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Arianism
Arianism developed around 320, in Alexandria
Egypt concerning the person of Christ and is named after Arius of
Alexandar. For his doctrinal teaching he was exiled to Illyria in
325 after the first ecumenical council at Nicaea condemned his teaching as
heresy. It was the greatest of heresies within the early church
that developed a significant following. Some say, it almost took
over the church.
Arius taught that only God the Father was eternal
and too pure and infinite to appear on the earth. Therefore, God
produced Christ the Son out of nothing as the first and greatest
creation. The Son is then the one who created the universe.
Because the Son relationship of the Son to the Father is not one of
nature, it is, therefore, adoptive. God adopted Christ as the
Son. Though Christ was a creation, because of his great position and authority,
he was to be worshipped and even looked upon as God. Some Arians
even held that the Holy Spirit was the first and greatest creation of the
Son.
At Jesus' incarnation, the Arians asserted that
the divine quality of the Son, the Logos, took the place of the human and
spiritual aspect of Jesus, thereby denying the full and complete
incarnation of God the Son, second person of the Trinity.
In asserting that Christ the Son, as a created
thing, was to be worshipped, the Arians were advocating
idolatry.
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