Arianism

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Recorded of Arius arguing the supremacy of God the Father, and that the Son had a beginning, having had a true birth.

Arianism (Greek: Ἀρειανισμός, Areianismós) is a Christological doctrine attributed to the Alexandrian priest Arius (ca. 256–336). It maintains that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, coming from the Father, but not eternal, but generated in time. An extreme form of this doctrine is that of Eunomius, who held the total dissimilarity between the Son and the Father. It should be noted that the Arians were not called this way, it is a term used by the self-styled orthodox.

Arianism had an important diffusion in the Roman Empire, being protected by some emperors, and among some of the Germanic peoples that invaded it in the 5th century. In the barbarian Roman kingdoms the adoption of Arianism by the Germans, marked the main difference between these and the Romans.

Arian Christology holds that the Son of God did not always exist, but was created by God the Father. This belief is based on several biblical texts, but especially on a paragraph of the Gospel according to Saint John where Jesus declares:

You have heard that I have said to you, "I go and return to you." If you loved me, you'd be glad to go to the Father, for the Father is greater than me.
Gospel according to John 14:28 (Version Bible of Navarre)

The First Council of Nicaea in 325 considered Arian doctrines to be heretical, and the First Synod of Tire in 335 exonerated Arius. After his death, he was anathematized again and declared a heretic again at the First Council of Constantinople from 381. The Roman emperors Constantius II (337-361) and Valens (364-378) were Arian or close to Arianism.

Beginnings

In some early Christian groups it was taught that Christ had pre-existed as the Son of God since before his incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth, and that he had descended to earth to redeem human beings.

Arius believed that God the Father and God the Son had not always existed together, but that the Logos was a divine being created by God the Father before the world and was subordinate to the Father. Arius and his followers appealed to the aforementioned text of the Gospel of John, and also to Proverbs, where Divine Wisdom (identified then with the Logos, that is, with Jesus Christ) proclaims:

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, before he began to create everything.
Proverbs 8:22 (Version God speaks today, 1996)

Arius had been a disciple of Lucian of Antioch at his academy in Antioch, and inherited from him a modified version of the teachings of Paul of Samosata. After Constantine's conversion and in view of the acrimonious turn that theological disputes were taking, the Council of Nicaea was convened, which adopted a general solution to this controversy. The vast majority supported the trinitarian doctrines, which came to be considered orthodoxy (that is, the correct way of understanding the Christian faith) and the Arian position remained in the minority and was declared heterodox or heretical.

The controversy over Arianism raged throughout the fourth century. It involved many members of the Church: simple believers, priests, monks, bishops, emperors, and members of the Roman imperial family. The Roman emperors Constantius II and Valens became Arians or Semi-Arians. The Goths, Vandals and Lombards also became Arians. The deep controversy within the Church during this period could not have materialized without the significant historical influence of Arian doctrines. Of the three hundred bishops who attended the First Council of Nicaea, only two did not sign the Nicene Creed, which condemned the Arianism. According to some scholars, this majority was due to the exile sentence imposed by Constantine on those who refused to sign the agreement reached at Nicaea. However, it has been pointed out that said supposition is gratuitous, given that in the later sources there is no indication of taxation in the writings of the participants thereof; Furthermore, there is evidence that the bishops present at the aforementioned council were pressured in one way or another by Constantine I to reinstate Arius and other members of his party in the ecclesiastical posts they previously held. Among them was Athanasius, who for opposing the imperial measure was forcibly exiled from his headquarters in Alexandria; later, he is imprisoned and exiled by the emperor Constantius II, who decided to actively support the Arians, even without sharing the totality of his doctrine.

Constantine issued an edict against Arianism which provides as follows:

Moreover, if there is any writing on Arius, it could be thrown into the fire, so not only does the evil of his teaching be erased, but there will be nothing left to remember it. And for this I make a public order that if it were discovered that someone hides a writing written by Arrio, and does not immediately bring him to his destruction by fire, the penalty will be death. As soon as his offense is discovered, he could be subjected to capital punishment.
Edict of the Emperor Constantine against the Arians.

