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Arius, heresy and traditionThe Bible, Arius & ConstantineARIUS, HERESY AND TRADITION CONSTANTINE’S BIBLE Anyone reading the book or seeing the film of The Da Vinci Code will be aware of the unhistorical nonsense portrayed as ‘fact’ by the author, Dan Brown. We are told that until the Council of Nicža in 325, presided over by the ‘pagan’ Emperor Constantine, Christians never believed in the deity of Christ, and that it was only at this Synod that the Canon of Scripture was decided. Both notions are palpably false. That hasn’t prevented polemical apologists, from the Jehovah’s Witnesses to modern Muslims, from claiming Arius as the unitarian ‘true’ Christian, whose views were subverted by the nasty pagan Constantine. If one reads the ridiculous polemical rant by Muhammad ur-Rahim called Jesus, Prophet of Islam, these ideas are to the fore. It can be seen that both in popular culture and among heterodox elements, the theological struggles of the early church are still very relevant, and it is the height of folly to ignore the history of this period as dry and irrelevant. Rowan Williams is, of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and is not usually a figure to whom evangelicals look for instruction. Nonetheless, in the field of Arius studies, he is authoritative, and his book is vital for an understanding of this complex history. The book is not easy reading — this is clearly a book written to advance the cause of scholarship, and so requires slow perusal and mental digestion. Indeed, one would need at least a smattering of Greek to follow the argument, and Williams might be advised to either provide more translations to make the book more accessible or produce a new, popular edition altogether. However, the effort required to assimilate Williams’ points is well worth doing, for many assumptions about Arius — especially those held by Islamic polemicists — are found to be without foundation. The book supplies the historical, theological, cultural and philosophical background to the controversy. No stone is left unturned in this thorough work. Williams is especially good in his chapter on ‘The Theology of Arius’ (p.95ff). We find that Arius regarded the Son as being ‘like the Father, “unchangeable, inalienable”’ (p.96), which probably throws a spanner in the works of polemical material by those espousing Watchtower and Islamic positions. Significantly, Arius referred less to Scripture than to ‘the tradition of the teaching of the Church’. Surprisingly, according to Williams’s account, philosophical issues were not to the fore of Arius’s position (p.230). Committed to ScriptureHowever, in a rebuke to Islamic polemicists, it is clear that Arius was committed to the orthodox Canon of the Bible — ‘Arius and Euzoius affirm that the Trinitarian faith rest on Scripture… and that they wish nothing more than to be… loyal to Scripture…’ Indeed, ‘Arius and his supporters were interested in a large number of texts, from Old and New Testaments alike’ (p.108). This is an essential point: it clarifies that the issue at Nicža was not over biblical canonicity. However, Arius did deny that God and the Son ‘co-exist’ (p.97). Arius, while acknowledging that the Son was brought into being ‘before all ages’ and that he is ‘a perfect creature’, denied that he was ‘timelessly self-subsistent’. Again, ‘The Son did not always exist’ (p.100). The ‘substances… of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are separate in nature… having no participation …with each other’ (p.101). Incidentally, this indicates that Arius, unlike Jehovah’s Witnesses, held to the personality of the Spirit. It is doubtful that the Libyan Heresiarch would have found himself at home in either a Kingdom Hall or a mosque. Concept of canonI found the rather provocative title of Dungan’s book rather misleading, since anyone familiar with the Watchtower, Islamic and, one supposes, The Da Vinci Code ideas on biblical canonicity might presume that here is another book in that ‘tradition’. Yet this is not the case. Dungan has written a book that centres around the Greek cultural concept of the word ‘canon’. He does not allege that books of the Bible seen as authoritative Scripture were only settled as such by Constantine at Nicža. Essentially, Dungan alleges that the whole concept derived from the ‘Greek polis ideology with its insistent demand for order, precision and clarity’ (p.8). The idea was spread through Alexander the Great’s conquests. Of course, the immediate criticism we can make of this idea is to ask whether we are in the realm of semantics. At best, what he suggests can be understood as Christians (and for that matter, Jews and Muslims, since Dungan addresses these as well) expressing their belief in authoritative Scripture in Hellenistic cultural forms. Ironically, for anti-Christian polemicists, Dungan holds that the process of New Testament canonicity ante-dates Nicža, and he quotes references to the ‘rule’ (i.e. canon), whether of Scripture or of belief in people like Irenžus, Clement of Alexandria and Origen (pp.262-7). Part of the Greek philosophical school’s demands were for authenticity of authorship, allied with the demand for order, and we can see this again in Irenžus (120-202), ‘who exemplifies the three-fold philosophical school model: standing in the true succession of leaders back to the founder, possession of the only genuine writings by the founder’s disciples (with accurate texts), and adhering to the correct doctrine’ (p.44). Dungan then notes that Irenžus was a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of the Apostle John — the very point I made in a debate with Muslims on Premier Radio last year, and itself analogous to the Islamic canonicity concept of the Isnad — the chain of narration, especially from the early disciples of Muhammad. That this is evident so early in church history undermines the fantasies of the anti-orthodox polemicists. Encouraging unityDungan’s treatment of Constantine is interesting and informative, and he relates the issue of ‘canon’ to Constantine’s role as guardian of the harmony of the Roman state. With Constantine’s conversion and accession to power, catholic Christianity (i.e. as opposed to Arianism, etc.) now became the state religion (p.109), and so the Emperor was concerned for religious peace within the bounds of that faith. Hence his encouragement of a Synod to promote unity — not because he wanted to control the theological outcome, as the polemicists allege, but because as ruler in the Hellenistic tradition he wanted to encourage unity and harmony in his realm. Dungan’s language is again misleading (I do not mean dishonest) regarding ‘the Selection of Scripture’ (p.118ff). He notes that, ‘After the Council of Nicaea, Constantine issued an Edict against the Heretics…’ (p.119). Among other points, their books were ordered to be destroyed. Note: contra what polemicists claim, this was not decided at the actual Synod itself. The books were unlisted, and Dungan observes this puzzling omission. However, the answer is surely obvious: they were defined by default. If they weren’t the same texts that the orthodox were using, then they were obviously heterodox. Further, although we know that Constantine banned Arius’s works, early on, as Dungan notes (p.120), we also know that Arius did not have a separate canon. Arius’s books that were banned were simply his theological apologetics. Hence, this Edict was not primarily an issue of scriptural canonicity, but rather a decree against heterodox writings in toto. As the popularity of The Da Vinci Code shows, and given the prevalence of Islamic polemics, this issue of theological and scriptural canonicity is not going to disappear any time soon, so it is essential to be equipped with the facts about these concepts. The use of these books by scholarly historians who cannot be accused of being evangelical apologists will enable that equipping. Dr. Anthony McRoy© Evangelicals Now - July 2007 |