4 - Trinity: The Christian God In about 320 a fierce theological passion had seized the churches of Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor. Sailors and travellers were singing versions of popular ditties that proclaimed that the Father alone was true God, inaccessible and unique, but that the Son was neither coeternal nor uncreated, since he received life and being from the Father. We hear of a bath-attendant who harangued the bathers, insisting that the Son came from nothingness, of a money-changer who, when asked for the exchange rate, prefaced his reply with a long disquisition on the distinction between the created order and the uncreated God and of a baker who informed his customer that the Father was greater than the Son. People were discussing these abstruse questions with the same enthusiasm as they discuss football today. {1} The controversy had been kindled by Arius, a charismatic and handsome presbyter of Alexandria, who had a soft, impressive voice and a strikingly melancholy face. He had issued a challenge which his Bishop Alexander found impossible to ignore but even more difficult to rebut: how could Jesus Christ have been God in the same way as God the Father? Arius was not denying the divinity of Christ; indeed, he called Jesus 'strong God' and 'full God' {2} but he argued that it was blasphemous to think that he was divine by nature: Jesus had specifically said that the Father was greater than he. Alexander and his brilliant young assistant Athanasius immediately realised that this was no mere theological nicety. Arius was asking vital questions about the nature of God. In the meantime, Arius, a skilful propagandist, had set his ideas to music and soon the laity were debating the issue as passionately as their bishops.
The controversy became so heated that the emperor Constantine himself intervened and summoned a synod to Nicaea in modern Turkey to settle the issue. Today Arius's name is a byword for heresy but when the conflict broke out there was no officially orthodox position and it was by no means certain why or even whether Arius was wrong. There was nothing new about his claim: Origen, whom both sides held in high esteem, had taught a similar doctrine. Yet the intellectual climate in Alexandria had changed since Origen's day and people were no longer convinced that the God of Plato could be successfully wedded with the God of the Bible. Arius, Alexander and Athanasius, for example, had come to believe a doctrine that would have startled any Platonist: they considered that God had created the world out of nothing (ex nihilo), basing their opinion on scripture. In fact, Genesis had not made this claim. The Priestly author had implied that God had created the world out of the primordial chaos and the notion that God had summoned the whole universe from an absolute vacuum was entirely new. It was alien to Greek thought and had not been taught by such theologians as Clement and Origen, who had held to the Platonic scheme of emanation. But by the fourth century, Christians shared the Gnostic view of the world as inherently fragile and imperfect, separated from God by a vast chasm. The new doctrine of creation ex nihilo emphasised this view of the cosmos as quintessentially frail and utterly dependent upon God for being and life. God and humanity were no longer akin, as in Greek thought. God had summoned every single being from an abysmal nothingness and at any moment he could withdraw his sustaining hand. There was no longer a great chain of being emanating eternally from God; there was no longer an intermediate world of spiritual beings who transmitted the divine mana to the world. Men and women could no longer ascend the chain of being to God by their own efforts. Only the God who had drawn them from nothingness in the first place and kept them perpetually in being could assure their eternal salvation.
Christians knew that Jesus Christ had saved them by his death and resurrection; they had been redeemed from extinction and would one day share the existence of God, who was Being and Life itself. Somehow Christ had enabled them to cross the gulf that separated God from humanity. The question was how had he done it? On which side of the Great Divide was he? There was now no longer a Pleroma, a Place of Fullness of intermediaries and aeons. Either Christ, the Word, belonged to the divine realm (which was now the domain of God alone) or he belonged to the fragile created order. Arius and Athanasius put him on opposite sides of the gulf: Athanasius in the divine world and Arius in the created order. Arius wanted to emphasise the essential difference between the unique God and all his creatures. As he wrote to Bishop Alexander, God was 'the only unbegotten, the only eternal, the only one without beginning, the only true, the only one who has immortality, the only wise, the only good, the only potentate'. {3} Arius knew the scriptures well and he produced an armoury of texts to support his claim that Christ the Word could only be a creature like ourselves. A key passage was the description of the divine Wisdom in Proverbs, which stated explicitly that God had created Wisdom at the very beginning. {4} This text also stated that Wisdom had been the agent of creation, an idea repeated in the Prologue of St John's Gospel.
