This fi nal chapter will investigate the anthropological grounding of Athanasius’ discourse, particularly in the Contra Gentes – De incarnatione, but with reference also to his later, and more specifi cally anti-Arian works. Beginning with his views on creation revealing its creator, it will explore Athanasius’ categories of depen- dent creation, in the context of corruption and incorruption, and the way in which he uses this to ground discussion of humanity’s relation to God as participatory, the Son’s as non-participatory. This is worked out in refl ections on the nature of the human person, and in particular the contemplative power of the soul, which Athanasius sees as linked to the presence of the Spirit. Christ’s defeat of death and renewal of the image, as himself true Image, grounds Athanasius’ dogmatic asser- tions on the nature of Father, Son, and to some extent Spirit, and establishes the basis of his objections to Arius and promotion of Nicene vocabulary.
* * *
The dominance of Athanasius of Alexandria on the mid-fourth-century landscape is undeniable. A ‘great pivotal fi gure’ in the development of Christian doctrine, current scholarship on Athanasius has started to take attentive note of both the positive and negative effects this position has had on the study of his thought over the centuries.1 Unlike Tertullian, support for whom has ebbed and fl owed consid-
erably in various eras, Athanasius has by and large been upheld as a great teacher and theologian until the past century, when support in some circles began to give way to critical re-interpretations of his life and infl uence.2 In the twentieth and
1 The title is from a prime example of such good scholarship: K. Anatolios, Athanasius: The
Coherence of His Thought (London: Routledge, 1998) 1.
2 On the positive assessment of Athanasius dominant until the twenty-fi rst century, see Behr, Nicene
Faith 164–66; T. G. Weinandy, Athanasius: A Theological Introduction (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)
7–9. Weinandy cites, as examples of the positive assessments of Athanasius that were at their height in the nineteenth century, E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol. 2; London, 1897) 362; J. A. Moehler, Athanase le Grand et l’église de son temps en lutte avec l’arianisme (Paris, 1840); and J. H. Newman, Select Treatises of Athanasius in Controversy with the Arians (London, 1881).
early-twenty-fi rst centuries, assessment of Athanasius in scholarship has swung to extremes: either great saint, or egoistic propagandist. Some of the recent tendency towards a more critical engagement with the Athanasian legacy is welcome – for example, in a more open refl ection on his demonstrably complex personality, the nature of his many exiles, his ability to make enemies in at least equal measure to friends, etc. However, some has gone too far, pressing certain arguably negative traits into a position of centrality that shoves aside a great body of historical evi- dence on others.3 It is hard, on an open reading, to see Athanasius as particularly
more or less embroiled in the controversial political and social issues than others of his era: an age when Church and state were at the full fl owering of their new interrelationship, with all the benefi ts, but also all the troubles and confl icts, this could bring. It was an age in which, as the historical evidence makes very clear, articulation of doctrine was hammered out as often in crowds and riots as in gentle discussions, and the preservation of certain points from oblivion often led to radi- cal partisanship, intrigue and political manoeuvring. Athanasius may appear more entwined in the power play than some, and it is true that past scholarship has tended to gloss over certain troubling aspects of his involvement and behaviour; but discovery that Athanasius did not shy away from the intrigues and political machinations of current Church-state intrigues, that he was indeed right at the heart of them, in the end makes him less a ‘gangster’ to be singled out, than a fairly representative man of a new age in ecclesiastical life.4
Born c. 296 to a family of middle means that, if perhaps Pagan at the time of his birth, was baptized into Christianity while Athanasius was still a child, the future bishop of Alexandria was integrated into the heart of the Church there from a young age.5 It is likely the case that Alexander, the bishop who would evoke the
reaction of Arius c. 318, was Athanasius’ instructor in the faith from his youth (so the traditional story of him fi nding the young Athanasius on a beach as a boy, and
3 Such characterizations emerged most notably in the mid-twentieth century, for example, in E. Schwartz, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (34; Berlin, 1935) and E. Schwartz,
Zur Geschichte des Athanasius (GS, 3; Berlin, 1959); cf. Weinandy, Athanasius 8. But it has been
the work of Barnes that more recently, and more vehemently, considered Athanasius in almost exclu- sively negative terms: see his Athanasius and Constantius, which opens (p. v) with a quotation of W. Whiston’s comment, ‘Athanasius was plainly a violent Party-Man, and the known Head of a Party [. . .] and I need not tell the Honest and Impartial, especially in this Age of Division and Faction, how little Regard is to be given to such Testimonies’. Barnes’ own preface identifi es his aim as the probing of ‘Athanasius’ misrepresentations, many of which have held sway for centuries’ (p. ix). Cf. also his
Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), where he characterizes
Athanasius as the head of an ‘ecclesiastical mafi a’ (p. 230).
