Arius

Heresy and Tradition

Rowan Williams

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781467431750
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

Arius is widely considered to be Rowan Williams's magnum opus. Long out of print and never before available in paperback, it has been newly revised. This expanded and updated edition marks a major publishing event. Arianism has been called the "archetypal Christian heresy" because it denies the divinity of Christ. In his masterly examination of Arianism, Rowan Williams argues that Arius himself was actually a dedicated theological conservative whose concern was to defend the free and personal character of the Christian God. His "heresy" grew out of an attempt to unite traditional biblical language with radical philosophical ideas and techniques and was, from the start, involved with issues of authority in the church. Thus, the crisis of the early fourth century was not only about the doctrine of God but also about the relations between emperors, bishops, and "charismatic" teachers in the church's decision-making. In the course of his discussion, Williams raises the vital wider questions of how heresy is defined and how certain kinds of traditionalism transform themselves into heresy. Augmented with a new appendix in which Williams interacts with significant scholarship since 1987, this book provides fascinating reading for anyone interested in church history and the development of Christian doctrine.

Part I

Arius and the Nicene Crisis

A

Arius before Arianism

1 ORIGINS

Epiphanius tells us¹ that Arius was born in Libya: and a number of other small pieces of evidence tend to bear this out. Arius’ two most consistent episcopal supporters in later years were Secundus and Theonas,² bishops respectively of Ptolemais (or ‘the Pentapolis’, in some texts)³ and Marmarica: Ptolemais was the chief city of western or ‘upper’ Libya, the older Cyrenaica, whose five major coastal settlements gave the district its familiar name of the Pentapolis; Marmarica or ‘lower Libya’ (sometimes Libya sicca) was the desert area between Cyrenaica and the fines Alexandriae, the border of the urban area of Alexandria at the western end of the Mareotis.⁴ Diocletian’s reorganization of the empire established the distinction between the ‘two Libyas’ as a matter of nomenclature but there is no secure evidence as to whether this was also an -administrative division. Whatever the truth of this, it sounds as though Secundus and Theonas may have been effectively metropolitans of the Libyan districts;⁵ and when Philostorgius, the Arian historian, lists other bishops sympathetic to Arius,⁶ the first four are from some of the other cities in the Pentapolis. In fact, we know of no Libyan bishops opposing Arius; given a certain amount of Libyan resistance to the claims of the Alexandrian see over its western neighbours,⁷ it would not be surprising if a Libyan cleric in trouble with the bishop of Alexandria commanded more or less unanimous support from his homeland.

The same picture is suggested in a letter from the Emperor Constantine to Arius, written around 333.⁸ Arius had been given permission to return from exile to his ‘native territory’ (unspecified) in 327 or 328,⁹ and Constantine writes as though Arius is currently in Libya. Evidently Arius is enjoying widespread popular support, since Constantine shows signs of panic at the idea of a schism. A little earlier (331 or 332), we find Athanasius visiting Libya,¹⁰ and the emperor’s letter clearly suggests that it was becoming a very troubled area from the point of view of the Alexandrian see. Once again, the whole pattern makes excellent sense in terms of partisanship for a local celebrity against intrusive foreign prelates.

If Epiphanius is to be relied on as regards Arius’ place of birth, is he also to be trusted when he describes Arius as an ‘old man’, gerōn, at the time of the outbreak of the controversy?¹¹ Here we have no collateral evidence, though Constantine’s letter of 333 contains a passage¹² describing, in most insulting fasion, Arius’ wasted and lifeless appearance – a passage which certainly fits a man well-advanced in years. The widespread consensus that puts Arius’ birth in the 250s¹³ has no definite foundation in the texts of the fourth and fifth centuries, but it seems safe to assume that he was not a young man when the crisis broke. If he was ordained presbyter by Bishop Achillas, as several sources claim,¹⁴ and if the Nicene regulations about the minimum canonical age for such ordinations reflect earlier practice, he was at least thirty in 313. All in all, a date for Arius’ birth some time before 280 is most likely; assuming that Epiphanius has an authentic tradition behind what he writes, we can probably push this date rather further back, but without any hope of certainty.

