Arianism () is a Christological doctrine that rejects the traditional notion of the Trinity, teaching that Jesus was created by God and is therefore distinct from God. It is named after its proponent Arius (250 or 256 – 336 AD) and is regarded as heretical by most modern mainstream branches of Christianity. Arianism is held by a minority of modern denominations, although some of these groups espouse related doctrines such as Socinianism, and others avoid the term "Arian" because of its historically negative connotations. Modern denominations sometimes associated with the teaching include Jehovah's Witnesses and some churches within the Churches of Christ (among them the movement's founder, Barton W. Stone).
It is first attributed to Arius, a Christian presbyter who preached and studied in Alexandria, Egypt, though Arianism developed out of various preexisting strands of Christianity that differed from later Nicene Christianity in their Christologies. The term Arian is derived from the name Arius; it was not what the followers of Arius's teachings called themselves, but rather a term used by outsiders. Arian theology holds that Jesus is the Son of God, who was begotten by God the Father, with the difference that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten/made before time by God the Father. Therefore, Jesus was not coeternal with God the Father, but nonetheless Jesus began to exist outside time.
Arius's trinitarian theology, later given an extreme form by Aëtius of Antioch and his disciple Eunomius of Cyzicus and called ('dissimilar'), asserts a total dissimilarity between the Son and the Father. Arianism holds that the Son is distinct from the Father and therefore subordinate to him. The nature of Arius's and his supporters' teachings were opposed to the theological doctrines held by Homoousian Christians regarding the nature of the Trinity and the nature of Christ. Homoousianism and Arianism were contending interpretations of Jesus's divinity, both based upon the trinitarian theological orthodoxy of the time.
Homoousianism was formally affirmed by the first two ecumenical councils; since then, Arianism has been condemned as "the heresy or sect of Arius". Trinitarian (Homoousian) doctrines were vigorously upheld by Patriarch Athanasius of Alexandria, who insisted that Jesus (God the Son) was "same in being" or "same in essence" with God the Father. Arius dissented: "If the Father begat the Son, then he who was begotten had a beginning in existence, and from this it follows there was a time when the Son was not." The ecumenical First Council of Nicaea of 325 declared Arianism to be a heresy. According to Everett Ferguson, "The great majority of Christians had no clear views about the nature of the Trinity and they did not understand what was at stake in the issues that surrounded it."
Arianism is also used to refer to other nontrinitarian theological systems of the 4th century, which regarded Jesus—the Son of God and the Logos—as either a begotten creature of a similar or different substance to that of the Father, but not identical (as Homoiousian and Anomoeanism) or as neither uncreated nor created in the sense other beings are created (as in semi-Arianism).
Origin
Some early Christians whose beliefs would have fallen under 'orthodoxy' in the third and fourth centuries denied the eternal generation of the Son; they viewed the Son as having been begotten in time. These include Tertullian and Justin Martyr. Tertullian is considered a pre-Arian. Among the other church fathers, Origen was accused of Arianism for using terms like "second God", and Patriarch Dionysius of Alexandria was denounced at Rome for saying that the Son is a work and creature of God (i.e., a created being). However, the subordinationism of Origen is not identical to Arianism, and it has been generally viewed as closer to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan view of the Trinity.
Controversy over Arianism arose in the late 3rd century and persisted throughout most of the 4th century. It involved most church members—from simple believers, priests, and monks to bishops, emperors, and members of Rome's imperial family. Two Roman emperors, Constantius II and Valens, became Arians or semi-Arians, as did prominent Gothic, Vandal, and Lombard warlords both before and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The antipopes Felix II and Ursinus were Arian, and Pope Liberius was forced to sign the Arian Creed of Sirmium of 357—though the letter says he willingly agreed with Arianism. Such a deep controversy within the early Church during this period could not have materialized without significant historical influences providing a basis for the Arian doctrines.
Arius had been a pupil of Lucian of Antioch at Lucian's private academy in Antioch and inherited from him a modified form of the teachings of Paul of Samosata. Arius taught that God the Father and the Son of God did not always exist together eternally.
Beliefs Little of Arius's own work survives except in quotations selected for polemical purposes by his opponents, and there is no certainty about what theological and philosophical traditions formed his thought. The influence from the One of Neoplatonism was widespread throughout the Eastern Roman Empire, and this influenced Arius.
Arius's basic premise is that only God is independent of existing. Since the Son is dependent, he must, therefore, be called a creature. Arians put forward a question for their belief: "Has God birthed Jesus willingly or unwillingly?" This question was used to argue that Jesus is dependent for his existence since Jesus exists only because God wants him to be.
Arianism taught that the Logos was a divine being created by God the Father before the world's creation, serving as the medium for creation, and that the Son of God is subordinate to the Father. The concept of the Logos refers to an inner attribute of God associated with wisdom. Jesus is identified as the Logos due to a supposed resemblance to this inner aspect of God's nature.
