Subordination was orthodox when the Arian Controversy began.
Summary
The ‘Arian’ Controversy raged for most of the fourth century. In the traditional account, today’s Trinity doctrine was accepted orthodoxy when the Controversy began but Arius introduced a novel heresy that dominated the church for over 50 years. Consequently, in the Controversy, the established orthodoxy struggled against a new heresy. This view is false in several respects:
Arius did not introduce anything new. He was a conservative. He was one instance of a much larger trajectory. He was a follower; not a leader.
The theology of Arius’ opponent Alexander was one of the other trajectories at the beginning of the fourth century.
The dispute between Arius and Alexander was a continuation of the third-century controversy. They represented the two main opposing views of the third century.
There was no ‘orthodoxy’ at the beginning of the fourth century in the sense that there was no formally agreed consensus position.
However, all church fathers before and during the Controversy regarded the Son as subordinate. That can be taken as the orthodox view when the Controversy began. The Cappadocians were the first to proclaim full equality for the Son.
The Nicene Creed was not orthodox. Particularly the term homoousios was not standard Christian language at the time and was preferred only by Sabellians.
What we today regard as orthodox or Nicene Christology did not exist when the Controversy began. It evolved during that Controversy as one way of explaining the Nicene Creed.
Introduction
Purpose
This article explains what the 'orthodox' view was when the Controversy began.
The fourth-century Arian Controversy began as a disagreement about the nature of the Son of God, with Arius and his bishop Alexander representing two opposing views.
Brief History
The Controversy began soon after persecution ended and ended when persecution resumed.
In the first three centuries, Christianity was illegal and persecuted. Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 313. The Controversy began five years later with a dispute between Arius and his bishop Alexander. In 325, a church council at Nicaea accepted the Nicene Creed. The most controversial aspect of that Creed was that it uses the term homoousios to say that the Son is of the same 'substance' as the Father.
For the next 55 years, most Christians opposed that Creed; primarily the word homoousios. Several creeds were formulated to find alternatives for the term.
- Some said that the Son’s substance was similar to the Father’s (homoi-ousian).
- Others stated that His substance is different from the Father’s (heter-ousios).
- Still others (the Homoians - the Protestants of the fourth century) claimed that, since the Bible does not say anything about God's substance, Christian Creeds should not refer to God’s substance at all.
However, in the year 380, Emperor Theodosius ended the Controversy by issuing a Roman law that made Trinitarian Christology (Athanasius' 'one hypostasis' theology) the state religion of the Roman Empire. Through the Imperial Forces, the emperor ruthlessly exterminated all other strands of Christianity, for example, he forbade other Christians to settle in cities, have churches, or to preach.
Authors Quoted
This article is based on books by world-class scholars of the last 50 years.
Due to research and a store of ancient documents that have become available over the last 100 years, scholars today conclude that the traditional account of the Controversy - of how and why the church accepted the Trinity doctrine - is history written by the winner and fundamentally flawed. In some instances, it is the opposite of the true history.
Following the last full-scale book on the fourth-century Arian Controversy in English, written by Gwatkin at the beginning of the 20th century, only a handful of full-scale books on the Arian Controversy have been published. This article series is largely based on the following books:
Hanson, Bishop R.P.C.
The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God –
The Arian Controversy 318-381 (1987)
Williams, Archbishop Rowan
Arius: Heresy and Tradition (2002/1987)
Ayres, Lewis
Nicaea and its legacy (2004)
Ayres is a Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology
Anatolios, Khaled
Retrieving Nicaea (2011)
'Arians'
Anti-Nicene are traditionally called Arians, implying that they followed Arius. However, Arius did not leave behind a school of disciples. He had very few real followers. Nobody regarded his writings worth copying. His theology played no part in the Controversy after Nicaea. The term Arian, therefore, is a serious misnomer. Ayres refers to the anti-Nicenes as Eusebians, meaning followers of the two Eusebii. Arius was a follower of Eusebius. For that reason, this article series always refers to 'Arians'. (Read more)
Orthodoxy
The Traditional Account
In the traditional account, the Trinity doctrine was accepted orthodoxy.
In the traditional account of the 'Arian' Controversy, the Trinity doctrine was accepted orthodoxy when the Controversy began but Arius developed a novel heresy. Consequently, that Controversy was a struggle of an established orthodoxy against a newly developed heresy:
For example, Steven Wedgeworth published an article in 2013 that speaks of Nicene theology as orthodox and of anti-Nicens as 'heretics'.
