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It is often pointed out how the customary assumptions of prevailing Hellenistic Philosophy imapcted the development of Christian theology, but the cultural impact on Christian history is really much broader, it also derives from the more basic prevailing religious assumptions that can be traced not to Hellenistic philosophy but to very primitive human culture.
For example, one of the most desirable aspects of being initiated into a Mystery cult was the initiation ritual which gave the initiate the vicarious experiences from which to gain a reliable understanding of precisely who that deity is and who the initiate was in relation to the deity. Understanding who the deity is involves knowing its powers, its authorities, its typical activities, and its relationship to other deities--these were ultimately the basic issues of all thinking about the gods but the knowledge of the early mysteries was not couched in a precise verbal expression!
In this period Christian Theology is at base the development of precise religious language, in order to express precisely (with all the proper implications and assumptions included) the speaker's proper reverence / respect / fear for the intelligent personality / being / power that is addressed, and to convey the intended message to this being / power. If you use the correct word is that enough? Apparantly not! You must properly understand what the proper word implies, assumes, denotes, connotes or means. If you use the proper word without the proper understanding the word may not "function" as it should in communication with the being / power / entity being addressed. The early Christians feared that if they did not properly understand their confession of faith in God it might fail to communicate with God. That is not altogether different from their concern about the proper understanding and proper practice of "baptism" and the "eucharist". If you don't properly understand them they might not work. On this basis the early Christians became convinced that the sacraments of the quasi-Christian heretics were worthless!--not efficacious. These are the underlying ideas that gave rise to orthodoxy, catholicism, sacerdotalism, sacramentalism, formal Christian education, episcopal autocracy, and apsotolic succession. Now we look at how these same ways of thinking resulted in the development of Christian Theology.
Jewish authors in the first century AD including Philo of Alexandria, as well as Matthew, Paul, and John in the New Testament often identified the "wisdom of God" and the "word of God". The New Testament writers clearly identified both the "wisdom of God" and the "word of God" with the ministry and death of Jesus as well as in his incarnation and resurrection. This was the tradition that the early Christians had to sort out.
First and second century Christians like Ignatius, Hermas, Justin and Irenaeus spoke somewhat confusedly about the relationships, roles and respective responsibilities of the persons of the trinity. They were consistent in their belief that the Father God, the creator of all things, was a singular unmade being, neither material nor visible. Secondly, the Son of the Father, who was identified as the Logos (i.e. Word) of the Father, Jesus the Anointed of the Father, the agent both of creation and of summation, and the person whom the prophets foretold, was made a man to abolish death and accomplish a perfect reconciliation between God and Man. Finally, the Holy Spirit, known as the Spirit of God was not only present in creation but was also the agent of both inspiring the prophets and regenerating man. In this undefined view the totality of the Godhead is found only in the Father. Moreover, the Son and Spirit seem to be parts of the Godhead, not separate or individual parts parallel to each other but confused and integrated together. Indeed, the Holy Spirit seems to be a part of the Son and the Son a part of the Father. The remedy for such confusions required a clear definition of each person and of the relationship between each of the persons. Only gradually did definitions and understandings emerge that were judged to be orthodox largely by means of trial and error. To some extent this involved a careful defining of Biblical language but in some cases it necessitated new and more precise terminology--that is, theological jargon.
The concern for an incontrovertibly coherent statement of Christian truth was far beyond the average Christian; rather, it fell in the bailiwick of the highly educated and their disciples. But for both the average believer and the highly educated it all hinged on their understanding of God.
Before taking up the question of the meaning of the word "god", another observation is appropriate. The discovery of heresy, incorrect belief, and the definition of correct belief or orthodoxy always occurs after fact. This determination was always made within the body of believers institutionally united in the church where the differences in belief were flourishing at least among the leadership. Many laymen remained placidly unaware that the teaching of their local leaders was somehow "different". The local leaders assumed that their beliefs were true and correct perhaps because they had understood that their mentors and predecessors believed that way. No one in their knowledge had every suggested otherwise. When the question did arise these leaders defended their understanding aggressively assuming that their opponents were "wrong". Gradually the controversy spread and church leaders chose their sides.
