Athanasia

“ The priestess of Apollo hearing her say so, courteously offered to guide us beyond the precincts of the temple, and our whole party were again in motion; but Athanasia remained behind with the three young damsels, and I, who walked last, saw her, ere the portal received me, preparing again to handle the lyre, with fingers visibly trembling, and a pale countenance, not as I thought unstained with some yet more distinct traces of keen emotion. ”

“ The Athanasian Creed is the most splendid ecclesiastical lyric ever poured forth by the genius of man. I give to every clause of it an implicit assent. It does not pretend to be divine; it is human, but the Church has hallowed it, and the Church ever acts under the influence of the Divine Spirit. St. Athanasius was by far the greatest man that ever existed. If you cavil at his creed, you will soon cavil at other symbols. I was prepared for infidelity in London, but I confess, my dear Ferrars, you alarm me. ”

“ Think, dear sister, of all the love that we bear to you—and, oh! think of Valerius.”
“The more, then, is the sacrifice!” said Athanasia. “Caius Valerius also is a Christian—at least I hope in God he will soon be sealed into our brotherhood.”
“Amen! amen!” said Aurelius.
The Priestess turned round when he uttered this, and observing that he also was fettered, “Blasphemer!” cried she, “behold the end of your frenzy. Your eyes are dim, your clay is already yearning, it may be, to be sprinkled into ashes; but behold your victim. ”

“ It was the recollection of my short encounter with the Socinian that satisfied me respecting the Athanasian creed. I felt that had I taken up its bold assertions and established every one of them, as now I did, by scripture, no sophistry could have staggered my faith, though it had been but a reasoning, not a saving faith, in that high doctrine of the coexistent, coequal Trinity. I did not then know—for of all church history I was ignorant—that its original object was not so much to establish a truth, as to detect and defeat a falsehood. ”

“ Valerius is no more a Christian than she who accuses him.”
“I know not, sirs, how we are to understand all this,” said one of the Sempronii, in a calm voice. “Is this young man the same Valerius who is living in the house of Licinius?—Yet it must be he. I have been with Licinius this very day; and if this be he, whatever he may have known before, I am sure he knows nothing of where Athanasia is now,—and, sister, I am well assured he is no Christian.”
“It is the same, sir,” said Sabinus. “He is the same Caius Valerius of whom you spake, and I am Sabinus, a Centurion of the Prætorians.” ”

“ Her eyes were black as jet, and full of a nymph-like vivacity.
The other, Athanasia, was not a dazzling beauty. Taller than her cousin, and darker-haired, but with eyes rather light than otherwise, of a clear, somewhat melancholy gray—with a complexion paler than is usual in Italy, [pg 36] a demeanour hovering between cheerfulness and innocent gravity, and attired with a vestal simplicity in the old Roman tunic, and cloak of white cloth—it is possible that most men might have regarded her less than the other. ”

“ I say, I see it, and I must believe my own eyes and ears; and when I do see it, I begin to understand the text which says, ‘This is eternal life, to know thee, the only God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent;’ and I begin to understand the Athanasian Creed, which says, that if a ‘man does not believe rightly the name of God, and the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, he will perish everlastingly; his soul will decay more and more, become more and more weak, unhealthy and corrupt, till he perishes everlastingly. ”

“ But the Athanasians condemn the belief of God in one person. They think that it is impossible, under such a theory, to avoid the error of the Patripassians, that of the Father suffering and dying on the cross, or the error of Sabellius, that His suffering and dying was only an appearance, not a fact. They think that Christ must have been in the very nature of the case a different person, and they have founded their doctrine of salvation wholly upon the condition that Christ and the Father, although related as Father and Son, are unequivocally two different beings. ”

“ Augustine teaches that the Father and the Son are the one principle of the Being of the Spirit. From this it is a short step to say with the Quicumque vult that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, while guarding the idea that the Father is the one fountain of Deity. Since Eastern theologians would be willing to say “proceeds from the Father through the Son,” it is clear that the two views are not irreconcilable.
3. The Athanasian Creed, so called because in many MSS. it bears the title “The Faith of S. Athanasius,” is more accurately designated by its first words Quicumque vult. ”