The validity of the aforementioned Edict was short-lived in its application; Although Arius was banished to Illyricum along with two of his related prelates, Theonas of Marmarica and Segundo of Ptolemaida, and his books were burned, after three months, the emperor eased the sanctions imposed on Arius's followers regarding their writings and books, probably because he was interested in the Arian trend his until then ex-advisor and also exiled Eusebius, and in the year 328 he asked the bishops of the region of Egypt, especially Athanasius of Alexandria, to reconsider their condemnation and returned to the ecclesiastical positions they held before the council. Their response was unanimous in rejecting the emperor, the bishop himself being blunt in demanding that the provisions of Nicaea on the subject be respected. However, Constantine forced Arrio to return from exile through the courts and imposed him again in the diocese against the will of Athanasius, who continued firm in his refusal to accept him again. Said challenge was received by the emperor as a threat to his empire and, persuaded again by Bishop Eusebio, he sought ways to condemn him to exile; however, Athanasius managed to escape and flee to Constantinople. Constantine's push and pull on his stance with Arians and Orthodox is inconsistent. A council was convened in the year 336 in Jerusalem, where Arius and his followers were rehabilitated in their posts. However, Arius died on the way to Constantinople that same year, and the emperor himself died a year later, in 337. Meanwhile, Athanasius was between exile and reinstatement to his see in Alexandria, until the young Emperor Constantine II told him allowed to return to Egypt permanently. With this action he also tried to embarrass his brother Constantius II, governor of the Eastern Empire and supporter of Arianism.

Arianism continued to exist for several decades, although the apparent revival of Arianism after Nicaea was more of an anti-Nicene backlash exploited by Arian sympathizers than Arianism itself. Late in the century IV, all traces of Arianism had been eradicated within the official hierarchy of the Roman church, which was Trinitarian. In Western Europe, Arianism, which had been preached by Ulfilas, an Arian missionary, among the Germanic tribes, was dominant among Goths and Vandals, and later significant among the Lombards; but it ceased to be a mainstream belief among these tribes in the 8th century century, as the kings of those peoples gradually adopted The Catholicism. This process began with Clovis I, king of the Franks in 496, although he was not an Arian, but a pagan; It continued with Reccared I, King of the Visigoths, in 587 and culminated with Ariberto I, King of the Lombards, in 653.

Beliefs

Reconstructing what Arius actually said and why he said it is a huge task, because very little of his own work has survived, save for citations made for polemical purposes by his opponents, and also because it is not he knows for sure what theological and philosophical theories had shaped his belief system.

The Arians did not believe in the traditional doctrine of the Trinity, which holds that God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one being.

Auxentius of Durostorum's letter about the Arian missionary Ulfilas gives a clear picture of Arian beliefs. Ulfilas was ordained bishop by the Arian Eusebius of Nicomedia and returned to his town to act as a missionary. Ulfilas believed that God the Father (the Beginningless God, the Almighty God) had always existed and was the only true God (Gospel of John 17:3). Likewise, he believed that the Son of God, Jesus Christ (God "only begotten", Gospel of John 1:18; Mighty God, Book of the prophet Isaiah 9:6) began after time began (Proverbs 8:22-29; Book of Revelations 3:14, Epistle to the Colossians 1:15), and who is Lord/Guide (First Epistle to the Corinthians 8:6). The Holy Spirit (the illuminating and sanctifying power) is also not Lord/Guide. Chapter 8, verse 6, of the First Epistle to the Corinthians 8:6 says:

[...] for us there is one God, the Father, who is the beginning of all and our end and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom everything exists and also us.
First Epistle to the Corinthians 8:6. Written by St Paul of Tarsus to the Christian community of Corinth. Century I.

In a letter to Auxentius, Ulfilas summarizes his beliefs thus:

I, Ulphilas, bishop and confessor, have always believed, and in this, in the only true faith, I make the way to my Lord: I believe only in a Father God, who has no beginning and is invisible, and in his only begotten son, our Lord/Guide and God, the designer and the maker of all creation, there is no other like him. Therefore, there is a God of all, who is also God of our God; and there is a Holy Spirit, the enlightening and sanctifying power, as Christ said after the resurrection to his apostles: "I will send you what the Father promised, so stay in this city until you are clothed with the strength that comes from heaven" (I will send you what the Father promised.Gospel of Luke 24:49) and he also said, "But you will receive the strength of the Holy Spirit that will come upon you [and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and even the trust of the world]" (Acts of the Apostles 1:8). Neither God nor Lord/Guide, but faithful minister of the faith of Christ; not equal, but subject to obedience in all to the Son. And I believe that the Son is subject and obedient in all to God the Father.