4 The characterization of Athanasius as ‘like a modern gangster’ is famously Barnes’: Constantine
and Eusebius 230.
5 The date of Athanasius’ birth is disputed, on grounds of a disparity between his age at consecration as bishop in 328 (he was likely only just 29, if the charges of being too young, raised in the Festal
receiving him as a pupil, would have it) – a youth spent, according to the refl ec- tions of Gregory the Theologian, in some classical learning, but more centrally in developing a focus on the scriptures ‘with a depth such as none else has applied even to one of them’.6 This focus on the scriptures served him well in later life,
and his writings show a tendency to focus on scriptural language and imagery even after adopting the non-scriptural homoousia-based language of Nicaea.
Athanasius had been ordained deacon by the time of the synod in 325, and was in attendance at Nicaea with Bishop Alexander, perhaps as his secretary. As but a deacon, he will have had little (or more likely no) part in the proceedings of the council itself, but it is clear that its deliberations had a formative effect on him.7
When Alexander died in 328 and Athanasius took up his see, the policies against Arius and ‘Arianism’ forged by his predecessor in the midst of the Nicene disputes were made Athanasius’ own. Not only did this stir the emotions of those who were already opposed to him on grounds of what they termed a faulty ordination (part of the ongoing Meletian disputes, which the Nicene council had attempted to redress), but his forging ahead with the policies of Alexander – such as refusal to re-admit Arius to communion, even in the face of imperial pressure8 – ensured that he also found strong opposition in those whose emotions
were still raw as a consequence of the council. When Eusebius of Nicomedia accused him of plotting the murder of a Meletian bishop Arsenius, it took nothing less than Athanasius physically producing the same Arsenius (alive and well, having been in hiding) to have the charges dropped.
This type of intrigue was to characterize the whole of Athanasius’ episcopal life. From 335 to 337 he was exiled in Gaul, largely on charges posed by Eusebius about anti-Meletian activities, together with accusations of manipulating com- merce traffi c in Alexandria. In 338/339 he was charged in Antioch with embezzle- ment and promoting riots, deposed, and sent into a period of exile in Rome. An attempt by the pope to have Athanasius reinstated was rejected by much of the east (given that the statement also supported Marcellus), and it was not until 346 that he was able to return to his see (after a period of intense disputes). A third exile followed from 356 to 362, at the instigation of the emperor Constantius, during which Athanasius spent much of his time in the desert in fervent writing. Allowed to return to his homeland during the general reclamation of deposed bishops by Julian in 362, Athanasius was in Alexandria only 8 months before the same Julian determined he was too infl uential to remain in the city, or even the country. He departed into a fourth exile in the desert. He found favour under the
6 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 21.6; cf. Weinandy, Athanasius 1. The emphasis was clearly on religious, rather than classical, learning, as Gregory’s panegyric notes. Barnes takes this to mean Athanasius did not closely study classical texts: Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius 11–12. This is balanced by A. Pettersen, Athanasius (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1995) 4.
