Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 7

The Nicene Creed and Its Aftermath

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

Nicene Creed and Its Aftermath
    What did the Council of Nicaea mean when it declared “that the Son was consubstantial with the Father” (p. 332)? It “intended to assert that the Son was ‘in all respects like the Father,’ and, ‘unlike all creatures made by him,’ in opposition to Arius, who maintained that he was a creature, and therefore not strictly divine” (pp. 332-333). Thus, “[i]t expressed, not numerical identity of substance, but sameness of kind. One man is of the same substance or nature with another, as they belong to the same order of beings. So the Son of God is of the same substance with the Father: he partakes, in common with him, of a divine, though not of the same individual, nature. Divine begets divine, as human begets human. The distinction between person and being was unknown to the Fathers: it is a refinement of latter times. The Father and Son had the same specific nature, yet constituted distinct subsistences, persons, beings” (p. 333). Basically, this was the doctrine of the ante-Nicene Fathers, unless by the expression “‘of a different substance,’ which some of them applied to the Son, they mean to teach something more than that he had an individual existence distinct from the Father” (p. 333).
    When it condemned Paul of Samosata, the Second Council of Antioch had used the term “consubstantial.” However, the Council rejected it, declaring “that the Son was not consubstantial with the Father” (p. 334).
    According to Athanasius, “consubstantial” as used in the Nicene Creed meant that the “ Son has ‘no similitude to creatures, nor is cognate with them’: he is the ‘true offspring of the substance of the Father.’ — ‘The substance of the Father was the beginning, the root, and fountain of the Son, who has a true likeness to Him that begat him; and is not separated from the Father, as we are, by being of a substance foreign to his’” (p. 334). Further, “[o]ne man ‘is of the same nature with another as regards substance.’ But ‘a man and a dog are of different natures: therefore what is of the same nature is consubstantial; what is of a different nature is of another substance,’ or not consubstantial” (p. 334). Thus, “Christ was by birth God, as man is by birth man. There is one species of divinity, as one species of humanity, and, as all men are of the same substance (that is, all human), so the Father and Son are of the same substance (that is, both divine)” (p 335).
    The Council of Nicaea did not change the notion of the Son being subordinate to the Father, and, therefore, the Son was not equal to the Father. The doctrine of the Son being subordinate to the Father was maintained until the time of Augustine. (Amazingly, around 400 years [Q&A] were needed for Christians to discover that the Scriptures taught that the Son was eternal and equal to the Father. Obviously, the Trinity Doctrine is not clearly taught by the Scriptures if 400 years are needed to discover it.) The Son was “begotten, dependent, and derived” (p. 336). It maintained the notion that the Father and the Son were two beings.
    After the Council of Nicaea issued its decree, orthodoxy began undergoing a real and important change. By introducing the term “consubstantial,” which was “capable of a sense very different from that originally attributed to it by the Platonists and Platonizing Fathers” (p. 336), the Council inadvertently started this change. At the time of the Nicene Creed was adopted, “consubstantial” was “understood to express only specific sameness of nature” (p. 336). Afterwards, it came “to signify individual identity” (p. 336).
    The ante-Nicene Fathers taught “the supremacy of the Father, and the real and proper inferiority of the Son, without qualification; making them, in fact, two beings” (p. 336). Moreover, “the Son was voluntarily begotten of the Father before the creation of the world, but not from eternity.” (p. 336-337). Later, the Trinitarians “asserted, not simply an equality of nature between the Father and Son, but their individual and numerical identity; though this was not originally the doctrine of Athanasius, nor of the Church till some time after the middle of the fourth century” (p. 336). Also, according to these later Trinitarians, the Son was necessarily begotten from eternity. By the time that the Athanasian Creed was formulated, Athanasius, the greatest of all the Nicene Fathers, was no longer a Trinitarian in the sense of that Creed.
    In response to the accusation that the Council of Nicaea had introduced two Gods, the orthodox Trinitarians initially replied “that they worshipped the one only and true God, who is over all, supreme; that the Son was inferior, another, different, different in essence, the minister of the Father, and in all respects subject to his will, and entitled, therefore, to only inferior homage” (p. 237). When Arians began taking advantage of these arguments, orthodoxy changed its defense. They argued that the Father and the Son “were of one individual essence, and, therefore, there was only one object of supreme worship” (p. 337),
    In response to the many passages of Scriptures that calm that the Son is inferior to the Father, “the fiction of the two natures in Jesus Christ was introduced, and then all [the older] difficulties vanished” (p. 337). Thus, the “Son, as God, was co-equal with the Father; as man, he was inferior: as God, he could send; as man, he could be: in his human nature, he could pray to himself in his divine; as man, he could assert that he was ignorant of the day of judgment, which, as God, he knew” (p. 338). (“Controversy had still to settle what had been the conditions of Christ’s human life, and in what relations his humanity stood to his divinity. This was the remarkable conclusion at which the Church arrived, that the two natures were so far united in one person, that it was proper to honour Mary as the mother of God; but that as there were still two natures, it was not necessary to affirm that God was crucified” [p. 337n]).
    The Nicene Creed only mentioned the Holy Spirit in very general terms. Was the Holy Spirit subordinate to the Father and the Son, which was the doctrine of the ante-Nicene Fathers? Was the Holy Spirit “a mode of divine operation” (p. 339)? Was it a creation of God or God Himself? Some theologians did not “‘attribute to the Spirit the name of God, because the Scripture does not expressly so call him’” (p. 339). In 381, the Council of Constantinople answered these questions by “declaring that the Holy Spirit is to be worshipped and glorified together with the Father and Son” (p. 339).
    Over time, the Nicene Creed was modified such that the Son became eternal and equal to the Father in a numerical one of essence. Along with the Holy Spirit, they became three Gods in one God — a Triune God. (Except for some terminology that only those versed in religious jargon can distinguish, what is the difference between the Trinity Doctrine and Sabellianism? One uses “person” where the other uses “manifestation.” Nevertheless, Sabellianism does a better job of maintaining monotheism than does the modern Trinity Doctrine, which relies heavily on assertions.)
    The Nicene Council left Christianity with curses from which it has yet recovered. In its attempt to avoid the Scylla of Sabellianism and the Charybdis of Arianism, it converted “‘what was before a scholastic subtlety into an article of the Catholic faith’” (p. 341). With the Nicene Creed “Emperor Constantine (the first of the Caesars who acknowledged the faith of the cross), left to the world a pernicious example of intolerance and bigotry, which subsequent times have but too faithfully imitated” (p. 352). (Well illustrating such intolerance were the religious wars of Europe beginning with the Reformation where first the Catholic Church tried to suppress the Protestant heretics, and then Protestants tried to purge their ranks of heretics, i.e., those who disagreed with their particular brand of Christianity.)
    Membership in the early Church did not require a certain belief in the nature of Christ. Hase wrote, “The only condition of admission to the Church, was a promise to live a new life, and an acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah. In this acknowledgment free scope was given to all those views of the nature of the Messiah, which prevailed among the people, from a simple recognition of him as the Son of David, and a man filled with the Spirit of God, to a belief in him as an angel, and an impersonation of some one of the attributes of Jehovah” (Hase, p. 41). About the early Christians, Pressense writes, “Christians were then specially anxious that religion should not be regarded as consisting in a correct opinion with regard to God. Religion was to them essentially a moral and living principle, without, however, . . . being on that account vague and uncertain. . . . The Christian faith at this time, as always, has for its great object Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Saviour of the world” (Pressense, p. 195). How things changed. After the Council of Nicaea, one could not join the church without consent to the Nicene Creed. Over time the Creed was modified into the Trinity Doctrine. Most denominations require a belief, or at least no statement of unbelief, in the Trinity Doctrine. Most still condemn as heretics those who do not adhere to the Trinity Doctrine — even to proclaiming that they are not true Christians. Thus, the early church displayed much more religious tolerance within Christianity than the Catholic Church ever has and than most Protestant denominations until the eighteenth century or even today.

