Arius’ first main opponent was Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria. He recognized Arius’ position not as a progression in Christian theology, but a digression from the Apostolic faith. When Emperor Constantine called for the matter to be settled, the church council of Nicaea (AD 325) convened. The council confessed the Son homoousious (“one substance”) with the Father, and deposed Arius. But Arianism continued to assert itself, pushing to add an iota to the Creed, calling the Son homoiousious (“of like substance”) with the Father. 

We are all too familiar with rioting and unrest in our streets. But riots over theology? Over one letter of the Greek alphabet–literally one iota? Yet the Arian controversy of the fourth century was a decisive juncture for the Church. Would she continue to recognize Jesus of Nazareth as truly, really, and fully God, or would she conclude that he was somehow lesser than God the Father? In AD 318, adherents of orthodoxy took to the streets, confronting Arius’ followers who chanted, “There was a time when Christ was not!”[1]

Before Arius

Since their earliest recorded history, Christians always worshipped Jesus as God. Historian Jaroslav Pelikan summarizes the data: the “oldest surviving sermon of the Christian church after the New Testament,” the “oldest surviving account of the death of a martyr,” the “oldest surviving pagan report about the church,” and the “oldest surviving liturgical prayer of the church.” All testify to the Church’s active and emphatic faith in Jesus as God.[2]

A long string of controversies over how to define this conviction followed. The first difficulty the Church faced was how Jesus could be the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God and at the same time be born, grow as a man, suffer, and die on the Cross. The second was how God could be one, yet Father, Son, and Spirit all acknowledged as God.[3]

Enter Arius

Arius (AD 256-356) arrived on the scene, a presbyter of eminent learning, to offer a “reasonable” account. God is absolute, without beginning: the source of all reality. The Son, he proposed, must be a creature. The first and most exalted of creatures through which the world was formed, but still a creature.

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