spin

I posted the following citation from Arius on another thread, but it is useful here.

Excerpt from Arius and Euzoius to the Emperor Constantine:

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, and in the Lord Jesus Christ his Son, who was begotten of him before all ages, God the Word through whom all things were made, both things in heaven and on earth; who descended, and became human, and suffered, and rose again, ascended into heaven, and will again come to judge the living and the dead.

Umm, not christian anybody?


spin

mountainman

Dear J-D,

Let me get this straight. You are attempting to tender citations from the fifth and sixth centuries to support the assertion that we have evidence that Arius of the fourth century was a christian. Is this correct? If so, I'd like to ask you why you are unable to provide such evidence from the fourth century.

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Spin.

What a lovely authodox Arius! Magnificent forgery. On the surface it looks as though in this letter Arius has changed his tune somewhat. Two years earlier (if we are to belief this letter was authored in 327 CE) the chief anathema was explicitly against the words of Arius. Did he change his mind in 327? Was he stung by the anathema of Constantine's new Roman state monotheistic religion (he copied the monotheistic idea from Ardashir) as follows:

Did Josephus mention Jesus? Was Jesus Henry Chrestos the author of the the letter which Eusebius asserts to have found while conducting deep and profound research in THE ARCHIVES, which was translated by Eusebius from the Syriac to the greek? How do you spell forgery? Arius was busy writing "The Acts of Andrew and Matthew amongst the Cannibals!!" What high adventure was going down in the eastern empire at Constantine's expense. Constanine's letter of 333 CE hardly supports the notion that Arius had become the steady and sedate authoxy author whom the forger of your letter would want us to believe. Have you read Constantine's Dear Arius, where are you Arius? I want to talk to you Arius, Letter dated 333 CE?

Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

I would, but experience tells me that you will automatically dismiss any uncongenial (to you) evidence from the fourth century as Constantinian fabrications.

J-D

No, he didn't. There's no inconsistency between what he said in 327 and what he said two years earlier. There is only an inconsistency between what he said in 327 and your unique and unsupported interpretation of what he said two years earlier. Everybody else's interpretation of what he said in 325 is consistent with what he said in 327.

spin

There may be a little confusion about the significance of Arius's words:

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, and in the Lord Jesus Christ his Son, who was begotten of him before all ages, God the Word through whom all things were made, both things in heaven and on earth; who descended, and became human, and suffered, and rose again, ascended into heaven, and will again come to judge the living and the dead.

Arius says that Jesus was begotten and that it happened before all ages. For Arius there was a time when Jesus was not. Only god was eternal. And Jesus was not of the same substance for him.

Arius holds to all the basic tenets of christianity of the time, as his creedal statement indicates. He just unfortunately happened to support an idea that was coming into conflict with the development of trinitarianism. That's not so strange: before the 1st Nicene Council so did Eusebius of Caesarea.


spin

Jeffrey Gibson

Nit pick. Arius never speaks of Jesus as firstborn of all creation, the one begotten before all ages and through whom all things were made. The object of these statements is the Logos/Son who/which becomes incarnate in the man Jesus.

Jeffrey.

spin

OK, how do you understand the part I italicized of what Arius and Euzoius wrote? The Lord Jesus Christ his son, begotten of him before all ages? This seems to be the one time where Arius actually mentions Jesus and it seems to suggest that Jesus existed "begotten before all ages".


spin

Jeffrey Gibson

This is Arius conforming to the Nicene creed. But so far as I know, none of his pre nicene writings show him speaking about Jesus as the first born.

Jeffrey

mountainman

Dear J-D,

The Arian controversy raged across the empire for a century, and the decriptions of the words used by the public opinion (of the 4th century) in voicing what the authodox termed the Arian controversy were the same simple words that Arius is recorded to have stated at Nicaea

So are we to believe that Arius returned to the authodox fold while a great bulk of the population followed his contraversial words?

Best wishes,


Pete