26 Facts About Arius

Arius has been regarded as the founder of Arianism, which holds that Jesus Christ was not coeternal with God the Father, but was rather created before time.

Arius's theology was a prominent topic at the First Council of Nicaea, where Arianism was condemned in favor of Homoousian conceptions of God and Jesus.

Reconstructing the life and doctrine of Arius has proven to be a difficult task.

In 313, Arius was made presbyter of the Baucalis district in Alexandria.

The Arian Controversy began only 5 years later in 318 when Arius, who was in charge of one of the churches in Alexandria, publicly criticized his bishop Alexander for "carelessness in blurring the distinction of nature between the Father and the Son by his emphasis on eternal generation".

The Trinitarian historian Socrates of Constantinople reports that Arius sparked the controversy that bears his name when Alexander of Alexandria, who had succeeded Achillas as the Bishop of Alexandria, gave a sermon stating the similarity of the Son to the Father.

Socrates of Constantinople believed that Arius was influenced in his thinking by the teachings of Lucian of Antioch, a celebrated Christian teacher and martyr.

Arius had the support of perhaps the two most important church leaders of that time:.

Arius encouraged the spread of the Christian faith beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire.

However, while both agreed on the subordination of the Son to the Father, and Arius drew support from Origen's theories on the Logos, the two did not agree on everything.

Arius emphasized the supremacy and uniqueness of God the Father, meaning that the Father alone is infinite and eternal and almighty, and that therefore the Father's divinity must be greater than the Son's.

Arius maintained that the Son possessed neither the eternity nor the true divinity of the Father but was rather made "God" only by the Father's permission and power.

Arius himself attended the council, as did his bishop, Alexander.

Nonetheless, when some of Arius's writings were read aloud, they are reported to have been denounced as blasphemous by most participants.

Arius argued for the supremacy of God the Father, and maintained that the Son of God was simply the oldest and most beloved creature of God, made from nothing, because of being the direct offspring.

Arius taught that the pre-existent Son was God's first production, before all ages.

In contrast, some contemporaries of Arius asserted that the circumstances of his death were a miraculous consequence of Arius's heretical views.

The death of Arius did not end the Arian controversy, which would not be settled for centuries in some parts of the Christian world.

Arius's success ensured the survival of Arianism among the Goths and Vandals until the beginning of the eighth century, when their kingdoms succumbed to the adjacent Niceans or they accepted Nicean Christianity.

Arius said that Jesus Christ was not true God, but divine by participation, like all others to whom the name of God is attributed.

Three surviving letters attributed to Arius are his letter to Alexander of Alexandria, his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, and his confession to Constantine.

Arius explains how the Son could still be God, even if he did not exist eternally ; and endeavors to explain the ultimate incomprehensibility of the Father to the Son.

The part of Arius's Thalia quoted in Athanasius's is the longest extant fragment.

Arius alone has no equal, no one similar, and no one of the same glory.

Arius who is without beginning made the Son a beginning of created things Arius produced him as a son for himself by begetting him.

Arius is Spirit, Power, Wisdom, God's glory, Truth, Image, and Word.