Monarchianism, Sabellianism, and Arianism

[MrMacSon]

Monarchianism

Monarchianism, said to have developed in the 2nd century, is said to have affirmed the absolute, sole unity of God (in contrast to and against other concepts of God such as binitarianism or trinitarianism; and in contrast to bi- or tri- theism). The term Monarchianism derives from the Greek word monarkhia meaning ''a single principle of authority' or 'ruling of [or by] one' (hence the related, well-known concept: monarchy).

Terminology related to or developing from these concepts about God includes modes, aspects, hypostasis, persona, substance, etc.

Two types of monarchianism are described:

• 'dynamic monarchianism' (or Dynamism) which holds that God is one being, above all else, wholly indivisible, and of one nature: the Son was and is not co-eternal with the Father: essentially Jesus Christ was adopted to the godhood by God for His works, ie. Adoptionism.
  
  There are different versions of Dynamism, eg. whether Jesus was adopted at his baptism or at his ascension (rather confusingly, some assert that the name "Monarchian" properly does not strictly apply to Adoptionists or to Dynamists (eg., according to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, Dynamists "did not start from the monarchy of God, and their doctrine is strictly Christological").
  
  Notable adherents are said to have included Theodotus of Byzantium; Paul of Samosata; and Beryllus of Bostra, a third-century bishop who debated with Origen.

• 'modalistic monarchianism' (or Modalism) considers God to be one while working (+/- appearing) through different "modes" eg., Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
  
  (modalism is a designation coined in the late 19th century by Adolf von Harnack in 'History of Dogma,' 1897.)
  
  The terms "Father" and "Son" were said to be different expressions of the same being: "the Father is himself the Son." The terms were used or perhaps elaborated to describe the distinction between the transcendence of God and the incarnation with all of the Godhead said to 'dwell' in the person of Jesus from the incarnation.
  
  Here, the Holy Spirit should be understood as a descriptor of God's action (John 4:24 may be important here(?): "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.").
  
  Notable adherents are said to include Noetus, Praxeas and Sabellius (this view is commonly called Sabellianism; see below).

Monarchianism and Monarchians are said to have been opposed by 'Logos theologians' such as Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, the author of Refutation of All Heresies (+/- Hyppolytus) and Origen.

Following Tertullian, “The Latin Fathers…called them 'patripassians' (from the Latin words pater for 'father,' and passus, 'to suffer') because they have [co-]identified the Father and the Son to such an extent that they believed that it was the Father who suffered and died on the cross.” (Someone has said, “At the cross, God commended his spirit to himself, as he acted to be dead, but he was not dead in reality, although he raised himself on the 3rd day.”)

Adversus Praxeas, Chapter I: "By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome: he drove away prophecy, and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father."


Logos-theology

Logos-theology is said to have held from the late second century a two-stage existence for 'the Logos': that the Logos always existed inside God but became a separate Being - a distinct 'Reality - when God decided to create; and that the Son of God was as the instrument used by the supreme God, the Father, to bring the creation into existence.

Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Hippolytus of Rome and Tertullian in particular state that the internal Logos of God (Gr. Logos endiathetos, Lat. ratio)—his impersonal divine reason—was begotten as Logos uttered (Gr. Logos prophorikos, Lat. sermo, verbum), the Word personified, becoming an actual person to be used for the purpose of creation.^[8]

Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition) states: "to some Christians the doctrine of the Trinity appeared inconsistent with the unity of God ... they therefore denied it, and accepted Jesus Christ, not as incarnate God, but as God's highest creature by whom all else was created ... [this] view in the early Church long contended with the orthodox doctrine." ... the Trinitarian view became the orthodox doctrine in mainstream Christianity ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontrinitarianism#Beliefs

---

8. Justo L. González, The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Present Day, Prince Press, 1984, Vol. 1, pp.159–61. • Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, The University of Chicago Press, 1971, Vol. 1, pp.181–99.