Occasionally such controversies were resolved locally with the help of surrounding church leadership. In some cases, however, the issues of the controversy could ultimately, typically several years later, be submitted to the leaders of the churches in the region--or in some cases in the whole number of existing churches in the world. One of the two different understandings was identified as orthodox while the other became heresy depending on the vote of the assembled leaders. Some church leaders who suddenly found themselves labeled heretics and faced with the loss their leadership position might repent and ultimately be reconciled with the orthodox. The higher or more visible the position of leadereship occuppied by the heretic the more he became a lightening rod for ridicule and criticism. Even after he passed on his name might be held in derision serving as a label for the heretical belief.
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As Christianity came into contact with polytheistic conceptions of divinity there was considerable danger that the Christian truths would be misunderstood and misinterpreted unless the messengers could communicate with precision--even to the uneducated. The concept of God was not a precise one in this period. Christians had first to define their concept of God in order that the non-Christians could understand properly. Consider the following definitions of the word "god":
For the intellectual elite Clement of Alexandria synthesized a Christian definition that came to be the official definition. Note that it was based solidly on selected Platonic ideas, but depended largely on the, as yet, undefined Christian concept of the logos; hence, it can be called a "Logos Theology".
The Christian God is defined Platonically as:
But in addition to all the above, The Christian God does communicate with, and is known by, mankind only through the agency of His "word", the Logos. The Logos is the "image of the inexpressible" who wills, acts and relates to the physical world (creating and sustaining) and mankind (providence and salvation).
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The thoughtful and highly educated, such as Clement, Tertullian and Origin, gave attention to the passive or philosophic characteristics of the persons of the Trinity and to the role of the Logos in mediating the relationships among them. On the other hand, many of the clergy together with the increasing masses of average uneducated Christians were much more interested in clarifying the active characteristics and functions of the various persons. In order to solve the perplexing problem of confusion in active roles they sought various simple ways of distinguishing between the persons. The intellectuals, for philosophical reasons, condemned several of these simple, practical answers. Hence these simplistic solutions became heresy because they did not satisfy the need to distinguish clearly among the passive characteristics.
All the simplistic solutions of the second and third centuries were built on the solid foundation of the oneness of God at the expense of clarifying and distinguishing the three Biblically attested persons. It was Tertullian who first labeled these solutions as "monarchian" because they all emphasized the active reign (archia) of one (mon) at the expense of confusing the roles of the three. Two slightly different types of Monarchianism developed in the course of the third century.
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Modal monarchianism is subdivided into two schools; both schools rejected the teachings of Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Origen; namely, the intellectuals.
The Patripassians, followers of Praxeas of Asia Minor, c. 175, Noetius of Smyrna, c. 200, and Bishop Callistus of Rome, c. 220, taught that Jesus is God incarnate while the Father is God in spirit. Hence, the one and only God expressed himself in two modes in historical sequence: first as spirit, then as flesh, then as spirit again. The Holy Spirit and the Father are identical; the Father and the Son are identical; hence, the Father [pater] suffered [passianus] death on the cross.
The second type of Modal Monarchianism is Sabellianism. The followers of Sabellius, c. 260, taught that God is a singular being who plays three different roles (prosôpa). The Father role is that of creating and governing, the redeeming role is that of the Son, and the Spirit's role is that of regenerating.
In passing it should be noted that the Greek term prosôpon (Latin: persona), translated "person", has the basic meaning in Greek of a dramatic role represented by an actor's mask. It wasn't the use of the word that was considered heretical, but this particular Sabellian use. Yet, Greek speaking Christians subsequently were wary of using the word prosôpon because of its Sabellian, i.e. heretical, connotations. Instead they used hypostasis (Plotinus' word "understanding" or "foundation") which while it was the literal equivalent of the Latin substantia "substance", was logically understood by Greek-speaking people to mean "separate individual being or thing, i.e. person".
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The views of dynamic monarchianism were sometimes called Adoptionism. For example, Theodotus the Elder, c. 190, or Artemos of Rome, c. 210, taught that Jesus was a man, a prophet who was adopted as the son of God and given special powers as a divine gift--either at the time of his birth or his baptism or after his resurrection. The Adoptionists could not agree on whether the agency of the divine power was the Logos, the Holy Spirit, or something impersonal. For example, Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch c. 261-272, believed that the Logos was only an attribute of God, namely: His divine reason. Jesus inherited this divine reason by birth. Hence the only divine aspect of Jesus was his reason which was understood to be identical with that of God. Possessing the rational powers of God made it possible for Jesus to conform his will to the Father and to live a perfect, sinless life.
