Chapter 55. Nicaea and the Arian Controversy: Defining God by Council

The first great doctrinal war of the imperial church began as a quarrel among the clergy of Alexandria. It was taken up by an emperor who called it a trifle, and it was settled, in the short term, by a formula he pressed on the bishops. The question was whether the Son of God is God in the same sense as the Father or a creature, however exalted. For six decades after 325 the answer changed with the emperor. Nicene bishops were exiled under Arian rulers. A pagan emperor recalled them and exiled them again. Theodosius finally imposed the creed in 381, while the Goths carried the losing side into the barbarian West. This chapter follows the theology, the politics and the afterlife of the dispute through the library’s historians, critics and fringe chronologists.

Arius, Alexander and the theology of creation ex nihilo

Karen Armstrong describes the excitement of the years around 320: “Sailors and travellers were singing versions of popular ditties that proclaimed that the Father alone was true God, inaccessible and unique, but that the Son was neither coeternal nor uncreated” [Armstrong, A History of God, #68999, “Trinity: The Christian God”]. She stresses that “when the conflict broke out there was no officially orthodox position and it was by no means certain why or even whether Arius was wrong.” Arius held that the Logos “was not God by nature” but “had been promoted by God to divine status,” created directly by God while all other things were created through him [Armstrong, A History of God, #68999]. In her account both sides shared a new premise: “Arius, Alexander and Athanasius … had come to believe a doctrine that would have startled any Platonist: they considered that God had created the world out of nothing.” The disagreement was where to place Christ in relation to that gulf: “Arius and Athanasius put him on opposite sides of the gulf: Athanasius in the divine world and Arius in the created order” [Armstrong, A History of God, #68999]. Athanasius’ answer was soteriological: “If the Logos himself were a vulnerable creature, he would not be able to save mankind from extinction” [Armstrong, A History of God, #68999]. In The Case for God Armstrong adds that “Like Arius, Athanasius had accepted the new doctrine of creation ex nihilo, but he argued that Arius did not understand its full implications”; for Athanasius, “Creation ex nihilo tore the universe away from God” [Armstrong, The Case for God, #66157].

Elaine Pagels dates the outbreak to “around 318.” Alexander heard that “a popular Libyan priest named Arius, was preaching that the Word of God, while divine, was not divine in the same way as God the Father,” and called an Egyptian council to excommunicate him. Bishops in Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor then held councils of their own that declared Arius “entirely orthodox” [Pagels, Beyond Belief, #63510, ch. 5 “Constantine and the Catholic Church”]. Deschner, writing as a hostile critic, describes Arius (c. 260-336) as the parish priest of Baukalis, “the most respected church of the city,” with a following of young women and dock workers. He quotes Alexander’s attack on Arius’ supporters among the “younger womenfolk, who swarm about all the streets without discipline or decency.” He argues that the patriarchal see’s struggle against the privileges of its own presbyters shaped the excommunication of Arius by a synod of about a hundred bishops [Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, #38038, Bd. 1, “Nicht Kampf um den Glauben: um die Macht”]. Morris Bierbrier’s dictionary gives a different summary of Arianism, as the doctrine “that Christ had only one nature—human.” It records that Athanasius “forced him to leave the city” and that “Arius died in Constantinople in 336” [Bierbrier, Historical Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, #366518, “Arius”].

The council of 325: emperor, creed, Easter and canons

The reference shelf states the outline. Constantine convened the council, and it met “from May until the end of July 325.” Its results were the Christological settlement, the first form of the Nicene Creed, “uniform observance of the date of Easter,” and early canon law. It also dealt with the Melitian schism, begun when Melitius of Lycopolis took over ordinations during the persecution [Wikipedia: First Council of Nicaea]. The figure of 318 bishops, traditionally accepted, matches the 318 men of Abraham’s household in Genesis, while the signature lists contain 200-220 names [Wikipedia: First Council of Nicaea]. Pagels gives the emperor’s stated reason for the site: he invited the bishops to Nicaea “because of the excellent temperature of the air,” in “the early days of June 325” [Pagels, Beyond Belief, #63510, ch. 5]. Deschner dates the opening to 20 May [Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, #38038, Bd. 1, “Das Konzil von Nicaea”]. The sources therefore differ by a few weeks.

On the creed, Pagels reports that the majority confessed Christ as “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,” “begotten, not made.” Alexander’s party had agreed in advance on the explosive phrase “of one being with” the Father. Opponents objected that it “occurs neither in the Scriptures nor in Christian tradition,” but “Constantine, perhaps frustrated by so much time spent wrangling over a phrase, urged the bishops to include it.” All signed except Arius, some priests and two Libyan bishops [Pagels, Beyond Belief, #63510, ch. 5]. Pagels also cautions that “more careful historical investigation has shown that he not only allowed but expected the bishops themselves to arbitrate disputes” [Pagels, Beyond Belief, #63510, ch. 5].

