Fountains of Salvation

Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. ISAIAH 12:3

Athanasius was, above everything, a man of the Bible. His arguments against the Arians were fought text by text; his treatise on the Incarnation is threaded with Scripture from beginning to end; and the old hermit he admired most could not read, but knew the Scriptures so well that his memory served him for books. At the close of On the Incarnation, having set out his case, Athanasius tells his reader that what he has written is only a sketch. Go to the Scriptures, he says, and you will learn the whole more completely and clearly, for “they were spoken and written by God, through men who spoke of God.”

The list of 367

Every year, the bishop of Alexandria sent a letter to the churches of Egypt announcing the date of Easter. These festal letters usually carried a pastoral message as well. The thirty-ninth, written in 367, did something that has made it one of the most important documents in the history of the Bible. In it Athanasius listed the books that the churches received as Scripture.

His list of the New Testament names the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the seven letters called catholic — James, two of Peter, three of John and Jude — the fourteen letters he attributed to Paul, including Hebrews, and the Revelation of John. That is the twenty-seven books of our New Testament, exactly those and no others. His is the earliest surviving list to name precisely that collection. He called these books fountains of salvation, from which the thirsty may drink, and he warned that no one should add to them or take away from them.

Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. PROVERBS 30:5–6

It is important to understand what he was doing. Athanasius was not inventing the canon or imposing it by decree. The churches had been reading these books for generations; there had been discussion at the edges about a few of them. What he did was write down, clearly, the books the churches had come to receive, so that believers would not be led astray by the many other writings, some of them forged in apostles’ names, that heretical groups were circulating. He also named a few other books, such as the Wisdom of Solomon and the Shepherd, which he said could be read with profit by new converts, but which were not to be counted among the Scriptures. Readers from different traditions will notice that his Old Testament list does not exactly match their own; the edges of the Old Testament were still debated then, as they are now. But on the New Testament he set down what the whole church has held ever since.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. 2 TIMOTHY 3:16

The Scriptures are enough

The Life of Antony shows what this trust in Scripture looked like in a single life. When the monks gathered to hear Antony, he began: “The Scriptures are enough for instruction, but it is a good thing to encourage one another in the faith, and to stir up with words.” That sentence holds the right balance. Scripture is sufficient. It needs no supplement from visions, secret traditions or clever philosophy. And yet believers need one another; the word of a wise elder, the encouragement of a friend, the teaching of the church, all help us to hear what Scripture says.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. PSALM 119:105

Antony’s own knowledge of the Bible came almost entirely from hearing it read in church and holding it in memory. It was the Gospel read aloud that called him to leave everything; it was the Psalms he sang against every temptation; it was Paul’s words he repeated to himself day after day. And when he lay dying, he charged the monks to keep “the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, which you have learned from the Scripture.”

A mirror for the soul

Athanasius wrote one short work on a single book of the Bible that has been loved by readers ever since: a letter to a man named Marcellinus on how to use the Psalms. In it he says, in effect, that the other books of Scripture we read as the words of others, but the Psalms we take on our lips as our own. They are like a mirror in which a person sees the movements of his own soul — joy, grief, fear, repentance, gratitude — and they give him words to bring every one of them to God. The one who sings them, he says, learns to make those words his own. He goes on to suggest particular psalms for particular needs: psalms for when you are persecuted, for when you have sinned, for when you want to give thanks.

Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. JAMES 5:13

This is wise counsel, and it fits everything we see in the Life of Antony. Christians who pray the Psalms learn that there is no condition of the heart that cannot be brought honestly to God.

A pure life to read aright

Finally, Athanasius insists that understanding Scripture is not only a matter of the mind. At the very end of On the Incarnation he writes: “For without a pure mind and a modelling of the life after the saints, a man could not possibly comprehend the words of the saints.” A man who wants to see the sun must clean his eye; a man who wants to understand those who spoke of God must cleanse his life.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. MATTHEW 5:8

Some readers approach the Bible as a puzzle to be solved or a text to be mastered. Athanasius would say that we cannot master it; it must master us. We understand it as we obey it.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Thank God this week for the Bible you hold, and for the long faithfulness of the churches that received and kept it.

2. If you have been drawn to writings or voices you treat as equal to Scripture, set them in their proper place below it.

3. Take one psalm each day this week that matches the state of your soul, and pray it as your own words.

4. Find one fellow believer to read Scripture with regularly, so that you may encourage one another, as Antony said.

5. Ask God to show you one command of Scripture you understand but do not yet obey, and obey it this week.

A PRAYER

Lord God, You have spoken through men who spoke of You, and given us Your Word as fountains of salvation.

Thank You for the Scriptures, and for all who kept and handed them on through the centuries.

Give me a pure heart to understand them, a humble will to obey them, and a thirst to drink from them every day.

Let the Psalms become my prayers, and let Your Word dwell in me richly until I see You face to face. Amen.