Heresy. Frank P. Spinella
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“no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit,” how much more is the Spirit’s guidance needed for one to say “Jesus is God.” How much more blessed are those who, not having seen, yet believe, and declare with Thomas that Jesus is “My Lord and my God.”
At the Catechetical School many of my fellow deacons argue that Thomas’ twofold declaration was redundant, that “Lord” and “God” are functionally equivalent. They point to the Hebrew Scriptures’ use of the word “Lord” as a stand-in for the unutterable name of God, time and again—and they argue from this that Jesus’ divinity must be entailed by his lordship. They quote David’s Psalm, ‘The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool,’” and insist that David must have used “my lord” as a title of divinity. But the Hebrew word that the Greek renders as “my lord” is regularly employed to describe an earthly rather than a divine being. David is no exception; even after Saul anointed him king, David referred to Saul as “my lord.” How, then, can we know whether “my lord” in his Psalm was intended to refer to a divine being or a human one?
I think of Simon Peter’s quotation of the same Psalm when he proclaimed at Pentecost that “God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified,” and wonder how the Jews who were converted that day understood his words. God made him Lord? Perhaps so; lordship can be granted or inherited. But God made him God? The very concept would have been almost unintelligible to any Jew! Surely Simon Peter, no less than the Jews in his audience, understood that “God” and “Lord” were not equivalent concepts. One refers to the Supreme Being; the other is simply an acknowledgement of sovereignty and dominion, equivalent to “master.” The logical leap from “Jesus is Lord” to “Jesus is God” is as great as Nathanael’s.
If anything, Simon Peter’s words widen the logical gap for me. If God made him Lord, doesn’t that suggest he was not Lord to begin with, and received power and glory only later as a reward for his obedience to the Father’s will? Yet that is precisely what the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah implies: God allotted him “a portion with the great” for agreeing to die for our sins. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians likewise teaches that “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on the cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name.” The Letter to the Hebrews is even more explicit, suggesting that Christ endured the cross “for the sake of the joy that was set before him,” and now “has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” And that is where Simon Peter’s speech at Pentecost places him, “exalted at the right hand of God.” But this notion of exalting Christ as a reward troubles me. After all, if he was truly God, he could not have been made Lord; that station would already have been his automatically, and not a reward for sacrifice. How could it be otherwise? Suppose the cup had passed him by; what would have happened then? An empty seat in the throne room of heaven?
Once again, I am being too analytical. I must find a way to halt this cascading river of rationalization running through my mind, before it deprives the day of its prayerful possibilities. Prayer is a contemplative journey, and like any other journey it requires preparation—but unlike physical journeys, this one requires us not to pack but to unpack. So much baggage! The gentle lapping of the lake at the shoreline soothes me as I strive to empty my mind of distractions and open myself to the Spirit, to the chance for inspiration, for insight. A soft breeze dances off the water, bending the tips of the reeds in the shallows; I inhale it deeply. Relaxing every part of my body, I close my eyes and breathe slowly, dispelling all thoughts until even my consciousness of waiting for insight is gone.
Suddenly what washes over me instead—or perhaps this is the insight—can only be described as a premonition, yet one so palpably real it is as though I am hearing Christ’s words speaking to me aloud. They are words of warning:
There is danger approaching, Athanasius!
My eyes tighten shut even more; I hold my breath. Yes, Lord, I can sense something. I can feel it in the pit of my stomach, almost sickening me!
Someone is coming to attack us!
Yes, Lord; but who is it? Is a new persecution about to be mounted by Rome? No, somehow I sense that this is different. More insidious. My pulse races and my skin grows clammy. I try to concentrate, but the effort is self-defeating; the contours of this peril to the Faith become more elusive the more I try to bring it into focus, like a shadowy imperfection on the cornea, just off center, floating away as the eye vainly attempts to follow it and pull it back from the periphery. I cannot make it out clearly.
The cryptic warning fades as quickly as it arrived, and the wave of nausea passes. Still shaking, I exhale deeply, my quivering palms pushing beads of sweat from my brow up over my scalp. If infidels are truly arriving to storm the gates of Christ’s kingdom, I will not be able to discern them today.
But perhaps it was nothing. Just as dreams can reveal either truth or fantasy, this might have been fantasy. One can all too easily mistake the surfacing of one’s own latent fears for divine insight.
Darkness overtakes the day. The owl soars somewhere above; I have lost sight of her. It is time to return to the city.
Chapter 2
Fifteen miles off the coast of Egypt, Arius peered excitedly through the darkness ahead of his ship, and could already see its glow in the distance. With its powerful reflective mirrors and a height of nearly three hundred cubits, the massive marble lighthouse on the eastern point of the island of Pharos had been guiding ships safely into the harbor of Alexandria for nearly six hundred years. Each time he caught sight of it, whether from land or from sea, by day or by night, Arius could not help but marvel at the wondrous structure, its intricate system of pulleys, gears and winches for hoisting firewood up the interior shaft to its summit rivaling the Pyramids themselves as a feat of engineering. He recalled vividly the first time he’d seen it, as a wide-eyed youth arriving in the great city from his native Libya. It was as impressive to him now as then, never becoming commonplace.
But tonight, Arius viewed the fire burning atop the magnificent beacon differently—as a torch of justice. Arius was returning from exile at the invitation of Achillas, the newly installed Bishop of Alexandria. A full year had passed since Achillas’ predecessor Peter had excommunicated and banished Arius—retaliation, he was convinced, for his support of Melitius, the rival Egyptian bishop who had denounced Peter for fleeing the city during the Diocletian persecution. Melitius decried what he saw as Peter’s cowardice; but for Arius it was Peter’s intellectual dishonesty that gave greater offense. A shepherd who abandons his flock in its time of distress is indeed contemptible; but then to justify his flight by pointing to the words of Matthew’s gospel, “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next”—how utterly transparent! Would that Peter had read just a few verses further: “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Was it any wonder that upon his return to Alexandria during a lull in the persecution, Peter had quickly insisted on amnesty for those who, under threat of torture, had renounced their faith to save their skins? But there would be no leniency extended to Arius. Surely a bishop who twists the gospel to his own purposes, Arius had preached to any who would listen, is unworthy of the rank. And for that ill-advised comment, he had permanently incurred Peter’s wrath.
Yet it was Peter’s announced excuse for excommunicating him, branding him a heretic for his theological views, that disgusted Arius the most. Intellectual dishonesty yet again, he thought. Peter may have redeemed himself from any charge of cowardice; reports had already spread beyond Egypt of his courageous martyrdom, assisting his guards in carrying out his sentence by showing them how to smuggle him out of the prison to avoid the throngs of his faithful who were rioting to block his execution. But to Arius, the bishop’s redemption only lent credibility to his disingenuous decree. Peter was beloved by most Egyptian Christians, who might well consider his enemies as their enemies for that reason alone. That could prove to be a challenge, he thought. But for Arius tonight, leaning forward against the rail in the prow of the ship, no challenge seemed insurmountable.
His year away had been painful on many levels, yet Arius never lost hope that he would one day