In his book No Apologies, Anthony Esolen writes:
Had the fathers at Nicea not insisted upon the co-eternity of the Son with the Father the faith would long have degenerated into a kindly social club. Instead they affirmed that strange and world transcending vision of Trinitarian glory
Esolen contends that the "complex God of the Athanasian Creed" is one based on the masculine habit of precision in detail. He believes that it was the creativity mixed with masculine anti-social tendencies that helped form the doctrines of the Trinity and without them Christianity would be anodyne, acceptable, worldly and hedonistic like Arius and not "something flaming, like Joan of Arc".
Furthermore, Belloc says:
A great number of the old noble families were reluctant to accept the social revolution implied by the triumph of the Christian Church. They naturally sided with a movement which they instinctively felt to be spiritually opposed to the life and survival of that Church and which carried with it an atmosphere of social superiority over the populace. The Church relied upon and was supported at the end by the masses. Men of old family tradition and wealth found the Arian more sympathetic than the ordinary Catholic and a better ally for gentlemen.
Did Arians ever address these modern contentions or did they make snob appeal the basis for their doctrinal preferences?