Monarchians are said to have claimed that, “the theology of 'the Apologists' involves a division in the being and unity of God that is unacceptable” and that Logos-theology teaches two creators and two Gods (bi-theism), “inconsistent with monotheism.”


Sabellianism

This terms is said to have come about when 'the Greek Fathers' called Monarchians, 'Sabellians', after Sabellius (fl. c.215) who is said to have been the person who had put this doctrine, which he is said to have got from Noetus and Praxaes, in 'its philosophical form.'

Sabellius is said to have stated that God took numerous forms in both the Hebrew and the Christian Greek Scriptures, and that God has manifested himself in three primary modes regarding the salvation of mankind.

John L. Von Mosheim, a German Lutheran theologian who founded the pragmatic school of church historians, argued that Sabellius described God as three in one sense, but one in another [homoousion (ὁμοούσιον, literally same being]. Mosheim said Sabellius "believed the distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, described in the Scriptures, to be a real distinction, and not a mere appellative or nominal one," and maintained that, just like a man is one person (with a body, a soul, and a spirit), God is also one Person, one Unity; yet, in that Person, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit can be discerned separately.

The author of Refutation of All Heresies admonished Sabellius for opposing Trinitarian theology, but he called Modal Monarchism the heresy of Noetus, not that of Sabellius.


Arianism

It is variably said that Arianism held that the pre-existent Son of God was directly created by the Father, before all ages; that the Son is distinct and subordinate to God the Father; and that, after the Son was brought forth as the very first of God's creations (and therefor the most perfect creation), the Father then created all things through the Son

• in other words: the Son of God was begotten/made before time* by God the Father; therefore, Jesus was not coeternal with God the Father, but nonetheless Jesus began to exist outside time.

(it sounds like Arianism considered the Son to be like a Platonic Demiurge)

Furthermore, it is said that Arians still held to the Logos but only as an inner attribute of God that is wisdom; and that Jesus can also be called Logos, but only because of resemblance with the inner Logos of God.

• Pre-Arian Fathers like Justin Martyr are also said to have held the Son as begotten 'in time,' ie. not before time: they denied the 'eternal generation' of the Son

• Origen was accused of Arianism for using terms like "second God"

Arianism became the dominant view in some regions in the time of the Roman Empire, notably the Visigoths until 589. The Third Council of Sirmium in 357 was the high point of Arianism. The Seventh Arian Confession (Second Sirmium Confession) held that both homoousios* ('same being,' of one substance) and homoiousios (of similar substance) were unbiblical and that the Father is greater than the Son in all things, and that the Father alone is infinite and eternal, and that the Logos is God's true firstborn and subservient Son who was made perfect flesh for our sakes and for the glory of the Father (this confession was later known as the Blasphemy of Sirmium): "But since many persons are disturbed by questions concerning what is called in Latin substantia, but in Greek ousia, that is, to make it understood more exactly, as to 'coessential,' or what is called, 'like-in-essence,' there ought to be no mention of any of these at all, nor exposition of them in the Church, for this reason and for this consideration, that in divine Scripture nothing is written about them, and that they are above men's knowledge and above men's understanding" [Translation from Athanasius, De Synodis 28 (NPNF2 vol. 4, p.466)] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontrinitarianism#Beliefs

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* homoousion (ὁμοούσιον, literally same being) was, somewhat ironically, later adopted by both the first Ecumenical Council, the Trinitarian Nicene Council, and the second Ecumenical council for its anti-Arian creed.

Arius is said to have been a pupil of Lucian of Antioch (at Lucian's private academy in Antioch) and inherited from him a modified form of the teachings of Paul of Samosata.

Arian trinitarian theology, later given an extreme form by Aetius and his disciple Eunomius and called anomoean ("dissimilar"), asserts a total dissimilarity between the Son and the Father.

Arianism is also applied to other nontrinitarian theological systems of the 4th century which regarded Jesus Christ—the Son of God, the Logos—as either a begotten creature (of a similar or different substance to that of the Father), but not identical; or as neither uncreated nor created in the sense other beings might have been thought to have been created.

