The Antitrinitarian Heresies and Their Condemnation by the Church — Article 3: The Subordinationism of Arius and Macedonius

ARTICLE 3: THE SUBORDINATIONISM OF ARIUS AND MACEDONIUS

1. The Heresy of Subordinationism

This heresy involved the Church in many terrific conflicts. It started with an attack on the coequality of the Son with the Father (Arianism), and ultimately impugned the dogma of the Consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son (Macedonianism, Pneumatomachians).

a) The salient tenets of Arianism¹ are these: The Logos began His existence in time. Consequently there was a time when the Son of God was not (ἦν ποτε, ὅτε οὐκ ἦν). He is not begotten out of the substance of the Father, but made by the free will of the Father “out of nothing” (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων γέγονεν ὁ Λόγος). Though He existed before all creatures, i. e., before the beginning of time, the Logos does not exist from everlasting, and consequently He is not God, but a creature of the Father (ποίημα, κτίσμα τοῦ πατρός), exalted indeed above all other creatures, because God’s instrument in creating the world. He is “God” by grace (κατὰ χάριν, καταχρηστικῶς). Therefore an intermediary being between God and the world (μέσος γενόμενος). Although it was possible for the Logos to sin, and His will was therefore alterable (τρεπτός, ἀλλοιωτός), still by a perfect use of free will and grace He actually became sinless.

To deceive the unsuspecting faithful, and to veil his errors, Arius played fast and loose with the words γενητός (i. e., creatus, factus) and γεννητός (i. e., genitus), and their contradictories ἀγένητος (i. e., increatus) and ἀγέννητος (i. e., ingenitus), just as the Semi-Arians later did with ὁμοούσιος (i. e., consubstantial) and ὁμοιούσιος (i. e., of like substance).

b) The heresy of Macedonius and Marathon was an offshoot of Semi-Arianism. Macedonius, who was Bishop of Constantinople about A. D. 360, taught that the Holy Ghost is a creature of the Logos, by whom, according to the Arian theory, all things were created. This completed the essential subordination of the Three Persons of the Divine Trinity, whom these heretics ranked as follows: A Great One = the Holy Ghost; a Greater One = the Logos; Greatest of all = God the Father.

Some Semi-Arians were willing to admit the Divinity of Christ; but they refused to forswear the heretical conceit that the Holy Ghost is a mere creature. It was for this reason that St. Athanasius called them “enemies of the Spirit” (πνευματομάχοι).

2. Its Condemnation

For the first time since the Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem, the infallible Church exercised her teaching authority against Subordinationism at two ecumenical synods, of which the first condemned Arianism, while the second dealt a death blow to the heresy of the Macedonianists.

a) The First Ecumenical Council, held at Nicaea A. D. 325, in the reign of Constantine,² solemnly rejected the heresy of Arius. It did this in a twofold manner: positively, by enlarging and expounding the Apostles’ Creed; negatively, by anathematizing Arius and his followers.

The famous Nicene Creed revolves about the term ὁμοούσιος, which was rejected by the Arians as “unscriptural.” The symbol itself is equivalent to a dogmatic definition, and its history is highly instructive for any one who would trace the development of the Catholic conception of the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity.

At first the Fathers of the Council thought it sufficient to adopt the formula “Filius ex Deo” against the Arian ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων. But when the friends of Arius, particularly Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, in order to conceal the real question at issue, willingly accepted this formula on the ground that all things are “from God,” the ἐκ τοῦ πατρός was amplified into ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός. Finally, in order to baffle the Eusebians, the phrase ὁμοούσιος τῷ πατρί (consubstantial with the Father) was added. This proved the utter condemnation of the Arian heresy. The decisive passages of the Nicene Creed finally took this shape: “Et in unum Dominum, Iesum Christum, Filium Dei, qui ex Patre unigenitus generatur (τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ γεννηθέντα ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς μονογενῆ), hoc est ex substantia Patris (ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός), Deum ex Deo (θεὸν ἐκ θεοῦ), lumen de lumine, Deum verum ex Deo vero, genitum, non factum (γεννηθέντα, οὐ ποιηθέντα), consubstantialem Patri (ὁμοούσιον τῷ πατρί) — And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, Only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father.”³ This clear-cut definition irrevocably established the dogma of Christ’s Divine Sonship, His Divinity, and His Consubstantiality with the Father.⁴

The heretical antitheses of Arius were condemned in a special anathematism appended to the Creed, which reads as follows: “Eos autem qui dicunt: erat [tempus] quando non erat (ἦν ποτε, ὅτε οὐκ ἦν) et priusquam gigneretur, non erat, et aiunt Filium Dei ex non exstantibus factum (ὅτι ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων ἐγένετο) vel ex alia substantia vel essentia esse (ἐξ ἑτέρας ὑποστάσεως ἢ οὐσίας εἶναι) vel mutabilem vel vertibilem (ἀλλοιωτὸν ἢ τρεπτόν) esse, hos anathematizat Ecclesia catholica — But those who say, ‘Once he was not,’ and ‘Before His generation He was not,’ and ‘He came into being from nothing,’ or those who pretend that the Son of God is ‘of other subsistence or substance,’ or ‘created,’ or ‘alterable,’ or ‘mutable,’ the Catholic Church anathematizes.”⁵ In this passage the Holy Synod reaffirms the Consubstantiality of the Son of God (i. e., Christ), by rejecting the doctrine of the Heterousia, and asserts His Divinity by emphasizing that He possesses the attributes of eternity, uncreatedness, and immutability.⁶

b) Pope Damasus, at a synod held in Rome, A. D. 380,⁷ so thoroughly repudiated the heresy of Macedonius that the twenty-fourth in his series of anathemas has been justly styled “a summary of the contents of all the others, and the keystone of all previous dogmatic formulas.”⁸ The Second Ecumenical Council, convoked by the Emperor Theodosius I at Constantinople, A. D. 381, formally defined the Divinity of the Holy Ghost in these words: “Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre procedit, qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur, qui locutus est per prophetas — And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceedeth from the Father, who is adored and glorified together with the Father and the Son, who has spoken through the prophets.”

