Overview
This article compares the 4th-century Nicene and Eusebian (Arian) views of the Incarnation and Redemption.
While Nicene theology regarded the Father and Son as a single Person (one hypostasis), the Arians believed that the Son is a distinct Person. This resulted in very different views of the incarnation:
Nicene theology:
Since the Father and Son are a single Person with a single mind, the Son cannot become incarnate. Rather, the Holy Spirit inspired a mere human being with the Word of God.
That human has a human mind. Some things Jesus said came from that human mind, for example, that he does not know the day or hour. At other times, it was God’s Word speaking, for example, when He said, ‘The Father and I are one.’
Since the Father and Son are a single Person, the Son is impassible, meaning He cannot suffer or die. It was a mere man who died, was resurrected, and ascended to heaven.
The Arian View:
To redeem the world, God produced a distinct divine Person (the Son) with a lower divinity who could become incarnate, suffer, and die. Jesus does not have a human soul (mind). Rather, the Logos (the Son) functions as Jesus’ mind. Consequently, Jesus Christ is the same Person as the pre-incarnate Son of God. Everything Jesus said was said by God’s eternal Son.
The Logos (the Son) experienced all of Jesus’ suffering, and He died. The Creator and God of the earth was crucified, died, was resurrected, and ascended.
The term ‘Arian’
The term ‘Arian’ is a complete misnomer because Arius was insignificant and did not leave behind a school of followers. (Read More) Nevertheless, this article continues to use that term because most people are familiar with it.
Authors
Following discoveries and research during the 20th century, scholars now explain the Arian Controversy very differently. R.P.C. Hanson described the traditional account of the Arian Controversy as a complete travesty (see here).
“The diatribes of Gwatkin and of Harnack (published around the year 1900) can today be completely ignored” (Hanson, p. 95).
This article series is based on books published by world-class Trinitarian scholars over the last 50 years.
Is the Son a distinct Person?
Different views of the nature of the eternal Son of God result in different views of the incarnation. Show More
In their debates, the Greek church fathers used the term hypostasis to indicate a distinct existence. To say that the Father and Son are one hypostasis means they are one Person. Show More
| In Nicene theology, the Father and Son are one single Person (hypostasis). |
The Nicene Creed describes the Father and Son as a single hypostasis (Person).
| “That creed admits the possibility of only one ousia and one hypostasis” (Hanson, p. 235). |
That is what Athanasius believed:
| The “clear inference from his (Athanasius’) usage” is that “there is only one hypostasis in God” (Ayres, p. 48). |
The only ‘creed’ explaining pro-Nicene theology in the decades after Nicaea was the manifesto formulated by the Western pro-Nicenes in 343, and it explicitly confessed a single hypostasis.
| “He [Athanasius] had attended the Council of Serdica among the Western bishops in 343, and a formal letter of that Council had emphatically opted for the belief in one, and only one, hypostasis as orthodoxy. Athanasius certainly accepted this doctrine at least up to 359, even though he tried later to suppress this fact” (Hanson, p. 444). (Read More) |
What Athanasius believed is another key indicator of Nicene theology and is discussed here. In his view, the Son is IN the Father. This confirms that, in his view, the Father and Son are a single Person.
“In the Father we have the Son: this is a summary of Athanasius’ theology” (Hanson, p. 426).
The “clear inference from his (Athanasius’) usage” is that “there is only one hypostasis in God” (Ayres, p. 48). Show More
| In Arian theology, the Son is a distinct Person. |
In contrast, in Eusebian (Arian) theology, the pre-existent Son or Logos is a distinct Person. For example, commenting on the Arian (Eastern) Dedication Creed of 341:
“The bishops of Antioch indignantly denied being followers of Arius. But their main theological opponent was Marcellus, whose doctrine they countered by insisting that Father, Son, and Spirit are three hypostaseis” (Anatolios, p. 24).
Is the Son Passible?
