Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J. F.

Buch: The Way to Nicea

Titel: The Way to Nicea

Stichwort: Arius; Brief an Alexander; der Sohn (logos ) geschaffen; Sohn: unvollkommene Erkenntnis des Vaters

Kurzinhalt: Arius and his companions wished to improve on the New Testament and the Apostles' Creed by excluding every metaphor and every anthropomorphism ...

Textausschnitt: 70a Arius' letter to Alexander was signed by two bishops, six priests and six deacons. The profession of faith that it contains is as follows:

"This, blessed father, is the faith that we received from our elders, and also learned from you. We acknowledge one God, who alone is unbegotten, who alone is eternal, who alone is without beginning, who alone is true, who alone is immortal, who alone is wise, who alone is good, who alone is full of power; it is he who judges all, who controls all things, who provides all things; and he is subject to no change or alteration; he is just and good; he is the God of the Law and of the Prophets and of the New Covenant:

"This one God, before all time, begot his only-begotten Son, through whom he made the ages and the universe. He begot him not just in appearance, but in fact; by his own will he made his son to subsist and he made him unchangeable and unalterable. God's perfect creature, he is unlike any other creature; begotten, yes, but unique in the manner of his begetting:

"This offspring of God is not, as Valentinus taught, an emission of the Father; neither is he, as Mani taught, a part of the Father, consubstantial with him; neither is he the same person as the Father, as Sabellius said, dividing the unity; nor is it, as Hieracas held, as if there were one torch from another or one lamp with two parts. Neither is it true to say that he who previously existed was then begotten, or constituted as son: you yourself, blessed Father, many times, in council and in the midst of the Church, refuted those who held these views:

"But we say that he was created, by God's will, before all ages; from the Father he received being and life, and in creating him the Father conferred his own glory on him. Yet the Father, in giving all things into his possession, did not despoil himself of them: he contains all things in himself in an unbegotten way, for he is the source of all things. Therefore there are three substances (hypostases). (Fs)

"But God, who is the cause of all things, is absolutely the only one who is without beginning. The son, born of the Father before all time, created and constituted in being before all ages, did not exist before he was begotten: born outside of time, generated before all else, he alone received being from the Father. He is not eternal, co-eternal with the Father, nor is he, as the Father is, unbegotten; neither, as some say of things that are related to each other, does he have being simultaneously with the Father. For thus there would be two unbegotten principles. But God, as he is a unity (monas) and source of all things, so he exists before all things. Therefore he also exists before the Son, as we have heard you preach to the whole people. Inasmuch, then, as the Son has being, glory and life from the Father, in so much is God his source. He is his Lord, as being his God and existing before him. (Fs)

"If some people understand the phrases from him, from the womb and I came forth from the Father and I come as implying that he is a consubstantial part of the Father, or a sort of emission, they make the Father composite, divisible and changeable; indeed God would be a body, if they had their way, and the incorporeal God would be affected in ways in which only bodies can be affected".1

71a We can gather from this that Arius and his companions wished to improve on the New Testament and the Apostles' Creed by excluding every metaphor and every anthropomorphism. The Father alone would be unbegotten, without any source, and eternal; the Son, because he has a source, would be neither unbegotten nor eternal, but would be a kind of supreme creature, made out of nothing through the will of the Father. Admittedly the phrase "out of nothing" does not occur in the long passage just cited, but Arius himself had earlier written to Eusebius of Nicomedia, a fellow-student of his at the school of Lucian, in the following vein:

"But what we say, and what we believe, is what we have taught, and still teach: namely, that the Son is neither unbegotten nor in any way a part of the unbegotten, and neither was he made from any pre-existing matter; by the decision and counsel (of the Father) he subsisted before all ages. He is fully God, God's only-begotten Son, and he is immutable; but before he was begotten, before he was created, before he was constituted in being by the Father, he did not exist. For he was not unbegotten. They persecute us because we say that the Son has a source and a beginning, but God has not. This is why they abuse us, and also because we use the phrase 'out of nothing' (ex non exstantibus); but we used this phrase because the Son is not a part of the Father, nor, on the other hand, was he made out of any preexisting matter".1 (notabene)

72a Here Arius says that the Son is immutable, but on earlier occasions he had taught that he was mutable, according to the letter of Alexander of Alexandria, written to all the Bishops of the Church, about the year 319:

"The language they have invented, which runs counter to the meaning of scripture, is as follows:


"God was not always Father, but there was a time when he was not Father. The Word of God did not always exist, but was made out of nothing. For God, who is, brought into existence, out of what was nonexistent, one who was non-existent, and so there was a time when he was not. For the Son is something created, something made. He is not similar to the Father in respect of substance (ousia); neither is he the true and natural Word of the Father, nor is he the Father's true wisdom, but belongs to the things that have been made and created. He is improperly called the Word and wisdom, since he himself was made through the word of God in the proper sense, and through the wisdom that is in God, in which wisdom God made not only all other things, but him as well. Therefore, he is mutable by nature, as all rational creatures are. The Word is outside of God's substance, other than God's substance, apart from God's substance. The Son cannot tell all about the Father; for he cannot see the Father perfectly, and his knowledge of the Father is imperfect and imprecise. Indeed, the Son does not even know his own substance, as it is in itself. For it was for our sakes that he was made, so that through his instrumentality, as it were, God might create us; and he would not have existed, if God had not wished to bring us into being. To the question, whether it is possible that the Word of God is such that he could be changed in the way that the devil was changed, they did not draw back from answering that it is indeed possible, because, being made and created, he is by nature changeable".1 (Fs)