An Analysis of Early Christian Theologians and Their Trinitarian Theology in Relation to Platonism
In the earliest years of the third century CE, a man named Origen took up the work of many noble men of the Christian tradition before him. As one of the first in the line of defenders of Christianity, Origen was the successor to the theological works of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Tatian, and Clement of Alexandria in intellectual genealogy.1 Though not all of these men addressed the same things within the early Christian community, each was engaged in the writing and rhetoric of their times, working to keep stable the fragile world of the early Hellenistic Christians. Origen, perhaps more than any before him, began addressing the theological relationship between the Father and the Son in earnest. He used all the intellectual tools at his disposal, and became "the archetypal Christian scholar, fully engaged in prayer and in the life of the church."2 His work was the start of a tradition that generated classical Trinitarian theology, and it was this legacy of thought that he passed down to later theologians in the East and the West, including an excommunicated attendee of Christianity's most momentous ecumenical council.
In the early fourth century, an Alexandrian priest named Arius was at the center of a controversy that quickly consumed most of his theologian contemporaries. By stating that Christ was on the contigent side of the gulf between God and Creation in order to save the Church the embarrassment of having to explain how three distinct realities (Father, Son, and Spirit) are somehow one God, Arius brought calamity to his Alexandrian community. His bishop, Alexander, excommunicated Arius3 but the Roman emperor, Constantine, a recent Christian convert, took an interest in his case.
The emperor arrived in the East in 324 to find the churches there "writhing in controversy"4 over Arianism. As the debate began to echo more and more throughout the Christian world, it was decided that a 325 Council scheduled to meet in Ankara would be moved to the town of Nicaea, near Constantine's own palace.5 Arianism was moved to the fore of the agenda, and it was bitterly argued at the ecumenical council until finally Arius' Platonist theology of the relationship between Father and Son lost the battle, and the original Nicene Creed was drafted in such a way as to conclusively protect orthodoxy against similar attacks in the future. Perhaps, as Arius' theology was so Platonic, this orthodox victory shows that the Creed as it took form was non-Platonic in nature.
One of Arius' greatest opponents was St. Athanasius, who attended the Council as a deacon (which might explain his rabid defense of anti-Arian orthodoxy). In his earlier works, Athanasius depended a great deal on Platonic ideas to advance his theology. However, by the time Athanasius began writing his later works contra Arius, and perhaps because of Arius' extensive use of Platonism, Athanasius harbored more anti-Platonic sentiments. So Athanasius advanced his theology against Arius with whatever tools were at his disposal, so great was his distaste for Arianism.