All theologians accepted that God is impassible, meaning that He cannot suffer or die. In Nicene theology, since the Father and Son are a single Person, the Son has the same uncaused and unoriginated substance as the Father. Therefore, He also cannot suffer or die. He is impassible. In contrast, in the Eusebian (Arian) view, to ensure the salvation of the world, God produced a Son with a lower divinity who could die:
“The Son as a reduced divinity capable, unlike the Father, of becoming incarnate” (Hanson, p. 32).
“Is the Son the immortal God? … No, he is not (i.e. he is the God who can do the dying whereas the Father cannot” (Hanson, p. 109). Show More
Who was incarnated?
| In Nicene theology, the Spirit was incarnated. |
In Nicene theology, since the Father, Son, and Spirit are a single Person, they are inseparable. One cannot say that the Son resides in Jesus Christ because that would mean that the Father also resides in Him. The pro-Nicenes, therefore, argued that God’s Word resides in the man Jesus Christ through God’s Spirit. Effectively, the Spirit was incarnated. For example, the Western pro-Nicene manifesto formulated at Serdica in 343 declares:
| “We believe in and hand down the Comforter the Holy Spirit which the Lord promised and sent to us. And we believe that he was sent. And he (the Spirit) did not suffer, but the man whom he put on, whom he assumed from the Virgin Mary, the man who was capable of suffering, because man is mortal but God immortal” (Hanson, p. 302).
Reading this, “it is hard to avoid the impression that the Incarnation consisted of the Spirit taking a body which did the suffering, and that the Son is not distinguishable from the Spirit” (Hanson, p. 303). |
| In Arianism, the Logos (God’s Son) became incarnate. |
That was not the first time that He appeared in a human body. The orthodox view of the first three centuries was that the one we know as Jesus Christ is the One who appeared to Israel as Yahweh:
| “It is he who appeared in the Old Testament epiphanies. He took a body to appear under the New Testament as Saviour and Redeemer” (Hanson, p. 103).
For the Eusebians, “the pre-existent Christ who appeared in the Old Testament on various occasions was the same as he who was crucified” (Hanson, p. 40, quoting Asterius, a leading early Arian). |
Does Jesus have a human mind?
| In the Nicene view, Jesus Christ has a human mind. |
At the incarnation, the Logos took on a complete human being with a human body and soul. For ‘soul’ we can read mind and emotions. For example, the Sabellians Eustathius and Marcellus, primary supporters of the Nicene Creed, taught that Christ had a human soul:
| “Eustathius of Antioch … criticized the Eusebians for not allowing Christ a human soul. We may also be able to attribute a belief in Christ’s human soul to Marcellus of Ancyra” (Ayres, pp. 76-77).
“Marcellus had allowed Jesus a human soul” (Hanson, p. 453). |
Athanasius’s incarnation theory is discussed here. For most of his life, he refused to admit that Jesus had a human mind or soul. He describes Jesus as God in a human body, like an astronaut in a spacesuit. He said that Jesus only pretended fear and lack of knowledge. Only in the last decade of his life did he admit a human mind in Jesus.
| The Arians denied that Jesus has a human soul (mind). |
In their view, the Logos or Son functioned as the human mind in Jesus. The eternal Son assumed a body without a human soul. For example:
“They insisted that, in becoming incarnate, the Son had taken to himself, not a complete human individual, but a body without a soul, meaning a body without a human mind and emotions” (Hanson, p. 26). Show More
Consequently, the Son directly experienced the pain of Jesus’ suffering and death.
| “Lucian and all the Lucianists deny that the Son of God took a soul (i.e., a human soul), ‘in order that … they may attach human experiences directly to the Logos” (Hanson, p. 80, quoting Epiphanius). |
Who spoke, the divine or a human?
| In Nicene theology, sometimes His divine nature spoke. At other times, the human mind spoke. |
In Nicene theology, some of the things Jesus said were said by His divine nature, such as ‘The Father and I are one.’ At other times, the human mind spoke. For example:
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- ‘The Son of Man does not know the day and hour of His return.’
