In early Christianity there were many splits and fissures in the overall religion, with many people introducing new ideas and different understandings of the teachings of Jesus Christ, and it continued like this until the council of Nicaea. The most notable and important of these splits is the “heresy” of Arianism. Arianism was started by a man named Arius, an important theologian of his time, and it stated that Jesus Christ could not be fully god if he was also fully man, which is obviously common sense since it is mathematically impossible for something to be 100% one thing and 100% another. Arius then pointed out that if you said Jesus was equal parts God and man, then he would be half of each, or 50% God and 50% man. Arius then makes a U-turn on how much sense he was making (from my point of view) and says that Jesus therefore could not be any percent God as long as he was any percent man, because that would taint and disfigure the divinity of God, meaning Jesus must be 100% man and 0% God. Many other Christians were extremely opposed to this view, most notable among them being Athanasius of Alexandria, who was also the off and on bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius is the most important of Arius’ enemies, and he makes it his life mission to get rid of Arianism. Before he does this, however, the Emperor of Rome Constantine decided to put it to a vote among all the Christian leaders of the day on whether or not to include Arianism in the Bible and in the orthodoxy. On Athanasius’ side a whopping 300 people voted against it and a measly 3 people voted for it to be included. So Arianism was branded as heresy and not included in the Bible which says Jesus is 100% man and God, math and common sense be damned. During this Arius himself was banished from the Roman empire for the rest of his life. I think that Arianism made some very good points and was absolutely correct up until it says that being 50% man would “taint” God.
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