Section: 3D1 - Trinity Issue.
Number of quotes: 72
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 200
Section: 3D1
Cyril had been bishop in Alexandria since 412, when he had succeeded his uncle, Theophilus. Like Theophilus, he had always nursed an instinctive resentment of the see of Constantinople, which he regarded as an upstart ecclesiastical establishment, dating only from the fourth century and not from an apostolic foundation, as Alexandria itself claimed to be.
Quote ID: 161
Time Periods: 5
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 200/201
Section: 3D1
His incitement of intolerance had reached its darkest hour in 415 when the distinguished Neoplatonist teacher Hypatia was set upon and murdered by a Christian mob, with apparently no attempted intervention on the part of the bishop. Her death was heard of with horror in Constantinople, and the news naturally did little to quell fears about Cyril’s tactics.
Quote ID: 162
Time Periods: 5
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 201
Section: 3D1
Toward the end of 428, a group of four Alexandrian citizens complained to the emperor Theodosius II that they had been mistreated by Cyril. The emperor referred the matter to his local bishop, Nestorius. This inevitably provoked Cyril’s ire. Cyril refused to accept the right of Constantinople to sit in judgment on his conduct, and he launched into an attack on Nestorius on the basis of what he had heard about his doctrinal views. Cyril was a very capable theologian and biblical expositor, but he was also a thoroughly unscrupulous propagandist, and he exploited every opportunity to besmirch Nestorius.
Quote ID: 163
Time Periods: 5
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 202
Section: 3D1
Early in 430 Cyril wrote another letter to Nestorius. Its argument became one of the most significant documents in the Christology of the fifth-century church. Cyril claimed, with some pertinence, that the term Theotokos was a logical correlate of Mary’s status as the human mother of the one who, according to the Nicene faith, was on earth “the Word of God, begotten of the substance of God the Father.” If Nestorius was not prepared to recognize that, surely he was calling into question the credal affirmation of the divinity of the incarnate Son.
Quote ID: 164
Time Periods: 5
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 203
Section: 3D1
Cyril continued to foment opposition to Nestorius. He wrote letters to prominent members of the imperial court in Constantinople complaining in thinly veiled terms about Nestorius’s beliefs, and he sought to pay on the tensions that existed between Theodosius’s elder sister, Pulcheria, who disapproved of Nestorius, and his wife, Eudoxia, who favored him.
Quote ID: 165
Time Periods: 5
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 204
Section: 3D1
By the time Nestorius received Cyril’s letter and the papal judgment, Theodosius had decided to summon a council of churchmen to meet at Ephesus at Pentecost the following year, 431, to try to settle the dispute.….
First, the Syrians were delayed in arriving in Ephesus as a result of bad weather.{4} The local bishop, Memnon, was deeply hostile to Nestorius, and he supported the ploy of Cyril to get the council under way in any case, on the pretext that Nestorius himself was present and that things had been delayed already. The emperor’s representative, the military commander Candidian, tried in vain to defer the proceedings, and for his efforts he was accused of favoring Nestorius.
….
Cyril was able to capitalize on these feelings and, further, to spread fear of Nestorius at a popular level by claiming disreputably that Nestorius taught a Christ who was only a specially inspired man.
….
In reality, this was not at all what Nestorius taught, but his resistance to the language of the Theotokos and his insistence on a distinction between the humanity of Christ and the inviolable majesty of God were readily turned into much more sinister claims.
Quote ID: 166
Time Periods: 5
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 205
Section: 3D1
In this climate of overwhelming resentment and distortion of ideas, Nestorius refused to recognize the council’s legitimacy and declined to appear before it. By the time the Syrian bishops arrived, Cyril had engineered the condemnation of Nestorius for contempt of ecclesiastical authority, and word was sent to Celestine that he had been duly excommunicated.….
When emissaries finally arrived from Rome {5}, they sided with Cyril, according to Celestine’s instructions, and gave the sanction of the bishop of Rome to the legitimacy of Nestorius’s condemnation. Cyril’s assembly was reconvened, and now it was officially said to be the third great “ecumenical” council.
Quote ID: 167
Time Periods: 5
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: 25
Section: 3C1,3D1
When Theodosius cleverly equated his Nicene beliefs with the promise of divine approval, he was not alone. At very much the same time, in the western empire, the Bishop of Milan, the formidable Ambrose, claimed that those areas of the empire where the Nicene faith was strong were stable while those where Arianism prevailed, notably along the Danube, were the most unsettled.
Quote ID: 175
Time Periods: 4
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: 102
Section: 3D1
The initiatives taken by Theodosius in 381, even if uneven in their immediate application, irrevocably changed the spiritual lives of its Christian population. Richard Hanson, author of one of the most comprehensive studies of the Nicene debate, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, notes that the result of the Council of Constantinople was ‘to reduce the meanings of the word “God” from a very large selection of alternatives to one only’ with the result that ‘when Western man today says “God” he means the one, sole exclusive Trinitarian God and nothing else’. I4 If Hanson is right, then there can have been few more important moments in the history of European thought.
