Brendan Wolfe is founder and Principal Editor of the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, an international research project building the largest open-access resource in theology. The 2023 Chair of the European Academy of Religion annual conference, he is Honorary Reader at St Andrews and Honorary Fellow at Australian Catholic University. Mattias Gassman is assistant professor at the University of Florida. Author of the award-winning Worshippers of the Gods: Debating Paganism in the Fourth-Century Roman West (Oxford University Press, 2020), he has written numerous articles on late antique religion and is finishing a second monograph on Augustine and paganism. Oliver Langworthy is lecturer at the University of St Andrews and academic editor for Christianity with the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. Author of Theodoret's Theologian: Assessing the Origin and Significance of Gregory of Nazianzus' Title (JEH Eusebius Prize Winner, 2017) and Gregory of Nazianzus' Soteriological Pneumatology (Mohr Siebeck, 2019).
Description
Introduction Part I Origins and Development of Early "Arian Thought" 1. Background to the Fourth-Century Trinitarian Controversy 2. Arius and his Allies 3. The Eastern Theological Consensus Part II Theological Trajectories after the Eusebian Alliance 4. Eunomianism 5. Homoiousianism 6. Early Latin Homoianism Part III Homoian Dominance 7. The Turn to Pneumatology 8. Gothic Christianity Part IV Non-Nicene Theologies after 381 9. Homoian thought after 383 10. The Self-understanding of non-Nicene Christians Conclusions
Students of the imbroglio known as the Arian controversy will be glad to have this lucid, comprehensive, and dispassionate survey of the diverse opinions that Christians of the fourth century held concerning the relation of God the Son to God the Father. The authors do not lose sight of the political and pragmatic factors which influenced theological formulations, and they offer shrewd reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the party labels which have been devised to guide Christians through the intellectual hubbub of this era. The chapters on Gothic theology and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit ensure that this compact volume will serve the needs of both students and researchers more fully than any other history of the Council of Nicaea and its aftermath. --Mark Edwards, professor of early Christian studies, Oxford University This book provides a good, concise summary of the heresies known as "Arianism." It offers a helpful overview of the lines of development of the other, "heretical" side and is particularly recommended for students to read. Fortunately, later debates about the Holy Spirit and corresponding Latin and Gothic sources are integrated in a fitting manner. --Uta Heil, professor of church history, University of Vienna Armed with the gifts of scholarly precision and dispassion, the authors offer us the best single treatment of fourth-century Arian theology in its various forms. The reader meets formidable learning expertly distilled and delicately worn. Arianism Revisited is a model of lucid, even-keeled scholarship that deserves to be required reading for scholar and student alike. --Alexis Torrance, Archbishop Demetrios Associate Professor of Byzantine Theology, University of Notre Dame This text is a very welcome addition to literature concerned with that pivotal period in the development of Christian thought--the fourth century. The authors provide a reliable, clear, and up-to-date introduction to the theologies of those who did not embrace the Nicene Creed and the interpretations of that text that formed the basis of later Christian orthodoxy. There is nothing currently in print that accomplishes this task so elegantly. --Lewis Ayres, professor of Catholic and historical theology, Durham University, and McDonald Agape Distinguished Chair in Early Christian Theology, Pontifical University of St. Thomas (Angelicum)