates, sometime Presbyters: Euzoïus, Lucius, Julius, Menas, Helladius, and Gaius, sometime Deasons: and with them Secundus and Theonas, sometime called Bishops.” Depositio Arii 2, NPNF, vol. IV, 70.
118. Ibid.
119. Epiphanius, Panarion 69.4.1–2, 257.
120. Theodoret, Church History I.4, NPNF, vol. III, 41.
121. Ibid.
122. Since the text of the Thalia is available only in Athanasius’s reconstruction of it in two separate polemics, it will be treated in the sections dealing with his response to Arius, rather than here. For a reconstructed text of the Thalia see Hanson, Christian Doctrine of God, 12–15; Williams, Arius, 98–116; or http://www.fourthcentury.com/arius-thalia-intro/.
123. While it is difficult to completely delineate between these themes and scholars who have used them, it does seem to be fair to say that Hanson, Christian Doctrine of God, takes the first approach, while Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, takes the second, and Gregg and Groh, Early Arianism: A View of Salvation, follow the third.
124. Hanson, Christian Doctrine of God, 121.
125. Socrates, Church History I.5, NPNF, vol. III, 3.
126. Williams, Arius, 109. See 131–32 for three syllogisms that comprise Arius’s argument.
127. Theodoret, Church History I.3, NPNF, vol. III, 36.
128. Cf. Gregg and Groh, “The Arian Christ,” in Early Arianism, 1–43.
129. Gwynn, Eusebians, vii.
130. Theodoret, Church History I.5, NPNF, vol. III, 42–43. Sozomen mentions this as well (Church History I.16, NPNF, vol. II, 252).
131. Kannengiesser, Arius and Athanasius, 2.
132. Sozomen, Church History I.15, NPNF, vol. II, 252.
133. Ibid.
134. Socrates, Church History I.7, NPNF, vol. II, 6.
135. Ibid.
136. Ibid., 6–7.
137. Sozomen, Church History I.16, NPNF, vol. II, 252.