other · 318 · Alexandria
Arius was a presbyter of the Baucalis church at Alexandria, an ascetic and a popular preacher, and about 318 he objected publicly to his bishop's teaching. His position is compressed in one slogan his opponents never let him forget: there was when he was not. The Son is begotten, and what is begotten has a beginning; therefore the Son is not eternal, is not of the same being as the Father, and is a creature — the highest of creatures, made before time and the agent of all the rest, but on the creature side of the line. His motive was to protect the oneness and unbegottenness of God, and it should be said that he was not obviously wrong by the standards of the theology available to him; the vocabulary that made the alternative sayable was largely forged in the argument against him. He was also a considerable propagandist, putting his doctrine into songs for sailors and travellers, which is part of why it moved so fast. Alexander excommunicated him, he found protectors among the eastern bishops, and within seven years an emperor was convening the whole episcopate to settle it. He died suddenly at Constantinople in 336, the day before he was to be received back into communion.
What was actually at stake in one presbyter's objection?
Whether the Son is God in the same sense the Father is, or the first and best of the things that were made.