Arian creeds are the creeds of Arian Christians, developed mostly in the fourth century when Arianism was one of the main varieties of Christianity.
A creed is a brief summary of the beliefs formulated by a group of religious practitioners, expressed in a more or less standardized format. Arian creeds are a subset of Christian Creeds.
Overview Christian creeds Christian creeds originate in the genres of the trinitarian formula and the Christological confession. In the mid-2nd century a type of doctrinal formula called the Rule of Faith emerged. These were seen as demonstrating the correctness of one's beliefs and helping to avoid heretical doctrines. In the third century, more elaborate professions of faith developed combining the influence of baptismal creeds (i.e., trinitarian formulae) and rules of faith. Learning the creeds was part of the process of gaining admission to the Christian religion. Interrogatory creeds were varieties of creeds used to test candidates for baptism, while declaratory creeds allowed the candidate to express their beliefs in the first person. Among the oldest known Christian Creeds are the Roman Creed and the Nicene Creed.
Arian controversy Most Arian creeds were written in the fourth century after 325 and during the Arian controversy, a time when the church adopted replacements for the Nicene Creed; in particular, for the word homoousios, as contained in the creed. The Arian controversy began with a dispute between bishop Alexander of Alexandria and a local presbyter, Arius, in the late 310s and early 320s. It lasted until Emperor Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica in the year 380, in which he instructed all Roman citizensThe Edict said: “It is our will that the peoples who are ruled by the administration of our clemency shall practise that religion which …” (Ayres, Lewis, Nicaea and its legacy, An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (2004), p. 251). to "believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity." The edict continued to describe Christians who do not accept this teaching as "foolish madmen" and as "heretics." And, "they will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the punishment of our authority which in accordance with the will of Heaven we shall decide to inflict."Edict of Thessalonica (Documents of the Christian Church, Henry Bettenson, editor, 1967, p. 22) This was followed by proclamation of the Creed of Constantinople in 381.
Controversy after Nicaea The Council of Nicaea expressed its opposition to Arius' beliefs in the Nicene Creed. During the 55 years after Nicaea, there was a strong reaction in the church to the Nicene Creed; particularly to the word Greek homoousios ("same substance"). Consequently the church, during that period, formulated various creeds which offered alternatives to the word homoousios and which are regarded today as Arian creeds. Advocates of Nicene Christianity and Arian Christianity debated and competed throughout the fourth century, each claiming to be the orthodox variant. Nicene Christians called their opponents, as a group, Arians. However, many opponents of the Nicene Creed differed significantly from the teachings of Arius, and did not identify with Arius.
After Nicaea in 325, the Emperor Constantine gave orders that all of Arius' books be destroyed and that all people who hide Arius' writings, be killed. Therefore, very little of Arius' writings remains today. A brief statement of what Arius believed was preserved in a letter he wrote to the Arian archbishop of Constantinople; Eusebius of Nicomedia (died 341).Theodoret: Arius's Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, translated in Peters' Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, p. 41
The church produced many more creeds after the Homoian group came to dominance in the church in the 350s. These include the Second Sirmian Creed (357), the Creed of Nike (360), the Creed of Acacius (359), the Rule of Faith and the Creed of Ulfilas (383), Eudoxius' Rule of Faith, the Creed of Auxentius (364), and the Creed of Germinius.
Eusebian Creeds In 2004, Lewis Ayres wrote:"A vast amount of scholarship over the past thirty years has offered revisionist accounts of themes and figures from the fourth century."As discussed in the Arius page, scholars today agree that Arius was not the founder of 'Arianism' and that the anti-Nicenes were not followers of Arius and, therefore, are mistakenly called Arians. For example:Richard Hanson (1981) wrote: "The expression 'the Arian Controversy' is a serious misnomer."
Rowan Williams (1987) wrote: "'Arianism' as a coherent system, founded by a single great figure and sustained by his disciples, is a fantasy … based on the polemic of Nicene writers, above all Athanasius."
Lewis Ayres (2004) wrote: "This controversy is mistakenly called Arian." For this reason, Ayres refers to the non-Nicenes of the fourth century not as 'Arians' but as 'Eusebians'. For example:"My second theological trajectory is the one in which we locate Arius himself. This loose alliance I will term 'Eusebian'. When I use this term I mean to designate any who would have found common ground with either of Arius' most prominent supporters, Eusebius of Nicomedia or Eusebius of Caesarea."The creeds on this page, therefore, should rather be called 'Eusebian' because their theology is significantly different from Arius'.
The Profession of Faith of Arius
Arius' Writings Arius was a presbyter of Alexandria in the early fourth century. Very little of Arius' writings survived until today: "As far as his own writings go, we have no more than three letters, (and) a few fragments of another." "The Thalia is Arius' only known theological work," but "we do not possess a single complete and continuous text." We only have extracts from it in the writings of Arius' enemies, "mostly from the pen of Athanasius of Alexandria, his bitterest and most prejudiced enemy."
Arius' Theology Arius entered into conflict with his bishop, Alexander:"Alexander taught that God was always Father and that the Son was always Son, thus implying the eternal generation of the Son; as the Father's Word and Wisdom the Son must always have been with the Father. At the same time, he taught that the Son is the exact image of the Father.""
"Arius saw his bishop's theology as implying two ultimate principles in the universe, and he thought that Alexander compromised the biblical insistence on the Father's being alone God and alone immortal (1 Tim. 6:16). For Arius, any talk about Father and Son as coeternal ignored the hierarchy involved in the very language of Father and Son." Alexander excommunicated Arius in about 318. In a letter to his friend Eusebius of Nicomedia, Arius stated that he was being excommunicated for teaching that "the Son has an origin, but God is unoriginated ... and also that the Son derives from non-existence." Arius stated that he taught these things because the Son was not a part (μέρος) of the Father, nor an emanation or exhalation of the substance of the Father. For his part, Alexander stated that Arius' beliefs were as follows: There was a time when God was not Father, and the Son was created out of nothing. The Son is a created product and is not like in substance to the Father. He has come into existence whereas the Father has no origin. The Son is mutable and alterable while the Father is not. The Father is invisible to the Son. The Father created the Son in order to create humans. The father and the son are not consubstantial. Arius also argued that the word homoousios (consubstantial, or having the same substance) should not be used to describe the relation between God the Father and God the Son: Father and Son are not consubstantial according to Arius.
Arius' Support Initially, Arius gained a great deal of support from other bishops in the Eastern Roman Empire. "Over the next few years Arius gained support from some bishops in Palestine, Syria, and North Africa, especially Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine and Eusebius of Nicomedia, near Constantinople. … Although these supporters may have been wary of some aspects of Arius' theology … they joined in opposition to Alexander. For all of them Alexander's theology seemed to compromise the unity of God and the unique status of the Father."
For example, Eusebius of Caesarea was "universally acknowledged to be the most scholarly bishop of his day." He "was certainly an early supporter of Arius" and he "thought the theology of Alexander a greater menace than that of Arius."
"Holger Strutwolf (1999) … concludes that Eusebius initially misunderstood Arius as saying something similar to himself, and then distanced himself more and more from the Alexandrian as he realized his error, while still opposing the theology … advanced by Alexander."
Letter to Alexander In about the year 320, Arius and his supporters wrote a letter to Alexander of Alexandria setting out their beliefs in the hope of getting Arius' excommunication rescinded. The letter contained a profession of faith, the earliest known Arian creed.