Arius wrote a letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia which stated:

Some of them say that the Son is an eruption, others that is a production, others that have no beginning. These are ungodly to those we cannot hear, although heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths. We say and believe and have to learn, and teach, that the Son was not without beginning, nor any part of him was without beginning, and that his subsistence depends on nothing; but it is by his own will and counsel for what he has subsisted before the time and before the ages as perfect as God, only begun and untiring, and that before being started, or created, or proposed, or established, he was not. Because he doesn't have a start. We are persecuted because we say that the Son has a beginning but that God has no beginning.

The First Council of Nicaea and its consequences

In 321, Arius was denounced by a synod in Alexandria for teaching a heterodox view of the relationship between Jesus and God the Father. Because Arius and his followers had had a great influence on the Alexandrian academies (the forerunner of modern universities and seminaries), his theological views had become widely known, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean.

By around 325, the controversy had become significant enough that Emperor Constantine I convened an assembly of bishops, the First Council of Nicaea, which condemned Arius's doctrine and formulated the original Nicaea creed. The central term of the Nicene creed, used to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son, is homousism (ὁμοούσιος), or consubstantiality, meaning "of the same substance" or "the same being". The Athanasian Creed is used less commonly, but is more openly anti-Arian when it comes to the Holy Trinity.

The focus of the Council of Nicea was the nature of the Son of God and his precise relationship to God the Father (see the work of Paul of Samosata and the synods of Antioch). Arius taught that Christ was divine/sacred and was sent to Earth for the salvation of humanity, but that Jesus Christ was not equal to God the Father (infinity) in the ranking and that God the Father and the Son of God were not. equal to the Holy Spirit (which would be the power of God the Father). In Arianism, Christ was not consubstantial with God the Father because, although both the Father and the Son would have been one essence, they were not the same essence nor the same being (see homousism). God the Father is a deity and is divine and the Son of God would not be a deity, but would be divine ("I, the Lord, am the only God." Book of the prophet Isaiah 46:9). God the Father sent Jesus to earth for the salvation of mankind (Gospel of John 17:3). Ousia means "essence" or "be" in Eastern Christianity, and is an aspect of God that is completely incomprehensible to human perception. It is everything that subsists by itself and does not have its being in another. For the homousios, God the Father, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are uncreated beings. Juan Damascene wrote:

God is not originated, he is endless, eternal, constant, not created, he is immutable, inalterable, simple, non-complex, incorporeous, invisible, intangible, indescribable, boundless, inaccessible to the mind, incontentible, incomprehensible, good, just, the Creator of all creatures, the Almighty Pantocrator.

According to the teaching of Arius, the pre-existent Logos that incarnated in Jesus Christ was a created being; Only the Son was directly created and started by God the Father, before the ages, but he was a different essence or substance, although similar, to that of the Creator. His opponents argued that this would make Jesus appear less than God and this was heretical. Much of the factional distinction concerned the phrase Christ used in the New Testament to express submission to God the Father. theological for this submission is kenosis. This ecumenical council declared that Jesus Christ was a form of God in existence or in reality (hypostasis), a word that the Latins translated as "person". Jesus was God in essence, being and/or natural (ousia), which the Latins translated as substance.

Constantine is believed to have exiled all those who refused to accept the Nicene creed (Arius, the deacon Euzoios, and the Libyan bishops Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais) and also those bishops who subscribed to the Creed but refused to join it. the condemnation to Arius (Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea). The emperor also ordered the burning of all copies of the book Talia , in which Arius had expressed his thesis. However, there is no evidence that his son and successor, Constantius II, who was an Arian, was exiled.

