Arianism

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Arianism was a 4th-century Christian heresy named for Arius (c.250-c.336), a priest in Alexandria. Arius denied the full deity of the preexistent Son of God who became incarnate in Jesus Christ. He held that the Son, while divine and like God ("of like substance"), was created by God as the agent through whom he created the universe. Arius said of the Son, "there was a time when he was not." Arianism became so widespread in the Christian church and resulted in such disunity that the emperor Constantine convoked a church council at Nicaea in 325 (see Councils of Nicaea).

Led by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, the council condemned Arianism and stated that the Son was consubstantial (of one and the same substance or being) and coeternal with the Father, a belief formulated as homoousios ("of one substance") against the Arian position of homoiousios ("of like substance"). Nonetheless, the conflict continued, aided by the conflicting politics of the empire after the death of Constantine (337).

Three types of Arianism emerged: radical Arianism, which asserted that the Son was "dissimilar" to the Father; homoeanism, which held that the Son was similar to the Father; and semi-Arianism, which shaded off into orthodoxy and held that the Son was similar yet distinct from the Father.

After an initial victory of the homoean party in 357, the semi-Arians joined the ranks of orthodoxy, which finally triumphed except in Teutonic Christianity, where Arianism survived until after the conversion (496) of the Franks. Although much of the dispute about Arianism seems a battle over words (Edward Gibbon scornfully observed that Christianity was split over a single iota, the difference between homoousios and homoiousios), a fundamental issue involving the integrity of the Gospel was at stake: whether God was really in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

Reginald H. Fuller

Bibliography
Gregg, R. C., ed., Arianism: Historical and Theological Reassessments (1987); Gwatkin, H. M., Studies of Arianism, 2d ed. (1900); Newman, John Henry, The Arians of the Fourth Century (1833; repr. 1968).

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Arianism

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The birth date for Arius, the North African priest who gave his name to one of Christianity's most troublesome schisms, is uncertain. He seems to have been born in Libya. He was in all probability a pupil of Lucien of Antioch. During the bishopric of Peter of Alexandria (300-311) Arius was made a deacon in that city and began the stormy pastoral career which is known to history. He was in rapid succession excommunicated for his association with the Melitians, restored by Achillas, Bishop of Alexandria (311-12), and given priestly orders and the church of Baucalis. Sometime between 318 and 323 Arius came into conflict with Bishop Alexander over the nature of Christ. In a confusing series of synods a truce was attempted between adherents of Alexander and followers of Arius; in March of 324 Alexander convened a provincial synod which acknowledged the truce but anathematized Arius. Arius responded with his publication of Thalia (which exists only as it is quoted in refutation by Athanasius) and by repudiating the truce. In February, 325, Arius was then condemned at a synod in Antioch. The Emperor Constantine was intervening by this time, and it was he who called the first ecumenical council, the Council of Nicaea. This council met on May 20, 325, and subsequently condemned Arius and his teaching. Present in the entourage of Alexander at this council was Athanasius. He took little part in the affairs of the Council of Nicaea, but when he became Bishop of Alexandria in 328, he was to become the unremitting foe of Arius and Arianism and the unflagging champion of the Nicene formula.

Following his condemnation Arius was banished to to Illyricum. There he continued to write, teach, and appeal to an ever broadening circle of political and ecclesiastical adherents of Arianism. Around 332 or 333 Constantine opened direct contact with Arius, and in 335 the two met at Nicomedia. There Arius presented a confession which Constantine considered sufficiently orthodox to allow for the reconsideration of Arius's case. Therefore, following the dedication of the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem the Synod of Jerusalem declared for the readmittance of Arius to communion even as he lay dying in Constantiople. Since Arian views were being advanced by many active bishops and members of the court, and Arius himself had ceased to play a vital role in the controversy, his death in 335 or 336 did nothing to diminish the furor in the church. Instead of resolving the issues, the Council of Nicaea had launched an empire-wide Christological debate by its condemnation of Arius.

Arius was a thoroughgoing Greek rationalist. He inherited the almost universally held Logos Christology of the East. He labored in Alexandria, the center for Origenist teachings on the subordination of the Son to the Father. He blended this heritage into a rationalist Christology that lost the balance Origen had maintained in his subordinationist theology by his insistence on the eternal generation of the Son.

The guard against the error of Arius and the Arianism erected by the symbol and anathemas adopted by the Council of Nicaea serve as an outline of Arius's fundamental position.

Nicaea's "in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only-begotten, that is from the substance of the Father" was to offset Arius's central assertion that God was immutable, unique, unknowable, only one. Therefore Arians felt no substance of God could in any way be communicated or shared with any other being. The council's "true God from true God, begotten not made" set aside Arius's contention that, since God was immutable and unknowable, Christ had to be a created being, made out of nothing by God, first in the created order certainly, but of it. This limited the concept of the preexistence of Christ even while adapting the dominant Logos Christology to Arianism. The Logos, first born, created of God, was incarnate in the Christ but, asserted Arius, "there was when he was not."

Nicaea's "of one substance with the Father" made the Greek term homoousios the catchword of the orthodox. Arianism developed two parties, one of which felt Christ was of a substance like the Father (homoiousios). A more extreme wing insisted that as a created being Christ was unlike the Father in substance (anomoios). Arius himself would have belonged to the first or more moderate party.

