Athanasius of Alexandria

Athanasius of Alexandria fought the Arian controversy for half a century and was exiled five times. Born in Alexandria around 296, he was educated in Greek philosophy and scripture, and became secretary and deacon to Bishop Alexander. He attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 as a young deacon, where the dispute with the priest Arius was settled. Arius held that the Son was created by the Father and therefore not eternal or of the same substance; the council affirmed that the Son is homoousios, of one substance with the Father, which is the central clause of the Nicene Creed. Athanasius became bishop in 328 at about thirty-two, and spent the rest of his life defending that formula against a succession of emperors who found Arian or compromise positions politically more convenient. He was deposed and exiled by Constantine, twice by Constantius II, by Julian and by Valens, spending about seventeen of his forty-five years as bishop away from his see — in Trier, in Rome, and for six years hiding among the monks of the Egyptian desert. The phrase Athanasius contra mundum, against the world, comes from these periods. His theological argument was soteriological rather than abstract: only God can restore humanity to God, so if the Son is a creature then salvation is not accomplished. On the Incarnation sets this out. His Life of Antony, written around 360, spread the ideal of desert monasticism across the Latin West and influenced Augustine's conversion. His Easter letter of 367 lists the twenty-seven books of the New Testament — the earliest surviving statement of the canon as it now stands. He died in 373.

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