Arius, Letter to Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria (c. 320 C.E.)and
The Nicene Creed (325 C.E.)
Although Emperor Constantine (288–337 C.E.) had made Christianity a legal religion in the Roman Empire in 313 C.E., major controversies about doctrine and belief continued to rage. Arius (c. 260–336 C.E.), a priest and theologian of Alexandria, posed the most serious challenge to the developing church. Setting forth the belief that the Father and Son could not both be uncreated, Arius insisted that Jesus Christ was not God in the same manner as God the Father. He defended his views in the letter that follows, written circa 320 to the bishop of Alexandria after Arius’s condemnation by the Synod of Egypt. As the doctrine of Arianism swept through the empire, sparking anger among many Christians, Constantine called the Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.) to resolve the issue. Two hundred to three hundred bishops attended the council, at which Arius was allowed to explain his position. It was rejected, and the council formulated a creed—one that is still used in slightly different forms in most Western Christian churches. Despite the creed’s widespread acceptance, Arianism continued to spread and divide the church.
From J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church to AD 337, rev. ed. (London: SPCK, 1987), 326–27; and Patrick V. Reid, Readings in Western Religious Thought: The Ancient World (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 376.
Letter of Arius to Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria
To our blessed Pope1 and Bishop Alexander, the Presbyters and Deacons send greeting in the Lord.
Our faith from our forefathers, which we have learned also from thee, Blessed Pope, is this: We acknowledge One God, alone unbegotten, alone everlasting, alone unbegun, alone true, alone having immortality, alone wise, alone good, alone sovereign; judge, governor, and administrator of all, unalterable and unchangeable, just and good, God of Law and Prophets and New Testament; who begat an Only-begotten Son before eternal times, through whom he has made both the ages and the universe; and begat him not in semblance, but in truth: and that he made him subsist at his own will, unalterable and unchangeable; perfect creature of God, . . . created before times and before ages, and gaining life and being and his glories from the Father, who gave real existence to those together with him. For the Father did not, in giving to him the inheritance of all things, deprive himself of what he has ingenerately in himself; for he is the Fountain of all things. Thus there are three Subsistences. And God, being the cause of all things, is unbegun and altogether sole but the Son being begotten apart from time by the Father, and being created and found before ages, was not before his generation; but, being begotten apart from time before all things, alone was made to subsist by the Father. For he is not eternal or co-eternal or co-unoriginate with the Father, nor has he his being together with the Father, as some speak of relations, introducing two ingenerate beginnings, but God is before all things as being Monad and Beginning of all.
The Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father. By whom all things were made, both which be in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down [from heaven] and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered and the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven. And he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead.
And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost.
And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion—all that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.
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