Athanasius of Alexandria
|
Coptic Icon of St Athanasius |
Athanasius of Alexandria (also spelled "Athanasios") (c.
298 â€"
May 2,
373) was a
Christian bishop, the
Patriarch of Alexandria, in the fourth century. He is revered as a
saint by both the
Roman Catholic Church and the
Eastern Orthodox Church, and regarded as a great leader and doctor of the Church by
Protestants. Roman Catholics have declared him one of 33
Doctors of the Church, and he is counted as one of the four Great Doctors of the Eastern Church. His feast day is
January 18 in the eastern Churches and
May 2 in the Roman Catholic Church.
Opposition to Arianism
In about
319, when Athanasius was a
deacon, a
presbyter named
Arius began teaching that there was a time before God the Father begot
Jesus when the latter did not exist. Athanasius accompanied
Alexander to the
First Council of Nicaea in
325, which council produced the
Nicene Creed and anathematized
Arius and his followers. On
May 9,
328, he succeeded Alexander as bishop of Alexandria. As a result of rises and falls in
Arianism's influence after the First Council of Nicaea, he was banished from Alexandria to
Tyre by Emperor
Constantine I only to be later restored after the death of Constantine I by his son
Constantine II. Athanasius was restored on at least five separate occasions, perhaps as many as seven. This gave rise to the expression "Athanasius contra mundum" or "Athanasius against the world". During some of his exiles, he spent time with the
Desert Fathers, monks and hermits who lived in remote areas of Egypt. Despite his doctrinal firmness, he showed diplomatic flair in rallying the Orthodox at the Council of Alexandria in 362.
Writings
Possibly during his first exile at Trier in 335-7 (after the
First Synod of Tyre), although probably between 318 and 323, Athanasius wrote a double treatise entitled
Against the Gentiles -- On the Incarnation, affirming and explaining that
Jesus was both God and Man. In his major theological opus, the
Three Discourses Against the Arians, Athanasius stressed that the Father's begetting of the Son, or uttering of the Word, was an eternal relationship between them, not an event that took place within time. He makes very sparing use of the key-word of Nicaea,
homoousios (consubstantial). These writings lay the foundation of catholic
Christianity's fight against the
heresy of
Arianism, which Athanasius opposed all his life. He also wrote a defence of the divinity of the
Holy Spirit (
Letters to Serapion) in the 360s, and wrote a polemic (
On the Holy Spirit) against the
Macedonian heresy.
Athanasius also wrote a biography of
Anthony the Great entitled
Vita Antonii, or
Life of Antony, that later served as an inspiration to Christian
monastics in both the East and the West. The
Athanasian Creed is traditionally ascribed to him.
New Testament canon
Athanasius is also the first person to identify the same 27 books of the
New Testament that are in use today. Up until then, various similar lists of works to be read in churches were in use. A milestone in the evolution of the
canon of New Testament books is his Easter letter from Alexandria, written in
367, usually referred to as his
39th Festal Letter.
Pope Damasus, the
Bishop of Rome in
382, promulgated a list of books which contained a New Testament canon identical to that of Athanasius. A synod in
Hippone in
393 repeated Athansius' and Damasus' New Testament list (without the
Epistle to the Hebrews), and a synod in
Carthage in
397 repeated Athanasius' and Damasus' complete New Testament list.
Scholars have debated whether Athanasius' list in 367 was the basis for the later lists. Because Athanasius' canon is the closest canon of any of the Church Fathers to the canon used by Protestant churches today many Protestants point to Athanasius as the father of the canon. They are identical except that Athanasius excludes the
Book of Esther which is placed among the
apocrypha along with the
Wisdom of Solomon,
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus),
Judith,
Tobit, the
Didache, and the
Shepherd of Hermas. See the article,
Biblical canon, for more details.
Relics and veneration
|
St. Athanasius Shrine (where the saint's relics are preserved) under St. Mark's Cathedral, Cairo |
The saint was originally buried in Alexandria, but his body was later transferred to Italy.
Pope Shenouda III restored the relics of St. Athanasius back to Egypt on 15 May 1973 [
1], after his historical visit to the Vatican and meeting with
Pope Paul VI. The relics of St. Athanasius the Great of Alexandria are currently preserved under the new St.
Mark Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Deir El-Anba Rowais, Abbassiya, Cairo, Egypt.
The following is a
troparion (hymn) to St. Athanasius sung in some Orthodox churches.:
O holy father Athanasius, :
like a pillar of orthodoxy :
you refuted the heretical nonsense of Arius:
by insisting that the Father and the Son are equal in essence.:
O venerable father, beg Christ our God to save our souls.The tactics of Athanasius, while often downplayed by church historians, were a significant factor in his success. He did not hesitate to back up his theological views with the use of force. In Alexandria, he assembled an group that could instigate a riot in the city if needed. It was an arrangement "built up and perpetuated by violence."
[Barnes, 230.] Along with the standard method of excommunication he used beatings, intimidation, kidnapping and imprisonment to silence his theological opponents. Unsurprisingly, these tactics caused widespread distrust and led him to being tried many times for "bribery, theft, extortion,
sacrilege, treason and murder.
[Rubenstein, 6.] While the charges rarely stuck, his reputation was a major factor in his multiple exiles from Alexandria.
He justified these tactics with the argument that he was saving all future Christians from hell. Athanasius stubbornly refused to compromise his theological views by stating, "What is at stake is not just a theological theory but people's salvation."
[Olson, 172.] In this assertion that violence was justified in defense of theology and the church, Athanasius, some hold, laid the foundation for theological concepts such as
just war and
the inquisition. He played a clear role in making the
Constantinian shift a part of the theology of the church.
*
Creed*
Nicene Creed*
Apostles' Creed*
Athanasian Creed*
Shield of the Trinity* Barnes, Timothy, 1981
Constantine and Eusebius* Brakke, David, 1995.
Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism* Ernest, James D., 2004.
The Bible in Athanasius of Alexandria* Olson, Roger E., 1999
The Story of Christian Theology* Rubenstein, Richarde, 1999
When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome
*
Background information, plus his actual writings*
The Athanasian Creed
