Athanasius

“ 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. ”

“ Athanasius was still very young when he began to act as secretary to the Patriarch, accompanying him on all his journeys throughout his vast diocese; and he himself tells us how he stayed for a time among the monks in the desert of Egypt and how his young soul was set on fire by the holiness of their lives.
Neither science nor logic nor philosophy offered any difficulty to the brilliant young scholar, whose knowledge of Scripture and of theology was to astonish the men of his time. ”

“ His years of study and work in the bishop’s household bore rich fruit in the two youthful works already alluded to. These works more than any later writings of Athanasius bear traces of the Alexandrian theology and of the influence of Origenism: but in them already we trace the independent grasp of Christian principles which mark Athanasius as the representative of something more than a school, however noble and many-sided. It was not as a theologian, but as a believing soul in need of a Saviour, that Athanasius approached the mystery of Christ. ”

“ Arius was banished. Athanasius led his tottering but triumphant bishop back to Alexandria, and the Emperor returned to the town-planning and to the wardrobes of wigs and false hair that sometimes solace the maturity of a military man.
The powers of Athanasius were remarkable. Like Arius, he knew what truth is, but, being a politician, he knew how truth can best be enforced; his career blends subtlety with vigour, self-abnegation with craft. Physically he was blackish, but active and strong. One recognizes a modern street type. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 Latin of Tertullian, Cyprian, Jerome, Augustin, Leo, with all its mannerisms and often false antithesis and laboured epigram, was yet a terse incisive weapon compared with the patristic Greek. But among the Greek Fathers Athanasius is the most readable, simply because his style is natural and direct, because it reflects the man rather than the age. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Athanasius should be, as a patron and a subject of Art, of all saints the most unpopular. He figures, of course, as one of the series of Greek Doctors; but I have never met with any separate representation of him, and I know not any church dedicated to him, nor any picture representing the vicissitudes of his unquiet life, fraught as it was with strange reverses and picturesque incidents. Such may exist, but in Western Art, at least, they have never been prominent. According to the Greek formula, he ought to be represented old, bald-headed, and with a long white beard, as in the etching. ”

“ 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 ”

“ When the Bishops of the Church assembled to elect their new Patriarch, the whole Catholic population surrounded the church, holding up their hands to Heaven and crying, "Give us Athanasius!" The Bishops asked nothing better. Athanasius was thus elected, as St. Gregory tells us, by the suffrages of the whole people and by the choice of the Bishops of the Church.
It was a heavy burden to be laid on the shoulders of a young man scarcely thirty years of age. There were trials and combats ahead before which, if Athanasius had seen them, even his bold and undaunted spirit might have quailed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even Eusebius is abashed, but there are others to take his place. The Arians continue the argument.
Silent and watchful at his post sits the young man who is destined to be the champion of the Faith through all the troublous years to come. He has not spoken yet, but now Alexander makes him a sign. The sword flashes from its scabbard; woe to those on whom its blows shall fall! In a few words, sharp and clear as diamonds, Athanasius tears to pieces the veils in which the Arians had shrouded their true meaning. "Who has deceived you, O senseless," he asks, "to call the Creator a creature?" ”

“ They implored him to land and take refuge in the desert.
"No," said Athanasius; "turn the boat's head and row toward Alexandria." They thought he was mad, but dared not disobey his orders.
"He who is for us is greater than he who is against us," he said, smiling at their terrified faces. Presently the Imperial boat came in sight, rowing hard in pursuit of the fugitive.
"Have you seen Athanasius? Is he far off?" they shouted, as the little boat drew near.
"He is quite close," answered the Patriarch calmly; "press on." ”

“ Chapter 6 A ROYAL-HEARTED EXILE ATHANASIUS had prevailed once more over his enemies, but Eusebius was always at the Emperor's side and knew how to play upon his weakness. Was it possible, he asked, that so many and such various charges could be brought up against a man if he were innocent? Athanasius was clever and had many friends, he continued, who were ready to swear that black was white for his sake. ”

“ Athanasius was an intimate friend of the hermit Anthony and a persistent advocate of the ascetic ideal. When he fled to Rome, in 340, to escape the persecutions of the Arians, he took with him two specimens of monastic virtue--Ammonius and Isidore. These hermits, so filthy and savage in appearance, albeit, as I trust, clean in heart, excited general disgust, and their story of the tortures and holiness of their Egyptian brethren was received with derision. But men who had faced and conquered the terrors of the desert were not to be so easily repulsed. ”

