Athanasius Faithful Teacher
Worship
What Grace They Received
Worship Commemorations For 12 Ancient And Modern Saints
Reader 1: In the early part of the fourth century it suddenly became a lot less dangerous to be a Christian. Constantine was made Roman Emperor and in 311 he issued an Edict of Toleration. Christians would no longer be persecuted for their faith.
Conflict with the empire had ended, so Christians were now much freer to fight among themselves! There is both cynicism and truth in that statement. The truth is that a certain false belief, a heresy, had crept into the Christian faith, and the church spent the greater part of the fourth century contending against it. Its leader in this struggle was Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt.
Athanasius was born into a Christian family in Egypt in the year 295. Here is a story about his youthful years; and it may be more story than fact, but it does illustrate his early commitment to the Christian faith.
Reader 2: A previous Bishop of Alexandria, whose name was Alexander, was in his home along the seashore. Looking out the window he saw some children playing on the beach. And it appeared to the Bishop that these children were "playing church" -- one of them was baptizing the others. Thinking that perhaps the imitation had gone too far, he had the children brought to him and he questioned them. Bishop Alexander discovered that everything had been done in good order, and he decided that the baptisms were official. The name of the young baptizer was Athanasius.
Reader 1: Bishop Alexander encouraged Athanasius to study for the priesthood. Soon he was ordained as a deacon, then archdeacon, becoming very much a valuable assistant to the bishop.
At this time a Christian priest by the name of Arius began to promote his view that the Son of God was not a full and equal partner in the Trinity. In all fairness to Arius, we must admit that his belief was an attempt to solve one of the problems of the Trinity: did Christians believe in just one God or in three gods? Arius tried to save the unity of God by sacrificing the divinity of the Son of God -- not a good solution to the problem. This belief of Arius also made God a distant god; oh, yes, this God had a son, but this son was much lower than the Father; the son didn't even fully understand the Father. Arianism became very popular, especially in the East. Even street songs were used to spread its influence among the people.
To Bishop Alexander -- and to Athanasius -- this was a heresy that must be stamped out. And because this issue threatened to divide the church, Roman Emperor Constantine called a council of the entire church. All bishops were to meet in Nicea (modern-day Turkey) in 325 to settle the matter.
Athanasius, even though only an assistant to the bishop, was a major speaker at this Nicene Council. In the end a majority of the bishops took a stand against Arianism, and they developed a creed to express the orthodox faith, the Nicene Creed:
Reader 2: "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the FatherÉ."
Reader 1: Are you listening to this, Arius?
Reader 2: "É God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the FatherÉ"
Reader 1: And if somehow Arius hadn't gotten the message, this was added at the very end:
Reader 2: "And those who say, 'Once he was,' and 'Before his generation he was not,' and 'He came to be from nothing; or those who pretend that the Son of God is 'of other substance or essence' or 'created,' or 'alterable,' or 'mutable,' the Catholic Church anathematizes."
Reader 1: Which means "they curse." And Arius found himself kicked out of the church, excommunicated. However, this was not the end of the controversy, but only the beginning. Athanasius himself would spend the next 50 years of his life battling against this heresy.
Soon thereafter Alexander died and Athanasius was elected Bishop of Alexandria, at the very young age of 33. Almost immediately he was verbally attacked by Arius and his followers. Their accusations were not so much theological -- after all, hadn't Roman Emperor Constantine himself supported the theological conclusions of the Nicene Council? Rather, the charges were political. Listen, now, to some of their accusations:
Reader 3: Athanasius levied a tax in Egypt in order to cover church expenses.
Reader 1: Athanasius easily disproved that charge.
Reader 3: Athanasius gave money to an enemy of the empire, a rebel.
Reader 1: Again, the charge was easily disproved.
Reader 3: Athanasius sent a priest into a local church to cause a disturbance while the resident priest was leading the Eucharist.
Reader 1: This charge, too, was disproved.
Reader 3: Then came the charge, the most ludicrous of all, that Athanasius had murdered Arsenius, one of his Egyptian bishops; furthermore, that he had cut off his hand and was using it for magical purposes!
Reader 1: When Emperor Constantine heard that charge, he summoned Athanasius for trial. In a most dramatic way, Athanasius was able to disprove this charge as well.