The council's anathemas were extended to all those who claimed "there was once when he was not"; "before his generation he was not"; "he was made out of nothing"; "the Son of God is of another subsistence or substance"; and "the Son of God [is] created or alterable or mutable." The last anathema attacked another Arian teaching. Arius and subsequent Arians had taught that Christ grew, changed, matured in his understanding of the divine plan according to the Scriptures, and therefore could not be part of the unchanging God. He was not God the Son; rather, He was simply given the title Son of God as an honor.

An observer in that day might well have thought Arianism was going to triumph in the church. Beginning with Constantius the court was often Arian. Five times Athanasius of Alexandria was driven into exile, interrupting his long episcopate. A series of synods repudiated the Nicene symbol in various ways, Antioch in 341, Arles in 353; and in 355 Liberius of Rome and Ossius of Cordoba were exiled and a year later Hilary of Poitier was sent to Phrygia. In 360 in Constantinople all earlier creeds were disavowed and the term substance (ousia) was outlawed. The Son was simply declared to be "like the Father who begot him."

The orthodox counterattack on Arianism pointed out that the Arian theology reduced Christ to a demigod and in effect reintroduced polytheism into Christianity, since Christ was worshiped among Arians as among the orthodox. But in the long run the most telling argument against Arianism was Athanasius's constant soteriological battle cry that only God, very God, truly God Incarnate could reconcile and redeem fallen man to holy God. It was the thorough work of the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, which brought the final resolution that proved theologically acceptable to the church. They divided the concept of substance (ousia) from the concept of person (hypostasis) and thus allowed the orthodox defenders of the original Nicene formula and the later moderate or semi-Arian party to unite in an understanding of God as one substance and three persons. Christ therefore was of one substance with the Father (homoousion) but a distinct person. With this understanding the Council of Constantinople in 381 was able to reaffirm the Nicene Creed. The able Emperor Theodosius I threw himself on the side of orthodoxy and Arianism began to wane in the empire.

The long struggle with Arianism was not over yet, however, for Ulfilas, famous missionary to the Germanic tribes, had accepted the Homoean statement of Constantinople of 360. Ulfilas taught the similarity of the Son to the Father and the total subordination of the Holy Spirit. He taught the Visigoths north of the Danube, and they in turn carried this semi-Arianism back into Italy. The Vandals were taught by Visigoth priests and in 409 carried the same semi-Arianism across the Pyrenees into Spain. It was not until the end of the seventh century that orthodoxy was to finally absorb Arianism. Yet Arianism has been reborn in the modern era in the form of extreme Unitarianism, and the Jehovah's Witnesses regard Arius as a forerunner of C. T. Russell.

V L Walter
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography
J. Danielou and H. Marrou, The Christian Centuries, I, chs. 18-19; J. H. Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century; R. C. Gregg and D. E. Groh, Early Arianism; T. A. Kopecek, A History of Neo-Arianism, 2 vols.; H. M. Gwatkin, Studies in Arianism; E. Boularand, l'Heresie d'Arius et la foi de Nicee, 2 vols.

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Semi-Arianism

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Semi-Arianism was the doctrine of Christ's sonship as held by fourth century theologians who were reluctant to accept either the strict Nicene definition or the extreme Arian position. After the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) a single term came to identify each position.

• Orthodox theologians, led by Athanasius, used the term homoousios to express the doctrine that Christ, the Logos, was "of one substance" with the eternal Father.
• The Arian party held that Christ was a created being, in substance unlike the Father. The term for this view was anomoios.
• Semi-Arians, the third group, avoided either extreme and adopted the term homoiusios, which defined Christ as "of like substance" with the Father, but left vague the extent to which Christ differed from other created beings.

Semi-Arians called Christ "Divine," but in effect denied that he is truly God, that he is "equal to the Father as touching his Godhead."

Some students of the controversy have argued that the term "Semi-Arianism" is an unfair term, associating the movement too closely with Arianism, and that "Semi-Nicene" might better represent the movement's tendency toward orthodoxy. The term "Anti-Nicene" has been used as often, however, because Semi-Arians did, in fact, deny that Christ was fully one with the Father.

The Semi-Arian position arose at the Council of Nicaea, called by Emperor Constantine to deal with the Arian question, which had raised enough controversy to threaten the unity of the church. All but two of the bishops present at the council signed the orthodox statement, though many did so with reservations. Semi-Arians also came to be called "Eusebians" after Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia and later patriarch of Constantinople. As a young man Eusebius had studied with Arius. Though he signed the creed at the Council of Nicaea, he later became a key leader in the reaction against it.

The most prominent leader of the Semi-Arians at the Council, however, was Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, the early church historian. Following the council the Semi-Arian position remained prominent, but a resugence of the Old Arians, seeking to reinstate the original heresy, led to the disintegration of Semi-Arian support. In August 357, a small but important synod met at Sirmium in Illyricum. The creed that emerged from the synod condemned the term ousia in any form and clearly subordinated the Son to the Father. This creed split the opponents of Nicaea so decisively that it turned sentiment in favor of the orthodox view. Many bishops renounced their errors and subscribed to the Nicene Creed. After this point Semi-Arians never existed in significant numbers. Some became Arian and many reaffirmed orthodoxy at the Council of Constantinople in 381.

B L Shelley
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography
E. R. Hardy, ed., Christology of the Later Fathers; J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines; G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics.

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