Arius did not say there was time before the Son of God existed.

OVERVIEW

The Arian Controversy is named after Arius, a fourth-century presbyter. He taught that the Son was begotten before time and the creation existed. However, since the Son was begotten by the Father, he also argued that the Father existed before the Son. Therefore, while the Father had no beginning, the Son had a beginning of existence – outside time.

Arius never said there was ‘time’ before the Son. He always said the Son was before time. Very little of Arius’ writings survived. Almost everything we know of him comes from the writings of his critics, particularly Athanasius. Athanasius claimed that Arius said there was “time” before the Son existed. However, Athanasius had an ulterior motive. As discussed here, he wanted the world to believe that his enemies – the anti-Nicenes – followed Arius, which they did not. But that motivated Athanasius to ‘quote’ extensively from Arius and to present him in the most negative light possible. To determine what Arius really wrote, we should rather accept the Nicene Creed, which does not use the word “time” in its anathema:

“But as for those who say,
There was when He was not …”

When I began this article series, I thought that Arius was important. Consequently, I wrote several articles explaining his theology. I have since realized that Arius was not important. He had no followers and the people of his time did not regard him as an important writer. (Read More) The only reason that so many today regard him as important is because Athanasius claimed that the anti-Nicenes were followers of Arius, which is false. Therefore, I no longer regard these articles on Arius as important to understand the ‘Arian’ Controversy.

AUTHORS

This article series is based mainly on the books of three world-class scholars who are regarded as specialists in the fourth-century Arian Controversy, namely:

RH = Bishop RPC Hanson
The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God –
The Arian Controversy 318-381, 1987

RW = Archbishop Rowan Williams
Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 2002/1987

LA = Lewis Ayres
Nicaea and its legacy, 2004
Ayres is a Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology

This article uses the following codes for certain ancient documents:

• • • EoN – Arius’ letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia
    • AoA – Arius’ letter to Alexander of Alexandria
    • De Synodis – Athnasius’ quote of Arius
    • A1 – Alexander’s first letter in which he explains why he excommunicated Arius
    • A2 – Alexander’s second letter

THE ARIAN VIEW

The Son existed before Time.

As is also taught by the Bible (e.g., Col 1:16; Heb 1:2), Arius maintained that God created all things through His Son (RH, 13). Therefore, the Son must have existed before all things. Consistent with this, Arius wrote that the Son:

“Exists … before times and before ages” (EoN, RH, 6),

Was “begotten timelessly by the Father … before aeons … begotten timelessly before everything” (AoA, RH, 8). (An aeon is “an indefinite and very long period of time.”)¹Was “created and established before aeons” (RH, 8)²Was “begotten before aeonian times” and “before times and before aeons” (AoA, RH, 7).

Eusebius of Caesarea, regarded as the most scholarly bishop of Arius’ time, and who supported Arius all his life, similarly taught that the Son was “begotten before all ages” (RH, 56).

If we assume that “the beginning” in John 1:1 was when all things were created, as is implied by John 1:3, then Arius would have said that the Logos was with God “in the beginning.”

He did not always exist.

Arius frequently said that the Son did not always exist. For example:

“There was when He was not” (Nicene Creed of AD 325).

He “did not exist before he was begotten … for he is not eternal nor co-eternal, nor co-unoriginated with the Father” (AoA, RH, 8).³“Before he was begotten or created or determined or established, he did not exist” (EoN, RH, 6).⁴“The Son having not existed attained existence by the Father’s will” (De Synodis, RH, 14).

Therefore, the Father existed before the Son. Arius wrote similarly:

“Nor does he possess being parallel with the Father … thereby introducing two unoriginated ultimate principles, but as the … origin of everything, so God is prior to everything. Therefore he is also prior to the Son” (AoA, RH, 8).

In other words, Arius argued that, if the Son had always existed, there would be “two unoriginated ultimate principles,” meaning, two Beings who exist without cause and gave cause to all else, which is impossible.

Eusebius of Caesarea referred similarly to God as “prior to the Logos” (RH, 48).

He had a beginning.

For example, Arius wrote:

The Father “is supremely sole without beginning” (AoA, RH, 8).

“We praise him as without beginning in contrast to him who has a beginning” (De Synodis, RH, 14, 31)

There was no ‘time’ before the Son

Very little of Arius’ own writings have survived but, in what has survived, Arius never used the word “time” to say that there was “time” before the Son was begotten. However, according to Arius’ two main enemies – Athanasius and Alexander – Arius did add that word. For example, Athanasius, in his paraphrasing of Arius’ teaching, stated that Arius taught:

“God was not always Father, but there was a time when he was solitary. The Son did not always exist” (RH, 13).

In De Synodis, which does seem to be a direct quote, Athanasius wrote:

“We worship him as eternal in contrast to him who came into existence in times” (De Synodis, RH, 14).

