The question was whether Jesus had a beginning.

Arianism was a heresy dating to the early fourth century, when an Alexandrian named Arius denied the eternality of Jesus Christ, God the Son.  Arius argued that, as a human who had a beginning and experienced  development, Jesus could not have been eternal.  In 325 A.D. the Council of Nicea condemned Arianism .  This put an end to the controversy in the Roman Empire, but Arianism maintained a following among some Germanic peoples, such as the Vandals.

In 429 A.D. Gaiseric, then king of the Vandals, led his eighty thousand people out of Spain and conquered Africa.  The Roman Empire ceded part of the territory to the Vandals by treaty.  Four years later Gaiseric took Carthage.  At the height of the Vandal’s power in 455 A.D. they sacked Rome.

Gaiseric was primarily interested in the wealth to be acquired through conquering North Africa; however his son Huneric wished to promote Arianism.  When Huneric first took power in 477 A.D.  at his father’s death, he showed some religious tolerance by allowing a Catholic bishop to be ordained in Carthge, the first time the position had been filled in twenty-four years.  But near the end of his life he launched a brutal campaign to force Catholic Christians to convert to Arianism.

In 483 A.D. Huneric announced that beginning on February 1 of the following year. he would sponsor a debate that would decide the superior merit of either Arianism or Catholic Christianity.  Hundreds of bishops from the two sides gathered in Carthage in spite of the serious misgivings by the Catholics.  It turned out the debate was a sham–in fact, it never took place, as the Arian bishops used technicalities to forestall discussion.  On February 25, 484 A.D., Huneric published a decree accusing the Catholic bishops of “[taking] it upon themselves, with consummate, foolhardiness, to throw everything into confusion with seditious shouting, with the intention of bringing it about that the debate did not take place.”  Huneric cancelled the debate and decreed that non-Arians, and all Catholic bishops convert to Arianism by June 1 of that year.

Hundreds of Catholic bishops were stripped of their possessions and exiled for their refusal to convert.  Even in exile they were scourged, and some were killed.  The Vandals divided families and subjected their victims, young and old, to beatings, mutilations, draggings, and hangings. 

Huneric died in December 484 A.D., the same year of his decree, and his successors did not continue the violent persecution he had begun.  The hold of Arianism and the strength of the Vandals waned.  In 533 A. D., when the Vandals were defeated, North Africa once again became part of the Roman Empire, and orthodox Christianity was reestablished.

Points To Ponder

Do you believe that God the Son always existed?  If you do, how would you explain that to the next Jehovah’s Witnesses (modern-day Arians) who would come knocking on your door?  Why not prepare your answer now so you are prepared when they come.

The Preeminence of Christ

(15)    “He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over
             all creation.

(16)      For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and 
             that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
             dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were
             created through Him and for Him.  

(17)     And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”

                                                                       Colossians 1 : 15–17  NKJV

Learn Well The Lessons of History…………………