The only clue we have as to Arius’ education is the single word sulloukianista, which occurs in his letter to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, appealing for help in the first years of the controversy. Historians have generally taken ‘fellow-Lucianist’ pretty literally, and assumed a period of study with the martyr Lucian of Antioch. Ever since Newman,¹⁵ this has produced some very questionable reconstructions of Arius’ intellectual background;¹⁶ but in fact – yet again – we can be certain of very little. Lucian’s own theology has to be reconstructed from hints and allusions (and there is also a credal statement used by the synod of Antioch in 341 which was alleged to have originated with Lucian);¹⁷ he cannot be taken as representative of an Antiochene ‘school’ of theology or exegesis (he taught in Nicomedia for some of his career at least);¹⁸ and it is in any case not clear that we should assume from the one word in Arius’ letter that he had actually been Lucian’s student. Wallace-Hadrill notes¹⁹ that Arius is not named by Philostorgius in his lists²⁰ of Lucian’s pupils, and supposes that the Lucianists formed a coherent political and theological grouping quite independently of Arius. Certainly, if Philostorgius is to be believed, there were real theological divergences between this group and Arius,²¹ and the later ‘neo-Arians’²² of the mid-century traced their theological ancestry back to the Lucianists rather than Arius. This is not entirely conclusive: Philostorgius is not by any means a reliable source, and we need not, in any case, assume that he ever means to give a full list of Lucian’s pupils. But the anti-Nicene theological tradition evidently preserved the memory of a certain distance between Arius and some of his allies; it cannot be taken for granted that Arius was a disciple of Lucian in the sense that others such as Eusebius of Nicomedia claimed to be, even if he had attended lectures by the martyr. ‘Fellow-Lucianist’ may be no more than a captatio benevolentiae – laying claim to common ground with potential supporters; or it may rest on the fact that Arius had studied, in Antioch or Nicomedia, with Lucian. It is very doubtful whether it tells us much about what lies behind Arius’ utterances in terms of theological formation.

Likewise, although he is described as a skilled dialectician,²³ we cannot with confidence reconstruct a philosophical education. If he was (as has been argued)²⁴ indebted to certain currents in revived Aristotelianism and Iamblichus’ version of Neoplatonism, he could have encountered such teaching in Syria around 300, when Iamblichus himself was teaching at Antioch and Apamea.²⁵ Iamblichus’ teacher Anatolius was probably the Alexandrian Christian Aristotelian described with some veneration by Eusebius;²⁶ he ended his life (we do not know exactly when, but probably in the 270s) as bishop of Laodicaea, and seems to have been caught up at some point in the struggle against Paul of Samosata. A tempting candidate for the role of Arius’ mentor he is still regrettably a shadowy figure: no evidence connects him directly with the heresiarch, and we should have to push the date of Arius’ birth a good way back into the 250s to make any personal contact possible. Links with Anatolius and his celebrated pagan pupil, a period of studying philosophy in Syria – these are intriguing possibilities, but no more.

Whatever the nature and extent of his putative earlier travels, the Arius who at last emerges into clear historical light at the end of the second decade of the fourth century is firmly anchored in Alexandria, presbyter of an important church and a popular preacher with a reputation for asceticism. Epiphanius’ pen-portrait²⁷ is worth reproducing:

He was very tall in stature,²⁸ with downcast countenance²⁹ – counterfeited like a guileful serpent, and well able to deceive any unsuspecting heart through its cleverly designed appearance. For he was always garbed in a short cloak (hēmiphorion) and sleeveless tunic (kolobion); he spoke gently, and people found him persuasive and flattering.

The sleeveless tunic is reminiscent of the exōmis worn both by philosophers and by ascetics: Philo³⁰ mentions that the contemplative Therapeutae of his day were dressed thus. Arius’ costume would have identified him easily as a teacher of the way of salvation – a guru, we might almost say. It is not surprising that Epiphanius also notes³¹ that he had the care of seventy women living a life of ascetic seclusion, presumably attached to his church. What we do not know is precisely how long Arius had occupied this influential post; as already noted, he is said to have been ordained by Achillas, and, according to Theodoret,³² Achillas’ successor Alexander gave him authority to ‘expound the Scriptures in church’. So we can perhaps trace Arius’ public career back as far as 313, and assume that, for most of this decade, he ministered at the church which Epiphanius calls ‘Baucalis’³³ – a respected cleric of some seniority, with a high reputation as a spiritual director. Before 313, nothing is clear; however, one story surfaces in the middle of the fifth century which has been widely believed, and, before going any further, it is necessary to look briefly at this. It is the allegation made by Sozomen³⁴ that Arius was involved in the most serious internal disruption of Egyptian church life prior to the controversy over his own teaching: the schism initiated in 306 by Melitius, bishop of Lycopolis.

