Athanasius of Alexandria – Defender of Christianity against Arianism

 

 

The story of Athanasius is one of courage, resolute determination and an unwavering Devotion to Jesus as God incarnate true God of true God.

Saint Athanasius, also known as Athanasius I of Alexandria and Athanasius the Great, a Christian theologian and Bishop of  Alexandria, was born in around 296 A.D, in Alexandria, Egypt.

Some Western scholars, owing to his excellent command of the Greek language, in which he wrote all of his surviving works, believe that Athanasius may have been a Greek.

His unwavering defense of Christ’s divinity against Arius, the founder of Arianism (which denied Jesus’ divinity), and disputes with quite a few Roman Emperors, including Constantine, Constantius II, Julian the Apostate and Valens, took their toll on Athanasius’ career.

These disputes led to him being known as “Athanasius Contra Mundum”, Latin for “Athanasius against the World”

During his forty five years as a man of the Church, Athanasius was exiled from Alexandria at least four times, under the orders of four or more different Roman emperors, for insisting on the Nicene Creed as the Church’s authoritative rule of faith.

 However, his absolute dedication to the doctrine of Christ’s divinity, won him the tiles of “Father of Orthodoxy,” “Pillar of the Church,” “Champion of Christ’s Divinity” and “Doctor of the Church”.

 Athanasius died on May 2nd, 373 A.D.

January 18^th is the day the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates the Feast Day of Saint Athanasius.

In the Catholic Church, the Feast Day of Saint Athanasius is celebrated on May 2nd.

 

Early Life of Athanasius

 

 

Athanasius was tutored in theology by a local priest, who after becoming St. Alexander of Alexandria, took Athanasius as his assistant.

 At around age of nineteen, Athanasius, who was now was also familiar with the theories of various philosophical schools and in particular with the developments of neoplatonism, spent time in the Egyptian desert as a disciple of St. Anthony in his monastic community known as the “Solitaries of Egypt,” or “Desert Fathers and Mothers”.

These were early Christian ascetics (3rd-5th centuries AD) who lived isolated lives in the Egyptian desert seeking spiritual closeness to God through extreme prayer, fasting, labor, and renunciation.

It was around this time that Athanasius wrote his most important works, some of the first classic works of developed Orthodox theology.

 

 

These include “The Life of Saint Anthony”, “On the Incarnation” in which he attacks several pagan practices and beliefs, and “Against the Heathen”, where he presents teachings on the redemption.

 

 

Also in these books, Athanasius put forward the belief, that the Son of God, the eternal Word (Logos) through whom God created the world, entered that world in human form to lead men back into the harmony from which they had earlier fallen away.

 

 

 Upon his return to Alexandria, in 319 A.D, Athanasius was ordained a deacon and continued his work as assistant to Alexander.

At around this time, The Catholic Church, newly recognized by the Roman Empire, was already encountering a series of dangers from within.

The most serious threat to the Church came from a priest named Arius, who taught that Jesus could not have existed eternally as God prior to his historical incarnation as a man.

According to Arius, Jesus was the highest of created beings, and could be considered “divine” only by analogy.

 

Arius the Heretic

Founder of Arianism

 

 

Arius was a priest from Cyrenaica in Libya born in around 256 AD.

He was regarded as the founder of Arianism, a doctrine which scorned the traditional Holy Trinity; the Christian doctrine that one God exists as three persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

These three persons share one divine essence or nature, meaning they are distinct but inseparable, forming one God.

 Simply put, the Arians preached that Jesus Christ was not God, yes; he was created by God, however, that made him distinct from God.

 

Arius Challenges Bishop Alexander of Alexandria

 

In Around 318 AD, Arius publicly confronted bishop, Alexander, arguing that the Son had a beginning in existence, famously stating, “There was a time when the Son was not“.

Arius was a persuasive speaker, who used music and poetry, to spread his ideas among the people, telling them the Father is greater than the Son in divinity and, therefore, only the Father is truly eternal.

His incentive was to uphold the strict, absolute oneness and divine existence of God the Father.

When it came to the Son divine, he believed the Son was created by the Father’s will and was therefore separate from Him in nature, not co-equal or co-eternal.

This was more than just a theological dispute over jargon; this was heresy, to say that says Jesus is not God, and was a threat to Christianity before it ever really got going, after all, the Christian Church had only been around for three or four hundred years at this time.

 This is something that might be a make-or-break deal for the Church.

Today, the doctrine of  Arianism, is still regarded as heretical by most modern mainstream branches of Christianity.

 Due to the widespread division, Emperor Constantine called the first ecumenical council at Nicaea.

The council denounced Arius’s views as heresy and created  the Nicene Creed, which declared the Son to be homoousios (“consubstantial” or “of the same substance”) with the Father.

