12
third person, the emperor Constantine, Nicea would have never happened. All three figures play an
important role in the events leading directly to the confrontation in Nicea.
The Alexandrian tradition that took root with Origen was supported by the educated upper
class; however, the majority of Egyptian believers were developing a distaste for modalism and
Manicheanism. A chasm was widening between the intelligencia of Alexandria and the rest of the
Egyptian flock.
42
Arius, an Alexandrian presbyter, used his eloquence to rally the disenfranchised
Alexandrians by challenging the Saballean views apparent in BishopAlexander. He seems to pick up
where Origen and Lucius leave off.
43
According to Athanasius, Arius`s held that God is completely
transcendent, and that the Word was not just subordinate but also created. In De Synodis, Athanasius
quotes Arius, writing, We acknowledge one God, alone Ingenerate, alone Everlasting, alone
Unbegun, alone True, alone having Immortality, alone Wise, alone Good, alone Sovereign.
44
He
also held that because the Word had entered Jesus` physical body replacing his soul, Christ was
neither fully human nor fully divine. He had neither communion with nor knowledge of God. He
was merely an empty vessel used of God, so deserved no worship as God.
45
In 318, Arius directly challenged what he saw was the Sabellianism of Alexander. In his
Ecclesiastical History, Socrates recorded Arius`s most recognizable quote, there was a time when the
Son was not.
46
The disagreement would probably have not gone any further. Alexander was first
42
Ibid., 493-94.
43
Williams, 31-2.
44
Athanasius, De Synodis, XVI, as quoted in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 4. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson
Publishers, Inc., 2004), 458.
45
Erickson, 711-12; Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 494-95.
46
Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, I.5, as quoted in Roberts and Donaldson, ANF, vol. 2, 3;
Erickson, 713-15.