Quote ID: 204
Time Periods: 4
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: 103/104
Section: 3C1,3D,3D1
By creating a religious barrier between Homoian Goth and Nicene Roman, Theodosius could define a fault line along which he could rally his own troops against ‘the barbarians’. In the west, in these same years, Ambrose of Milan was stressing the relationship between support for the Nicene faith and the success of the empire in war.….
In effect, the emperor’s laws had silenced the debate when it was still unresolved.
….
It is likely that he was simply frustrated by the pressures he found himself under and genuinely believed that an authoritarian solution would bring unity to the embattled empire. At the same time control of dogma went hand in hand with greater control of the administrative structure of the Church.
….
by defining and outlawing specific heresies, he had crossed a watershed. It soon became clear that once the principle of toleration was successfully challenged, as it had been by his new laws, the temptation to extend the campaign against dissidents would be irresistible.
The first non-Christian sect to be attached was the Manicheans,
….
Theodosius ordered that no Manichean of either sex should be able to bequeath or inherit any property. This excluded Manicheans passing on family wealth from generation to generation, a basic right for Roman citizens. Then in 382, the emperor decreed the death penalty for membership of certain Manichean sects and put in place an informer system. It was to be the first step to the sect’s elimination and to a wider campaign against non-Christian beliefs.
Quote ID: 205
Time Periods: 34
Bishops, Barbarians, and the Battle for Gaul
Matthew E. Bunson
Book ID: 41 Page: 1
Section: 3A4B,3D1
Since its introduction into the Gallic provinces—there was a Christian community in Lugdunum (modern Lyons) from around 177—the Christian faith had spread steadily in the cities, so that by 250 there were some 30 episcopal sees, and by A.D. 400 virtually every town or large community was governed by its own bishop. At the same time, the bishops in the cities had been forced to serve also as civil leaders, filling the administrative roles abandoned by imperial Roman officials. Bishops such as Sidonius Apollinaris, Avitus, Germanus of Auxerre, and Caesarius of Arles were viewed as defensores civitatum (defenders of the city). They maintained order in the civitates and were spokesmen and trustees for the patrimony of the bankrupt empire to the reges crinite, or “long-haired kings.” Indeed, the bishops in many instances were all that stood between the violent Germanic tribes and the defenseless citizens of a now-dead empire.What followed was a relationship of necessity between the bishops and the Germanic chieftains. For their part, the barbarian rulers needed the bishops to speak to their new subjects, to have some connection to the past, and to find a way to administer even rudimentary government. The bishops, meanwhile, had to work with the new overlords to protect their frightened people and safeguard Church property, as only the German kings and chieftains could keep their warriors in line.
The bishops assumed key posts in the nascent royal regimes as judges, advisors, diplomats, and administrators. In so doing, they guaranteed the security of the Church, created the opportunity to influence directly the development of post-Roman institutions, and served as intermediaries between the old Roman culture and the new order. All this they did without compromising religious principle. [PJ: Ha!]
Kingdom of the Franks
In the immediate wake of the invasions, the Christians of Gaul confronted not only the final demise of imperial government and order, but persecution by the conquerors. The Germanic tribes, chiefly the Goths and the Vandals, had been converted to Christianity through the Arian missionary Ulfilas. They were hence adherents of the Arian heresy that had so troubled the Church in the fourth century. Once in control, the tribes sporadically persecuted orthodox Christians. They confiscated their lands, expelled bishops, and installed Arian liturgies. This persecution gradually eased, however, as the Germans began to assimilate and to conform to the only true civilization that any of them had ever encountered, that of the Romans. Wherever possible, the bishops negotiated a policy of moderation, such as at the Council of Agde for Visigothic Gaul in 506, but the Arian ascendancy under the Germanic tribes remained a lingering problem for the orthodox Church. The solution rested not in a resurgence of Roman imperial suzerainty but in the conversion of the barbarians. Indeed, the last significant Gallo-Roman official, Syagrius of Soisson, was defeated in 486 by the rising Germanic power in northern Gaul, the Franks.
Quote ID: 898
Time Periods: 456
Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete Einhard
Edited and Translated by: Paul Edward Dutton
Book ID: 52 Page: 171
Section: 3D1
In the complete run of the Gospels no mention is ever made that our Lord Jesus Christ had taught or commanded prayer to himself, but rather, since he speaks most often of prayer that should be made to God, he advises us to pray to the Father, to ask the Father, to entreat the Father, and to beg him for help in all our times of need. For himself and likewise for others, he decrees, as if he could provide nothing through himself, that the Father should be prayed to. But our faith holds this most firmly, that just as the divinity and substance of the Father and Son is one, so is their power one and the same, and that the prayer, which the one God gave and taught, both should hear together, since both together wanted it to be given and taught.
Quote ID: 1158
Time Periods: 7
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 192
Section: 3D1
The first widespread conversion of the Goths came at the hands of the missionary Ulfila, a descendant of a Roman taken prisoner by the Goths. Ulfila was a remarkable man, fluent in Latin, Greek and Gothic and clearly an inspired missionary. He was consecrated bishop in 341 and worked with the Goths beyond the borders through the 340s. However, persecution drove him back into the empire with many of his flock, and Constantius gave him shelter. Ulfila supported the Homoean creed and in particular had great reverence for the scriptures, which he himself translated into Gothic (probably creating “the Gothic alphabet” in the process). The Goths’ adherence to Homoean Christianity was consolidated when Valens insisted that Goths who entered the empire convert to his favoured formulation of Christianity; soon homoean Christianity became inextricably associated with the ethnic identity of all the Gothic groups.
