Athanasius vs. Arius: Were they holy men or politicans?

Were they holy men or politicians?

  • Athanasius was a holy man only, while Arius was a politican only.

  • They were both holy men, but Athanasius was more holy.

  • They were both a mixture of both natures, but Athanasius was more holy.

  • They were both extremely political men, but Athanasius was more holy.

  • They were both just politicans.


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mike1reynolds

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tericl2 said:
These were gradually weeded out by a process of ellimination.
Executions, assassinations and lynch mobs usually work rather quickly, not gradually.


tericl2 said:
The creed states that Jesus was "begotten, not made" because they wanted to distinguish that whatever it is that begotten might have meant it did not mean that Jesus was made.
It just sounds like they were contradicting Jesus to me. He was the only begotten son who was not REALLY begotten at all, Jesus just made a little mistake there…


tericl2 said:
As an aside, the greek for begotten does not mean born or created or made. Monogenes is the transliteration. Mono meaning one or only and genes meaning kind.
Jesus didn’t say it in Greek. How does it translate in Aramaic?


tericl2 said:
In conclusion, both men were well intentioned with their theology.
Assassinations aside…
 
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tericl2

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mike1reynolds said:
Self-begotten is an even more ambiguous term than begotten without beginning. Begotten and beginning aren’t just spelled similarly by chance, their linguistic derivations are very close to each other. Without a more concrete definition they appear to be self-contradictory oxymoron when trying to apply ordinary dictionary meanings to these phrases.

This is an excellent example of why linguistic derivations of english words should not be considered as an authority when discussing issues that were originally written in greek. The etymology of begotten is accurate only insofar as explaining how that word was understood in english at the time of it's writing.

There are also some serious liguistic issues when comparing greek and latin. Many directly translated latin words had meanings diametrically opposed to its greek counterpart. This caused many problems between the eastern and western churches on matters of orthodoxy (especially on the matter of God's substance and derivatives of that debate)
 
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tericl2

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mike1reynolds said:
Jesus didn’t say it in Greek. How does it translate in Aramaic?

But John wrote it in Greek did he not? Or do you take umbrage with John's translation, inspired by God, of Jesus' words?

There is also no reason to believe that Jesus did not speak Greek in addition to Aramaic. Koine Greek was the language of the common man at the time.
 
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tericl2

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mike1reynolds said:
Executions, assassinations and lynch mobs usually work rather quickly, not gradually.

I was speaking more of the entire process. There were many different ideas espoused up until the Nicene Creed closed the debate. But, I can tell you are going to insist on a polemic debate. It is my belief that Christians should debate in an irenic fashion. It better befits He whose name we carry.
 
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mike1reynolds

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tericl2 said:
But John wrote it in Greek did he not? Or do you take umbrage with John's translation, inspired by God, of Jesus' words?
No, I was just asking. I'm highly suspicious of what I think was purely a political process rather than a spiritual gathering, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily disagree either, I’m just suspicious. The Bible says that anyone with real faith can heal and cast out demons. I don’t see that happening at anytime after the post-Apostolic era, outside of a few individual saints, so it seems to me like something crucial was lost a long time ago. Also it says in the Bible that in the end times ALL Jews will be saved (Romans) but that many who claim to be Christian won’t be so lucky (Matthew). That is another indication that there is a some level of disconnect between Christianity and Christ that has developed over time.


tericl2 said:
There is also no reason to believe that Jesus did not speak Greek in addition to Aramaic.
I don’t think otherwise, but it isn’t provable that He spoke Greek either, though I’d be surprised if He didn’t. The Aquarian Gospel portrays Him giving a beautiful and stirring speech in
Athens.

tericl2 said:
I was speaking more of the entire process. There were many different ideas espoused up until the Nicene Creed closed the debate. But, I can tell you are going to insist on a polemic debate. It is my belief that Christians should debate in an irenic fashion. It better befits He whose name we carry.
I absolutely despise polemics and intellectual dishonesty. Knowing the truth is much more important to me than the pride of being right. That is the only reason that I am not afraid to test my faith by asking myself tough questions. I don’t have a double standard, I challenge my own beliefs just as readily as anyone else’s, and change them the instant I think that I see a flaw in my beliefs.
 