Even though monarchianism in all its forms was condemned as heresy and its proponents excommunicated from the Church, it remained an attractive, obvious solution suggested by a cursory study of the Bible. Throughout Christian history forms of monarchianism have emerged among those Christians without benefit of training in the official theology of Orthodoxy.
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Some understandings and definitions of the Logos and the proper explanation of the relationship between the Logos and God were condemned as heresy in the third and early fourth centuries; namely--
The struggle to define an orthodox view of the Logos was complicated by the fact that the view expressed by Clement of Alexandria in the East did not, on the face of it, seem to agree with the view expressed by Tertullian from the West, both c. AD 195. The Latin words of Tertullian did not translate consistently with Clement and Origen's Greek words. The Latin word substantia "substance" was in some contexts translated by the Greek word ousia "essence, being" but in other contexts by the Greek word hypostasis (literally) "understanding," but used to connote "individuality". Sometimes either option might be used. The Latin word personae "person, individual" seems always to have been consistently translated by a form of the Greek word hypostasis around the latter part of the third and the early decades of the fourth century.
The major problem for the Logos Theology was the logical contradiction between eternality and subordination. Both characteristics are clearly attested in the Scriptures. According to prevailing philosophical understanding, whatever is eternal is both singular and indivisible. Hence, can two individual beings each be eternal, that is, can both God and the Logos be eternal? The Monarchians were looking for an explanation that would support a "no" answer to this question; for, they might well argue that saying "yes" meant you had two gods. On the other hand the orthodox were looking for an explanation that, would support not only the "yes" answer, but further explain the subordination of the Logos to God and the "oneness" of God as clearly expressed in the Scripture and generally supported by the Christian Tradition.
The contribution of Origen to the Logos Theology was to offer a solution to that contradiction, given that God and the Logos were of the same essence. In order to make both equally "without beginning" and hence equally eternal he proposed the notion of "eternal generation". The eternal Fatherhood of an eternal offspring clarified the distinct individuality of both and subordinated the offspring to the Father. The teaching that God and the Logos were of the same divine essence or substance pleased the Christians influenced by Stoic presuppositions. The teaching that the Logos was subordinate to God pleased the Christians that were influenced by middle Platonic presuppositions.
Shortly after 313 Athanasius, a deacon in the church of Alexandria, further elaborated on the Logos Theology by championing a Logos Christology in his book, The Incarnation of the Word, which became a standard exposition of Christian Soteriology--the explanation of how the salvation of man is accomplished. The point expressed here was one the Alexandrian school would never tire of reiterating: In order that Jesus Christ be able to save mankind he must be truly God. Athanasius was concerned with showing by ironclad logic how and why Jesus Christ was truly God. Jesus was the incarnation of the eternally generated "Word" of God, i.e. the Logos.
The Logos Theology was yet again interrupted in its development by the Arian controversy. Arius took a position directly opposed to the solution Origen had proposed to the basic problem of eternality and subordination.
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Arius was a priest in the church of Alexandria. Beginning about 313, Arius spoke out in defense of clear theological orthodoxy against what he recognized as a dangerous Sabellian tendency evidenced in the strong emphasis on the divinity of Jesus Christ. His ideas seem to have developed logically and consistently over the course of several years, but documentation is extremely limited. Logically his doctrine begins with the assertion that God the Father had created or begotten the Logos out of nothing since the substance of the Father must by definition be indivisible. Thus, the Logos was a created, semi-divine being who was neither co-eternal nor of equal essence with God. Logically then, Christ, the incarnate Logos, and the Father did not possess an equal divinity. Bishop Alexander and the deacon, Athanasius, of the Church in Alexandria defended the opposing position that the Father and the Logos were equally divine and equally eternal. The argument between these two positions inflamed the whole eastern part of the Church for the next decade. An Alexandrian synod condemned Arius who then fled to Nicomedia (the capital of the Roman Empire at that time) whence he seems to have written letters defending his position to bishops all over the east.