Quote ID: 4874
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 192
Section: 3D1
When Valens died, however, homoean Christianity lost its main supporter. His successor, Theodosius, was pro-Nicene. Why is not clear. The traditional view is that his beliefs derived from his aristocratic Spanish background. In February 380, while in Thessalonika, which he was using as a base for his campaigns, he announced that the Nicene faith as supported by the bishops of Rome and Alexandria would be the orthodoxy and the alternatives would be punished as heresies.
Quote ID: 4875
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 193
Section: 3D1
Theodosius then made for Constantinople. His arrival in late 380 was greeted with anger in a city where, in so far as tax exemption would be linked to the new orthodoxy, the majority of Christian communities stood to lose heavily through the imposition of a Nicene solution.
Quote ID: 4876
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 193
Section: 3D1
In January 381 Theodosius issued an imperial decree declaring the doctrine of the Trinity orthodox and expelling Homoeans and Arians from their churches: “We now order that all churches are to handed over to the bishops who profess Father, Son and Holy Spirit of a single majesty, of the same glory, of one splendour, who establish no difference by sacrilegious separation, but the order of the Trinity by recognizing the Persons and uniting the Godhead.”
Quote ID: 4877
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 193/194
Section: 3D1
At the end of the council a new imperial edict vigorously enforced the creed as orthodoxy.We authorise the followers of this law to assume the title of orthodox Christians; but as for the others, since in our judgment, they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be banded with the ignominious names of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the names of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of divine condemnation, and in the second the punishment which our authority, in accordance with the will of heaven, shall decide to inflict.
This council, together with the imperial edicts that accompanied it, was the moment when the Nicene formula became part of the official state religion (if only for the moment in the eastern empire.) All those Christians who differed from it--Homoeans, Homoiousians, Arians and a host of other minor groups--were declared to be heretics facing not only the vengeance of God but also that of the state. The decision of Constantine to privilege one Christian community over another was consolidated in that a “truth” was now defined and enforced by law, with those declared heretical to be punished on earth as well as by God. It was unclear on what basis this “truth” rested, certainly not one of exclusively rational argument, so it either had to be presented as “the revelation of God,” as it was by Thomas Aquinas, or accepted that “truth”was as defined by the emperor.
Quote ID: 4878
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 194
Section: 3D1
The Nicenes spoke of their beliefs as traditional but they were countered by Palladius, bishop of Ratiaria, the most sophisticated of the Homoean bishops of the day, who claimed that it was the Homoean view that was the tradition and the Nicenes who were the innovators.
Quote ID: 4879
Time Periods: 5
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 194
Section: 3D1
In effect, the edict finally confirmed the emperor as the definer and enforcer of orthodoxy.
Quote ID: 4880
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 194/195
Section: 3D1
“Orthodoxy” was now associated with tax exemptions for clergy as well as access to wealth and patronage and the high status enjoyed by the state church, while “heretics” lost all these. The commanding position exercised by the emperor in the definition of orthodox doctrine may well have rested on the need to control the numbers of those able to claim exemptions and patronage.
Quote ID: 4881
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 195
Section: 3D1
Every subsequent attack by the Goths on the empire could be characterized as the assault of evil on the true faith. It is possible to see the rise of Christian intolerance as essentially a defensive response to these threats.
Quote ID: 4882
Time Periods: 5
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 195
Section: 3D1
The expulsions of Homoean bishops were met with riots in many parts of the empire.
Quote ID: 4883
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 195
Section: 3D1
A rare instance of popular gossip from Constantinople recorded by Gregory of Nyssa even suggests continuing sympathy for and from full-blown, traditional Arianism: “If you ask for change, the man launches into a theological discussion about begotten and unbegotten; if you enquire about the price of bread, the answer is given that the Father is greater and the Son subordinate; if you remark that the bath is nice, the attendant pronounces that the Son is from non-existence.
Quote ID: 4884
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 196
Section: 3D1
The problem underlay the entire Arian debate in that the adoption of homoousios threatened the primacy of the scriptures in the making of doctrine, not only because the term could not be found in the scriptures but because a Jesus “one in substance” with the Father seemed incompatible with the recognizably human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels. The differences between the Arians, Homoeans and their supporters on one side and the Nicenes on the other were intensified by what seemed to be an abandonment of the scriptures by the Nicenes.
Quote ID: 4885
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 196/197
Section: 3D1
So when Ambrose of Milan produced his De Fide, a defence of Nicene doctrine, he was countered by Palladius, who wrote tellingly: “Search the divine Scriptures, which you have neglected, so that under their guidance you may avoid the Hell towards which you are heading on your own.
