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

Creator. The incarnation of this fully divine Jesus was essential, said Athanasius,
because human beings had sunk so deeply into sin that they had to be saved.
Athanasius’ critics noted, however, that he failed to define the distinction
between Father and Son with any clarity, or, indeed, how Jesus’ divinity could
co-exist with his humanity. Athanasius created an elaborate portrayal of the
divine logos, Jesus the Son, somehow keeping a divine mind in a human body,
leaving it uncertain whether he could suffer psychologically - as presumably he
needed to if he were to bring about salvation. One can hardly complain that
Athanasius was unable to solve a problem that might have been, in any
philosophically coherent sense, insoluble, but his intellectual clumsiness was
exposed by the issue, and more, sophisticated minds did not take him seriously.
Nevertheless Athanasius was an important figure. First, he appealed to
theologians in the west, perhaps the last Greek theologian to do so. His emphasis
on the unity of the Godhead, even if not explained in any coherent way, meshed
well with western thinking and so strengthened the Nicene cause there. Second,
he did appreciate the importance of bringing the Holy Spirit, marginalised at
Nicaea, into the debate, and one of his pamphlets dealt with the issue of the
Spirit’s divinity. However, there was a darker side to this tempestuous if
determined man. He had the propagandist’s trick of creating a fixed enemy, in
this case the Arians, on whom he poured his venom. Not the least of their
iniquities, he argued, was their power to reinvent themselves whenever they
appeared on the verge of defeat. ‘An Arian’, Athanasius blustered, ‘is a wicked
thing in truth and in every respect his heart is depraved and irreligious. For
behold, though convicted on all points and shown to be utterly bereft of
understanding, heretics show no shame, but as the Hydra of Gentile fable, when
its former serpents were destroyed, gave birth to fresh ones, contending against
the slayer of the old by the production of the new, so also are they hostile and
hateful to God ...’ All manner of subordinationists, many of whom had probably
never read Arius, were thrust into this writhing snakepit of heresy, with such
lasting effect that the debate is still often referred to as ‘the Arian
controversy’. 16 Athanasius may have heralded a new departure in the complex
history of fourth-century theology, but at the cost, through his intransigent
invective, of lowering the intellectual tone of the debate.
A much more sophisticated attempt at finding a settlement based on Nicene
principles was proposed by the so-called Cappadocian Fathers: Basil, Bishop of
Caesarea, his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. The
Cappadocians were men of great learning. Gregory of Nazianzus, for instance,