In the end, the difference between Arians and their detractors was really quite small, essentially just whether

• the Son had always existed eternally (as with the Father), or whether the Son was considered to have been begotten at a certain time (in the past)

and whether

• the Son was considered to be equal to the Father or to be subordinate to the Father

The main reason why such a major conflict developed over Arian theology was because (i) it received widespread sympathy (and/or was not, ironically, considered to be a major controversy) so (ii) could not be dismissed outright as individual heresy (Arius was more just a name given to it, ie. an eponym).

[MrMacSon]

The Monarchian Prologues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchian_Prologues

These are a set of Latin introductions to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with a Monarchian perspective. They were (+/- still are) thought to have been written in the second or third century by a single author, such as Priscillian who died in 386.

Their theology is heretical by the standards of the Latin Church

Since Luke and John were also credited with Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Revelation, respectively, information contained in their prologues was eventually spun out into separate prologues to Acts and Revelation. The earliest manuscript with these separate prologues is the Codex Fuldensis of 541–546.

The Monarchian prologues rely on the biblical text itself and various unreliable 'traditions' as sources. Their Latin style is convoluted and difficult to understand. Chapman printed the Latin text with translations and commentary, acknowledging that they were "masterpieces of the art of concealing one's meaning and of not basely betraying it .."

The prologue to Matthew is said to have written first in Judea. The prologue to Mark states that Mark used both Matthew and Luke (= the Griesbach hypothesis). Nevertheless, the prologues were often copied into Vulgate manuscripts with the now current order of the gospels. They are in fact a standard feature in the earliest Vulgate manuscripts.

The earlier anti-Marcionite prologue to Luke was a source (but, according to Heard (1955), the other two anti-Marcionite prologues were not). The prologue to John, said to have written last and in Asia Minor, appears to rely on the apocryphal Acts of John.

Chapman (1908) argued that they spread from the Abbey of Lérins, being brought by Patrick to Ireland, and by Eugippius to Italy and also to Spain. They had been brought from Italy to England by the time of Bede.

The incipits (first words) of the four prologues, by which they are commonly identified are:

Mattheus ex Iudaeis : 'Matthew, who was of the Jews'
Lucas Syrus natione Antiochensis : 'Luke, a Syrian of Antioch by nation'
Marcus euangelista dei : 'Mark, the evangelist of God'
Hic est Iohannes euangelista unus : 'This is John the evangelist, one'

Bibliography for the Monarchian prologues

---

Chapman, John (1908) Notes on the Early History of the Vulgate Gospels, Clarendon Press.
Heard, R.G. (1955). "The Old Gospel Prologues". The Journal of Theological Studies 6(1): 1–16.
Edwards, Mark (2022) 'Monarchian Prologues,' in Andrew Louth (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4th ed.); Oxford Univ. Press.

[Leucius Charinus]

///

Arianism

///

In the end, the difference between Arians and their detractors was really quite small, essentially just whether

• the Son had always existed eternally (as with the Father), or whether the Son was considered to have been begotten at a certain time (in the past)

and whether

• the Son was considered to be equal to the Father or to be subordinate to the Father

The main reason why such a major conflict developed over Arian theology was because (i) it received widespread sympathy (and/or was not, ironically, considered to be a major controversy) so (ii) could not be dismissed outright as individual heresy (Arius was more just a name given to it, ie. an eponym).

Was the difference "quite small"? Was it is fact a minor controversy? The 4th century Christian victors in the struggle against it would like us to believe this was so. I have my doubts.

The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian.

Jerome

One should at least include a review of what modern scholarship identifies as the text written by Arius (Thalia):

A recent and thorough discussion of the text, meaning, and significance of Thalia is found in Rowan Williams’ Arius: Heresy and Tradition, Revised Edition, 62-66 and 98-116. Both the translation found there, as well as that found in Hanson’s Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 12-15, were consulted for this translation (see bibliography).

