[BroJoeK]

RobbyS: "You suppose that the Arian view is the traditional view.
That is to beg the question, for it can be argued that what Arian did was to expose the Christian mysteries to the public gaze and therefore force the Church to engage in an argument involving not only Christians but Jews and philosophers.
He was successful enough to force a schism in the Church...."

We have very few of Arius' own words, but here are some:

"Since Eusebius, your brother in Caesarea, and Theodotus, and Paulinus, and Athanasius, and Gregory, and Aetius and all those in the East say that God pre-exists the Son without a beginning, they have been condemned, except for Philogonius and Hellenicus and Macarius, unlearned heretics some of whom say that the Son was “spewed out”, others that he was an “emanation”, still others that he was “jointly unbegotten.” (4.)

"We are not able to listen to these kinds of impieties, even if the heretics threaten us with ten thousand deaths.

"But what do we say and think and what have we previously taught and do we presently teach? — that the Son is not unbegotten, nor a part of an unbegotten entity in any way, nor from anything in existence, but that he is subsisting in will and intention before time and before the ages, full God, the only-begotten, unchangeable. (5.)

"Before he was begotten, or created, or defined, or established, he did not exist.
For he was not unbegotten.

"But we are persecuted because we have said the Son has a beginning but God has no beginning.
We are persecuted because of that and for saying he came from non-being.
But we said this since he is not a portion of God nor of anything in existence.
That is why we are persecuted; you know the rest."

Note the name mentioned, Eusebius of Caesarea, a prolific Church historian.
Often criticized, to my mind he is the most sympathetic character of that time.
Apparently, he began in the Arius camp, but felt compelled to change sides, and was commissioned to produce 50 bibles by the Emperor.

So your suggestion that Arius was singularly responsible for "exposing Christian mysteries", and this somehow forced the good Fathers to respond with creeds carrying the death penalty, seems a bit, ah, far fetched?
I've certainly seen it suggested nowhere else.

[RobbyS]

It is what Newman proposes in his “Arians of the 4th Century.” This from his Anglican Days.” Many assume that the Christian movement was like the very public movements of the 16th Century reformers. But it was much like a mystery cult with its rituals not open to the public. The evidence of the Catacombs of Rome suggests this. Services were private. Initiates were carefully screened and their attendence limited to the first part of the service,the unbaptized were barred from the Eucharist. Not until after baptism were they instructed in the deeper mysteries. Think of the Mormons, especially in their early days. More to the point, attend an Orthodox Church today and the priests do much of the ceremony behind a screen and in a liturgical rather than vernacular Greek. The Scriptures were not available but were in the custody of the clergy. what outraged so many Christians during the persecutions is that priests would give up the Scriptures to the authority rather than go to prison. With the persecutions at an end. many who had aposticised now asked for readmission to the Church. In was in that context that Arius now “goes public,” and opens the Christian mysteries to scorn of the wider public. It was a scandal.