2 THE TROUBLES OF THE ALEXANDRIAN CHURCH I: THE MELITIAN SCHISM

In February 303, Diocletian initiated what was to prove the most serious and sustained persecution the Christian Church had so far endured. In the eastern part of the empire and in Africa, martyrdom became common; though in the West, Diocletian’s colleague Maximian and Maximian’s junior coadjutor Constantius, father of Constantine, did virtually nothing to further the persecution in their territories.³⁵ When, in 305, Diocletian abdicated in favour of his fanatically anti-Christian second-in-command, the Caesar Galerius, the situation in the East deteriorated further from the Church’s point of view. Galerius’ protégé Maximin was given the rank of Caesar and put in charge of Egypt and Syria (the civil diocese of ‘the East’, Oriens); under his supervision, the persecution continued with hardly any interruption³⁶ until 313, when Licinius seized power in the eastern empire. These eight years were a costly time for the Church in Egypt, in more senses than one.

Several bishops suffered in the persecution (though some such as Apollonius of Lycopolis in the Thebaid publicly apostatized);³⁷ and the prolonged imprisonment of a bishop would create obvious problems for his diocese. It seems that the bishops lost little time in devising a system whereby certain of their responsibilites were delegated to ‘visitors’ in case of an emergency:³⁸ these visitors would have seen to it that poor relief continued to be administered, and it is possible, though very far from certain, that (if they were presbyters) they also had some responsibility for the maintenance of preaching or catechesis.³⁹ Probably at some point late in 305 or early in 306, four Egyptian bishops, Hesychius, Pachomius, Theodorus and Phileas, wrote from prison to their confrere, the newly-appointed bishop of Lycopolis (Apollonius’ successor),⁴⁰ to complain that he had entered their dioceses and performed ordinations, contrary to established law and custom. If he should argue in his defence that there is a grave pastoral need to be met, this is far from the truth: there is no shortage of authorized visitors (circumeuntes et potentes visitare) - and, in any case, it is for the people of the diocese themselves to make representations to their bishops if they think they are being neglected. The sole circumstance in which such behaviour might be permitted would be if the bishop of Lycopolis had received a direct commission from the bishop of Alexandria;⁴¹ and this would only be possible in the event of a diocesan’s death and a subsequent interregnum. Melitius of Lycopolis has not consulted with the imprisoned bishops, nor, it appears, has he referred the alleged problems of the orphaned dioceses to Peter of Alexandria: he has ordained unsuitable and factious persons (for how could a peripatetic bishop judge the suitability of candidates in an unfamiliar diocese?), and caused grave divisions in the churches.

Peter, we gather, was absent from Alexandria, in flight or in hiding; later legend⁴² has him travelling beyond the imperial frontier in Mesopotamia, and spending long periods in Syria, Palestine and ‘the islands’ (Cyprus?), but the implications of the bishops’ letter are that he can be reached without too much difficulty. At this particular point, anyway, he is most unlikely to have been outside Egypt. This is reinforced by the fragment of narrative that follows the bishops’ letter in the codex (from the Chapter Library at Verona) which preserves the text:

After he had received and read this letter, he [Melitius] did not reply nor did he visit them in prison, nor did he go to blessed Peter: but when all these bishops, presbyters and deacons had been martyred in the prison in Alexandria,⁴³ he immediately entered Alexandria. There was a man called Isidore in the city, a regular troublemaker, eager to be a teacher [or: eager to run his own faction];⁴⁴ and also a certain Arius, who had an outward appearance of piety, and he too was eager to be a t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Introduction: Images of a Heresy
• Part I Arius and the Nicene Crisis
• Part II Arius and Theology
• Part III Arius and Philosophy
• Postscript (Theological)
• Appendix 1: Arius since 1987
• Appendix 2: Credal Documents
• Notes
• Abbreviations
• Bibliography