August 21, 2022 - "Continuing the Series on Doctors of the Church"

I am continuing this series on the Doctors of the Church.  I am going to treat them chronologically.  Last week I wrote about St. Irenaeus of Lyons who is the earliest chronologically but the most recently proclaimed Doctor of the Church.  Today I am writing about St. Athanasius of Alexandria who was born around the year A. D. 300 and who died in A.D. 373.  He was named a Doctor of the Church in 1568 by Pope Saint Pius V.
 
Athanasius was born of a Christian family in Alexandria, Egypt and given a classical education.  He entered into the service of the Church.  He was a deacon of Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and served as his deacon at the Council of Nicaea (325), the meeting that condemned the teaching of Arius that the Second Person of the Trinity was not fully equal to and coeternal with the Father.  Athanasius succeeded Alexander as bishop in 328 and continued the fight against Arianism.  At first it seemed that this battle would be easily won and the Arianism would be condemned.  But things did not turn out that way.  The Council of Tyre was called and for reasons that are not really clear, the Emperor Constantine exiled Athanasius to northern Gaul.  This was the first of a series of travels and exiles that Athanasius was to undergo.
 
After Constantine died, his son restored Athanasius as bishop.  This lasted only one year when Athanasius was deposed by a coalition of bishops.  Athanasius appealed his case to Rome where Pope Julius I called a synod to review the case and other related matters.  In the end Athanasius was exiled five times for his defense of the divinity of Christ.  During one of his period of exile, in 361, he had been on the run for five years, hiding among the monks of Upper Egypt from the wrath of the pro-Arian emperor.  One evening as he was in a small boat heading for a safe house, he heard the sound of an imperial galley approaching behind him.  In the darkness the soldiers called out to him, “Have you seen Athanasius?” “Sure I have,” he responded. “Is he far from here?” “No, he’s not far off.  Row hard!”  The galley started to beat its way south, while Athanasius quietly turned around.
 
The steadfast witness of Athanasius won him the title of “Father of Orthodoxy” and helps explain the great influence he has had in both Eastern and Western Christianity.  His dedication to his vocation of bishop as teacher and pastoral leader won his strong support among his followers, even though he was intransigent and sometimes even very harsh in his reaction to error.
 
The most famous doctrinal work by Athanasius was his treatise On the Incarnation of the Word.  In this work Athanasius says with an affirmation that has rightly become famous that the Word of God “was made man so that we might be made God: and he manifested himself through a body so that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and he endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”

Athanasius also remarks that indeed with his Resurrection the Lord banished death from us like “straw from fire.” Pope Benedict XVI remarked in an audience devoted to the life and legacy of St. Athanasius that the fundamental idea of Athanasius’ entire battle was that God was accessible.  He is not a secondary God; he is the true God, and it is through our communion with Christ that we can truly be united to God.  He has really become “God-with-us.”
 
Athanasius also wrote meditational texts on the Psalms that circulated widely.  In particular, he wrote a work that constitutes a bestseller of early Christian literature:  The Life of Anthony, the biography of St. Anthony Abbot.  Athanasius wrote this biography shortly after Anthony died while the exiled Bishop of Alexandria was staying with monks of the Egyptian desert.  Athanasius was such a close friend of Anthony that Athanasius received one of two sheepskins which Anthony left as his legacy, together with the mantle that Athanasius had given to Anthony at one point in time.  This biography of Anthony soon became very popular.  It was translated almost immediately into Latin, in two editions, and then into various Oriental languages.  The Life of Anthony made an important contribution to the spread of monasticism in the East and the West. The interpretation of this work was at the center of a moving tale of the conversion of two imperial officials at Trier that St. Augustine incorporated into his Confessions, as the preamble of his own conversion.
 
At the end of his address on St. Athanasius Pope Benedict remarks that we have many reasons to be grateful to this Father of Orthodoxy.  The life of Athanasius like that of many saints shows us that “those who draw near to God do not withdraw from men, but rather become truly close to them” (Deus Caritas Est, no. 42).
 
Until next week,
Fr. John