Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, The
R.P.C. Hanson
Number of quotes: 45
Book ID: 268 Page: 3
Section: 3C1
In the year 318 {1} Arius, a presbyter in charge of the church and district of Baucalis in Alexandria, publicly criticized the Christological doctrine of his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria. Arius must have been born about 256 {2}, in Libya. We can be confident that Arius was Libyan in origin, not only because Epiphanius says so, {3} but because Arius himself in a letter written to the Emperor Constantine, which has not survived, claims that ‘the whole people of Libya’ were on his side, {4} and because it was the Libyan bishops, especially Secundus of Ptolemais, who supported the cause of Arius most persistently. {5}
Quote ID: 6744
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 5/6
Section: 3C1
As far as his own writings go, we have no more than three letters, a few fragments of another, and what purport to be fairly long quotations from the Thalia.
Quote ID: 6745
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 6
Section: 3C1
We are told that Arius wrote many other works, but no trace of them has survived, either quoted by his supporters or by his opponents. We do not even know the names of them.
Quote ID: 6746
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 6
Section: 3C1
He claims as his episcopal supporters not only his correspondent, Eusebius of Nicomedia, but also Eusebius of Caesarea.
Quote ID: 6747
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 10
Section: 3C1
When we attempt to reconstruct what appear to be quotations from the Thalia, Arius’ only known theological work, we meet the difficulty that they are all quotations made or reproduced by Athanasius, a fierce opponent of Arius who certainly would not have stopped short of misrepresenting what he said.
Quote ID: 6748
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 19
Section: 3C1
When Athanasius first began writing against the views of Arius, at the end of the fourth decade of the fourth century (Orationes con. Arianos 339/40), Arius had already been dead a few years (ob. 336).
Quote ID: 6749
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 27
Section: 3C1
The first name that occurs when we survey those of Arius’ contemporaries who supported him is that of Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia.….
The conventional picture of Eusebius is of an unscrupulous intriguer who was more interested in gaining and retaining power than in observing the rules of decent morality. This is of course because our knowledge of Eusebius derives almost entirely from the evidence of his bitter enemies.
Quote ID: 6750
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 31
Section: 3C1
Another sentence from a letter of Eusebius to Arius, quoted by Athanasius {48} simply reiterates one of the arguments of the letter to Paulinus:‘that which was made did not exist before coming into existence; that which has come into existence [Greek] has a beginning of being.’
Quote ID: 6751
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 32
Section: 3C1
The next contemporary of Arius who was his decided supporter to be examined is Asterius.….
The fragments of Asterius have been conveniently collected by Bardy; {51} they will be first:
Quote ID: 6752
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 33
Section: 3C1
Fragment IV (De Synodis 19)Before the production of the Son the father had a pre-existent [Greek] to produce, just as before a physician cures he has a capacity to heal.
Quote ID: 6753
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 34/35
Section: 3C1
Fragment XIII (Orationes con Arianos III. 10)Since what the Father wishes the Son also wishes and he (the Son) does not oppose him in either his ideas or his judgments, but is in everything harmonious [Greek] with him, and presents identity of doctrines and a consistent and exact correspondence with the Father’s teaching, for this reason he and the Father are one (John 10:30).
Fragment XV (Orationes con Arianos III.60)
This fragment is concerned to maintain that creation is not unworthy of God, nor is the will to create, and ‘let his superiority be postulated in the case of the first product’ [Greek, i.e. the Son].
Quote ID: 6754
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 37
Section: 3C1
Fragment XXXII {72}Asterius said that the Father and the Son are one and the same thing in that they agree [Greek] in everything. ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10:30) refers to their exact agreement in all ideas and activities.
Quote ID: 6755
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 40/41
Section: 3C1
Arian doctrine cannot be accused of ignoring redemption, of concentrating on cosmology, on the relation of the pre-existent Son to the Father, at the expense of soteriology, of how we are saved. {73} On the contrary, it could be said that their doctrine took redemption more seriously than did that of their opponents, because it made proper allowance for the scandal of the Cross, for what Paul called ‘the weakness of God’ (1 Cor 1:22-25), for the involvement of the Godhead in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. This was a point which their opponents unanimously and consistently played down.
