Publisher's Synopsis
Since the last full-scale study in English of the Arian Controversy, Gwatkin's 'Studies in Arianism' which originally appeared in 1882, the subject has been transformed. New texts have been discovered and old re-edited. A more exacting review of the philosophical background has been made. New research has been done into different aspects of the Controversy by many scholars, but no work has appeared in English covering the whole history of the Controversy. With 'The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God' Professor Hanson has provided such a work.
By encompassing all recent scholarship, Professor Hanson presents many original texts in new light and provides a much clearer understanding of how the traditional and historic doctrine of God as the Holy Trinity reached its most mature and enduring form. The author is not primarily concerned to defend the orthodox position itself, but rather to discover and examine the formation of that orthodoxy.
The history of the events - the Councils, the interventions of the Emperor, the rivalries of sees, the behaviour of bishops, the varying fortunes of the different schools of thought and their leaders - is interwoven with the progression of thought and doctrine during the sixty years of the Controversy. At the centre of the controversy, professor Hanson sees the problem of the reconciliation of two concepts which were both part of the very fabric of Christianity - monotheism and the worship of Jesus Christ as divine.
