christian theology in context

SERIES EDITORS
Timothy Gorringe Serene Jones Graham Ward
 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY IN CONTEXT

Any inspection of recent theological monographs makes plain that it

is still thought possible to understand a text independently of its con-
text. Work in the sociology of knowledge and in cultural studies has,
however, increasingly made obvious that such a divorce is impossible.
On the one hand, as Marx put it, ‘life determines consciousness’. All
texts have to be understood in their life situation, related to questions
of power, class, and modes of production. No texts exist in intellec-
tual innocence. On the other hand, texts are also forms of cultural
power, expressing and modifying the dominant ideologies through
which we understand the world. This dialectical understanding of
texts demands an interdisciplinary approach if they are to be properly
understood: theology needs to be read alongside economics, politics,
and social studies, as well as philosophy, with which it has tradition-
ally been linked. The cultural situatedness of any text demands, both
in its own time and in the time of its rereading, a radically interdisci-
plinary analysis.
The aim of this series is to provide such an analysis, culturally
situating texts by Christian theologians and theological movements.
Only by doing this, we believe, will people of the fourth, sixteenth, or
nineteenth centuries be able to speak to those of the twenty-first. Only
by doing this will we be able to understand how theologies are them-
selves cultural products—projects deeply resonant with their particular
cultural contexts and yet nevertheless exceeding those contexts by being
received into our own today. In doing this, the series should advance
both our understanding of those theologies and our understanding of
theology as a discipline. We also hope that it will contribute to the fast
developing interdisciplinary debates of the present.
Athanasius of Alexandria
Bishop, Theologian,
Ascetic, Father

David M. Gwynn

1
 3
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1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
To My Parents
For Everything
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 Contents
Preface ix
Abbreviations xiii
Chronology xv

1. Life and Writings 1

2. Bishop 19
The Episcopate of Alexandria before Athanasius 20
The Early Years: From Election to Exile (328–35) 25
Between East and West: The First and Second Exiles (335–46) 30
The Glorious Return and the Golden Decade (346–56) 37
Flight to the Desert: The Third Exile (356–62) 43
The Final Years (362–73) 49
Death and Aftermath 53
3. Theologian 55
Arius, Alexander, and Nicaea: The Origins of the
Fourth-Century Theological Controversies 56
The Early Theology of Athanasius: Contra
Gentes–De Incarnatione and the Orationes contra Arianos 65
‘Athanasian Arianism’ 76
The Council of Nicaea and the Holy Spirit 85
Athanasius’ Later Writings: Reconciliations and
New Controversies 93
4. Ascetic 105
The Golden Age of Egyptian Asceticism 106
Athanasian Asceticism 111
The Bishop and the Monks: Athanasius and the ‘Politics’
of Asceticism 120
5. Father 131
In the Beginning: The First Festal Letter 132
The Pastoral Bishop 135
Pastoral Theology and Salvation 142
Pastoral Asceticism and the Christian Life 146
The Canon of Scripture: Festal Letter XXXIX 152
viii Contents
6. Death and Legacy 159
Athanasius in the Greek East 161
Athanasius in the Latin West 173
Athanasius in Syriac Tradition 184
Athanasius in Armenian Tradition 185
Athanasius in Coptic Tradition 187
Conclusion 195

Bibliography 199
Index of Athanasian Texts 217
Index of Biblical Citations 221
General Index 222
 Preface
Athanasius of Alexandria (c.295–373) has been a figure of inspiration and
controversy from his own time to the present day. One of the greatest per-
sonalities of the fourth-century Church, Athanasius lived in a period of
fundamental change for the Roman Empire and Christianity following the
conversion of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor. Athanasius
played a central part in shaping the identity of the Church during these
formative years, and was remembered as a champion of orthodoxy and
asceticism and a model for future bishops. He has never lacked for scholarly
attention, and the present volume thus requires a short explanation.
Over the last few decades, modern scholarship has tended to focus
around different aspects of Athanasius’ life and thought. There have been
numerous important studies of his theology (among the more recent
are Pettersen, Athanasius (1995); Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of
his Thought (1998); and Weinandy, Athanasius: A Theological Introduction
(2007)). Equally important work has developed our understanding of
his ecclesiastical career (Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and
Politics in the Constantinian Empire (1993); Martin, Athanase d’Alexandrie
et L’Église d’Égypte au IVe siècle (328–373) (1996)). Attention has also been
increasingly paid to Athanasius’ involvement in the rise of the ascetic
movement in the fourth century (Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of
Asceticism (1995)) and to his dedication as a spiritual father and pastor
(Ng, The Spirituality of Athanasius: A Key for Proper Understanding of this
Important Church Father (2001)). Improved editions of Athanasius’ writ-
ings have appeared, and a new survey of the latest Athanasian scholarship
has now been published in the Athanasius Handbuch edited by Gemein-
hardt (2011).
All these works have contributed significantly to our knowledge of Atha-
nasius, his world, and his place in the wider history of Christianity. Yet
there is no easily accessible modern book in English that draws together
the different roles that he played and sets Athanasius within his broader
context. The present volume aims to fill that void. It is intended in the first
instance for students and teachers of courses in patristic theology and Late
Roman history. There is extensive quotation from Athanasius’ texts, for it is
through his own words that we can best approach the man and his thought.
x Preface
Footnotes have been kept relatively brief but provide guidance for further
reading through the extended Bibliography. It is especially hoped that this
book may encourage further dialogue between those who approach Atha-
nasius from different traditions and perspectives, and particularly between
theologians and historians who do not always communicate as frequently
as they should.
The book opens with a short survey of Athanasius’ life and the setting
and purpose of his varied writings. The following four chapters are then
organized around the Athanasian roles identified in the title. Each chapter
provides an overview of Athanasius’ activities and writings in the given
sphere, with a focus upon the interrelationships between the different
spheres and their importance in the wider context of the fourth century.
The final chapter traces an outline of Athanasius’ legacy for later Christian
generations in the Greek east and the Latin west and in the Syriac, Arme-
nian, and Coptic traditions.
Athanasius was a bishop, a theologian, an ascetic, and a pastoral father.
These functions were not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they were
inseparable from each other, and all are essential to our understanding of
Athanasius as an individual. This book provides an introduction to Atha-
nasius’ life and writings, and to the qualities that characterize his episco-
pal, theological, ascetic, and pastoral roles. But its central argument is
that we must understand these different roles in relation to each other
and within the context in which he lived. Only then can we do justice
to Athanasius and his place in the history of Christianity and the Later
Roman Empire.
I must, of course, offer my deepest thanks to all those whose generous
assistance has made this volume possible. Lizzie Robottom of the OUP has
offered patient support as deadlines have come and gone. David Brakke,
Averil Cameron, Justin Champion, Mark Edwards, Peregrine Horden, and
Bryan Ward-Perkins made time in their own busy schedules to read drafts
of the text and offer numerous helpful criticisms and suggestions. I am also
particularly indebted to Peter Gemeinhardt, both for his additional com-
ments and for very kindly providing me with an advance copy of the proofs
of his Handbuch. The responsibility for any remaining errors rests solely
with me.
To friends and family who have heard far more about Athanasius than
they ever expected, my thanks once more. Paul, Judith, Anthi, and Eleni
have helped me to remember that there is life outside Athanasian studies.
Teresa has been a source of inspiration and a sounding board, a voice on
 Preface xi
the phone that has kept me company throughout my labours. Jenny and
Steve have always been there when I have needed them, be it in Spain or
in London. This book is dedicated to my parents, Margaret and Robin, for
debts that I cannot hope to repay.
David M. Gwynn
Royal Holloway
May 2011
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 Abbreviations
Byz. Byzantion
CIG Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
GRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
HPA History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria
HThR Harvard Theological Review
IThQ Irish Theological Quarterly
JAC Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum
JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
JThS, ns Journal of Theological Studies, New Series
PO Patrologia Orientalis
RSR Recherches de science religieuse
StP Studia Patristica
ThS Theological Studies
VC Vigiliae Christianae
ZAC Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum
ZKG Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte
ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentaliche Wissenschaft
und die Künde der älteren Kirche
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
This page intentionally left blank
 Chronology
c.295 Birth of Athanasius
303–13 Great Persecution; Beginning of the Melitian Schism (305/6)
312 Conversion of Constantine (306–37)
c.321 Dispute between Arius and Alexander of Alexandria
( bishop 312–28)
325 Council of Nicaea
328 Athanasius consecrated bishop of Alexandria
Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione (c.328–35)
Festal Letter I (329)
335 Council of Tyre
335–7 Athanasius’ first exile
337 Death of Constantine; Accession of Constantine II (337–40),
Constans (337–50), and Constantius II (337–61)
338 Council of Alexandria; Antony visits Alexandria
First Letter to Virgins (c.337–9)
Festal Letter X (338)
339–46 Athanasius’ second exile (Gregory bishop 339–45)
Epistula Encyclica (339)
De Morte Arii (c.339–46)
Orationes contra Arianos (c.339–46)
Apologia contra Arianos (ongoing)
341 Dedication Council of Antioch
343 Council of Serdica
346 Athanasius returns to Alexandria (21 October); ‘Golden Decade’ (346–56)
Letter to Amoun (c.346–56)
Second Letter to Virgins (post-346)
De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi (c.350–5)
De Sententia Dionysii (c.350–5)
Letter to Dracontius (354)
356 Attack on the Church of Theonas (8/9 February)
356–62 Athanasius’ third exile (George bishop 357–61)
Life of Antony (356–62)
Encyclical Letter to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya (356, revised 361)
xvi Chronology
Apologia ad Constantium (357, begun c.353)
Apologia de Fuga (357)
Historia Arianorum (357)
Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit (c.357–8)
359 Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia
De Synodis Arimini et Seleuciae (359–61)
361 Accession of Julian ‘the Apostate’ (361–3)
362 Council of Alexandria
Epistula Catholica (362)
Tomus ad Antiochenos (362)
362–3 Athanasius’ fourth exile
363 Athanasius meets Jovian (363–4)
364 Accession of Valentinian I (364–75) and Valens (364–78)
365–6 Athanasius’ fifth exile
366 Athanasius’ final return to Alexandria
Festal Letter XXXIX (367)
Epistula ad Afros (367)
Letter to Adelphius of Onuphis (c.370)
Letter to Epictetus of Corinth (c.372)
373 Death of Athanasius (2 May)
 1
Life and Writings

When Bishop Alexander was celebrating the day of Peter Martyr in Alexandria, he
was waiting in a place near the sea after the ceremonies were over for his clergy
to gather for a banquet. There he saw from a distance some boys on the seashore
playing a game in which, as they often do, they were mimicking a bishop and the
things customarily done in church. Now when he had gazed intently for a while at
the boys, he saw that they were also performing some of the more secret and sacra-
mental things. He was disturbed and immediately ordered the clergy to be called to
him and showed them what he was watching from a distance. Then he commanded
them to go and get all the boys and bring them to him. When they arrived, he asked
them what game they were playing and what they had done and how. At first they
were afraid, as is usual at that age, and refused, but then they disclosed in due order
what they had done, admitting that some catechumens had been baptized by them
at the hands of Athanasius, who had played the part of bishop in their childish
game. (Rufinus, Historia Ecclesiastica X.15)
He [Athanasius] was the son of a principal woman, a worshipper of idols, who was
very rich; and he was an orphan on the father’s side. So when he grew up she wished
to marry him to a wife, but he did not desire that. Then she intrigued against him,
that he might fall with a woman who was a sinner, that she might involve him in the
mire of matrimony; but he would not do it, for the Lord was keeping him for great
things. And she used to take beautiful girls, and adorn them and perfume them,
and make them enter to him into his chamber, and sleep near him and solicit him;
but when he awoke he beat them, and drove them away . . . [finally, on the advice of
an Alexandrian magician, his mother accepted that her son was a Christian] . . . She
arose, and took him with her, and went with him to Alexander, and related to him
the circumstances of Athanasius her son, and all his history. Then she was baptized,
and her son also. (History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, PO 1:407–8)

Athanasius of Alexandria was born in the last decade of the third century ad
and died in May 373. His long life spanned a period of momentous change
for the history of Europe and the Christian Church. The predominantly
pagan Roman Empire within which Athanasius grew up was gradually
transformed across the fourth century with the expansion of Christian-
ity following the conversion of Constantine the Great in 312. Under the
first Christian Roman emperor, the size, wealth, and power of the Church
2 Athanasius of Alexandria
dramatically increased. The Christian religion itself entered into a for-
mative age of redefinition. Church architecture and liturgy, clerical hier-
archies, doctrinal creeds, and the canon of Scripture all took increasingly
recognized forms. The new prominence of Christianity also gave a new
significance to the divisions within the Church and the conflicts that flour-
ished under Constantine and his successors.
It was into this complex environment that Athanasius was plunged when
he became the bishop of Alexandria in 328. Across the next four and a
half decades he would fight for his vision of Christianity, his conception
of correct Christian belief and practice, and his leadership of the Egyptian
Church. Athanasius’ writings bring alive the doctrinal conflicts and ecclesi-
astical rivalries of his time, and reveal the rise of the ascetic movement and
the tensions of living a Christian life in a rapidly changing world. A figure
of controversy for many years, Athanasius by his death had become an
elder statesman of the Church, remembered as a saint who devoted him-
self to the service of the faith.
We know all too little about Athanasius’ early life. Unlike Augustine of
Hippo a generation or more later, Athanasius did not compose an autobio-
graphical work like the Confessions, and perhaps it was not in his character
to do so. Even his date of birth is uncertain, with the traditional estimate
of the last decade of the third century suggested by the debates upon his
accession as bishop in 328 over whether he had reached 30, the canonical
minimum age for entering the episcopate. As a child he lived through the
Great Persecution that the pagan emperor Diocletian and his Tetrarchy
unleashed upon Christianity in 303. The impact of that persecution on
Egypt is graphically described by Eusebius of Caesarea, a man whom Atha-
nasius would later come to know, although not as a friend, but there is no
indication that Athanasius himself was directly touched by the violence of
these years. He was still less than 20 when Constantine’s conversion began
Christianity’s transformation into the imperial religion. Athanasius thus
embarked upon his ecclesiastical career at a crucial moment in Christian
history, and he would play an important role in shaping the development
of the Church through this period of transition.
How did Athanasius come to the clerical life? There is no evidence from
his writings to suggest that he was a convert, which may indicate that he
was born to Christian parents, but we cannot trace with any certainty his
early experiences or motives. The Latin ecclesiastical historian Rufinus
early in the fifth century told the famous story quoted above, that Atha-
nasius was seen by his predecessor Alexander of Alexandria performing
the actions of a bishop in his childhood games. Athanasius played the role
 Life and Writings 3
so well that Alexander had to confirm the baptisms that Athanasius had
performed, and then took the young prodigy into his entourage. Rufinus’
version was in turn adopted into the Greek ecclesiastical tradition, and
remains the best-known account of Athanasius’ induction into the clergy.
Another explanation is provided by the Egyptian Coptic tradition in the
History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria. According to this version, Athanasius
was raised by a pagan mother whom he drove frantic by his insistence on
a virtuous ascetic lifestyle. Finally, his mother brought him before Alex-
ander, who baptized them both and oversaw Athanasius’ education in the
Scriptures.
The twin stories share a similar purpose, to identify Athanasius as a man
marked out from his youth for greatness and to bind Athanasius closely
with his predecessor Alexander. Neither story can be proven to be false,
and at a stretch they might even be reconciled. Yet neither can be taken as
proven historical fact. Here we must face one of the recurring problems
of Athanasian scholarship. Athanasius’ posthumous reputation as a hero
of orthodoxy is testimony to his influence on later generations, but has
also obscured the man behind the icon of the saint. Less than a decade
after Athanasius’ death, Gregory of Nazianzus celebrated the Alexandrian
as a model bishop and orthodox champion in the Funeral Oration he deliv-
ered in Constantinople in May 380. The same heroic vision of Athanasius
dominates the ecclesiastical historians who composed our earliest detailed
narratives of the fourth-century Church. The Latin Ecclesiastical History of
Rufinus that we have already encountered was followed in Greek by the
Church histories of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, all of whom wrote
in the first half of the fifth century. Their representations of Athanasius
are largely uniform and unswervingly favourable, with the only contrary
view preserved in the fragments of another early fifth-century ecclesias-
tical historian, the ‘Neo-Arian’ Philostorgius. Other eastern traditions hold
Athanasius in equally high esteem, particularly the Coptic tradition in
Egypt represented by the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria. I will return
to these varied works in my final chapter. Here it will suffice to emphasize
that we should not discard the later traditions, which preserve how the
bishop was remembered and draw upon sources often unavailable to us.
For our understanding of the historical Athanasius, however, his own writ-
ings must take priority.
Rufinus and the History of the Patriarchs both assert that Alexander oversaw
Athanasius’ education. He received a thorough grounding in the Scriptures,
and his writing style is powerful and evocative, although he does not appear
to have shared the extensive training in classical literature and rhetoric of
4 Athanasius of Alexandria
some of his contemporaries.1 Despite scholarly debate, all of Athanasius’
writings were composed in Greek. It has been suggested that Athanasius
also wrote in Coptic,2 and it is entirely possible that he could speak the Cop-
tic language. But all the extant Athanasian Coptic writings, like those pre-
served in Syriac and other eastern languages, appear to be translations from
Greek originals.3 Athanasius’ works form an impressive corpus. They range
from doctrinal treatises and ascetic exhortations to polemical apologia and
both public and private epistles. Each text had its own intended purpose and
audience against which it must be understood, while the corpus as a whole
reveals the evolution of his thought across half a century of almost cease-
less activity. In the next chapter I will trace Athanasius’ ecclesiastical career
in detail. The following pages offer only a short chronological outline of the
major events of his life, placing his writings in their individual contexts.4
Whatever the truth of our stories of his childhood, Athanasius was
already a prominent figure in the Alexandrian church hierarchy when
he first emerges clearly in our historical record. The sources place great
emphasis on his relationship with Alexander (bishop 312–28), and it was
during the latter’s episcopate that Athanasius attained the rank of deacon.
He was therefore a close observer to the disagreement between Alexander
and the Alexandrian presbyter Arius, which began the doctrinal debates
today known (rather inaccurately) as the ‘Arian Controversy’. Alexander
and Arius came into conflict over how to define the divinity of the Son
and His relationship with the Father within the Trinity. The theological
implications of this conflict will again be discussed in a later chapter, but
in the aftermath of their dispute Alexander condemned Arius at a Council
of Alexandria in c.321.5 Arius withdrew from Egypt but found support in

1
For Athanasius’ knowledge of Greek literary culture, see Stead (1976). According to
the panegyrical oration of Gregory of Nazianzus (Oration XXI.6), Athanasius studied non-
Christian literature only to avoid complete ignorance.
2
Lefort (1933); Müller (1974).
3
A number of Athanasian works survive only in Coptic, Syriac, and Armenian. This
includes the Festal Letters and a variety of ascetic writings (not all of which are authentic).
I will return to these eastern traditions in my final chapter.
4
For a useful survey of older scholarship on many of the Athanasian works discussed in
the following pages, see Leemans (2000: 129–71), and also now the contributions in Gemein-
hardt (2011: 166–282). On Athanasius’ polemical writings, see also Gwynn (2007: 13–48). Edi-
tions and translations of the extant Athanasian writings are listed in the first section of the
Bibliography.
5
Here and throughout, the chronology followed for the period between Arius’ first clash
with Alexander and the Council of Nicaea is that proposed by R. D. Williams (1987: 48–61),
rather than the older model of Opitz (1934), who placed the outbreak of the controversy
in 318.
 Life and Writings 5
Palestine and Asia Minor, and the debates still simmered in September 324
when Constantine conquered the eastern half of the Roman Empire by
defeating his rival Licinius and so united the Empire under his rule.
The arrival of Constantine in the east brought Athanasius and the rest
of the Egyptian Church under the sway of a Christian emperor for the
first time. In an effort to exploit this new situation, Alexander laid down
his arguments against Arius in an Encyclical Letter circulated across the east
in late 324 or early 325. It is not inconceivable that this document in fact
represents Athanasius’ earliest extant work, for in argument, style, and
vocabulary there are notable similarities between the Encyclical Letter and
Athanasius’ later writings.6 Athanasius is described in the History of the Patri-
archs as Alexander’s ‘scribe’, ‘interpreter’, and ‘tongue’, and as Alexander’s
deacon he may have had responsibility for drafting the text. Of course, the
parallels between the Letter and Athanasius’ later works may equally reflect
the influence that his mentor inevitably exerted upon Athanasius’ language
and thought. Certainly Athanasius would seem to have established himself
as Alexander’s favoured aide and potential successor, and it was presumably
in this capacity that he accompanied Alexander to one of the most remark-
able events of Constantine’s reign: the Council of Nicaea in June–July 325.
Later Christian tradition awarded Athanasius a leading role in what
would become recognized as the first ecumenical (‘universal’) council of
the Christian Church. This pious fiction is a further reflection of Atha-
nasius’ legacy, for by the time of his death fifty years later he had gained
renown as the champion of the Nicene Creed, composed in 325, and as the
leading foe of Arius, who was condemned at the council.7 It is now well
known that Athanasius’ attitude towards the original Nicene Creed was
rather more complex than his traditional image might suggest, a theme to
which I will return in Chapter 3. In any case, in 325 Athanasius was only
a young priest, albeit a member of the entourage of one of the leading
bishops of the east. His writings make no claim to involvement in the cru-
cial debates at Nicaea, even during the 350s when he came to emphasize
the Nicene doctrines as the only true defence against the ‘Arian heresy’. We
can perhaps assume that he listened closely to the debates and discussed
the issues with his bishop Alexander. We can also guess that Athanasius,
like his contemporaries, was awestruck by the splendour and magnitude of

6
This was argued in detail by Stead (1988).
7
The claim first appears in Gregory of Nazianzus’ Oration XXI in honour of Athanasius,
composed less than a decade after Athanasius’ death (XXI.14). This is another text to which
I will return in my final chapter.
6 Athanasius of Alexandria
the largest gathering yet held in the history of the Church. However, as a
deacon, he probably did not attend the gathering of bishops in the imperial
palace to celebrate Constantine’s vicennalia, which Eusebius of Caesarea
memorably described as like ‘an imaginary representation of the kingdom
of Christ’.8
Athanasius returned home with Alexander to Alexandria, and we hear
nothing more of him for the next few years, until April 328 when Alex-
ander died. Alexander had nominated Athanasius his successor before his
death, but the latter’s election was far from smooth. The Egyptian Church
was divided both over the theological questions raised by Arius and by the
Melitian Schism, which had originated in the first decade of the fourth
century over the treatment of those who had lapsed during the Great Per-
secution. Still young and relatively inexperienced, Athanasius had to work
hard to secure his position. At the same time, the new bishop defined the
theological principles that he would teach to his flock and from which he
would never deviate. The foundations of Athanasius’ subsequent career
were laid down in his earliest episcopal writings, the great theological
double treatise Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione and the first of over forty
Easter Festal Letters.
There has been vast controversy over the date and context of the Contra
Gentes–De Incarnatione.9 The absence of any reference to ‘Arianism’ led
older scholarship to propose a date of c.318, before Arius’ conflict with
Alexander. This requires Athanasius to have composed the work when he
was little more than 20, and, while this is not inconceivable, most recent
scholarship has preferred a date in the later 320s or early 330s. There is
no reference to Arius or ‘Arianism’ in Athanasius’ Festal Letters from those
years, and his early episcopate provides a natural setting for a statement
of his convictions. Whatever the precise date, the Contra Gentes–De Incar-
natione represents the initial staging point for all analysis of Athanasius’
theology. His later doctrinal works remained grounded in the principles
he expressed in that first treatise. This must equally have been true of the
many sermons Athanasius preached that are now lost to us, and the same
values can be traced through the one major body of Athanasian pastoral
writings that does survive: his Festal Letters.10

8
Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine III.15.
9
For a survey of twentieth-century debates, see Leemans (2000: 132–5), and also now
Heil (2007).
10
For the complex problems surrounding the extant Festal Letters, their transmission, and
their numbering, see Lorenz (1986: 8–37), Camplani (1989: 17–196; 2003), and Barnes (1993:
183–91).
 Life and Writings 7
Like his predecessors in Alexandria, Athanasius wrote each year two
letters concerning the Easter celebration for circulation to all the bishops
subordinate to his see. The first short letter was despatched soon after
Easter, and announced the date of Easter for the following year. The Festal
Letter proper, a much longer work, was sent out in January or February
of the year itself to confirm that date and to transmit Athanasius’ Easter
message to his churches. With the loss of Athanasius’ sermons, the Festal
Letters are priceless for our knowledge of his pastoral work, which is other-
wise swallowed within his polemical and theological writings. They also
provide a unique opportunity to trace how Athanasius’ thought and self-
presentation evolved across his long career.
There is a need for caution. Not all Athanasius’ Festal Letters survive,
and those that do are preserved almost exclusively in Syriac and Cop-
tic rather than their original Greek. Most seriously, their chronological
order remains a subject for debate. The traditional numeration of the
Festal Letters derives from the Syriac Festal Index compiled after Athana-
sius’ death.11 The editors of the Index clearly had to assemble the letters
into order themselves, and this depended almost entirely on analysis of
their internal content. The Festal Letters contain almost no references to
specific events and they do not record the year in which they were writ-
ten. However, the day and month of the Easter in question are recorded,
and these could be compared against existing tables of Easter dates for
fourth-century Egypt.12 A letter with a unique Easter date (that is, a date
that occurred for Easter only once in Athanasius’ episcopate) could thus
be fixed with certainty. Unfortunately, many of the Easter dates recorded
in Athanasius’ Festal Letters were attributable to more than one year in his
episcopate, and it is here that the problems lie.
In particular, the letters transmitted as I, IV, V, and XIV speak of only a six-
day pre-Easter fast, whereas the other letters all refer to a forty-day Lenten
fast. At some time between 334 and 338 the Egyptian practice shifted,
and therefore Festal Letters II and III, which refer to the longer fast, must
date to 352 and 342 respectively. The fragmentary Letter XXIV (assigned
to 352) should be dated to 330, and Letter XIV (assigned to 342) to 331.

11
The Festal Index comprises a short record of major events during Athanasius’ episcopate.
It was compiled to accompany a now lost collection of his Festal Letters, but at some point the
Index became attached to the surviving Syriac corpus of the Festal Letters and so was preserved.
For the complex transmission of the Syriac corpus, see further Camplani (1989: 115–29).
12
For the calculation of Easter dates in the early Church, see Mosshammer (2008: esp.
162–89 on Athanasius’ Festal Letters and the Festal Index, which Mosshammer prefers to call
the Athanasian Index).
8 Athanasius of Alexandria
Letters I (329), IV (332), and V (333) retain their transmitted dates, but the
attribution of Letters VI and VII to 334 and 335 remains uncertain.13 I will
return to the new Lenten fast in Chapter 5, for this is a development of
some significance for understanding Athanasius’ impact upon the Egyptian
Church. But the chronological difficulties raised by the Festal Letters need to
be remembered if we are to exploit the insights that they provide.
The tensions that Athanasius faced in the opening years of his episco-
pate were not slow to come to a head. In 332, Athanasius had to write
his fourth Festal Letter from the court of Constantine, where he had
been summoned to defend himself over charges of extortion and vio-
lence against the Melitians. Similar charges recurred again in 334, and
culminated in his condemnation at the Council of Tyre in 335. Athana-
sius appealed to Constantine, but his plea was denied and he was exiled
to the west, to the city of Trier. He returned to Egypt on Constantine’s
death in late 337, but fled again in 339 and came to Rome, while a rival
named Gregory occupied his see. Athanasius was defended by a council
called by Bishop Julius of Rome in 340, condemned by the Dedication
Council of Antioch in 341, defended by the Western Council of Serdica in
343, condemned by the Eastern bishops of the same council,14 and finally
returned to Alexandria in 346.
Our major source for the dramatic events surrounding Athanasius’
two periods of western exile is provided by the text known as the Apo-
logia contra Arianos.15 This work comprises an assemblage of documents
covering the period 328–47, connected by an Athanasian narrative. The
documents appear to have been assembled in a series of stages across the
330s and 340s, with the final touches to the narrative probably added in
the late 350s. Nevertheless, the purpose of the collection remained consist-
ent throughout: to defend Athanasius against the charges on which he was
first condemned in 335. The documents preserved are selective, and their
interpretation in the accompanying narrative is at times forced, but Atha-
nasius’ protestations of innocence and his self-presentation as the victim of
an ‘Arian’ conspiracy proved highly compelling. His influence on contem-
porary opinion is already reflected within the Apologia contra Arianos itself,

13
For a list of currently accepted dates, and those still under debate, see Barnes (1993:
188–9) and Camplani (2003: 613–20).
14
The Encyclical Letter of the Eastern bishops in 343, preserved in Latin by Hilary of Poit-
iers (Against Valens and Ursacius I.II.1–29), is one of our very few pieces of evidence expressing
the hostility felt towards Athanasius by a number of his eastern contemporaries.
15
For the complex evolution of the text, see further Barnes (1993: 192–5) and Gwynn
(2007: 16–19).
 Life and Writings 9
where his defence is taken up by the encyclical letter of the Council of
Alexandria in 338 (quoted in Apologia contra Arianos 3–19), Julius of Rome’s
Letter to the Eastern Bishops in c.340/1 (20–35), and the letters circulated by
the Western Council of Serdica in 343 (36–50). Later ecclesiastical tradi-
tions in east and west followed their lead, and Athanasius’ suffering for
the cause of orthodoxy became a symbol and a source of inspiration for
subsequent generations.
During his second exile (339–46), as the Apologia contra Arianos gradually
took shape, Athanasius also composed a number of other influential writ-
ings. His earliest complete polemical work was the Epistula Encyclica (also
known as the Epistula ad Episcopos). This brief letter was written shortly
after the arrival of his replacement Gregory as bishop of Alexandria in
March 339 and Athanasius’ flight from the city a few weeks later. Atha-
nasius insisted to all who might read the letter in east or west that he was
still the true and legitimate bishop against this ‘Arian’ imposter. Indeed, the
Epistula Encyclica is the first work in which Athanasius explicitly depicts his
opponents as an ‘Arian party’. This party, which he named the ‘Eusebians’
(hoi peri Eusebion) after their alleged leader Eusebius of Nicomedia, fea-
tures prominently throughout Athanasius’ anti-‘Arian’ writings and plays
a central role in his perception of himself as the innocent orthodox victim
of a heretical conspiracy.
Athanasius’ polarized division of the fourth-century Church into ortho-
dox and heretical factions is highly subjective and serves an obvious purpose
in defending his status as Alexandrian bishop in exile. It would be a serious
error, however, to dismiss Athanasius’ condemnation of his foes as ‘Arian’
as merely a device of polemical rhetoric. The theological issues at stake
were real and fundamental, and Athanasius was not alone in the late 330s
and early 340s in expressing renewed interest in Arius and the heretical
teachings associated with him. Arius had died in Constantinople in 336,
and it was most probably in the period 339–46 that Athanasius wrote one
of his best-known letters, the Letter to Serapion on the Death of Arius, usually
known as the De Morte Arii.16 Concerned by debates in Egypt over whether
Arius had died in communion, Athanasius prepared an account of Arius’
death for his friend and colleague Serapion, the bishop of Thmuis in the
Nile Delta.17 Modern historians have questioned some elements of the

16
For the chronology adopted here, rather than the older argument, which placed the
De Morte Arii in 358, see Kannengiesser (1982: 992–4). Kannengiesser also proposed to date
Athanasius’ first Letter to the Monks or Ad Monachos to the same approximate time.
17
For what is known of the life and writings of Serapion, who figures prominently in
Athanasius’ story, see Fitschen (1992).
10 Athanasius of Alexandria
story Athanasius tells, but his vision of Arius dying on a Constantinopoli-
tan latrine is one of the most famous images in Christian heresiology.
Arius’ death had not resolved the doctrinal debates that his teachings
had in part caused. Athanasius’ greatest composition during his second
exile in the west underlined the scale and significance of those debates and
provided a powerful statement of the threat that he believed the ‘Arian
heresy’ posed to the Church. Taken together, the three Orationes contra
Arianos form Athanasius’ most extensive work of theology and polemic.18
Their date and context are difficult to determine, not least because the
Orationes as they stand may not have been composed as a uniform whole.
But, whereas older scholarship favoured an approximate date of 356–60,
modern analysis has placed the main stage of composition in the period
339–46.19 In the Orationes Athanasius for the first time defined in detail
the doctrines that he attributed to those he named as ‘Arian’. At one level
the Orationes are therefore the theological expression of the polemical
argument presented in the Epistula Encyclica and the Apologia contra Aria-
nos. Yet Athanasius goes far beyond the needs of that polemic, and his
interpretation of the ‘Arian Controversy’ exerted a profound influence
on later generations.
The Orationes are an invaluable but difficult source for the doctrinal
questions troubling the Church in the decades following the Council of
Nicaea. The first Oratio opens with Athanasius’ denunciation of the errors
of Arius, including a much debated précis of the latter’s now fragmentary
Thalia. Two other ‘Arians’ are also identified by name, the bishop Euse-
bius of Nicomedia and his friend Asterius ‘the Sophist’. Athanasius insists
that these three men share one and the same heresy, as do all those con-
demned as ‘Arian’. The main body of the Orationes then focuses upon bib-
lical exegesis. Scriptural passages that have been misused by the ‘Arians’ are
interpreted correctly, from Athanasius’ viewpoint, most notably the con-
troversial verse Proverbs 8:22. Across all three Orationes Athanasius con-
tinually contrasts the heretical views of his opponents to the traditional
orthodoxy of the Church that he represents, with a particular emphasis
upon the full divinity of the Son as the essential guarantee for human salva-
tion through Christ.

18
The so-called fourth Oratio contra Arianos, which differs notably in argument and vocabu-
lary from the other three, is not by Athanasius but may have been written by an unknown
author at approximately the same time in c.340/1 (see Vinzent 1996). Kannengiesser (1982:
994–5; 1993a) also challenged the authenticity of the third Oratio, which he attributed to Apol-
linaris of Laodicea, but this argument has been widely rejected.
19
For the evidence, see Kannengiesser (1982, 1983).
 Life and Writings 11
Throughout his years in exile Athanasius retained great support in Alex-
andria and Egypt, and his ecclesiastical and theological arguments won
over many in both east and west. Gregory his rival died in 345, and Atha-
nasius finally returned triumphantly to his city in 346, beginning a decade
of relative peace. His Festal Letters from these years reflect his efforts to
restore stability to the Egyptian Church under his leadership, efforts whose
success was due in no small part to Athanasius’ close relationship with the
expanding monastic movement. He had always shown a keen interest in
asceticism, and he had great respect for the ascetic lifestyle. The chron-
ology and authenticity of the ascetic writings that have come down to us
under Athanasius’ name pose certain problems, but his genuine works
include at least three works on virginity and a number of letters.20 Athana-
sius particularly sought to promote ascetic values across the wider Church.
An ideal means by which to achieve this end, and simultaneously to rein-
force his position within Egypt, was the appointment of monks to vacant
bishoprics. Monks were frequently reluctant to take clerical office, and in
354 Athanasius wrote his Letter to Dracontius to one such monk, in which
he underlines his admiration for asceticism and the importance of ascetic
values to his conception of the episcopate.
The ‘Golden Decade’ of 346–56 also witnessed a crucial shift in Atha-
nasius’ approach to the doctrinal controversies of the time. By the mid-
fourth century Athanasius’ fundamental theological principles were well
established. So too was his construction of the ‘Arian heresy’ that he attrib-
uted to his foes. Yet something was missing. In the light of his later repu-
tation as the great champion of Nicene orthodoxy, it may seem a surprise
that the Council of Nicaea and its creed feature barely at all in Athanasius’
extensive writings from the 330s and 340s. Only in the early 350s did this
change, with the letter or treatise known as the De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi.
The original date and context of the De Decretis remain controversial, and
the addressee who had requested from Athanasius an account of Nicaea
cannot be conclusively identified.21 But the work was almost certainly com-
posed in the period 350–5, and in these years Athanasius came to a new
understanding of the significance of the great council he had attended as a

20
Athanasius’ first Letter to Virgins, which survived only in Coptic, was probably written
337–9 between his first and second exiles. His second Letter to Virgins survived in Syriac and
was written after 346, while no firm date can be assigned to his work known as On Virginity,
which was transmitted in both Syriac and Armenian versions. For a survey of these and other
Athanasian and Pseudo-Athanasian ascetic writings, see Brakke (1994a).
21
Athanasius, De Decretis 1. For the argument that the addressee in question was Liberius
of Rome in 352, see Barnes (1993: 198–9).
12 Athanasius of Alexandria
young deacon in 325. For the first time in his extant writings, Athanasius in
the De Decretis upholds the authority of the Council of Nicaea and repre-
sents the Nicene Creed as the sole bastion of orthodoxy against the ‘Arian
heresy’.
We should not exaggerate the impact of this shift upon Athanasius’
own theology. His interpretation of the Nicene Creed in the De Decretis
remained true to the principles he had laid down long before in the Contra
Gentes–De Incarnatione. For the wider Church, however, Athanasius’ exalt-
ation of Nicaea had lasting implications. In the De Decretis Athanasius
insisted that the Nicene Creed represented the traditional faith of Christi-
anity. He further elaborated this argument in the De Sententia Dionysii, writ-
ten shortly after the De Decretis and possibly to the same recipient, in which
he defended the teachings of his predecessor Dionysius of Alexandria
(bishop 247–64) as compatible with later orthodoxy.22 Athanasius would
not waver from these convictions, and by the end of the fourth century
Nicaea was firmly established as the first ecumenical council and Athana-
sius as the champion of that council and its creed.
Athanasius’ decade of peace after his return in 346 was not without
ongoing tensions. Opposition in Egypt and the wider eastern Church still
remained, and Athanasius’ relationship with emperor Constantius II can
only be described as strained. When Constantine died in 337, the Empire
had been divided among his three sons: Constantine II (337–40), Constans
(337–50), and Constantius II (337–61). Constantius took over the eastern
provinces, while after the death of Constantine II in 340 Constans ruled
in the west. Constans had supported Athanasius during the latter’s west-
ern exile and helped influence his brother to allow Athanasius’ return. But
Constans was murdered in 350 after a coup by the usurper Magnentius,
and by finally defeating the usurper in 353 Constantius consolidated the
Empire under his rule. At this difficult time for the emperor, the contro-
versial figure of Athanasius threatened the unity that Constantius wished
to impose on Church and State. On the night of 8/9 February 356, a force
of soldiers broke into the Church of Theonas in which the bishop was
presiding over a vigil. Athanasius fled, and so began his third exile. Even
after his replacement George entered Alexandria in February 357, how-
ever, Athanasius refused to depart from Egypt once more. Throughout
the years 356–62 he survived in hiding in Alexandria and in the Egyptian

22
Abramowski (1982), followed by Heil (1999: 22–71, 210–31), has argued inconclusively
that the material attributed to Dionysius of Alexandria and his contemporary Dionysius of
Rome in the De Sententia Dionysii derives from fourth-century forgeries.
 Life and Writings 13
desert, and during those years he wrote and circulated an impressive array
of extremely influential writings.
The Encyclical Letter to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya was addressed to all
the churches under Alexandrian leadership and written between Athana-
sius’ expulsion in February 356 and George’s arrival in February 357. The
first major work of Athanasius’ third exile, the letter defended his status
as the true bishop of Alexandria and condemned the ‘Arian’ George. After
summarizing his theological refutation of ‘Arianism’ from the Orationes
contra Arianos, Athanasius then repeated in a slightly modified form his
earlier account of the death of Arius. He thereby associated his contempo-
rary opponents in the 350s with the earlier ‘Arians’ of the 330s and 340s. In
361 he further revised the Encyclical Letter to add a renewed denunciation of
the Melitian schismatics for allying again with the heretics.
Three further Athanasian works all completed during 357 took up and
expanded on the arguments of the Encyclical Letter. The first of these, the
Apologia ad Constantium, was Athanasius’ defence against charges of treason
addressed to the emperor Constantius, and was begun before Athanasius’
expulsion in February 356.23 The bulk of the work was probably prepared
in 353 or 354 when the pressure upon Athanasius was starting to build, and
may indeed have been presented to the emperor in person. After his pleas
for imperial favour had failed, Athanasius extended the Apologia ad Constan-
tium in early 357 to protest his innocence and denounce the persecution of
his followers that followed his flight and the subsequent arrival of George.
These themes were further developed in the Apologia de Fuga, Athanasius’
justification of why he had fled his see rather than face martyrdom, which
was written in the second half of 357. The wide circulation of this work
reflects Athanasius’ concern to defend himself against accusations of cow-
ardice and against those who believed that his flight had compromised his
authority as bishop of Alexandria.24
The third and greatest of Athanasius’ polemical writings of 357 is the
Historia Arianorum, completed in the closing months of that year. The most
violent polemical text that Athanasius ever wrote, the Historia Arianorum
offers a highly selective account of the period from 335 to 357. Here as
elsewhere in the works composed during his third exile, Athanasius pre-
sented the events of the 350s as a direct continuation of the conflicts of the

23
For three different interpretations of the complex evolution of the text, see J.-M. Szymu-
siak (1987: 30, 55, 59–63), Barnes (1993: 196–7), and Brennecke (2006).
24
Passages from the Apologia de Fuga were quoted by both Socrates (II.28, III.8) and Theo-
doret (II.15), and, according to the former (III.8), Athanasius read the work publicly at the
Council of Alexandria over which he presided in 362.
14 Athanasius of Alexandria
330s and early 340s. He thus constructed the vision of a single overarching
‘Arian Controversy’, which would exert a huge influence upon later inter-
pretations of the fourth-century Church. The Historia Arianorum is also
well known for Athanasius’ denunciation of Constantius, to whom he had
appealed in the earlier Apologia ad Constantium. By the end of 357 any hope
of an alliance with the emperor had faded, and Constantius was now an
‘Arian’ and the forerunner of Antichrist.
In the light of Athanasius’ remarkable polemical output during 357, it is
all too easy for the modern historian to focus exclusively on ecclesiastical
politics and violence. Athanasius never lost sight of the deeper issues at
stake. One of his most important compositions of this period, once again
written in approximately 357–8, was the collection of Letters to Serapion on
the Holy Spirit. Serapion of Thmuis had informed Athanasius that some
Christian groups who accepted the full divinity of the Son denied that
status to the Spirit. Athanasius’ defence of the Holy Spirit marked a major
step on the path from the Council of Nicaea, where the Spirit had been
largely ignored, to the Council of Constantinople in 381, which upheld the
divine equality of the Christian Trinity. The Letters to Serapion influenced
Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus, the Cappadocian Fathers who
played a central role in defining the doctrines adopted in 381, and dem-
onstrated the evolution of Athanasius’ theology as the questions under
debate shifted in the middle years of the fourth century.
The other major theological work of Athanasius’ third exile is the De
Synodis Arimini et Seleuciae. If the Historia Arianorum represents Athanasius’
definitive polemical interpretation of the fourth-century controversies,
then the De Synodis represents the culmination of his doctrinal argument.
In 359 Constantius summoned the dual councils of Ariminum (west) and
Seleucia (east) to agree upon a single creed for the universal Church. Atha-
nasius in response composed the De Synodis, written immediately after the
eastern Council of Seleucia had broken up on 1 October 359, with further
material added after Constantius’ death in 361. He upheld again the Nicene
Creed as the only symbol of orthodoxy, and contrasted that creed to the
ever-changing arguments and councils of the ‘Arians’, which he quotes.
The material that Athanasius preserves is an invaluable if selective source
for his opponents’ teachings, which are otherwise lost.25 And by present-
ing the creeds proposed at Ariminum and Seleucia as the latest in a long
succession of ‘Arian’ doctrines that began with Arius himself, he once more

25
For a survey of what little is known of Athanasius’ leading ‘Arian’ opponents and their
writings, see Gwynn (2007: 116–24).
 Life and Writings 15
imposed his interpretation of the fourth-century debates as a single mono-
lithic ‘Arian Controversy’.
Yet the De Synodis is more than a recapitulation of Athanasius’ earlier
theological polemic. As in the Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit, Atha-
nasius in the De Synodis showed that he was prepared to engage with the
new doctrinal questions now troubling the Church. For the first time he
qualified his polarized vision of the ‘Arian Controversy’ and acknowledged
that not all those who questioned the authority of Nicaea must by defin-
ition be ‘Arian’. The majority of the eastern bishops at the Council of
Seleucia in 359 distrusted the Nicene Creed, which described Father and
Son as homoousios (‘of one essence’). They preferred to describe the Son
as homoiousios (‘of like essence’) or homoios kat’ ousian (‘like in essence’) to
the Father. Athanasius insisted upon the superiority of the Nicene Creed
to these later formulations. But he was prepared to admit that those who
expressed such language could be accepted as true Christians. It was an
important step towards eventual resolution.
There is one final work that must be discussed in our catalogue of the
great writings of Athanasius’ third exile. The Life of Antony has been the sub-
ject of vast debate concerning its authorship, its date, and its original lan-
guage of composition.26 Athanasius had known Antony, the great Egyptian
hermit who was a crucial figure in the rise of the ascetic movement.
Whether the traditional attribution of Antony’s Life to Athanasius is correct
cannot be definitively proven, but in style and content the work parallels
closely his known writings and in the absence of conclusive evidence to
the contrary his authorship should be accepted. Athanasius spent much of
the period 356–62 in the company of the desert ascetics, and it was during
those years that the Life of Antony was written. The experiences he shared
with the ascetics further reinforced Athanasius’ bond with this dynamic
force within Egyptian Christianity, and none of his writings was to exert
greater influence on later generations.
After Athanasius had been forced to flee in February 356, there was a
year’s delay until the Cappadocian George entered Alexandria to occupy the
see in February 357. The new arrival was never secure and faced constant
hostility from those who held Athanasius as their legitimate bishop. After
almost being lynched in August 358, George increasingly withdrew from
Alexandria, while the death of Constantius in 361 then deprived George

26
The strongest challenge to Athanasius’ authorship of the Life has come from Draguet
(1980) and Barnes (1986), whose arguments are opposed by Brakke (1994c). For further bibli-
ography on these debates, see Leemans (2000: 153–9).
16 Athanasius of Alexandria
of even imperial support. Following the accession of the pagan Julian ‘the
Apostate’ (361–3), George finally met his fate at the hands of an Alexandrian
mob. Freed from his rival, and under the protection of Julian’s amnesty to
all Christian exiles, Athanasius was restored to his city in February 362.
Athanasius’ restoration was short lived, for in October 362 he received
the rare accolade of being one of the few bishops to be forced into exile by
the last pagan emperor. During his short return to Alexandria, Athanasius
presided over a council, from which two documents survive: the fragmen-
tary encyclical letter (the Epistula Catholica)27 and a letter sent to Antioch in
an effort to resolve the schism dividing the Christians of that city. Although
this Tomus ad Antiochenos failed to achieve Antiochene unity, the theology of
the letter marks a further evolution in Athanasius’ approach to Trinitarian
doctrines. His intervention in the affairs of Antioch, unsuccessful though
it was, also bears witness to the international standing that Athanasius had
attained in the Church by the later years of his episcopate.
The death of Julian in Persia in 363 permitted Athanasius to return from
his short fourth exile. The reign of Jovian (363–4) briefly raised the possi-
bility of an orthodox emperor, to whom Athanasius wrote (Letter LVI) to
encourage imperial support for the followers of Nicaea. But Jovian died
in 364, and under his eastern successor Valens (364–78) Athanasius faced
his final period of imperial persecution in 365–6. By this stage, however,
Athanasius’ status both inside and outside Egypt was firmly established.
The Cappadocian Basil of Caesarea admired him even when their pur-
poses came into conflict, as Basil’s letters regarding the schism in Antioch
confirm. Athanasius’ own letters travelled across the Mediterranean, from
Asia Minor and Greece to Italy and North Africa. He had become an elder
statesman, whose advice was sought and whose authority was respected
throughout the Church.
In the closing years of his life Athanasius continued to enhance his repu-
tation. He still wrote his Festal Letters to the churches of Egypt and Libya,
and indeed perhaps the most famous of those letters dates to 367. Festal
Letter XXXIX lays down the approved scriptural writings to be read by Atha-
nasius’ congregations, and so preserves the earliest extant list of biblical
books to correspond with our New Testament. In the same year, Athana-
sius composed his last major polemical work, the Epistula ad Afros.28 Sent,

27
For the identification of this text, see Tetz (1988).
28
The Athanasian authorship of the Epistula ad Afros has been questioned by Kannen-
giesser (1993b) and myself (Gwynn 2007: 15 n.12). Its authenticity has been defended by
Stockhausen (2002) and is accepted here, as in most scholarship.
 Life and Writings 17
as the title suggests, to the churches of North Africa, Athanasius draws on
the earlier De Decretis and De Synodis to restate his polemical construction
of the ‘Arian Controversy’ to a new audience. To these letters we should
perhaps also add the text now known as the Historia acephala.29 This
anonymous work survived in a Latin translation in Verona and has passed
through a number of revisions, but the original was probably composed in
Alexandria and possibly for the fortieth anniversary of Athanasius’ election
in 368. What is preserved provides an abbreviated survey of Athanasius’
career from 346 until his death with a particular emphasis upon the perse-
cutions he experienced. In addition to its value as a chronological source,
the Historia acephala may in part reflect how Athanasius himself wished to
be remembered.
By the fortieth anniversary of his accession to the Alexandrian see, Atha-
nasius was in his 70s. But, even in his final years, his thought continued to
evolve. Two of Athanasius’ most influential private letters were composed
at the very end of his life, the Letter to Adelphius of Onuphis in c.370 and the
Letter to Epictetus of Corinth in c.372. Both letters were written in response
to requests for advice on issues concerning the Incarnation. The Letter to
Epictetus in particular addressed the relationship of the humanity and the
divinity of Christ, a question that would underlie the great fifth-century
controversies in which Athanasius would be recognized by all as a cham-
pion and symbol of the orthodox faith of the Church. His place in Christian
tradition was already secure well before his death in May 373.

29
Edited with a detailed introduction by Martin (1985).
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 2
Bishop

Like Athena springing fully grown from the head of Zeus, Athanasius of
Alexandria emerges from the pages of history first and foremost as a bishop.
We know almost nothing about him before his election in 328 to an office
that he would occupy for over half his lifetime. In the course of his lengthy
episcopate Athanasius redefined the bishop’s role in Alexandria and Egypt,
laying the foundations upon which his successors would build. He endured
persecution and exile, some of which it might be argued he brought upon
himself, and still preserved and indeed enhanced his authority and that
of his see. Athanasius’ long and complex ecclesiastical career provides
the essential background against which we must set his theology and his
ascetic and pastoral teachings.1
The late-antique bishop had many parts to play.2 Within his church,
he was a preacher and teacher, responsible for the doctrinal and pastoral
guidance of his congregation. He led the celebration of the liturgy, and
oversaw the distribution of bread to those in need. As a prominent social
leader within his city, particularly following the conversion of Constantine,
the bishop was also a central figure in civic administration and an import-
ant source of wealth and patronage. He represented the local community
in Church gatherings, before imperial officials, and in the presence of the
emperor. In this chapter the focus falls primarily upon Athanasius’ involve-
ment in the ecclesiastical politics of his age. It is a story of councils and epis-
copal rivalries, monastic alliances, and ever-shifting relations between the
Alexandrian bishop and the imperial power. The story may be complicated,
but it is important both for the history of the fourth-century Church and as
the setting that shaped Athanasius’ life and thought. In subsequent chapters

1
More detailed outlines of Athanasius’ career can be found in (among others) Tetz (1979a),
Barnes (1993), Martin (1996), and the numerous contributions in Gemeinhardt (2011). On
Egypt in Late Antiquity, see Bagnall (1993) and the articles collected in Krause (1998) and
Bagnall (2007).
2
For further general reading on the changing status and functions of the bishop in Late
Antiquity, see Chadwick (1980), Liebeschuetz (1997), Drake (2000), Rapp (2005), and Lizzi
Testa (2009).
20 Athanasius of Alexandria
we will explore how Athanasius fulfilled the wider roles expected of a
bishop, as guardian of orthodoxy, ascetic champion, and spiritual father.
Athanasius entered the episcopate at a seminal moment in the history
of the Christian Church and the Roman Empire. Sixteen years earlier the
emperor Constantine had embraced Christianity after the Battle of Milvian
Bridge outside Rome in October 312. The privileges and resources that he
then poured into the western Church were extended to the east after Con-
stantine’s defeat of Licinius in 324 united the Empire under his rule. When
Constantine summoned the great Council of Nicaea in 325, he affirmed the
new status of Christianity and of the bishops as the representatives of their
regions. As a newly appointed bishop in one of the Empire’s leading cities,
Athanasius had a unique opportunity to influence the transformation that
Constantine’s conversion had begun. But his election also came at a time of
great tensions within Egyptian Christianity and the wider Church. Before
we can focus upon Athanasius, we need to begin by sketching the context
in which the young bishop found himself when he took over the leadership
of the ancient and powerful see of Alexandria.

THE EPISCOPATE OF ALEXANDRIA BEFORE ATHANASIUS

Christianity reached Egypt very early, yet the origins and initial development
of the new religion in this corner of the Mediterranean world remain
largely unknown. There was unquestionably considerable diversity in the
forms that early Egyptian Christianity took. Much of our evidence for what
is known as Christian ‘Gnosticism’ derives from Egypt, most notably the
collection of manuscripts discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945. The older
argument that Gnosticism was the dominant force within early Christian-
ity in Egypt has been widely rejected, however, in favour of a more fluid
model in which a variety of forms of Christianity coexisted for at least the
first two centuries ad.3
The status of the Alexandrian Church and its leadership within
Egyptian Christianity during these early centuries was equally fluid.
Later tradition would trace an unbroken line of patriarchs back to Mark
the Evangelist, the founder of the Church of Alexandria who was sub-
sequently martyred by the pagans of the city. The historical accuracy of

3
On early Egyptian Christianity, see Roberts (1979), Griggs (1990), and the articles in Pearson
and Goehring (1986). On the early bishops of Alexandria and their authority in the Egyptian
Church, see Martin (1996: 17–214), Jakab (2001), Davis (2004), and Wipszycka (2007).
 Bishop 21
4
that tradition is very difficult to determine. We cannot assume that the
earliest Christian community in Alexandria followed a single recognized
bishop, for the monarchical episcopate became established as the most
common form of Christian leadership only during the second and third
centuries. The first men in the Alexandrian line of succession are nothing
more than names to us. This starts to change only with Demetrius,
whose episcopate is conventionally dated to 189–231. It may have been
under Demetrius’ guidance that the succession list of bishops from Mark
was originally composed. Certainly it was in these years on either side of
ad 200 that Alexandrian claims to authority within Egyptian Christianity
began to become a reality.
Demetrius held the see of Alexandria at a crucial time. In addition to
the Gnostics who continued to flourish in this period, his contemporaries
included the two great intellectuals of early Egyptian Christianity: Clem-
ent (c.160–215) and Origen (c.185–253). To maintain control over the def-
inition of doctrinal orthodoxy and the instruction of new candidates for
baptism, the bishop had to establish himself as the undisputed head of
the Alexandrian Church. Demetrius’ conflict with Origen, which eventu-
ally led to the latter’s departure to Palestine, reflects these tensions but
also their resolution. The catechetical school of Alexandria that Origen
had made famous now came under clear episcopal direction. Demetrius’
third-century successors Heraclas (231–47), Dionysius (247–64), Maximus
(264–82), and Theonas (282–300) all served as heads of the school before
they entered the episcopate.5
From Demetrius onwards the bishops of Alexandria thus imposed
themselves as the highest theological voice within their Church. Theirs
was not the only voice, as the clash between Alexander and his presbyter
Arius would demonstrate, but after Origen’s passing there were no serious
internal conflicts for the rest of the third century. This unity was vital as
imperial persecution fell upon Christianity under the emperors Decius in
250 and then Valerian in 257. The leadership provided by Dionysius, whose
episcopate spanned both outbreaks of persecution, was essential in holding
the Alexandrian Church together through these trials. Dionysius did have to
explain his failure to accept martyrdom, a criticism that Athanasius would
later face in his turn. Through his endurance he further strengthened the

4
The evidence is discussed in Davis (2004: 1–14).
5
The status of the catechetical school during the fourth century is uncertain. It was once
believed that Athanasius appointed the renowned biblical scholar Didymus the Blind to head
the school during his episcopate, but the evidence for this (Rufinus, XI.7) is dubious: see
Layton (2004: 15–18).
22 Athanasius of Alexandria
growing authority of his see, and set a precedent for future bishops of
Alexandria, including Athanasius, to follow.
It is during the third century that we also find the Alexandrian epis-
copate exerting increasing influence over the wider body of Egyptian
Christianity. This was aided by the geography and history of Egypt itself,
which favoured centralization to a greater extent than in other regions of
the eastern Mediterranean. Ever since her foundation by Alexander the
Great, Alexandria had been the centre of Egyptian government under
both Ptolemaic and Roman rule. Within her sphere of influence the
metropolis on the Nile Delta was by far the largest urban centre, unlike
her occasional rival Antioch in Syria, whose bishops never achieved the
same local power over the surrounding cities. Perhaps in part for these
reasons, we find little opposition in our sources to Alexandrian claims
to leadership. The Festal Letters announcing the date of Easter for the
Egyptian Church, the circulation of which by the bishop of Alexandria
was symbolic of that leadership, are first attested with certainty once
again under Dionysius.6 The same bishop was engaged in extensive
correspondence with Fabius of Antioch and Dionysius of Rome, taking
his place alongside those men among the chief representatives of the
universal Christian faith.
By the dawn of the fourth century the Alexandrian see’s claims
to authority were firmly established. The title papas (pope), used for
a bishop of Alexandria some fifty years before its first attestation in
Rome,7 accurately reflects the prestige the office held. We see this con-
firmed in 325 by the sixth canon of the Council of Nicaea: ‘Let the
ancient customs hold good which are in Egypt and Libya and Penta-
polis, according to which the Bishop of Alexandria has authority over
all these places.’8
Such was the legacy that Athanasius inherited in 328. Yet it is not so easy
to determine how far Alexandrian leadership over Egyptian Christianity
actually extended in reality before Athanasius’ election. Much of our evi-
dence derives from later texts such as the History of the Patriarchs, which
assume that the earlier bishops of Alexandria already held the powers they
would possess in the time of Athanasius’ great successors Theophilus and

6
Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia Ecclesiastica VII.20; see Camplani (2003: 25–7).
7
Dionysius refers to his predecessor Heraclas as ‘our blessed pope’ in a letter quoted by
Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia Ecclesiastica VII.7.4. The earliest known Roman use of the term
is in a catacomb inscription of c.300.
8
On the context to this canon, see still Chadwick (1960).
 Bishop 23
9
Cyril. Alexandrian authority did grow markedly in the third century, but
that authority was still contested when Athanasius took office. The chal-
lenges that he faced are encapsulated by two men who had come to prom-
inence under his predecessors and whose conflict with the Alexandrian see
would cast a long shadow over Athanasius’ episcopate: Melitius of Lycopo-
lis and Arius.
The Melitian Schism that divided the fourth-century Egyptian Church
originated during the Great Persecution and parallels in many respects the
better-known Donatist Schism in North Africa.10 Melitius of Lycopolis was
a bishop and confessor from Upper Egypt who was imprisoned in 305/6
together with Peter of Alexandria (bishop 300–11).11 The relatively mild
terms that Peter set for the readmission of Christians who lapsed under
the persecution were rejected by Melitius, who began to ordain others who
shared his more rigorous attitude. After his return from the mines in 311
and Peter’s death later the same year, Melitius organized his followers into
a parallel ‘Church of the Martyrs’.
So significant was the following that Melitius attracted that his schism
received close attention at Nicaea in 325. The council ruled that Melitius
and his clergy should retain their positions, although inferior in status to the
equivalent clergy of the majority Egyptian Church, which now followed
Athanasius’ mentor Alexander. Properly elected Melitian bishops could
even succeed catholic bishops when the contested sees became vacant.
This attempted reconciliation failed after Alexander’s death, and Athanasius
clashed repeatedly with the Melitians right down to the 360s. The Breviar-
ium Melitii, the list of Melitian clergy that Melitius submitted to Alexander,
records a Melitian presence all along the Nile Valley.12 Melitius’ rigorist
teachings particularly appealed to those who held ascetic values, and much
of our knowledge of the movement derives from papyri preserved from
Melitian monastic communities. The speed and scale with which Melitius’
message spread highlighted two of the major difficulties that Athanasius
would face: the need to unite Alexandria more closely with the rest of
Egypt and the potential dangers related to the rise of asceticism.

