ARIANISM. A fourth-century heresy that denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. Its author was Arius (256-336), a priest of Alexandria, who in 318 began to teach the doctrine that now bears his name. According to Arius there are not three distinct persons in God, co-eternal and equal in all things, but only one person, the Father. The Son is only a creature, made out of nothing, like all other created beings. He may be called God but only by an extension of language, as the first and greatest person chosen to be divine intermediary in the creation and redemption of the world. 

In the Arian system, the logos or word of God is not eternal. There was a time when he did not exist. He is not a son by nature, but merely by grace and adoption. God adopted him in prevision of his merits, since he might have sinned but did not. In a word, instead of being God he is a kind of demiurge who advanced in virtue and merit and thus came to be closely associated with the Father. But his nature is not of the same substance as the Father’s.

Boldly anti-Trinitarian, Arianism struck at the foundations of Christianity by reducing the Incarnation to a figure of speech. If the logos was created and not divine, God did not become man or redeem the world, and all the consequent mysteries of the faith are dissolved.

The First Council of Nicaea was convoked in 325 to meet the Arian crisis. Since the signature lists are defective, the exact number of prelates who attended the council is not known. However, at least two hundred twenty bishops, mostly from the East but also from Africa, Spain, Gaul, and Italy, signed the creed that affirmed the divinity of Christ and condemned Arius as a heretic. “We believe,” the formula read, “in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father; God from God, light from light, true God from true God; begotten, not created, consubstantial [Greek Homo ousion] with the Father.” The soul of the council was St. Athanasius (296-373), Bishop of Alexandria, whose resolute character and theological insight were the main obstacle to the triumph of Arianism in the East.

Since the fifth century, Arian churches have remained in existence in many countries, although some of them were absorbed by Islam. A principal tenet of these churches is the recognition of Christ as Messiah but denial that he is the natural Son of God.

CHURCH MILITANT. The Church on earth, still struggling with sin and temptation, and therefore engaged in warfare (Latin, militia) with the world, the flesh, and the devil.

CHURCH SUFFERING. The Church of all the faithful departed who are saved but are still being purified in purgatorial sufferings.

CHURCH TRIUMPHANT. The Church of all those in heavenly glory who have triumphed over their evil inclinations, the seductions of the world, and the temptations of the evil spirit.

COMMUNION OF SAINTS. The unity and co-operation of the members of the Church on earth with those in heaven and in purgatory. They are united as being one Mystical Body of Christ. The faithful on earth are in communion with each other by professing the same faith, obeying the same authority, and assisting each other with their prayers and good works. They are in communion with the saints in heaven by honoring them as glorified members of the Church, invoking their prayers and aid, and striving to imitate their virtues. They are in communion with the souls in purgatory by helping them with their prayers and good works.

GNOSTICISM. The theory of salvation by knowledge. Already in the first century of the Christian era there were Gnostics who claimed to know the mysteries of the universe. They were disciples of the various pantheistic sects that existed before Christ. The Gnostics borrowed what suited their purpose from the Gospels, wrote new gospels of their own, and in general proposed a dualistic system of belief. Matter was said to be hostile to spirit, and the universe was held to be a depravation of the Deity. Although extinct as an organized religion, Gnosticism is the invariable element in every major Christian heresy, by its denial of an objective revelation that was completed in the apostolic age and its disclaimer that Christ established in the Church a teaching authority to interpret decisively the meaning of the revealed word of God.

MONTANISM. A heretical movement in the second century, which professed belief in a new Church of the Spirit. Its members considered themselves specially gifted by the Holy Spirit as prophets of Christ's second coming. The substance of their doctrine was that the Holy Spirit was now supplementing the revelation of Christ, with consequent displacement of the bishops and even the Pope. The new "outpouring of the Spirit" traveled all over the Catholic world and won over the great Tertullian (160-220). Montanism was first condemned by a series of Asiatic synods and also, after some hesitation, by Pope Zephyrinus about A.D. 202.

MYSTICI CORPORIS CHRISTI. Encyclical of Pope Pius XII, published in 1943, on the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. The Church is a body because she is a visible, living, and growing organism, animated by the Spirit of God. She is a mystical body because her essential nature is a mystery, and all her teachings, laws, and rites are sacramental sources of grace. And she is the mystical body of Christ because he founded the Church. He remains her invisible Head and through him all blessings are communicated to her members, and through them to the rest of humankind.

NATURALISM. The view that the only reality that exists is nature, so that divine grace is either denied or ignored. Philosophical naturalism claims that human beings were never elevated to a supernatural destiny; they will reach their final destiny by the sole use of their natural, individual, and social powers. Practical naturalism is human conduct that, by excluding prayer and the use of supernatural channels of grace, in effect says that the purpose of human existence is purely natural.

