Athanasius

 THIS renowned Father is in ecclesiastical history the special doctor of the sacred truth which Arius denied, bringing it out into shape and system so fully and luminously that he may be said to have exhausted his subject, as far as it lies open to the human intellect. But, besides this, writing as a controversialist, not primarily as a priest and teacher, he accompanies his exposition of doctrine with manifestations of character which are of great interest and value. Here some of the more prominent of these traits shall be set down, as they are seen in various of his Treatises.

 1. The fundamental idea with which he starts in the controversy is a deep sense of the authority of Tradition, which he considers to have a definitive jurisdiction even in the interpretation of Scripture, though at the same time he seems to consider that Scripture, thus interpreted, is a document of final appeal in inquiry and in disputation. Hence, in his view of religion, is the magnitude of the evil which he is combating, and which exists prior to that extreme aggravation of it (about which no Catholic can doubt) involved in the characteristic tenet of Arianism itself. According to him, opposition to the witness of the Church, separation from its communion, private judgment overbearing the authorised catechetical teaching, the fact of a denomination, as men now speak, this is a self-condemnation; and the heretical tenet, whatever it may happen to be, which is its formal life, is a spiritual poison and nothing else; the sowing of the evil one upon the good seed, in whatever age and place it is found; and he applies to all separatists the Apostle's words, "They went out from us, for they were not of us." Accordingly, speaking of one Rhetorius, an Egyptian, who, as S. Austin tells us, taught that "all heresies were in the right path and spoke truth," he says that "the impiety of such doctrine is frightful to mention." Apoll. i. § 6.

 This is the explanation of the fierceness of his language, when speaking of the Arians, which to a modern reader may seem superfluous and painful; the heretics were simply, as Elymas, "full of all guile and of all deceit; children of the devil, enemies of all justice," [ theomachoi ], by court influence, by violent persecution, by sophistry, seducing, unsettling, perverting, the people of God.

 2. It was not his way to be fierce, as a matter of course, with those who opposed him; his treatment of the Semi-Arians is a proof of this. Eusebius of Cæsarea indeed he did not favour, for he discerned in that eminent man what, alas, was genuine Arianism; and Eusebius's conduct towards him, and his partisanship with the heretics, and his antagonism to the Nicene Council, confirmed his judgment; but with the Semi-Arian body, who rose up against the pure Arians, he was very gentle, considering them, or at least many of them, of good promise, as the event proved them to be. He calls some of them "brethren" and [ agapetoi ] (Syn. §§ 41, 43), as Hilary calls them "Sanctissimi viri," (Syn. 80, vid. art. Semi-Arianism infr.) Nor is there any violence in his treatment of Marcellus, Apollinaris, Hosius, or Liberius. Vid. art. [ Aletheia ].

 3. And so in the account he has left us of the death of Arius (de Mort. Ar.), which he considers, and truly, as an awful judgment of God, there is no triumph in his tone, though he held him in holy horror; not those fierce expressions, which certainly are to be found in his Orations. "I was not at Constantinople," he says, "when he died, but Macarius the Presbyter was, and I heard the account of it from him. Arius had been summoned by the Emperor Constantine, through the interest of the Eusebians, and, when he entered the presence, the Emperor inquired of him, whether he held the faith of the Catholic Church, and he declared upon oath that he held the right faith ... The Emperor dismissed him saying, 'If thy faith be right, thou hast done well to swear; but if thy faith be impious, and thou hast sworn, God judge thee according to thy oath.' When he thus came from the presence of the Emperor, the Eusebians, with their accustomed violence, desired to bring him into the Church; but Alexander the Bishop and was greatly distressed, and, entering into the Church, he stretched forth his hands to God, and bewailed himself; and, casting himself upon his face, in the chancel, he prayed upon the pavement. Macarius also was present and prayed with him, and heard his words. And he sought these two things, saying, 'If Arius is brought to communion tomorrow, let me Thy servant depart, and but, if Thou wilt spare Thy Church ... take off Arius, lest the heresy may seem to enter with him.' ... A wonderful and extraordinary circumstance took place. While the Eusebians threatened, the Bishop prayed; but Arius, who had great confidence in the Eusebians, and talked very wildly, seized by indisposition withdrew, and suddenly, in the language of Scripture, falling headlong, burst asunder in the midst, and immediately expired as he lay, and was deprived both of communion and of his life together." Then he adds, "Such was the end of Arius; and the Eusebians, overwhelmed with shame, buried their accomplice, while the blessed Alexander, amid the rejoicing of the Church, celebrated the Synaxis with piety and orthodoxy, praying with all the brethren and greatly glorifying God; not as exulting in his death (God forbid), for it is appointed unto all men once to die, but ... that the Lord Himself judged between the threats of the Eusebians and the prayer of Alexander, and condemned the Arian heresy."

