Arian quarrel

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The only rough term Arian controversy refers to the disputes in the fourth century , which were also about Arianism , but often about further, supposedly 'Arian' doctrines of the Trinity and the question raised by them as to whether the Logos incarnated in Jesus Christ is divine, god-like or different from God, namely being creaturely.

Since the Council of Nicaea (325), where Arius had been condemned, it was more about criticism and approval of the Nicaea Confession . Almost all opponents of the Nicene Confession were often referred to as 'Arians'. For this reason it is proposed in the more recent dogma historiography to speak of the Trinitarian or subordinate dispute for the phase after 325 . The people and theologies or doctrines of the Trinity such as Christologies , which were defamed as 'Arian' after the Nicaean Council of 325, can often be counted among theological currents that developed from the theology of Origen .

The arguments did not concern only the theologians ; the population of the most important cities in the east of the Roman Empire was also partly involved, but often only instrumentalized. There, especially in the period up to the first Council of Constantinople, there were repeated violent clashes and even killings. The dispute had both a theological and a pronounced political / power-political level.

People overview

Since the rulers and bishops involved often had similar or the same names, but different views, here is a table for an initial overview, whereby the assignments are not always sufficiently secured.

Emperor (including reign)

(supposedly) 'Arian' Fluctuating / neutral Trinitarian (Confession of Nicaea)
Constantia , sister of Constantine, wife of Licinius Constantine the Great (306–337)  
Constantius II , son of Constantine I (337–361)   Constantine II (337-340)

Constans (337-350)

  Julian (361-363) Jovian (363)
Valens (364-378)   Valentinian I (364-375)
Valentinian II (375-392)

represented by mother Justina

Gratian (367-383)  
    Theodosius I (379-395)

Bishops and priests (with terms of office)

(supposedly) 'Arian' Fluctuating / neutral Trinitarian (Confession of Nicaea)
Arius , priest († after 327)   Alexander of Alexandria , Alexandria († 328)

Silvester I , Rome (314–335)
Alexander of Constantinople , Constantinople († 337)

Eusebius of Nicomedia , Constantinople († 341)

Gregory of Alexandria , Alexandria († 345)

Eusebius of Caesarea , Palestine († 337–40) Athanasius of Alexandria , Alexandria (327–373)

Markell von Ankyra , Rom
Hilarius von Poitiers (350–367)

Wulfila (340-381)

Macedonius , Constantinople (342–346)

  Julius I , Rome
George of Cappadocia , Alexandria (356–361)

Felix II , Rome

Liberius , Rome (352-366)  
Eudoxius of Antioch , Constantinople (360-370)

Demophilus , Constantinople (370–379)

Damasus I , Rome (366–384) Basil of Caesarea , Caesarea (370–379)
Maxentius , Constantinople (380)   Gregory of Nazianzen , Constantinople (380–381)

Gregory of Nyssa , Nyssa (372–395)
Ambrosius of Milan , Milan (374–397)
Amphilochius of Iconium , Milan (374–395)

course

Basically three phases can be distinguished:

  • the development of the dispute before the Council of Nicaea about 318–325;
  • the reaction of moderate and radical critics of the council decision to further councils from 325 to 361;
  • The phase of unification efforts from 362 between the 'Old Nicene', the adherents of the Nicene Confession , and representatives of 'Origenistic' subordination theology under the leadership of the so-called Neunicäer, up to the Council of Constantinople in 381.

Development up to the Council of Nicaea

The controversy probably began in Alexandria in 318 with a dispute over the Trinity between Bishop Alexander and the Presbyter Arius . Arius accused Alexander of Sabellianism (Sabellianism sees God as a person who manifests himself in three ways) and explained et al. a., there was a time when Jesus was not and out of nowhere he was begotten , which he backed up with some Bible verses.

Against this doctrine, in turn, both Alexander later defended the deacon of the bishop , Athanasius . Athanasius in particular was not concerned with philosophical considerations, he fought for salvation through Jesus Christ . Jesus, the savior of the world and of all human beings, could therefore not himself be a 'creature', even if it was of God, who might itself be in need of redemption through being a creature. If Arius made Jesus a creature, he would rob humanity of the Redeemer. Athanasius remembered John 1 . Arius, on the other hand, saw monotheism , the eternal and 'uncreated' as well as 'ungenerated' uniqueness of God, endangered by Alexander's position.

