Arius: Encyclopedia II - Arius - Arius's Concept of Christ

Arius - Arius's Concept of Christ

This question of the exact relationship between the Father and the Son, a part of Christology, had been raised some 50 years before Arius, when Paul of Samosata was deposed in AD 269 for his agreement with those who had used the word homoousios (Greek for same substance) to express the relation of the Father and the Son. The expression was at that time thought to have a Sabellian tendency, though, as events showed, this was on account of its scope not having been satisfactorily defined.

Arius was obviously perplexed by the doctrine of those claiming the eternity of the "begotten" (i.e. created, made, or produced), for he complains of it in his letter to the Nicomedian Eusebius, who, like himself, had studied under Lucian.

Arius formulated the following doctrines about Jesus:

1. that the Logos and the Father were not of the same essence (ousia);
2. that the Son was a created being (ktisma or poiema); and
3. that though He was the creator of the worlds, and must therefore have existed before them and before all time, there was a "time" [although Arius refused to use words meaning time, such as cronos or aion] when He did not exist.

The best authorities consider that he was driven to this concession by the force of circumstances. He was doubtless confirmed in his attitude by his fear of falling into Sabellianism and referred to his opponents as heretics.

Arius also undoubtedly drew some support from the writings of Origen, who taught that there could be ‘degrees’ or ‘grades’ of divinity, with the Son being slightly less divine than the Father (this became known after the Nicene Council as semi-Arianism).

In subsequent defensive statements Arius' avoided the use of the words chronos and aion but this was evasion, and he clearly argued that there was a time when the Son did not exist. Arius also contended that the Son was unchangeable (atreptos). But what he thus gave with the one hand he appears to have taken away with the other. For so far as we can understand his language on a subject which Athanasius seems to have admitted that it was beyond his power thoroughly to comprehend - he taught that the Logos was changeable in Essence, but not in Will.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Arius's Concept of Christ", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki