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conclude that, whilst the overall presentation of the faith

Truth in a Heresy? by Arius and like minded thinkers is less satisfactory than
that of their ultimately canonized opponents, their
3. Arianism concerns were yet important. For they were notably
concerned with the sovereign oneness of God, and a
BY THE REVD DR ALVYN PETTERSEN,
FRENSHAM, SURREY
corollary, that all else is creaturely and dependent.
As for us, what do we say and believe and what have we
taught and what do we teach? That the Son is not
unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten; nor
’Truth in a heresy’ sounds almost like a contradiction in from some lower essence; but that by [sc. the Father’s] will
terms; and Arianism sounds increasingly like an and counsel he has subsisted before time and before ages as
outmoded title. R. Lorenz, R. D. Williams, G. C. Stead, God, full, only-begotten, unchangeable [Theodoret, Church
R. P. C. Hanson, and M. Wiles’ have persuaded many History 1.5].
both that the historical Arius will always remain an So wrote Arius, the Alexandrian presbyter, to Eusebius
elusive figure and that the epithet ’Arian’ should at the of Nicomedia, not long after having entered into debate
very least be relegated to inverted commas. ’Arian’ is with his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria, concerning
simply too inaccurate a label to describe the variety of God’s oneness. To understand, however, what Arius
opponents of the fourth-century theologies which wrote, and why, as opposed to how his opponents
culminated in the Nicene Constantinopolitan creed. That portrayed his it is important to appreciate the
thinking,
having been said, we cannot so easily lay aside our context within which his thinking was formed. For him
title. For, while there is both a paucity of sources and others like him there were no e-mails, no airmails,
relating to Arius and his closest associates and wide and no telephones; travel was difficult and slow. In short,
variety of beliefs amongst those later designated communication was restricted. Consequently, the context
’Arian’, it is possible to gain a broad and impressionistic within which Arius did his theology was relatively local.
portrait of ’Arianism’. The portrait will not represent the The scriptures which he heard read would be those
precise views of any one theologian; but it will be not commonly read in the churches of Alexandria; and the
unlike the general views of those whom the Nicenes manner in which they were understood was the manner in

opposed. which the great theologians of the past who had informed
Once that broad portrait is completed, it may then be Alexandria had understood them. So, in seeking to
possible to search for certain insights or concerns which understand Arius’s thinking, and in assessing the
still are important for and consistent with the church’s theological points which he was eager to promote, it is
exploration of the truth. The truth sometimes is proper to note the scriptures read in and the tradition
understood by Christians as a single, consistent vision, which informed Alexandria itself.
expanding only as it gains increasingly precise insights, Arius read texts such as John 17:3, with its reference to
the result of the church being forced to counter deliberate the ’only true’ God, 1 Timothy 6:15-16 and its ’only
perversions of that truth. The truth sometimes, however, Sovereign ... who alone has immortality’, Romans 16:27
is understood by Christians as that which the church seeks and its ’only wise’ God, and Mark 10:18 and its ’no one
to discover in the context of ever changing circumstances is good but God alone’. These Arius did not read
and new challenges. Within this understanding a ’church allegorically. They were not to be but a ventriloquist’s
father’ and a ’heretic’ are much less sharply contrasted, dummy, which the reader made to say what he wanted
both being explorers after the one truth, even if, upon them to say. Not unreasonably he, therefore,
review, one seems to have been more successful than the acknowledged, as for example in his letter of defence to
other. To allow this second understanding is not, of his bishop, Alexander, that the one God was
course, to deny the reality of the issues which divide the
alone unbegotten, alone everlasting, alone unbegun, alone
one from the other. It is only to acknowledge that proper
true, alone having immortality, alone wise, alone good,
concerns and right insights are not the exclusive
alone sovereign [Athanasius, de Synodis, 16].
prerogatives of the one side which eventually ’triumphs’
in any particular theological debate. Certainly Arius attributed these epithets exclusively to the
If we allow this latter understanding, Arius and like Father. Yet even then Arius could reasonably believe that
thinkers are not to be seen as malevolent people, but he was being faithful to the scriptural passages from
churchmen, eager to explore the truth in the changing which the epithets had been taken. For, in each of the
circumstances of the fourth century, whilst determined to scriptural passages, the God to whom these epithets were
defend some aspects of the truth which they felt were then attributed was explicitly differentiated from Jesus Christ.
