Ante Nicene Trinity

[arapahoepark]

Any particular resources that are solely devoted to Ante Nicene Trinitarian thought over against the idea the church was Unitarian and Arius was somehow 'conservative'?

 

[RamistThomist]

Any particular resources that are solely devoted to Ante Nicene Trinitarian thought over against the idea the church was Unitarian and Arius was somehow 'conservative'?

[1]

No Patristic scholar seriously maintains a Unitarian thesis. As to "conservative," all that means is Arius accepted the philosophy of the Alexandrian school and tried to work Christ around it. Ammonius Saccas and his disciples were the "lingua franca" of Egyptian Christianity.

[2]
Nicea is the victory of Origen over Origen. It all depended on which way to take Origen. If the Father is utter simplicity (and beyond epinoia), then how can the Son a) be of the same ousia/hypostasis (these terms really wouldn't be ironed out until Basil) and b) the Son manifest the simplicity of the Father?

[3]
Part of the difficult is that "ousia" had material connotations. The radical Origenists didn't want to speak of Father/Son as having the same ousia because the Father didn't materiality at all.

[4]
As to sources,
Tertullian, Agaisnt Praxeas
Origen, Peri Archon
Alexander the Presbyter.