 4. His language, in speaking of Constantius, gives opportunity for more words. Up to the year 356, Athanasius had treated Constantius as a member of the Church; but at that date the Eusebian or Court party abandoned the Semi-Arians for the AnomSans. George of Cappadocia was placed as Bishop in Alexandria, Athanasius was driven into the desert, S. Hilary and other Western Bishops were sent into banishment. Hosius was persecuted into signing an Arian confession, and Pope Liberius into communicating with the Arians. Upon this Athanasius changed his tone, and considered that he had to deal with an Antichrist. In his Apol. contr. Arian. init. (A.D. 350), ad Ep. Æg. 5 (356), and his Apol. ad Constant. passim. (356), he calls the Emperor most pious, religious, etc. At the end of the last-mentioned work, § 27, the news comes to him, while in exile, of the persecution of the Western Bishops and the measures against himself. He still in the peroration calls Constantius "blessed and divinely favoured Augustus," and urges on him that he is a "Christian Emperor, [ philochristos ]." In the works which follow, Apol. de fuga, § 26 (357), he calls him a heretic; and Hist. Arian. § 45, etc. (358), speaking with indignation of the treatment of Hosius, etc., he calls him "Ahab," "Belshazzar," "Saul," "Antichrist." The passage at the end of the Apol. contr. Arian., in which he speaks of the "much violence and tyrannical power of Constantius," is an addition of Athan.'s at a later date. Vid. Montfaucon's note on § 88, fin. This is worth mentioning, as it shows the unfairness of the following passage in Gibbon, ch. xxi. note 116: "As Athanasius dispersed secret invectives against Constantius, see the Epistle to the monks" [i.e., Hist. Arian. ad Monach. A.D. 358], " at the same time that he assured him of his profound respect, we might distrust the professions of the Archbishop, tom. i. p. 677" [i.e., apparently Apol. ad Const. A.D. 356]. Again, in a later part of the chapter, "In his public Apologies, which he addressed to the Emperor himself, he sometimes affected the praise of moderation; whilst at the same time in secret and vehement invectives he exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked prince, the executioner of his family, the tyrant of the republic, and the Antichrist of the Church." He offers no proof of this assertion. It may be added that S. Greg. Naz. praises Constantius, but it is in contrast to Julian. Orat. 4. 3, and 5. 6. And S. Ambrose, but it is for his enmity to paganism. Ep. i. 18, n. 32.

 5. It is the same prudent, temperate spirit and practical good sense, which leads Athanasius, though the prime champion of the Nicene Homoüsion, to be so loth to use that formula, much less abruptly to force it upon his adversaries in the first instance, and to content himself with urging and inculcating our Lord's Divinity in other language and by casual explanations, when prejudice or party-spirit made it difficult to get a hearing for the terms which the Church had determined. Hence in his Three Orations he hardly names the Homoüsion,. though the doctrine which it upholds is never out of his thoughts. He accepted the Semi-Arian HomSüsion, though he is so often represented by the shallow ignorance of modern times to have waged war with other theologians whose views did not differ from his own except by a single letter. "Those," he says, "who accept everything else that was determined at Nicæa, and quarrel only with the Homoüsion, must not be received as enemies, nor do we here attack them as Ariomaniacs, nor as opposers of the Fathers, but we discuss the matter with them, as brothers with brothers, who mean what we mean, and dispute only about the word." Syn. § 41. ( Arim . n. 47.) Vid. arts. [ homoios ], Semi-Arians, etc.