When Constantine became Emperor over the entire Empire in 324, he immediately called for a general meeting of Eastern churchmen at Ancyra in Galatia (in central Turkey) to settle the controversy. He also sent his major Ecclesiastical trouble-shooter, Bishop Hosius of Cordoba (in Spain), to Alexandria to attempt, totally without success, to shame the squabbling parties into a less embarrassing display of naked partisanship. On his way with the disappointing report Hosius came to Antioch in Syria to find that whole region was also in an uproar over the Arian teachings. A vacancy in the episcopate at Antioch only just filled had allowed the issue to take on major proportions. The newly elected bishop, Eustathius, called for a synod to help restore order across the area. Fifty bishops from as far north as Cappadocia and Cilicia and as far south as Palestine and Arabia gathered at Antioch and took a stand in favor of Bishop Alexander. They drew up a creedal statement to which Arius and his partisans would never agree and then discovered that three of their own assembly would not sign it. The three bishops were Eusebius of Caesarea Maritima in Palestine, Narcissus of Nerônias and Theodotus of Syrian Laodicea--all trained as theologians in the tradition of Origen. These three were condemned and given until the Synod at Ancyra to repent or stand excommunicated from the Church.
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After many bishops had already set out for Ancyra Constantine moved the meeting to Nicaea in Bithynia, virtually a suburb of the current Imperial Capital at Nicomedia. This was done ostensibly to make it more convenient for western bishops to attend, but the real cause was perhaps to enable the Emperor the more easily to overawe the assembled bishops.
The Council at Nicaea, AD 325, had 318 bishops in attendance. Each bishop was to be accompanied by two priests and other servants. Some like Bishop Sylvester of Rome declined to attend because of advanced age or infirmity. Bishop Sylvester did send two priests as his representatives. The Emperor paid transportation and housing costs. Bishop Hosius convened and presided. The Emperor appeared in person and instructed the assembled churchmen to agree upon and define a single position so that the Church would not henceforth be divided in its doctrine. To do this they needed to formulate a carefully worded statement which preserved Apostolic Tradition so precisely that while Alexander and Athanasius could accept it, Arius and his followers could not.
Only a few vivid glimpses of the proceedings and actions of the council are preserved by various individuals; no official records have come down to us. Eusebius the Bishop of Nicomedia seems to have presented an orthodox creedal statement early on that was rejected by the Council as not addressing the question. The conditionally excommunicated Eusebius of Caesarea Maritima (in Palestine), the leader of the Origenist minority, asked to present the creed of his church. It was found to be agreeably orthodox to all parties even to the Emperor and the Arians, to say nothing of those who had found him heretical only months before. The creedal statement reconstructed below by modern scholarship may well represent more than the confession of the church in Caesarea Maritima, it may well have been the one common throughout the province's other churches, including the church at Jerusalem.
Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, however, argued convincingly that it too simply failed to address the key issues of their controversy. They needed to insert a word or words that would be agreeable to Bishop Alexander and Deacon Athanasius but not to Arius. The bilingual Emperor, Constantine, apparently suggested at some point that the Greek word homoousios, should be used because Arius and his party considered it unacceptable. Like many other conscientious laymen Constantine was convinced that any statement of faith should affirm the full deity of Jesus Christ. To Constantine, use of the Greek term homoousios to translate the Latin consubstantia was the most appropriate solution even if the majority of those in attendance were not at all familiar with that usage or its potential meaning. It was, after all, a word not found in, or defined by, the Scripture.
Where, we must ask, did the bilingual Emperor Constantine get the idea that homoousios would be an appropriate way, in Greek, to describe the relationship between the Father and the logos? Recent scholarship has challenged the prevailing notion that the idea must have originated in the theology of the Western church. As it turns out the western bishops were just as surprised and uncertain as those in the East by the Emperor's suggestion.
P. F. Beatrice ("The Word 'Homoousios' From Hellenism to Christianity", Church History vol 71, part 2 (June 2002) pp. 243-272.) has demonstrated that such a philosophical usage of the word in question did exist, but not in Christian circles. Rather it is evident in the texts of the Egyptian Hermetic tradition. The Hermetic corpus was a body of writings lionizing the deity, Hermes Trismagistus, which had originated in the synthesizing eclecticism of Hellenistic Alexandria. In another place I have characterized these ideas as an example of non-Christian gnosticism.
Many Churchmen had various reservations about the words used in the creedal statement from Nicaea. Some were concerned that substantia / ousios, essence, thing, or being, was not a term commonly used in Christian theology since one of its several common uses was to connote the material stuff out of which an object is made. No one wanted to suggest that God was a material object!
