# Arian Visigoths in Spain and Theological writings?



## Stope (Nov 22, 2016)

A question for my Historian friends:

I always kind of assumed that the Arians, after Nicea, were just a small remnant and of those they were just a few scholastic types, however I came across something this morning that the author said in passing that for several hundred years the Visigoths in Spain were Arians... It caused me a few questions:

1. Did these, or any other Arians, through the centuries write any Theological books? The reason I ask is because it would be interesting to see how their Arian views shape the rest of their Theology.

2. I always kind of thought there were the Catholic/Nicene faith and the Orthodox (prior to the Reformation), but were there other sizeable strands/branches (or even heretical)of Christianity? If so, who were they?


----------



## RamistThomist (Nov 22, 2016)

Stope said:


> A question for my Historian friends:
> 
> I always kind of assumed that the Arians, after Nicea, were just a small remnant and of those they were just a few scholastic types, however I came across something this morning that the author said in passing that for several hundred years the Visigoths in Spain were Arians... It caused me a few questions:
> 
> ...



I am not aware of any large-scale corpus of Visigothic Arian writings. I would be surprised if they did exist. Books back then were a big project and the long-term losers of history wouldn't likely have had their writings preserved (especially given cost, war, invasion, break up of Roman empire, etc).

There were offshoots that weren't neatly Eastern Orthodox or Western Roman (and to be fair, even those categories aren't really accurate early on). The Gothic Arians get some notoriety just because small kingdoms endorsed them. Muslim conquests in Spain and Charlemagne's consolidation in France/Germany really sidelined the Arian cause.


----------



## Stope (Nov 22, 2016)

ReformedReidian said:


> There were offshoots that weren't neatly Eastern Orthodox or Western Roman (and to be fair, even those categories aren't really accurate early on). The Gothic Arians get some notoriety just because small kingdoms endorsed them. Muslim conquests in Spain and Charlemagne's consolidation in France/Germany really sidelined the Arian cause.



Thank you!!!

Can you, if possible, share a few of the more prevalent "offshoots" that weren't really EO or Catholic? Again, Im curious to read some work from any of these folks that actually have a larger following/adherents because Im curious to see how heretical Theology spreads and touches and permeates other areas of Christian life and Theology


----------



## RamistThomist (Nov 22, 2016)

Stope said:


> ReformedReidian said:
> 
> 
> > There were offshoots that weren't neatly Eastern Orthodox or Western Roman (and to be fair, even those categories aren't really accurate early on). The Gothic Arians get some notoriety just because small kingdoms endorsed them. Muslim conquests in Spain and Charlemagne's consolidation in France/Germany really sidelined the Arian cause.
> ...



The Visigothic Arians were the most obvious. Then there is the Celtic Christianity. EO guys like to claim them, and there might be some overlap, but there isn't much evidence to go on. They weren't Latin for sure. Then there were the more Hebraic groups in Palestine until 150 when the Romans kicked them out. 

But we don't have a lot of evidence to say for sure.


----------



## Stope (Nov 22, 2016)

ReformedReidian said:


> Stope said:
> 
> 
> > ReformedReidian said:
> ...



That is fascinating, thanks for the responses


----------



## yeutter (Nov 28, 2016)

I am in Nepal, without my library; so I cannot provide a reference.

If my memory is correct; Arians [or perhaps semi-Arians] in Central Europe did an early translation of the Bible into the vernacular.

Arians [possibly semi-Arians] spread their religion south of the Sahara Desert into west Africa. Part of the Coptic polemic against the Arians may have been directed against the Arian heretics in both north and west Africa.

Mohammed's interactions with Christians, prior to his founding his own cult, may have been with Arians in Arabia and Yemen. That would explain why the Muslim caricature of Christianity sounds so much like they are talking about Jehovah's Witnesses.


----------



## Philip (Nov 28, 2016)

Stope said:


> 2. I always kind of thought there were the Catholic/Nicene faith and the Orthodox (prior to the Reformation), but were there other sizeable strands/branches (or even heretical)of Christianity? If so, who were they?



Ok, so Arianism: in the century after Nicaea, Arians and Catholics (I'll use the term for defenders of Nicene/Chalcedonian orthodoxy throughout) waged a running battle, culminating in Constantinople I, after which it was largely settled. Most of the support for Arianism in the Empire came from the imperial family.

However, while Constantinople I settled the issue in the Empire, the tribes outside it, particularly the Goths and Vandals, had been converted by Arian missionaries. As we know from history, the Goths and Vandals both conquered parts of the Western Empire, eventually deposing assassinating and the last claimants of the Western Emperorship, Romulus Augustulus and Julius Nepos, in the last decades of the 5th century. For the better part of the next fifty years, North Africa (Vandals), Spain and southern Gaul (Visigoths), and Italy (Ostrogoths), were ruled by Arians. However, the wars of Justinian destroyed the kingdoms of the Vandals and Ostrogoths and dealt significant blows to the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain. However the Visigoths converted to Catholic Christianity starting in 589 with the Third Council of Toledo, convened by Reccared I.

As for other groups, the Coptic Church of Egypt was and is non-Chalcedonian, holding to a view known as miaphysitism (not to be confused with the monophysites), while the Church of the East, which had its center in Sassanid Persia, was more or less Nestorian (though they never came to councils after Ephesus due to the constant wars between the Persian and Byzantine empires). This church spread rapidly, reaching Japan by the 9th century. At least one of its branches, the Mar Thoma (St Thomas) Syrian Church, underwent a reformation and is now considered Protestant (though of a high church variety)


----------



## Stope (Nov 28, 2016)

Philip said:


> Stope said:
> 
> 
> > 2. I always kind of thought there were the Catholic/Nicene faith and the Orthodox (prior to the Reformation), but were there other sizeable strands/branches (or even heretical)of Christianity? If so, who were they?
> ...



Awesome!

As for "while Constantinople I settled the issue in the Empire, the tribes outside it, particularly the Goths and Vandals, had been converted by Arian missionaries", do we have ANY works from any of these people: the missionaries? the laymen? Im just so curious to see how they work out their theology in daily life and systematically as its grounded in heresy...


----------



## Philip (Nov 28, 2016)

Stope said:


> do we have ANY works from any of these people: the missionaries? the laymen?



Not that I'm aware of. Most of the literate people of the period would have been Roman, and therefore Catholic. We have barely any fragments of the Vandalic language, much less any theological works. As for Gothic, only portions of the Bible have survived, and most of the theology would have been written in the Gothic kingdoms. Nearly averything we know about Gothic/Vandalic Arianism comes from their Catholic theological/political opponents.


----------



## Stope (Nov 28, 2016)

Philip said:


> Stope said:
> 
> 
> > do we have ANY works from any of these people: the missionaries? the laymen?
> ...



Fascinating. Thank you brother


----------

