How many people became Arians?

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At first, it was just Arius’s congregation that he taught in this manner (though, I’ll note, many groups like the Ebionites taught very similar doctrines to his). He was a presbyter. At the Council of Nicaea (325), he only had two bishops with him, in comparison to the entire assembly, which was numbered at 318 people.

While people think of it as “heroically defeated” at Nicaea, this is not true. Many of St. Constantine the Great’s successors were Arians or semi-Arians. St. Constantine himself was baptized by an Arian bishop on his deathbed, despite how he himself convoked the Council of Nicaea and supported its aims. However, he did not want one group (the orthodox) to excommunicate the others (Arians), but rather wanted them to somehow compromise. Any compromise probably could have been “subordinated binitarianism”.

So much later, Arianism went into decline. However, Ulfilias (spellings vary) was a friend of Arius and a missionary. He went to the Germanic peoples who took to Arianism because of its simplicity as opposed to Trinitarianism.

In the Early Middle Ages (500-???), the southern Germanic peoples were mostly Arians, which was all of its population. Some did end up converting to Catholicism, but that wasn’t everyone. Now, the Germanic peoples are traditionally Catholic, Protestant, or (today) secular.

Today, you can consider Arians to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Way International, Christadelphians, Arian Catholicism, Unitarians, Socinian Societies, Iglesia ni Cristo, and groups with similar theologies. Some Christian narrators of the Middle Ages considered Islam to be extremely Arian because of its ultra-uber-low christology, and they considered Islam to be a polluted form of Christian practice with pagan influence.
 
Hard to tell, I do not know have access to that information, and historians could only use estimates. However, it was believed to be enough of a threat that a council had to be called, so it seems it would have been pretty widespread
 
adamhovey1988 said:
Hard to tell, I do not know have access to that information, and historians could only use estimates. However, it was believed to be enough of a threat that a council had to be called, so it seems it would have been pretty widespread
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It wasn’t just Arianism that the council was called against. There were many christologies and theologies, although only Arians and orthodox were invited. Perhaps some Modalists, too? :confused:
 
In a vague way, hints of Arianism crop up on the fringes even today.

“Jesus didn’t know he was God” (note the lower-case h in he)

“Jesus gradually grew into his divinity” just as we can become fully self actualized, perhaps independent of the Church and its training wheels.

“In the name of the Creator, the Savior, and the Sanctifier”; note the emphasis only on what Jesus did, not who He was; the tendency to regard Jesus as “beginning” when He was born, omitting any reference to His eternity.

etc
 
commenter said:
In a vague way, hints of Arianism crop up on the fringes even today.

“Jesus didn’t know he was God” (note the lower-case h in he)

“Jesus gradually grew into his divinity” just as we can become fully self actualized, perhaps independent of the Church and its training wheels.

“In the name of the Creator, the Savior, and the Sanctifier”; note the emphasis only on what Jesus did, not who He was; the tendency to regard Jesus as “beginning” when He was born, omitting any reference to His eternity.

etc
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I don’t know that I’d use capitalization of he or his as proof of Arianism returning. I mean I never capitalize either but not out of any feeling that Christ isn’t one aspect of the 3 that make up the eternal triune God.
 
Well, we can find Arianism today. As I’d said:
Today, you can consider Arians to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Way International, Christadelphians, Arian Catholicism, Unitarians, Socinian Societies, Iglesia ni Cristo, and groups with similar theologies.
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There are also many other groups, including a few with the name “Church of Christ” and many with the name “Church of God” (where’s the originality?!).
 
“Some 22 of the bishops at the council, led by Eusebius of
Nicomedia, came as supporters of Arius. But when some
of the more shocking passages from his writings were
read, they were almost universally seen as blasphemous.”
Warren Carroll, The Building of Christendom, p.11
 
Padres1969 said:
I don’t know that I’d use capitalization of he or his as proof of Arianism returning. I mean I never capitalize either but not out of any feeling that Christ isn’t one aspect of the 3 that make up the eternal triune God.
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:eek: for the bolded

When my generation was growing up Catholic, we could not say the word “Jesus” without bowing our heads - even in private. The disappearance of this, like capitalization, is not “proof” of Arianism returning, just a hint.

I formerly led a children’s religious program. The Leader’s Guide, which I abandoned, had the leader bring the children to invoke, instead of to “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit”, they wanted children to pray to “God, to Jesus, and to the Spirit”. This, and other catechetical materials, did not explicitly did not deny the divinity of Christ, nor His direct relationship to the Father (yes, God the Father); but bad catechesis promoted vagueness, not only about Jesus, but about the other Persons of the Trinity.

The fact that we can never know all there is to know about the Trinity - or Science - does not mean we should not teach, learn, and put into practice all we do know about those 2 subjects. The Arians are not coming back with swords, this time they are attacking with vagueness over here, with a doctrine or 2 omitted over there, and nurturing a horizontal humanitarian mistiness overall.
 
Hatikvah said:
At first, it was just Arius’s congregation that he taught in this manner (though, I’ll note, many groups like the Ebionites taught very similar doctrines to his). He was a presbyter. At the Council of Nicaea (325), he only had two bishops with him, in comparison to the entire assembly, which was numbered at 318 people.