In 319, a local synod of the bishops of Libya and Egypt convened by Alexander took place . The teaching advocated by Arius that Jesus Christ was “created” as the Son of God and was subordinate to God, that is, “subordinated”, was unanimously condemned as heresy and Arius was banished from Alexandria. Arius, however, with the support of the influential Bishops Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea, probably spread his doctrine from Palestine, and the controversy quickly spread to the entire Christian East.

In the autumn of 324, Emperor Constantine , who in September 324, after years of armed conflict, also took control of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, appealed in letters to Bishop Alexander and Arius that they should deal with the christological question about the relationship between God and Jesus Christ unite, since the differences are hardly understandable and of little importance. When Constantine saw that an amicable arbitration was not possible and that the dispute was also taking effect in the population of the eastern part of the empire, so that this endangered the unity of the church in the Roman Empire, he allowed 325 at the Council of Nicea near Constantinople a . a. also negotiate about it. Instead of the approximately 1,800 bishops invited from all over the Roman Empire, a little more than 200 bishops and clergy came , mostly from the eastern part of the empire. After apparently lively to heated discussions, the Nicea Confession was adopted.

The Council of Nicaea

Due to an intervention of Constantine, the council finally worked out the compromise formula begotten from the being of the father and begotten and uncreated, essence (Greek ὁμοούσιος homoousios , of the same substance) with the father . The Nicaean Creed emphasized that the Son was true God, begotten from the nature of the Father, but not made and therefore not part of creation . All those who refused to accept the compromise formula were threatened with deposition and exile by Constantine if they did not agree to the Nicaean Creed . Arius did not agree and was banished.

The reaction of the 'anti-Nicaeans'

Two years later Arius was pardoned , and the emperor demanded (in vain) that he be reinstated in the Church of Alexandria. The following year, 328, Bishop Alexander of Alexandria died and Athanasius succeeded him.

The hoped-for agreement did not materialize. Opinions were divided among the population of at least the important episcopal cities in the east of the Roman Empire, and the respective supporters often defended their position with passion. Alexandria was the stronghold of the 'anti-Arians', in the other cities of the east the representatives of 'Origenistic' subordinationism dominated, who in many cases rejected the Nicaean creed or the theology of Athanasius as reprehensible. The following period was marked by mutual accusations of the 'anti-Arians' and the Origenist subordination representatives or opponents of the 'anti-Arians' who were mostly only generally defamed as 'Arians', of slander, deposition and banishment. The supposedly 'Arian', but actually Origenistic, direction of subordination gained influence in the years after Nicea, especially at the imperial court. Otherwise, since the later 350s, the new Roman sole ruler, Emperor Constantius II , tried , sometimes with persuasion, sometimes with massive pressure, to create a uniform compromise commitment that was accepted by as many church leaders and their communities as possible.

A synod of Tire and Jerusalem, in which both Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of Nicomedia played a leading role, is said to have accepted Arius and his fellow believers back into the church in 335. Arius, however, had probably already died at this point; the offer was rather aimed at his followers. The same synod deposed Athanasius, who until then had unwaveringly rejected all compromise and pacification attempts both on the part of Constantine and on the part of other bishops. Athanasius was exiled to Trier , where he became friends with Constantine II , the son of Emperor Constantine. Whether Saint Anthony , as Athanasius reports in his Vita Antonii , actually rushed from his hermitage in Upper Egypt to Alexandria to stand by his friend Athanasius and to save him from exile must be assessed very carefully.

In 337, Emperor Constantine died after being baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia. Eusebius of Caesarea gave the funeral oration. The empire was divided among Constantine's three sons: Constantius II got the east, Constantine II got Britain and Gaul , Constan's Italy and Illyria . Constantine II, who resided in Trier, immediately canceled the exile of Athanasius in Trier, and Athanasius set out for Alexandria, where he was enthusiastically received. However, Constantius II, emperor of the eastern part, was reluctant to allow her return.

Eusebius of Nicomedia , a representative of the origins of the doctrine of subordination, became bishop of Constantinople in 338, which at that time equated to the rank of bishop of Rome. In the same year a council in Antioch again deposed Athanasius together with Marcellus of Ancyra and with the approval of Constantius II. He was sent into exile a second time. Gregory of Alexandria was installed as Bishop of Alexandria (not identical to Gregory of Nazianzen or Gregory of Nyssa , who, like Gregory of Alexandria, were also Cappadocians , but were still of school age at that time). In the same year Eusebius of Caesarea died .

