A.N. Dugger On Arius, Arianism and the Council of Nice: 325

A.N. Dugger and C.O. Dodd,

A History of the True Religion (Jerusalem; 1968), pp. 77, 78.

ʻ[Arius] was indeed a man of God, in whom the truth found its most consecrated and able defender.

Like the Apostle Paul, he traversed the then known world, propagating truth, and denouncing error.

He was a staunch observer of the seventh-day Sabbath; he held the Lord’s Supper once a year on the 14th of Abib [Nisan], as did all the Jewish Christians, and most of the members and bishops of the Eastern churches.

He believed in the one God, and Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, and contended that the Holy Spirit was a power sent forth from God, entering into hearts and lives of Christians, transforming them into servants of God, of which he himself was a living example.

ʻIn the year A.D. 325, the first general church council was called by Constantine to convene at Nice in which 318 bishops are said to have participated.

At this council the doctrine of Arius was discussed and settled, resulting in the banishment of the old man, and of Eusebius of Nicomedia.

Dr. Arius sponsored the truth of the sonship of Jesus, claiming that he was truly the son of God, begotten by the Holy Spirit, and was not God Himself, in the sense as taught by the western bishops. This contention finally resulted a hundred years later in the three Arian Kingdoms, the Burgundians, Vandals, and Ostrogoths . . . .ʼ

****************************