Tag Archives: Athanasius

04/3/18

Arianism and the Council of Nicea

© Niccolo Talenti | 123rf.com – baptistery of the Arians in Ravenna, Italy

Before the beginning of the 4th century, all creeds and summaries of faith were local ones; even the Old Roman Creed. It was taken for granted they enshrined the faith as it had been handed down from the Apostles. Beginning with the Council of Nicea, synods or gatherings of ecclesiastics began to meet in order to articulate their agreement on matters of faith. These new creeds were intended to have a far wider application than mere local authority.

As one scholar put it, “The old creeds were creeds for catechumens, the new creed was a creed for bishops.” Older creeds were associated with baptismal confessions, while testing orthodoxy was the primary motive in the new type of creed. And the proliferation of heretical sects like the Arians in the third century brought the need for such an ecumenical declaration of orthodox belief to the attention of the Church leaders of the early fourth century. When the ecumenical synod called by Constantine formulated the creed of Nicea, it became the first to rightly claim universal authority.

The opening session of the Nicean Council was on June 19, 325. There were around three hundred bishops and hundreds of lesser clergy and laymen in attendance. One of the most important orthodox influences was a young priest among the lesser clergy from Alexandria named Athanasius.

Soon after he conquered the Eastern provinces, the Emperor Constantine organized the Council to resolve the Arian controversy and consolidate the Church on the widest possible measure of doctrinal unity. He viewed the Church as the spiritual sphere of his empire, and he wanted it to be without conflict as well. Accordingly, the emperor’s opening address focused on the danger of internal strife in the Church, and voiced his longing for peace and unity among the bishops. The bishops in attendance assumed from the beginning the circumstances called for an agreed statement of faith.

At the third session of the Council on October 10th, the drafted creed of Nicea was read aloud to the assembly. Emperor Constantine said it sounded entirely orthodox to him, and he held to exactly the same teaching. He said the bishops in attendance should sign it, and suggested the addition of a single word, homoousios or “consubstantial,” meaning of the same substance (It’s found in the clauses, “from the substance of the Father” and “of one substance with the Father”). The use of the term homoousios was in clear opposition to Arian belief that the Son was alien from the Father’s substance. But the term was also not used in Scripture.

Athanasius, who had a significant influence in the final anti-Arian content of the creed, said the Arians had twisted the original use of scriptural language by saying the Son was “from God,” and He was “the true Power and Image of the Father” to harmonize with their own beliefs. So while the terms were biblical, they could be imputed by the Arians with their own particular meaning if used in the creed. A semi-Arian compromise was suggested, using homoiusion (of like substance), instead of homoousios. But Athanasius recognized there could be no middle term between ‘God’ and ‘not-God.’ He persuaded a considerable majority of the Council to reject both Arian and semi-Arian language in the creedal formulation.

In the end, the Nicene bishops were forced to use the non-scriptural term homoousios in the clauses noted above to be unambiguous as to what they meant, as the Arians had co-opted the Scriptural terms noted above to support their theological beliefs about Christ. Arius and two others chose to be exiled rather than sign their name to the creed. Eusebius of Nicomedia and two others later rescinded their signatures and were sent into exile as well. All the other bishops signed off on the creed of Nicea. The following discussion points to the rationale for using some of the anti-Arian phrases within the creed of Nicea.

Arius said the substances of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are different and have no share in each other. Saying Jesus Christ was “true God from true God” denied the Arian claim that only the Father was “true God,” while Arius said:  “Nor is the Word true God.” The next phrase, “begotten not made,” distinguished between begotten and made, which the Arians did not. Saying Jesus was of “one substance with the Father,” asserted the full deity of the Son, thus completely rejecting the Arian position. All the phrases in the anathemas challenged typical Arian catchwords or slogans. See the following chart.