9
This is also the difficulty raised by the History of the Episcopate of Alexandria recently iden-
tified by Camplani from a new Ethiopian manuscript. Camplani (2006) has proposed that this
text may have been compiled in the late fourth century, shortly after the death of Athanasius,
and may therefore reflect his construction of Alexandrian authority.
10
On the origins and nature of the Melitian Schism, see Bell (1924: 38–99), Barnard (1973),
Martin (1974; 1996: 219–389), and Hauben (1998).
11
For the life and legend of Peter, see Vivian (1988).
12
Preserved in Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos 71.
24 Athanasius of Alexandria
Entire volumes have been written on the career and teachings of Meli-
tius’ contemporary Arius.13 Doomed to be remembered as the greatest
heresiarch of the fourth century, Arius was a pious and ascetically minded
cleric who first emerges clearly in our sources in the later 310s as the pres-
byter of the Alexandrian parish church of ‘Baucalis’.14 The location of Bau-
calis cannot be identified with certainty, but as the presbyter of his own
church Arius possessed considerable status and developed a strong follow-
ing. His controversial doctrines will be discussed in the next chapter, but in
some respects Arius was another representative of the intellectual tradition
of Alexandrian theology that went back to Clement and Origen. Inten-
tionally or not, Arius challenged episcopal authority over doctrine, and his
local power base gave him an initial platform and made him difficult for his
bishop Alexander to control.
Alexander’s response to the threat posed by Arius sheds valuable light
on the resources available to an early fourth-century Alexandrian bishop.
After his initial rebuke of Arius failed to quell the presbyter, Alexander
summoned a Council of Alexandria in c.321. The assembled clergy sup-
ported their leader, and Arius withdrew into exile. Sadly for Alexander,
Arius received support in Palestine and Asia Minor. Alexander reacted by
rallying his own allies outside Egypt. In c.322 he wrote to his namesake
Alexander of Byzantium/Thessalonica denouncing Arius’ heresy.15 Dur-
ing the same period Arius gained the notable patronage of Eusebius of
Nicomedia, bishop of the eastern imperial capital, and tensions continued
to mount. After Constantine’s defeat of Licinius in September 324 had
brought the whole Roman Empire under a Christian emperor, Alexander
(possibly aided by his scribe Athanasius) spelt out his arguments in detail
in an Encyclical Letter intended for the entire eastern Church. Many of the
polemical themes of this letter would recur in Athanasius’ later writings,
including the construction of the ‘Arian heresy’ and the attack on Eusebius
of Nicomedia as the heresy’s leader. Alexander thus prepared the ground
for the condemnation of Arius at Nicaea.
When Athanasius inherited the Alexandrian see from Alexander in
328, he immediately became a figure of the highest importance in the

13
The standard work is R. D. Williams (1987). Later tradition tried to link Arius and
Melitius together, although the evidence is very dubious: see R. D. Williams (1986).
14
Epiphanius, Panarion 69.1.2. See further Haas (1997: 269–71).
15
This letter is quoted in Theodoret, I.4, who identifies the recipient as Alexander of
Byzantium (I.3). It is more likely that the letter went to yet another Alexander, the bishop of
Thessalonica, who would subsequently write in support of Athanasius before the latter’s first
exile (his letter is quoted in Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos 66).
 Bishop 25
eyes of the Church. Ecclesiastically and theologically, Alexandria already
stood in the forefront of Christianity, and Athanasius accepted the burden
of continuing that tradition. But Athanasius also inherited the ongoing
problems that neither Alexander nor Nicaea had been able to resolve.
The rival Melitian hierarchy threatened his authority particularly outside
Alexandria. Arius still had supporters, both within Egypt and beyond. Two
Libyans at Nicaea had chosen to share Arius’ exile rather than sign his con-
demnation, and Eusebius of Nicomedia and other easterners sympathetic
to Arius were prepared to exert pressure on his behalf. These and other
challenges awaited the new bishop as Athanasius embarked on the long
career that would shape the fortunes of Alexandria and Christianity for
centuries to come.

THE EARLY YEARS: FROM ELECTION TO EXILE (328–35)

According to the introduction to the Festal Index, Alexander died on 17 April

328. On 8 June Athanasius was elected in his place. The two-month inter-
regnum hints that all was not well. There seems no reason to doubt that
Athanasius was Alexander’s preferred heir, and yet his succession was far
from smooth. Unfortunately, the exact circumstances are lost behind the
veil of later apologetic and polemic.16 In the Encyclical Letter of the Council
of Alexandria that Athanasius summoned in 338, any suggestion that his
election had been disputed is brushed aside as the slander of his accusers:
They say that ‘after the death of Bishop Alexander, a certain few having men-
tioned the name of Athanasius, six or seven bishops elected him clandestinely in
a secret place’. This is what they wrote to the Emperors, having no scruple about
asserting the greatest falsehoods. We are witnesses and so is the whole city and the
province too that the whole multitude and all the people of the catholic Church
assembled together as with one mind and body, and cried, shouted, that Athanasius
should be bishop of their Church, made this the subject of their public prayers
to Christ, and conjured us to grant it for many days and nights, neither depart-
ing themselves from the church nor suffering us to do so. (Quoted in Athanasius,
Apologia contra Arianos 6)

This account was written a decade after the event, following Athanasius’
return from his first exile. Defending his legitimacy as bishop of Alexandria

16
For contrasting interpretations of the difficult evidence for Athanasius’ election, see
Barnard (1975: 329–36), Girardet (1975: 52–7), and Arnold (1991: 25–48). On episcopal elec-
tions more broadly in Late Antiquity, see Norton (2007).
26 Athanasius of Alexandria
had become paramount, and was the primary mission of the council that
composed the Encyclical Letter. We are, therefore, justified in hesitating before
we accept the claim that Athanasius was welcomed with universal approval.
Some contemporaries at least believed his election had been engineered by
a secret minority, and this was well known to the fifth-century ecclesias-
tical historians.17 Other traditions reported that the Melitians and the ‘Ar-
ians’ both sought to impose their own candidates on the Alexandrian see.18
Ultimately, the exact circumstances in which Athanasius was elected bishop
perhaps do not greatly matter. But the fact that his election was conten-
tious does. From the moment of his accession Athanasius faced an urgent
challenge to reunite his divided episcopate and establish himself as the true
leader of the Egyptian Church.
The earliest extant works composed by Athanasius as bishop make no
reference to the controversy surrounding his election. This is not a sur-
prise. The subject was not one he would wish to raise, and in any case was
hardly appropriate to the Festal Letters, which comprise his first episcopal
writings. Those letters, combining exegesis and exhortations for the faith-
ful, set the tone for Athanasius’ approach to his pastoral obligations, which
will be discussed further in Chapter 5. They also represented a statement
of his authority, declaring his right to determine the date of Easter for the
Egyptian Church. Athanasius reinforced his new status by travelling widely,
touring the Thebaid in 329–30 (Festal Index 2) and Pentapolis and Ammo-
niaca in 331–2 (Festal Index 4). The devoted following that he built up dur-
ing these early years was to prove crucial, for the tensions were beginning
to rise that would lead inexorably to Athanasius’ initial condemnation and
exile in 335.
For our knowledge of the events leading up to and surrounding the
Council of Tyre in 335 at which he was condemned we depend almost
entirely on Athanasius’ polemic and the documents preserved within his
works.19 The evidence may be tendentious, but a basic outline is not too
difficult to reconstruct, however controversial its interpretation. Immedi-
ately upon his accession Athanasius came into conflict with the Melitians,
who challenged his authority as bishop and brought accusations against
him. A first vague accusation in 330/1 regarding the misuse of linen vest-

17
Socrates, I.23; Sozomen, II.17; Philostorgius, II.11.
18
Epiphanius, Panarion 68.7.2–4 (Melitians), 69.11.4–6 (‘Arians’).
19
For a more detailed analysis of these events and the problems raised by our evidence, see
Barnes (1993) and Gwynn (2007).
 Bishop 27
ments was quickly dropped. But more serious charges were raised in 332,
which caused Constantine to summon Athanasius for a hearing. Athana-
sius was accused of causing his presbyter Macarius to break a sacred chalice
in a Melitian church and of bribing an official named Philumenus. Those
charges in turn were dismissed, as Athanasius reports in Festal Letter IV,
which he sent from Constantine’s court in Nicomedia. New charges were
then raised, alleging that Athanasius was responsible for the murder of
the Melitian bishop Arsenius. In 333/4 Constantine ordered an episcopal
council to gather at Caesarea in Palestine to investigate, but Athanasius
informed the emperor that Arsenius had been found alive and the council
was abandoned. Yet even this could not quiet Athanasius’ accusers. Finally,
Athanasius was found guilty at the Council of Tyre in 335, and after a last
desperate appeal to the emperor was banished to Gaul.
In the polemical writings that Athanasius composed in the years fol-
lowing his first exile, his explanation for his fate is clear and consistent.
He was the victim of an ‘Arian conspiracy’. Although his primary accusers
were the Egyptian Melitians, they had formed an alliance as far back as 330
with their ‘secret friend’ (krupha philos) Eusebius of Nicomedia. Eusebius,
who had been attacked in Alexander’s Encyclical Letter for his support for
Arius before Nicaea, wished to see Arius restored to the Church. Athana-
sius stood in his way and threatened to expose his ‘Arian’ beliefs. Therefore
Eusebius and his associates, whom Athanasius names hoi peri Eusebion (‘the
ones around Eusebius’ or ‘the Eusebians’), worked through the Melitians
to have Athanasius condemned: ‘All the proceedings against me, and the
fabricated stories about the breaking of the chalice and the murder of
Arsenius, were for the sole purpose of introducing impiety into the Church
and of preventing their being condemned as heretics’ (Athanasius, Apologia
contra Arianos 85).
It is necessary to draw out the implications of this Athanasian polemic.
First, he is entirely innocent of the various charges that have been alleged
against him. Secondly, although those charges were concerned with his
behaviour not with theology, the true motive behind the attacks is that he
has defended orthodoxy against heresy. Thirdly, his chief accusers are not
Egyptian schismatics but ‘Arians’, heretics who threaten the entire Church.
The Council of Tyre was a direct continuation of the earlier conspiracy
against him and was controlled by the ‘Eusebians’. They organized the
commission of enquiry that was sent from Tyre to Egypt to investigate the
charges against Athanasius and fabricated its findings. When Athanasius
appealed to the emperor, the ‘Eusebians’ then came to court to secure his
downfall. His condemnation and exile were the work of a small heretical
28 Athanasius of Alexandria
faction, not the legal judgment of the eastern Church or of the emperor
Constantine.
Should we accept Athanasius’ protestations of innocence and his
presentation of his accusers as ‘Arians’? This question has increasingly
troubled modern scholars, although Christian tradition from the late
fourth century onwards strongly embraced the Athanasian line. There are
certain factors that might encourage doubts. Athanasius describes his foes
as an ‘Arian party’, the ‘Eusebians’, throughout the narrative of the Apologia
contra Arianos, which he wrote after his first exile. In the documents that he
quotes within that work from before 335, and in his own Festal Letters from
those years, the sole accusers identified are the Melitians. The first attacks
upon a ‘Eusebian conspiracy’ occur in the letters written by Athanasius and
his followers at the Council of Tyre itself. This may indicate that at Tyre
Athanasius finally recognized the true source of his sufferings. Or it may
indicate that Athanasius began to represent his opponents as ‘Arians’ only
when he realized his condemnation was imminent, and then reinterpreted
his earlier career accordingly.
Uncertainty also surrounds the exact charges on which Athanasius
was condemned and whether he was in fact guilty of any of the crimes
attributed to him.20 In his writings Athanasius focuses upon two charges:
that he murdered Arsenius (which it seems he disproved, as he produced
Arsenius alive)21 and that he was responsible for Macarius breaking a Meli-
tian chalice (a charge unclear even in the Apologia contra Arianos, where
Athanasius argues that nothing happened but that, if it did happen, it did
not matter). These were charges that Athanasius believed he could refute.
There were other charges that he does not mention, including the dispute
over the legality of his election and accusations of violence against the
Melitians.
One rare contemporary Melitian letter written shortly before the
Council of Tyre suggests that the last charge in particular may have had a
basis in truth:
I have written to you in order that you might know in what affliction we are; for he
[Athanasius] carried off a bishop of the Lower Country and shut him in the Meat
Market, and a priest of the same region he shut in the lock-up, and a deacon in the

20
The difficulties posed by any reconstruction are visible in the markedly disparate inter-
pretations of Tyre that have been proposed by Girardet (1975: 66–75), Drake (1986: 193–204),
Arnold (1991: 143–63), and Barnes (1993: 22–5).
21
The story that Athanasius actually identified Arsenius as among those present at Tyre
does not appear in any Athanasian work, only in Sozomen, II.25.10.
 Bishop 29
principal prison, and till the 28th of Pachon [23 May] Heraiscus too had been con-
fined in the camp—I thank God our Master that the scourgings which he endured
have ceased—and on the 27th he caused seven bishops to leave the country. (Papyrus
London 1914)22

Papyrus London 1914 is no less potentially tendentious than Athanasius’

writings. All conclusions are therefore subjective, and a modern reader
must make up his or her own mind which evidence to accept. Athana-
sius believed himself to be the victim of a ‘Eusebian’ conspiracy, and this
was the argument he and his Egyptian followers presented to the assem-
bled bishops at Tyre. Despite its influence on later Christian tradition, as
a defence at his trial the polemic failed. Rightly or wrongly, the council
(which represented a considerable bloc of the eastern Church) found
Athanasius guilty.23 Athanasius did not wait for the verdict. Leaving Tyre,
according to Festal Index 8 in an open boat, he set out for the imperial court.
The emperor Constantine takes up the story:
As I was entering on a late occasion our eponymous and all-fortunate patria of
Constantinople (I chanced at the time to be on horseback), on a sudden the bishop
Athanasius with certain others whom he had with him approached me in the mid-
dle of the road, so unexpectedly as to occasion me much amazement. God, who
knows all things, is my witness that I should have been unable at first sight even
to recognize him, had not some of my attendants, on my naturally inquiring of
them, informed me both who it was and under what injustice he was suffering.
(Constantine, Letter to the Bishops assembled at Tyre, quoted in Athanasius, Apologia
contra Arianos 86)24

Constantine was concerned that the council might not have given Athana-
sius a fair hearing, and in his letter he summoned the bishops to court to
explain their judgment. In fact a delegation from Tyre was already on the
way, and arrived scarcely a week after Athanasius.25 A final hearing then took

22
This famous text was first published by Bell (1924: 53–71). The attempt of Arnold (1989,
developed in more detail in 1991: 62–89) to argue that the subject here is not Athanasius is
unconvincing: see DiMaio (1996) and Hauben (2001: 612–14).
23
Socrates (I.28) estimated there were sixty bishops at Tyre, to which must be added the
forty-eight Egyptian bishops who accompanied Athanasius. The council was certainly more
representative of the eastern Church than Athanasius’ presentation of Tyre as the vehicle of
his ‘Eusebian’ opponents might suggest.
24
A longer version of this Constantinian letter is preserved in Gelasius of Cyzicus, Historia
Ecclesiastica III.18. As Gelasius’ version includes a further section in praise of Athanasius’ piety,
which it is difficult to believe that Athanasius would have removed, it is likely that Athanasius’
text is the original and that of Gelasius reflects later additions, probably made by Gelasius
himself (Ehrhardt 1980: 55–6).
25
For the chronology, see Festal Index 8 and Peeters (1945).
30 Athanasius of Alexandria
place before the emperor. Athanasius claims, although without evidence,
that the ‘Eusebians’ now raised a further charge to arouse Constantine’s
anger. They alleged that Athanasius had threatened to withhold the corn
shipments that sailed from Egypt to Constantinople. Whether this is true
or not, Constantine concluded that Athanasius was to be punished. On 7
November 335 the bishop departed into exile in Gaul.

BETWEEN EAST AND WEST: THE FIRST AND SECOND

EXILES (335–46)

We hear very little about Athanasius’ first experience of exile. In title he

remained the bishop of Alexandria, for Constantine refused to allow the
election of a replacement.26 He suffered no physical mistreatment, and on
his arrival in Gaul he resided in Trier, the imperial residence of Constan-
tine’s oldest son Constantine II, whom he befriended. There he waited for
the opportunity to return home. That opportunity came with the death
of the elder Constantine on 22 May 337, and the division of the Empire
between his sons.27 Constantine II, now the senior emperor in the west,
provided Athanasius with a letter of recommendation, and the bishop set
out for the east.
Athanasius did not travel directly to Alexandria. His return was the sub-
ject of controversy. In the eyes of many eastern bishops Athanasius had
been condemned by a legitimate council of the Church, and required the
approval of a council before he could be restored. Although he had been
exiled by Constantine the Great, his critics could argue, the emperor’s death
did not affect his status. Athanasius’ route home suggests that he knew his
position remained insecure. The support of Constantine II was valuable,
but more important was the blessing or at least the permission of the lat-
ter’s brother Constantius, who now ruled the east. Travelling through the
Balkans, Athanasius met his new emperor at Viminacium in Moesia.28
No report of their meeting survives, but Constantius evidently raised no

26
In Epistula Encyclica 6, Athanasius refers to a certain Pistus appointed by the ‘Eusebians’
over the ‘Arians’ in Alexandria before Gregory. For what little is known of Pistus and his career,
see Schneemelcher (1974a: 313–15) and Klein (1977: 68–71).
27
Theodoret, I.30, uniquely claims that Constantine ordered Athanasius’ recall just before
his death.
28
Athanasius refers to the meeting in Apologia ad Constantium 5. No context is given in that
text, but Barnes (1993: 33–4) must be correct to place it here.
 Bishop 31
immediate objections, and Athanasius was permitted to travel onwards.
His journey took him to Constantinople and through Syria–Palestine,
and according to his opponents he used this opportunity to restore other
condemned bishops and impose by violence his nominees on a number of
sees.29 He had already begun to prepare for a struggle before he arrived in
Alexandria on 23 November 337.
The faithful followers who had mourned his exile doubtless welcomed
Athanasius back. But this was not a triumphal homecoming. Constan-
tius was swiftly under pressure from eastern bishops who demanded that
Athanasius be returned into exile. The tension is clearly visible from Festal
Letter X, which Athanasius wrote for the Easter of 338.30 The letter opens
with Athanasius’ declaration that he has fulfilled the traditional duty of the
bishop of Alexandria by informing his flock of the date of Easter even from
‘the ends of the earth’ (Trier):
Although I have travelled all this distance from you, my brethren, I have not
forgotten the custom which obtains among you, which has been delivered to us
by the Fathers, so as to be silent without notifying to you the time of the annual
holy feast, and the day for its celebration. For although I have been hindered by
those afflictions of which you have doubtless heard, and severe trials have been
laid upon me, and a great distance has separated us; while the enemies of the truth
have followed our tracks, laying snares to discover a letter from us, so that by their
accusations, they might add to the pain of our wounds; yet, the Lord strengthening
and comforting us in our afflictions, we have not feared, even when held fast in the
midst of such machinations and conspiracies, to indicate and make known to you
our saving Easter-feast, even from the ends of the earth. (X.1)

In the main body of the letter, Athanasius contrasts those who perse-
cute with the endurance and mercy of the faithful (X.4–5) and presents
the only detailed theological attack on ‘Arianism’ to be found anywhere
in his Festal Letters (X.8–9). The overall tone is one of resistance against an
imminent threat. Throughout 338 Athanasius sought to rally support in
Egypt and from the wider Church. It was at this time that the monk Ant-
ony made a famous visit to Alexandria and spoke against the ‘Arians’ (Festal
Index 10; Life of Antony 69). A council of Egyptian bishops was summoned
to Alexandria, and circulated an Encyclical Letter (quoted in Apologia contra

29
This charge is raised in the Encyclical Letter of the eastern bishops who attended the abor-
tive Council of Serdica in 343, on which see further below. Cf. Sozomen, III.21.
30
Festal Letter X is the longest of the extant Festal Letters, and the only letter to have received
a detailed edition and monograph: Lorenz (1986). For the importance of the letter to Athana-
sius’ pastoral mission, see Ch. 5.
32 Athanasius of Alexandria
Arianos 3–19) in defence of Athanasius’ position. The charges on which
he had been condemned in 335 and the Council of Tyre itself were dis-
missed as the product of a Melitian–‘Eusebian’ conspiracy. Their accus-
ations were nothing more than ‘an impiety on behalf of the Ariomaniacs,
which rages against piety so that, when the orthodox are out of the way,
the advocates of impiety may preach whatever they wish without fear’ (5).
Therefore it is necessary for true bishops everywhere to come to the aid of
the cause of orthodoxy, ‘to welcome this, our declaration, to share in the
suffering of our fellow bishop Athanasius, and to show your indignation
against the Eusebians’ (19).
The efforts of Athanasius and his followers were in vain. In late 338 he
was condemned once more by a Council of Antioch, which met in the
presence of Constantius. Unlike in 335, this time a replacement, Gregory
of Cappadocia, was appointed to take control of the Alexandrian see. He
entered the city on 22 March 339, and on 16 April (Easter Monday) Athana-
sius fled. His Epistula Encyclica, the first work of his second exile composed
in mid-339, appealed to all Christians to denounce his rival as an ‘Arian’
who had brought persecution to Alexandria.31 Supported by the Prefect
Philagrius, Gregory is alleged to have rallied gangs of Jews and pagans,
who burnt one church, assaulted Athanasius’ followers, and then attacked
the church in which Athanasius himself resided (Epistula Encyclica 3–5). The
true scale of the violence is difficult to assess from Athanasius’ rhetoric.32
The church that was burnt was probably the Church of Dionysius, whose
location in Alexandria is unknown, while the cathedral church in 339 from
which Athanasius was expelled was the Church of Theonas (Festal Index 11)
at the north-western end of the city.33 The new bishop, Gregory, unsurpris-
ingly sought to establish his authority by occupying the main Alexandrian
churches during the great Easter celebrations. He also took over the chief

31
For a fuller survey of Athanasius’ arguments in this letter, see Schneemelcher (1974a:
esp. 325–37), and Gwynn (2007: 51–7).
32
Athanasius described the events of 339 again later in his Historia Arianorum. In addition
to the crimes recounted in the Epistula Encyclica, the ‘Arians’ are reported to have ‘so perse-
cuted the bishop’s aunt, that even when she died he [Gregory] would not suffer her to be
buried’ (13). Strangely, Athanasius never even mentioned this personal outrage in his original
version of those events.
33
For the architecture and topography of late-antique Christian Alexandria, see Haas
(1997) and Martin (1998) and the wider Egyptian studies of Grossman (2002) and McKenzie
(2007). On the importance of Christian topography to the fourth-century ecclesiastical con-
flicts, see Gwynn (2010).
 Bishop 33
civic functions of the episcopate, particularly the distribution of bread, the
pastoral significance of which will be discussed further in Chapter 5.
Gregory’s appointment placed still greater pressure on Athanasius to
defend his innocence and his status as legitimate bishop of Alexandria.
After his flight from the city, he travelled back to the west to seek support
from those who had aided him during his earlier exile. Between 339 and
346 Athanasius resided in Italy and Gaul, but he continued to look towards
Egypt. Through considerable effort he succeeded in circulating Festal Letters
in some of these years, although on occasion he was able to send only the
brief notification that recorded the date of Easter. Festal Letter XIII, written
for the Easter of 341, emphasizes that distance could not separate him from
his congregations: ‘Although the opponents of Christ have oppressed you
together with us with afflictions and sorrows; yet, God having comforted
us by our mutual faith, behold, I write to you even from Rome. Keeping
the feast here with the brethren, still I keep it with you also in will and
spirit’ (XIII.1).
Athanasius devoted the majority of the letter to a meditation on the
appropriate theme of the persecution of the faithful and the need for
endurance. Nor were Festal Letters the only correspondence that Athana-
sius exchanged from exile with his Egyptian followers. It was in these years
that Athanasius most probably wrote two of his best-known epistles. One,
discussed further in the chapter on asceticism, was Athanasius’ first Letter
to the Monks. The second was the Letter to Serapion on the Death of Arius or
De Morte Arii. Writing in response to debates within Egypt over whether
Arius had died in communion with the Church, Athanasius asked Serapion
to pass on his judgement to those in dispute. Because of the machinations
of the ‘Eusebians’, Athanasius declared, Arius had been given permission
to attend worship in Constantinople. But, on his route to the church, he
felt the need to enter a privy, and there ‘ “falling headlong he burst asunder”
[Acts 1:18] . . . [and] he was deprived of both communion and his life’ (3).
The divine judgement that Arius suffered, modelled on the scriptural fate
of Judas, condemned both the man and his heresy.
All these letters reinforced Athanasius’ claim to authority over the
Egyptian Church. They also demonstrated Athanasius’ awareness that
there were larger issues facing contemporary Christianity than just his
personal concerns. The rise of asceticism was one such development that
Athanasius was pleased to support, and later sources credited him with
the promotion of ascetic practices in the west during this time. Far more
worrying in Athanasius’ eyes, however, were the theological developments
then taking place in eastern Christianity. In 341 a major council met in Antioch
34 Athanasius of Alexandria
to celebrate the dedication of the city’s new great church. The doctrinal
significance of this Dedication Council will again receive more attention in
a later chapter. But the creed that the council composed revealed directions
in eastern theology that Athanasius at least regarded as heretical. It was in
this context that Athanasius began his longest theological and polemical
work, the three Orationes contra Arianos. The condemnation of his oppon-
ents as ‘Arian’ vindicated Athanasius’ claims to innocence and legitimacy.
Nevertheless, there is no questioning the sincerity of his conviction that
fundamental principles of Christian doctrine were at stake, a conviction
that the western bishops who rallied to his defence came to share.
On his arrival in the west, Athanasius had been welcomed by Julius, the
bishop of Rome. At Julius’ summons, a council of Italian bishops met in the
Roman city in late 340 or 341 and re-examined Athanasius’ case. The coun-
cil declared Athanasius innocent, and Julius wrote to the eastern bishops
then gathered in Antioch to announce this verdict.34 His letter is quoted
by Athanasius in Apologia contra Arianos 20–35.35 The accusations against
Athanasius are declared to be false and Gregory’s appointment is unca-
nonical and a cause of persecution. Julius has derived his interpretation
of events from Athanasius (although he does not explicitly repeat Athana-
sius’ condemnation of his opponents as ‘Arian’), and his arguments do not
have independent historical value. Nor did Julius’ letter have any apparent
impact on eastern opinion. Yet the letter is an important document. Julius’
public statement of support for Athanasius enhanced the latter’s standing
in the west, and established a relationship between Athanasius and the
Roman see that endured throughout his life and would benefit a number
of his Alexandrian successors. Julius’ exchange with the bishops in Antioch
also hardened a growing rift between Christians in east and west, in which
the fate of Athanasius was one of the major causes of dispute.
These tensions between east and west finally came to a head at the abort-
ive Council of Serdica in 343. Athanasius was not the only exiled eastern
bishop in the west whose status was controversial. He had been joined in
Rome by Marcellus of Ancyra, who had been condemned on theological

34
The eastern gathering was most probably the Dedication Council, but the relative chron-
ology of both that council and Julius’ letter is difficult to determine. On this debate, see
Eltester (1937: 254–6), Schneemelcher (1977), and Barnes (1993: 57–9).
35
Julius’ letter has primarily been studied as a source for the position of the see of Rome
in the fourth-century Church. The letter concludes with Julius’ claim that, with regards to the
Church of Alexandria, ‘the custom has been for word to be written first to us, and then for
just decisions to be defined from here’ (35). This has aroused considerable controversy: see
Twomey (1982: 382–6), Hess (2002: 184–90), and Chadwick (2003: 15–16).
 Bishop 35
grounds in 336, and by Asclepas of Gaza. The need to resolve both the fates
of the exiles and the ongoing doctrinal debates led Constans, Constantine’s
youngest son and the sole western emperor after the death of Constan-
tine II in 340, to agree with his brother Constantius to summon a joint
gathering of eastern and western bishops.36 The council was set to meet
in the Balkan city of Serdica. Unfortunately, the full gathering never took
place. The easterners refused to allow the presence of the exiles, whose
episcopal authority they denied, and the westerners refused to meet in
their absence. The two contingents therefore held their own gatherings.
Each council composed Encyclical Letters, defending their position and con-
demning the other.37
Far from resolving the tensions, the twin councils of 343 widened the
east–west divide. For our knowledge of Athanasius, however, their respect-
ive Encyclical Letters offer a unique opportunity to compare the arguments
of his supporters with those of his foes. The Western Encyclical Letter (Apo-
logia contra Arianos 42–50) defended the innocence of all the eastern exiles
but particularly Athanasius. Like Julius of Rome, the western bishops
at Serdica dismissed the charges against Athanasius as entirely false and
denounced Gregory as an imposter. Unlike Julius, they also repeated Atha-
nasius’ condemnation of his eastern foes as ‘Arian’. To quote from the
conclusion to their letter:
It was necessary for us not to remain silent, nor to pass over unnoticed their cal-
umnies, imprisonments, murders, woundings, conspiracies by means of false letters,
outrages, stripping of virgins, banishments, destruction of churches, burnings,
translations from small cities to larger dioceses, and above all, the insurrection of the
ill-named Arian heresy by their means against the orthodox faith. We have therefore
pronounced our dearly beloved brethren and fellow-ministers Athanasius, Marcel-
lus and Asclepas, and those who minister to the Lord with them, to be innocent
and clear of offence, and have written to the diocese of each, that the people of
each Church may know the innocence of their bishop and may esteem him as their
bishop and expect his coming.38 And as for those who like wolves have invaded their
churches, Gregory at Alexandria, Basil at Ancyra and Quintianus at Gaza, let them

36
In our orthodox sources Constans is presented as the chief protagonist for the council,
and Athanasius later had to defend himself against charges of turning Constans against his
brother: Apologia ad Constantium 2–4.
37
For a discussion of the course of the two councils and their texts, see De Clercq (1954:
334–62), Girardet (1975: 106–54), Barnard (1983: 63–118), and Hess (2002: 93–11)1.
38
Athanasius quotes their letters to the Church of Alexandria and to the bishops of Egypt
and Libya in Apologia contra Arianos 37–41.
36 Athanasius of Alexandria
neither give them the title of bishop, nor hold any communion at all with them, nor
receive letters from them, nor write to them. (Quoted in Apologia contra Arianos 47)

The Eastern Encyclical Letter, preserved in Latin by Hilary of Poitiers

(Against Valens and Ursacius I.II.1–29), understandably offers a very differ-
ent interpretation.39 Theologically, the easterners were far more concerned
with Marcellus of Ancyra than with Athanasius, for reasons we will explore
in the next chapter. It was Marcellus’ heresy that they accused the western
bishops of adopting. Athanasius, of course, maintained that the underlying
cause of the accusations he faced was his defence of orthodoxy against
‘Arianism’. For the eastern bishops, his name was synonymous rather with
violence and illegality. Their letter provides a rare glimpse of how Athana-
sius was seen from the other side:
In the case of Athanasius, formerly bishop of Alexandria, you are to understand
what was enacted. He was charged with the grave offence of sacrilege and prof-
anation of the holy Church’s sacraments. With his own hands he broke a chalice
consecrated to God and Christ, tore down the august altar itself, overturned the
bishop’s throne and razed the basilica itself, God’s house, Christ’s house, to the
ground. The presbyter himself, an earnest and upright man called Scyras, he deliv-
ered to military custody. In addition to this, Athanasius was charged with unlawful
acts, with the use of force, with murder and the killing of bishops. Raging like a
tyrant even during the most holy days of Easter, he was accompanied by the mili-
tary and officials of the imperial government who, on his authority, confined some
to custody, beat and whipped some and forced the rest into sacrilegious commu-
nion with him by various acts of torture (innocent men would never have behaved
so). Athanasius hoped that in this way his own people and his own faction would
get the upper hand; and so he forced unwilling people into communion by means
of military officials, judges, prisons, whippings and various acts of torture, com-
pelled recusants and browbeat those who fought back and withstood him. (Quoted
in Hilary of Poitiers, Against Valens and Ursacius I.II.6)

What weight to place on these two highly polemical documents, modern

readers may decide for themselves. The Encyclical Letters each use very simi-
lar language and accuse their respective opponents of much the same
crimes. The verdict of the Western Council of Serdica confirmed Athana-
sius’ standing in the west, where Athanasius would later find a powerful

39
One of the addressees of this letter was Donatus, the schismatic bishop of Carthage.
When the Donatists cited the Eastern encyclical in order to claim support from churches
outside Africa, Augustine’s friend Alypius pointed out that the letter had to be heretical as it
attacked Athanasius and Julius of Rome (Augustine, Letter 44.5.6).
 Bishop 37
source of support during his conflict with Constantius in the 350s. Athana-
sius also retained the patronage of Constans, with whom he is known to
have attended worship in Aquileia in 345.40 But the majority of the eastern
Church remained hostile towards Athanasius, and Gregory was still recog-
nized as the bishop of Alexandria. It was only after Gregory’s death in 345
that Athanasius, having received imperial permission, was finally allowed
to return home.

THE GLORIOUS RETURN AND THE GOLDEN

DECADE (346–56)

He was welcomed with branches of trees, and garments with many flowers and
of varied hue were torn off and strewn before him and under his feet. There
alone was all that was glorious and costly and peerless treated with dishonour.
Like, once more, to the entry of Christ were those that went before with shouts
and followed with dances; only the crowd which sung his praises was not of chil-
dren only, but every tongue was harmonious, as men contended only to outdo
one another. I pass by the universal cheers, and the pouring forth of unguents,
and the nightlong festivities, and the whole city gleaming with light, and the
feasting in public and at home, and all the means of testifying to a city’s joy,
which were then in lavish and incredible profusion bestowed upon him. Thus
did this marvellous man, with such a concourse, regain his own city. (Gregory of
Nazianzus, Oration XXI.29)

Athanasius’ triumphal entrance into Alexandria on 21 October 346, which

Gregory of Nazianzus compared to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, is one
of the iconic episodes of his episcopate. The death of Gregory of Alexan-
dria the previous year had left the see vacant, and so the returning bishop
faced no immediate competition. But this cannot explain the depth of joy
expressed for his restoration. Athanasius reaped the benefit from the loyal
following that he had built up in his first decade and nurtured through his
Festal Letters and other writings from exile. Gregory had failed either to win
over or to break that Athanasian support, and, although he held the Alex-
andrian see for some seven years, he left no discernible legacy. Athanasius
had seen off his first serious rival.

40
In Apologia ad Constantium 15, Athanasius states that he had seen Constans worshipping
at Aquileia in a church still under construction. Festal Index 17 confirms the year as 345, for in
that year Athanasius sent his Festal Letter from the same city.
38 Athanasius of Alexandria
Nevertheless, we should not be carried away by the dramatic rhetoric.
His long absence in the west had left Athanasius with considerable work to
do if he was to re-establish his authority not only in Alexandria but across
Egypt and Libya.41 Clergy appointed by Gregory might occupy some local
churches, and more seriously the Melitian movement with its rival hier-
archy continued to exist. We gain a measure of the challenge Athanasius
faced and of his response from Festal Letter XIX, written upon his return for
Easter 347. The letter begins with an invocation of Paul to celebrate Atha-
nasius’ restoration: ‘ “Blessed is God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”
[Ephesians 1:3], for such an introduction is fitting for an epistle, and more
especially now, when it brings thanksgiving to the Lord, in the Apostle’s
words, because He has brought us from a distance and granted us again to
send openly to you, as customary, the Festal Letters’ (XIX.1).
The main body of the letter then proclaims at length that only the true
Christian can celebrate the Easter festival and understand the Law and the
nature of sacrifice. ‘The feast of the Passover is ours, not that of a stranger’
(XIX.1). Those who feign to act lawfully and piously will be rejected by the
Lord, a rebuke that is addressed against the Jews but also against the her-
etics who misinterpret the Scriptures. Athanasius’ language can be inter-
preted as a warning to those who have fallen away during the years of his
exile, but the polemic of Festal Letter XIX is less violent than the anti-‘Arian’
rhetoric of the letters he composed after his earlier return in 338. In 347
Athanasius could feel more secure, and he urges all to give thanks to God
as he himself gives thanks that the Lord ‘did not deliver us over to death,
but brought us from a distance, even as from the ends of the earth, and has
united us again with you’ (XIX.8).
Athanasius follows his exhortation by reaffirming the date of Easter and
of the forty-day Lenten fast. The letter also contains a highly significant
postscript: ‘I have also thought it necessary to inform you of the appoint-
ment of bishops, which has taken place in the stead of our blessed fellow-
ministers, that you may know to whom to write, and from whom you
should receive letters’ (XIX.10). The list that follows names the bishops
appointed to sixteen sees from Syene to Clysma. The previous occupants
of the sees died in Athanasius’ years in exile (with the exception of Artemi-
dorus of Panopolis, who has requested a coadjutor, because of his age and
infirmity), and their successors are now confirmed in office. By asserting
his right to confirm these appointments through his Festal Letter, Athana-

41
For further discussion see Barnes (1993: 94–7).
 Bishop 39
sius made a powerful statement of his authority over the Egyptian Church.
He also ensured the support of the men who now occupied these sees,
further strengthening his position in Egypt beyond Alexandria.42
Athanasius’ list of appointments includes three men who are said to
have ‘reconciled to the Church’—Arsenius of Hypsele, Isidorus of Xois,
and Paulus of Clysma—as well as Amatus and Isaac of Nilopolis, who have
reconciled with each other. Arsenius, who is recognized in the letter as the
sole bishop of Hypsele, is the same Melitian cleric who had been involved
in the charges against Athanasius at the Council of Tyre. Isidorus and
Paulus are named as colleagues of the bishops in their respective sees, just
as Isaac has reconciled with Amatus in Nilopolis. It is entirely possible that
Isidorus, Paulus, and Isaac are all also Melitians who have acknowledged
Athanasius’ authority. These defections suggest that the schism was losing
momentum by the 340s, although Athanasius would come into conflict
with the Melitians again in the 360s.
Festal Letter XIX is our clearest evidence for Athanasius’ efforts to reaffirm
his authority outside Alexandria after his return from his second exile. In
this context, we might also consider the letter that he wrote to the ascetic
Dracontius a few years later in c.354. Athanasius’ purpose was to persuade
Dracontius to accept episcopal office. A fuller discussion of this letter and
of Athanasius’ relationship with the Egyptian monks belongs in a later
chapter, but that relationship provided an important additional source of
support for Athanasius’ ecclesiastical position. Dracontius did indeed serve
as the bishop of Hermopolis Parva, and in his appeal Athanasius names a
number of other monk-bishops, including Serapion of Thmuis. Like the
men named in Festal Letter XIX, these monk-bishops could be relied upon
to remain loyal to Athanasius and in turn to aid him to retain the loyalty
of the wider ascetic community. That alliance was to prove its value once
more when Athanasius’ third exile began in 356.
In the light of the reception that Athanasius received upon his return in
October 346, his position within his city already possessed firm foundations
on which to build. The charitable distribution of bread and oil was back
under his control, a means to rally support and a proof of his legitimate

42
Athanasius had already sent a similar list of approved bishops from the west in either
c.337 or c.339/40. It appears at the end of the document preserved in the Festal Index as Festal
Letter XII, which is actually a personal letter that Athanasius wrote from exile to his friend
Serapion of Thmuis. Athanasius asked Serapion to circulate the Easter message he enclosed,
including the list of appointments, to the Egyptian churches. On the known bishops of
Egyptian sees in the fourth century, see Worp (1994).
40 Athanasius of Alexandria
authority. He likewise led by personal example, through preaching and
spiritual direction, although this pastoral role as always is hardest to trace
because of the nature of our evidence. Athanasius benefited here from an
important development in the Christian topography of Alexandria.43 The
Caesareum, the imperial cult temple on the harbour in the centre of the
city, was now converted into the new great church of Alexandria. Work
had not quite reached completion when Athanasius used the church to
celebrate Easter in c.351. He had to explain his action to Constantius, as the
emperor had financed the construction of the church, which had not been
dedicated.44 According to Athanasius, the enormous multitude gathered
for the feast had forced his hand, but, while this may attest to his popularity
in his city, the premature use of the church was one of the complaints that
led to his third exile.
The conversion of the Caesareum of Alexandria from pagan temple to
Christian church serves as a reminder that Athanasius lived in an age of
great religious change. His entire episcopal career was a reflection of the
new prominence that the Church enjoyed from the reign of Constantine
onwards. Yet the rapid expansion of Christianity in the fourth-century
Roman Empire is scarcely visible from Athanasius’ writings. In one of his
earliest works he does celebrate the spread of the Church. ‘Every day in
every place He [the Saviour] invisibly persuades such a great multitude of
Greeks and barbarians to turn to faith in Him and all to obey His teaching’
(De Incarnatione 30). As we will see in the next chapter, however, even in
the Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione Athanasius’ attacks on paganism are sub-
ordinated to his theological concerns. Elsewhere in his works there is little
reference to pagans, except when they are alleged to have allied with his
heretical foes,45 or to pagan practices.46 The primary threats to Athana-
sius’ authority came from within Christianity, from ‘Arians’ and Melitians,
not from pagans. But, through his efforts to secure Church unity and to
strengthen the position of the bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius played his
part in establishing Christianity as the dominant religion of late-antique
Egypt.
It was probably during the years in the middle of the fourth century
that Athanasius also made one of his most lasting contributions to the

43
For bibliography, see n. 33 above.
44
Athanasius, Apologia ad Constantium 14–18; see Barnes (1993: 113–14) and Heinen
(2002).
45
On this rhetorical theme, see D. H. Williams (1997).
46
One exception is Athanasius’ condemnation of pagan oracles (Life of Antony 31–5, Festal
Letter XLII (ad 370)). See further Frankfurter (1998: esp. 187–9).
 Bishop 41
authority of the Alexandrian Church beyond the traditional limits of his
see. His role in the story, it must be said, was relatively minor. A young
Syrian named Frumentius was brought as a captive to the king of Aksum
(ancient Ethiopia). Having risen to a position of trust and encouraged the
spread of Christianity in the kingdom, Frumentius was allowed to return
to the Mediterranean. Rather than go home, he came to Alexandria to
inform Athanasius that a bishop needed to be sent to oversee the Aksumite
Church. Athanasius wisely rewarded the messenger and sent Frumentius
back as the first bishop of Aksum. Ethiopian Christianity would look to
Egypt for leadership from that time onwards, extending still further the
reach of Athanasius’ see.47
By the early 350s Athanasius’ situation seemed secure. More than any
previous bishop of Alexandria, he had succeeded in unifying the Egyptian
Church behind his banner and had rallied the desert ascetics to his cause.
Internal opposition remained, both on theological grounds and among the
surviving Melitian communities, but their voices were muted. This achieve-
ment is a tribute to Athanasius’ ecclesiastical and pastoral leadership. The
troubles that were soon to befall him originated not within Egypt but in
the broader political and doctrinal developments taking place elsewhere in
the Roman Empire.
When Athanasius had returned to Alexandria in 346, rule of the Empire
was still divided between the brothers Constans in the west and Constantius
in the east. The murder of Constans in 350 after the coup of Magnentius
deprived Athanasius of his imperial champion. In the eastern Church those
hostile to Athanasius had not ceased to campaign against him. There was
a brief respite after his restoration, with two of his enemies Ursacius and
Valens even submitting a ‘Recantation’ of the charges Athanasius had faced
early in 347 (quoted in Apologia contra Arianos 58). This ‘Recantation’ was
withdrawn in c.350/1, after Athanasius had been condemned once more
by a council of eastern bishops at Antioch in 349. The bishops appealed
to Constantius for support. Faced with a usurper in the west while strug-
gling to contain the Persian Empire to the east, the emperor fully shared
the bishops’ desire for unity. As he expanded his power westward in 350–3,
Constantius came to the increasing conviction that the main threat to that

47
Our main source for this episode is Rufinus, X.9–10, copied by Socrates, I.19, and in turn
Sozomen, II.24. Rufinus misdates the conversion of Aksum to the time of Constantine in
order to avoid placing this event in the reign of the ‘heretical’ Constantius. See Munro-Hay
(1997).
42 Athanasius of Alexandria
unity, at least within the Church, lay with the divisive figure of Athanasius
in Alexandria.
In 351, as Constantius advanced through the Balkans against Magnen-
tius, an episcopal council met in his presence in the city of Sirmium in
Pannonia. The council condemned bishop Photinus of Sirmium, a follower
of Marcellus of Ancyra, and may likewise have condemned Athanasius. At
the same time, the council issued a creed that included anathemas against
any who misused the ousia language accepted at Nicaea. Discussion of
the theological content of the ongoing debates will be left until the next
chapter, but Sirmium in 351 marks the beginning of a concerted campaign
to impose doctrinal and ecclesiastical harmony on the Church. After the
defeat of Magnentius in 353 had given Constantius sole rule over the
Empire, this campaign gathered momentum, with Athanasius now clearly
the primary target. A new council of bishops was summoned to Arles that
year and ordered to denounce Athanasius. A further council in Milan in 355
faced the same demand.48
Athanasius did not lack for supporters who resisted on his behalf. The
alliances formed during his years in the west held strong. Paulinus of Trier,
to whose city Athanasius had come as an exile back in 335, opposed the
decisions made at Arles. So too did Liberius of Rome, who had succeeded
Julius in 352 and who maintained his predecessor’s defence of Athanasius’
innocence. At Milan the Italian bishop Eusebius of Vercellae insisted that
the council subscribe to the Nicene Creed before reaching any further
decisions. All three resisting bishops were sent into exile, together with
Dionysius of Milan and Lucifer of Cagliari. It was in these tense years that
defence of Athanasius and defence of Nicaea became inextricably inter-
twined in the west, and Athanasius would not forget the sufferings of the
westerners on his behalf.
Amid the gathering clouds, Athanasius refused to sit passively and wait
for his enemies to strike. An embassy headed by Serapion of Thmuis was
sent to Constantius in Milan in 353 (Festal Index 25). The first version of
Athanasius’ Apologia ad Constantium was probably prepared around the
same time to refute charges of disloyalty towards the emperor, and may
have been delivered to Constantius by Serapion’s embassy. These appeals
do not seem to have had any effect, but Athanasius’ other great literary pro-

48
For more detailed narratives of the complex events of these years, see Barnes (1993),
D. H. Williams (1995b), and Beckwith (2008).
 Bishop 43
duction of these years was to prove far more influential. For Athanasius as
for his contemporaries, questions of ecclesiastical politics were inseparable
from matters of doctrine. The De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi, the first work
in which Athanasius explicitly made the Nicene Creed the cornerstone of
orthodoxy, was composed in the early 350s and may indeed have encour-
aged the western emphasis on Nicaea at Milan. Longer term, the De Decre-
tis was to prove a pivotal contribution to the evolving theological debates
of the fourth century. In the short term, nothing could avert the storm that
was about to break over Athanasius’ head.

FLIGHT TO THE DESERT: THE THIRD EXILE (356–62)

It was night, and some of the people were keeping a vigil preparatory to a com-
munion on the morrow, when the dux Syrianus suddenly came upon us with
more than 5,000 soldiers, having arms and drawn swords, bows, spears, and
clubs. With these he surrounded the church, stationing his soldiers near at hand
in order that no one might be able to leave the church and pass by them. Now
I considered that it would be unreasonable to desert the people during such a
disturbance, and not rather to endanger myself on their behalf. Therefore I sat
down upon my throne and desired the deacon to read a psalm, and the people to
answer ‘For His mercy endureth for ever’ [Psalm 136:1], and then all to withdraw
and depart home. But the dux having now made a forcible entry and the soldiers
having surrounded the sanctuary for the purpose of apprehending us, the clergy
and those of the laity who were still there cried out, and demanded that we too
should withdraw. But I refused, declaring that I would not do so until they had
retired one and all. Accordingly I stood up, and having bidden prayer, I then
made my request of them, that all should depart before me, saying that it was
better that my safety should be endangered than that any of them should receive
hurt. So when the greater part had gone forth and the rest were following, the
monks who were there with us and certain of the clergy came up and dragged
us away. (Athanasius, Apologia de Fuga 24)

On the night of 8/9 February 356 Athanasius was presiding over a vigil
when the dux Syrianus and his soldiers stormed the Church of Theonas.
This assault, which marked the beginning of Athanasius’ third period of
exile, is one of the best-documented episodes of his entire career. Excep-
tionally, we possess three descriptions of the event written by those who
were present, two composed by Athanasius (Apologia ad Constantium 25; Apo-
logia de Fuga 24–5) and a third by his followers, who sent a letter of protest
to Constantius immediately after the attack (quoted in Historia Arianorum
44 Athanasius of Alexandria
81). Although these were written by eyewitnesses favourable to each other,
there are some interesting differences between these reports. According to
Athanasius, the attack was coordinated by the ‘Arians’, and he did every-
thing in his power to ensure the safety of his congregation before being
forcibly removed by his companions. The letter of his followers makes no
reference to ‘Arian’ involvement and presents the bishop in a slightly less
heroic light. After he had been seized, he ‘fell into a state of insensibility
and appearing as if dead, he disappeared’. Whatever the truth, Athanasius
was forced to abandon the Church of Theonas, the old Alexandrian episco-
pal church, and flee. A few months later a further assault fell upon the new
great church of the Caesareum (Historia Arianorum 54–7).49 The ground
had been prepared for the arrival of Athanasius’ new replacement as bishop
of Alexandria, George of Cappadocia.
The third exile of Athanasius has inspired many stories. Unlike in 339
when he fled to the west, in 356 Athanasius refused to abandon his home-
land. That he was able to remain active in Egypt throughout the six years
of his exile is an immense tribute to his pastoral labours of the preceding
decade and to the loyalty he inspired. Athanasius’ exact movements are as
impossible for us to trace as they were for the imperial authorities, who
never ceased to hunt him. Some of his time was spent within Alexandria,
according to one tradition concealed by a devoted virgin.50 He also trav-
elled widely among the desert ascetics. Never was the close relationship
Athanasius had established with the monks more important than in these
dangerous years. Their shared experiences further consolidated this bond,
as did the composition of the Life of Antony.
There is a romantic flavour to the accounts of narrow escapes and heroic
resistance that surround Athanasius as he evaded capture. Yet these were
years of hardship and suffering. George of Cappadocia presented a greater
threat to Athanasius’ followers than had his predecessor and fellow coun-
tryman Gregory in 339–45. Gregory’s authority had largely been confined
to Alexandria, and there is limited evidence for his efforts to impose his
power over the wider Egyptian Church. George was never secure even
within Alexandria, where he arrived in February 357 but left in October 358
after almost being lynched and did not return until 361. But he benefited
from stronger state support than had Gregory, and the ongoing presence
of Athanasius intensified the efforts of George’s supporters. The numerous

49
On these conflicts, see further Haas (1997), 281–6.
50
Palladius, Lausiac History 63. Festal Index 32 for 359/60 reports that during the search for
Athanasius the virgin Eudaemonis was tortured.
 Bishop 45
works that Athanasius composed throughout his exile offer a grim narra-
tive of escalating violence whose rhetorical exaggeration cannot conceal
the very real anguish of persecution.51
The years 356–62 saw the greatest concentration of Athanasius’ polem-
ical, theological, and ascetic writings. Against the challenge of George, like
that of Gregory two decades before, Athanasius had to maintain his legit-
imacy as the bishop of Alexandria. He continued to compose and circu-
late Festal Letters when the opportunity arose, notably Festal Letter XXIX for
Easter 357, the surviving fragments of which celebrate the Old Testament
patriarchs who stood strong against affliction. But more remained at stake
than his personal prestige. New ecclesiastical and doctrinal currents were
sweeping through mid-fourth-century Christianity. The works of Athana-
sius’ third exile lay down his interpretation of those currents and of the
course the true Church had to follow to secure its future.
The essential themes of Athanasius’ literary campaign are immediately
plain from the earliest work of his third exile: the Encyclical Letter to the
Bishops of Egypt and Libya. Writing such an encyclical in the aftermath of
his expulsion in February 356 was itself a statement of intent that he would
defend his claim to the Alexandrian episcopate. The bulk of the letter rep-
resents a theological refutation of ‘Arianism’, largely summarized from the
Orationes contra Arianos. Here, as throughout his writings of 356–9, Atha-
nasius insisted that his contemporary opponents were the direct successors
of his earlier ‘Eusebian’ foes. They therefore shared the same ‘Arian heresy’
that he attributed to the ‘Eusebians’ and led the same conspiracy against
orthodox bishops like himself. The importance of this argument is that
Athanasius interpreted the conflicts of the later 350s as a continuation of
those of the 330s and early 340s. Thus he constructed his hugely influen-
tial vision of a single monolithic ‘Arian Controversy’. He steadily expanded
upon this vision first in the Apologia ad Constantium and the Apologia de Fuga,
and then in increasing detail in the Historia Arianorum and the De Synodis.
One of Athanasius’ aims was, of course, to maintain his innocence
against the charges on which he found himself once more in exile.
He continued to denounce his condemnation at Tyre as the work of a heret-
ical conspiracy, and extended this to include the more recent accusations.

51
Examples include the forty laypeople beaten with the thorny branches of palm trees
(Apologia de Fuga 6–7), a presbyter who was kicked to death by the ‘Arian’ Secundus of Ptol-
emais (Historia Arianorum 65), and numerous bishops banished to the deserts and mines
(Historia Arianorum 72). On religious violence in this period, see more generally Hahn (2004),
Gaddis (2005), and Sizgorich (2009).
46 Athanasius of Alexandria
The new charges included treason (confronted in the Apologia ad
Constantium) and cowardice (the Apologia de Fuga), but the primary motive
of his accusers was still to spread their impiety (Apologia ad Constantium
26; Apologia de Fuga 2).52 In these later works, Athanasius does not stand
so alone. He is one of a number of orthodox bishops who are all victims
of the same ‘Arian’ persecution, including Eustathius of Antioch (exiled
in 327), Marcellus of Ancyra, and less well-known figures such as Euphra-
tion of Balanae and Cyrus of Beroea (Apologia de Fuga 3; Historia Arianorum
4–7). Whatever the varied charges upon which these men were individually
condemned, in Athanasius’ eyes their only real ‘crime’ was their hatred of
the ‘Arian heresy’.
The historical evidence for this so-called purge of the orthodox is rather
weaker than Athanasius suggests.53 None of the alleged victims can be
proven to have been persecuted by ‘Arians’, nor were their fates determined
by a single conspiracy. Nevertheless, Athanasius’ polemic is an important
indicator of how he viewed the wider Church from his concealment in
Egypt in the late 350s. The contemporary attack on the western bishops
who defended him and Nicaea is presented as a continuation of the con-
spiracies against him and his fellow exiles in the 330s and 340s (Apologia
de Fuga 3–5; Historia Arianorum 33–45). Such an interpretation vindicated
his innocence and so his legitimacy as the true bishop of Alexandria. But,
more fundamentally, Athanasius’ argument was a rallying call to Chris-
tians everywhere to resist the heresy that he believed was taking over the
Church.
For no other reason than for the sake of their own impious heresy they have plotted
against us and against all the orthodox bishops from the beginning. For behold, that
which was intended long ago by the Eusebians has now come to pass, and they have
caused the churches to be snatched away from us, they have banished the bishops
and presbyters not in communion with themselves, as they wished, and the people
who withdrew from them they have shut out of the churches, which they have
handed over to the Arians who were condemned so long ago. (Encyclical Letter to the
Bishops of Egypt and Libya 22)54

52
For a discussion of the charges that Athanasius attempts to refute in these two works,
and their respective contexts, see Barnes (1993: 113–26).
53
Elliott (1992) and Gwynn (2007: 136–47).
54
The quoted passage comes from the material inserted into this Encyclical Letter (ori-
ginally written in 356) in 361.
 Bishop 47
Not all the accusations that threatened Athanasius’ episcopal standing
could be resolved through the denunciation of his ‘Arian’ foes. The charge
of cowardice, to which he responded in the Apologia de Fuga, was a serious
matter in a Christian culture that placed great weight on the heroism of
martyrdom.55 This was a particular concern within Egypt, where the Meli-
tians who threatened Athanasius’ authority styled themselves the ‘Church
of the Martyrs’. Athanasius had a very real need to justify his flight into
hiding after the attack on the Church of Theonas in February 356. In the
Apologia de Fuga, he maintained that he had thought of his congregation
before himself and that the teaching of Scripture vindicated his decision.
Moreover, his miraculous escape from the church was itself proof of divine
favour: ‘When Providence had thus delivered us in such an extraordinary
manner, who can justly lay any blame [upon us], that we did not give our-
selves up to those who pursued us, nor turned back and presented our-
selves [to them]? This would have been plainly to show ingratitude to the
Lord’ (25).
There were precedents from Egyptian Christian tradition to which Atha-
nasius could appeal for support. Dionysius of Alexandria, the great third-
century bishop, had survived the persecutions of both Decius and Valerian.
The hermit Antony, according to Athanasius’ Life, had come forward at
the time of the Great Persecution but had been preserved by God for the
benefit of others (Life of Antony 46). Still, Athanasius’ flight remained a
source of some embarrassment for his supporters. In the later Coptic tra-
dition, the History of the Patriarchs imagined that he had in fact surrendered
himself to Constantius, only to be rescued from death by divine grace.56
Constantius personified Athanasius’ other episcopal dilemma, which
concerned not only his personal standing but his vision of the place of
the Church in an increasingly Christian Empire. What loyalty did a bishop
owe to an emperor whom he believed was acting in support of heresy?57
The relationship of Christianity to the Roman State had been transformed
by the conversion of Constantine, which had been welcomed by a Church
reeling from the Great Persecution. Like the vast majority of his contem-
poraries, Athanasius expressed nothing but respect for the first Christian

55
On the context and theological justification of Athanasius’ defence of his flight, see
Pettersen (1984) and Leemans (2003).
56
This episode and the presentation of Athanasius in the History of the Patriarchs are dis-
cussed further towards the end of Ch. 6.
57
Among the many modern studies of Athanasius’ view of the relationship between
Church and State, note the works of Nordberg (1964), Barnard (1974), and Barnes (1993: esp.
165–75). On the reign of Constantius, see also Klein (1977).
48 Athanasius of Alexandria
emperor. Even his first exile in 335 was attributed solely to the machin-
ations of the ‘Eusebians’, who misled the pious ruler. The same respect is
extended to Constantius throughout Athanasius’ writings down to his third
exile and the Apologia ad Constantium. Both in the original text written in
c.353–6 and in the passages added in mid-357 Constantius is addressed as
‘the most pious and religious Augustus’. The change in tone in the Historia
Arianorum, written later in 357, is startling. Constantius is not merely under
the influence of the ‘Arians’. He is the leader of the heretics, the forerunner
of the Antichrist.
Whether this remarkable shift in language represents an equally dramatic
change in Athanasius’ feelings regarding the emperor is impossible to deter-
mine. He must have been at least wary of the emperor who had supported
the imposition of first Gregory and then George in his place. In the Historia
Arianorum Athanasius reinterpreted the events of the previous two decades
to hold Constantius responsible for every action of the ‘Arians’ against the
orthodox. ‘Those who hold the doctrines of Arius have indeed no king but
Caesar; for through him the fighters against Christ accomplish everything
they wish’ (33). In response to the threat of a heretical emperor, Athana-
sius proclaimed the Church’s freedom from secular interference. This doc-
trine of the separation of Church and State is summed up in Athanasius’
quotation of a letter written to Constantius by the Spanish bishop Ossius
of Cordova. The aged Ossius, who had once been Constantine’s episcopal
aide at Nicaea, warned Constantius to reconsider his actions:
Cease these proceedings, I beseech you, and remember that you are a mortal man.
Be afraid of the day of judgement and keep yourself pure thereunto. Do not intrude
yourself into ecclesiastical affairs, and do not give commands to us concerning
them, but learn them from us. God has put into your hands the kingdom; to us He
has entrusted the affairs of His Church; and as he who would steal the Empire from
you would resist the ordinance of God, so likewise fear on your part lest by taking
upon yourself the government of the Church you become guilty of a great offence.
It is written, ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the
things that are God’s’ [Matthew 22:21]. Neither therefore is it permitted to us to
exercise an earthly rule, nor have you, Sire, any authority to burn incense. (Quoted
in Historia Arianorum 44)

Yet Athanasius did not actually oppose the involvement of the emperor
in Church affairs. Even in the Historia Arianorum he refused to criticize
Constantine, whose support for orthodoxy is contrasted to Constantius’
‘Arianism’. Throughout his career he repeatedly appealed to and wel-
comed imperial assistance on his own behalf. In addition to his flight to
 Bishop 49
Constantine after the Council of Tyre, Athanasius’ restoration in 337 was
supported by Constantine II, and after the deaths of Constantius and Julian
he would write to Jovian upon that emperor’s accession in 363. Athanasius’
hostility to Constantius is directed not against the principle of imperial
involvement in the Church, but against imperial support for the ‘wrong’
Christians. It was a dilemma that every subsequent Christian generation
would face, reflecting the change wrought for better and for worse by state
support for the Church from Constantine onwards.
The Historia Arianorum marked the culmination of the apologetic writ-
ings of Athanasius’ third exile. At the same time, he defined his construction
of the ongoing theological debates in the De Synodis Arimini et Seleuciae
begun in 359. Athanasius’ representation of contemporary events as the
continuation of a single ‘Arian Controversy’ would become the standard
interpretation of the fourth-century ecclesiastical conflicts. This triumph,
however, lay in the future. In the late 350s, the old expression ‘Athana-
sius contra mundum [against the world]’ was not so far from the truth. His
support remained strong in Egypt, and he still had allies elsewhere in the
east as well as in the west. But the joint councils of Ariminum and Seleucia
in 359, which provoked the De Synodis, were a further statement of Con-
stantius’ desire to establish unity in the Church, and the creed that those
councils were pressured to endorse was regarded at least by Athanasius as
‘Arian’. It seemed that Athanasius was fighting a losing struggle. Then in
November 361 his fortunes changed once more. Constantius died, at the
comparatively young age of 44. The new emperor was Julian ‘the Apostate’
(361–3), the last pagan to rule the Roman Empire.

THE FINAL YEARS (362–73)

The accession of Julian had one immediate consequence for Athanasius’

benefit. George had never endeared himself to the population of Alexan-
dria and had spent much of his episcopate away from the city. He returned
only on 26 November 361, just before news arrived of Constantius’ death.
The bishop was seized and imprisoned, and a month later he was lynched
(Historia acephala 8), whether by pagans or Athanasius’ supporters is
unknown. Julian had already declared an amnesty to all bishops exiled
under his Christian predecessor, and Athanasius reclaimed his city in Febru-
ary 362. Just as he had on his return from his first exile, Athanasius immedi-
ately presided over a Council of Alexandria. Part of his aim was to reaffirm
50 Athanasius of Alexandria
his authority over the Egyptian Church, which he appears to have achieved
with very little difficulty. The other aim of the council was to seek a reso-
lution to the situation in Antioch, where the Nicene Christian population
was split between two factions. These twin purposes are reflected in the
two documents preserved from the council: the Epistula Catholica and the
Tomus ad Antiochenos.
What is now known as the Epistula Catholica contains part of the council’s
encyclical letter and concerns the acceptance into communion of bishops
who had subscribed to the councils of 359–60. This will have applied to
any Egyptian clergy appointed by George, as well as many bishops across
east and west. In a conciliatory gesture, the conditions set were not overly
restrictive, but required subscription to Nicaea and recognition of the full
divinity of the Holy Spirit. The Tomus ad Antiochenos had a more specific
audience in mind. It was addressed to the divided Nicene Christians of
Antioch, urging unity. This document is of considerable importance for
Athanasius’ theological development, to which we will return in the next
chapter. It is also a statement of his ecclesiastical vision for the Nicene
Church.58
In certain respects the Antiochene Church was a microcosm of the
fourth-century Church as a whole.59 In 362 the Christian congregations in
the city were divided between no fewer than three factions. Euzoius, who
followed the doctrinal programme that had been promoted by Constan-
tius, was ignored by the Tomus as an ‘Arian’. But two groups within Anti-
ochene Christianity each claimed to represent Nicene orthodoxy. Paulinus
led those who had remained loyal to Eustathius, the bishop exiled in 327.
His rival Meletius was more suspect in Athanasius’ eyes as he had been
ordained by the ‘Arian’ Eudoxius of Constantinople, although he too had
come to endorse the authority of Nicaea and his congregation was larger
than that of Paulinus. The Tomus has a bias in favour of Paulinus, who is
identified by name, whereas Meletius’ following is referred to as ‘those who
assemble in the Old [Church]’. But the chief concern is to unite both blocs
behind the condemnation of ‘Arianism’ and support for the Nicene Creed.
Since we rejoice with all those who desire reunion, but especially with those that
assemble in the Old [Church], and as we glorify the Lord exceedingly, as for all
things so especially for the good purpose of these men, we exhort you that concord

58
A far more cynical view of the Tomus and its purpose is offered by Elliott (2007).
59
For a short overview on the Antiochene schism, see Spoerl (1993), and, on the period of
the Tomus, see Karmann (2009). On the late-antique city of Antioch and its Christian history
more broadly, see Liebeschuetz (1972) and Wallace-Hadrill (1982).
 Bishop 51
be established with them on these terms, and, as we said above, without further
conditions, without namely any further demand upon yourselves on the part of
those who assemble in the Old [Church], or Paulinus and his fellows propounding
anything else, or aught beyond the Nicene definition. (Tomus ad Antiochenos 4)

The mission to reunite the Antiochene Nicenes was doomed to fail.

Paulinus, who had previously been only a presbyter, was ordained bishop
over his congregation before the Tomus arrived. He remained apart from
Meletius, who was recognized as legitimate bishop of Antioch by much
of the eastern Church. Yet, even in failure, the Tomus is at least indica-
tive of Athanasius’ vision and the status he had gained through his long
struggle for orthodoxy. The ease with which he reasserted his authority
in Egypt and his immediate involvement in wider affairs are a testament
to his achievement in the years of desert exile. Through his example and
writings, Athanasius had retained his following in Egypt and the west,
and, as the Nicene Creed gained increasing support in the east, so too did
Athanasius’ reputation rise. His prominence was reflected when Julian,
who preferred to avoid direct persecution of Christians, made him an
exception and in October 362 ordered that he go into exile. As he fled,
Athanasius is said to have prophetically told his companions, ‘let us retire
for a little while, friends; it is but a small cloud which will soon pass away’
(first quoted in Rufinus, X.35).
Athanasius’ prophecy was swiftly fulfilled. The death of Julian in Persia
in June 363 permitted Athanasius to return from his short fourth exile. The
new emperor was the Christian soldier Jovian (363–4).60 Athanasius came
to meet the emperor on the latter’s arrival in Antioch, as too did the ‘Arian’
Lucius, who had been appointed as successor to George. Jovian is reported
to have dismissed the protests of Lucius and requested from Athanasius
a statement of the orthodox faith. In response, Athanasius wrote a letter
laying down the Nicene Creed and urging the emperor to reject the fol-
lowers of Arius. The Letter to Jovian (Letter LVI) is a further reminder that
Athanasius did not oppose imperial intervention in the Church, as long as
that intervention was in the service of the correct faith. His hopes were
quickly dashed. Jovian did apparently endorse Nicaea. But this time, Atha-
nasius’ prediction that as a religious emperor ‘you will truly have your
heart also in the hand of God and you will peacefully enjoy a long reign’
(Letter LVI.1) proved wide of the mark. Jovian died after a reign of just eight

60
On Jovian and Athanasius, see Barnard (1989) and Stockhausen (2006).
52 Athanasius of Alexandria
months. His successor in the east was Valens (364–78), who returned to the
theological programme of Constantius. His initial policy towards Athana-
sius was one of persecution, and in late 365 the bishop withdrew into hid-
ing to avoid arrest (Historia acephala 16). This fifth and last period in exile
was very brief. In February 366 Valens allowed him to return unmolested,
and so he remained until his death.
As he entered the closing years of his life Athanasius had become an
‘elder statesman’, venerated in Egypt and respected throughout the Nicene
Church.61 Even now challenges remained. Within Egypt, the Melitian
Schism still endured. After their prominent role in Athanasius’ first exile,
the Melitians disappear from his writings until the later 350s. In the Life of
Antony the hermit is reported to have avoided all contact with the schis-
matics (68, 89). In the Historia Arianorum (78–9) and the material added to
the Encyclical Letter to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya in 361 (22) the Melitians
are alleged to have supported George of Alexandria. This is then followed
by a series of anti-Melitian passages in Athanasius’ Festal Letters of the late
360s, which may indicate a Melitian resurgence in Upper Egypt around this
time.62 One of those passages occurs in Festal Letter XXXIX for Easter 367,
the famous letter that defined the canon of Scripture. Athanasius condemns
the Melitians for their use of apocryphal books, stamping his authority
once again over the beliefs and practices of the Egyptian Church.
Outside Egypt, the ecclesiastical and theological controversies continued
unabated. In the west, the name of Athanasius carried a powerful weight.
His final major polemical work was written in 367 to the bishops of Roman
Africa: the Epistula ad Afros.63 There is little new in this work’s theological
argument, which is lifted from the earlier De Decretis and De Synodis. What
is more striking is that, by writing the Epistula ad Afros, Athanasius has
claimed the responsibility for urging the African bishops to greater efforts
in support of orthodoxy. He upholds the supremacy of Nicaea against
those who defend the Council of Ariminum, and expresses surprise that
one such man, Auxentius of Milan, has been allowed to remain in his epis-
copate (10). Auxentius had been ordained by Athanasius’ old rival Gregory
of Alexandria, which may have increased his concern. A similar condemna-
tion of Auxentius appears in one of Athanasius’ very last works, the Letter

61
‘Elder statesman’ is the title for the relevant chapter in Barnes (1993:152–64).
62
Festal Letters XXXVII (364), XXXIX (367), XLI (369). See further Camplani (1989: 262–82).
63
Athanasius states that he wrote on behalf of all the bishops of Egypt and Libya, ‘for
we all are of one mind in this, and we always sign for one another if any chance not to be
present’ (Epistula ad Afros 10).
 Bishop 53
to Epictetus of Corinth in c.372, which he wrote in response to a request for
advice on the correct doctrine of Christ.
In the eastern Nicene churches Athanasius was no less admired, although
increasingly the baton for the defence of orthodoxy had passed from him
to the Cappadocian Fathers led by Basil of Caesarea.64 A number of letters
from Basil to Athanasius survive from these years. Their tone was unvary-
ingly respectful, for, ‘the worse the diseases of the churches grow, the more
do we all turn to your Excellency, in the belief that your championship is
the one consolation left to us in our troubles’ (Basil, Letter 80). Yet there is
also a note of frustration. Like the majority of the eastern Nicene bishops,
Basil recognized Meletius as the true bishop of Antioch. Athanasius and the
western churches, however, still recognized Paulinus, and, despite Basil’s
pleas (Letters 66, 67, 69), Athanasius would never agree to accept commu-
nion with Meletius.65 Basil similarly urged Athanasius to convince the west
to condemn Marcellus of Ancyra (Letter 69.2), who had been defended back
at Western Serdica but whose heresy was a major focus of opposition in the
east. Here too Basil was unsuccessful. In this correspondence the younger
man is looking to the future of the Church, while Athanasius’ loyalty to
former friends is rooted in the past.66 Nevertheless, Basil has no doubt of
the debt that his generation owed to Athanasius, ‘who from his boyhood
fought a good fight on behalf of true religion’ (Letter 82).

DEATH AND AFTERMATH

‘On the seventh of Pachon [2 May 373], he departed this life in a wonderful
manner’ (Festal Index 45). The last few years of Athanasius’ episcopate were,
at least by the standards of his previous career, relatively uneventful. His
position was not under serious threat, his authority respected throughout
the Nicene Church. When he died in May 373, the episcopate passed as he
desired to the presbyter Peter, who took office as Peter II (373–80). Yet the
challenges that Athanasius had faced for so long did not dissipate upon his

64
On the career and writings of Basil, see Rousseau (1994: esp. 294–9 on his exchanges with
Athanasius). There is a new assessment of his relationship with Athanasius in Heil (2006).
65
After Athanasius’ death, Basil would claim that Athanasius had desired communion with
Meletius but was prevented by ‘the malice of counsellors’ (Letter 258, to Epiphanius, c.377).
66
‘I myself once asked the blessed Pope Athanasius what his attitude towards Marcel-
lus was. He neither defended him nor showed dislike for him, but only suggested with a
smile that he had come close to depravity, but that he considered that he had cleared himself ’
(Epiphanius, Panarion 72.4.4). See Lienhard (1993, 2006) and Spoerl (2006).
54 Athanasius of Alexandria
death. Immediately upon his election, Peter was arrested on Valens’ orders
and fled into exile to Rome, while the ‘Arian’ Lucius occupied his see. Peter
remained in exile until 378, when he returned shortly before the Goths
killed Valens at the Battle of Adrianople, and on his own death was suc-
ceeded by his brother Timothy (bishop 380–5).
At first glance it might be tempting to view the exile of Peter as a sign that
nothing had really changed. The bishop of Alexandria was still vulnerable
to imperial persecution, and Peter shared the fate that had so often afflicted
his mentor Athanasius. In truth, of course, the office that Peter inherited
in 373 was very different from that to which Athanasius had been elected
amid controversy back in 328. Athanasius’ long episcopate had transformed
the status of the Alexandrian see within both Egypt and the wider Church.
He had united the Egyptian clergy behind him, a unity reinforced by his
alliance with the powerful ascetic movement, which included a number of
prominent monk-bishops. Through his long struggle for orthodoxy against
‘Arianism’, Athanasius had raised Alexandrian doctrinal authority to an
unprecedented height. His periods of western exile and the links he had
maintained with colleagues in west and east had placed Alexandria at the
heart of a network that spanned the Mediterranean world.
When we examine Peter’s career more closely, it provides a testimony
to the achievements that his predecessor had wrought. Even Peter’s exile
bears witness to the pressures that Athanasius had kept in check during his
final decade, and Peter benefited greatly from the prestige that he inherited.
His reception in the west owed much to Athanasius’ close ties with Rome,
and, when Peter returned to Alexandria, he carried with him a statement
of support from the Roman bishop Damasus. As the head of the Alexan-
drian Church, Peter was also regarded as a natural authority on matters of
doctrine. A year before the Council of Constantinople in 381, Valens’ east-
ern successor Theodosius I passed a law in which he defined as orthodox all
those who shared ‘the religion that is followed by the Pontiff Damasus and
by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria’ (Theodosian Code XVI.1.2, February 380).
Later generations would hold up Athanasius as a model for future
bishops to emulate. His triumph owed much to his endurance in adver-
sity and to his dedication to his see. But to understand Athanasius’ life and
legacy we have to look beyond the narrative of ecclesiastical politics. Atha-
nasius’ episcopal career is inseparable from his commitment to theology
and asceticism and to the pastoral duties of a spiritual father. The Egyptian
Coptic Church would have good reason to look back on Athanasius as their
second founder, and it was on his achievements that his two greatest Alex-
andrian successors, Theophilus (385–412) and Cyril (412–44), would build.
 3
Theologian

No history of Christian doctrine may omit the name of Athanasius of

Alexandria. In theology, as in all other aspects of Christianity, the fourth
century was a time of definition and transformation. Athanasius was
one of the central figures of this formative age. Despite the controversy
that surrounded so much of his episcopate, his doctrinal influence grew
stronger as the century progressed and laid the foundations for later gen-
erations of theologians. He was remembered for his understanding of the
Trinity and the relationship between God and His creation, rooted in a
profound belief in human salvation through the Incarnation of God’s Son
and Word. His condemnation of his opponents, although much removed
from their actual teachings, established ‘Arianism’ as the archetypal heresy
that denied the divinity of Christ. In his later years Athanasius embraced
the original Nicene Creed as the strongest bastion for orthodoxy against
this ‘Arian heresy’, and extended his defence of the full godhood of the Son
to the Holy Spirit. He also placed an increasing emphasis on the union of
humanity and divinity in the Incarnate Word, and so moved towards the
Christological questions debated in the following century.1
The best known of Athanasius’ theological writings are the great trea-
tises. The earliest, the Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione (c.328–35), already
reveals the doctrinal principles that Athanasius would uphold throughout
his life. He expressed these principles in a more polemical form in the
three Orationes contra Arianos (c.339–46), which constructed his interpret-
ation of the fourth-century debates as an ‘Arian Controversy’ polarized
between the orthodoxy that he represented and the heresy of his foes.
The same polemical construction is visible in the De Decretis Nicaenae
Synodi (c.350–5), Athanasius’ first explicit endorsement of the Nicene
Creed of 325, and the De Synodis Arimini et Seleuciae (359–61). In this

1
Modern scholarship on Athanasius’ theology is vast. For older works see the bibliography
of Butterweck (1995). Among recent studies note particularly Widdicombe (1994: 145–249),
Pettersen (1995), Anatolios (1998), Behr (2004: 168–259), Morales (2006), and Weinandy
(2007).
56 Athanasius of Alexandria
last work Athanasius acknowledged that not everyone whose teachings
differed from his own was by necessity an ‘Arian’. The desire for com-
promise is similarly attested in the Tomus ad Antiochenos despatched from
Alexandria in 362 as Athanasius sought to heal some of the rifts that
had opened in the previous decades. To these treatises we must add a
number of shorter but no less important works. They include Athana-
sius’ Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit (c.357–8) and other personal
letters like those to Adelphius (c.370) and Epictetus (c.372), the latter
of which was widely read in the fifth century for its meditation on the
natures of Christ.
In this chapter we will trace the background against which Athanasius’
theology emerged and the evolution of his beliefs across the long course
of his life. It is all too easy through modern eyes to regard matters of doc-
trine as the concern of bishops and intellectuals separated from the travails
of everyday life. For Athanasius and his contemporaries, this was far from
the truth. The issues at stake lay at the very heart of the Christian faith:
the relationship between God and humanity and the promise of salvation
through the Incarnation. Athanasius’ involvement in the controversies was
thus inseparable from his obligations as a bishop and a pastoral and ascetic
leader. It is perhaps the greatest strength of Athanasius as a theologian that
he could express concepts of such importance in language that everyone
could understand and never lost sight of why the questions mattered for
the wider Christian world.

ARIUS, ALEXANDER, AND NICAEA: THE ORIGINS OF THE

FOURTH-CENTURY THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES

The evolution of Christian theology is a long and complex story.2 In the

decades following the death of Christ in c.33 ad, the religion that we
know as Christianity took shape only gradually. The first communities of
believers did not have a fixed organizational structure or an agreed canon
of Christian Scripture. Each individual community preserved its own
interpretation of Christ’s message, and creeds were not yet written that

2
Accessible introductions can be found in Kelly (1972, 1977), McGrath (1994), Behr (2001),
and Pelikan (2003), and the edited collections of Di Berardino and Studer (1996) and Evans
(2004).
 Theologian 57
sought to capture the faith of the wider Church. A number of the definitive
elements of our modern understanding of the Christian religion took their
full form in the fourth century. This process of definition had begun before
the conversion of Constantine but accelerated rapidly with the appearance
of a Christian emperor. The contribution that Athanasius would make to
the definition of Christianity extended beyond theology and the role of
episcopal authority to the rise of the ascetic movement and the scriptural
canon.
Amid the diversity of the early Christian movement, however, there
was also a remarkable sense of unity. The early Christians themselves
held strongly that all their communities everywhere belonged to a single
Church. They also held in common the fundamental theological values
that underlay the Christian faith. They were monotheists who worshipped
one God, but a God who was expressed through a Trinity of Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. The second member of that Trinity, the Son, had become
Incarnate in the man Jesus Christ. Through His birth to Mary, His life and
teachings, and His death on the cross, the Incarnate Son made possible the
salvation of humanity in the world to come.
Far more controversial was how these doctrines should be understood
and their implications. How should the Christian faith comprehend the
Trinity and the relationship between God and humanity? Against the
polytheistic cults that dominated the Roman Empire in which Christian-
ity developed, the new religion emphasized monotheism. In comparison
to monotheistic Judaism, from which the first Christians had emerged,
the crucial differences lay in the Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son.
But how could monotheism and the Trinity be reconciled? Did a hier-
archy exist within the persons of the Trinity? In very simple terms, how
could God be both One and Three? The Incarnation raised further con-
cerns. Christian salvation was achieved through the divine Son of God,
who lived and died as a human man and rose again from death. Did
the divine Son experience the changes and sufferings of the body? Did
the Incarnation compromise His divinity and render Him lesser than
God the Father? How could Christians conceive of Jesus Christ who
was simultaneously both divine and human and yet a single being? Such
questions in turn led to debates over the nature of God and how the
Incarnation could bridge the gulf that separated the divine from the rest
of creation.
The early Christians recognized that a true understanding of God was
beyond the scope of human comprehension. Human thought and lan-
guage cannot embrace the divine, and belief ultimately rests upon faith
58 Athanasius of Alexandria
3
not reason. Yet the issues at stake were too crucial to the Christian reli-
gion to be left unexamined. A number of alternative interpretations were
debated and condemned in the second and third centuries ad. There were
those who placed such emphasis upon the monotheistic unity of the God-
head that they appeared to reduce the Trinity to three faces or modes
and reject the distinct identities of Father, Son, and Spirit. This became
known as ‘Modalism’ or ‘Sabellianism’, and not only neglected the Trin-
ity but undermined the individual presence of the Son in the Incarnation.
At the opposite extreme lay those who so separated the members of the
Trinity that they taught three independent Gods (‘Tritheism’). Still others
sought to avoid the implications of involving the divine in human suffering
by arguing that, in Christ, the Son took on a phantasmal or impassible
body and so only seemed to share such experiences. This was ‘Doceticism’
(from the Greek dokeō, ‘to seem’) and was believed to deny the truth of
the Incarnation on which salvation rested. Few Christians followed these
respective teachings in the fourth century, but they cast a shadow that influ-
enced Athanasius and many of his contemporaries. Unfortunately, it was
far easier to renounce those in error than to find agreement on the positive
expression of Christian orthodoxy.
We gain some insight into the difficult questions under debate from
the extensive writings of the Alexandrian theologian Origen (c.185–253).4
One of the most controversial of early Christian thinkers, Origen was a
wide-ranging teacher whose legacy can be traced in the arguments of
men on all sides of the fourth-century controversies. He emphasized the
superiority of the Father over the Son, and it has been argued that he fol-
lowed a ‘subordinationist’ theology of three unequal members within the
Trinity. No less important to Origen, however, was the unique status of
the Son as the Word, Wisdom, and Power of God. The very name Father
requires the existence of the Son, and God cannot be without His Word
and Wisdom. Therefore Origen proposed the eternal generation of the
Son, who was always with the Father. This raised once more the problem
of how to speak of Father and Son as united yet distinct. Origen on at
least one occasion spoke of Father, Son, and Spirit as three hypostases (using

3
‘The things that have been handed down by faith ought not to be measured by human
wisdom, but by the hearing of faith’ (Athanasius, Letter to Serapion on the Holy Spirit I.17).
4
On Origen and the much-debated question of his impact upon the fourth-century doc-
trinal debates, see Patterson (1982), Hanson (1987), Ayres (2004b: 20–30), and the articles col-
lected in Bienert and Kühneweg (1999). For the influence of Origen’s teachings on Athanasius,
see Lyman (1993) and Widdicombe (1994).
 Theologian 59
5
the word hypostasis to mean individual existence). But he denied that the
Son derived from the Father’s ousia (essence), a term that he regarded as
imposing materialist ideas upon the immaterial God. He preferred to speak
of the Son as a product of the Father’s will.
All the key points raised by Origen’s teachings—the status of Father,
Son, and Spirit within the Trinity; the eternity of the Son and the signifi-
cance of His titles Word, Wisdom, and Power; the generation of the Son;
and the meaning of the terms hypostasis and ousia—would come to a head
in the fourth-century theological controversies. For our understanding
of the background to the controversies, what needs to be emphasized is
that, when Athanasius was born in c.295, there was no agreed orthodox
interpretation on any of the questions under dispute. Nor was there a uni-
versally agreed mechanism by which orthodoxy could be determined and
imposed. The development of Christian theology in the fourth century has
aptly been described as a ‘search for orthodoxy, a search conducted by the
method of trial and error’.6
In later Christian tradition, the fourth-century debates were remem-
bered as the ‘Arian Controversy’.7 The heresy of the Alexandrian presbyter
Arius, although condemned at the first ecumenical Council of Nicaea in
325 for denying the divinity of the Son of God, rallied supporters and
threatened to dominate the Church. Almost single-handedly, Athanasius,
the champion of orthodoxy, defeated the ‘Arian’ threat and secured the
triumph of the Nicene Creed. Modern scholars are all too aware of the
dangers inherent in this oversimplified narrative. The traditional interpret-
ation of the ‘Arian Controversy’ owes much to Athanasius’ own polemical
construction of ‘Arianism’, to which we will return later in this chapter.
‘Orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ were neither as self-evident nor as polarized as the
polemic would suggest, and the fourth century witnessed a wide spectrum
of different viewpoints that cannot be categorized as ‘Nicene’ or ‘Arian’.8
The resolution of the debates was long in doubt, and the eventual triumph
of what became Nicene orthodoxy does indeed owe much to Athanasius’
dedication and theological genius. But, before we turn to the theology of
Athanasius in detail, it is true that any account of the controversies must

5
Origen, Commentary on John 2.75. See further Logan (1987).
6
Hanson (1988: p. xx).
7
In addition to Hanson (1988), see now in general Ayres (2004b) and Behr (2004).
8
For an introduction to the problems raised by the categories ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ in
early Christianity, see Bauer (1971), Le Boulluec (1985), R. D. Williams (2001b), and the articles
collected in Elm, Rebillard, and Romano (2000).
60 Athanasius of Alexandria
begin with the conflict between Arius and his bishop Alexander of Alexan-
dria and with the Council of Nicaea.
The difficulties involved in studying the theology of Arius (c.250–336)
are many and well known.9 His posthumous reputation as the greatest
heresiarch of the fourth century colours all later judgements, and his sur-
viving writings are limited. We possess three short texts: the Creed and Letter
that Arius sent to Alexander of Alexandria in 320/1 (in Athanasius, De Syno-
dis 16); Arius’ short Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia in c.321/2 (Theodoret,
I.5); and a Creed that Arius and his friend Euzoius submitted to Constan-
tine in an attempt to secure recognition of their orthodoxy, probably in
333 (Socrates, I.26). Athanasius also provides two extensive summaries of
Arius’ most notorious work, the Thalia. The first, in Oratio contra Arianos
I.5–6, is an Athanasian paraphrase rather than a verbatim quotation and
will be discussed further under Athanasius’ construction of ‘Arianism’.
More authentic is the material preserved in De Synodis 15, which corres-
ponds closely to Arius’ other letters and creeds.10 These works cannot give
us a complete sense of Arius’ teachings but do enable us to identify his
characteristic arguments and why they aroused such great contention.
We acknowledge One God, alone unbegotten, alone eternal, alone without
beginning, alone true . . . who begot an only-begotten Son before eternal times,
through whom He has made both the ages and the universe; and begot Him, not
in semblance, but in truth; and that He made Him subsist at His own will,
unalterable and unchangeable; the perfect creature [teleion ktisma] of God, but not
as one of the creatures; offspring [gennēma], but not as one of things begotten;11
not as Valentinus pronounced that the offspring of the Father was an emanation;
nor as Manichaeus taught that the offspring was a portion homoousios to the Father; or
as Sabellius, dividing the Monad, speaks of a Son-Father. (Arius, Letter to Alexander,
De Synodis 16)

Throughout his extant writings, Arius repeatedly emphasizes the unique

divinity of God the Father. Contrary to some accusations, he did not deny
the divinity of the Son, but Arius certainly subordinated the Son to the
Father. The Son is God but not true God. He cannot be eternal because
He is begotten and therefore has a beginning, and for the same reason He

9
In addition to the standard work of R. D. Williams (1987, 2001a), see also Böhm (1991)
and now Löhr (2005, 2006).
10
For various assessments of these Thalia passages, see Stead (1978), Kannengiesser (1981,
1985a), and R. D. Williams (1985).
11
Arius describes the Son as a ktisma (creature) and a gennēma (offspring) but never as a
poiēma (a thing made). The importance of this distinction for our understanding of Athana-
sius’ polemic will be discussed later in this chapter.
 Theologian 61
cannot share in the ousia of the unbegotten Father. The Son ‘has nothing
proper [idios] to God according to personal subsistence [hypostasis], for He
is neither equal nor homoousios with Him . . . The Father is alien according
to essence [ousia] to the Son, because He exists without beginning’ (Thalia,
De Synodis 15). Moreover, the Son cannot fully know the One God, who is
transcendent and unknowable. ‘It is clear that for one who has a beginning
to encompass by thought or apprehension the one who is without
beginning is impossible’ (Thalia, De Synodis 15). The Son is Word, Wisdom,
and Power, but He received these qualities from the Father, who possesses
them inherently and eternally.
The generation of the Son occurred before time and the ages. But ‘He
was not before He was begotten’ (Letter to Alexander, De Synodis 16), for He
had a beginning and cannot possess the eternity of the Father. Nor does the
Son share the ousia of the Father, and so Arius taught that the Son was cre-
ated by the Father’s will. He was a creature (ktisma), although not like any
other created being. In one text Arius even referred to the Son as coming
into existence ‘out of nothing [ex ouk ontōn]’ (Letter to Eusebius of Nicome-
dia, Theodoret, I.5).12 However, for Arius the Son is a unique and perfect
creature, who unlike other creatures is unalterable and unchangeable.
Later claims that Arius taught that the Son changed and suffered derive
from Athanasius’ polemic and find no support in Arius’ original writings.13
In the light of his heretical reputation, it is important to underline the
sincerity of belief that inspired Arius’ controversial teachings. Arius sought
to maintain the status of the Father against those whom he believed over-
exalted the Son and blurred their distinct identities within the Trinity.
He initially came into conflict with his bishop Alexander over the latter’s
teaching of ‘God always, the Son always’. For Arius, if the Son was eternal,
then He must also be unbegotten, and this compromised the uniqueness
of both the Father and His only-begotten Son. It was the Son who became
Incarnate as man, and, while Arius does not attribute human suffering
or weakness to the Son, he saw the Incarnation as further evidence that
the Son was different by nature from the Father. The begotten Son simi-
larly could not be one in essence (homoousios) with the unbegotten Father,
and such a teaching led to the errors of Manichaeism or to the Sabellian
Modalism that Arius particularly feared.

12
For the significance of this doctrine, see May (1994).
13
These later polemical claims have exerted a powerful influence on modern scholarship.
This is particularly true of the arguments of Gregg and Groh (1981), who hold that Arius’ Son
advanced in virtue as a model for Christian salvation, and Hanson (1985), who believed that
Arius emphasized the Son as a God who suffered in the Incarnation.
62 Athanasius of Alexandria
Arius thus shared the theological concerns of other third- and early
fourth-century Christians over how to conceive of the Trinity and the Incar-
nation. His language is highly philosophical, but the points he raised were
genuine and not easy to refute. Nevertheless, among some contemporaries
Arius’ doctrines aroused immediate hostility. Many eastern bishops feared
Sabellianism no less than Arius did, but, in his desire to maintain the separ-
ation of Father and Son, Arius had gone too far. To teach that the Son came
into existence out of nothing and could not even know His Father threat-
ened to undermine the Son’s divinity entirely. If the Son was so inferior to
the Father, could He truly fulfil the Christian promise of human salvation?
This was the reaction of the earliest opponents of Arius, led by Alexander
of Alexandria.
The evidence for Alexander’s doctrinal teachings is no more extensive
than for those of Arius. Two letters survive, one addressed to his namesake
Alexander of Byzantium/Thessalonica in c.322 (Theodoret, I.4) and the
Encyclical Letter that he circulated across the eastern Church in late 324 or
early 325 (Socrates, I.6). Both letters are primarily concerned to denounce
Arius rather than to present Alexander’s own definition of orthodoxy. The
Encyclical Letter in particular provides the earliest systematic polemical
description of the ‘Arian heresy’:
What they have invented and assert, contrary to the Scriptures, are as follows: God
was not always a father, but there was when God was not a father; the Word of God
was not always, but came to be out of nothing [ex ouk ontōn]; for the ever-existing
God has made Him who did not previously exist, out of the non-existent. There-
fore indeed there was once when He was not. For the Son is a creature [ktisma]
and a thing made [poiēma]. He is neither like the Father according to essence [kat’
ousian], nor true Word by nature of the Father, nor true Wisdom. He is one of the
things made and one of the generated beings, being inaccurately called Word and
Wisdom, since He came to be Himself through the proper Word of God and the
Wisdom in God, in which indeed God made everything and also Him. Therefore
indeed He is changeable and mutable by nature, as are all rational beings, [and]
the Word is foreign and alien and separate from the essence of the Father. And
the Father is unintelligible to the Son, for the Word neither perfectly and exactly
knows the Father, nor is He able to see Him perfectly. (Alexander, Encyclical Letter,
Socrates, I.6)

Alexander’s construction of ‘Arianism’ directly foreshadows the polemic

of Athanasius in both content and rhetorical style.14 Like Athanasius, Alex-
ander combines elements of Arius’ original teachings with implications

14
For the argument that this letter was in fact drafted by Athanasius, see Stead (1988).
 Theologian 63
that he has drawn from Arius’ words, and so attributes to Arius conclu-
sions that the latter would never have accepted. We will explore this rhet-
orical approach in more detail when we turn to ‘Athanasian Arianism’
below. But the polemic reveals clearly the dangers that Alexander saw in
Arius’ theology. If the Son has a beginning, and is foreign to the ousia of the
Father whom He does not know perfectly, then how can He be the Father’s
eternal Word and Wisdom? If He is a creature, then how can He be the
one through whom creation came into being? Alexander disregards Arius’
distinction that the Son is a creature but not like other creatures. If the
Son is a creature, then He has been reduced to the level of all creatures,
created from nothing and changeable by nature, and is no longer our God
and Saviour.
In contrast to the errors of Arius, Alexander offered his understanding
of the traditional faith of the Church. The eternal and only-begotten Son
of the Father is not one of the creatures but the Word through whom the
Father brought forth creation. ‘How is He unlike the Father’s ousia, who
is “His perfect image” [Colossians 1:15] and “the brightness of His glory”
[Hebrews 1:3]?’ (Alexander, Encyclical Letter, Socrates, I.6). The Son is always
immutable and was not changed by the Incarnation, and His knowledge
of the Father is perfect. Alexander’s teachings again foreshadow those of
his successor and pupil Athanasius, although Athanasius would surpass his
master and develop these doctrines in far greater depth.
After Arius had been expelled from Egypt by Alexander in c.321, he gained
support elsewhere in the east, notably from the church historian Eusebius
of Caesarea in Palestine and from Eusebius of Nicomedia, the bishop of the
eastern imperial capital. It was this wider escalation of the controversy that
led Alexander to circulate his Encyclical Letter. When Constantine conquered
the eastern regions of the Empire in 324, the divisions were of a magnitude
that required imperial involvement. The Council of Nicaea in June–July 325
would come to be remembered as the first ecumenical (‘universal’) council
of the Church.15 The traditional number of 318 bishops in attendance is
legendary (it is the number of Abraham’s servants in Genesis 14:14), but there
were some 220 bishops present from across the east and a few from further
afield.16 No Acta (minutes) from the council survive, and reconstruction of
the debates that took place is largely impossible. The theological decisions
of the council, however, are at first sight fairly straightforward. Arius was

15
There is a convenient survey of what is known of the council in Luibheid (1982).
16
On the tradition of the ‘318 fathers’, see Aubineau (1966). There is a tentative reconstruc-
tion of the original signature lists of Nicaea in Honigmann (1939: 44–8).
64 Athanasius of Alexandria
condemned, a sentence confirmed by Constantine, who sent him into exile.
And a creed was composed, which for the first time sought to represent the
agreed orthodox faith of the wider Church.17
We believe in one God, Father Almighty, Maker of all things, seen and unseen; and
in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, begotten as only begotten of the Father,
that is of the essence [ousia] of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of
true God, begotten not made, of one essence [homoousios] with the Father, through
whom all things came into existence, both things in heaven and things on earth;
who for us men and for our salvation came down and was incarnate and became
man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into the heavens, and is coming
to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit. But those who say ‘there
was a time when He did not exist’, and ‘before being begotten He did not exist’, and
that ‘He came into being from non-existence’, or who allege that the Son of God is
from another hypostasis or ousia, or is alterable or changeable, [or created18], these
the catholic and apostolic Church condemns. (Nicene Creed of 325)

At one level, the original Nicene Creed was clear and unequivocal. The
most extreme formulations associated with Arius were rejected, particu-
larly the Son’s creation from nothing and any suggestion that He came
into existence in time or was subject to change. The Son is not only God
but is true God and is begotten of the ousia of the Father, although it is not
explicitly stated that He is eternal. The creed thus firmly safeguarded the
essential Christian understanding of the divinity of the Son who became
Incarnate for our salvation.
Yet Nicaea failed to remove the tensions troubling eastern Christianity.
The creed itself raised almost as many questions as it resolved. Some of those
questions only gradually emerged in the course of the fourth-century con-
troversies. The status of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity, included almost
as an afterthought at Nicaea, became a subject of debate from the 350s
onwards. The terms ousia and hypostasis, used effectively as synonyms in the
Nicene anathemas, would later be redefined and play a crucial role in express-
ing orthodox Trinitarian faith. We will return to Athanasius’ involvement in
these developments in the second half of this chapter. But, even for many
of those present at Nicaea, elements of the creed were a cause for concern,
above all the description of the Son as homoousios (‘of one essence’) with the
Father. Homoousios was not a scriptural term, and its meaning was highly
ambiguous. It could be interpreted as implying materialist ideas of God,

17
On the development of creeds within the Church, see Kelly (1972) and Young (1991).
18
This anathema, which appears only in Athanasian versions of the creed, will be discussed
later in this chapter.
 Theologian 65
a concern already held by Origen, or as uniting Father and Son so closely
together as to lead to the Sabellian Modalism that many easterners feared.
Those doubts were expressed by Eusebius of Caesarea, who wrote home to
his see in 325 to explain his acceptance of the creed (quoted in Socrates, I.8).
Eusebius accepted homoousios and ‘from the ousia of the Father’ only in the
broadest sense of teaching the unity of Father and Son, and spoke for much
of the eastern Church in his distrust of the language of Nicaea.
The Council of Nicaea was one of the greatest events of Constan-
tine’s reign, and as long as he lived there was no open challenge to the
Nicene Creed. After his death in 337, the theological debates reignited
with increased force. Distrust at the implications of Nicaea and the word
homoousios had increased in the 330s because of the teachings of Marcellus,
bishop of Ancyra. Like Arius he was eventually condemned as a heretic
and accused of doctrines he may not have held, but Marcellus certainly
emphasized the unity of Father and Son to an extent that others regarded
as Sabellian.19 In the 340s and 350s a number of councils composed creeds
condemning such views and expressing different interpretations of the
Son’s divinity and status relative to the Father. It was also in the early 350s
that the Nicene Creed attracted renewed attention, when Athanasius first
upheld Nicaea as the strongest defence against teachings he regarded as
‘Arian’. The controversies continued past Athanasius’ death in 373 and
even beyond 381, when the second ecumenical Council of Constantinople
revised the Nicene Creed into the form used in most church services down
to the present day. The final stages of the fourth-century debates were dom-
inated by the three Cappadocian Fathers—Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of
Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa—who in orthodox tradition completed
the work that Athanasius had begun.

THE EARLY THEOLOGY OF ATHANASIUS: CONTRA

GENTES–DE INCARNATIONE AND THE ORATIONES CONTRA
ARIANOS

Athanasius was elected bishop of Alexandria three years after the Council
of Nicaea. The issues raised in the conflict between Arius and Alexander
were still being debated, and the controversy over his election made it

19
On Marcellus’ teachings and his role in the controversies, see Seibt (1994), Lienhard
(1999), and Parvis (2006).
66 Athanasius of Alexandria
important for Athanasius to establish his doctrinal as well as ecclesiastical
position. It is in this context that we should most probably set his earliest
theological work: the double treatise Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione.20 Like
Athanasius’ later writings, the double treatise had a practical purpose. In
contrast to his fellow Alexandrian Origen a century before, Athanasius was
not a theoretical or intellectual theologian. The questions that inspired
his teachings were those that concerned his congregations and the wider
Christian people. Already in this early text we find Athanasius engaging
with the fundamental doctrines of Christianity: the revelation of God and
salvation for man made possible through the Incarnation of the Son.
The stated purpose of the Contra Gentes, repeated in the opening chapter
of the De Incarnatione, was to demonstrate that the Christian faith was not
irrational. Pagans might mock the crucifixion and resurrection:
If they had really applied their minds to His divinity they would not have mocked
at so great a thing, but would rather have recognized that He was the Saviour of
the universe and that the cross was not the ruin but the salvation of creation. For
if, now that the cross has been set up, all idolatry has been overthrown, and by this
sign all demonic activity is put to flight, and only Christ is worshipped, and through
Him the Father is known, and opponents are put to shame while He every day
invisibly converts their souls—how then, one might reasonably ask them, is this
still to be considered in human terms, and should one not rather confess that He
who ascended the cross is the Word of God and the Saviour of the universe? (Contra
Gentes 1).

The triumph of Christianity over paganism was a theme of immediate

relevance for Athanasius’ audience in the reign of Constantine. Athana-
sius presents an extended attack upon pagan idolatry and the falsity of the
pagan gods (Contra Gentes 8–29). But this is not the primary purpose of his
double treatise. The attack on paganism is incorporated within a broader
theological argument that encapsulates Athanasius’ understanding of God
and creation and of the purpose of the Incarnation. Christ’s sacrifice on the
cross heralded the decline of paganism, which Athanasius and his readers
were now witnessing in the increasingly Christian Constantinian Empire.
For Athanasius, however, the full significance of the Incarnation lay in
bridging the gulf that separated God and creation and enabling humanity
to ‘become divine’.
Fundamental to Athanasius’ entire theology is his conception of a
complete ontological division between God and the world He created

20
Edition and English translation in Thomson (1971).
 Theologian 67
21
from nothing. The Godhead, eternal and immutable, is utterly separate
by ousia (essence) and physis (nature)22 from the created order, brought into
existence in time and mutable. Yet God is not distant from His creation.
Those who are created cannot bridge the gulf between themselves and
the divine. Revelation and salvation for humanity must come from God
through His love, expressed above all through the Incarnation of His Son.
Immediately after the opening of the Contra Gentes, Athanasius declares
that all creation owes its existence to the transcendent Christian God. But
God did not allow His transcendence to divide Him completely from His
creatures, for in His love He made humanity in His likeness.
For God, the creator of the universe and king of all, who is beyond all being and
human thought, since He is good and bountiful, has made humanity in His own
image through His own Word, our Saviour Jesus Christ; and He also made humanity
perceptive and understanding of reality through its similarity to Him, giving it also
a conception and knowledge of its own eternity, so that as long as it kept this like-
ness, it might never abandon its concept of God or leave the company of the saints,
but retaining the grace of Him who bestowed this on it, and also the special power
given it by the Father’s Word, it might rejoice and converse with God, living an idyl-
lic and truly blessed and immortal life. (2)

God is by nature good, and so too His creation was good. In His
goodness, however, He created humanity with free will, and through that
free will humanity turned away into error and evil (3–7). Athanasius’ attack
on idolatry in the Contra Gentes represents paganism as a product of that
turn towards evil (8–29). The pagan gods are not true gods but are part
of creation (the sun and moon), lifeless works of art (statues) or human
beings falsely honoured as gods (Zeus, Apollo). ‘Their worship and deifi-
cation is the beginning not of piety, but of godlessness and all impiety, and
proof of great deviation from the knowledge of the one and only true God,
I mean the Father of Christ’ (29). Even so, God did not abandon humanity,
and through His love humanity could still seek to know God. The likeness
of God remained visible within human souls (30–4), and He was revealed
through creation itself (35–9).
God, who is good and loves humanity and who cares for the souls He has made,
since He is by nature invisible and incomprehensible, being above all created being,
and therefore the human race would fail to attain knowledge of Him in that they

21
This doctrine is the foundation for the study of Anatolios (1998).
22
For Athanasius’ use of the terms ousia, physis, and also hypostasis, see Torrance (1995:
206–12). In Athanasius’ writings all three terms are virtually synonyms, although there are
nuances between them.
68 Athanasius of Alexandria
were made from nothing while He was uncreated—for this reason God so ordered
creation through His Word that although He is invisible by nature, yet He might be
known to humanity from His works. (35)

The closing passages of the Contra Gentes affirm that creation must not
be attributed to any other power, but solely to the Christian God acting
through His Word. It is the Word who binds all creation together, as it is
written in the Scriptures (40–6). Yet men in their folly set aside the true
God and honour false deities and created things (47). There the Contra
Gentes ends and the De Incarnatione begins. In the opening words of the De
Incarnatione Athanasius condemns again the pagan error of worshipping
idols and their ignorance of God’s providence and His Word. He then sets
the Incarnation firmly within this context, for it was in order to rescue
humanity from its errors that the Word Himself took on a created form.
And ‘although He is incorporeal by nature and Word, yet through the
mercy and goodness of His Father He appeared to us in a human body for
our salvation’ (1).
In the De Incarnatione, as in the Contra Gentes, Athanasius first emphasizes
that creation itself was good. Humanity turned away from God through
free will and so fell into evil (3–5). Nor was humanity able to reverse its
decline. But the loving God would not abandon those He had created, and
so the Word became Incarnate:
For since the Word realized that human corruption would not be abolished in any
other way except by everyone dying—but the Word was not able to die, being
immortal and the Son of the Father—therefore He took to Himself a body which
could die, in order that, since this participated in the Word who is above all, it might
suffice for death on behalf of all, and because of the Word who was dwelling in it,
it might remain incorruptible, and so corruption might cease from all humanity by
the grace of the resurrection. (9)

The corruption from which humanity was liberated by the Word origin-
ated in the error of turning away from God. Through the Incarnation,
therefore, the Word not only renewed humanity but restored its ability to
know God. Those who had fallen into error worshipped idols and resorted
to magic and astrology, and paid no heed to the lessons given through the
Laws and the Prophets (11–12). But, as humanity had originally been made
in the likeness of God, so ‘the Word of God came in His own person, in
order that, as He is the Image of His Father, He might be able to restore
humanity who is in the image’ (13). And through His works, culminating
in Christ’s death and resurrection, the Word provided revelation of God’s
love and providence.
 Theologian 69
In two ways our Saviour had compassion through the Incarnation: He both rid us
of death and renewed us; and also, although He is invisible and indiscernible, yet
by His works He revealed and made Himself known to be the Son of God and the
Word of the Father, leader and king of the universe. (16)

Only through the Incarnation of the divine Son and Word, Athana-
sius maintains, could salvation and revelation be received by humanity.
Only through His life and death as a created man could the Word enable
humanity to cross the otherwise unbridgeable gulf between the mortal and
divine. The remaining two-thirds of the De Incarnatione further reinforce
this presentation of the Incarnation against possible opposition. Athanasius
particularly seeks to explain the necessity and importance of Christ’s death
and resurrection (20–32), the most difficult Christian teachings for non-
Christians to accept. This is followed by a refutation of those who refuse to
acknowledge the Incarnation, both Jews (33–40) and pagans (41–55). At the
end of his refutation of paganism, Athanasius concludes with a summary
of his understanding of salvation. It contains perhaps the most famous
lines Athanasius ever wrote:
Just as if someone wishes to see God, who is invisible by nature and in no way
visible, he understands and knows Him from His works, so he who does not see
Christ with his mind, let him learn of Him from the works of His body, and let him
test whether they be human or of God. And if they be human, let him mock; but
if they are recognized to be not human but of God, let him not laugh at what are
not to be mocked, but rather wonder that through such simple means these divine
things have been revealed to us, and that through death immortality has come to
all, and through the Incarnation of the Word the universal providence and its leader
and creator the Word of God Himself have been made known. For He became
human that we might become divine; and He revealed Himself through a body
that we might receive an idea of the invisible Father; and He endured insults from
human beings that we might inherit incorruption. (54)

‘He became human that we might become divine (theopoiēthōmen)’. These

words encapsulate Athanasius’ vision of salvation as a process of ‘deifi-
cation’ or ‘divinization’.23 By this he did not mean that humans could
become gods in the same manner as God Himself. Only God is divine by
nature. But through participation with the divine Word, made possible
by the Incarnation, humanity could be made perfect and free from sin and

23
On the doctrine of deification and its development across the history of Christianity, see
Nispel (1999), Russell (2004), and the articles collected in Finlan and Kharlamov (2006) and
Christensen and Wittung (2007).
70 Athanasius of Alexandria
preserve the knowledge and unity with God that was lost when men and
women turned away into error. Athanasius was by no means the first theo-
logian to understand salvation in these terms. It was the clarity of his vision
and the power of his language that made his presentation hugely influen-
tial on subsequent Christian generations.
There is a further element to Athanasius’ vision of salvation which,
though controversial at the time when he wrote, was to prove equally influ-
ential for the development of orthodox Christianity. For Athanasius, it was
not sufficient merely to say that salvation was achieved through the Incar-
nation. The one who became Incarnate for our sakes had to be the eternal
and true Son and Word of the Father. None could bridge the ontological
divide of God and humanity except a mediator who was Himself divine by
nature. As we shall see shortly, this is a central theme throughout Athana-
sius’ anti-‘Arian’ writings. The great danger that Athanasius saw in ‘Arian-
ism’ was precisely the separation of the Son from the Father to an extent
that he believed made the Son’s saving work impossible. The Son as the
true Word and Wisdom of the Father is a recurring theme in the De Incar-
natione, and is already made explicit near the end of the Contra Gentes:
His holy disciples teach that everything was created through Him and for Him, and
that being good offspring of a good Father and true Son, He is the Power of the
Father and His Wisdom and Word; not so by participation, nor do these properties
come to Him from outside in the way of those who participate in Him and are
given wisdom by Him, having their power and reason in Him; but He is Wisdom
itself, Word itself, and Himself the Father’s own Power, Light itself, Truth itself,
Justice itself, Virtue itself, and indeed Stamp, Effulgence and Image. In short, He is
the supremely perfect issue of the Father, and is alone Son, the express Image of
the Father. (46)

According to the standards of later orthodoxy, there are two potential

weaknesses revealed by this summary of the theological arguments of the
Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione. The importance that Athanasius placed on
the full divinity of the Son left unresolved the question of how to speak
of Father and Son as one God and yet distinct identities within the Trin-
ity.24 This was a difficulty faced by all early fourth-century theologians who

24
On Athanasius and the unity of God, see Robertson (2007: esp. 139–51 on the Contra
Gentes–De Incarnatione). Athanasius continued to struggle with how to express the distinction
between Father and Son in the later Orationes contra Arianos: ‘they are two, because the Father
is Father and is not the Son, and the Son is Son and not the Father. But the nature is one, for
the offspring is not unlike the parent, for it is his image, and all that is the Father’s is the Son’s’
(Oratio III.4).
 Theologian 71
emphasized the unity of Father and Son, and could lead to suspicion of
Sabellianism in some parts of the eastern Church. Athanasius is far more
careful in his language than his contemporary Marcellus of Ancyra, who
was eventually condemned for this error. The problem lay less in Athana-
sius’ conception of the Trinity than in the limitations of the available termin-
ology, an issue that was addressed by the Cappadocian Fathers.
The second difficulty concerns Athanasius’ Christology, how he under-
stood the humanity and divinity of the Incarnate Christ. This has proved
more of an issue for modern scholars. It has been suggested that Athana-
sius reduced the human body of Christ to merely the tool of the Word,
who ‘fashioned for Himself in the virgin a body as a temple, and appropri-
ated it for His own as an instrument in which to be known and dwell’ (De
Incarnatione 8).25 Others have argued that Athanasius taught a ‘spacesuit’
Christology, in which the divine Word puts on His body like a suit and
does not share in the body’s human experiences.26 Such criticisms are in
part projecting back upon Athanasius the controversies of the fifth century,
when the relationship of the two natures of Christ became the major focus
for debate. The Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione is in any case not primarily
concerned with analytical Christology, and naturally emphasizes the role
of the divine Word. Nevertheless, Athanasius did not entirely separate the
Word from the experiences of Christ’s body, even though the divinity could
not itself suffer.27
When the theologians who speak of Him say that He ate and drank and was born,
understand that the body was born as a body and was nourished on suitable food.
But God the Word, who was with the body yet orders the universe, also made
known through His actions in the body that He Himself was not a man but God the
Word. But these things are said of Him, because the body which ate and was born
and suffered was no one else’s but the Lord’s; and since He became human, it was
right for these things to be said of Him as a man, that He might be shown to have a
true, not a phantasmal, body. (De Incarnatione 18)

Athanasius here is beginning to move towards the concept known as

the communication of idioms. This approach to expressing the mystery of
the Incarnation, more closely associated with his greatest successor Cyril
of Alexandria (bishop 412–44), allows the attribution of the properties of

25
This is a central theme of the interpretation of Athanasius in Grillmeier (1975). See the
comments of Anatolios (1998: 70–3).
26
The ‘spacesuit’ analogy comes from Hanson (1988: 448).
27
On the question of divine suffering in early Christian debate, see Gavrilyuk (2004).
72 Athanasius of Alexandria
each of Christ’s two natures to the other. Athanasius’ insistence that ‘the
body which ate and was born and suffered was no one else’s but the Lord’s’
associates the divine Word with the properties of His human body. He
would further develop such arguments later in his life, notably in his Letter
to Epictetus in c.372, which was much quoted in the fifth century. Although
his teachings were again limited by his terminology, the humanity of the
Incarnate Christ no less than His divinity was essential to Athanasius’ deifi-
cation model of salvation.
When the Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione was written (c.328–35), Athana-
sius was still a relatively young man. Across some forty years of controversy
and teaching, he would never deviate from the fundamental principles laid
down in that first double treatise. His conception of the Incarnation and
the divine grace that was given to humanity through the Word underlay his
promotion of the ascetic movement in Egypt and the pastoral wisdom that
he preached to his congregations. Seen against this theological background,
Athanasius’ involvement in the ongoing fourth-century debates was inevit-
able. It is true, as we saw in the preceding chapter, that his attacks on
‘Arianism’ from the late 330s onwards served his ecclesiastical interests.
The assertion that his condemnation at Tyre was the work of a ‘heretical
conspiracy’ vindicated his innocence and his legitimacy as orthodox bishop
of Alexandria. The sincerity of his convictions regarding the theological
issues at stake, however, cannot possibly be questioned. The ‘Arian heresy’
that Athanasius believed his opponents propagated struck at the very heart
of his own theology and threatened to undermine the faith in salvation
that he taught.
In the following section we will look at Athanasius’ polemical construction
of ‘Arianism’ in detail, beginning with the three Orationes contra Arianos
that he composed in c.339–46.28 Before we do so, it is worthwhile to con-
sider briefly what further light the Orationes may shed on the teachings
that Athanasius presented in the Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione. Against the
challenge of ‘Arianism’, Athanasius emphasized even more strongly the full
divinity of the Son. As he wrote in the opening argument of the first Oratio
contra Arianos:
For behold, we speak openly from the divine Scriptures concerning the pious
faith, and we hold [it] as a lamp on a lampstand, saying that He is true by nature

28
For a far more detailed analysis of the Orationes contra Arianos than can be attempted
here, see Meijering (1996–8).
 Theologian 73
and legitimate Son of the Father, that He is proper to his essence, only-begotten
Wisdom, and true and only Word of the Father. He is not a creature, nor a thing
made, but proper offspring of the essence of the Father. Therefore He is true God,
existing homoousios with the true Father; while other beings, to whom He said, ‘I
said you are gods’ [Psalm 82:6], had this grace from the Father only by participation
of the Word through the Spirit. For He is the expression of the Father’s Person, and
Light from Light, and Power, and very Image of the Father’s ousia. For this again
the Lord said, ‘he who has seen Me, has seen the Father’ [John 14:9]. Always He was
and is, and never He was not. For since the Father is eternal, eternal also must be
His Word and Wisdom. (I.9)

This passage is exceptional, for it contains the only description of the Son
as homoousios to the Father found anywhere in Athanasius’ writings prior to
the early 350s. But Athanasius maintains the Son’s full divinity throughout
the three Orationes and His role in bridging the ontological gulf between
the divine and the created world for revelation and salvation.
All things partake of the Son Himself according to the grace of the Spirit coming
from Him. This shows that the Son Himself partakes of nothing. Rather, what is
partaken from the Father is the Son. For, as partaking of the Son Himself, we are
said to partake of God, and this is what Peter said, ‘that you may be partakers in the
divine nature’ [2 Peter 1:4]; as the Apostle says also, ‘Do you not know that you are
a temple of God?’ [1 Corinthians 3:16] and ‘We are the temple of the living God’
[2 Corinthians 6:16]. And seeing the Son, we see the Father; for the thought and
comprehension of the Son is knowledge about the Father, because He is His proper
offspring from his ousia. (I.16)

Across the Orationes contra Arianos Athanasius likewise reaffirms the doc-
trine of Christian salvation through deification. Only through the interces-
sion of the true Son who took on created human nature could humanity
have been saved.
For humanity would not have been deified if joined to a creature, or unless the Son
were true God. Nor would humanity have been drawn into the Father’s presence,
unless the one who had put on the body was the true Word by nature. And as we
would not have been delivered from sin and the curse, unless it had been by nature
human flesh which the Word put on (for we would have had nothing in common
with what was foreign), so also humanity would not have been deified, unless the
Word who became flesh had been by nature from the Father and true and proper
to Him. (II.70)

Athanasius also clarifies the significance of deification and the gift that
we receive from salvation. The adoption of humanity by grace through the
Incarnation cannot exalt humanity to share the uncreated nature of God:
74 Athanasius of Alexandria
Because of the grace of the Spirit which has been given to us, we come to be in
Him, and He in us. And through His becoming in us, and we having the Spirit, it
is reasonable that, since it is the Spirit of God, we are considered to be in God and
God in us. Not then as the Son is in the Father, do we also become in the Father; for
the Son does not merely participate in the Spirit in order to be in the Father. Nor
does He receive the Spirit, but rather supplies it Himself to all. And the Spirit does
not unite the Word to the Father, but rather the Spirit receives from the Word. And
the Son is in the Father, as His proper Word and Radiance; but we, apart from the
Spirit, are foreign and distant from God, and by participation of the Spirit we are
knit into the Godhead. (III.24)

Yet through our deification in Christ, humanity has been freed from sin and
death. For, although the divine Word could not suffer in His divinity, He took
upon Himself the suffering of the body for our salvation. ‘It was fitting that the
Lord, in putting on human flesh, put it on entirely with the passibilities proper
to it; so that, as we say that the body was proper to Him, so also we may say
that the passibilities of the body were proper to Him alone, though they did
not touch Him according to the Godhead’ (III.32). Only by this means could
salvation be achieved. ‘If the works of the Word’s Godhead had not taken
place through the body, humanity would not have been deified. And again,
if the properties of the flesh had not been attributed to the Word, humanity
would not have been thoroughly delivered from them’ (III.33). But the divine
Word did take on the properties of the flesh and overcame them. And so:
We no longer die according to our former origin. But from now on, since our origin
and all the weakness of flesh has been transferred to the Word, we rise from the
earth, the curse from sin having been removed, because of Him who is in us, and
who has become a curse for us. And reasonably so; for as we are all from earth and
die in Adam, so being regenerated from above of water and Spirit, in Christ we are
all enlivened; the flesh being no longer earthly, but being henceforth made word, by
reason of God’s Word who for our sake became flesh. (III.33)

The passages quoted here are necessarily selective, but they demonstrate
the continuity of Athanasius’ theology from the Contra Gentes–De Incarna-
tione to the Orationes contra Arianos. The language of the three Orationes is
far more explicitly polemical, and Athanasius reacted to the threat he per-
ceived in ‘Arianism’ by placing even greater stress on the Son’s full divinity.
He also refined his presentation of the doctrine of deification and the rela-
tionship between the divine Word and the human body in the Incarnation.
These were differences of emphasis not of interpretation. The fundamental
principles of Athanasius’ theology remained unchanged, as they would
throughout his involvement in the fourth-century controversies.
 Theologian 75
For our understanding of Athanasius’ theology, the Orationes contra
Arianos have one final important contribution to make. A central element
in Athanasius’ approach to Christian doctrine has not yet been discussed:
his exegesis of Scripture.29 Like every Christian, Athanasius looked to the
Holy Scriptures for guidance and inspiration. The canon of Scripture was
not universally defined in the early fourth century, an ongoing debate in
which Athanasius’ part is discussed in Chapter 5. The majority of the books
contained in the modern Bible were already recognized as authoritative,
however, and in a very real sense the controversies of the fourth century
were controversies over how the Scriptures should be read.30 The issues
at stake could not be settled merely by the citation of scriptural texts.
The interpretation of the language of Scripture was crucial, and this is an
essential theme of Athanasius’ three Orationes.
After an initial condemnation of ‘Arianism’ (I.1–10), all three Orationes
are structured around the exegesis of a series of scriptural texts. According
to Athanasius, these texts were brought forward by the ‘Arians’ to support
their belief in the reduced divinity of the Son. We must always treat Atha-
nasius’ presentation of his ‘Arian’ opponents with caution, but it is probable
that the interpretation of the passages he cites was a subject of debate.
They included Philippians 2:9–10 (‘Therefore God also has highly exalted
Him, and given Him the name which is above every name; that in the name
of Jesus every knee should bend, of things in heaven and things in earth and
things under the earth’ (Oratio I.37–45)); Psalm 45:7–8 (‘You have loved
righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, your God, has anointed
you with the oil of gladness above your fellows’ (Oratio I.46–52)) and a
lengthy discussion of Proverbs 8:22 (‘The Lord created me a beginning of
His ways for His works’ (Oratio II.19–72)). The third Oratio focuses upon
passages from the Gospels. The ‘Arians’ are reported to have emphasized
texts that attributed weakness or ignorance to Christ, such as Matthew
26:39 (‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me’) and Mark 13:32
(‘Of that day and that hour knows no man, nor the angels in heaven, nor
the Son, but only the Father’). Athanasius himself drew particularly on
John’s Gospel for several of his favourite passages: ‘I and the Father are
One’ ( John 10:30), ‘Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father’ ( John 14:9),
and ‘I am in the Father and the Father is in Me’ ( John 14:10).

29
On Athanasius and the Bible, see in general Ernest (2004), and also Metzler (1997).
30
There is a helpful introduction to the place of Scripture in the fourth-century contro-
versies in Kannengiesser (1981).
76 Athanasius of Alexandria
Athanasius’ approach to scriptural exegesis across the Orationes is clear
and consistent. All passages that refer to the Son and His Incarnation are
understood within the absolute ontological division between the divine and
creation. The Son is fully God, and His divinity was not lessened or com-
promised by becoming Incarnate in a human body. Properties appropriate
to creatures, such as suffering or ignorance and the very state of being cre-
ated or made, cannot apply to the divine Son. Athanasius therefore sees in
the Scriptures a ‘double proclamation’ of the Incarnate Christ. When Christ
is said to be in the Father or one with the Father, these passages apply to the
divine Word. When Christ is said to be exalted or anointed or to express
ignorance, these passages apply to His human body. Proverbs 8:22, which
the early Church regarded as an allusion to the Son, must similarly refer to
Christ’s body when it uses the term ‘created’. With modern eyes, this exe-
getical approach has sometimes been seen as artificial and contrived. For
Athanasius, his exegesis of each contested passage was in accordance with
the overall message of the Scriptures:
The scope and character of Holy Scripture, as we have often said, is as follows. It
contains a double account of the Saviour, that He was ever God, and is the Son,
being the Father’s Word and Radiance and Wisdom; and that afterwards for us He
took flesh of a virgin, Mary Bearer of God [Theotokos], and was made man. And this
scope is to be found throughout inspired Scripture, as the Lord Himself has said,
‘Search the Scriptures, for it is they that testify of Me’ [John 5:39]. (III.29)

This conception of the scriptural message underlay Athanasius’

theological vision of the divine Son who became Incarnate as man to bridge
the gulf that divided humanity from God. It was precisely that vision of
revelation and salvation that Athanasius felt compelled to defend against
the threat of ‘Arianism’.

