Athanasius of Alexandria and his theological legacy

Anathasius & His Contributions to the Christian Church

While still a young deacon at Nicea, St. Athanasius, the 20th Patriarch of Alexandria, defended the Divinity of Christ and was one of the writers of the Christian Creed, which is followed by most Christians today.Besides the writings within the New Testament itself, Athanasius is quite possibly responsible for the preservation of the Christian faith as it is was known and has been passed down through time to the Christians of today.

Born around 298 AD, Athanasius grew up and lived in what was considered the epicenter of learning and wisdom in all of the Roman Empire: Alexandria, Egypt. He eventually became the Patriarch of Alexandria some time in the 4th century as bishop, and is revered as a saint by both the Roman Catholic Church, who consider him one of the thirty three Doctors of the Church, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, who consider him one of the four Doctors of the Church. And is greatly admired by the Protestants.

The Edict of Milan, which Emperor Constantine issued in 313, changed the face of Christianity from a persecuted religion to one of official favor. Shortly after this, while Athanasius was a freshly ordained deacon and was the secretary and a member of the household of Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, an elder priest, Arius of Alexandria began to teach concerning the Word of God that, as for Jesus, "God begat him, and before he was begotten, he did not exist" (John 1:1) Anthanasius replied to Arius "that the begetting, or uttering, of the Word by the Father is an eternal relation between Them, and not a temporal event" (Williams). Condemned by all but two of the bishops of Egypt, Arius went to Nicodemia to escape their displeasure. From Nicodemia he wrote letters to these and the bishops around the world explaining his position. To resolve the dispute a council of 317 bishops was called to Nicea by the Emperor Constantine (Williams).

Accompanying Bishop Alexander to the council, Anthanasius became the recognized spokesperson for the view that the Son was fully God, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. This view was the view held by the majority of the council, and they proceeded to formulate a creed that would express the consensus of the council. After abandoning the initial efforts to find this statement directly from the Holy Scripture, the council finally introduced the work "homo-ousios" which translates from ancient Greek to "of the same nature" to clearly express this idea without it being appropriated by the Arians to serve their purpose (Basictheology.com). Some of the bishops present, although in complete disagreement with Arius, were reluctant to use a term not found in the Scriptures, but eventually saw that the alternative was a creed that both sides would sign, each understanding it in its own way, and that the Church could not afford to leave the question of whether the Son is truly God (the Arians said "a god") undecided. So the result was that the Council adopted a creed which is a shorter version of what we now call the Nicene Creed, declaring the Son to be "of one substance with the Father" (Council of Nicene). The peace was short lived, however. The agreements of the council at Nicene began to fall apart shortly after the council was disbanded because the Arians refused to accept the decisions and agreements that were set forth at the council. Many of the orthodox bishops were prepared to look for a wording a little softer than that of Nicea, something that sounded orthodox, but that the Arians would accept. All sorts of compromise formulas were worked out, with all shades of variation from the formula of Nicea. An apolytikion is sung even today during some services of the Orhtodox church inspired by Athanasius's influence during this and the future disputes over the Council of Nicea:

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.

A venerable father, beg Christ our God to save our souls (St. Gregory Palamas Monastery)

When in 328, Alexander died, Athanasius succeeded him as bishop of Alexandria. He suspected that if the orthodox side placed a priority on reaching an agreement their entire position would eventually break down, and so he refused to participate in this continued negotiation. His suspicions turned out to be correct, much to his dismay, and he continued to defend the full deity of Christ against all manners of major figureheads like emperors, magistrates, bishops and theologians, all over the world. Because of this unwavering position that Anthanasius took on this matter he was labeled as an agitator, and was, over time, banished from Alexandria no less than five times by various emperors, only to be restored and banished again.

Eventually, Christians who believed in the Deity of Christ came to see that once they were prepared to abandon the Nicene formulation, they were on a slippery slope that led to regarding the Logos as simply a high-ranking angel. The more they experimented with other formulations, the clearer it became that only the Nicene formulation would preserve the Christian faith in any meaningful sense, and so they re-affirmed the Nicene Creed at the Council of Constantinople in 381, a final triumph that Athanasius did not live to see. (Behr)

As far as the council of bishops were concerned this was a major, and final triumph for the Orthodox faith. Of course the succession of Roman emperors caused further complications for the situation since after Constantine several emperors took the thrown as Arian leaders. Even the pagan Emperor Julian saw that joining forces with the Arians would be a highly effective way to battle the growth of Christianity.

Under one of them Arian missionaries were sent to convert the Goths, who became the backbone of the Roman Army (then composed chiefly of foreign mercenaries) with the result that for many years Arianism was considered the mark of a good Army man. The conversion of Clovis, King of the Franks, in 496, to orthodox Christianity either gave the Athanasian party the military power to crush Arianism or denied the Arian Goths the military supremacy that would have enabled them to crush Athanasian Christianity, depending on your point-of-view (Behr).

Beyond his involvement with the Nicene Creed, Anthanasius served his time as bishop in many other constructive and influential ways. Known around the world for the high quality of their astronomers, the bishop of Alexandria had a duty to write to all the other bishops every year to inform them what the correct date for Easter would be. These letters were called Easter, or Paschal Letters. Anthanasius took this duty very seriously and his letters contained other information as well. One letter, for example, Since Alexandria had the best astronomers, it was the duty of the Bishop of Alexandria to write to the other bishops every year and tell them the correct date for Easter. Naturally, his annual letter on this topic contained other material as well. On such Paschal Letter that Anthanasius is well-known for, often referred to as his 39th Festal Letter gives a list of the books that should be considered part of the canonical Scriptures. He also listed several books suitable for devotional reading (Forbes & Washbourne).