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Essay on Arius and Arianism
Arius was a Libyan by decent who was brought up at Antioch in the vicinity of Alexandria and was later appointed the presbyter of the church called "Baucalis," at Alexandria in the present Egypt. Arius opposed the concept of Trinity which denied any distinction in the Supreme. He has been described as tall, grave, and winning with no aspersion on his moral character that could be established as being sustained, but he is also described as a heretic who denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ by declaring that the Son was not identical to the Father. His views brought him into trouble with the Pope or Patriarch Alexander in 319 whom he had accused, in open Synod, of teaching that the Son was identical to the Father.
Arius sought refuge with Eusebius, who was the Church historian, at Caesarea in Rome and who was also a friend of the Emperor Constantine of Rome. The assertion that the Son or Jesus Christ was somehow different and inferior to the Father or God caused serious divisions in the Church with many bishops of Asia Minor and Syria taking up to the defense of their "fellow-Lucianist" or “the follower of the Demon” as Arius used to sarcastically describe himself. Arius was not considered to be a great theologian but he had challenged Pope Alexander of Sabellianism about the concept of the unity of God by declaring that "If the Father begat the Son, then he who was begotten had a beginning in existence, and from this it follows there was a time when the Son was not" (Robert) and The Catholic Encyclopedia.
Arius was excommunicated by the Church or at least by Pope Alexander for claiming that Jesus was a created being and therefore could not be God. It is claimed that he rejected the term ‘homoousios’ (of the same substance) as the identity of Jesus in relationship with the Father......
