Not many people today think of Christianity as a particularly controversial religion. By and large, modern Christians don't riot in the streets, perform mass excommunications, and fight wars. But the Christian religion was not always so �uneventful.� For hundreds of years the Christian Church was the center of many struggles and much violence. One such contentious period was during the 4th century A.D., when the teachings of an Egyptian priest named Arius, who gained a large following among Mediterranean Christians, caused a clash between his followers and the Trinitarian Christians. This conflict has come to be called the Arian controversy and it involved such world-altering events as the Council of Nicaea, the development of the doctrine of the Triune Godhead, and the rise of the Roman Catholic Church.

In order to understand the Arian controversy, we must gather what we can of the attitude of its age. In the 4th century Christianity was rising from a period of intense persecution under the emperor Diocletian. The emperor who won the power struggle after Diocletian's death was a man named Constantine. Before one of the battles that Constantine fought on his way to the throne, he claimed to have seen a vision of a cross. Using the cross as his battle standard, he went on to victory and made Christianity the official state religion. Constantine desired to use Christianity to unify his empire; unfortunately for him this would not be easy. At this point in history the Christian Church was very disorganized. There was no central leadership and church leaders called bishops governed their individual territories. The system worked when the church was an underground movement, but it was hardly ready to be what Constantine wanted.

Shortly after Constantine's ascension to power a conflict broke out in Alexandria, home of one of the oldest and largest churches, between its bishop, Alexander, and one of his priests, Arius. Alexander expelled Arius from his church for teaching false doctrine. However, Arius was a popular priest with powerful friends and his teachings were widespread among the people. Constantine called a council of the churches to resolve the theological differences between bishops who held beliefs close to Arius's teachings and those who held to traditional doctrines. Bishops were called from all corners of the empire to Nicaea for what is remembered as the Council of Nicaea.

The result of the Council of Nicaea is what is known today as the Nicaean Creed. It would be rejected by the Arians and would solidify the two sides of the theological debate. The primary reason it was rejected by the Arians was an argument concerning its wording. The Arians' fundamental belief was that Jesus the Son existed separately from God the Father. Although belief in what is known today as the doctrine of the Trinity (that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God) existed in the 4th century, it was not universal. The Bible had not yet been canonized, and views about Jesus' relationship to the Father varied throughout the empire. The Nicaean Creed was the first church creed to declare a Trinitarian view as orthodoxy. It unified those who espoused it against the Arians. This anti-Arian camp came to be led by Alexander's replacement, a bishop named Athanasius, and they fiercely opposed any notion that Jesus was not God.

Although it is now condemned as heresy, the Arians' belief that Jesus is not one with God is superficially very attractive. They claimed that God the Father was both separate and greater than His Son and that Jesus was begotten before the beginning of time. Arius stated his beliefs in a letter to Eusesbius of Nicomedia, a powerful supporter, �But we say and believe and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten; and that he does not derive his subsistence from any matter; but that by his own will and counsel he has subsisted before time and before ages as perfect God, only begotten and unchangeable, and that before he was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, he was not.�(Peters, 41) Elsewhere Arius wrote, �...and likewise, because we say that he is [created] from nothing. And this we say because He is neither part of God, nor of any subjacent matter.�(Rubenstein, 58) Logically this makes sense. Fathers are greater than sons and the term begotten implies that the Son came into existence from nonexistence. Arians maintain that beliefs to the contrary violated both the law of non-contradiction and common sense.

The anti-Arian camp, led by Athanasius, consisted largely of churches from the Western part of the empire. Athanasius despised the Arians, almost to a fault. His violent methods, as well as those of his opponents, were surely not the way the God he served would have preferred, but his reasons for opposing the Arians were laudable. Through banishments and excommunications he firmly upheld the now orthodox belief that no being less than God himself could be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of humanity.

After the Council of Nicaea long years of strife ensued between those who accepted its creed and those who did not. Constantine died, and the son that won his throne was an Arian named Constantius. He declared Arianism the official religion of Rome and many anti-Arians, including Athanasius, were excommunicated and banished. Throughout this period church councils were so abundant that Ammianus Marcellinus, a pagan, commented sarcastically: "The highways were covered with galloping bishops."(Schaff, 376) Eventually Constantius died and was succeeded by Julian, who added a wholly unexpected dimension to the controversy. For Julian was neither Arian nor anti-Arian; he was a pagan. Dreaming of the glory days of Rome, he tried to restore the worship of the old gods. But the empire was too Christian for that, and when Julian died in battle, his successor was the Arian emperor Valens.