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tericl2

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mike1reynolds said:
No, I was just asking. I'm highly suspicious of what I think was purely a political process rather than a spiritual gathering, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily disagree either, I’m just suspicious. The Bible says that anyone with real faith can heal and cast out demons. I don’t see that happening at anytime after the post-Apostolic era, outside of a few individual saints, so it seems to me like something crucial was lost a long time ago. Also it says in the Bible that in the end times ALL Jews will be saved (Romans) but that many who claim to be Christian won’t be so lucky (Matthew). That is another indication that there is a some level of disconnect between Christianity and Christ that has developed over time.

You are right. It was at least in part based on politics. Constantine saw strife being created in the very religion which he had just instilled as the religion of the empire. This undermined his ability to maintain control. This is the very reason he called for the ecumenical council. So the leaders of all the churches from throughout the empire could come together and get some resolution on the issue, thereby bringing stability to his kingdom.

As for the signs you speak of...I think you are referring to the end of the book of Mark. This passage does not have much support for it in the original texts. In fact, I believe most modern Bibles delete it and add it as a footnote or at the least print it (for tradition's sake) with footnotes saying it is unreliable and not believed to be part of the originals.
 
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mike1reynolds

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tericl2 said:
You are right. It was at least in part based on politics. Constantine saw strife being created in the very religion which he had just instilled as the religion of the empire. This undermined his ability to maintain control.
This is all very innocuous, I’m referring to the mass executions and empire wide vigilante attacks, mostly of other Christians. Would you trust gangsters, mobsters or people who insight lynch mobs for spiritual insight?

tericl2 said:
As for the signs you speak of...I think you are referring to the end of the book of Mark. This passage does not have much support for it in the original texts. In fact, I believe most modern Bibles delete it and add it as a footnote or at the least print it (for tradition's sake) with footnotes saying it is unreliable and not believed to be part of the originals.
I can’t find it in Mark (or anywhere else at the moment), but even if it is not an original statement it is still entirely true. Nothing like the Pentecost has ever occurred since the post-Apostolic era. Clearly something is lost. Another indication of this is the menagerie of denominations with totally conflicting doctrines on every little point. Just look at GT, they can hardly agree on anything. What they can agree on are only the most paltry and ambiguous statements of faith, about which I have yet to really get a single consistent answer. Christendom really can’t even agree on this if you probe into deeply enough to find out how people interpret the formulaic expressions of the Trinity. Some think the Holy Spirit has a separate consciousness from God and some don’t.

You won’t find one tenth this amount of diversity and conflicting theology in any other religion. Judaism, Buddhism and Islam have 3 or 4 sects while Taoism has one. Hinduism might appear to have many more sects, but they are really just different devotional forms, the underlying theology is extremely consistent across all of Hinduism, far more consistent than in Christianity. It is not a contest, each has it’s strengths and weaknesses, but Christianity has the worst recollection of it’s founder of any religion. The amount of information on the life of Jesus hardly fills a pamphlet, it is thread-bear compared to any other religion.

This gets back to original point. The only way that there could be so little information on Jesus is if a whole lot of perfectly good information on Him was destroyed. Any Gospel that was derived from any other disciple other than Peter or John was declared heretical. I find it impossible to believe that there wasn’t a single other surviving document by any of the other 12 disciples prior to the ecumenical period. I see no reason to believe that the Gospel of Thomas was not a genuine document from Thomas, for example. The A/A rivalry was irrelevant to me, it just white-washes the real story, which is that anyone who followed the tradition of any other disciple than Peter and John was executed and their records of Jesus’ teachings destroyed. In fact, it was only by a very narrow margin that the Gospel of John was not also declared heretical, for precisely the same reason, the Johannines were considered a rival to Rome. This had everything to do with concentrating political power in Rome and nothing do with a real search for the truth about Jesus. Quite to the contrary, they did a hatchet job on Jesus.
 
