The collect for today, the Feast Day of St Athanasius (c. 293-373), Bishop of Alexandria, Theologian, Apologist, Doctor of the Eastern Church (source):
Ever-living God,
whose servant Athanasius bore witness
to the mystery of the Word made flesh for our salvation:
give us grace, with all thy saints,
to contend for the truth
and to grow into the likeness of thy Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Epistle: 1 St John 5:1-5
The Gospel: St Matthew 10:22-32
Saint Athanasius is one of the most inspirational figures of the early church. His dogged and uncompromising defence of the full divinity of Jesus Christ against the Arian heresy saved the unity and integrity of the Christian religion and church. He saw that Christ’s deity was foundational to the faith and that Arianism meant the end of Christianity.
Arius and his followers maintained that Christ the Logos was neither eternal nor uncreated, but a subordinate being—the first and finest of God’s creation, but a creature nonetheless. Despite being rejected at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, which Athanasius attended as deacon under his mentor Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, Arianism remained popular and influential in the Eastern church for most of the fourth century.
Athanasius became bishop in 328 and spent the rest of his life fighting for Nicene orthodoxy. For his troubles, he was deposed and exiled five times, spending a total of seventeen years in flight and hiding, often shielded by the people of Alexandria. Six years of exile were spent in Rome, where he gained the strong support of the Western church, and another six years he was protected by monks in the Egyptian desert.
He was finally able to return to Alexandria in 365 and spent his final years teaching orthodox theology, which ultimately triumphed at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
Athanasius struggled so hard for the deity of Christ because he knew that our salvation depends on it. No creature, however exalted, could save us; only a divine Christ could accomplish our salvation. Here are some excerpts from his Incarnation of the Word:
We were the cause of his becoming flesh. For our salvation he loved us so much as to appear and be born in a human body
. . .
No one else but the Saviour himself, who in the beginning made everything out of nothing, could bring the corrupted to incorruption; no one else but the Image of the Father could recreate men in God's image; no one else but our Lord Jesus Christ, who is Life itself, could make the mortal immortal; no one else but the Word, who orders everything and is alone the true and only-begotten Son of the Father, could teach men about the Father and destroy idolatry. Since the debt owed by all men had to be paid (for all men had to die), he came among us. After he had demonstrated his deity by his works, he offered his sacrifice on behalf of all and surrendered his temple (body) to death in the place of all men. He did this to free men from the guilt of the first sin and to prove himself more powerful than death, showing his own body incorruptible, as a first-fruit of the resurrection of all.
. . .
Two miracles happened at once: the death of all men was accomplished in the Lord's body, and death and corruption were destroyed because of the Word who was united with it. By death immortality has reached all and by the Word becoming man the universal providence and its creator and leader, the very Word of God, has been made known. For he became human that we might become divine; he revealed himself in a body that we might understand the unseen Father; he endured men's insults that we might inherit immortality.
In addition to writing against Arianism and in defence of orthodoxy, St Athanasius was a prolific author on a variety of theological and spiritual topics, including the highly influential biography Life of St Anthony, about the man Athanasius portrayed as the first monk.
The first Christian writing to list the complete New Testament canon exactly as it exists today was his Easter letter of 367.
His most important works are included in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2 (1892), which can be read at Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
Although not written by the saint, the Athanasian Creed reflects his theological thought and is generally regarded as an orthodox confession of faith.
Artwork: St Athanasius holding the New Testament, Fresco, c. 1192-93, Monastery chapel at Mar Musa (source).
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