Arius (Arianism)

Arius was a Christian priest in the early 4th century who taught that Jesus Christ was not divine in the same way God the Father is. He believed Jesus was a created being, divine but subordinate to God, and not eternal. This view, called Arianism, challenged the orthodox belief that Jesus and God are co-eternal and of the same essence. The controversy was significant in early Christianity and led to the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, which affirmed that Jesus is of the same divine nature as God, opposing Arius’s teachings.