Quote ID: 6756
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 41
Section: 3C1
Another pronounced follower of Arius was Athanasius, bishop of Anazarbus (ecclesiastically the metropolitan see of (Eastern) Cilicia II and therefore not an obscure place.
Quote ID: 6757
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 42
Section: 3C1
Then Athanasius himself: “For the Son does not exalt himself against the Father, nor does he think that he is on equal terms with God (paria esse cum Deo); but he yields to his Father and confesses and teaches everybody that he the Father is greater than he.Pastor John notes: John’s note: #4
Quote ID: 6758
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 43
Section: 3C1
We have one brief fragment only of the work of another early supporter of Arius, Theognis, who was bishop of Nicaea at the time of the Council there, was exiled with Eusebius of Nicomedia.
Quote ID: 6759
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 43
Section: 3C1
‘Similarly too the Bithynian bishop Theognis writing to the Pope {83} says: “Therefore we call the Son originated (genetum), indeed an unoriginated Son could never be.
Quote ID: 6760
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 46
Section: 3C1
Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, was certainly an early supporter of Arius. He was claimed by Arius as a supporter; he wrote several letters on his behalf and attended at least one local synod which vindicated his views as orthodox and at another synod was censured and disciplined for refusing to condemn propositions ascribed to Arius.
Quote ID: 6761
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 48/49
Section: 3C1
In the Demonstratio the same drastic subordination and distinction of the Son appears. Moses, says Eusebius, calls Christ ‘sometimes God and Lord, sometimes the angel of God, establishing directly that this was not the supreme God, but a second, named God and Lord of Godfearing people, but messenger (angelos) of the supreme Father.’ {99} Most of the epiphanies of God in the Old Testament are of this second God. {100}
Quote ID: 6762
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 49
Section: 3C1
‘There is,’ says Eusebius, ‘a doctrine common to all men about the first and eternal and alone unoriginated Greek and supreme Cause of the universe, almighty ruler and sovereign, God…’ {101} This sole true unoriginated omnipotent God desired to create a rational creation and determined to make some ‘incorporeal, spiritual and divine powers’, and also human souls, who would possess free will, and proper places for them to live. For this purpose he thought it right that there should be ‘a single manager Greek and ruler of all Creation; and king of everything.’ {102} What the supreme God wills comes thereby into existence. It is wrong to think that God created anything out of nothing. His will is the material Greek for all created things. {103}Pastor John notes: John’s note: Philosophy!
Quote ID: 6763
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 50
Section: 3C1
But this does not prevent Eusebius from teaching quite explicitly one doctrine typical of Arianism at all stages of development, that the Son worships the Father as God.
Quote ID: 6764
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 52
Section: 3C1
On the whole however Eusebius’ favourite doctrine is that the Son is in effect the image of the Father’s substance Greek. {118} And on the subject of time, he dislikes using any language introducing the concept of time, but insists that the Father has existed before the Son and that the Son is not unoriginated, and has derived from the will and power of the Father. {119}
Quote ID: 6765
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 56
Section: 3C1
It is only by courtesy that Eusebius can be described as having a doctrine of the Trinity.
Quote ID: 6766
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 56/57
Section: 3C1
Let us begin with an extract from a letter which Eusebius wrote to Alexander of Alexandria about 320 protesting against his treatment of Arius and his followers. {140} In this letter Eusebius takes Alexander to task for unjustly accusing Arius and his friends of teaching that ‘the Son has come into existence from nonexistence like one of the mass’ Greek, whereas what they had actually said (in their letter quoted above, pp. 7-8) was that the Son was ‘a perfect creature, but not as one of the creatures.’ {141} He also defends the Arian group against Alexander’s accusation that they taught ‘he who is begot him who was not’ Greek’, on the grounds that this was a perfectly proper statement. If it is not allowed, ‘then there would be two Beings’ Greek’, {142} i.e. two grounds of being.
Quote ID: 6767
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 57
Section: 3C1
In a letter of Eusebius to Euphration bishop of Balanea (a town in Syria), written perhaps two years earlier at the very outset of the dispute. The Father and the Son, Eusebius argues here, cannot have co-existed eternally, but rather the father precedes the Son in eternal existence. If this were not so, then the Father would not be Father nor the Son Son, and both would be either unoriginated or originated.