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Oblio

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This is all very innocuous, I’m referring to the mass executions and empire wide vigilante attacks, mostly of other Christians. Would you trust gangsters, mobsters or people who insight lynch mobs for spiritual insight?

Continuously repeating unsubstantiated slander and lies concerning the Saints and Holy Fathers of the Church does not make it true.
 
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OrthodoxyUSA

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To the O.P.

Sorry I have not yet read the thread.

Arius was and is a heretic... in other words his status as a heretic has not been reversed.

He was condemned by "The Church" as a heretic by the first Ecumenical Council which was ratified by the entire college of Bishops and the entire layity.

The following six Ecumenical councils, spread out through the first 1000 years, have confirmed the decisions of the first council... and these councils were also all ratified by the entire college of Bishops and the entire Layity.

The Church was given the authority to pass judgements, ( John 20:23 Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; [and] whose soever [sins] ye retain, they are retained. ) ....and this is one of the cases where they did indeed use that authority..... not out of want to condemn Arius... but out of desire to keep the correct Holy Apostolic Traditions.

Arius was not condemned because he acted in an evil way... he was condemned because he was proven wrong and was unrepentant. Arius could have, at any point accepted the decisions of the council and corrected his actions.... He did not.

Arius was an elderly Bishop, when attending the council of Nicea in 325 A.D.

Athanasius was a 25 year old Deacon.

IMHO~ The history presented on the subject in the O.P. is shakey at best.

Interesting that you have picked this week to bring up this subject. Perhaps that should mean something.

Forgive me.....
 
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In a thread like this, someone could come dangerously close to being asked to remove their Chirstian Icon.

I voted #1 BTW, however I do think that the true position is not well stated at all in this poll.

Another note.... We are not Saints because of what we have said or done but rather that we lived a Godly life of repentance.

A man may make mistakes... even terrible mistakes throughout his entire life and in the end before his death find truth... several men (and women) come to mind...

For example....

St. Constantine
St. Augustine
St. Moses the Etheopian

If you were to attempt to concentrate on the works of their lives and not the ending of their lives, you will find yourself confused as to how they could be called Saints by The Church.

Forgive me...
 
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mike1reynolds

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Oblio said:
Continuously repeating unsubstantiated slander and lies concerning the Saints and Holy Fathers of the Church does not make it true.
I gave you a quote from Will Durant, one of the most renowned historians in the 20th century. How can you even deny that mass executions took place? Historians don't seem to disagree on the matter.
Why don’t you address the evidence I presented rather than simply slandering me?

Focusing on the violence in the early Church (after the post-Apostolic era) is no more anti-Christian than acknowledging that the Crusades were immoral. It is simply a matter of being honest with yourself. The only saint I've slandered is Athanasius, and if he is guilty of murdering Arius then he is no saint. I have the highest respect for St. Teresa, San Juan del la Cruz, St. Francis, and any other saint who was an extremely loving and compassionate person. Athanasius was only sainted because he won the argument, canonized for political reasons rather than for spiritual feats and unquestionable overwhelming compassion for others, like the other saints I mentioned.
 
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mike1reynolds

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OrthodoxyUSA said:
IMHO~ The history presented on the subject in the O.P. is shakey at best.
So people have repeatedly assert, but the only historical evidence presented by the opposing argument so far was about the Library of Alexandria. I have yet to see a single historical argument that mass executions did not take place. The
Vatican’s own records contradict this opinion, so at the moment I think it as an opinion without historical substantiation, contradicted by the records of the Church itself. I haven’t studied the history intently, so my conclusion here is not hard and fast, but I’ve never seen another account present besides the one that mainstream historians put forward, so in the absence of an alternative scholarly account of history, all I have is the work of historians that I read when I was growing up such as Will Durant.

