A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but, as already noted, the Nicene
Creed of 325 had nowhere referred to a Trinity, and the strict interpretation of
the text would seem to exclude one. There was, in fact, a group called the
Macedonians, after Macedonius, Bishop of Constantinople, who argued that
their support for the text agreed at Nicaea, and thus a consubstantial Father and
Son, left the Holy Spirit as a subordinate extra. If one was going to accept a
Nicene Trinity in which the three persons of the Trinity were of equal status,
then the creed passed at Nicaea would have to be rewritten to give the Spirit a
suitable divine role. The main problem here was that the scriptural basis for such
a formulation of the three as of equal divine status seemed particularly weak.
Furthermore, when discussions of the nature and purpose of the Spirit did get
under way, it was clear that there was no agreement on what that nature might
be.
The key figure in initiating a revival of Nicene theology was Athanasius,
Bishop of Alexandria from 328. Athanasius had emerged from the shadow of
Alexander, the champion of anti-Arianism, and he clung resolutely to the
formula at Nicaea, including homoousios. However, his life at Alexandria was
continually troubled by the tensions of the city and his readiness to exert his
authority with violence. Constantine had already exiled him once, and he
continued to offend emperors (who could hardly turn a blind eye to unrest in so
important a city) and his fellow bishops, particularly his subordinationist
opponents, with the result that in his forty-five years of office, he was forced into
exile a further three times, a total of over fifteen years.
Athanasius was not an intellectual. He does not seem to have experienced a
‘classical’ education, and the sources of his theology are largely biblical. ‘His
thought is not wide ranging or considered in its use of philosophical distinctions
and concepts’ is the verdict of David Brakke, an authority on the bishop.
‘Instead,’ Brakke goes on, ‘Athanasius focused with laser-beam intensity on a
single idea: the fully divine Word of God became incarnate in human flesh to
save humanity from sin and death’. 15 From the 350s, Athanasius insisted that
the creed of Nicaea represented orthodoxy. In a debate in which more educated
minds were able to dissect each nuance ad infinitum, this clear message was
certainly an advantage, and it appealed to those who liked the authority of the
imperial document of 325. Yet the creed had hardly been a coherent theological
statement, and defending its assertions, especially the homoousios, proved
difficult. Athanasius drew an impenetrable barrier between the Creator and the
created, with Jesus as ‘one in substance’ with his Father on the side of the