Quote ID: 4886
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 197
Section: 3D1
“Generally speaking, throughout all his writings Ambrose tends to produce interpretations of the Bible whose undoubted poetic quality may charm the uncritical thinker but which in fact represent little more than fantastic nonsense woven into a purely delusive harmony.” As we have seen, it required considerable ingenuity for the Cappadocians to equate the Father and Son of the Gospels with the Father and Son of the Trinity.{53.} Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 672-73
Quote ID: 4887
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 197
Section: 3D1
Maximinus, a bishop who claimed that his faith rested on the creed accepted in 360 at Constantinople, engaged in public debate with Augustine in hippo in the 420s and put the Homoean (and the literalist) position well: “We believe in the Scriptures and we reverence those divine Scriptures; and we do not desire to pass over a single iota, for we dread the punishment which is to be found in the Scriptures themselves.” Forcefully making the point that the pro-Nicenes distort scripture, he taunted Augustine: “The divine Scripture does not fate so badly in our my emphasis teaching that it has to receive improvement.” Maximinus’ accusation against Augustine was that he was “improving” the scriptures to suit his orthodox case. Augustine would not have disagreed. He fully accepted that scripture should not be left open to individual interpretation but to the Church: “I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me,” he writes in one of his tracts against the Manicheans. This is, on the face of it, an astonishing assertion, but it is one which reflects the consolidation of Church authority. Now that the doctrine of the Trinity had been proclaimed, scripture had to be reinterpreted to defend it.{57.} Fitzgerald, ed., Augustine Through the Ages, p. 80. The article on “authority” in this excellent survey of Augustine and his time gives a number of quotations from Augustine illustrating his adherence to orthodoxy when interpreting the scriptures. His insistence that the scriptures he interpreted to support the doctrine of the Trinity comes from his De Trinitate 1.11.22. One prominent Italian scholar has summed it up as follows: “The whole development of Catholic doctrine is based on the interpretation of a certain number of passages in Scripture in the light of particular needs” (M. Simonetti, Profilo storico dell’esegesi patristica [Rome, 1980], quoted in D. Janes, God and Gold in Late Antiguity [Cambridge 1998]).
Quote ID: 4888
Time Periods: 34
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 199
Section: 3D1
The transformation of Christ from the man of the Synoptic Gospels to the God of the Trinity was accompanied by a transformation in the way he was represented. A good place to see the result is in the church of S. Pudenziana on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. The apse mosaic of Christ in Majesty, the earliest known mosaic on this theme, dates from about 390, only a few years after the proclamation of Theodosius.
Quote ID: 4890
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 199
Section: 3D1
Only Christ survives fully in his original form. He sits on a purple cushion on a throne facing down the basilica, wearing robes streaked with gold.
Quote ID: 4891
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 199
Section: 3D1
What is striking about the mosaic is the degree to which Christ has been adopted into traditional Roman iconography. The fully frontal pose echoes the cult statues placed in pagan temples (it is comparable to the traditional representation of the robed and seated figure of Jupiter.
Quote ID: 4892
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 221
Section: 3D1
Theodosius’ imposition of Nicene orthodoxy applied only in the east.
Quote ID: 4928
Time Periods: 4
Complete Sermons of Martin Luther Volume 1.1-2, The
Edited by John Nicholas Lenker
Book ID: 336 Page: 176
Section: 3D1
THIRD CHRISTMAS DAY.9. The Arian heretics intended to draw a mist over this clear passage and to bore a hole into heaven, since they could not surmount it, and said that this Word of God was indeed God, not by nature, however, but by creation. They said that all things were created by it, but it had also been created previously, and after that all things were created by it.
Quote ID: 7837
Time Periods: 47
Complete Sermons of Martin Luther Volume 4.1-2, The
Edited by John Nicholas Lenker
Book ID: 337 Page: 26
Section: 3D1
Trinity Sunday2. Upon this subject the foolishness of God and the wisdom of the world conflict. God’s declaration that he is one God in three distinct persons, the world looks upon as wholly unreasonable and foolish; and the followers of mere reason, when they hear it, regard every one that teaches or believes it as no more than a fool.
This sermon was first printed in 1535, at Wittenberg.
Quote ID: 7852
Time Periods: 7
Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews
James Carroll
Book ID: 68 Page: 210
Section: 3D1
In his mile-stone work of theology, The Trinity, Augustine detects the very structure of God’s inner life....like “essence,” “substance,” and “person” as applied to God. “The reader of these reflections of mine on the Trinity should bear in mind,” he begins, “that my pen is on the watch against the sophistries of those who scorn the starting-point of faith, and allow themselves to be deceived through an unseasonable and misguided love of reason.” {13}
Quote ID: 1852
Time Periods: 45
Documents of the Christian Church
Edited by Henry Bettenson & Chris Maunder
Book ID: 74 Page: 24
Section: 3D1
u. Theodosius I (379-395) on Catholic and Heretic Cunctos populos, 380 (Cod. Theod. XVI.i.2). . . .
According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equally majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgement, they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation, and in the second the punishment which our authority, in accordance with the will of Heaven, shall decide to inflict.
