CHURCH HISTORY. 63 



Arianism. — One of the most important errors 

 that soon spread alarmingly was with reference 

 to the Divinity of the Lord Jesus. In the sim- 

 plicity of the early confessions of faith, men 

 declared, "I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son 

 of God," but soon some tried to explain the nature 

 of His divinity, and to make clear to human rea- 

 son those deep mysteries respecting the nature of 

 the Godhead which it has not pleased the Holy 

 Ghost to reveal to us. At length there arose one 

 named Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, who pre- 

 sumed to declare that our Lord Jesus Christ was 

 not truly God, but a creature made by God, and 

 liable to fall into error and sin ; that He did not 

 exist as the second Person of the Trinity, as God 

 from all eternity, but that He was only a superior 

 kind of being, having an existence before the 

 world began, and that all His virtues and powers 

 were not His own, but only such as were imparted 

 to Him. 



It was a most blasphemous doctrine, and struck 

 at the very roots of the whole Christian faith, for 

 if Christ be not the God incarnate, then all wor- 

 ship paid to Him is wrong, and all our hopes of 

 eternal life through Him are vain. 



Arius was hardly the originator of this most dread- 

 ful doctrine, for others before him held the same 

 view. It is, however, associated with him, and 

 has been called Arianism, because of his bold 



