Arius Reconsidered (Part 1)

Abstract Few heretics in the long history of Christianity have achieved the notoriety of Arius, the presbyter who lived and worked in Alexandria at the beginning of the fourth century. The little we know about his life and theological ideas has been transmitted by his opponents. If we try to recapture the historical Arius, the Arius behind the heresiological images, we have to confront – implicitly and explicitly – the constructions and reconstructions of earlier generations of theologians, church historians, heresiologists and scholars. And the best one can aspire to is to propose another reconstruction of Arius, which is – or so one would like to claim – more attentive to Arius' own intentions and more plausible in the light of the best available evidence.