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ARIANS AND UNITARIANS
By David Herndon
September 19, 2004
First Unitarian Church
Pittsburgh, PA
What could be more foolish than supporting a church whose
message you cannot put into words?
Many of us devote many hours and invest many dollars toward making this
religious community vital and strong. Yet how many of us truly have a
good grasp of how the distinctive beliefs of Unitarian Universalism came
into being? As Unitarian Universalists, we may think that all of our progressive
doctrines are new and modern, but some of our beliefs are actually quite
old.
For instance, our Unitarian Universalist faith tradition has greatly admired
Jesus for his exemplary life and his inspirational teachings, but we have
generally opposed the belief that Jesus was God. Where did this idea come
from? Did the feminist theologians invent this in the 1970s? Did the religious
humanists invent this in the 1920s? Did the Transcendentalists invent
this in the 1840s? Did the first generations of North American Unitarians
and Universalists invent this around 1800? Did the English Unitarians
invent this in the 1700s? Did the Unitarians of Eastern Europe invent
this in the 1500s? The pathways of theological history are complex. Sometimes
ideas are transmitted from one time and place to another time and place,
while sometimes ideas are generated independently in different places
and times. This morning, however, I would like to trace the idea that
Jesus was not God all the way back to the fourth century, when there was
no consensus within the Christian religion about the relationship between
God and Jesus, and when a remarkable priest named Arius put forth a theological
view that has a remarkable resonance with Unitarian Universalism in our
own time. I hope that this excursion back into antiquity will help us
more deeply appreciate and understand our faith tradition. Perhaps it
will even help us do a little better putting our religious message into
words.
The Roman Empire that executed Jesus in the year 30 and destroyed the
Second Jewish Temple in the year 70 was unprecedented and unrivaled in
its military strength. Two hundred years later, however, the Roman Empire
was faltering, unable to defend itself against invasions from the north
by Germanic tribes and from the east by the Persians. Uncertainty and
insecurity became common among common people, and a new religion called
Christianity began to attract many converts, in part because it held out
a promise of personal immortality and eternal safety. By the year 250,
although it had not become as large as the Jewish community, Christianity
had become the fastest-growing religion within the Roman Empire.
The emperor Diocletian managed to secure the frontiers of the Roman Empire
by the year 300. Seeking to restore the empire to its former strength
and glory, Diocletian wanted the inhabitants of the lands he ruled to
return to their pagan religious customs and worship the old gods. Thus,
starting in the year 303, he began to suppress Christian communities,
outlawing their religious customs, stripping them of their books and property,
and forcing Christians to participate in the ceremonial animal sacrifices
characteristic of paganism.
In 312, however, an ambitious military leader named Constantine had dreams
about Christian symbols and a promise of victory, and as a result he ordered
that the pagan symbols decorating his army be replaced with Christian
symbols instead. Soon Constantine had become emperor of the western part
of the Roman Empire. In the following year, 313, Constantine issued the
Edict of Milan, which formally ended the Great Persecution that Diocletian
had begun. By the year 324, Constantine had consolidated his power and
had become emperor of the entire Roman Empire.
Like Diocletian, Constantine wanted to restore the former strength and
glory of the Roman Empire. But he was willing to forge a spiritual unity
within the empire based not on the old pagan gods, but on the new Christian
religion.
Awkwardly enough, however, a theological difference among a few Christian
leaders in the city of Alexandria was rapidly becoming regional dispute.
How could Constantine use the Christian religion to unify the Roman Empire
if the Christian leaders were not themselves unified? Constantine discerned
that he needed this dispute to be firmly and quickly resolved, and asked
his most trusted religious adviser, Bishop Hosius, to find a way for the
two parties to resolve their differences. Eventually, Constantine sent
out invitations to the Christian bishops to join him for a council at
his imperial residence at Nicaea, in the northwest part of present-day
Turkey, where they would all work out a way for the Christian community
to be theologically united.
