Arius

ARIUS. - Heresiarch, father of Arianism (v.), b. in 256 in Libya, d. in 336 at Constantinople. A disciple, it seems, of Lucian of Antioch, nothing is known of his life before 306, when he took part at Alexandria in the Melitian schism. He broke away from it shortly afterwards, and around 308 he received the diaconate from Bishop Peter of Alexandria. The severity shown by the latter toward the Melitians drove A. into opposition, and he did so much that the bishop excommunicated him. It was only under the successor Achillas that he was reconciled with the Church and was ordained a priest (312). In 313 he was at the head of a church of Alexandria called Baukalis, where his name soon became popular. The contemporaries who have handed down his portrait describe him as tall and lean in person, of austere morals, of winning presence, cultured and a skilled dialectician, but proud and greedy for power, cunning and insincere.

For some years he lived in harmony with Alexander, Achillas's successor in the episcopate, but between 318 and 320 (according to others 323) the first disagreements broke out concerning the consubstantiality of the Word. In explaining Scripture in his church of Baukalis, A. put forward theories in which the teaching of Lucian of Antioch was making headway, with all that it implied of subordination and of exegetical and dialectical tendencies contrary to those prevailing in Alexandria. At bottom A. denied the divinity of the Word, which he presented as a secondary god, substantially different from the Father, who had created him from nothing and by a free act of will. Bishop Alexander, after giving proof of patience, rejected the conceptions of A., who, heedless of the condemnation, went in search of support among the episcopate. Against the epistolary campaign unleashed by the rebel, the bishop of Alexandria responded with countermeasures, and at the same time had the priest of Baukalis and his followers condemned by a synod of 100 bishops, assembled in his city. Once his stay in Alexandria had become impossible, A. sought refuge with his powerful protector, Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had the doctrine of his friend declared orthodox by a synod. This success won him other support: from Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea he obtained the convocation of a synod that agreed to intervene with Alexander with a request for the reinstatement of A. During his stay at Nicomedia A. wrote his principal work entitled Thalia (the banquet), of which nothing remains to us but fragments handed down by St. Athanasius (Oratio I contra Arianos: PG 26, 16-33; De Synodis, 15: ibid., 26, 705, etc.), and which was composed, it seems, partly in prose and partly in verse, according to the meter of the Egyptian poet Sotades: A. chose this light form in order to make familiar to the masses the doctrine he was championing. Eusebius of Nicomedia, full of zeal for his fellow Lucianist, also interested the emperor's sister, Constantia. Soon it was Constantine himself who took an interest in the conflict, and in a letter inviting concord he censured the conduct of Alexander and of A. for having raised useless questions. To restore peace and union, he convoked an ecumenical council at Nicaea. The 300 bishops who took part in it in 325 condemned A. and his doctrine. But the latter refused to subscribe to the symbol, and Constantine exiled him to Illyricum together with a few recalcitrant partisans.

Whatever the disagreement of historians about subsequent events, a change took place in Constantine's conduct toward the Arians. After some years, under the influence of his sister Constantia and of Eusebius of Nicomedia, Constantine decided to recall the exiles. The opposition of St. Athanasius did not suffice to prevent the rehabilitation of A., decreed at the Council of Jerusalem (335) following a profession of faith issued by him and judged orthodox by his partisans. Thus, while the patriarch of Alexandria took the road of exile, A. entered the city in triumph. But the people, faithful to Athanasius, rose up against him, and the emperor, worried, summoned him to Constantinople, where, urged on by the Eusebians, he gave orders to the bishop of the capital to receive A. into the communion of the Church. But on the eve of the ceremony, which was to take place in the basilica of the Sts. Apostles, A. was struck by sudden death, while he was crossing the streets of the city, followed by a crowd of adherents (St. Athanasius, De morte Arii: PG 25, 685-90).

Mario Scaduto