“ The elect entered into life with the seal of predestination on their birth, redeemed, to be justified, to be sanctified, and finally to be glorified. The remainder came into the same life burdened with the imputation of a sin committed centuries previous to their existence. Foredoomed to perdition, overpassed by the Father, and disregarded by the Son, and unvisited by the Holy Spirit, they die in their sins, enter on their predetermined destiny, and, to use the tremendous language of the Athanasian Creed, “perish everlastingly.” ”

“ I considered it judicious to elucidate Dionysius by the doctrines of Athanasius, to whom we owe the preservation of the fragment itself; and (6) I felt that here was the place to record the “Athanasian Confession” (so called) , which, apocryphal though it be, as a “creed” under his name is allowed to embody the principles for which the whole life of Athanasius was a contest unparalleled in the history of Christianity. ”

“ WE HAVE already devoted a great deal of time and attention to the Athanasian contention that God exists in three persons, and we have shown that such a belief logically means polytheism in spite of all declarations to the contrary, and since polytheism is ruled out of the possibilities, so must Athanasianism go. ”

“ The Confession, improperly called the “Creed of Athanasius,” is acknowledged to embody the (Athanasian) doctrine of the Nicene Council; and I append it here as an index to the state of theology at the period which is the limit of our series. Nothing is properly a “creed” which has never been accepted as such by the whole Church, and the Greeks knew no other creed than that called Nicene. ”

“ A friend of my own, who was much pressed to say how much of the Athanasian Creed he still accepted, once said that he clung to the idea "that there was a sort of a something." In homely words such as the unlearned can understand, that is precisely what the religion of the Agnostic comes to, "the belief that there is a sort of a something about which we can know nothing." ”

“ One of these instances was 183taken from the literature of the beginnings of Monasticism, and more particularly from the Vita Antonii ascribed to St. Athanasius. I pointed out how the whole class of literature to which this treatise belongs has been definitely set upon its feet again. After being at one time very radically treated, it is now widely accepted as in great part resting upon good first-hand authority. One of the arguments alleged against the Athanasian treatise turned upon the miracles contained in it. But at the present time that argument would be differently stated. ”

“ This is properly paradox, though also heterodox. It supposes, contrary to all opinion, orthodox and heterodox, that philosophy can, with slight changes, explain the Athanasian doctrine so as to be at least compatible with orthodoxy. The author would stand almost alone, if not quite; and this is what he meant. ”

“ And, after all, the Athanasian Creed is light and comprehensible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science. ”

“ From his earliest youth Athanasius had stood forth as the champion of Truth and defender of the Faith—a gallant warrior who had not laid down his arms until the day of his death. Where a weaker man would have lost courage, he had stood firm; suffering had only served to temper his spirit, as steel is tempered by the fire. Among men who were capable of every compromise he had remained loyal and true, and few have been more loved or hated than he. To his own people he was not only their Bishop, but a Saint, an ascetic, a martyr in all but deed ”

“ Tide and wind were against them; the monks had to land and tow the boat; progress was slow, and the soldiers of Julian were not far off. Athanasius was absorbed in prayer, preparing for the martyr's death that, this time at least, seemed very near.
"Fear not," said one of the monks called Ammon, "for God is our protection."
"I have no fear," answered Athanasius; "for many long years I have suffered persecution, and never has it disturbed the peace of my soul. It is a joy to suffer, and the greatest of all joys is to give one's life for Christ." ”

“ The most reverend Athanasius has not been deserted by the grace of God, but although for a brief season he was subjected to trial to which human nature is liable, he has obtained from the all-surveying Providence such an answer to his prayers as was meet, and is restored by the will of the Most High, and by our sentence, at once to his country and to the Church, over which by divine permission he presided. ”

