Robert Prevost, a pope who knows what he is talking about, has just stated in Turkey that there is a new Arianism. The term means nothing to believers or the average reader, but it is an enigmatic reference for any fan of early Christian heresies. A new Arianism, Prevost insisted, is present in today’s culture and consists of admiring Christ as a human being, but not as a god.
Speaking slowly and in English, he assumed that his listeners were familiar with the priest Arius, who revolutionised Alexandria 1,700 years ago and forced Emperor Constantine to convene the Council of Nicea. Arius denied the divine nature of Christ and therefore the Trinity. Prevost, who is very discreet on political matters, is now calling for a theological crusade against the new Arianism –the non-divine visions of Christ in today’s world– and aspires to a redefinition of Christianity as a whole.
In the ruins of the Basilica of St. Neophytus –submerged in Lake Iznik and recently discovered thanks to the lowering of the water level– the patriarchs of Latin, Greek and other Christian traditions recited their oldest formula of faith, the Nicene Creed, as they did seventeen centuries ago. As is often the case, what deeply moves the Church goes unnoticed by those looking in from the outside.
Returning to Nicaea –now Iznik, in the Turkish region of Marmara– is a clear statement of Leo XIV’s principles. To understand the gesture, one can read several books published this year. I will mention just two by the same author, Samuel Fernández: Nicea 325 and Fontes Nicaenae Synodi (Sígueme), which contain numerous documents in their original languages –Greek, Latin and Syriac– gathered around the death of Emperor Constantine, who organized the council. It is also worth consulting the documents that the Vatican has published on the anniversary, summarized in the apostolic letter In unitate fidei, a very combative text.
But if you want a taste of the period, you should read books X and XI of the Ecclesiastical History, written by one of the key figures for understanding the Christian fourth century: Rufinus of Aquileia. The translation by Ciudad Nueva is by the Benedictine Enrique Contreras.
Rufinus, a great polemicist, Latin translator of Origen –the most profound thinker of Christianity before Augustine of Hippo– and arch-enemy of another great figure of the time, Jerome, lived from 345 to 411. On his travels through Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia, he heard first-hand accounts from those who had participated in the debates at Nicaea. When he translated the first history of the Church, written by Eusebius of Caesarea, into Latin, he added two books of his own recounting the exciting sessions of the council.
What compelled Constantine to summon a large number of bishops, priests, monks, philosophers and prominent figures to Nicaea? The fact that Arius, as Rufinus says, ‘attempted to cut off and separate the Son from that eternal and ineffable substance or nature of God the Father’. Arius began to gain a large following, given that a single god is easier to understand than a triple god.
The controversy of the century erupted. The emperor, when Arianism was already beginning to gain political strength, saw the problem in time and sent him to answer to 318 bishops. Taking advantage of Constantine’s proximity, many wanted him to resolve their disputes on the spot. An anecdote illustrates the character’s disposition: he burned all the legal files he was given and declared that, being a man, he could not judge the quarrels between the bishops, who in his eyes were ‘like gods’.
With the emperor’s approval, the trap set for Arius in Nicaea worked. He was condemned to renounce his doctrine and go into exile, and his followers were given the choice of renouncing their beliefs or leaving with him. Very few, more Arian than Arius himself, persisted in defending their point of view.
A formula of faith—the Creed—was composed, and Arius solemnly accepted it. It was a mere pretence, Rufinus would later assess. The key word to understanding the discussion is homousion, Greek for ‘of the same substance,’ which resolved the relationship between the Father and the Son. Satisfied, everyone left Nicaea.
Before admitting that the council did not put an end to Arianism – in fact, it gave it undeniable strength: many barbarian leaders were Arians – Rufino dwells on several scenes. One of them, memorable, is the discovery of the cross of Christ by Helena, Constantine’s mother. Helena, an Indiana Jones avant la lettre, finds three crosses in Jerusalem and does not know which one belongs to Christ and which ones belong to the two thieves. To choose, she resorts to a dowsing trick: she shows the three pieces of wood to a sick woman, who is healed when she touches the authentic one. Rufino, pathologically distrustful in political matters, never doubts Christian royalty.
The years pass and Arius, whom Constantine allows to return from exile, meets a spectacular death. During a revolt against the bishop of Alexandria, Arius excuses himself to go to the bathroom and there, inexplicably, ‘his intestines and all his viscera spilled into the toilet pit’. Rufinus allows himself a joke: it was a ‘blasphemous and fetid’ end.
Rufinus’s History features the formidable Athanasius, author of the Life of Anthony, which Flaubert used to write his work on the temptations of this monk in the desert; all the emperors – from the sons of Constantine to Julian the Apostate – who decided the fate of Christianity; the deserts of Nitria, Scete and Thebaid, where monks and deserters, saints and devils lodged; the Borgesian Didymus the Blind – who ‘perused books with his memory and his mind’, not with his eyes – Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and countless other men without whose work neither the East nor the West would be comprehensible.
The doctrine of Arius and its variants remained present in the history of Europe throughout the Middle Ages. According to the Pope, in fact, it is still alive. What happened to the man in Nicaea – public condemnation, mass humiliation, retraction, exile – must have determined his actions for the rest of his life. Nicaea demonstrates the power of the discussion of an idea and the historical impact that a word can have. Seventeen centuries ago, the lucidity or clumsiness of a few decided the fate of an entire religion.
As for Rufinus, after much travelling and translating, he returned to Italy and died in Messina in 411. Hundreds of kilometres away, in a monastery in Bethlehem, Jerome said: ‘The Scorpion is covered by the earth of Trinacria. At last, the many-headed Hydra has stopped hissing at me.’
