Rebecca Lyman: Arius and Porphyry: Eusebius and Athanasius on Images of God

The shape and content of Arius' theology remains controversial not only because of the few extant fragments, but also due to the reading of the events in Alexandria through rather narrow theological lenses. In this paper I want to place Arius' apophatic and monotheistic theology within the contemporary context of the legacies of persecution and martyrdom in Alexandria in the early fourth century. This includes not only the shifting policies of Constantine and Licinius, but the emerging apologetic theologies of Methodius, Eusebius, and Athanasius. These conflicts provide a new background to the familiar issues of the early Nicene controversy including the repudiation of materialism in regard to the divine and conflicting interpretations of image with regard to both divinity and anthropology. In this brief paper I will compare the fragments of Arius to discussions by Eusebius in Praeparatio Evangelica and by Athanasius in Contra Gentes with regard to monotheism and image in response to Porphyry. These passages provide evidence of a contemporary debate on representation and mediation which provoked original Christian theologies with regard to divine transcendence and epistemology. Placing Arius into this larger debate elucidates several of his problematical formulas with regard to divine self-revelation and the problem of changeability.