Arianism

[guy]

Arius was a heretic [Oh, really ] who fled to Egypt for his actions. He faced off against the former pagan known as Athanasius. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arius

 

I won't comment on this thread since I don't want to get into any theological debates.

 

I have written, however, sympathetically in the past at this site about the heresy of Arius.

 

For insight how the Orthodox Catholic church became the dominant Christian church in the Western Roman world, I recommend the book AD 381 by Charles Freeman.

 

The bottom line as I see it: The concept of the Trinitarian godhead (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) was created to counter charges of paganism against a faith that believed in potentially two gods (God the creator and his crucified son) but was supposedly monotheistic. The concept of the Holy Spirit was formally adopted only after the Nicene Creed to deal with other theological issues.

 

Arianism survived long after the death of Arius in AD 331 among the

[Kosmo]

I will say, however, that a son can

[barca]

I won

[sylla]

Barca is right; virtually almost just by posting in a theological forum, we are already expressing an opinion.

For the sake of impartiality, when posting on fora like this one, I honestly think we should always try to behave like perfect agnostics (i.e. someone that couldn't care less if any deity exists at all).

 

Any analysis on Christianity at Classical times is extremely difficult and complex, mainly because virtually all our sources are rather biased; Christian sources (and Jewish, and even Neoplatonic too), like any religious narrative, naturally tended to judge the world through their own doctrine; on the other other hand, non-religious sources tended to almost entirely ignore Christians and other religious movements; in fact, Christians and Jews were almost systematically studied together (a hardly surprising fact, as Christianity was originally a Jewish sect).

 

Presumably mainly for its original sectarian condition, Christianity was quite sensible on doctrine issues from the very beginning; fierce internal conflicts were reportedly present even from the generation contemporary to Jesus. As in any other religious group, Christian heresy has been defined in hindsight, as the winner parties have literally write their History. (Galileo is a good example; since John Paul II, his ideas are officially no longer "heretic"). The word came from the Greek hairesis "a taking or choosing," from haireisthai "take, seize," from hairein "to choose." In its original non-religious philosophical context, it just means an alternative opinion.

 

It's clear that no later than the early II century, the sectarian position of the early Judeo-Christians was utterly reversed; i.e., they were from now on considered by the other Christians as heretics, variously named as "Judaizers", "Ebionites" and so on. In the latter eyes, the former had "chosen" Moses' Law against Jesus' Law.

 

By the II & III centuries AD, the Christians had a well developed theology; Christology (the study of the nature of Jesus Christ) became a hot topic.From the many opinions, Arius and his disciples were particularly notorious.

As for most heretics, his doctrine is known only from his fierce detractors and can't be fully restored.

From what we know, even for Christian theological standards, the details were rather complex and extremely tortuous, and they may seem almost absurdly trivial for third parties.

For example, one of the main points was a two-letter difference on the reading of a single Greek (Koin

Edited December 23, 2009 by sylla

[sonic]

PLEASE WAIT: POST EDITION IN PROCESS

 

(Sorry for not waiting - limited time!!)

 

I have always found it interesting that when historians talk about the controversy present in the early Christian Church, there is sometimes the proviso that, when seen from these modern 'irreligious' times, the debates about seemingly trivial matters can seem very odd to our modern eyes.

 

And yet, when anyone asks questions about them and sensible people begin answering, I feel that many of the same controversies (for example, reliance on Pagan traditions for the date of Christmas, worship of the Sabbath on Sunday rather than Saturday, the 'Trinity' being 'Polytheistic', etc.) rear their heads and we can get a glimpse into the mindset of the past.

 

When coupled with their strong Christian beliefs, we can also see why the arguments became violent: after all, the souls of 'millions' of people were at stake.

[sylla]

PLEASE WAIT: POST EDITION IN PROCESS

 

(Sorry for not waiting - limited time!!)

 

I have always found it interesting that when historians talk about the controversy present in the early Christian Church, there is sometimes the proviso that, when seen from these modern 'irreligious' times, the debates about seemingly trivial matters can seem very odd to our modern eyes.

 

And yet, when anyone asks questions about them and sensible people begin answering, I feel that many of the same controversies (for example, reliance on Pagan traditions for the date of Christmas, worship of the Sabbath on Sunday rather than Saturday, the 'Trinity' being 'Polytheistic', etc.) rear their heads and we can get a glimpse into the mindset of the past.

 

When coupled with their strong Christian beliefs, we can also see why the arguments became violent: after all, the souls of 'millions' of people were at stake.

Au contraire, sorry for that; please accept my apologies.