Neither was it evident whether consubstantia / homoousios was to be understood that the two (i.e., Father and logos) were parts of the same single being/essence/thing or separate individuals each of the same being/essence; for, the only time the word homoousios had been used in a theological formulation, it had been condemned as heresy! This very word had been crucial at the Council at Antioch in 268 which condemned Paul of Samosata for teaching that the divine reason of the Father and the Logos was homoousios, that is, the same--a form of Monarchianism. From that usage the orthodox churchmen had then concluded that Paul was guilty of Sabellianism in addition to his other errors.
The Emperor's presence at Nicaea, however, did its work. The bishops swallowed their misgivings out of reverence for him, the overwhelming majority voted for it. A creed was constructed--perhaps by a committee including Hermogenes, a priest from Cappadocia--utilizing consubstantia / homoousios along with other minor phrases that hopefully helped clarify its meaning. To this basic affirmation was added a series of specific anathemas. Thus was created The Creed of 318 Bishops, commonly called the Nicene Creed. On 19 June 325 Bishop Hosius signed it, followed by the Bishop of Rome's two representatives, and all the rest of the bishops assembled except two.
Emperor Constantine ordered the exile of the two who would not sign along with the priest Arius and some of his partisans. Even though he had signed it Eusebius of Nicomedia was exiled along with his two attendant priests, perhaps because they had hosted Arius at Nicomedia since his condemnation in Alexandria. For whatever reasons, the exiles were to be found back home by 328.
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The action of the Nicene council lacked clarity for most Christians except for Arius and his partisans whose teachings were itemized and condemned. It must have been difficult for many churchmen in the following years to figure out what the creedal formulation really meant and whether they should support it or not. The hesitation and uncertainty was apparent in both east and west.
Eusebius of Nicomedia became the Emperor's chief ecclesiastical advisor after 328, replacing Hosius of Cordoba. Eusebius remained very sympathetic with Arius, not necessarily because he agreed with him on any point, but because he perceived that some of Arius' opponents were, at least, equally dangerous. He voted for the Nicene Creed and supported it only provisionally since it potentially could be interpreted as a Monarchian, that is to say, Anti-Trinitarian, statement. It has long been customary to refer to the followers of Eusebius of Nicomedia as "semi-Arians". This may or may not be helpful since the situation was much more confused by politics than has often been appreciated.
Eusebius seems to have orchestrated a campaign among the eastern clergy to depose certain bishops for various publicized reasons having little or no direct connection to the Nicene issue. The targeted bishops in most cases just happened to be among the outspoken defenders of the Nicene Council. It was not so much a matter of conviction on their part regarding the truth of the creedal assertion as it was a matter of respect for the fact that all but two bishops at Nicaea had, indeed, signed it. Therefore, whether it made sense or not individuals like Eustathius of Antioch, Athanasius of Alexandria and Marcellus of Ancyra were ready to defend it. Regional councils deposed Eusthathius in 330, Athanasius and Marcellus in 335. Eusebius then persuaded the Emperor to banish these bishops from the region. For example, Athanasius was sent to Trier (Gaul).
Even though Athanasius defended the authority of the council he refrained for several years from using the word homoousios, but continued to emphasize in his writings that the Logos was homoios kata panta, "like [Him] in all things", or homoios kata ten graphen, "like [Him] in accordance with the Scriptures". Indeed, this was also the position taken at the time by the great majority including Eusebius of Nicomedia. Even Emperor Constantine I was eventually persuaded that the term homoiousios, meaning "essentially similar" or "of like substance", might be substituted for homoousios in the Greek rendering of the Nicene Creed. Even Arius was prepared to accept homoiousios! Indeed, Arius died suddenly in 336 only months before he was to be solemnly reinstated in the Church at Constantinople.
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After Emperor Constantine I's death in 337, those banished bishops were free to return home, although in almost every case their replacements refused to surrender to them. Next the Homoiousion party acquired the support of Constantine's successor in the east, Emperor Constantius II. Eusebius of Nicomedia became Bishop of Constantinople in 338 and soon the leaders of the Nicene party in Constantius II's part of the Empire (again including Athanasius) were banished from their churches. The bishops in the central and western part of the Empire were unperturbed by the eastern Emperor's action. Both Athanasius of Alexandria and Marcellus of Ancyra came to Rome and appealed to the Bishop Julius who called a local synod in 340 to examine the exiled bishops' allegations that the eastern synods that had deposed them originally back in 335 had been in error. The Roman synod ruled in favor of the exiles. This development caused great confusion and alienation across the eastern part of the Empire. Rome had no business and no authority to override the actions or even question the actions of their synods. Did any bishop or synod of bishops have the right to overrule another?
