Arain Christian influence on Islam

[Wolfgang Franz]

Hi Ingemar!

Ingemar, with all respect, but you intermingle the trinitarian dogma with the 
christological. The way in which the two natures of Christ combine, the human 
and the divine, is the christological. This was solved when arianism had been 
vanished already in the empire.

The council of Nikaia was not a "dubious meeting" but is the first ecumenical 
council fundamental to the faith of all christian churches.

It's a pity for me that I have a compendium of Arius' views in German only, 
written by Prof. Ziegenaus. But this example from wikipedia can possibly show 
it as well:

"Arius formulated the following doctrines about Jesus:
that the Logos and the Father were not of the same essence (ousia);
That the Son was a created being (ktisma or poiema); and
that though He was the creator of the worlds, and must therefore have existed 
before them and before all time, there was a "time" [although Arius refused 
to use words meaning time, such as chronos or aion] when He did not exist."

"There was [a time] when God was alone, and was not yet Father, and afterward 
he became Father. The Son was not always. For, all things coming into being 
from not being, and all things created and made having begun to be, this 
logos or God also came into being from things not existing; and there was [a 
time] when he was not, and he was not before he was begotten, but he also had 
a beginning of being created."

These are ideas which leaves doubt about the relevance of the question 
discussed. The west and the goths possibly did not participate in the 
struggle because it was much too theoretical for them. But without doubt 
these are not the words of a man regarding the Christ as purely human and 
adopted by god only because of his virtues. There is also no semblance to the 
muslim view of Christ as prophet only.

You wrote: "He was born human and raised to divinity through a righteous life, 
like a boddisathva or deva being given a divine status." Where did you find 
that?

"The Father was in command of the Son and the Son was created." This is not 
the content of the nikaian creed which is anyway only delivered to us via the 
council of Constantinople 381. 
The nicene creed specifically included the word homoousios (consubstantial).

That arianism had the upper hand afterwards had a lot to do with the emperor's 
political necessities. As Arius stated that the father could create more sons 
than one Christ could be seen as an imperial god contrary to an universal. In 
fact the persians then could also have their own son. But it had nothing to 
do with the church as a whole.

You miss the point of the christological debate also. In this the nestorians 
(antiochene) emphasized the separation of His two natures while the 
alexandrine emphasized their mix. The alexandrine didn't regard Christ as 
solely divine.

"the Goths also send missionaries converting all the other Germanic 
continental tribes of major importance to Arianism except the Franks". Which 
tribes except the east germanic vandalians and burgundians? The suebians were 
pagan when they entered the empire as were the alemanni and the saxons.

The egyptians welcomed the islamic invaders because as monophysites they were 
suppressed by the roman authorities. Their conversion to islam was a event 
which lasted for centuries and had, as in all islamic countries, more to do 
with pressure than with faith.

When it goes to the question of the conversion to islam of the visigoths in 
Spain the question must be asked if this was really the case. Didn't go a lot 
of the goths to catalunia which was called "gothica" by the franks in the 
time of Charlemagne where they set up successfull resistance to the muslims? 
And for the visigoths staying in muslim Andalusia: Could it been more 
important for them that as a warrior aristocracy they could remain warriors 
only if converting to islam? Did the ordinary gothic nobleman really care so 
much for the trinitarian and christological dogmas?