Though ordered to uphold what the Church had defined at Nicaea, Constantine also wanted peace to reign in the situation and, over time, became more lenient towards those sentenced to exile at the council. He first allowed Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was a protégé of his sister, and Theognis to return, once they had signed a somewhat ambiguous declaration of faith. Both of them, and other friends of Arius, strove to have Arius's bans lifted. At the First Synod of Tire, in the year 335, they brought accusations against Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, and Arius' main opponent; after this, Constantine banished Saint Athanasius and considered him as someone who prevented reconciliation. That same year, the Synod of Jerusalem, under the direction of Constantine, readmitted the communion of Arius in 336. However, Arius died in Constantinople on the way to this event. Some scholars suggest that Arius might have been poisoned by his opponents. Eusebius and Theognis retained the emperor's favor, and when Constantine, who had been catechized during his adult life, accepted baptism at the end of his life, it was granted to him. administered by Eusebius of Nicomedia.

According to Athanasius of Alexandria, opposed to Arius, these are some of the Arian teachings, cited in his work Discourse Against the Arians:

God was not always a Father, but "there was a time when God was alone and not yet a Father, but then became a Father." "The Son did not always exist;" for, just as all things were made of nothing, and all existing creatures and works were made, also the Word of God Himself was "made of nothing" and "was a time when it did not exist" and "He did not exist before his origin," but He and others "had a source of creation." For God says, "He was alone, and the Word was not yet, nor was Wisdom. Then, in wishing to form us, He made a certain being and called Him Word, Wisdom and Son, so that He could form us through Him.

Theological debates

The Council of Nicea did not end the controversy, as many bishops in the eastern provinces disputed homousism, the central term of the Nicene creed. Pablo de Samosata had advocated Christological monarchianism. Both the man and his teaching, including the term "homousio," had been condemned by the synods of Antioch in the year 269.

Constantine I's son, Constantius II, who had become emperor of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, encouraged the Arians and revoked the Nicene Creed. His adviser in these matters was Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had been of the Arian party at the Council of Nicaea, and who had also been ordained Bishop of Constantinople. Constantius II used his power to exile the bishops who adhered to the Nicean creed, especially Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, who went to Rome. In 355 Constantius II became sole emperor (Constantine I would die in 337) and extended his policy to the western provinces, often using force to pressure believers, and exiled Pope Liberius to install "antipope" Felix II.

As debates raged over the adoption of a new formula, three groups were formed among opponents of the Nicene Creed. The first group was mostly opposed to the Nicene terminology and preferred the term "homoiousios" (same in substance) instead of the "homousio" Niceo, and, at the same time, they rejected Arius and his teachings and accepted the equality and coeternal character of the persons of the Trinity. Because of this centralist position, and despite rejecting Arius, they were called "semi-Arians" by their opponents. The second group also avoided invoking the name of Arius, but largely followed Arius's teachings and, in other words, described the Son as being equal (homios) to the Father (homoios). ). The third group spoke explicitly of Arius and described the Son as different (anhomoios) from the Father. Constantius supported the first or second group and persecuted the third.

Debate between these groups produced numerous synods, including the Council of Sardica in 343, the Council of Sirmium in 358, and the double Council of Rimini and Seleucia in 359, and no fewer than fourteen forms of creeds between the years 340 and 360, which led the pagan Ammianus Marcellinus to remark sarcastically: "The roads are full of galloping bishops". Neither of these attempts was acceptable to the defenders of Nicaean orthodoxy: writing of later councils, Saint Jerome noted that the world "woke up with a cry when Arian was discovered."

After Constantius II's death in 361, his successor, Julian, a devotee of the pagan gods of Rome, declared that he would not side with any faction of the Church, and allowed all exiled bishops to return; this caused an increase in dissensions among Christians. The Emperor Valens, however, recovered the policy of Constantius and supported the "homoian" party, exiling the bishops and using force against opponents. During his persecution, many bishops were exiled to the farthest reaches of the Empire (for example, the exile of Hilary of Poitiers to the eastern provinces).

These contacts and the common difficult situation led to a rapprochement between Western supporters of the Nicene creed and the "homousios" from the eastern Semi-Arians.

Epiphanius of Salamis labeled the party of Basil of Ancyra in 358 as "semi-Arian. This has been deemed inappropriate by historian J. N. D. Kelly, who argues that some members of that group were largely orthodox from the start but disliked the adjective "homousio," while others moved in that direction later., with the arrival of the Arians.

