Arians

(a're-ans.) (Eccl. Hist.) The followers of Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, who, abt. 318, denied the three persons in the Holy Trinity to be of the same e ence; affirmed that Christ was a creature inferior to the Father as to his deity, and neither co-eternal nor co-equal with him; and a erted that the Holy Ghost was formed of the Son. After the death of Arius, 336, his followers received great acce ions, and the Emperor Const an tine is said to have been baptized into the Arian communion a short time before his death. But the divisions which grew among the A. themselves prepared for the Catholic Church an easy victory over them, and led to their final extinction. [s. 46]