According to Arianism, a verse from the Book of Proverbs spoke of the creation of the Son by God: "The Lord created me at the beginning of his work." Therefore, they posited, the Son was rather the very first and the most perfect of God's creatures, and he was called "God" only by the Father's permission and power. The term "Son" is ambiguous, as Arians use adoptionist theology to support the belief that Jesus was created ex nihilo by the Father.
Arians do not believe in the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. The letter of the Arian bishop Auxentius of Durostorum regarding the Arian missionary Ulfilas (–383) gives an overview of Arian beliefs. Ulfilas, ordained by Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, became a missionary to the Goths and believed that God the Father, the "unbegotten" Almighty, is the only true God. According to Auxentius, Ulfilas believed the Son of God, Jesus, the "only-begotten god", was begotten before time began., , The Holy Spirit, he wrote, is the illuminating and sanctifying power of God. Using 1 Corinthians 8:5–6 as a proof text:
The creed of Ulfilas, which concludes the letter mentioned above, distinguishes God the Father ("unbegotten"), who is the only true God, from the Son of God ("only-begotten") and the Holy Spirit, the illuminating and sanctifying power, which is neither God the Father nor the God the Son:
Within the letter from Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia, Arius qualifies his beliefs about the Son:
Arius would teach that the Son had a beginning in the Father, and rejected the idea of because it would imply the essence of the Father was materially broken off like gold from a bar. He would emphasize that the Father is true God (per se) and the Son and the Holy Spirit were derivative. This was a radical and strict theological interpretation of the already prevalent subordinationist and monarchical language used by the early Church Fathers. Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in his work Arius: Heresy and Tradition, wrote, "Arius's primary motivation was not to 'demote' the Son, but to protect the absolute uniqueness and transcendence of the Father as the sole source of all things ... He was an arch-conservative, a lonely and somewhat pedantic figure, clinging to a theological style that was rapidly becoming obsolete."
In Arius's mind, to be 'begotten' was logically the same as being 'created' in the sense that both imply a dependence on the Father’s will. By calling the Son a 'perfect creature', he was actually exalting him as the supreme being through whom all else was made.
Arius would be noted as wanting to preserve the monarchy of the Father from modalism (homoousios used for modalism in Paul of Samosata, condemned in the Synod of Antioch (264–269)), from gnostic partialism ( was used to explain the emanations). In the gnostic sense, it implied that the divine substance was like a physical dough that could be pulled apart into different pieces. Arius affirmed Jesus was God, yet God begotten or derived from the Father (who is ), and the Holy Spirit was created or proceeded from the Son (as the first of his works). This was due to his synthesis of trinitarianism and middle platonism which posited the transcendent (the One), and its Logos (visible Mediator).
For Arius, the Son was eternal, fully God, yet subordinate to the Father; being God in every sense except being unbegotten (), but being begotten (). For Arius, the Son is eternally begotten and the eternal birth of the Son is within the bosom of the Father. Yet, the Father has no birth or beginning in another. Thus, they are not co-eternal in the same sense, but one is beginningless eternally, fully God the only Unbegotten; the other is eternally beginning, fully God the only Begotten. This would be noted by scholars have been important in the logical order used to explain the relations of origin of the persons of the Trinity. However, during the proceedings of the First Council of Nicaea, Arius saw the homoiousian party, which promulgated one hypostasis, as a radical theological innovation.
Therefore, he taught three hypostases, to safeguard the unbegotten esse of the Father in his own eyes, preserving monarchia through hypostatic distinctions. The Nicene party would see his explanations as implying relations and begetting in a temporal manner. The monohypostatic language to unify the persons can be found in the anathema concomitant to the Nicene Creed. “But those who say, 'There was when he was not,' and 'Before being begotten he was not,' and that he came to be from things that are not, or who say that the Son of God is from a different hypostasis or ousia, or created, or changeable, or alterable – these the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes."
Thus, a radical departure began with the Arian party strictly defining God the Father as true God and the Son not co-eternal in that same respect; the Nicene party unifying the persons of the Trinity through homoiousian logic as theologian Lewis Ayres would explain in his work Nicaea and Its Legacy. For Arius, the term 'God' properly applies to the Father alone because He is the only one who is unbegotten (). To say the Son is 'true God' in the same sense as the Father was, for Arius, to introduce two first principles and thus to fall into pagan polytheism.
So in essence, Arius taught that the Son was fully God eternally as the divine Logos, wishing to stress the monarchical language used at the time to defend the Monarchia of the Father. However, due to his own pride and overscrupulousness, such a sentiment was not understood by opponents.
Principally, the dispute between Trinitarianism and Arianism was about two questions: has the Son always existed eternally with the Father, or was the Son begotten at a certain time in the past? is the Son equal to the Father or subordinate to the Father?