Arianism follows the doctrine and teachings of Arius who stipulated, among other things, that Christ was not of the same substance, i.e. not co-substantial, with God and therefore was not God, and did not exist before he was born on earth and therefore was not co-eternal with God. Arius concluded that Jesus Christ was not divine and his teachings spread from Alexandria throughout the Christian world.
This caused considerable controversy, not least because Arianism had quickly become more popular than the Roman form of religion that was spreading in the early church but also because it challenged the power of the church in Rome which was catering to the pagans to bring them in along with the Emperor Constantine, to the point of breaking its own laws by deifying saints, introducing graven images and a pagan rites and rituals and ceremonies brought into the church; This was more compatible with the traditions of Rome from its ancient pagan religion. The dispute began when Arius, a presbyter (priest) from Libya announced, "If the Father begat the Son, then he who was begotten had a beginning in existence, and from this it follows there was a time when the Son was not." The argument caught on, and the bishop of Alexandria Alexander and chief deacon assistant Athanasius fought against Arius, arguing that Christ is not of a like substance to God, they argued, but the same substance.. To the chief deacon assistant Athanasius this was no splitting of theological hairs. Salvation was at issue, only one who was fully human could atone for human sin; only one who was fully divine could have the power to save us, but they failed in their attempts to hold back the beliefs of Arius.
There then ensued a 15 year long battle between Arius and the bishops led by the church leaders from Rome. Hoever, the teachings of Arius spread, and all over the empire, Christians could be heard taking the Arian view that, "there was a time when the Son was not." In every city, wrote a historian, "bishop was contending against bishop, and the people were contending against one another, like swarms of gnats fighting in the air." Word of the dispute made it to the newly converted Emperor Constantine, and he called a council of bishops and of the 1,800 bishops invited to Nicea in 325 AD, about 300 came and Arius himself attended, and twenty-two bishops, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia, came as supporters of Arius. For about two months, the two sides argued and debated with each appealing to Scripture to justify their respective positions. Arius maintained that the Son of God was a Creature, made from nothing; and that he was God's creation, before all ages. And he argued that everything else was created through the Son. Thus, said Arius, only the Son was directly created and begotten of God; furthermore, there was a time that He had no existence. Arius insisted that the Father's divinity was greater than the Son's, and that the Son was under God the Father, and not co-equal or co-eternal with Him. The Council interrogated Arius using Scripture, only to find that he had a way of interpreting every verse they brought before him. Finally, they used the argument that Arius' view had to be wrong because it was new as they could not refute him with the scripture. Most agree that the Arians won most of the arguments from the scripture in use, but they lost the battle and under Constantine's influence, the majority of the bishops ultimately agreed upon a creed, known thereafter as the Nicene Creed.
Here is a description...
"The Arians came to the First Ecumenical Council with complete confidence, and with full expectation of victory.. The Alexandrians confronted the Arians with the traditional scriptural phrases which appeared to leave no doubt as to the eternal divinity of the Son. But, to their surprise, they were met with total acquiescence on the part of the Arians! Only as each scriptural test was propounded, it was observed that the Arians whispered and gesticulated to one another, evidently hinting that each scriptural phrase could be safely accepted... If the Arians were asked to assent to the phrase that the Son is "like the Father in all things," they would agree, with the reservation that all men, as such, are "in the image and likeness of God." When the Orthodox pointed out that the Son is called "the power of God", this only elicited-after some whispering among the members of the Arian party-the explanation that the host of Israel also was spoken of as "dynamis Kyriou" - "the power of God", and that even the locust and the caterpillar are called "the power of God" in the Holy Scriptures! The "eternity" of the Son was countered.. by the text, "We who live always..."*
The Fathers were baffled....The test of the word homoousios - "of one essence" - was being forced upon the majority by .. the Arian party. When the day for the decisive meeting arrived, it became apparent that the choice lay between the adoption of the word homoousios or the admission of Arianism to a position of toleration and influence in the Church.
But then, was Arianism all that Saint Alexander and the other Orthodox made it out to be? Was Arianism so terrible and so very intolerable, so that this test must be imposed on the Church? The answer came from Eusebius of Nicomedia. Upon the assembling of the bishops for their momentous debate, Eusebius (who sympathized with the Arians) presented the Fathers with a statement of his belief. This statement was an unambiguous assertion of the Arian formulas..
Eusebius of Caesaria came forward and produced a formula, not of his own devising; indeed, it was actually an ancient creed of his own church with an addition intended to guard against Sabellianism. The creed he recited was unassailable on the basis of Holy Scripture and Tradition. No one had a word to say against it, and the Emperor.. Constantine.. expressed his personal concern that it should be adopted, with the single improvement of the word homoousios - "of one essence". The suggestion thus quietly made was momentous in its result. The friends and allies of Saint Alexander had patiently waited their time, and now their time had come. But how and where was the necessary word to be inserted? And if some change must be made in the formula of Caesarea, would it not be in order to explain one or two other details as well? In fact, the creed proposed by Eusebius was carefully considered clause by clause, and eventually took a form materially different from that in which it was first presented, and with affinities to the creeds of Antioch and Jerusalem as well as Caesarea.
