biography
pronunciation:
[ahrius]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (c.250–336)
|
| biography:
| Founder of Arianism, born in Libya. He trained in Antioch, and became a presbyter in Alexandria. He claimed (c.319) that, in the doctrine of the Trinity, the Son was not co-equal or co-eternal with the Father, but only the first and highest of all finite beings, created out of nothing by an act of God's free will. He won some support, but was deposed and excommunicated in 321 by a synod of bishops at Alexandria. The subsequent controversy was fierce, so the Council of Nicaea (Nice) was called in 325 to settle the issue. Out of this came the definition of the absolute unity of the divine essence, and the equality of the three persons of the Trinity. Arius was banished, but recalled in 334, and died in Constantinople. After his death the strife spread more widely abroad: the West was mainly orthodox, the East largely Arian or semi-Arian; but despite later revivals the doctrine was largely suppressed by the end of the 4th-c. |
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