Athanasius Against the World

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. 1 CORINTHIANS 16:13

There is a Latin phrase that has attached itself to Athanasius for centuries: Athanasius contra mundum, Athanasius against the world. He never said it of himself, and it was coined long after his death. It is only half true. But it captures something that every Christian generation has needed to remember. There are times when the truth is held by a few, when the powerful are against it, when councils sign what they should not sign and most people go along. In such times, faithfulness may mean standing nearly alone.

When the world signed

For much of Athanasius’s life, the faith of Nicaea was out of favour. Emperors wanted peace in the church, and peace, to them, meant a formula everyone could sign. Council after council produced creeds that avoided saying the Son was of one substance with the Father. At Arles in 353 and at Milan in 355, western bishops were pressed to condemn Athanasius personally, and most of them did. Those who refused were exiled. In 359, at the twin councils of Ariminum and Seleucia, the bishops of both halves of the empire were brought, under heavy pressure, to accept a vague creed that said only that the Son was like the Father. Jerome, writing a generation later, said that the whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian.

Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. EXODUS 23:2

Through all of it, Athanasius would not sign. He wrote, he argued, he hid, and he waited. He did not have armies or the emperor’s favour. He had the Scriptures, a clear mind, and a conscience that would not bend.

Never really alone

And yet the phrase is only half true, because he was never actually alone. The people of Alexandria loved him and defended him. The monks of the desert hid him for years and never betrayed him. Bishops in Rome and the West received him when the East drove him out. He wrote endlessly to friends and allies across the empire, and they wrote back. When he fled on that night in 356, it was his clergy who carried him to safety.

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth. ECCLESIASTES 4:9–10

There is a lesson here for anyone who must stand for the truth. We may be outnumbered, but we are rarely as alone as we feel. Elijah thought he was the only faithful one left, and God told him there were seven thousand others. Part of standing firm is finding and strengthening those who stand with us.

Endurance

Five times Athanasius was driven from his city, and five times he came home. Seventeen years of his forty-five as bishop were spent in exile — in Trier, in Rome, in the desert, in hiding. The worst night of all, in February 356, found him in his chair in the church of Theonas while soldiers broke in, calling on his people to sing the psalm whose refrain is that God’s mercy endures for ever.

O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. PSALM 136:1

That choice of psalm says much about how he endured. He did not survive by bitterness or by counting his wrongs. He survived by fixing his mind on the mercy of God, which outlasts every emperor. The Life of Antony records the old hermit’s vision, two years before the Arian party seized the churches of Alexandria, of mules kicking over the Lord’s table. Antony wept at it. But then he comforted his companions: as the Lord has been angry, he said, “so again will He heal us, and the Church shall soon again receive her own order, and shall shine forth as she is wont.” Athanasius clearly held on to that hope.

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. GALATIANS 6:9

Unity in truth

It would be a mistake to picture Athanasius as a man who loved a fight for its own sake. His goal was not division but a church united in the truth. When he returned in 362, he at once called a council in Alexandria to heal the divisions among those who confessed the faith. He saw that some who had hesitated over the word homoousios, and preferred to say the Son was like the Father in substance, meant substantially the same thing as he did. He was willing to receive them as brothers. He also saw that some quarrels among orthodox believers were about words rather than meanings, and he urged them to ask what each other meant before condemning each other. This generosity helped prepare the way for the settlement at Constantinople in 381.

Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. EPHESIANS 4:3

So Athanasius teaches both halves of a hard lesson. Do not buy peace by giving up the truth; a unity built on a vague formula is no unity. But do not make every difference of words a battle; seek out those who share the substance of the faith, and be glad of them.

An honest caution

We must also say again what was said at the beginning. Athanasius’s enemies accused his party of using intimidation and even violence against rivals, especially the Meletians, and not every such charge can be dismissed as invention. Some of his opponents were genuinely cruel; some were simply cautious bishops he treated as enemies. A man who stands against the world can come to see enemies everywhere, and to excuse in his friends what he condemns in his foes. Standing for the truth does not sanctify every means used to defend it.

Speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. EPHESIANS 4:15

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Is there a truth of the faith that is unpopular where you live or work? Ask God for the courage to hold it without apology and without harshness.

2. Name the people who stand with you in the faith. Write to or call one of them this week to strengthen them.

3. If you are in a season of loss or exile, pray Psalm 136 aloud, saying the refrain after each verse.

4. Think of a Christian you disagree with. Ask whether your difference is about the substance of the faith or only about words, and treat them accordingly.

5. Examine whether, in standing for something right, you have excused wrong methods in yourself or your side. Confess it.

A PRAYER

Lord God, Your mercy endures for ever, longer than every emperor and every exile.

When the truth is unpopular, make me steadfast; when I feel alone, show me those who stand with me.

Keep me from buying peace with falsehood, and from making enemies of those who are Your friends.

Heal Your church, bring her again to her own order, and let her shine as she was meant to shine. Amen.