- ‘My Father is greater than I.’
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| In Arianism, everything Jesus said was said by the eternal Son of God. |
The incarnated Son of God is a single undivided “man:”
| “The Arians dislike dividing Christ’s words and acts into those relevant to his human nature and those to his divine nature” (Hanson, p. 103). |
The pre-existent Son, who also appeared to the Jews as Yahweh, is one and the same as the incarnated Son:
| “The pre-existent Christ who appeared to the Israelites … is exactly the same as he who was crucified” (Hanson, p. 108). |
In other words, the Arians believed that it was the eternal Son who said, “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
Who died?
| In the Nicene view, a mere man died. |
The eternal Son of God did not suffer and die because He cannot. His human soul and mind were a buffer between the Son of God and His human experiences.
It was the man (His human nature – the human body and mind) who suffered, died, was resurrected, ascended to heaven, and sits at God’s right hand. For example, Eustathius, a keen supporter of the Nicene Creed, said:
| “It is the man who sits at God’s right hand” (Hanson, p. 214). |
| In the Arian view, the Creator died. |
In the Eusebian (Arian) view, the Creator and God of the earth was crucified and died.
Arians objected that, in Nicene theology, Christ’s death cannot save because a mere man died. Asterius, one of the leading ‘Arians’, said his opponents’ “interpretation of the person of the incarnate Son … (did) remove the Godhead from the act of redemption” (Hanson, p. 40). In contrast, in the Arian view:
“The Gentiles and the peoples crucified the God of the four comers of the earth, and crucified him because he tolerated it” (Asterius, Hanson, p. 109).
“The Creator was crucified” (Asterius, RH, 38-39). Show More
Conclusions
| It used to be said that Arians avoided soteriology, but the Nicenes did. |
In the few pages that had survived of his own writings, Arius said nothing about soteriology (how people are saved) (Hanson, p. 96). It used to be said that Arians ignored soteriology:
| “Williams and Harnack denied that Arius had any soteriology. … It is understandable … because almost every word … by Arius that survives is concerned with the relation of the Father to the Son independently of the Incarnation” (Hanson, p. 96). |
However, “in their 1981 book Early Arianism: A View of Salvation, Robert Gregg and Denis Groh argued that Arius was motivated primarily by soteriological concerns” (Ayres, pp. 55-56). In the Bible, God suffered on the Cross. The Arian system was designed to say this:
| “It used to be thought that the Arians were so much interested in metaphysics and the relation of the Father to the Son that they ignored soteriology, whereas the pro-Nicenes, because of their concern to prove the divinity of Christ, paid more attention to the doctrine of salvation. Simonetti has rightly rejected this theory. The Arians were concerned with soteriology, and their ideas about the relation of the Son to the Father show this. They made a serious effort to meet the evidence of the Bible that God suffers, whereas the general impression which the writings of the pro-Nicenes produces is that this is the last admission which they wish to make” (Hanson, pp. 826-7). |
It was the pro-Nicenes who avoided this topic:
| “The Arians understood’ very well the necessity of allowing that in some sense God suffered in the course of saving mankind; the pro-Nicenes consistently tried to avoid this conclusion” (Hanson, p. 870).
“Arian thought achieved an important insight into the witness of the New Testament denied to the pro-Nicenes of the 4th century, who unanimously shied away from and endeavoured to explain away the scandal of the Cross” (Williams, pp. 21-22, quoting RPC Hanson). |
| The Nicenes and the Sabellians were on the same side. |
Both the Sabellians and Nicenes taught that the Father and Son are one hypostasis and that Jesus Christ has a human mind. At Nicaea, Alexander allied with the Sabellians, and a decade later, Athanasius allied with Marcellus. As discussed here, the main dividing line in the Arian Controversy was between one- and three-hypostases theologies, and the Nicenes and Sabellians were on the same side.
If Jesus did not die, we could not be saved. On that, we agree. However, different Theories of the Atonement are different explanations of HOW His death atoned for the sins of God’s people.