Two hundred and fifty bishops, the majority from the eastern part of the
Roman Empire, gathered at Nicaea as guests of Constantine. They met over
four months, from early May until late July. Never had so many Christian
leaders gathered together, and never had they met for such a long time,
and never had they met with the patronage of a sympathetic emperor. In
the end, the bishops sent Arius and his followers away and produced a
statement of belief known as the Nicene Creed. But little was settled
as a result of this council.
I would like to stop the historical narrative at this point and focus
on the defining beliefs of the Arians and how those beliefs constituted
a distinctive response to the changes taking place in the Roman Empire
in the fourth century. In his book When Jesus Became God: The Struggle
to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome, Richard Rubenstein
writes: "Arianism . . . was once at least as popular as the doctrine
that Jesus is God. . . . [Arians] believed that Jesus Christ was, indeed,
the holiest person who ever lived, but not the Eternal God of Israel walking
the earth in the form of a man. . . . How could one be a Christian and
not believe that Christ was God incarnate? The Arians had an answer. To
them, Jesus was a person of such sublime moral accomplishments that God
adopted him as His son, sacrificed him to redeem humanity from sin, raised
him from the dead, and granted him divine status. Because of his excellence,
he became a model of righteous behavior for us. And because his merit
earned the prize of immortality, the same reward was made available to
other human beings, provided that they model themselves after him. From
the Arian perspective, it was essential that Jesus not be God, since God,
being perfect by nature is inimitable. By contrast, Christ's transcendent
virtue, achieved by repeated acts of will, is available (at least potentially)
to the rest of us. Even though we may fall short of his impeccable standards,
his triumph over egoism shows us how we also may become the Sons and Daughters
of God."
Rubenstein notes that Arian theology provided an answer to the questions
about the nature of Jesus and the nature of the relationship between Jesus
and God. For the Arians, Jesus was not God, although he was a unique being
somewhat intermediary between God and humanity. But what is most intriguing
about the Arian theology is its message about the promise of human beings.
The Arians did not attribute the goodness that Jesus demonstrated in his
life to some supernatural, superhuman ability. Rather, the goodness that
Jesus demonstrated came from his own human will, from his own human spirituality,
from his own human discernment of moral virtue. The message here is that
any human being can aspire to live as excellent a life as Jesus did, using
nothing more that the human abilities dwelling within all of us. This
is a ringing affirmation of the strengths and capabilities of people.
Listen now to how Richard Rubenstein describes the theology of the anti-Arians:
"While Arians tended to emphasize people's potential to follow the
moral example of Jesus, anti-Arians like St. Augustine focused on their
continued self-enslavement, which implied the need for a Christ who was
God. . . . Only a Christ who was God could forgive them even if they remained
helpless sinners." In another passage, Rubenstein writes: "The
old gods, false gods, had failed. The world had become a strange, confusing
place, full of new threats and promises. People felt a deep need to make
sense of their existence . . . by believing in a true God and accurately
defining His relationship to humanity. . . . One underlying question this:
To what extent were the values and customs of the ancient world still
valid guides to thinking and action in a Christian empire? . . . Those
whose ideas and social relationship were still shaped to a large extent
by the optimistic ideals and tolerant practices of pagan society, and
for whom Christianity seemed a natural extension of and improvement on
Judaism, tended to be Arians of one sort or another. By contrast, the
strongest anti-Arians experienced their present as a sharp break with
the past. . . . For [anti-Arians] . . . ancient modes of thought and cultural
values were increasingly irrelevant. Greek humanism and rationalism were
shallow; Judaism was an offensive, anti-Christian faith; and while admirable
figures . . . could try to perfect themselves . . . most people's need
was the need for security. Only a strong God, a strong Church, and a strong
empire could provide helpless humans with the security they craved."
Rubenstein notes that the anti-Arian theological view also provided an
answer to questions about the nature of Jesus and the nature of the relationship
between Jesus and God. But in this theological view, human beings are
self-enslaved and helpless, and their primary hunger is for security,
not self-improvement. In this theological view, the focus is on human
sinfulness, not on human ability; on human estrangement from virtue, not
on human capacity for goodness; on human stubbornness, not human self-transcendence.