Theodosius I and the Council of Constantinople

It was not until the reign of Gratian and Theodosius I that Arianism disappeared from the ruling classes and elites of the Eastern Roman Empire. Theodosius's wife, Aelia Flacilla, was a tool in the campaign to end Arianism. Valens died in the battle of Adrianople in 378 and was succeeded by Theodosius I, who adhered to the Nicene creed. This allowed the dispute to escalate.

Two days after Theodosius arrived in Constantinople, on November 24, 380, he expelled the bishop Homiousio and placed the churches of that city under the rule of Gregory of Nazianzus, who was the leader of the small Nicaean community there.. This act sparked a riot. Theodosius had been baptized by Bishop Acholius of Thessalonica, during a serious illness, as was customary in the early Christian world. In February, he and Gratian published an edict saying that all of his subjects must profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria (the Nicene Creed), or be imprisoned for punishment.

Although much of the Eastern Church hierarchy was opposed, Theodosius achieved unity on the basis of the Nicene creed. In 381, at the First Council of Constantinople, a group made up mostly of eastern bishops met in an assembly and agreed to accept the Nicene Creed of 325 with some elements of their own, which became known as the Nicene-Constantinople Creed of 381. Among those new elements were some comments regarding the Holy Spirit. This is generally considered the end of the Trinity dispute and the end of Arianism in the Roman Empire and among non-Germanic Christian peoples.

Later spread of Arianism

Arianism today

The Socinians, a denomination born after the Protestant Reformation in Poland, do not believe in the divine aspect of Jesus, so to some extent they could be considered heirs of Arianism.

Current theologies that have arisen in the Catholic Church are accused of reproducing Arian schemes, with a non-Christological presentation of Jesus. In 2007, Demetrio Fernández ―then Bishop of Tarazona and today Bishop of Córdoba― accused theologian José Antonio Pagola for what was stated in his book Jesús, aproximación histórica (PPC, 2007).

This "heresy" (from the Catholic point of view) is still on the minds of some members of the Church: it is generally believed that certain new ecclesiologies combine liberationist theology with the new scientific Arianism, which emerged from certain currents Historicists in Biblical Research. However, the official doctrine of the Church is conclusive in declaring Arianism as heresy at the First Council of Nicaea (325), initially, and from the First Council of Constantinople (381) definitively.

A modern English church, called The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Arian Catholicism, claims to follow Arius's teachings and canonized him on June 16, 2006 His doctrine says that only the Father is the absolute God and that Jesus had a beginning, in the flesh, and that he is subservient to the Father. They also teach that Jesus Christ was the sinless redeeming Messiah, although they do not accept the virgin birth of Jesus, the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ, the divinity or worship of Jesus, or the infallibility of Jesus, which places them in a position opposed to their own Arius, who did accept all of that, except for the level of divinity of Christ. The teachings of that Arian church are more aligned with Socinianism than with authentic Arianism.

Although, according to Arius himself, Christ existed before Mary, that Arian church believes not. This church believes that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and Mary and that the Holy Spirit supervised the conception, and they also teach that the resurrection of Christ was not in the flesh, but was spiritual. In fact, his "Aryan Catholic" it is a modern creation, not an ancient faith.

Jehovah's Witnesses bear certain similarities with Arianism, in the sense that both doctrines consider Jesus as the only begotten of God the Father, and not as God himself. These have sometimes been called "modern Arians" or "semi-Arians," usually by their opponents. Although there are some significant similarities in their theology and doctrine, Jehovah's Witnesses differ from Arius in that the Son can fully know the Father (something Arius denied), and by his denial of the literal personality of the Holy Spirit. Arius considered the Holy Spirit to be an "active force" of God, or an "energy," which had no beginning, and was not an existing subject, as Jehovah's Witnesses think. The original Arians also pray directly to Jesus, while Jehovah's Witnesses pray to God, although Jesus is a mediator, that is, they pray on Jesus' behalf.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) have sometimes been accused of being Arian by their detractors. However, their Christology differs in several respects from Arian theology.

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