Quote ID: 6768
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 57
Section: 3C1
There is, says Eusebius, the ‘one true God’ (Jn 17:3), and the Son who is God but not ‘the one true God’, who has nobody prior to him. The Son is ‘like the image of the true God’ and can be called ‘God’. {146} The image is not one and the same thing with the original, but ‘they are two substances Greek and two things and two powers’ (proof-text 1 Tim 2:5). {147}
Quote ID: 6769
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 58
Section: 3C1
At one point in the Ecclesiastical Theology he describes God as ‘incomprehensible, illimitable and unapproachable’ and the Son as in contrast ‘he who draws near to everybody.’ {151}Pastor John notes: John’s note: {151} Ecc. Theol. II.17.121
Quote ID: 6770
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 59
Section: 3C1
We cannot accordingly describe Eusebius as a formal Arian in the sense that he knew and accepted the full logic of Arius, or of Asterius’ position. But undoubtedly he approached it nearly.
Quote ID: 6771
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 123
Section: 3C1
It is true that Constantine at one time ordered his works to be burnt and his followers to be branded as ‘Porphyrians’. {116}Pastor John notes: John’s note: from Gelasius HE II.36.1
Quote ID: 6772
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 127/128
Section: 3C1
In the light of this evidence we cannot say that Arius was regarded by those who came after him as founding a school of theology. If anything, he was thought of as perpetuating the school of Lucian of Antioch. Arius was respected by later Arians, and some of his scanty literary works sometimes quoted. But he was not usually thought of as a great man by his followers. They would all have said that they were simply carrying on the teaching of the Bible and the tradition the Fathers.
Quote ID: 6773
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 137
Section: 3C1
Constantine at the end of 324 sent a Letter to Alexander and Arius, written in the usual blustering imperial style, urging them to be reconciled to each other, because they differed only over ‘a controversy of futile irrelevance”.
Quote ID: 6774
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 160
Section: 3C1
Eustathius of Antioch, in an extract given by Theodoret in his Church History, written within a very few years of the Council, between 325 and 330, {33} relates:….
‘the fanatical followers of Arius [Greek], afraid of being excommunicated by so great an assembled synod, were foremost in anathematizing the condemned doctrine, and attached their signatures to the agreed statements.’
Quote ID: 6775
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 164
Section: 3C1,3C2
It cannot be stated too often that the ancients did not suffer from the same passion for exact accuracy which modern scholarship displays.
Quote ID: 6776
Time Periods: 147
Book ID: 268 Page: 738
Section: 3C1
The scope of this work excludes a treatment of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as it developed before the fourth century. {1}….
The early second-century concept of the Incarnation as the taking of a human body by the Holy Spirit had given way to a recognition of the separate existence of the Holy Spirit from the Son in the Apologists and even more clearly in Irenaeus and Tertullian, though the belief that God is spirit continued to trouble theologians in their efforts to create a consistent pneumatology.
Quote ID: 6777
Time Periods: 24
Book ID: 268 Page: 739
Section: 3C1
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit emerged into the fourth century as a minor concern of the church’s theologians. The surprising thing is, not that more attention was not paid to the Spirit, but that the theologians continued to include the Spirit in the framework of their theology.….
The continually practiced custom of baptizing into the Triple Name prevented the intellectuals from omitting the Holy Spirit altogether from their calculations.
Quote ID: 6778
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 740/741
Section: 3C1
The ideas on the Holy Spirit of Eusebius of Caesarea,…were themselves radical, if not positively eccentric.….
As far as this goes, the Spirit might still be described as God, but in his later Ecclesiastical Theology Eusebius excludes this possibility. After passages emphasizing the entire subordination of the Spirit to the Son, {9} he writes:
‘But the Spirit the Paraclete is neither God nor Son, since he has not received his origin (genesis) from the Father in the same way as the Son has, and is one of the things which have come into existence through the Son’. {10}
….
