Reasoned Discourse Concerning Christian Faith - Essay Example

Arius: A Critical Biography 2007 Arius: A Critical Biography Christian theology is considered as being "reasoned dis concerningChristian faith. Christian theologians use rational analysis and argument to understand, explain, test, critique, defend or promote Christianity" (Haas, 1993). There have been many different Christian theologians that have presented themselves over time, however there are those few which stood out among the rest, and one of those in particular was Arius. Arius was a man who was an early Christian theologian, one who taught the ideal and belief that the Son of God was not eternal, and was rather subordinate to God the Father, and this is a view which is generally known as Arianism. He was a priest whose heresy became known as being the biggest threat to Christianity as we know it, as he preached that Jesus was not God, but a creature who was a man-God, much like Hercules in certain ways, and therefore that he was not equal to God. This teaching ended up becoming so popular in fact that many bishops ended up defecting to the Arian heresy, and it was officially condemned at the First Council of Nicea in 325 AD and as well was supported later in the First Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. Then, from these councils came the Nicene Creed which Christians profess in Church each Sunday. There are many different important issues that should be known about Arius, and the aim of this paper is to discuss the most significant of all. Who Arius was, where he came from and the type of life that he lived, what his method of communicating his beliefs was, and the controversy that he caused throughout his life - each and every one of these issues will be thoroughly addressed and discussed here, and by doing this, we will be able to attain a much more informed and knowledgeable understanding on Arius overall. This is what will be dissertated in the following. Arius is considered to have been of Libyan descent, with his father being known as Ammonius. Arius was a student in Antioch at the exegetical school, where he studied under Saint Lucian, who was in fact the school's founder. It was in the year 313 when Arius was made presbyter of the Baucalis district in Alexandria, and this is how he really became known. He was considered as being a man of personal aesthetic character, pure morals, and decided convictions, although at the same time there were a number of people who assailed his character. The traditional beliefs of his time are incredibly important to take into consideration, and Christianity was by far the most major religion. Pope Miltiades was the Pope from July 2, 310 or 311, to January 10 or 11, 314, and was subsequently made a saint. Miltiades was who became Pope after the Roman emperor Galerius had previously passed on an edict of toleration ending the persecution of Christians, and "During his pontificate, in 313, the Edict of Milan was passed by the tetrarchs Constantine and Licinius, declaring that they would be neutral with regard to religious worship and restoring church property. Constantine presented the pope with the Lateran Palace which became the papal residence and seat of Christian governance" (Haas, 1993). In the year 313, Miltiades presided over the Lateran Synod in Rome at which Caecilian was acquitted of the charges that had been brought up against him, and Donatus Magnus ended up being condemned as a heretic. Magnus was then summoned to the Council of Arles, the first representative meeting of all of the Western Roman Empire's Christian bishops, but he ended up dying before it was even held. After the death of Miltiades, he was made a saint, with his feast-day being held on December 10. There is also the important note to make of although his death was considered as being natural, at the same time he is nonetheless regarded as a martyr because of all of his earlier suffering under the ant-Christian emperor Maximan. The name God is considered as referring to "the deity held by monotheists to be the supreme reality. God is generally regarded as the sole creator of the universeTheologians have ascribed certain attributes to God, including omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, perfect goodness, divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence" (Haas, 1993). As Christianity was the most prominent religion during Arius' time, it was believed that the God worshipped by the faithful Hebrew people of the pre-Christian era has always revealed himself as he did through Jesus Christ, but at the same time this was something that was never actually obvious until the Word of the Lord, the revelation of God, when he became flesh and blood among the people of the world. The sacred scriptures of most Christian sects are the Old Testament, which is in fact quite similar to the Hebrew Bible, and then there is the New Testament as well, which comprises of four different accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus. "They are usually considered to be divinely inspired in some sense and together comprise the Christian Bible. Thus Christians consider the fundamental teachings of the Old Testament, in particular of the Ten Commandments, as valid, although most reject the Sabbath; however they believe that the coming of Jesus as the messiah and savior of mankind as predicted in the Old Testament, and the fact that Jesus was raised Jewish and became a teacher of Judaism, would shed light on the true relationship between God and mankind - by restoring the