January 24, 2011
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Arian Heresy, pt 1: historical context
This post will discuss basically the issue of Arianism. Arianism is a Christological Heresy originally condemned in AD 325 and reaffirmed as heresy in AD 381. A Christological heresy is a doctrinal error regarding the person of Christ, the Word of God. As a heresy its erroneous nature would, by definition, imply that the person is not a Christian due to unorthodox views. The unsaved person is considered unorthodox (and thus excluded from the Church), if they do not submit to the authority of Scripture and traditional understanding when confronted.
We must submit to Scripture since it is God’s particular revelation to us, and as His word it is the final authority in all matters of doctrine and practice. We must submit to the Church’s traditional understanding, not as a final authority, but as a guide to understanding the Scripture’s final word on matters so as to avoid becoming subjective, as we tend to be culturally myopic or narrow-minded. We want to know what the majority of the Church believed for the majority of time, and that will be the best guide of orthodoxy. This is not necessarily true of practice or minor details, such as sprinkling vs immersion baptism, wine vs grape juice communion, conditional vs unconditional election, etc. – even though the majority time/place believed will certainly give some weight to these.
We cannot go merely to Scripture and interpret however we feel best; in fact, that is exactly the problem of the Arian controversy. Their interpretation deviated from the common framing of who Christ is by nature, as held by the majority of the Church for the majority of time. One result of this problem is that they had to shroud the divine perspicuity of Scripture. Learning from this error, we will need to relate our beliefs to the greater whole, since the limits of our experience and local cultural context powerfully influence our interpretation of Scripture. We find passages more offensive to others based on our culture; we embrace passages more than others based on our culture. We know only so many verses and fail to emphasize others in the greater picture of God’s redemptive history. And when philosophy becomes speculative and interesting, it is tempting to take the insight and wonder of our own imaginations for the insight and wonder of God’s revealing himself to us.
Many heresies start in this way or end up this way. And so it was the case of the Arius and those who followed in his tradition. Now, before we get into this too deeply, we need to understand the context of the times. At this point Rome had the majority of the known world under its rule, and Christians had experienced much persecution historically, with the height of persecution from Roman empire at the turn of the 4th century under Diocletian (AD 303–11). One of the successors, Constantine, had taken measures to legalize and protect Christians (Edict of Milan, 313), and eventually came to recognize it as the concrete of the empire to secure a stable governance. This was especially true since it was divided on other grounds apart from politics, such as the language split: western Roman empire was predominately Latin speaking, and the eastern side was mainly Greek speaking.
In Alexandria, a Greek-speaking city where was a large community of philosophers and educators, there arose a controversy by Arius a presbyter and Alexander a bishop of the same. Arius’ problematic theology originally stemmed from a divergence in view of who God is, following in the tradition of Plato and the apologist and philosopher Origen. One of the most relevant, but not only relevant, issues is that it viewed God as a universal principle or creative force apart from Creation, showing sharp distinction of Creator/creation and tending toward a sort of Deist perspective (i.e. non-interactionistic, potentially apathetic). It is not a huge step, but the way Arius took it was worse.
Christ is the Word, the Logos of God, as John says in the very first verse of his gospel account. As Arius took it, Christ was with God in the beginning, but was not God himself. Christ was the first creation, the highest creation, and through him all things were made. He is, according to Colossians, the firstborn of all creation — the first made of all things made. He is, according to Romans, the firstborn among many brethren. In both of these interpretations, creation or brothers they were made and are not eternal as the Father is. Jesus, then, is eternal in that he is everlasting, not eternal in the that he was forever pre-existing with the Father.
Alexander of Alexandria picked up on this and saw two things: this is not the traditional understanding of who Christ is, and this is a serious error. The traditional understanding is that Jesus is God, and creation is not worthy of being worshiped. Thus, if Jesus is a creation, then he ought not be worshiped. Yet we worship Christ, as did the disciples when Christ revealed himself to them. It is true that he is the firstborn, but the sense in which we need to remember that analogy (it is just that: an analogy of who he is) is that Christ receives the inheritance. He owns all things, is due all things. The firstborn takes responsibility for the family when the time comes, the firstborn has authority and right to all that the Father has, the firstborn is (in many cases) the exemplar for the other siblings to live like.
There is plenty more to be said here about how Arianism makes a lot of sense, and how it appeals to human reason (as any non-trinitarian doctrine will). There is also still plenty more to be said in response to all of that too. I will not fill the blog with a strong, rigorous case for Arianism and all the rebuttals. We will, however, continue with how this played out in the church, politics, and the huge steps taken to stamp it out. Then we shall discuss its re-emerging in modern day.
