Arianism diverse but related teachings in early Christianity that subordinated the Son to God the Father. In reaction the church developed its doctrine of the Trinity, whereby the Son (and Holy Spirit), though distinct persons (hypostases), share with the Father, as his ontological equals, the one being or substance (ousia) of God. Arius (c.250 – c.336) taught in Alexandria, where, on the hierarchical model of Middle Platonism, he sharply distinguished Scripture’s transcendent God from the Logos or Son incarnate in Jesus. The latter, subject to suffering and humanly obedient to God, is inferior to the immutable Creator, the object of that obedience. God alone is eternal and ungenerated; the Son, divine not by nature but by God’s choosing, is generated, with a beginning: the unique creature, through whom all else is made. The Council of Nicea, in 325, condemned Arius and favored his enemy Athanasius, affirming the Son’s creatorhood and full deity, having the same being or substance (homoousios) as the Father. Arianism still flourished, evolving into the extreme view that the Son’s being was neither the same as the Father’s nor like it (homoiousios), but unlike it (anomoios). This too was anathematized, by the Council of 381 at Constantinople, which, ratifying what is commonly called the Nicene Creed, sealed orthodox Trinitarianism and the equality of the three persons against Arian subordinationism. See also HOMOOUSIOS. A.E.L.