<\/p>\n
Inside of the oldest church in Egypt<\/em><\/p>\n We have a significant cast of characters when we talk about 4th<\/sup>-5th<\/sup>-century controversies. It might be helpful if we first listed them up front, sort of like a Russian novel giving all the main players and their relationships in a list before the story gets started.<\/p>\n The interesting thing about really believing that God is involved in history, not just back then there, but in an ongoing way\u2014speaking, acting, moving, informing, shaping, inspiring, calling\u2014means that we should be able to look for God in all of these persons, even the heretics. God doesn\u2019t raise up heresies to trip us, but he does\u2014indeed he must if we believe he is Lord of history\u2014move through all these events and conversations in ways that lead to his final purpose. So this is no melodrama, where the bad guys should be booed and hissed off the stage because they are thoroughly vile creatures. They are simultaneously actors\u2014meaning active agents, participants\u2014and instruments of God\u2019s will. But perhaps that is going too far afield for now\u2026<\/p>\n So, for this post, let me just list the characters that will star in the show, and give very brief introductions. We will meet them all more intimately as we go along. You may want to refer back to this post occasionally in the weeks to come.<\/p>\n Arius<\/em> <\/strong>: (c. 256-336), an Egyptian churchman; we met him in the last post. Arius was quite concerned to preserve the Oneness of God, and thus found the divinity of Jesus rather problematic. Exactly how does One + One + One = One? He did not solve this problem by tossing out Jesus\u2019 divinity, as a modern Unitarian might, but by redefining that divinity. So Arius insisted he was a Trinitarian, and used all the Trinitarian language, but he constructed a hierarchical divinity, where Jesus was something more than human and yet less than fully God. This was an enormously popular solution; it created a scenario where believers could give all kinds of praise to the Christ as the favored instrument of the divine, yet never complicate the monotheism and transcendence of the one true God. This solution lingers today in some form in Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses theology.<\/p>\n Alexander<\/em> <\/strong>: (d. 326), bishop of Alexandria in Egypt. Here is Arius\u2019 first opponent, a fiery earlier defender of Trinitarianism as it had been believed and practiced in the first three centuries of the church. Since Arius probably outlived him by a decade or so, Alexander had a hard time keeping up with the work of rebuttal.<\/p>\n Eusebius of Nicomedia<\/em> <\/strong>: (d. 341), a bishop and supporter of Arius\u2019 thinking; he liked to emphasize the term \u201cunbegotten\u201d as the summation of God\u2019s essence, which clearly creates an issue with the \u201conly-begotten\u201d status of Jesus. If Jesus is the \u201conly-begotten,\u201d does that mean that he had a beginning? That there is only One who, not having a beginning, is God?<\/p>\n Eusebius of Caesarea<\/em><\/strong> : (c. 263-339) [TWO Eusebiuses? Seriously?]; a notable church historian; he rejected Arius\u2019 ideas, but couldn\u2019t quite bring Jesus up to the level of God the Father, so we end up with a subpar God indwelling Christ. Clearly, he ended up more sympathetic with the Arian compromise than he did with the orthodox mystery.<\/p>\n Asterius<\/em> <\/strong>: (d. 341); known as a philosopher and, having caved under persecution and sacrificed to pagan gods as a way to avoid death and torture, he was never allowed to hold church office. A significant supporter of Arius, he tweaked Arian thought in ways he hoped would make it more palatable to those orthodox nuisances. Tweak away, Asterius, but Athanasius is going to have you for lunch.<\/p>\n Marcellus<\/em><\/strong> : (c. 374); bishop of Ancyra (modern-day Ankara, capital of Turkey). Marcellus strongly opposed Arian thinking, but came up with a solution that ultimately was also unacceptable to orthodoxy. Nothing quite like forcefully opposing a heretic and then becoming one.<\/p>\n Athanasius<\/em><\/strong> : (c. 296-378), at first Alexander\u2019s deacon assistant, and then successor as bishop of Alexandria. Though he had that position for forty-six years, he spent more than one-third of that time in exile, banished by Arian supporters, including the Emperor. It is famously told of Athanasius that, having been exiled for the fifth time, the Emperor said to him with exasperation, \u201cAthanasius, don\u2019t you know that the whole world is against you?\u201d To which Athanasius replied, \u201cOh no, it\u2019s Athanasius against the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n Gregory of Nyssa<\/em> <\/strong>: (c. 335-395), bishop of Nyssa and one of the famed Cappadocian Fathers, a threesome of theologians who contributed a great deal to the shaping of Trinitarian language, including the Creed. One of the three was Gregory of Nyssa\u2019s brother, Basil of Caesarea, and the other was another Gregory, Gregory of Nazianzus.<\/p>\n (We pause here to remember Basil and Gregory\u2019s sister, Macrina, also a saint of the church. While we don\u2019t have evidence that Macrina was instrumental in the Trinitarian resolution, take a look at their family life. Macrina was the older sister, and most reports have her undertaking the religious training of her younger brothers. Gregory talks about her with great reverence, and wrote a couple of treatises about her life and thought. Shall we really imagine that Gregory and Basil never had meaningful conversations with Macrina about the Trinity? That Macrina\u2019s own deep spirituality had no influence on her brothers\u2019 work? Um, I don\u2019t think so. I\u2019m herewith including her as one of our Trinitarian heroes, though a silent one.)<\/p>\n Augustine <\/strong>:<\/em> (354-430), bishop of Hippo, in northern Africa, and famed author, theologian, and key shaper of Western Christian spirituality. (The Eastern church likes him too, but not as much as the West does. They have \u201cissues\u201d with some of his ideas on sin and grace. But again, not something for us to discuss here and now.)<\/p>\n (Another aside: Augustine\u2019s mother, Monica, had an enormous influence on Augustine, and we cannot deny that some part of his thinking developed in conversation with her. Another silent participant.)<\/p>\n There are other characters in the drama, some major and some minor, and some of those will get introduced along the way, but these are the ones Anatolios identifies as the focus of his study, so for the most part, that\u2019s where we\u2019ll play too.<\/p>\n As we meet these theologians and writers, we might find their arguments petty or puny, and when we do, we must keep a spirit of humility about us. Their worldview and their philosophical presuppositions may not align with ours. Their arguments may sound too weird to be wonderful. The easy way out of all this is to just shrug our shoulders and say, \u201cWell, no wonder they got their panties in a wad. They\u2019re thinking in mental categories that we no longer care about or that we understand better. Therefore, their conversations are meaningless to us.\u201d<\/p>\n