‘ATHANASIAN ARIANISM’

The theology of Athanasius has struck a chord in the hearts of believers

right down to the present day. His teachings helped to define what would
be recognized as Christian orthodoxy by later generations, and he was
remembered as the champion who preserved that orthodox faith through
the turmoil of the ‘Arian Controversy’. In the light of this reputation, it is
hardly surprising that until relatively recently few challenged Athanasius’
interpretation of the doctrinal debates of his time. The numerous anti-
‘Arian’ works that Athanasius composed, from the Orationes contra Arianos
 Theologian 77
to the De Synodis, were accepted as a guide to the teachings of his oppon-
ents, whose errors Athanasius contrasted to the orthodoxy that he repre-
sented.
Yet deep respect for Athanasius’ theology does not require that we adopt
at face value his presentation of men whom he regarded as enemies and
whose teachings he set out to condemn.31 Modern scholars have become
increasingly aware of how Athanasius’ polemical writings may have influ-
enced our knowledge of the fourth-century controversies. The following
pages will trace the development of Athanasius’ anti-‘Arian’ polemic and
its implications. By doing so we are able to gain a new appreciation of
the context in which he wrote and the teachings of those he branded as
‘Arians’. But no less importantly, we also gain a better understanding of
Athanasius’ own theology, his awareness of the issues that were at stake,
and his long-term achievement.32
There is no reference to ‘Arianism’ in any Athanasian work written
before 335, including the Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione. As we saw in the
previous chapter, the earliest statement that his opponents were motivated
by heresy occurs in the documents from the Council of Tyre in 335 pre-
served in the Apologia contra Arianos. The same argument then appears in
the Epistula Encyclica of 339 after Athanasius’ flight into his second exile.
It was at this time that he began to compose the Orationes contra Arianos,
which laid down in detail his construction of the ‘Arian heresy’.
Instead of Christ for them is Arius, as for the Manichees Manichaeus . . . When the
blessed Alexander cast out Arius, those who remained with Alexander remained
Christians; but those who went out with Arius abandoned the Saviour’s Name to
us who were with Alexander, and they were henceforth called Arians. Behold then,
after the death of Alexander, those who are in communion with his successor Atha-
nasius, and with whom the same Athanasius communicates, are instances of the
same rule; neither do any of them bear his name, nor is he named from them, but
all again and customarily are called Christians. For though we have a succession of
teachers and become their disciples, yet, because we are taught by them the teach-
ings of Christ, we are and are called Christians and nothing else. But those who

31
‘To an extraordinary degree, the faith of Athanasius has become the faith of the Church,
and to criticize him must look as if we wished to shatter the rock from which we were hewn.
Nevertheless I have come to think that the methods used by Athanasius in defending his faith
will not serve to commend eternal truths to the present age; and it is for the Church’s ultimate
good that we seek to show where their weakness lies’ (Stead 1976: 136–7).
32
For a fuller discussion of Athanasius’ construction of ‘Arianism’, on which the summary
here is based, see Gwynn (2007: 169–244).
78 Athanasius of Alexandria
follow the heretics, though they have countless successors, yet in every respect they
bear the name of the founder of their heresy. While Arius is dead, and many of his
followers have succeeded him, nevertheless those who hold the doctrines of that
man, as being known from Arius, are called Arians. (I.2–3)

The introduction to the first Oratio contra Arianos sums up Athanasius’

construction of the entire ‘Arian Controversy’. Arius is the founder of the
heresy, just as Mani founded Manichaeism, and those whom Athanasius
condemns as ‘Arian’ must share Arius’ errors. Against their heresy is set the
true faith of the Christian Church, to which Athanasius has succeeded from
Alexander. Throughout his anti-‘Arian’ writings Athanasius maintains this
polarized contrast of manifest heresy and traditional orthodoxy. In Oratio
contra Arianos I, Athanasius continues on from his introductory rhetoric to
define the teachings that he attributes to ‘Arianism’. After a lengthy denun-
ciation of Arius’ Thalia (I.5–6), he summarizes those teachings as follows:
What can they bring forward to us from the infamous Thalia? . . . That not always
was God a father, but later He became so. Not always was the Son, for He was not
until He was begotten. He is not from the Father, but He also came into existence
out of nothing. He is not proper to the ousia of the Father, for He is a creature
[ktisma] and a thing made [poiēma]. Christ is not true God, but He also by participa-
tion was made God. The Son does not know the Father exactly, nor may the Word
see the Father perfectly, and the Word does not understand nor know the Father
exactly. He is not the true and only Word of the Father, but by name only is called
Word and Wisdom, and by grace is called Son and Power. He is not unchangeable,
like the Father, but is changeable by nature, like the creatures. (I.9)

Athanasius’ definition of the ‘Arian heresy’ has been extremely influen-

tial.33 It therefore has to be emphasized that no one in the fourth century
actually taught all the doctrines that Athanasius condemns. This holds true
for Arius himself, and even more so for Eusebius of Nicomedia and Aster-
ius ‘the Sophist’, the two other men named as ‘Arian’ in the Orationes contra
Arianos.34 Athanasius’ definition is in fact a polemical construct, which is
perhaps best described as ‘Athanasian Arianism’. Like his predecessor Alex-
ander in the latter’s Encyclical Letter, Athanasius certainly drew upon Arius’
original teachings, but extracted from those teachings implications that
Arius would never have accepted.

33
Athanasius’ polemic is the basis for the model of ‘Arianism’ in Hanson (1988: 19–23),
which is influenced in turn by that of Lorenz (1979: 37–49).
34
For their theologies, which are known primarily from the writings of their opponents,
see Bardy (1936), Luibheid (1976), Lienhard (1999), and Gwynn (2007).
 Theologian 79
Arius did deny the eternity of the Son. He described the Son as a
creature (ktisma), explicitly rejected that He could be proper to the ousia
of the Father, and at least in one letter referred to the Son as coming into
existence ‘out of nothing’. Similarly, Arius refused to call the Son ‘true
God’, denied in a sense that He was the only Word and Wisdom of God
(for the Father also had His own Word and Wisdom), and taught that the
Son could not fully know the Father. Yet alongside the genuine teachings
of Arius that Athanasius condemns stand an equally significant number of
alleged ‘Arian’ principles that derive from Athanasius’ polemical interpret-
ation. These include the assertion that Arius taught that the Son was God
only by participation and Word and Wisdom only by name and grace, and
most importantly the repeated charge that Arius rendered the Son mutable
and reduced Him to the level of all other created beings.
Eusebius of Nicomedia and Asterius ‘the Sophist’ are the two best-known
‘Arians’ after Arius of the early fourth century. Eusebius was the highly
influential bishop of the imperial capital when Arius first clashed with
Alexander. He was regarded by Athanasius as the leader of hoi peri Eusebion
(‘the Eusebians’), the ‘Arian party’ that conspired to send him into exile.35
Asterius was not a cleric (he was barred from ordination, as he had offered
pagan sacrifice during the Great Persecution) but was an important theo-
logian and preacher, whose treatise the Syntagmation now survives only in
fragments.36 Both men shared Arius’ refusal to describe the Son as eternal
or from the Father’s ousia, and believed that the Son must be a ktisma and
a product of the Father’s will. Like Arius, they held that the Father alone is
eternal and unbegotten, and that to name the Son co-eternal or co-essential
with the Father was to teach two unbegotten beings or impose material
or Sabellian ideas upon God. Unlike Arius, they did not refer to the Son as
‘out of nothing’ or teach that He did not fully know the Father. They also
placed a greater emphasis upon the unique divinity of the Son, whom Aste-
rius is reported to have described as ‘the exact Image of His [the Father’s]
Essence and Will and Power and Glory’.37
There is thus a considerable basis of truth in Athanasius’ interpretation
of the theologies of these three men in the Orationes contra Arianos. There

35
Our best source for Eusebius’ theology is his Letter to Paulinus of Tyre in c.323 (Theodoret,
I.6).
36
The fragments of Asterius’ works were collected by Bardy (1936: 339–54), and re-edited
with further additions by Vinzent (1993: 82–141).
37
Asterius, fragment XXIa (Bardy), 10 (Vinzent).
80 Athanasius of Alexandria
is a still greater degree of distortion, however, and it is the nature of that
distortion that is of particular interest. In his construction of ‘Arianism’,
Athanasius interpreted his opponents’ doctrines in the light of his own
theological assumptions. The historical value of Athanasius’ anti-‘Arian’
polemic is not as a source for the teachings of those opponents. Instead,
the polemic sheds further light on Athanasius’ theology and on the issues
that he believed were at stake in the fourth-century controversies.
Fundamental to Athanasius’ conception of Christianity, as we have
already seen, was the ontological separation of God and creation. Only
if the Son is truly God, eternally and essentially the Son of the Father, can
He fulfil the promised revelation of God and deification of humanity. The
same ontological argument underlies Athanasius’ construction of ‘Arian-
ism’. Either the Son is eternal and immutable God, the true and essential
offspring of the Father, or He is a creature like any other, coming into
existence from nothing and mutable by nature. And, if only a Son who is
truly God can be the source for our revelation and deification, then a Son
who is a creature cannot be our Saviour, for He cannot bridge the gulf
that separates God from the created order to which He too belongs. The
‘created Son’ of Arius compromised Athanasius’ entire understanding of
salvation and represented a heresy that had to be opposed.
For Athanasius, and for later generations, the reduction of the Son to a
creature (ktisma) would become the essential characteristic of ‘Arianism’.38
But the implications of this ‘Arian’ doctrine, which Athanasius develops
at great length in the Orationes contra Arianos, derive almost exclusively
from his own principles. It is Athanasius who believes that, if the Son is
said to be a creature, then He is no different from all other creatures whose
attributes He shares. On these grounds, he can repeatedly claim that the
‘Arians’ make the Son mutable39 and teach that the Son was created in time
(Oratio I.11) and was not the creative Word of the Father (Oratio II.21).
None of these alleged doctrines was ever taught by any of the men whom

38
‘Athanasius called “Arian” anyone who could be understood to mean that the Son is a
creature’ (Anatolios 1998: 96). For the continuity of this attitude in later centuries, see Slusser
(1993) and Wiles (1996).
39
See esp. Oratio I.35–52, in which Athanasius develops in full his argument that the ‘Arians’
attribute changeability, ethical advancement, and suffering to the divine Son. It is these pas-
sages above all that underlie the reconstructions of ‘Arianism’ proposed by Gregg and Groh
(1981) and Hanson (1985, 1988). A new translation of the text in question has been produced
by Anatolios (2004: 91–110), although the accompanying commentary is somewhat uncritical,
primarily because Anatolios accepts at face value Athanasius’ polemical assertion that Arius
made the Son mutable (89–91).
 Theologian 81
Athanasius condemns. Moreover, Athanasius obviously knew that his
opponents denied that the created Son was no different from other created
beings. In De Synodis 16, he quoted Arius’ explicit insistence in his Letter to
Alexander that the Son is a creature, but not as one of the creatures. Within
Athanasius’ polarized ontology, however, such a distinction is meaningless.
His denunciation of this ‘Arian’ argument in Oratio contra Arianos II is most
enlightening:
Let us behold what it was that they replied to the blessed Alexander in the beginning,
when their heresy was formed. They wrote then saying that, ‘He is a creature [ktisma],
but not as one of the creatures, He is a thing made [poiēma], but not as one of the
things made, He is an offspring [gennēma], but not as one of the offsprings’ . . . [Yet]
this so great sophism of yours is shown to be foolish. For once again you still say that
He is one of the creatures, and the things that someone might say about the other
creatures, you also attribute to the Son, being truly foolish and blind. (II.9)

Either the Son is a ktisma like any other or He is proper offspring of

the ousia of the Father. Such a conclusion is the inevitable and logical
consequence of Athanasius’ ontology. It is also a colossal distortion of the
actual theology of the men whom Athanasius wishes to condemn. The very
words that he here attributes to the ‘Arians’ are a product of the polemic.
What Arius actually wrote in his Letter to Alexander was that the Son is ‘the
perfect creature [teleion ktisma] of God, but not as one of the creatures, off-
spring [gennēma], but not as one of the offsprings’. Athanasius cites the final
clause correctly. But he inserts the line ‘a thing made [poiēma], but not as
one of the things made’, and he omits the term perfect (teleion), with which
Arius qualified his description of the Son as a ktisma. In effect, Athanasius
has rewritten the words of Arius according to his own theology. He imposes
his definition of ktisma and poiēma as synonyms,40 whereas Arius used ktisma
alone as this word gained scriptural support from Proverbs 8:22. And Atha-
nasius ignores the concept of a ‘perfect’ creature, an irrelevant distinction if
one assumes (as he did) that all created beings are alike by nature.
Yet the doctrine that the Son was ‘a perfect creature, not like other crea-
tures’ was not empty rhetoric. It was an essential component of a wide-
spread eastern theology that understood the Son as a unique and divine
ktisma, an immutable mediator separate by ousia and physis both from the
unbegotten Father and from the created order. This theology bridged the

40
‘Once it has been shown that the Word is not a poiēma, it is also shown that He is not a
ktisma. For it is the same to speak of a poiēma and a ktisma, so that indeed the proof that He is
not a poiēma is proof also that He is not a ktisma’ (Oratio II.18).
82 Athanasius of Alexandria
gulf between God and creation, not through the Incarnation of an onto-
logically divine Son, but through a mediator who was both a ktisma and
God. Athanasius’ theology was to prove the more enduring, and it can be
strongly argued that his position is the more compelling. But, contrary
to his polemic, the men whom he condemned as ‘Arian’ did uphold the
existence of a divine unchangeable Son through whom the creation and
salvation of humanity was achieved.
Throughout the Orationes contra Arianos, Athanasius constructs an ‘Arian
heresy’ that every Christian had to condemn. Just as he preserved the
fundamental principles of his theology essentially unchanged across his
career, so too his definition of ‘Athanasian Arianism’ altered very little in his
later polemical writings. When he wrote the De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi in
the early 350s he revised his argument to incorporate the new prominence
that he accorded to the Nicene Creed, a shift to which we will turn shortly.
A similar revision occurred in the De Sententia Dionysii, a work devoted
to denying the ‘Arians’ any support from earlier Christian tradition, here
represented by Athanasius’ predecessor Dionysius of Alexandria. Never-
theless, the presentation of ‘Arianism’ in these two works (De Decretis 6, De
Sententia Dionysii 2) is derived directly from the first Oratio contra Arianos.
This is equally true for the Life of Antony (69–70) and the Encyclical Letter to
the Bishops of Egypt and Libya in 356 (12).
The last of these texts contains a particularly striking application of
Athanasius’ polemical method. One of his aims in the Encyclical Letter of
356 was to urge his audience not to subscribe to a creed that the ‘Arians’
were then intending to circulate within the Egyptian Church.41 According
to Athanasius, the ‘Arians’ hoped that through this creed ‘they may seem
to remove the evil repute of Arius, and to escape notice themselves as if
not holding Arius’ doctrines; and on the other hand, so that by writing
these things they might seem again to hide the Nicene Council and the
faith established there against the Arian heresy’ (5). The creed itself, Atha-
nasius acknowledges, is scriptural and not obviously in error. ‘If these
writings were from the orthodox . . . then nothing in them would be sus-
pect’ (8). But, as the creed comes from men Athanasius had condemned as
‘Arian’, he dismisses their scriptural language as mere heretical deceit. ‘If
they have written other words apart from the aforementioned doctrines

41
The exact identity of the ‘Arian’ creed in question is uncertain, although Barnes (1993:
122) suggests that this is a reference to the Sirmium Creed of 351.
 Theologian 83
of Arius, then condemn them as hypocrites who conceal the venom of
their thought’ (19). The actual doctrines of the creed under dispute have
become irrelevant. Athanasius has named the authors ‘Arians’, and ‘Arians’
they must be.
The culmination of Athanasius’ anti-‘Arian’ polemic is the De Synodis
Arimini et Seleuciae (359–61). For his account of the joint councils of Arimi-
num and Seleucia in 359, Athanasius traces a line of ‘Arian’ succession from
the Thalia of Arius and the writings of the ‘Eusebians’ through the east-
ern creedal statements of the 330s and 340s. He represents every one of
these diverse theological statements, down to and including the so-called
Dated Creed presented to the councils of 359, as the products of a single
‘Arian tradition’. The many differences between the various statements
are denounced as ‘Arian’ deceit and inconsistency. Once again Athanasius
polarizes the fourth-century controversies between the two alternatives
of orthodoxy (the Nicene Creed) and heresy. In reality, the documents
contained in the De Synodis provide some of our best evidence for the wide
spectrum of doctrinal views that existed within eastern Christianity at this
time.
Perhaps the most important text with which to illustrate the impact of
Athanasius’ polemic is the Dedication Creed of 341.42 At some point between
January and September in that year, some ninety or so eastern bishops
gathered in Antioch with the eastern emperor Constantius to dedicate the
‘Golden Church’ built by Constantine. Those in attendance included Euse-
bius of Nicomedia (now bishop of Constantinople) and almost every other
living bishop whom Athanasius named as a ‘Eusebian’. Two major docu-
ments are associated with the council. The wrongly named ‘First Creed’
of Antioch is actually the council’s letter to Julius of Rome, notable for the
authors’ insistence (most likely in response to the influence of Athanasius’
polemic) that ‘we have not been followers of Arius, for how could we, who
are bishops, follow a presbyter?’ (quoted in De Synodis 22). The true creedal
statement of the council is the Second or Dedication Creed, preserved in
De Synodis 23.
The Dedication Creed explicitly rejects the more extreme elements of
‘Athanasian Arianism’, but is far from being compatible with the theology
of Athanasius. The Son is ‘God from God, whole from whole, sole from
sole, perfect from perfect, King from King, Lord from Lord, living Word,

42
On the evidence for the council, see Bardy (1936: 85–132) and particularly Schneemelcher
(1977).
84 Athanasius of Alexandria
living Wisdom, true Light, Way, Truth, Resurrection, Shepherd, Door’.
However, He does not hold these titles by His own essential nature. Instead,
as Asterius had already taught, He is the ‘exact Image of the Essence, Will,
Power, and Glory of the Godhead of the Father’. The Son is ‘immutable
and unchangeable’, and any suggestion that ‘time or season or age is or has
been before the generation of the Son’ is anathematized, but He is not said
to be eternal. A second anathema condemns the idea that the Son might
be ‘a creature [ktisma] as one of the creatures, an offspring [gennēma] as one
of the offsprings, or a thing made [poiēma] as one of the things made’. This
doctrine excludes Athanasius’ allegation that the ‘Arians’ reduced the Son
to the level of all mutable creatures, while still admitting the possibility that
the Son is Himself a ‘perfect creature’. The declaration that ‘[we believe] in
the Holy Spirit, who is given to those who have faith for comfort and sanc-
tification and perfection’ might further suggest a conception of salvation
through deification.
Judged by the standards of later orthodoxy, there are evident flaws in
the theology expressed in the Dedication Creed. ‘Homoousios’, ‘from the
ousia of the Father’, and ‘true God from true God’ are omitted; the eter-
nity of the Son is left unspoken; and the doctrine of the Trinity is openly
subordinationist. The identities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ‘denote
accurately the peculiar subsistence [hypostasis], rank, and glory of each that
is named’. But the creed cannot be described in any meaningful way as
‘Arian’.43 The Council of 341 comprised a considerable bloc of the eastern
Church, and its creedal statement represented a theology that was widely
influential in the east for much of the fourth century.44 This theological
tradition was reluctant to describe the Son as eternal, or to speak of Him
as homoousios to or from the ousia of the Father. The Son is God, and the
Word, Wisdom, and Power of God, but He possesses His divinity through
the will of the Father, of whom He is the Image. Thus the union of the
Father and the Son is not ontological, and great emphasis is placed on the
distinct identities of the individual hypostases of the Trinity. This emphasis

43
Hilary of Poitiers described the Council of 341 as a ‘sanctorum synodus’ (Hilary, De
Synodis 32).
44
For a survey of the subsequent history of the Dedication Creed in the fourth-century
controversies, see Bardy (1936: 96–119). At the Council of Seleucia in 359, it was this creed
and not Nicaea that those eastern bishops now usually known as the ‘Homoiousians’ invoked
as the traditional faith of the Church (Socrates, II.39–40; Sozomen, IV.22), and some eastern
bishops still held to this creed in 381 (Socrates IV.4, V.8; Sozomen IV.7, IV.12, VII.7).
 Theologian 85
was apparently aroused by fears of the Sabellian implications of homoou-
sios, especially as revealed in the theology of Marcellus of Ancyra.45
The Dedication Creed highlights the difficulties raised by Athanasius’
polarized vision of the ‘Arian Controversy’. Not only did those he branded
as ‘Arian’ not hold the doctrines that he attributed to them, but in the 340s
and 350s his own theology was not the universal orthodox faith that he
wished to claim. The doctrinal questions that were dividing the eastern
Church centred not upon whether the Son was divine, which all agreed,
but on how that divinity could be expressed. Athanasius’ insistence on
the ontological unity of Father and Son was still regarded with suspicion
by those in the east who saw such teachings as compromising the unique
authority of the Father and the individual identities of the Trinity.
In the longer term, however, recognizing the tensions beneath Atha-
nasius’ anti-‘Arian’ polemic reaffirms the magnitude of his theological
achievement. Despite his rhetoric, Athanasius was not simply defending
the established orthodoxy of the Christian faith. He had to demonstrate
that the doctrines that he taught were the truth that the Church should
adopt. And over time he succeeded. Whatever the distortions inherent in
his construction of ‘Arianism’, Athanasius was completely sincere in his
conviction that any theology that denied the ontological unity of Father
and Son must lead to the errors that he condemned. Against such heresy,
the co-eternal and co-essential Son of God was the only safeguard for
Christian revelation and salvation, symbolized in Athanasius’ writings from
the 350s onwards by the Nicene Creed.

THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

The fundamental principles of Athanasius’ theology and his construction

of ‘Arianism’ remained consistent across the middle decades of the
fourth century. Nevertheless, the controversies in which he was embroiled
continued to evolve. New issues emerged and new opponents challenged

45
On the influence of Marcellus upon the Dedication Council, see Hanson (1988: 285–92),
Tetz (1989), and Lienhard (1999: 167–71). The emphasis upon the three distinct hypostases of
the Trinity in the creed rejected the Sabellianism that Marcellus’ teaching was alleged to imply.
So did the creed’s concluding statement (again paralleled in the extant fragments of Asterius)
that there must be ‘a Father who is truly Father, and a Son who is truly Son, and the Holy
Spirit who is truly Holy Spirit . . . so that they are three in subsistence (hypostasei) and one in
agreement’.
86 Athanasius of Alexandria
the orthodoxy that he represented. Athanasius therefore did not cease to
refine his doctrines and the language through which they were expressed.
Two themes in particular emerged in his writings during the 350s that had
not previously received close attention: the importance of the Nicene Creed
and the full divinity of the Holy Spirit. Neither theme was entirely new
to Athanasius, nor did either represent a dramatic shift in his theological
thinking. Rather, Athanasius incorporated both Nicaea and the Holy Spirit
within his existing teachings and interpreted their contribution to his
orthodox faith accordingly.
In the years following the Council of Nicaea, the voice of the original
Nicene Creed was conspicuous only by its silence. Even for those who had
gathered at the council in 325, the creed and its unscriptural watchword
homoousios had raised uncomfortable questions. During the reign of Con-
stantine no one challenged Nicaea directly. But the vast majority of eastern
bishops would seem to have viewed the creed with distrust and emphatically
did not regard it as an authoritative statement of orthodoxy. After Constan-
tine’s death, alternative creeds swiftly appeared, most notably the Dedica-
tion Creed of 341 and the Macrostich Creed of 344. These creeds avoided
the more contentious expressions used at Nicaea and better reflected the
concerns prevalent in much of the eastern Church during this time.
Athanasius shared the prevailing silence on Nicaea in his early theological
writings, if not perhaps feeling the same distrust. The term homoousios
occurs just once in the three Orationes contra Arianos (I.9), and the Council of
Nicaea is accorded no deep significance. Yet, when he wrote the De Decretis
Nicaenae Synodi in c.350–5, his position had changed. Now the Nicene Creed
had become the essential safeguard against the ‘Arian heresy’. The cause of
the change can only be speculated. Athanasius offered no explanation and
maintained that he continued to defend the traditional orthodox faith. It is
possible that he responded to the increasing circulation of the Dedication
and Macrostich Creeds, which he attributed to men whom he regarded
as ‘Eusebians’ and ‘Arians’. He may also have reacted against the religious
policies of the emperor Constantius in the early 350s, although here it is
difficult to separate cause and effect. Constantius in the west demanded
that the bishops renounce both Athanasius and the Nicene Creed, and the
De Decretis may have been written for a western audience. Certainly when
Athanasius wrote he felt under threat. The ‘Arians’ were presently passive
but ‘in a little while they will turn to outrage’ (2), and the doctrines that
he upheld had only limited eastern support outside Egypt. The Council
of Nicaea, still remembered as one of the great events of Constantine’s
 Theologian 87
reign, held authority to which he could appeal and a special attraction as
the council that had condemned Arius and his heresy.
Perhaps the most striking feature of Athanasius’ decision to endorse
the Nicene Creed as the orthodox symbol is that neither his theology nor
his construction of ‘Arianism’ underwent any significant change. In his
subsequent works homoousios rather than ‘proper offspring of the ousia of
the Father’ became his preferred expression for the ontological unity of the
Father and the Son. And in his polarized vision of the ‘Arian Controversy’
Nicaea now represented orthodoxy, for ‘He who does not hold the doc-
trines of Arius necessarily holds and intends the doctrines of the [Nicene]
Council’ (De Decretis 20). But Athanasius did not reinterpret his beliefs in the
light of the Nicene Creed. On the contrary, he redefined Nicaea according
to his theological principles.46
The De Decretis is addressed to an unnamed friend of Athanasius to
whom the ‘Arians’ had complained about the use of unscriptural language
at Nicaea (1). Athanasius likens the ‘Arians’ to Jews in their falsity and lack
of understanding, and declares that they should have learned from the
example of their fathers the ‘Eusebians’. At the council the ‘Eusebians’ had
convicted themselves with their impiety and contradictions. But even they
had finally subscribed to the creed, as is attested by Eusebius of Caesarea’s
Letter to His See (1–5).47 This is followed by a restatement of Athanasius’
understanding of the true divinity of the Son against the errors of the
‘Arians’ drawn directly from the Orationes contra Arianos (6–17). The Son is
God by nature, co-eternal and co-essential with the Father. He is the Cre-
ator not one of the creatures, and when He is said to have been created
in Proverbs 8:22 this refers to His humanity taken on for our sake in the
Incarnation.
It is against the background of this theological argument that Athana-
sius turns to the Council of Nicaea itself and the composition and meaning
of the creed. After a further denunciation of the ‘Arians’ for themselves
employing unscriptural phrases such as ‘out of nothing’ and ‘once He
was not’ (18), Athanasius blames their evasions for the language adopted
in 325:

46
For a very similar argument, see Ayres (2004a).
47
Despite Athanasius’ attempt to claim that Eusebius’ Letter confirmed his own interpret-
ation of the Nicene Creed, the bishop of Caesarea in fact understood homoousios and ek tēs
ousias in much vaguer terms. For the parallels between the arguments of Eusebius and Atha-
nasius over the definition of Nicaea, see Ayres (2004a: 350–3).
88 Athanasius of Alexandria
The Council wished to banish the impious statements of the Arians and to write
the confessed language of the Scriptures, that the Son is not out of nothing but
from God, and is Word and Wisdom and neither a creature [ktisma] nor a thing
made [poiēma], but proper offspring from the Father. But the Eusebians, compelled
by their inveterate heterodoxy, understood His being from God to be in common
with us . . . The fathers, perceiving their treachery and the cunning of their impiety,
were then forced to express more clearly the sense of the words ‘from God’, and to
write ‘the Son is from the essence [ek tēs ousias] of God’, in order that ‘from God’
might not be thought to apply in common and equally to the Son and to generated
beings, but that it may be confessed that everything else is a creature and the Word
alone is from the Father. For though all things are said to be from God, yet this is
not in the sense in which the Son is from Him. (19)

The same explanation is offered for the inclusion of homoousios:

When the bishops said that the Word must be described as true Power and Image
of the Father, in all things exact and like the Father, and as unalterable and always
and in Him without division (for never was the Word not, but He was always, exist-
ing everlastingly with the Father, as the radiance of light), the Eusebians endured
indeed, as not daring to contradict, being put to shame by the arguments which
were urged against them. But they were caught whispering to each other and wink-
ing with their eyes, that ‘like’ and ‘always’ and ‘power’ and ‘in Him’ were, as before,
common to us and the Son, and that it was no difficulty to agree to these . . . The
bishops, discerning in this too their dissimulation, and whereas it is written ‘Deceit
is in the heart of the impious that imagine evil’ [Proverbs 12:20], were again com-
pelled on their part to collect the sense of the Scriptures, and to re-say and re-
write what they had said before, more distinctly still, namely, that the Son is ‘of one
essence [homoousios]’ with the Father. (20)

Finally, the gathered bishops made it explicit that the terms used were
chosen to condemn the ‘Arian heresy’:
They immediately added, ‘But those who say that the Son of God is out of nothing,
or created, or alterable, or a thing made, or from another essence, these the holy
and catholic Church anathematizes’. By saying this, they showed clearly that ek tēs
ousias and homoousion are destructive of the catchwords of the impiety, that He is a
creature and a thing made and a generated being and changeable and that He was
not before he was begotten. (20)

Athanasius’ account is a crucial source for our knowledge of the Council

of Nicaea and its proceedings, but it must be handled with caution. The dis-
tinction that he draws between the ‘Nicene bishops’ and the ‘Eusebians’ is
a product of his polemical rhetoric, for at the council no such distinct blocs
existed. Nor did the so-called ‘Eusebians’ actually hold the heretical ideas
 Theologian 89
for which Athanasius has made them spokesmen. Most importantly, Atha-
nasius has interpreted the Nicene Creed according to his own theological
definitions. If the Son is homoousios to the Father, then He is the ‘proper
offspring’ of the Father and neither a creature nor something made but
separate by nature from all created beings. This is the language of Athana-
sius, not of Nicaea. The terms offspring (gennēma) and nature (physis) do
not appear in the Nicene Creed, and nor does the word creature (ktisma).
Although the Nicene anathemas appear to condemn the teaching that the
Son was created (ktiston), this is true only of those versions of the Nicene
Creed ‘quoted’ by Athanasius. In every other version of the text, particu-
larly those that derive directly from Eusebius of Caesarea, this anathema
is absent.48 Athanasius has made the interpolation in order to impose his
condemnation of the ‘Arian’ created Son.
In the closing sections of the De Decretis Athanasius sought to reinforce
his presentation of Nicaea as the traditional faith of the Church. He argued
that the unscriptural words used in the creed ‘contain the sense of the
Scriptures’ (21), and cited supporting passages from earlier Fathers: Theo-
gnostus (25), Dionysius of Alexandria and his namesake of Rome (26–7),
and Origen (27). These passages were not entirely convincing.49 Theognos-
tus, a third-century head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, was a
somewhat controversial figure. Origen, as we have seen, could be cited in
support of all sides of the fourth-century debates. And Athanasius’ presen-
tation of the two Dionysii aroused sufficient opposition to require him to
compose a further work in defence of his judgement (the De Sententia Dio-
nysii). From this evidence Athanasius felt able to conclude that the Nicene
Creed preserved the teachings ‘which from the beginning those who were
eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word have handed down to us’ (27). The
final pages of the De Decretis then denounce the ‘Arians’ for their misuse of
the term ‘unbegotten’ (28–32), another argument lifted straight from the
Orationes contra Arianos.
Later generations would remember Athanasius as the ‘champion of
Nicaea’. He was said to have been a leading protagonist at the council,
although Athanasius himself makes no such claim. His eventual triumph
should not blind us to the struggle he faced in bringing the Nicene Creed

48
Wiles (1993).
49
There is an assessment of Athanasius’ presentation of the Nicene fathers and his appeals
to patristic tradition in the De Decretis in Graumann (2002: 119–41).
90 Athanasius of Alexandria
out of the shadows and into the forefront of debate. Athanasius wrote the
De Decretis not just to uphold the authority of Nicaea but to define how
Nicaea was to be interpreted. In the early 350s neither his interpretation
nor the creed itself was widely accepted across the eastern Church.50 That
the Nicene Creed would indeed become the acknowledged symbol of
fourth-century orthodoxy, and understood according to Athanasius’ teach-
ings, was a remarkable achievement.
One subject on which the original Nicene Creed offered merely the brief-
est passing reference was the status of the third person of the Trinity. The
initial debate between Arius and Alexander before Nicaea had not involved
the Holy Spirit, and the relationship of the Spirit to Father and Son was rec-
ognized but left undefined. The first creed to contain an extended statement
on the Spirit was the Dedication Creed of 341. Only in the 350s, however,
do the Spirit’s nature and place within the Trinity seem to have become
a focus for controversy.51 In c.357, during Athanasius’ third exile, he was
informed by Serapion of Thmuis that there were Christians who accepted
the full divinity of the Son but denied that of the Spirit. Athanasius replied
in a long letter, later supplemented by shorter summaries.52 He denounced
those who had fallen into this error as the ‘Tropici’ (as they reduced the
Spirit to a figure or trope). He then compiled the earliest detailed defence
of the Spirit’s divinity and Trinitarian status.
The ‘Tropici’ appear to have believed that the Spirit had to be a creature,
for otherwise He would be the Son’s own brother or son and compromise
the Son’s title as only-begotten.53 In his first and most important Letter on
the Holy Spirit, Athanasius compares this teaching to that of the ‘Arians’,
who degraded the Son to the level of creation. Here as elsewhere he rejects
those who seek to understand the Godhead on human terms, and draws
on the same arguments that he had employed against the ‘Arian’ Son in the
Orationes contra Arianos. Humanity is created and sanctified through the
Spirit, who therefore cannot Himself require creation or sanctification. ‘It
is in the Spirit that the Word glorifies creation and presents it to the Father
by divinizing it and granting it adoption. But the one who binds creation

50
This diversity is well demonstrated by Ayres (2004b: 85–92).
51
On these debates, see Hauschild (1967), Haykin (1994), and Ayres (2004b: 211–18).
52
The manuscript transmission of the Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit is complex. Tra-
ditionally there are four letters, but the second and third form a single whole, and much of
the fourth appears to be an independent composition. There is a partial translation of the first
letter with introduction and notes in Anatolios (2004: 212–33).
53
For an assessment of the theology of the ‘Tropici’, see Heron (1974).
 Theologian 91
to the Word could not be among the creatures and the one who bestows
sonship upon creation could not be foreign to the Son’ (I.25). The deifica-
tion of humanity through the Incarnation, rooted in turn in the complete
ontological separation of God and creation, underlies Athanasius’ vision of
the Spirit no less than of the Son.
A more difficult question was how to express the Trinity as three persons
and yet one God. This conceptual and terminological problem repeatedly
troubled Christians during the fourth century. In the first Letter on the Holy
Spirit Athanasius initially denounced those who investigated such matters
too closely:
If one were to enquire and ask again: How can it be that when the Spirit is in us,
the Son is said to be in us, and when the Son is in us, the Father is said to be in us?
Or how is it really a Trinity if the three are depicted as one? Or how is it that when
one is in us, the Trinity is said to be in us? Let such an enquirer begin by separating
the radiance from the light, or wisdom from the one who is wise, or else let him say
himself how these things can be. But if this cannot be done, then how much more
is it the presumption of insane people to enquire into these things with respect to
God? (I.20)

Further on in the letter, he returned to the problem in greater depth.

The Spirit ‘is one and belongs [idion] to the one Word, and accordingly
belongs [idion] to the one God and is of the same essence [homoousion]’
(I.27). This is the only occasion on which Athanasius uses the Nicene term
homoousios for the Spirit as well as the Son. To support his argument, which
cannot be proven explicitly from Scripture, he appeals to ‘the tradition and
teaching and faith of the catholic Church from the beginning, that which
the Lord has given, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers guarded’ (I.28).
According to that traditional faith:
The Trinity is holy and perfect, confessed as God in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
having nothing foreign or extrinsic mingled with it, nor compounded of creator and
created, but is wholly Creator and Maker. It is identical with itself and indivisible in
nature, and its activity is one. For the Father does all things through the Word and
in the Holy Spirit. Thus the oneness of the Holy Trinity is preserved and thus is the
one God ‘who is over all and through all and in all’ [Ephesians 4:6] preached in the
Church—‘over all’, as Father, who is beginning and fountain; ‘through all’, through
the Son; and ‘in all’ in the Holy Spirit. It is Trinity not only in name and linguistic
expression, but Trinity in reality and truth. Just as the Father is the ‘One who is’
[Exodus 3:14], so likewise is His Word the ‘One who is, God over all’ [Romans 9:5].
Nor is the Holy Spirit non-existent, but truly exists and subsists.
The catholic Church does not think of less than these three, lest it fall in with
Sabellius and with the present-day Jews who follow Caiaphas, nor does it invent any
92 Athanasius of Alexandria
more than these three, lest it be dragged into the polytheism of the Greeks. Let
them learn that this is indeed the faith of the Church by considering how the Lord,
when He sent the Apostles, exhorted them to establish this as a foundation for the
Church, saying: ‘Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit’ [Matthew 28:19]. (I.28)

Athanasius’ primary concern throughout the first Letter on the Holy Spirit
is to maintain the unity of the Trinity in a single Godhead, one in nature
and one in activity. Yet he is no less determined to maintain the individual
identities of the Father, Son, and Spirit, a Trinity in truth not just in lan-
guage. To focus exclusively on the unity is to fall into Sabellian Modalism,
which Arius had suspected in Alexander of Alexandria, while to exceed
the Trinity is pagan polytheism. The difficulty that Athanasius faced was
how to express his conception of the Trinity as three in one. He lacked the
clarity of language that would subsequently be achieved by the Cappado-
cian Fathers, particularly Basil of Caesarea in his De Spiritu Sanctu. Never-
theless, Athanasius exerted a powerful influence. As we will see when we
turn to Athanasius’ later writings, he and the Cappadocians shared the
same fundamental theological values, and their differences lie in termin-
ology more than in understanding.
One Athanasian argument in support of the full divinity of the Spirit
that would reappear in the Cappadocians was the appeal to the liturgical
custom of baptism. As an expression of Christian faith in the work of the
Spirit, the liturgy was ahead of theology in the mid-fourth century. Athana-
sius’ invocation of Matthew 28:19 underlined the role of the Spirit in every
Christian’s life. In doing so he also hammered home the pastoral signifi-
cance of the issue at stake. Baptism for the forgiveness of sins, Athanasius
insisted, could not be achieved unless Father, Son, and Spirit were equally
divine. Thus he warned the ‘Tropici’: ‘Where is your hope? For who will
join you to God if you do not have the Spirit of God Himself but one that
belongs to creation?’ (I.29). Only the orthodox may hope to receive God’s
promise of salvation.
The gift and the grace that is given are given in the Trinity: from the Father, through
the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Just as the grace that is given is from the Father and
through the Son, so there would be among us no communion in the gift except in
the Holy Spirit. For it is by our participation in the Spirit that we have the love of the
Father and the grace of the Son and the communion of the Spirit itself. (I.30)

In the fullness of time Athanasius’ doctrine of the Holy Spirit, like his
interpretation of Nicaea, would acquire great authority in Christian thought.
Whatever slight deficiencies he may have had in language were more than
 Theologian 93
absolved by his insight into the mind of the Church. Through his emphasis
on the role of the Spirit in salvation and baptism, Athanasius appealed not
only to intellectuals debating the nature of the Trinity but to the faith of the
ordinary Christian. Just as he had in the Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione, Atha-
nasius captured the concerns of all those who looked to Christianity for
support in this life and hope for the world to come. His triumph, however,
lay in the future. In the late 350s his teachings were deeply controversial.
The Spirit’s full divinity remained disputed, particularly by those whom tra-
dition would name Pneumatomachoi (‘fighters against the Spirit’).54 Further
councils contested the status of Nicaea. And new questions were emerging
to challenge Athanasius and the fourth-century Church.

ATHANASIUS’ LATER WRITINGS: RECONCILIATIONS

AND NEW CONTROVERSIES

By the close of the 350s Athanasius had reason to feel increasing isolation.
His followers in Egypt were persecuted while he was forced to remain in
concealment. His supporters in the west had been driven into exile for
their defence of him and the Nicene Creed. In the east the prevailing the-
ology was still dominated by men whom he regarded as ‘Arian’ and who
questioned that the Son was co-eternal and co-essential with the Father.
In these difficult times Athanasius stayed true to his principles. The Son
must share the full divinity of the Father for the Incarnation to achieve
the promise of salvation that God had given to humanity. This emphasis
remained constant not only in Athanasius’ doctrinal treatises but in the
ascetic and pastoral works discussed in the following chapters. Yet Atha-
nasius’ theological understanding was never static. In his later writings a
momentous shift took place. Without compromising his teachings or his
opposition to heresy, Athanasius recognized that those who held views
other than his own did not therefore necessarily share the errors of ‘Arian-
ism’. It was a shift that played a crucial role in the reunification of the wider
eastern Church and the eventual triumph of what became the Nicene
orthodox faith.
The years on either side of Athanasius’ flight into his third exile in 356
witnessed important developments in theology as well as ecclesiastical

54
Athanasius coined this term against the ‘Tropici’ in his Letter on the Holy Spirit I.32. It
would become a standard label for all those who challenged the Spirit’s full divinity.
94 Athanasius of Alexandria
politics. Whatever consensus had existed among the eastern bishops broke
apart after Eusebius of Nicomedia’s death in 341/2. Distrust of Nicaea
and homoousios was widespread, as was opposition to the teachings attrib-
uted to Marcellus of Ancyra. His disciple Photinus of Sirmium was con-
demned by a council held in that city in 351 led by Basil of Ancyra, himself
the replacement for the condemned Marcellus. The Council of 351 also
issued a creed that included anathemas against the materialistic use of ousia
language and anyone teaching that Father and Son were co-eternal Gods. A
further Council of Sirmium in 357 went further in condemning all use of
ousia language, a decree immortalized in later tradition as the ‘Blasphemy
of Sirmium’.55
Yet the question of how to express the relationship between the Father
and Son remained. A wide spectrum of theological views emerged, many
of which could trace connections back to the diverse men whom Athana-
sius had branded as ‘Eusebians’. There were a few, represented notably by
Aetius and Eunomius, who taught that the Father and Son were entirely
unlike (anomoios) according to ousia. Less extreme were those, perhaps
the majority of eastern Christians in the 350s, who preferred to describe
the Son simply as ‘like’ (homoios) to the Father and avoided the term ousia.
Basil of Ancyra came to favour the more precise expression ‘like in essence’
(homoios kat’ ousian). These three theologies are often known in scholarship
as Anomoian (or ‘Neo-Arian’), Homoian, and Homoiousian, although to
what extent they represented specific doctrinal positions or parties is diffi-
cult to determine.56
Amid the shifting creeds and controversies, the emperor Constantius
struggled to bring about the unity of the Church. In 359 he summoned
the joint councils of Ariminum in the west and Seleucia in the east.
Under imperial pressure, both councils were encouraged to endorse the
so-called Dated Creed, which defined the Son as ‘like the Father in all
respects’ but declared that ousia language must be avoided as unscriptural
and causing disturbance. At Ariminum the western bishops preferred to
uphold the Nicene Creed. In the east a considerable bloc likewise resisted,
although their chosen symbol was the Dedication Creed of 341. Eventu-
ally, after much manœuvring, a modified version of the Dated Creed was

55
For more detailed narratives of the complex events of these years, see Barnes (1993),
D. H. Williams (1995b), Ayres (2004b), and Beckwith (2008).
56
See, among other studies, Kopecek (1979), Brennecke (1984, 1988), Löhr (1986, 1993),
and Vaggione (2000).
 Theologian 95
proclaimed for east and west by a small Council of Constantinople in early
360. The Son was ‘like to the Father who generated Him’. The qualification
‘in all respects’ was dropped, but the ban on ousia language was repeated.
According to the later words of Jerome, ‘the whole world groaned, and
was astonished to find itself Arian’ (Against the Luciferians 19).
Athanasius began to compose his De Synodis Arimini et Seleuciae before
the business of the twin councils of 359 had even been concluded. He
wrote the bulk of the work after the Council of Seleucia had broken up
(1 October), but before he had learned that Constantius had forced the
western envoys of Ariminum to accept a new creed (10 October).57 The
westerners were praised for their defence of Nicaea. More significant is
Athanasius’ recognition of the eastern opposition at Seleucia as fundamen-
tally orthodox. His argument here is a little disingenuous. Athanasius at
no point admits that he had condemned Basil of Ancyra only three years
before in his Encyclical Letter to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya.58 Nor does he
refer to the eastern support for the Dedication Creed, which even in 359
he still condemned as ‘Arian’. Nevertheless, this is the first indication of
Athanasius’ desire for reconciliation, and an important step towards pos-
sible rapprochement.
The opening two-thirds of the De Synodis, as we saw previously, con-
struct the councils of Ariminum and Seleucia as the continuation of a
single heretical tradition that began with Arius himself. When he turns
from polemic to reconciliation, Athanasius explicitly separates those he
now accepts as orthodox from these ‘Arians’:
Those who deny the Council altogether, are sufficiently exposed by these brief
remarks [against the ‘Arian heresy’]; those, however, who accept everything else that
was defined at Nicaea, and doubt only about the homoousion, must not be treated as
enemies. For indeed we do not attack them here as Ariomaniacs, nor as opponents
of the Fathers, but we discuss the matter with them as brothers with brothers, who
share our meaning and dispute only about the word. For, confessing that the Son is
from the essence [ousia] of the Father, and not from other subsistence [hypostasis],
and that He is not a creature nor a thing made, but His genuine and natural off-
spring, and that He is eternally with the Father as being His Word and Wisdom,
they are not far from accepting even the term homoousios. (41).

57
Athanasius added in a postscript that he heard of Ariminum’s aftermath when he had
finished writing (De Synodis 55). He also inserted chapters 30 and 31 into the work after
Constantius’ death in 361.
58
This abrupt shift is not due to any sudden change in Basil’s own theology or attitude
towards homoousios in the period 356–9: see Steenson (1985).
96 Athanasius of Alexandria
Basil of Ancyra is immediately identified as one of those who may be
recognized as orthodox, though Athanasius’ summary of Basil’s teachings
is not entirely accurate.59 Nor is his argument addressed directly to Basil or
his eastern supporters. Athanasius’ immediate purpose is to appeal to those
who already uphold Nicaea to receive these eastern bishops as friends not
enemies. In the final pages of the De Synodis he repeatedly insists on the
superiority of the Nicene Creed and reaffirms once more that this is the
traditional faith of the Church (42–54). He then concludes with an evoca-
tion of his hopes for Christian unity:
Remaining on the foundation of the Apostles and holding fast the traditions of
the Fathers, pray that now at length all strife and rivalry may cease, and the futile
questions of the heretics may be condemned and all logomachy; and the guilty and
murderous heresy of the Arians may disappear and the truth may shine again in the
hearts of all, so that all everywhere may ‘say the same thing’ [1 Corinthians 1:10],
and think the same thing, and that, no Arian contumelies remaining, it may be said
and confessed in every church, ‘One Lord, one faith, one baptism’ [Ephesians 4:5],
in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom to the Father be the glory and the strength,
unto ages of ages. Amen. (54)

A similar tone of defiant reconciliation pervades the first writings to

which Athanasius contributed following his restoration in February 362
after Constantius’ death in 361. Two documents are preserved from the
council that met in Alexandria shortly after Athanasius’ return. The Epistula
Catholica, part of the council’s encyclical letter, requires that bishops who
had acknowledged the councils of 359–60 must subscribe to Nicaea and the
full divinity of the Holy Spirit if they are to be accepted into communion.
The second document is the Tomus ad Antiochenos, addressed to the divided
Christians of Antioch. The failure of this appeal for Antiochene unity was
discussed in the preceding chapter. However, the Tomus also holds signifi-
cance for Athanasius’ growing campaign for theological reconciliation.60
The opening sections repeat the argument of the Epistula Catholica that
those who renounce ‘Arianism’ must confess the Nicene Creed and anath-
ematize those who degrade the Holy Spirit (3). The Tomus then turns to
the major doctrinal question under dispute in Antioch: whether it is appro-
priate to speak of one hypostasis or three hypostases in the Trinity. The creed

59
Basil’s strongest theological statement, the letter that he wrote on behalf of the Council
of Ancyra he summoned in 358, is quoted in Epiphanius, Panarion 73.2. See Lienhard (1985).
60
See Tetz (1975), Pettersen (1990), and, more recently, Gemeinhardt (2006) and Karmann
(2009).
 Theologian 97
attributed to the Western Council of Serdica in 343, which insisted upon
one hypostasis, is dismissed as a draft that the bishops at Serdica rejected and
so should not be read.61 Each alternative is now examined more carefully:
As to those whom some were blaming for speaking of three hypostases, on the
grounds that the term is unscriptural and therefore suspicious, we thought it right
indeed to require nothing beyond the confession of Nicaea. But on account of the
contention we made enquiry of them, whether they meant, like the Arian mad-
men, hypostases foreign and strange, and alien in ousia from one another, and that
each hypostasis was divided apart by itself, as is the case with creatures in general
and in particular with those begotten of men, or like different substances, such as
gold, silver, or brass; or whether, like other heretics, they meant three beginnings
and three Gods, by speaking of three hypostases. They assured us in reply that they
neither meant this nor had ever held it. But upon our asking them, ‘what then do
you mean by it, or why do you use such expressions?’, they replied, because they
believed in a Holy Trinity, not a Trinity in name only, but existing and subsisting in
truth. (5)

Following this:
We made enquiry of those blamed by them for speaking of one hypostasis, whether
they use the expression in the sense of Sabellius, to the negation of the Son and the
Holy Spirit, or as though the Son were non-substantial or the Holy Person imper-
sonal. But they in their turn assured us that they neither meant this nor had ever
held it, but ‘we use the word hypostasis thinking it the same thing to say hypostasis
or ousia’; ‘but we hold that there is one because the Son is of the ousia of the Father,
and because of the identity of nature’. For we believe that there is one Godhead,
and that it has one nature [physis], and not that there is one nature of the Father,
from which that of the Son and of the Holy Spirit are distinct. (6)

Athanasius himself had always preferred the latter interpretation. He

consistently used hypostasis as a synonym for ousia, as he did in the De Syn-
odis 41 passage quoted earlier. By acknowledging that those who taught
three hypostases could also represent the Nicene faith, the Tomus ad Anti-
ochenos thus marks a significant development. Each group recognized the
orthodoxy of the other, although it is claimed that ‘all, by God’s grace,
and after the above explanations, agree together that the faith confessed by
the fathers at Nicaea is better than the said phrases, and that for the future
they would prefer to be content to use its language’ (6). Slightly later in the

61
This claim is more than a little suspect. The ‘draft’ creed circulated in both east and west,
and is quoted in Theodoret, II.8.
98 Athanasius of Alexandria
Tomus, this theme of language is raised again. In the interests of peace, only
those who refuse to explain their words should be condemned. All others
should be warned ‘not to enquire further into each other’s opinions, nor to
fight about words to no useful purpose, nor to go on contending with the
above phrases, but to agree in the mind of piety’ (8). It is shared belief that
is important rather than the precise terminology used.
Did Athanasius’ arguments in favour of doctrinal reconciliation have
any practical effect? This is difficult to assess. We cannot prove that the De
Synodis appeal had any immediate impact, and unity in Antioch remained
elusive. Despite the confidence of the Tomus, the language of the original
Nicene Creed would prove insufficient to define the emerging orthodox
faith. The divinity of the Holy Spirit required stronger expression within
the Trinity than the single verse at Nicaea, which appeared to confirm the
Spirit’s subordination to the Father and Son. On an even more fundamental
level, no adequate language existed to express the nature of the Trinity
itself as both three persons and one God. There were still those who feared
that words like homoousios preserved the unity of the Godhead only at the
cost of undermining the individual identities of Father, Son, and Spirit. The
terms hypostasis and ousia would have to be separated and reinterpreted to
mean respectively identity and unity before a formula could be found to
venerate the Trinity as three in one: three hypostases in one ousia.
For the solution to these challenges we must turn not to Athanasius but
to the Cappadocian Fathers.62 Their teachings influenced all subsequent
interpretations of the revised Nicene Creed adopted by the Council of
Constantinople in 381 and used in modern churches today. The Cappado-
cian understanding of the Trinity as three hypostases in one ousia was not a
formula that Athanasius ever used or would have wished to use. And yet,
as the Tomus ad Antiochenos concluded, agreement in faith is more import-
ant than agreement in language. In faith Athanasius and the Cappadocians
came very close, and Athanasius’ efforts to resolve the divisions of the early
360s helped to pave the way for the Cappadocian achievement.
There was another theological issue debated in the Tomus that raised
rather similar questions and also became the focus of major debate in the
eastern Church in the 360s and 370s. The different Antiochene groups were
examined on their understanding of the Incarnation:

62
On the development of what has become known as ‘Neo-Nicene’ theology, see Vaggione
(2000) and Ayres (2004b).
 Theologian 99
They confessed that the Saviour had not a body without a soul, nor without sense
or intelligence; for it was not possible, when the Lord had become man for us, that
His body should be without intelligence, nor was the salvation effected in the Word
Himself a salvation of body only, but of soul also. And being Son of God in truth,
He became also Son of Man. (7)

The place of Jesus’ human soul had never previously been a focus of
attention in Athanasius’ doctrine of the Incarnation or his refutation of
‘Arianism’. It is probable that Arius, like a number of his contemporaries,
did omit Christ’s soul in his theology. But there is little sign that he or Atha-
nasius considered this to be a matter of any great significance.63 In the sec-
ond half of the fourth century, the soul of Christ gained a new importance.
Apollinaris of Laodicea was a strong supporter of Nicaea and a one-time
associate of Athanasius. Seeking a means to express the unity of the divine
Christ with the human Jesus, Apollinaris proposed that in the Incarnation
the Logos took the place of the soul. His concern for the status of the
divinity and the humanity in the Incarnation prefigured the great Christo-
logical controversies that divided the Church in the fifth century. But Apol-
linaris’ teachings compromised too far the full humanity of Jesus, and he
was condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
Athanasius’ relationship with Apollinaris is complex.64 The Tomus ad
Antiochenos is the first work in which Athanasius addresses the question of
Christ’s soul directly, and the context and framing of the argument suggest
that the chief concern is with ‘Arianism’ not the teachings of Apollinaris.65
There are works against Apollinaris attributed to Athanasius, but they are
generally believed to be pseudonymous.66 Refutation of Apollinaris was
left once more to the Cappadocian Fathers, whose Christological language
developed beyond that which Athanasius and Apollinaris shared. Never-
theless, here again the beliefs that the Cappadocians held in common with
Athanasius outweigh the differences of expression, and Athanasius fully
shared their insistence that the Incarnation required that the Son be united
with a complete human being of body and soul.
These new controversies over Trinitarian terminology and the soul of
Christ dominated doctrinal debate in the 360s and 370s. It has on occasion

63
The conclusion of a number of modern scholars is that Athanasius neither emphasizes
nor denies Christ’s soul: Wiles (1965), Louth (1985), and Anatolios (1998: 77–8).
64
Lienhard (2006).
65
Pettersen (1990: 193–8), although I would question his belief that Christ’s ‘soma apsychon’
was an established ‘Arian’ doctrine.
66
For a rare contrary view, see Dragas (2005: 133–50).
100 Athanasius of Alexandria
been argued that Athanasius, in the final stage of his life, increasingly lost
touch with the questions dividing the contemporary eastern Church. As
the Cappadocians advanced Greek theological understanding, it is said,
Athanasius remained rooted in earlier debates and anti-‘Arian’ polemic.
There is a partial degree of truth to such claims. Athanasius was now an old
man, entering the seventh decade of an extremely active life. His writings
from these last years naturally draw on previous arguments and long-held
beliefs. They also demonstrate that Athanasius continued to adapt those
arguments as contexts and audiences changed, reformulating his principles
for the benefit of another generation of Christians.
Shortly after the Council of Alexandria that despatched the Tomus ad
Antiochenos, Athanasius was sent into exile by the pagan emperor Julian
‘the Apostate’. Julian’s death in 363 allowed his return and brought to the
throne the Christian Jovian, whom Athanasius hastened to meet. His Letter
to Jovian (Letter LVI) advised the emperor to follow the Nicene faith and
condemn the ‘Arians’, who reduce the Son to a mutable creature and blas-
pheme the Spirit as created in turn by the Son. Nicaea represented the
orthodox truth, and, with the exception of a few heretics, ‘the whole world
holds the apostolic faith’ (LVI.2). This is more than a slight exaggeration,
and there is little in the anti-‘Arian’ rhetoric of real relevance to the issues
that divided the eastern Church in the late 350s and early 360s. But Atha-
nasius achieved his primary aim to rally Jovian in support of the Nicene
Creed. And the closing words of the Letter reinterpret Nicaea in the light
of current debate:
They [the Nicene fathers] have not merely said that the Son is like the Father,
lest He should be believed merely like God, instead of very God from God; but
they wrote homoousios, which was peculiar to a genuine and true Son, truly and
naturally from the Father. Nor yet did they make the Holy Spirit alien from the
Father and the Son, but rather glorified Him together with the Father and the
Son, in the one faith of the Holy Triad, because there is in the Holy Triad also
one Godhead. (LVI.4)

Much the same approach is adopted in the Epistula ad Afros, despatched

to the west by Athanasius in 367. Here he upholds the supremacy of
the Council of Nicaea over that of Ariminum championed by western
‘Homoian’ bishops like Auxentius of Milan. The content is lifted almost
verbatim from the De Decretis and De Synodis, with little concession to
developments during the 360s. Athanasius also reverts to his older usage of
hypostasis and ousia as synonyms (4), ignoring those who speak of multiple
hypostases. His argument would not have impressed contemporary eastern
 Theologian 101
opinion, but was appropriate when addressed to a western audience where
the two controversial terms were both traditionally translated by the Latin
substantia.
Perhaps the most significant of the later theological writings of Athana-
sius are two letters addressed to bishops who had appealed to him for doc-
trinal advice. The first was written to the Egyptian Adelphius of Onuphis
in c.370. The second in c.372 was a response to an appeal from Epictetus
of Corinth. In each case Athanasius was asked for his judgement on con-
troversial interpretations of the Incarnation. Athanasius’ condemnation of
the offending interpretations as ‘Arian’ reflects his automatic assumptions
and his now very familiar polemical rhetoric. But the understanding of the
humanity and divinity of Christ that Athanasius then presents draws upon
principles that he had held since the Contra Gentes–De Incarnatione while
at the same time prefiguring the Christological debates of the following
century.
The Letter to Adelphius opens with a refutation of those who deny that
the true Word became human or who assert that to worship the Incarnate
Son is to worship His created body.67 Athanasius insists that the orthodox
do not worship a creature, but nor do they decline worship of the Word
because of His created body:
For the flesh did not detract from the glory of the Word. Far from it! Rather, it is
the flesh which was glorified by the Word. Nor was the Son’s divinity diminished
because He who is in the form of God received the form of a servant. Rather, He
became the liberator of all flesh and of all creation. And if God sent His Son born
of a woman, this is not a deed that brings us shame but glory and great grace.
He became a human being that we might be divinized in Him; He came to be in
a woman and was begotten of a virgin in order to transport our errant race into
Himself and in order that from then on we may become a holy race and ‘partakers
of the divine nature’ [2 Peter 1:4]. (4)

Athanasius’ conception of human salvation, deified through the grace

of the Incarnation, remained as strong in the Letter to Adelphius as in his
earliest works. Where his emphasis had changed, if only by degree, was in
a greater insistence upon the unity of the divinity and humanity in Christ.
‘Those who do not want to worship the Word who has become flesh show
no gratitude for His humanization. And those who separate the Word from
the flesh negate the belief that there is one redemption from sin and one
destruction of death’ (5). The divinity and humanity cannot be separated,

67
Translation, introduction, and notes in Anatolios (2004: 234–42).
102 Athanasius of Alexandria
and yet retain their independent identities. This was a theme to which
Athanasius returned in greater depth in his Letter to Epictetus in c.372.
Epictetus had sent to Athanasius memoranda containing the questions
then under debate in the Corinthian church. These questions raised issues
that would recur in the Christological debates of the next century. Is the
body of the Incarnate Christ homoousios with the Word? Should we count
that body within the Trinity and so make a Tetrad? Did the Word change
in His nature through the Incarnation? Did He experience the suffering of
Christ in His divinity? Interestingly, one question that was not included in
this catalogue is whether the Word took the place of the human soul in the
Incarnate Christ. The argument of Apollinaris is not discussed in the Letter
to Epictetus, although it is stated that salvation extends to the whole human
being, body and soul (7).
There was little difficulty in disposing of some of these questions. As
Nicaea taught, Athanasius declares, the Word is homoousios with the Father
but not with His body, which is by nature from Mary. The Christian faith
teaches a Trinity not a Tetrad, and the divine Word cannot change in
His nature or suffer directly. The real issue at stake, however, could not
be resolved so easily. What is the relationship between the divinity and
humanity of the Incarnate Christ? How can we express that relationship
without compromising the distinct human and divine natures of the Incar-
nation or the single identity of Christ?
Athanasius first emphasizes that Jesus’ birth was real, against the docetic
view that the Word only appeared to take on flesh, and that the events of his
human life were real. The humanity grew, advanced, and endured. But ‘in
the body which was circumcised, and carried, and ate and drank, and was
weary, and was nailed on the tree and suffered, there was the impassible and
incorporeal Word of God’ (5). At some level, the experiences of Jesus’ body
were also experienced by the Word, for the sake of our salvation:
What the human body of the Word suffered, this the Word, dwelling in the body,
ascribed to Himself, in order that we might be enabled to be partakers of the God-
head of the Word. And truly it is strange that He it was who suffered and yet suf-
fered not. Suffered, because His own body suffered, and He was in it, which thus
suffered; suffered not, because the Word, being by nature God, is impassible. (6)

And through the Word, the body in turn was deified:

The Son, being God and Lord of glory, was in the body which was ingloriously
nailed and dishonoured; but the body, while it suffered, being pierced on the tree,
and water and blood flowed from its side, yet because it was a temple of the Word
was filled full of the Godhead. (10)
 Theologian 103
Human language and knowledge are insufficient to grasp the mysteries
of the divine. Athanasius knew this as well as anyone. The Letter to Epic-
tetus reaffirms his devout belief in the full humanity and full divinity of
the Incarnate Christ. His belief in the unity of Christ in one person was
no less sincere but more difficult to express. The humanity was deified by
the divinity, and the Word was in the body when the body suffered. The
old charge that Athanasius taught a ‘spacesuit Christology’ can, therefore,
again be dismissed, for the Word is not separated from the experiences of
the body. However, Athanasius still preferred to hold hypostasis and ousia
as synonyms. He did not have the benefit of the Cappadocian redefinition
of hypostasis, which in turn made possible the understanding of the Incar-
nation at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 as the hypostatic union of two
natures in one person. Nor was he as adept as his great successor Cyril
of Alexandria in his attribution of the properties of each of Christ’s two
natures to the other through the communication of idioms. Athanasius’
fundamental vision of the Incarnation differs little if at all from that of
Cyril and later orthodoxy, and the Letter to Epictetus was widely cited in the
fifth-century debates. Yet those who did so frequently edited the letter to
accord better with their contemporary usage.68
The theological writings of Athanasius have continued to be read down
the long years to our own time. His influence on the history of Christian
thought has been immense. In the formative fourth-century age of contro-
versy and definition, the development of doctrine could have taken many
different paths. Athanasius preserved his understanding of the fundamental
principles of the faith across a lifetime in which he endured persecution
and struggled against rival teachings that he believed undermined the very
foundations of the Christian religion. From the Contra Gentes–De Incarna-
tione at the beginning to the Letter to Epictetus at the end, at the heart of his
teachings stood the Incarnation of a true and divine Son and Word who
took on a body so that humanity might be deified. As we will see in the next
two chapters, this conviction of salvation through divine grace underlies
equally Athanasius’ devotion to asceticism and the pastoral guidance that
he offered to those who followed him. His Trinitarian and Christological
doctrines would require further expression by subsequent generations. But
his status as a Father of orthodoxy was recognized by all in the contro-
versies to come, and Athanasius’ theology still strikes a chord for every
Christian believer in the present day.

