AHC: Arianism wins out
- Thread starter Teshuvah
- Start date
You'd need strong clerical support for Arius within the organs of the Church; the reason we have the distinction is because Arius (and after him, Nestorius) was a dissenter from the prevailing orthodoxy established at Nicaea. Have a different approach accepted by more bishops- and perhaps the death of strong anti-Arian stalwart Anastasius of Alexandria- and Arian ideas could become mainstream.
Alternatively, split the Church. Arius was, IIRC, Patriarch of Constantinople or at the very least close to parts of that city's establishment- my slow-going TL in my sig has an Arian East and Latin West.
Alternatively, split the Church. Arius was, IIRC, Patriarch of Constantinople or at the very least close to parts of that city's establishment- my slow-going TL in my sig has an Arian East and Latin West.
Make the Arian Germanic people stay Arian.
The only problem is that they tended to antagonize their Nicean subjects by replacing Nicean bishops by Arian ones, among other religious issues; being Niceans helped the Franks to be accepted by their subjects and the mainstream Church.
Honestly, how important those theological details where to the mass? To the upper clergy and perhaps some leaders, yes, but in history, up to the Reformation maybe, the mass had always left such 'byzantine' debates to the priests.
It would be more said 'spiritual elite' of Niceans that would be against it, the people would probably just go along to more pragmatic things...
Unless things go really directly heretical and to the basics...
The term of Athanasius contra mundum refers to the fact there was a time where the Arains (i.e. ancient Jehovah's Witnesses) almost politically controlled everything. They had the Emperor's ear. Even the Bishop of Rome, after being tortured, acceded to their faction. For a small period of time their faction actually politically had power.
However, Christianity was not an elite religion. Controlling the political machinations of the Church as not going to convince people, who have been CHristian for generations, to dump a Trinitarian understanding that clearly is found in Scripture and all early historical works of the Church (1 Clement and the Didache for example.)
So, I honestly find the OP almost ASB. It presumes that Trinitarianism wasn't already heavily entrenched, and well understood, orthodoxy. Further, it doesn't help Arianism that it has no Scriptural or traditional support.
However, I won't say it is completely impossible. In the middle ages, much of the practice and doctrines of the Church no longer shared much resemblance to the first few centuries. What is needed is for earlier Arianism not to exist, or to be a teeny-tiny heresy that is crushed and almost completely forgotten (i.e. like 200 different odd ball heresies that Irenaeus writes about in Against Heresies.)
Heresies have historically strengthened the early Church, because it resulted in the creation of creeds and formalized doctrines so that they were crystal clear. If the doctrine of the Trinity is simply not considered that big a deal and the Church instead gets rocked by other heresies that take up its formative years (perhaps Predestination, Syncretism, and perhaps more fight over Books of the Canon) then all it takes is a few heavy hitters to dabble with Arianism with a mix of Aristotelian philosophy.
It becomes to the next big thing in European universities. Many Bishops are Arians, but they get along with Trinitarians. Eventually, the Arians outnumber the Trinitarians in the west. The Eastern Church view this issue, along with disagreements on what the West believes to be the correct canon, and the date of Easter, does not agree with where the Bishop of Rome is taking things. The result, is that they excommunicate each other.
As a result, both Churches create creeds, one Trinitarian and the other Arian.
Being that the RCC dominates the nations that will in the future expand and become global powers, Arianism grows into the most popular branch of Christianity. Over political divisions, and the conviction that the Pope is too slavish to Scripture and not the Magesterium, a Protestant movement breaks out accusing the RCC of being Sola Scriptura. THey create their own Confessions where they view Sola Ecclesia the sole basis of religious authority. THe problem is, being they are schismatics, each nation-state essentially creates their own Churches while the RCC in the Council of Trent digs its feet in and pronounces that the Scripture is the sole authority for religious matters, and the Pope is the teacher that God ordains for the Church to follow. Both Western Churches are Arian in flavor.
However, Christianity was not an elite religion. Controlling the political machinations of the Church as not going to convince people, who have been CHristian for generations, to dump a Trinitarian understanding that clearly is found in Scripture and all early historical works of the Church (1 Clement and the Didache for example.)
So, I honestly find the OP almost ASB. It presumes that Trinitarianism wasn't already heavily entrenched, and well understood, orthodoxy. Further, it doesn't help Arianism that it has no Scriptural or traditional support.
However, I won't say it is completely impossible. In the middle ages, much of the practice and doctrines of the Church no longer shared much resemblance to the first few centuries. What is needed is for earlier Arianism not to exist, or to be a teeny-tiny heresy that is crushed and almost completely forgotten (i.e. like 200 different odd ball heresies that Irenaeus writes about in Against Heresies.)
Heresies have historically strengthened the early Church, because it resulted in the creation of creeds and formalized doctrines so that they were crystal clear. If the doctrine of the Trinity is simply not considered that big a deal and the Church instead gets rocked by other heresies that take up its formative years (perhaps Predestination, Syncretism, and perhaps more fight over Books of the Canon) then all it takes is a few heavy hitters to dabble with Arianism with a mix of Aristotelian philosophy.
It becomes to the next big thing in European universities. Many Bishops are Arians, but they get along with Trinitarians. Eventually, the Arians outnumber the Trinitarians in the west. The Eastern Church view this issue, along with disagreements on what the West believes to be the correct canon, and the date of Easter, does not agree with where the Bishop of Rome is taking things. The result, is that they excommunicate each other.
As a result, both Churches create creeds, one Trinitarian and the other Arian.