Creed of Nicea

Arius’s Creed

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible;

We believe in one God the Father almighty,

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down and became incarnate, becoming man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the heavens, and will come to judge the living and the dead;

And in the Lord Jesus Christ, his son, the God-logos, Who was begotten from Him before all the ages, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who came down and took flesh and suffered and rose again, ascended to heaven, and will come again to judge living and dead;

And in the Holy Spirit.

And in the Holy Spirit, and in the resurrection of the flesh, and in the life of the coming age, and in the kingdom of heaven, and in one catholic church of God from end to end of the earth.

But as for those who say, There was when He was not, and, Before being born He was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or is created, or is subject to alteration or change—these the Catholic Church anathematizes.

The creed of Nicea went further than Eusebius and other had anticipated it would, not only with the addition of homoousios, but also the anathemas at the end. After saying Jesus Christ was “from the substance of the Father,” and “of one substance with the Father,” the concluding anathemas were seemingly a knockout blow for Arianism. But the creed of Nicea was rarely referred to in the Western Church for a generation after Nicea.

First and foremost, it was a creed for bishops—formulated to address a doctrinal crisis in the church. It was not initially intended to replace the existing baptismal confessions used within the local churches. Secondly, there was a widespread ignorance of the relevant documents of the Arian controversy in the West, including the creed itself. One probable reason was because the earliest Latin translation of the documents was not done until 355. By 325 there was a Western-Latin, Eastern-Greek language barrier in place within both the Roman Empire and the Church. Another likely reason was because Arius and his beliefs weren’t completely vanquished by the Creed of Nicea.

In 327 Arius and Euzious submitted a creed to Constantine (see the above chart), hoping to be readmitted to the Church. Arius said his creedal statement of faith was based on the Holy Scriptures, where the Lord commanded them to go teach all nations, baptizing them in the three-fold name. “Yet it can scarcely be claimed that his formula was more than distantly related to [then] current baptismal forms.” His creed seems to have been a concoction based on the original 325 creed of Nicea, however it carefully excluded the distinctive teaching of Nicea. Notice how the Christological article and voice is either missing or radically rephrased by Arius in his creed, especially avoiding the confession of being one substance with the Father.

Incredibly, his strategy worked. Constantine accepted his creed and reinstated Arius in the church. Remember what was said earlier about how Constantine (and other Roman emperors after him) wanted a united Church undisrupted by warring theological factions. “So from the first recognition of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine in AD 313, politics and religious orthodoxy [often] went hand in hand.”

Then in 328 Eusebius of Nicomedia was recalled from exile AND became a trusted advisor to Constantine. “The Emperor completely reversed his position.” From then onwards there was a purge conducted against Nicene bishops. The culmination was when Athansius, now bishop of Alexandria, was removed from office and driven from his see in 335. This was the first of five times Athansius would be exiled from his position over the next several decades of political and ecclesiastical turmoil.

Arius died in 336; and Constantine died two years later in 338. For a time, there was peace with the empire as it was divided between Constantine’s three sons. The exiled bishops, including Athanasius, were returned to their sees. But in 339, Eusebius of Nicomedia became the Patriarch of Constantinople, and he again expelled Athanasius from Alexandria. Athansius went to Rome, where he was received and supported by Pope Julius I. After Eusebius of Nicomedia died in 341, Athansius again returned to Alexandria in 346.

Eventually, one of Constantine’s sons, Constantius, became the sole ruler of the Empire in 356. Unfortunately, he was anti-Nicene and imposed those beliefs on all the domains of the now united Empire. Athansius was once again exiled in 356.

In 361 Constantius died and Athansius returned briefly to Alexandria, only to be “sent on his travels” within the year. Yet before his exile in 362, Athansius helped forge a formula at a synod held in Alexandria that said the Godhead contained one substance (substantia) and three persons (persona). “A specific doctrine of the Spirit was also agreed, that he was not a creature and was inseparable from the Father and the Son.” This distinction became a crucial element in the formulation drafted at the second ecumenical synod at Constantinople in 381.

