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Arianism is the teaching of the Alexandrian presbyter Arius (ca. 280–336) and his supporters. It arose originally in reaction to the Christology of the apologists. To preserve both monotheism and the deity of Christ, the apologists had adopted the philosophical idea of the Logos, and Origen (ca. 185-ca. 254), making use of ontological Platonic categories, had attributed autonomy to the Logos/Christ as a hypostasis, or ousia, subordinate to God (Ontology). Rejecting the Monarchian views of the Trinity of which he accused his bishop Alexander in 318, Arius applied the teachings of Origen in a radical way. As he saw it, God alone is God; in terms of negative Platonic predicates for deity, God is unbegotten, eternal, and without beginning or change. Christ is distinct from God, created out of nothing by the will of God (Arius cited Prov. 8:22 as a biblical proof), not eternal, yet created before all time or the world; in spite of his creaturehood, he is the world’s mediator and redeemer. Excommunicated in 319, Arius found supporters, including Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea. By the time Constantine (emperor 306–37) became ruler in the East in 324, the Arian controversy had split the church in practice. Constantine, who wanted uniform worship as a basis for the welfare of the empire, exerted himself to ach…

The oldest MSS tradition offers contractions of the divine names, especially ĪC̄ for Jesus (= IHCOYC) and X̄C̄ or X̄P̄C̄ for Christ (= XPICTOC). These contractions, which might be understood as ciphers for the salvation achieved in Christ (Christology), are also found to some extent in monogrammatic form (…