Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Did Arius REALLY Mean that Jesus was a Musical Instrument?

I am struck by how similar Clement's identification of Jesus as "the All-harmonious Instrument ([organon]) of God" [Protrept. p. 6] is to what is reported of the beliefs of the followers of Arius. This is certainly because the Arians were the true preservation of the original Alexandrian theology (rather than the corrupt flatters of Constanine). So we read in Alexander of Alexandria's letter (quoted in Socrates Scholasticus) that Arius held a very similar understanding to what we just read in Clement which he refutes in following - "the Son knows not the nature of his own essence: for he was made on our account, in order that God might create us by him, as by an instrument; nor would he ever have existed, unless God had wished to create us."

The Arians always claimed that their tradition went back to the earliest Alexandrian exemplars. I certainly believe them. But now we have to ask ourselves whether the debates with the Nicene Orthodox have complete obscured the original Alexandrian understanding. Might 'organon' (instrument) have originally meant what Clement understood it to be - viz. 'musical' instrument, or as we have determined the ogdoad (= sheminith Psalm 6,12)?

I certainly think so but most of the evidence has disappeared to support this original understanding (and its association with the Alexandrian gospel parallel in Secret Mark). Nevertheless traces remain such as what we read in Eusebius the defender of Origen and 'Origenism' (viz. Alexandrianism) "an animated and living instrument, ([organon empsuchon],) nay, rather divine and ... vivific of every substance and nature." Demonstr. iv. 4. S. Basil, on the other hand, insists that the Arians reduced our Lord to "an inanimate instrument," [organon apsuchon], though they called Him [hypourgon teleiotaton], most perfect minister or underworker." adv. Eunom. ii. 21. Elsewhere he says, "the nature of a cause is one, and the nature of an instrument, [organon], another; ... foreign then in nature is the Son from the Father, as an instrument is from the artist who uses it." de Sp. S. n. 6 fin. vid. also n. 4. fin. and n. 20. Afterwards he speaks of our Lord as "not intrusted with the ministry of each work by particular injunctions in detail, for this were ministration,"  [leitourgikon], but as being "full of the Father's excellences," and "fulfilling not an instrumental, [organiken], and servile ministration, but accomplishing the Father's will like a Maker, [demiourgikos]." ibid. n. 19. For Athanasius, the divine Word assumed a human body as instrument, or organon. This theologian practically ignored Christ's mind or soul.


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