The Emperor who replaced Constantius was known as “Julian the Apostate.” He tolerated all Christian sects, in the hopes that they would destroy one another. Towards that end, he recalled the orthodox bishops from exile, including Athanasius, who returned to Alexandria in 263. Perhaps fortunately for the Church and the Empire, Julian died after reigning for just two years.

Although several different councils or synods were held between 341 and the Council of Constantinople in 381, none were as broadly ecumenical as the Council of Nicea. An historian commented that the imperial transport system was repeatedly disrupted by the bishops traveling to-and-fro from the various synods that were held.

Adding to this theological and political tangle was the emergence of heretical beliefs concerning the Holy Spirit, such as those of the Pneumatomachian. Initially, they did not garner much attention, as the church Fathers were focused on their struggles with the theological, political and ecclesiastical consequences of Arianism.

Orthodox thinking held that if the Son was fully divine, it followed that the Spirit was divine also. The Pneumatomachi (meaning “Spirit Fighters”) denied this. They said there was a lack of evidence for the Spirit’s deity. Further, they saw no warrant for adding another relationship to those of the Father and the Son within the Godhead. They typically saw the Trinity as a hierarchy, allowing the Son to be less than the Father and the Spirit to be created. The Alexandrian synod held by Athansius in 362 was the first to condemn the Pneumatomachi.

Their origin has been attributed to Marcellus bishop of Ancyra, in Galatia, who believed the relationship of Sonship in the Godhead was limited to the Incarnation and would disappear when its purposes were accomplished. Marcellus was one of the bishops at the Council of Nicea in 325 and a strong opponent of Arianism. He seems to have been a life long “frienemy” with Athanasius. But he was accused of Sabellianism, exiled and condemned by a synod in Constantinople in 336. He went to Rome and with the help of Athanasius, he was cleared of  “the falsehood of Sabellius” in 341.

He was again removed from his see in 347 by Constantius and died in exile in 374. Several Eastern creeds formulated in the 340s and 350s contained anti-Marcellan clauses. But the controversy over his doctrines, to a large extent, passed away after his death. However, the Nicene Creed seems to have added the phrase “whose kingdom shall have no end” in order to counter Marcellus’ teaching.

The Arian controversy had kept questions about the status of the Holy Spirit in the background. But some church fathers like Basil the Great of Caesarea had begun to realize a change was needed within the Nicene faith, as the 325 Creed only briefly mentioned the Spirit. This eventually led to the Council of Constantinople in 381 and the formulation of what is the modern Nicene Creed. For more on the early creeds and heresies of the Christian church, see the link: “Early Creeds.”

03/23/18

Origins of the New Testament Canon

fragment of the Muratorian canon in the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana library, Milan, Italy

In The Canon of the New Testament, Bruce Metzger commented how the history of the New Testament canon was a long, continuous process, rather than a series of sporadic events. Although church leaders and even Roman emperors organized councils and synods, during the early centuries of the Church, “the collection of New Testament books took place gradually over many years by the pressure of various kinds of circumstances and influences.” While this was one of the most vital developments in the early days of the Church, it took place almost as if it were an afterthought—with little comment on how, when, and by whom it was birthed. “Nothing is more amazing in the annals of the Christian church than the absence of detailed accounts of so significant a process.” Here is a short summary of how it happened.

The process of canonicity for the New Testament began in the early part of the second century and continued up to the fourth century, when ecumenical creeds, like the Creed of Nicea began to be formulated. Athanasius, who had attended the counsel of Nicea as a young priest, listed the 27 books of the NT canon for the first time in 367 in his “Thirty-Ninth Festal Epistle” as the bishop of Alexandria. Within this letter he said:

 . . . Again [after a list of the Old Testament books] it is not tedious to speak of the [books] of the New Testament. These are, the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. After these, the Acts of the Apostles and Epistles called Catholic, of the seven apostles: of James, one; of Peter, two; of John, three; after these, one of Jude. In addition, there are fourteen Epistles of Paul the apostle, written in this order: the first, to the Romans; then two to the Corinthians; after these, to the Galatians; next, to the Ephesians; then to the Philippians; then to the Colossians; after these, two of the Thessalonians; and that to the Hebrews; and again two to Timothy; one to Titus; and lastly, that to Philemon. And besides, the Revelation of John.

