Arius wrote a creed, which is slightly different from the creed that was adopted at the council of nicia when christianity was officially recognized. He centred his own definition on the distinction that he wanted to draw between god, the father, who was the only god,. and the son, who he said had been begotten. And by the same token, the holy spirit was in some way subordinate christ, the son of god. It was this trinitarian problem of three aspects of the godhead that worried arius.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the form of Christianity adopted by Ostrogoths in the 4th century AD, which they learned from Roman missionaries and from their own contact with the imperial court at Constantinople. This form spread to the Vandals and the Visigoths, who took it into Roman Spain and North Africa, and the Ostrogoths brought it deeper into Italy after the fall of the western Roman empire. Meanwhile, with the Roman empire in the east now firmly committed to the Nicene Creed not the Arian, the Goths and Vandals faced conflict or conversion, as Arianism moved from an orthodox view to being a heresy that would keep followers from heaven and delay the Second Coming for all.
The image above is the ceiling mosaic of the Arian Baptistry in Ravenna, commissioned by Theodoric, ruler of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy, around the end of the 5th century
With
Judith Herrin
Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Emeritus, at King's College London
Robin Whelan
Lecturer in Mediterranean History at the University of Liverpool
And
Martin Palmer
Visiting Professor in Religion, History and Nature at the University of Winchester
Producer: Simon Tillotson