After the death of Constantine II in 340, Constans became the sole ruler of the west. He supported the 'anti-Arians', the followers of Athanasius and the Nicaean Confession of 325, while his brother Constantius II supported the 'Origenist middle group', which still dominated the church in its eastern part of the empire. Bishop Julius I of Rome also supported the Nicean Trinitarians and accepted Athanasius. Athanasius developed good relations with the Roman Curia during this time.

As long as Constantine the Great was alive, the Nicaea Confession was formally inviolable, although after 327 it was no longer aggressively defended and disseminated. After his death, in the decades up to the first council in Constantinople, various other creeds emerged at various church synods, especially in the east of the Roman Empire. During the lifetime of Constans this still happened in a moderate form. In 341 and 344 two councils were held in Antioch under the dominance of the 'Origenist middle group'. All the bishops present were from the East, most of them against Athanasius. They wrote a total of four confessions, which are rather moderate, omit homoousion and condemn extreme Arianism. They declared that they were not Arians, since as bishops they could not follow a priest (Arius was even only a presbyter). Eusebius of Nicomedia died in 341.

The Council of Serdica , which Constantius convened in Serdica, today's Sofia , in order to restore the unity of the Church, became a fiasco. The bishops of the East refused to take part in joint sessions of the Imperial Synod as long as Athanasius and Markell, who had traveled with the participants from the western Roman part of the Empire, were present, since both had been condemned and deposed by synods - Athanasius 335 by the Synod of Tire , Markell 336 by the Synod of Constantinople . The bishops of the West insisted that the two had been rehabilitated by a Roman synod in 341. The bishops from Constantius' eastern part of the empire therefore gathered in the imperial palace, while the western bishops had moved into the city church. After the news soon arrived at the synod that Emperor Constantius had won a battle against an army of the Sassanid ruler Shapur II , the eastern bishops broke off negotiations and left the synod and Serdica, while the western bishops were headed by Ossius von Cordoba continued the imperial synod. However, both groups had previously excommunicated each other .

In 345 Gregory of Alexandria died, and in 346 Athanasius was reinstated as Bishop of Alexandria. He was received again enthusiastically and worked as a bishop for the next ten years - and continued to fight for the Trinitarian faith.

In 350 Constans, the emperor of the west, was murdered by the usurper Magnentius . This was defeated in the subsequent war against Constantius II, and after the suicide of the usurper in 353, Constantius became sole ruler and planned a new creed as a compromise formula for the whole church in the Roman Empire. In 355, 'troublemaker' Athanasius was banished a third time, but fled in the desert of Upper Egypt. Constantius convened councils in Arles (353), Milan (355) and Beziers (356), in which he enforced the condemnation of Athanasius under threat of violence. At the third council of Sirmium (357) a confession was written which consistently represents the subordination of Jesus Christ to the Father. Constantius finally favored the Homoeists (see Acacius of Caesarea ), who came to an understanding with the Homeusians (see Basil of Ancyra ) in May 359 at the 5th Synod of Sirmium , both currents in the tradition of Origenistic theology of the 'middle group' that the son be like the Father according to the Scriptures. The emperor decided against the "radical new Arians" (see Aetios and Eunomius ), the so-called heterousians, who emerged in the late 350s . But soon there was also a dispute between homeers and homeusians. At synods in Ariminum and Seleukia in Isauria and Constantinople (359), finally in 360 in Constantinople, Jesus Christ was finally generally binding without further controversial details as similar to the Father ("homo i ousios"; with an additional iota ) as in the holy scriptures .

Development of new trinity formulas

Constantius died in November 361; on his deathbed he named his cousin Julian (emperor of the western provinces) as his successor and thus sole ruler in the Roman Empire. As a non-Christian, Julian was neither an Arian nor a Trinitarian, but wanted to reintroduce the old Roman religion . There was an uprising in Alexandria, the 'origenistic' Bishop George of Cappadocia was lynched there by a mob in December 361 and Athanasius was called back by his own people in 362.

After Julian's violent death in 363 (Persian campaign) - after a brief interlude by the Trinitarian emperor Jovian - Emperor Valens came to power in the east , who tried again to enforce the 'Hömöische' creed of 359/360 as binding, in the west again the one in question of the creed, the largely tolerant Emperor Valentinian I.

