§ 124. AEIANI8M. 015
mians, as tliej were called after their later leadeis, or Exukoii tians, Heteroousiasts, and Anomoeans, as they were named from their characteristic terms, is in substance as follows :
The Father alone is God ; therefore he alone is unbegotten. eternal, wise, good, and unchangeable, and he is separated bj an infinite chasm from the world. He cannot create the world directly, but only through an agent, the Logos. The Son of God is pre-existent,' before all creatures, and above all creatures, a middle being between God and the world, the creator of the world, the perfect image of the Father, and the executor of his thoughts, and thus capable of being called in a metaphorical sense God, and Logos, and Wisdom.' But on the other hand, he himself is a creature, that is to say, the first creation of God, through whom the Father called other creatures into existence ; he was created out of nothing ' (not out of the essence of God) by the will of the Father before all conceivable time ; he is therefore not eternal, but had a beginning, and there was a time when he was not,'*
Arianism thus rises far above Ebionism, Socinianism, deism, and rationalism, in maintaining the personal pre-existence of the Son before all worlds, which were his creation ; but it agrees with those systems in lowering the Son to the sphere of the created, which of course includes the idea of temporalness and finiteness. It at first ascribed to him the predicate of unchangeableness also," but afterwards subjected him to the vicissitudes of created being.* This contradiction, however, is solved, if need be, by the distinction between moral and physical unchangeableness ; the Son is in his nature {(jivaet) changeable, but remains good (/caXo?) by a free act of his will. Arius, after having once robbed the Son of divine essence,' could not consistently allow him any divine attribute in the strict sense of the M'ord ; he limited his duration, his
Vlph xpo"""' xal alwvwy. ' 0tos, A070S, (To(picu Uoirjfia, KTiV/xa €| ovk ovtwv. Hence the name Exukontians.
* 'kpxhv fX*' — "^'^ ■^*' "'P^'' y^vv-rfS)^, ^TOi KTia^ — -^v irore ore oih 4k
* 'AraAAoioiTos, &TpfirTOi d vi6s.
* TpfiTThi (pvaa iis to KrlfffiaTa. ' Ovffia.
646 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
power, and his knowledge, and expressly asserted that the Son docs not perfectly know the Father, and therefore cannot per fectly reveal him. The Son is essentially distinct from the Father,' and — as Aetins and Eunomius afterward more strongly expressed it — unlike the Father ; ' and this dissimilarity was by some extended to all moral and metupliysical attributes and conditions.' The dogma of the essential deity of Christ seemed to Arias to lead of necessity to Sabellianism or to the Gnostic dreams of emanation. As to the humanity of Christ Arius ascribed to him only a human body, but not a rational soul, and on this point ApoUinarius came to the same conclusion, though from orthodox premises, and with the intention of saving the unity of the divine personality of Christ.
The later development of Arianism brought out nothing really new, but rather revealed many inconsistencies and contradictions. Thus, for example, Eunomius, to whom clearness was the measure of truth, maintained that revelation haa made everything clear, and man can perfectly know God ; while Arius denied even to the Son the perfect knowledge of God or of himself. The negative and rationalistic element came forth in ever greater prominence, and the controversy became a metaphysical war, destitute of all deep religioue spirit. Tlie eighteen formulas of faith which Arianism and Semi- Arianism produced between the councils of Nice and Constantinople, are leaves without blossoms, and branches without fruit. Tiie natural course of the Arian heresy is downward, through the stage of Socinianism, into the rationalism which sees in Christ a mere man, the chief of his kind.
To pass now to the arguments used for and against this error :
1. The Arians drew their exegetical proofs from the passages of Scripture which seem to place Christ in any way in the category of that which is created,* or ascribe to the incarnate
' 'ETtpooucrioj T(S Trarpi.
' 'AvSjxoios Kar' ovcriav. Hence the name kvS^oioi, Anomocans. ' 'Ai/oVoiot (fOTO TravTo.
* Such as Prov. viii. 22-25 (conip. Sir. i. 4 ; xxiv. 8 f.), where personified Wis dom, t. e., the Logos, says (according to the Septuagint): Kvpws tKnafv /uf [Ileb