Similarly, Alexander described Arius as teaching:

“There was a time when God was not Father” (A1, RH, 16).

“There was a time when he did not exist” (A1, RH, 16).

“There was a time when the Son of God did not exist” (A2, RH, 17).

So, according to Athanasius and Alexander, Arius apparently wrote that there was literal time before the Son existed. On the other hand, Arius himself wrote that the Son was “begotten timelessly before everything.” Did Arius contradict himself?

Many commentators have thought so. For example, “Gwatkin characterizes Arianism as … a crude and contradictory system” (RW, 10).

On the other hand, however, the Trinitarian Bishop Rowan Williams, after writing a recent book about Arius, concluded that Arius “is a thinker and exegete of resourcefulness, sharpness and originality” (RW, 116).

This apparent contradiction may be explained as follows:

EXPLANATION

God exists ‘outside’ time.

The theologians of the fourth century believed that time began when God brought the world (today, we would say “the cosmos”) into existence. Beyond this cosmos, where God exists, there is no time.

We cannot use the words ‘always’ and ‘before’ to describe that incomprehensible and timeless reality beyond our universe because those words assume the existence of time. Still, if we use these terms in a metaphysical sense, we can say that the Father ‘always’ existed and, therefore, He existed ‘before’ He created the cosmos. In other words, there was something like a timeless gap between God and creation (RW, 188-9).

Co-eternal implies two First Principles. 

In this view, the Son is co-eternal with the Father, meaning that He has ‘always’ existed in that timeless reality beyond our universe. In other words, there was no timeless gap between Father and Son (RW, 189).

The Arians opposed this because it would mean that both the Father and Son are “unoriginated ultimate principles,” which is not possible:

Arius said that this would mean that the Father does not ‘have precedence’ over the Son in any respect and it would mean that the Son also exists without cause and is a rival first principle (RW, 189).

Eusebius of Caesarea “also defends … (the statement that) ‘he who is begot him who was not’ on the grounds that … if it is not allowed, ‘then there would be two Beings’, i.e. two grounds of being” (RH, 57).

Eusebius of Caesarea also argued that the titles Father and Son mean that the Father is the cause of the Son’s existence and that, therefore, “the Father and the Son … cannot have co-existed eternally.” He wrote:

“The Father and the Son … cannot have co-existed eternally, but rather the Father precedes the Son in eternal existence. If this were not so, then the Father would not be Father nor the Son Son, and both would be either unoriginated or originated. But in fact, ‘one is regarded as prior to and greater than the second in rank and honours, so that he is the cause of the existence [of the other] and of the kind of existence which he has’. The Son himself knows that he is different from the Father and less and subordinate.” (RH, 57)

The Son has existed at all times.

Alexander and Athanasius, by adding the word “time,” implied that Arius taught that the Son did not always exist in the literal time of our universe. (RW, 189) But Arius said that the gap between Father and Son “may be temporal or logical,” and if it is temporal (time), then it may be “an instant of time or an infinitesimal reality” (RW, 189).

In other words, if there was a gap of literal time between the Father and Son, then it would only be an instant. But it may also be that there is no literal time gap between the Father and Son and that the gap is only “logical,” meaning a gap in the timeless reality beyond our universe.

Williams interprets Eusebius of Caesarea as presenting the same concepts:

“Faced with the notion that there was no ‘interval’ between Father and Son, Eusebius is not necessarily being inconsistent in stressing the Father’s pre-existence. From our point of view, in the world’s time, Father and Son co-exist; from the Father’s point of view, so to speak, they do not and cannot.” (RW, 172)

Hanson explains the same principle in different words:

“He (Arius) and his followers insist again and again that the Son was produced before times and ages yet they hold onto the conviction that there was a time when the Son did not exist. … Perhaps they took the Platonic view that time only existed when the heavenly bodies, by which time is measured, were created, so that the Son, who was at some point brought into existence, but before the heavenly bodies, could be said in a sense to be ‘before times’” (RH, 22).

The point is that, in Arian teaching, since God created this universe, including time, through the Son, there was no literal “time” before the Son was begotten.

OTHER ARTICLES

• • • Origin of the Trinity Doctrine – Including the pre-Nicene Church Fathers and the fourth-century Arian Controversy
    • All articles on this website
    • Is Jesus the Most High God?
    • Trinity Doctrine – General
    • The Book of Daniel
    • The Book of Revelation
    • The Origin of Evil
    • Death, Eternal Life, and Eternal Torment

FOOTNOTES

• 1
  Was “created and established before aeons” (RH, 8)
• 2
  Was “begotten before aeonian times” and “before times and before aeons” (AoA, RH, 7).
• 3
  “Before he was begotten or created or determined or established, he did not exist” (EoN, RH, 6).
• 4
  “The Son having not existed attained existence by the Father’s will” (De Synodis, RH, 14).