genuinely at risk. If we allow this latter scenario, we may Arius read further texts. He turned to Proverbs 8.22f:
the Lord created me at the beginning of his works, the first
1
For titles see Further Reading (p. 154, below). of his acts of old. Ages ago, I was formed, at the first,
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before the beginning of the earth. When there were no Arius’s theological conclusions concerning the Father
depths,I was brought forth. and his creative Word also tallied with a certain tendency
Again, not unreasonably, Arius acknowledged that the within the then contemporary philosophy. At the time
Wisdom of God was ’brought forth’ by the Father; he was there were two general tendencies, each of which worked
the Only Begotten of God the Father. In short, Arius with a phrase akin to Plato’s ’Father and creator of all’.
therefore concluded that scripture taught that there was, The one, however, interpreted both terms, ’Father’ and
on the one hand, God, the Father, the ‘only true God’, the ’creator of all’, as referring to the same being, a single
Unbegotten, and, on the other, his creative Wisdom, the deity, while the other understood them to refer to two
only begotten, divine, but not God as the Father is God. deities, a first God, who is the supreme Father, and a
These conclusions tallied with the theological tradition distinct second God, the creator or demiurge.
which the early fourth-century Alexandrians had It would seem therefore that Arius was fairly
inherited. Clement, Origen and Dionysius the Great were conservative in his reading of scripture, his convergence
the theologians whom these fourth-century Alexandrians with earlier Alexandrian theological tradition, and his use
respected; and Justin Martyr is the one who, ’more than of contemporary philosophy as a handmaid, serving his
anyone else ... constructs the platform upon which theological method. There are, it must be admitted, early
Clement and Origen will stand’ (H. Chadwick, Early descriptions of Arius as both ’a man possessed of no
Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition, Oxford, inconsiderable logical acumen’ (Socrates, Church History
1966, 10). Christians, according to Justin, worship ’the 1.5) and ’a most expert logician’ (Sozomen, Church
most true God, the Father of righteousness ... and the History 1.15.3). Yet these are understood better as
Son, who came forth from him and taught us all things’ polemicists’ attempts to denigrate Arius and his thinking
(l Apology, 6); they are those who, ’next to God, worship than as proof that Arius allowed contemporary
and love the Word, who is from the unbegotten and philosophy to lord it over, rather than serve, his reading
ineffable God’ (2 Apology 13). For Justin there is then a of scripture and tradition. Certainly the facts, as we have
second divine reality, the proper object of Christian portrayed them, do not support such a proof (for a fuller
worship, who is numerically distinct from God (Dialogue account of these issues see M. Wiles, ’The philosophy in
with Trypho 61; 62; 128; 129), and yet morally one with Christianity: Arius and Athanasius’, in G. Vesey, ed., The
God. For Clement God is he who is completely without Philosophy in Christianity, Cambridge, 1989, 41-52).
beginning, the beginning of all things (Strom. 4.2); he Arius generally was fairly conservative. Yet he could
’made’ or ’created’ his Son, or Word, or first created also be radical, especially when he felt that some aspect of
Wisdom (Strom. 5.89, cf. 5.78-82]. For Origen, the the truth was genuinely at risk. For Arius, one such aspect
Father alone is true God, ’altogether one and simple’ then at risk was God’s oneness. Witness Socrates’s
(Comm. in Joh. 1.20), the underived and unchangeable description of the outbreak of the Arian controversy.
source of all things. The Son is one with him but distinct. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, attempted one day, in the
For the Son is derived from God, as the will derives from presence of the presbyters and the rest of his clergy, too
the mind (de Princ. 1.2.6; 1.2.9); and whatever the Father ambitious a discourse about the Holy Trinity, the subject
is, the Son is, eternally, but in a derivative sense. So, being ’unity in Trinity’ (Church History 1.5.1)
while the Father alone is good (Comm. in Joh. 13.36), the Arius, Socrates continued, retorted,
Son is also good, but only as the image of the Father’s if the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten has a
goodness. Dionysius the Great also wished to maintain beginning of existence; and from this it is evident, that
both the unity and distinction between the Father and there was when the Son was not. It therefore necessarily
Son. He regarded the Son as ’eternal’, as ’Father’ follows that he had his essence from the non-existent
logically implied the existence of ‘Son’; yet he also spoke (ibid. ).