emphasis of universal love and compassion (as mentioned in the Shema) above the other commandments, by de-emphasizing the more 'legalistic' and material precepts of Mosaic Law (such as the dietary constraints and temple rites)" (Haas, 1993). As the church of Antioch was exposed thoroughly to the influence of Judaism, so was the Alexandrian Church characterized in certain and specific primitive times by its attachment to that comprehensive philosophy, of which was then reduced to system about the beginning of the third century. It then went on to be known and called by the name of the New Platonic, and there was a "supposed resemblance between the Arian and the Eclectic doctrine concerning the Holy Trinityand that thishas led to a common notion that the Alexandrian Fathers were the medium by which a philosophical error was introduced into the Church; and this hypothetical cause of a disputable resemblance has been apparently evidenced by the solitary fact, which cannot be denied, that Arius himself was a presbyter of Alexandria. We have already seen, however, that Arius was educated at Antioch; and we shall see hereafter that, so far from being favorably heard at Alexandria, he was, on the first promulgation of his heresy, expelled the Church in that city, and obliged to seek refuge among his Collucianists of Syria" (Newman Reader, 2006. Arius himself had a pastoral career, and in fact he was considered for the most part as being a very eloquent and popular pastor, and it is important to realize however, in regards to this, that over the past two decades, the stream of scholarly studies regarding the Arian controversy has risen to a veritable floodtide, resulting from symposia and book-length treatments of Arius' theology. The majority of these studies go to treat the outbreak of Arianism within Alexandra as being a purely theological phenomenon, and yet "Intellectual history, however, seldom takes place in a vacuum. Alexandria in the early fourth century was probably the second largest city in the Roman Empire, and served as the commercial entrepot for the entire eastern Mediterranean. Tightly organized communities of Jews, pagans, and Christians jostled one another in their ongoing competition for socio-cultural hegemony within this cosmopolitan urban milieu" (Haas, 1993). It is thought that the teachings of Arius first gained true popularity within this richly textured and socially complex urban environment, and thus, this explains why our understanding of both this outspoken Alexandrian presbyter and his message may in fact be able to be sharpened even further by looking more closely and specifically at the actual social composition of his first adherents within the city itself. Earlier on, "both sides in this local theological dispute appealed to authorities outside Alexandria, thereby embroiling emperors and bishops in over a half-century of empire-wide conflict. The Alexandrian patriarch, Alexander (312-328), enlisted the support of various bishops throughout Palestine and Syria. For his part, Arius gained the backing of several high-placed churchmen, including Eusebius of Nicomedia. Henceforth, the focus of the dispute shifted away from the great Egyptian metropolis. The see of Alexandria became just one of several prizes in the broader arena of ecclesiastical politics fought over by the adherents of various factions" (Haas, 1993). One of the most unique and memorable aspects of Arius' way of teaching his beliefs was in the various different manners in which he did it, as for instance he wrote jingles, sung at different bars, sang and taught on docks by men, school children, woman, virgins, and so on. In more specific regards to the teachings of Arius, there are many different issues that need to be taken into consideration here, and in particular to the doctrine of Arius, it is important to know that the teaching of Paul of Samosata was reinstituted, along with several other variations as well, in the first decades of the fourth century, first by Lucian of Antioch and then by his follower as well, Arius, circa 320. Alexander had become the bishop of Alexandria in 312, and during the course of one particular sermon, he proceeded to explain the so-called mystery of the Trinity, and affirmed that the Son was equal to the Father and as well of the same substance as the Father who begot him. In response to this, "Arius took offense at this teaching and proceeded to controvert Alexander. He began to promulgate the view, taught by Paul the Apostle, that the Son was the firstborn of the Father, was created by the Father and thus was a creature, although the first and highest creature. Arius logically deducted that if the Son was begotten by the Father, there must have been a time when the Son did not exist, that is, before his creation by the Father" (Essenes, 1996). Arius taught his doctrines and teachings in the churches as well as in general assemblies for the most part, and eventually, he ended up declaring his position openly to bishop Alexander while the latter tried to convince Arius of the error of his ways, which, for the most part, was to no avail. Then after this, when Arius would not be silenced, Alexander ended up writing long letters to several different bishops in various cities, and "One of these letters, written to Bishop Alexander in Constantinople, is noteworthy for its insights into what was really the underlying doctrine of Arius. Alexander first accuses Arius and the Arians of reviling what he terms 'the religious doctrines of the apostles', and of conspiring against