In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus poses an important question to his disciples: "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" The twelve quickly answer his question with a list of popular opinions, but when forced to reach a decision on their own, they cannot easily come up with an answer.[1] Indeed, three centuries after this question was initially posed by Jesus, it had still not been satisfactorily answered by his followers. The question is no mere theological polemic, for if it is through Jesus that mankind is saved, the question of Jesus' identity is necessarily a question that strikes at the very nature of salvation itself. It is beyond the scope of this paper to answer a question of such magnitude; rather, this paper will examine the teachings of a man who did attempt such an answer, the philosophical background that produced his teachings, and the early developments of the movement that his teachings inspired. He is often referred to as the Great Heretic; scorned as a teacher of false doctrine and a servant of the devil, his name is Arius, and his teachings are known as Arianism.

Following the works of Robert Gregg and Dennis Groth, early Arianism shall be defined primarily as those doctrines and beliefs put forward by the movement's first writers: Arius (256-336), Asterius the Sophist (d. ca. 341), and Eusebius of Nicodemia (d. ca. 342). The teachings and works of second generation Arians, commonly referred to as neo-Arians, and those who attempted a compromise with the Nicene Christians after the first Ecumenical Council of Nicea, commonly referred to as semi-Arians, will not be examined. It is sufficient to say that these groups did differ slightly in their doctrinal statements from the early Arians, and at times even disavowed any connection to Arius himself.[2]

Any examination of the historical beginnings of Arianism is immediately hampered by a lack of first-hand Arian literature. After the teachings of Arius were rejected by the Christian Church at the council of Nicea in 325, Arius was condemned as a heretic, and "people who owned his writings were ordered to deliver them up on pain of punishment."[3] Although some extant copies of Arius' own writings and other early Arian sources do exist, they are nonetheless painfully sparse. Therefore, in order to make a thorough examination of early Arianism -- indeed, any examination at all -- one must attempt to find in the works of later Arian writers, and the works of one of Arius' great opponents, Athanasius of Alexandria, some core of early Arian doctrine.

It is tempting to use the works of Athanasius as a source for Arianism, for it is here that direct mention of Arius' beliefs and quotations of his work are purported to be found. Scholars agree, however, that much of Athanasius' reproduction of the words of Arius are a "mixture of paraphrase, expansion (designed to bring out the unacceptable implications of what Arius actually says), and fragmentary quotation."[4] All this aside, one section of Athanasius' de Synodis , generally referred to as the 'blasphemies of Arius,' is considered by most scholars to be an authentic reproduction of Arius' teachings.[5] This section, taken with a great deal of support from later Arian works, have laid the foundation for modern research into early Arianism. This paper will thus draw from a sufficient body of historical and theological literature on Arianism, as well as look at the 'blasphemies of Arius' as they are reproduced in Hanson's The Search for the Christian God . Before one turns to the doctrines of Arianism itself, however, some background into the historical and philosophical developments that produced Arius' theology is in order.

Leading up to the Crisis

Christianity was born into a world of great dichotomy. Still firmly committed to the Jewish faith that it had inherited, the fledgling religion nonetheless attempted to grow and establish itself within a world dominated by Greek philosophy. Thus, the early developments of Christian doctrine dealt primarily with the adoption and incorporation of a philosophy that was, to some extent, at odds with Christianity's religious heritage. In Jewish thought, God was conceived of as being an 'artisan' -- one who is totally unlike creation and separate from it. Following the works of Aristotle, Plato, and the Stoics, however, the Greek understanding of God centered around His role as 'begetter' -- one who 'generates' the world and all creatures out of His own essence.[6] If the entire world was begotten out of God's essence, however, Christians were forced to ask how it was, then, that God was present within the person of Jesus of Nazareth? If God's essence is in everything (for everything comes from God), then why not speak of everyone as being the begotten sons and daughters of God? It is with these two contradictory and conflicting notions of 'artisan' and 'begetter' that the Christian community attempted to synthesize a distinctly Christian notion of God, and Jesus' relationship to Him.

Any primitive Christian concept of Jesus as just another man with human origins had early on been dismissed by the Christmas narratives of Matthew and Luke. Although Jesus had lived and walked among the people as a simple carpenter and a religious teacher, he was from the very beginning of the Christian movement conceived of as being different. Beyond his miraculous birth, the early Christian community believed that Jesus had, in some sense, existed before his appearance as a Galilean Jew. Thus, his relationship with God would not be as simple as the relationship that all humans have with God, for the early Christian community believed that Jesus, in at least some aspect, transcended humanity.

