A`rius

a presbyter of Alexandria in the 4th century, and founder of Arianism, which denied the con substantiality of the Son with the Father in the so-called Trinity, a doctrine which hovered for a time between acceptance and rejection throughout the Catholic Church; was condemned first by a local synod which met at Alexandria in 321, and then by a General Council at Nice in 325, which the Emperor Const an tine attended in person; the author was banished to Illyricum, his writings burned, and the po e ion of them voted to be a crime; after three years he was recalled by Const an tine, who ordered him to be restored; was about to be readmitted into the Church when he died suddenly, by poison, alleged his friends—by the judgment of God, said his enemies (280-336).