Heresy. Frank P. Spinella
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assert, the Jews who were prepared to stone him for this pronouncement correctly understood him as making a blasphemous declaration of divinity. My brothers and sisters, we must resist such speculations. There is a claim here of preexistence, to be sure; but that is not the same as claiming to be God! It is, in truth, claiming no more than to be the first-born of God. Thus does the venerable Justin Martyr describe the pre-existent Christ as ‘distinct from Him who made all things,’ ‘first power after God,’ ‘the first-born of God.’
“And so it is that we must ask ourselves how Christ can be, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians, ‘the first-born of all creation,’ unless he himself was created. And if created, in what sense can he be thought of as God?”
There! The challenge was laid down; there could be no turning back now.
Chapter 7
Out of breath and sweating profusely, Athanasius had literally run the entire sweltering distance from Baucalis to the bishop’s residence, demanding an immediate audience. This news, he knew, could not wait.
The color drained from Alexander’s face as he received his excited pupil’s report of Arius’s sermon, virtually word for word. Athanasius had that kind of memory, and a keen intellect to go with it. When his prize student had finished, Alexander exhorted him to sit and rest, and then paced slowly around the room, nervously stroking his beard. “I knew this day was coming, and feared it greatly. It is just as Paul warned in his letter to Timothy: ‘For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.’ We must stop that wandering before the flock is lost. How do you suggest we respond to this heresy? Should we engage Arius in public debate?”
“That is a possibility, to be sure,” the young deacon responded, elated that Alexander was seeking his opinion. “But one fraught with risk. Arius was shrewd to use Justin Martyr as his foil today. He knows that if we rely on Justin’s distinction between the immanent Logos and the expressed Logos, between an idea in the mind of God and the speech which expresses that idea, he can fall back on many of Justin’s writings that support his own theories, pointing out Justin’s own distinction between God and God’s subordinate Logos.”
Alexander nodded in agreement as he paced around the room, still tugging at his beard. “Right. Then we will simply ignore Justin, and condemn Arius’s teachings as excluded by John’s gospel, which casts Christ as the Logos, and the Logos as God.”
Athanasius was more circumspect. “A public discussion of the nuances of the Logos is one I think we may wish to avoid, my bishop. Arius is masterful at exploiting double meanings, and will do so with Logos’ double meaning of Word and Reason. No doubt Reason always existed with God, but the unlearned will naturally assume that God’s Word emanates from Him at a particular time—and Arius will quickly enmesh us anew in debating Justin Martyr’s immanence/expression dichotomy. I am concerned about affording him any opportunity to focus attention on this.”
“I see no reason to fear any double meaning here,” Alexander replied, “as long as Arius concedes that one meaning of Logos is indeed as the Wisdom of God, ‘preceding the Word which announces her,’ as Origen put it in his commentary on John’s Gospel. The Book of Wisdom refers to her as ‘a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness.’ Surely reflections and images co-exist at all times with their sources, do they not?”
“Arius can make the opposite case rather easily,” Athanasius rejoined in a respectful tone. “The verse you quote is immediately preceded by a reference to Wisdom as ‘a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty,’ which Arius will argue are manifestations that, like breath itself, issue at a given point in time rather than eternally. Worse, there are passages in Scripture which he can quote as proofs that Wisdom was not eternally co-existent. Consider the twenty-fourth chapter of Sirach, which likewise states that Wisdom ‘came forth from the mouth of the Most High,’ but then recites that ‘the Creator of all things gave me a command, and my Creator chose the place for my tent,’ and also ‘Before the ages, in the beginning, he created me, and for all the ages I shall not cease to be.’ If we go down this path, Arius will quickly trap us and cut off any retreat except for the one he knows we do not wish to take: defending the Sabellian proposition that there is no distinction between creator and creature.”
“Perhaps he will try. But he cannot deny that the Fourth Gospel quotes Christ as acknowledging that ‘the Father and I are one.’ Where is his retreat from that?”
“An easy retreat, my bishop. The Fourth Gospel quotes Christ as using the same word ‘one’ when he prays ‘Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.’ And again, ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.’ If Christ used the word ‘one’ to describe the relationship between himself and his disciples, and indeed the relationship among all believers, it follows that the sense of ‘one’ used here by John’s gospel cannot be that of identicalness in substance or being. Are we all gods? That is precisely the retreat Christ himself took when the Jews prepared to stone him for his comment that ‘the Father and I are one.’ So will Arius.”
“Then we will do battle with Arius on his own terms, and show that two things can be distinct, yet still share a common nature. When Dionysius was bishop in this city many years ago, he explained it quite well:
‘The plant that springs from the root is something distinct from that whence it grows up; and yet it is of one nature with it. And the river which flows from the fountain is something distinct from the fountain. For we cannot call either the river a fountain, or the fountain a river. Nevertheless we allow that they are both one according to nature, and also one in substance; and we admit that the fountain may be conceived of as father, and that the river is what is begotten of the fountain.’
“That should be enough to expose the fallacy in Arius’s theories.”
The young deacon was unconvinced. “In the case of inanimate objects with no will of their own, one thing emanates from another naturally, and so shares its substance; the source isn’t free not to spawn the emanation. Surely Arius will argue that on a spiritual plane, whatever springs from a separate source is subordinate to its will—as the word which springs from the speaker is freely formed, and of a different nature from and subordinate to the speaker. Arius can use this volitional subordination to distinguish such physical analogies as Dionysius used.”
Alexander was impressed, but not at all surprised, by his student’s perceptiveness. The ability to anticipate and head off an opponent’s arguments is the highest rhetorical skill of the debater, and Athanasius had that talent. “How then do you suggest we combat this virulent heresy, this denigration of Christ, if not in public debate?”
Athanasius did not hesitate. “First, you must get Arius to commit his theology to writing. Command him to submit a written exposition of his theories. That document will provide you with a fixed target, at which you may take aim with care and time for reflection, an advantage not available in the course of an unpredictable and fast-paced public debate that favors the rhetorically skilled.” Unlike you, Alexander, the younger man thought to himself, hoping that the prelate had not taken his comment as a criticism. If you debate him, Arius will tear you apart!
Alexander was too focused on the solution to notice any subtle knock on his abilities. “I think commanding Arius to write out his beliefs would only give him that same time for care and reflection. He is far too clever and diplomatic to expose himself in anything he writes. He will couch his response in as much ambiguity as he needs to protect himself.”
After hearing the passion in Arius’s voice that morning, Athanasius was sure his mentor’s assessment was wrong, but chose his words cautiously so as not to offend.