The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early ChurchThe Arian Controversy
With the end of state persecution against the church, the entire Roman Empire was available for openly Christian teaching. Unfortunately, it became much easier for heretics to develop a wide following, particularly if they claimed that their teaching came from a correct interpretation of the Bible. Perhaps the most prominent heretic of the early church, Arius (d. 336 A.D.) was trained in the theological school of Lucan, himself a disciple of Paul of Samosota. Paul had been excommunicated in 268 A.D. at the Synod of Antioch for his view of the relationship between Christ and the Father. Lucan continued Paul’s teaching of Adoptionism until his martyrdom in 311/12. Soon after Arius received an appointment as a presbyter in Alexandria. Arius, having been schooled in Antioch, would inevitably clash with the rival tradition in Alexandria.
Arius did not strictly teach the doctrine of his predecessors Paul and Lucan, but his heavy emphasis on absolute monotheism led him astray. This emphasis led to the complete subordination of Christ to the Father, to the point that Jesus was a created being. Referring to this creation, Arius states,
We praise Him (God) as without beginning because of Him (Jesus) who has a beginning. And adore Him as everlasting, because of Him who in tie has come to be. The Unbegun made the Son a beginning of things originated; and advanced His as a Son to Himself by adoption. He has nothing proper to God in proper subsistence. For He is not equal, no, nor one in essence with Him. (italics mine)
In addition, out of his unbridled zeal for monotheism, Arius misinterpreted the Greek Logos in John 1:1 as “wisdom,” and correlated it with the Septuagint’s version of Prov. 8:22, which states that wisdom was God’s first creation. This incorrect translation and correlation led Arius to teach that the Son of God was the first creature that God created. Arius, in his work Thalia, explicitly denies the eternality of the Son:
God was not always Father; but there was when God was alone and was not yet Father; afterward He became a Father. The Son was not always; for since all things have come into existence from nothing, and all things are creatures and have been made, so also the Logos of God Himself came into existence from nothing and there was a time when He was not; and that before He came into existence He was not; but He also had a beginning of His being created. (italics mine)
Alexander (d. 328 A.D.), the bishop of Alexandria, was the first to take offense at the teachings of the presbyter Arius. Alexander sought to have Arius excommunicated in 320/21, but Arius found refuge with Eusebius of Nicomedia, a bishop, himself a follower of Lucan. However, the most forceful opponent that Arius contended with was Athanasius (ca. 296-373 A.D.), who trained under Alexander in Alexandria. Upon Alexander’s death in 328, Athansius succeeded his mentor as the bishop of Alexandria. The core of Athanasius’ soteriology, which caused his great disagreement with Arius, was that only God could save humanity. Because God chose to send a Savior through whom this salvation would be accomplished, this Savior Himself must also be fully divine. With this background Athanasius condemned Arianism, for if the Savior must in fact be divine, and Jesus was created unlike the Father, then Christians were practicing polytheism. Thus on two main points Athanasius was repulsed by Arian doctrine: (1) it led to polytheism, and (2) it taught that salvation originated in creation, not with the Creator.
| . | Hannah, John, “HT200 Class Notes,” Dallas Theological Seminary , ( 2004), 6.2. | | . | Ibid., 6.2. | | . | Bingham, Jeffrey, “HT200 Class Notes,”.
| | . | Hannah, John, “HT200 Class Notes,”, 6.3. | | . | Gonzalez, Justo, A History of Christian Thought, Vol I (Nashville: Abingdon, 1987), 297. |
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