Arianism and Eunomianism

The term Arian was coined by the Nicenes for those who agreed with the opinions of Arius of Alexandria (c. 256-336) from whom no complete theological works survive. Several epistles of Arius and his followers survive to our present day along with sections of his poem the Thalia which articulated the differences between the Father and the Son. He became famous in 318 when he began a dispute with his bishop, Alexander, over the generation of the Son of God. This was the start of the Arian controversy. 

“Arius, a presbyter in charge of the Church and district of Baucalis in Alexandria, publicly criticized the Christological doctrine of his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria.” (R. P. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, p. 3.) 

What were the complaints which Arius had against his bishop? Arius did not consider himself a dissenter and schismatic but rather wrote to Alexander and described his teaching as "our faith from our forefathers, which we also learned from you." (De Synodis 16.2-5; Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses, 69.7-8, Hilary, De Trinitatae 4.12, 6.5.) On another occasion Arius wrote to Eusebius of Nicomedia (A prominent Arian presbyter who eventually baptized Emperor Constantine in the year 337. Both he and Arius, students of Lucian, were in fervent opposition to the Nicene Creed.) and referred to him as "faithful and orthodox," even as a "fellow student of Lucian." (Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, 1.5, Epiphanius, Adv. Haer. 69.6.) In the third paragraph of this same epistle, Arius makes the extraordinary claim,

 "All those in the East say that God pre-exists the Son without a beginning."

If all of the eastern clergy truly believed that God existed before the Son, then it was Athanasius who had the peculiar Christology, not Arius. At the Council of Antioch (341) the Arian bishops in attendance proclaimed, 

"We have not been followers of Arius,—how could Bishops, such as we, follow a Presbyter?—nor did we receive any other faith beside that which has been handed down from the beginning… We believe, conformably to the evangelical and apostolic tradition." (De Synodis 2.22-25.)

The Arians did not claim to be inventing a new view of Christ, but claimed to be heirs of an ancient and apostolic tradition which was inherited from the great martyr Lucian of Antioch (c. 240-312). It should also be noted that the Arians freely used the term “Trinity” to designate the three divine persons, and as it was stated by Arius, “there is indeed a Trinity, through not of equal glories, ήγουν Τριάς ἐστι δόξαις οὐχ ὁμοίαις. (Thalia 16)

Eunomius of Cyzicus (died 393), another prominent Arian who "was heir to two distinct but related traditions: one was the 'expert' theology of the Eusebian school with its roots reaching through Lucian into a perceived apostolic past." (R. P. Vaggione, Eunomius, p. 74.) The Arian doctrine is that the Son is a secondary deity (δεύτερος θεός), or inferior God, a mediator between the true God and creatures. The Son is the first and greatest creature begotten by the Father, created but not created like other creatures. The Arians freely referred to Christ as "God" and "God the Word" but they meant this in an honorific sense, similar to how angelic beings are called "gods" in the Scriptures. The NIV Study Bible comments,

"In the language of the OT—and in accordance with the conceptual world of the ancient Near East—rulers and judges, as deputies of the heavenly King, could be given the honorific title 'god' (see note on 45:6; see also NIV text notes on Ex 21:6; 22:8) or be called 'son of God.'" (The NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), p. 866.)

In this extended sense they would call Jesus "God" but the Arians would emphasize that the the Father alone is given titles such as "only God," (St. Joh. 5:44; 1 Tim. 1:17; St. Jude 25.) "only wise God," (Rom. 16:27.) "only true God," (St. Joh. 17:3.) and "one God," (1 Cor. 8:6; 1 Tim. 2:5; Mal. 2:10.) but never are such descriptions given to the Son or Spirit in the New Testament. 

Those who believed the Son to be eternal had to regard his generation as an act of nature, which God had performed from eternity past by his own nature. If there was a time when the Son was not, then the Father could decide whether or not to beget a Son. Hence, the Arians were fond of saying the phrase, “there was a time when he was not,” or “there was once when he was not.” 

"Before he was begotten, or created, or defined, or established, he did not exist. For he was not unbegotten. But we are persecuted because we have said the Son has a beginning but God has no beginning." (Arius, Epistle to Eusebius of Nicomedia, 5.)

The sufferings, ignorance, and temptations of the Son were attributed to the Logos himself.  (St. Mk. 13:32; St. Matt. 24:36; 26:38, et al) But if he were eternal and therefore of the same substance as the Father, then he would be omniscient, impassible, and he would not be subject to such temptations in his divine nature. Which calls to mind the saying of St. Ignatius, 

"Being incorporeal, He was in the body, being impassible, He was in a passible body, being immortal, He was in a mortal body, being life." (Eph. 7:2, Long version.)  