Earlier in the same work Eusebius had said that there were three entities believed in by the Church: the incarnate Son’s human nature: the Son of God inhabiting this having come forth [from the Father, Greek] and existing substantially, and God the Father of this Son. {11}There is no mention of the Spirit. This pneumatology of Eusebius is indeed extraordinary with no exact antecedent, but it is faithfully reproduced in every form of Arian doctrine thereafter.
Quote ID: 6779
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 749
Section: 2B1,3C1
Athanasius begins his argument for the divinity of the Holy Spirit from the point which was peculiarly his own, the existence of God as Trinity. The word ‘Trinity” Greek had long been in use (first by Theophilus of Antioch in the second half of the second century) and had been used to cover a multitude of conceptions.
Quote ID: 6780
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 749
Section: 3C1
Now, as Athanasius has abandoned the desire to see any mediating element within the Godhead nor any mediating supernatural instrument used to come between God and men, except the human nature of Jesus Christ, he cannot allow the createdness of the Holy Spirit.
Quote ID: 6781
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 268 Page: 750
Section: 3C1
Next he has to meet the argument of the Tropici that if the Spirit proceeds from the Father then the Father has two Sons, and if he proceeds from the Father and the Son then he is the Father’s grandson.Pastor John’s note: Ha!
Quote ID: 6782
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 751
Section: 3C1
The Son is sent from the Father, the Son sends the Spirit, the Son glorifies the Father and the Spirit glorifies the Son; the Son declares what he has heard from the Father and the Spirit receives from the Son; the Son came in the name of the Father, and sends the Spirit in his own name. {61} Athanasius, in spite of some appearances, is not here speaking of the position of the Spirit within the Trinity. He never tries to determine this.
Quote ID: 6783
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 753
Section: 3C1
The disingenuous statement that the fathers of Nicaea had endorsed the doctrine of the Spirit’s deity is repeated in the Letter to the Bishops of Africa (369).When they wrote the words ‘and in the Holy Spirit’…
….
Owing to the work of Athanasius, then, the Eastern Church had been notified by at the latest 360 that the pro-Nicene cause involved defending not only the divinity of the Son, but also that of the Holy Spirit, and Athanasius had laid a foundation for a new theology of the Spirit which others were to continue and amplify.. {76}
Quote ID: 6784
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 755/756
Section: 3C1
The treatise on the Holy Spirit which we have in Jerome’s translation and which we can with confidence ascribe to Didymus the Blind… is not a full-blooded polemical work, but rather a considered treatise, in spite of meeting some of the arguments of the Macedonians. {89}….
Since therefore the holy Scripture does not say more about the Trinity, except that God is the Father of the Saviour and that the Son is begotten by the Father, we should believe no more than what is written’. {96}
This was one way of avoiding the difficulty which faced everybody who wrote at any length about the Holy Spirit in the second half of the fourth century, that of determining the place of the Spirit within the Trinity.
Quote ID: 6785
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 757
Section: 3C1
Part of a Decree made by a Roman council presided over by Damasus in 371 or 372 survives. {100} The Council was part of a campaign led by Damasus to drive Arianism out of the Western Church. It was only partly successful, because though this council could condemn Auxentius of Milan it was powerless to depose him.
Quote ID: 6786
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 268 Page: 757
Section: 2D1
The letter is addressed, not as Theodoret and Sozomenus say, to the Illyrian bishops but to the bishops of the Eastern Church generally. The Decree is full of laudatory references to the authority of the bishops of Rome, which could not have been to the liking of many Eastern bishops, but it defines the correct doctrine as ‘the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit of one Godhead, of one power, and of one manner of existence, of one substance.’ {101}
Quote ID: 6787
Time Periods: 345
Book ID: 268 Page: 782
Section: 3C1
From this base Gregory launches into a fine expression of the gradualness of God’s revelation, borrowed largely from Origen, but here put to use to explain our gradual understanding of the Holy Spirit. The reason for this gradual unfolding was because, according to one of Gregory’s favourite principles, God would coerce nobody. He sketches an impressive scheme whereby God under the old dispensation gradually withdrew the supports upon which the Jews leaned in order to understand him, such as sacrifices, the Law, and circumcision, and then under the new dispensation he gradually added new revelations of himself: {238}
Quote ID: 6788
Time Periods: ?
End of quotes