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Arianism

 

            The heresy, Arianism, was a semi-popular movement during the early patristic period that was started by the Egyptian theologian Arius. Arius somewhat unknowingly brought about the most significant Trinitarian problem the Catholic Church had ever seen. Arianism had far reaching effects on all of Catholicism, and led to the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. The Council of Nicaea was the first council of its time and greatly affected how we perceive the trinity today.
             First, I"d like to focus on the background of the 4th century and how this environment enabled the spread of Arianism. At the time, there where many different religions and many different ways of looking at God. The idea that God could be present in three different forms but at the same time be one person was hard to explain and hard to follow. The duality of Jesus" humanity and divinity would seem like an oxymoron to a non-catholic lay person. Christianity in its origin was a meshing of Judaism with something completely new. The terminology of the trinity had not been doctrinized and thus, there was no clear cut definition for Catholics recognize. Much of the Catholic terminology that was used was borrowed from Greek philosophy, so that there could be a clear-cut difference between the beliefs of Judaism and Christianity. It is understandable that many people were confused when faced with the idea of three persons in one God. This is when Arius began to spread his beliefs in Alexandria, 318 CE. .
             Arius" beliefs are derived from the Catholic Church's teaching of a tripersonal God. That is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Arius did not believe in this Church teaching. He believed that the Son and the Spirit were subordinate to God. He based his ideas on the fact that the Father is "Unoriginated and Unbegotten" (TG 111). The Father created the Son and the Holy Spirit; therefore the other two entities were not eternal.


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