While people think of it as “heroically defeated” at Nicaea, this is not true. Many of St. Constantine the Great’s successors were Arians or semi-Arians. St. Constantine himself was baptized by an Arian bishop on his deathbed, despite how he himself convoked the Council of Nicaea and supported its aims. However, he did not want one group (the orthodox) to excommunicate the others (Arians), but rather wanted them to somehow compromise. Any compromise probably could have been “subordinated binitarianism”.

So much later, Arianism went into decline. However, Ulfilias (spellings vary) was a friend of Arius and a missionary. He went to the Germanic peoples who took to Arianism because of its simplicity as opposed to Trinitarianism.

In the Early Middle Ages (500-???), the southern Germanic peoples were mostly Arians, which was all of its population. Some did end up converting to Catholicism, but that wasn’t everyone. Now, the Germanic peoples are traditionally Catholic, Protestant, or (today) secular.

Today, you can consider Arians to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Way International, Christadelphians, Arian Catholicism, Unitarians, Socinian Societies, Iglesia ni Cristo, and groups with similar theologies. Some Christian narrators of the Middle Ages considered Islam to be extremely Arian because of its ultra-uber-low christology, and they considered Islam to be a polluted form of Christian practice with pagan influence.
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Also Arian in belief are the Churches of God (7th Day) Salem Conference.
 
Vico said:
Also Arian in belief are the Churches of God (7th Day) Salem Conference.
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Yes, we can go on and on with listing however many Arian or semi-Arian groups there are today. In fact, I will make a “short” list here to demonstrate in no particular order:

Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, Iglesia ni Cristo, Christian Scientists, Dawn Bible Students, The Way International, Swedenborgianism (New Church), Arian Catholicism, Unitarians, Christian Unitarian Universalism, Socinianism, Psilantropism, Church of the Blessed Hope, Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite), American Unitarian Conference, Doukhobors, Quakers, Shakers, Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, Friends of Man (ex-JW)…

And here are only the groups called “Church of God,” and all of the ones with a lettered acronym at the end like “(GCG)” are offshoots of a single Armstrongian church:

Church of God General Conference, Churches of God (7th Day) - Salem Conference, Christian Churches of God (Wade Cox Unitarian), Members Church of God International, Restored Church of God (RCG), United Church of God (UCG), Philadelphia Church of God (PCG), Living Church of God (LCG), Global Church of God (GCG), all independent Worldwide Churches of God (Armstrongian), Church of God International (CGI), Church of God (COGE), Church of God (COGWA), Church of God (COG-PKG), Intercontinential Church of God (ICOG), Church of the Great God (CGG)…

So all of the groups I listed in this relatively short list (in comparison to all the groups) teach Arian or semi-Arian theology, despite how it was condemned over a thousand years ago! :eek:
 
Hatikvah said:
Yes, we can go on and on with listing however many Arian or semi-Arian groups there are today. In fact, I will make a “short” list here to demonstrate in no particular order:

Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, Iglesia ni Cristo, Christian Scientists, Dawn Bible Students, The Way International, Swedenborgianism (New Church), Arian Catholicism, Unitarians, Christian Unitarian Universalism, Socinianism, Psilantropism, Church of the Blessed Hope, Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite), American Unitarian Conference, Doukhobors, Quakers, Shakers, Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, Friends of Man (ex-JW)…

And here are only the groups called “Church of God,” and all of the ones with a lettered acronym at the end like “(GCG)” are offshoots of a single Armstrongian church:

Church of God General Conference, Churches of God (7th Day) - Salem Conference, Christian Churches of God (Wade Cox Unitarian), Members Church of God International, Restored Church of God (RCG), United Church of God (UCG), Philadelphia Church of God (PCG), Living Church of God (LCG), Global Church of God (GCG), all independent Worldwide Churches of God (Armstrongian), Church of God International (CGI), Church of God (COGE), Church of God (COGWA), Church of God (COG-PKG), Intercontinential Church of God (ICOG), Church of the Great God (CGG)…

So all of the groups I listed in this relatively short list (in comparison to all the groups) teach Arian or semi-Arian theology, despite how it was condemned over a thousand years ago! :eek:
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I think, to be most accurate, except for the first two mentioned Jehovah’s Witnesses and Churches of God (7th Day) Salem Conference, those others are not examples of Arianism but do not believe in the The Trinity. To be Arian means to believe that the Word is created.
 
Vico said:
I think, to be most accurate, except for the first two mentioned Jehovah’s Witnesses and Churches of God (7th Day) Salem Conference, those others are not examples of Arianism but do not believe in the The Trinity. To be Arian means to believe that the Word is created.
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Armstrongism believes that Jesus was created and brought into the “family of God,” though it is not like the Trinitarian idea where God is a family. To them, all of the saved will eventually be brought into the family of God. Most of the examples given are binitarianism, which is exactly that, a derivative of Arianism but not exactly. Therefore, all of the last bolded “Church of God” ones, being Armstrongian, do believe that Jesus was created out of God’s essence (though He is not God).