Deschner rejects that caution. He argues that Constantine “decided” the sessions and “imposed” the decisive formula, the homoousios. He points out that the term had been condemned as “heretical” by the eastern synod of Antioch in 268, that it came from Gnostic theology, and that “not the slightest of it stood in the Bible.” He calls the result, after Johannes Haller, more properly “the Constantinian” creed: “the work of a layman who was not even baptised.” He notes that a year before the council Constantine had written through Hosius that the quarrel was “only a trifle” [Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, #38038, Bd. 1, “Das Konzil von Nicaea”]. He also quotes Eusebius’ picture of the emperor arriving “like an angel of God from heaven,” with bodyguards “with sharp swords drawn” around the bishops. Finally he cites the church historian Socrates: “Since the emperors began to be Christians, the affairs of the Church have depended on them, and the greatest councils were and are held at their pleasure” [Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, #38038, Bd. 1].

Burning the books

According to Deschner, the Arian creed read at the council was “snatched from its speaker and torn to pieces” before it had been read out (Theodoret). Arius and his two loyal bishops were exiled to Gaul, and the burning of his books was ordered, with “the death penalty threatened for possessing them” [Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, #38038, Bd. 1, “Das Konzil von Nicaea”]. Catherine Nixey’s illustration list includes a 9th-century Italian manuscript showing “Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea with the burning of Arian books illustrated below.” She cites Luciano Canfora’s judgment that “the burning of books was part of the advent and imposition of Christianity” [Nixey, The Darkening Age, #70864, list of illustrations; ch. 6]. She also says that “there is little evidence that Christians intentionally destroyed entire libraries”; in her account the damage Christianity did to books “was achieved by subtler” means [Nixey, The Darkening Age, #70864, ch. 11 “To Cleanse the Error of Demons”].

Pagels traces the same logic into the canon. In his Easter Letter of 367 Athanasius gave “the earliest known list of the twenty-seven books” of the New Testament and called on Christians to reject “the apocryphal books,” which were “filled with myths, empty, and polluted.” She suggests that monks near Nag Hammadi defied the order and buried “more than fifty books” in a jar, where they were found sixteen centuries later [Pagels, Beyond Belief, #63510, ch. 5].

Athanasius and the reversals, 328-381

Athanasius had been Alexander’s “personal secretary at the Council of Nicaea,” was “elected bishop in 328,” and spent his tenure in conflict with the Meletians and pro-Arian bishops. The Encyclopedia of World History says he “went into exile five times for his indefatigable defense of Nicaea” [Encyclopedia of World History, #5204, “Athanasius”]. Bierbrier dates his succession to 326 and lists the exiles as 334-337, 340-345 and 356-361, with brief exiles in 363 and 365 [Bierbrier, Historical Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, #366518, “Athanasius”]. Deschner gives 8 June 328. He adds that, although Athanasius was said to be unanimously elected, “of 54 Egyptian bishops only seven” actually consecrated him, and those seven had broken their oath [Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, #38038, Bd. 1, “Charakter und Taktik eines Kirchenlehrers”].

Pagels follows the reversals. Constantine first supported Athanasius, then “took the side of his opponents” and confirmed his deposition. Athanasius returned after Constantine’s death and was deposed again. Gregory of Cappadocia and later another Cappadocian held the see. After “his third successful rival … was lynched in 361,” Athanasius regained his position [Pagels, Beyond Belief, #63510, ch. 5]. Jones names the political forces. Constantius II, “a convinced Arian,” persecuted Athanasius. When Julian came to power and the Alexandrians lynched Bishop George, Julian “failed to issue any punishment, and allowed Athanasius to return from exile” [Jones, Between Pagan and Christian, #67425, ch. 3]. Deschner records that Constantius grew so tired of argument over Christ’s “essence” that he “finally forbade it.” Theologians of the time compared the fighting to “a sea battle in fog,” in which friend and foe could no longer be told apart [Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, #38038, Bd. 1].

Pagels reports Erik Peterson’s political reading. If the Father corresponds to the emperor and the Son to the bishops, Athanasius’ equality of Son and Father “implies that the bishops’ authority is equal to that of the emperor.” Arius’ subordination of the Son, by contrast, suited churches that “accept imperial power over church affairs” [Pagels, Beyond Belief, #63510, ch. 5]. Deschner quotes Goethe on the same theme: the doctrine of Christ’s divinity decreed at Nicaea was “very conducive to despotism, indeed a necessity” [Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, #38038, Bd. 1].

