Pillar of the Church, Hammer of the Arians, Confessor of the Divinity of Christ
Few saints have stood so singularly against the tide of their age as Athanasius the Great, Bishop of Alexandria, whose unwavering defense of the consubstantial divinity of the Son of God earned him the title Athanasius contra mundum—Athanasius against the world. His feast is celebrated on the 2nd of May in the traditional Roman calendar—indeed, his very feast falls upon this present day.
Early Life and Formation
Athanasius was born around the year 296 in Alexandria, that great see of Saint Mark the Evangelist, then the intellectual heart of Christendom. Tradition relates a charming account preserved by Rufinus: as a boy, Athanasius was observed by Bishop Alexander of Alexandria playing at the seashore, “baptizing” his companions in imitation of the sacred rites. The bishop, struck by the gravity and exactness of the child’s actions, took him into his own household, where the young Athanasius was nurtured in Sacred Scripture and the discipline of the Church.
He drank deeply at the well of Egyptian monasticism, becoming a disciple and lifelong friend of Saint Anthony the Great, the father of Christian monks. From Anthony he learned the austerity, the silence, and the militant prayer that would sustain him through the storms to come. Indeed, it was Athanasius who later composed the Vita Antonii—the Life of Saint Anthony—a work that would set Christendom ablaze with the desert spirit and convert, among others, Saint Augustine.
The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325)
In his diaconate, Athanasius accompanied Bishop Alexander to the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, summoned by the Emperor Constantine to confront the heresy of Arius, a priest of Alexandria who taught that the Son of God was a creature—exalted indeed, but not eternal, not consubstantial with the Father. “There was when He was not,” the Arians declared.
Though still a young deacon, Athanasius distinguished himself by the brilliance of his mind and the firmness of his orthodoxy. The Council, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, defined the eternal generation of the Son and inserted into the Creed that imperishable word, ὁμοούσιος (homoousios)—”of one substance with the Father.” This single term became the watchword of Catholic faith and the lifelong burden of Athanasius’s defense.
Bishop and Exile
In 328, upon the death of Alexander, Athanasius was elected Patriarch of Alexandria. He was scarcely thirty years old. For forty-five years he would hold that throne—though more than seventeen of those years were spent in exile.
The Arian party, though condemned at Nicaea, did not vanish. It insinuated itself into the imperial court, won over emperors, and through ecclesiastical intrigue procured the deposition of orthodox bishops. Athanasius was exiled five times by four different emperors:
- First Exile (335–337): Banished by Constantine to Trier in Gaul after false accusations at the Synod of Tyre.
- Second Exile (339–346): Driven out under Constantius II, he fled to Rome, where Pope Saint Julius I received him and vindicated his orthodoxy.
- Third Exile (356–362): Soldiers stormed his church during a vigil; Athanasius escaped and lived hidden among the desert monks for six years, where he wrote some of his most luminous works.
- Fourth Exile (362–364): Under Julian the Apostate, who hated him as “a contemptible little fellow” who threatened to convert the Empire back to Christ.
- Fifth Exile (365–366): Briefly, under Valens.
So thoroughly did he stand alone at times that the historical phrase Athanasius contra mundum became proverbial. When nearly the entire episcopate of the East signed the equivocating creeds of Sirmium and Rimini, Saint Jerome lamented: Ingemuit totus orbis et Arianum se esse miratus est—”The whole world groaned and marvelled to find itself Arian.” Yet Athanasius did not bend.
Theological Labors
His writings are a treasury of orthodox theology, among which the foremost are:
- Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione Verbi — twin works of his youth, in which he expounds with crystalline beauty the doctrine of the Incarnation. From the latter comes that famous axiom: “He was made man that we might be made God” (Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν)—the patristic foundation of the doctrine of divinization (theosis) by grace.
- Orationes contra Arianos — four discourses dismantling the Arian exegesis of Scripture.
- Vita Antonii — the life of Saint Anthony of the Desert, which spread monastic ideals throughout the Latin West.
- Festal Letters — among which the 39th (A.D. 367) provides the earliest list of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament canon as we now hold them.
The Athanasian Creed (Quicumque vult), though almost certainly not composed by him personally, bears his name precisely because it crystallizes his Trinitarian theology. It was prayed at Sunday Prime in the traditional Roman Breviary for centuries and remains one of the three great creeds of the Church.
Death and Legacy
After his final restoration, Athanasius spent his last years in peace, governing his flock and consolidating the Nicene faith. He died on the 2nd of May, 373, in Alexandria, after forty-five years as bishop. The Church recognizes him as one of the four great Eastern Doctors, alongside Saints Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, and John Chrysostom.
Saint Gregory Nazianzen, in his magnificent panegyric, called him “the pillar of the Church,” and said that to praise Athanasius was to praise virtue itself, for in him virtue was found entire.
Lessons for Imitation
The life of Saint Athanasius furnishes the faithful with several enduring lessons, especially needful in our own age of doctrinal confusion:
Fidelity above popularity. Athanasius did not measure truth by majorities. When emperors, synods, and even fellow bishops bent to error, he stood unmoved. The Catholic faith is not subject to the vote of the age.
Doctrinal precision is charity. He grasped that a single word—homoousios—could be the difference between worshipping the true God and worshipping a creature. To defend right belief is to defend souls.
Suffering is the seal of the apostle. His seventeen years of exile were not interruptions of his ministry but the very form of it. The Cross is the bishop’s true throne.
Theology and sanctity are inseparable. His friendship with Saint Anthony reminds us that the deepest theology is born in prayer, fasting, and the silence of the desert.
A Prayer to Saint Athanasius
O glorious Saint Athanasius, indomitable champion of the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who didst stand alone against the world for the faith of Nicaea, obtain for us, we beseech thee, the grace of constancy in the truth, courage in the face of error, and fervent love for Him who, being God, became man that we might be made partakers of the divine nature. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
If you wish to go deeper, the Church History learning path would carry you naturally from Nicaea through the great Trinitarian and Christological controversies—Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon—where the labors of Athanasius bore their full fruit. Alternatively, the Theology and Doctrine path would open to you the riches of Trinitarian and Incarnational theology that he so valiantly defended.
Sancte Athanasi, ora pro nobis.