 6. It arises from the same temper of mind that he is so self-distrustful and subdued in his comments on Scripture and in his controversial answers; he, the foremost doctor of the Divine Sonship, being the most modest as well as the most authoritative of teachers. Thus, "They had best have been silent," i.e., in so sacred a matter, he says, "but since it is otherwise, after many prayers that God would be gracious to us, thus we might ask them in turn," etc., Orat. i. § 25. ( Disc . n. 39.) "Against their profaneness I wish to urge a further question, bold indeed, but with a religious intent, be propitious, O Lord! ( Disc . n. 50, p. 197.) "The unwearied habits of the religious man is to worship the All ([ to pan ]) in silence, and to hymn God his benefactor with thankful cries ... but since," etc., Apoll. i. init.

 And especially in his letter to the Monks, "I thought it needful to represent to your piety what pains the writing of these things has cost me, in order that you may understand thereby how truly the Blessed Apostle has said, O, the depth, etc., and may kindly bear with a weak man, such as I am by nature. For the more I desired to write and endeavoured to force myself to understand the Divinity of the Word, so much the more did the knowledge thereof withdraw itself from me, and in proportion as I thought that I apprehended it, in so much I perceived myself to fail of doing so. Moreover, I was also unable to express in writing even what I seemed to myself to understand, and that which I wrote was unequal to the imperfect shadow of the truth which existed in my conceptions," ad Monach. i. Vid. also Serap. i. 15-17, 20; ii. init., iv. 8, 14; Epict. 12 fin.; Max. init.; Ep. Æg. 11 fin. Once more: "It is not safe for the writings of an individual to be published, especially if they relate to the highest and chief doctrines, lest what is imperfectly expressed, through infirmity or the obscurity of language, do hurt to the reader," etc. Mort. Ar. § 5.

 He set the example of modesty to others. Vid. Basil. in Eunom. ii. 17; Didym. Trin. iii. 3, p. 341; Ephr. Syr. adv. Hær. Serm. 55 init. (t. 2, p. 557); Facund. Tr. Cap. iii. 3 init.

 7. And his repetitions of statements in these Treatises are not without a place in the evidences of his religious caution. Often indeed they must be accounted purely accidental, arising from forgetfulness, as he wandered or travelled about, what it was that he had written the day before; often, too, they may have subserved the purpose of cathechetical instruction; but sometimes they would seem to be owing to his anxiety to confine himself to words which had stood the test of time or of readers, or at least were existing forms which he could improve upon or at least reconsider and appeal to, as after his time is instanced in S. Leo.

 8. As to his acquirements, they were considerable. Gregory only says that he had a knowledge [ ton enkuklion ], but Sulpitius speaks of him as a jurisconsult (vid. philosophy and [ ousia ]). His earliest works, written when perhaps he was not more than twenty-one, give abundant evidence of a liberal education. He had a knowledge of Homer and Plato, and his early style, though it admits of pruning, is graceful and artistic. I cannot, with Gibbon, talk of its "rude eloquence," though it has not the refined and elaborate elegance of Basil. And Gibbon grants that his writings are "clear, forcible, and persuasive." Erasmus seems to prefer him, as a writer, to all the Fathers, and certainly, in my own judgment, no one comes near him but Chrysostom and Jerome. "Habebat," says Erasmus, "vere dotem illam quam Paulus in Episcopo putat esse præcipuam, [ to didaktikon ]; adeo dilucidus est, acutus, sobrius, adtentus, breviter omnibus modis ad docendum appositus. Nihil habet durum, quod offendit in Tertulliano, nihil [ epideiktikon ], quod vidimus in Hieronymo, nihil operosum, quod in Hilario, nihil laciniosum, quod est in Augustino, atque etiam Chrysostomo, nihil Isocraticos numeros aut Lysiæ compositionem redolens, quod est in Gregorio Nazianzeno, sed totus est in explicandâ re." ap. Montfaucon, t. 1. p. xxi. ed. Patav.

 Photius's praise of Athan.'s style and matter is quoted supr. in the Notice prefixed to the Orations.