AERIANS

A small sect founded by Aërius, a presbyter of Sebaste, in the le er Armenia, about A. D. 355. St. Augustine tells us that Aërius, the author of this heresy, was mortified at not attaining the episcopate; and having fallen into the heresy of Arius, and having been led into many strange notions by impatience of the control of the Church, he taught, among other things, that no difference ought to be recognised between a bishop and a presbyter; whereas, until then, even all sectaries had acknowledged the episcopate as a superior order, and had been careful at their outset to obtain episcopal ordination for their ministers. Thus Aërius revenged himself upon the dignity to which he had unsucce fully aspired; and he has left his history and his character to future ages, as an argument almost as forcible as direct reasoning and evidence, of the apostolical ordinance of the episcopate.