Talk:Arianism

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Talk:Arianism/Archive 1 21:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Please make more accessible to the the lay reader 2 Theodosius and Arianism in this Article 3 Idiots' guide 4 Arianism 5 "relevant" and "irrelevant" 6 For clarity's sake 7 Some General Concerns 8 Name Issues Persist

[edit] Please make more accessible to the the lay reader

Hello I came across this article and found the introduction very difficult to understand even though I know a little about the history of the christian church. I appreciate that theological concepts can be difficult to describe but I found the intro completely opaque. Please could you describe it in more simple language. Thanks 85.210.13.213 19:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Theodosius and Arianism in this Article

A large portion of the latter half of this article describes Theodosius and his role in early Christianity. Isn't this information extraneous in an article specifically about Arianism? -- DH

Thedosius forms a critical part of the history of Arianism, especially in Italy. Removing it would leave a huge question mark as to why it disappeared in Rome. 24.247.157.122 01:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Definitely. Theodosius essentially ended the Arian-Nicene conflict by bringing the apparatus of the Roman state decisively down on the Nicene side. --Jfruh 01:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Idiots' guide

I may have misunderstood this concept when I studied it at Uni, but I thought it could be summed up for idiots (like me) as follows:

First God was the Father... then the Son... and then he became the Holy Spirit

Is that simplistic rendering totally inaccurate? Or just usefully simplistic? Or just a waste of a couple of minutes' typing? --Dweller 14:35, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Are you talking about the views of mainstream Christianity, or Arianism? Christians who follow the Nicene creed (which is pretty much anyone who calls him or herself a Christian today) believe that Jesus has always existed (beginning of Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word...", the Word being Jesus). Some early Christians (who tend to be lumped together as Arians, though they wouldn't have all necessarily called themselves that) believed that the Son was created by the Father at some point after the beginning of time, though they did not agreed on whether that made Jesus "inferior" in some way to God the Father.

I admit that I don't really understand how the Holy Spirit fits into all this. But both Nicenes and Arians don't believe that one person of the trinity replaced another. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are believed to all coexist and yet together make up one God. --Jfruh (talk) 15:07, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought it was clear that I was trying to give an Idiot's Guide to the Arian doctrine. I also thought that a central plank of that was that the entities didn't co-exist. I must've been wrong. --Dweller 15:13, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the idea is that in Arian beliefs they didn't always coexist. That is, at some point there was just the Father, and later the Father and the Son. But one did not replace the other.

Again, I don't know how the Holy Ghost fits in. He is a wily character, that one. --Jfruh (talk) 15:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

lol --Dweller 15:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Arianism, in a nutshell: "There was when he [the Son], was not" (an Arian slogan). The issue (from Arius' perspective) is that the 1st person of the trinity (Father) most in some some way "produce" (whether creation or begetting) the 2nd person of the Trinity -- and thus there must be a time when the 2nd person was not. The Spirit was not really considered until after Nicaea, other than to acknowledge that the SPirit is also divine. Pastordavid 11:13, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Obviously Jesus believed he was younger than Yahweh. Why the heck would he call himself the Son, if he didn't believe he was younger than the Father? If he thought he was the same age as Yahweh, he would have used the word "brother" instead of "son" in Matthew 21:37, Mark 12:6 and Luke 20:13.

If believing that Jesus is younger than his Father makes you Arian, then Jesus himself was Arian. --WillJ 70.168.185.11 04:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arianism

"Most orthodox or mainstream Christian historians define and minimize the Arian conflict as the exclusive construct of Arius and handful of rogue bishops engaging in "heresy." Of the roughly three hundred bishops in attendance at the Council of Nicea, only three bishops did not sign the Nicene Creed."

Would be useful to add here the information about the total of bishops at that time was about 1800, as shown at Heresy:Early Christian heresies and First Council of Nicaea:Attendees? I think that to say that only 3 bishops out of 318 did not sign the Nicene Creed would be more properly understandable if this info is added. What do you think?

ZackTheJack 18:57, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "relevant" and "irrelevant"

This was added and removed: "Trivia In Chilean TV Programm "Tertulia" broadcast in Canal 13 Cable is a recurring joke between José Luis Rosasco and Monseñor Luis Eugenio Silva to say that Rosasco is "Semi-Arian"" In order to underrstand the banter one needs to known what "Arian" means: i.e. "Arian" is relevant at Canal 13 Cable. The converse however is not true: this statement is vacuous (a technical term, not just a "pejorative"). This needs to be re-explained a thousand times at Wikipedia: relevance is not a concept taught in public schools. --Wetman 07:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] For clarity's sake

Arianism is a Trinitarian heresy, not a christological heresy. That is, Arianism is fundamentally about how the Father is related to the Son (the doctrine of the Trinity), not about how the divine and human are related in the person of Christ (the Christological doctrine). Yes, as in most trinitarian controversies, there are Christological implications -- but the issue was fundamentally understood as dealing with the relations of the persons of the Godhead. -- Pastordavid 11:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some General Concerns

Does Arianism refer to the teachings of Arius of Alexandria in particular, to the various concerns of the school of Lucian, or to the various different-substance, similar-substance, and like-substance groups of the 4th-6th centuries? In the first case, the article should stick as closely as possible to Arius, and should limit references to other teachers (e.g. Auxentius) propounding other not-same-substance teachings. In the second case, the article should focus much more on Lucian, much less on Arius, and much more on different teachers addressing recurring concerns, some with teachings closer to Nicaea, and some with teachings farther from Nicaea. But that could be another article (Co-Lucianism?). In the third case, I don't know. Jacob Haller 20:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, some authors suggest that the Logos may be not uncreated, and not created at some specific time, but continually created, and perhaps changible (within limits) or perhaps unchangible. Thus the idea of the created Logos does not imply the idea of a time before the creation of the Logos, although Arius probably taight that "there was a time when He was not" early in the controversy. Eunomius of Cyzicus considers and rejects the theory of continual creation in his First Apology (chapter 23). Jacob Haller 20:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name Issues Persist

[I asked about this on talk: Naming conventions.] The term Arianism is very common, but suffers several problems. It is a derogatory name given by its opponents; it has acquired additional meanings (e.g. teaching that Jesus was not divine) that would exclude Arius et al.; and it describes two larger overlapping groups ((1) the critics of Nicaea and (2) Lucian of Antioch and his followers) as well as one smaller subgroup (Arius of Alexandria and his followers). So it's hard to tell when the article means "Arians, as in Arius, Eusebius, George, Aetius, Wulfila, etc." or "Arians, as in Arius, but not these other guys." Jacob Haller 04:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)