A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

327the lead, with an interpretation of the Nicene formula whichmade it acceptable to those who had previously regarded it asSabellian. And under the lead of these men, backed by theEmperor Theodosius, the reaffirmation of the Nicene formula at [298]Constantinople, 381, was accepted by the East (§ 71).In the period in which the Arian controversy is by far the mostimportant series of events in Church history, the attitude of thesons of Constantine toward heathenism and Donatism was ofsecondary importance, but it should be noticed as throwing lighton the ecclesiastical policy which made the Arian controversy somomentous. In their policy toward heathenism and dissent, thepolicy of Constantine was carried to its logical completion in theestablishment of Christianity as the only lawful religion of theEmpire (§ 67).Arianism may be regarded as the last attempt of DynamisticMonarchianism (v. supra, § 40) to explain the divinity of JesusChrist without admitting His eternity. It was derived in part fromthe teaching of Paul of Samosata through Lucian of Antioch.Paul of Samosata had admitted the existence of an eternal butimpersonal Logos in God which dwelt in the man Jesus. Arianismdistinguished between a Logos uncreated, an eternal impersonalreason in God, and a personal Logos created in time, making thelatter, the personal Logos, only in a secondary sense God. Thislatter Logos, neither eternal nor uncreated, became incarnate inJesus, taking the place in the human personality of the rationalsoul or logos. To guard against the worship of a being created andtemporal, and to avoid the assertion of two eternal existences,the anti-Arian or Athanasian position, already formulated byAlexander, made the personal Logos of one essence or substancewith the Father, eternal as the Father, and thereby distinguishingbetween begetting, or the imparting of subsistence, and creating,or the calling into being from nothing, a distinction which Arianismfailed to make; and thus allowing for the eternity and deityof the Son without detracting from the monotheism which was