Hanson wrote that, in the past, many writers have assumed that “Arianism … had been from the outset an easily recognised heresy in contrast to a known and universally recognised orthodoxy.” (Hanson, p. 95)
There was no orthodoxy.
There was no formally agreed ‘orthodoxy’ position at the beginning of the fourth century.
Hanson says:
The “Arian Controversy” “was not a history of the defence of an agreed
and settled orthodoxy against the assaults of open heresy. … There was
not as yet any orthodox doctrine." (Hanson, p. xviii-xix)
It is commonly believed today that the Trinity doctrine was orthodoxy because the pro-Nicene writers, particularly Athanasius, falsely claimed that their view was orthodox:
"The accounts of what happened which have come down to us were mostly
written by those who belonged to the school of thought which
eventually prevailed and have been deeply coloured by that fact. The
supporters of this view wanted their readers to think that orthodoxy
on the subject under discussion had always existed and that the period
was simply a story of the defence of that orthodoxy against heresy and
error.” (Hanson, p. xviii-xix)
Arius was a Conservative.
Contrary to the traditional account, Arius did not develop a novel heresy. He was a conservative.
He was part of a larger trajectory; the Eusebians. The view Arius represented had long since co-existed alongside other views. His theology was similar to that of Dionysius, who was bishop of Alexandria when Arius was born.
"The fourth century was not a conflict between an ancient and
established orthodoxy on the one hand and an emergent Christological
heresy on the other." (Hart)
The Nicene Creed was unorthodox.
Nicene theology was not orthodox when the Controversy began.
The theology of the Nicene Creed was also not new. It was “one strand of the ancient interpretative tradition over against others.” (Trevor Hart) However, the theology of the Nicene Creed was not the 'orthodox' view when the Controversy began. Particularly, the word homoousios was one of the "new terms borrowed from the pagan philosophy of the day" (Hanson, p. 846). It was not used in any previous creed or part of the standard Christian language of the day.
Nicene Christology evolved.
The Trinity doctrine did not yet exist when the Controversy began.
We need to distinguish between the Nicene Creed and Nicene theology. The Trinity doctrine or Nicene theology, as we know it today, did not yet exist when the Controversy began. It evolved over that century as one way of understanding the Nicene Creed.
"Original Nicene theology was a fluid and diverse phenomenon, and one
that kept evolving." Athanasius attempted to "offer a convincing
version of that original Nicene theology" but "it was to be many years
before those attempts evolved into what I shall term pro-Nicene
theology." (Lewis Ayres, 99)
"This is not the story of a defence of orthodoxy, but of a search for
orthodoxy." (Hanson, p. xix-xx) That is why Hanson named his book,
‘The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God’.
"Orthodoxy on the subject of the Christian doctrine of God did not
exist at first. The story is the story of how orthodoxy was reached,
found, not of how it was maintained.” (RH, 870)
Subordinationism was orthodox.
There was no 'creed' that formulated orthodoxy.
Hanson says there was not as yet any orthodox doctrine when the Controversy began. He adds:
There were no “clearly defined groups and boundaries.” “Clear
definition is just what was lacking, and was, in fact, what gradually
came to be established as the century wore on.”
Rowan Williams agrees: “Nicene apologists thus turn ‘Arianism' into a
self-conscious sect - as if the boundaries of Catholic identity were
firmly and clearly drawn in advance. But the whole history of Arius
and of Arianism reminds us that this was not so.” (RW, 83)
This firstly means that what is today regarded as orthodox did not yet exist. Furthermore, there was no 'creed' that formulated orthodoxy.
The orthodox view was that the Son is subordinate.
But there was an ‘orthodoxy’ in the sense all theologians agreed that the Son is subordinate to the Father. This may surprise the reader but, what the church fathers of the first three centuries taught is regarded today as heresy. For example:
Much of what the Church Fathers taught "in the first three centuries … would have been forbidden as heterodox from 381AD onwards."
A church council in the third century (268) had already rejected the term homoousios as Sabellian.
Pre-Nicene Subordination
All pre-Nicene church fathers regarded the Son as subordinate to the Father.
“Almost all the Eastern theologians believed that the Son was in some
sense subordinated to the Father before the Incarnation.” (Hanson, p.
xix)
- In this quote, Hanson refers specifically to “the Eastern theologians.” Since, at Nicaea, the delegates were “drawn almost
entirely from the eastern half of the empire” (Ayres, p. 19), almost
all delegates at Nicaea believed that the Son was subordinated to the
Father.
"There is no theologian in the Eastern or the Western Church before
the outbreak of the Arian Controversy [in the fourth century], who
does not in some sense regard the Son as subordinate to the Father."