of the Son as a thing ’made’, a term suggested by the In other words, he retorted, God alone was God, and
analogies which he used, both that of a boat builder and a the Son, being begotten, was a creature. The Son might be
boat, and the more scriptural one of a speaker and the divine; but he was a divine creature, divine by grace, but
spoken word. a creature by nature. This latter point Arius further
The argument of Arius and like minded people that concluded as a result of taking seriously the verbs ’to
God was one, and his Word or Wisdom was divine, but in create’ and ’to form’ in passages such as Proverbs 8:22ff.
a secondary sense, is then not wholly out of keeping with Previously, theologians had drawn a distinction between
early readings of scripture and theological expression. things spiritual and things material. They could read texts
Indeed, how seriously Arius took both scripture and the such as Proverbs 8:22f, note that the Logos or Wisdom
tradition which then informed Alexandrian piety is to be was ’created’ or ’formed’ and understand them to mean
seen in the fact that Athanasius spent so much time in that the Logos was indeed ’created’ and thus secondary to
both the exegesis of the texts used by Arius and the the one who created him, God, and yet was on the ’spirit’,
attempt to show that theologians like Dionysius supported or ’divine’ side of the ’spirit’-’matter’ distinction. With
not Arius’s but his own thinking. Arius, as with Athanasius, one of Arius’s main opponents,
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the former distinction was altered. Now the essential Logos was not dependent upon ’God assuming flesh’.
distinction was drawn between, on the one hand, the one Indeed, for Arius, salvation was wrought by God’s
who made, God, the Creator, and, on the other, all things powerful word of forgiveness. God alone was the agent of
made, spiritual or material (see A. Louth. The Origins of redemption; and the efficacy of his absolvo te was
the Christian Mystical Tradition, From Plato to Denys, unaffected by the creatureliness of the Logos through
Oxford, 1981, 75ff). Anything, therefore, that was whom he pronounced it.
’created’ or ’formed’ could not now be understood as For Arius, as for theologians like Athanasius, one of
being on the Creator’s side of the essential distinction. Arius’s main opponents, that God saves was most
Now, if one spoke of the Logos having been ’created’ or important. For, for both of them, God alone can save.
’formed’, one might still wish to assert that the Logos was Where the two differed was how God saved. Arius
spiritual, but one would also have to assert that he asserted that God saved by divine fiat; Athanasius,
was quite other than the one who created or formed however, maintained that, though God could save by fiat,
him. Texts such as Proverbs 8:22 now were read as he did not. Rather, he maintained that God became human
placing the Logos ’created’ or ’formed’ by God amongst that humanity might be deified. What, to Athanasius’s
creatures. mind, was important was not what was possible but what
That the Son was a creature, Arius believed, was yet was expedient for fallen humanity. If God saved by divine
further confirmed by texts such as Matthew 4:2, John fiat, a person’s religious life would at best be a series of
19:28, Mark 14:34ff, 15:34, which spoke of the Christ sinning and being forgiven, sinning and being forgiven,
hungering and thirsting, being weak and fearful, suffering repeated over and over again; the human world would be
pain and grief. The subject of these human passions, returned to its prelapsarian state, but with the possibility
according to Arius, was the Word. Since very God is of another Fall. What was expedient was rather that
impassible and so unable to experience human passions, humanity might be transformed and transfigured, the
and since the Word experiences human passions, the redeeming grace of God no longer being only an external
Word by definition could not then be very God. influence but a power intimately joined to humanity by
Moreover, since the Logos was not very God, he must be the divine Logos being intimately joined to assumed
a creature. For there was no other category of being that humanity. Equally, for Athanasius, if God revealed
he could be. The Logos might be the highest, most himself in and through a creaturely Logos, no matter how
spiritual creature, but he was nevertheless a creature; he divine by grace, an individual’s appreciation of God
might be divine, but divine by grace and not by nature. would be uncertain, given that the one whom the
Yet the Word, according to Arius, was not any creature. individual encountered would not be God incarnate, but a
For Arius also took seriously the verb ’to bring forth’ in creaturely intermediary. In short, for Athanasius there was
texts like Proverbs 8:22f. If ’to create’ and ’to form’ no salvation, let alone a secure salvation if the Logos was

suggested the Son’s creaturely nature, the verb ’to bring a creature, as Arius maintained. For how could the Logos
forth’ suggested the unique and intimate nature of the reconcile creation with God when the Logos himself was
primary act whereby the Son was created. The relation of a creature (Contra Arianos 2.22, 26, 67-70). There would
the Father to his Word was, therefore, of God the Father be a secure salvation only if very God became very man.
