Scholars regard R.P.C. Hanson’s The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (1988) as a landmark contribution to Early Church history and Trinitarian theology. In Nicaea and its Legacy (2004), Lewis Ayres notes that his work is “not intended to replace the standard large surveys by Richard Hanson and Manlio Simonetti (1975),” but instead builds on them and “in some measure advances on their texts” (Ayres, p. 5). Although Simonetti’s book is unavailable in English, Hanson’s is widely viewed as its updated counterpart.
What follows is my attempt to summarize, as faithfully as possible, the conclusions of chapter 3.1 of Hanson’s book, “Arius’s Possible Predecessors.”
Introduction
Scholars have proposed many possible predecessors, but no consensus exists.
Philo
Arius agreed in some respects with Philo, but Philo’s Logos-doctrine is confused and obscure. He cannot be regarded as Arius’s ancestor.
Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria should also not be regarded as a predecessor of Arius. His two Logoi differ significantly from Arius’s, and he affirms the eternity of the Son.
Gnostic doctrines
Arius’s thought shows certain resemblances to Gnostic doctrines, such as that the Father is the sole unoriginated being, in contrast to the originated Demiurge, but these resemblances are too general and involve terms that are being used in different senses. Moreover, Arius rejects the characteristically Gnostic idea of beings proceeding from God by “issue” or “emanation.”
Novatian
Although Novatian openly subordinated the Son to the Father, there is no evidence that he influenced Arius. Indeed, Novatian’s emanationist language would have been deeply objectionable to Arius.
Origen
Marcellus and Epiphanius of Ancyra claimed that the Arians had learned from Origen, but scholars disagree about the extent of Origen’s influence on Arius:
Both Origen and Arius rejected the view that the Son is produced by the Father as an “issue.”
Both described the Son as a “creature,” existing by the Father’s will. But Origen also described the Logos as coeternal with God. He calls him a creature only because, in him, God had formed the ideas of all future creation. This is very different from Arius’s doctrine of a Son created at a particular point.
Both subordinated the Son to the Father. However, for Origen, this subordination occurs within a graded Godhead, so that the distinct Persons share the same nature.
For Origen, the incarnate Word has a human soul. Arius and all Arians denied that the incarnate Word had any human soul.
Origen maintained the eternal generation of the Son by the Father and rejected Arius’s later claim that “there was a time when he did not exist.”
Both Origen and Arius recognize three hypostases. However, Origen’s vision of three entities united by a common nature has no place in Arius’s thought.
It is very unlikely that Origen described the Son as consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father, but this does not prove that Arius inherited his antipathy to the word from Origen.
Both believed that the Father knows himself better than the Son knows him. However, for Origen, the Son participates in God’s immutable goodness, which is God’s essence. Origen’s unity of Father and Son and, therefore, the Son’s knowledge of the Father, is much more than envisaged by Arius.
In conclusion, although Arius probably inherited some terms and ideas from Origen, he certainly did not adopt any large or significant part of Origen’s theology.
Paul of Samosata
Many scholars have conjectured that Paul of Samosata’s views must have influenced Arius. Such scholars assume that Paul taught some form of Adoptionism.
However, if Paul’s teaching can be reconstructed at all, it seems more likely to have inspired a school of thought strongly opposed to Arianism, namely the Sabellians. Arius firmly believed in a pre-existent Son; by contrast, Paul apparently regarded the historical Jesus Christ as a mere man without any pre-existent history. This was precisely the sort of claim that Arians consistently rejected.
Dionysius of Alexandria
Arians claimed Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria (247/8–264/5), as an important earlier authority who supported their doctrine. Like the Arians, for Dionysius, the Son of God:
- is a creature,
- is not homoousios with the Father, just as the vine-planter is alien from the vine,
- did not exist before he came into existence, and
- is lower in power and glory.
Furthermore, like Arius, Dionysius held that:
- There are three hypostases.
