Heresies:

ARIANISM

Arius of Alexandria

and his Heretical Christology

Introduction

It has been assumed, due to St. Epiphanius' questionable influence, that Origen was responsile for Arianism, due to his influence upon Arius. It is true that Arius, used certain elements of Origen's theology, but just about every theologian after Origen (even his most fierce opponents) exploited his commentaries and writings for their own purposes. It is very difficult to find a theologian who was not influenced by Origen. Yet, it is unlikely that Origenism inevatibly leads to Arianism. In Eusebius of Ceasarea's case it is his Origenism that de facto saves him from being an Arian! It seems that Arius has filtered out all Origen's teaching concerning the distinctness of Father and Son, and used it to affirm his own doctrine that he developed from the teachings of his master, Lucian of Antioch. In fact, Origen's teaching concerning the eternal begetting of the Son becomes a cornerstone of Nicene Orthodoxy! An aspect of Origen's theology avoided and completely neglected by Arius, yet it was not lost on St. Athanasius of Alexandria who used Origen's idea with genuine gratitude in his battles against Arius and Arianism. As will also become clear in this article, Arius did not deny the Divinity the Son, in fact he vigorously affirms it. Arius real heresy lies in the fact that his denial of the the Orthodox position concerning the Father and the Son having the same Ousia (substance), lead him to polytheïsm and a de facto denial of the Incarnation. Arius thereby undermines the inner-most basic truths of Christianity.

Below you will find a short exposé of Arius' theology, to get an idea of his doctrines, which we can later compare with Origen's.

Who was Arius?

Arius is probably the most famous heresiarch in all of Christianity. He emerged from virtual silence in 318. He then openly criticized his Bishop, Alexander of Alexandria who succeeded Achiles of Alexandria as Bishop, for his Christology. Before that time, Arius is an obscure figure and the reports of his history are conflicting. Of certaintity it can be said that he was a student of Lucian of Antioch, and that he must have been born around 256 in Lybia, and he died somewhere around 336. Bishop Peter of Alexandria ordained Arius Deacon, and Peter's successor, Achiles of Alexandria ordained him Priest. Achiles successor, Alexander of Alexandria, probably put Arius in charge of a church in Baucalis. There is mention of an 'Arius' involved with Militius of Lycopolis, but it is unlikely to have been our Arius. Militius, took the Bishopric from Peter of Alexandia when Peter fled persecution. Militius appears to have thought that Peter lost his claim to the See of Alexandria as he fled persecution. Peter, of course, protested. Militius was captured and imprisoned, and eventually condemend to work in the mines for his Christian faith. Peter, was eventually martyred for his Christian faith. While in prison Melitius ordained two men, Isodorus and Arius. It is alleged by some authors that Arius opposed Peter's hard line against re-admission of Militians back to the fold, also it is alleged that Arius had a pact with Melitius. It is very unlikely, for one thing, Athanasius, who would not have looked over such a thing to use against Arius, never mentions this. Also, it would imply that Arius was ordained Deacon three times! Once by Melitius, once by Achiles, and once by Peter! Obviously that's absurd. It is more according to common sense to assume that the Arius involved with Militius was another person, for Arius was a very common name at that time. This would be about all we know about Arius' prior to 318. After that, he becomes the most (in)famous heresiarch of Christendom.

What did Arius teach?

There are no complete works of Arius that survived to this day. His opponents destroyed them, and his fellow Arians did not consider his works worthy of copying (Arius was not the originator of a school, and many Arians did not feel attached to Arius at all).

R. Lorentz has summerized Arius' and Arian doctrine in 9 "articles of Arian faith". They are:

1) God was not always Father

2) The Logos or Son is a creature, God made him out of nothing (ex nihilo)

3) There are two Logoi and two Sophiae

4) The Son is alterable by nature, but remains unaltered as a gift of God

5) The Logos is alien from the Divine Being, and distinct; he is not true God because he has come into existence

6) The Son's knowledge of God is imperfect

7) The Son's knowledge of himself is limited

8) Anthropocentric Cosmology; the Son was created for our sakes, as an instrument for creating us

9) A Trinity of dissimilar hypostases

Understanding the Articles of Arian Faith

1 At the very core of the Arius' theology is the absolute transcendance, and solitariness of the Father. Who alone is God in the truest sense, Who alone is Uncreated, Unbegotten, etc. There was a time when there was no Son, hence God was not always the Father but only since the time He created the Son (out of nothing). Arius wanted to be a very rigid monotheïst.

2 The Son is created out of non-existence by the Father and is therefore unequal to the Father's substance (ousia). But, Arius is quick to add, the Son is not a creature as the creatures are. Which means that the Son is unlike the other creatures, even though He Himself is a creature too.

3 The interpretation of Wisdom (Sophia) as the pre-existent Christ was well known by Arius' time. The Logos was also understood as theologically identical to Wisdom, and was therefore also interpreted as the pre-existent Christ (the influence of Philo of Alexandria is strong in Christianity). Strictly speaking Logos and Wisdom belonged to God only, and they could apply to the Son loosely or inexactly only. Wherefore there are actually two Logoi and two Sophiae. One which aplies to God only and is immanent to Him from eternity, and another which is aplied to the Son, which is not immanent to God from eternity. The Son can be called Wisdom as well as Logos, according to Arius, but that does not suggest to him that the Son is of the Father's substance.