to a creature, especially willed into being to be the Very God could make the radical and decisive difference
Father’s agent of creating all things. needed in the fallen world; and by becoming very man,
Given, then, that the Word or Wisdom or Son is a and not simply coming upon man as he did as and when
creature, even if the highest and most significant creature, he spoke in and through the Old Testamental prophets,
the text, ’I and my Father are one’ (Jn 10:30) is the divine Logos, very God, could actually encounter
understood as referring to a unity, not of fundamental human ignorance and replace it with the knowledge of
being, but of will. Indeed, that the unity between the God, and genuinely meet human mortality and
Father and Son is that of will, Arius and like thinkers corruptibility, and having met it, in and through the
found suggested by the high priestly prayer to the Father Resurrection, end it (Contra Arianos 2.67., cf. 2.69).
that Christ’s followers ’may be one as we are one’ (Jn For an Athanasius of that fourth-century world what
17:22): Christ’s prayer is that his followers may know a was important was that the Logos was very God, that the
moral unity, a perfect harmony of will, a unity modelled humanity of Christ was our humanity and that very God
upon the moral unity of the Father and Son. became, and did not simply come upon, our humanity.
This placing the Logos on the creaturely side of the What was to be opposed in Arian thinking centred,
Creator-creature distinction did not greatly worry Arius, therefore, upon three areas: those of divinity, humanity,
partly because he thought that this was what scripture, and ’becoming’. An Athanasius of that fourth century
properly understood, taught, partly because it left the world therefore opposed those who asserted that the
oneness of God completely uncompromised - there now Logos was divine, but only by grace. Rather, he insisted
was not even a secondary God - and partly because he that, like his Father, the Logos was eternal. Indeed, as the
believed that the salvation wrought in and through the Father was God, so the Logos was, paternity apart. This
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insistence upon the Logos being God, rather than just while the Christ knows God, God yet exists ’ineffable to
being like God was a significant theological point. For, the Son’. Indeed, Arius is reported as asking, ’what logic
while for Arius and many like him, the divinity of the permits the one who is from the Father to know by
Logos was understood to be ’by grace’, for many others comprehension the one who begot him?’ (Athanasius, de
who did not see themselves as followers of Arius’s Synodis 1 S). Eunomius, later in the fourth century, even
teaching, but who were spoken of by their opponents as pressed for the recognition of a radical unlikeness
’Arians’, the divinity of the Logos was of a secondary between the Father and Son, asserting that only one name
nature, when compared with that of the Father; only so, could truly be predicated of God, the name agennetos,
they argued, could one avoid affirming two divine ’unborn’, and not simply agenetos, ’without a source’;
principles. Athanasius and like thinkers disagreed. A that was all that might literally be known of God, even by
secondary divinity was no divinity. There was only one himself (Gregory of Nyssa, contra Eunomium 2.42, 44).