Quote ID: 2058
Time Periods: 4
Documents of the Christian Church
Edited by Henry Bettenson & Chris Maunder
Book ID: 74 Page: 42
Section: 3D1
d. Arianism1. The Letter of Arius to Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, c.321 Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, 423-58, H.E. I.V
Quote ID: 2060
Time Periods: 45
Documents of the Christian Church
Edited by Henry Bettenson & Chris Maunder
Book ID: 74 Page: 43
Section: 3D1
the brethren for the sake of God and his Christ, how grievously the bishop attacks and persecutes us, and comes full tilt against us, so that he drives us from the city as atheists because we do not concur with him when he publicly preaches, ‘God always, the Son always; at the same time the Father, at the same time the Son; the Son co-exists with God, unbegotten; he is ever-begotten, he is not born-by-begetting; neither by thought nor by any moment of time does God precede the Son; God always, Son always, the Son exists from God himself’.Eusebius, your brother, Bishop of Caesarea, Theodotus, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregory, Aetius, and all the other bishops of the East, have been condemned for saying that God existed, without beginning, before the Son;
. . . .
And before he was begotten or created or appointed or established, he did not exist; for he was not unbegotten. We are persecuted because we say that the Son has a beginning, but God is without beginning.
Quote ID: 2061
Time Periods: 34
Documents of the Christian Church
Edited by Henry Bettenson & Chris Maunder
Book ID: 74 Page: 43/44
Section: 3D1
2. ‘The Arian Syllogism’ Socrates (c.440), H.E. I.V. . . .
On one occasion, at a gathering of his presbyters and the rest of the clergy, he essayed a rather ambitious theological disquisition on the Holy Trinity, a meta-physical explanation of the Unity in Trinity. But one of the presbyters of his diocese, Arius by name, a man not lacking in dialectic, thinking that the bishop was expounding the doctrine of Sabellius the Libyan, from love of controversy espoused a view diametrically opposed to the teaching of Libyan, and attacked the statements of the bishop with energy. ‘If,’ said he, ‘the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence; hence it is clear that there was [a time] when {1} the Son was not. It follows then of necessity that he had his existence from the non-existent.’
Quote ID: 2062
Time Periods: 5
Documents of the Christian Church
Edited by Henry Bettenson & Chris Maunder
Book ID: 74 Page: 44
Section: 3D1
3. The Letter of the Synod of Nicaea, 325: Condemnation of Arius Socrates, H.E. I. ix
Quote ID: 2063
Time Periods: 4
Documents of the Christian Church
Edited by Henry Bettenson & Chris Maunder
Book ID: 74 Page: 44
Section: 3D1
3. In the first place, examination was made into the impiety and lawlessness of Arius and his followers, in the presence of our most God-beloved sovereign Constantine; and it was unanimously decided that his impious opinion should be anathematized, together with all the blasphemous sayings and expressions which he has uttered in his blasphemies, affirming that ‘the Son of God is from what is not’ and ‘there was a time when he was not’; saying also that the Son of God, in virtue of his free-will, is capable of evil and good, and calling him a creature and a work. All these utterances the holy Synod anathematized, not enduring the hearing of so impious, or rather of so demented, an opinion, and such blasphemous sayings. . . .
Quote ID: 2064
Time Periods: 4
Earliest Christian Heretics – Readings from Their Opponents, The
Edited By Arland J. Hultgren and Steven A. Haggmark
Book ID: 213 Page: 106
Section: 3D1
1.1.6 Marcion’s followers cannot deny that his faith at first agreed with ours, for his own letter proves it: so that without further ado that man can be marked down as a heretic, or “chooser,” who, forsaking what had once been, has chosen for himself that which previously was not. For that which is of later importation must needs be reckoned heresy, precisely because that has to be considered truth which was delivered of old and from the beginning.
Quote ID: 5240
Time Periods: 12
From Roman To Merovingian Gaul
Alexander Callander Murray
Book ID: 93 Page: 118
Section: 3D1
Therefore, they are heretics, but not heretics knowingly. Indeed, with us they are heretics, but in their own opinion they are not. So much do they judge themselves Catholics that they defame us with the title of heresy. What they are to us, therefore, we are to them. We are certain that they do injury to the divine begetting because they say the Son is less than the Father. They think we injure the Father because we believe the Father and Son are equal. We posses the truth, but they think they have it. We honor the Godhead, but they think their belief is the honor of His divinity.They are unobservant of their obligations, but to them this is the highest duty of their religion. They are ungodly, but they think that is true godliness. Therefore, they are in error, but they err with a good heart, not in hatred but in love of God, believing that they honor and love God. Although they possess not the true faith, they think they possess the perfect love of God. In what manner, for this erroneous and false belief, they are to be punished on the day of judgement, nobody can know but the Judge.
I think God bears patiently with them in the meantime because He sees that, although their belief is incorrect, they err through the acceptance of a seemingly correct opinion.
{3}...But all those of whom I speak are either Vandals or Goths.
Quote ID: 2388
Time Periods: 567
From Roman To Merovingian Gaul
Alexander Callander Murray
Book ID: 93 Page: 118/119
Section: 3D1
{4} Furthermore, insofar as it pertains to the way of life among the Vandals and Goths, in what way are we better than they, or can even be compared with them? First, let me speak of their love and charity which the Lord teaches is the chief of virtues and which He not only commends throughout sacred scriptures but even in His own words: “by this shall it be known that you are my disciples, that you love one another.” Almost all barbarians, at least those who are of one people under one king, love one another; almost all the Romans persecute each other....Pastor John notes: John’s note: The wickedness of Roman believers
Quote ID: 2389
Time Periods: 567
From Roman To Merovingian Gaul
Alexander Callander Murray
Book ID: 93 Page: 120
Section: 3D1
All the while, the poor are despoiled, the widows groan, the orphans are tread underfoot, so much so that many of them, and they are not of obscure birth and have received a liberal education, flee to the enemy lest they die from the pain of public persecution. They seek civilized treatment among barbarians because they cannot bear barbarous treatment among Romans.