 

The First Council of Nicaea – 325 AD

 

 

In 325 A.D, The First Council of Nicaea was set in motion by the emperor Constantine, who, along with about three hundred Christian bishops (twenty two of whom were supporters of Arius) from the eastern half of the Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire), in order to clear up the controversy of Arianism.

 Athanasius served as Alexander’s secretary at the First Council of Nicaea and later became the chief defender of the Nicene Creed and its theology.

 

Saint Nicholas of Myra Loses his Cool with Arius

 

Constantine, who saw the teachings of Arius as a trivial religious matter, wanted to find an acceptable definition of Jesus Christ as quickly and as peacefully as possible, after all, had he not just united his empire?

Many of the Bishops present were of the same mind and were ready to compromise, others were not, in fact, legend has it that Saint Nicholas of Myra became so angry and annoyed with Arius that he slapped him across the face!

 

 

Athanasius was in no way ready to compromise either and with the support of Bishop Alexander, insisted there be a creed which explicitly described who and what was Jesus Christ.

 

Arius is Accused of Heresy

 

The council debated a while, condemned Arius’s views as heresy and produced the Nicene Creed, which declared the Son to be homoousios (“consubstantial” or “of the same substance”) with the Father.

  “True God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father”

 Arius was excommunicated and exiled to Illyricum, and his writings were ordered to be burned.

And with that, Arius was subsequently excommunicated and Constantine called it a day, thinking the matter was done with.

 

 

Constantine was wrong; nothing was done with, for the next hundred years or so, the Arian views of Christ battled for dominance.

Constantine’s successors managed time and time again to banish this churchman or exile that one.

Eventually, at the Council at Chalcedon in Asia Minor (today Turkey), in the fifth century, it was concluded that Jesus was completely and fully God.

A statement of faith still used by the church to this day, and the definitive statement of the Christian faith.

 

After the Council of Nicaea

 

 

Despite his exile, Arius had support from some influential Bishops such as Euseius of cesaria and Eusebius of Nicomedia who  exonerated Arius and in turn accused Bishop Alexander of heresy.

  Pro-Arians  tried to get Arius reinstated and win Imperial sponsorship for their supporters to be placed in key positions in the churches

 Many Bishops behaved like predatory lawyers or even gangsters as people could be condemned by hastily assembled councils or could even be murdered in cold blood for their faith and what contingent they belonged to.

 It was a dangerous time to be a bishop or a theologian after the Council of Nicaea!

 

What Became of Athanasius?

 

 

When his mentor, Bishop Alexander died, around five months after the outcome of the Council of Nicaea, Athanasius succeeded him as bishop of Alexandria.

About this time Emperor Constantine had relaxed his judgment of Arius, who had a lot of support in areas of the Roman Empire, and had permitted him to return from exile in Palestine.

Constantine suggested to Athanasius that he allow Arius to take Holy Communion, Athanasius flatly refused.

Arius died in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 336, aged about eighty.

A number of Arians spent the next several decades attempting to manipulate bishops, emperors and Popes to move against Athanasius, particularly through the use of false accusations.

Athanasius was accused of theft, murder, assault, and even of causing a famine by interfering with food shipments.

Depending on the ruling Emperor of the day, and where his affiliations lay, Athanasius spent the rest of his life being exiled, allowed home and then exiled again.

During his periods in Exile Athanasius found refuge among the monks in the Egyptian desert and was supported by many western bishops including several popes in Rome

Athanasius spent over seventeen years in five exiles ordered by four different Roman Emperors, not counting around six more occasions in which Athanasius fled Alexandria to escape people seeking to take his life.

 

The Final Years and Death of Saint Athanasius

 

 

After returning to Alexandria, Athanasius, again began writing and preaching undisturbed, and characteristically re-emphasized the view of the Incarnation which had been defined at Nicaea.

 On 2 May 373, having declared Peter II, one of his ministers, as his successor, Athanasius died peacefully, surrounded by his clergy and faithful supporters.

Athanasius died while arianism was still in the up and up and did not live long enough to attend the Council of Constantinople in 381 which would reaffirm the Nicene Creed’s formulation of the son’s full Divinity.

Although he was the subject of much controversy in his own day, Athanasius’s writings are still popular today.

 

 

“If the world will stand against truth then I will stand against the world”

Saint Athanasios the Great of Alexandria

 

Relics of Saint Athanasius

 

 

Athanasius was originally buried in Alexandria; however, his remains were later moved to the Chiesa di San Zaccaria in Venice, Italy.

During Pope Shenouda III’s visit to Rome in 1973, Pope Paul VI gave the Coptic Patriarch a relic of Athanasius, which he took back to Egypt.

 

 

The relic is now kept in the new Saint Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo; most of Athanasius’s corpse though, remains in the Venetian church.

 

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