Apart from the significant appellation “Lord” (τὸ Κύριον) the Divinity of the Holy Ghost is defined in this passage indirectly rather than directly. He is not formally called God, but certain divine attributes are ascribed to Him; viz., vivification or the giving of life, adoration and glory such as is due to the Father and the Son, and the illumination of the prophets. In ascribing these attributes to the Third Person, the Council manifestly meant to assert the Consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son. The hypostatic difference is sufficiently indicated by the clause, “Qui ex Patre procedit — Who proceedeth from the Father,” which combines the two Scripture texts John XV, 26, and 1 Cor. II, 12. The reason why the Council of Constantinople did not define the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son (Filioque), is that the Macedonians had not denied, but, on the contrary, maintained it, though they erred in holding that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son as a mere creature (ποίημα, factura).⁹ The schismatic Greeks, therefore, have no right to quote this Council in favor of their heretical teaching that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father alone. The Second Council of Constantinople, A. D. 381, was not originally a general council, and the fact that it later came to rank as such, is due to its subsequent reception by the Universal Church rather than to the formal approbation of its decrees by Pope Damasus. This Council completed the preliminary formulation of the dogma of the Blessed Trinity. The so-called Athanasian Creed, which belongs to the sixth century, merely restates the ancient teaching of the Church in clearer terms and expounds it more at length. The most perfect Trinitarian formula, from a technical point of view, and also the most comprehensive, as we have already intimated, is that drawn up by the Eleventh Council of Toledo, A. D. 675.¹⁰ The later synodical decisions do not concern us here.

The dogmatic importance of the Constantinopolitan Creed, which has been adopted into the liturgy of the Mass, cannot be too strongly emphasized, though in the light of recent researches this symbol may no longer be regarded as a mere amplification of the Nicene Creed. It seems that the Fathers assembled at Constantinople did not have before them the Creed of Nicaea, but a different symbol which had been adopted by a provincial synod of Jerusalem held about the same time.¹¹ The schismatic Greeks cherish the so-called Creed of Nicaea-Constantinople with an almost superstitious reverence as their inviolable and sole norm of faith. They call it τὸ ἱερώτατον σύμβολον, because it embodies all “twelve articles of belief” in a formula which is as immutable as it is definitive. “The Nicene Creed [in the amplified form believed to have been given to it by the Council of Constantinople],” says W. Gass,¹² “is the jewel of their faith, a brief but exhaustive précis of their dogmatic teaching. Its letters are woven into the vestments of their highest ecclesiastical dignitaries at Moscow. Their liturgy culminates in its recitation, and the great bell of the Kremlin is rung during its recital, which also forms part of the ceremony when the Czar is crowned in the presence of his people. It is for this reason that the faithful are so familiar with its text, which is furthermore constantly recalled to their mind by numerous symbolic pictures circulated among them.”

Readings

On Arianism, Walch, Ketzergeschichte, Vol. II, pp. 385 sqq., Leipzig 1764; Möhler, Athanasius der Grosse und die Kirche seiner Zeit im Kampfe mit dem Arianismus, Mainz 1844; Dorner, Entwicklungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi, 2nd ed., Vol. I, pp. 806 sqq., Stuttgart 1845 (English translation, History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, 5 vols., Edinburgh 1861–63); Kuhn, Christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Dreieinigkeit, §§ 25 sqq., Tübingen 1857; Franzelin, De Deo Trino, thes. 8, Romae 1881; J. Marquardt, Cyrilli Hierosolym. De Contentionibus et Placitis Arianorum Sententia, Braunsberg 1881; Lauchert, Die Lehre des hl. Athanasius, München 1895; Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, 2nd ed., London 1900; Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century, New Impression, London 1901; Idem, Select Treatises of St. Athanasius in Controversy with the Arians, 9th ed. (Vol. II, Being an Appendix of Illustrations), London 1903; Idem, Tracts Theological and Ecclesiastical, New Ed., pp. 137 sqq., London 1895.

On modern Antitrinitarianism, or Unitarianism, cfr. Trechsel, Die protestantischen Antitrinitarier vor Faustus Socin, Heidelberg 1839–44; F. S. Bock, Historia Antitrinitariorum, maxime Socinianismi et Socinianorum, 2 vols., Regiomont. 1774–5; Th. Parker, A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion, London 1846; Burnat, Lelio Socin, Vevey 1894; Ph. Huppert, Der deutsche Protestantismus zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts, 3rd ed., Köln 1902; J. H. Allen, Historical Sketch of the Unitarian Movement Since the Reformation, New York 1894; R. Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, 3 vols., London 1850; T. R. Slicer, art. “Unitarianism in the United States,” in the Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. XV, New York 1904.