Early Arianism

[Wolfgang Franz]

Hi Ingemar.

I think you make the mistake in separating the preexistent Christ from Jesus. 
Of course nobody believes that the human Jesus created everything. Jehoschua 
ben Joseph, as was his real name, was the incarnation of the preexistent 
Logos. After the incarnation he had both natures, unmixed and unseperated. In 
the catholic church we talk about christmas as of the festivity of the 
incarnation. The christological question is in fact: "Who died at the cross? 
A man, a god, or what?" Chalkedon said: "Both."

Good literature in German, although very complicated:

Scheffczyk, Ziegenaus: Katholische Dogmatik, Bd.2, Der Gott der Offenbarung

Scheffczyk, Ziegenaus: Katholische Dogmatik, Bd.4, Jesus Christus. Die Fülle 
des Heils.

These books look at the trinity and the christology, so the arian question is 
only part of them. But they look at the question from a very neutral point of 
view.

Please don't misunderstand me: I don't want to blame Arius, in fact I want to 
defend him. He had a point, especially his christology is much smoother and 
easier than the one of Chalcedon (although this doesn't mean I think it's 
true).


Viele Grüße,

Wolfgang



Am Montag, 2. April 2007 01:32 schrieb 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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