Scripture and God in Christianity

nents attributed his popularity to deception, it is more likely that it was a response to one who
was enthusiastic in his pursuit of true meaning of the Christian confession." 565 C. S. Lewis
speaks of Arianism as "one of those `sensible' synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended
today and which, then as now, included among their devotees many highly cultivated
clergymen." 566 In short, Arius was one of those adventurous souls who tried to get precise and
find some solution to the unsolved problem of Christ's relationship with the Almighty God, the
preciseness, which to the Church, would destroy the `mystery' of incarnation. This mystery was
maintained by the Council of Nicea.
The Council of Nicea:
The Arian controversy caused division in the church. It was feared by the emperor that this rift
would split the Roman Empire whose favored religion was Christianity. In June of 325 Emperor
Constantine summoned the general assembly of bishops from all parts of the empire to meet at
Nicea. There are extant several lists of the bishops who responded to the Emperor's call. The
first of the five lists printed by C. H. Turner has different countings; the first, 218 names, the
second, 210; the third, 223; the fourth, 221; and the fifth, 195 names. A Syriac list gives 220
names and two Latin lists given by Mansi give 227 and 204 names. Constantine's own letter to
the Alexandrian speak of more than 300 bishops 567 while Athanasius, the stalwart of Arian controversy,
writing soon after 350 A.D. fixes it at 318, the number generally accepted in the Eastern
as well as the Western Church. One may conclude with Harnack that, "There were present about
300 (250, 270) bishops, hardly so many as 318 as asserted by Athanasius at a late time; the correctness
of this latter number is open to suspicion." 568
The prominent figure in the Arian controversy was St. Athanasius who, according to G. A. Meloney,
"For forty years every word he wrote was a zealous defense, against the heretical Arians and
non-Christians, of the divinity and equality of Jesus Christ with the Father." 569 He stood firm,
strong and sure of the victory of traditional orthodoxy, of which he was a staunch representative,
against Arians who denied the "real" Son of God. He, observes Meloney, was "considered by the
early Church as the Father of Orthodoxy who, in his witness to the truth at the great councils, and
through his innumerable writings, brilliantly illumined the mind of the traditional Church." 570
Frances Young gives a different view of the Saint observing that "The enhanced role of Athanasius
at Nicaea is one feature of the 'legend of Athanasius' which rapidly developed. This `good
tradition' has affected all the main sources, for Athanasius' own apologetic works were a primary
source for the historians." 571 She further argues that "Alongside this `good tradition' however,
there are traces of a less favourable estimates of Athanasius current among his contemporaries.
Certainly he must have been a politician capable of subtle maneuvers; the first seems to have
been in his own election, which was definitely contested, may have been illegal, and looks as
though it was enforced. There seems to have been a pitiless streak in his character - that he resorted
to violence to achieve his own ends is implied by a good deal of evidence." 572 To have a
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