OrthodoxyUSA said:
Interesting that you have picked this week to bring up this subject. Perhaps that should mean something.
Yes, it’s a vast conspiracy! I don’t know what this week is, so it couldn’t very well be a factor.


OrthodoxyUSA said:
In a thread like this, someone could come dangerously close to being asked to remove their Chirstian Icon.
No one has expressed any support for Arius’ theology nor objected to any underlying aspect of the Nicene Creed. I do believe that Jesus is divine and there is only one God, so Arius’ stance about Jesus being a lower god is not at all acceptable to me. Arius asserted that Jesus was not eternal but I don’t believe that ANY soul is not eternal. Focusing on the violence in the early Church (after the post-Apostolic era) is no more anti-Christian than acknowledging that the Crusades were immoral.
 
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tericl2 said:
The creed states that Jesus was "begotten, not made" because they wanted to distinguish that whatever it is that begotten might have meant it did not mean that Jesus was made. For him to have been made would have meant one of only two things. Either Jesus was not God (which is problematic for a Christian) or there are three Gods, a tritheism. Neither of these natural conclusions of Arianism correctly encompass the scriptural view of the Trinity.

As an aside, the greek for begotten does not mean born or created or made. Monogenes is the transliteration. Mono meaning one or only and genes meaning kind. You can look it up for yourselves. It is more acurately translated as "one and only" or "one of a kind". There is none like him.
I agree, but not in terms of being a child of God since John says that we are all children of God. So He is not the one and only son of God, there are many other children, but He is a son of God who is unique. Is that correct?

Thank you very much, I love going back to the original language to resolve theology issues!

tericl2 said:
These were gradually weeded out by a process of ellimination. The church basically said we aren't quite sure how to explain it but we know it isn't this _____ (insert view at the time).
That makes sense to me, but this also doesn’t say much for how penetrating the statement is theologically. Like the old joke about camels being a horse designed by a committee, this seems to me like a description of God that was designed by a committee.

tericl2 said:
Both men were seeking out a way to explain a view of God that seems inexplicable.
I don’t think it is inexplicable, other religions say the same thing so there is something objective and concrete and reasonably straight-forward about it. The Buddhist doctrine of the Trikaya, the three bodies of God, is completely identical to the Trinity for example, but their description of the Trinity is a product of direct spiritual insight rather than political wrangling, so their theological statements about the Trikaya lack any of the dicey issues that come up with Christian expressions of the Trinity. There is a clear underlying truth (I think!) that could be expressed in a manner that is just as clear as it is true.
 
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mike1reynolds said:
So people have repeatedly assert, but the only historical evidence presented by the opposing argument so far was about the Library of Alexandria. I have yet to see a single historical argument that mass executions did not take place. The Vatican’s own records contradict this opinion, so at the moment I think it as an opinion without historical substantiation, contradicted by the records of the Church itself. I haven’t studied the history intently, so my conclusion here is not hard and fast, but I’ve never seen another account present besides the one that mainstream historians put forward, so in the absence of an alternative scholarly account of history, all I have is the work of historians that I read when I was growing up such as Will Durant.

Yes, it’s a vast conspiracy! I don’t know what this week is, so it couldn’t very well be a factor.

No one has expressed any support for Arius’ theology nor objected to any underlying aspect of the Nicene Creed. I do believe that Jesus is divine and there is only one God, so Arius’ stance about Jesus being a lower god is not at all acceptable to me. Arius asserted that Jesus was not eternal but I don’t believe that ANY soul is not eternal. Focusing on the violence in the early Church (after the post-Apostolic era) is no more anti-Christian than acknowledging that the Crusades were immoral.

What is your evidece that "The Church" did these things and not the secular governments?

You seem to be presenting the idea that The Church was and or is an evil institutuion.

Have you read the many books on the lives of the Saints? How can you come away with the conclusion that The Church had done this?

Forigve me....
 
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