Conclusion
    As shown above, the Trinity Doctrine did not begin to develop until Greek philosophy was applied to Christianity. The Apostolic Fathers had no conception of the Trinity. When the Greek philosophy of Plato was applied to the Scriptures, then the Trinity Doctrine began to develop. Logos ceased to mean the spoken word and became God’s reason, a second God, the Son. Thus, the Logos-doctrine, which is the foundation on which the Trinity Doctrine is built, entered Christianity.
    Next came the thought of a trinity and the notion of the eternal existence of the Logos, the Son. This was followed by the Son having both a divine and human nature with a rational human soul. Also, the possibility of the Son’s eternal generation began to occur.
    When the Arian controversy started, orthodoxy held that the Son was pre-existing, but he had a beginning, was inferior to the Father, and a distinct being and, therefore, a different essence. When Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria began teaching more oneness of the Father and Son, Arius accused him of Sabellianism — thus, began the Arian controversy. Although Arius thought that he was defending the doctrine of the Trinity as it existed then, Alexander and others disagreed. Arius had stripped the Trinity of its Platonic metaphysics. The Arian controversy peaked with the Council of Nicaea, which issued the Nicene Creed. Among other things, the creed declared the Father and the Son to be one substance. The Nicene Creed was as close to, if not closer to, Sabellianism, which the church had condemned, as it was the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity that existed before its adoption.
    By the Council of Nicaea in 325, the divinity of the Son was declared, and he was made eternal and the Father’s equal (as Nicene Creed was later interpreted and revised). In 381, the Council of Constantinople amended the Nicene Creed to declare the divinity of the Holy Spirit. In 431, the Council of Ephesus defined the personal unity of Christ and declared Mary the Mother of God. (This is one aspect of the Trinity Doctrine that the Protestants ignore, and where the Catholics are logically correct. If Mary is the mother of Christ Jesus, and if Christ Jesus is God, then Mary has to be the mother of God. If she is not the mother of God, then one or both premises have to be incorrect.) The Trinity Doctrine was completed in 431 by the Council of Chalcedon, which defined the two natures of Christ, divine and human. (Distinguishing the difference between the Trinitarian version of Jesus having a dual nature, human and divine, and the version of some of the old heresies is difficult.)
    With the acts of these four councils, all the ante-Nicene Fathers became de facto heretics, if not de jure, heretics, because their doctrine of the Son is more unitarian, monotheistic, than trinitarian, tritheistic. They believed that the Son had a beginning, that is, he is not eternal. Moreover, the Son was inferior to the Father. (Based on the criteria that Alford sets out in his manual on the Trinity [Alford, pp. 98-101], all the Fathers discussed above, with the possible exception of Dionysius of Rome, were unitarians, strictly speaking. Furthermore, nearly all, if not all, other ante-Nicene Fathers were also unitarians. Moreover, based on their writings, the Trinity Doctrine, and Alford’s criteria, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Peter, and Paul appear to be heretics and unitarians.)
    Without the application of Platonism to the Scriptures, it is doubtful that the Trinity Doctrine as is exists today would have ever been developed. Without the Platonist interpretation of the Scriptures, most likely orthodox Christianity would have remained monotheistic religion in the Old Testament sense instead of becoming a tritheistic religion with a Triune God. Of the Fathers discussed above, it most likely would follow the teachings of Clement of Rome, Polycarp, or Artemon. (Of the Fathers discussed above their Christology was probably the closest to the Scriptures.)

