Arianism
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Christian heresy
A Christian heresy first proposed early in the 4th century by the
Alexandrian presbyter Arius. It affirmed that Christ is not truly divine
but a created being. Arius’ basic premise was the uniqueness of God, who
is alone self-existent and immutable; the Son, who is not self-existent,
cannot be God. Because the Godhead is unique, it cannot be shared or
communicated, so the Son cannot be God. Because the Godhead is
immutable, the Son, who is mutable, being represented in the Gospels as
subject to growth and change, cannot be God. The Son must, therefore, be
deemed a creature who has been called into existence out of nothing and
has had a beginning. Moreover, the Son can have no direct knowledge of
the Father since the Son is finite and of a different order of
existence.
According to its opponents, especially the bishop Athanasius, Arius’
teaching reduced the Son to a demigod, reintroduced polytheism (since
worship of the Son was not abandoned), and undermined the Christian
concept of redemption since only he who was truly God could be deemed to
have reconciled man to the Godhead.
The controversy seemed to have been brought to an end by the Council
of Nicaea (ad 325), which condemned Arius and his teaching and issued a
creed to safeguard orthodox Christian belief. This creed states that the
Son is homoousion tō Patri (“of one substance with the Father”), thus
declaring him to be all that the Father is: he is completely divine. In
fact, however, this was only the beginning of a long-protracted dispute.
From 325 to 337, when the emperor Constantine died, the Arian
leaders, exiled after the Council of Nicaea, tried by intrigue to return
to their churches and sees and to banish their enemies. They were partly
successful.
From 337 to 350 Constans, sympathetic to the orthodox Christians, was
emperor in the West, and Constantius II, sympathetic to the Arians, was
emperor in the East. At a church council held at Antioch (341), an
affirmation of faith that omitted the homoousion clause was issued.
Another church council was held at Sardica (modern Sofia) in 342, but
little was achieved by either council.
In 350 Constantius became sole ruler of the empire, and under his
leadership the Nicene party (orthodox Christians) was largely crushed.
The extreme Arians then declared that the Son was “unlike” (anomoios)
the Father. These anomoeans succeeded in having their views endorsed at
Sirmium in 357, but their extremism stimulated the moderates, who
asserted that the Son was “of similar substance” (homoiousios) with the
Father. Constantius at first supported these homoiousians but soon
transferred his support to the homoeans, led by Acacius, who affirmed
that the Son was “like” (homoios) the Father. Their views were approved
in 360 at Constantinople, where all previous creeds were rejected, the
term ousia (“substance,” or “stuff”) was repudiated, and a statement of
faith was issued stating that the Son was “like the Father who begot
him.”
After Constantius’ death (361), the orthodox Christian majority in
the West consolidated its position. The persecution of orthodox
Christians conducted by the (Arian) emperor Valens (364–378) in the East
and the success of the teaching of Basil the Great of Caesarea, Gregory
of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus led the homoiousian majority in the
East to realize its fundamental agreement with the Nicene party. When
the emperors Gratian (367–383) and Theodosius I (379–395) took up the
defense of orthodoxy, Arianism collapsed. In 381 the second ecumenical
council met at Constantinople. Arianism was proscribed, and a statement
of faith, the Nicene Creed, was approved.
Although this ended the heresy in the empire, Arianism continued
among some of the Germanic tribes to the end of the 7th century. In
modern times some Unitarians are virtually Arians in that they are
unwilling either to reduce Christ to a mere human being or to attribute
to him a divine nature identical with that of the Father. The
Christology of Jehovah’s Witnesses, also, is a form of Arianism; they
regard Arius as a forerunner of Charles Taze Russell, the founder of
their movement.