Hey /his/, OP here, I have an In-class essay on the Arian controversy and the Nicene Creed. It shouldn't really be very difficult but there are two smaller parts of the essay im having trouble nailing down.
"What are the implications of this on Christian life?"
And
"Are there any political motives behind this?"
What do you guys think?
The only political motive I know is that Constantine just wanted this shit settled.
>>870947
I'm pretty familiar with Arianism. Before I answer the questions you've posed, I would need to understand what you mean by Arianism.
The reason being that Arianism is often misunderstood by many scholars, and so the implications of Arianism aren't easily understood because people don't know what Arianism was even saying.
>>870947
Don't ask other people to do your homework for you.
>>871409
Not OP but I'm interested. What are these misunderstandings?
>>871614
One is that the Arians didn't believe Jesus was god. But the Arians in fact had a Christology that was something like "the Son is god, and the Father is God and the Lord of our Lord"
The Nicaean criticism of Arianism was that their understanding would either lead to outright polytheism or would lead to further putting denying Christ's divinity relative to the Father that it would lead to such opinions as were held by some Jewish Christians who saw Jesus as more of a messianic prophet than as a deity. The weakness of the Arian position was that it was not really a unified movement. The Nicaeans tended to be more united in their understanding that the Father and Son are of one essence, while the Arians could never agree among themselves whether Jesus was of different essence or like essence. The Arians main concern was protecting the transcendence of the Father above all human qualities, and beyond this there wasn't really much in common between them, but this didn't come with a denial of Christ's divinity as has been supposed by many who would like to paint the Arians, whether out of respect or hatred for them, as proto-Muslims just saying Jesus isn't god but a prophet or son of God. Arians believed Jesus was god, but not God.
>>871748
Ok, I think I get the gist of what you're saying, but this part here fundamentally confuses me
>Arians believed Jesus was god, but not God
What is "exactly" meant by this? I know there's probably a lot nuance to this, but from a general Nicaean perspective it's either "Jesus is exactly the same as the Father", or "Jesus is subordinate to the Father, and thus not fully divine."
What role did Arians see Jesus fulfilling if he wasn't the same God as the Father? Would that not just put him in the same category as other heavenly beings, such as angels?
>>871801
>What is "exactly" meant by this? I know there's probably a lot nuance to this, but from a general Nicaean perspective it's either "Jesus is exactly the same as the Father", or "Jesus is subordinate to the Father, and thus not fully divine."
Basically, the Arians believed that the Father was "God of our god, Lord of our lord." Jesus was subordinate to the Father, but all the rest of creation was subordinate to Jesus.
The Arian theological language was very confusing for those who'd come to define orthodoxy as the Arians could both reject the Nicaean Creed and accept the Nicaean creed. This was because the Nicaean Creed originally used such language that was a bit ambiguous and Arians could reject this language because it wasn't biblical, but also interpret it in a subjective way that suited their understanding as well, sometimes making it unclear who was Arian and who wasn't (keep in mind none of the so-called Arians called themselves that at all)
But what united the Arians was the belief that the Son is somehow subordinate to the Father and has its origins in the transcendent Father and that the suggestion of their opponents that the Father and Son were two co-equal and co-eternal persons of the same Godhead along with the Holy Spirit screamed Modalism (in which the persons of the trinity are merely three 'masks' God uses). The Arians could be described as Trinitarians who simply believed that the Trinity only made sense along more hierarchical lines rather than egalitarian lines since if all three persons are equal, there is no Trinity at all. Their opponents claimed that their arguments could only lead to straight polytheism with Jesus as a kind of lesser god, or if interpreted in a strictly monotheistic way, would require the denial of Jesus' deity altogether in order to protect the Father's transcendence, both of which by that time were becoming more unacceptable to many Christians. The Eastern churches did however accommodate certain Arian ideas.
>>871424
I could do it myself, I just figured that this would make an interesting discussion.
>>871866
From what I've read arians did not believe in the holy spirit as an entity and just saw it as 'gods power'.
Arianism is very interesting and it honestly makes alot of sense to me.
I had not seen it from the 'polytheist' though. That's a very interesting point.
The documents used in class are all biased towards the Nicene but from what I understand its because very little Arian works have been recovered.
>>872303
>From what I've read arians did not believe in the holy spirit as an entity and just saw it as 'gods power'.