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More religious articles.

Part 6

Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 6

The Arian Controversy

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

The Arian Controversy
    The principal actors in the Arian controversy were Arius and Alexander. Arius (250 or 256 – 336) was a presbyter in Alexandria and an ascetic. Alexander (d. 326 or 328) was the Bishop of Alexandria. After the Council of Nicaea, Athanasius (c. 296–298 – 373) would become an important actor. When Alexander died, Athanasius became the leader of the opposition to the Arians.
    In the years before the Council of Nicaea in 325, Christianity was becoming sharply divided into two primary camps on the issue of the Trinity: the Arians and the Athanasians. Arius led the Arians, and Alexander and later Athanasius led the Athanasians. Both sides appealed to the ante-Nicene Fathers to show the antiquity of their dogma. Both sides read into the writings of the early Fathers, dogmas unknown to the Fathers. Eventually, the Athanasians would prevail, and beginning with the Council of Nicaea, they developed what eventually became the Trinity Doctrine.
    The controversy began with Arius protesting Alexander’s, the Bishop of Alexandria and Arius’ superior, Sabellian-like concept of the Trinity. About the Trinity, Arius credited Alexander as saying, “‘Always God, always the Son; as the Father, so is the Son; the Son is unbegotten of the Father; neither in thought, nor the least point of time, does God precede the Son; always God, always the Son’” (p. 287). Alexander maintained that “the Son was eternal and wholly uncreated” (Walker, p. 115). His description of the Trinity was a move away from the orthodox concept of the Trinity. Alexander demanded Arius to abandon his (Arius’) views of the Trinity and to embrace his (Alexander’s) views. Because Arius could not assent to Alexander’s Sabellian-like doctrine, Alexander assembled a council, which condemned Arius and drove him from Alexandria in 320.
    Arius asserted that Alexander had anathematized “‘all the Oriental bishops,’ since they asserted that ‘the Father existed before the Son’” (p. 271), except three whom Alexander pronounced as ignorant heretics.
    After Arius left Alexandria, he went to Palestine where Eusebius of Caesarea (260/265 – 339/340), Bishop of Caesarea, befriended him. Later Eusebius of Nicomedia (died 341), Bishop of Berytus (Beirut) and later Bishop of Nicomedia, also befriended Arius. Afterwards Eusebius of Nicomedia wrote many letters defending Arius. Consequently, Arians were often called Eusebians.
    In defense of Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia stated, “‘He never heard that there were two unbegotten. We affirm that there is one unbegotten [the Father], and another [the Son] who did in truth proceed from him, yet who was not made out of his substance, and who does not at all participate in the nature or substance of him who is unbegotten. We believe him [the Son] to be entirely distinct in nature and in power’” (p. 293).
    Arius claimed that his views of the Father and the Son were those received from tradition. That is, “‘the Father existed before the Son’” (p. 294). On “the supremacy of the Father and his priority of existence” (p. 295), tradition was on the side of the Arians. About “[t]he new doctrine embraced by the orthodox concerning the generation of the Son, . . . [the Arians claimed] was pure Manichaeism and Valentinianism” (p. 295). (Manichaeism rejected the historical Jesus. According to Manichaeism, Jesus Christ was “an aeon or persistent personification of Light in the world. . . . Christ appeared to be man, to live, suffer, and die to symbolize the light suffering in this world” [Arendzen]. Valentinianism held that Christ had three figures or dimensions: spiritual, psychic, and body.)
    While Arius was soliciting support, so was Alexander. In his extant letters, Alexander acrimoniously attacks Arius and Eusebius in the harshest terms.
    Discord had reached such heights that Emperor Constantine was induced to intervene. Although he blamed both sides, he placed most of the blame on Alexander. To Constantine, the controversy was merely a frivolous dispute about words. In spite of the Emperor urging reconciliation, the dispute grew more intense. Finally, Constantine ordered the bishops throughout the Empire to assemble in council and resolve the issue. In 325, the council convened in Nicaea — thus, it was called the Council of Nicaea, Nicene Council, or Nicaean Council, which Lamson called the Council of Nice.
    The ante-Nicene Fathers maintained the “strict and proper inferiority of the Son” (p. 299). Except for Origen, they believed “that the Son was begotten in time, and not from eternity” (p. 299). Based on Platonic influences, the Fathers also believed that the Son “had a sort of metaphysical existence in the Father from eternity; in other words, existed as his Logos, Wisdom, or Reason; that is, as an attribute, which was afterwards converted into a real person by a voluntary act of the Father” (p. 299).
    Arius accepted the tradition that the Son was begotten and was not eternal and that the Son was inferior to the Father. Also, the Son “is by his own will unchangeable, ever remaining unalterably good” (p. 301). However, he rejected the mysticism of the Fathers about the Son, the Logos. This point distinguished the doctrine of Arius from that of the Fathers.