Best regards,

Wolfgang


Am Sonntag, 1. April 2007 02:33 schrieb Ingemar Nordgren:
> Hi Ualarauans!
>
> It seems as a lot of people mistake the late Arianism in the time of
> Wulfila with the original Arianism. Wulfila is after the Nicean
> compromise and Wulfila just rejects the Teodosian interdict but is
> influencved by the agreement in Constantinople 381-82. I have earlier
> written an article in this matter from which I give you a slightly
> revised excerpt:
>
> '215 AD in Rome Sabellius declared as his opinion that the Father, the
> Son and the Holy Ghost were only different manifestations of God. He
> was part of the modalistic school. Immideately he was classified as
> heretic. Hundred years later the presbyterian Arius in Alexandria
> launched what later was called Arianism. The modern definition of this
> faith says shortly that the Son, the pre-existent Christ, is not of
> the same divine character as the Father but the first created entity.
> This is however a  rude simplification of the complete story. Arius
> himself claimed the Son had both a human and a divine nature. He was
> born human and raised to divinity through a righteous life, like a
> boddisathva or deva being given a divine status. This implies that
> even other humans could have the chance being devinated in this way.
> Regarding the above mentioned Sabellianism you could even interpret
> Arius saying Jesus was a human but the reincarnated Christ was an
> incarnation of God, but in the visual shape of Jesus. In this way both
> Sabellius and Arius succeed to give a picture of a monoteistic God in
> opposition to the later in Nicea created trinity God, which was
> understood as three different  Gods by the Arians. A great majority of
> the Eastern bishops sympatized with Arius and the leading were the two
> Eusebius’s in Caesarea and Nicomedia-the Eastern residential city of
> the emperor.  They had however a formidable opposer in Alexander,
> pontiff of Alexandria and later this position was taken by his deacon
> Athanasius, one of the most ruthless clergymen ever known in history
> and fully comparable with e.g. Al Capone using the same criminal
> methods to control the Alexandrian economy and the church. He was
> several times abolished by the joint bishops, both Nicaenan and Arian,
> because of his methods. Nota bene that all bishops used rough methods
> but this was too much to take even for them. Athanasius and his,
> mostly Western, followers claimed that the Father and the Son were of
> the same nature, and hence they were regarded as polyteistic from
> Arian wiew. The traditional Eastern wiew includes a god who is an
> abstract entity and a single God. This goes as well for the Mosaic
> religion.
>  In 325 the dubious meeting in Nicea was held. Emperor Constantine had
> engaged the old bishop Hosius of Spain who sided with Athanasius and
> the Westerners but because of the strong opposition there was a
> compromise. The Arian bishops agreed  that Father and Son were of the
> same nature but interpreted it as being of a similar nature, not same.
> The  Father was in command of the Son and the Son was created. This
> compromise resulted in almost total victory for the Arians for a
> considerable time. In spite of the compromise they fundamentally
> claimed there was but one real God. Arianism dominates until the death
> of emperor Valens and the Visigoths accept the Arian faith in his
> time, and the Goths also   send missionaries converting all the other
> Germanic continental tribes of major importance to Arianism except the
> Franks......
> Theodosius then calls a meeting in Constantinople in 381 forcing the
> assembly to accept a dictate saying that the Father, the Son and the
> Holy Ghost are of the same essence and that the  Son existed together
> with the Father before all ages. To get the Arian bishops to sign that
> decision an amandment was issued, saying that the Father worked
> through the Son and the Spirit and so  stressing the unicum of the
> Father. As soon as the Western delegates had returned home they
> rejected this  amandment. Soon after this Teodosius issued an edict
> banning Arianism by law, and so it ceased in the empire but flourished
> in the Germanic states. The united church was still in reality divided
> and now the divison focused on the amandment which finally resulted in
> the split 1054 because of the Filiocque-question.
> Within the Eastern half of the pro-forma united church the old Arian
> fight continued but now disguised as the Theotokos-debate. There were
> two centrals, Antioc arguing the Arian wiew and Alexandria the
> Nicaenan. The question was wether God could be born by a human woman.
> The Antiocenes meant Jesus was both human and divine and hence could
> be borne by a woman, but this was rejected by the Alexandrians
> claiming Jesus Christ was wholly divine. In the long run this gives
> Mary a similar position of type Boddisathva as Arius had given Jesus
> and she is, as the first ever, made a saint. Her saintly background is
> of course also closely connected with Isis and Harpokrates in the Late
> Antique cult of Serapion and further back to the different
> Mother-goddesses. Here we touch also a connection to the Tree of Life.
> The council of Efesos in 431 aknowledged the position of Mary as
> Theotokos. Jean Damascène writes in the 7th c. that Mary was the
> tabernacle in which  logos was incarnated into Jesus, finally  making
> him Christ. Also in James’s protevangelium 4:1 and in Photius is
> stressed, that Marys mother, Anna, had a vision that her daughter
> should be the instrument delivering human blood to Christ, to be let
> out for the salvation of the world. There is accordingly no doubt that
> Jesus is described as born with human blood. After death Theotokos
> raised to heaven, now residing  with the Father and the Son. This is
> illustrated in the grave-chapel of  Chora church, where Mary wears the
> imperial purple mantle.
> Here we are, accordingly, the old Orientalic trinity  with father,
> mother and son. Adding  also the Gnostics we have a unification of
> male and female-spirit and matter - both leading to the single
> allmighty God, the result of both the forces like O and H becames OH2.
> The female power is connected to the  Earth and the growing things and
> the male is the spiritual force. Hence, also in Christian context Mary
> is connected with plants and fertility. Very early the Tree of Life is
> connected with her and so is the heart-palmette. The Tree of Life, in
> combination with the hearts,on the Byzantine,Armenian and Vestgautic
> Tree of Life Slabs indicates indeed Mary and her son, the Tree,
> growing out of the soil but on a divine foundation of a zikkurate, and
> thereby stressing that Jesus is born human, by a human mother, and is
> indeed the Son, not the Father.'
>
> According to the above it is quite possible also that Islam could be
> influenced by early Arianism. The reason  Egypt later turned into
> Islam is just the monoteistic question and Arius worked in Alexandria
> and had a tremendous support of the local population. That is one of
> the reasons the opposition as well centered in Alexandria and used any
> force to fight Arius and his followers.
>
> Best regards
> Ingemar
>
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "ualarauans" <ualarauans at ...> wrote:
> > Hailai,
> >
> > How would you explain the fragment Skeir. 7:7
> >
> > akei nauh us þamma filu mais siponjans fullafahida jah anþarans
> > gamaudida gaumjan, þatei is was sa sama, saei in auþidai •m• jere
> > attans ize fodida...
> >
> > "but much more from this (five loaves and two fishes) he (Jesus) had
> > satisfied the disciples and reminded the others to see that he was
> > THE SAME WHO FED THEIR FATHERS IN THE DESERT FOUR HUNDRED YEARS".
> >
> > As you see Jesus is literally identified with God Father. Is this
> > view really Arian? If not, how did it get here?
> >
> > Ualarauans
>
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