Constantine, in the year 326 A.D., began his crusade to Christianize the Roman Empire. It began in an edict which stated, “Constantine, Victor, Greatest Augustus, to bishops and laity: [The heretic] Arius, having initiated wicked and impious men, deserves to suffer the same loss of privileges as they.”
The edict goes on to state Arius and those who followed him would now be under the edict that any writings found by Arius were to be burned “so that not only his corrupt teachings may vanish, but no memory of him at all may remain.”
The Bishop Arius
Living from 250 A.D. to 336 .D. Bishop Arius began his religious ministry as a poet and ascetic. To his contemporaries he was a simple priest, not likely to be later cause of one of the most remembered heresies in church history.
What the Arians Believed
Beginning in the year 319 A.D. as a simple dispute with the Bishop of Alexandria over the "nature" of Christ, the Arian doctrinal issue at hand was how Jesus Christ could be the begotten Son of the Father if He had been in existence since the beginning of time. This questioning got Arius excommunicated.
Arius’s views are well extant now, and are only known to us through the writings of other church fathers who wrote against the heresy.
In a document written by St. Athanasius, “God the Father was ‘uncreated’ and was the first principle from which all else, including the Son and the Holy Ghost was derived.”
However, Arius’s views differed in this way. He believed and taught that the Father is eternal – because he was uncreated – but that the Son, having been created at some point, was not eternal.
Arius Teachings Condemned
It was the First General Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. that first officially condemned this view, although the battle raged on for centuries thereafter. It was officially quelched in 381 A.D. at the First General Council of Constantinople. But being ‘officially’ quelched is quite different from disappearing from the minds of men. The undercurrents of these beliefs continued long after, and is even sometimes seen today in newer sects which have arisen out of Protestant Christianity in the modern world.
Heresy According to the Early Church Fathers
The Early Church Fathers discouraged the faithful from branching out into many sects, but recognized that there would indeed be a branching out before the Doctrines of the Church could be put into a unified canon and the beliefs of the Church could be made clear. “There must also be factions [or heresies] among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you.” (New Testament, 1 Corinthians 11:19)
Other heretical sects of interest include Antinomianism and the Beghards.
Sources:
- Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics, by Charles S. Clifton.
- A Catholic Dictionary, by William E. Addis and Thomas Arnold, M.A.
- Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma , by Dr. Ludwig Ott.
- A Short History of Christian Doctrine: From the First Century to the Present, by Bernhard Lohse.
- The Church in Crisis: A History of the General Councils, 325 - 1870, by Philip Hughes.
- A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs: A Reference Guide to More than 700 Topics Discussed by the Early Church Fathers, edited by David W. Bercot.