    “The characteristic dogma of Arius was, that the Son was originally produced out of nothing; and, consequently, there was a time when he did not exist. . . . he was a great pre-existent spirit, the first and chief of all derived beings; that this spirit became afterwards united with a human body, and supplied the place of the rational soul” (pp. 299-300). Thus, the distinguishing characteristic Arius’ Christology was that “Christ was a created being” (Walker, p. 114). Therefore, Christ “was not of the substance of God, but was made like other creatures of ‘nothing.’ Though the first-born of creatures, and the agent in fashioning the world, He was not eternal. ‘The Son has a beginning, but . . . God is without beginning’” (Walker, pp. 114-115). He believed that Christ was “God in a certain sense, . . . but a lower God, in no way one with the Father in essence or eternity. In the incarnation, this Logos entered a human body, taking the place of the human reasoning spirit. . . . Christ was neither fully God nor fully man, but a tertium quid [intermediate between the two] between.” (Walker, p. 115). According to Arius, “the human soul was wanting in Jesus Christ, and he was a compound being only in the sense in which all human beings are; that is, he consisted of a body, and one simple, undivided, and finite spirit” (p. 300). (“Some of the preceding Fathers attributed a human soul as well as body to Jesus; which, however, was so absorbed in the divine part of his nature, that they were, in a strict sense, one spirit, and not two, as modern Trinitarians affirm, or imply” [p. 300]).
    Arius appealed to the Scriptures and used scriptural terminology to describe his doctrine. Such an appeal brought the Arians “under suspicion of evasion and of narrow and bare literalness, while the orthodox were made to appear the advocates of broader and freer views, and of more accurate and straightforward statement” (p. 300n). (Apparently, according to the Athanasians, the Bible should not be read and understood literally. It should be read and understood using human speculation and philosophy. The Athanasian’s attitude toward relying on a strict literal reading of the Scriptures to support one’s doctrine is prima facie evidence that they were convinced that the Scriptures supported Arian’s position better than it did theirs.)
    Arius stated, “‘We must either suppose two divine original essences without beginning, and independent of each other; or we must not shrink from asserting that the Logos had a beginning of his existence; that there was a moment when he did not as yet exist’” (p. 301). In favor of Arius’ position was the “‘expression “made” applied to Christ (as Acts ii. 36, and Heb. iii. 2), or in which he is styled the First-born’” (pp. 301-302).
    Arius never intended “‘to lower the dignity of Christ, but would ascribe to him the greatest dignity which a being could have after God, without entirely annihilating the distinction between that being and God’” (p. 302). He believed that he was defending the old doctrine of the Church and was merely simplifying it.
    Athanasius accompanied Bishop Alexander to the council at Nicaea. Afterwards, he became a zealous champion of what would develop into the new orthodoxy of the Trinity.
    Arriving at a doctrine that would be generally acceptable, but also exclude the Arians proved a great difficulty. The Council had to condemn the Arian dogma that the Son “was produced out of nothing, and that there was a time when he did not exist” (p. 306) and had to affirm the opposite doctrine. Selecting terms that the orthodox could employ, but that the Arians could not without changing their sentiments proved difficult.
    The first proposal was “to make use only of Scriptural expressions, such as, ‘Christ is the Wisdom and the Power of God,’ the ‘Brightness of his Glory;’ or others of a similar character” (p. 306). As the Arians found this approach acceptable, it was abandoned. A creed was offered, but as it contained no term to which the Arians would object, it was disapproved because it was “no sufficient test of orthodoxy” (p, 307). Then the Council discovered that “the Arians had great dread of the term ‘consubstantial’” (p. 307). Thus, this word was placed in the previously rejected creed, and other modifications were made. Then the Council adopted the creed.
    As expected, the Arians objected. They argued “that the language in question was new; that it had not the sanction of the sacred writings or of antiquity” (p. 307). Moreover, many bishops were forced to sign the creed. Thus, the Nicene Creed was adopted. It read:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down, and became incarnate and became man, and suffered, and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the heavens, and will come to judge the living and dead, And in the Holy Spirit. But as for those who say, There was when He was not, and, Before being born He was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or created, or is subject to alteration or change — these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes (Creed of Nicaea).

