The Council of Nicaea has been a traditional watershed for ecclesiastical history, if not Christian identity itself, but for the past twenty-five years “the Arian controversy” has been in the grip of revisionism, according to which many theological conflicts happened but most of them had little to do with the historical Arius. As a further revision, David Gwynn's contribution is to expose the historiographical pitfalls of the traditional binary opposition of Nicene and Arian theologies by examining the polemical construction of a political and theological party called “the Eusebians” by Athanasius. To trace this construction he first gives a thorough and critical overview of the chronology of the polemical works of Athanasius. The second part is a summary of the construction of a “party” labeled “the Eusebians” and its association with “Arian theology.” The final section of the book is a historical examination of the evidence concerning the theologies of Arius and others associated together to show the construction of “Athanasian Arianism” as a polemical tool to discredit all opponents to the bishop of Alexandria. He concludes that “the Eusebians” were not an actual party engaged in subversive activity against Athanasius nor were they “Arian” as traditionally defined. In all three sections Gwynn reviews much current scholarship surrounding these familiar texts and figures, which makes his book an important resource for Athanasius and the fourth century.

The analysis of polemical rhetoric has become an important, if difficult, part of historical revision. Although most scholars now would no longer use the term “Arian” or use Athanasius without suspicion except in a dogmatic context, Gwynn's detailed presentation of the creation of “the Eusebians” is very helpful, if the conclusions are necessarily limited. Acknowledging Athanasius's construction of a heretical party ultimately cannot negate that a number of bishops were in fact allies against him, though it does refine our perception of a “party.” Acknowledging Athanasius's exaggeration of certain understandings of “created” does not negate the objections of many to Nicene formulas or to Athanasius in particular. These refinements as a result of rhetorical criticism ironically throw the actions of Athanasius into higher relief and raise further questions about the usual narrative of the fourth century. If Athanasius uses polarization as a technique to create a heretical party or to construct a heresy of the mutable creature (“Athanasian Arianism”), can polarization still be claimed as his motivation? Gwynn is very careful to underline the sincerity of the Alexandrian: “He wrote as a bishop and a theologian engaged in a life or death struggle for his own conception of the Christian religion” (6); “Athanasius was sincere in his denunciation of men he believed held a theology that struck at the very heart of the Christian faith” (245; cf. 169). His “polarized ontology” did not allow distinctions (234). These assertions are commonplaces made of Athanasius contra mundum, but they could just as well emerge out of his own rhetorical self-presentation. Just as we may not embrace without skepticism “the Eusebians” as an ecclesiastical party, then perhaps we should exercise as much agnosticism as to the motivations of Athanasius. Just as we should grant a spectrum of theologies among the “Arians,” we should hesitate to equate the theology of Athanasius with the traditional reception of Nicaea in later Christianity (170, 237). The continuing recovery of the multiple theologies and alliances of both non-Nicenes and neo-Nicenes in the fourth century together with Gwynn's analysis must only increase our historical unease about Athanasius. A useful question may be to discern when he does not polarize, such as in his alliance with Marcellus of Ancyra or at the terminological compromises in Alexandria in 362. Episcopal polemics after all were both political and theological. Gwynn has done much else in his book, and he begins to raise these questions about the “historical Athanasius” toward the end, but I think they are more pervasive and essential to his argument than he is prepared to admit. New methods of rhetorical analysis make us more aware of the intentions and limitations of traditional theological formulas, and therefore must raise critical questions about their authority.