First century Christian writers, such as Paul of Tarsus and John the Evangelist, described Jesus of Nazareth as having a 'preexistence' as God's Wisdom or 'Logos.'[7] Jesus' human birth at Bethlehem had been adequately described in the gospels, but the question of whether the preexistent Logos had come into being through generation or creation was not specifically laid out in Scripture. Paul spoke of the preexistent Christ as "Son" and "the firstborn of creation," and the Gospel of John specifically refers to him as the "only begotten." There is some reason to believe that these references were originally meant to be taken within the context of the Jewish tradition, and not to be taken literally. Jesus was called "begotten," and was "God's Son" only in a figurative sense, and certainly had been "created" or made by God.[8]

If this was indeed the early Christian community's view of Jesus of Nazareth, by the late third and early fourth century, the Christian view of God had radically changed. No longer was the Son conceived of as having been simply created. By the time Arius was born in Libya in 256, the Christian Church had come to believe, like the Gnostic heretics of the second century, that the Son had been generated by the Father.[9] Although generation in this regard was not identical to human generation, fourth century Christianity taught that the Logos was by no means a creature. Those phrases of Scripture that called the Logos "Son" or "begotten" were now taken in a much more literal sense by such influential theologians and Christian apologists as Justin Martyr, Theophilus and Origen.[10]

This is not to say that all Christians on the eve of the Arian controversy felt that the Church had adequately explained the Son's relationship to God. Scripture had presented the picture of the Word, or Son, as God, but how this could be true, and how a distinction between the Father and the Son could still be drawn, was never completely understood or explained, even by the most influential theologians. Although all agreed that Christ's divinity was in effect a 'mystery,' a clear distinction still needed to be made between God and creation. Either Christ was on the divine side of the gulf, or the created side.

By the fourth century, the persecution of the Church that had long been the hallmark of previous centuries had ended with the edict of Milan in 312. Persecution from the government had occupied such a central role in the lives of Christians during the second and third centuries, that any doctrinal disputes that may have existed at the time were certainly secondary in importance. Now, however, imperial repression would no longer overshadow the Church's need to clarify its doctrines. The Church had for nearly a century maintained some degree of clarity on the Son's divinity by following Origen's sufficiently vague teaching that the Son was "eternally generated" from the Father.[11] It became painfully apparent in the early part of the fourth century, however, that more clarity was needed. Christianity after 312, therefore, could not allow Jesus to ride the fence of divinity as it were; to allow this to continue would create uncertainty about the person of Jesus, and thus bring into question the issue of salvation. To no surprise, some were content to leave God's relationship to the Son in the realm of mystery. A young presbyter by the name of Arius, however, decided that, in the midst of the Church's uncertainty, he was going to set everyone straight.

The Controversy Begins

The Arian controversy found its formal beginning in a debate between Arius and Bishop Alexander of Alexandria. During a lecture on the nature of God, Arius contested Alexander's assertion that there was an eternal 'oneness' between the Father and the Son. Arius' objection to Alexander was a simple one: "If the Father had begotten the Son, he who had been begotten had a beginning, and therefore there must have been a time when the Son did not exist."[12] Alexander, like many Christians of his time, thought it reprehensible to believe that the Son was created. (Perhaps more to his dislike was the fact that a subordinate of his dared to challenge his authority). Whether the fierceness of the debate had more to do with the egos of the men involved or the issue at hand is irrelevant; the Arian controversy had more importantly brought to the forefront of the Christian Church the unresolved issue of Christ's divinity.

As stated above, Scripture had called the Son "God," and apparently considered him to be equal with the Father.[13] At the same time, however, even a cursory glance at the New Testament reveals that Jesus himself claimed to be inferior to, and distinct from God. At John 20:17, he tells Mary Magdalene that the Father is his God; he specifically says in John 14:28 that "the Father is greater than I;" he claims imperfect knowledge; he could not do things by himself, and apparently disclaimed moral perfection as well.[14]

Arius drew upon these passages to demonstrate that, although the Son should indeed be called "God," since he was inferior to the Father, he was "God" in name only. With Christ's inferiority as his starting point, Arius then put into motion his supreme argument from one of his most important 'proof-texts,' Proverbs 8:22. Here, God's Wisdom says, "The Lord created me as the beginning of his work." For Arius, then, God the Father had created the Son, who then became a "secondary God" or a "subservient God."[15] The Father and the Son were indeed 'one,' but in moral perfection only, and were certainly not identical in being.[16] In other words, Arius had effectively solved the issue of Christ's divinity by placing him with the 'created' beings.

[related topics]
[history page]

Early Arianism, Footnotes

note: All Bible verses taken from the NRSV.

1. Matthew 16:14.

2. R.C.P. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God , (Edinburgh: 1988), 127 28. M.R. Kopeck, "Neo Arian Religion: Evidence of the Apostolic Constitutions," Arianism : Historical and Theological Reassessments, (Philadelphia: 1985) 160-2.

3. Walter Nigg, The Heretics , Richard and Clara Winston, Ed. and trans. (New York: 1962), 128.

4. R.D. Williams, "The Quest for the Historical Thalia," Arianism , (Philadelphia: 1985), 1.

5. Williams, 1-9.

6. Harry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers , vol.1, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1970), 290-91.

7. John 1:1; 1 Corinthians 10:4.

8. Wolfson, 291.

9. Henry Chadwick, "The Early Christian Community," The Oxford History of Christianity , John McManners, Ed., (Oxford: 1993), 29.

10. Wolfson, 292.

11. Chadwick, 65.

12. Nigg, 124.

13. John 1:1; Philippians 2:6.

14. Mark 13:32; John 12:49; Matthew 10:18.

15. Hanson, 102.

16. Chadwick, 65, 102.