    The new, unscriptural term “consubstantial” caused reluctance of some bishops to assent to the new creed — especially Eusebius of Caesarea. He assented after the phrase “‘of the substance [consubstantial] of the Father’” (p. 308) was explained to him to mean “‘the Son is of the Father, but not as being part of the Father,’ that is, ‘not part of his substance’” (p. 308). Thus, he concluded “‘that the expression, of the substance of the Father, implies only that the Son of God does not resemble, in any one respect, the creatures which he has made; but that to the Father, who begat him, he is in all points perfectly similar’” (p. 308).
    The Nicene Creed did not declare the numerical equality of the Father and the Son. It did not declare the Son equal to the Father. Further, it did not declare the Son eternal.
    Thus, the ante-Fathers could interpret the Nicene Creed as upholding their concept of the Trinity. Athanasians could (and did) use it to develop what eventually became the Trinity Doctrine. Moreover, the Sabellians would have had little problems in accepting the Creed as they could easily explain it as supporting their concept of the Trinity. (Many of Origen’s disciples saw the Creed as Sabellian.) However, the Arians and the Artemonites would have to abandon their beliefs to adhere to this Creed.
    Athanasius interpreted the Nicene Creed to mean that the Father alone is self-existent and absolute God. The Son and Holy Spirit are derived and subordinate. The Son is derived by eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit, by eternal procession. 
    The anathemas annexed to the Creed “prohibited the use of expressions not found in the Scriptures. Yet the creed contained such expressions” (p. 308).
    Later, Arius convinced Constantine of his orthodoxy and, under the order of the Emperor, was readmitted to the Church. Meanwhile, Constantine banished Athanasius after having found him guilty of various crimes. Later, Athanasius’ banishment was commuted, and he became the off-and-on Bishop of Alexandria. He became a vigorous opponent of the Arians and did not hesitate to call them all sorts of evil names.
    To Athanasius, the primary issue was salvation. “The Greek conception of salvation had been, . . . the transformation of sinful mortality into divine and blessed immortality — the impartation of ‘life.’ . . . Only by real Godhead coming into union with full manhood in Christ could the transformation of the human into the divine be accomplished in Him, or be mediated by Him to His disciples” (Walker, p.118). To him “the great error of Arianism was that it gave no basis for a real salvation” (Walker, p. 118).
    About Athanasius’ character, Lamson wrote, “His piety and love of truth we have no disposition to call in question; yet the history of his life would seem to authorize the suspicion, that he was influenced rather by motives of pride and ambition than by a desire to promote the peace of the church. He would set all Christendom in a flame sooner than relinquish the patriarchal throne of Alexandria” (p. 331). (Far too many church leaders are guided more by pride and ambition than by the love of Jesus and the truth.)
    For decades following its adoption, the Nicene Creed aroused a great deal of turmoil. Its two major opponents were the Arians and the disciples of Origen who objected to it for being a Sabellian creed.
    After the death of Constantine (337), Arianism revived and prospered for a while. As it grew, schisms occurred. One faction, the Semi-Arians or Homoiousians, maintained “that the Son was, in all respects, of like substance with the Father” (p. 323). The other faction was the strict Arians, who were dominated by the Aetians, Eunomiaus, and Anomceans. They believed that the Son “of a different substance, and wholly unlike the Father” (p. 323). By uniting with the Semi-Arians, the Athanasians eventually overcame the Arians. Arianism ceased to exist after 660, at least publicly.