“ When Athanasius, e.g., speaks of God's truth in this connection, and then reduces God's truth to the idea that God must keep His word—the word which made death the penalty of sin—we may feel that the form only too easily loses contact with the substance. Yet Athanasius is dealing with the essential fact of the case, that God must be true to Himself, and to the moral order in which men live, in all His dealings with sin for man's deliverance from it; and that He has been thus true to Himself in sending His Son to live our life and to die our death for our salvation. ”

“ They had been worthy of their Bishop, for they too had made a brave fight for the Faith. Blood had been shed for Christ, and much had been suffered by the Catholics; they could face their Patriarch without shame. Many pagans who had watched the behavior of the Christians under persecution now came forward and asked to join the Church, among them some Greek ladies of noble family whom Athanasius himself instructed and baptized. ”

“ He was a living example of the truth that a man may be large-minded and yet strong; that he may hate error, yet love the erring—stand like a rock against heresy, yet be full of compassion for heretics.
Scarcely was Athanasius dead when he was honored as a Saint. Six years after his death, St. Gregory Nazianzen speaks of him in one breath with the patriarchs, prophets and martyrs who had fought for the Faith and won the crown of glory. His influence is with us to this day, his memory lingers in the words of that Nicene Creed which was his war cry ”

“ Athanasius (says the Encyclopedia Americana) is one of the greatest men of whom the church can boast. His deep mind, his noble heart, his invincible courage, his living faith, his unbounded benevolence, sincere humility, lofty eloquence, and strictly virtuous life, gained the honor and love of all. ”

“ Athanasius, in his treatise on the Incarnation, teaches that the Saviour has delivered all creatures from the deceits and illusions of Satan, and that he has enriched himself, as St. Paul says, with the spoils of principalities and powers. "When is it," he says afterwards, "that the oracles have ceased to reply throughout all Greece, but since the advent of the Saviour on earth? When did they begin to despise the magic art? Is it not since mankind began to enjoy the divine presence of the Word? ”

“ Athanasius and those who with him had been ready to give their lives for the Truth being, like all brave and noble men, gentle and compassionate, they resolved to make it as easy as possible. They announced that absolution would be given freely to all who accepted the Creed of Nicea. Those who had fallen away were mostly good men and true believers who had yielded in a moment of weakness or of fear, or who had been deceived by the protestations of the Arians. They had been thoroughly miserable, but now the proclamation of Athanasius set them free from what had seemed like a bad dream. ”

“ Athanase seeks through the world the One whom he may love. He meets, in the ship in which he is embarked, a lady who appears to him to embody his ideal of love and beauty. But she proves to be Pandemos, or the earthly and unworthy Venus; who, after disappointing his cherished dreams and hopes, deserts him. Athanase, crushed by sorrow, pines and dies.⁠'On his deathbed, the lady who can really reply to his soul comes and kisses his lips' (The Deathbed of Athanase) . ”

“ In truth, these later treatises, like the great Discourses, exclude by anticipation both the forms of heresy, in reference to the Person and Natures of Christ, which troubled the church in the next three centuries (see especially i. 11, ii. 10) . Athanasius, in the fruits of his work, was "in truth the Immortal" (Christ. Remembr. xxxvii. 206) : he was continually "planting trees under which men of a later age might sit." ”

“ Athanasius is the hero of a mighty struggle, and the secret of his grandeur is his intense and vivid faith that the incarnation is a real revelation from the other world, and that its issues are for life and death supreme in heaven and earth and hell for evermore. ”

“ But Athanasius apprehended this redemption as a conferment, from without and from above, of a divine nature. He subordinated everything to this idea. The whole narrative concerning Jesus falls under the interpretation that the only quality requisite for the Redeemer in his work was the possession in all fulness of the divine nature. His incarnation, his manifestation in real human life, held fast to in word, is reduced to a mere semblance. Salvation is not an ethical process, but a miraculous endowment. The Christ, who was God, lifts men up to godhood. They become God. ”