Iglesia ni Cristo, Dawn Bible Students, and Friends of Man all explicitly teach that Christ was created (the latter both come from the Jehovah’s Witnesses). Arian Catholicism, anything with the word “Unitarian” in it, Socinianism, and the Doukhobors believe that, too, though it is not explicit (the idea being that only God the Father is truly God, and He is the only One not created, so Jesus must be).

Psilanthropism and sometimes the Quakers and Shakers believe that Jesus is the literal son of Joseph and Mary, being born just like us and not having existed before then. (Christadelphians, however, do admit that the Holy Spirit “made” Jesus through Mary.)

So most of these would probably be semi-Arian necessarily, being Unitarian in some sense.
 
LutheranScholar said:
I just found something that calls itself the Arian Catholic Church online: www.arian-catholic.org. I am not sure if it is a proper church or just an online experiment.
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I have been on their website before. I think it’s real, they have archdioceses and dioceses in the UK (e.g., “Archdiocese of London”) and they have doctrines too. They even have forums (which seem to have been last used in about 2013-2014). They also claim to be the “Holy Catholic and Apostolic,” “Lord’s immutable and irreformable Church.”

Rather than 95 theses (Luther) or the 39 articles (Anglicanism), they have 33 theses. They deny all synods, ecumenical councils, otherwise councils, and so on, from the very beginning. I think that they don’t even accept the Council of Jerusalem (AD 50, the first of all!), but have some altered version. They state regarding St. Paul and his companion, St. Barnabas:
Paul of Tarsus and Barnabas are NOT recognised as Apostles of Christ and although they were invited to the meeting and offered the hand of fellowship as elders in the Church, they had no authority to overrule the Apostles.
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They have a table contrasting their beliefs with those of others. They also have a Twitter and Facebook page…

It’s pretty radical:
Arianism was not founded by St Arius of Alexandria, but named after him by officials of the evolving apostate Graeco-Roman Catholic church. Its beliefs were founded, without a name, by the Apostles of Yeshua the Messiah. The Arian Catholic Church applies logic, reason and modern understanding of both the Universe and the Scriptures to the early Church (sometimes referred to as “Early Apostolic Christianity”) that St Arius fought to protect, and which brings true Catholic Christianity into the 21st century.
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Because they deny the Trinity, deity of Christ, physical resurrection of Christ, virgin birth of Christ (boy, low christology here) and other junk, they’re even calling an ecumenical council, inviting Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants:
A Synod of all Arians, Arian Catholics, Nasoreans and other like minded people along with Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants who can deal with archaeological evidence is being called to discuss and understand the meaning of the Resurrection in light of the discoveries in the two Talpiot tombs near Jerusalem.
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(By the way, that claim was debunked long ago…)
 
LutheranScholar said:
I just found something that calls itself the Arian Catholic Church online: www.arian-catholic.org. I am not sure if it is a proper church or just an online experiment.
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That was mentioned on the Theory of Atonement thread.

From their website the non-underground Arian Catholic Church started in 2006:
On Wednesday 22nd February 2006, the feast of the Chair of St Peter at Antioch, 1,700 years after Constantine I first became Emperor at the same location in York, Great Britain, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic (Arian Catholic) Church, with the aid of three Bishops sympathetic to Arian Catholicism, consecrated its first Bishops since the Visigoth Bishops (initially consecrated by Ulfilas the Arian Bishop of Dacia in the mid fourth century) who preached Arianism until the end of the sixth century; since then Arian Catholicism has had to remain underground.
 
Hatikvah said:
I have been on their website before. I think it’s real, they have archdioceses and dioceses in the UK (e.g., “Archdiocese of London”) and they have doctrines too. They even have forums (which seem to have been last used in about 2013-2014). They also claim to be the “Holy Catholic and Apostolic,” “Lord’s immutable and irreformable Church.”

Rather than 95 theses (Luther) or the 39 articles (Anglicanism), they have 33 theses. They deny all synods, ecumenical councils, otherwise councils, and so on, from the very beginning. I think that they don’t even accept the Council of Jerusalem (AD 50, the first of all!), but have some altered version. They state regarding St. Paul and his companion, St. Barnabas:

They have a table contrasting their beliefs with those of others. They also have a Twitter and Facebook page…

It’s pretty radical:

Because they deny the Trinity, deity of Christ, physical resurrection of Christ, virgin birth of Christ (boy, low christology here) and other junk, they’re even calling an ecumenical council, inviting Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants:

(By the way, that claim was debunked long ago…)
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I rather seriously doubt that such an organization would validly be accepted as Christian by traditional Christians, no matter what they would call themselves.
 
LutheranScholar said:
I rather seriously doubt that such an organization would validly be accepted as Christian by traditional Christians, no matter what they would call themselves.
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It doesn’t matter whether they are accepted as Christian by the greater (orthodox) community, they will consider themselves as such, even though they’re denying many of the essentials…

But, remember, it can also be “real” and at the same time theologically “non-Christian,” like many cult-like groups are.
 
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