The catholic principle of tradition became more and more confirmed, as the authority of the fathers and councils increased and the learned study of the Holy Scriptures declined; and tradition gradually set itself in practice on a level with Scripture, and even above it. It fettered free investigation, and promoted a rigid, stationary and intolerant orthodoxy, which condemned men like Origen and Tertullian as heretics. But on the other hand the principle of tradition unquestionably exerted a wholesome conservative power, and saved the substance of the ancient church doctrine from the obscuring and confusing influence of the pagan barbarism which deluged Christendom. I-TRINITARIAN CONTROVERSIES. GENERAL LITERATURE OF THE ARIAN CONTROVERSIES. 1. SOURCES: On the orthodox side most of the fathers of the fourth century; especially the dogmatic and polemic works of ATHANASIUS (Orationes c. Arianos; De decretis Nicænæ Synodi; De sententia Dionysii; Apologia c. Arianos; Apologia de fuga sua; Historia Arianorum, etc., all in tom. i. pars i. ii. of the Bened. ed.), BASIL (Adv. Eunomium), GREGORY NAZIANZEN (Orationes theologica), GREGORY OF NYSSA (Contra Eunom.), EPIPHANIUS (Ancoratus), HILARY (De Trinitate), AMBROSE (De Fide), AUGUSTINE (De Trinitate, and Contra Maximinimum Arianum), RUFINUS, and the Greek church historians. On the heretical side: The fragments of the writings of ARIUS (Sáλeia, and two Epistolæ to Eusebius of Nicomedia and Alexander of Alexandria), preserved in quotations in Athanasius, Epiphanius, Socrates, and Theodoret; comp. Fabricius: Biblioth. gr. viii. p. 809. Fragmenta ARIANORUM about 388 in Angelo Mai: Scriptorum veterum nova collect. Rom. 1828, vol. iii. The fragments of the Church History of the Arian PHILOSTORGIUS, a. D. 350–425. IL WORKS: TILLEMONT (R. C.): Mémoires, etc. tom. vi. pp. 239–825, ed. Paris, 1699, and ed. Ven. (the external history chiefly). DIONYSIUS PETAVIUS (Jesuit, † 1652): De theologicis dogmatibus, tom. ii., which treats of the divine Trinity in eight books; and in part tom. iv. and v. which treat in sixteen books of the Incarnation of the Word. This is still, though incomplete, the most learned work of the Roman church in the History of Doctrines; it first appeared at Paris, 1644–50, in five volumes fol., then at Amsterdam, 1700 (in 6 vols.), and at Venice, 1757 (ed. Zacharia), and has been last edited by Passaglia and Schrader in Rome, 1857. J. M. TRAVASA (R. C.): Storia critica della vite di Ario. Ven. 1746. S. J. MAIMBURG: Histoire de l'Arianisme Par. 1675. JOHN PEARSON (bishop of Chester, † 1686): An Exposi tion of the Creed (in the second article), 1689, 12th ed. Lond. 1741, and very often edited since by Dobson, Burton, Nichols, Chevalier, etc. GEORGE BULL (Anglican bishop of St. David's, † 1710): Defensio fidei Nicænæ. Ox. 1685 (Opp. Lat. fol. ed. Grabe, Lond. 1703. Complete Works, ed. Burton, Oxf. 1827, and again in 1846, vol. 5th in two parts, and in English in the Anglo-Catholic Library, 1851). This classical work endeavors, with great learning, to exhibit the Nicene faith in all the ante-Nicene fathers, and so belongs more properly to the previous period. DAN. WATERLAND (archdeacon of Middlesex, + 1730, next to Bull the ablest Anglican defender of the Nicene faith): Vindication of Christ's Divinity, 1719 ff., in Waterland's Works, ed. Mildert, vols. i. ii. iii. Oxf. 1843. (Several acute and learned essays and sermons in defence of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity against the high Arianism of Dr. Sam. Clarke and Dr. Whitby.) CHR. W. F. WALOH: Vollständige Historie der Ketzereien, etc. 11 vols. Leipzig, 1762 ff. Vols. ii. and iii. (exceedingly thorough and exceedingly dry). GIBBON History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xxi. A. MÖHLER (R. C.): Athanasius der Grosse u. die Kirche seiner Zeit. Mainz (1827); 2d ed. 1844 (Bk ii.-vi.). J. H. NEWMAN (at the time the learned head of Puseyism, afterwards R. C.): The Arians of the Fourth Century. Lond. 1838; 2d ed. (unchanged), 1854. F. CHR. BAUR: Die christl. Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit u. Menschwerdung in ihrer geschichtl. Entwicklung. 3 vols. Tübingen, 1841-'43. Vol. i. pp. 306-825 (to the council of Chalcedon). Comp. also Baur's Kirchengesch. vom 4ten bis 6ten Jahrh. Tüb. 1859, pp. 79-123. Js. A. DORNER: Entwicklungsgesch. der Lehre von der Person Christi. 1836, 2d ed. in 2 vols. Stuttg. 1845-'53. Vol. i. pp. 773-1080 (English transl. by W. L. Alexander and D. W. Simon, in Clark's Foreign Theol. Library, Edinb. 1861). R. WILBERFORCE (at the time archdeacon of East Riding, afterwards R. C.): The Doctrine of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4th ed. Lond. 1852. Bishop KAYE: Athanasius and the council of Nicæa. Lond. 1853. C. Jos, HEFELE (R. C.): Conciliengeschichte. Freib. 1855 ff. Vol. i. p. 219 ff. ALBEET PRINCE DE BROGLIE (R. C.): L'église et l'empire romain, au IV. siècle. Paris, 1856-'66, 6 vols. Vol. i. p. 831 sqq.; vol. ii. 1 sqq. W. W. HARVEY: History and Theology of the Three Creeds. Lond 1856, 2 vols. H. VOIGT: Die Lehre des Athanasius von Alexandrien. Bremen, 1861. A. P. STANLEY: Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church. 2d ed. 1862. H. M. GWATKIN, Studies in Arianism, Camb., 1882. Comp. also the relevant sections in the general Church Histories of FLEURY, SCHRÖCKH (vols. v. and vi.). NEANDER, GIESELER, and in the Doctrine Histories of MÜNSCHER, CÖLLN, BAUMGARTEN-CRUSIUS, HAGENBACH, BAUR, BECK, SHEDD, [HARNACK]. § 119. The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicoa 318-325. The Arian controversy relates primarily to the deity of Christ, but in its course it touches also the deity of the Holy Ghost, and embraces therefore the whole mystery of the Holy Trinity and the incarnation of God, which is the very centre of the Christian revelation. The dogma of the Trinity came up not by itself in abstract form, but in inseparable connection with the doctrine of the deity of Christ and the Holy Ghost. If this latter doctrine is true, the Trinity follows by logical necessity, the biblical monotheism being presumed; in other words: If God is one, and if Christ and the Holy Ghost are distinct from the Father and yet participate in the divine substance, God must be triune. Though there are in the Holy Scriptures themselves few texts which directly prove the Trinity, and the name Trinity is wholly wanting in them, this doctrine is taught with all the greater force in a living form from Genesis to Revelation by the main facts of the revelation of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, besides being indirectly involved in the deity of Christ and the Holy Ghost. The church always believed in this Trinity of revelation, and confessed its faith by baptism into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. This carried with it from the first the conviction, that this revelation of God must be grounded in a distinction immanent in the divine essence. But to bring this faith into clear and fixed knowledge, and to form the baptismal confession into doctrine, was the hard and earnest intellectual work of three centuries. In the Nicene age minds crashed against each other, and fought the decisive battles for and against the doctrines of the true deity of Christ, with which the divinity of Christianity stands or falls. The controversies on this fundamental question agitated the Roman empire and the church of East and West for more than half a century, and gave occasion to the first two ecumenical councils of Nicea and Constantinople. At last the orthodox doctrine triumphed, and in 381 was brought into the form in which it is to this day substantially held in all orthodox churches. The external history of the Arian controversy, of which we first sketch the main features, falls into three stages: 1. From the outbreak of the controversy to the temporary victory of orthodoxy at the council of Nicæa; a. D. 318–325. 2. The Arian and semi-Arian reaction, and its prevalence to the death of Constantius; A. d. 325–361. 