A major player in in
the debate over the divinity of Christ was a priest from Alexandria in Egypt by
the name of Arius. Arius lived at the end of the third century and the
beginning of the fourth.Trying to
preserve the traditional view on the Unity of God—that God is One—Arius would
not ascribe full divinity of Christ.As
I posted yesterday, the received Tradition from Judaism: “ Hear O Israel, the
Lord your God, the Lord is One,” the prayer known as the Shema Yisraeltaken from
Deuteronomy 6:4, created a huge problem for Christians in the first six
centuries as they tried to reconcile the Unity of God with the Divinity of the
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.The idea of the Father being God, the Son being God and the Holy Spirit
being God sounded too much like three gods to a lot of people.Arianism acknowledged that Christ shares in
Divinity but to a lesser degree than the Father.While still an Anglican before his becoming a
Catholic in 1845, Blessed John Henry Newman had written a study of Arius and
history published under the title: The
Arians of the Fourth Century.Arius
was opposed by Saint Athanasius, the secretary to Arius’ bishop, Alexander, but
according to Newman the majority of bishops in the Church had accepted the
Arian theology. It was only at the
Council of Nicea that the bishops—at the urging of Athanasius, defined that
Christ is consubstantial (one in being) with the Father—that is, that Christ
shares fully in the same Divine Nature as the Father.Incidentally only 318 bishops out of the 1800
Constantine had invited came to the Council—a very small minority.)While the majority of bishops had originally
agreed with Arius, the laity and the lower clergy—the faithful—had held to
faith in Christ’s divinity. Newman always remembered this and years later as a
Catholic wrote his famous essay “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of
Doctrine.” Newman argued—with quite a bit of opposition in his day—that the
magisterium needs to pay close attention to the faith of the People of God. The
laity are not merely to be instructed by the pastors of the Church but the
pastors must remember that the Faith of the Church is that which is held in the
hearts of the Faithful and therefore those who teach need to be in tune with
the faithful.This is something to pay
attention to today.Too many think that
it is up to the Bishops to teach and the faithful to listen but if the bishops
are teaching something other than that which is in the faith held by the
people, the bishops are not teaching the faith of the Church.The faith of the Church is no more and no
less than the faith put into the hearts of the People of God by the Holy
Spirit.There are those in the Church
today who are upset that the faithful are not listening to the bishops when
they teach but maybe we should be more concerned that the bishops have not been
listening to the faithful before they teach.
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