68
On the complex later history of the Letter to Epictetus, see Ch. 6.
This page intentionally left blank
 4
Ascetic

The fourth century was a formative age for Christianity and the Roman Empire
in many different ways. Constantine’s conversion and the corresponding expan-
sion in the scale and prestige of the Church accelerated the formalization of
Christian organization and doctrine. Athanasius, as we have already seen, played
a crucial role in that process. The dramatic rise of the ascetic movement must
be set within the same context, and Athanasius was once again a central figure.
Asceticism had a long history in antiquity before Christianity, and had influ-
enced the early Christians from the very beginnings of the new religion. But
only in the fourth century did the lives of individual ascetics become the sub-
ject of widespread attention and organized monasticism emerge. Athanasius’
writings are a key source for the development of asceticism, while he was also
a man of deep personal ascetic convictions who encouraged others to adopt
those values.1
Two issues need to be addressed immediately when we assess Athana-
sius and his relationship with the ascetic movement. The first concerns
Athanasius’ ascetic writings. Considerable doubt surrounds the authorship
of a number of ascetic texts transmitted to us under Athanasius’ name.
The most famous such work, the Life of Antony, is still widely accepted as
Athanasian, although this has been challenged.2 Several of his letters to
monks have likewise been preserved, perhaps most notably the Letter to
Amoun, which discusses bodily emissions and the value of marriage and celi-
bacy, and the Letter to Dracontius asking that monk to accept appointment to
the episcopate.3 These letters are preserved in Athanasius’ original Greek,
but many of his ascetic writings are transmitted through Coptic, Syriac,
and Armenian.4 This includes several treatises on virginity and fragments

1
For different perspectives on the importance of asceticism within Athanasius’ life and
thought, see Brakke (1995), Kannengiesser (1998), and Ng (2001). For general introductions to
the rise of Christian asceticism and monasticism in Late Antiquity, see, among many others,
Chitty (1966), Brown (1988), Elm (1994), Shaw (1998), Clark (1999), Dunn (2000), and the art-
icles collected in Wimbush and Valantasis (1998).
2
See Ch. 1, n. 26.
3
The Greek letters are translated with a short introduction by Barnard (1994).
4
There is a survey of these writings and their relative authenticity in Brakke (1994a).
106 Athanasius of Alexandria
of various other works, not all of which are authentic. The existence of
pseudonymous works attests to the status attached to Athanasius’ name by
later generations of ascetics, but does complicate analysis. Yet it is import-
ant that we look beyond the Life of Antony and embrace the broader ascetic
content of the Athanasian corpus.
The second issue that must be raised is the close interrelationship
between Athanasius’ commitment to asceticism and his wider life and writ-
ings. Athanasius’ undoubted ascetic principles and his contribution to the
ascetic movement cannot be studied in isolation. The theological doctrines
that he taught had a direct impact on how he understood the ascetic life. So
too did the fluctuations of his episcopal standing, for his following among
the ascetics of Egypt played an important part in maintaining his authority
as bishop of Alexandria. This is not to suggest that Athanasius’ promo-
tion of asceticism should be interpreted purely as a form of ecclesiastical
politics. But equally we cannot deny that Athanasius actively sought ascetic
support for his position, particularly through the ordination of monk-
bishops and the composition of the Life of Antony. Here, as throughout, the
ecclesiastical, theological, and ascetic elements of Athanasius’ career and
thought combine.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF EGYPTIAN ASCETICISM

In our generation in Egypt I see three chapter-heads given increase by God for
profit of all who understand—the bishop Athanasius, Christ’s champion for the
Faith even unto death; and the holy Abba Antony, perfect pattern of the anchor-
etic life; and this Community, which is the type for all who desire to gather souls
according to God, to take care of them until they be made perfect. (Pachomius,
quoted in the Vita Prima Pachomii 136)

The practice of askesis, the life of austerity and self-discipline in pursuit

of spiritual growth, traces its roots back to the dawn of antiquity. Our his-
torical understanding of asceticism has inevitably been influenced by the
Christian lens that dominates so many of our sources, but Christian ascetic
ideals emerged against a background of Graeco-Roman philosophy and
Jewish teachings.5 Those ideals are already visible in the Gospel accounts
of John the Baptist and Jesus, and remained prominent across the early

5
For an introduction to pagan and Jewish asceticism, see respectively Francis (1995) and
Diamond (2004), and also the articles collected in Wimbush (1990) and in Wimbush and
Valantasis (1998).
 Ascetic 107
Christian centuries. The ascetic movement of the fourth century was
therefore a continuation rather than a break from previous tradition.
Nevertheless, Athanasius’ lifetime witnessed a dramatic transformation
in the status and influence of asceticism within Christianity. As persecu-
tion of the Church faded into memory, the ascetic lifestyle provided a new
expression of faith and dedication to take the place of martyrdom.6 At the
same time, the growth of Christianity following Constantine’s conversion
led some men and women to seek a deeper religious experience through
their ascetic commitment, whether as individual hermits or in communal
monasteries. A new ascetic elite began to appear, to whom other Christians
looked for guidance and inspiration.7
Christian asceticism and monasticism could take many different forms.
The conventional classification of late-antique monasticism distinguishes two
essential types, the eremitic monasticism of the solitary hermit, best exem-
plified by the Egyptian monk Antony (c.251–356), and collective cenobitic
monasticism, originally associated in Egypt with Antony’s younger contem-
porary Pachomius (292–346). There were other types of ascetic practices that
flourished in Late Antiquity, and both eremitic and cenobitic monasticism
varied significantly in different regions and periods.8 It is important to empha-
size this diversity here, as the following pages will naturally focus specifically
on Egypt. Athanasius met Antony in person and wrote his biography, and,
while he did not apparently meet Pachomius, he certainly had close asso-
ciations with Pachomian monasticism.9 An outline account of Antony and
Pachomius and their respective contributions to the ascetic movement pro-
vides the setting within which to understand Athanasius’ own ascetic values
and the importance of asceticism to his episcopate and theology.
If tradition is to be believed, Antony of Egypt was born in c.251 and died
in 356. For our knowledge we depend heavily on Athanasius’ Life, written
shortly after the hermit’s death. The Life is by no means a straightforward
narrative, as will be discussed further below, but it allows us to sketch the
major events of Antony’s career. We also possess a number of letters preserved

6
Antony had sought martyrdom in the Great Persecution, but he was preserved by God,
and his ascetic discipline took the place of the martyr’s crown (Life of Antony 46–7).
7
The modern literature on the late-antique holy man is vast. For an introduction, see in
particular Brown (1971, 1995, 1998) and Cox Miller (1983).
8
For a discussion of one such divergent tradition, see Caner (2002).
9
Athanasius’ sole reference to Pachomius by name occurs in his highly fragmentary first
Letter to Horsiesius, written in early 363. His second Letter to Horsiesius in c.368 is a eulogy
to Theodore, Pachomius’ favourite disciple. These letters reflect Athanasius’ respect for the
Pachomian monastic network, and also suggest that his influence on the Pachomian commu-
nities increased after Pachomius’ death: see further Goehring (1986).
108 Athanasius of Alexandria
in Coptic whose attribution to Antony is increasingly accepted as genuine.10
Those letters provide valuable insight into Antony’s personal ascetic ideals,
although they do not entirely reconcile with the image of the hermit laid
down in his Life.
Born into a moderately wealthy Christian family, Antony lost his parents
when he was around the age of 20, leaving him to care for his home and
his sister. Attending church a few months after their deaths, he heard the
Gospel reading to which he would devote his life: ‘If you wish to be perfect,
go and sell everything you possess and give it to the poor and come, follow
me and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Matthew 19:21–2).
Leaving the church, Antony heeded the Saviour’s call. He sold his prop-
erty and gave the money to the poor, reserving just a little for his sister’s
needs. He then committed her to the care of faithful virgins, and sought the
ascetic life. Antony was obviously not the first. There was a house of vir-
gins in his village where his sister could live,11 and when Antony embarked
on his new lifestyle he immediately sought the guidance of a hermit who
lived in the next village and had practised asceticism for many decades.
Antony also sought out other teachers, just as he would become a teacher
in his turn. At that time, ‘no monk at all knew of the distant desert; but all
who wished to give heed to themselves practiced the discipline in solitude
near their own village’ (Life of Antony 3). Through Antony, this was going
to change.12
Initially, Antony too remained on the fringes of civilization. He dedicated
himself to prayer while keeping his hands busy with work, and struggled
with the temptations of the Devil. This period culminated in Antony living in
the tombs set some distance from the village, where with God’s aid he over-
came the Devil’s lures and assaults. Finally, after some fifteen years, Antony
elected to travel deeper into the wilderness. Crossing the Nile, he came to an
abandoned fortress and there remained in solitude, visited only by acquaint-
ances who brought him bread twice a year and lowered the loaves to him as
he refused to allow them to enter. He remained within the fortress for two
decades, emerging at last in c.305, when increasing numbers of those who
wished to become his disciples began to break their way inside.

10
Seven letters in Coptic are attributed to Antony by Jerome, De Viris Illustribus 88. The
standard work on the letters is Rubenson (1995), although his arguments in favour of their
authenticity remain under debate: for a recent discussion, see Bumazhnov (2007).
11
Antony later learnt that his sister had preserved her life of virginity and become a guide
for other virgins (Life of Antony 54).
12
On the importance of geography in the Life and the relationship between literary
construction and reality, see Wipszycka (2004).
 Ascetic 109
These were the years of the Great Persecution, with the conversion
of Constantine still in the future. But Antony was already spreading the
ascetic call. Although he did not face martyrdom himself, he ministered to
the confessors, before withdrawing back into solitude after the persecution
ceased. Unable to avoid the throngs who sought him out, in c.313 Antony
decided to pass on into the upper Thebaid, where he was less well known.
As he looked for a boat to transport him along the river, he heard a heavenly
voice calling him to the inner desert. In the company of a Saracen caravan,
he set out for three days and nights until he came to the mountain where
he settled until his death some forty years later. Aside from brief visits to
other hermits, Antony made only one major journey, to Alexandria in 338
to denounce the ‘Arians’. He continued to teach and follow his chosen way
of life, and died in 356 at a reported age of over 100.13
Not least through the efforts of Athanasius, Antony would become the
model for anchoretic or eremitic monasticism in Egypt and beyond. He
lived a solitary life, although disciples and petitioners ensured that he was
rarely truly alone. Pachomius, the second founding figure in this golden
age, espoused a more communal conception of asceticism.14 Our sources
for Pachomius’ life and teachings pose similar problems to those for Antony.
There are a number of Lives of Pachomius that survive in Coptic, Greek,
and Arabic, although their manuscript transmission is highly complex.
Some of these Lives, notably the Vita Prima Pachomii, which is the earliest
Greek Life, were written some decades after Pachomius’ death and were
influenced in part by Athanasius’ Life of Antony. But the Lives also draw
on oral material from those who had known Pachomius, probably origin-
ally preserved in Coptic. We further possess the Rules of Pachomius trans-
lated into Latin by Jerome in 404, although these Rules appear to reflect the
Pachomian tradition as it existed a generation after Pachomius rather than
the monastic organization that Pachomius personally laid down.
Born a generation after Antony, Pachomius was a pagan who around
the age of 20 was conscripted into the army during the civil war between
Licinius and Maximin Daia in 312/13. Impressed by the charity of Chris-
tians who brought the recruits food and drink, he prayed that he would
serve God if God would release him from his plight. Maximin’s defeat freed

13
The monastery founded on Antony’s mountain, which already existed by the time of
Athanasius’ death, is brought to life in Bolman (2002).
14
A thorough introduction to Pachomius and Pachomian Monasticism is provided by
Rousseau (1999); see also Brakke (1995: 111–29), Goehring (1986, 1996), and Harmless (2004:
115–50).
110 Athanasius of Alexandria
Pachomius from the military, and he kept his promise, receiving baptism
in the village of Chenoboscia (Coptic Šeneset) and committing himself to
his new faith.
Pachomius served within the local Christian community, but was swiftly
attracted to an ascetic lifestyle. Like Antony, he looked to a local hermit
for guidance during the early years of his ascetic career, the anchorite Pala-
mon, and like Antony was aided by a divine voice in finding his true calling.
Unlike Antony, Pachomius’ call was to found a collective monastery, which
he did at the deserted village of Tabennesi in perhaps c.320. As he attracted
more followers, Pachomius evolved a communal structure based on mutual
support. Over time regulations were developed to cover food, clothing, and
sleeping patterns, and an organized monastery began to appear.
Exactly how great a break from previous practices Pachomius’ first
community actually was is difficult to determine. Gatherings of ascetics
were not unknown at this time, and Pachomius visited or entertained mem-
bers of other groups. What does appear to be different is that Pachomius
and his disciples founded a series of monasteries, which remained united
with each other. This is not to imply that all the first Pachomian commu-
nities shared a uniform organization, for what would be preserved as the
Rules of Pachomius were not fully refined until after his death. Neverthe-
less, by c.330 Pachomius had founded a further monastery not far from
Tabennesi at Phbow, which became his headquarters in c.337, and other
foundations followed, including a women’s convent. Existing communities
could likewise apply to join the Pachomian network. The scale of that
network cannot be precisely determined from the existing evidence, but
Tabennesi and Phbow may each have supported 1,000 monks or more, and
by the end of the fourth century the Pachomian communities have been
estimated at some 7,000 members.15
When Pachomius died in May 346, his movement had spread through
much of the Thebaid, following the Nile north to Panopolis and south
past Thebes to Latopolis. Athanasius was evidently aware of the import-
ance of Pachomian monasticism upon his election as bishop in 328. One of
his first actions was to set out on a tour of the Thebaid in 329–30, during
which, according to later tradition, Pachomius watched him from among
the crowds of monks.16 There are claims that Athanasius even considered
ordaining Pachomius but the latter fled into hiding.17 Athanasius would

15
For the evidence, see Rousseau (1999: 74–5).
16
Vita Prima Pachomii 30. This is Athanasius’ journey recorded in Festal Index 2.
17
Bohairic Life of Pachomius 28.
 Ascetic 111
eventually succeed in drawing a number of Pachomian monks into the
episcopate as part of his efforts to integrate the ascetics more closely into
the Egyptian Church.
Antony and Pachomius were by no means the only ascetics in early
fourth-century Egypt.18 There were hermits living outside villages and
gatherings of male and female virgins in Alexandria and other urban
centres. All would have a part to play in Athanasius’ episcopate. Yet the
three ‘chapter-heads’ of their age, as Pachomius is said to have described
them, represent forces fundamental to shaping Egyptian Christianity.
Antony became the ideal for the solitary holy man, offering inspiration
and spiritual support to those who turned to him, including Athanasius.
The Pachomian foundations fulfilled a different need among those who
sought a communal monastic lifestyle and aided Athanasius with practical
organization and material resources, particularly during his third exile in
the desert. Across his episcopate Athanasius maintained a close association
with the thriving ascetic movement. This in turn was made possible by the
powerful influence that ascetic ideals exerted on Athanasius’ own life and
thought.

ATHANASIAN ASCETICISM

According to the Coptic tradition preserved in the History of the Patri-

archs, Athanasius was drawn to the ascetic life even as a youth before his
baptism.19 We may not accept the historical accuracy of this later tradition,
but it is beyond question that Athanasius was powerfully influenced by the
ascetic movement from an early stage. His conception of asceticism was
rooted in his theology. The deification of humanity achieved through the
Incarnation enabled living men and women to draw closer to the divine
through their ascetic discipline. Athanasius never ceased to emphasize that
chastity, fasting, and other ascetic practices, while important, were not an
end in themselves but a means towards spiritual growth. Moreover, ascetic
virtues were not the preserve of a special elite, but could be pursued in dif-
ferent measure by all Christians in town, country, and desert alike. In the

18
This diversity, which I cannot attempt to do justice to here, has been rightly emphasized
in a number of articles by Wipszycka (1996) and Goehring (1999a, 2007).
19
See the quotation at the head of Ch. 1, and the discussion of the History of the Patriarchs
in Ch. 6.
112 Athanasius of Alexandria
following pages these cardinal themes will be traced through Athanasius’
wide-ranging ascetic writings. The next chapter will consider his applica-
tion of his ascetic arguments in the pastoral context of the Festal Letters.
Athanasius’ first Letter to Virgins, a work that survives only in Coptic, has
been provisionally dated to 337–9 between his first and second exiles.20 It
is an appropriate work with which to begin an assessment of the ascetic
programme of Athanasius, who placed great weight on the ideal of female
virginity.21 The extant text of the partially fragmentary letter opens with a
comparison of virginity to marriage (2–3). The state of marriage is natural
to humanity and governed by God’s law. But virgins transcend the law and
come closer to the divine. ‘Virginity, having surpassed human nature and
imitating the angels, hastens and endeavours to cleave to the Lord’ (3).
Athanasius then launches into a polemical attack on the pagans who falsely
call some of their women virgins just as they falsely call their idols gods
(4–6). This paves the way for the celebration of Mary as the true virgin.
She preserved her virginity after Christ’s birth and had no other children in
order that she should remain the pattern for later virgins (9–11). The vision
of Mary’s lifestyle that Athanasius presents (12–17) owes more to his ideals
than to scriptural evidence, and encapsulates the values and behaviour that
he wished contemporary Egyptian virgins to follow:
Mary was a holy virgin, having the disposition of her soul balanced and doubly
increasing. For she desired good works, doing what is proper, having true thoughts
in faith and purity. And she did not desire to be seen by people; rather, she prayed
that God would be her judge. Nor did she have an eagerness to leave her house, nor
was she at all acquainted with the streets; rather, she remained in her house being
calm, imitating the fly in honey. She virtuously spent the excess of her manual
labour on the poor. And she did not acquire eagerness to look out the window,
rather to look at the Scriptures. And she would pray to God privately, taking care
about these two things: that she not let evil thoughts dwell in her heart, and also
that she not acquire curiosity or learn hardness of heart. (13)

The virgin must be modest and humble, pursuing good works while avoid-
ing the dangers of pride and envy and shunning the temptations of worldly
life. Mary likewise showed the same balance with regard to her bodily needs:
The desire of the belly did not overcome her, only up to the measure of the body’s
necessity. For she ate and drank, not luxuriously, but so that she might not neglect

20
Translation in Brakke (1995: 274–91).
21
Elm (1994: 331–72); Brakke (1995: 17–79). On virginity in late-antique Christianity, see, in
addition to these works and the general books cited in n. 1, Cloke (1995) and Cooper (1996).
 Ascetic 113
her body and it die contrary to its time. Moreover, she did not sleep beyond meas-
ure, but so that the body alone might rest, and afterwards she would be awake for
her work and the Scriptures. (14)

Athanasius does not wish virgins to follow the extreme asceticism of the
desert hermits. Instead, his advice is more practical, urging them to main-
tain their strength and devote themselves to working with their hands and
scriptural study. The female ascetics to whom he writes live within towns,
although they should avoid going out in public except to attend church.
Mary lived with her parents and walked to the temple with them. Obedi-
ence is no less a virtue for virgins than chastity and humility, and Mary
again represents the ideal: ‘First she would pray to God, and afterwards she
would submit to her parents. But as for fighting with her father or mother,
she considered it an abomination to God. And she had this desire before
her eyes: to submit to her parents more than like a slave’ (16).
Finally, the virgin Mary obviously had no association with male slaves or
men of any other social class. This, Athanasius explains, is why she reacted
with fear when she was hailed by the archangel Gabriel, for she was unfa-
miliar with male voices. But she kept her courage and proved worthy of
God’s favour. ‘This is the image of virginity, for holy Mary was like this.
Let her who wishes to be a virgin look to her, for on account of things like
this the Word chose her so that He might receive this flesh through her and
become human for our sake’ (17).
The core virtues that Athanasius requires from those who pursue the life
of virginity are traditional virtues of the Christian religion. The ideal that
he presents in the first Letter to Virgins closely parallels the models found
elsewhere in fourth-century asceticism, and Athanasius’ arguments influ-
enced a number of later writers.22 Still, there are certain elements that are
characteristic of Athanasius and reflect his specific concerns. The practical
guidance and desire to discourage extreme displays of asceticism is one
feature of Athanasius’ advice to virgins.23 Another is the emphasis that a
virgin follows her path through her own free will, aided by divine grace.
Virginity is not required by God’s law, and virgins must heed the pattern
laid down by Mary and devote themselves fully if they are to remain on
their chosen road.24

22
For two western examples, see Ambrose of Milan and Jerome in Ch. 6.
23
One of the miracles achieved by Antony was to heal a virgin whose suffering had been
caused by her extreme discipline (Life of Antony 61).
24
In this regard Athanasius held virgins and martyrs in the same respect (De Incarnatione
48.2–3), and this attitude is also attributed to Antony (Life of Antony 79).
114 Athanasius of Alexandria
Perhaps most importantly, Athanasius’ conception of the ascetic life in
the first Letter to Virgins is inseparably intertwined with his theology of the
Incarnation. According to Athanasius, ascetic chastity did exist among the
Jews before Christ, but this was very rare and limited to prophets such as
Elijah and Elisha, Jeremiah, and John the Baptist. This changed with the
Incarnation. ‘When the Lord came into the world, having taken flesh from
a virgin and become human, at that time what used to be difficult became
easy for people, and what was impossible became possible’ (8). Through
Christ and His sacrifice, those who uphold virginity may draw closer to
God. Athanasius returns to this theme at length towards the end of the
letter. He reports that a group of virgins once approached his predecessor
Alexander for guidance (36). Alexander then addressed them regarding
Christ (37–45), and Athanasius presents his theological argument through
Alexander’s voice.
Virgins who wish to draw near to Christ, Alexander declares, must learn
who Christ is. He is the Word, Wisdom, Power, and Image of the Father,
and He and the Father are one. He took flesh through the virgin Mary so
that He might destroy sin, and although He became human He was not
weakened as God. For the virgin He is the bridegroom. ‘And if it used to
be impossible for a human being to join with God, He has made it possible
by having become human’ (40). The understanding of salvation through
deification that runs throughout Athanasius’ theology is here restated, in
Alexander’s words, in the specific context of asceticism.25 And, just as Atha-
nasius believed that the ‘Arian’ view of the Son denied the possibility of sal-
vation, so Alexander goes on to warn the virgins to avoid those who insult
their bridegroom, a polemic to which I will return later in this chapter.
The final characteristically Athanasian argument of the first Letter to Vir-
gins is pastoral more than doctrinal, and addresses one of the major tensions
that emerged with asceticism among Christian congregations. Athana-
sius insists repeatedly that, while virginity is superior to marriage, on no
account should marriage itself be degraded. This argument appears at the
beginning of the extant text, when it is stated that virginity transcends the
law but marriage is lawful and appropriate to human nature (2). Following
his invocation of Mary as the pattern for virginity, Athanasius repeats this
point. Virginity was not commanded by the law, ‘so that we would not
think that marriage, which is in accordance with nature, were contrary to
the law or acting as a constraint, hindering people from virginity, and so

25
The doctrine that it was through the Incarnation that virginity became fully attainable
for all humanity is also maintained in De Incarnatione 51.1 and Apologia ad Constantium 33.
 Ascetic 115
that the person who was not a virgin would not be condemned as having
not performed a commandment’ (18). As Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 7:38),
marriage is good even if virginity is better (19).
All the ascetic, theological, and pastoral themes that emerge from
reading the first Letter to Virgins appear in different forms across Athanasius’
other ascetic writings. The second Letter to Virgins, written after 346 and
possibly near the end of his episcopate, survived in a Syriac manuscript.26 It
is framed as a letter to a group of virgins who have gone on pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, consoling them on having to leave the holy places. The virtues
of humility, modesty, and obedience are reaffirmed, with emphasis once
more that ascetic practices must be combined with pious devotion. ‘It is
not holiness of the body alone that is required, but also that of the spirit’
(4). A virgin must similarly beware the vices of worldly life, and be careful
to walk and dress soberly and to eat and bathe only enough for health. One
should pray and not talk in church (10), and public baths are a particular
danger and may lead others into corruption, as Bathsheba led David (17).
These again are standard ascetic ideas but adapted to Athanasius’ purposes.
He criticizes virgins who live in ‘spiritual marriage’ together with celibate
men as devaluing their devotion.27 And he repeats his insistence that vir-
gins are not compelled by law or threat, but take their lifestyle upon them-
selves. ‘By your own will you became a virgin: you presented a willing
sacrifice’ (23).
A third Athanasian work, known simply as On Virginity, exists in both
Syriac and Armenian versions.28 The work cannot be precisely dated, but
the arguments presented are very familiar. Virgins must be obedient to
the Lord, even more than women of the world must obey their husbands.
Orthodoxy and purity of thought are as important as bodily purity, and
vigilance is required to avoid falling into shame and error. Do not envy or
plot against others, and ‘watch, so that you who are continent never con-
demn those who are chaste in marriage and so bring sin upon yourself ’
(10). The true virgin whose life and faith are worthy of her status will be
rewarded in heaven:

26
Translation in Brakke (1995: 292–302). On this letter, see also Frank (2000: 108–11).
27
As Brakke (1995: 20–9) has observed, such ‘spiritual marriages’ were not a concern in
Athanasius’ first Letter to Virgins, and may reveal a custom that has increased in the years
between the two letters.
28
Translation in Brakke (1995: 303–9). Note that this authentic work must be distinguished
from the Pseudo-Athanasian text, also entitled On Virginity, which survived only in Syriac and
is edited in Brakke (2002).
116 Athanasius of Alexandria
Then you will dwell with Christ. Then you will see your bridegroom, your brother,
your father, your lord, your king, your Lord God Sabaoth, Adonai, El, who is, was,
and always will be. Then He will appear to you, He who established heaven and
spread forth the earth among the waters. To the virgin alone belongs this right,
this heritage, this rank, this station, such glory, because she has hated the day of
humanity, because she has rejected all uncleanness. Then she will rejoice in repose;
then she will exult. (17)

It is not only in treatises dedicated to virginity that Athanasius expounds

his ascetic ideas. Some extensive Coptic fragments survive of an otherwise
unknown Athanasian text on the moral life.29 Once again we find the praise
of those who make the decision to turn to asceticism. ‘The people who walk
angelically according to their free will and practice discipline in the life of the
angels remove themselves completely from the desires of the flesh’ (2). They
avoid meat and wine, consuming sparsely only vegetables and water, and
keep vigils and nights of prayer rather than sleep. But not all can achieve such
a higher state. Those who cannot should still seek to distance themselves
from worldly vices and not be condemned for their efforts. Marriage is good,
as long as sexual relations are for procreation and not for pleasure. Drinking
a little wine is not a sin, but excess is to be avoided. This pastoral emphasis
that all Christians should live by such ideals to the limits of their ability is here
extended even to those not yet full members of the Church. ‘I am not saying
these things only to the person who has received the light, baptism, but I am
commanding also the one who is going to receive’ (7). Catechumens too
must prepare themselves for a Christian life. In this aim, humanity is aided
once more by Christ through the Incarnation. ‘As for us, brothers, let us obey
the teaching of our Lord and suffer for Him so that we might be glorified
with Him and we too might be a single body in Christ Jesus’ (10).
Athanasius expresses the same ideals in his correspondence with the
leading monks of the Egyptian desert. One of his best-known letters, prob-
ably written during Athanasius’ golden decade (346–56), was addressed
to Amoun, the founder of an ascetic community in Nitria.30 Some of
Amoun’s monks, possibly including Amoun himself, were concerned that
bodily emissions were sinful and unclean. Athanasius insists that all things
created by God are good and pure. Bodily emissions are a part of nature
independent of the human will, and cannot be evidence of sin. To debate
such a question, Athanasius argues, is futile and the work of the Devil, who
seeks always to distract ascetics from their meditations.

29
Translation in Brakke (1995: 314–19).
30
In Life of Antony 60, Antony saw the soul of Amoun carried to heaven by angels.
 Ascetic 117
From emissions, Athanasius then passes on to the wider issue of sexu-
ality. Again he rebukes those in Amoun’s community who regard marriage
as defilement. Honourable marriage for procreation is not sinful, just as
killing in war is lawful and praised even though to kill is in itself wrong.
‘There are two ways of life in these matters—one, marriage, more
moderate and ordinary; the other, virginity, angelic and more perfect. Now
if a person chooses the worldly way, that is, marriage, he is indeed not to
blame; but he will not receive such graces as the other way.’ Athanasius
concludes by urging Amoun to strengthen his community according to
these warnings, and silence those who raise such questions.
Throughout the writings summarized here Athanasius expresses a sin-
cere respect for ascetic values and the men and women who pursued such
a vocation. His criticism is reserved for the most extreme practices and for
ascetics who exalt themselves and disparage those who live an ordinary
pious Christian life. In the next chapter we will see Athanasius maintain the
same principles in the more explicitly pastoral context of his Festal Letters.
But there remains one outstanding Athanasian ascetic work that requires
attention: the Life of Antony. Dedication and renown made Antony unique.
As Athanasius declared in the conclusion to his famous biography, Antony
was an example from whom all ‘may learn what the life of the monks
ought to be’ (94). The ideals that Antony represents provide a further dem-
onstration of the principles of Athanasius’ wider ascetic programme, now
expressed through a model whom every monk and virgin should admire
and imitate.31
Like the virgins to whom Athanasius addressed several of his letters,
Antony devoted himself to asceticism of his own free will. He received the
aid of divine grace, upon which all must depend, but he held to his com-
mitment and resisted the temptations of demons. Although unlearned,32
he was able to dispute with philosophers and interpret the Scriptures,
while in his conviction and the strength of his bodily discipline and spiritual
knowledge Antony rose above his contemporaries. Yet the ascetic values
that he embraced were the universal values that Athanasius insisted every
Christian could aspire to attain in their measure. Fasting and celibacy were

31
How far the Athanasian ideals that I am concerned with here can be reconciled with the
historical Antony remains controversial. For comparisons between the Life of Antony and our
other evidence (Antony’s Letters and his sayings in the Apophthegmata Patrum), see Dörries
(1949), Rubenson (1995), and Harmless (2004).
32
It is here that we encounter the most obvious contrast between the Antony of the
Life and the Antony of the Letters, for the latter reveal a strongly Origenist theology and an
emphasis on knowledge (gnōsis): Rubenson (1995).
118 Athanasius of Alexandria
balanced by prayer and contemplation of Scripture, while the work of
his hands supported him and gave him the means for charity. These were
the virtues Antony in turn encouraged in others, and he warned of the
corresponding vices: greed for money and glory, desire for food, sexual
lust, and false belief. His struggles differed from those of others in depth
but not in nature.
There are themes prominent in the Life of Antony that do not find such
close parallels in Athanasius’ other ascetic works. This is true of the demons
whose trials Antony continually endured.33 From the very beginning of his
ascetic devotion Antony faced temptations, threats, and physical abuse at
demonic hands. He possessed the gift of discernment of evil spirits, and
instructed others on how to recognize and defeat them. The conflict with
demons was a recurring motif of late-antique asceticism, especially for
those who followed Antony out into the deeper desert, but is not a subject
that Athanasius places any significance upon elsewhere. This silence may
reflect the character of his writings, for we have no reason to think that
he did not share the contemporary belief in demons. The Life of Antony
reports that Antony gave a discourse ‘in the Egyptian tongue’ (16) to a
group of monks, in which demons are said to oppose all Christians but par-
ticularly monks. For even demons fear the ideals of the ascetic life:
They are afraid of the ascetics on several counts—for their fasting, the vigils, the
prayers, the meekness and gentleness, the contempt for money, the lack of vanity,
the humility, the love of the poor, the almsgiving, the freedom from wrath, and
most of all their devotion to Christ. It is for this reason that they do all they do—in
order not to have those monks trampling them underfoot. For they know the grace
that has been given to the faithful for combat against them by the Saviour. (30).

In addition to restating once more the virtues of asceticism, these words

attributed to Antony recall another fundamental Athanasian principle: the
dependence of the ascetic upon the grace given to humanity through the
Incarnation. Antony did not achieve his many miracles by his own great-
ness. Instead, he gave thanks to God, who worked through him, and insisted
that those who sought to venerate him should do likewise. At the onset of
his ascetic career he was thus able to defeat the Devil. For ‘working with
Antony was the Lord, who bore flesh for us, and gave to the body the vic-
tory over the Devil, so that each of those who truly struggle can say, it is
“not I, but the grace of God which is in me” [1 Corinthians 15:10]’ (5).

33
On the importance of demons in Late Antiquity, see the classic article of Brown (1970)
and now Brakke (2006).
 Ascetic 119
Later in his life, when he had retired to his mountain, the hermit would
be challenged to debate by pagan philosophers. In his condemnation of
their errors, Antony offered a concise statement of the doctrine of deifi-
cation that underlay Athanasius’ theology and his understanding of ascet-
icism. ‘The Word of God was not changed, but remaining the same He
assumed a human body for the salvation and benefit of humanity—so that
sharing in the human birth He might enable humanity to share the divine
and spiritual nature’ (74).34
Antony addressed monks and philosophers, he received and wrote letters
to emperors, gave to the poor, and aided any who sought him out. Despite
his desire for solitude and his anchoretic reputation, the hermit was rarely
truly alone. From his abandoned fortress or desert mountain, Antony
remained engaged with the world around him. He therefore contributed in
his way to bridging the potential gulf between the ascetic and the ‘ordin-
ary’ Christian. The pastoral achievements he wrought were greater than
those of many bishops and represented Athanasius’ ideal model, inspiring
through spiritual leadership those who could not reach the same degree of
perfection.
It was as if he were a physician given to Egypt by God. For who went to him griev-
ing and did not return rejoicing? Who went in lamentation over his dead, and
did not immediately put aside his sorrow? Who visited while angered and was
not changed to affection? What poor person met him in exhaustion who did not,
after hearing and seeing him, despise wealth and console himself in his poverty?
What monk, coming to him in discouragement, did not become all the stronger?
What young man, coming to the mountain and looking at Antony, did not at once
renounce pleasures and love moderation? Who came to him tempted by a demon
and did not gain relief ? And who came to him distressed in his thoughts and did not
find his mind calmed?’ (87)

By word, deed, and example, Antony spread the ascetic vocation across
Egyptian Christianity and beyond. Athanasius immortalized Antony’s
achievement in making ‘the desert a city’.
When he spoke and urged them to keep in mind the future goods and the affection
in which we are held by God, ‘who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for
us all’ [Romans 8:32], he persuaded many to take up the solitary life. And so, from
then on, there were monasteries in the mountains and the desert was made a city
by monks, who left their own people and registered themselves for the citizenship
in the heavens. (14).

34
The place of the Life of Antony within Athanasius’ theology has been discussed further by
Gregg and Groh (1981: ch. 4), Brakke (1995: 216–44), and Anatolios (1998: 165–95).
120 Athanasius of Alexandria
THE BISHOP AND THE MONKS: ATHANASIUS AND THE
‘POLITICS’ OF ASCETICISM

We must hold Athanasius’ conception of the ascetic movement and his

personal ascetic principles firmly in mind when we turn to the role that
asceticism played in the course of his episcopate. There is no doubt that
the support of a considerable bloc of the Egyptian ascetic community
was an important factor in maintaining Athanasius’ influence over the
Egyptian Church and his hold on the Alexandrian see. Whether it is correct
to speak of the ‘politics’ of asceticism is more open to debate.35 As Atha-
nasius’ entire career attests, politics and piety are not mutually exclusive
categories. To dismiss Athanasius’ alliance with the monks and virgins of
Alexandria and Egypt as merely political manipulation is to do Athanasius
and the ascetics alike a grave disservice. Yet Athanasius did gain practical
as well as spiritual aid from his relationship with the ascetics, to their last-
ing mutual benefit. Moreover, the ascetic movement within Egypt as else-
where took a myriad of different forms. Athanasius sought to impose a
degree of unity, establishing models of behaviour that reflected both his
ascetic ideals and the demands of episcopal power. This inevitably brought
him into conflict with others who had their own alternative visions for the
course of Egyptian asceticism.
The relationship between the bishop of Alexandria and the Egyptian
ascetics raised a further underlying question with serious implications for
Christianity as a whole. The ascetic movement was arguably the greatest
potential challenge to episcopal authority over the late-antique Church.36
There had always been those within the early Church who had questioned
whether the worldly concerns required of the clergy were truly compat-
ible with Christian moral and spiritual leadership. The gradual emergence
of the monarchical episcopate in the second and third centuries ad united
spiritual and administrative authority in a single figure. But tensions still
remained, and the rise of ascetic holy men and women brought those ten-
sions into renewed focus. An anchorite like Antony derived his status from

35
Taken from Brakke (1995), although his view is more nuanced than his title might
suggest.
36
On the much-debated relationship between ascetic and episcopal authority in Late Anti-
quity, see, among many, Rousseau (1978), Chadwick (1993), Leyser (2000), Sterk (2004), Rapp
(2005: 137–52), and the articles of Martin and others collected in Camplani and Filoramo
(2007). Here one might still note Weber’s famous classification of the three pure types of
legitimate authority: legal, traditional, and charismatic (Weber 1978: 212–54, esp. 246–54 ‘The
Routinization of Charisma’).
 Ascetic 121
personal holiness and charisma, not from clerical office. The separation
between cleric and monk only increased with the social prominence and
privileges that came to the Church with imperial patronage. The ascetic
renunciation of society in order to follow a life in Christ threatened to
create an alternative Christian elite, one that might undermine or super-
sede the bishop in offering guidance to the Christian community.
John Cassian, a generation after Athanasius’ death, wrote that ‘monks
should flee bishops’ (Institutes XI.18).37 Cassian was by no means alone
in his judgement, and monastic reluctance to face ordination became a
recurring hagiographical theme. In truth, asceticism was never necessarily
incompatible with ecclesiastical office, and over time the ascetic movement
strengthened rather than weakened episcopal leadership. Yet this was far
from being an inevitable conclusion. Athanasius played a fundamental role
both in incorporating ascetic values more closely within the roles expected
of the bishop and in integrating monks and clergy. The mutual bond
between the ascetic movement and the hierarchical Church that Athana-
sius forged in Egypt has lasted down to the present day and created a reser-
voir of strength upon which he and later Alexandrian bishops would draw.
The prominence of asceticism within Egyptian Christianity had cre-
ated issues for the bishops of Alexandria long before Athanasius’ election.
Tensions between charismatic and ecclesiastical authority helped to cause
the conflicts between bishop Demetrius and Origen that led to the latter’s
departure from the city in the 230s. The influence that Arius attained as
a presbyter before his condemnation by Alexander was in no small meas-
ure due to his reputation for ascetic austerity.38 Perhaps most significantly
within Egypt, the rigorous attitude of Melitius of Lycopolis, which led to
his break with Peter of Alexandria during the Great Persecution, appealed
to a considerable number of Egyptian ascetics. The Melitian Schism took
a strong root among the monks and monasteries of Upper Egypt, which
endured to the end of Athanasius’ life and beyond.39 From the beginning of
his episcopate Athanasius therefore faced an ongoing struggle for leader-
ship over Egyptian asceticism as well as the wider Egyptian Church.
It is hardly surprising that Athanasius took immediate steps upon
his election to secure closer relations with the ascetic communities. His

37
For the context of Cassian’s oft-quoted warning, see Rapp (2005: 137–9).
38
See Epiphanius, Panarion 68.4, 69.3. Arius’ early followers reportedly included some 700
virgins.
39
On the importance of monasticism to the Melitian movement, see Bell (1924: 38–99) and
Hauben (1998: 339–41).
122 Athanasius of Alexandria
opening Festal Letter for Easter 329, as we shall see in the next chapter, con-
tains an exhortation both to those committed to virginity and to those
who might adopt an ascetic lifestyle only for the Easter celebration. His
trip to the Thebaid recorded in Festal Index 2 for 329–30 must have been
motivated in part by the concentration of monasticism in Upper Egypt
and the strong Melitian presence there. As tensions mounted in the years
before Athanasius’ condemnation in 335, ascetics on different sides could
be drawn into conflict. This may be reflected in the anti-Melitian attacks of
the early 330s revealed by Papyrus London 1914, while the earliest claim of
violence against Athanasius’ ascetic supporters is attributed to the Mareotis
Commission despatched by the Council of Tyre (in the Encyclical Letter of
the Council of Alexandria in 338, quoted in Apologia contra Arianos 15).
When Athanasius returned from his initial exile in the west in 337, the
tensions intensified. His episcopal position remained vulnerable, and the
need for unity was even more pressing. Rival movements within Egyptian
asceticism threatened both his leadership and his ascetic ideals. Antony’s
famous visit to Alexandria to denounce the ‘Arians’, discussed further
below, took place in 338. Nor were the ‘Arians’ the only opponents whom
Athanasius regarded as a danger. This is visible from the first Letter to Vir-
gins, roughly contemporary to Antony’s visit. Athanasius laid down his
model of virginity in that letter not only to promote his ideals but to rally
his audience to a particular vision of asceticism, one that recognized his
authority and rejected the alternatives that he condemned.40
Two rival visions were singled out for special attention in the first Letter
to Virgins. One is that of the early fourth-century Egyptian ascetic Hier-
acas.41 We know relatively little of his teachings, but he is denounced by
Athanasius for saying ‘that marriage is evil inasmuch as virginity is good’
(24). This hardline argument seems to have won support among a number
of ascetics in Egypt, possibly including the Melitians. For Athanasius such
ideas directly opposed his inclusive pastoral approach to asceticism, which
maintained the value of marriage even while praising the superiority of
virginity.
The second focus of Athanasius’ polemic is inevitably the danger of
‘Arianism’. Speaking through the voice of Alexander, Athanasius unites vir-
ginity with orthodoxy and requires that proper virgins must hold a correct

40
One Egyptian ascetic leader who does appear to have shared Athanasius’ vision was
Didymus the Blind, whose surviving works defend Nicene orthodoxy and support Athanasius’
emphasis on ecclesiastical authority and the virtue of marriage. See further Layton (2004).
41
Epiphanius, Panarion 67; Goehring (1999b).
 Ascetic 123
doctrinal understanding of the Son’s divinity. ‘Watch out, O my daughters,
let no one lie and speak against your bridegroom in your presence, envying
your noble and holy union and the thinking about Him that you have,
desiring to separate you from His love’ (42). Some say that the Word is cre-
ated and did not exist before He was begotten. ‘These are not the words of
truth; rather, they belong to the deceitful people who falsely say against the
noble one that He is a creature and make Him foreign to the substance of
the Father in order to deceive you, his brides’ (42).
The errors that Athanasius invariably attributes to the ‘Arians’ are here
given a specifically ascetic interpretation. Those who follow this heresy
not only insult the Son of God but reject the life of virginity that is made
possible through the Incarnation. Athanasius urges his audience to rally
behind what he preaches as the orthodox faith. There can be no true
ascetics among the ‘Arians’ who believe that the Son was weakened when
He became man.
They talk about the works of the Lord’s humanity because they envy the vow of
virginity and do not recognize God’s love for humanity in it. If the Word had not
become flesh, how would you now be joined with Him and cling to Him? But when
the Lord bore the body of humanity, the body became acceptable to the Word.
Therefore, you have now become virgins and brides of Christ. (43)

Athanasius’ efforts to unite Egyptian asceticism suffered a setback

with his second flight into exile and the appointment of Gregory as his
replacement in Alexandria. Gregory’s arrival into the city in 339 was
accompanied by the abuse of loyal virgins and monks, according to Atha-
nasius’ Epistula Encyclica. Stories of such abuse are a recurring feature of
his polemic, and the factual basis of the rhetoric is very difficult to assess.
But Athanasius clearly had established a strong ascetic following through
his efforts in the first decade of his episcopate. He worked hard to keep that
following from exile, and continued to attack his rivals for the hearts of the
Egyptian ascetics. It is in this context that we should probably set the Ad
Monachos, Athanasius’ first Letter to the Monks.42
The first Letter to the Monks is addressed ‘to those everywhere who are
living a monastic life, who are established in the faith of God, and sanctified
in Christ’. Its content provides no precise indication of its date. Athanasius
states that he has written for the monks, ‘a brief account of the sufferings
that we and the Church have endured, refuting as best I could the accursed
heresy of the Arian madmen and showing how it is wholly hostile to the

42
Translation in Barnard (1994: 10–11).
124 Athanasius of Alexandria
truth’. This was long interpreted as an allusion to the Historia Arianorum,
and so the letter was traditionally placed in the late 350s during Athanasius’
third exile. But the Historia Arianorum is hardly a brief account, and nor
does it provide a theological refutation of ‘Arianism’. On the other hand,
the letter refers to the death of Arius as proof of his impiety, and when
Athanasius wrote his De Morte Arii he informed Serapion that ‘I have des-
patched to your piety what I wrote to the monks’. We may therefore place
the first Letter to the Monks alongside the De Morte Arii early in Athanasius’
second exile.43 The work that he sent to the monks and Serapion appears
to be lost, which is in keeping with his unusual request in the letter that the
monks read that work and then return it uncopied. Athanasius’ concern
in this correspondence from exile is above all to denounce the ‘Arians’ and
ensure that his ascetic followers remain apart from them and loyal to the
orthodox Church that he represents.
The same theme pervades Athanasius’ second Letter to the Monks.44 The
chronology of this letter is again disputed, and it can be set plausibly at
any point from the late 330s to the early 360s.45 In any case, the thrust of
the argument is a universal theme of Athanasius’ ascetic polemic. ‘There
are certain people who think like Arius, and travel about the monasteries
with the sole object of pretending to come from us to visit you in order
to deceive the simple. There are also certain people who, while affirming
that they do not hold with Arius, yet compromise themselves and worship
with his group.’ Athanasius warns the monks not to associate with such
people, shunning both the ‘Arians’ and those who worship with them.46
The polarization that underlies his theological construction of the ‘Arian
Controversy’ also shapes his vision of Egyptian asceticism, separating the
true monks and virgins who follow his leadership from those who fall into
disobedience and error.
Upon his glorious return in 346, Athanasius set out to restore his position
among the Egyptian ascetics just as he did among the clergy and bishops. The
Letter to Amoun continues Athanasius’ campaign against alternative ascetic
ideals. He criticizes the extremism of those who regard bodily emissions as

43
This argument has been revised from Kannengiesser (1982: 992).
44
Translation in Barnard (1994: 12–13).
45
Part of the text of this letter was preserved inscribed on the wall of an Egyptian tomb
used as a monastic cell (CIG iv. 8607).
46
Athanasius’ warning corresponds to the story in Vita Prima Pachomii 137–8 when the dux
Artemius led a party searching for Athanasius to the monastery of Phbow in the Thebaid.
The dux asked the monks to pray with him, but they refused as he had with him an ‘Arian’
bishop. The dux then fell asleep, and awoke terrified by a vision that caused him to give up
his search.
 Ascetic 125
sinful, as well as those who challenge the sanctity of marriage. There may
have been concern that such extreme views revealed the influence of Mani-
chaeism, a highly ascetic movement that was prominent in Egypt and is
attacked elsewhere in Athanasius’ writings and by his colleague Serapion.47
Amoun is urged to keep his flock on the correct path.
The Letter to Amoun, like the first Letter to Virgins and the two Letters to the
Monks, reveals Athanasius’ determination to mould the ascetic movement
in Egypt under his leadership. His success was crucial to his ecclesiastical
position. Yet, here again, this ‘political’ aim cannot be separated from his
sincere ascetic, theological, and pastoral principles. Athanasius believed
implicitly in the importance of the ascetic lifestyle, just as he believed that
‘Arianism’ compromised human salvation and deprived ascetics of the
proximity to God granted through the Incarnation. Extreme practices like-
wise led to error and threatened the pastoral inclusivity that was integral to
his ascetic vision. All these concerns draw together when we consider one
of Athanasius’ most lasting contributions to the history of asceticism: his
desire to incorporate monks within the episcopal hierarchy.48
In 353/4 the monk Dracontius, raised against his will into the episcopate,
refused to fulfil his office and returned to his monastery. Athanasius’ Letter
to Dracontius, written shortly before the Easter celebration for 354, rebukes
him and those who advised his course of action. The see in question was
itself of considerable importance, for Hermopolis Parva was the bishopric
that oversaw the ascetic mountain of Nitria. A Melitian bishop had been
based there when the Breviarium Melitii was compiled, and Athanasius
was at pains to maintain his influence in the region. Nevertheless, there
were deeper principles at stake. Athanasius appealed to Dracontius to do
his duty and heed the pastoral needs of his congregation, and in doing so
composed an influential defence of the compatibility of asceticism with
clerical office.
‘What you have done is blameworthy, beloved Dracontius.’ One who
has received grace should not flee or give others reason to flee. Athana-
sius fears that this will open the way for Melitians and other opponents,
and warns Dracontius that ‘the episcopal oversight of the district will be
sought by numbers of people, many of them, as you know, unfit’. But

47
For an introduction to Manichaeism, see Lieu (1992). Athanasius particularly singles
out the dux Sebastianus, a Manichee who led the persecutions in Egypt during his third exile
(Apologia de Fuga 6; Historia Arianorum 55, 59, 61). Athanasius also condemned the Manichees for
lack of compassion and charity (Historia Arianorum 61). For Serapion’s attacks on Manichaeism,
see Fitschen (1992).
48
See Brakke (1995: 99–110) and the works cited above (n. 36).
126 Athanasius of Alexandria
Athanasius is more concerned for those Dracontius has abandoned.
‘Whereas before your election you lived for yourself, after it you live for
your flock.’ They look to their bishop for the food of the Scriptures and
have been left hungry. How will Dracontius defend himself before Christ?
If he has acted from fear, then he should have shown zeal. Athanasius now
turns to the true cause of Dracontius’ flight.
If you find the administration of the churches distasteful and the ministry of the
episcopate unrewarding, then you despise the Saviour who made these arrange-
ments. I urge you, dismiss these thoughts, and do not tolerate those who give such
advice, for it is unworthy of Dracontius. The order established by the Lord through
the Apostles remains good and firm; but the cowardice of the brethren will not
endure.

Dracontius was by no means the only monk to enter the episcopate in

fourth-century Egypt. Later in his letter Athanasius repeats his pastoral
warning, that Dracontius is responsible before God for those placed in his
care. He then reminds him of those monks who have followed the clerical
path before him. Their number includes Athanasius’ close friend Serapion,
and Ammonius who accompanied Serapion on his mission to Constantius
in 353.
They did not despise the ministry and were not more severe towards themselves,
but rather looked for the reward of their work, making progress themselves and
guiding others onwards. How many have they turned away from idols? How many
have ceased from their intimacy with their demons because of their warning? How
many servants have they brought to the Lord, to the amazement of those who saw
such marvels?

These are the blessings that the ascetic bishop may bring for his flock.
Therefore, Athanasius concludes, ‘do not say, or believe those who say, that
the episcopal office is a valid excuse for sin, nor that it provides a pretext
for sin’. A monk need not fall into spiritual decline when he becomes a
bishop and involved in worldly affairs. ‘We know both bishops who fast,
and monks who eat. We know bishops who drink no wine, and monks who
drink. And we know bishops who perform marvels, and monks who do
not.’ Such behaviour is not the exclusive preserve of the monk nor denied
to the bishop. Athanasius’ argument to Dracontius is a practical application
of his conviction that all Christians could pursue asceticism, each to their
own measure. He ends the letter by calling Dracontius to return to his
church to preach the Easter sermon and proclaim the day of Resurrection.
His appeal evidently succeeded. Dracontius still belonged to the episcopate
when he was exiled in 356 as persecution of Athanasius’ followers resumed,
 Ascetic 127
and when the persecution ended he joined Athanasius at the Council of
Alexandria in 362.49
By the end of his golden decade in 356 Athanasius had secured the loy-
alty of the majority of the Egyptian ascetic population. He was to reap the
benefits of that loyalty many times during the six years of his third exile,
inspiring countless later stories that I will not recount here. His ascetic fol-
lowers also bore the brunt of the violence of his foes, although here again
we face the difficulties posed by polemical rhetoric. Athanasius’ earliest
account of this violence, in the closing chapters added to the Apologia ad
Constantium in 357, opens with a brief panegyric on the state of virginity.
Athanasius repeats his emphasis that the life of virginity was made pos-
sible through the Incarnation, and condemns the ‘Arians’ for stripping and
scourging the innocent women. ‘Such wickedness belongs only to her-
etics, to blaspheme the Son of God and to do violence to His holy virgins’
(33). Nor did the ‘Arians’ permit the virgins to bury their dead, for which
Athanasius consoled them in an otherwise unknown work quoted in Theo-
doret’s Ecclesiastical History (II.11).
Similar condemnation of the ‘Arian’ abuse of virgins and monks at this
time recurs in the Historia Arianorum. One passage in particular deserves
attention:
Many virgins who condemned their impiety and professed the truth, they [the
‘Arians’] brought out from the houses; others they insulted as they walked along the
streets and caused their heads to be uncovered by their young men. They also gave
permission to the women with them to insult whom they wished; and although the
holy and faithful women stepped aside and gave them the way, yet they gathered
around them like Maenads and Furies, and thought it a misfortune not to find a way
to injure them. (59)

There seems little reason to doubt that supporters of Athanasius did suf-
fer at the hands of his enemies, and his loyal virgins were among his most
recognizable and vulnerable supporters. However, the ‘Arian’ women whom
he condemns as Maenads and Furies were almost certainly virgins and holy
women themselves. Athanasius refused to acknowledge their status, as in
his eyes their allegiance invalidated their ascetic lifestyle. In reality, the sep-
aration between ‘orthodox’ and ‘heretical’ women was never as clear-cut

49
Athanasius’ last reference to Dracontius is at the end of Festal Letter XL (368), where in
an announcement of new appointments to Egyptian sees he is succeeded as bishop of Her-
mopolis Parva by Isidore. Athanasius emphasizes at the end of this announcement that ‘all
these men are ascetics, being in the life of monasticism’.
128 Athanasius of Alexandria
as Athanasius would like us to believe.50 There is much we will never know
of the Egyptian ascetics whom Athanasius branded as ‘Arians’ or ‘Meli-
tians’ and whose writings (with the exception of a few scattered Melitian
papyri) are lost to us. Athanasius did not secure universal support, and,
as is true of his theology, we should be wary of assuming that his ascetic
programme was as influential among his contemporaries as later tradition
might suggest.
The most influential work of Athanasius’ programme was once more
the Life of Antony.51 By the very act of writing the biography, Athanasius was
making a claim to represent the Egyptian ascetics who admired Antony’s
commitment and example. The Life also provided Athanasius with the
ideal vehicle to construct the image of Antony that he wished others to
heed. In his preface Athanasius addresses an audience outside Egypt, but
he can hardly have excluded a local readership, and the Life represents a
further statement of his campaign to unify the Egyptian ascetic movement
behind his leadership. His sincere respect for Antony reinforced his appeal
to Antony’s authority in support of his own. Athanasius’ Antony shunned
Melitians and ‘Arians’ and obeyed the clergy and the bishop of Alexandria.
Thus Antony became a model for the close bond that Athanasius sought
to build between the organized Church and the monasteries and hermits
of the desert.
It would be a gross exaggeration to suggest that ecclesiastical politics
or the condemnation of heresy were Athanasius’ chief motive when he
wrote the Life. The main body of the work concentrates upon Antony’s
ascetic achievements, and only towards the end does Athanasius turn to
other concerns. Antony, it is said, remained always tolerant and humble.
‘Though the sort of man he was, he honoured the rule of the Church with
extreme care, and he wanted every cleric to be held in higher regard than
himself. He felt no shame at bowing the head to the bishops and presbyters’
(67).52 Antony, however, reserved that obedience solely for representatives
of the true faith.
In things having to do with belief, he was truly wonderful and orthodox. Perceiving
their wickedness and apostasy from the outset, he never held communion with the
Melitian schismatics. And neither toward the Manichaeans nor toward any other

50
Burrus (1991); Elm (1994: 348–53); cf. Brakke (1995: 63–75).
51
On the ecclesiastical importance of the Life, see again Brakke (1995).
52
Later in the Life, when Antony opposed the Egyptian practice of honouring the bodies
of the dead, he ‘frequently asked a bishop to instruct the people on this matter’ (90).
 Ascetic 129
heretics did he profess friendship, except to the extent of urging the change to right
belief, for he held and taught that friendship and association with them led to injury
and destruction of the soul. So in the same way he abhorred the heresy of the
Arians, and he ordered everyone neither to go near them nor to share their erro-
neous belief. Once when some of the Ariomaniacs came to him, sounding them out
and learning that they were impious, he chased them from the mountain, saying
that their doctrines were worse than serpents. (68)
On another occasion when the Arians falsely claimed that he held the same
view as they, he was quite irritated and angry at them. Then, summoned both by
the bishops and all the brothers, he came down from the mountain, and entering
into Alexandria, he publicly renounced the Arians, saying that theirs was the last
heresy and the forerunner of the Antichrist. He taught the people that the Son of
God is not a creature, and that He did not come into existence from nonbeing, but
rather that He is eternal Word and Wisdom from the essence of the Father. ‘So’, he
asserted, ‘it is sacrilegious to say “there was when He was not” for the Word coex-
isted with the Father always. Therefore you are to have no fellowship with the most
ungodly Arians, for there is no “fellowship of light with darkness” [2 Corinthians
6:14]. You are God-fearing Christians, but they, in saying that the Son and Word
of God the Father is a creature, differ in no way from the pagans, who “serve the
creature rather than the Creator” [Romans 1:25]. Be assured that the whole creation
itself is angered at them, because they number among the creatures the Creator
and Lord of all, in whom all things were made.’ (69)

The denunciation of ‘Arianism’ placed in the mouth of Antony directly

echoes the polemic of Athanasius’ theological works.53 So too does the
description of the ‘Arians’ as precursors of the Antichrist and the warning
not to associate with the heretics (the theme of Athanasius’ second Letter to
the Monks). Antony’s visit to Alexandria took place in 338, during the short
interlude between Athanasius’ first and second exile.54 It is entirely plaus-
ible that he did speak on Athanasius’ behalf, although whether Antony’s
attitude towards ‘Arians’ and ‘Melitians’ was as clear-cut as Athanasius
would have liked remains uncertain. The Life of Antony is vehement on the
hermit’s hostility to ‘Arianism’. Antony foretold the ‘current assault of the
Arians’ (82), a reference that places the Life during Athanasius’ third exile,

53
In one of his Letters, Antony also condemns the ‘Arians’, who teach that the Son is
mutable, exists in time, and has an end (Letter IV.17).
54
‘Antony, the great leader, came to Alexandria, and though he remained there only two
days, showed himself wonderful in many things, and healed many’ (Festal Index 10 for 338).
This may have been the one occasion Athanasius and Antony met, as Athanasius states ‘we
were escorting him’ (Life of Antony 71) at the time of a miracle just before his departure,
although the meaning of this passage is far from clear.
130 Athanasius of Alexandria
and predicted the death of the dux Balacius, who had been responsible for
violence towards virgins in the earlier days of Gregory of Alexandria (86).55
The warning to avoid all contact with the ‘Arians’ is repeated twice more in
Antony’s last advice to his monks (89) and in his final words to his disciples
(91). There is a strong suspicion that Athanasius wished to claim Antony
for his own position, against rivals (like the ‘Arians’ in passage 69) who saw
the great monk in a rather different light.56
Antony died at the reported age of 105 in ad 356. By the time of his
death, his reputation had already reached across the Mediterranean to
Spain and Gaul (93). The Life of Antony would dramatically accelerate the
spread of his fame in east and west. A crude Latin translation was available
by the late 360s, and the polished Latin text of Evagrius (later bishop of
Antioch and a friend of Jerome) was circulated in c.371 and in 386 was read
by Augustine of Hippo in Milan. Over time the Life would be translated
into every major Christian language and played no small part in preserving
Athanasius’ legacy. His association with Antony, which authorship of the
Life reinforced, enhanced Athanasius’ spiritual standing and his carefully
nurtured relationship with the Egyptian ascetic communities. The bond he
forged between the ascetics and the episcopate of Alexandria was to prove
an invaluable source of strength to his successors Theophilus and Cyril. Yet
that relationship could never have flourished if Athanasius had not shared
the convictions of those monks and virgins and fought so hard to keep the
ascetic movement within the Church he represented. He had earned the
gift that Antony bestowed upon him with his final words:
‘Distribute my clothing. To Bishop Athanasius give the one sheepskin and the cloak
on which I lie, which he gave to me new, but I have by now worn out. And to Bishop
Serapion give the other sheepskin, and you keep the hair garment. And now God
preserve you, children, for Antony is leaving and is with you no longer.’ (91)
Each of those who received the blessed Antony’s sheepskin, and the cloak worn out
by him, keeps it safe like some great treasure. For even seeing these is like beholding
Antony, and wearing them is like bearing his admonitions with joy. (92)

55
In Historia Arianorum 14, Athanasius retells the same episode but reworks the details to
condemn more explicitly his former rival Gregory.
56
For discussion of some of these competing claims to Antony and his legacy, see Gregg
and Groh (1981: ch. 4) and Brennan (1985).
 5
Father

Athanasius held the Alexandrian see for forty-five years. His name is for
ever associated with the ecclesiastical and theological conflicts that divided
the fourth-century Church and with the rise of asceticism. He spent long
periods in exile, attended councils and imperial courts, and addressed his
numerous writings to emperors, bishops, and hermits alike. But Athanasius
did not seek a career in politics or academic theology and nor did he go out
into the desert as a monk. The vast majority of his life was devoted to the
vocation that according to tradition he entered as a child performing rituals
by the seaside: that of the spiritual father of the Christian communities of
Alexandria and Egypt who looked to him for guidance and pastoral care.1
That Athanasius dedicated himself to the pastoral duties required of
a bishop is, one would have thought, a statement of the obvious. It is a
statement, however, that needs to be made. The pastoral obligations that
Athanasius faced and his commitment to meeting those expectations reveal
an essential dimension to his character that is all too easily forgotten or
ignored. Conventionally, as in the preceding chapters, Athanasius’ career
has been approached primarily through his great apologetic, doctrinal, and
ascetic writings. The day-to-day life of the bishop is difficult to reconstruct
from that evidence and seems buried beneath Athanasius’ more earth-shak-
ing activities. Yet without an appreciation of his pastoral context we cannot
fully understand Athanasius’ motivations or actions. It is in his pastoral role
that we see how the ecclesiastical, theological, and ascetic elements of his
career come together. We also gain a clearer insight into the achievement
of Athanasius and his true greatness. Despite years of conflict and exile,
Athanasius through his pastoral dedication won and retained the love and
support of his church, of the monks, and of the people of Alexandria and
Egypt.

