Embedded Files
Arianism and its Consequences
By: Evangelos Dim. Kepenes (December 12, 2025, 19:55)
Arianism
Arianism was a theological crisis that profoundly shaped 4th-century Christianity, centered on the nature of Jesus Christ and His relationship with God the Father.
Its founder was the Alexandrian presbyter Arius (256–336 AD), a student of Lucian of Antioch, founder of the School of Antioch.
Main Doctrine:
Arianism supported the absolute monarchy and uniqueness of the Father, encouraged by the Neo-Platonic and Middle Platonist transmission of Aristotelian logic, particularly the concept of the absolutely simple and immutable Prime Mover ("Prōton kinoūn Akīnēton"), which excluded any division or shared essence. To safeguard this, Arius taught that:
The Son (Logos) is a creation of the Father (ktisma, created being), and pre-existent, while the Father is unbegotten.
There was a point in time before the Son existed ("ēn pote hote ouk ēn" - There was a time when he was not).
Therefore, the Son is a higher, original, and exceptional creation, through whom the Father created the world.
Trinitarian Implications:
Arius believed in a divine triad, which, however, was not eternal but formed gradually.
He relegated the Son to a subordinate theological rank compared to the Father (Subordinationism).
This constituted a hierarchical and subordinate Trinity, where only the Father is the true, eternal, and unbegotten God (Monad).
The Logos (Dyad), although divine, was a mutable entity.
For Arius, the Holy Spirit was the first and greatest creation of the Son, constituting a "Triad" in hierarchical order.
Legacy and Impact of the Crisis:
Arianism was crucial for the theologico-political unification of the Roman Empire under Hellenic Christianity. The need to address it raised fundamental theological questions that the Church could no longer avoid.
Official Resolution: The Completion of the Dogma
A. First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325 AD):
The Council, convened by Emperor Constantine I, was a politico-religious council primarily aimed at restoring peace and unity to the empire. Its decision to condemn Arianism and adopt the term "homoousios" (of the same substance) was a politically unifying and theologically authoritarian act.
The term "homoousios" was not biblical and had a problematic history (it was used by Gnostic groups such as the Valentinians).
The "decision" did not end the dispute but intensified it.
B. Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (381 AD):
After decades of controversy, the theological/political formulation for the Trinity was completed by the Second Ecumenical Council, convened by Emperor Theodosius I.
The Council clarified the position of the Holy Spirit, recognizing it as the third person of the Godhead, fully homoousios with the Father and the Son ("the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father").
This move confronted the Pneumatomachi (Macedonians), who accepted the Son as homoousios, but subordinated the Holy Spirit to a created being or power.
The Final Form of the Trinitarian Dogma:
With the Council of 381 AD, the Trinitarian Dogma took its final Hellenic Orthodox form (one ousia in three hypostases/persons), a result of intense philosophical and political disputes, and not a natural evolution of the original Christian message.
The Nature of the Terms: Philosophy and Politics
The final orthodox formulation of the Trinity (one substance in three hypostases) was not a self-evident or sole interpretation of the Biblical texts. It was the result of intense philosophical conflicts (using synonymous Greek metaphysical terms such as "ousia" and "hypostasis"), political maneuvers, and ecclesiastical alliances. It was a "paradoxical" solution that attempted to reconcile the contradictory Greek philosophical thought with the Spirit-led experiential liberating message of the Gospel through improvisation.
The Complexity of Greek Thought:
"Greek philosophy" was not a unified, monolithic body of ideas. On the contrary, it was a mosaic of schools (Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, etc.) that were often in direct conflict with each other.
The Church Fathers and the heretics (like Arius) used different philosophical tools and concepts (e.g., Aristotelian logic by Arius, Neo-Platonism by Athanasius) which, inherently, led to conflicting theological conclusions.
The dispute over the terms "homoousios" (of the same substance), "homoiousios" (of like substance), or "heteroousios" (of different substance) was a struggle over which philosophical "language" could best express the philosophical "Trinitarian dogma" as a Christian dogma, highlighting the inherent contradictions of the terms themselves, which they treated as divine revelation.
In Conclusion
The victory of the homoousios (first for the Son, then for the Holy Spirit) was politically decisive and ideologically definitive. It created an institutional theological framework for the entire Western civilization, but it was not a natural or inevitable progression of the Christian message. It was, from a critical perspective, the confirmation of a specific authority (the Emperor and the court-aligned Bishops) to define the "correct faith" with improvised terms that served the unification and control of the state.
Commonalities and Differences with Modern Groups:
Jehovah's Witnesses: The affinity with Arianism is significant. Both maintain that Jesus is the "only-begotten Son" of God, a created and separate entity, the chief of creation, and not the almighty, eternal God. Arianism is often their predecessor in the history of ideas.
Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints): There is an embracing of the idea of Jesus' pre-existent existence as a spiritual child of the Father, but Mormon theology is more complex and different.
Although these modern groups are not historically directly descended from Arianism, they share a fundamental subordinationist Christology, which is their main theological characteristic in common with the ancient heresy.
-------------------------------------------------
Google Sites
Report abuse