(Hanson, p. 64)
"Virtually all orthodox theologians prior to the Arian controversy ...
were subordinationists to some extent." (Badcock, Gary D. (1997),
Light of Truth and Fire of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit)
“’Subordinationism’, it is true was pre-Nicene orthodoxy” (Henry
Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers p. 239.)
“For centuries Christians had believed in one God, the Father, and in
His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit. They had prayed to God
the Father through His Son Jesus Christ, their Lord. And they had
baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit. Christians of the early fourth century looked at the Christ of
the Gospels and saw one who was so much more than a man, and yet not
identical with God the Father.” (Lienhard)
When the Controversy began
Consequently, the orthodoxy when the Controversy began was subordination.
The “conventional Trinitarian doctrine with which Christianity entered
the fourth century … was to make the Son into a demi-god.” (Hanson
article)
During the Controversy
Furthermore, almost all theologians of the fourth century regarded the Son as subordinate.
“Indeed, until Athanasius began writing, every single theologian, East
and West, had postulated some form of Subordinationism. It could,
about the year 300, have been described as a fixed part of catholic
theology.” [RPC Hanson, “The Achievement of Orthodoxy in the
Fourth Century AD” in Rowan Williams, ed., The Making of Orthodoxy
(New York, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989) p. 153.]
“With the exception of Athanasius virtually every theologian, East and
West, accepted some form of subordinationism at least up to the year
355; subordinationism might indeed, until the denouement (end) of the
controversy, have been described as accepted orthodoxy.” (Hanson, p.
xix)
Ayres wrote that even Athanasius believed in a form of subordination. For example, he described the Son as the Father's Wisdom, never the other way round, and he said that the Son is homoousios with the Father, never the other way round. (Read More) Since Athanasius regarded the Son as part of the Father (Read more), his view was obviously that the Son is subordinate.
The first theologian to teach full equality was Basil of Caesarea, but he became bishop only in 370. (Read more)
Logos Theology
Subordination was orthodox because Logos Theology was orthodox.
The history of the first three centuries explains the subordination 'orthodoxy':
The Logos of Greek Philosophy
Greek philosophy was still a strong force in the Roman Empire during the first three centuries. In that philosophy, God is immutable and can communicate with our world of change and decay only through an intermediary. For that reason, Greek philosophy proposed a Logos as a Second Hypostasis (a second and distinct Being) and as an intermediary between the high God and the physical world.
Logos Theology
During those centuries, while the Roman Empire still persecuted Christianity, the Apologists (the pre-Nicene fathers) defended Christianity before the Gentile peoples of the Roman Empire. Since the Roman intellectual world had accepted the idea of a divine but subordinate Logos as Intermediary between God and creation, the apologists found it effective to identify “the pre-existent Christ … with the nous or Second Hypostasis.” (Hanson article)
Since the Logos of Greek philosophy was “a second, created god lower than the High God” (Hanson article), the pre-Nicene fathers described Christ also as “a subordinate though essential divine agent.” (Hanson article) Therefore, as Hanson explains, going into the controversy, the orthodoxy was that Christ is subordinate to the Father.
Logos-theology was orthodox.
If there was an ‘orthodoxy’ when the Controversy began, it was the Logos-theology of the Apologists, in which the Son is a subordinate Intermediary between the High God and His creation:
“The great majority of the Eastern clergy (at Nicaea) ... were simply
concerned with maintaining the traditional Logos-theology of the
Greek-speaking Church.”[The Rise of Christianity by W.H.C. Frend]
The Son was called Theos.
The fourth-century 'Arians' believed in a Trinity of three divine Beings but regarded the Son as subordinate.
The pre-Nicene fathers did regard the Son as divine and did describe Him as theos (God). The fourth-century 'Arians' believed in a Trinity of three divine Beings but regarded the Son and Spirit as subordinate to the Father, who alone exists without cause and gave existence to the Son and Spirit. They described all three divine Beings as theos because the term theos is not equivalent to the modern word 'God':
Theos was the word for the Greek gods; thought of as immortal beings with supernatural powers.
In modern English 'God' refers only to the Ultimate Reality. Fourth-century 'Arians' would refer in today's English only to the Father as 'God.' Read more.
For example:
“The word theos or deus, for the first four centuries of the existence
of Christianity had a wide variety of meanings. There were many
different types and grades of deity in popular thought and religion
and even in philosophical thought.” (Hanson article)
In the thinking of the pre-Nicene fathers, “of course Christ was
divine.” However, “how divine, and what exactly did 'divine' mean in
that context?” (Hanson article)
See here for the original article.