Being that the RCC dominates the nations that will in the future expand and become global powers, Arianism grows into the most popular branch of Christianity. Over political divisions, and the conviction that the Pope is too slavish to Scripture and not the Magesterium, a Protestant movement breaks out accusing the RCC of being Sola Scriptura. THey create their own Confessions where they view Sola Ecclesia the sole basis of religious authority. THe problem is, being they are schismatics, each nation-state essentially creates their own Churches while the RCC in the Council of Trent digs its feet in and pronounces that the Scripture is the sole authority for religious matters, and the Pope is the teacher that God ordains for the Church to follow. Both Western Churches are Arian in flavor.
Actually, Arianism might seem entirely mystical and theologically confusing to a modern audience, but even to common Christians in this period in church history, Trinitarianism was already a pretty established thing. With a fair amount of Biblical and theological justification, opponents of Arius argued that by contradicting the notion of a trinity (i.e. 3 persons with one nature which remains a fundamental part of Catholic belief today) that he was in fact contradicting Christianity itself (hence why the standard 20-20 Catholic interpretation of Church history still regards Arius as a heretic).
The Trinity is not exactly an obscure theological notion, it cuts right to the fundamentals of Christian belief. With that in mind, I don't think that by the time of Arius' heresy that the pendulum could have really meaningfully swung the other way towards Arianism: there was just too much entrenched opposition to his views and there may well have been much more open opposition if it had resulted in an attempt to impose Arian beliefs on the laity.
Tsar Gringo's idea is, IMHO, the best: it doesn't cause a full fulfillment of the OP per se in terms of decisively stacking the deck in Arius' favor, but it does play off the pre-existing beliefs between the West and the East and makes the East-West split all the more strong.
Disagreements about the finer details of Christian theology started wars in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries.
^ Agreed 100%
Trinitarianism is a pretty fundamental component of Christianity and arguably completely impossible to separate from Christian beliefs. It should be noted that very few Christian denominations, even today, have a theological position that explicitly repudiates the notion of a trinity, even if there are enormous debates as to the nature of the Trinity and what form it takes.
Teshuvah
Banned
The rise of Islam doesn't really have a lot in common with Christianity; among other things, its rapid rise compared to the centuries it took for Christianity to develop, combined with the direct presence of its founder for the first few decades of its existence, meant there was less time for schisms to form in Islamic schools of thought before its presence had already been well established.
Islam is pretty much about prophets, chief being Muhammed, revealing how we may appease and approach God. Christianity is about how God's wrath against the sins of man is satisfied by Jesus Christ. The orientations of the belief systems are very different, so their differences lay beyond their view of the Godhead respectively.
See Diarmaid MacCulloch's lecture on this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa_3a0bT_98
Teshuvah
Banned
The issue of who would succeed Muhammad didn't come up until his death in 632, at which time Muslims had already conquered the entire Arabian Peninsula. Contrast that with Christianity, which took centuries to be legalized and was still being persecuted as late as Diocletian.
As I mentioned in other threads, there is a theory that Islam is a "reaction" to the doctrine of Trinity, rejecting the various confusing controversies in favour of a "back to basics" worship of One God. No Three Persons, no Trinity, just One God who in one Koranic verse stated (and I'm paraphrasing here) "neither begotten nor begets". If Arianism is the more dominant form of Christianity, it may be that Islam is butterflied in some way, perhaps just seen as some sort of Christian sect.
Of course, that's a simplification, Arianism still has Jesus as some sort of divine Son of God, not exactly compatible with Islam as we know now. Still, at least the gulf won't be so wide between an Arian Christendom and ATL Muslim world influenced by Arianism.
Of course, that's a simplification, Arianism still has Jesus as some sort of divine Son of God, not exactly compatible with Islam as we know now. Still, at least the gulf won't be so wide between an Arian Christendom and ATL Muslim world influenced by Arianism.
Note that Islam's rise is essentially a warlord's triumph over his foes, even winning over enemy generals like Khalid al Walid who previously played a big part in the Muslim defeat at the battle of Uhud. By contrast, Christianity is about veneration of an executed rebel of the Roman Empire. So yeah, totally different ways for both religions to develop. Islam had the backing of a growing Empire, Christianity essentially had to develop underground first (literally in some cases, didn't many early Christian meetings were underground?).
Within 30 years, Christianity spread from being a movement so tied to Galilee (a backwater in Judah) that people knew who Christians were by their accent to being in Churches stretching from Rome, Egypt, Greece, Syria, and etcetera.
So, the real question is the matter of doctrinal differences. Shiites believe much differently than Sunnis. It is essentially the difference between Protestants and Catholics. The Protestants sole authority theoretically is the Scripture (same with Sunnis and the QUran/Hadith) and the Catholics have an equivalent authority to the Scripture, that being the CHurch itself encapsulated in the Pope (Shiites depending upon they are 7ers, 12ers, or whatever derive authorities and teachings from the Imam who they believe is Muhammad's representative on Earth).
Not a really valid comparison, patterson went into better detail about it, but comparing early Islam and early Christianity is very problematic. They're both Abrahamic faiths, but they're also very distinct from one another in terms of the location and circumstances of their founding. That's sort of the paradox of Islam and Christianity: in some ways they're almost indistinguishable, in other ways they are so profoundly different that it's amazing they're even related to one another.
With very early Christianity prior to the First Council of Nicaea, there's a fair chance that something like Arianism could gain a foothold and emerge as the dominant form of Christianity. The problem of Arianism at the time of the OTL Arian heresy is that there's just not a lot of meaningful way for Arius and his supporters to win. The best possible outcome for Arianism is to take advantage of the existing divisions between the Western and Eastern Churches and try and co-opt one of them to his side. And even then there's no guarantee that the OTL outcome of Arius being regarded as heretical by both sides won't repeat itself.