The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council-- Our patrons against the spirit of obstinacy

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

There are few persons in the history of the Church who are as odious as the heresiarch Arius.  Arius was a priest of the city of Alexandria in Egypt, who became a famous preacher and spiritual director in last days of the persecution of the Church.  His ministry became even more widely known after the Edict of Milan, which ended the persecution of the Christian Church in 312.  His teacher in theology and the spiritual life was one of the greatest minds, which the Church produced in that early age, St. Lucian of Antioch, who died a martyr for the faith in the last and greatest persecution under the Emperor Diocletian. 

     Arius not only excelled as a preacher. He was also famous for uncommon ability as a hymn-writer.  He wrote an entire book of hymns for use in the Church of Alexandria, and his hymns were thought to be so fine that they were sung everywhere, throughout the Greek-speaking Church, in just a few short years.  His book, entitled Thalia (Blossoms, in Greek), survives to this day, and his style and verse is still admired for its perfection. 

     Nevertheless, despite his enormous gifts and his high-powered education, many of Arius’ ideas were wrong, fatally wrong.  He taught that Jesus Christ, the Word of God, was a supremely perfect creature.  Christ was the first creature to have been created.  In fact, his perfection was so great that he was exalted to the throne of God, and sat at God’s right hand, and would judge the living and the dead in the time to come.  Although Christ was not God, nor was he equal to God, nevertheless he was called “the only-begotten god” because of his great perfection above every other being. 

     Arius’ bishop, St. Peter of Alexandria, became aware that his priest was preaching these ideas, and he became very alarmed at the spread of these notions, since they are so much at variance with the truth.  According to the faith of the Church, Jesus Christ, the Logos of the Father, is God just as surely as the Father Himself is God.  Christ is of the same substance as the Father.  Everything that the Father is, the Son is likewise.  They only differ in their relationship to one another, so that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father.  We become so used to reciting the Niceo-Constantinopolitan Creed that we often rattle it off without thought or emphasis, but if we were to add the emphasis where in belongs, there would be one phrase, which is particularly emphasized.  We say: “Light from Light, true God from true God. Begotten, NOT CREATED, of one essence with the Father, and through Whom all things were made.” Those two words: NOT CREATED sum up the faith of the Church, which Arius denied. 

     Bishop Peter of Alexandria summoned his wayward priest and tried to correct his errors, but Arius refused to accept correction.  After all, he considered himself to be better educated than the bishop in the matters at issue.  In the end, Bishop Peter had to excommunicate Arius.  Thus, Arius left Alexandria and moved abroad, to Antioch.  In this way, Arius’ ideas continued to spread, and his influence increased. 

     Eventually, with the passage of time, the Church was split in two by the ideas of the priest from Alexandria, into the party called the Arians (who accepted his ideas), and a party, which rejected his ideas.  They called themselves the Catholics (from kath ‘olon, Greek for “according to the whole,” since they professed the whole Christian faith).

     To restore unity in the Church, Pope St. Sylvester, together with the Emperor St. Constantine the Great, summoned all the bishops of the world to a Council in Nicaea, near the Imperial capital.  Three hundred and eighteen bishops made the journey.  In the course of the weeks that followed, they condemned the ideas of Arius, and wrote the first two thirds of the Creed, which we still use today.  The last part of the Creed, the part concerning the Holy Spirit, would be added fifty-two years later at the First Council of Constantinople. 

     If Arius had accepted the Council’s teachings, he would have been immediately restored to his former position as a priest of Alexandria.  But he was obstinate, just as he had been in the days when his bishop had tried to correct him.  Now, because he would not accept the correction of the entire Church, he was sentenced to exile.  Nevertheless, from his place of exile, he continued to try, in various ways, to spread the ideas, which the Church had already judged and condemned.  In the end, his ideas won over the Emperor, Constantine’s son and successor Constantius II, who recalled Arius from exile, and reinstated him as a priest in good standing.  On the night of Arius arrival in the Imperial capital there was to be a triumphal torchlight procession, but before the parade could get underway, Arius fell suddenly ill with pain in his abdomen.  He retired to a privy, seeking relief.  When he delayed a long time in the privy, some of his friends and attendants went in to see if he was alright.  They found that he had burst open in the middle, and that his insides were all full of decay, worms and corruption. 

     Arius’ problem was not that he had erroneous ideas.  None of us is right about everything all the time.  We all have mistaken notions from time to time.  The problem was that he was obstinate.  He refused to accept correction.  He continued to maintain that he was right, even though the Church had determined that he was wrong.  His obstinacy turned into a rancor against the Church, which ate him up inside and led him to become, both literally and figuratively, a mass of decay and corruption. 

     Arius was obstinate, and in the same way, we—this people, this culture—are obstinate.  The Church proclaims the teaching of Jesus concerning various issues (too many to enumerate), and we decide that the Lord Jesus is wrong.  Contraception, sexual relationships outside of marriage, the gravely sinful nature of homosexual acts, stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, the gravely evil nature of socialism and the usury of interest banking, and on, and on, and on…. The Lord Jesus is wrong, and we are right, we have decided.  Or, we may try to make ourselves feel better; we may try to rationalize by telling ourselves: “The Church does not speak for Christ.” But Christ established the Church to attenuate His Incarnation in the world (the Church is His Body). You either believe that the Church speaks for Christ, or you believe that His voice has perished from the world.  If you countenance the belief that His voice has perished, then you have no faith at all in the Divinity of the Son of God. 

     Arius was obstinate, and we are obstinate.  Let us let go of our obstinacy, by conforming our minds wholeheartedly to truth.  Let us accept what the Lord Jesus teaches us through the Church, and pray for understanding and wisdom.