“Very well,” the bishop yielded after a moment’s reflection. “I will make the request.”
Encouraged by this acceptance of his suggestion, the capable young cleric paused briefly before offering his next one, weighing his words carefully so that Alexander would not think him too bold, nor too timid. “When Arius submits his response, shall I be permitted to review it and give you my comments?”
Alexander smiled at the deacon’s ambition, and was pleased to encourage it. “I will look forward to that,” he replied approvingly. “Indeed, I should like you to draft, for my review, the letter to Arius requesting an exposition of his views. Let us see how he responds. He has acknowledged Christ’s pre-incarnate existence; let us see where, and indeed if, he attempts to draw an earlier line before which he will claim that Christ did not exist.”
Athanasius was thrilled to be called to service in such a fashion, but did his best not to show it. “As you wish; I will start at once.” The younger man kneeled to receive Alexander’s blessing, kissed the extended hand before him, and then left quickly to return to his quarters, a spring of excitement in each step he took, relishing this opportunity to prove himself in the Archbishop’s eyes.
After Athanasius departed, Alexander called to his servants for some wine, and continued to brood over the problem Arius had presented, contemplating how it might be resolved. There was something new in the Libyan’s upstart Christology, something Alexander could not recall encountering in the writings of any church fathers of the past two centuries—yet something vaguely familiar as well. Could there be an element of truth in it? No, how could there be? How could the Wisdom of God ever not have been present with God, at all times? Alexander felt a brief moment of shame in even entertaining the notion that the Son might not have existed before some beginning point in time. Determined to purge himself of the thought, he went immediately to the library and spread out onto the reading table the first scroll of Origen’s De Principiis, scanning it for the argument he dimly recalled being there—and on finding it, delighted in each line as though it were a salve, a balm against the nagging itch of uncertainty:
“And who that is capable of entertaining reverential thoughts or feelings regarding God, can suppose or believe that God the Father ever existed, even for a moment of time, without having generated this Wisdom? For in that case he must say either that God was unable to generate Wisdom before He produced her, so that He afterwards called into being her who formerly did not exist, or that He possessed the power indeed, but— what cannot be said of God without impiety— was unwilling to use it; both of which suppositions, it is patent to all, are alike absurd and impious: for they amount to this, either that God advanced from a condition of inability to one of ability, or that, although possessed of the power, He concealed it, and delayed the generation of Wisdom. Wherefore we have always held that God is the Father of His only-begotten Son, who was born indeed of Him, and derives from Him what He is, but without any beginning, not only such as may be measured by any divisions of time, but even that which the mind alone can contemplate within itself, or behold, so to speak, with the naked powers of the understanding. And therefore we must believe that Wisdom was generated before any beginning that can be either comprehended or expressed.”
Chapter 8
Sitting alone in his sparsely furnished room when the letter arrived, a simple scroll bearing Alexander’s distinctive seal, Arius knew what it contained before opening it. His pulse quickened as he read it and then let it fall from his hands onto his desk. The inevitable confrontation with Alexander that he had instigated with such bravado and aplomb suddenly felt uncomfortably ominous now that it was about to escalate. But this was no time to be timid. Kneeling down, he rested his forearms on the front of the desk and pressed his brow into them, closing his eyes and praying audibly, although there was no one else to hear: Father, you are my God, and there is no god apart from you. Impart to me a measure of your grace, that I may ever proclaim you to be One, indivisible; and against those who would seek to divide you, let me ever proclaim your only-begotten Son as the instrument of your love that divides you not.
Arising and peering out his window at the magnificent lighthouse that dominated the Alexandrian skyline and stood like a sentinel above the busy harbor, Arius realized at once that he would be well-served by garnering as much clerical backing as possible for his response to the Archbishop. There were more than a few presbyters in Alexandria and the surrounding delta region who followed their own counsel rather than Alexander’s, and Arius knew all of them well. Many had expressed agreement or at least sympathy with his theories in the past; surely, he thought, some of them could be persuaded to subscribe to his reply. That would be a start. Beyond Alexandria, particularly in Palestine and Syria where Lucian’s teachings were still recalled and respected, he enjoyed the concurrence of a number of bishops and presbyters with whom he had been corresponding for many months. Now was the time to rally their support, to discover how many of them would actually take a stand in opposition to the Archbishop.
The first one he sought out was his friend Achilles, the respected director of the Catechetical School and a staunch monotheist. Together they summoned other sympathetic local presbyters and deacons: Aeithales, Carpones, Sarmates, Euzoïus, Lucius, Julius, Menas, Helladius, and Gaius, all of whom agreed to meet secretly and discuss a response to Alexander’s letter. Convening on the appointed evening in the dank and dimly lit rotunda of the Catacombs tunneled into the bedrock below the eastern end of the city, they chattered nervously among themselves while waiting for the meeting to begin. Achilles called them to order and led them in prayer, then nodded at Arius. The Libyan thanked them warmly as he rose to his full impressive stature in the flickering torchlight, confidently summoning all of the oratory zeal that was his trademark:
“My dear friends, I ask you to consider for a moment the faith of the common believer. Upon being baptized into the church, he hears the Scriptures read to him and listens to his preachers expound on the pillars of our faith to which we all subscribe: that the God of Israel, creator and sovereign of the universe, sent his only Son to become incarnate of a virgin, to live as the man Jesus Christ, among us and as one of us, to teach us the way of righteousness; and though being without sin, ultimately to submit to suffering and death on the cross in atonement for our sins, as Savior and Redeemer; only to be resurrected on the third day, and thence assumed bodily into heaven, where he sits as supreme judge of the world.
“But the common believer is also instructed, and so takes on faith, that this Son of God actually was God, is God, equal to the Father in every respect, fully divine as well as human. He tacitly accepts that if a son of man is human, so must a Son of God be divine; and he makes no effort to square this analogy with there being many humans, but one indivisible God. He is instructed, and so believes, that although God is One and indivisible, nevertheless the Son is somehow one with the Father; begotten of the Father yet co-eternal with him; separate in personhood yet identical in essence; Suffering Servant yet Lord and Master; equal in rank and power yet able to declare ‘The Father is greater than I’—paradoxes that he should not try to comprehend and thus does not care to comprehend.
“Moreover, he is admonished, and so accepts without question, that his salvation and redemption would have been impossible if the crucified Christ had been anything less than fully divine himself; that the shedding of blood, without which the Letter to the Hebrews assures us there is no forgiveness of sin, must of necessity have been the divine blood of God incarnate in order to wash away that sin; that no lesser solvent could be made to work, not even by an omnipotent God. But how or why that is so, how or why it was necessary that Jesus Christ must truly have been God himself, nothing less, in order to effectuate our salvation, is a question unanswered by Scripture and unaddressed by his preachers. At their urgings, couched in beguiling references to unfathomable mysteries, the question soon becomes unimportant to him. ‘Let the catechumens debate such philosophical niceties,’ they tell him if he should be so impious as to inquire further, ‘for you are saved by grace, not by theology. It is enough that the Son of God died on the cross to atone for your sins, and as all agree on that key point, the true nature of that Son who died for those sins need not be limned.’ They even quote to him from the Psalm, ‘I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.’