PAUL. The most dynamic of Christ's Apostles, even though he was not one of the original twelve. His name was Saul, changed to Paul after his conversion. He was a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia and his family were Pharisees (Acts 22:3). Saul became a leader among the fanatical Pharisees and developed a reputation for ferocious enmity toward Christians (Acts 8:3). He was traveling on the road to Damascus (on an anti-Christian mission) when he was thrown to the ground and blinded by a dazzling light. Christ appeared to him and he was instantly converted. "What am I to do, Lord?" he asked (Acts 22:10). He spent a number of years in Arabia (Galatians 1:17). His status when he began to preach Christianity was awkward; the Pharisees considered him a turncoat; the Christians feared him because of his early reputation. Barnabas was especially helpful to him at this stage; he introduced him to Christian groups and vouched for his sincerity in both Antioch and Jerusalem (Acts 9:27). This association was so effective that the Church in Antioch commissioned Barnabas, as leader, and Paul and Mark as assistants to take a missionary voyage through Cyprus, Pamphylia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13, 14). This led to a dramatic confrontation. Paul, Barnabas, and Titus proceeded to Jerusalem to urge a more flexible concept of a Christian than that of a circumcised Old Law Jew (Galatians 2). Peter presided. After all viewpoints were presented, Paul's own group won the day: Gentiles did not have to become Jews to become Christians (Acts 15:5-21). Then began Paul's second missionary journey. This time the journey took Paul through Phrygia, Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Beroea (Acts 18:23). Some of these visits were the first ventures into Europe of Christian apostles. There followed a third journey, through Macedonia and Greece. Only the wariness of his followers saved him from injury or death on several occasions (Acts 19:30). Especially venomous were the Jews in Jerusalem; his Roman citizenship saved his life several times. Some of his finest epistles were written during a two-year period while he was under house arrest awaiting trial. Death came to him finally in Rome during Nero's persecution by decapitation in about 67. He is buried near the present Basilica of St. Paul. (Etym. Latin Paul[l]us.)

PELAGIANISM. Heretical teaching on grace of Pelagius (355-425), the English or Irish lay monk who first propagated his views in Rome in the time of Pope Anastasius (reigned 399-401). He was scandalized at St. Augustine's teaching on the need for grace to remain chaste, arguing that this imperiled man's use of his own free will. Pelagius wrote and spoke extensively and was several times condemned by Church councils during his lifetime, notably the Councils of Carthage and Mileve in 416, confirmed the following year by Pope Innocent I. Pelagius deceived the next Pope, Zozimus, who at first exonerated the heretic, but soon (418) retracted his decision. Pelagianism is a cluster of doctrinal errors, some of which have plagued the Church ever since. Its principal tenets are: 1. Adam would have died even if he had not sinned; 2. Adam's fall injured only himself and at worst affected his posterity by giving them a bad example; 3. newborn children are in the same condition as Adam before he fell; 4. mankind will not die because of Adam's sin or rise on the Last Day because of Christ's redemption 5. the law of ancient Israel no less than the Gospel offers equal opportunity to reach heaven. As Pelagianism later developed, it totally denied the supernatural order and the necessity of grace for salvation.

PROTESTANTISM. The system of faith, worship, and practice derived from the principles of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. As a name, it comes from the Protestatio of the Reformers at the Diet of Speyer (1529) against the decisions of the Catholic majority that no further religious innovations were to be introduced. Although now divided into hundreds of denominations, the original families of Protestantism were only five: the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Zwinglian on the Continent, and the Anglican and Free Church or Congregational in Great Britain. Three premises of Protestantism have remained fairly constant, namely, the Bible as the only rule of faith, excluding tradition and Church authority; justification by faith alone, excluding supernatural merit and good works; and the universal priesthood of believers, excluding a distinct episcopacy or priesthood divinely empowered through ordination to teach, govern, and sanctify the people of God. (Etym. Latin protestari, to profess one's belief in or against something, to witness to.)

SAINTS. A name given in the New Testament to Christians generally (Colossians 1:2) but early restricted to persons who were eminent for holiness. In the strict sense saints are those who distinguish themselves by heroic virtue during life and whom the Church honors as saints either by her ordinary universal teaching authority or by a solemn definition called canonization. The Church's official recognition of sanctity implies that the persons are now in heavenly glory, that they may be publicly invoked everywhere, and that their virtues during life or martyr's death are a witness and example to the Christian faithful. (Etym. Latin sanctus, holy, sacred.)

Modern Catholic Dictionary by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.