By 100 AD, all 27 books of the NT were in circulation; and the majority of the writings were in existence twenty to forty years before this. All but Hebrews, 2 Peter, James, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation were universally accepted, according to NT Scholar F. F. Bruce. He dates the four Gospels as follows: Mark (64 or 65 AD), Luke (before 70 AD, but after Paul’s two year detention in Rome around 60-62 AD), Matthew (shortly after 70 AD). John (90-100 AD). Dating the book of Acts should follow the dating for Luke, between 60/62 and 70 AD. The ten Pauline epistles were written before the end of his first Roman imprisonment as follows: Galatians (48); 1 and 2 Thessalonians (50); 1 and 2 Corinthians (54-56); Romans (57); Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians (around 60). The Pastoral Epistles contain signs of a later date than the other Pauline Epistles (63-65), perhaps during a second imprisonment around 65 AD, leading to his death.

New Testament scholar Donald Gutherie suggested the following dates for the remaining books left undated by Bruce: Hebrews (60-90 AD); 2 Peter (62-64); James (50); 2 John (90-100); 3 John (90-100); Jude (65-80); and Revelation (90-95).

The manuscript evidence for the New Testament documents is embarrassingly abundant. There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament (in whole or in part) in existence. The best and most important ones date from around 350 AD: the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. Two other important early MSS are the Codex Alexandrinus (5th century AD) and the Codex Bezae (5th/6th century AD).

In contrast, for Caesar’s Gallic War, there are 9 or 10 good MSS; the oldest from 900 years after Caesar. The History of Thucydides (written 460-400 BC) and the History of Herodotus (written 488-428 BC) are known from about eight MSS, the earliest from 900 AD. “Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are from over 1,300 years later than the originals.” The bottom line: the manuscripts for the New Testament documents are reliable. But how did they come together as canon?

There were several developments, influences and individuals who exerted pressure on the early Church to establish more precisely “which books were authoritative in matters of faith and practice” among the many that claimed to have that authority. The earliest list of New Testament books was drawn up by Marcion around 140 AD. See “Heresy, Canon and the Early Church, Part 2” for more on Marcion and the influence of his and other heresies on the developing NT canon.

Marcion only accepted the authority of the nine Pauline epistles to the churches and Philemon. He also removed and liberally edited any passages where Paul commented favorably on the Law or quoted the Old Testament. He only trusted one of the Gospels—Luke—yet again edited it heavily, removing most of the first four chapters. This was because he rejected the virgin birth of Jesus, as he believed that as a divine being, Jesus could not have been born of a woman.

One of the most important documents for the early history of the NT canon is the Muratorian Canon, named after its discoverer, the Italian historian and theological scholar, Ludovico Antonio Muratori. It composition is dated to the latter part of the second century. It is not a canon in the narrow sense of the term; it’s not a bare list of titles. Instead of just cataloguing the books accepted by the Church as authoritative, the Muratorian Canon gives a kind of introduction and commentary for each book.

It listed and discussed the four Gospels, the Book of Acts, thirteen Epistles of Paul: Corinthians (1 and 2), Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, Thessalonians (1 and 2), and Romans. Paul also wrote four Epistles to individuals from ‘personal affection,’ but they were later held to be sacred in the esteem of the Church “for the regulation of ecclesiastical discipline.” They were: Philemon, Titus and Timothy (1 and 2).