- The Holy Spirit is also a created thing.
Athanasius responded to the Arian claim by saying that Dionysius later revised his views. But Basil of Caesarea criticized Dionysius for sowing the seeds of the Anomoean error. Basil made no mention of any later modifications in Dionysius’s theology.
In conclusion, however Dionysius may have refined his later theology, it is impossible to avoid seeing some influence from his work in the theology of Arius.
Theognostus
Theognostus described the Son as not external, but as caused by the Father when God wanted to establish the universe. The Son issued from the Father’s ousia, like a ray from the sun, but the Father’s ousia remained undivided and unchanged.
This echoes Arian concerns that the Father is not divided, but describing the Son as an issue of the Father, and closely associating him with the Father’s ousia, are strongly un-Arian. Furthermore, Theognostus explicitly rejected the doctrine, certainly held by Arius, that the Son was created out of non-existence. There is therefore no satisfactory evidence that Theognostus was a predecessor of Arius.
Lucian of Antioch
Lucian, a presbyter of Antioch, was “well versed in sacred learning.” Several reasons have led scholars to look to Lucian for the origins of Arius’s theology. For example, Arius himself claimed to be a pupil of Lucian. We may be sure Arius drew on Lucian’s teaching, but we do not know what Lucian taught.
Methodius of Olympia
Finally, Methodius of Olympia should be considered as a possible source for Arius’s views. Although he was indebted to Origen in some respects, he was also among Origen’s earliest critics. Several of his views strikingly resemble Arius’s:
- God alone is ingenerate, the ‘unoriginated origin’. God the Son is the first of created things, the beginning after the beginning, the origin of everything else created.”
- The Son is wholly dependent on the Father.
- God the Father creates by his will alone; God the Son, the ‘hand’ of the Father, orders and adorns what the Father has created out of nothing.
Conclusions
Hanson begins his conclusions of chapter 3 as follows on page 95:
“The study of the Arian problem over the last hundred years has been like a long-distance gun trying to hit a target. The first sighting shots are very wide of the mark, but gradually the shells fall nearer and nearer. The diatribes of Gwatkin (1900) and of Harnack (1909), can today be completely ignored.”
“Boularand consistently treats Arianism, from the title of his book onwards, as if it had been from the outset an easily recognised heresy in contrast to a known and universally recognised orthodoxy, which is far from being the case.”
“More recent and more thorough examination of Arianism has brought a more realistic estimate of it.”
“Simonetti sees it as an extreme reaction against a Sabellianism which was at the time rife in the East, and a violent protest against the Alexandrian theology represented by bishop Alexander.”
“Stead sums up his impression of Arius’ thought in these words: ‘Arius draws upon a Platonic tradition evolving without the Church, rather than representing a violent incursion of alien philosophy. His theology fits naturally into place among the disputes which arose over the dispersal of Origen’s effects. His main debt to Origen is a subordinationist doctrine of the Son, which he greatly intensifies and divests of its qualifications. But he is indebted to Origen’s critics, especially Methodius, for the doctrine of the Father’s priority, which he considers necessary for monotheism. God the Father existed before all things and created all things out of nothing by his unprompted act of will.”
Theological Implications
The following points are not from Hanson, but are my own assessment of the theological implications:
(1) Arius did not develop his theology in isolation. He inherited ideas and categories from earlier Christian thinkers.
(2) Arian theology cannot be traced back to a single pre-Nicene “heresiarch” or master (such as Origen, Philo, or Paul of Samosata). Instead, Arius assembled an eclectic theology using ideas circulating within early Christian thought.
(3) Arianism did not arise suddenly. The Arian Controversy surrounding Arius may be better understood as the culmination of earlier theological trends rather than the invention of one individual.
(4) Pre-Nicene Christians did not hold the same Christology as later Nicene orthodoxy. The church’s understanding of the relationship between the Father and the Son was still being refined before Nicaea.
For more information, see my much longer summary of 3.1here.