Arius began as a rigorist in Egypt and spent much time in Alexandria, the home of a theology that stressed the deity of Christ. This fact alone does not make him a typical Alexandrian because He studied in Antioch under Lucian who maintained a private academy of his own.

Lucian of Antioch --- Arius’ Teacher:

Lucian followed in the tradition of Paul of Samosata (see article on Monarchianism), but represented an advance over the adoptionist view that Jesus was a mere man supernaturally endowed with the Holy Spirit. He believed that there was a Logos, or personal divine power, created by the Father, that became incarnate in Jesus. Lucian thus sought to integrate the concept of the Logos, into the monarchian insistence that only the Father is fully and truly God. He saw the Logos as a kind of intermediate, created spiritual being between God and man. Essentially, Lucian taught this idea to Arius, whose rallying cry became the assertion that the Logos, i.e. the Son, is a created being-- higher than any other, but different in essence from the Father. Although Lucian and Arius seemed to be interested primarily in the nature of Christ, the Arian controversy is called Trinitarian, not Christological, because the point at issue was the relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity. Arius did not in fact have a true Trinity. The later controversies that are called Christological did not deal with the relationship between the Father and the Son within the Trinity, but with the relationship between the deity and humanity of Christ. [HERESIES; pg. 107]

The central theme of Lucian’s Christology that was to stamp it as heretical was his assertion that the Logos was created “out of that which is not.” Although Lucian considered the Logos, or Son, to be the highest spiritual being beneath the Father, by stating that the Logos was created, Lucian placed him together with all other created beings in contradistinction to God. Lucian held that the Logos took upon himself a human body, but not a soul; in other words, according to later standards, Lucian’s Jesus was not only not fully God, he also was not fully man. [HERESIES; pg. 111]

Arianism differs from the adoptionism of Paul of Samosata in that while Paul’s view was essentially a simple one, Arianism is as abstract and complex as orthodox Christology. Confronted with the idea that the Son is eternally begotten, Paul countered with the simplification “No, Jesus was adopted by the Father at his baptism.” Arius, by contrast, denied that the Son is eternally begotten, but admitted him to be first-begotten of the Father and preexistent. This is hardly a simplification of the orthodox position. [HERESIES; pg. 105]

Arianism must be seen as a doctrinal innovation, coming as it does at a time when traditional doctrines had been fairly well set forth. No one had ventured to teach what Arius was now proclaiming: that the Logos is radically distinct from the Father, of a different substance. Modalists taught that the Logos is identical to the Father, adoptionists dispensed with the Logos altogether. But to the extent that a Logos was taught at all, no one before Lucian of Antioch and Arius had contended that the Logos is categorically different. [HERESIES; pg. 116]

Athanasius--- Opponent of Arianism:

Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, is known as the most consistent opponent of Arianism. Harold O. J. Brown cites an interesting quote from Harnack:

“Athanasius has exposed the internal difficulties and contradictions [of Arianism], and we can agree with him almost everywhere. A Son who is no Son, a Logos who is no Logos, a monotheism that does not exclude polytheism, two or three essences to be worshipped, although only one is really distinct from that of the creatures, an indefinable being that becomes God only in that it becomes man, and that is neither God nor man, ect.” [HERESIES; pg. 116]

The controversy with Arianism continued over fifty years. In the early phase of the controversy the emphasis of Athanasius was on the desire to affirm the full deity of Christ while safeguarding monotheism. This deity would be lost if Christ were acknowledged to be a creature; hence, Arianism had to be rejected. But the formula, “sameness of essence”, did not safeguard the distinction of the Persons. Athanasius soon begin to suspicion the view of his ally Marcellus, who reverted to an older, economic interpretation of the Trinity and denied the existence of distinct Persons in the godhead. In his later writings, Marcellus developed the “sameness of essence” position in such a way that it really did sound like Sabellian modalism. [HERESIES; pg. 121]

Divergent Views Among Allies-- Athanasius & Marcellus:

Marcellus taught that the Logos is God’s preexistent dynamis, “power,” which did not really become personal until the incarnation. Marcellus called only the incarnate Christ the Son of God; he did not acknowledge a preincarnate, personal Son. The Logos preexists and is in fact eternal, but is not personal until the incarnation. Thus Marcellus effectively denied the preexistence of Christ. Athanasius had reservations about Marcellus’ views, but he was so interested in affirming the “sameness of essence” against the Arians that he ignored the need to protect the formula against being interpreted in a modalist sense by his partisan Marcellus. [HERESIES; pg. 121]

Attempts to explain how the three can be only one God usually fall into one of two errors; either the unity of nature is emphasized, and modalism results, or the deity of each Person is stressed, in which case the danger is a kind of tritheism. Arianism represented the latter error in that it is a bridge between polytheism and monotheism, but it was neither the worship of the one God of Scripture nor was it true Christianity. It did facilitate the “conversion” of countless pagans during the early decades of the Constantinian era, for it sharply reduced the clash between Christianity, interpreted in an Arian way, and pagan philosophical monotheism. [HERESIES; pg. 116]

The adoption of the Nicene Creed in 325 and the Chalcedonian Creed in 451 stabilized the doctrines of the Trinity and Christ for over one thousand years. They made use of Hellenistic categories and thinking to do so. The important question to ask is not whether orthodox theology betrays Hellenistic influence. Nothing else was possible in the cultural climate of the time. The important question is whether this orthodoxy represents a proper and correct interpretation of New Testament Christology or whether it seriously distorts it. The rise and spread of Arianism in the fourth century made it plain that the early rule of faith, the Apostles’ Creed, was not sufficiently explicit about the relationship of the Son to the Father. If we are unwilling to accept the Nicene Creed because we find it too Hellenistic, we should not be surprised to fall once again into mistakes of the kind that the newer creed was intended to prevent. [HERESIES; pg. 105]