7 See Soc. HE 1.8.13; Soz. HE 1.17.7; cf. Pettersen, Athanasius 7–8.
8 On the details of this episode, see Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius 17–18 and esp. n. 75 to p. 18.
next emperor, Jovian, in 363; but he reigned (and indeed, lived) only a year before Valentinian came to the throne, accompanied by a brother called Valens whom he appointed governor of the eastern territories, and who systematically demanded the exile of all bishops supportive of Nicaea. Athanasius fl ed his church in time to escape being arrested by Valens’ troops, and remained in exile a few months. He returned later that year (364), at last to stay in Alexandria until his death in 373.9
Seventeen years in exile during a 46-year episcopate, having been accused of rioting, embezzlement, illegal trade embargoes, murder, defying imperial decree, anti-Meletian scheming – it is not diffi cult to see why some have characterized him harshly. Yet this same Athanasius evoked deep respect, and often public out- pourings of joy, amongst the inhabitants of his see;10 forged lasting relationships
with western bishops and the Roman pope; was beloved and held in high esteem by the young monastic communities of the Egyptian desert; was regarded as a defender of the faith even in his own lifetime. In a time of turmoil – and the fourth century was as tumultuous an era as they come – being the recipient of aggressive accusations was hardly abnormal, and marks out most major fi gures in the Church. This is all the more true in the case of the bishop of a see of particular national and international signifi cance, and which had been at the centre of polarizing disputes for at least a quarter-century. Receiving the adulation so great a number, despite such contexts, that by the end of the century he was taken as a father fi gure of the faith, and by the next as one of its most stalwart defenders, is, however, something unusual. Athanasius, whatever may have been the complex dimensions of his character, was a man who spoke in words that would come to defi ne Christian articulation of doctrine for centuries after his death.
For our purposes in this study, it is those words that are most signifi cant. Despite the complexities of his personal situation and the changing landscape of ecclesi- astical politics and doctrinal debate in the post-Nicene era, Athanasius framed his theological writings in a manner marked out by its continuity with past genera- tions. This is most true in his earliest major work, the double Contra Gentes – De
incarnatione, written during the early years of his episcopacy, sometime in the
early 330s.11 Here, more explicitly than anywhere else, Athanasius is able to
9 This overview of the intricacies of Athanasius’ career is necessarily brief. For a good summary in more detail, see Pettersen, Athanasius 1–18. His excessively negative characterizations notwithstand- ing, there is an abundance of useful historical facts and fi gures on the historical aspects of Athanasius’ life and times in Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius 1–164.
10 See Historia Arianorum ad Monachos 25; cf. Weinandy, Athanasius 4.
11 Barnes would locate the date for the work between the usually promoted early dates of c. 318 and later dates of c. 335/6, arguing that the text was composed between 325 and 328 as a ‘specimen erudi-
tionis to demonstrate to the world that the young deacon who was clearly being groomed as the next
bishop of Alexandria deserved his place at Alexander’s side’ (Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius 12; cf. 13). There seems little to support this directly, especially when the theological content is taken more fully into consideration. In general I agree with the later dating of the treatise, rather more dominant in scholarship today, refl ecting the type of doctrinal text relevant to and expected of an early episcopal career. See Anatolios, Athanasius 26–30.
present the core of this theological exposition in his own terms, mindful of the issues at stake at the Nicene council that had been held a few years before, but not yet wholly bound up in the disputes that would demand a polemical and often highly contextual shape to his later texts. The CG-DI is Athanasius at his least case-specifi c. He argues against the general practice of idolatry, but is not yet in disputes with single persons, perceived camps, or over specifi c terminologies; and this text, more than any of his others, articulates doctrinal theology through an anthropological perspective. As idols are wrong images of the divine, Christ is the true Image, and humanity after his image; so in rightly perceiving the human, one rightly perceives Christ, and so knows the Father.12
In what follows, we shall focus primarily on Athanasius’ discussions in the
Contra Gentes-De incarnatione, making comparison throughout to his later works,
in which he regularly refi nes his discussion with reference to increasingly Nicaea- specifi c terminologies. At the end of the chapter we shall look more directly at Athanasius on the concerns of Nicaea and the post-Nicene disputes. Throughout, it will be clear that the anthropological framework for theological discussion of the preceding centuries is borne out fully in Athanasius’ writings, even as the focus begins to change and those frameworks begin to be altered.