Valens restored Arianism to the prominence of official religion, but he allowed Athanasius to return to his seat as bishop of Alexandria. During his reign the tide slowly shifted away from the Arians. The majority of those not in the anti-Arian camp were what we call semi-Arian today. They did not agree to the wording of the Nicaea Creed, but they held many beliefs in common with those who did. The semi-Arians were eventually brought into the camp of the Nicaea�s by the emergence of new ideas that clarified the meaning of the Trinity. These ideas, which defined the Trinity as three persons in one essence, are still accepted today. The leader of these new thinkers was Basil of Caesarea, later made a saint. With him at their head and the backing of a new pro-Nicene emperor Theodosius, the Council of Constantinople adopted a creed acceptable to the semi-Arians. Theodosius outlawed Arianism; and though it remained for awhile among Germanic tribes, it soon disappeared from the Roman world.

There are many reasons Arianism died out, but I believe there was one primary reason: that it wasn't true. I will explain this later. But for now I believe there is a position that it is possible to take, based on an extension of the idea that the winners write the history books, that the reason Christians view Arianism as falsehood was decided by its defeat. However, while this assumption may apply to secular history, I am not convinced it is equally applicable to the history of Christianity. That is because I believe Christianity is true, not just in an individual true-for-me sense, but in an objective sense. Taken from this perspective, the winner of the Arian controversy did not win merely through the result of changing social values in a declining empire, but through the inevitable triumph of the truth. By no mere toss of the dice of history did Christianity rise, and no re-roll would make it fall. It wasn't the whim of Constantine that made the truth true, nor the whim of Constantius or Valens that makes it untrue. The largest religion in the world is not the result of Roman officialization, or we would have an Arian church. Quite simply, the largest religion in the world is a result of the Hand of God.

In Arianism the true religion experienced its first trial. It was set against a corruption of itself, a corruption that on the surface was more logical than its source. Arianism seemed to neatly explain the oft-confusing teachings of the Bible concerning Jesus. Too neatly it turned out, the truth about God is not nearly as simple as the Arians thought, and 1,700 years later the nature of the Trinity is wrapped in mystery. For a period the Arians were able to exploit this as Arianism rose to power as the state religion. It was the religion for the intelligentsia; it embodied the neat, logical, even humanistic religion that the Roman rulers wanted. Supported by many eminent theologians and bishops, this was the Roman Empire's choice for religion. It is strange then that it didn't last. Arianism with all of its state support was a dud, fizzling out leaving little impact. When Julian arose, he rejected Arianism. Julian the philosopher rejected Arianism and turned from Christianity altogether. Like a hollow tree whose outer strength beguiles its rotten core, Arianism showed its true nature as the empire decayed into paganism. But out of the ashes of paganism true Christianity rose phoenix-like to new splendor.

I have taken the liberty of assuming Arianism is untrue without explaining myself. I think there are several logical impossibilities inherent in Arianism. The first is based on the Arian view that Jesus was begotten of the Father before time. I find this statement incomprehensible. Using terms like �begotten� requires a temporal framework, but the Arians specifically state that Jesus was begotten outside of, or before, time. Philosophers and theologians understand that by existing outside of time God sees all things as existing simultaneously. It is nonsense for one to say that outside of time a being like the Arian Jesus could at one moment not exist and then at another suddenly appear, because we cannot use words like moment to describe things outside of time. For something to exist before time it must have always existed.

The second argument against Arianism exploits an inconsistency within itself. Two fundamental doctrines of Christianity are that God is love, expressed in 1 John 4:8: �Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.� And God is immutable, as stated in Malachi 3:6: �I the LORD do not change.� It is hard to imagine that an Arian would deny either of these doctrines which are so clearly stated in the Bible. However, the Arian belief that Jesus was a created being and �there was when he was not� is not mutually compatible with these two doctrines. If God is love and there is no question of him ever not loving, who was he loving before he created the world? As G.K. Chesterton put it, �If through that unthinkable eternity He is lonely, then what is the meaning of saying He is love?�(Chesterton, 228) The Arians' god, silent and lonely through eternity, has no answer.

The Arian controversy was a definitive moment in church history; out of it rose the system that would dominate Christianity for the next millennium, the Catholic Church. Many lives were lost as the most convincing heresy yet faced by the church was fought out, but the outcome could never be in doubt. Out from underneath the fall of Arianism, one of Christianity's most controversial and most profound doctrines came to prominence, that of the Trinity. And although it passed through much turmoil, the result of the Arian controversy is a better Church today.

Peters, Edward. Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania P, 1980. Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe: Documents in Translation. 11 Oct. 2007 .

Rubenstein, Richard E. When Jesus Became God. 1st ed. Orlando: Harcourt, 2000. 58.

Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church, Volume III: Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity. a.D. 5th ed. Vol. 3. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1882. History of the Christian Church, Volume III: Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity. a.D. 311-600. 11 Oct. 2007 .

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