“ He traveled from city to city confirming and strengthening the Church and making friends with the holy men over whom he had been called to rule.
One day, when he had been but a few months Patriarch, a message was brought to him from a stranger who wished to speak with him. His name was Frumentius, and he had traveled from a distant country. Athanasius was presiding at a meeting of Bishops. "Let him be brought in," he said, "and let him tell us what he desires." The stranger was a man of noble bearing and gentle manners. ”

“ It will be remembered that Athanasius, the renowned Bishop of Alexandria, had been driven into exile by Julian, because, through his preaching, some Grecian ladies of noble birth had been converted and baptized. Jovian recalled the faithful Christian pastor by the following letter, which he published to the world:—
“To the most religious friend of God, Athanasius. As we admire beyond expression the sanctity of your life, in which shine forth marks of resemblance to the God of the universe, and your zeal for Jesus Christ our Saviour, we take you, venerable bishop, under our protection. ”

“ Athanasius himself prove him to have spoken and thought with the Anglican Church, and not with the Roman Church on the invocation of saints and angels, and the blessed Virgin Mary; and secondly, that whatever words Roman Catholics use, whether stronger or not than these, these words on which the above questions are put, never came forth from the pen of St. Athanasius. Their spuriousness is not a question of doubt or difficulty. It has been shown in the text that the whole homily has been for ages utterly repudiated, as a work falsely attributed to St. Athanasius. ”

“ More of detail comes out in the life of Athanasius. Thus in ii. 17, of his election he says: “Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, when about to depart this life, left Athanasius as his successor, in accordance, I am convinced, with the Divine will, directing the vote upon him.” And again: “He fled to escape the honor, but he was discovered in his place of concealment by the help of God, who had forecast by Divine manifestations to his blessed predecessors, that the succession was to devolve upon him.” His whole career is so viewed in v. 6. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Though, indeed, for a season, the fellow may try to set out his wares to the best advantage under the sign of Athanasius, as if he were suffering in defence of the faith, there does not, however, appear to be any great danger that the world will esteem as an Athanasius a person who is sacrilegious, a whoremonger, a homicide steeped in the blood of many saints. ”

“ Athanasius and Anastasius have embraced each other, righteousness hath appeared in the land of Egypt, and truth hath sprung up out of the East. Egypt and Syria have become one Faith, and the cities of Alexandria and Antioch one church, and there is one virgin to one holy man, our Lord Christ, the Only Son, the Word of God the Father.” And Saint Athanasius lived with Saint Anastasius in the same monastery for a period of thirty days, and they taught each other, and discussed together, and searched out the roots of the Faith ”

“ The renowned and undaunted defender of the Catholic faith against the errors which in his day threatened to overwhelm Gospel-truth, Athanasius (the last of those ante-Nicene writers into whose testimony we have instituted this inquiry) , was born about the year 296, and, after having presided in the Church as Bishop for more than forty-six years, died in 373, on the verge of his eightieth year. It is impossible for any one interested in the question of primitive truth to look upon the belief and practice of this Christian champion with indifference. ”

“ Athanasius [Ath-a-na-shi-us] , who was the most active opponent of Arius, thus explains the Nicene doctrine, in what is commonly known as the creed of Athanasius. [91]
We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity and Unity, neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost is all one: the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate ”

“ Towards the later years of his life the archbishop’s days were darkened not only by ill-health and anxiety, but by the death of some of his chief friends and allies. Athanasius died in 373, and so far as personal living influence went, there was an extinction of the Pharos not of Alexandria only, but of the world. ”

“ Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria by whom Arius had been excommunicated, died soon after returning home from the Council of Nicæa; and Athanasius, who was then about thirty years of age, was chosen in his stead, and governed the Alexandrian church for six-and-forty years. Every one knows the name of St. Athanasius, from the creed which is called after it. That creed, indeed, was not made by St. Athanasius himself; but, as the Prayer-book says, it is "commonly called" his, because it sets forth the true Christian faith, of which he was the chief defender in his day. ”