See parallel Greek and English text

• …And so God Himself, as he really is, is inexpressible to all.
  He alone has no equal, no one similar (homoios), and no one of the same glory.
  We call him unbegotten, in contrast to him who by nature is begotten.
  We praise him as without beginning in contrast to him who has a beginning.
  We worship him as timeless, in contrast to him who in time has come to exist.
  
  He who is without beginning made the Son a beginning of created things.
  He produced him as a son for himself by begetting him.
  He [the son] has none of the distinct characteristics of God’s own being (kat’ hypostasis)
  For he is not equal to, nor is he of the same being (homoousios) as him.
  
  God is wise, for he himself is the teacher of Wisdom –
  Sufficient proof that God is invisible to all:
  He is is invisible both to things which were made through the Son, and also to the Son himself.
  
  I will say specifically how the invisible is seen by the Son:
  by that power by which God is able to see, each according to his own measure,
  the Son can bear to see the Father, as is determined
  
  So there is a Triad, not in equal glories.
  Their beings (hypostaseis) are not mixed together among themselves.
  As far as their glories, one infinitely more glorious than the other.
  The Father in his essence (ousia) is a foreigner to the Son, because he exists without beginning.
  
  Understand that the Monad [eternally] was; but the Dyad was not before it came into existence.
  It immediately follows that, although the Son did not exist, the Father was still God.
  Hence the Son, not being [eternal] came into existence by the Father’s will,
  He is the Only-begotten God, and this one is alien from [all] others
  
  [Williams suggests a section on the Holy Spirit may have been omitted here (p. 310).]
  
  Wisdom came to be Wisdom by the will of the Wise God.
  Hence he is conceived in innumerable aspects. He is Spirit,
  Power, Wisdom, God’s glory, Truth, Image, and Word.
  Understand that he is also conceived of as Radiance and Light.
  The one who is superior is able to beget one equal to the Son,
  But not someone more important, or superior, or greater.
  At God’s will the Son has the greatness and qualities that he has.
  His existence from when and from whom and from then — are all from God.
  He, though strong God, praises in part (ek merous) his superior .
  
  In brief, God is inexpressible to the Son.
  For he is in himself what he is, that is, indescribable,
  So that the son does not comprehend any of these things or have the understanding to explain them.
  For it is impossible for him to fathom the Father, who is by himself.
  For the Son himself does not even know his own essence (ousia),
  For being Son, his existence is most certainly at the will of the Father.
  
  What reasoning allows, that he who is from the Father should comprehend and know his own parent?
  For clearly that which has a beginning is not able to conceive of or grasp the existence of that which has no beginning.

https://www.fourthcentury.com/arius-thalia-intro/

The summary of Rowan William's conclusion is this quote:

"Arius' entire effort consisted precisely in acclimatizing Plotinic logic within biblical creationism."

[Charles Kannengeisser]

[MrMacSon]

Homoousion / ὁμοούσιον,  'same in being, same in essence.'

From ὁμός, homós, "same"; and οὐσία, ousía, "essence" (later "being").

• Oὐσία is an Ancient Greek noun, formed on the feminine present participle of the verb εἰμί, eimí, meaning "to be, I am" (so, similar grammatically to the English noun 'being').
  
  It was a philosophical and theological term used by various ancient Greek philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, as a primary designation for philosophical concepts of essence or substance (especially Aristotle with πρῶται οὐσίαι: protai ousiai; primary essences).
  
  Ousia was translated into Latin as essentia by Cicero (106 - 43 bce) or separately as substantia.
  
  Seneca (4 - 63 ce) and the rhetorician Quintilian (35 ce - 100 ce) used essentia as equivalent for οὐσία, while Apuleius (124 – 170+ ce) rendered οὐσία both as essentia or substantia.
  
  The philosophical and theological term οὐσιότης ('essentiality') was used by Platonists, like Alcinous (2nd c. ad/ce), as designation for one of the basic properties of divinity or godhead.
  