Quote ID: 2390
Time Periods: 567
From Roman To Merovingian Gaul
Alexander Callander Murray
Book ID: 93 Page: 123
Section: 3D1
It would be a wonder to me that every last poor and needy taxpayer did not flee but for one reason only. They do not do it because they cannot carry with them their few little possessions, households, and families. For, when many of them would leave behind their plots of land and cottages in order to avoid the force of tax collection, how could they not wish to take with them, if there were any possibility of doing so, those things which they are compelled to leave behind? Therefore, because they are incapable of doing what they really prefer, they do one thing of which they are capable. They give themselves to the upper classes in return for care and protection. They surrender themselves as captives to the rich and, as it were, pass over into their jurisdiction and authority.
Quote ID: 2391
Time Periods: 567
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 27/28
Section: 3D1
The pseudo-priests are much more numerous than Catholic priests; there are heretical pretenders, calling themselves bishops and presbyters, who never were ordained by any Catholic bishop, deluding the people, confusing and disturbing the ministries of the Church; there are false vagrants, adulterers, murderers, effeminate sacrilegious hypocrites; there are treasured slaves who have run away from their masters, slaves of the devil, transforming themselves into ministers of Christ; who, living as they please, without the control of a bishop, and having influential men as their protectors against bishops to prevent their wicked ways from being stopped, form separate congregations of the people who agree with them, and exercise their heretical ministry not in a Catholic Church, but in country places, in the cottages of peasants, where their uneducated folly may be concealed from the bishops.Pastor John’s Note: The disgust Roman Christians felt toward those who followed the New Testament pattern of service to God is expressed by Pope Zachary in AD 748
Quote ID: 7377
Time Periods: 7
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 28
Section: 3D1,4B
It is pertinent to point out that the victory which was ultimately won was a victory not only of centralisation over independency, but also of Catholicism over Arianism.For both faith and discipline the crisis was supreme; and it is of singular importance to note that the reformation which shaped the history of the West in all subsequent centuries was effected, under God, by the co-operation of Church and State.
Quote ID: 5774
Time Periods: 567
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 40
Section: 3A1,3D1,3G
It is certain that, at least for the time, the system was an enormous gain. Whatever be its merits or demerits in its abstract relation to Christianity, it must at least be credited with the great work of having saved the Churches of the West from a disintegration which would have involved for the clergy a revival of Arianism, and for the masses of the people a relapse into paganism.
Quote ID: 5778
Time Periods: 7
Heresies of the High Middle Ages
Walter L. Wakefield and Austin P. Evans, Trans.
Book ID: 104 Page: 175/177
Section: 3C1,2D3B,3D1
A SUMMA AGAINST HERETICS Chapter V: on the Passagians, Who Say That Christ Is a Created Being….
3. Also, in the same book: “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above and let the clouds reign the just; let the earth be opened and bud forth a savior. I the Lord have created him.” {17}…
4. Also, Solomon, in Proverbs, speaking in the character of Wisdom, says: “The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways”; and in another version, “The Lord created me the beginning of his ways,” or following another reading, “the beginning of his works.” {18}
15. Also, in Isaiah, “I the Lord, this is my name; I will not give my glory to another.” {32} But his glory is that He himself is omnipotent God. Therefore, He will not give it to another, hence, not to the Son. Therefore, the Son is not omnipotent….
….
18. Also, the Son is from the Father, therefore He comes after the Father. An example: Heat is from fire; therefore it follows after fire.
Quote ID: 2585
Time Periods: 7
Koran, The
N. J. Dawood (translated with notes)
Book ID: 240 Page: 78
Section: 3D1
So believe in God and His apostles and do not say: ‘Three.’ Forebear, and it shall be better for you. God is but one God.Pastor John notes: John’s note: Trinity
Quote ID: 6021
Time Periods: 7
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 138/139
Section: 3D1
After Theodosius died, Alaric became a major figure, making demands on the empire of money and title magister militum. There were now two governments, east and west, and the Goths could play one against another. Stilicho, barbarian (Vandal) guardian of Theodosius’ sons, tried to used him but eventually had to meet him in battle. Alaric’s demands were largely met, in exchange for allegiance. Stilicho was declared a public enemy by the East.
Quote ID: 6158
Time Periods: 45
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 139a
Section: 3D1
When Stilicho was unable to pay the enormous sum he had promised Alaric, Alaric marched on Italy and blockaded Rome. Senators agreed to pay him more than even Stilicho had promised, but he marched on Rome, entered the city and proclaimed a puppet emperor. His army sacked the city for its riches.