Reader 2: Arsenius, of course, had not been murdered, but had only been hidden away by the Arians. At Athanasius' trial the Arians produced a box containing a human hand which they claimed belonged to Arsenius. Meanwhile, Athanasius' supporters had found Arsenius and brought him to the trial wrapped in a cloak. Athanasius paraded the cloaked Arsenius, first revealing his face, then one hand, and then the other; and then Athanasius inquired, "Where did he grow the third hand which you have in the box?"
Reader 1: Those charges, too, were proved to be false. Finally, however, these Arian opponents came up with an accusation that stuck:
Reader 3: Athanasius prevented a shipment of corn from sailing to the Roman capital.
Reader 1: Constantine accepted this charge and he exiled Athanasius to the hinterland of the Empire, to Gaul, which we know now as France. Did Constantine really believe that Athanasius was guilty of this crime, or was he acting to protect Athanasius, to remove him from these Arian opponents and thus save his life? We just don't know for sure. In any case, this was only the first of five exiles that Athanasius would be subjected to in his life.
While in Gaul Athanasius continued his practice of writing an annual Easter letter to the Egyptian churches. Here are some excerpts:
Reader 2: "It is true that I have been hindered by those hardships that you have probably heard about, and several trials have been laid upon me. And we have been separated by a great distanceÉ Nevertheless, the Lord has strengthened and comforted us in our affliction. So we have not been afraid, even in the midst of such schemes and conspiracies, to send you word about our saving Easter Feast -- even from the ends of the earth!
"After all, how can we expect to develop patience if we haven't faced sorrow and hard work? Or how would we ever experience fortitude if our enemies never attacked us? How could we ever show courage if we never had to face bad treatment and injustice?
"Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, therefore, is an example to us of how to sufferÉ (As the Apostle Paul has written), '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)."
Reader 1: For the remainder of his life Athanasius would be in and out of favor with the various Roman emperors, depending upon whether they supported the Arian heresy or the orthodox view laid down by the Nicene Council. We need to realize that this was a time of theological fluctuation for the church. It was mainly because of the faithful persistence and courage of Athanasius that the church eventually came to accept the full divinity and power of the Son of God.
Several stories have come down to us which illustrate the faith and determination of this man of God.
Reader 2: Once while Athanasius was conducting worship in an Alexandrian church, Roman soldiers came and surrounded the building. Athanasius very calmly instructed the deacon to lead the congregation in the reading of Psalm 136, a psalm of praise where the congregation's line is repeated in each verse: "for [God's] steadfast love endures forever." Athanasius remained in the church until the people had departed safely, and then he himself was whisked into hiding.
At another time Athanasius was on a boat heading up the Nile, being pursued by another boat full of Roman soldiers. When his boat rounded a bend, Athanasius ordered the captain to turn around and thus to meet his pursuers head on. The leader of the pursuing boat, not recognizing the approaching ship, called out, "Have you any news of Athanasius?" According to the story, Athanasius himself replied, quite truthfully, "He is not far off," and the government boat passed without further incident!
Reader 1: Certainly Athanasius' influence was felt in other aspects of the church's life as well. During an exile in Rome, Athanasius became close to Pope Julius and convinced him of the value of the monastic life of the Egyptian desert monks. Thus Athanasius, an eastern church leader, came to be regarded as the father of western monasticism.
Nor is it difficult for us to see the influence of Athanasius even in our time. The Nicene Creed, with its forceful statements about the full divinity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is one of the foundations of our faith and worship life today. It is a statement of the church's belief that our God is not a distant God, but that God took on human flesh and became one of us. It is a reminder to us that God is near, that God's creation is good, that our humanity has value and worth.
Athanasius is also a model and example of faithfulness for us. He was determined that the Arian heresy would not triumph. And, in fact, he was willing to endure exile and suffering to see that it would not prevail. These words from the Second Letter to Timothy could very well have been spoken by Athanasius: "I have fought the good fight and I have finished the race, I have kept the faith (2 Timothy 4:7)."
Bibliography
William Bright, Lessons from the Lives of Three Great Fathers, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1890.
Lynn Harold Hough, Athanasius: the Hero, Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham, 1906.
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.
Jack N. Sparks, The Resurrection Letters, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1979.
Hymn Of The Day: "We All Believe In One True God," or "Son Of God, Eternal Savior"
Prayer Of The Day:
Heavenly Father, shepherd of your people, we thank you for your servant, Athanasius, who was faithful in the care and nurture of your flock; and we pray that, following his example and the teaching of his holy life, we may by your grace grow into the full stature of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (LBW 143, p. 38)
Prayers:
In thanksgiving for the life of Athanasius, teacher and defender of the faith, that we too may confess the Christian faith and live in its power.
