The Unitarian/Trinitarian Wars (No. 268)

The Unitarian/Trinitarian Wars Page 3

Christian Churches of God

No. 268

The Unitarian/Trinitarian Wars

(Edition 2.0 19980918-20000115-20040709)

When Constantine came to power he attempted to unify the Roman Empire under one system and he sought to do that through Christianity. What he did not realize was that the Roman faction was not the dominant faction and that the doctrines of the Church had become confused from those of the original Church. This confusion led to a series of wars between two factions, both of which contained doctrinal error. The end result of this doctrinal error and desire for political domination through religion was continuous war and persecution for seventeen hundred years. The error and conflict will ultimately bring the planet to total ruin.

Christian Churches of God

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(Copyright © 1998, 2000, 2004 Wade Cox)

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The Unitarian/Trinitarian Wars

The Unitarian/Trinitarian Wars Page 3

The Athanasian/Arian Dispute from Nicea

After the Edict of Toleration of Milan in 314, the emperor Constantine sought to use Christianity for political purposes and initially supported the Roman faction, which came to adopt the doctrines of Athanasius and, later, that of the Cappadocians. The doctrinal position of the Church had become blurred by Gnostic factions, influenced by the mystery cults. Constantine supported the Athanasian faction on the mistaken assumption that, because it was dominant in Rome, it was the major sect, but the deposition of Arius in the packed Synod of Alexandria led ultimately to war with his co-emperor, Licinius, and the troubles of 322-323 CE.

After conquering Licinius and establishing himself as sole Emperor, he convened the Council of Nicea in 325 CE to consolidate the Athanasian (later Catholic) position. The creed attributed to the Council of Nicea is referred to as the Nicean Creed, but its edicts were really expanded by the Council of Constantinople in 381. The Synod of Chalcedon in 451 refers to the Creed of the Council of Constantinople in 381, but in an effort to give an incorrect picture of continuity, the Council of Nicea is referred to by Trinitarian Christianity. In 318 Constantine had ordered the conference between the bishop of Rome and the desposyni; the bishops were of the family of Jesus Christ. The response of the Roman Church was to order their extermination (see below and the paper The Virgin Mariam and the Family of Jesus Christ (No. 232)).

The Canons of the Council of Nicea have been lost. It was later established that there were only 20, which commenced the introduction of aberrations such as: domiciliary rules for the clergy living with females, i.e. celibacy; the persecution by the imposition of penance of Unitarians (incorrectly called Arians) and those who supported Licinius; the establishment of the diocesan system and its controls on priests and the prohibition of the clergy lending at interest; and the introduction of standing prayers at Sunday worship and during the "Pascal Season" (which was in fact the introduction of Easter instead of the Passover). The Creed reconstructed from Constantinople itself, introduces the concept of Binitarianism essential to the formulation of the Trinity and introduces the aberration that Christ was the "only begotten of the Father" and hence removes the promise of the elect as begotten sons of God. Athanasius says (in Ad Afros) that there were 318 bishops present. Arius was summoned to the Council often, which began possibly on 20 May 325 CE under the Athanasian Hosius of Cordova. Constantine joined the Council on 14 June. To get agreement Constantine marched in a cohort of Roman troops and arrested a number of bishops and exiled Arius, Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais to Illyrica. Arius' writings were then burnt and all three were anathematised. The remainder agreed on the symbol of the Creed on 19 June. The Council ended on 25 August with a 'party' hosted by Constantine with presents to the bishops.

Three months after the Council, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognius of Nicea, who were forced to sign the Creed under duress, were exiled for retracting and Theodotus of Laodicea, who also signed under duress and retracted, recanted rather than join them.

In 328 CE Constantine realised that the Athanasians were not the majority sect and were a source of division and persecution in the Empire and he recalled the five Unitarian leaders. (It is suggested this was at the urging of Constantia, widow of Licinius. However, it is more probable that she was merely a prominent Unitarian of the Eusebian or Arian faction). The problem with the Unitarian Christian system was that it followed the Bible tenets and was not concerned with the control of nations. Each nation was separate and subject to its own leaders and the religious system of that nation was between them and God. As the nation obeyed God so it was blessed. The empire was concerned with world domination and the converts to the church in Rome were also imbued with this mentality. Thus they courted an organisation that wanted world domination and would tolerate no opposition to that model. As a result, the Roman Church system adapted the pagan system of the sun cults and among the Aryans to Christianity, such that no Bible believing person can follow both systems. That is the core of the problem. That is why they have to corrupt the Bible texts in key verses even to this day and destroy educated opposition, such as in the Holocaust.

Constantine was never baptised an Athanasian Christian and in fact only became a Christian at the end of his life, being baptised Unitarian by Eusebius of Nicomedia, a relative of Julian, who came to be held in high regard by him in 329 CE. There was no such thing as Roman Catholic or Roman Catholic Church in those days, as everyone was catholic, meaning universal in reference to the church. The Unitarians were the oldest faction with the original doctrines of the apostolic church and that fact should never be forgotten. The Ante-Nicene Fathers (ANF) were all Unitarian for centuries (cf. the paper Early Theology of the Godhead (No. 127)). The Binitarians were a new faction that had a new and developed doctrine based on the pagan theology of the Triune God, which came in from the worship of Attis in Rome and Adonis among the Greeks. Trinitarians and Trinitarianism did not come into existence until 381. Constantine II and Constantinius were also Unitarians termed "Arian" or "Eusebian" by these later Trinitarians. The groups were referred to by the Athanasians as Arians and Eusebius denies this. It appears to have been a ploy of the Athanasians to lay the name of Arius on the faction he spoke for to lessen the full power and importance of the sect, which was older and greater than the Athanasians.