Julian the Apostate and the pagan interlude, 361-363

Jones describes Julian as raised a Christian and “under the spell of Neoplatonism.” In his attempt to restore paganism and create “a pagan church patterned after the Christian one,” he was “more fanatical than most of the Christian emperors, with the possible exceptions of Theodosius I and Justinian.” Jones calls the reign “an interlude, of greater importance in historiography than in history” [Jones, Between Pagan and Christian, #67425, ch. 3]. Koster, writing as a Sabbatarian, emphasises Julian’s solar religion: he “reverted back to the former, older frank Sun-worship, calling himself a ‘follower of King Sun,’ being a devotee of Mithras” [Koster, Come Out of Her My People, #86909]. The Christian reply lasted long after him. Jones notes that among Cyril of Alexandria’s surviving works is “a ten-book refutation of the diatribe Against the Galileans that the emperor Julian had written some eighty years before” [Jones, Between Pagan and Christian, #67425].

Constantinople 381 and the Arian Goths

Jones writes that only when “the ‘Trinitarian’ Theodosius I had succeeded to power in 379 and had convened a second ecumenical council at Constantinople in 381 was Arianism officially condemned” [Jones, Between Pagan and Christian, #67425, ch. 2]. The reference shelf adds that this council “confirmed the Nicene Creed, expanding the doctrine thereof to produce the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.” Its main addition concerned the divinity of the Holy Spirit, which the Macedonians (Pneumatomachians) denied. It met while the capital itself was “solidly Arian” [Wikipedia: First Council of Constantinople].

The defeated doctrine survived outside the empire. Jones writes that “through the activity of an Arian missionary, Ulfilas, the Goths and other German federations had begun to adopt it already in the reign of Constantine.” A Christian heresy thus “had the effect of reinforcing political and military divisions,” and Arianism “survived, especially among Germans, well into the sixth century” [Jones, Between Pagan and Christian, #67425, ch. 2]. James C. Russell calls the process by which most Germanic peoples became Arian “an enigma.” He discusses “the role of Arian Christianity in enhancing a sense of identity and solidarity among the Arian Germanic peoples.” He also cites Burns’ suggestion that early Ostrogothic conversion under the Huns may have been “a statement of political independence” [Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, #67570, ch. 7].

Fringe readings: redating Nicaea, and the Islamic consequence

Fomenko and Nosovskiy deny that the council took place in the fourth century at all. Their “Statement 1” holds that the council which set the Paschalia “could not have occurred earlier than 784 A.D.” Under the conventional date, they argue, Christian Easter would have coincided with the Jewish full-moon Passover “eight (!) times—in 316, 319, 323, 343, 347, 367, 374, 394,” and in 326, “a year after the Council,” it would have fallen two days before it. Such a picture is, in their words, “so fantastic that there are severe doubts about its credibility” [Fomenko & Nosovskiy, History: Fiction or Science?, #62243, Chron. 7, “The Scaligerian dating of the Council of Nicaea is contradictory to Paschalia”]. Their summary dates the Paschalia to no earlier than the second half of the 8th century. They identify the first Great Indiction as the year 877, and read the “First and Second Ecumenical Council” under Basil I as the real Nicaea, “Constantine the Great (a.k.a. Basil I the Macedonian).” In the full new chronology, they place the canonisation “in the era of the XI-XIV centuries” [Fomenko & Nosovskiy, History: Fiction or Science?, #62243, Chron. 7, sections 1.17-1.18].

Dan Desmarques draws a theological consequence rather than a chronological one: “The fundamental problem that emerged from the council of Nicaea is that, as soon you separate Christ from God, you are essentially labeling him just another prophet, as what the Islamic” tradition does [Desmarques, Christ Cult Codex, #67424, ch. 25 “Christians and Luciferians”]. The link between the Arian position and the Qur’anic Jesus is taken up in Part 7.

Key points

• Armstrong argues that Arius, Alexander and Athanasius all accepted creation ex nihilo. They differed on which side of the gulf between God and creation to place Christ.
• Constantine convened Nicaea (May-July 325, at imperial expense). Pagels reports he chose it for “the excellent temperature of the air.” It produced the homoousios creed, a uniform Easter, and canons including rulings on the Melitians.
• Pagels allows that the bishops had real room to decide. Deschner holds that the emperor imposed a non-biblical formula and ordered Arius’ books burned under threat of death.
• Athanasius (bishop 328, or 326 per Bierbrier) was exiled five times. Julian let him return in 361, and Bierbrier records further brief exiles in 363 and 365.
• Julian’s pagan restoration (361-363) was, for Jones, an interlude. Koster stresses that Julian called himself a “follower of King Sun” and was devoted to Mithras.
• Theodosius’ council of 381 condemned Arianism and expanded the creed. Through Ulfilas, Arianism became a marker of Gothic and Germanic identity into the sixth century (Jones; Russell).
• Fomenko and Nosovskiy redate the Paschalia, and so Nicaea, to no earlier than 784. Desmarques sees the separation of Christ from God as making him “just another prophet,” as in Islam.