AERIO AND AERIANI. - A., a priest of the 4th century, a native of Pontus, was placed in charge of the charitable institutions of the city of Sebaste, and in particular of the great hospice for beggars (ptochotrophium), by Bishop Eustathius, who had had him as a companion in asceticism. He was not, however, faithful to his bishop's friendship: after having for some time harbored bitterness and resentment against him deep in his soul, because he had been passed over for the episcopate, he began to reproach him publicly for having abandoned asceticism; then, hurling grave calumnies at him, above all of avarice, he withdrew from the direction of the charitable works and, dogmatizing, drew to himself a group of followers (called precisely Aerians) who professed, on certain points, particular doctrines. St. Epiphanius, in a chapter entirely devoted to combating the Aerians, attributes to them principally the following five errors (Haer. 75):
1) they did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ: they were semi-Arians, or rather, according to other authors, they were Arians in an exaggerated sense; 2) they denied any distinction between bishop and priest, confusing the meaning of the word "presbyters," used by St. Paul, when he exhorts Timothy not to neglect the gift received through the imposition of the hands of the presbyterate (I Tim. 4:14); 3) they affirmed the uselessness of prayers for the dead; 4) they rejected obligatory fasts imposed on certain days, since one could fast every day, even on Sunday, but they held that fasts should be spontaneous; 5) they condemned the celebration of Easter as a Jewish survival, citing, inappropriately, the text: "Christ, our Paschal Lamb, has been sacrificed" (I Cor. 5:7).
The Aerians encountered opposition not only from Catholics but also from Arians. Moreover, they were few in number: driven out from all the churches and forced to gather in the countryside and forests, they soon disappeared. The Protestants partly revived their heresies.