  In order to designate οὐσία, Tertullian favored the use of substantia over essentia (while Augustine of Hippo and Boethius took the opposite stance, preferring the use of essentia as designation for οὐσία).
  
  The concept of θεία ουσία (theia ousia; divine essence) was one of the most important doctrinal concepts central to the development of trinitarian doctrine.
  
  Origen used ousia in defining God as one genus of ousia, while being three, distinct species of hypostasis: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Pre-Nicene usage

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The Gnostics were the first to use the word ὁμοούσιος ... before the Gnostics there is no trace at all of its existence. The early church theologians [would have been] aware of this concept, and thus of the doctrine of emanation, taught by the Gnostics. In Gnostic texts, the word ὁμοούσιος is used with the following meanings:

• Identity of substance between generator and generated.
• Identity of substance between things generated of the same substance.
• Identity of substance between the partners of a syzygy.

Basilides, the first known to use ὁμοούσιος speaks of a threefold sonship consubstantial with the god who is not. The Valentinian Gnostic Ptolemy says in his letter to Flora that it is the nature of the good God to beget and bring forth only beings similar to, and consubstantial with, himself

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoousio ... cene_usage

Origen seems to have been the first ecclesiastical writer to use the word homoousios in a nontrinitarian context, but it is evident in his writings that he considered the Son's divinity lesser than the Father's, since he even calls the Son "a creature".

Athanasius of Alexandria and the Nicene Council held that the Son was taken to have exactly the same essence with the Father, and in the Nicene Creed the Son was declared to be as immutable as his Father.

The term ὁμοούσιον (homoousion), the accusative case form of ὁμοούσιος (homoousios), was adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 in order to try to clarify a universal ontology of Christ (and became universally accepted after the First Council of Constantinople in AD 381, whereafter the doctrine was that three distinct and infinite hypostases, or divine persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, fully possess the very same divine ousia).

• This doctrine was formulated in the 4th century, during the Arian controversy over Christology between Arius and Athanasius

The Greek term homoousios was consequently translated into Latin as coessentialis or consubstantialis.

Some theologians preferred the use of the term ὁμοιούσιος (homoioúsios) or an alternative uncontracted form, ὁμοιοούσιος homoiοoúsios; from ὅμοιος (hómoios, "similar"), rather than [from] ὁμός (homós, "same, common"), in order to emphasize distinctions among the three persons in the Godhead, but [as we know] the term homoousion became a consistent mark of Nicene orthodoxy in both East and West ...

... The several distinct branches of Arianism which sometimes conflicted with each other, as well as with the pro-Nicene homoousian creed, can be roughly broken down into the following classifications:

• Homoiousianism (from ὅμοιος, hómoios, "similar", as opposed to ὁμός, homós, "same, common"), which maintained that the Son was "like in substance" but not necessarily to be identified with the essence of the Father.

• Homoeanism (also from ὅμοιος), which declared that the Son was similar to God the Father, without reference to substance or essence. Some supporters of Homoean formulae also supported one of the other descriptions. Other Homoeans declared that the father was so incomparable and ineffably transcendent that even the ideas of likeness, similarity or identity in substance or essence with the subordinate Son and Holy Spirit were heretical and not justified by the Gospels. They held that the Father was like the Son in some sense but that even to speak of ousia was impertinent speculation.

• Heteroousianism (including Anomoeanism), which held that God the Father and the Son were different in substance and/or attributes.

All of these positions and the almost innumerable variations on them which developed in the 4th century were strongly and tenaciously opposed by Athanasius and other pro-Nicenes, who insisted on the doctrine of homoousion or consubstantiality, eventually prevailing ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoousio ... cene_Creed

[MrMacSon]

."Arius' entire effort consisted precisely in acclimatizing Plotinic logic within biblical creationism."