The adoption of the word homoousios was a momentous decision. The word was not scriptural. We are told "the Council paused". But the Council brought to mind all the previous discussions with the Arians, and they were reminded of the futility of the scriptural tests alone..."
The council condemned Arius as a heretic, exiled him, and made it a capital offense to possess his writings. However, Arius gained a chance to sway things his way, with Constantine calling him back from exile and commanding Athanasius to reconcile Arius with the Church. Athanasius refused to do this; and Arius gained entrance with the Emperor. After he presented his Creed, Constantine declared his works orthodox and ordered Alexander (Arius’ and Athanasius’ old bishop) to give Arius communion. But quite suddenly Arius died under unusual and mysterious circumstances, most likely murdered some say due to poisoning.
However, in 341 A.D. several church Councils were held in Antioch, and ninety-seven Bishops attended and laid down the foundations of the Arian doctrines of faith that opposed the Nicaean Creed.
Now the interesting thing is that Arius said he did not deny the divinity of Christ, but considered him a “lesser god”. And he was able to use accepted scriptures of the time to back himself up, and the scripture in use in Alexandria as well as Rome at the time were based on the Septuagint, and it was based on the Alexandrian codices which had been corrupted by changes and deletions which allowed, if not caused, the Arian heresy to start and spread.
Arius and Athanasius: Early Christian Disputes | Stranger in a Strange Land
Athanasius | Christian History
The issue had begun with Sabellius a priest and theologian who taught that the Father and the Son are a single entity (prosōpon). The Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and his deacon, Athanasius, believed there were three persons in one god. The Trinitarians were pitted against the Monarchianists, who believed in only one indivisible being. These included Arius, and Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia. Arius accused Alexander of Sabellian tendencies when Alexander accused Arius of denying the second and third person of the Godhead. Arius and his followers, the Arians, believed if the Son were equal to the Father, there would be more than one God.The sticking point at the Nicene Council was a concept found nowhere in the Bible: homoousion. According to the concept of homo + ousion, Christ the Son was con + substantial (the Roman translation for the Greek, meaning 'sharing the same substance') with the Father. The Greek term "homoousian", which Athanasius favored, was actually a term that was reported to be put forth and favored also by Sabellius, and was a term that many followers of Athanasius took issue with and were uneasy about. Their objection to the term "homoousian" was that it was considered to be "un-Scriptural, suspicious, and of a Sabellian tendency. Emperor Constantine had recently made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. This made heresy akin to revolt, so Constantine exiled the excommunicated Arius even though he felt Arius had won the argument.
This caused considerable controversy, not least because Arianism had quickly become more popular than the Roman form of religion that was spreading in the early church but also because it challenged the power of the church in Rome which was catering to the pagans to bring them in along with the Emperor Constantine, to the point of breaking its own laws by deifying saints, introducing graven images and a pagan rites and rituals and ceremonies brought into the church; This was more compatible with the traditions of Rome from its ancient pagan religion. The dispute began when Arius, a presbyter (priest) from Libya announced, "If the Father begat the Son, then he who was begotten had a beginning in existence, and from this it follows there was a time when the Son was not." The argument caught on, and the bishop of Alexandria Alexander and chief deacon assistant Athanasius fought against Arius, arguing that Christ is not of a like substance to God, they argued, but the same substance.. To the chief deacon assistant Athanasius this was no splitting of theological hairs. Salvation was at issue, only one who was fully human could atone for human sin; only one who was fully divine could have the power to save us, but they failed in their attempts to hold back the beliefs of Arius.
There then ensued a 15 year long battle between Arius and the bishops led by the church leaders from Rome. Hoever, the teachings of Arius spread, and all over the empire, Christians could be heard taking the Arian view that, "there was a time when the Son was not." In every city, wrote a historian, "bishop was contending against bishop, and the people were contending against one another, like swarms of gnats fighting in the air." Word of the dispute made it to the newly converted Emperor Constantine, and he called a council of bishops and of the 1,800 bishops invited to Nicea in 325 AD, about 300 came and Arius himself attended, and twenty-two bishops, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia, came as supporters of Arius. For about two months, the two sides argued and debated with each appealing to Scripture to justify their respective positions. Arius maintained that the Son of God was a Creature, made from nothing; and that he was God's creation, before all ages. And he argued that everything else was created through the Son. Thus, said Arius, only the Son was directly created and begotten of God; furthermore, there was a time that He had no existence. Arius insisted that the Father's divinity was greater than the Son's, and that the Son was under God the Father, and not co-equal or co-eternal with Him. The Council interrogated Arius using Scripture, only to find that he had a way of interpreting every verse they brought before him. Finally, they used the argument that Arius' view had to be wrong because it was new as they could not refute him with the scripture. Most agree that the Arians won most of the arguments from the scripture in use, but they lost the battle and under Constantine's influence, the majority of the bishops ultimately agreed upon a creed, known thereafter as the Nicene Creed.