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Part 5    Part 7

Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 5

Between Origen and Arius

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

Writers Between Origen and Arius
    The distinction between Tritheism and Monarchianism was becoming sharper. Because their mode of defending the unity of God, Monarchians were often accused of Patripassianism and “the denial of the divinity of Christ, by maintaining that the Logos as a separate subsistence formed no part of his nature” (p. 253).
    During this era, Tritheism, was becoming the orthodoxy while Monarchianism in the form of Sabellianism was becoming its chief opponent. However, in attacking the Monarchians, some opponents, such as Dionysius of Alexandra and Methodius of Olympus, laid the foundation of Arianism.
    In its hostility toward Sabellius, Paul, and their kindred, “the doctrine of the self-subsisting personality of the Logos, or Son, was more strenuously insisted on than ever” (p. 257). This emphasis on the self-subsisting personality of the Son contributed to the rise of Arianism, which strongly contrasted with the Monarchian doctrine of Sabellius and Paul.
    Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 264) was Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria between 248 and 264. He was a student of Origen, and about 232, he became the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria.
    In his dispute with the Sabellians, Dionysius became tainted with heresy. He was charged “with placing the Son in the rank of ‘a creature’ in repelling the errors of Sabellius, going into the opposite extreme; making not only a ‘diversity of persons’ but a ‘difference of substance’” (p. 258). Thus, he was accused of sowing the seeds of the Amonoeans, who were a branch of the Arians. (Amonoeans “made a clear distinction between God and Christ. God was the deity that always had existed, Christ was only created by him. From this, God and Christ could not be considered equal or similar. In consequence, Christ was also denied the consubstantiality, that of two natures in him; a human and a divine” [“Amonoean”].)
    According to Dionysius, “‘the Son of God is something made and begotten; neither is he by nature (a son) proper, but is in substance foreign to the Father, as is the husbandman to the vine, or the shipbuilder to the ship; and being a creature, he was not before he was begotten’” (pp. 258-259). Although he maintained the subordination of the Son, he held that the Logos “is not simply the second person of the Trinity in His virtual existence. . . . He is already God” (Pressense, p. 363). “‘Dionysius summed up his doctrine in this formula: ‘We expand the indivisible Monas [one deity] into the Trias [three deities], and we bring back the Trias undiminished to the Monas.’ This singular formula sets aside absolutely the idea that the Son is of a different nature from the Father” (Pressense, p. 364).
    “As to the term ‘consubstantial’ Dionysius says that he did not find it in the Scriptures, and he therefore felt justified in rejecting it” (p. 259). He used consubstantial in the sense, for example, a human progeny is of the same genus with the parent. “In this sense, consubstantiality did not imply numerical identity” (p. 260). Thus, following the older Fathers, Dionysius held that the “the Father and the Son might be pronounced ‘consubstantial,’ as they were beings of the same specific nature (that is, both divine), though as distinct from each other as Peter and John, or the husbandman and the vine, the maker of the ship and the ship” (p. 260).
    Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213 – 270) was a student of Origen and Bishop of Pontus. He claimed that the Father and the Son, “are one in substance, and distinct only in thought” (Pressense, p. 358). Nevertheless, he seemed to consider the Logos as created or produced. Therefore, he was charged “with depressing the Son to the rank of a ‘creature,’ or ‘work,’ — something produced” (p. 261). Except for the eternity of the Son, which Origen held, Gregory seemed to have adopted all of Origen’s views of the Son. Gregory believed that the Son “to be of inferior dignity to the Father, and did not believe in their numerical identity” (p. 261).
    Theognostus (c. 210 – c. 270) was an Alexandrian theologian and a disciple of Origen. According to Theognostus, “‘[t]he substance of the Son is not anything procured from without, nor accruing from nothing; but it sprang from the Father’s substance, as radiance from light, or vapour from water; for neither is the vapour, nor the radiance, the water itself, or the sun, nor is it foreign to it. The Son is an effluence from the substance of the Father, without the substance of the Father undergoing any partition; for as the sun remains the same and is not diminished by the rays which flow out from it, so neither does the substance of the Father undergo any change through the Son who bears its image’” (p. 262). He considered the Logos to be a creature, “yet he affirms that He [the Son] neither came forth from nothing nor from any created source, but from the very bosom of God” (p. 359).
He used “consubstantial” before the Council of Nicaea used it. However, he does not assert “numerical identity of substance in the sense of the later Athanasian orthodoxy” (p. 262).
    Pierius (d. after 309) was a Christian priest in Alexandria and the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. He believed that the Father and Son were two substances and two natures. The Holy Spirit was “‘inferior in glory to the Father and Son’” (p. 263).
    Methodius (d. c. 311) was the Bishop of Olympus in Lycia and later of Tyre of Phoenicia. He disagreed with Origen on several points, but apparently not with his doctrine of the Trinity, which was the orthodoxy at this time.