3. The final victory, and the completion of the Nicene creed; to the council of Constantinople, A. D. 381. Arianism proceeded from the bosom of the Catholic church, was condemned as heresy at the council of Nicæa, but afterwards under various forms attained even ascendency for a time in the church, until at the second ecumenical council it was cast out forever. From that time it lost its importance as a politicotheological power, but continued as an uncatholic sect more than two hundred years among the Germanic nations, which were converted to Christianity under the Arian domination. The roots of the Arian controversy are to be found partly. in the contradictory elements of the christology of the great Origen, which reflect the crude condition of the Christian mind in the third century; partly in the antagonism between the Alexandrian and the Antiochian theology. Origen, on the one hand, attributed to Christ eternity and other divine attributes which logically lead to the orthodox doctrine of the identity of substance; so that he was vindicated even by Athanasius, the two Cappadocian Gregories, and Basil. But, on the other hand, in his zeal for the personal distinctions in the Godhead, he taught with equal clearness a separateness of essence between the Father and the Son,' and the subordination of the Son, as a second or secondary God beneath the Father, and thus furnished a starting point for the Arian · Ετερότης τῆς οὐσίας, οι τοῦ ὑποκειμένου. De orat. c. 18. • Hence he termed the Logos deurepos Debs, or Deós (without the article, comp. John i. 1), in distinction from the Father, who is absolute God, ¿ ✪eós, or aútódeos, Deus per se. He calls the Father also the root (síça) and fountain (wŋyń) of the whole Godhead. Comp. vol. i. § 78. Redepenning: Origenes, ii. 304 sq., and Thomasius: Origenes, p. 118 sq. heresy. The eternal generation of the Son from the will of the Father was, with Origen, the communication of a divine but secondary substance, and this idea, in the hands of the less devout and profound Arius, who with his more rigid logic could admit no intermediate being between God and the crea ture, deteriorated to the notion of the primal creature. But in general Arianism was much more akin to the spirit of the Antiochian school than to that of the Alexandrian. Arius himself traced his doctrine to Lucian of Antioch, who advocated the heretical views of Paul of Samosata on the Trinity, and was for a time excommunicated, but afterwards rose to great consideration, and died a martyr under Maximi nus. ALEXANDER, bishop of Alexandria, made earnest of the Origenistic doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son (which was afterwards taught by Athanasius and the Nicene creed, but in a deeper sense, as denoting the generation of a person of the same substance from the substance of the Father, and not of a person of different substance from the will of the Father), and deduced from it the homo-ousia or consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. ARIUS,' a presbyter of the same city after 313, who is represented as a tall, thin, learned, adroit, austere, and fascinating man, but proud, artful, restless, and disputatious, pressed and overstated the Origenistic view of the subordination, accused Alexander of Sabellianism, and taught that Christ, while he was indeed the creator of the world, was himself a creature of God, therefore not truly divine.' The contest between these two views broke out about the year 318 or 320. Arius and his followers, for their denial of the true deity of Christ, were deposed and excommunicated by a council of a hundred Egyptian and Libyan bishops at Alexandria in 321. In spite of this he continued to hold religious assemblies of his numerous adherents, and when driven from 1 Άρειος. 'This, however, is manifestly contrary to Origen's view, which intermediate being between the uncreated Father and the creature made Christ an Contra Cela ii 84. |