- Office
- Bishop of Alexandria (Egypt) from AD 328 until his death in 373
- The crisis
- Arius, an Alexandrian priest, taught that Christ was a created being — not eternally God. The teaching spread rapidly across the empire and was endorsed by emperors.
- The Council of Nicaea (AD 325)
- Athanasius was a young deacon at Nicaea, where the church formally rejected Arianism and produced what became the Nicene Creed
- Aftermath
- Despite Nicaea, Arianism gained imperial favor. For most of the fourth century, the Arians held the political high ground. Many bishops compromised. Athanasius did not.
- Exiled
- Five separate times, by four emperors, totaling roughly 17 years of his 45-year episcopate spent in exile or hiding
- Outcome
- The Council of Constantinople (AD 381), eight years after his death, reaffirmed Nicene orthodoxy as official Christian doctrine
What He Did
To understand Athanasius, you have to understand what he refused to give up.
Arius, a charismatic priest in Alexandria, had a tidy theological idea. Christ, he taught, was the greatest of God's created beings, but a created being nonetheless. There was a time, Arius said, when the Son was not. Christ was Lord, yes, but not God. A subordinate. A demigod. A junior partner in the divine business.
This was not a small idea. If Arius was right, Christianity is a different religion. The salvation accomplished on the cross is not the eternal God reconciling humanity to Himself. It is a creature dying for other creatures, which saves no one.
Athanasius saw this. He spent his life saying so.
The Council of Nicaea, called by the emperor Constantine in AD 325, ruled against Arius. Christ, the council declared, was homoousios — of the same substance as the Father. Not similar. Same.
That ruling was supposed to settle the matter. It did not. The political winds shifted. Arian-sympathetic bishops gained influence. Successive emperors found Arianism politically useful because it was vague enough to unify factions while sounding pious. Within a few decades, the majority of the eastern bishops had quietly drifted Arian, semi-Arian, or studiously neutral.
Athanasius would not drift.
He was exiled in 335. He was reinstated. He was exiled again in 339. Reinstated. Exiled in 356, hiding for six years among the desert monks. Exiled in 362. Exiled again in 365. Each time the emperor changed, Athanasius's fortune rose or fell, but his theology never moved an inch.
For most of the fourth century, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity was kept alive in significant part because one stubborn African bishop refused to soften it for political convenience.
Why It Belongs Here
The phrase that trails Athanasius through history is contra mundum. Against the world. It is not a phrase he applied to himself. It became attached to him because he kept finding himself standing alone.
This is the test most Christian men fail. Not in arenas. Not under torture. In the quieter setting of a church or a denomination or a culture that is drifting, and the easiest move is to soften your position to keep the peace.
Athanasius would not soften. He was offered every off-ramp. Make a small concession on the language. Use a slightly fuzzier word than homoousios. Stop being so abrasive about it. Let the politicians work it out.
He refused, every time, because he saw that the language was not incidental. If you let the words drift, the truth drifts. If the truth drifts, the gospel goes with it.
“Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 1:13 (KJV)
The form of sound words. Not the spirit of sound words. Not the general drift of sound words. The actual words. Athanasius held the actual words.
The Council of Constantinople in AD 381, eight years after his death, vindicated him. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed that Christians recite to this day — true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father — is, in significant part, the doctrine Athanasius held when his side was losing.
The world held a vote. The world voted for Arius. The vote did not change the truth. Athanasius knew this. He acted accordingly. He was right. History caught up.
When the world votes against the truth, the truth still wins. Slowly.
Sources
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation — his own work, available in many English translations; C. S. Lewis wrote the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition
- The Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed (the latter named for him though probably not authored by him)
- Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Penguin History of the Church) — standard scholarly overview