4 Arius taught that the Son could not sin because God granted Him stability in view of His foreseen merits. God foresaw that the Son was going to be good, and acted upon it beforehand, by rewarding Him with stability in the good.

5 Arius has no objection to saying that the Son is begotten by the Father (as later Arians would). To Arius creating and begetting were identical. If we ask when the Son was begotten or made, Arius becomes confusing. He says that the Son was made before all times and ages, but he also insists that there was a time when the Son did not exist and the father was not Father, thereby suggesting time before the Son's creation. It could be that Arius thought that time only exists when there are heavenly bodies, and before that there is no time. Which was a contemporary view in Platonic thinking. But we have no evidence to be certain. There is no mention of this anywhere in the Arian Controversy, which seems to indicate that Arius didn't have this in mind. It seems that Arius is uncomfortable with this question and was unable to find a satisfactory answer.

6 The Son can only imperfectly know the Father because created things cannot fully know their Creator. The Creator is always incomprehensible to His creatures.

7 The Son does not even know His own nature nor comprehend it completely.

8 Arius pushed yet another 'established' doctrine to its logical extreme when he asserted the Son was created as a mediator to create us. God cannot be in actual direct touch with creation, it would disintegrate due to God's 'total otherness'. Arius therefore postulated that the Son is the necessary (created) Mediator between God and creation. In fact, the Son is the instrument for our creation! The Son is a created Creator.

9 According to Arius there are three existing realities that are unlike in their substance (ousia). The union which makes them a Trinity is a moral one only, not one according to substance. There is no real Trinity, the Trinity to arius is simply three unlike substances united in a moral unity, not an ontological reality. Arius denies that there is One Divine Nature, shared equally by Three Divine Persons (see fragment 11).

Arius on the Incarnation

It has often been suggested that Arius was not at all interrested in soteriology. That would seem to be a serious misrepresentation. In fact arius whole system seems to be flowing from his desire to present a real and effective doctrine of salvation. We have a quote from a Rule of faith that Arius sent to Constantine the Great (repeated by Constantine in his response to Arius) that says: "One God... there is an unoriginated and unending Word of His substance,"... and "the alien nature of the body for the sake of implementation if the divine activities," and "the Spirit of eternity was in the superior Word", and "an alien being". Later Constantine qouted Arius as saying: "No! I do not wish God to be involved with the suffering of insults," and "whatever you take away from Him, in that you make Him less," and "Christ suffered for us...yes, but there is a danger that we may appear to lessen Him in some way". In this quote the abusive langauge that Constantine hurls Arius' way has been removed wherefore it seems somewhat incoherent. Yet we are here presented with what seems to be Arius' teaching concerning the Incarnation. It seems strange at first to see Arius refer to the Son as 'unoriginated and unending Word of His substance', that would have meant he gave up his ideas for the Faith of the Orthodox as stated in the Nicene formula (homoousios). It is therefore much more likely that Arius does not refer to the Son in the above sentence, but to the Logos eternally immanent in God. The same goes for 'Spirit of eternity'. the Logos and the Spirit are not seperate hypostases from God. the 'alien being' must have been a reference to the Son. The remaining quotations of Arius refer to the Incarnation and are warnings against saying that the Son is 'consubstantial' (of the same ousia, homoousios) with the Father. Arius thinks that by doing so, we say that the Father is compromised and exposed to suffering. Which makes God passible and mutible, subject to change and alteration. If Father and Son are of the same substance (ousia) than due to the Incarnation God is made passible and subject to change. In his own doctrine of the Incarnation Arius attempts to avoid this conclusion, and tries to protect the Father from being exposed to human experiences and therefore from being subject to change.

What Arius was looking for was a God who could Incarnate, and suffer, without compromising the Father. They found it in their theory of the created Creator. The divinity of the Son is created divinity. The Son is a God capable of suffering, a 'second God' as He was referred to. The Incarnation was the taking on of a human body by the Son. Arius perceived it to be impossible that a 'mere man' (a complete human being, body, soul and spirit) could have had any salvific value. The Son therefore Incarnated in a 'soma apsychon' or a 'soulless body'. The Son (Logos) was the animating principle in Christ, and it was therefore the Son who suffered. In Christ God was Incarnate and suffered for our redemption. seen from this angle Arius' theology is about redemption and is very concerned with soteriology. It might be argued that his theory of the relations between the Father and the Son were necessary to him to uphold a real possibility of redemption. Arius seems to have thought that proclaiming the Son as 'of the same substance as the Father' endangered the true significance of the Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

Arius had found a Christology that was perfectly capable of explaining the human weaknesses of Jesus, hunger, sleep, sadness, ignorance, doubt etc. as portrayed in the synoptic Gospels. Features that were generally not too much focussed upon by the Orthodox. Arius solution was a creative one, and a well reasoned one. The price however, was big, too big. In Arius theology there is no real theosis (deïfication), and no real Incarnation. The Logos does not become a 'real' human being, He merely animates flesh as a kind of puppet on a string, thereby in effect denying the reality of the Incarnation. Jesus was not a real human being, as you and I are. Therefore God was not truly Incarnate in Him. Also the 'second God' theory, the Logos as created God is a direct violation of the monotheïsm Arius set out to protect. While defending it vigorously, Arius in fact falls into polytheïsm.

(courtesy of http://home.zonnet.nl)