Early Arianism

[Ingemar Nordgren]

Hi Wolfgang!

Arius teacher belonged to the school of Origenes. Arius went further
still. When he had newly started his lectures he is reported by
Alexander to have said that Jesus divinity was questionable. 'The son
was not eternal like the father'. He had stated that 'the father knows
his son but the son does not know the father'.(Athanasius, Thalia) He
claimed that: ‘Before Christ, God was not yet a father.’ ‘There was
when he was not’.(Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God 5-8)
Rather than asserting that Jesus was divine by nature, Arius
emphasized that  he had earned his adoption as son and his promotion
to divine status through moral growth and obedience to God.(Gregg R.E.
and Groh, D.E., Early arianism- A wiew of salvation, Philadelphia
1981). Arius still verbally accepted the pre-existence of Christ, but
nota bene not of Jesus, and beleived that God had conceived him
(Christ)before time began. He also wrote: At Gods will the son is what
and whatsoever he(God) is.This, to me, points rather towards different
incarnations of God of which Christ, not Jesus, is one.Accordingly
Arius advanced the view that Jesus was a creature intermediary between
man and God. All Christians beleived that Jesus sacrifice redeemed
humanity. Alexander asked himself what would happen if people
understood what Arius was preaching and ask themselves what God did
for the son by resurrecting him and granting him immortality.Reaction:
But if Jesus was not God by nature – if he earned his deification by
growing in wisdom and virtue – why, so can we all.(Rubinstein 1999) 

This is indeed in my opinion a quite correct conclusion of Arius
teaching. He tried to keep both the ideas of  Origenes and deny them.
He agrees that Christ is a lesser God and the first created entity but
this does not include Jesus, who is adopted from human flesh. Again
this is rather the initial idea of Sabellius with three incarnations
or aspects of the single God.

You make a formal difference between Christology and Trinitarism and
of course you are technically correct. Still those questions are not
able to exist independent of each other. You claim there was no
Arianism in the empire when the logos question and Theotokos  was
discussed. Of course not since it was legally forbidden. This however
did not change the belief of the former Arians. They stuck to what was
left of possibilities to declare Jesus human by birth. The
Alexandrians okej agreed he was human and divine from birth but in
Antiocia he was just human and later became divine in Christ – the
resurrected entity (and not the dead one human in Arian sense, but
this they could of course not express officially).

You also claim that Nicea is the foundation of all Christians and very
important. Unhappily it is for most Christian churches but this does
not make it better in any way. Still there are Christian beliefs  that
are not Nicean and Arianism  is not dead except of to the name and may
all Non-Nicean creeds flower. Is there indeed any sensible person who
beleives the human Jesus  created the world and the universe??!!
Possibly some clergymen but probably not many.

Wulfila of course is later and was, as I wrote, influenced by the
Nicean compromise.He appears on a consilium in Constantinople in 360
when the Arian bishops confirm the earlier decision of the
Rimini-consilium, namely to change the basic concept that ’the father
is not of the same nature as the son’, which shall be changed to say
that ’the son is similar with the father’ – this means that the son is
homoios (similar to) the father – not of the same essence, which was
claimed in Nicea. The word essence (ousia) should not be used since it
caused trouble for the people to understand. In a similar way the word
substance (hypostasis) was forbidden.This means a partly acceptance of
the demands of the Niceanean bishops, but still a clear Arian
borderline is marked.
 Before  he dies Wulfila issues a creed in 381 clearly distancing
himself from Nicea. It is found in a letter from his disciple bishop
Auxentius:
He beleives in the not created and invisible God, in his only created
Son, who created all, and in the Holy Spirit, who is neither god or
lord, but the fidel servant of Christ, not equal with him, but
subordinated and obedient to the Son in all things,like also the Son
is subordinated and obedient to his Father in all things.

This accordingly refutes the agreement in Constantinople 381-2
dictated by Theodosius. Note as well he writes Christ and not Jesus.


If you have good literature in German I would be happy to learn of
that, since it is problems to find good literature in English in these
questions.

Die besten Grüße!
Ingemar

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