1
Scholarship on the pastoral and spiritual teachings of Athanasius has been limited. For
some approaches, see Merendino (1965), Kannengiesser (1989), Ng (2001), and Demacopou-
los (2007: 21–49).
132 Athanasius of Alexandria
Throughout this chapter our chief source will be Athanasius’ Festal
Letters.2 Sadly, although he must have preached on hundreds if not thou-
sands of occasions down the years, no authentic example of a complete
Athanasian sermon survives.3 There are passing references to his episcopal
duties in his apologetic writings and in his correspondence with Egyptian
monks and clergy. But only in the Festal Letters can we examine Athanasius’
pastoral work in detail. Some of the difficulties raised by these letters were
discussed in Chapter 1, notably the loss of the original Greek texts and their
complex manuscript transmission in Syriac and Coptic. We should also
remember that, as the letters were circulated for the celebration of Easter,
they inevitably focus on certain themes, which may not always be represen-
tative of Athanasius’ wider pastoral programme. Nevertheless, they have
immense value for our knowledge of Athanasius as a pastoral bishop.
The Festal Letters were, in effect, sermons delivered by correspondence.4
They were circulated to all Christian communities that acknowledged Atha-
nasius’ authority and are believed to have been read aloud by the leaders of
those communities. The famous Festal Letter XXXIX on the canon of Scrip-
ture, to which I will return at the end of this chapter, was read out and then
posted in the Pachomian monasteries of Egypt.5 Composition of the Festal
Letters was a statement of Athanasius’ position at the head of the Egyptian
Church and provided the ideal opportunity to communicate and promote
his theological, moral, and ascetic values. This we see immediately from
the very first Athanasian Festal Letter, written for the Easter of 329.

IN THE BEGINNING: THE FIRST FESTAL LETTER

‘Come, my beloved, the season calls us to keep the feast. Again, the Sun of
Righteousness, causing His divine beams to rise upon us, proclaims before-
hand the time of the feast, in which, obeying Him, we ought to celebrate it, so

2
In the words of Frances Young (1983: 80), the letters ‘are full of scriptural quotations, tra-
ditional typology and simple piety. They make up, to some extent, for the loss of his sermons.’
Kannengiesser (1989) offers an important study of the Festal Letters as a source for Athana-
sius’ pastoral activities, although he at times underestimates the ecclesiastical and polemic
elements contained in the letters. See also Wahba (1998).
3
On the importance of preaching in the early Church, see Dunn-Wilson (2005) and the
articles collected in Hunter (1989) and Cunningham and Allen (1998). Scholarship has par-
ticularly focused on the extensive sermons of John Chrysostom, as in the study by Maxwell
(2007). For Athanasius we possess only the pseudonymous Athanasian homiletic cycle pre-
served in Coptic, which is translated into Italian with commentary in Orlandi (1981).
4 5
A comment made by Burgess (1854: 118a). Bohairic Life of Pachomius 189.
 Father 133
that when the time has passed by, gladness likewise may not leave us.’ (Festal
Letter I.1)

These lines have a special resonance for any student of Athanasius. They are
the opening words of his episcopate, or more accurately the opening words
of the earliest work now extant that Athanasius composed as the bishop of
Alexandria. The exhortation to obey the Lord and celebrate with joy the
feast of Easter would recur throughout the many Festal Letters that Athana-
sius would write for the Egyptian Church across the next half-century. But
that call had particular significance for Athanasius in 329 as he prepared for
the first Easter following his controversial election. The great feast offered a
focus of devotion around which all Christian Egypt could unite, while the
traditional Festal Letter gave the new bishop the opportunity to proclaim
his message to the far-flung communities to whom at this time he was lit-
tle more than a name. Festal Letter I thus repays careful reading and sheds
valuable light on Athanasius’ conception of his pastoral role.
After the opening exhortation, Athanasius draws on an array of scrip-
tural texts to hail the importance of correct faith and observance in every
time and season. The doctrinal and moral lessons that he teaches reflect
the same principles that will drive his later theological and ascetic writ-
ings. Salvation comes through Christ and His Incarnation according to the
divine plan for all humanity. Athanasius calls on his congregations to heed
the underlying message of the Scriptures, which sometimes summons the
believer to spiritual battles and sometimes challenges all to live according
to their chosen path.

Let us, having recourse to our understanding and henceforth leaving the figures at
a distance, come to the truth and look upon the priestly trumpets of our Saviour,
which cry and call us, at one time to war, as the blessed Paul says: ‘We wrestle not
with flesh and blood, but with principalities, with powers, with the rulers of this
dark world, with wicked spirits in heaven’ [Ephesians 6:12]. At another time the call
is made to virginity and lowliness and conjugal unanimity, saying, to virgins, the
things of virgins; and to those bound by a course of abstinence, the things of abstin-
ence; and to those who are married, the things of an honourable marriage; thus
assigning to each domestic virtues and honourable recompense. (Festal Letter I.3)

Two characteristic elements of Athanasius’ pastoral teaching are strongly

in evidence here. All the Festal Letters draw heavily on the words of Scrip-
ture, and in his exegesis Athanasius constantly seeks to make the Scrip-
tures relevant to the lives of his audience. This is not to suggest that his
language is necessarily simple, for some of the images that he conjures are
134 Athanasius of Alexandria
6
highly complex. But even his most mystical exegesis always has a pastoral
purpose, to teach practical lessons that everyone may follow. In the same
vein, Athanasius addresses himself to the entire Egyptian Church, not only
the most devout or ascetic. Virgins are honoured, but so are those who find
happiness in virtuous marriage. Athanasius’ concern is for all the faithful
who share the feast to which they are now summoned.
Before the Easter feast it is necessary to fast, both with the body and no less
with the soul. Athanasius cautions that, ‘when we fast, we should hallow the
fast. For not all those who call upon God, hallow God, since there are some
who defile Him; yet not Him—that is impossible—but their own conscience
concerning Him’ (Festal Letter I.4). Those who pollute the fast include those
who do evil to their neighbours and those who exalt themselves. The soul
must be nourished with the virtues of righteousness, temperance, meekness,
and fortitude and with Christ, who is the heavenly bread of the saints. Other-
wise the soul will feed on the sins and vices of the Devil. Athanasius sets
before his audience the miraculous examples of Moses, Elijah, and Daniel,
who during their fasts received the divine word. ‘Because the length of the
fast of these men was wonderful, and the days prolonged, let no man lightly
fall into unbelief on that account. But rather let him believe and know that
the contemplation of God, and the Word which is from Him, suffice to nour-
ish those who hear and stand to them in place of food’ (Festal Letter I.6).
It has already been observed that, despite the controversial environment
in which Athanasius took office, there is no reference to his election or to
contemporary debates in this opening Festal Letter. The theme throughout
is moral exhortation and the wisdom of Scripture. Yet this does not mean
that there is no polemical element. Immediately following his call to emu-
late the Old Testament prophets, Athanasius contrasts those who heed the
truth of Easter with those who have failed to understand.
Wherefore, my beloved, having our souls nourished with divine food, with the
Word, and according to the will of God, and fasting bodily in things external, let
us keep this great and saving feast as becomes us. Even the foolish Jews received
indeed this divine food, through the type, when they ate a lamb in the Passover. But
not understanding the type, even to this day they eat the lamb, erring in that they
are without a city and the truth. (Festal Letter I.7)

The Jewish Passover is merely a ‘shadow’ of the true Passover, which

is the Christian Easter. Athanasius’ condemnation of the ignorance of
the Jews, which commences with this passage, is in fact relatively mild in
6
On the Origenist theological language of this and other Festal Letters, see again Kannen-
giesser (1989).
 Father 135
comparison to some of his later Festal Letters. This anti-Jewish tone has to
be acknowledged as another recurring feature of these epistles and one
that has caused modern scholars certain embarrassment. It is true that hos-
tility towards the Jews is hardly surprising in a fourth-century Christian
text dedicated to Easter, and represented a cause around which Christians
could unite. But, while it may be tempting to dismiss such polemic as no
more than conventional rhetoric, Athanasius’ repeated contrast of faithful
Christians and ignorant Jews must at the least have hardened such divi-
sions in the minds of his audience. Not every element of Athanasius’ Easter
summons must necessarily meet with our approval today.
The fundamental driving force of this first Festal Letter, however, is pas-
toral not polemical. The letter is a homily, an epistolary sermon. Athanasius
reaches out across the broad sweep of the Egyptian Christian community,
his message encapsulated in his exhortatory conclusion.
Let us remember the poor, and not forget kindness to strangers; above all, let us love
God with all our soul and might and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves. So may
we receive those things which the eye has not seen nor the ear heard, and which have
not entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those that love Him
through His only Son, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ; through Whom, to the Father
alone, by the Holy Spirit, be glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen. Salute one
another with a kiss. All the brethren who are with me salute you. (Festal Letter I.11)

THE PASTORAL BISHOP

A fourth-century bishop, as we saw in Chapter 2, had a variety of roles to play.

In his church he was a preacher and teacher, responsible for the celebration
of the liturgy and the spiritual and charitable care of his congregation. As a
prominent social leader within his city, the bishop was also a central figure in
civic administration and an important source of wealth and patronage. He
represented the local community in the great councils and before imperial offi-
cials and even the emperor. Many of these roles had their origins in the evolu-
tion of the episcopal office in the first three Christian centuries preceding the
conversion of Constantine. But, as imperial support flowed into the Church
from Constantine onwards, the range and scale of the duties expected of the
bishop expanded dramatically. This in turn raised new questions over the
nature of episcopal leadership and how it should be held and exercised.7

7
For bibliography on the changing roles of the fourth-century bishop, see Ch. 2, n. 2.
136 Athanasius of Alexandria
Athanasius played a central role in redefining the place of the bishop in
the late-antique world. He was held up as an ideal for future generations
a few short years after his death by Gregory of Nazianzus in his Oration
XXI. Yet it is one of the great tragedies for modern Athanasian studies that
we know so little of the bishop’s daily routine. The account of his epis-
copal career offered earlier in this book is a story of ecclesiastical politics.
In comparison to what we know about John Chrysostom or Augustine of
Hippo, we gain only the briefest insights into Athanasius’ clerical life, and
many of his activities are known only from polemical contexts, which can
easily conceal their pastoral significance.
For an example, we might consider Athanasius’ fourth Festal Letter, writ-
ten for the Easter of 332. This is the earliest Festal Letter to contain a direct
reference to contemporary events. As Athanasius declared in his opening
words, the circulation of his Easter announcement had been delayed.
I send unto you, my beloved, late and beyond the accustomed time; yet I trust you
will forgive the delay, on account of my far journey, and because I have been tried
with protracted illness. Being then hindered by these two causes, and unusually
severe storms having occurred, I have deferred writing to you. But notwithstanding
my far travelling, and my grievous sickness, I have not forgotten to give you the
festal notification, and, in discharge of my duties, I now announce to you the feast.
For although the letter has been delayed beyond the accustomed period of the
proclamation, yet it should not be considered as ill-timed, inasmuch as, since the
enemies have been put to shame and reproved by the Church, because they per-
secuted us without a cause, we may now sing a festal song of praise, uttering the
triumphant hymn against Pharaoh: ‘We will sing unto the Lord, for He is to be
gloriously praised; the horse and his rider He has cast into the sea’ [Exodus 15:1].
(Festal Letter IV.1)

Slightly later in this letter, Athanasius states that he was summoned to

the court of Constantine to answer his enemies’ accusations. He identifies
those enemies as the Melitian schismatics, which, as we have previously
seen, is a point of some importance, because in his subsequent writings
he attributed his trial before Constantine to the ‘Arian’ conspiracy of the
‘Eusebians’. Athanasius presents himself as the persecuted representative
of the Church (although we assume he is not here likening Constantine
to the Pharaoh of Exodus). The Festal Letter gave him the opportunity to
explain his situation to the Egyptian Christians in his own words, while the
action of writing a Festal Letter was itself a statement of Athanasius’ claim
to remain the true bishop of Alexandria despite his tribulations.
Nevertheless, to read the fourth Festal Letter purely as an exercise in
ecclesiastical apologetic is to do Athanasius a grave injustice. As he rightly
 Father 137
insists, under the circumstances he faced it was a considerable achievement
to have fulfilled his duty and provided the festal notification to the Egyptian
churches. Athanasius then draws on his experiences to offer inspiration and
exegetical instruction to his congregations. Like those who suffered in the
Scriptures, they too must overcome their adversaries and approach the
feast with virtue. And so the force of this letter is once again moral and
spiritual exhortation:
We need in this to put on our Lord Jesus, that we may be able to celebrate the feast
with Him. Now we are clothed with Him when we love virtue and are enemies
of wickedness; when we exercise ourselves in temperance and mortify lascivious-
ness; when we love righteousness before iniquity; when we honour sufficiency
and have strength of mind; when we do not forget the poor but open our doors to
all men; when we assist humble-mindedness but hate pride. (Festal Letter IV.3)

Athanasius here repeats the call to remember the poor with which he
concluded his first Festal Letter. The importance of charity for the early
Christian Church has long been recognized.8 Christian charity differed from
the welfare provided by the classical Graeco-Roman elite in its concern
for the very poor and its explicitly religious motivation. The care that the
early Christians offered to widows and orphans and for the sick and injured
played a major role in attracting converts to the new religion,9 and over
time became one of the central obligations expected of a bishop. There is
no question that Athanasius met those expectations. Unfortunately, outside
the Festal Letters, this is another aspect of his pastoral duties that comes into
focus only at times of polemical conflict.
The charge that they deprived the poor of the expected charitable
distributions is levelled by Athanasius against both his Alexandrian rivals,
Gregory and George. But the abuse of charity was also alleged against
Athanasius himself, as the Council of Alexandria in 338 reported:
A quantity of corn was given by the father of the Emperors [Constantine I] for the
support of certain widows, partly of Libya and partly indeed out of Egypt. They
have all received it up to this time, Athanasius getting nothing from this but the
trouble of assisting them. But now, although the recipients themselves make no
complaint but acknowledge that they have received it, Athanasius has been accused
of selling all the corn and appropriating the profits to his own use. (Encyclical Letter
of the Council of 338, quoted in Apologia contra Arianos 18)

8
See, in general, Patlagean (1977); Brown (2002).
9
This is a major theme of Stark (1996).
138 Athanasius of Alexandria
This accusation is dismissed by the Alexandrian council as an ‘Arian cal-
umny’, under cover of which Athanasius’ accusers seek ‘to take away the
corn from the Church and give it to the Arians’. After Gregory’s entrance
into Alexandria in 339, Athanasius took up the same theme, asserting that
Gregory ‘cut off the bread of the ministers and virgins’ (Epistula Encyclica
4). The polemic culminates, as so often, in the Historia Arianorum, where
Athanasius repeats his condemnation of Gregory and then charges George
and the ‘Arians’ with going one stage further:
When the dux [Sebastianus] gave up the churches to the Arians, and the destitute
persons and widows were unable to continue any longer in them, the widows sat
down in places which the clergy entrusted with their care appointed. And when the
Arians saw that the brethren readily ministered unto them and supported them,
they persecuted the widows also, beating them on the feet, and accused those who
gave to them before the dux. (Historia Arianorum 61)

The truth or otherwise of such claims is exceedingly difficult to assess.

Athanasius, Gregory, and George all claimed the right to organize the dis-
tribution of charity, which was an important marker of the legitimate
bishop of Alexandria, and in turn sought to discredit any rival.10 But the
biases of the polemic must not lead us to dismiss charity as no more than
a tool for ecclesiastical leverage. Control over charity was important pre-
cisely because the early Church placed such great emphasis upon aiding the
poor and disadvantaged. That Athanasius took this to heart in his pastoral
mission, the Festal Letters make plain. Across his episcopate he continued
to oversee charitable support for thousands of those in need and to urge
others to do the same, even if our evidence preserves only a fraction of the
works he wrought.
Charity, moral exhortation, and exegetical instruction were some of
the roles that fell to Athanasius as the pastoral leader of the Christians
of Alexandria and Egypt. The Festal Letters preserve some of his gifts as a
teacher, although they cannot truly compensate for the loss of the sermons
he preached. But preaching was only one of the bishop’s responsibilities
in the celebration of Christian worship. The rising numbers and greater
social prominence that imperial patronage brought to the Church in the
fourth century accelerated the ongoing formalization of early Christian
liturgy and ceremonial.11 Rituals of baptism (notably the growing practice

10
This is rightly emphasized by Haas (1997: 248–56).
11
On the history of the liturgy, see the older classics of Dix (1945) and Jungmann (1959),
although Dix in particular exaggerates the impact of Constantine on Christian liturgical prac-
tice, and more recently Bradshaw (1996) and the articles collected in Jones et al. (1992).
 Father 139
of infant baptism) and the Eucharist became more standardized, although
regional variations still remained. Increasing use was made of wider urban
spaces with processions and festivals.12 Local bishops like Athanasius were
crucial in shaping these developments, overseeing the public life of their
communities.
Sadly, our evidence once again offers only glimpses of Athanasius’ litur-
gical and ceremonial contribution. The vast bulk of that evidence inevit-
ably relates to Easter, which was the greatest festival of the Church and
the focus of the Festal Letters. In his polemical writings Athanasius has few
occasions to refer to such celebrations. The one notable exception con-
cerns the controversy in c.351 when Easter was celebrated in the new and
as yet undedicated church of the Caesareum. Athanasius’ primary motive
in the Apologia ad Constantium is to defend his actions, but behind the rhet-
oric his account sheds some light on the size of the Alexandrian Christian
community and the importance of the Easter festival as an expression of
their unity and faith.
It was the feast of Easter, and the multitude assembled together was exceedingly
great, such as Christian kings would desire to see in all their cities. Now when the
churches were found to be too few to contain them, there was no little stir among
the people, who desired that they might be allowed to meet together in the great
Church where they could all offer up their prayers for your [Constantius’] safety.
And this they did. For although I exhorted them to wait awhile and to hold service
in the other churches, with whatever inconvenience to themselves, they would not
listen to me; but were ready to go out of the city and meet in desert places in the
open air, thinking it better to endure the fatigue of the journey than to keep the
feast in such a state of discomfort. (Apologia ad Constantium 14)

Athanasius goes on to explain that with the great multitude of worship-

pers the many children and older women suffered under the pressure of the
crowds, although no one was killed. His predecessor Alexander had used the
Church of Theonas before its completion under the same circumstances,
and Athanasius now followed that precedent. The expanding Christian
numbers in Alexandria were clearly outstripping the capacities of the older
church buildings. Athanasius sought to maintain the togetherness of his
community, and warned against allowing the people to go out beyond the
city. ‘The desert has no doors and all who choose may pass through it, but
the Lord’s house is enclosed with walls and doors and marks the difference
between the pious and the profane’ (Apologia ad Constantium 17).

12
See Baldovin (1987); Bauer (1996).
140 Athanasius of Alexandria
Other brief glimpses of Athanasius’ ceremonial leadership appear else-
where in our sources. We have witnessed in previous chapters the great
procession that welcomed him home to Alexandria in 346 and the vigil
he led when the Church of Theonas came under attack on the night of
8/9 February 356. Further episodes were preserved in the Coptic Egyptian
tradition, although the veracity of these later accounts is open to debate.13
It is from scattered fragments such as these that we must seek to recap-
ture the character of Athanasius’ episcopal leadership and his impact upon
his community. However, in one exceptional instance we can examine in
some detail a significant change that Athanasius introduced into Egyptian
Christian practice and his motives for doing so.
Here we turn once more to the Festal Letters. The controversy over the
chronological order of the letters, discussed back in Chapter 1, is due in no
small part to an important liturgical development in the Egyptian celebra-
tion of Easter during Athanasius’ episcopate. When Athanasius became
bishop, the custom in Egypt was for a six-day fast before Holy Week. This
is the fast prescribed in the earliest Festal Letters, which make no attempt to
explain what was evidently the standard Egyptian practice at this time. Yet
only a few years after his election, Athanasius set out to replace the short
fast with a longer forty-day Lenten fast, a break with local tradition he had
to justify to his Egyptian audiences.
Modern scholars debate the precise moment at which the shift occurred,
although a tentative date of 334 has plausibly been suggested.14 It was once
argued that Athanasius introduced the Lenten fast in c.336–7, after being
influenced by practices that he witnessed during his first exile in the west.
Athanasius is unlikely to have imposed such a change while he was in exile,
however, and our key evidence is Festal Letter VI, which was most probably
written in 334. This letter opens with the expected exhortation to honour
the feast and give thanks to the Word, who became Incarnate for our sal-
vation. The Jews are again condemned for their false Passover, and Abra-
ham in offering to sacrifice his son Isaac is said to have worshipped the Son
of God. These arguments are not new to Athanasius’ Easter epistles. But
when he comes to call his audience to the fast near the end of the letter,
Athanasius declares:
As Israel, when going up to Jerusalem, was first purified in the wilderness, being
trained to forget the customs of Egypt, the Word by this typifying to us the holy

13
One such story, of the procession led by Athanasius to avert a tidal wave from Alexan-
dria, is quoted from John of Nikiu at the end of the next chapter.
14
For the arguments, see Brakke (2001: 457–61) and Camplani (2003: 178–81).
 Father 141
fast of forty days, let us first be purified and freed from defilement, so that when we
depart hence, having been careful of fasting, we may be able to ascend to the upper
chamber with the Lord, to sup with Him; and may be partakers of the joy which
is in heaven. In no other manner is it possible to go up to Jerusalem, and to eat the
Passover, except by observing the fast of forty days. (Festal Letter VI.12).

The need for a scriptural justification of the forty-day fast reflects the
novelty of Athanasius’ reform. And the stern warning in the final line sug-
gests that he rightly anticipated resistance. In the light of the importance
of the feast, any modification to traditional Easter worship would arouse
alarm. We are, therefore, not surprised to learn that the new fast took time
to become established. The Festal Index preserves as Festal Letter XII what
is actually a personal letter that Athanasius wrote from exile in the west in
c.337 or c.339/40 to his friend Serapion of Thmuis. Athanasius asks Sera-
pion to circulate to the Egyptian churches the Easter message that he has
enclosed. He then continues:
You should proclaim the fast of forty days to the brethren and persuade them to
fast, lest, while all the world is fasting, we who are in Egypt should be derided as the
only people who do not fast but take our pleasure in these days. For if, on account
of the Letter [not] being yet read, we do not fast, we should take away this pretext,
and it should be read before the fast of forty days, so that they may not make this an
excuse for neglect or fasting. Also, when it is read, they may be able to learn about
the fast. But O, my beloved, whether in this way or any other, persuade and teach
them to fast the forty days. For it is a disgrace that when all the world does this,
those alone who are in Egypt, instead of fasting, should find their pleasure. (Letter
to Serapion (Festal Letter XII) 1)15

Athanasius obviously did face opposition to his introduction of the forty-

day Lenten fast after 334. That opposition was difficult to overcome during
his first two periods in exile, and still continued after his glorious return
in 346. Festal Letter XIX for Easter 347 warns his audience once more that
‘he who neglects to observe the fast of forty days, as one who rashly and
impurely treads on holy things, cannot celebrate the Easter festival’ (Festal
Letter XIX.9). Acceptance of the forty-day fast had become one more marker
of the true Christian and of those who recognized Athanasius’ authority.
Why did Athanasius work so hard to impose the forty-day fast upon
Egyptian Christianity, knowing full well the opposition he would arouse?

15
The Letter to Serapion was once cited to support the argument that Athanasius’ impos-
ition of the forty-day fast was inspired by his time in the west. But this letter does not intro-
duce the extended fast, but rather urges Serapion to enforce a practice that Athanasius has
already imposed.
142 Athanasius of Alexandria
His Letter to Serapion emphasizes the need for Egypt to follow the practices
of the wider Christian Church. The date and celebration of Easter had
been a subject of discussion at the Council of Nicaea and Nicene canon
5 contains a reference to Lent.16 This might indicate that Nicaea upheld
a forty-day Lenten fast, which certainly existed in some churches by the
early fourth century and which Athanasius wished Egypt to share. It has
also been suggested that there was already an Alexandrian forty-day fast,
which began at Epiphany (6 January) in imitation of Jesus’ forty days in the
wilderness and at the end of which catechumens were baptized. Athana-
sius may have moved this fast and associated it, not with Jesus’ desert with-
drawal, but with the Passover.17
Through the imposition of the forty-day fast, Athanasius therefore
reinforced his leadership over the Egyptian Church and brought Egypt
into line with orthodox Christian practice. Here again, however, to see this
reform purely in terms of ecclesiastical authority is surely a mistake. The
extended Easter fast served Athanasius’ pastoral mission by promoting
ascetic practices among the lay congregation for a longer duration and
encouraging a greater focus of prayer on the Easter celebration. By the
end of his episcopate, as far as we can judge, Athanasius had carried the
argument. The forty-day Lenten fast has remained a period of the highest
liturgical and spiritual importance for Christian worship in Egypt and by
no means the least part of Athanasius’ legacy.

PASTORAL THEOLOGY AND SALVATION

We have seen in an earlier chapter the importance that Athanasius placed on

ensuring orthodox belief among his congregations at a time of theological
controversy. This was not an ‘academic’ concern. The promise of Christian
salvation rested upon the true understanding of the Incarnation and the
relationship between God and humanity. In Athanasius’ eyes it was this
understanding that was threatened by the doctrines he regarded as ‘Arian’.
The fourth-century debates over how to define the Son and His divinity

16
For an overview of the historical evolution of the Christian Easter and its liturgy, see
Bertonière (1972) and the articles in Bradshaw and Hoffman (1999). There is a useful survey of
the early evidence for the observance of Lent in Talley (1982), although unfortunately Talley
is unaware of the problems involved with the numbering of Athanasius’ Festal Letters.
17
Brakke (2001: 460). This would explain why Athanasius in his scriptural justification for
the forty-day fast in his Festal Letters never cites the apparently obvious example of Jesus’ forty
days in the desert.
 Father 143
raised very real pastoral concerns, which are reflected in the Festal Letters
no less than in Athanasius’ other writings.
The theology of Athanasius is most commonly studied through the
detailed arguments presented in the great treatises, particularly Contra
Gentes–De Incarnatione and the anti-‘Arian’ works. What we find in the Festal
Letters are the same arguments reformulated for a pastoral context.18 There
is little explicit anti-‘Arian’ polemic, with a single notable exception to be
discussed below. Athanasius’ emphasis is rather on the positive call of faith-
ful Christians to worship. The Incarnation and salvation through Christ are
subjects highly appropriate to the Easter celebration that is the focus of
the Festal Letters and are proclaimed in characteristically Athanasian terms.
In the Festal Letters as elsewhere, Athanasius consistently upheld the full
divinity of the Son, who took on our humanity as the fundamental guar-
antee for the Christian gift of salvation.
Examples of Athanasius’ theological teachings can be drawn from
throughout the surviving Festal Letters. The exhortation to the feast that
opened Athanasius’ first Festal Letter in 329 was immediately followed by
the declaration that God sent His Word to aid us, ‘saying “In an acceptable
time have I heard thee, and on the day of salvation I have helped thee”
[Isaiah 49:8]’ (I.1). This theme is taken up at greater length in Festal Letter
V for 333 as Athanasius praises the benevolence of God, which has made
possible the Easter celebration:
He both brought about the slaying of His Son for salvation and gave us this reason
for the holy feast, to which every year bears witness, as often as at this season the
feast is proclaimed. This also leads us on from the cross through this world to
that which is before us, and God produces even now from it the joy of glorious
salvation, bringing us to the same assembly and in every place uniting all of us in
spirit. (V.2)

Humanity by nature is unable to return a worthy recompense for the

benefits given to us. Nevertheless, Athanasius calls on his congregations to
show their thanks through piety and obedience to the Lord’s commands and
to keep the feast accordingly. Thus they will be separated from the pagans,
Jews, schismatics, and heretics (V.3–4). Athanasius’ vision of salvation in
Festal Letter V closely parallels the argument of the De Incarnatione, which
may be further evidence that the treatise was written at approximately this
time.19 Festal Letter VI, the letter that justified the forty-day Lenten fast and

18
Merendino (1965); Anatolios (1998: 173–7).
19
Kannengiesser (1989: 80).
144 Athanasius of Alexandria
was probably written for Easter 334, provides a further invocation of the
Lord’s sacrifice on our behalf:
The Lord died in those days, that we should no longer do the deeds of death. He
gave His life, that we might preserve our own from the snares of the Devil. And,
what is most wonderful, the Word became flesh, that we should no longer live in
the flesh, but in spirit should worship God, who is Spirit. (VI.1)

The homiletic flavour of the theology that Athanasius presents in the

Festal Letters is well represented in these passages. However, perhaps the
most explicit and certainly the lengthiest theological statement preserved in
Athanasius’ Easter epistles is contained in Festal Letter X for 338. It has been
observed previously that this letter is exceptional.20 Composed in the tense
period between Athanasius’ first and second exiles, Festal Letter X opens
with Athanasius’ declaration that he has maintained the feast even when
hindered by distance (X.1). This is followed by an extended meditation on
scriptural examples of those who were persecuted for their faith (X.4–5).
Athanasius uses his recent exile as a lesson for those under his pastoral care
and teaches how Scripture helps Christians to self-understanding through
trials. He also places himself within the tradition of the biblical patriarchs,
reinforcing his own claim to orthodoxy and setting his foes alongside the
Jews who killed Christ. Festal Letter X then culminates in one of the most
powerful passages of theology and polemic anywhere in the Athanasian
corpus:
The enemy draws near to us in afflictions and trials and labours, using every
endeavour to ruin us. But the man who is in Christ, combating those things that
are contrary and opposing wrath by long-suffering, contumely by meekness, and
vice by virtue, obtains the victory and exclaims ‘I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me’ [Philippians 4:13] and ‘In all these things we are conquerors
through Christ who loved us’ [Romans 8:37]. This is the grace of the Lord, and
these are the Lord’s means of restoration for the children of men. For He suffered
to prepare freedom from suffering for those who suffer in Him; He descended
that He might raise us up; He took on Him the trial of being born, that we might
love Him who is unbegotten; He went down to corruption, that corruption might
put on immortality; He became weak for us, that we might rise with power; He
descended to death, that He might bestow on us immortality and give life to the
dead. Finally, He became man, that we who die as men might live again, and that
death should no more reign over us; for the apostolic word proclaims ‘Death shall
not have the dominion over us’ [Romans 6:9, adapted].

20
Ch. 2. As noted there (n. 30), Festal Letter X is the subject of an edition and monograph
by Lorenz (1986).
 Father 145
21
Because they did not thus consider these matters, the Ariomaniacs, being oppon-
ents of Christ and heretics, smite Him who is their Helper with their tongue, and
blaspheme Him who set [them] free, and hold all manner of different opinions
against the Saviour. Because of His coming down, which was on behalf of man,
they have denied His essential Godhead; and seeing that He came forth from the
Virgin, they doubt His being truly the Son of God; and considering Him as become
incarnate in time, they deny His eternity; and looking upon Him as having suffered
for us, they do not believe in Him as the incorruptible Son from the incorruptible
Father. And finally, because He endured for our sakes, they deny the things which
concern His essential eternity; allowing the deed of the unthankful, these despise
the Saviour and offer Him insult instead of acknowledging His grace. (X.8–9)

Written for Easter 338, this is one of the earliest denunciations of the
teachings attributed to ‘Arianism’ in Athanasius’ writings. The construction
of the heretics and the polarized contrast between their errors and the
orthodoxy that Athanasius represents follow the same lines that we traced
in his polemical treatises in Chapter 3. This is hardly surprising, for, when
Athanasius circulated Festal Letter X, he had most probably begun to work on
the Orationes contra Arianos. What we gain from the Festal Letter is a clearer
appreciation of the pastoral issues at stake. The central theme of the let-
ter’s theological message is again the saving role of the Word through the
Incarnation. Here we need to remember that none of those whom Athana-
sius condemned as ‘Arian’ would have disagreed with the praise of the Son
offered in X.8. The question that was actually under debate, as we learn
from X.9, was whether the Son had to share in the eternal and essential
Godhead of the Father for the promise of salvation to be fulfilled. It was
Athanasius’ pastoral obligation to teach the true doctrine to the Egyptian
churches and warn them against the ‘Arian’ errors. A similar still more con-
cise description of ‘Arianism’ appeared in Festal Letter XI for the following
year. The heretics have ‘dug a pit of unbelief into which they themselves
have been thrust . . . blaspheming the Son of God and saying that He is a
creature and has His being from things which are not’ (XI.10).22
No subsequent Festal Letter contains the same level of theological polemic
as the letters written during the difficult years at the end of the 330s. But
even in Festal Letters X and XI, Athanasius’ chief aim was not to denounce
‘Arianism’. His concern was rather the positive call that his people continue
to celebrate Easter and praise God for the grace given to humanity through

21
This characteristic Athanasian expression was miscopied in the Syriac manuscript trans-
mission of the Festal Letters as ‘Arius and Manetes’.
22
Festal Letter XI.12 also contains the sole reference in any of the Easter epistles to the
‘Eusebians’, who encourage others to attack Athanasius.
146 Athanasius of Alexandria
the Incarnation. The arguments that he brought forward to achieve this
purpose in the Festal Letters parallel closely those found in the more widely
studied treatises like De Incarnatione and the Orationes contra Arianos. We
are, therefore, reminded once more that the doctrinal controversies of the
fourth century had very real pastoral implications for ordinary Christians.
Athanasius never lost sight of the practical needs of his congregations. The
emphasis on faith and correct belief in the Festal Letters is accompanied at
all times with a corresponding emphasis on how a Christian should live, to
which we must now turn.

PASTORAL ASCETICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

Throughout Athanasius’ writings the theological orthodoxy that he taught

and the Christian lifestyle that he promoted are inseparably intertwined.
This has already been explored in some detail in the preceding chapters,
but is brought into particular focus through Athanasius’ pastoral activity. In
the Festal Letters, Athanasius placed just as much stress on correct action as
he did on correct belief. The model of Christian behaviour that he encour-
aged his congregations to follow has been aptly described as an ‘asceticism
of everyday life’. The laymen and women of the Egyptian churches were
urged to approach the Easter period as a time for fasting and prayer. In
effect, they could adopt for Lent the principles that in his letters to monks
and virgins Athanasius laid down as the basis of the ascetic commitment.
By doing so they would narrow the growing gulf that threatened to sep-
arate ordinary Christians from the expanding ascetic movement. It is pos-
sible to see this at one level as a means for Athanasius to maintain the unity
of the diverse communities under his leadership. But at the heart of Atha-
nasius’ pastoral mission was a deep conviction of the importance of ascetic
principles to his vision of how a Christian should live in the world.
Athanasius recognized from the beginning of his episcopate the value of
the Festal Letters as a means to preach a true Christian lifestyle. The signifi-
cance of the Easter fast is a recurring theme of the first Festal Letter, as we
have seen, and Athanasius addresses himself both to devout ascetics and to
the lay population. Moreover, the fast is not merely an empty ritual to be
performed without thought, but is intimately bound to the gift of salvation
that the Easter celebration affirms. This is made explicit in Festal Letter V:
Let us eat the Passover of the Lord, who, by ordaining His holy laws, guided us
towards virtue and counselled the abstinence of this feast. For the Passover is
 Father 147
indeed abstinence from evil for exercise of virtue, and a departure from death unto
life. This may be learnt even from the type of old time. For then they toiled earn-
estly to pass from Egypt to Jerusalem, but now we depart from death to life; they
then passed from Pharaoh to Moses, but now we rise from the Devil to the Saviour.
And as, at that time, the type of deliverance bore witness every year, so now we
commemorate our salvation. We fast meditating on death, that we may be able to
live. (V.4)

The introduction of the forty-day Lenten fast in Festal Letter VI gave

further impetus to Athanasius’ promotion of pastoral asceticism. Near the
end of the letter, just before his warning that only those who celebrated the
new forty-day fast could partake of the true Passover, Athanasius instructed
his congregations on how they should conduct the fast. His exhortation
draws on a series of scriptural examples, and Athanasius particularly singled
out married couples and urged them to purify themselves for the feast.
Let us glorify the Lord by chastity, by righteousness, and other virtues. And let us
rejoice, not in ourselves, but in the Lord, that we may be inheritors with the saints.
Let us keep the feast then, as Moses. Let us watch like David, who rose seven times,
and in the middle of the night gave thanks for the righteous judgements of God.
Let us be early, as he said, ‘In the morning I will stand before Thee, and Thou will
look upon me; in the morning Thou will hear my voice’ [Psalm 5:3]. Let us fast like
Daniel; let us pray without ceasing as Paul commanded; all of us recognizing the
season of prayer, but especially those who are honourably married; so that having
borne witness to these things, and thus having kept the feast, we may be able to
enter into the joy of Christ in the kingdom of heaven. (VI.12)

Here again we see Athanasius’ fundamental emphasis that ascetic com-

mitment is not the sole preserve of a spiritual elite. Every Christian man
and woman, whatever his or her personal status, may aspire to share in the
ascetic lifestyle. This universal vision runs throughout the Athanasian ascet-
ica, and receives one of its strongest pastoral statements in the long tenth
Festal Letter for Easter 338. The exceptional anti-‘Arian’ polemic at the end of
this letter has already been discussed. But, earlier in Festal Letter X, Athana-
sius contrasted the persecution unleashed by his enemies to the goodness of
God. The Lord knows well the weakness of humanity, and does not expect
all to seek salvation in the same way. On the contrary, ‘He varies Himself
according to the individual capacity of each soul’ (X.4). Athanasius divides
the Christian community into three categories of perfection, illustrated by
the Pauline Epistles and from the Gospels by the Parable of the Sower.
To those then who have not yet attained to the perfect way He becomes like a sheep
giving milk, and this was administered by Paul, ‘I have fed you with milk, not with
148 Athanasius of Alexandria
meat’ [1 Corinthians 3:2]. To those who have advanced beyond the full stature of
childhood, but still are weak as regards perfection, He is their food according to
their capacity, being again administered by Paul, ‘Let him that is weak eat herbs’
[Romans 14:2]. But as soon as ever a man begins to walk in the perfect way, he is
no longer fed with the things before mentioned, but he has the Word for bread and
flesh for food, for it is written, ‘Strong meat is for those who are of full age, for those
who, by reason of their capacity, have their senses exercised’ [Hebrews 5:14].23
And further, when the word is sown it does not yield a uniform produce of fruit
in this human life, but one various and rich. For it brings forth, some a hundred,
and some sixty, and some thirty, as the Saviour teaches [Matthew 13:1–23, Mark
4:1–20, Luke 8:1–15]—that Sower of grace and Bestower of the Spirit. And this is
no doubtful matter, nor one that admits no confirmation; but it is in our power to
behold the field which is sown by Him, for in the Church the word is manifold and
the produce rich. Not with virgins alone is such a field adorned, nor with monks
alone, but also with honourable matrimony and the chastity of each one. For in
sowing, He did not compel the will beyond the power. Nor is mercy confined to the
perfect, but it is sent down also among those who occupy the middle and the third
ranks, so that He might rescue all men generally to salvation. To this intent He has
prepared many mansions with the Father, so that although the dwelling-place is
various in proportion to the advance in moral attainment, yet all of us are within
the wall and all of us enter within the same fence, the adversary being cast out and
all his host expelled thence. For apart from light there is darkness, and apart from
blessing there is a curse, the Devil also is apart from the saints, and sin far from
virtue. (X.4)

In Festal Letter X Athanasius confronted the essential pastoral dilemma

that the rise of the ascetic movement raised for the Christian community.
The monks and virgins of the fourth century, like the martyrs and con-
fessors of earlier times, exalted themselves to a higher spiritual level than
their fellow believers. This threatened to create divisions that might pro-
voke conflict and reduce ‘ordinary’ Christians to second-class citizens of
the Church. Athanasius held true both to his respect for asceticism and to
his pastoral mission. He paid due honour to those who followed an ascetic
lifestyle and placed them in a higher category on the path to perfection.
But he insisted that all true Christians would be saved and all could seek
to progress towards perfection through their own free will. His interpret-
ation of the Parable of the Sower in Festal Letter X echoes the first Letter to

23
The passage quoted here from Hebrews is not attributed to Paul, as are those from 1
Corinthians and Romans. Athanasius was aware of the non-Pauline authorship of Hebrews,
although, as we will see, he included Hebrews among the Pauline Epistles in Festal Letter
XXXIX on the canon of Scripture.
 Father 149
Virgins (likewise dated to c.338) and the Letter to Amoun, confirming that he
expressed such arguments in works intended for wider audiences than his
specifically ascetic writings.24 For Athanasius, the only division that mat-
tered was the separation between faithful Christians and their adversaries,
represented in Festal Letter X by the ‘Arians’. His concern for ecclesiastical
unity and theological orthodoxy, which also reinforced his disputed pos-
ition as leader of the Egyptian Church in 338, came together with his ascetic
programme in the pastoral context for which the letter was written.
Athanasius continued to promote ascetic practices among Egyptian
Christians throughout his episcopate. The later Festal Letters provide fewer
explicit statements on this theme, but this is due primarily to the frag-
mentary survival of the Easter epistles from the 350s and 360s. Certainly
Athanasius’ convictions did not waver, as his other writings make clear. He
continued to preach the ascetic message to his congregations, urging his
listeners to emulate their champions. One man at least took that message
to heart. ‘I heard the blessed Pope Athanasius in church, proclaiming the
lifestyle of the monks and consecrated virgins and marveling at the hope
laid up for them in heaven. And admiring their blessed life, I chose it for
myself ’ (Letter of Ammon 2). The monk Ammon experienced his conversion
to asceticism in c.351, and would later become a bishop and so join the
increasing numbers of monks within the Egyptian episcopate.25
For a final example of Athanasius’ pastoral vision of the Christian life,
drawing again on theology and asceticism in concert, we will look beyond
the Festal Letters to elsewhere in Athanasius’ correspondence. The date when
Athanasius wrote his Letter to Marcellinus is uncertain.26 The text contains
little specific historical content, and Marcellinus himself is unknown. He
may have been a deacon of the Alexandrian church, or an urban Christian
who had heeded Athanasius’ call to adopt an ascetic life.27 According to the
letter, he had fallen ill, but had occupied his time by studying the Scriptures.

24
A far more polemical approach to such questions, and to the Parable of the Sower, is
exhibited by Jerome in 393 in his condemnation of Jovianus for teaching that virgins, married
women, and widows are of equal merit in the eyes of God (Contra Jovinianum I.3).
25
On Ammon’s life and Letter, see further Goehring (1985).
26
There is a translation with introduction and notes in Gregg (1980). See also Rondeau
(1968), Anatolios (1998: 195–200), and Kolbet (2006).
27
A deacon named Marcellinus signed the letter of protest against the Mareotis Commission
in 335 (quoted in Apologia contra Arianos 73). The name was common, however, and there is
no clear indication that Athanasius’ addressee held clerical office. In the light of his illness, it
is likewise possible but unproven that Marcellinus was also the recipient of Athanasius’ frag-
mentary treatise On Sickness and Health.
150 Athanasius of Alexandria
He asked Athanasius for advice on the Psalms. Athanasius’ response is a
meditation on the Psalter as a guide for living a Christian life.
After congratulating Marcellinus on his enduring discipline (askesis)
despite his sufferings, Athanasius commends him for studying the Psalms.
‘I too have a great fondness for the same book—just as I have for all the
Scripture. Indeed, it so happens that I had a conversation with a learned old
man, and I wish to write you those things that old master of the Psalter told
me’ (1). Whether that old master was a real person or a rhetorical device
remains unknown, but the Psalms were widely read in ascetic circles. In
the Life of Antony, study of the Psalter is a crucial feature of the hermit’s
training, and the demons are said to have wailed when Antony would chant
the Psalms.28 To Marcellinus, Athanasius presents the Psalms as representa-
tive of the scope of scriptural wisdom and both a source of practical advice
and a focus for prayer.
All the books of the Old Testament have a particular purpose, from the
Pentateuch, which tells of creation, the patriarchs, and the Exodus, to the
Prophets, who foretold the Saviour. ‘Yet the Book of Psalms is like a garden
containing things of all these kinds, and it sets them to music, but also
exhibits things of its own that it gives in song along with them’ (2). The
themes of the other books are restated in the Psalms, especially the com-
ing of the Saviour in the Incarnation (5–8). This uniformity proclaims the
same Spirit, which speaks throughout the Scriptures (9–10). The Psalms,
however, go further than the other books. Not only do they teach the need
to repent, to bear sufferings, and to give thanks, but also how to do so and
what one must say (10). Above all, Athanasius declares, the Psalms touch
the reader more deeply than just inspiring emulation.
He who takes up this book—the Psalter—goes through the prophecies about the
Saviour, as is customary in the other Scriptures, with admiration and adoration, but
the other psalms he recognizes as being his own words. And the one who hears is
deeply moved, as though he himself were speaking, and is affected by the words of
the songs, as if they were his own songs. (11)

The Psalms guide us and inspire us, stirring emotion and leading us to
self-reflection:
It seems to me that these words [the Psalms] become like a mirror to the person
singing them, so that he might perceive himself and the emotions of his soul,

28
Life of Antony 39–40. The importance of studying the Psalms is similarly emphasized in
Athanasius’ Letter to Amoun.
 Father 151
and thus affected, he might recite them. For in fact he who hears the one reading
receives the song that is recited as being about him, and either, when he is convicted
by his conscience, being pierced, he will repent, or hearing of the hope that resides
in God and of the succour available to believers—how this kind of grace exists for
him—he exults and begins to give thanks to God. (12)

These opening sections of the letter do not directly address Marcelli-

nus and his request for advice. Athanasius’ argument has a wider pastoral
purpose, grounded in his conception of the Scriptures as a source of inspi-
ration for all Christians, whatever their standing. Every man or woman
who reads the Psalms may find guidance therein through divine grace. This
grace is offered through the Saviour, for here, as throughout his teachings,
Athanasius returns to the Incarnation as the foundation for the Christian
faith and the model for the Christian life.
When He became man for us He offered His own body in dying for our sake, in
order that He might set all free from death. And desiring to show us His own heav-
enly and well-pleasing life, He provided its type in Himself, to the end that some
might no more easily be deceived by the enemy, having a pledge for protection—
namely, the victory He won over the Devil for our sake. (13)

Against this background, the main body of the Letter to Marcellinus then
turns to the individual psalms and their application to the human condition
(14–26). Athanasius first catalogues the psalms by form and purpose, then
identifies the different situations in which a person can turn to the Psalter
for aid. Those who condemn the Jews for betraying the Saviour read Psalm
3; those who give thanks to the Lord for the vintage sing Psalms 8 and 83;
those who see others doing evil say Psalm 36.29 Charity to those in need is
encouraged by Psalm 40, repentance by Psalm 50. Many psalms encourage
thanksgiving and provide the words appropriate for praise: Psalms 104, 106,
134, 145, 146, 147, 148, and 150. And the Psalter offers particular support to
those who suffer persecution, a theme of special significance for Athana-
sius himself, who may turn among others to Psalms 3, 17, 24, 26, 30, 39, 53,
55, 56, 58, 61, 76, 84, and 125.
The letter’s concluding sections reaffirm Athanasius’ vision of the Psal-
ter. The Psalms are not musical to delight the ear, but for the benefit of

29
Athanasius here warns against those who ‘think that the evil is in their very nature,
which is what the heretics assert’ (18). This was a teaching held by some Gnostic groups and
also by Manichaeism.
152 Athanasius of Alexandria
the soul and to govern the emotions to serve the will of God (27–9).30 For
those who recite the Psalms correctly, without artifice or profane addition,
they are sufficient for all eventualities and will drive away demons (30–3).
Athanasius closes the letter with an exhortation to Marcellinus that encap-
sulates his pastoral appeal to every Christian. The divine grace expressed
through the words and deeds in the Scriptures can be attained by all who
devote themselves to the spiritual life to the measure of their ability. ‘You
too, practicing these things and reciting the Psalms intelligently, in this way,
are able to comprehend the meaning in each, being guided by the Spirit.
And the kind of life the holy, God-bearing men possessed who spoke these
things—this life you also shall imitate’ (33).

THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE: FESTAL LETTER XXXIX

It seems appropriate to conclude this chapter with a consideration of what

is perhaps Athanasius’ best-known Festal Letter and one of his most fre-
quently cited works. Festal Letter XXXIX, written for the Easter of 367, is
a fundamental document for the evolution of the Christian Scriptures.31 It
contains the oldest extant list of New Testament books that duplicates the
New Testament canon in the modern Bible. The importance of the letter
was recognized early, for this is the only Festal Letter to survive substantially
in Greek as well as in this case Coptic.32 Because of its unique character,
however, Festal Letter XXXIX has too often been read in isolation. Athana-
sius’ emphasis upon the canon of Scripture cannot be understood properly
unless we place this letter within its wider context. Once this is done, the
letter becomes a valuable resource not only for scriptural history but for
the theological and pastoral values that Athanasius still sought to promote
in the closing years of his episcopate.
By 367 Athanasius’ long struggle for the hearts and souls of the Christian
communities of Egypt was almost at an end. He had returned from his fifth
and final period of exile, and his authority and his reputation as the heroic
defender of orthodoxy were firmly established. Opposition remained,

30
According to Augustine (Confessions X.33), Athanasius was said to have insisted that lec-
tors who recite the Psalms should avoid excessive modulation of voice and so appear to speak
rather than to chant. See also P. Bright (1997).
31
There is an overview of Athanasius’ approach to the Scriptures in Ernest (2004). For a
clear introduction to the formation of the Christian Bible, see McDonald (1995).
32
For the text, see now Brakke (2010). On the letter, see also Brakke (1994b) and Demaco-
poulos (2007: 21–49).
 Father 153
but the pastoral labours of previous decades had secured him the devo-
tion of the vast majority of the Egyptian Church. In Festal Letter XXXIX
we see Athanasius primarily as a teacher and exegete, educating his audi-
ence on reading the Scriptures and on which books they should regard as
canonical. But Athanasius’ exegesis can never be separated from his con-
cern for correct doctrine and practice, while his definition of the accepted
scriptural canon was also a statement of power addressed against those
whom he held to be in error. Here, as throughout the Festal Letters, Athana-
sius’ pastoral convictions bring together the different strands that we have
traced across his life.
The opening lines of Festal Letter XXXIX are lost in both Greek and
Coptic. When our surviving text begins, Athanasius is already speaking
of God’s revelation to man through the Word. ‘For the teaching of piety
does not come from human beings; rather, it is the Lord who reveals His
Father to those whom He wills because it is He who knows Him [Matthew
11:27]’ (7). The Lord taught Paul and the other Apostles, and so in turn
He is the one true Teacher who teaches all. ‘The task of the teacher is to
teach, and that of the disciple is to learn. But even if these people teach,
they are still called “disciples”, for it is not they who are the originators of
what they proclaim; rather, they are at the service of the words of the true
Teacher’ (11). Athanasius reinforces his argument from theology, restating
the ontological gulf that separates humanity from the divine. Humanity is
part of the created order and therefore by nature must be taught, while the
Word by nature is a teacher who grants knowledge of the Spirit to those
who wish to become students of God.
In a manner familiar from his polemical writings, Athanasius immedi-
ately contrasts the faithful who have heeded the teachings of Christ with
those who have not. The Jews failed to understand Jesus and so persecuted
him, and they have been imitated by the heretics who in their ignorance
cannot celebrate the true Easter.
For the Jews gather together like Pontius Pilate, and the Arians and the Melitians
like Herod, not to celebrate the feast but to blaspheme the Lord, saying, ‘What
is truth?’ [John 18:38] and ‘Take him away! Crucify him! Release to us Barabbas!’
[Luke 23:18]. For it is just like the request for Barabbas to say that the Son of God is
a creature and that there was a time when He was not. (14)

Only Athanasius and his churches keep the feast according to tradi-
tion and read the Holy Scriptures carefully and with a good conscience.
These twin arguments, exalting the divine revelation of the Word and
separating those who have received the truth from those in error, set the
154 Athanasius of Alexandria
scene for Athanasius to introduce his primary theme. The divine Scrip-
tures are needed for salvation. But ‘we are afraid that, as Paul wrote to
the Corinthians [2 Corinthians 11:3], a few of the simple folk might be led
astray from sincerity and purity through human deceit and might then
begin to read other books, the so-called apocrypha, deceived by their hav-
ing the same names as the genuine books’ (15). Therefore:
It seemed good to me, because I have been urged by genuine brothers and sisters
and instructed from the beginning, to set forth in order the books that are canon-
ized, transmitted, and believed to be divine, so that those who have been deceived
might condemn the persons who led them astray, and those who have remained
pure might rejoice to be reminded [of these things]. (16)

According to Athanasius, the Old Testament books number twenty-two.

This is, ‘as I have heard’ (17) (for Athanasius did not read Hebrew), the
number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. They begin with Genesis;
Exodus; Leviticus; Numbers; Deuteronomy; Joshua; Judges; and Ruth.
Then four books of Kings, the first two being reckoned as one book [1–2
Samuel] and the second two as one book [1–2 Kings]. There are first and
second Chronicles, again reckoned as one book [1–2 Chronicles]; and first
and second Esdras likewise [Ezra, Nehemiah]. Then Psalms; Proverbs;
Ecclesiastes; the Song of Songs; Job; the Twelve Prophets counted together
as one book; Isaiah; Jeremiah with Baruch, Lamentations, and the Letter;
Ezekiel; and Daniel. The most notable omission here is the Book of Esther,
which Athanasius later classes under non-canonical works, although he
does include Baruch with Jeremiah.
The books of the New Testament follow. After Matthew; Mark; Luke;
and John; there comes Acts of the Apostles; and the seven catholic letters:
one by James; two by Peter; three by John; and one by Jude. Then there
are fourteen letters by Paul, in order Romans; 1–2 Corinthians; Galatians;
Ephesians; Philippians; Colossians; 1–2 Thessalonians; Hebrews; 1–2 Tim-
othy; Titus; and Philemon. Finally, there is the Revelation of John. Athana-
sius places the catholic epistles before those of Paul, and includes Hebrews
among the Pauline epistles.
‘These are the springs of salvation, so that someone who thirsts may be
satisfied by the words they contain. In these books alone the teaching of
piety is proclaimed’ (19). However, Athanasius acknowledges that ‘there
are other books, in addition to the preceding, which have not been can-
onized, but have been appointed by the ancestors to be read to those who
newly join us and want to be instructed in the word of piety’ (20). It is in
this category that he includes the Wisdom of Solomon; the Wisdom of
 Father 155
Sirach; Esther; Judith; Tobit; Teaching of the Apostles; and the Shepherd
of Hermas.33 These works may be read, and are distinct from the true apoc-
rypha, which are the invention of heretics. Athanasius refers to texts attrib-
uted falsely to Enoch, Isaiah, and Moses. Such works only spread discord.
‘Therefore, it is fitting for us to decline such books. For even if a useful
word is found in them, it is still not good to trust them’ (23).
Athanasius continues his argument by emphasizing the theological
sufficiency of the recognized scriptural books. ‘If we seek the faith, it is
possible for us to discover it through [the Scriptures], so that we might
believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If [we seek after] the
subject of His humanity, John cries out, “The Word became flesh and lived
among us” [John 1:14]’ (24). Similarly the Scriptures confirm the resurrec-
tion of the dead and the coming judgement, with a further condemnation
of the errors of the Manichaeans, Marcion, the Montanists, the Arians,
and the Melitians. Thus the inspired works provide all that is required for
instruction in the Christian faith:
Therefore, inasmuch as it is clear that the testimony from the apocryphal books is
superfluous because it is unfounded—for the Scripture is perfect in every way—let the
teacher teach from the words of Scripture, and let him place before those who desire
to learn those things that are appropriate to their age. In the case of those who begin to
study as catechumens, it is not right to proclaim the obscure texts of Scripture, because
they are mysteries, but instead to place before them the teaching that they need: what
will teach them how to hate sin and to abandon idolatry as an abomination. (28)

Athanasius here spells out the very real pastoral issue that underlies
this Festal Letter. His interest in the canon of Scripture was not that of
an academic scholar.34 Teaching the faithful was one of the fundamental
duties of a bishop, made still more important in the later fourth century by
the rapid increase in Christian numbers. Scriptural study was crucial to the
education of a Christian in Late Antiquity, as it is today, and Athanasius was
not alone in emphasizing the need for careful instruction to ensure new
converts did not fall into error.35 Festal Letter XXXIX in 367 must be read in

33
Much earlier, Athanasius had described the Shepherd of Hermas as a ‘most helpful book’
(De Incarnatione 3), although he had never regarded the work as part of the scriptural canon
(see also De Decretis 18).
34
For the argument that Athanasius sought to promote an episcopal parish-based spiri-
tuality over the authority of the teacher and martyr, see Brakke (1994b) and Watts (2006:
175–81).
35
The finest extant examples of such instruction from the fourth century are the Cate-
chetical Lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem. On Cyril, his teachings, and his context, see Drijvers
(2004).
156 Athanasius of Alexandria
the light of this practical concern. Athanasius did not engage in exegesis or
doctrinal debate unless those activities had a necessary pastoral purpose.
This is summed up in the conclusion to the letter, when Athanasius states
concisely why he had felt driven to write in the manner he had and the joy-
ous ends that he hoped would be achieved:
I have not written these things as if I were teaching, for I have not attained such a
rank. Rather, because I heard that the heretics, especially the wretched Melitians,
were boasting about the books that they call ‘apocryphal’. I thus have informed you
of everything that I heard from my father [Alexander], as if I were with you and
you with me in a single house, that is, ‘the church of God, the pillar and strength of
truth’ [1 Timothy 3:15]. When we gather in a single place, let us purify it of every
defilement, of double-heartedness, of fighting and childish arrogance. Let us be
satisfied with only the Scripture inspired by God to instruct us. Its books we have
set forth in the words above: which they are and how many their number. For in
this way we now celebrate the feast as is fitting, ‘not with old leaven nor with evil or
wicked leaven, but with pure and true leaven’ [1 Corinthians 5:8]. (32)

Pastoral duty is again a major emphasis here, the concern that Athana-
sius’ congregation must not be led astray. He is also once more stamping his
leadership on the Egyptian Church, seeking to ensure uniformity among
his followers much as he had with the forty-day fast of Lent. In effect, the
bishop of Alexandria has claimed the right not only to interpret Scripture
but to determine what qualifies as Scripture, and has denounced any who
hold alternative views as ‘Melitian’ or ‘Arian’. Here, as throughout Atha-
nasius’ episcopal career, questions of ecclesiastical authority and sincere
pastoral concern are inextricably intertwined.
Whether Athanasius succeeded in his ambitions, we do not know. As has
already been mentioned, Festal Letter XXXIX is in fact the only Athanasian
Festal Letter for which we have explicit testimony of its reception, when the
letter was read out and then posted in Pachomian monasteries.36 It has even
been suggested that the famous collection of Gnostic codices discovered
at Nag Hammadi were buried by nearby Pachomian monks after Atha-
nasius condemned the use of such non-canonical works.37 But the impact
of pastoral care, like moral exhortation or spiritual guidance, has never
been easy to gauge. What cannot be in doubt is Athanasius’ conviction of
his obligations and his desire to fulfil them. There are polemical themes

36
Bohairic Life of Pachomius 189.
37
Robinson (1996: 19–20).
 Father 157
in Athanasius’ writings that do not always sit well with a modern audi-
ence, and he faced a constant struggle to maintain his position, which inev-
itably influenced his words and actions. Nevertheless, the motivating force
behind Festal Letter XXXIX and all the Festal Letters was first and foremost
pastoral. Athanasius was rightly remembered in Egyptian tradition as a
great spiritual leader of the Christian Church.
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 6
Death and Legacy

The duties of his office he discharged in the same spirit as that in which he had
been preferred to it . . . He was sublime in action, lowly in mind; inaccessible in
virtue, most accessible in intercourse; gentle, free from anger, sympathetic, sweet
in words, sweeter in disposition; angelic in appearance, more angelic in mind; calm
in rebuke, persuasive in praise, without spoiling the good effect of either by excess,
but rebuking with the tenderness of a father, praising with the dignity of a ruler,
his tenderness was not dissipated, nor his severity sour; for the one was reasonable,
the other prudent, and both truly wise; his disposition sufficed for the training of
his spiritual children, with very little need of words; his words with very little need
of the rod, and his moderate use of the rod with still less for the knife. (Gregory of
Nazianzus, Oration XXI.9)
The people assembled and took counsel, and appointed the Father Athanasius, and
seated him on the evangelical throne. And he wrote excellent treatises and many
homilies; and he was called during his patriarchate the Apostolic, on account of the
nobility of his deeds, which were like those of the Apostles. (History of the Patriarchs
of Alexandria, PO 1:403)

Athanasius’ death on 2 May 373 marked the passing of an era. Few

men still lived who could remember the outbreak of the Great Perse-
cution and the shock of Constantine’s conversion, or who could recall
the Council of Nicaea in its splendour. Athanasius had witnessed first
hand the transformation of Christianity into the dominant religion of
the Roman Empire, and through his long and often controversial career
he had played a crucial part in shaping the new imperial Church. By the
end of his life, his reputation was secure. A few opponents lingered, both
inside and outside Egypt, but their voices were fading. Through his lead-
ership and strength of character, his theological and ascetic convictions,
and his pastoral dedication, Athanasius had become recognized as the
great champion of his age. He had become a Father of the Church, a man
whose name was known across the Christian world, and whose words
and example would provide a source of inspiration for later men and
women to follow.
160 Athanasius of Alexandria
The final years of Athanasius’ episcopate had been relatively peaceful.
Yet tensions remained. His chosen successor, Peter II, was exiled almost
immediately and replaced by the ‘Arian’ Lucius, leaving the authority of
the Alexandrian see once again under threat. The theological debates
that exerted such an influence upon Athanasius continued unabated. The
Cappadocian Fathers were refining the Trinitarian teachings that would
be upheld at the Council of Constantinople in 381, and the seeds of the
Christological divisions of the fifth century had already been sown. The
ascetic movement had spread across the Mediterranean, not least through
Athanasius’ patronage and the impact of the Life of Antony. But asceticism
took many forms, and its place within society and the organized Church
still had to be resolved. Athanasius, like his contemporaries, had struggled
with the need to define the very nature of Christianity in a changing world.
For the subsequent generations who faced that same struggle in their own
times, Athanasius became himself part of Christian tradition, a figure of
authority to whom all might appeal. In this final chapter I wish to explore
briefly the diverse legacy of Athanasius and the different interpretations
of his memory that emerged in the Greek east and the Latin west, the
Syriac and Armenian worlds, and the Coptic Egypt of his Alexandrian suc-
cessors.
From the perspective of the modern student, it is all too easy to
view Christian tradition as something fixed and static. Western univer-
sity patristic courses trace the history and doctrinal development of
the early Church through the Fathers, the men whose writings came
to be regarded as authoritative, and through the creeds and canons of
the ecumenical councils. Tradition, however, is neither fixed nor static.
On the contrary, it is a living entity, constantly redefined as new contro-
versies arise and contexts change. During his life Athanasius appealed
repeatedly to the traditional faith of the Church, reinterpreting that faith
according to his personal concerns. The vast majority of later Christians
would come to share his views, just as they shared his definition of the
canonical books of the New Testament and the meaning of the original
Nicene Creed. Yet Athanasius’ conception of tradition was by no means
universal among his contemporaries, and nor was Athanasius alone in
the fourth century in seeking to reinterpret earlier traditions. Athana-
sius’ influence is a tribute to the power and clarity of his teachings and
to his reputation as a heroic bishop and confessor. Nevertheless, his later
influence should not lead us to exaggerate his status in his own time,
while later generations would themselves interpret Athanasius’ legacy
in significantly different ways.
 Death and Legacy 161
The various Christian traditions on Athanasius that I will examine share
considerable common ground. All represent Athanasius as a leading bishop
of the fourth-century Church, and all uphold Athanasius’ conception of
himself as a champion of orthodoxy and of the Council of Nicaea. There
were dissident opinions, but in the fifth century they were being mar-
ginalized, and today they survive only in fragments. Even among those
who revered his memory, however, Athanasius’ legacy is not as mono-
lithic as one might perhaps expect. Different linguistic and cultural tradi-
tions emphasized different elements of Athanasius’ life and writings. Later
authors reinterpreted and where necessary reshaped their material to suit
their individual motives and contexts. The widely varying visions of Atha-
nasius in modern scholarship are a continuation of this theme. Tracing
Athanasius’ legacy highlights the diverse ways in which a great Father of
the Church could be remembered and reinvented to serve the changing
needs of later centuries.1

ATHANASIUS IN THE GREEK EAST

Athanasius has remained a powerful figure within Greek Christian tradi-

tion down to the present day. His works were preserved, and the power
of his name attracted further writings that were not his own. The polem-
ical construction of the ‘Arian Controversy’ that he created would become
enshrined in Greek ecclesiastical history, and his theological and ascetic
teachings would be cited as authoritative in numerous later controversies.
Athanasius’ triumph came at a price: the loss of alternative interpret-
ations of his career that were not preserved and in some instances deliber-
ately destroyed. Here I am primarily interested in exploring how attitudes
towards Athanasius in Greek Christian literature evolved over time, from
his younger contemporary Gregory of Nazianzus to the divisions that
emerged after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. As the historical Athana-
sius receded into the past, his image was continually reshaped and his life
and teachings acquired new meanings, not all of which might have seemed
familiar to the great bishop himself.