    According to Methodius, “the Father was the principle out of which the Logos, which was before in him, proceeded” (p. 264). Apparently, he knew nothing “of the eternity of the Son, as a self-subsistent being” (p. 264). To him, the Son was “‘first begotten of God — before the ages’” (p. 264). In power and dignity, the Son was inferior to the Father. Later, Methodius was condemned for supporting Arianism.
    Lucian of Antioch (c. 240 – 312) was a presbyter and theologian. Most of the Arian leaders were his disciples — therefore, followers of Arius were often called Lucianists. He rejected the Sabellian principle that the Logos had no separate personality and was not a self-subsistent being.
    Cyprian (c. 200 – 258) was the Bishop of Carthage. He declared God to be One and Supreme and that He was without a partner or equal. Of the Son, he believed him to be “the ‘Word,’ or the ‘Son of God,’ who is ‘sent,’ is the ‘Power of God, his Reason, his Wisdom, and Glory’ (p. 269). When Cyprian “speaks of the Holy Spirit as becoming ‘clothed with flesh’” (p. 269), he confounds the Spirit with the Logos as did many early Fathers. At other times, Cyprian “distinguishes the Spirit from the Logos, making it inferior in dignity to Christ himself” (p. 269).
    Although he called Christ God, he meant the Son of God and clearly denied his supremacy. The Father sanctified and sent the Son into the world. God the Creator is the Father of Christ. “Cyprian never thought of a numerical identity of the Father and Son, but regarded them as two distinct beings, the Father being the Fountain and Giver of all the power and dignity possessed by the Son” (p. 220).
    About the Christians of the first three centuries, Lamson writes, “The ancient Christians had not learned that refinement of logic by which he who sends and he who is sent are made one. They went on the assumption, that they must necessarily be two” (p. 270). (Lamson may have meant this statement sarcastically. Liking the sophistication of Athanasius and later Trinitarians, these ignorant Christians’ belief in two beings was necessary: one to send and the other to be sent. Unlike the later Athanasians, they did not realize that one could send oneself and give the appearance of two by merely changing the title or office [mode or manifestation?] of the sender and sent. This notion of the Trinitarians seems to be approaching the heresy of Sabellianism.)
    Novatian (c. 200–258) was a scholar, theologian, and presbyter of the Church of Rome. He wrote more than most on the doctrine of the Trinity.
    According to him, the Son was inferior to the Father and, therefore, not his equal. He testified “to the old doctrine of the undivided supremacy of the Father, and the derived nature and inferiority of the Son. The Spirit he places still lower” (p. 291). Novatian described God the Father as “‘the most perfect Creator of all things.’ . . . ‘Maker of all things, containing all; moving, vivifying all.’ . . . — ‘without origin and without end,’ whom ‘no words can adequately describe and no mind comprehend;’ [and is] ‘immutable, one, without equal, unbegotten, infinite, incorruptible, and immortal’” (p. 272). Like other ante-Nicene Fathers, he never applied these epithets to the Son. “Novatian believed Christ to be both God and man, but not in the modern or Athanasian sense” (p. 272). In Christ, the Divinity of the Word was “united by ‘concretion’; or commixture with human nature, constituting an indivisible unity” (p. 272). Although Christ was God and man, he was not the supreme God, He was “man as born of man, God as born or begotten of God, according to the doctrine of the old Fathers, that what is born of God is God, that is, divine, consubstantial with God, as what is born of man is man, that is, human, consubstantial with man, numerical identity being excluded, there being only identity of kind or species” (p. 272). Thus, he is man who is of man and is God who is of God. “So Christ is God and man. He has his origin from God, and sustains the same relation to him as a human being sustains to its father” (pp. 272-273). Nevertheless, the Son was inferior to the Father and dependent, and he was a distinct being from the Father.
    Unlike the Trinitarians who followed, Novatian read the Bible in its most natural and obvious sense. For example, when Christ said that the “Father is greater than I,” Christ literally meant what he said: His Father was superior to him. Christ was stating that he was a distinct being from the Father, and that he occupied a second place. (Novatian was unaware of the two-natures doctrine that the Trinitarians would later develop to explain away any comment that Jesus made about himself that conflicted with the Trinity Doctrine.)
    About omnipresence, Novatian held that “the Father himself, the supreme one, the only true God, is infinite, and cannot be contained within any limits of place; cannot ascend or descend, but contains and fills all things. Not so the Son, who is capable of ascending and descending, and can be enclosed within space” (p. 275). Thus, God the Father is omnipresent; the Son of God is not.
    To explain the Father as God and Christ as God without having two Gods and without resorting to Sabellianism, Novatian resorted to the Logos-doctrine. Thus, the Son is “a divine being, having, after he was begotten, a distinct personal subsistence, but being subordinate to the Father, not co-equal and co-eternal with him” (p. 275). The Father is one God “‘of whom, when he willed, the Word or Son was begotten.’ He was ‘always in the Father,’ as his unbegotten virtue or energy, but had no distinct personal subsistence. . . . ‘The Father precedes him’ (the Son), in that as Father, he must be prior, since ‘he who has no origin must of necessity precede him who has an origin’” (p. 276). Further, “‘[i]f he [the Son] were not begotten, there would be two unbegotten, and so two Gods’” (p. 276) Since the “‘Son does nothing of his own will, or his own counsel, but in all things obeys the precepts and commands of the Father’” (p. 276), there are not two Gods, but one God. (For more of Novatian’s arguments to save the unity of God, see Lamson, pp. 275-276.) This is a brief sketch of his explanation of two Gods not being two Gods. In short, “supreme divinity is not to be ascribed to Christ. He is not co-equal, or co-eternal with the Father. . . . Christ was God, but not the one infinite God; not self-existent; not having a personal, individual being from eternity, but deriving his origin, divinity, power, and authority from the only Supreme and Unbegotten God, the self-existent and Eternal One” (pp. 276-277).