Conflict with the empire had ended, so Christians were now much freer to fight among themselves! There is both cynicism and truth in that statement. The truth is that a certain false belief, a heresy, had crept into the Christian faith, and the church spent the greater part of the fourth century contending against it. Its leader in this struggle was Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt.
Athanasius was born into a Christian family in Egypt in the year 295. Here is a story about his youthful years; and it may be more story than fact, but it does illustrate his early commitment to the Christian faith.
Reader 2: A previous Bishop of Alexandria, whose name was Alexander, was in his home along the seashore. Looking out the window he saw some children playing on the beach. And it appeared to the Bishop that these children were "playing church" -- one of them was baptizing the others. Thinking that perhaps the imitation had gone too far, he had the children brought to him and he questioned them. Bishop Alexander discovered that everything had been done in good order, and he decided that the baptisms were official. The name of the young baptizer was Athanasius.
Reader 1: Bishop Alexander encouraged Athanasius to study for the priesthood. Soon he was ordained as a deacon, then archdeacon, becoming very much a valuable assistant to the bishop.
At this time a Christian priest by the name of Arius began to promote his view that the Son of God was not a full and equal partner in the Trinity. In all fairness to Arius, we must admit that his belief was an attempt to solve one of the problems of the Trinity: did Christians believe in just one God or in three gods? Arius tried to save the unity of God by sacrificing the divinity of the Son of God -- not a good solution to the problem. This belief of Arius also made God a distant god; oh, yes, this God had a son, but this son was much lower than the Father; the son didn't even fully understand the Father. Arianism became very popular, especially in the East. Even street songs were used to spread its influence among the people.
To Bishop Alexander -- and to Athanasius -- this was a heresy that must be stamped out. And because this issue threatened to divide the church, Roman Emperor Constantine called a council of the entire church. All bishops were to meet in Nicea (modern-day Turkey) in 325 to settle the matter.
Athanasius, even though only an assistant to the bishop, was a major speaker at this Nicene Council. In the end a majority of the bishops took a stand against Arianism, and they developed a creed to express the orthodox faith, the Nicene Creed:
Reader 2: "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the FatherÉ."
Reader 1: Are you listening to this, Arius?
Reader 2: "É God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the FatherÉ"
Reader 1: And if somehow Arius hadn't gotten the message, this was added at the very end:
Reader 2: "And those who say, 'Once he was,' and 'Before his generation he was not,' and 'He came to be from nothing; or those who pretend that the Son of God is 'of other substance or essence' or 'created,' or 'alterable,' or 'mutable,' the Catholic Church anathematizes."
Reader 1: Which means "they curse." And Arius found himself kicked out of the church, excommunicated. However, this was not the end of the controversy, but only the beginning. Athanasius himself would spend the next 50 years of his life battling against this heresy.
Soon thereafter Alexander died and Athanasius was elected Bishop of Alexandria, at the very young age of 33. Almost immediately he was verbally attacked by Arius and his followers. Their accusations were not so much theological -- after all, hadn't Roman Emperor Constantine himself supported the theological conclusions of the Nicene Council? Rather, the charges were political. Listen, now, to some of their accusations:
Reader 3: Athanasius levied a tax in Egypt in order to cover church expenses.
Reader 1: Athanasius easily disproved that charge.
Reader 3: Athanasius gave money to an enemy of the empire, a rebel.
Reader 1: Again, the charge was easily disproved.
Reader 3: Athanasius sent a priest into a local church to cause a disturbance while the resident priest was leading the Eucharist.
Reader 1: This charge, too, was disproved.
Reader 3: Then came the charge, the most ludicrous of all, that Athanasius had murdered Arsenius, one of his Egyptian bishops; furthermore, that he had cut off his hand and was using it for magical purposes!
Reader 1: When Emperor Constantine heard that charge, he summoned Athanasius for trial. In a most dramatic way, Athanasius was able to disprove this charge as well.
Reader 2: Arsenius, of course, had not been murdered, but had only been hidden away by the Arians. At Athanasius' trial the Arians produced a box containing a human hand which they claimed belonged to Arsenius. Meanwhile, Athanasius' supporters had found Arsenius and brought him to the trial wrapped in a cloak. Athanasius paraded the cloaked Arsenius, first revealing his face, then one hand, and then the other; and then Athanasius inquired, "Where did he grow the third hand which you have in the box?"
