Jonathan Bha­gan

Athana­sius was born in North Africa and is eas­i­ly the most im­por­tant per­son in Chris­t­ian his­to­ry af­ter the Apos­tle Paul. In 328 AD, at the young age of 30, Athana­sius was ap­point­ed Bish­op of Alexan­dria, one of the most im­por­tant po­si­tions in an­cient Chris­tian­i­ty.

Alexan­dria is a coastal city in Egypt lo­cat­ed on the edge of the Nile Delta and the Mediter­ranean Sea. It was found­ed in 331 BC by Alexan­der the Great in or­der to trade with the in­te­ri­or of Africa and al­so to serve as a mil­i­tary base to con­trol the Mediter­ranean. The mod­ern city of Alexan­dria re­mains the 11th largest in Africa to­day.

From Alexan­dria, a ship could have sailed along the Riv­er Nile 900 kilo­me­tres in­to the African con­ti­nent. Be­ing a hub of eco­nom­ic pow­er, there­fore, made Alexan­dria the most in­flu­en­tial city in Africa for an­cient Chris­tian­i­ty.

In Cop­tic and Or­tho­dox tra­di­tion, the Bish­op of Alexan­dria holds the ti­tle, “Pope and Arch­bish­op of the Great City of Alexan­dria and Pa­tri­arch of all Africa, the Holy Or­tho­dox and Apos­tolic See of Saint Mark the Evan­ge­list.”

At the age of 27, Athana­sius was a dea­con and worked un­der the pre­vi­ous Bish­op of Alexan­dria, Alexan­der, when they were sum­moned to the Coun­cil of Nicaea in 325 AD. Athana­sius was re­port­ed to have been a key ar­chi­tect be­hind the con­cepts that were crys­tallised in the Nicene Creed and the doc­trine that Je­sus Christ is ho­moousios, or the same sub­stance as God the Fa­ther. While Athana­sius did not vote with the oth­er bish­ops at the Coun­cil of Nicaea, he lat­er be­came the great­est de­fend­er of the coun­cil’s teach­ing.

The Coun­cil of Nicaea was con­vened to de­cide on the teach­ings of Ar­ius that Je­sus was a cre­at­ed be­ing who was not equal to God the Fa­ther, but was more than hu­man. The teach­ings of Ar­ius were re­ject­ed by a ma­jor­i­ty of Chris­t­ian bish­ops; how­ev­er, Ar­i­ans con­tin­ued to spread their doc­trine un­til they gained the favour of the Ro­man Em­per­or Con­stan­tius II.

In 356 AD, the Ar­i­an Em­per­or Con­stan­tius II sent 5,000 sol­diers to ar­rest Athana­sius for teach­ing that Je­sus was tru­ly God and tru­ly man. Athana­sius nar­row­ly es­caped and lived in the Egypt­ian desert in ex­ile, rather than give up teach­ing the doc­trine that Je­sus was tru­ly God.

In all, Athana­sius was ex­iled five times over his 45-year term as Bish­op, as dif­fer­ent Ro­man em­per­ors sought to per­se­cute him as a re­sult of po­lit­i­cal pres­sure from the Ar­i­an sect. This cre­at­ed the leg­end of “Athana­sius con­tra mundum,” Athana­sius against the world.

While YouTube his­to­ri­ans ar­gue that Em­per­or Con­stan­tine cre­at­ed the doc­trine of Je­sus be­ing God at the Coun­cil of Nicaea, the his­to­ry fol­low­ing Con­stan­tine’s death showed that the Ro­man Em­pire came un­der the con­trol of Ar­i­ans, who op­posed this teach­ing. If it were not for the strug­gle of Athana­sius, the Nicene Creed, the doc­trine of the Trin­i­ty, and the di­vin­i­ty of Je­sus would have been abol­ished from Chris­t­ian teach­ing.

Athana­sius went on to write the great the­o­log­i­cal work “On the In­car­na­tion,” and the ear­li­est sur­viv­ing list of the bib­li­cal New Tes­ta­ment canon was found in one of Athana­sius’s let­ters. Athana­sius hand­ed down to the mod­ern church the list of books that be­came our New Tes­ta­ment. An ex­cerpt from “On the In­car­na­tion” is as fol­lows:

“Death has be­come like a tyrant who has been com­plete­ly con­quered by the le­git­i­mate monarch; bound hand and foot, the passers-by sneer at him, hit­ting him and abus­ing him, no longer afraid of his cru­el­ty and rage, be­cause of the king who has con­quered him. So has death been con­quered and brand­ed for what it is by the Sav­iour on the cross. It is bound hand and foot; all who are in Christ tram­ple it as they pass, and as wit­ness­es to Him de­ride it, scoff­ing and say­ing, “O Death, where is thy vic­to­ry? O Grave, where is thy sting?”

A study of the writ­ings of Athana­sius and the oth­er church fa­thers, such as Ire­naeus and Clement, is im­por­tant for mod­ern be­liev­ers. Too of­ten, the gospel mes­sage has been re­duced to es­cap­ing di­vine pun­ish­ment in hell. From the per­spec­tive of the church fa­thers, the in­vi­ta­tion of the gospel is al­so to par­tic­i­pate in the di­vine na­ture and be unit­ed with God through Christ, a sort of spir­i­tu­al mar­riage.

As the cel­e­bra­tion of Good Fri­day comes up­on us this week, I be­lieve the truth about the his­to­ry of the Chris­t­ian mes­sage will be spir­i­tu­al­ly en­light­en­ing. Chris­tian­i­ty’s Mid­dle East­ern and African his­to­ry is ar­guably more im­por­tant and im­pact­ful than its Eu­ro­pean his­to­ry, de­spite the mod­ern as­sump­tion to the con­trary.

Sal­va­tion in the con­text of Athana­sius’s the­ol­o­gy means par­tic­i­pat­ing in Je­sus’ di­vin­i­ty, not just re­ceiv­ing a le­gal de­cree to es­cape hell and sin. God took up­on hu­man­i­ty in Christ to make the hu­man per­son di­vine and there­by re­deem every as­pect of be­ing a hu­man be­ing.

Per­sons who feel op­pressed by the strong Eu­ro­pean and Amer­i­can in­flu­ence on the his­to­ry of mod­ern Chris­tian­i­ty can look to Athana­sius and the con­tri­bu­tions of an­cient Africa to the faith.