Episode 5 – A Quarrel Over Unimportant Points

* This is the first episode of the premium series! * October 28, 312. * The Battle of Milvian Bridge. * Conny wins and marches into Rome, with the head of Maxentius carried on a spike. * Just like Jesus would have done. * Arianism started in Alexandria. * It’s named after Arius, a pretty popular and charismatic priest who believed that Jesus was secondary to God, not equal to God. * He was not of the same nature (consubstantial) as God the Father nor was he of like nature (homoiousian), * He didn’t invent this idea. * It had been debated for a long time. * Going right back to the first century, around the time the NT was being written, many of the church leaders took the view that Jesus was secondary to God. * This view was argued by Origen of Alexandria, Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, the Epistle of Barnabas, Justin Martyr, the Didache, Tertullian, and Pope Dionysius. * Which is something I find shocks modern Christians. * I like to throw that into conversations. * “You do realize, of course, that the earliest Christian leaders didn’t believe Jesus was God, right?” * Anyway Arius became the focal point of the issue. * Arius’ argument was pretty simple. * The Father comes before the Son. * Therefore there must have been a time when the Son did not exist. * They argued that it was logical and the only conclusion you could arrive at using reason. * The idea was actually supported by Jesus himself in the gospels, John 14:28: “the Father is greater than I”. * And also Colossians 1:15: where Jesus is called “the firstborn of all creation.” * But when has reason ever had much to do with Christianity? * The other side tried to argue that God and Jesus were of the same essence, homoousious, “one in being” or “of single essence”. * And that both had been around forever. * Known as the Trinitarians. * Arius wasn’t alone in arguing for Jesus being secondary. * At the first Council of Nicaea, which Constantine himself supervised in 325, twenty-two bishops, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia in Bythinia, came as supporters of Arius. * They argued about it for two months. * Finally Constantine ruled in favour of the Trinitarian camp. * But he thought the whole debate was silly. * According to Eusebius, Constantine said the debate was “trivial and entirely unimportant”, “really silly” and “a quarrel over small and quite unimportant points”. * This is where they came up with the original Nicene Creed. * Which every Christian had to sign up to. * It said * We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God,] Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; By whom all things were made [both in heaven and on earth]; Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man; He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. [But those who say: ‘There was a time when he was not;’ and ‘He was not before he was made;’ and ‘He was made out of nothing,’ or ‘He is of another substance’ or ‘essence,’ or ‘The Son of God is created,’ or ‘changeable,’ or ‘alterable’— they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.] * Con had Arius exiled to Palestine. * BTW there’s a great story about Arius. * Apparently he liked to take popular songs or poems of the day and re-write them so they framed his ideas about the nature of Jesus.