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In our long exploration with Tom Lee of the Origins of Christianity we come today to one of the epoch turning events that helped mould modern Christianity — the Arian controversy over the Divinity of Jesus which led to the Council at Nicaea called by Emperor Constantine to resolve the issue.

Heretical Challenge and Imperial Solution– Part 19.1
by Tom Lee

What the Arian heresy was all about...

Arius was an ascetic Alexandrian priest, survivor of the Melitian controversy in Egypt, and an intellectual rather than a theologian. He was a reformer who wished to make Christianity more accessible and to rid it of what he saw as an excess of oriental mysticism that had been growing in Alexandria. He taught that Christ was not one with the Creator; he was the Logos, the first and highest of all created beings. He argued that if the Father had begotten the Son, it had to have been within the frame of time; the Son therefore could not be coeternal with the Father. Therefore, if Christ was created, it must have been from nothing, not from the Father's substance. Christ was not consubstantial with the Father. The Holy Spirit was begotten by the Logos, and thus was even less God than the Logos.

It was a very successful doctrine easily understood and accepted by people of every kind in Alexandria. Among Arius' followers were ascetics and rigorists, impressed with his gravity, self-mortification and extreme emaciation. Egyptian holy women, the consecrated virgins, were attracted by his lean and lyrical personality and his ability to explain things in simple terms.

Arius was evidently a cheery soul despite his austerities and much loved by the sailors and laborers of Alexandria's dockside for whom he made religion simple and whom he taught in rhyming chant, spiritual sea-shanties, whose beat fell in with the rhythms of their work. He was admired too by those bishops who distrusted the allegorical and philosophical thought of the Egyptian schools and who preferred the more rational and critical tradition of Antioch.

St Nicholas of Myra strikes Arius at the Council of Nicaea (see below). Fresco: Soumela Monastery, Turkey. Source: Livius

Things came to a head when Bishop Alexander remonstrated with him and Arius persisted in his own view. The bishop called together a council of Egyptian bishops at Alexandria who agreed to defrock and expel Arius and his followers from the Church. They followed up by circulating an account of their proceedings to other bishops. Some objected, many sympathized. Throughout the Asiatic provinces clergy as well as laity divided on the issue. The cities rang with such "tumult and disorder" says Eusebius "...that the Christian religion afforded a subject of profane merriment to the pagans, even in their theaters".

Constantine's intervention...

Constantine, returning to Nicomedia after his overthrow of Licinius, was informed of the Alexandrian turmoil. Possessed as he was by a vision of a muscular authoritarian God, the arguments seemed to him much ado about little. He wrote appeals to both bishop Alexander and to Arius, requesting them to imitate the calm of philosophers and to resolve their differences by peaceful debate.

The Emperor's letter evidences his political aim to preserve unity and his total lack of understanding or concern for the theological arguments, which he regarded as totally unimportant. But, no adequate result being obtained, the emperor sent the Spanish bishop Ossius of Cordova on a mission of inquiry and decided to call a vast council of bishops at Ankara after Easter 325.

The emperor had planned on a journey to the Holy Land where he'd said he hoped to be baptized in the Jordan. The trip was postponed. There is record of many Christian survivors of the persecutions being scandalized by the squabble; one declaring: "Christ did not teach us dialectics, art, or vain subtleties, but simple-mindedness, which is preserved by faith and good works".

Arrived in Alexandria, Ossius sided with Bishop Alexander against Arius, and then traveled to Antioch in Syria to check on the support that Arius had been receiving from Eusebius of Caesarea and others. At a council in Antioch, with Ossius presiding, Eusebius was excommunicated — subject to confirmation by the greater council planned for Ankara. But Constantine, realizing that it was a clear attempt to prejudge the matter, reinstated Eusebius and transferred the council to his palace at Nicaea, near Nicomedia, so that he could personally control the proceedings.

The first Ecumenical or world council at Nicaea...

The Council at Nicaea, reckoned the first Ecumenical or world council because of the range of representation, met in the imperial palace, and was inaugurated by the Emperor himself. Pope Sylvester of Rome, the prematurely geriatric careerist, felt himself too old to travel, and sent two priests as deputies. About 320 bishops attended, and "a vast concourse of the lower clergy" most of them Greek. Only four or five bishops came from the Latin West, apart from Ossius of Cordova, who presided.

When one considers the distances to be covered in order to attend, mostly on foot or horseback, and not always along straight Roman roads, it is amazing how many did make it, even with the state picking up the tab on their traveling expenses. The bishops debated from May till August, by which time, sheer mental and physical fatigue, a desire to get home, and the oppressively humid heat of a Balkan summer no doubt forced a conclusion.

As happens so often two minorities "set the agenda"...

Most participants appear to have come with an open mind, uncommitted to one side or the other, but Arius was supported by a small and vocal minority of whom the most prominent were the namesakes Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesaria.

An equally determined minority upheld Bishop Alexander, and with him was one of his deacons, the robust young Athanasius. Born at the turn of the century to an aristocratic family, he had from an early age been deeply interested in the Church and having been brought to the attention of the bishop the boy was made a part of his household. He would succeed Alexander as bishop of Alexandria.

Icon depicting Emperor Constantine and the Fathers of the First Council of Nicaea (325) as holding the Nicene Creed in its 381 form.

There was doubtless real animosity between the principals, but discussing the nature of God, which no reasonable person could consider any more than unfounded speculation, they substituted deeds for words. According to one account, St Nicholas (Santa Claus), bishop of Myra in Lycia, (present-day Turkey) was so incensed at some remark by Arius about Christ that he punched Arius in the nose. The leadership in the discussion was taken by the historian Eusebius, a disciple of Origen and bishop of Caesarea in Palestine still, despite the attempt to depose him. He took the middle ground but inclined more to Arius. He boldly proposed that the baptismal confession used in his church be adopted as the Creed of all the churches. It spoke of Christ as incarnate, the Logos, God of God, Light of Light.

It went too far for those who felt that unprovable, esoteric theological definitions ought not to be introduced into the Creed and laid upon the consciences of Christians. But for the theologically minded it did not go far enough. Most bishops at the council agreed though that there ought to be a pronouncement against Arianism, since it seemed to make of Christ a mere demigod.

Beginning with the Council of Nicaea, the Constantinian Church de-historicized and de-politicized the scriptural basis of Christianity by reducing Jesus' teachings to Hellenistic/philosophical categories of a personal and metaphysical nature of being, reality and ultimate substance. Constantine's need to ground his universal empire in a universal spirituality was the driving force behind the formation of standardized, universal Christian theology and the development of an absolute church authority to enforce it. The imperial demand was for conformity regardless of validity or provability.

ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 19.1
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For a comprehensive index of each extract in this series go to: www.catholica.com.au/specials/first500-2/index.php
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IMAGE CREDITS: The headline image features a fresco of the Council of Nicaea found in the Holy Trinity Church Above the Gate in Kiev sourced from a beautiful Ukrainian website: www.wumag.kiev.ua. Clicking on the images in the body of the article will take you to the original source.

Tom Lee is an Australian, now semi-retired in Phoenix, Arizona, who has had an illustrious international career as an actor, writer, and broadcast commentator. He does not claim to be a professional theologian, nor an historian, but he undertook this study because, like many of the people who are attracted to what we're doing here at Catholica Australia, he was simply inquisitive about the history of Christianity and trying to better understand what he had been brought up to believe. In a sense, his book is a one-man journey seeking to better understand who Jesus was and what his own faith was about.

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©2009 Tom Lee (Star Concepts LLC) 15633 N. 17* Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85023-3409

[Index of Commentaries by Tom Lee]