RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Arianism
reign of the Emperor Valens, it maintained itself for two centuries longer, though more as a matter of accident than choice and conviction. The Ostrogoths remained Arians till 553; the Visigoths, till the Synod of Toledo in 589; the Suevi in Spain, till 560- the Vandals, who conquered North Africa in 429 and furiously persecuted the catholics, till 530, when they were expelled by Belisarius; the Burgundians, till their incorporation in the Frank Empire in 534; the Lombards in Italy, till the middle of the seventh century. Alaric, the first conqueror of Rome, Genseric, the conqueror of North Africa, Theodoric the Great, King of Italy, were Arians; and the first Teutonic translation of the Scriptures of which important fragments remain came from the Arian or semi-Arian missionary Ulfilas.
II. The Creed of Arianism : The Father alone is God; he alone is unbegotten, eternal, wise, good, unchangeable. He is separated by an infinite chasm from man. God can not communicate his essence. The Son of God is preexistent, " before time and before the world," and "before all creatures." He is a middle being between God and the world, the perfect image of the Father,
i. The the executor of his thoughts, yea, even
Arian the Creator of the world. In a second- Teaching, ary or metaphorical sense he may be called " God." But, on the other hand, Christ is himself a " creature," — the first creature of God, through whom the Father called other creatures into existence. He is " made," not of " the essence " of the Father, but " out of nothing," by " the will " of the Father, before all conceivable time, yet in time. He is not eternal, and there " was a time when he was not." Neither was he unchangeable by creation, but subject to the vicissitudes of a created being. By following the good uninterruptedly, he became unchangeable. With the limitation of Christ's duration is necessarily connected a limitation of his power, wisdom, and knowledge. It was expressly asserted by the Arians that the Son does not perfectly know the Father, and therefore can not perfectly reveal him. He is essentially different from the Father (heteroousios, in opposition to the orthodox formula, homoousios, " coequal," and the semi-Arian homoiousios, " similar in essence "). Aetius and Eunomius afterward more strongly expressed this by calling him unlike the Father (anomoios). As to the humanity of Christ, Arius ascribed to him only a human body with an animal soul, not a rational soul. He anticipated Apollinaris of Laodicea (q.v.), who substituted the divine Logos for the human reason, but from the opposite motive, — to save the unity of the divine personality of Christ.
The subsequent development of Arianism by Aetius and Eunomius brought out no new features, except many inconsistencies and contradictions. The controversy degenerated into a heartless and barren metaphysical war. The eighteen or more creeds which Arianism and semi-Arianism produced between the first and the second ecumenical councils (325-381) are leaves without blossoms, and branches without fruit.
The Arians supported their doctrine from those passages of the Bible which seem to place Christ
on a par with the creature (Prov. viii. 22-25; Acts ii. 36; Col. i. 15), or which ascribe to the incarnate Christ (not the preexistent Logos) 2. Argu- in his state of humiliation lack of ments of the knowledge, weariness, sorrow, and Arians. other changing affections and states of mind (Luke ii. 52; Mark xiii. 32; Heb. v. 8, 9; John xii. 27, 28; Matt. xxvi. 39), or which teach some kind of subordination of the Son to the Father (especially John xiv. 28: " The Father is greater than I," which refers, not to the essential nature, but to the state of humiliation). Arius was forced to admit, in his first letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, that Christ was called God (even " the full, only-begotten God," according to the famous disputed reading for " only-begotten Son," in John i. 18. Cf. Hort's first dissertation). But he reduced this expression to the idea of a subordinate, secondary, created divinity. The dogmatic and philosophical arguments were chiefly negative and rationalistic, amounting to this: The Nicene view of the essential deity of Christ is unreasonable, inconsistent with monotheism, with the dignity and absoluteness of the Father, and of necessity leads to Sabellianism, or the Gnostic dreams of emanation.
On the other hand, Arianism was refuted by Scriptural passages, which teach directly or indirectly the divinity of Christ, and his 3. Refuta- essential equality with the Father. tion of The conception of a created Creator, Arianism. who existed before the world, and yet himself began to exist, was shown to be self-contradictory and untenable. There can be no middle being between Creator and creature; no time before the world, as time is itself a part of the world, or the form under which it exists successively; nor can the unchangeableness of the Father, on which Arius laid great stress, be maintained, except on the ground of the eternity of his Fatherhood, which, of course, implies the eternity of the Sonship. Athanasius charges Arianism with dualism, and even polytheism, and with destroying the whole doctrine of salvation. For if the Son is a creature, man still remains separated, as before, from God: no creature can redeem other creatures, and unite them with God. If Christ is not divine, much less can we be partakers of the divine nature, and in any real sense children of God.
(Philip Schaff f) D. S. Schaff.
Bibliography: Sources (1) on the orthodox side, the church histories of Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, and most of the Fathers of the fourth century, especially the dogmatic and polemic works of Athanasius (Orationes contra Arianos, etc.), Basil (Adv. Eunomium), Gregory of Nazianzus (Orationes theological), Gregory of Nyssa (Contra Eunomium), Epiphanius (Ancoratus), Hilary (De trinitate), Ambrose (De fide), Augustine (De trinitate and Contra Maximum Arianum). (2) On the Arian side, the fragments of the Thalia, and epistles of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia and Alexander of Alexandria, preserved in Athanasius, Epiphanius, Socrates, and Theodoret; the fragments of the church history of Philostorgius; Eusebius, Vita Constantini; Fragmenta Arianorum, in Mai, Nova collectio, iii., Rome, 1828. For the synodical transactions, Mansi, Concilia, vols, ii.-iii. Later literature: L. Maimbourg, Histoire de VArianisme, Paris, 1675; G. Bull, Defensio fidei Nicwna, Oxford, 1703, Eng. transl., 1851; C. W F. Walch, VollslandigeHistorieder Ketzereien, vols.
Arias Aristotle