Good morning all,
It seems that one user, AndriesvN, added three sections to the start of this page over the summer. All three come off as partisan and polemical, not fitting with the tone or scope of wikipedia. There is a lot of good, nuanced information in those sections, but it is presented unprofessionally, so I've moved it to here until AndriesvN or another user can add the information back in in a more polished, less polemical way.
--MarkusAureliusMarcoMark (talk) 15:14, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
Was Arius the "founder" of Arianism?
In the textbook account of the 'Arian' Controversy, Arius was "the founder of Arianism." However, "in the first few decades of the present (20th) century … seminally important work was … done in the sorting-out of the chronology of the controversy, and in the isolation of a hard core of reliable primary documents." Consequently, "the four decades since 1960 have produced much revisionary scholarship on the Trinitarian and Christological disputes of the fourth century." With respect to Arius, that scholarship now concludes:
"We are not to think of Arius as dominating and directing a single school of thought to which all his allies belonged."
"Arius' role in 'Arianism' was not that of the founder of a sect. It was not his individual teaching that dominated the mid-century eastern Church."
"Arius evidently made converts to his views … but he left no school of disciples."
The Son's precise relationship with the Father had been discussed for decades before Arius's advent. Arius' dispute with his bishop intensified the controversy:
"The views of Arius were such as … to bring into unavoidable prominence a doctrinal crisis which had gradually been gathering. … He was the spark that started the explosion. But in himself he was of no great significance."
After the Nicene Council, Arius and his theology were irrelevant:
"Arius' own theology is of little importance in understanding the major debates of the rest of the century."
Others like Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of Nicomedia proved much more influential in the long run. In fact, some later Arians disavowed the name, claiming not to have been familiar with the man or his specific teachings.[10]
"Those who suspected or openly repudiated the decisions of Nicaea … certainly (did not have) a loyalty to the teaching of Arius as an individual theologian." "Arius was suspect in the eyes of the Lucianists and their neo-Arian successors."
Why is the controversy named after Arius?
If Arius was of no great significance, as stated above, why is the controversy named after him? Some argue that, because the conflict between Arius and his foes brought the issue to the theological forefront, the doctrine they said he proclaimed—though he had definitely not originated—is generally labeled as "his". But scholars now conclude as follows:
- "The textbook picture of an Arian system … inspired by the teachings of the Alexandrian presbyter, is the invention of Athanasius' polemic."
- "'Arianism' is the polemical creation of Athanasius above all."
- "'Arianism' as a coherent system, founded by a single great figure and sustained by his disciples, is a fantasy … based on the polemic of Nicene writers, above all Athanasius."
Athanasius' purpose was to create the impression that, although the various anti-Nicene views seem to differ, they all constituted a single coherent system; all based on Arius' teachings. For example:
- "Athanasius' controversial energies … are dedicated to building up the picture of his enemies as uniformly committed … to a specific set of doctrines advanced by Arius and a small group of confederates."
- "The professed purpose of Athanasius … is to exhibit the essential continuity of Arianism from first to last beneath a deceptive appearance of variety, all non-Nicene formularies of belief really lead back to the naked 'blasphemies of Arius'."
- "Athanasius ... was determined to show that any proposed alternative to the Nicene formula collapsed back into some version of Arius' teaching, with all the incoherence and inadequacy that teaching displayed."
Athanasius' purpose, therefore, was to argue, since Arius' theology was already formally rejected by the church, that all opposition to the Nicene Creed was also already rejected. However:
- "'Arianism,' throughout most of the fourth century, was in fact a loose and uneasy coalition of those hostile to Nicaea in general and the homoousios in particular."
- "Scholars continue to talk as if there were a clear continuity among non-Nicene theologians by deploying such labels as Arians, semi-Arians, and neo-Arians. Such presentations are misleading."
- "There was no such thing in the fourth century as a single, coherent 'Arian' party."
For that reason:
- "The expression 'the Arian Controversy' is a serious misnomer."
- "'Arianism' is a very unhelpful term to use in relation to fourth-century controversy."
- "This controversy is mistakenly called Arian."
Arius' writings
Very little of Arius' writing has survived. "As far as his own writings go, we have no more than three letters, (and) a few fragments of another." The three are:
- The confession of faith Arius presented to Alexander of Alexandria,
- His letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, and
- The confession he submitted to the emperor.
"The Thalia is Arius' only known theological work" but "we do not possess a single complete and continuous text." We only have extracts from it in the writings of Arius' enemies, "mostly from the pen of Athanasius of Alexandria, his bitterest and most prejudiced enemy."
Emperor Constantine ordered their burning while Arius was still living. Some recent scholars have concluded that so little survived because "the people of his day, whether they agreed with him or not, did not regard him (Arius) as a particularly significant writer".
Those works which have survived are quoted in the works of churchmen who denounced him as a heretic. This leads some—but not all—scholars to question their reliability.[25] For example Bishop R.P.C. Hanson wrote:
"Athanasius, a fierce opponent of Arius … certainly would not have stopped short of misrepresenting what he said."
"Athanasius... may be suspected of pressing the words maliciously rather further than Arius intended."
Archbishop Rowan Williams agrees that Athanasius applied "unscrupulous tactics in polemic and struggle". MarkusAureliusMarcoMark (talk) 15:14, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
- @MarkusAureliusMarcoMark: Yeah, whatever. Since you removed the quotes, please write some coherent prose based upon those WP:RS. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:20, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
- Hey! I don't have the time right now to re-insert all of these in their relevant spots on the article, but I figured this might be a good opportunity for the original editor to prove themselves and re-insert things in a more nuanced way. I looked through their contributions and they seem to be pretty uniformly making wikipedia a worse place by confusing terms and adding in block quotes from scholars rather than keeping with the spirit of Wikipedia in tone or content. --MarkusAureliusMarcoMark (talk) 15:27, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
References
Kopeck, M R (1985). "Neo Arian Religion: Evidence of the Apostolic Constitutions". Arianism: Historical and Theological Reassessments: 160–162.
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