If it is true that the sect believed that Christ created the Holy Spirit then it is indeed erroneous, but this is not evident from any of their writings. It may have entered the Goths as an error and at a later date, resulting in the syncretic formulation by the Roman Catholic faction of the Filioque clause at Toldeo among the Visigoths.

Had the Athanasian/Arian dispute been properly understood and correctly settled then, Christianity would have taken a markedly different course with a much more coherent philosophical structure. Human sciences and paleoanthropology would have been better understood and probably more peaceably advanced, avoiding both the Dark Ages and the Inquisition. Let us examine the dispute.

The protagonists were Alexander and Athanasius, bishops of Alexandria from 312-328 and 328-373 respectively for the Athanasians; and Arius (256-336), Asterius the Sophist (d. circa 341), and Eusebius of Nicomedia (d. circa 342), for the Arians or Eusebians.

Unfortunately, with the defeat of the Arians in Spain the history has been written by Athanasians, and a comprehensive, accurate and unbiased reportage is virtually impossible. However, Robert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh have written a useful work entitled Early Arianism: A View of Salvation (Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1981). From this work we can establish some of the metaphysics, and it will become obvious that both factions were wrong.

Reconstructions of the Thalia of Arius rely on the writings of their opponents and hence have been erroneously simplistic. The argument centres, as the Athanasians saw it, around the following:

Salvation for orthodoxy is effected by the Son’s essential identity with the Father: that which links God and Christ to creation is the divine nature’s assumption of flesh. Salvation for Arianism is effected by the Son’s identity with the creatures: that which links Christ and creatures to God is conformity of will (Gregg & Groh p.8).

The Athanasians, by accepting the biological definition of son, developed an ontological link between the Son and God, which enabled Christ to be God’s proper Logos and Wisdom, and which invested the Son with the divine omniscience (ibid., Ep.9).

From the Council it is obvious that Unitarianism was a very major force. They were really converted only by the conquests of the Salien Franks who systematically stifled debate. By force they “converted”, through the self-interest of their leaders, the Goths, Vandals, Heruli, Burgundians and Lombards and groups loosely referred to as Teutons, on a progressive basis. The British were converted under agreement at Whitby in 664 CE by threat of force from the AngloSaxons, after the conversion of the latter in 597 (cf. Stephen Neill, Anglicanism, Pelican, London, 1965).

The controversy was seen in simple terms by these tribes as enunciated by one of the Arian Kings, Gundobald the Burgundian, who refused to worship three Gods (Encyc. Of Religion and Ethics (ERE), Vol. 1, p.782). This essential definition was the root of the issue, and the Athanasian faction was so pressed by the laity’s rejection that they were forced to modify notions of the Godhead. FoakesJackson admitted the error of his earlier notions (expressed in Cambridge Theological Essays, p.500) of the inferiority of the Arian Theology of the Barbarians. He asserted later that the Arianism of the Visigoths, Lombards, Vandals, etc. was no more than a phase in the ecclesiastical struggle between the Teutonic and the Roman conceptions of Christianity (ibid., p.783). This is a major factor not properly examined. The origins of the Teutons in the Middle East, especially from the fall of the Parthian Empire, has not been correctly explored or explained by historians, because of the Trinitarian bias of the schools of higher learning.

What emerges in the examination of the Athanasian-Arian Dispute is that the church now comprised two factions who were bitterly opposed, engaged in political intrigue and persecuted each other. The Athanasians, being centred in Rome, were by their enlistment of the power of the Salien Franks politically and militarily successful in the long run. Both sects had in fact denied their faith in the lust for power. The sequence of the struggle and the movement of the tribes involved are important to an understanding of the nature and attitudes of the peoples involved.

Unitarianism, the Teutonic Tribes and the Goths

Faced with the dilemma of being an official state religion and continuing the exercise of civil and military power, contrary to the instruction of Christ, doctrine had to be promulgated and the first comprehensive biblical analysis we have of the use of military force occurred in the writings of Augustine, a North African thinker, who was baptised a Christian and was educated in Punic, a variant of Hebrew, as well as Latin. From 373-383 CE he was a Manichean and Platonist philosopher, having a concubine who bore him a son in 372 CE. He was rebaptised in 387 as an Athanasian. Ambrose of Milan, with Theodosius, had gained control of the Roman Church for the Athanasian faction (381 CE) and his involvement with Augustine was instrumental in the latter's adoption of that creed, which at the time was, to him, a prudent course.

The Athanasian/Arian disputes led to bitter persecution by both the Athanasians and much later the Arians. The Goths and Vandals were so-called “Arians” (the Gothic Bible dates from 351). The disputes were to arise even later when the Empress Placidia sent the Goths, aided by the Vandals, to oppose the revolt of Count Boniface in Africa in 427. They were accompanied by Maximinius, a Unitarian (termed Arian) Bishop. Augustine had to publicly defend the Athanasian sect in 428.

At about 330 CE Constantine granted the East German sub-tribe of the Vandals (or Silingi) lands in Pannonia on the right bank of the Danube. In 166-181 they had lived in Silesia and had fought Aurilian in 271, being contained at the middle course of the Danube. The so-called Germanic tribes included the Vandals, Alans, Sarmations, Suevians and Alamanni in the East and the Franks (or French), the Burgundians who may in fact have not been Germans) and Lombards or Longobards in the West. Parsons, Remnant of Japeth (1767) quotes Procopius as stating that the Alans were Goths as were the Sauromatae and Melancleni and that the Vandals have a commonality of origin with the Ostrogoths (p.73).