    Novatian asserted the inferiority of the Spirit. He did not consider the Spirit to be God or Lord. Moreover, he did not give the Spirit a personality and certainly did “exalt the Spirit into one of three co-equal persons” (p. 277).
    Dionysius of Rome (d. 268) was the Bishop of Rome, i.e., the Pope between 259 and 268. He repudiated the opinions of Tertullian, Hippolytus, Sabellius, and Dionysius of Alexander. In opposition to the Sabellians, he declared that the Deity consisted of three divine persons and not three manifestations. He rejected the notion of three distinct divinities. “He asserts His [Logos] eternal divinity. ‘It is not lawful to divide into three deities the glorious and divine Monad [one, unity]. It is necessary that the Word should be united to the God of the universe, that the Holy Spirit should dwell and abide in Him, and that the sacred Triad [a group of closely related three] should be resolved at length into a sublime unity in the Almighty God, the Creator of all Beings. We must believe in one God, the Father Almighty, in Jesus Christ His Son, and in the Holy Spirit. The Word [Logos] is one with the God of the universe. Thus do we hold fast at once the divine Triad and the holy doctrine of the divine unity’” (Pressense, p. 417). He was closer to stating what would become the Trinity Doctrine than the other ante-Nicene Fathers. Dionysius “is the forerunner of the school of authoritative metaphysics. With him, the age of free doctrinal creations seems to pass away” (Pressense, p. 418). (Thus, religious liberty died in Christianity until the after the Reformation.)
    Arnobius (d. c. 330) was a Christian teacher and apologist. “[H]e maintained the supremacy of the Father, and makes the Son a different being and subordinate” (p. 278). God the Father is “‘alone unbegotten, immortal, and everlasting,’ the ‘Father, Governor, and Lord of all things’” (p. 278). God the Father sent Christ, the Son, who spoke by the command of the Father. Christ “‘giver of immortality,’ as the ‘Supreme King has appointed him to that office’” (p. 278).
    Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) was a student of Arnobius and a teacher and writer. He believed that the Son was not eternal, but was begotten by the Father. The Son was the firstborn and was alone worthy of the divine nature. However, the Son was subordinate to the Father. Therefore, the Son was not eternal or equal to the Father. Moreover, the Son “is of a ‘middle nature or substance between God and man’” (p. 280). Christ “‘taught that there is one God, who alone is to be worshipped; neither did he once call himself God. . . . Because he was thus faithful, assuming nothing to himself, but fulfilling the commands of him that sent him, he received the dignity of a perpetual priesthood, and the honours of the highest king, and the power of judge, and the name of God’” (p. 280). Thus, the Fathers and Son are “two beings, entirely distinct, one [the Father] first and supreme, the other [the Son] subordinate; one giving, the other receiving” (p. 281). Unity existed with the Father and the Son; they are one in will, affection, and consent: “‘[T]he Son faithfully obeys the will of the Father, nor ever does nor did anything except what the Father has willed or commanded’” (p. 281). However, at times Lactantius seemed to consider the Father and the Son to be one of mind, spirit, and substance.
    Lactantius denied the personality of the Holy Spirit. However, at times, he confounds the Spirit with the Logos.
    The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity between Origen and Arius showed as much, if not more, support for Arius as for Alexander and Athanasius. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity that had developed before the Arian controversy differed significantly from the Trinity Doctrine that developed after the Council of Nicaea. When the Arian controversy began, the doctrine of the Trinity declared the Son to be pre-existing. Nevertheless, the Father preceded him, i.e., unlike the Father who had no beginning and was, therefore, eternal, the Son had a beginning and was, therefore, not eternal. (Origen was an exception as he speculated about “‘beginningless’ creation, and a ‘beginningless generation of the Son’” [p. 285].) Therefore, the Son was not coeternal with the Father as maintained by the Trinity Doctrine. Further, the Son was inferior to the Father and was a distinct being from the Father, i.e., of a different essence or substance. Because he was begotten of God, the Son “partook in some sort of the same specific nature (that is, a divine), just as an individual of our race partakes of the same nature or essence with the parent from whom he sprang (that is, a human)” (p. 284). Again, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity just before the Council of Nicaea differed significantly from the modern Trinity Doctrine. Moreover, the Son was both God and man, but not in the Athanasian sense. The Holy Spirit was not eternal and was subordinate to the Son and the Father. Furthermore, it lacked a personality.

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Part 4    Part 6