Quote ID: 6159
Time Periods: 45
Mithras: Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries, The
Manfred Clauss
Book ID: 389 Page: 148
Section: 2B1,3D1
Mithras is Sol, and at the same time Sol is Mithras’ companion. Paradoxical relationships of this kind are to be found between many deities in antiquity. People in the ancient world did not feel bound by fixed credos and confessions which had to be consistent to the last detail: in the area of religion, a truly blessed anarchy held sway. For that reason, we should not attempt to marshal the relationship between Mithras and Sol and their various exchanges into what we, with our knowledge and epistemological assumptions, would consider a strictly logical system. Perhaps we should not even assume that such a thing ever existed in antiquity. {159}
Quote ID: 8351
Time Periods: 234
Mohammed and Charlemagne
Henry Pirenne
Book ID: 373 Page: 39
Section: 3D1
However, there was still Arians in 524. And then came the Frankish conquest, which was accompanied by the triumph of orthodox Catholicism.
Quote ID: 8218
Time Periods: 6
Mohammed and Charlemagne
Henry Pirenne
Book ID: 373 Page: 44
Section: 3D1
Among the Visigoths, Romanization made constant progress. By the end of the 6th century, Arianism had everywhere disappeared.
Quote ID: 8219
Time Periods: 56
Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and Charismatic in the Early Church
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 378 Page: 144
Section: 3D1
After the first trial Priscillian was imprisoned and the question of sentence was referred to the emperor. Meanwhile, Ithacius had become aware of the depth of resentment against himself as accuser of a brother bishop on a capital charge. He was allowed to withdraw from the prosecution, presumably by the emperor himself. His withdrawal at this late stage is not likely to have been the result of loss of confidence on his part, in view of the fact that to bring a capital charge unsuccessfully was to risk one’s own head.{1}*John’s note: The real reason for the witch hunt was “Arionism”.
Date: AD 386*
….
He was replaced as prosecutor by Patricius, a treasury advocate (fisci patronus). The interest of the state treasury in the trial is underlined by a passing comment in Sulpicius Serverus’ dialogue ‘Gallus’ that Maximus ‘wanted the heretics’ property’.
….
When Maximus condemned Priscillian to be executed on the charge of maleficium, sorcery, there died with him two clergy, Felicissimus and Armenius; his wealthy friend Euchrotia, widow of Delphidius;{3} and Latronianus, a Christian poet of sufficient note to receive an entry in Jerome’s Lives of Illustrious Men, where the name of Julianus is also given as one of those who died.
Tribunes were sent to Spain to carry out a further inquisition there,{4} which resulted in the beheading of Asarivus (or Asarbus) and a deacon named Aurelius. Tiberianus lost all his property by confiscation and was exiled to the island of ‘Sylinancis beyond Britain’ (the earliest reference to the Scilly Isles.{5}
Quote ID: 8271
Time Periods: 4
Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and Charismatic in the Early Church
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 378 Page: 145
Section: 3D1
The great majority of Gallic bishops obediently supported Ithacius, who published an ‘apologia pro vita sua’, painting a lurid picture of Priscillian’s occultism and lecherous morals….
Quote ID: 8272
Time Periods: 4
Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and Charismatic in the Early Church
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 378 Page: 148
Section: 3D1
The fall of Maximus spelt a reversal of policy which was golden news for the Spanish Priscillianists. Ithacius was canonically deposed from his see, the complaint against him being the bringing of an accusation on a capital charge.
Quote ID: 8274
Time Periods: 4
Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and Charismatic in the Early Church
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 378 Page: 151
Section: 3D1
A passage in Ambrose’s twenty-sixth letter even compares Priscillian’s accusers to the Jewish high priests handing Jesus over for execution to Pilate. Not surprisingly, some of the Priscillianist martyrs succeeded in finding their way into medieval calendars.
Quote ID: 8277
Time Periods: 4
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 93
Section: 2C,3D1,3G
As pope, he is remembered above all for the English mission, when the Roman church first stepped outside the contracted bounds of the Empire into contact with peoples who had never been subject to its ecclesiastical jurisdiction; for writing the Regula Pastoralis, the key to a bishop’s life, and so to civilization in the succeeding centuries; for welcoming the conversion of the Spanish Visigoths from Arianism to Catholicism; for his defence of Roman primacy against the pretensions of the see of Constantinople; for making himself pope of the emerging nations. But in Rome and Italy he was ’God’s consul’, under whose management came the whole care and preservation of the population of war-torn Italy - a frontier province since the Lombard invasions. The imperial authorities had no resources to spare for Rome in its almost isolated situation. The decimated senatorial families had vanished into exile in the East and had given their possessions to the Roman church, or - their estates, bankrupt, existed on charity.
Quote ID: 4298
Time Periods: 6
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 53
Section: 3D1
Then, at Salonica in February 380, Theodosius issued a comprehensive edict defining and enforcing Nicene orthodoxy, one of the most significant documents in European history:It is Our will that all peoples ruled by the administration of Our Clemency shall practise that religion which the divine (sic) Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans ... this is the religion followed by Bishop Damasus (of Rome) and by Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic sanctity: that is, according to the apostolic discipline of the evangelical doctrine, we shall believe in the single Deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost under the concept of equal majesty, and of the Holy Trinity.
We command that persons who follow this rule shall embrace the name of Catholic Christians. The rest, however, whom We judge demented and insane (dementes vesanosque), shall carry the infamy of heretical dogmas. Their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by Divine vengeance, and secondly by the retribution of Our hostility, which We shall assume in accordance with the Divine judgement.{17}
Thus the unity among Christians, which Constantine had vainly sought, was to be imposed directly by law.