divinity and only one way of being divine; and if the In short, the very otherness of this divine transcendence
Logos was divine, he was divine in the same sense as the limited God’s relationship with the world. Such
Father was. Further, though those spoken of by their transcendence withdrew God from truly being the Creator
opponents as ’Arians’ claimed to take theosis, and Lord and Saviour of all. It weakened rather than
divinization, seriously (vid. Eusebius of Emessa in strengthened the power of God. Athanasius equally
Theodoret, Eranistes 3 [PG 83, 312C-317A]), their claim asserted that God was transcendent. He insisted, however,
that this divinization was effected through a mediator, a that that transcendent could not be limited or limiting. For
secondary god, was understood by the Nicene theologians the transcendence was a corollary of God being infinite.
as empty: a mediator stands at a distance from God and so Thus, for Athanasius, the Son was very God without in
cannot embody the one God’s activity directly and any way limiting or impairing the Father’s oneness.
effectively, without which divinization was not securely Indeed, it permitted an understanding of God as
effected. Hence the insistence on the thinking behind ’of ’communion’, the Father participating in the Son and the
the same substance’, rather than that behind ’of like Son indwelling the Father. It also permitted a sense of
substance’; hence the insistence at Nicaea that the Logos human godliness being marked by communion. Polemic
was not simply God but very God. Arian thinking that the colours, but does not wholly explain, Athanasius’s
Logos was divine, but only by grace, was to be opposed, criticism of Arius when he suggests that Arians are
not simply because they were misguided in their thinking, uncharitable as their God, in his solitariness, is
but because their teaching was not a deviant form of unconcerned (Hist. Arianorum 62). For Athanasius God
Christianity, but a negation. Certainly an Athanasius can create matter. Indeed, he creates because he is infinite

acknowledged that there were texts in the scriptures goodness, which envies nothing existence (de
which spoke both of the Logos having been created (e.g., Incarnatione 3). He can become incarnate, and then is not
Prov 8:22) and of Christ’s human passions (e.g., Mt 4:2; limited by his assumed humanity (ibid. 17). In short, the
Jn 19:28: Mk 14:34ff; 15:34), but believed that these one God can draw near to the human world of matter. He
referred to the assumed humanity of the Logos, and not to can reveal himself in and through matter. Thus what is
the Logos in his eternal, increate, and impassible nature. revealed in the incarnation of the Logos is the eternal
Whatever else, an Athanasius was convinced that only a nature of God, not a moment or aspect of God’s life,
wrong exegesis understood these texts as proofs that the which might be supplemented or balanced from other
Logos was a creature. Lastly, an Athanasius of that world sources or moments of revelation. There is a real
understood the ’becoming’ as being genuine and as encounter of God with man and man with God.
referring not to the Logos in himself but to the humanity Moreover, just as God is not limited by matter, so he is
of the incarnation. The Logos did not come into being; his not limited by human apprehensions of God. Whereas
assumed humanity did. with a Eunomius there is a rather dry apophaticism, born
For Arius, as for theologians like Athanasius, the of transcendent otherness, with a Gregory of Nyssa there
transcendence of God was also important; but again they is a rich apophaticism matched by kataphaticism. Because
differed in their understanding of that transcendence. For God cannot be limited by words and ideas, humans may
the one, it limited; for the other, it made things rightly speak of God, who yet is not limited by those
possibilities. Arius had insisted upon the utter human words and definitions (cf. Gregory of Nyssa,
independence and separateness of God, the source of all. contra Eunomium 2.67-78; 3.8.1-4). Moreover, because
This manifested itself in a variety of ways. Firstly, the this infinite God cannot be limited, the words and ideas
oneness of God precluded any essential koinonia within which may be used to give voice to theology and worship
the Godhead. Secondly, God cannot naturally and will not be limited and fixed. There will be no
immediately relate to the world; he can do so only ’privileged’ religious language: theological formulae, for
through the intermediary Word. Nor can God become example, will not be limited to the language of the Bible;
human, part of the created world. Thirdly, humans cannot there will be no avoiding analogies from the material and
readily draw near to God. Arius, in his Thalia, admits that temporal world when speaking of the immaterial and
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a-temporal God (cf. ibid. 3.5.48-49); and language will beliefs of those who lost in a fourth-century power
change as peoples’ relationships with God, and their struggle. Their theological method more often than not
understanding of their relationships with him, change. For was based in a non-allegorical understanding of scripture,
the function of speech is to articulate a changing informed by local ecclesial tradition and open to
relationship, as ’the understanding makes contact with addressing the challenges and opportunities of new
things’ (ibid. 3.5.52). A truth which the Nicenes, contexts. Twenty-first century churchmen and women
therefore, variously maintain is that the infinite God perhaps should note that when they seek to bring the
escapes all definitions; and they insist that all should grace and truth of Christ to this and the next generations.