In 341 97 of the eastern churchmen met at Antioch for the dedication of Emperor Constantius II's grand new Basilica. While there they took the opportunity to issue a number of position statements rejecting all reference to the unBiblical and unChristian discussion of ousia (homo- or homoi-) and asserted their orthodoxy and loyalty to traditional language by asserting that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three hypostases "separate in rank and glory but united in harmony of will" (J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 1978, p. 248.). This was an expression of their rejection of Monarchianism. Furthermore, they denied the authority of the Bishop of Rome to interfere in regional church matters in the East.
Before moving on it is noteworthy that Bishop Eusebius of Constantinople (and formerly Nicomedia) came to Antioch accompanied by his former lector, the newly ordained future Gothic missionary Bishop, Ulfilas. In terms of the missionary success of Ulfilas we will take a closer look below at how this contorversy impacted his legacy.
Meanwhile Emperor Constans who then ruled in the central and western parts of the Empire, together with Emperor Constantius II, ruler of the eastern section, attempted to resolve the confusion by calling a Council at Sardica in 342. When the western group of around 90 bishops under Hosius of Cordoba voted to seat Athanasius and Marcellus, the 80 or so followers of Bishop Eusebius of Constantinople (formerly of Nicomedia) withdrew and held a separate council. The western group issued statements intended to defend the Latin notion that the Father and the Logos are "one substance"; yet the Greek translation was not mia ousia but rather mia hypostasis; and that could only be seen in the East as Monarchianism. They also issued canons attempting to establish Rome as the court of highest appeal in the Church--an issue that would eventually, in 1054, contribute to the great schism in Christendom. Meanwhile, the eastern group excommunicated Athanasius and Marcellus and condemned the active mediators, bishops Julius of Rome and Hosius of Cordoba for "favoring heresy" (i.e. Monarchianism). Hosius' western group retaliated by excommunicating Bishop Eusebius and his henchmen. Emperor Constans personally
interceded with his brother in Athanasius' behalf gaining permission for him to return to Alexandria in 346.
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From 346 until his next exile in 356 Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria began aggressively to champion the Nicene text, finally writing in the early 350's that God and the Logos were homoousios and interpreting carefully what that meant and what it did not mean. Largely through Athanasius' efforts many the eastern Churchmen found their objections to the Creed resolved. The various sub-groups of the opposition to the Nicene Creed continued to agree that the Homoousian position was a clear case of Sabellian Monarchianism.
Nevertheless, their united front began to fracture when some of the Arians took the so-called Anomoian position, that the Logos and the Father were "unlike" [= anomoios from a+homoios or heteroousios, of "different essence"]. Founded by Aetius of Antioch who was living in exile at Alexandria this was a clearly re-asserted Arianism. The group is sometimes known as the Eunomians based on one of their spokesman, Eunomius, Bishop of Cyzicus (d. 392).
After Constantius II became sole Emperor in 353, he gradually abandoned the Homoiousion position to favor a completely new official position, the Homoion. A Synod at Sirmium in 357 and sponsored by Constantius II proposed an anachronistic approach of reverting back to a position less controversial and more Biblical; namely, that the Father and the Logos were simply "alike" [= homoios]. This, indeed, is what Athanasius had been saying prior to 350, but the problem with it was that Arians could accept it the same way they came to accept the Homoiousion position. While it permitted those who believed in the full deity of Christ to support it, the Homoion position was also acceptable to the Arians who believed Christ did not possess a degree of divinity identical with the Father's. By the greatest efforts of persuasion and intimidation the Emperor was eventually able, in 360, to get only a few eastern and western bishops to approve the Homoian position.
Bishop Ulfilas, life-long missionary to the Barbarians left his own confession of faith penned at the end of his long career in the early 380's. It rather clearly reflects this conservative tradition. He attended the Synod of Constantinople in 360 and signed that minimalist agreement to refrain from using the words ousia and hypostasis and condemn the revived Arianism of Aetius and Eunomius. His heroic success along with numerous others in spreading this simpler, albeit more vulnerable, view of the gospel among the various barbarian peoples comprising the Goths resulted in all the Goths and several other peoples being considered Arian heretics.