Here is a description...
"The Arians came to the First Ecumenical Council with complete confidence, and with full expectation of victory.. The Alexandrians confronted the Arians with the traditional scriptural phrases which appeared to leave no doubt as to the eternal divinity of the Son. But, to their surprise, they were met with total acquiescence on the part of the Arians! Only as each scriptural test was propounded, it was observed that the Arians whispered and gesticulated to one another, evidently hinting that each scriptural phrase could be safely accepted... If the Arians were asked to assent to the phrase that the Son is "like the Father in all things," they would agree, with the reservation that all men, as such, are "in the image and likeness of God." When the Orthodox pointed out that the Son is called "the power of God", this only elicited-after some whispering among the members of the Arian party-the explanation that the host of Israel also was spoken of as "dynamis Kyriou" - "the power of God", and that even the locust and the caterpillar are called "the power of God" in the Holy Scriptures! The "eternity" of the Son was countered.. by the text, "We who live always..."*
The Fathers were baffled....The test of the word homoousios - "of one essence" - was being forced upon the majority by .. the Arian party. When the day for the decisive meeting arrived, it became apparent that the choice lay between the adoption of the word homoousios or the admission of Arianism to a position of toleration and influence in the Church.
But then, was Arianism all that Saint Alexander and the other Orthodox made it out to be? Was Arianism so terrible and so very intolerable, so that this test must be imposed on the Church? The answer came from Eusebius of Nicomedia. Upon the assembling of the bishops for their momentous debate, Eusebius (who sympathized with the Arians) presented the Fathers with a statement of his belief. This statement was an unambiguous assertion of the Arian formulas..
Eusebius of Caesaria came forward and produced a formula, not of his own devising; indeed, it was actually an ancient creed of his own church with an addition intended to guard against Sabellianism. The creed he recited was unassailable on the basis of Holy Scripture and Tradition. No one had a word to say against it, and the Emperor.. Constantine.. expressed his personal concern that it should be adopted, with the single improvement of the word homoousios - "of one essence". The suggestion thus quietly made was momentous in its result. The friends and allies of Saint Alexander had patiently waited their time, and now their time had come. But how and where was the necessary word to be inserted? And if some change must be made in the formula of Caesarea, would it not be in order to explain one or two other details as well? In fact, the creed proposed by Eusebius was carefully considered clause by clause, and eventually took a form materially different from that in which it was first presented, and with affinities to the creeds of Antioch and Jerusalem as well as Caesarea.
The adoption of the word homoousios was a momentous decision. The word was not scriptural. We are told "the Council paused". But the Council brought to mind all the previous discussions with the Arians, and they were reminded of the futility of the scriptural tests alone..."
The council condemned Arius as a heretic, exiled him, and made it a capital offense to possess his writings. However, Arius gained a chance to sway things his way, with Constantine calling him back from exile and commanding Athanasius to reconcile Arius with the Church. Athanasius refused to do this; and Arius gained entrance with the Emperor. After he presented his Creed, Constantine declared his works orthodox and ordered Alexander (Arius’ and Athanasius’ old bishop) to give Arius communion. But quite suddenly Arius died under unusual and mysterious circumstances, most likely murdered some say due to poisoning.
However, in 341 A.D. several church Councils were held in Antioch, and ninety-seven Bishops attended and laid down the foundations of the Arian doctrines of faith that opposed the Nicaean Creed.
Now the interesting thing is that Arius said he did not deny the divinity of Christ, but considered him a “lesser god”. And he was able to use accepted scriptures of the time to back himself up, and the scripture in use in Alexandria as well as Rome at the time were based on the Septuagint, and it was based on the Alexandrian codices which had been corrupted by changes and deletions which allowed, if not caused, the Arian heresy to start and spread.
Arius and Athanasius: Early Christian Disputes | Stranger in a Strange Land
Athanasius | Christian History
The issue had begun with Sabellius a priest and theologian who taught that the Father and the Son are a single entity (prosōpon). The Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and his deacon, Athanasius, believed there were three persons in one god. The Trinitarians were pitted against the Monarchianists, who believed in only one indivisible being. These included Arius, and Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia. Arius accused Alexander of Sabellian tendencies when Alexander accused Arius of denying the second and third person of the Godhead. Arius and his followers, the Arians, believed if the Son were equal to the Father, there would be more than one God.The sticking point at the Nicene Council was a concept found nowhere in the Bible: homoousion. According to the concept of homo + ousion, Christ the Son was con + substantial (the Roman translation for the Greek, meaning 'sharing the same substance') with the Father. The Greek term "homoousian", which Athanasius favored, was actually a term that was reported to be put forth and favored also by Sabellius, and was a term that many followers of Athanasius took issue with and were uneasy about. Their objection to the term "homoousian" was that it was considered to be "un-Scriptural, suspicious, and of a Sabellian tendency. Emperor Constantine had recently made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. This made heresy akin to revolt, so Constantine exiled the excommunicated Arius even though he felt Arius had won the argument.
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