Arian controversy (Nicaea 325 – Constantinople 381)
c. 318–381 (Gothic Homoianism to c. 700)
attested. Well attested. Arius' own words survive only in a few letters and in quotations by Athanasius (hostile). 'Arianism' as a single system is now seen as a polemical label.
Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, taught that the Son had a beginning and was created by the Father ('there was when he was not'). Nicaea answered that the Son is homoousios ('of the same substance') with the Father. Sixty years of shifting creeds followed. Homoian (Son 'like' the Father), Homoiousian ('like in substance') and Anomoean (Son 'unlike') parties contended under emperors who took sides.
Sides
Arian / Homoian / Anomoean
Leaders: Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Asterius, Valens of Mursa, Ursacius, Aetius, Eunomius, Ulfilas, Constantius II, Valens (emperor)
The Son is a divine but subordinate being, begotten or made by the Father. Homoians avoided substance language.
Nicene
Leaders: Alexander of Alexandria, Athanasius, Hosius, Hilary of Poitiers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Theodosius I
The Son is eternal and of the same substance as the Father, and later the Spirit likewise (Trinity of three hypostases in one ousia).
Councils and places
- Alexandria: Baucalis church of Arius 4th
- Nicomedia (Eusebius of Nicomedia) 4th
- First Council of Nicaea (325) · Nicaea 4th
- Synod of Tyre (335) · Tyre 4th
- Councils of Sirmium (351–358) · Sirmium 4th
- Council of Ariminum (Rimini) (359) · Ariminum 4th
- Council of Seleucia Isauria (359) · Seleucia in Isauria 4th
- First Council of Constantinople (381) · Constantinople 4th
- Sirmium (Homoian creeds of 351–359) 4th
- Nicopolis ad Istrum (Ulfilas and the "lesser Goths") 4th–6th
Outcome
Theodosius I's edict Cunctos populos (380) and Constantinople (381) made Nicene faith the law of the empire.
What happened to the losers
Arians lost their churches in the empire. Homoian Christianity lived on among Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, Sueves and Lombards (Ravenna, Carthage, Toledo). The Vandals persecuted Nicenes in Africa. These kingdoms converted or fell: the Vandals in 534, the Visigoths in 589 at Toledo III, and the Lombards by about 680.