wonder at the power of God to make himself weak and to The theology which arose from ’Arian’ theological
identify himself with a life which is not his own (ibid. method may not be one which, in every part, everyone
3.30-40). God’s limiting himself in Christ then becomes a may now wish to assume. Yet the Arian concern for the
sign, not of his creatureliness and vulnerability, but of his oneness of God, for the propriety of reverent
sovereign freedom from all limitations. apophaticism, and for the otherness of all things
’Arianism’ was and still often is seen as a heresy, creaturely, visible and invisible, may be important to note
formulated and propagated by a single dominant teacher. even now. Too often God now is either ’domesticated’,
In large part, however, it was a collection of roughly by prayers which summon him to human service, or
similar ideas which contributed to the debate about the subjected to anthropomorphism, by an uncritical sense of
kind of continuity possible and necessary in fourth- God suffering; some churchmen and women wish to
century Christian theology. Central to that debate was define every aspect of every theological axiom; and
how to express the oneness of the sovereign God, with its things ’spiritual’ are, to all intents and purposes,
accompanying apophatic theology, and the otherness of frequently deified - the stars are deemed to dictate
creation. Within that debate Arius and the later critics of people’s futures, and Christian values, rather than Christ,
Nicaea saw themselves as guardians of the belief that God are all important. ’Arian’ theology may be at times full of
is the sole anarchos, the sole one ’without beginning’, good intentions; and we all know with what the path to
impassible and eternal. Consequently, Arius broke with hell is paved. Nevertheless, these good intentions may,
any acceptance of there being a secondary divine being, amongst other things, prompt us again to be radical in our
as in earlier Alexandrian understandings of the Logos, proclaiming afresh in each generation the faith revealed in
saw his statements in his disagreement with his bishop, scripture and tradition. Perhaps, after all, in ’Arianism’
Alexander, as statements defending the church against there are truths to be heeded.
Sabellianism (Socrates, Church History 1.15), and
resisted any sense of plurality within the Godhead, as Further Reading
maybe suggested by the supporters of either the R. Lorenz, Arius Judaizans? (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
’homoousion’ or ’homoiousion’ position. They also saw 1978).
themselves as defending the otherness of creation. To that R. C. Gregg & D. E. Groh, Early Arianism - A View of
end Arius asserted that creation, things seen and unseen, Salvation (SCM Press, 1981).
spiritual and material, were made by God from nothing, R. C. Gregg, ed., Arianism. Historical and Theological
and were other than God - witness his insistence that the Reassessments (The Philadelphia Patristic Foundation,
human passions of Christ established that the Word was 1985).
not God but truly a creature, one with all human beings in R. D. Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (Darton,
sharing their passions and undergoing their pain. Longman & Todd, 1987).
’Arianism’ equally shared in the debate about the M. R. Barnes & D. H. Williams, eds., Arianism after
theological method appropriate for fourth-century Arius: Essays on the development of the Fourth
theology. Generally speaking, Arius and like minded Century Trinitarian Conflicts (T&T Clark, 1993).
theologians were dedicated theological conservatives. G. C. Stead, Arius in Modern Research (JTS NS 45, 1994,
They took the scriptures and their local theological 24-36).
tradition seriously. Yet they did not allow their M. Wiles, Archetypal Heresies: Arianism through the
theological conservatism to stand in the way of devising Ages (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996).
new theological formulations to defend what they saw to R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of
be traditional theological truths in new and challenging God (T&T Clark, 1998).
circumstances. They saw their task as guarding the truth
whilst framing it in such forms that it might thereby be
better known in the new generation. In this sense Arius
was, therefore, at once a figurehead of conservatism and a
radical.
Whatever else, it would seem that we can no longer
read ’Arianism’ as either wholly wrong or simply the