Some may have, the problem is that none of the people we call Arians referred themselves as such, nor did they necessarily get their religious opinions from Arius of Alexandria. The name "Arian" was a name used by their opponents to discredit them. By calling them "Arians" they were suggesting that anyone who held these views owed them to a rabid presbyter or low standing in the Church. But the "Arians" just referred to themselves as orthodox catholics and the drama around Arius was only concerning whether or not he deserved to be excommunicated for what he was saying, not whether he had some special insight none of the other bishops had. When one looks at the works of early Church figures like Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus and Origen, one finds that this idea that the Son was subordinate to the Father probably goes way back and some scholars such as Richard E. Rubenstein in his book "When Jesus Became God" have even argued that the Arians, collectively, were far more "traditionalist" as well as more strictly scriptural than their non-Arian counterparts
>I had not seen it from the 'polytheist' though. That's a very interesting point.
The thing is the Arians could be divided into three basic camps:
1. Those who believed that the Son was of a different essence (ousia) than the Father
2. Those who believed the Son was of "similar essence"
3. Those who agreed with the language of the Nicene Creed when it referred to the Father & Son as one being/essence (homoousia) but understood this being besides the issue
The idea that any of these positions necessarily involved the denial of Jesus' godhood however, is due more to the so called Neo-Arianism or Unitarianism we associate with men like Isaac Newton or Michael Servetus who favored Arian or Origenic subordinationism but were also influenced by Judaism & Islam more directly than the Arians had
>>870947
Constantine loved Arius, and it was Arius who allegedly baptized Constantine in his death bed (indicating Constantine had never previously converted).
Constantine did not want Christians to be separated into camps, but all come together as one emergent church. Constantine could care less about doctrine. He wanted harmony.
The Christians would never agree to do that with the heretics, the Arians, so the Christians fell out of favor, and the Arians grew in political power.
As to the implications on Christian life, you'd have to define those terms very narrowly. Christians have lives that from the outside appear mundane, but on the inside are transformed by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
>>871866
Believing that Jesus is a created being is denying that He is God.
>>873200
Not for many of the Arians. In fact, the Arians tread close to outright polytheism in referring to Jesus as created by the Father yet also God. To quote the Arian goth bishop Ulfilas:
>I, Ulfila, bishop and confessor, have always so believed, and in this, the one true faith, I make the journey to my Lord; I believe in one God the Father, the only unbegotten and invisible, and in his only-begotten son, our Lord and God, the designer and maker of all creation, having none other like him (so that one alone among all beings is God the Father, who is also the God of our God); and in one Holy Spirit, the illuminating and sanctifying power, as Christ said after his resurrection to his apostles: "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49) and again "But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts 1:8); being neither God (the Father) nor our God (Christ), but the minister of Christ... subject and obedient in all things to the Son; and the Son, subject and obedient in all things to God who is his Father... (whom) he ordained in the Holy Spirit through his Christ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulfilas
Again, it's more accurate to say that the majority of Arians believed that Jesus was a lesser god created by the Father, who was the Supreme God or at least the essence of the Godhead, and were not strictly monotheistic in the way their opponents tended to be who wanted the Father & Son to equal and co-eternal precisely because they wanted Jesus to be God without there being more than one deity. The Arians were not concerned with monotheism as much as protecting the Father's supremacy. If this meant affiriming a polytheist-like position for some of them or even the opposite end, denying Jesus' deity altogether, so be it, as long as the Father remained supreme.
>>873196
Even though the conflict was intense on both sides, the Arians seemed more willing to accept communion with their opponents if their opponents were willing to accept communion with them. This was probably because no one group of Arians could afford to alienate the others, so there was already a tendency towards ecumenism and tolerance of different opinions on the Arian side. The Arian controversy set a precedent that pedantic arguments over finer points of theological terminology or grammar were enough to warrant full excommunication.Had the Arians won, the Church would have probably been a little less authoritarian in its enforcement of creeds and more tolerant of different theological points of view in the same unified church
>>873248
I see nothing Arian in that statement. It seems quite orthodox to me.
>>873248
>(so that one alone among all beings is God the Father, who is also the God of our God);
Hmmm, maybe this. I'm not sure what he means by this.
>>874697
This was part of the problem. Arians could sound perfectly orthodox that it almost became impossible to distinguish Arian from orthodox except by rigorous investigation of what each person meant by what they said. Most of the Arians at the Nicaean Council accepted the Creed's use of the term "homoousios" but the controversy came up again soon after because it was realized that people were interpreting it in a particular way according to their understanding. Those of the Arian position were wont to interpret homoousios (one being) in such a way that supported their subordinationist ideas. So even the term homoousios was insufficient to differentiate who was Arian and who was not at times, and among the Arians, they couldn't agree on whether homoousios or some other word was to be preferred. It could be argued that it was only through Imperial force that the matter was ended and that there was never really a victor, just everybody decided to shut up about it