By this time, all the otherwise-minded churchman whether Homoousian, Hosoiousian, or Anomoian (Eunomian), had already been banished a time or two by the government from their leadership locations. Moreover, by 359 the west had developed the backbone to stand up almost unanimously against the Emperor and affirm the Nicene position. Even Liberius, the banished Bishop of Rome, who under great pressure had cooperated with Constantius' schemes and was allowed to return to Rome in 358, convincingly maintained his blemished orthodoxy.
The decrees of Julian the Apostate, in 361, allowed all these latter exiles to return to their home cities where in many, but not all, cases the Homoousian bishops were able to win control of the local churches.
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Moving beyond the condemnations of Monarchian heresy of the third century, which equated God the Father with the Holy Spirit, further clarifications in the relationship between the Holy Spirit and God were made in the middle of the fourth century. Arian partisans of various degrees taught that the Holy Spirit was the creation of the semi-divine Logos. Macedonius, the homoiousian Bishop of Constantinople (341-360), also gave his name to this heresy after 362. The Macedonians or Pneumatomachians, those who believed the Holy Spirit was a created semi-divine being, justified their position in part because there was no clear statement of Scripture that said the Holy Spirit is God.
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At the General Council of Constantinople in 381 this teaching was condemned as the Pneumatomachian heresy. The definition approved at the Council in 381 was that both the Spirit and the Logos are of the same substance with the Father; hence, they are each equally divine and equally eternal. Furthermore, the Council approved a creedal statement based on the statement of the Nicene council that spelled out the origin and ministry of the Holy Spirit in more detail. The Creed of the 150 Fathers of Constantinople reads as follows:
First the various Monarchian solutions to the question of the relationships between God the Father, Jesus Christ the son and the Holy Spirit had been rejected in favor of the Logos Theology. Then the issue of the relation between God the Father and the Logos had divided between the Originists and the Arians. The Arian position proved to be a dead end while the Originist position was rescued and rejuvenated by the Logos Christology of Athanasius. While the latter emphasized the incarnation of the eternally divine Logos in Christ, the challenge ahead was to effectively articulate the relationship between the Logos and Jesus Christ.
At the outset the Arian heresy taught that the created, semi-divine Logos was incarnate in Jesus in such a way that human nature was only partially represented in the flesh-and-bones body while the rational human soul (nous) had been replaced by the Logos. In one of their creedal statements they had asserted "The Word was made flesh, but not man". The Nicene Council had not specifically condemned this doctrine, but the Council in 381 would make itself very clear in the Creedal statement that Jesus "became human".
This notion of Christ's partial humanity was really unsatisfactory; for, churchmen of the Antiochene school were quick to point out that sinful mankind could not be saved by the teachings and actions of a being who was not really at once both man and God. If Jesus only appeared to be a man with flesh and bones and was in fact not a man, this is an example of the heresy of docetism similar to that which the New Testament Epistle of I John addresses.
On the other hand, the soteriological assumptions of the Alexandrian way of thinking required that Jesus Christ be unquestionably divine. Bishop Apollinaris of Laodicea in Syria (c. 362-392), a strong supporter of the Nicene position and of the Alexandrian school of thought (he was a family friend of Athanasius), found himself surrounded by partisans of the Antiochene School. Even if you substituted the Alexandrian assumption of full divinity for the Logos, the incarnation as understood by the Arians still left Christ something less than human, at best half human and half divine.
Apollinaris' persuasion was closer to the Alexandrian than the Antiochene. He believed that the salvation of the human race could be accomplished only by a savior who was at least more than half divine. To remedy this he introduced the idea that human nature has three parts: the flesh and bones body, the animal soul (pseuché), and the rational soul (nous). Further, he argued that Jesus could not have been without sin if his flesh and bones were totally human. However, in the incarnation the Logos replaced both the nous and the pseuché, the sinful life force of the flesh. Thus Jesus Christ could live a sinless life, his flesh and bones having been made divine as a result of the incarnation.
The Antiochene theologians promptly objected pointing out that Apollinaris' Jesus Christ seems only one-third human, and that fractional humanity no longer possesses the potential of full humanity. Even the Alexandrians were disatisfied; for, in their view Apollinaris' explanation seemed to short change the divine nature in Christ. Consequently, the
Council of Constantinople rejected and condemned the teachings of Apollinaris in 381. Notice the emphasis provided by the "incarnate" and "became human" in the Constantinopolitan Creed above.
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