 

I would think modern times (irrespectively on how they may be defined) are extremely diverse; far from 'irreligious', some outstanding professions of faith (Christian and otherwise) can be easily attested on a daily basis, both in and out of the Web.

 

And we totally agree; for the extreme religious believers, heresy is literally an issue of Public Health, as all souls at any place or time might be at stake.

 

For their own eyes, Medieval Inquisition was something like the modern CDC.

[Kosmo]

The perfect example that heresies and schisms had often mundane reasons backed by fancy arguments it's donatism. This long lived schism did not have many ideas besides that it's members should be the official priests and bishops and not the catholics. The starting point was some alleged irregularity in the appointments of clergy after the persecution of Diocletian but the schism continued until after the islamic conquests 4 centuries later. I believe that at stake were the jobs of hundreds and thousands of bishops, priests and monks who would have been unemployed if their side would have lost the debate so they kept in Africa 2 parallel churches in conflict for half of millenia.

[sylla]

The perfect example that heresies and schisms had often mundane reasons backed by fancy arguments it's donatism. This long lived schism did not have many ideas besides that it's members should be the official priests and bishops and not the catholics. The starting point was some alleged irregularity in the appointments of clergy after the persecution of Diocletian but the schism continued until after the islamic conquests 4 centuries later. I believe that at stake were the jobs of hundreds and thousands of bishops, priests and monks who would have been unemployed if their side would have lost the debate so they kept in Africa 2 parallel churches in conflict for half of millenia.

As for most early Christian heresies, virtually all we know about this so-called donatists came from their detractors.

 

If their reasons and arguments seem mundane and fancy, it may well have been because of the understandable bias against them from our sources; we simply can't know for sure.

In any case, we can reasonably doubt that a religious movement that seemingly survived for centuries might really have had fundaments so mundane and fancy.

("Seemingly", because with the available sources we can't be entirely sure that all the groups labeled as donatists effectively shared the same doctrines).

 

Their detractors described the donatists basically as radicals that didn't fully accept the compromise with the formerly persecuting Roman authorities; at least some of the Christian martyrs (particularly Africans) came from this sect, which had therefore been persecuted both by Diocletian and by their fellow Christians.

 

A remarkable trait of this sect was its evident local (African) nature, in all likelihood not entirely attributable to purely religious reasons.

It's interesting to note that official torture (or at least the menace of it) was used against this sect as early as 314 AD.

Edited December 21, 2009 by sylla

[barca]

I have always found it interesting that when historians talk about the controversy present in the early Christian Church, there is sometimes the proviso that, when seen from these modern 'irreligious' times, the debates about seemingly trivial matters can seem very odd to our modern eyes.

 

Are there any contemporary Christian churces that currently believe as the Arians did regarding the nature of Christ?

[guy]

Are there any contemporary Christian churces that currently believe as the Arians did regarding the nature of Christ?

 

As far as I know, we lack the writings to understand all the nuanced forms of Arianism as practiced almost two thousand years ago

 

As mentioned before, the Jehovah's Witnesses have elements of Arianism in their belief system.

 

I think that some (although not all) Unitarians also have elements of Arianism in their faith. (Note the name Unitarian as opposed to Trinitarian.)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism

 

 

guy also known as gaius

[sylla]

Are there any contemporary Christian churces that currently believe as the Arians did regarding the nature of Christ?

As far as I know, we lack the writings to understand all the nuanced forms of Arianism as practiced almost two thousand years ago

 

As mentioned before, the Jehovah's Witnesses have elements of Arianism in their belief system.

 

I think that some (although not all) Unitarians also have elements of Arianism in their faith. (Note the name Unitarian as opposed to Trinitarian.)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism

If by "nature of Christ" and "elements of Arianism" you mean non-Trinitarian ideas, many denominations share them nowadays; however, they all have immense differences between them regarding virtually any other aspect of the nature of Christ (and of their other beliefs and practices too, BTW), presumably as different as they are relative to the hundreds of Trinitarian denominations.

 

Religious narratives often tend to compress most of their respective non-believers in common categories; just calling "Arian" all non-Trinitarian Christian denominations is patently abusive and a gross oversimplification.

 

The Arians were not even the first non-Trinitarians; e.g. the Adoptionists were active at least since the II century.

There's no evidence that any of the modern non-Trinitarian denominations came even indirectly from their ancient equivalents; they should probably be better understood as an example of convergent theological evolution, hardly surprising given that all of them basically share the same sacred texts.

For example, Unitarianism is a derivation of the XVI century Protestant Reformation and the Jehovah's Witnesses from the American Third Great Awakening (XIX century).

Edited December 23, 2009 by sylla