Quote ID: 7100
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 53
Section: 3D1
When he ? finally entered Constantinople in state in November 380 it was as a zealous son of the Catholic church, as well as a successful Roman emperor. Immediately a systematic purge of Arian clergy was launched, and measures prepared against other damnable heresies.{19}
Quote ID: 7102
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 53/54
Section: 3C1,3D1
The purge against Arianism was not an edifying affair, as even its supporters admitted. Demophilus, the principled Arian bishop of Constantinople, refused to subscribe to the Nicene creed and was deposed immediately. The Arian clergy were supported by popular demonstrations, and at Constantinople the new Nicene priests were installed in the churches only by armed force, though a number of Arian clergy converted and kept their posts. Theodosius received Gregory of Nazianzus graciously, and with a typical theatrical flair mounted an imposing ceremony for his enthronement as bishop, accompanying him in solemn procession to the Church of the Apostles. Even so, it required a stiff guard against the jeering crowds, and Gregory himself, a gentle man, related sadly that it was more like the entry of a hostile conqueror into a defeated city.
Quote ID: 7103
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 54
Section: 3D1
The Photinians were very close to the Sabellians in stressing the oneness of God; while the Eunomians, who seem to have aroused Theodosius’ special animosity, were a kind of ultra-Arians who dwelt on the fundamental differences between Father and Son.
Quote ID: 7104
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 54/55
Section: 3D1
In May 381, despite the needs of war, Theodosius summoned a new oecumenical council at Constantinople to heal the long-standing doctrinal schism between East and West on the basis of Nicean orthodoxy.….
The council was naturally dominated by the Greek bishops; Rome and Milan were not represented, and even Timothy of Alexandria arrived later and participated reluctantly, but it was to claim full oecumenical authority.{23}
….
The council then nominated the Miletian bishop Flavius for Antioch, and for Constantinople the unusual candidate Nectarius{25} - the distinguished Praetor of Constantinople, who had not yet even been baptised.
….
The council went on to define orthodoxy, including the mysterious Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost who, though equal to the Father, ’proceeded’ from Him, whereas the Son was ’begotten’ of Him. The principal role of the Holy Ghost seems to have been the spiritual vehicle whereby the divinity could be conceived by a mortal virgin woman. They also condemned the Apollonian and Macedonian heresies, clarified church jurisdictions according to the civil boundaries of dioceses, and ruled that Constantinople was second in precedence only to Rome, because Constantinople was the New Rome - a view stoutly rejected by Rome and Alexandria.{26}
Quote ID: 7105
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 55
Section: 3D1
In July 381 a new law of Theodosius formally expelled Arian clergy from their churches (the Arian clergy of Constantinople had already been ejected by Theodosius in 380), and stipulated, diocese by diocese, those Catholic bishops who were to be recognised, communion with whom would qualify lesser clergy to hold their churches: Nectarius of Constantinople, Amphilocius of Iconium, Helladius of Caesarea, and so on.{27}
Quote ID: 7106
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 55
Section: 3D1
Although the Western bishops still fought against several of these appointments they welcomed the council’s doctrinal rulings and sent thanks to Theodosius for his restoration of Catholics.{28}
Quote ID: 7107
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 55
Section: 3D1
These differences did not prevent general communion of East and West being re-established after a schism of thirty years. The thorny questions, no longer doctrinal, were left to one side. The councils of 381 and 382, backed firmly by imperial law, succeeded at last in ratifying the unity of the organised Christian church, which had eluded Constantine.The last act of Arian resistance occurred in Milan, where Valentinian’s forceful mother Justina, herself an Arian, had not given up the struggle against Ambrose and his Catholic following. She persisted in her efforts at the imperial court to secure toleration for the remaining Arian minority, and actually succeeded in persuading her young son to issue a law in January 386 permitting Arian congregations to assemble and worship freely;....{30}
Quote ID: 7109
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 56
Section: 3D1
Dispossessed of its churches Arianism dwindled thereafter. Theodosius embarked on a long succession of anti-heresy laws over the following years, of varying clarity and severity but unmistakable in direction.{32}….
But taken together, they expressed the imperial will clearly enough and gave full license for zealous Catholics to hunt out heretical practices.
Quote ID: 7110
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 71
Section: 3D1
His Magister Militum and unofficial regent was Theodosius
Quote ID: 7133
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 71
Section: 3D1
Consistent with his pro-Germanic policy he now entrusted a Frankish warlord to rule the north-west through a puppet emperor - unintentionally creating what was to prove a dangerous precedent.….
But the fact remained that a Frankish leader could not command the same civil loyalties as a Roman one, and could not aspire to the purple himself.
Quote ID: 7134
Time Periods: 4
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 91
Section: 3D1
The mechanisms of gradual assimilation extended, not without crises, first to Latium, then the whole of Italy (the so-called Social War of 91-89 BC, in which the Italian cities combined against Rome, was not at all a war of independence but, on the contrary, a struggle for full Roman citizenship rights: they wanted to opt in, not out).{4}
Quote ID: 7136
Time Periods: 14
End of quotes