Arianism

It is variably said that Arianism held that the pre-existent Son of God was directly created by the Father, before all ages; that the Son is distinct and subordinate to God the Father; and that, after the Son was brought forth as the very first of God's creations (and therefor the most perfect creation), the Father then created all things through the Son

[list]in other words: the Son of God was begotten/made before time* by God the Father; therefore, Jesus was not coeternal with God the Father, but nonetheless Jesus began to exist outside time.[/list]

(it sounds like Arianism considered the Son to be like a Platonic Demiurge)

• [Oὐσία] was a philosophical and theological term used by various ancient Greek philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, as a primary designation for philosophical concepts of essence or substance (especially Aristotle with πρῶται οὐσίαι: protai ousiai; primary essences).
  
  Ousia was translated into Latin as essentia by Cicero (106 - 43 bce) or separately as substantia.
  
  Seneca (4 - 63 ce) and the rhetorician Quintilian (35 ce - 100 ce) used essentia as equivalent for οὐσία, while Apuleius (124 – 170+ ce) rendered οὐσία both as essentia or substantia.
  
  The philosophical and theological term οὐσιότης ('essentiality') was used by Platonists, like Alcinous (2nd c. ad/ce), as designation for one of the basic properties of divinity or godhead.
  
  
  
  Pre-Nicene usage

  ---

  The Gnostics were the first to use the word ὁμοούσιος ... before the Gnostics there is no trace at all of its existence. The early church theologians [would have been] aware of this concept, and thus of the doctrine of emanation, taught by the Gnostics. In Gnostic texts, the word ὁμοούσιος is used with the following meanings:
  

  • Identity of substance between generator and generated.
  • Identity of substance between things generated of the same substance.
  • Identity of substance between the partners of a syzygy.

  Basilides, the first known to use ὁμοούσιος speaks of a threefold sonship consubstantial with the god who is not. The Valentinian Gnostic Ptolemy says in his letter to Flora that it is the nature of the good God to beget and bring forth only beings similar to, and consubstantial with, himself
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoousio ... cene_usage
  
  
  
  

I would contend the opposite to your quote, and more broadly, ie., that philosophies, both inside and outside 'Christianisms' in the first two-to-three centuries of the common era - such as Arianism and Plotinus's - developed, acclimatized and criticised creationism, including 'biblical creationism,' within Platonic logic.

The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus addressed within his works...conception[s] of the Demiurge, which he saw as un-Hellenic and blasphemous to the Demiurge or creator of Plato ... In the ninth tractate of the second of his 'Enneads,' Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their appropriation of ideas from Plato:

From Plato come their punishments, their rivers of the underworld and the changing from body to body; as for the plurality they assert in the Intellectual Realm—the Authentic Existent, the Intellectual-Principle, the Second Creator and the Soul—all this is taken over from the Timaeus.

— 'Ennead' 2.9.vi; emphasis added from A. H. Armstrong's introduction to 'Ennead' 2.9

Of note here is the remark concerning the second hypostasis or Creator and third hypostasis or World Soul. Plotinus criticizes his opponents for "all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own" which, he declares, "have been picked up outside of the truth"; they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy, which they have corrupted by their extraneous and misguided embellishments. Thus their understanding of the Demiurge is similarly flawed in comparison to Plato’s original intentions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge#Plotinus

Arthur Hilary Armstrong (trans.) (1966). Plotinus: Enneads II (Loeb Classical Library ed.). Harvard University Press.
and or https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007X8G2OU

[Leucius Charinus]

."Arius' entire effort consisted precisely in acclimatizing Plotinic logic within biblical creationism."

///

(it sounds like Arianism considered the Son to be like a Platonic Demiurge)

///

I would contend the opposite to your quote, and more broadly, ie., that philosophies, both inside and outside 'Christianisms' in the first two-to-three centuries of the common era - such as Arianism and Plotinus's - developed, acclimatized and criticised creationism, including 'biblical creationism,' within Platonic logic.

Arius appears in the 4th century and as a result of the words of Arius Constantine calls the Nicene Council 325 CE. It is evident that at this time Christianity had been elevated from obscurity and into political history of the Roman empire.