The favorite proof text of the Arians was Prov. 8:22, 23 where divine Wisdom, the pre-existent Logos says, "The Lord created me, the beginning of his ways, he established me before the ages in the beginning, before he made the earth." Prov. 8:25, "before the mountains were settled, and before all hills, he begets me." St. Paul says that Christ is "the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation," which the orthodox applied to the human nature of Christ. (Athanasius, Expos. Fid. 1) However the Arians applied it to the divinity of Christ. Besides these texts, the Arians gestured to the many passages which describe the Son as begotten, only-begotten or first-born. (St. Joh. 1:14, 18; Heb. 1:6, et al) 

The Arians described the Holy Spirit as a third person or υπόστασις who was created from nothing through the Son and often used the absolute language of St. John 1:3 to demonstrate that the Spirit was a creature. (The reasoning being that the Father and Son are mentioned in St. John 1:1-2 while the Spirit is not, therefore, the Spirit would have been included in the "things" created through the Father by the Son in the verses that follow. The argument is alluded to by the Arian bishop Ulfilas in his Expositio Fidei and St. John Chrysostom attempted to avoid the weight of this argument by appealing to an alternative punctuation of St. John 1:3-4 found in some Byzantine manuscripts. (Homily on St. John 1:3) 

The Spirit, then, was not co-equal with either the Father or the Son, but is the servant and minister of Christ. The Son is "only-begotten (μονογενής)" because he alone was directly created by the Father, the Spirit however was made through the Son, as were all other creatures. The Arians avoided any charge of polytheism by pointing out that the Son and Spirit were created and hence not "God" in the proper sense but were called "God" in a lesser or metaphorical sense, similar to how angels and exalted humans are called "gods" in the Scriptures. (Gen. 3:5; Exod. 15:11; 18:11; Deut. 10:17; Psa. 8:5; 82 (81):1, 6; 97 (96):7; St. Joh. 10:34.) 

The Arians were variously called Aetians, Eunomians, Eusebians, Eudoxians, after the names of prominent clergymen who represented their views. They were also named after their own theological terms and phrases as Anomeans, Heteroousians, Ekoukontians, Pneumatomachi, and Semi-Arians. (The Council of Constantinople (381) Canon 1.) At the time of the Nicene Council, Athanasius was a younger man aged about twenty seven and Arius was in his late sixties. The stature and personality of Arius is described by Epiphanius; he was a tall, ascetic and gaunt figure with an intense personality and careful attention to formalities whose lively style of oratory likely contributed to his popularity. (Epiphanius, Adv. Haer. 56.) Arius himself taught that the Father alone is God in the absolute sense, "he alone has no equal, no one similar, and no one of the same glory." (Athanasius, Cont. Arian. 1.5-6.) The transcendent divine essence of God is ultimately "inexpressible," άρρητος, to all creatures. The existence of God can be deduced from the natural world but to comprehend his essence is a different thing altogether. No creature can comprehend the divine essence to any degree without an act of divine revelation, therefore not even the Son completely knows the divine essence,

 "What reasoning allows that he who is from the Father should comprehend and know his own parent? For manifestly, that which has a beginning is not able to conceive of or grasp of the existence of that which has no beginning." (Ibid.) 

In this way, he must have explained the passages where the Logos is said to have been "taught" by God, and to have "increased in wisdom and in grace with God." (St. Joh. 8:28; St. Lk. 2:40, 52) Arius had believed that while God is incomprehensible in his essence, the Logos makes him comprehensible to the saints in a partial way. The Son was created for the specific purpose of serving as a mediator between the incomprehensible God and mankind. God reveals himself to the Logos, who, in turn, reveals him to mankind. This process of revelation will never be complete. Arius explains in his Thalia,

 "God is wise, for he himself is the teacher of Wisdom… He is invisible both to things which were made though the Son, and also to the Son himself. I will say specifically how the invisible is seen by the Son, by that power by which God is able to see, each according to his own measure, the Son can bear to see the Father as is determined."

To Arius, then, although one may deduce a generic monotheism from observing the general features of the universe, he can know nothing specific about the divine essence unless God by his "power" makes him "able to see... according to his own measure." If God alone is incomprehensible, unbegotten and eternal, the Son could not have existed without a beginning,

 "He who is without beginning made the Son a beginning of created things."

If the generation of the Son was an eternal generation then the Father must beget the Son by his very nature and both persons must be co-eternal. But conversely if begetting were an act of will rather than an act of nature, then the Son must be a creature, who was begotten freely by the will of the Father. (Athanasius, De Synodis 16.)