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When
Jesus asked the question in Math 16:13, “Who do men say that I
the son of man am?” Jesus raised the question of his identity
that would become the two edged sword to divide true doctrine
and revelation from that of heresy concerning mans perception of
God the Son.
 Tertullian,
(picture) the father of Latin theology, in 180AD was the
first to use the word trinitas (trinity), however it was
not until 318AD at the beginning of the Christian Roman Empire,
that the Arians and Nicetorians pressured the Church to
formulate the doctrine.
At that time Constantinople was seething with discussion on the
matter largely because of
Arius (256-336) a theology student from Antioch and later in
313, Presbyter of Alexandria. Arius
taught that God the Son was not eternal but created, and
subordinate to God the Father.
He said “if the
Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a
beginning of existence: and from this it is evident, that there
was a time when the Son was not. It therefore necessarily
follows, that he had his substance from nothing.’"
While Arius may
have misunderstood the term ‘begotten’,
nevertheless he evangelized his doctrines amongst the people
using persuasive jingles and soon founded a movement after his
name called Arianism.
Meanwhile, the
Church seeking to maintain unity among the believers, and strove
to affirm the deity of Christ to combat Arius’ claims. It recognised that the Trinity doctrine was fundamental to
Christian faith and would mark Orthodoxy from Unorthodoxy.
Additionally, it also recognised that the sanction of the Arian
views by the Emperor threatened to turn Christianity into a
philosophy of mixed pagan thought. It risked the Son being
looked upon as no more than a suffering divine hero, and being
worshiped no different than the pagan heroes of the Greeks.
At stake were the doctrines surrounding the deity of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and with it, the gospel of salvation.
Around
318AD, Arius (picture) clashed with Bishop Alexander of
Alexandria. Arius claimed that the Father alone was truly God.
He claimed that there was a time when he Son did not exist,
therefore not of the same essence as the Father, but created.
Albeit the highest of all created, similar to the Father
but not of the same essence. Arius said Jesus became
sinless through practice and not by nature. These doctrines,
evangelised through jingles, became very popular and gained
rapid support.
In response, Bishop Alexander called a snod about 320AD,
condemned and excommunicated Arius. However, Arius won the
support of Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia (a political capital),
which motivated Arius’s followers to riot,
which
further fueled debate amongst the populace.
Socrates wrote:
The furious
debates among Christians in Egypt "became a subject of popular
ridicule, even in the very theatres."
Constantine
(the Great), in 325AD called for a council at Nicaea to diffuse
the tension and settle the issue. This marked
the advent of formalised Imperial influence upon matters
concerning doctrines of the Church. Three hundred bishops met
(290 of them still bearing the scars of the Diocletian
persecution) and all but two signed a Creed (the Nicean Creed)
which condemned the Arian heresy.
 A
young aid of Bishop Alexander, whose name was Athanasius
(Picture), became Bishop of Alexandria soon after Alexander’s
death, and continued to oppose Arianism. However, an off-shoot
of the Arians (called “Semi-Arians”) arose and attempted to give
a new interpretation to the Nicean Creed where it described the
Son’s relationship with the Father. They changed the Greek word
‘homoousious’ interpreted as “same” (or of same
substance), to the word ‘homoios’ meaning similar.
The issue was not new to the Church,
in
fact it had
been raised some 50 years before Arius, when Paul of Samosata
was deposed in 269AD for his agreement with those who had then
used the word homoios.
During the Semi-Arian controversy however, politics mingled with
theology and each side laboured to win the favor of Emperor
Constantine. Unlike the Church of that time, the Arian party was
politically very influential and slowly re-gained the Emperor’s
support. Eventually, in 334 Constantine (not the
Church) recalled Arius from exile.
Later,
Constantius II (the next Emperor), and Bishop Eusebius (who
later became an Arian leader) enabled Arianism to prevail.
Athanasius
was exiled to Trier for refusing to “receive Arius back into
communion”, so Alexander (of Constantinople) was ordered to
receive Arius back in his stead. Alexander dared not disobey the
command, but yet was opposed to Arius' reinstatement. He sought
the prayers of Nicene Christians that either he or Arius be
removed from the world before Arius was re-admitted. When the
time came in 336AD, Arius was summoned before the Emperor and
found to be “suitably compliant”. And yet, the very day before
he was to be re-admitted to communion, Arius died suddenly.
Socrates describes
his death:
“It was then
Saturday, and . . . going out of the imperial palace, attended
by a crowd of Eusebian [Eusebius of Nicomedia is meant]
partisans like guards, he [Arius] paraded proudly through the
midst of the city, attracting the notice of all the people. As
he approached the place called Constantine's Forum, where the
column of porphyry is erected, a terror arising from the remorse
of conscience seized Arius, and with the terror a violent
relaxation of the bowels: he therefore enquired whether there
was a convenient place near, and being directed to the back of
Constantine's Forum, he hastened thither. Soon after a faintness
came over him, and together with the evacuations his bowels
protruded, followed by a copious haemorrhage, and the descent of
the smaller intestines: moreover portions of his spleen and
liver were brought off in the effusion of blood, so that he
almost immediately died. The scene of this catastrophe still is
shown at Constantinople, as I have said, behind the shambles in
the colonnade: and by persons going by pointing the finger at
the place, there is a perpetual remembrance preserved of this
extraordinary kind of death”.
(Source:
Wikipedia)
While
Constantine’s death a year later brought a temporary lull to the
controversy,
by 359 Arianism had prevailed and became the official faith of
the empire in its strictest form.
Athanasius, however, stood for the truth and was exiled not
once, but five times. During one of such
time
when all had seemed to have deserted him, he uttered his famous
defense “Athanasius against the world”. He refused to
restore Arius, because he
was convinced that unless the essence of the Son was definitely
understood to be the same as that of the Father, it would
inevitably follow that the Son would at best be regarded as no
more than the highest of a Gnostic aeon.
 With
the death of Constantius, the way was open for Emperor
Theodosius (picture) in 379 to outlaw the Arian doctrine and
once again affirm the creed of Nicean Orthodoxy at the Council
of Constantinople in 381.
Damasus I
(Pope 366-384) was a pivotal figure in settling the Arian
controversy. Important Bishops of the East, notably Basil of
Caesarea, looked to Pope Damasus to make judgement. It was
Damasus’s influence that finally ended Arianism’s stronghold in
the empire in favour for the Orthodox view.
The
doctrine of the Arians, however, continued for two centuries
longer among the outer tribes, which had been previously
indoctrinated. Alaric, who sacked Rome in 410, claimed to be an
Arian Christian. It is known that Arian converts reached as far
as China.
The
belief of the Trinity doctrine was well established in Orthodoxy
in 381, however, the full boundaries of the doctrine were not
settled until two further Councils; Ephesus in 431, and
Chalcedon in 451 (The Creed of the Council of Chalcedon is what
remains today).
Against
Arius, therefore, the Church affirmed that Jesus Christ was
fully God, and equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit.
However, the error observed in Arianism is prevalent today in
almost every Christian cult. The question of “Who do men say
that I the son of man am?” remains the most critical
judgement.
This “rock of revelation” of who Jesus is, remains the
foundation upon which Christ has, and will, continue to build
his Church. (Math: 16: 17,18). |
