Arius: Heresy and Tradition

Being faithful to church teachings does not mean merely chanting former slogans, but critically receiving the church’s witness and faithfully putting it into a new context in response to a new crisis. Rowan Williams has cogently suggested that we saw such a handling of philosophical issues in the Nicene crisis (Williams 2002). According to Williams’ reading, Arius conservatively employed a number of respected (if pagan) philosophical traditions which compromised the biblical narrative of the Son‟s being with the Father.Williams has a very interesting suggestion that there were two models of “communal theology” (my phrase) in Alexandria and Egypt around the time of Arius. There was the model of students gathering around a venerated teacher (Origen is a good example; Williams calls this the Academic model) and the rising church-centered episcopacy model. Williams places Arius in the former, and notes that part of Arius’ failure is that he tried to maintain the former model when both his friends and enemies had switched to the latter model.t is tempting to conclude since Athanasius was an Alexandrian, that Alexandrian theology was always pro-Nicene, and, conversely, that Antiochean theology is Arian. Williams provides a brilliant summary of Philo, Clement, and Origen to demonstrate that both Nicene and Arian conclusions were found in earlier Nicene models. We first see this iccn Philo. As Williams notes, “Philo is clearly concerned to deny that there is anything outside God that has a part in creation, and so it is necessary for him to insist upon the dependence of the world of ideas on God” (118). This leads us to the discussion of the Logos. Is the Logos God, part of God, Demiurge, or creature? Philo is surprisingly conservative on this (from our standpoint). He sees the Logos as the arche of existing things…”God himself turned towards what is not God” (119).Most importantly for our discussion of Origen is his treatment of the Son’s relationship to the transcendence of the Father. The Father is supremely transcendent because he has no “defining coordinates” (137). He is not a member of any class but above all classes. Origen actually makes several advances in noting that the Son participates in the Father’s glory and is more than simply an instrument connecting God and the world. However, Origen was still an Alexandrian: God-Father is completely unknowable and the source of all. The Logos is the source of the world of ideas. “God is simple and the Son is multiple” (139). To put it another way, “The Father is the arche of the Logos and the Logos is the arche of everything else” (142).Did Origen cause Arius? It’s hard to say. Arius certainly took key moves from Origen but not the whole package. Origen’s “Logos” is eternal. Arius’s is not. However, Origen left too many loose ends to prevent something like Arianism from happening.if Williams’ reading is even partially correct, Arius was working within a very respectable school of philosophy which had some legitimate and illegitimate Christian predecessors. This leads to Williams’ second conclusion: “Athanasius and the consistent Nicene actually accept Arius’s challenge, and agree with the need for conceptual innovation: for them the issue is whether new formulations can be found which do justice not only to the requirements of intellectual clarity but to the wholeness” of the church (235).

I came to Rowan Williams' book after first reading a novel titled Arius written by John Rather. I wanted to know more about how historians and theologians view the life of Arius and his influence on post-Nicene Christianity. Williams is certainly one of the most prominent scholars writing on the subject in recent decades.I appreciate Williams' ability to write a discourse on complex philosophical and historical issues and then summarize his principal arguments in a way that can be understood by an interested layman like me. I found it helpful to read the Conclusions to Parts I, II, and III, as well as the Conclusion to Appendix 1: Arius since 1987, first, before going back to read each part in its entirety.With my question about current perspectives on the role of Arius on post-Nicene Christianity in mind, I read the Conclusion to Appendix 1. In it Williams wrote: "[Maurice] Wiles' own demonstration that Arius' theology of the semi-divine mediator does not survive very well in a cosmology where there are fewer or no intermediate levels of life between this world and God is, in fact, a very suggestive observation. One long-term effect of the Nicene settlement was that it eventually made it impossible for orthodox Christianity to conceive God as an individual" (pp. 266-267). What Rather does in Arius, the novel, is use a fictional story to consider what the impact might be if some of the ideas Williams says were excluded following the Nicene Council--that there may be intermediate levels of life between this world and God, and that it's possible God is an individual--were to reemerge in the 21st century.

This is probably the best book I have ever read, but I must warn that it's not easy reading - you wouldn't want it to be..Written about 25 years ago and revised around 2000, this is the very best compendium of diverse thought to back up any conversation with a priest or preacher, showing how learned you really are. It is the magnum opus of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. How can a creature like Jesus come from the eternal God? Is He just a metaphor, a Prophet or what? Especially useful in conversations with Muslims and heretics of all stamps throughout the milleniums.

Rowan Williams gives an excellent account of one of the most significant events in the history of the Church, and the political influences that may have shaped the current divisions between the Orthodoxy (Eastern) and Roman (Western) thought.

A difficult read, even more so as I have no Greek and very little Latin.The dynamics and politics of both the early Church and late Empire are interesting and somewhat illuminating.

Even handed examination of the historic environment; the theological discussion; and the phisophical influences around the Nicene debate. A great read!!

Arius heresy centered around Jesus humanity, his being human, not divine. This is important to me because moslems make the same claim, citing documents in the Arian tradition. The author clearly explains the theology surrounding this heresy which at best can be confusing.

Very interesting