A turning point did not come about until the 370s, after Athanasius in Alexandria had already embarked on a path that was far more willing to compromise on the disputed issues after his return. Basil of Caesarea became Bishop of Caesarea in 370 and above all he, along with his brother Gregory of Nyssa and his friend Gregory of Nazianz , the three 'Cappadocian Church Fathers', used his strength to develop a new creed despite pressure from Emperor Valens, that should solve the controversial problem of hypostasis and the associated subordination in the doctrine of the Trinity between 'anti-Arians' or 'anti-origins' (one hypostasis and one being) and the 'anti-Nicene' (three hypostases, three beings) . He tried to persuade Pope Damasus to take an active part, but did not achieve much, because after the death of Athanasius an estrangement had occurred between Rome and the East (but not between Milan and the East). In Asia Minor , under the influence of Basil, 'Nine ancient theology', as it is called, gradually gained acceptance. The capital Constantinople, on the other hand, still remained origenistic or rather 'homoean'.

In 374, Ambrosius became Bishop of Milan and worked not only theologically but also with political influence for an 'anti-Arian' or 'anti-Origenistic' understanding of the Trinity. The death of Valentinian, who was succeeded by his four-year-old son (under the tutelage of his Arian mother), could not change that.

Basil died in 379, and in the same year his friend Gregor von Nazianzen moved to Constantinople, where Theodosius I had ruled as emperor over the east of the Roman Empire since January 379 and the Nicene or Ninecyan minority enjoyed the emperor's favor. Gregory began preaching among the Nicene minority in the Anastasia , a private home. In November 380 the 'homoic' bishop in Constantinople was expelled by Theodosius, at the Council of Constantinople in 381 the activity of Gregory is recognized as an official activity of a bishop and thus Gregory as Bishop of Constantinople.

The Council of Constantinople

Theodosius convened the First Council of Constantinople in 381 , where, under the leadership of Gregory of Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa , the brother of Basilius of Caesarea, a new version of the Nicene Creed, the Niceno-Constantinopolitanum , was drawn up, which Theodosius then gave sole validity .

This ended the dispute about the “correct” creed, the correct doctrine of the Trinity of the Roman Church, at least officially. While the varieties of the Origenistic subordination theology among the Germanic peoples such as the Goths and Vandals , which were Christianized especially during the predominance of the 'homeic' creed under the (Eastern Roman) emperors Constantius II and Valens, continued for many decades, this became Great Creed of Constantinople in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches never again questioned. With the conversion of the Frankish king Clovis I to the Roman Catholic faith, the triumphal march of the Nicaean or Neopaean trinitarianism began in the Germanic world as well.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Dünzl : Brief history of the Trinitarian dogma in the old church. Herder Verlag , Freiburg im Breisgau 2006, p. 82f.
  2. ↑ Pedro Barceló : Constantius II and his time. Klett-Cotta Verlag , Stuttgart 2004, p. 77.
  3. ↑ Franz Dünzl: Brief history of the Trinitarian dogma in the old church. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 2006, ISBN 3-451-28946-6 , p. 90.
  4. ↑ Pedro Barceló: Constantius II and his time. The beginnings of the state church . Klett-Cotta Verlag , Stuttgart 2004, p. 84.
  5. ^ Stefan Klug: Alexandria and Rome. The history of the relationship between two churches in antiquity . Aschendorff Verlag, Münster / Westphalia 2014, p. 203.
  6. ^ Wolf-Dieter Hauschild , Volker Henning Drecoll : Textbook of Church and Dogma History. Volume 1. Old Church and Middle Ages . Gütersloher Verlagshaus , Gütersloh 2016, p. 93. 5., completely revised new edition.
  7. ↑ Pedro Barceló: Constantius II and his time. Klett-Cotta Verlag , Stuttgart 2004, p. 187.
  8. ↑ Franz Dünzl: Brief history of the Trinitarian dogma in the old church. Herder Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 2006, p. 113. ISBN 3-451-28946-6 .
  9. ↑ Franz Dünzl: Brief history of the Trinitarian dogma in the old church. Herder Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 2006, p. 120. ISBN 3-451-28946-6 .
  10. ↑ Justin Mossay:  Gregory of Nazianzus (died 390th) . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 14, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1985, ISBN 3-11-008583-6 , pp. 164-173. ( Retrieved for a fee from Theologische Realenzyklopädie , De Gruyter Online), p. 166f.