Did Arius Teach That Time Existed Before the Son?

Abstract: This article examines the common historical claim—originated by opponents such as Athanasius—that the fourth-century theologian Arius taught that literal time preceded the Son of God. Drawing on modern patristic scholarship, the study demonstrates that this attribution misrepresents Arius. While Arius maintained that the Father existed prior to the Son in a metaphysical or logical sense within the timeless infinity beyond the cosmos, he viewed the Son as existing timelessly before the creation of the universe and ordinary chronological time.

Table of Contents

Overview

The Arian Controversy is named after the 4th-century teacher Arius. Very little of his own writings survived. Almost everything we know about him comes from the writings of his enemies, mainly Athanasius, who claimed that Arius said there was ‘time’ before the Son existed.

That is not what Arius taught. He maintained that the Son existed BEFORE time. Therefore, in terms of literal time, the Son had always existed. However, he argued that, in the timeless infinity beyond time, the Father existed before the Son.

Authors Cited

The current article quotes mainly from:
• R.P.C. Hanson’s The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God;
• Rowan Williams’ Arius: Heresy and Tradition; and
• Lewis Ayres’ Nicaea and its Legacy.

This article uses codes for certain ancient documents:

EoN – Arius’ letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia
AoA – Arius’ letter to Alexander of Alexandria
De Synodis – Athanasius’ quote of Arius
A1 – Alexander’s first letter in which he explains why he excommunicated Arius
A2 – Alexander’s second letter

The Contradiction

The Son did not always exist.

The Nicene Creed condemns Arius’s view that “There was when He was not.” Arius himself wrote that the Son did not exist before He was begotten, for he is not eternal and does not exist without cause, but attained existence by the Father’s will:

“Before he was begotten or created or determined or established, he did not exist” (EoN, Hanson, p. 6). [Show More]

The Father existed before the Son.

Arius furthermore argued that, since the Father is the origin of everything, He is also the origin of the Son, and the Son does not exist without a cause. That means that the Father must have existed before the Son. The ‘Arians’ argued that, if the Son had always existed, there would have been “two unoriginated ultimate principles,” meaning, two Beings who exist without cause, and who caused all else, which is impossible:

“Nor does he possess being parallel with the Father … thereby introducing two unoriginated ultimate principles, but as the … origin of everything, so God is prior to everything. Therefore, he is also prior to the Son” (AoA, Hanson, p. 8). [Show More]

Eusebius of Caesarea, regarded as the most scholarly bishop of Arius’s time and the real leader of the so-called Arians, argued similarly that anyone would allow that a father exists before a son. He said that the titles Father and Son imply that the Father is the cause of the Son’s existence. Therefore, the Father and the Son cannot have co-existed eternally. Rather, the Father precedes the Son in eternal existence. [Show More]

The Son had a beginning.

Therefore, Arius argued, the Son had a beginning of existence, in contrast to the Father, who had no beginning:

“We praise him [the Father] as without beginning in contrast to him who has a beginning [the Son]” (De Synodis, Hanson, pp. 14, 31). [Show More]

Time existed before the Son.

According to Arius’s two main enemies, Athanasius and Alexander, Arius said that there was ‘time’ before the Son existed. For example, Athanasius, in his paraphrasing of Arius’ teaching, stated that Arius taught:

“God was not always Father, but there was a time when he was solitary. The Son did not always exist” (Hanson, p. 13). [Show More]

The Son existed before Time.

On the other hand, since God created all things through His Son (e.g., Col 1:16; Heb 1:2), Arius maintained that the Son existed before all things. Since ‘all things’ include time, Arius wrote that the Son was begotten timelessly before times and before ages. [Show More]

In other words, there never was a time when the Son did not exist. If we assume that “the beginning” in John 1:1 was when all things were created, then Arius would have said that the Logos was with God “in the beginning.” Eusebius of Caesarea similarly taught that the Son was “before everything and before all ages” and “before all time” (Hanson, p. 56).

The Explanation

So, how can the Son exist before time, if time exists before the Son?

No time before the Son

Firstly, Arius never said that ‘time’ existed before the Son. Very little of Arius’s own writings has survived, but in what has survived, he never used the word “time” to say that there was time before the Son was begotten. It was his enemies who claimed that he taught that there was “time” before the Son existed. Alexander attempted to force the Arians to admit that they teach that time existed before the Son. [Show More]

The Son has always existed.

Secondly, 4th-century theologians believed that time began with God’s creation of the world. We would say time began when God created the universe. Consequently, time is limited to our universe. In the ‘Arian’ view, in the literal time of our universe, the Son has always existed.

Arius did not want to say that there was normal or literal time before God produced the Son. In his view, God first produced the Son, but if God did create time before he produced the Son, then the literal time before the Son would be “an INSTANT of time or an infinitesimal reality” (Williams, p. 189).

The Father preceded the Son.

However, thirdly, in the incomprehensible reality beyond our universe, where God exists, time does not exist. Arius said that the gap between Father and Son “may be temporal or logical.” If it is “logical,” it is a gap in that infinity beyond time. If we use the terms ‘always’ and ‘before’ in a metaphysical sense, we can say that the Father had ‘always’ existed in the incomprehensible and timeless reality beyond our universe, and that He existed ‘before’ He produced the Son and created the cosmos. In that reality, the Father existed without the Son, but it is not normal or literal time; it is metaphorical time.

Williams interprets Eusebius of Caesarea as presenting the same concept. From our perspective, existing in time, the Son is eternal, the Father and Son are coeternal, and the Son has always existed. But in the infinite and timeless reality beyond time, the Father exists ‘before the Son. [Show More]

Hanson explains the same principle in different words. He says that, in the Arian view, the Father brought the Son into existence before time existed. [Show More]

Consequently, Arius said, “there was when He was not” – the phrase that was anathematized by the Nicene Creed, which was without the word “time” added. The addition of the word ‘time’ was maliciously added by Arius’s opponents to ridicule his theology.