He failed to make his teachings widely popular and his sect died out soon after his death.
[5] Aerius soon began to teach new doctrines, insisting that there was no sacred character distinguishing bishop or priest from laymen, that the observance of the feast of Easter was a Jewish superstition, and that it was wrong to prescribe fasts or abstinences by law, and useless to pray for the dead.
The author listed 80 heretical doctrines, some of which, like the teachings of Aerius, are not described in any other surviving documents from the time.
Some sources, including The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, feel that Aerius received more attention than he was due from scholars such as St Robert Bellarmine and 17th century Anglican writers, "seeing how his sect died out soon after his death.
[1] However extant evidence shows how strongly the Christians of his day were opposed to the teaching of Aerius.