“The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicea” by N.S. Gill

The Arian controversy (not to be confused with the Indo-Europeans known as Aryans) was a discourse that occurred in the Christian church of the 4th century CE, that threatened to upend the meaning of the church itself.

The Christian church, like the Judaic church before it, was committed to monotheism: all the Abrahamic religions say there is only one God. Arius (256–336 CE), a fairly obscure scholar and presbyter at Alexandria and originally from Libya, is said to have argued that the incarnation of Jesus Christ threatened that monotheistic status of the Christian church, because he was not of the same substance as God, instead a creature made by God and so capable of vice. The Council of Nicea was called, in part, to resolve this issue.

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