The Arian heresy is credited to Arius, a fourth century bishop in Egypt. Please take note that this is not the same as Hitler’s Aryan, by spelling or meaning. The true origin of this heresy may be Lucien of Antioch, but the origin is less an issue in this century than the content of the heresy and the response of the rest of the church to it. The importance of this whole controversy is that it lead to Emperor Constantine convening a council to address this problem at Nicaea, the result of which council was the Nicene Creed. Some 50 years later, the Nicene Creed was finalized at the First Council of Constantinople (Second Ecumenical Council.) The whole of the fourth century is punctuated by this debate. This is a great outline of the events, although difficult to follow without a score card, and isn’t necessary for the discussion, but I include it for completeness.
The major issue of the Arian controversy was the substance of Christ. Although all of Arius’ writings have been destroyed, his legacy is clear from the arguments against him. There are two main points in his discussion. First, the Father is eternal, but Christ is not. Arius argued that Jesus was the Son of God, and therefore the first creation of God. Secondly, and as a logical corollary, Jesus was neither fully God nor fully man. The counterargument here is the doctrine of the Trinity, which was not completely spelled out until the Second Ecumenical Council. The doctrine of the Trinity is that all three parts of the Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are both all of the same substance and all eternal. Let’s look at each component of this more closely.
Arius argued that belief that Jesus was both God and Man meant that there must be two Gods. Therefore, there must have been a time when there was only one God, and Jesus was his first creation. All the rest of creation was accomplished through Jesus. Therefore, Jesus was not fully God, in the sense that he was a creation, and therefore less than God. Verses sighted to confirm this belief include John 14:28 and Colossians 1:15.
In the John selection, Jesus says, “…the Father is greater than I.” What did He mean by that statement in that context? The argument here is in terms of authority or leadership, not of substance. While Jesus is still on the earth and in His earthly body, in some sense He is under the authority of the Law, that is, the Word of God. Even if Jesus is participant author of the Word with God, while He is man, He is under the Law, and therefore, for a time, under the authority of God. Look at John 1:1-4, 10:30 and 20:28. In the first passage, John states that the Word, or Christ, is with God from the beginning. Even though we can say that Arius agrees with Trinitarians on creation being through Christ, it is clear that John states that Christ was always there with God. In the second selection, Jesus clearly states, “I and the Father are One.” This cannot be stated any more clearly. And finally, Thomas, upon his personal revelation of the arisen Christ states that Jesus is God. It is difficult to argue, therefore, from the context of John that Jesus Christ is anything less than God, both in substance and eternity.
In the Colossians selection, Paul says that Jesus is the firstborn of creation. The Old Testament reference for this passage is Proverbs 8, which is about wisdom. Paul is equating Christ with wisdom, but at the same time, he is not making a statement about Christ’s order in creation as supposed by Arius. It is the concept of wisdom that is the firstborn creation. In verse 16, the crux of the argument is that by Him all things were created. How can He be a created thing if all things were created by Him, through Him or in Him?
While there is the temptation to leave the argument there, there is another issue that comes from the preceding paragraph in Colossians. There is ample precedent in the New Testament for the notion that Jesus is the firstborn of the New Covenant, the New Creation, the Kingdom of the resurrected world. Since all of creation will be resurrected, including the rocks, dirt and trees, the notion of Jesus being the firstborn of the New Creation of the New Covenant is certainly true. Whether Paul is intending this sort of double entendre in Colossians is questionable, but given the order of the letters, Romans is thought to be five years older than Colossians, and the circulation of these letters throughout the ancient world, it is certainly possible that Romans should be treated as an antecedent to the Colossian epistle. Verse 14 clearly introduces the Kingdom of the Age to Come to the debate and frames the comments in the next few verses.
In the Second Ecumenical Council, it was made clear in the amendment to the Nicene Creed that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all of the same substance, and all three are one. This is the doctrine of the Trinity. Each part of the Trinity is of the same substance, that is God, and each part is only a part of the whole that is God. As I have mentioned before, all of the Churches of the last 2000 years, whether Orthodex, Roman or Protestant, have shared this Trinitarian view of God. Despite this, there has always been a thread of this Arian heresy in the theological debate.
There are two very visible and very prominent groups in the US today who persist with some form of the Arian heresy. They have other issues as well, but clearly this is a part of their problem. The first group is the Mormons. The Mormons view Jesus as the physical son of god the father and his goddess wife. The rest of their theology is not my intent here. The point here is the clear difference in the idea that Jesus is of the same substance with God with both the Arian view and the Mormon view. The second group is the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They actually add the word “other” to the Colossians passage above to make clear that Jesus was the first creation, and then Jesus created every “other” creature. They view Jesus as the human manifestation of the archangel Michael, that they are the same creature or being.
What is also abundantly clear in both of these examples is that neither group believes in the Reformation doctrine of Sola Scriptura. This is a powerful argument for this central reformed doctrine. The Mormons have added a second book, the Book of Mormon, to the scripture. In fact, this second book is used to interpret the Bible. This is clearly at odds with Christianity in general and the Protestant Reformation in particular. It underscores the dangers of the interpretive powers of the Papacy and the manners in which that bad precedent can be corrupted. The JWs have a second book as well, anything published by the Watch Tower Society as well as their old version of the Bible called the New World Translation. This translation changes many key passages in the Bible to suit the JW interpretive grid.
Other movements that have some element of Arianism in their thoughts are anything written by Dan Brown and, of course, the Gnostics. The Gnostics have a full set of beliefs that, again, is outside of this effort, but central among these beliefs is the Arian view of a first-created mediator and secondary creator. The Gnostic Gospels are thought to be from the third century. Scholarship that has attempted to tie them to first century Apostles has not been upheld. The reason for these documents to carry the names of Apostles is to try to give them theological weight that they would clearly lack otherwise. The authorship in terms of person and timeframe alone would put off inclusion in the canon, if it were not for severe breaks in Christian theology.
Of particular interest today is the Egyptian situation concerning the Coptic Christians. The documents found in the library at Nag Mammadi in 1945 were written in the Coptic language. When the Coptic Christians were excommunicated in 451, it was over the issue of Arianism. Of note, Origen, who spoke for the Trinity in the fourth century, was also Egyptian, thus it can be said that the Egyptian legacy is not all Arian.
And finally, words that are used in liberal church circles today smack of the Arian heresy. Jesus Christ as an example is just such a point. The so-called Free Grace Movement asserts that a person can accept Christ as Savior, without making him lord of your life. This notion that seems so foreign to Christian theology has gained much tread in American Evangelical circles. The idea of Jesus as example of righteous living guts the Gospel of any real significance. Is the resurrection really necessary to offer us a great example? Theologically, these types of movements have only one possible endpoint, and that is a denial of Christ as divine.
In summary, the Arian heresy is alive and well today. It is important as Christians that we recognize it when we hear it. We need to understand that this heresy was completely refuted in the early church, and has been refuted by all truly Christian theologians since that time. The divinity of Christ is central to Christian theology. The denial of Christ’s divinity is equivalent to the denial of Christ’s offer of Salvation.
--Ogre--
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