1. Christological Controversy: 1 Athanasius and Arius

2. Question Why did Christology matter so much? Why couldn’t they agree to disagree? Does Christology still matter today?

3. Questions for your reading How does the author use scripture?  Which verses? What does he claim they mean?  Is he interpreting well? Does the author represent his opponent accurately?  Does he insult his opponent? Who is the Son: how is he the same as the Father or different from the Father? What does this have to do with salvation?  Why does this Son have to be like or different from the Father to be the Savior?

4. Background: Stages of debate Early Christian experience (30s-100s)  Paul: Jesus’ message actualized in resurrection  Jesus is Lord; God is one  “Sing hymns to Christ as to a god” (Pliny’s letter) Reflection on experience (100s-200s)  Logos is divine but subordinate “Second in command” (Justin Martyr)  Jesus is truly human, suffered (Irenaeus, et al)

5. Christological Controversy New stage Breaks out 310s and 320s: why? Question: If Jesus really suffered, how could he be God, too?  Accepts that Jesus’ suffering is central for salvation  Accepts that God cannot suffer or change Central figures: Arius and Athanasius

6. Arius Priest from Alexandria, Egypt Taught that Christ was divine but not exactly like God the Father: “There was [a time] when he was not”  Why was this controversial?  What are the implications?

7. Arian claims “Creed”: one God, begotten Son  Anti-Marcion, Valentinus, Sabellius  Three “hypostases” (persons) Son not eternal (“was not before he was begotten”)  Son is the highest of creatures  Son is agent of creation Son is divine but lesser than Father  Son could change and suffer, unlike Father

8. Council of Nicea (325) First “ecumenical” council Reflects major turning point of Constantinian Christianity  Council called by emperor: What does this suggest about church-state relations?  Another example: Donatist controversy: why did Constantine intervene in 316? Major conclusion: Son is “of one substance” (homo-ousios) with the Father  Doctrine is a middle ground between extremes of Sabellian modalism and “adoptionism” (Paul of Samosata)  Arius condemned, but his supporters persisted for centuries  Source of the first part of the Nicene creed (finished at Council of Constantinople in 381) New questions arose, debated at later councils

9. Athanasius (ca. 300-373) Author of Life of Antony Bishop in Alexandria: 328-335, 337-339, 346-356, 361- 363, 363-365, 366-373  But deacon in 325; secretary for Bishop Alexander at Nicea Major opponent of Arius Big idea: Son is “one in being with the Father” (Greek: homoousios)  Son is equal to Father, not subordinate  Son exists eternally with Father  Son/Logos suffered “in the flesh”: is this good enough? Is Christ, the Word made flesh, really human?

10. Argument, Orations Against the Arians, Book 3 Refute arguments of Arians  Insult their piety  Recount their biblical arguments Son distinct from Father Jesus confesses ignorance Jesus prayed to Father Jesus forsaken by Father on cross  Arian argument: If Jesus is God, how could he be human [=suffer]? Presupposition: divinity cannot suffer or change

11. Athanasius’ response Son is eternal with Father  Like the radiance of the light Scripture gives a “double account” of Christ (87)  Logos: “Always has been God and is the Son”  Flesh: Eternal Logos became a human being (88), did not merely enter into one. What is the difference?  Christ (one subject) experienced things proper to Logos and proper to flesh  Acts proper to one can be predicated of the other  So, the Logos suffered “in the flesh” and when the flesh suffered, the Logos “was not apart from it”

12. Salvation Logos bore human weakness, sins, but was not harmed  Liberated humanity from “properties of flesh”  Destroyed passions  Transferred human origin and weakness from Adam (mortal) to Logos (immortal)  Adage: What was not assumed was not healed Union of divine and human in himself divinized humanity  Adage: God became human that humans might become God