A Presbyter from Libya
Arius was probably born in Libya, west of Egypt, around 256. Almost nothing is known of his youth. In a letter written around 318, or a few years later by some scholars' dating, he greeted Eusebius of Nicomedia as a fellow disciple of Lucian, a teacher at Antioch who died as a martyr in 312, and many historians conclude that both men had studied with him. Others think one word in one letter cannot carry so much weight.
His early career in Alexandria was stormy. The fifth-century historian Sozomen reports that Bishop Peter ordained him a deacon and later expelled him over his sympathy for the Melitians, a party that had broken with Peter during the persecution. Peter's successor, Achillas, restored him and made him a presbyter. By about 313 he had charge of the congregation in the Baucalis district near the harbor, one of several churches in the city that answered to the bishop of Alexandria.
Even Epiphanius, who wrote against him half a century later, describes a tall, austere, persuasive man with a devoted following among the city's consecrated virgins. Arius was a respected senior presbyter in the most learned Christian city of the empire.
Arius's own words survive only in a few letters and in fragments quoted by those who wrote against him, above all Athanasius. We can know what he taught, because his letters state it plainly, but we should be slow to trust every hostile report about his character and his end.
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