Next it mentions Jude and two Epistles of John. Speculation is that since the author had already mentioned the First Epistle of John in conjunction with the fourth Gospel, he only mentioned the two smaller ones here. Two apocalypses are mentioned, that of John and that of Peter—“though some of us are not willing that the latter should be read in church.” Books not mentioned include 1 and 2 Peter, James and the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea around 314 AD, wrote and revised his work, Ecclesiastical History, several times during the first quarter of the fourth century. He placed the NT books into three categories: 1) those whose authority and authenticity were universally acknowledged; 2) those which all the witnesses were equally agreed in rejecting; and 3) those which were disputed books, yet familiar to most people in the church. In the first category were: the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline Epistles (in which he included Hebrews), 1 Peter and 1 John, and the Apocalypse of John. In the third category were: the Epistles of James, Jude, 2 Peter, and 2 and 3 John.

He added that he also felt compelled to list works that were cited by heretics “under the name of the apostles,” including: the gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthias, the Acts of Andrew and John. “The character of the style is at variance with apostolic usage, and both the thoughts and the purpose of the things that are related in them are so completely out of accord with true orthodoxy that they clearly show themselves to be the fictions of heretics.” These were to be cast aside as “absurd and impious.”

There seemed to be three essential criteria that had to be met for a document to be included in the NT canon: orthodoxy, apostolicity and consensus among the churches.

Orthodoxy was assessed by the “rule of faith” or the canon or rule of truth. Was a given document congruent with the basic Christian tradition recognized as normative by the Church? NT era writings with any claim to be authoritative were judged by the nature of their content. “A book that presents teachings deemed to be out of harmony with such tradition would exclude itself from consideration as authoritative Scripture.”

Apostolicity could mean having a close relationship with an apostle, like Mark with Peter and Luke with Paul—as well as direct apostleship—with John and Paul. With the writer of the Muratorian Canon there is a clear sense of the importance he placed on the qualifications of the NT authors as eyewitnesses or as careful historians.

The third test of authority was its continuous acceptance and usage by the Church. If a book had been accepted by many churches, over a long period of time, it was in a stronger position to be accepted as canon. Hebrews is a good example of this principle. Jerome wrote that it did not matter who the author of the book of Hebrews was, because it was the work of a church-writer and was constantly read in the churches. Augustine said the Christian reader: “will hold fast therefore to this measure in the canonical Scriptures, that he will prefer those that are received by all the Catholic Churches to those which some of them do not receive.”

By the time of Augustine (354-430) the NT canon, as it is given today in the Protestant Bible, was widely accepted. It was Augustine who declared the debate over the canon of Scripture was over. At a series of provincial synods, he voiced the following with regard to the closing of the canon: “Besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing shall be read in church under the name of the divine Scriptures.” In closing, we’ll look at his advice to the Christian reader of the sacred writings. In On Christian Learning, just before he listed the 27 books of the NT canon, he said:

The most skillful interpreter of the sacred writings, then, will be he who in the first place has read them all and retained them in his knowledge, if not yet with full understanding, still with such knowledge as reading gives,—those of them, at least, that are called canonical. For he will read the others with greater safety when built up in the belief of the truth, so that they will not take first possession of a weak mind, nor, cheating it with dangerous falsehoods and delusions, fill it with prejudices adverse to a sound understanding. Now, in regard to the canonical Scriptures, he must follow the judgment of the greater number of catholic churches; and among these, of course, a high place must be given to such as have been thought worthy to be the seat of an apostle and to receive epistles. Accordingly, among the canonical Scriptures he will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those, again, which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority, to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority. If, however, he shall find that some books are held by the greater number of churches, and others by the churches of greater authority (though this is not a very likely thing to happen), I think that in such a case the authority on the two sides is to be looked upon as equal.

Information on the birth of the New Testament canon discussed here was taken primarily from The Canon of the New Testament by Bruce Metzger and The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? By F. F. Bruce. For more on the early creeds and heresies of the Christian church, see the link: “Early Creeds.”