[gothic-l] Re: Arianism

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Ingemar Nordgren" <ingemar at n...>
wrote:
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, greg scaff <g_scaff at y...> wrote:
> > Hails,
> > Thanks again to  all.
> > To add to some of this, I have since read in Lives of the
Visigothic
> Fathers by A.T. Fear, in a footnote on p xii, ( which refers to
> Gregory of Tours  GC 24 and John of Biclarum Chron. 58,  ) that
> Goths-I assume Visigoths- referred to their church as the "Catholic"
> church,  (whatever "catholic=universal  was in Gothic), and the
> Orthodox as the "Roman" church. Christians of whatever stripe in
that
> time , as Dirk said, were concerned to be the 'one true universal
holy
> church",  that concept was a pervasive value,  so Goths were
> apparently in step with everyone else, as has been said.
>
>
> Hi Greg,
>
> I am not sure those references are universally adaptable. The
> Visigoths were Arian till the conversion of Reccared in 586 only,
and
> then they turned Roman Catholic. When Gregory refers to the Catholic
> Church you must  consider he became bishop of Tours in the Frankish
> realm 573 and not all Visigoths were Arian even before 586, not even
> all bishops, specially not one who became a Frankish bishop. He was
a
> power-keeper closely related to the Merovingian kings who were
> Catholic. Hence  his statement does not inform of what the
confessing
> Arians  called their church because he most surely refers to the
> church that he and the Catholics regarded as theirs. The so called
> Catholic church of Teodosius was but a joke and in reality it was
> divided in a Greek/Eastern part and a Western more loyal to the pope
> and supported by the Franks. The final break when you get an Ortodox
> and  a Roman Catholic church is not until 1054 through the
> filioque-question, that already after the council in Constantinople
in
> 386 was rejected by the pope and his followers, but cheerished in
the
> Eastern church as the most important part of the decision of the
> council. Besides in the Eastern half there was a fight between the
> followers of Nicea centered in Alexandria and  the disguised,
> forbidden Arians in Antiocia. The fight was disguised as concerning
> the Teotokos - the God Mother. Hence the Arians could only appear
> openly in the Germanic states but many Eastern/Romans in the eastern
> part of the so called Catholic church in reality stayed Arians quite
> long.The differences may be small to Dirk but they indeed were
> impressively great for the confesssors and even now there is a great
> difference between claiming that God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost were
> all equal/of the same matter and gods, Jesus was supposed to have
been
> the first created entity having  existed all the time in the
decision
> of 386.




Hi Ingemar,

this is a slight misunderstanding. Clearly, for the people involved
at the time the difference between an Arian and a Catholic confession
was significant. However, it has been pointed out (I'll get the
reference later) that the Catholic practice was much closer to the
Arian creed than the actual doctrines foresaw. Hence, although Jesus
is seen as 'God's equal' in the 'theoretical interpretation of
Catholicism, Jesus' role as son of god has always made him 'inferior'
to God almighty. This is still the case today. I am not a theologian,
and some of the expressions I use may be questionable, but it is
widely agreed that in the real perception of these things Catholicism
and Arianism were practically the same thing in substance.

I think the factor which made Arianism unacceptable to the Catholic
church, and which likely created the biggest rift between the two was
the fact that the pope claims to be the 'representative of Jesus on
earth'. Thus, if Jesus' role is diminished, as it is in the Arian
teaching, so is that of the pope. However, for the normal Christians
there was really no substantial difference, since Catholics in
practice regarded God superior to Jesus, just as the Arians did only
perhaps in a slightly more explicit way.


Cheers
Dirk


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