Arius: more of a heretic than I thought he was...

Last year in church history we heard about a number of heretics in the early church.

Our lecturer was really great at helping to be sympathetic to them.  That is, to listen carefully to what they say, weigh it carefully, not react to hastily to them, and to see the good things in what they were trying to do.

Arius was a a guy who said that 'there was a time when the Son was not'.  Well today I've been reading a bit of Arius' work for myself.  This is an excerpt in Athanasius' work where he quotes Arius at length.

Moreover he has dared to say, that ‘the Word is not the very God;’ ‘though He is called God, yet He is not very God,’ but ‘by participation of grace, He, as others, is God only in name.’ And, whereas all beings are foreign and different from God in essence, so too is ‘the Word alien and unlike in all things to the Father’s essence and propriety,’ but belongs to things originated and created, and is one of these. Afterwards, as though he had succeeded to the devil’s recklessness, he has stated in his Thalia, that ‘even to the Son the Father is invisible,’ and ‘the Word cannot perfectly and exactly either see or know His own Father;’ but even what He knows and what He sees, He knows and sees ‘in proportion to His own measure,’ as we also know according to our own power. For the Son, too, he says, not only knows not the Father exactly, for He fails in comprehension, but ‘He knows not even His own essence;’—and that ‘the essences of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, are separate in nature, and estranged, and disconnected, and alien, and without participation of each other;’ and, in his own words, ‘utterly unlike from each other in essence and glory, unto infinity.’ 

Cited by Athanisius in Discourses Against the Arians (1.2.6)

I'm struggling to be positive...

Thankfully we can have confidence that Jesus - the Word - is truly God and as such, truly reveals the Father to us.

John 1:1-2

 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.

John 1:18

18 No one has ever seen God; the only One, who is God,  who is at the Father's side,  he has made him known.

John 14:9

The one who has seen Me has seen the Father.

Those old school folks knew what they were on about…

In church history class we’ve been asked to look at the Homily on Justification, which was written during the period which we now call the English Reformation.

What a great summary of the gospel:

For the more full understanding hereof, it is our parts and duties ever to remember the great mercy of God; how that all the world being wrapped in sin by breaking of the Law, God sent his only Son our Saviour Christ into this world, to fulfil the Law for us; and, by shedding of his most precious blood, to make a sacrifice and satisfaction, or, as it may be called, amends to his Father, for our sins; to assuage his wrath and indignation conceived against us for the same … [and are]  by this sacrifice washed from their sins, brought to God's favour, and made his children, and inheritors of his kingdom of heaven.

looking back at church history

I've really enjoyed church history this semester...even more than I thought I would. :-)

It's been great to see Christians in other times wrestling to figure out what it means to be a Christian.

We've been looking at early church history from 70-451AD.  A lot happened in this time!!  It was very formative.  The church was expanding.  The church was being persecuted.  The church was figuring out how to do church.  The collection of authoritative writing was being recognised and developed.

As some people expressed their opinions others thought, "I don't think you've got that quite right."  So then over time orthodoxy developed and heresies were combatted.

Looking back at this history now, almost 2000 years later, it can be easy to criticise, but I've been really grateful for our lecturer encouraging us to be sympathetic to people as we read about them.  Generally they had good aims.  They may have come up with something we consider to be incorrect, but they may have had good intentions when they came up with their explanation.  We also have the benefit of 2000 years of reflection on Christianity, whereas they were pioneers.