1
‘ “Tradition” refers simultaneously to the process of communication and to its content.
Thus tradition means the handing down of Christian teaching during the course of the his-
tory of the Church, but it also means that which was handed down’ (Pelikan 1971: 7). For an
overview of Christian tradition, see Pelikan (2003). On the reception of Athanasius in the
diverse traditions discussed in this chapter, see also the contributions in Gemeinhardt (2011:
390–425).
162 Athanasius of Alexandria
Gregory of Nazianzus’ Oration XXI in honour of Athanasius, composed
less than ten years after the latter’s death, is an important landmark in the
development of the Alexandrian bishop’s posthumous reputation.2 There
is no indication that Gregory and Athanasius ever met, although as a youth
Gregory had studied in Alexandria in 348 during Athanasius’ golden decade.
Like his friend Basil of Caesarea, Gregory admired Athanasius greatly,
although in his theology he moved beyond Athanasius’ teachings, particu-
larly on the importance of the Son’s full humanity in the Incarnation.
Oration XXI, delivered in May 380, was a devout expression of that admir-
ation for Athanasius as an ideal Christian leader and laid down a model for
subsequent episcopal panegyrics.3
Yet the speech was also rooted in Gregory’s circumstances at the time
of composition. Leaving the small see of Sasima where Basil had ordained
him bishop in 372, Gregory had come to Constantinople to lead the Nicene
community there in 379. He faced considerable opposition, both from anti-
Nicenes within the city and from other Nicene groups. The church of the
Anastasia (from anastasis, ‘resurrection’), which was the setting for the
oration, had been attacked at Easter 380 by hostile monks, and Gregory’s
congregation had recently been increased by the arrival of a large body of
Egyptians who were not reconciled to his leadership. The feast of 2 May
380 to commemorate Athanasius was an ideal opportunity for Gregory to
associate himself with the great bishop and to construct an image of Atha-
nasius that served his purposes.
‘In praising Athanasius, I shall be praising virtue’ (1). The opening line of
Gregory’s oration immediately sets the tone. Athanasius is placed alongside
the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament and the disciples of
Christ and their successors. ‘With some of these Athanasius vied, by some
he was slightly excelled, and others, if it is not bold to say so, he surpassed’
(4). Gregory knows little of Athanasius’ early life and does not recount the
story of the child Athanasius on the beach that will appear in the ecclesi-
astical historians. He does assert, on no explicit evidence, that Athanasius
received a religious education and studied only sufficient literature and
philosophy to avoid ignorance (6). Athanasius then passed through the
orders of the clergy, and became bishop ‘by the vote of the whole people’
(8). This is the sole allusion to Athanasius’ contested election, for Gregory

2
On Gregory, see Bernardi (1995), McGuckin (2001), and Daley (2006). For the Oration’s
date and interpretation, see McGuckin (2001: 266–9).
3
For the debates over the ideal ‘model bishop’ in Late Antiquity, see Rapp (2005).
 Death and Legacy 163
wishes to concentrate upon his subject’s episcopal virtues, as described in
the quotation at the head of this chapter. Athanasius guided all alike, young
and old, ascetics and laypeople, rich and poor (10). He led the congregation
through peace and love, his pastoral dedication preceding the controversies
into which he was drawn as a passive and innocent victim.
Gregory’s narrative of the complex events of Athanasius’ life is highly
selective. Following Athanasius, he traces the divisions in the fourth-
century Church back to Arius and regards Athanasius’ later opponents
as successors to the same ‘Arian heresy’. These men denied the divinity
of the Son and the Holy Spirit and so dishonoured the Trinity. But Atha-
nasius resisted. ‘He both happily preserved the Unity, which belongs to
the Godhead, and religiously taught the Trinity, which refers to person-
ality, neither confounding the Three persons in the Unity nor dividing the
substance among the Three persons’ (13). Gregory is the earliest extant
source to make the fictional claim that Athanasius led the opposition to
Arius at Nicaea, which would become a standard theme of Athanasian
hagiography. ‘Though not yet ranked among the bishops, he held the
first rank among the members of the council, for preference was given
to virtue just as much as to office’ (14). His defence of orthodoxy made
Athanasius a target for the ‘Arians’ when the Devil fanned the flames of
conflict once more.
For Gregory and his Constantinopolitan audience, the story of Athana-
sius’ original condemnation and exile was evidently well known and his
innocence required no detailed defence. Gregory thus offers only a single
passing allusion to the Council of Tyre, when he states that, ‘if any of you
have heard of the hand which was produced by the fraud against the saint
and the corpse of the living man [Arsenius], and the unjust banishment, he
knows what I mean’ (15). Rather more of a concern in Gregory’s eyes was
the need to defend his own homeland, for, like himself, the two great rivals
of Athanasius, Gregory of Alexandria and later George, hailed from Cap-
padocia. George in particular is condemned at length, with a comparison
between the plight of Athanasius and the suffering of Job (16–19). In this
context Gregory also praises Athanasius’ devotion to the cause of asceti-
cism. Athanasius ‘arranged his exile most excellently, for he betook himself
to the holy and divine homes of contemplation in Egypt where, secluding
themselves from the world and welcoming the desert, men live to God
more than all who exist in the body’ (19). Through his teachings and
example Athanasius brought together the solitary hermits, the communal
monks, and the clergy, and the ascetics obeyed his decisions as the laws of
Moses and protected him from those who hunted him (20).
164 Athanasius of Alexandria
The concluding sections of Oration XXI focus more strongly on
theological concerns and Athanasius’ efforts to achieve reconciliation. The
Council of Seleucia in 359 rejected the term homoousios as unscriptural and
so let in ‘Arianism’. Persecution of the orthodox followed (23–5), but the
death of Constantius led to George being lynched and the return of Atha-
nasius, whose welcome in 362 rivalled the great procession of 346 (27–9).
Despite the brief interruption caused by the reign of Julian, Athanasius
laboured to reunite the Christian community by persuasion rather than
violence (30–3). He maintained the equal divinity of the Holy Spirit with
the Son and the Father and saw the need to rise above quarrels over words
and seek doctrinal unity. Gregory proclaims as orthodox the teaching of
one ousia and three hypostases in the Trinity. The Latins held the same
teaching but, ‘owing to the scantiness of their vocabulary and its poverty
of terms’ (35), they spoke of three prosopa and so were suspected of Sabel-
lianism, while they in turn regarded three hypostases as ‘Arian’. Athanasius
‘conferred in his gentle and sympathetic way with both parties, and after
he had carefully weighed the meaning of their expressions and found that
they had the same sense and were in nowise different in doctrine, by per-
mitting each party to use its own terms, he bound them together in unity
of action’ (35).
‘His life and habits form an ideal of an episcopate and his teaching the
law of orthodoxy’ (37). Gregory’s admiration for Athanasius was obvious
and sincere. Nevertheless, his knowledge of his hero’s career was by no
means extensive, and he makes very little reference to Athanasius’ actual
writings. The pastoral and ascetic dimensions of Athanasius’ episcopate
are recognized, but ecclesiastical persecution and doctrine are Gregory’s
major themes. This was appropriate given the context in which the oration
was delivered. In particular, the theological principles at stake were those
of the greatest concern to Gregory and the other Cappadocian Fathers.
The consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son was
a teaching that Gregory developed in greater depth than Athanasius, and,
while it is true that Athanasius accepted speaking of three hypostases in
the Tomus ad Antiochenos, this was never his preferred formulation for the
Trinity. These doctrines remained highly controversial in 380, and Greg-
ory sought to convince his audience that his teachings were Athanasian
and therefore orthodox. In this aim he failed. Although Oration XXI would
exert considerable influence on the later memory of Athanasius, Gregory’s
efforts to associate himself with the great Alexandrian bishop were not
enough to persuade his critics or avert his forced resignation from the Con-
stantinopolitan see in 381.
 Death and Legacy 165
The heroic vision of Athanasius presented by Gregory near the end of
the fourth century had become firmly established by the time of the fifth-
century ecclesiastical historians Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret. Yet
dissenting views could still be heard. Our evidence is extremely limited,
as later generations had little reason to preserve works that challenged the
prevailing orthodox tradition. But we gain at least some idea of the anti-
Athanasian arguments once in circulation from the fragmentary survival
of the ‘Neo-Arian’ Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius.4 We know nothing
of the author outside this text, which appeared in c.425–33. Philostorgius
supported the ‘Anomoion’ teaching that the Father and Son were entirely
unlike (anomoios) according to ousia, a doctrine condemned as heretical by
the Nicene Church. His doctrinal allegiance is clearly stated, and so too is
his bitter hostility towards the Nicene champion Athanasius.
It is Philostorgius who preserves the account of Athanasius’ election in
328 as uncanonical and achieved only through compulsion:
Athanasius broke into the Church of Dionysius in the late afternoon, found two
Egyptian bishops, shut the doors and barred them firmly with the help of his
supporters, and in this way received ordination. Those ordaining resisted vigor-
ously, but when the violence offered them proved too much for their will and their
strength, Athanasius got what he wanted. (II.11)

When the emperor Constantine heard the truth of this forced ordina-
tion, he summoned Athanasius to explain himself at the Council of Tyre.
Unlike our orthodox writers, Philostorgius has no doubts as to the justice
of Athanasius’ fate. In order to undermine his accuser, Eusebius of Nicome-
dia, Athanasius bribed a prostitute to claim that Eusebius had violated her.
Unfortunately, the prostitute accused the wrong person, and Athanasius
was then doubly condemned. A second council examined the case further
and added accusations of violence, the hand of Arsenius, and the broken
chalice. Athanasius was excommunicated, and the council appointed Greg-
ory of Cappadocia in his place (II.11).
Philostorgius appears to have combined the Council of Tyre in 335,
which led to Athanasius’ first exile, with the Council of Antioch in 338/9,
which preceded his second exile and appointed Gregory to his see. Later he
similarly confuses Athanasius’ return on Constantine’s death in 337 with
his return, after Gregory had died, in 346 (II.18). Such chronological errors

4
Until recently, Philostorgius has received less scholarly attention than his orthodox coun-
terparts. For an introduction, see Argov (2001), Leppin (2001), and the general works on the
ecclesiastical historians cited below.
166 Athanasius of Alexandria
occur in many orthodox sources as well, notably Rufinus of Aquileia. So
do stories like that of the prostitute, although elsewhere it is Eusebius who
hired the woman and Athanasius who is accused of her violation.
Constantius subsequently drove Athanasius once more from Alexandria
and installed ‘George’ in his place, while Athanasius departed for the west
(III.3). ‘George’ here is another case of chronological confusion, for this
passage seems to refer to Athanasius’ second western exile in 339. While in
the west Athanasius used persuasion and bribery at the court of Constan-
tius’ brother Constans to convince the latter to threaten war if the bishop
was not restored.5 Constantius complied, and recalled George. Athanasius
returned and travelled through the east seeking supporters for the doctrine
of homoousios. ‘None of them agreed except Aetius, the bishop of Pales-
tine, who had been denounced for fornication and, hoping to conceal his
disgrace by yielding to Athanasius, defected to his doctrine. But he paid a
very heavy penalty when his genitals putrefied and swarmed with worms,
and thus he died’ (III.12).
Such educational deaths are a feature of Philostorgius’ Ecclesiastical His-
tory, and in a later passage the death of Constans is attributed to divine
anger aroused by Constans’ zeal for Athanasius (III.22). Of course, the
fate of Arius is explained in equally providential terms in Athanasius’ De
Morte Arii. But it is ironic that Aetius of Palestinian Lydda, whose death is
blamed by Philostorgius on his acceptance of homoousios, is a man whom
Athanasius on the contrary regarded as ‘Arian’. Philostorgius’ conception
of fourth-century Christianity is in fact exactly as polarized as that of Atha-
nasius. Whereas Athanasius branded all those who opposed him as ‘Arian’,
Philostorgius defines anyone who takes a view contrary to his own as a
supporter of the Nicene Creed.
Elsewhere in the surviving fragments Philostorgius asserts that Atha-
nasius was the true instigator behind the lynching of George during the
reign of Julian ‘the Apostate’ (VII.2). He also, perhaps more surprisingly,
compares Athanasius unfavourably to Apollinaris of Laodicea and the Cap-
padocians Basil and Gregory. ‘These three men championed the homoousion
doctrine at that time in opposition to that of “other in ousia” and were so
far superior to all the other leaders of that sect before and after until my
own time that Athanasius must be reckoned a child in comparison to them’
(VIII.11a). It is a tribute to Athanasius that this ‘Neo-Arian’ writing half a

5
Philostorgius’ image of Athanasius may have been influenced by the contemporary activ-
ities of Cyril of Alexandria, whose careful organization of ‘diplomatic gifts’ to secure the aid
of allies at court against Nestorius is preserved in Cyril, Letter 96.
 Death and Legacy 167
century after the bishop’s death still regarded him as a foe worthy of such
condemnation. Philostorgius is without question a biased and frequently
inaccurate historian, and we cannot take his arguments at face value merely
because they preserve an alternative to our mainstream orthodox tradition.
Nevertheless, it does need to be said that he shares much of the material
he presents and the rhetorical devices he employs with those orthodox
sources. It is certainly not self-evident that any of the assertions that Philo-
storgius makes against Athanasius are correct. It is not always self-evident
that they are wrong.
Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret offer very different interpretations
to that of their ‘Neo-Arian’ contemporary. In comparison to Philostorgius,
they follow the orthodox tradition that glorified the Nicene Creed and
Athanasius as its champion. We are therefore tempted to view them as rep-
resentatives of a single monolithic vision of the fourth-century Church.6
All three wrote their works as continuations of the original Ecclesiastical
History of Eusebius of Caesarea (which ended in 324), and they are united
not only in their conception of orthodoxy but in the framework of events
and individuals through which they traced their histories. This may in part
reflect the sources they read, although a number of fourth-century texts
known to them have long since been lost.7 Socrates used and corrected the
Latin Ecclesiastical History of Rufinus of Aquileia, which is discussed further
below. Sozomen and to a lesser extent Theodoret in turn used Socrates. It
is hardly a surprise that their presentations of Athanasius’ career are strik-
ingly uniform. Yet that uniformity is far from complete. Socrates, Sozo-
men, and Theodoret each have their individual emphases, which shape the
image of Athanasius that they choose to depict.
Athanasius’ influence on the three historians is immediately apparent.
All follow his polarized polemic in dividing the fourth-century Church
between orthodoxy and heresy and represent Athanasius as an innocent
victim persecuted by the ‘Eusebians’ for the sake of ‘Arianism’. Their nar-
ratives of his initial trial and exile are markedly consistent (Socrates I.27–35;
Sozomen II.22–3, 25, 28; Theodoret I.25–9). This is predictable, as those
narratives were drawn from the Apologia contra Arianos and copy from the

6
This was already true in the early sixth century, when Theodore Lector epitomized their
writings together as the Historia Tripartita. For general introductions to the ecclesiastical his-
torians, see Chesnut (1986), Urbainczyk (1997, 2002), Ferguson (2005), and the relevant art-
icles in Rohrbacher (2002) and Marasco (2003).
7
One such source may have been the Ecclesiastical History of Gelasius of Caesarea, whose
influence on Rufinus and the fifth-century Greek historians has been much debated. There is
a helpful survey of these debates in Van Deun (2003: 152–60).
168 Athanasius of Alexandria
documents that Athanasius collected in his defence.8 Other Athanasian
works quoted include those on the death of Arius (Socrates I.37–8; Sozo-
men II.29; Theodoret I.13–14) and the Apologia de Fuga, a work that Athana-
sius sought to circulate widely.9 Theodoret further drew upon the Epistula
ad Afros for Athanasius’ account of Nicaea, although the status he assigns to
Athanasius at that council owes more to Gregory of Nazianzus (Theodoret
I.7; see likewise Socrates I.8; Sozomen I.17). Strikingly, none of the histor-
ians makes any use of the Orationes contra Arianos, the De Decretis, or the
Historia Arianorum.
The independent value of these three ecclesiastical historians for our
knowledge of Athanasius is limited. For eastern Christian tradition, their
importance was immense. They preserved what became the standard nar-
rative of the fourth-century controversies, drawn to a considerable degree
from Athanasius’ writings. Later authors turned to them for guidance, and
their works were epitomized and translated. Socrates in particular became
a foundational text for Syriac and Armenian Church historiography. He
completed his Ecclesiastical History in Constantinople in c.440, covering
from the reign of Constantine to 439. To modern eyes he is the most even-
handed of the historians, and memorably described the doctrinal contro-
versies as ‘not unlike a contest in the dark; for neither party appeared to
understand distinctly the grounds on which they calumniated one another’
(I.23). His scepticism, however, did not extend to questioning Athanasius’
interpretation of the ‘Arian Controversy’. In his preface to book II, Socrates
explains that he originally drew upon Rufinus while gathering material for
his work:
Afterward we perused the writings of Athanasius, wherein he depicts his own suf-
ferings and how through the calumnies of the Eusebians he was banished, and
judged that more credit was due to him who had suffered, and to those who were
witnesses of the things they describe, than to such as have been dependent on con-
jecture, and had therefore erred. (Socrates, II.1)

Socrates then revised the opening books of his work to correct Rufinus’
errors. His History is more impartial than that of Rufinus and helps us to

8
Every historian quotes the letter of Constantine II announcing Athanasius’ restoration in
337 (Apologia contra Arianos 87 = Socrates, II.3; Sozomen, III.2; Theodoret, II.1). Other docu-
ments quoted include Constantine’s letter to the bishops at Tyre (Apologia contra Arianos
86 = Sozomen, II.28) and the letters in favour of Athanasius’ return from his second exile
(Apologia contra Arianos 51–6 = Socrates, II.23). See further Barnes (1993: apps 5–7).
9
See Socrates, II.28, III.8 (where Athanasius is said to have read out his defence at the
Council of Alexandria in 362); Theodoret, I.7, II.4, II.10, II.11, II.12, II.18.
 Death and Legacy 169
flesh out a more complete outline of the course of the fourth-century con-
troversies (although his chronology is also occasionally at fault). But, given
his dependence on the bishop’s writings, he cannot provide external con-
firmation for Athanasius’ presentation of his career.
Sozomen drew heavily on Socrates (without attribution), but had his
own concerns. He too wrote in Constantinople, and his extant Ecclesiastical
History covers the period from 323 to 425. The final book appears to be
incomplete, and was probably still under preparation when Sozomen died
in c.448/9. He was capable of original research, and went back to Athana-
sius’ writings to correct at least one error that Socrates had made.10 Sozo-
men professed greater sensitivity for the theological debates than Socrates,
and, unlike his predecessor, refused to quote the Nicene Creed, which
should not be read by non-believers (I.20). His greatest interest lay in ascet-
icism. The teachings of the ascetics are hailed as ‘the most useful thing
that has been received by man from God’ (I.12), and short biographies are
provided for the leading fourth-century monks. Antony’s career is summar-
ized (I.13) and the bond between the hermit and Athanasius recognized
(II.17, II.31). Unlike Socrates, however, even in those passages Sozomen
never identifies Athanasius as the author of the Life of Antony.
Theodoret of Cyrrhus stands slightly apart from the laymen Socrates
and Sozomen. A bishop and theologian, he had a greater commitment
to and understanding of the issues at stake in the fourth-century contro-
versies. His Ecclesiastical History covers from 324 to 429 and was probably
completed in the late 440s, both from internal evidence and because Theo-
doret appears to have drawn upon Socrates but not Sozomen. He exhibits
the same dependence on Athanasius’ writings and offers the same pane-
gyrical appraisal of Athanasius’ career. But, while all the fifth-century his-
torians wrote at a time when new doctrinal questions were dividing the
eastern Church, only Theodoret was an active participant. The representa-
tion of Athanasius and ‘Arianism’ in his Ecclesiastical History was of direct
relevance to those contemporary conflicts. Theodoret claimed to uphold
the faith that Athanasius had defended. Yet he stood in opposition to Atha-
nasius’ greatest successor, Cyril of Alexandria (bishop 412–44), whom in
his letters Theodoret repeatedly denounced as the heir of Arius, Euno-
mius, and Apollinaris.11 Cyril likewise turned to the past to defend himself

10
He corrected the name Apis to Alypius from Apologia contra Arianos 60: see Socrates, I.27,
and Sozomen, II.22.
11
Theodoret, Letters 151, 167, 168, 170. In the same letters he appeals to the authority of
Athanasius and other orthodox Fathers in support of his own position.
170 Athanasius of Alexandria
and condemn his foes. Athanasius’ theology and his reputation as a cham-
pion of orthodoxy made him an important figure of authority in the fifth-
century controversies, and this had significant consequences for his legacy
within eastern Christianity.
The theological debates of the fourth century had not ceased with Atha-
nasius’ death or with the Council of Constantinople in 381. In the fifth
century discussion centred upon the humanity and divinity of Christ and
the relationship of the two natures in the Incarnation. This is not the place
for an in-depth assessment of the Christological controversies.12 But even
the briefest glimpse reveals striking similarities to the debates of the pre-
ceding century. The issues involved were once again fundamental to the
Christian faith and focused around the promise of salvation for humanity
through the Incarnate Christ. The different positions held were not as starkly
separated as our polemical sources suggest, and all participants appealed
to the support of Scripture and the traditional faith of the Church. This
last argument played a more influential role in the fifth century.13 Fourth-
century writers did, of course, emphasize their agreement with past tradi-
tion, as Athanasius does most obviously in the De Decretis and De Sententia
Dionysii. Basil of Caesarea in his work On the Holy Spirit was the first to pre-
pare a detailed florilegium to reinforce his case, a compilation of extracts
drawn both from the Fathers and from Scripture. In the fifth century, flori-
legia and appeals to the Fathers became ever more important. One of the
greatest Fathers in the eyes of fifth-century Christians was Athanasius.
In 428/9 Cyril of Alexandria clashed with Nestorius of Constantinople
over the latter’s refusal to use the term Theotokos (‘God-bearer’) for the
Virgin Mary. For Nestorius, such language threatened to blur the distinct
humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ and to deny that Christ was fully
man. For Cyril, to describe Mary as Theotokos was an essential statement
of the unity of Christ’s humanity and divinity, a unity that he believed was
challenged by Nestorius’ teachings. Both men appealed to Christian tradi-
tion to support their arguments and abuse their opponents. Nestorius was
eventually condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, but this did not
end the debates. Cyril died in 444, and at the Council of Chalcedon in 451
Christ was said to be ‘in two natures’, human and divine, united without
confusion. Those who rejected this conclusion and maintained that Christ

12
There are good recent assessments in McGuckin (2004) and Wessel (2004).
13
For the role of tradition and the appeal to the Fathers in the formation of Christian iden-
tity in the fourth and early fifth centuries, see Graumann (2002).
 Death and Legacy 171
had just one nature (mia physis), a formula used by Cyril, are known in
modern scholarship as Monophysites or Miaphysites. Over the following
centuries they came to form separate churches in Egypt, Syria, Armenia,
and elsewhere.14
Athanasius featured prominently on every side of these debates. Unfor-
tunately, as was also true of Scripture, appeal to Athanasius’ authority could
not resolve the questions under dispute. As we have seen, his theology
placed great emphasis on the humanity and divinity of Christ and their
role in salvation. But his Christological language was sufficiently imprecise
by later standards that everyone could turn to him for support. Nestorius
and his friend Theodoret quoted Athanasian works just as freely as Cyril
of Alexandria.15 The situation was further complicated by the existence
of edited versions of Athanasius’ writings and of pseudonymous works
attributed to his name. Cyril was aware of corrupted texts of the Letter to
Epictetus being circulated by his opponents in the early 430s.16 It is therefore
somewhat ironic that Cyril derived his famous expression ‘one nature [mia
physis] of the Word incarnate’ from a work that he believed was written
by Athanasius but was in fact a pseudonymous Apollinarian text, the De
Incarnatione Dei Verbi.17
Nevertheless, Cyril’s representation of himself as the natural successor
of Athanasius was a major factor in his eventual triumph.18 Against the
rival claims of Nestorius, Cyril turned to Athanasius for proof that his own
theology was the traditional orthodox faith. We see this argument in his
Letter to the Monks of Egypt, written in 429 near the onset of the contro-
versy. No one should doubt that the title Theotokos is appropriate to the
Virgin, for ‘the divine disciples handed on this faith to us even if they did
not make mention of the term’ (4). Cyril’s defence of the unscriptural Theo-
tokos recalls Athanasius’ justification for homoousios. And he immediately
invokes Athanasius to reinforce his argument:

14
On the reinterpretation of Christian tradition that took place during the debates sur-
rounding Chalcedon, see further Gwynn (2009) and other articles in the same volume. The
classic overview of the emerging ‘Monophysite’ churches in the fifth and sixth centuries
remains Frend (1972).
15
Athanasius’ works are cited repeatedly in the patristic florilegia of Nestorius’ Bazaar of
Heracleides and Theodoret’s Eranistes (as well as in the latter’s Historia Ecclesiastica).
16
Cyril, Letters 39 (to John of Antioch) and 45 (First Letter to Succensus of Diocaesarea).
17
On Apollinarian (or apparently Apollinarian) elements in Cyril, see still Galtier (1956).
Cyril first used the formula ‘one incarnate nature of God the Word’ in the preface to his sec-
ond book Against Nestorius.
18
For discussion, see Wessel (2004: esp. 126–37).
172 Athanasius of Alexandria
We have been taught to think this way by the holy Fathers. Our Father Athana-
sius, of illustrious memory, was an ornament to the throne of the Church of
Alexandria throughout forty-six years in all. He opposed an unconquered and
apostolic wisdom to the sophistries of the evil heretics, and refreshed the whole
world with his own writings as if they were some most fragrant balsam. His ortho-
doxy and godliness in teaching are confessed by all, and he composed a book for
us concerning the holy and consubstantial Trinity where, throughout the third
discourse, he calls the holy virgin the Mother of God. I will make use of his own
sayings. (4)

Cyril quotes two passages from the third Oratio contra Arianos (III.29 and
33). He then continues:
This man is trustworthy and we ought to rely upon him as someone who would
never say anything that was not in accordance with the sacred text. For how could
such a brilliant and famous man, held in such reverence by everybody at the holy
and great Council itself (I mean that which formerly gathered together in Nicaea)
be mistaken as to the truth? At that time he did not occupy the episcopal throne,
but was still only a cleric. Nonetheless because of his shrewdness, his purity of
life, and his sharp and incomparably penetrating mind, he was taken along on that
occasion by bishop Alexander of blessed memory, and he was to the old man like
a son to a father, guiding him in everything useful and admirably showing him the
way in all he did. (4)

Cyril’s vision of Athanasius at Nicaea parallels the accounts in Gregory

and the ecclesiastical historians, while his emphasis on Athanasius’ rela-
tionship with Alexander is a recurring theme of the Coptic Egyptian tra-
dition. Glorifying Athanasius glorified the see that Cyril now held, and
was an appropriate theme for a letter addressed to the loyal Egyptian
ascetics, who followed Cyril as they had followed Athanasius. Cyril simi-
larly exploited Athanasius’ reputation in the wider Church, particularly
the ties he had forged between Alexandria and the west. Thus he secured
the support of Celestine of Rome, just as Athanasius had won over Julius
against the ‘Eusebians’, and led the bishops who condemned Nestorius at
Ephesus in 431.
No less than his predecessor, Cyril is a historical figure of great com-
plexity. His involvement in ecclesiastical politics and his use of the
Egyptian monks as ‘shock troops’ for his cause have given him a negative
reputation in some modern eyes. Yet, like Athanasius, Cyril was also a
committed ascetic and theologian. The doctrine of the Incarnation that
he taught moved beyond that of Athanasius in his conception of the rela-
tionship between Christ’s humanity and divinity expressed through the
 Death and Legacy 173
19
communication of idioms. In his focus upon the theology of salvation
and his pastoral awareness, however, Cyril was Athanasius’ worthy heir.
For the bishops gathered at Chalcedon, and for subsequent Christian
generations, he attained an equally exalted status. The two Alexandrians
were recognized by Chalcedonians and Miaphysites alike as twin pillars
of orthodoxy and Fathers of the Church.

ATHANASIUS IN THE LATIN WEST

From the time of his first involuntary visit to the western regions of the
Roman Empire following his exile to Trier in 335, Athanasius found friend-
ship and support in the Latin-speaking Church. His years in Italy and Gaul
from 339 to 346 strengthened those bonds, and in the 350s defence of
Athanasius and defence of the Nicene Creed became inseparable for many
western bishops. Athanasius built a particularly close relationship between
Alexandria and Rome, which Cyril exploited to his advantage, while the
authority of his name elsewhere in the west in his later years is reflected in
the Epistula ad Afros.
Later generations of Latin Christianity, like their counterparts in the
Greek east, remembered Athanasius as the heroic champion of orthodoxy
and as a propagator of asceticism. To a greater degree than in the east, how-
ever, the western memory of Athanasius became increasingly separated
from the bishop’s original writings and historical context. Relatively few of
Athanasius’ Greek works were widely read or translated into Latin.20 His
apologetic writings and doctrinal treatises held limited value in the west,
even though so-called ‘Germanic Arianism’ endured there far longer than in
the east. The key exception, as we would expect, was the Life of Antony, the
one Athanasian text that did circulate across the western churches. Outside
of ascetic contexts, Athanasius was only occasionally cited by the great
Latin fathers of the late fourth and early fifth centuries. It is, therefore, per-
haps unsurprising that throughout the Middle Ages Athanasius would be
best known in the west for a creed that he did not write.

19
In addition to McGuckin (2004) and Wessel (2004), on Cyril’s theology see McKinion
(2000), Russell (2000), and the articles in Weinandy and Keating (2003). For the argument that
Cyril owes as much or more to the theology of Gregory of Nazianzus as to that of Athana-
sius, see Beeley (2009).
20
Simon (1991); C. Müller (2010).
174 Athanasius of Alexandria
Hilary of Poitiers (c.300–c.368) was hailed in some later western circles
as the ‘Athanasius of the west’.21 His career does bear a certain resemblance
to that of the Alexandrian. After entering the episcopate in c.353, Hilary
was exiled under controversial circumstances following the Council of
Béziers in 356 (although he was not apparently condemned at that council).
He came east to Phrygia and attended the Council of Seleucia in 359 before
returning to his see in 360. Hilary’s writings are an important albeit difficult
source for the complex events of the mid-350s. In addition to defending his
own legitimacy as bishop, Hilary sought to inform the western churches
of the contemporary doctrinal controversies as he understood them. He
wrote against the Balkan bishops Ursacius and Valens and against Constan-
tius (after an initial appeal to the emperor had failed), an account of the
recent church councils (De Synodis), and his major work, De Trinitate.
Athanasius and Hilary do have much in common. Hilary strongly
opposed the campaigns to rally the western Church against Athanasius in
the 350s, and Athanasius fully shared Hilary’s hostility to Ursacius, Valens,
and (eventually) Constantius. Although Hilary wrote that he had ‘never
heard the Nicene Creed until about to be exiled’ (De Synodis 91), he pro-
vides one of the earliest explicit western statements of Athanasius’ reputa-
tion as the innocent champion of Nicaea:
Athanasius, deacon at the Council of Nicaea and subsequently bishop of Alexan-
dria, had stood forth, therefore, as the forceful instigator of this creed’s publication
to all. Holding fast to truth he had vanquished the Arian plague in the whole of
Egypt and when witnesses conspired against him on that account, a false set of
charges was prepared. (Hilary, Against Valens and Ursacius I.IX.6, in 356)22

In the light of their similarities, it is thus rather striking that Athana-

sius makes no reference to Hilary anywhere in his extant writings. More-
over, despite the respect that Hilary showed for Athanasius, there is little
indication of Athanasian influence on his theology. During his time in the
east, Hilary became an associate of Basil of Ancyra and the group known
rather inaccurately as the ‘Homoiousians’. Recent studies of Hilary’s De
Trinitate have emphasized the impact of Basil rather than Athanasius, and
this led some extreme western Nicenes such as Lucifer of Cagliari to regard

21
For his life, see Borchardt (1966) and Brennecke (1984). On Hilary’s theology and his role
in the doctrinal controversies, see now Weedman (2007) and Beckwith (2008).
22
There is a translation of Against Valens and Ursacius with a detailed introduction in
Wickham (1997).
 Death and Legacy 175
Hilary as ‘Arian’. This may help to explain Athanasius’ silence, given his
praise for other westerners who defended his cause, including Lucifer and
Hilary’s ally Eusebius of Vercellae. Whatever the cause, Hilary’s writings
set a pattern for Athanasius’ legacy in the west, admiration for the Alexan-
drian’s defence of Nicaea but little detailed knowledge of his thought and
writings.
Shortly before his death, Hilary launched a failed attack on the leading
Homoian bishop in the west, Auxentius of Milan. Athanasius too repeatedly
denounced Auxentius as ‘Arian’ and continued to do so as late as the Epis-
tula ad Afros and the Letter to Epictetus. Auxentius still held on to his see until
his own death in 373/4. His successor, the governor of Aemilia-Liguria,
who was hastily baptized and promoted through the clerical ranks, was
Ambrose (bishop of Milan 373/4–97).23 One of the leading figures in the
history of Latin Christianity, Ambrose masterminded the condemnation
of ‘Arianism’ at the Council of Aquileia in 381 and resisted pressure from
the western imperial court in support of the Homoians. His theological
and ascetic writings and sermons influenced Augustine of Hippo among
many others and included De Fide ad Gratianum, De Spiritu Sancto, and De
Virginitate.
Ambrose’s accession to the episcopate followed very closely upon Atha-
nasius’ death, and the impact of Athanasius on Ambrose is difficult to assess.
Unlike many of his western contemporaries, Ambrose read Greek fluently
and had certainly studied a number of Athanasius’ writings. However, he
rarely acknowledges such debts. His treatise on virginity draws heavily on
Athanasius’ works on the same theme,24 and the anti-‘Arian’ polemic of De
Fide closely echoes Athanasian rhetoric.25 Yet Athanasius is not mentioned
by name in either work. Ambrose was fully aware of Athanasius’ repu-
tation, and cites Athanasius’ appeal to the west as a precedent to justify
western support for Maximus of Constantinople (the Egyptian who was an
unsuccessful candidate for that see in 381).26 But overall Athanasius is not
a prominent figure in Ambrose’s writings, a judgement that holds true for
the other two members of the great triumvirate of late-antique Christian-
ity in the west: Jerome and Augustine.

23
On Ambrose, see McLynn (1994) and D. H. Williams (1995b).
24
Particularly Athanasius’ first Letter to Virgins: Duval (1974).
25
On this Ambrosian work, and specifically the context and purpose of De Fide III–V, which
were later additions to books I–II and have more Athanasian influence, see D. H. Williams
(1995a: 524–31; 1995b: 128–53).
26
For the context and translation of the letters, see Liebeschuetz (2005).
176 Athanasius of Alexandria
Before we turn to those two much-debated figures, we should consider
one further contemporary writer who played a central part in the trans-
mission of Athanasius’ legacy to the western Church: Rufinus of Aquileia
(c.345–410).27 Born in Italy, Rufinus came to Egypt around 373 and was
in Alexandria to witness the persecution after Athanasius’ death and the
election of Peter II.28 He travelled widely among the Egyptian ascetic com-
munities and then lived for many years in Jerusalem before returning to the
west in 397. Having settled in Aquileia near where he was born, Rufinus
translated Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History into Latin in 402 at
the request of his bishop Chromatius, who sought moral support for the
Christians of Aquileia under threat from Alaric and the Goths. He then
wrote his own continuation of Eusebius covering from 324 to 395. We have
seen that Rufinus was read by Socrates and Sozomen in the Greek east, and
in the west he exerted a powerful influence, notably on the historical writ-
ings of Augustine and Augustine’s disciple Orosius.
Athanasius is the hero of much of book X, the first of the two books
of Rufinus’ continuation of Eusebius. He is introduced as a deacon at
Nicaea, aiding Alexander of Alexandria with his advice (X.5). His author-
ship of the Life of Antony is praised (X.8), as too is his ordination of Fru-
mentius as the first bishop of Ethiopia (X.10). But Rufinus deliberately
postpones a detailed account of Athanasius’ career until after he has
reported the death of Constantine (X.12) in order to separate Athanasius’
sufferings from the reign of the first Christian emperor. Only then does
Rufinus present the story of Athanasius’ childhood discussed in my open-
ing chapter, to lead into his narrative of Athanasius’ endurance on behalf
of the faith.
The whole world conspired to persecute him and the princes of the earth were
moved, nations, kingdoms and armies gathered against him. But he guarded that
divine utterance which runs: ‘If camps are set up against me, my heart will not
fear, if battle is waged against me, in him will I hope’ [Psalm 27:3]. But because
his deeds are so outstanding that their greatness does not allow me to omit any of
them, yet their number compels me to pass over very many, and thus my mind is
troubled by uncertainty, unable to decide which to keep and which to pass over. We
shall therefore relate a few of the pertinent matters, leaving the rest to be told by
his fame. (X.15)

27
In addition to the general studies on the ecclesiastical historians cited earlier, see in
particular Thelamon (1981).
28
Rufinus describes the persecution in Ecclesiastical History XI.2–4: ‘I speak of what I was
there to see and I report the deeds of those whose sufferings I was granted to share’ (XI.4).
 Death and Legacy 177
This panegyrical tone is maintained throughout Rufinus’ work, with
significant implications. As the ‘Arians’ feared that Athanasius might draw the
new emperor Constantius towards the true faith, they conspired against him
and even showed the emperor the arm that they claimed Athanasius had cut
from the body of Arsenius for magical purposes (X.16). Athanasius was sum-
moned to trial at the Council of Tyre (X.17), but Arsenius came forward alive
and unharmed, and the woman who was to accuse Athanasius of violating
her accused his presbyter Timothy by mistake. Nevertheless, the council still
condemned Athanasius (X.18). Now a fugitive pursued by the whole power
of the empire, Athanasius hid for six years in a dry cistern without seeing
the sun (X.19). Finally he withdrew from the realm of Constantius and came
to the latter’s brother Constans in the west. Constans threatened to restore
Athanasius by force, and Constantius allowed the bishop to return until his
brother’s death. Athanasius was then driven again from Alexandria, and after
Constantius had conquered the west he demanded that the western bishops
condemn Athanasius and endorse ‘Arianism’ (X.20).
It is striking that so inaccurate a narrative could be composed less than
a generation after Athanasius’ death by a serious scholar who had lived in
Alexandria. Rufinus has moved the Council of Tyre to the reign of Constan-
tius to avoid blaming Constantine for Athanasius’ original condemnation.
He has likewise merged Athanasius’ first and second periods of exile, while
adding a legendary version of the six years of ascetic concealment from
his third exile. The underlying interpretation of Athanasius’ career is the
bishop’s own, with repeated ‘Arian’ conspiracies against the innocent cham-
pion of orthodoxy. But Rufinus’ chronological and factual errors, which
were already criticized by Socrates, mark an important stage in the separa-
tion of the hagiographical Athanasius from the historical bishop of Alexan-
dria. Nor was Rufinus exceptional among educated Latin Christians of his
time in his lack of in-depth knowledge of the earlier fourth century, at least
on the evidence provided by the writings of Jerome and Augustine.
Jerome (c.347–420) was another highly controversial figure, both in his
lifetime and in modern scholarship.29 For his knowledge of Athanasius we
can turn in the first instance to the entry that Jerome composed in 392/3 in
his De Viris Illustribus (On Illustrious Men):
Athanasius bishop of Alexandria, hard pressed by the wiles of the Arians, fled to
Constans emperor of Gaul. Returning thence with letters and, after the death of

29
Introductions to Jerome’s life and writings can be found in Kelly (1975) and Rebenich
(2002).
178 Athanasius of Alexandria
the emperor, again taking refuge in flight, he remained in hiding until the accession
of Jovian, when he returned to the church and died in the reign of Valens. Various
works by him are in circulation: two books Against the Nations, one Against Valens
and Ursacius, On Virginity, very many On the Persecutions of the Arians, also On
the Titles of the Psalms and the Life of Antony the monk, also Festal epistles and
other works too numerous to mention. (De Viris Illustribus 87)

Elsewhere in the same work Jerome refers to Gregory of Nazianzus’

oration in honour of Athanasius (117) and identifies his friend Evagrius
of Antioch as the Latin translator of the Life of Antony (125). The entry on
Athanasius does not reveal any deep knowledge, although it is necessarily
brief, and we cannot assume that Jerome had actually read the writings he
lists. He did have a grasp on the major events of Athanasius’ career. This is
confirmed by his continuation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Chronicle to cover
the period 327–78, in which he praised the Alexandrian bishop as one of
those who resisted heretical emperors in defence of orthodoxy. There is,
likewise, some slight evidence for Athanasian influence on Jerome’s the-
ology and exegesis. He drew on Athanasius’ polemical construction of
‘Arianism’ in his Against the Luciferians, the work that contains Jerome’s
notorious declaration that, after the Council of Constantinople in 360 had
adopted the Dated Creed, then ‘the whole world groaned, and was aston-
ished to find itself Arian’ (19). But, although aware of the Tomus ad Anti-
ochenos, Jerome disliked the three hypostases formula, and was not prepared
to follow Athanasius in admitting that those who held such a view could be
orthodox ( Jerome, Letter 15, to Damasus of Rome).
Neither Athanasius’ ecclesiastical career nor his theology, however, lay at
the heart of Jerome’s admiration for him. Jerome was committed above all
to asceticism, and played a crucial role in the promotion of ascetic ideals in
the west. So too did Athanasius, and this Jerome fully recognized. Marcella,
an older member of the circle of ascetic Roman women who gathered
around Jerome in the early 380s before his departure for Bethlehem, is said
to have become interested in the desert fathers through meeting Athana-
sius and later Peter of Alexandria during their periods of exile ( Jerome,
Letter 127.5). Given that Marcella would have been perhaps 10 or 12 when
Athanasius was in Rome in 339–42, any close contact appears improbable.
But Marcella, like many westerners of similar interests, must have read
the Life of Antony, and possibly other Athanasian ascetic writings.30 Jerome
encouraged such reading, including in his treatise on the education of a

30
See further Letsch-Brunner (1998).
 Death and Legacy 179
young Christian virgin the recommendation that she study ‘the letters of
Athanasius’ (Letter 107.12).31
Admiration for Athanasius’ contribution to the ascetic movement not-
withstanding, Jerome could not resist challenging the prestige of Antony
and of Athanasius’ Life. In the Life of Paul the First Hermit, Jerome maintained
that Antony should not be held as the original model for the anchoretic
lifestyle.32 That place should, on the contrary, be awarded to the Egyptian
hermit Paul, who died before Antony and from whom Antony received
instruction. No external evidence supports the existence of Paul as a his-
torical figure, and, whatever the truth, Jerome’s Life of Paul is a further
testimony to the influence of the Life of Antony. For Jerome as for later gen-
erations of western ascetics, Athanasius provided inspiration and a model,
although Jerome did modify some traits of the Athanasian Antony, notably
when he insisted that Paul (unlike Antony, but like himself ) received an
excellent education.
Jerome’s slightly younger contemporary Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
was a very different man in career and personality.33 He did not possess
the linguistic attainments of Jerome or share the opportunity to live in the
eastern Mediterranean, and to this extent his exposure to the writings of
Athanasius may have been more limited. On the other hand, Augustine’s
experiences as a bishop gave him more in common with the Alexandrian
than Jerome, while Augustine fully shared their abiding interest in asceti-
cism. No analysis of Augustine’s vast corpus can hope to be comprehensive.
The rapid assessment offered here suggests that Augustine, like Jerome,
had a basic knowledge of Athanasius’ career and reputation, but was most
familiar with the latter’s ascetic contribution inevitably represented by the
Life of Antony.
There are very few references to Athanasius in Augustine’s numerous
theological and exegetical works, and little indication of Athanasian
influence. Athanasius is not mentioned in Augustine’s magnum opus, the
City of God, and perhaps more surprisingly not in the De Trinitate written
during Augustine’s anti-‘Arian’ campaign in the later years of his episco-
pate.34 Augustine recognized Athanasius’ standing as the enemy of ‘Arian-
ism’, and reports that some ‘Arians’ ‘called catholics “Athanasians” ’ (Contra

31
For the possible influence of Athanasius’ teachings on virginity upon Jerome’s ascetic
Letter 22, see Adkin (1992).
32
On this work and its relationship to the Life of Antony, see Rebenich (2000).
33
The classic study remains that of Brown (2000); see also Lancel (2002).
34
On the De Trinitate, see Gioia (2008). There is a basic introduction to Augustine’s anti-
‘Arian’ campaigns in Sumruld (1994).
180 Athanasius of Alexandria
Julianum (Opus Imperfectum) 1.75.2). But he felt no real need to engage with
Athanasius’ arguments directly. One rare citation is given in Augustine’s
letter of instruction to Fortunatianus in 413/14, when he invokes ‘the very
blessed Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria’ in support of the equal invisibility
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit against those who teach that only the Father
is invisible (Letter 148.10). Later in the same letter Augustine includes Atha-
nasius with Ambrose, Jerome, and Gregory of Nazianzus as the writers he
has read (148.15). But the debt he owes to the two Latin fathers is by far the
greater, and, to the extent that there is an eastern influence on his thought,
the main source is Gregory not Athanasius.
We gain a similar impression from the few passing comments that Au-
gustine makes concerning Athanasius’ ecclesiastical career. He understood
that Athanasius was the victim of ‘Arian’ persecution and endured periods
of exile, but this is the limit of his knowledge, and it is extremely unlikely
that he was familiar with Athanasius’ apologetic writings at first hand. Late
in his life, Augustine wrote a letter to his fellow bishop Honoratus on the
question of whether a bishop should flee his city to avoid attack (Letter
228).35 Honoratus had cited Scripture to justify the decision to flee: ‘When
they persecute you in one town, flee to the next’ (Matthew 10:23). Augus-
tine countered with new arguments from Scripture and insisted that flight
was justified only when the bishop was the chief target of attack and his
congregation could still be ministered by others. One example of this is
the Apostle Paul escaping from Damascus. Another is Athanasius fleeing
from Constantius (228.6). He left his people in good hands and rightly pre-
served himself. ‘The whole catholic world knows how necessary it was to
the Church that he should do so, and how useful was the prolonged life
of the man who by his word and loving service defended her against the
Arian heretics’ (228.10). This appears to be all that Augustine knows of
the context of Athanasius’ flight, and he is unaware of Athanasius’ argu-
ments in the Apologia de Fuga. Nevertheless, the two great bishops were in
essential agreement, and Athanasius would have approved of Augustine’s
own decision to remain within Hippo when his city came under Vandal
attack just before his death.
This leaves the one Athanasian work that there is no doubt that Augus-
tine knew very well indeed. Like Ambrose and Jerome, Augustine shared
the ascetic enthusiasm of his age. A key moment in his conversion to ascet-
icism was his discovery of the Life of Antony, and exceptionally we are even

35
The letter is quoted by Possidius in his Life of Augustine 30.
 Death and Legacy 181
informed how this revelation occurred. While Augustine and his friend
Alypius were living in Milan in 386, before their final decision to commit
their lives fully to Christianity, they were visited by a fellow North African
named Ponticianus:
He began to tell us the story of Antony, the Egyptian monk, whose name was
held in high honour by Your servants, although Alypius and I had never heard it
until then. When Ponticianus realized this, he went into greater detail, wishing to
instil some knowledge of this great man into our ignorant minds, for he was very
surprised that we had not heard of him. For our part, we too were astonished to
hear of the wonders You had worked so recently, almost in our own times, and wit-
nessed by so many in the true faith and in the catholic Church. (Confessions VIII.6)

Ponticianus went on to recount how two associates of his dedicated

themselves to serving God after reading the Life of Antony in Trier.36 Augus-
tine did not immediately make the same resolution, nor would he follow
the anchoretic path of Antony. The inclusion of this episode in book VIII of
the Confessions, however, reaffirms the impact that the story had on Augus-
tine during his spiritual journey that culminated in the Garden of Milan.37
In later years Augustine would continue to turn to Antony as a source of
inspiration for himself and others.38 It is no small tribute to the legacy of
Athanasius that his work played such a role in the formation of one of the
leading minds of Latin Christianity.
For Augustine, as for all the western churchmen discussed in the pre-
ceding pages, the memory of Athanasius of Alexandria inspired respect
and admiration. His heroic commitment to the cause of orthodoxy made
him a model for others to follow, and the rhetorical power of his anti-‘Arian’
polemic aided those who faced similar heretical challenges. But deep and
genuine respect did not require close knowledge of Athanasius’ ecclesias-
tical career or theology. The orthodoxy that he stood for was represented
by the Nicene Creed. His doctrinal treatises, even the Contra Gentes–De
Incarnatione, were less relevant to a Latin audience than in the east, and
the specific nuances of his teachings did not need to be preserved. The

36
For the romantic but very unlikely suggestion that one of these men was Jerome, see
Courcelle (1950:181–5). Athanasius resided in Trier 335–7 and may have contributed to the
city’s rise as a monastic centre.
37
See the thorough discussion in Stock (1996: 98–111).
38
In his De Doctrina Christiana (Preface 4), Augustine urges his readers to study the Scrip-
tures and cites the example of Antony, who was unlearned (as claimed in Athanasius’ Life)
but committed the Scriptures to memory and understood them through listening and
meditation.
182 Athanasius of Alexandria
only Athanasian work that we can demonstrate maintained a widespread
circulation was the Life of Antony, which after its early translation into Latin
remained essential reading in western monasticism.
There was one other ‘Athanasian’ text that circulated as widely as the Life
of Antony in the early medieval west. It has been known for centuries that
the so-called Athanasian Creed (or Quicunque from its opening word) has
no connection whatsoever to the Alexandrian bishop.39 Understandably, the
creed has therefore played little or no part in modern Athanasian studies.
Yet for over a thousand years this was the work that the majority of Latin
Christianity associated most strongly with Athanasius’ name. It is a docu-
ment of fundamental importance to the western legacy of Athanasius, and
deserves to be quoted in full.
Whoever desires to be saved must above all things hold the catholic faith. Unless a
man keeps it in its entirety inviolate, he will assuredly perish eternally.
Now this is the catholic faith, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity
in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance. For the
Father’s person is one, the Son’s another, the Holy Spirit’s another; but the God-
head of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is one, their glory is equal, their
majesty coeternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, such also the Holy Spirit. The Father is
increate, the Son increate, the Holy Spirit increate. The Father is infinite, the Son
infinite, the Holy Spirit infinite. The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy
Spirit eternal. Yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal; just as there are not
three increates or three infinites, but one increate and one infinite. In the same way
the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Spirit almighty; yet there are not
three almighties, but one almighty.
Thus the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God; and yet there are not
three Gods, but there is one God. Thus the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, the Holy
Spirit Lord; and yet there are not three Lords, but there is one Lord. Because just
as we are obliged by Christian truth to acknowledge each person separately both
God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the catholic religion to speak of three Gods
or Lords.
The Father is from none, not made nor created nor begotten. The Son is from
the Father alone, not made nor created but begotten. The Holy Spirit is from the
Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding. So there is
one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three
Holy Spirits. And in this Trinity there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or
less, but all three persons are coeternal with each other and coequal. Thus in all

39
The standard English work remains Kelly (1964), which traces the scholarly history of
the creed and provides the translation quoted here. See also Drecoll (2007).
 Death and Legacy 183
things, as has been stated above, both Trinity in unity and unity in Trinity must be
worshipped. So he who desires to be saved should think thus of the Trinity.
It is necessary, however, to eternal salvation that he should also faithfully believe
in the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the right faith is that we should
believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is equally both God
and man.
He is God from the Father’s substance, begotten before time; and he is man
from his mother’s substance, born in time. Perfect God, perfect man composed of
a rational soul and human flesh, equal to the Father in respect of his divinity, less
than the Father in respect of his humanity.
Who, although he is God and man, is nevertheless not two but one Christ. He is
one, however, not by the transformation of his divinity into flesh, but by the taking
up of his humanity into God; one certainly not by confusion of substance, but by
oneness of person. For just as rational soul and flesh are a single man, so God and
man are a single Christ.
Who suffered for our salvation, descended to hell, rose from the dead, ascended
to heaven, sat down at the Father’s right hand, whence he will come to judge living
and dead; at whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies, and will render
an account of their deeds; and those who have behaved well will go to eternal life,
those who have behaved badly to eternal fire.
This is the catholic faith. Unless a man believes it faithfully and steadfastly, he will
not be able to be saved.

The original author of the Quicunque creed remains a subject for debate.
The language of composition was Latin, and the theology is post-Athanasian
(particularly in Christology) and western in the double procession of the
Spirit. Our earliest definite witness appears to be Caesarius of Arles (bishop
502–42), and the creed was probably composed in southern Gaul in the late
fifth or early sixth century. Caesarius promoted the Quicunque as an aid
for the instruction of catechumens and clergy alike. Canon 1 of the Second
Council of Autun in Burgundy in c.670 required that all clergy should be
able to recite ‘the Faith of the holy primate Athanasius’ without error. The
creed featured prominently in the Carolingian period, and was in wide-
spread educational and liturgical use until its identification with Athanasius
came under attack in the mid-sixteenth century. Even then the Quicunque
still found champions until the twentieth century, when uncertainty over
the authorship and distaste for the dogmatic fundamentalism of the open-
ing and closing lines saw the creed fall into neglect.
In the memory of western Christianity, the prominence of Athana-
sius owed much to the false attribution of the Athanasian Creed, perhaps
almost as much as to the Life of Antony. It is perhaps ironic that a work
that he did not write helped to preserve Athanasius’ legacy and indeed to
184 Athanasius of Alexandria
promote many of the theological values that he had fought to defend. The
fundamental doctrines of the Quicunque are teachings that Athanasius
upheld. The equality and unity of the persons of the Trinity are strongly
maintained, but so too are their individual identities. The Incarnate Christ
is fully God and fully man, and therein lies our salvation. However erro-
neous its attribution to him may be, the fact that this enormously influen-
tial and popular creed acquired his name is too important to ignore. For the
Latin west no less than for the Greek east, Athanasius remained a symbol
of orthodoxy for future generations and an integral figure in the concept
of Christian tradition that bound the later Church to the patristic age.