As the anti-Arian St. Augustine said: Human beings are not able not to
sin.
The Arian controversy continued long after the Council of
Nicaea ended in July, 325. For several decades, bishops met in council
after council; this council would affirm the Arian position, that council
would affirm the anti-Arian position; this council would excommunicate
one or more individuals holding the anti-Arian position, that council
would excommunicate one or more individuals holding the Arian position.
Constantine died; Arius died; the anti-Arian leader Alexander died; Alexander's
successor Athanasius died; but the controversy remained very much alive.
Finally, in 381, the Council of Constantinople reaffirmed in a definitive
way the results of the Council of Nicaea which had taken place fifty-six
years earlier. Anyone affirming the Arian theology or possessing Arian
books could be put to death. The Arians were dispersed and demoralized,
and soon the Arian theology had disappeared from mainstream Christian
thought.
But this was not the end of Arianism, the belief that Jesus was not God.
The Germanic tribes that had threatened the northern borders of the Roman
Empire had been converted to Christianity by followers of Arius, and apparently
Arian beliefs continued in the remote towns and villages of these people
for many years after the Council of Constantinople, for perhaps as long
as three or four hundred years. One might even speculate that the inhabitants
of the remote region called Transylvania remained hospitable to an Arian
understanding of Christianity from this time until the Reformation in
the 1500s, when Unitarianism began to flourish there. And looking eastward,
we may note that Arianism was especially popular in the eastern cities
of the Roman Empire, in the Greek-speaking cities that ringed the Mediterranean
Sea from Turkey to Egypt. During the rise of Islam in the seventh century,
many inhabitants of this area were perhaps already inclined toward a non-Trinitarian
view of God, which was exactly what Islam offered. One might speculate
that lingering echoes of Arianism may have contributed to the willingness
of many of the inhabitants of this area to embrace Islam.
Rubenstein writes that "by the seventh century the last of the Arian
tribes in Western Europe had been converted to Catholicism. About one
thousand years later, Arian beliefs would be espoused by a number of well-known
English Protestants, some of whom would go on to create Unitarianism."
Thus, present-day Unitarian Universalists can look back to the Arian controversy
of the fourth century with some claim to be the heirs of the Arian theology.
We need not wade into the complexities of whether or not Jesus was created
by God, or whether or not Jesus and God were of the same substance. But
we are liberal Christians, or natural theists, or religious humanists,
As Unitarian Universalists we can affirm with the Arians a strong faith
in the capacities and possibilities of human beings, an optimistic belief
that any human being can aspire to live as fine a life as Jesus lived.
In the reading we heard earlier this morning, Unitarian Universalist minister
Gordon McKeeman said: "I confess I do not have much trouble with
Christ. For it is only a word, reflecting beliefs I do not hold, in its
way much like the flat earth and dragons. But I have loads of trouble
with Jesus, because the deepest insights we have into his life set a standard
of conduct that I have not yet managed to reach. I know it to be possible,
because he was a man who did it. I have trouble with Jesus because I know
that in the end I must be my own answer to the questions. Christ is so
much easier than Jesus. You can follow Christ by believing. But you can
only follow Jesus by living. That quality of living takes a courage and
a faith that I do not always command. Perhaps Jesus did not always command
it, either. But, in the end, he did have it. I aspire to have it, too."
Gordon McKeeman affirms that human beings are indeed capable of living
a morally honorable life using the resources that are naturally our own.
Is this exactly what the Arians were saying? The resemblance is not exact.
Nevertheless, striking similarities do link contemporary Unitarian Universalism
with the ancient Arian view.
I had considered calling this sermon "Putting Arianism Back Into
Unitarianism." That may be off the mark, but I hope that all of us
will come away from our time together this morning with an expanded understanding
of our own theological history. And perhaps this will enable us to explain
our religious message with a little more clarity.
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