By
Karen Armstrong
4 - Trinity: The Christian God
In about 320 a fierce theological passion had seized the churches of Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor. Sailors and travellers were singing versions
of popular ditties that proclaimed that the Father alone was true God, inaccessible and unique, but that the Son was neither coeternal nor
uncreated, since he received life and being from the Father. We hear of a bath-attendant who harangued the bathers, insisting that the Son came
from nothingness, of a money-changer who, when asked for the exchange rate, prefaced his reply with a long disquisition on the distinction
between the created order and the uncreated God and of a baker who informed his customer that the Father was greater than the Son. People
were discussing these abstruse questions with the same enthusiasm as they discuss football today. {1} The controversy had been kindled by
Arius, a charismatic and handsome presbyter of Alexandria, who had a soft, impressive voice and a strikingly melancholy face. He had issued a
challenge which his Bishop Alexander found impossible to ignore but even more difficult to rebut: how could Jesus Christ have been God in
the same way as God the Father? Arius was not denying the divinity of Christ; indeed, he called Jesus 'strong God' and 'full God' {2} but he
argued that it was blasphemous to think that he was divine by nature: Jesus had specifically said that the Father was greater than he. Alexander
and his brilliant young assistant Athanasius immediately realised that this was no mere theological nicety. Arius was asking vital questions
about the nature of God. In the meantime, Arius, a skilful propagandist, had set his ideas to music and soon the laity were debating the issue as
passionately as their bishops.
The controversy became so heated that the emperor Constantine himself intervened and summoned a synod to Nicaea in modern Turkey to
settle the issue. Today Arius's name is a byword for heresy but when the conflict broke out there was no officially orthodox position and it was
by no means certain why or even whether Arius was wrong. There was nothing new about his claim: Origen, whom both sides held in high
esteem, had taught a similar doctrine. Yet the intellectual climate in Alexandria had changed since Origen's day and people were no longer
convinced that the God of Plato could be successfully wedded with the God of the Bible. Arius, Alexander and Athanasius, for example, had
come to believe a doctrine that would have startled any Platonist: they considered that God had created the world out of nothing (ex nihilo),
basing their opinion on scripture. In fact, Genesis had not made this claim. The Priestly author had implied that God had created the world out
of the primordial chaos and the notion that God had summoned the whole universe from an absolute vacuum was entirely new. It was alien to
Greek thought and had not been taught by such theologians as Clement and Origen, who had held to the Platonic scheme of emanation. But by
the fourth century, Christians shared the Gnostic view of the world as inherently fragile and imperfect, separated from God by a vast chasm.
The new doctrine of creation ex nihilo emphasised this view of the cosmos as quintessentially frail and utterly dependent upon God for being
and life. God and humanity were no longer akin, as in Greek thought. God had summoned every single being from an abysmal nothingness and
at any moment he could withdraw his sustaining hand. There was no longer a great chain of being emanating eternally from God; there was no
longer an intermediate world of spiritual beings who transmitted the divine mana to the world. Men and women could no longer ascend the
chain of being to God by their own efforts. Only the God who had drawn them from nothingness in the first place and kept them perpetually in
being could assure their eternal salvation.
Christians knew that Jesus Christ had saved them by his death and resurrection; they had been redeemed from extinction and would one day
share the existence of God, who was Being and Life itself. Somehow Christ had enabled them to cross the gulf that separated God from
humanity. The question was how had he done it? On which side of the Great Divide was he? There was now no longer a Pleroma, a Place of
Fullness of intermediaries and aeons. Either Christ, the Word, belonged to the divine realm (which was now the domain of God alone) or he
belonged to the fragile created order. Arius and Athanasius put him on opposite sides of the gulf: Athanasius in the divine world and Arius in
the created order.
Arius wanted to emphasise the essential difference between the unique God and all his creatures. As he wrote to Bishop Alexander, God was
'the only unbegotten, the only eternal, the only one without beginning, the only true, the only one who has immortality, the only wise, the only
good, the only potentate'. {3} Arius knew the scriptures well and he produced an armoury of texts to support his claim that Christ the Word
could only be a creature like ourselves. A key passage was the description of the divine Wisdom in Proverbs, which stated explicitly that God
had created Wisdom at the very beginning. {4} This text also stated that Wisdom had been the agent of creation, an idea repeated in the
Prologue of St John's Gospel.