§ 123. IMPORT OF THE AEIAN CONTKOVEKSY. 641
empire in 534, and among the Longobards till the close of the sixth centuiy. These barbarians, however, held Arianism rather through accident than from conviction, and scarcely knew the difference between it and the orthodox doctrine. Alaric, the first conqueror of Rome ; Genseric, the conqueroi of North Africa; Theodoric the Great, king of Italy and hero of the Niebelungen Lied, were Arians. The first Teutonic translation of the Bible came from the Arian missionary Ulfilas.
§ 123. The Theological Principles involved: Import of tha
Controversy.
Here should be compared, of tlie works before mentioned, especially Petavius (torn. sec. De sanctissima Trinitate), and Mohler (Athanasius, third book), of the Romanists, and Bauk, Dorner, and Voigt, of the Protestants.
We pass now to the internal history of the Arian conflict, the development of the antagonistic ideas ; first marking some general points of view from which the subject must be conceived.
To the superficial and rationalistic eye this great struggle seems a metaphysical subtilty and a fruitless logomachy, revolving about a Greek iota." But it enters into the heart of Christianity, and must necessarily affect in a greater or less degree all other articles of faith. 'Tlie different views of the contending parties concerning the relation of Christ to the Father involved the general question, whether Christianity is truly divine, the highest revelation, and an actual redemption, or merely a relative truth, which may be superseded by a more perfect revelation.
Thus the controversy is conceived even by Dr. Baur, who is characterized by a much deeper discernment of the philosophical and historical import of the conflicts in the history of Christian doctrine, than all other rationalistic historians. "The main question," he says, " was, whether Christianity is the
'Oixo-ovaioi — Sfioi-oi<Tios — e^fpo-ovffios.
G42 TIIIED PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
liigliest and absolute revelation of G >d, and such that by it in the Son of God the self-existent absolute being of God joim itself to man, and so communicates itself that man through tho Son becomes trul}'' one with God, and comes into such commimity of essence with God, as makes him absolutely certain of jjardon and salvation. From this point of view Athanasius apjjrehended the gist of the controversy, always finally summing up all his objections to the Arian doctrine with the chief argument, that the whole substance of Christianity, all reality of redem})tion, everything which makes Christianity the perfect salvation, would be utterly null and meaningless, if he who is supposed to unite man with God in real unity of being, were not himself absolute God, or of one substance with the absolute God, but only a creature among creatures. The infinite chasm which separates creature from Creator, remains unfilled ; there is nothing really mediatory between God and man, if between the two there be nothing more than some created and finite thing, or such a mediator and redeemer as the Arians conceive the Son of God in his essential distinction from God : not begotten from the essence of God and coeternal, but created out of nothing and arising in time. Just as the distinctive character of the Athanasian doctrine lies in its effort to conceive the relation of the Father and Son, and in it the relation of God and man, as unity and community of essence, the Arian doctrine on the contrary has the opposite aim of a separation by which, first Father and Son, and then God and man, are placed in the abstract opposition of infinite and finite. While, therefore, according to Athanasius, Christianity is the religion of the unity of God and mg,n, according to Arius the essence of the Christian i-evelation can consist only in man's becoming conscious of the dilference which separates him, witli all the finite, fi-oni tlic absolute being of God. What value, however, one must ask, has such a Christianity, when, instead of bringing man nearer to God, it only fixes the chasm between God and man ? " '
Arianism was a religious political war against the spirit of the Christian revelation by the spirit oi" the world, which, aftei
' Die chrialliche Kirche vom 4-6tcn Jahiliunderl, 1859, p. 97 aq.