An Athanasian libertarian socialist, I probably don't qualify -- but I would contest a bit your reading of the political implications of 4th and 5th century Xn theology (the argument surely not being over before Chalcedon, in 451 CE). As G. H. Williams pointed out years ago, the imperial court was Arian because they understood that Arianism was a hierarchical model -- as in the godhead, so in the state. Trinitarianism on the other hand was dangerously communal: it was the proscribed Athanasius who insisted that God became human so that humanity might become God. Trinitarianism as pure communism...
C. G. Estabrook
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I wish I hadn't missed this post earlier. Lbo has 130 some odd posts up on my mailer with 72 undread by me, and now its after two and I have to go to work tomorrow.
I don't think the hierarchy model fits very well with either the arguments following the Arius doctrine nor the arguments that follow Athanasius and the Nicene creed. What I proposed was that these controversies were rhetorical propaganda to cover more materially based power struggles between Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople, with other wings of the empire played off against one another of the major players. Athanasius was both appointed and proscribed depending on which twist or turn of his career you consider.
The reason I say this is that it is worth looking at some of the canons adopted at Nicea and notice that most of them are devoted to the election of bishops and therefore the relative disposition of power around the empire. Reading them is a little like reading some kind of odd-ball gerrymandering effort by the California legislature. I suppose this doesn't really prove or disprove the hierarchy point but does seem to put it on a back burner.
Chuck Grimes