Reader 1: Those charges, too, were proved to be false. Finally, however, these Arian opponents came up with an accusation that stuck:
Reader 3: Athanasius prevented a shipment of corn from sailing to the Roman capital.
Reader 1: Constantine accepted this charge and he exiled Athanasius to the hinterland of the Empire, to Gaul, which we know now as France. Did Constantine really believe that Athanasius was guilty of this crime, or was he acting to protect Athanasius, to remove him from these Arian opponents and thus save his life? We just don't know for sure. In any case, this was only the first of five exiles that Athanasius would be subjected to in his life.
While in Gaul Athanasius continued his practice of writing an annual Easter letter to the Egyptian churches. Here are some excerpts:
Reader 2: "It is true that I have been hindered by those hardships that you have probably heard about, and several trials have been laid upon me. And we have been separated by a great distanceÉ Nevertheless, the Lord has strengthened and comforted us in our affliction. So we have not been afraid, even in the midst of such schemes and conspiracies, to send you word about our saving Easter Feast -- even from the ends of the earth!
"After all, how can we expect to develop patience if we haven't faced sorrow and hard work? Or how would we ever experience fortitude if our enemies never attacked us? How could we ever show courage if we never had to face bad treatment and injustice?
"Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, therefore, is an example to us of how to sufferÉ (As the Apostle Paul has written), '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)."
Reader 1: For the remainder of his life Athanasius would be in and out of favor with the various Roman emperors, depending upon whether they supported the Arian heresy or the orthodox view laid down by the Nicene Council. We need to realize that this was a time of theological fluctuation for the church. It was mainly because of the faithful persistence and courage of Athanasius that the church eventually came to accept the full divinity and power of the Son of God.
Several stories have come down to us which illustrate the faith and determination of this man of God.
Reader 2: Once while Athanasius was conducting worship in an Alexandrian church, Roman soldiers came and surrounded the building. Athanasius very calmly instructed the deacon to lead the congregation in the reading of Psalm 136, a psalm of praise where the congregation's line is repeated in each verse: "for [God's] steadfast love endures forever." Athanasius remained in the church until the people had departed safely, and then he himself was whisked into hiding.
At another time Athanasius was on a boat heading up the Nile, being pursued by another boat full of Roman soldiers. When his boat rounded a bend, Athanasius ordered the captain to turn around and thus to meet his pursuers head on. The leader of the pursuing boat, not recognizing the approaching ship, called out, "Have you any news of Athanasius?" According to the story, Athanasius himself replied, quite truthfully, "He is not far off," and the government boat passed without further incident!
Reader 1: Certainly Athanasius' influence was felt in other aspects of the church's life as well. During an exile in Rome, Athanasius became close to Pope Julius and convinced him of the value of the monastic life of the Egyptian desert monks. Thus Athanasius, an eastern church leader, came to be regarded as the father of western monasticism.
Nor is it difficult for us to see the influence of Athanasius even in our time. The Nicene Creed, with its forceful statements about the full divinity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is one of the foundations of our faith and worship life today. It is a statement of the church's belief that our God is not a distant God, but that God took on human flesh and became one of us. It is a reminder to us that God is near, that God's creation is good, that our humanity has value and worth.
Athanasius is also a model and example of faithfulness for us. He was determined that the Arian heresy would not triumph. And, in fact, he was willing to endure exile and suffering to see that it would not prevail. These words from the Second Letter to Timothy could very well have been spoken by Athanasius: "I have fought the good fight and I have finished the race, I have kept the faith (2 Timothy 4:7)."
Bibliography
William Bright, Lessons from the Lives of Three Great Fathers, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1890.
Lynn Harold Hough, Athanasius: the Hero, Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham, 1906.
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.
Jack N. Sparks, The Resurrection Letters, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1979.
Hymn Of The Day: "We All Believe In One True God," or "Son Of God, Eternal Savior"
Prayer Of The Day:
Heavenly Father, shepherd of your people, we thank you for your servant, Athanasius, who was faithful in the care and nurture of your flock; and we pray that, following his example and the teaching of his holy life, we may by your grace grow into the full stature of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (LBW 143, p. 38)
Prayers:
In thanksgiving for the life of Athanasius, teacher and defender of the faith, that we too may confess the Christian faith and live in its power.