ATHANASIUS IN SYRIAC TRADITION

Syriac Christianity has preserved an enormous volume of literary material,

both translations from Greek and original Syriac language compositions,
and I cannot attempt to do justice to this great tradition here. In addition
to the works of Athanasius preserved in Syriac manuscripts, the Alexan-
drian bishop features prominently in Syriac histories of the early Church.
His prominence opens a rare window of opportunity. The Syriac tradition
is extremely diverse, for Syriac Christianity came to be divided between
Chalcedonian and Miaphysite churches and the Church of the East (often
inaccurately described as the ‘Nestorian Church’). Did this diversity impact
upon the Syriac memory of Athanasius?
In terms of Syriac historiography, the answer would seem to be no.
This is significant. Despite the theological differences that split the Syriac
churches, the image of Athanasius preserved in Syriac historical texts is
remarkably uniform. To cite two examples from many, take the East Syrian
Barhadbesabba of ‘Arbaya’s Ecclesiastical History: Stories of the Holy Fathers
who were Persecuted on Behalf of the Truth40 and the West Syrian Chronicle of
Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre.41 These works differ dramatically in form
and ideology. Barhadbesabba, who wrote in the late sixth century, was a
representative of the Church of the East, and his Ecclesiastical History, like
the Coptic History of the Patriarchs, is a collection of biographies rather
than a historical narrative. Pseudo-Dionysius, whose identity remains
uncertain but who is dated to the eighth century, compiled his Chronicle in

40
Nau (1913, 1932).
41
Chabot (1949), with discussion in Witakowski (1987).
 Death and Legacy 185
a more annalistic style and represented a Miaphysite view of the Christian
past. Yet, for the fourth century, the two authors share the same pool
of knowledge, and their interpretations follow very similar lines. They
derived their information from the Greek ecclesiastical historians, particu-
larly Socrates,42 and are content to endorse Athanasius as the champion of
orthodoxy, even if they each understand ‘orthodoxy’ in their own way.
Where the diversity of Syriac Christianity does impact upon Athana-
sius, however, lies in the complex manuscript transmission of the Syriac
Athanasian corpus. This corpus has proved of the utmost value to modern
editors of Athanasius’ writings, for the surviving Syriac corpus is the oldest
Athanasian collection now extant.43 But, unlike the Greek corpora of Atha-
nasius’ writings, the Syriac collection omits his major polemical and doc-
trinal works.44 The works that later Syriac generations found most valuable
were, on the contrary, Athanasius’ letters and ascetica. Moreover, a number
of Athanasius’ writings in Syriac reveal editing, particularly in the light
of the Christological debates following the Council of Chalcedon. The
eighth-century Syriac Athanasian corpus is Chalcedonian, with a number
of passages inserted in favour of a two-nature doctrine of Christ. Unfor-
tunately, the corpus’ editor was apparently unaware that several of the
texts he included (three of which are Apollinarian rather than Athanasian)
had already been edited by an earlier Syriac scribe with Miaphysite ten-
dencies.45

ATHANASIUS IN ARMENIAN TRADITION

The literary tradition of Armenian Christianity is perhaps less diverse

than the Syriac tradition but no less worthy of study. In the centuries after
the Council of Chalcedon, the Armenian Church became predominantly
Miaphysite. This influenced both the Armenian preservation of Athana-
sius’ writings and his place in Armenian historiography. Even more than

42
No Syriac translation of Socrates survives intact, but, on the Syriac witnesses to Socrates’
text, see further Hansen (1995: pp. xxxi–iii). There is little indication that either Barhadbesabba
or Pseudo-Dionysius knew Athanasius’ apologetic-historical writings at first hand.
43
The single Syriac Athanasian corpus dates to the eighth century, whereas the oldest
extant Greek corpus belongs to the tenth century; see further Thomson (1963, 1965–77).
44
The Syriac ‘Short Recension’ of Athanasius’ De Incarnatione survives in a separate manu-
script dated to 564 (Vatican Syr. 104). On the significance of this text, see Thomson (1964;
1971: pp. xxiv–ix).
45
Thomson (1963).
186 Athanasius of Alexandria
in Syriac, the Armenian Athanasius was reworked to serve a context far
removed from fourth-century Egypt.
Athanasius plays no role at all in the greatest formative work of the early
Armenian historical tradition, the eighth-century History of the Armenians
of Moses Khorenats‘i.46 Moses’ History is focused almost exclusively on the
region of Armenia, and the Alexandrian bishop does not appear. When
Moses does refer to the wider fourth-century Christian context, he, like
Barhadbesabba or Pseudo-Dionysius in Syriac, derives his knowledge from
the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates translated into Armenian in the sixth
century.47
Whereas the Syriac authors were content to summarize Socrates’
account of Athanasius, however, the Armenian tradition went further.
Shortly before the time of Moses Khorenats‘i, in the late seventh century,
the so-called ‘Shorter Socrates’ was compiled. This was an Armenian
adaptation of Socrates’ Ecclesiastical History, which abridged sections of
the text but also added material not found in the original.48 A number of
those additions concern Athanasius, and reflect the image of the saint that
the Armenian author wished to construct. Athanasius is repeatedly empha-
sized as a moral and orthodox champion, who ‘with his peace-loving
teaching advised and taught a life of virtue’ (III.10, 234). He is also credited
with the composition of a creed (not the western Athanasian Creed), in
which he proclaimed the Incarnation of the Son, who is ‘without seed from
the Virgin, and mingles the unmingled in the womb ineffably and incom-
prehensibly’ (III.10, 238). This is the language not of Athanasius, but of
the Christological controversies of the seventh century, during which the
‘Shorter Socrates’ was compiled.
The same process of adaptation is reflected in the Armenian manuscript
transmission of Athanasiana. Like the older Syriac corpus, the Armenian
corpora of Athanasius’ writings omit his major polemical and doctrinal
works.49 And, like the Syriac corpus, the Armenian material has been
edited in the light of the later Christological debates. The Armenian text
of Athanasius’ Letter to Epictetus provides a glimpse of how such editorial

46
Thomson (1978).
47
Thomson (1978: 36–8). The Armenian translation of Socrates contributed significantly
to the modern critical edition of Socrates’ text: see Hansen (1995: pp. xxv–xxxi).
48
Thomson (2001), from which the translations here derive.
49
There are three extant Armenian corpora of Athanasian writings, dating from approxi-
mately the ninth to the fourteenth centuries; see Casey (1931). They do not derive from any
known Greek corpus or from the extant Syriac corpus.
 Death and Legacy 187
50
intervention could occur. The original Letter included the reading that
‘the body that the Word indwelt was not co-essential with the Godhead but
truly born of Mary, and the Word himself was not converted into flesh and
bones’ (Letter to Epictetus 8). In one Armenian version, Athanasius’ teachings
were converted into an explicit affirmation of the later Cyrillian doctrine of
the Theotokos and the indissoluble union of the natures of Christ.51
For the body was united to the Word, and the divinity of the Word and the body
were not one nature, but it was truly born from the holy Mother of God, Mary; and
it was not that the Word of God was altered and changed into a body, but the Word
was indissolubly united to his body which He took from the Virgin; and the uniting
shows the indissolubility and unity of the natures.52

ATHANASIUS IN COPTIC TRADITION

Athanasius was held in high regard by all the diverse traditions of eastern and
western Christianity in the centuries after his death. For the Coptic Church
of Egypt, however, the great bishop of Alexandria possessed a special import-
ance. Alongside his eventual successor Cyril, Athanasius was venerated as
the founding father of late-antique Egyptian Christianity. Our knowledge of
early Coptic literature is fragmentary, and much of our evidence survives in
later translations from lost Coptic language writings.53 But what does survive
provides an essential insight into Athanasius’ achievement and his legacy.
The earliest Coptic historical text of which traces still exist is the His-
tories of the Church.54 This anonymous work probably reached its final form
in the episcopate of Timothy Aelurus (bishop of Alexandria 457–77), while
drawing upon earlier sources.55 Today, the fragments of the Coptic Histories

50
See Casey (1933) and Thomson (1965).
51
In the words of Thomson (1965: 47): ‘The Athanasius known to the Armenians was
different from the Athanasius familiar to modern Patristic students. He was known as one
who had spent his life fighting the dyophysites, dedicated to the cause: “one nature of the
incarnate Word”.’
52
Quotation from Thomson (1965: 52).
53
For an introduction to the evidence and the issues involved in the study of Coptic litera-
ture, see Orlandi (1986) and Emmel (2007).
54
See Orlandi (1968a), Johnson (1973, 1977), and most recently Orlandi (2007).
55
One of those sources may have been the History of the Episcopate of Alexandria recently
identified by Camplani from a new Ethiopian manuscript. Camplani (2006) has proposed that
this text may have been compiled in the late fourth century, shortly after the death of Atha-
nasius, although the extant fragments cut off in the early fourth century and do not cover
Athanasius’ episcopate.
188 Athanasius of Alexandria
are largely preserved in Arabic translation in the most important extant
witness to the Coptic historiographical tradition: the History of the Patri-
archs of Alexandria.56 The History of the Patriarchs was compiled by a series
of scribes across almost a millennium. In contrast to the Greek ecclesias-
tical historians, the Coptic scribes composed a collection of biographies
focused upon Egypt and Alexandria not a universal Christian narrative.57
The section that includes the life of Athanasius depends heavily on the
earlier Histories but attained its present form in the late eleventh century.
Our other leading representative of Coptic historiography is the seventh-
century Chronicle of John of Nikiu.58 John almost certainly wrote in Coptic,
but his Chronicle survives only in a late Ethiopic translation of an Arabic
translation of the original. He draws upon a number of shared traditions
with the History of the Patriarchs, although he had access to other now lost
sources and his factual knowledge of Athanasius’ career is superior.
We saw in my opening chapter that the History of the Patriarchs describes
the young Athanasius holding doggedly to his ascetic principles against
the pleas of his pagan mother. Eventually she brought the youth before
Alexander, who baptized him and oversaw his upbringing. The Coptic
tradition places particular emphasis on the relationships between differ-
ent bishops of Alexandria, and later stories associated Athanasius with his
future successor Theophilus as well as Theophilus more naturally with his
nephew Cyril.59 Even so, the bond between Athanasius and Alexander is pre-
sented as being especially close. Once Athanasius’ education was complete,
Alexander ‘made him his scribe, and he became as though he were the
interpreter of the aforesaid father, and a minister of the word which he
wished to utter’ (HPA PO 1:408). Immediately after this statement, the His-
tory of the Patriarchs offers a dramatic account of the conflict between Alex-
ander, Athanasius, and Arius that led to the heresiarch’s death.
When the emperor Constantine died, his son Constantius was corrupted
by Arius. Constantius therefore summoned Alexander from Alexandria to
Constantinople and asked him to restore Arius. Athanasius accompanied

56
Text and translation by Evetts (1907–15). On the complex history and chronology of this
work, see den Heijer (1989).
57
There is no indication that any of the fifth-century Greek ecclesiastical histories were
ever translated into Coptic, unlike in the Syriac and Armenian traditions.
58
Translation by Charles (1916).
59
In the History of the Patriarchs, Theophilus is Athanasius’ secretary and companion
(HPA PO 1:425). John of Nikiu (Chronicle 79) recounts another probably legendary story of
how Athanasius met Theophilus and his sister (the mother of Cyril) and supervised their
upbringing.
 Death and Legacy 189
Alexander to the imperial court as ‘his interpreter and scribe and mouth-
piece’ (HPA PO 1:409), and refuted Arius in debate until Arius withdrew. The
next day, Arius bribed the royal attendants not to allow Athanasius to enter
the debating room, but Alexander refused to speak, for ‘how shall I speak
without a tongue?’ (HPA PO 1:410). Athanasius was now allowed to enter,
and Arius fled and remained condemned. After Alexander of Alexandria
had died, Arius then appealed again to Constantius for aid and demanded
that he be received by bishop Alexander of Constantinople. When this
Alexander tried to resist, Arius presented a creed that falsely concealed his
heresy, and Alexander agreed that he would receive Arius into the priest-
hood the following Sunday. Arius came to the church, dressed in his finest
garments, but during the reading he had to leave to relieve himself: ‘all his
bowels gushed out from his body’ and he died (HPA PO 1:411–13).
This account of the famous death of Arius bears careful analysis. The
reported debate in which Athanasius represented Alexander of Alexandria
against Arius in the presence of Constantius is entirely absent from the
Greek historical tradition. It is also chronologically impossible. Alexander
died in 328 and Constantius succeeded his father in 337. The episode rein-
forces the History of the Patriarch’s depiction of Athanasius as the ‘tongue’
of Alexander, an image known elsewhere from Egyptian writings.60 In
addition, by placing the recall of Arius in the reign of Constantius, the
History of the Patriarchs protected the reputation of Constantine, who is
praised repeatedly as the defender of Nicaea but who was in fact respon-
sible for Arius’ return from banishment after 325. John of Nikiu followed
the same principle, alleging that Arius is said to have appeared in the days
of Constantius, who attached himself to the heresy (Chronicle 78.5). The
Coptic tradition is not alone in protecting Constantine in this manner, for,
as we have seen, the recall of Arius is similarly falsely attributed to Constan-
tius by Rufinus, an error (almost certainly deliberate) that was corrected
by Socrates.
Arius’ clash with Alexander of Constantinople in the History of the Patri-
archs is closer to the version found in the Greek ecclesiastical historians,
although here too there are differences. Most notably, the History of the
Patriarchs describes Arius actually attending the church on the day of his
death, scented and perfumed and dressed in all his finery, and only then

60
In the c.sixth-century Coptic text of Pseudo-Dioscorus, Panegryic on Macarius of Tkôw,
Dioscorus prays to Athanasius ‘let your spirit be doubled upon me, for this is the crucial time
when I have need of the tongue of the elder, Alexander’ (13.2–3) (translation from Johnson
1980).
190 Athanasius of Alexandria
having to leave to relieve himself. In the Greek versions, Arius died in a
procession before he could enter the church, and according to Socrates
(I.39) the place of his death was commemorated at the rear of the Forum
of Constantine. These differences may be minor, but they are significant.
All the narratives originally drew their material from the same common
source: Athanasius’ description of Arius’ death in the De Morte Arii and the
Encyclical Letter to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya. The later Greek and Cop-
tic writers took from Athanasius the essential elements—the resistance of
Alexander of Constantinople, Arius’ deceptive creed, and the description
of his actual death—but felt free to embellish the story and add their own
details.
In the History of the Patriarchs, the death of Arius is followed by a short
narrative of Athanasius’ episcopate under Constantius. To support the
friends of Arius, the emperor sent George of Cappadocia with five hun-
dred horsemen to seize the bishopric of Alexandria. They killed the fol-
lowers of Athanasius in his church, and Athanasius went into hiding. After
six years, ‘Athanasius showed himself, and went to the prince, thinking that
he would kill him, and that he would receive the crown of martyrdom’.
Constantius set Athanasius adrift alone in a small boat, but the waves car-
ried him to Alexandria, where the clergy and people received him with
joy, and he expelled George. Seven years later, a new rival named Gregory
came, bringing with him two thousand soldiers. Athanasius was arrested
and almost killed, but he escaped with Liberius, bishop of Rome, and Dio-
nysius, bishop of Antioch. He remained with Liberius until Constantius’
death, and Constantius’ orthodox son Constans then restored Athanasius
to his see (HPA PO 1:413–15).
The chronological and historical problems raised by this narrative are
almost too numerous to mention. The arrival of George as bishop of Alex-
andria occurred in February 357, a full year after Athanasius had fled into
hiding following the attack on the Church of Theonas on the night of 8/9
February 356. His return six years later was made possible by the death of
Constantius and the accession of Julian, and George was lynched by the
pagans of Alexandria not expelled by Athanasius. The claim that Athana-
sius surrendered himself to Constantius for execution directly contradicts
Athanasius’ own denial of voluntary martyrdom in his Apologia de Fuga,61

61
For the importance of persecution and martyrdom to the self-identity of the later Coptic
Church, which styled itself as the ‘Church of the Martyrs’, see Papaconstantinou (2006).
 Death and Legacy 191
while the story that Constantius set Athanasius adrift appears to be a con-
ventional hagiographic legend.62 The joyful response of the Alexandrians
may recall the welcome that Athanasius received on his return from his
second exile in 346. That exile had seen Athanasius replaced by Gregory,
whose episcopate is wrongly placed in the History of the Patriarchs after that
of George rather than before. Liberius was indeed an ally of Athanasius in
the 350s under Constantius, together with Dionysius (who was bishop of
Milan not of Antioch). But the reference to Constans, who was Constan-
tius’ brother and died in 350, is again confused. The only instance in which
the son of an emperor restored Athanasius upon his father’s death was
Constantine II in 337.
I have catalogued these errors at some length, for they shed valuable
light on the nature of Coptic historiography. The account of Athanasius’
life in the History of the Patriarchs has little or no narrative or chrono-
logical cohesion.63 To a degree, this is equally true of the relevant section
of the Chronicle of John of Nikiu, although John is able to identify Constans
as Constantius’ brother rather than his son and correctly places both the
attack on Athanasius in his church and the exile of Liberius of Rome after
Constans’ death (Chronicle 78.11–22). Neither the History of the Patriarchs
nor John of Nikiu ever refers to Athanasius’ original condemnation and
exile under Constantine after the Council of Tyre in 335, which forms the
essential background to Athanasius’ experiences under Constantius. Nor is
either apparently aware of how the relationship between Athanasius and
Constantius fluctuated throughout the 340s and 350s, from imperial favour
to open hostility. The wider context of Athanasius’ life, described in detail
by the Greek ecclesiastical historians, played only a marginal role in the
Coptic tradition of their great fourth-century bishop.64

62
The same combination of hagiography and history occurs in the Coptic Life of Athana-
sius and Encomium of Athanasius edited by Orlandi (1968b), again drawing on material from
the Coptic Histories of the Church.
63
According to the History, Athanasius was bishop for forty-seven years, of which he
passed the first twenty-two in exile and conflict and the final twenty-five in tranquillity and
peace (HPA PO 1:416). The forty-seven years date Athanasius’ episcopate incorrectly from 326
rather than 328, while the division of those years into conflict and peace is at best rhetorical.
The earlier statement in the History that Athanasius was exiled three times and that his third
exile lasted eleven years (HPA PO 1:404) must likewise be rejected.
64
The minimal attention paid in these works to Athanasius’ long theological struggle with
those he condemned as ‘Arian’ contrasts markedly with the life of Cyril presented in the His-
tory of the Patriarchs, which is dominated by his ongoing debate with Nestorius and quotations
from his polemical writings (HPA PO 1:432–43).
192 Athanasius of Alexandria
To modern eyes, this may seem surprising. It is certainly notable that the
Greek ecclesiastical historians display a far more extensive knowledge of
Athanasius’ apologetic writings, from which they drew their material, than
do their Coptic counterparts. Yet the historical inaccuracy of the presenta-
tion of Athanasius’ career in these Coptic texts must not cause us to over-
look the true value of this Athanasian tradition. The Coptic Church showed
very limited interest in Athanasius’ polemic, and did not even collect trans-
lations of his apologetic or theological works into corpora.65 Instead, the
Athanasian writings that dominate our Coptic evidence are precisely those
writings that either do not survive in Greek or were ignored by the Greek
ecclesiastical historians. Near the end of Athanasius’ biography in the His-
tory of the Patriarchs, the bishop is said to have written ‘many homilies
and treatises’ (HPA PO 1:422). The works then named are not Athanasius’
apologetic or theological writings. They are the Life of Antony, the Festal
Letters, and an otherwise unknown work on virginity.66 Other Athanasian
or pseudo-Athanasian writings known in Coptic reflect the same ascetic
and pastoral concerns, including the moral homilies preserved (rightly or
wrongly) in his name and the undoubtedly pseudonymous Life of Syncletica
and the 107 Canons of Athanasius.67
For our knowledge of the events and controversies of Athanasius’ life-
time, his own writings and to a lesser degree the Greek ecclesiastical his-
torians remain our primary resource. But the evidence that the Greek
tradition provides can never fully explain Athanasius’ ultimate triumph.
Across the long and often difficult years of his episcopate, Athanasius
united the diverse communities of Christian Egypt under his leadership
and redefined the authority of the Alexandrian see. It is the memory of
this achievement that the Coptic tradition above all preserves. The Athana-
sius who dominates Coptic historiography, and whose works that tradition
valued, was not a controversialist but an ascetic and pastoral leader. It is an
image encapsulated in the final vision of Athanasius recalled by John of
Nikiu, the spiritual bishop guiding and protecting his flock:

65
This is not to deny the importance of Athanasius in Coptic theological tradition, on
which see further Davis (2008).
66
The content of this work, the only Athanasian text quoted at any length in the History
(HPA PO 1:405), closely parallels Athanasius’ first Letter to Virgins, which likewise survives only
in Coptic. See Brakke (1994a: 37–8).
67
For the homilies, see Orlandi (1981). For the Life of Syncletica and the Canons, see respect-
ively Bongie (1998) and Riedel and Crum (1904).
 Death and Legacy 193
In those days [the reign of Emperor Valens] there appeared a miracle through the
intervention of the apostolic Saint Athanasius, the father of the faith, patriarch of
Alexandria. When the sea rose against the city of Alexandria and, threatening an
inundation, had already advanced to a place called Heptastadion, the venerable
father accompanied by all the priests went forth to the borders of the sea, and
holding in his hand the book of the holy Law he raised his hand to heaven and said
‘O Lord, Thou God who liest not, it is Thou that didst promise to Noah after the
flood and say: “I will not again bring a flood of waters upon the earth.” ’ And after
these words of the saint the sea returned to its place and the wrath of God was
appeased. Thus the city was saved through the intercession of the apostolic Saint
Athanasius, the great star. ( John of Nikiu, Chronicle 82.21–3)
This page intentionally left blank
 Conclusion

Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of Alexandria was patient

of labour, jealous of fame, careless of safety; and, although his mind was
tainted by the contagion of fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority of
character and abilities which would have qualified him, far better than the
degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government of a great monarchy.
(Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire (1776–88), ch. 21)

Athanasius was a truly lovable man. That he was not flawless—that his
words could be somewhat too sharp in controversy, or somewhat unreal in
addressing a despot, that he was not always charitable in his interpretation of
his adversaries’ conduct . . . this may be, and has been, admitted; but after all,
and looking at the whole man, we shall not be extravagant if we pronounce
his name to be the greatest in the Church’s post-apostolic history.
(William Bright, Dictionary of Christian Biography (1877), 202)

If the violence of Athanasius leaves fewer traces in the surviving sources

than similar behaviour by later bishops of Alexandria like Theophilus, Cyril,
and Dioscorus, the reason is not that he exercised power in a different way,
but that he exercised it more efficiently and that he was successful in present-
ing himself to posterity as an innocent in power, as an honest, sincere and
straightforward ‘man of God’.
(Timothy Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius (1993), 33)

Harnack’s assessment is probably the most balanced: that judged ‘by the
standard of his time, we can discover nothing ignoble or mean about him’.
( John Behr, The Nicene Faith (2004), 167, quoting Adolf von Harnack (1898))

Athanasius of Alexandria has divided modern opinions just as surely as he

divided those of his contemporaries. The story of his life has been a source
of inspiration for some, a cautionary tale for others. In later Christian
tradition Athanasius’ reputation stood secure. He was the champion of
196 Athanasius of Alexandria
orthodoxy, the defender of the Nicene faith against the ‘Arian heresy’. Even
Edward Gibbon, a man rarely moved to praise a Christian saint, acknowl-
edged Athanasius’ gifts while deploring his fanaticism. Today, in the early
years of the twenty-first century, Athanasius’ legacy still shines brightly. But
darker interpretations have gathered in strength. Ecclesiastical politics and
polemic have seemed more relevant to many modern eyes than theology
and asceticism, and older praises now read uncomfortably like hagiograph-
ical hero worship. The evidence presented in the preceding chapters can
support a variety of different verdicts, and whatever judgement one makes
will shed light on Athanasius but also on the judge.
This book is not a traditional biography. My hope is that readers will
decide for themselves what manner of man they believe Athanasius was
and what lessons they will learn from his example. As an embattled bishop,
he possessed the courage and strength to endure years of persecution and
exile. His methods may at times have been violent, and his misrepresen-
tation of his foes resembles rather too closely the partisan rhetoric of a
modern politician. Yet the convictions that drove Athanasius rose far above
personal ambition and desire for power or fame. Despite the trials he faced,
we never hear Athanasius question his faith or doubt his duty to God and
to those who looked to him for leadership. It was that duty to which he
dedicated his life.
No student of Athanasius would question the sincerity or depth of his
religious beliefs. But, for those of us who live in an increasingly secular
world, Athanasius’ devotion to Christian doctrine and his admiration for
ascetic renunciation can appear alien and even dangerous. The complex
questions that split the fourth-century Church no longer strike a chord
with modern audiences. It is all too easy to dismiss such concerns as incom-
prehensible and irrelevant, the domain of a theological and monastic elite.
An integral part of Athanasius’ genius, however, lay in his capacity to
bridge the gulf that threatened to separate just such an elite from the wider
Christian population. The orthodox faith that he fought to defend was not
an arcane formula but confirmation of the salvation promised to humanity
through the Incarnation. The virtues of asceticism were not the exclusive
preserve of a holy man such as Antony but could be emulated by every
believer in his or her own measure. Athanasius’ pastoral concern thus drew
together the ecclesiastical, theological, and ascetic challenges that he faced
and laid the foundation for his eventual triumph.
Athanasius was a bishop and a theologian, an ascetic and a pastoral
father. Each of these roles merits careful attention, and each offers a dif-
ferent vision of Athanasius from which the modern viewer can learn. But,
 Conclusion 197
as we have seen throughout this volume, these roles were never mutually
exclusive. On the contrary, they were inseparable from each other. What-
ever judgements we may draw from his life and writings, all these elements
are equally essential to our understanding of Athanasius as an individual.
He was a product of his times, and his career offers a valuable insight into
the great formative period of Late Antiquity. Like other great men and
women of history, he also transcended his times, and continues to teach
lessons from which later generations may benefit.
This page intentionally left blank
 Bibliography
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 Index of Athanasian Texts
Apologia ad Constantium 13–14, 42, 43, 29: 67
45–6, 48, 127, 139 35: 67–8
14: 139 46: 70
17: 139 De Incarnatione
33: 127 1: 68
Apologia contra Arianos 8–10, 26–8, 77, 3: 155.n.33
122, 167–8 8: 71
85: 27 9: 68
3–19: Encyclical Letter of the Council 13: 68
of Alexandria (338) 9, 25–6, 16: 69
31–2, 122, 137–8 18: 71
5: 32 30: 40
6: 25 54: 69
18: 137
19: 32 De Decretis Nicanae Synodi 11–12, 17, 43,
21–35: Letter of Julius of Rome to 52, 55, 82, 86–90, 100, 168, 170
the Eastern bishops (340/1) 9, 2: 86
34–5, 83 19: 88
35: 34.n.35 20: 87, 88
42–50: Encyclical Letter of Western 21: 89
Serdica (343) 9, 35–6 27: 89
47: 35–6 De Morte Arii 9, 13, 33, 124, 166,
86: Letter of Constantine to the 168, 190
Bishops assembled at Tyre 3: 33
(335) 29, 168.n.8 De Sententia Dionysii 12, 82, 89, 170
86: 29 De Synodis Arimini et Seleuciae 14–15,
Apologia de Fuga 13, 43, 45–7, 168, 17, 45, 49, 52, 55–6, 60, 76–7,
180, 190 83, 95–8, 100
24: 43 15 (Arius, Thalia): 61
25: 47 16 (Arius, Letter to Alexander): 60,
61, 81
Contra Gentes-De Incarnatione 6, 12, 40, 22 (First Creed of Antioch,
55, 65–72, 74, 77, 93, 101, 103, 341): 83
143, 146, 178, 181, 185.n.44 23 (Second (‘Dedication’) Creed of
Contra Gentes Antioch, 341): 83–4, 85.n.45
1: 66 41: 95
2: 67 54: 96
218 Index of Athanasian Texts
Encyclical Letter to the Bishops of Egypt Letter XIII (341): 33
and Libya 13, 45–6, 52, 82–3, 1: 33
95, 190 Letter XIX (347): 38–9, 141
5: 82 1: 38
8: 82 8: 38
19: 82–3 9: 141
22: 46 10: 38
Epistula ad Afros 16–17, 52, 100–1, 168, Letter XXXIX (367): 16, 52, 132,
173, 175 148.n.23, 152–7
10: 52.n.63 7: 153
Epistula Catholica 16, 50, 96 11: 153
Epistula Encyclica 9–10, 32, 77, 123 14: 153
4: 138 15: 154
16: 154
Festal Letters 4.n.3, 6–8, 11, 16, 22, 26, 17: 154
28, 33, 37, 45, 52, 112, 117, 19: 154
131–57, 178, 192 20: 154
Letter I (329): 7–8, 121–2, 132–5, 137, 23: 155
143, 146 24: 155
1: 132–3, 143 28: 155
3: 133 32: 156
4: 134 Letter XL (368): 127.n.49
6: 134 First Letter to the Monks (Ad
7: 134 Monachos) 9.n.16, 33, 123–5
11: 135 First Letter to Virgins 11, 105, 112–15,
Letter IV (332): 7–8, 27, 136–7 122–3, 125, 148–9, 175.n.24,
1: 136 192.n.66
3: 137 3: 112
Letter V (333): 7–8, 143, 146–7 8: 114
2: 143 13: 112
4: 147 14: 112–13
Letter VI (334?): 8, 140–1, 143–4, 147 16: 113
1: 144 17: 113
12: 140–1, 147 18: 114–15
Letter X (338): 31, 144–5, 147–9 24: 122
1: 31 40: 114
4: 147–8 42: 123
8–9: 144–5 43: 123
Letter XI (339): 145
10: 145 Historia Arianorum 13–14, 43–6, 48–9,
Letter ‘XII’ (Letter to Serapion, 337 or 52, 124, 127, 138, 168
339/40): 39.n.42, 141–2 13: 32.n.32
1: 141 33: 48
 Index of Athanasian Texts 219
44 (Ossius of Cordova, Letter to Life of Antony 15, 44, 47, 52, 82, 105–6,
Constantius II): 48 107–9, 117–19, 128–30, 150,
59: 127 160, 169, 173, 176, 178–82, 183,
61: 138 192
81 (Letter of the catholic Church of 3: 108
Alexandria): 44 5: 118
14: 119
Letter to Adelphius of Onuphis 17, 56, 16: 118
101–2 30: 118
4: 101 67: 128
5: 101 68: 128–9
Letter to Amoun 105, 116–17, 124–5, 69: 129
149, 150.n.28 71: 129.n.54
Letter to Dracontius 11, 39, 105, 74: 119
125–6 82: 129
Letter to Epictetus of Corinth 17, 52–3, 87: 119
56, 72, 101–3, 171, 175, 186–7 90: 128.n.52
5: 102 91: 130
6: 102 92: 130
8: 187 94: 117
10: 102
Letter to Jovian (Letter LVI) 16, 49, On the Moral Life 116
51, 100 2: 116
1: 51 7: 116
2: 100 10: 116
4: 100 On Sickness and Health 149.n.27
Letter to Marcellinus 149–52 On Virginity 11, 105, 115–16
1: 150 10: 115
2: 150 17: 116
11: 150 Orationes contra Arianos 10, 13, 34, 45,
12: 150–1 55, 60, 72–6, 76–82, 86–7, 89,
13: 151 90, 145–6, 168, 172
18: 151.n.29 I.2–3: 77–8
33: 152 I.9: 72–3, 78
Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit I.16: 73
14–15, 56, 90–3 II.9: 81
I.17: 58.n.3 II.18: 81.n.40
I.20: 91 II.70: 73
I.25: 90–1 III.4: 70.n.24
I.27: 91 III.24: 74
I.28: 91–2 III.29: 76
I.29: 92 III.32: 74
I.30: 92 III.33: 74
220 Index of Athanasian Texts
Second Letter to the Monks 5: 97
124–5, 129 6: 97
Second Letter to Virgins 11, 105, 115 7: 99
4: 115 8: 98
23: 115
Pseudonymous works
Tomus ad Antiochenos 16, 50–1, 56, Fourth Oratio contra Arianos
96–100, 164, 178 10.n.18
4: 50–1 On Virginity 115.n.28
 Index of Biblical Citations
Old Testament 14:10 75
Genesis 18:38 153
14:14 63 Acts
Exodus 1:18 33
3:14 91 Romans
15:1 136 1:25 129
Psalms 6:9 144
5:3 147 8:32 119
27:3 176 8:37 144
45:7–8 75 9:5 91
82:6 73 14:2 148
136:1 43 1 Corinthians
Proverbs 1:10 96
8:22 10, 75, 76, 3:2 147–8
81, 87 3:16 73
12:20 88 5:8 156
Isaiah 7:38 115
49:8 143 15:10 118
2 Corinthians
New Testament 6:14 129
Matthew 6:16 73
10:23 180 11:3 154
11:27 153 Ephesians
13:1–23 148 1:3 38
19:21–2 108 4:5 96
22:21 48 4:6 91
26:39 75 6:12 133
28:19 92 Philippians
Mark 2:9–10 75
4:1–20 148 4:13 144
13:32 75 Colossians
Luke 1:15 63
8:1–15 148 1 Timothy
23:18 153 3:15 156
John Hebrews
1:14 155 1:3 63
5:39 76 5:14 148
10:30 75 2 Peter
14:9 73, 75 1:4 73, 101
 General Index
Abraham (Biblical) 63, 140 support for Athanasius in 6, 8–9,
Adelphius of Onuphis (bishop) 56, 101 11–13, 15–17, 25–6, 31–2, 37,
Aetius (theologian) 94 39–41, 43–4, 49–50, 109, 129,
Aetius of Lydda (bishop) 166 131, 137–40, 149, 162, 190–1,
agennētos (unbegotten) 60–1, 79, 81, 193
89, 144 violence in 12, 15–16, 20, 32, 35–6,
Alexander of Alexandria (bishop) 1–6, 43–5, 49, 123, 127–8, 138, 140,
23–5, 60–3, 77–8, 114, 122–3, 165, 190
139, 172, 188–9 Ambrose of Milan (bishop) 175, 180
Athanasius and 1–6, 24–5, 62–3, on Athanasius 113.n.22, 175
77–8, 81, 114, 122–3, 139, 156, Ammon (monk) 149
172, 176, 188–9 Amoun (monk) 116–17, 125
conflict with Arius 4–5, 6, 21, 24–5, angels 75, 112, 116
60–3, 65, 77–8, 79, 81, 90, 92, Anomoians (‘Neo-Arians’) 94,
121, 188–9 165, 166
Encyclical Letter 5, 24, 27, 62–3, 78 anomoios 94, 165, 166
Alexander of Byzantium/ Antioch 22, 51
Constantinople (bishop) 24, schism in 16, 50–1, 53, 96–9
62, 189–90 Antony (monk) 15, 47, 106, 107–9, 110,
Alexander of Thessalonica (bishop) 111, 117–19, 120–1, 128–30,
24, 62 169, 179, 181, 196
Alexandria 1, 12, 20–5, 31–3, 37, 39–40, ascetic model 106, 107–9, 110, 111,
43–4, 49, 109, 111, 122, 129, 113.n.23, 113.n.24, 117–19,
137–40, 162, 176, 193 120–1, 128–30, 150, 179, 181,
Baucalis 24 196
Caesareum 40, 44, 139 Athanasius’ presentation of 15, 47,
Church of Dionysius 32, 165 107–9, 117–19, 128–30, 179, 196
Church of Theonas 12, 32, 43–4, 47, opposition to ‘Arians’ and
139–40, 190 Melitians 31, 52, 122, 128–30
episcopal power before Athanasius Apollinaris of Laodicea
1–6, 12, 20–5, 47, 121, 188 (theologian) 10.n.18, 99, 102,
legacy of Athanasius in 17, 19, 22–3, 166, 169
34, 40–1, 53–4, 121, 130, 160, Apollinarian writings 171, 185
169–73, 187–8, 193, 195 Apostles 91–2, 96, 126, 153, 159
opposition to Athanasius in 6, 8–9, ‘Arian Controversy’ 4–5, 55–6, 59,
11–13, 15–16, 25–6, 30, 32–3, 60–5, 76–85, 86–90, 94–5, 161,
35–7, 43–5, 49, 123, 137–8, 165, 163–4, 166, 167–9, 173, 174,
190–1 175, 177, 178, 179–80, 195–6
 General Index 223
Athanasius’ construction of 5, 9–15, cenobitic 105, 106–7, 109–11, 119,
17, 24, 27, 31, 35–6, 45–6, 49, 124, 128, 132, 156, 163
55–6, 59, 62–5, 72, 75, 76–85, origins in Egypt 106–11
85–90, 93, 95–6, 100–1, 124, see also monks, virgins
129, 142–5, 156, 161, 163–4, Asclepas of Gaza (bishop) 35
167–9, 174, 177–80, 195–6 Asia Minor 5, 16, 24
‘Germanic Arianism’ 173 Asterius ‘the Sophist’ (theologian)
Arius (Alexandrian presbyter) 4–6, 10, 79
9–10, 13–15, 21, 23–5, 27, 59–64, theology 78–9, 84, 85.n.45
65, 77–83, 87, 121, 188–90 Athanasius of Alexandria (bishop) passim
death 9–10, 13, 33, 124, 166, 168, childhood and education 1–4, 131,
188–90 162, 176, 188
polemical representation of 4, 9–10, death and legacy 2–3, 5, 17, 53–4, 59,
13–15, 24, 33, 48, 51, 59–64, 65, 76, 89, 106, 136, 159–93, 195–7
77–83, 87, 95, 124, 145.n.21, and imperial power 8, 12–16, 26–30,
163, 169, 188–90 30–2, 35.n.36, 37, 40, 41–2,
theology 4, 9–10, 59–64, 77–83, 90, 47–9, 51–2, 86, 100, 136–7, 139,
92, 99 165–6, 168.n.8, 174, 176–7, 180,
Letter to Alexander of Alexandria 188–91, 195
60–1, 81 and Nicaea 5–6, 11–12, 14–16, 25,
Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia 60–1 42–3, 46, 50–2, 55, 59, 65, 82–3,
Thalia 10, 60–1, 78, 83 85–90, 92, 95–8, 100, 102, 142,
Armenia 171, 185–7 160–1, 163, 165, 167–8, 172,
Athanasius in Armenian 173–6, 181, 196
tradition 4.n.3, 11.n.20, 105, ascetic principles 3, 11, 15, 19–20,
115, 160, 185–7 33, 39, 54, 56, 72, 93, 103, 105–6,
Arsenius (Melitian bishop) 27–8, 39, 111–30, 131, 134, 142, 146–52,
163, 165, 177 159–60, 163, 188, 192, 196
asceticism 2, 15, 23–4, 33, 57, 105–30, episcopal career 1–3, 6–17, 19–20,
146–52, 159–60, 169, 172, 175, 24–5, 25–54, 56, 65–6, 72, 106,
176, 178–9, 180–1, 182, 196 120–30, 131–2, 135–40, 155–7,
Athanasius’ engagement with 3, 159–60, 162–4, 190–1, 195–7
4, 11, 15, 19–20, 33, 39, 41, 44, pastoral convictions 6–7, 19–20,
54, 56–7, 72, 93, 103, 105–6, 26, 39–41, 44, 54, 56, 72, 92–3,
111–19, 120–30, 131–2, 134, 103, 111–19, 120–1, 122, 125–6,
142, 146–52, 159–60, 131–57, 159, 163–4, 173, 192–3,
163, 188, 192, 196 196
Athanasius’ influence upon 4, 11, polemic against ‘Arianism’ 5, 9–15,
15, 33, 105–6, 113, 121, 130, 17, 24, 27, 31, 35–6, 45–6, 49,
142, 149, 160, 161, 169, 172, 55–6, 59, 62–5, 72, 75, 76–85,
173, 175–82, 185, 192 85–90, 93, 95–6, 100–1, 124,
eremitic 105, 106–9, 110, 111, 113, 129, 142–5, 156, 161, 163–4,
119, 128, 163, 179 167–9, 174, 177–80, 195–6
224 General Index
Athanasius of Alexandria (cont.) charity 19, 108, 109, 118, 119, 125.n.47,
theology of salvation 55–6, 66–76, 135, 137–8
80–2, 85, 90–3, 101–3, 111, 114, Athanasius’ promotion of 112, 118,
119, 125, 133, 142–6, 147–8, 119, 135, 137–8, 151
151, 154, 171, 183–4, 196 competition over 32–3, 39–40, 137–8
see also Index of Athanasian Texts Christological Controversies 17, 55–6,
Augustine of Hippo (bishop) 2, 71–2, 99, 101–3, 160, 169–73,
36.n.39, 136, 175, 176 183, 185–7
on Athanasius 130, 152.n.30, 175, Church of the East (‘Nestorian’
177, 179–81 Church) 184–5
Auxentius of Milan (bishop) 52–3, Clement of Alexandria
100, 175 (theologian) 21, 24
Constans (emperor 337–50) 12, 25, 35,
Balacius (duke) 130 37, 41, 166, 177, 190–1, 195
Balkans 30, 35, 42, 174 Constantine I (emperor 306–37) 1, 5,
baptism 21, 92–3, 96, 116, 12, 20, 24, 30, 35, 41.n.47, 60,
138–9, 142 63, 83, 168, 176, 188, 189, 195
Athanasius and 1, 3, 92–3, 96, 111, and Athanasius 8, 27–30, 47–9, 136,
116, 188 137, 165, 176
Basil of Ancyra (bishop) 35–6, 94–6, and Council of Tyre 8, 27–30, 47–9,
174–5 165, 168.n.8, 177, 191
Basil of Cappadocian Caesarea (bishop) and Council of Nicaea 5–6, 20, 48,
14, 65, 92, 162, 166, 170 63–5, 86–7, 189
letters to Athanasius 16, 53 Athanasius’ presentation of
bishops 1–3, 19–20, 20–5, 25–54, 56, 47–8, 136
120–30, 131–2, 135–40, 155–7, impact of conversion 1–2, 19–20,
162–4 40, 47, 49, 57, 66, 105, 107, 109,
Athanasius as model 3, 17, 53–4, 135, 138.n.11, 159
106, 136, 159–61, 162–4, 170–3, Constantine II (emperor 337–40) 12,
174, 176–82, 184, 185, 186–7, 25, 30, 35, 49, 168.n.8, 191, 195
187–93, 195–6 Constantinople 3, 29–30, 31, 162, 163,
monk-bishops 11, 39, 54, 105–6, 164, 168, 169
110–11, 120–1, 125–7, 149 Arius’ death in 9–10, 33, 188–90
pastoral duties of 19–20, 32–3, Constantius II (emperor 337–61)
39–40, 54, 119, 120–1, 125–6, 12–14, 15, 25, 30–2, 35, 41–2,
131–57, 159, 163–4, 192–3 47–9, 50, 52, 83, 86, 94–5,
96, 126, 164, 166, 174, 177,
Cappadocian Fathers 14, 53, 65, 71, 92, 188–91, 195
98–100, 103, 160, 164, 166 and Athanasius 12–14, 30–2, 35.n.36,
catechumens 1, 21, 116, 142, 37, 40, 41–2, 43, 47–9, 86, 139,
155, 183 166, 174, 177, 180, 188–91
ceremonies, festivals, and processions Athanasius’ presentation of 13–14,
1, 37, 138–40, 164, 190 42, 47–9, 139, 174, 191
 General Index 225
Councils Encyclical Letter 8.n.14, 31.n.29,
Alexandria (c.321) 4, 24, 63 35–6
Alexandria (338) 9, 25–6, 31–2, Serdica (Western,343) 8, 34–7,
122, 137–8 53, 96–7
Encyclical Letter see Index of Encyclical Letter 9, 35–6
Athanasian Texts Sirmium (351) 42, 94 see also Creeds
Alexandria (362) 13.n.24, 16, 49–50, Sirmium (357) 94
56, 96, 100, 127, 168.n.9 Tyre (335) 8, 26–30, 39, 48–9, 163,
Tomus ad Antiochenos and Epistula 165, 168.n.8, 177, 191
Catholica see Index of Athanasius’ presentation of 8,
Athanasian Texts 26–30, 32, 45–6, 48, 72, 77, 122
Antioch (338/9) 32, 165 Creeds
Antioch (‘Dedication Council’, Antioch I (341) 83
341) 8, 33–4, 83 see also Creeds Antioch II (‘Dedication Creed’,
Antioch (349) 41 341) 34, 83–5, 86, 90, 94–5
Aquileia (381) 175 ‘Athanasian Creed’ (5th-6th
Ariminum (359) 14, 49, 52, 83, 94–5, century) 173, 182–4, 186
100 see also Council of Seleucia Macrostich (344) 86
Arles (353) 42 Nicaea (325) 5, 11–12, 15, 42–3,
Béziers (356) 174 50–1, 59, 63–5, 84.n.44, 86–90,
Caesarea (334) 27 93, 94, 95–8, 99, 122.n.40, 166,
Chalcedon (451) 103, 161, 170–1, 167, 169, 174, 181
173, 184, 185 Athanasius and 5, 11–12, 14–15,
Constantinople (336) 34–5 16, 42–3, 46, 50–1, 55, 59, 65,
Constantinople (360) 95, 178 82–3, 85, 86–90, 92, 95–8, 100,
Constantinople (381) 14, 54, 65, 98, 102, 160–1, 165, 167, 173,
99, 160, 170 174–5, 181, 196
Ephesus I (431) 170, 172 Sirmium (351) 42, 82.n.41, 94
Milan (355) 42–3 Sirmium (357, ‘Blasphemy’) 94
Nicaea (325) 4.n.5, 5–6, 10, 11–12, ‘Dated Creed’ (359–60) 83, 94–5, 178
14, 20, 23–5, 27, 48, 59–60, Cyril of Alexandria (bishop) 22–3, 54,
63–5, 86–90, 93, 94, 142, 159, 71, 103, 130, 166.n.5, 169–73,
172, 189 187, 188, 191.n.64, 195
Athanasius and 5–6, 11–12, 15, on Athanasius 169–73
25, 52, 59, 65, 86–90, 100, 142, Cyril of Jerusalem (bishop) 155.n.35
160–1, 163, 168, 172, 174, 176 Cyrus of Beroea (bishop) 46
canons 22, 142
see also Creeds Damasus of Rome (bishop) 54, 178
Rome (340–1) 8, 34 Daniel (Biblical) 134, 147
Seleucia (359) 14–15, 49, 83, 84.n.44, David (Biblical) 115, 147
94–5, 164, 174 see also Council ‘deification’ 55–6, 66–74, 76, 80–5,
of Ariminum 90–2, 93, 101–3, 111, 114, 119,
Serdica (Eastern,343) 8, 34–7 142–5, 170–3, 183–4, 196
226 General Index
demons 66, 117–18, 119, 126, 133, 150, 152 Euphration of Balanae (bishop) 46
Devil 108, 116, 118, 134, 144, 147, 148, ‘Eusebians’ 9, 27–30, 33, 45–6, 79, 83,
151, 163 94, 145.n.22, 167–8, 172
Didymus the Blind (theologian) 21.n.5, at Nicaea 87–9
122.n.40 conspiracy against Athanasius 9,
Dionysius of Alexandria (bishop) 12, 27–30, 32, 45–6, 48, 79, 136,
21–2, 47, 82, 89 145.n.22, 167–8
Dionysius of Milan (bishop) 42, 191 theology of 9, 45, 79–80, 83–5, 86,
Dioscorus of Alexandria 87–9, 94
(bishop) 189.n.60, 195 see also hoi peri Eusebion
Donatist Schism 23, 36.n.39 Eusebius of Berytus, Nicomedia,
Dracontius (monk-bishop) 39, 125–7 Constantinople (bishop) 9, 10,
27, 79, 83, 94, 165–6
Easter 7–8, 22, 26, 31, 32, 36, 38, 40, and Arius 24–5, 27, 60, 63, 79
122, 126, 132, 133–5, 139–42, leader of ‘Eusebians’ 9, 24, 27, 79
143, 145, 146–7, 153, 162 theology 10, 24, 27, 78–80, 83–5
Edward Gibbon (historian) 195–6 Eusebius of Palestinian Caesarea
Egypt 2, 7, 12–13, 20–5, 26, 30, 32.n.33, (bishop) 2, 63, 167, 176, 178
38–9, 40–1, 44, 47, 50–2, 54, on Nicaea 6, 65, 87, 89
106–11, 119, 121–2, 125, 131–2, Eusebius of Vercellae (bishop) 42, 175
140–2, 171–3, 176, 187–93 Eustathius of Antioch (bishop) 46, 50
asceticism in 11, 15, 31, 39, 41, 44, Euzoius of Antioch (bishop) 50, 60
54, 72, 106–11, 111–30, 132, ex ouk ontōn (‘out of nothing’) 61–4,
146–9, 163, 176, 179, 192 66–8, 78–80, 87–8
Athanasius in Coptic tradition 3–4,
7, 47, 54, 105, 111, 132, 140, fasting 7–8, 38, 140–2, 143
160, 172, 187–93 Athanasius’ guidance on 111–13,
violence in 2, 8, 12–13, 15–16, 28–9, 115–16, 117–18, 126, 134,
32, 35–6, 43–5, 93, 122–3, 127, 140–2, 143, 146–8, 156
130, 138, 176, 190–1 Festal Index 7, 25–6, 29, 37.n.40, 42,
see also Alexandria 44.n.50, 53, 129.n.54
Elijah (Biblical) 114, 134
Elisha (Biblical) 114 Gaul 27, 30, 33, 42, 130, 173, 177, 183
Epictetus of Corinth (bishop) 56, Gelasius of Caesarea
101, 102 (historian) 167.n.7
Epiphanius of Cyprian Salamis Gelasius of Cyzicus (historian) 29.n.24
(bishop) 53.n.66 George of Alexandria (bishop) 12–13,
Epiphany 142 15–16, 44–5, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52,
Ethiopia (Aksum) 41, 176 137–8, 163, 166, 190–1
Eucharist 139 murder of 16, 49, 164, 166, 190
Eudoxius of Germanicia, Antioch, persecutes Athanasius’ followers 13,
Constantinople (bishop) 50 44–5, 137–8, 163, 190
Eunomius (theologian) 94, 169 Gnosticism 20–1, 151.n.29, 156
 General Index 227
Goths 54, 176 Athanasius and 15, 73, 86–9, 91, 95,
Gregory of Alexandria (bishop) 8–9, 100, 102, 166, 171–2
11, 30.n.26, 32–3, 34, 35–6, 37, hypostasis 57–9, 61, 64, 67.n.22, 73,
38, 44–5, 48, 52, 123, 137–8, 84–5, 90–1, 95, 96–8, 100–1,
163, 165, 190–1 103, 163–4, 178, 182–4
persecutes Athanasius’
followers 32–3, 34, 35–6, 44, Incarnation 55–6, 57–8, 61–4, 71–2,
123, 130, 137–8, 190 66–76, 81–2, 98–9, 102–3, 118–
Gregory of Nazianzus (bishop) 14, 65, 19, 142–6, 162, 170–3, 183–4,
161–5, 166, 173.n.19, 180 186–7, 196
Funeral Oration on Athanasius Athanasius’ theology of 17, 55–6,
(Oration XXI) 3, 4.n.1, 5.n.7, 66–76, 87, 91, 93, 98–9, 101–3,
37, 136, 161–5, 168, 172, 178 111, 114, 116, 118–19, 123, 125,
Gregory of Nyssa (bishop) 65 127, 133, 140, 142–6, 150–1,
184, 186–7, 196
Hilary of Poitiers (bishop) 84.n.43, communication of idioms 71–2,
174–5 103, 172–3
and Athanasius 174–5 human soul 98–100, 102, 183
Historia acephala 17, 49, 52
History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria 3, Jerome (theologian) 95, 108.n.10, 109,
22–3, 184, 187–8 130, 149.n.24, 177–9, 180, 181.n.36
on Athanasius 3, 5, 47, 111, 188–92 on Athanasius 113.n.22, 175, 177–9
hoi peri Eusebion 9, 27, 79 see also Jerusalem 37, 115, 140–1, 147, 176
Eusbians) Jews 57, 106, 114, 134–5
Holy Men and the cult of saints 1, 2–3, associated with ‘Arians’ 32, 38, 87,
67, 107, 111, 120–1, 127–8, 134, 91, 143, 144, 153
147–8, 163, 177, 186, 190–1, Athanasius’ polemic against 38, 69,
193, 196 see also Antony 87, 91, 134–5, 140, 143, 144,
Holy Spirit 14, 57–9, 64, 73–4, 84, 151, 153
85.n.45, 90, 98, 135, 144, 148, John Cassian (monk) 121
150, 152, 153, 155, 164, 182–3 John Chrysostom (bishop) 132.n.3, 136
controversy over 14–15, 50, 55, 59, John of Nikiu (historian) 188, 189
64, 86, 90–3, 96–8, 100, 163, on Athanasius 140.n.13, 188, 191–3
164, 180, 183 John the Baptist (prophet) 106, 114
‘Homoians’ 94, 100, 175 Jovian (emperor 363–4) 16, 51–2, 100, 178
homoios 94 and Athanasius 16, 49, 51–2, 100
‘Homoiousians’ 15, 84.n.44, 94, 174 Julian (emperor 361–3) 16, 49, 51, 164,
Athanasius’ presentation of 15, 95–6 166, 190
homoiousios / homoios kat’ ousian 15, and Athanasius 16, 49, 51, 100
62, 94 Julius of Rome (bishop) 8, 34–5,
homoousios 15, 42, 60–1, 64–5, 79, 84–5, 36.n.39, 42, 83, 172
86–9, 93–5, 98, 102, 163–4, 166, Letter to the Eastern Bishops 9,
171–2 34–5, 83
228 General Index
ktisma (creature) 60–4, 66–70, 72–3, Melitius of Lycopolis (schismatic
75–6, 78–82, 84, 87–9, 90–1, 95, bishop) 23–4, 121
97, 100, 123, 129, 145, 153, 182 Miaphysites (Monophysites) 170–1,
173, 184–5
Lent 7–8, 38, 140–2, 143, 146–7, 156 Milan 42–3, 130, 175, 181
Liberius of Rome (bishop) 11.n.21, 42, monasticism (see asceticism)
190–1 monks 11, 105–6, 106–11, 116–17,
Licinius (emperor 308–24) 5, 20, 24, 109 118–19, 120–8, 130, 146–9, 162,
liturgy 1, 2, 19, 65, 92–3, 135, 138–9, 163, 169, 171–2
140–2, 150–2, 183 Athanasius and 11, 15, 39, 41, 43–4,
Lucifer of Cagliari (bishop) 42, 174–5 54, 105–6, 110–11, 116–17,
Lucius of Alexandria (bishop) 51, 120–8, 130, 131–2, 146–9, 156,
54, 160 163, 172
monk-bishops 11, 39, 54, 105–6,
Macarius (Egyptian presbyter) 27–8 110–11, 120–1, 125–7, 149
magic 1, 68, 177 violence against 43–4, 122–3, 127–8
Manichaeism 60–1, 77–8, 125, 128, Montanism 155
151.n.29, 155 Moses (Biblical) 134, 147, 155, 163
Marcellus of Ancyra (bishop) 34–6, 42,
46, 53, 94 Nestorius of Constantinople
theology 36, 53, 65, 71, 85, 94 (bishop) 166.n.5, 170–2, 184,
Marcion (heretic) 155 191.n.64
Mareotis Commission 27, 122, Nicomedia 24, 27, 63
149.n.27 North Africa 16–17, 23, 36.n.39, 52, 181
Mark (evangelist) 20–1
marriage 1, 114–17, 147–9 Origen (theologian) 21, 24, 58–9, 65,
Athanasius’ defence of 105, 112, 66, 89, 117.n.32, 121, 134.n.6
114–17, 122, 124–5, 133–4, Orosius (historian) 176
147–9 Ossius of Cordova (bishop) 48
martyrs, cult of 1, 13, 20, 21, 23, Letter to Constantius 48
47, 107, 109, 113.n.24, 148, ousia (essence) 15, 42, 59, 60–5, 66–7,
155.n.34, 190 72–3, 78–82, 84–5, 87–9, 93–5,
Meletius of Antioch (bishop) 50–1, 53 97–8, 100–1, 103, 123, 129, 145,
Melitians 6, 23, 25, 26–9, 38–9, 47, 52, 163–4, 165, 166, 182–3, 187
121–2, 125
alliance with ‘Arians’ 13, 24.n.13, Pachomius (monk) 106, 107, 109–11
27–8, 32, 52, 136 Pachomian monasticism 106, 107,
asceticism of 23, 52, 121–2, 125, 109–11, 124.n.46, 132, 156
128–9 Paganism 1–2, 40, 57, 66, 92, 106
Athanasius’ conflict with 8, 13, 23, Athanasius and 3, 32, 40, 66–9, 112,
25, 26–9, 38–9, 40, 41, 47, 52, 119, 129, 143, 188
121–2, 125, 128–9, 136, 153, in Alexandria 20, 32, 40, 49, 190
155–6 pagan-‘Arian’ alliance 32, 40
 General Index 229
Palestine 5, 21, 24, 27, 31, 63, 166 Rome 20, 22, 34.n.35, 54
Papyrus London 1914 28–9, 122 Athanasius and 8, 33, 34, 54,
Paul (apostle) 38, 73, 115, 133, 147–8, 173, 178
153–4, 180 Rufinus (historian) 3, 21.n.5, 41.n.47,
Paulinus of Antioch (bishop) 50–1, 53 166, 167, 168, 176–7, 189
persecution and religious violence 2, on Athanasius 2–3, 51, 176–7
6, 14, 16, 21, 23, 47, 49, 54, 79,
107, 109, 121, 151, 153, 159, Sabellianism/Modalism 58, 60–2, 65,
164, 166, 176, 190 71, 79, 85, 91–2, 97, 164
against Athanasius 13, 16, 17, 19, Scripture 10, 33, 56–7, 62, 64, 75–6, 81,
31–4, 35, 43–5, 46, 51, 52, 93, 103, 87–9, 94, 126, 149–52, 152–6,
125.n.47, 136, 144, 147, 151, 153, 164, 170–1, 180
164, 167, 176, 180, 190–1, 195–6 Athanasius’ approach towards 3, 10,
against Athanasius’ followers 13, 47, 68, 72–3, 75–6, 82, 87–9, 91,
32–4, 35, 43–5, 46, 54, 93, 122–3, 97, 152–6
125.n.47, 126, 127–8, 130, 137–8, canon of 2, 16, 52, 56–7, 75, 132,
144, 147, 163, 164, 176, 190–1 148.n.23, 152–6, 160
attributed to Athanasius 8, 28–9, 31, contemplation by ascetics 112–13,
36, 122, 195–6 117–18, 150, 181.n.38
Peter I of Alexandria (bishop) 1, pastoral use of 38, 126, 132–4,
23, 121 137, 141, 142.n.17, 144, 147–8,
Peter II of Alexandria (bishop) 53–4, 149–52, 152–6
160, 176, 178 Psalter 43, 147, 149–52, 178
Philagrius (prefect) 32 see also Index of Scriptural Citations
Philostorgius (historian) 3, 165, 167 Secundus of Ptolemais
on Athanasius 3, 165–7 (bishop) 45.n.51
Philumenus (official) 27 Serapion of Thmuis (bishop) 9, 14,
Photinus of Sirmium (bishop) 42, 94 33, 39, 42, 90, 124, 125, 126,
physis (nature) 56, 57, 60–3, 66–70, 130, 141
71–2, 72–4, 78, 80–2, 84, sexuality 105, 111–18, 133–4, 146–9
87–9, 90–2, 97, 101–3, 119, 153, Socrates (historian) 3, 165, 167–9,
170–1, 185, 187 176–7, 185, 186, 189, 190
Pistus (bishop of Alexandria?) 30.n.26 on Athanasius 3, 13.n.24, 165,
poiēma (made) 60.n.11, 62, 73, 78, 81, 167–9, 186
84, 88–9, 95 ‘Shorter Socrates’ (Armenian) 186
prayer 12, 25, 43, 108, 109, 124.n.46, Son 4, 15, 55–6, 57–9, 60–5, 66–76,
139, 140, 189.n.60 78–82, 83–5, 87–9, 90–2, 93–5,
Athanasius’ promotion of 43, 96–8, 100, 101–3, 114, 118–19,
112–13, 115–16, 117–18, 139, 123, 129, 135, 142–6, 153, 155,
142, 146–7, 150 162–4, 170–3, 180, 182–4, 196
preaching 19, 40, 72, 79, 126, 135, 138 created 60–4, 66–70, 72–3, 75–6,
Athanasius’ lost sermons 6–7, 40, 78–82, 84, 87–9, 90–1, 95, 97,
132, 138 100, 123, 129, 145, 153, 182
230 General Index
Son (cont.) Theophilus of Alexandria (bishop)
eternity 58–9, 60–4, 67, 70, 73, 22–3, 54, 130, 188, 195
78–80, 84–5, 87, 93–4, 95, Trier 8, 30, 31, 42, 173, 181
129, 145, 182 Trinity 4, 14, 57–9, 61–2, 64, 70–1,
(im)mutability 57, 60–4, 67, 78–82, 84–5, 90–3, 96–8, 99, 102, 103,
84, 88, 100, 102, 119, 129.n.53, 160, 163–4, 172, 182–4
187 Athanasius on 14, 16, 55, 64, 70–1,
knowledge and revelation of the 85, 90–3, 96–8, 102, 103, 163–4,
Father 61–3, 66–70, 71, 73, 172, 184
75–6, 78–80, 85, 134, 153–4 equality of 14, 57–9, 60–1, 84–5,
relationship to the Father 4, 15, 90–3, 98, 163–4, 180, 182–4
57–9, 60–5, 66–76, 78–82, 83–5,
87–9, 90–2, 93–5, 96–8, 100, Ursacius of Singidunum (bishop) 41,
103, 129, 135, 155, 163–4, 180, 174, 178
182–3
suffering God 57–8, 61, 64, 71–2, 74, Valens (emperor 364–78) 16, 52, 54,
76, 80.n.39, 102–3, 144–5, 183 178, 193
true God 60, 64, 73, 78–9, 84 Valens of Mursa (bishop) 41, 174, 178
Wisdom, Power, Image 58–9, 61–3, Valentinus (gnostic) 60
68, 70, 73, 76, 78–9, 84, 88, 95, Virgin Mary 57, 71, 76, 101, 102, 114,
114, 129 145, 170, 183, 186–7
see also ‘deification’, Incarnation ascetic model 112–14
Sozomen (historian) 3, 165, 167–9, 176 Theotokos 76, 170–2, 187
on Athanasius 3, 28.n.21, 165, 167–9 virgins 44, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112–17,
Spain 48, 130 120, 121.n.38, 122–3, 130,
Syria 22, 31, 171, 184–5 133–4, 146–9, 178–9
Athanasius in Syriac tradition 4, 7, Athanasius and 11, 105–6, 112–17,
11.n.20, 105, 115, 132, 145.n.21, 122–3, 124, 127–8, 133–4,
160, 184–5, 186 146–9, 175, 178–9, 192
Syrianus (duke) 43 violence against 35, 44.n.50, 123,
127–8, 130, 138
Theodoret of Cyrrhus (bishop and
historian) 3, 24.n.15, 97.n.61, women 1, 112–17, 127–8,
165, 167, 169 133–4, 139, 146–9
on Athanasius 3, 13.n.24, 30.n.27, heretical 123, 124, 127–8, 165–6, 177
127, 165, 167–8, 169, 171 widows 137–8, 149.n.24
Theodosius I (emperor 379–95) 54 see also virgins