Christ. It becomes obvious from Alexander's letter, as we shall see, that Arius and his school were attempting, in vain, to preserve the humanity of Christ over against his divinity and deification. Alexander writes: they deny his divinity, and declare him to be on a level with other men. They collect all those passages which allude to the incarnation of our Savior, and to his having humbled himself for our salvation, and bring them forward as corroborative of their own impious assertion; while they invade all those which declare his divinity, and the glory he possesses with the Father(the Son) must have had a beginning, and that when he was created he was made like all other men that have ever been born. God, they say, created all things, and they include the Son of God in the number of creatures, both rational and irrationalTheyaffirm that he (the Son) is by nature liable to change'We are also able', say these evil-minded individuals 'to become like him, the sons of God'They likewise assert that he was not elevated (as Son) because he had by nature any qualifications superior to those of the other sons of God; for God, they say, has not any son by natureThey consider that he was elected because, though mutable by nature, he was vigilant and zealous in avoiding evil. Arius and his followers ended up having a great deal of difficulty in several areas, and for one, it was considered that they had committed the unforgiveable sin of declaring that they were the sons of God and that they bore themselves in the image of the Son, and as well considered that the Son himself was no different than any of them, and this was essentially the actual doctrine of Origen, as we have seen, and of St. Paul, who taught the belief that Christ was the firstborn of all creatures and that he dwelt in every creature as their 'hope of glory'. "This, then, was the crux of Arius' doctrine and the reason why his teaching could not prevail in the Christian world; the hatred of Arius was not due to the supposed inaccuracy of his metaphysical conceptions of the Trinity but for what his doctrine implied: all men could become the sons of God, as Jesus had, and all could share his sonship with the Father" (Essenes, 1997). From the moment that Arius and his followers began to disseminate their doctrines there was really no distinction of any sort that was made by their enemies between the Wisdom-in-God, the Logos and the Son, and the controversy that was caused over the teachings of Arius continued to be unabated and in fact threatened to split the Christian world into two, and "This, of course, was seen by Constantine as being a threat, not only to the unity of his Empire but to the unity of the one-world religion he sought to impose upon the empire. The party opposed to Arius, which we may call the Alexandrian orthodox party, later headed by Athanasius, affirmed that the Logos-Word disguised himself and assumed a body, but had, in fact, been God for all eternity" (Essenes, 1997). From this review we can conclude a number of different things, several which are of particular importance, and namely the fact of how Arius was an incredibly significant and noted man, teacher, pastor, speaker; we have been able to see the great controversy that he caused during his time and how this both positively and negatively affected him. We have also been able to understand about the different religious beliefs that were present at that time and how Arius related to them, and we have also been able to see how he altered or evolved certain religious beliefs and ideals, and whether this was for the better or the worse. We have also seen how against Arius and his beliefs and teachings Alexander was, and what great lengths he went to in order to try to show this to the people of that time. Alexander and Arius were really and truly arch-enemies in many regards then, as they were completely opposite persons in regards to their beliefs and religious ideals, and thus they squared off a number of different times, Arius trying to prove his ideas while Alexander tried to defy them and prove him wrong. From this we have also been able to understand more about the uniqueness of Arius himself and of how different his methods of teaching were considered as being. We know that Arius was concerned about the heathen who might think Christians worshipped two gods, the Father and the Son, and he was concerned about the danger of polytheism (the worship of more than one God). The teachings of Arius are considered as being very much like those of the Jehovah's Witnesses of today, as "The Jehovah's Witnesses also deny the deity of Christ (that Christ is truly and fully God). They too teach that there was a time when the Son did not exist. They too teach that God created the Son and that God created everything else through the Son. They too teach that Christ is a mere creature (they say He is a great angel)" (Middletown Bible Church, 1997). Works Cited Essenes. 'The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicea'. 1997. 8 May 2007 http://essenes.net/CouncilOfNicea.html#The%20Doctrine%20of%20Arius Haas, Christopher. 'The Arians of Alexandria', Vigiliae Christianae, 47 (3): 234-245, 1993. Newman Reader. 'The Church of Alexandria'. 2005. 8 May 2007 http://www.newmanreader.org/works/arians/chapter1-3.html Middletown Bible Church. 'Creeds and Councils'. 1997. 8 May 2007 < http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/churchhi/church9.htm> Williams, Rowan. Arius: Heresy and Tradition. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002. Read More