The following is from ARIUS: Heresy & Tradition by Rowan Williams, Revised Edition (2002) where Williams searches for any precedents in the beliefs expressed by Arius (and cannot find anything)

INTELLECT and BEYOND

199-209

Is spent searching for any precedents in the beliefs expressed by Arius.

p.209

".... It should be fairly clear by now that these views were unusual
in the church of his day, if not completely without precedent of some
sort in Origen. Kannengeisser suggests [63] that we should look directly
at the fifth Ennead [of Plotinus] for the background to Arius's ideas,
and for the heresiarch's 'break with Origen and his peculiarity with
respect to all the masters of Middle-Platonism with whom he has been
compared. [64]

For Kannengiesser .... only the radical disjunction between first and
second principles for which Plotinus argues can fully account for Arius'
novel teaching in this area.

• "Arius' entire effort consisted precisely in acclimatizing
  Plotinic logic within biblical creationism." [66]

[63-66] Charles Kannengeisser

ARIUS: Heresy & Tradition
Rowan Williams
Revised Edition (2002)

My notes are here:
http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/ARIUS ... dition.htm

So by the time of Arius in the 4th century, what was previously the Platonic logic of the Middle Platonists had evolved to become Plotinic logic. The Neo-Platonist Plotinus' had received imperial sponsorship and his literary work (the Enneads) had been published by his student Porphyry.

At least that is how I read Williams and the quote by Charles Kannengeisser

[MrMacSon]

Subordinationism is a doctrine wherein the Son is subordinate to the Father, not only in submission and role, but with actual ontological subordination to varying degrees.

It can be trinitarian, ie. when it includes the Holy Spirit.

Virtually all main orthodox theologians prior to the Arian controversy are said to have been 'subordinationists,' including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus,* Tertullian, Origen and others (Badcock, Gary D. (1997) Light of Truth and Fire of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.)

* SJ, Emile Mersch (2011), in The Whole Christ: The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Mystical Body in Scripture and Tradition, Wipf and Stock Publishers, disagrees that Irenaeus 'taught' any form of subordinationism.

Arianism arose or developed out of the concept of subordinationism. It allegedly coming to a head in a dispute between Arius and Pope Alexander I of Alexandria around 318-9 when Alexander declared the unity of the Trinity in one of his sermons. Arius is said to have objected to Alexander's apparent carelessness in blurring the distinction of nature between the Father and the Son by his emphasis on 'eternal generation,' and immediately responded by labelling Alexander's statement Sabellianism, which had allegedly already been rejected by that time.

• Alexander called a synod of the church of Alexandria and its neighboring province of Mareotis in 320: thirty-six presbyters and forty-four deacons, including Athanasius of Alexandria, are said to have agreed to a condemnation of Arianism and signed a document to that effect.
  
  But Arius is said to have pushed Arianism in other North African provinces.
  
  In 321, Alexander called a general council of the entire church of the nation but at which Arius continued to argue his earlier position: that the Son could not be co-eternal with the father and that the Son was not similar to the Father in substance.
  
  He was placed under anathema until he recanted his positions.

Arius left for Palestine, where he received support from a number of bishops, who expressed their opinion of the matter to Alexander. One of these supporters, Eusebius of Nicomedia, had close connections with the imperial court in Byzantium, and helped to spread Arius' ideas further. The widespread growth of this movement, and the reaction to such from the established church, is said to have led to the emperor writing a letter to the involved parties calling for the return of unity to the church and an end to this protracted dispute about what he characterized as petty arguments over unintelligible minutiae.

According to J.N.D. Kelly, Kelly, in Early Christian doctrines, San Francisco, 1978, the dispute was over whether the Son had a beginning:

To justify his view that the Son had no beginning, Alexander argued that the Son had been 'begotten' by the Father from his own being. But Arius argued that the Son was created out of nothing, and therefore had a beginning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subordina ... _Alexander, and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alex ... a#Arianism