The Bishop Who Kept Coming Home

Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. PSALM 27:3

A son of Alexandria. Athanasius was born in Alexandria, in Egypt, around 296 or a year or two later. The city was the second of the Roman world, a great harbour and a great library, Greek in its learning and Egyptian in its bones. We know almost nothing of his family. We do know the world of his boyhood: the last and fiercest of the imperial persecutions fell on the Egyptian church in the first years of the fourth century, and Alexandria had its martyrs, among them its bishop, Peter, put to death in 311. Athanasius grew up in a church that knew what it cost to confess Christ. He learned Greek and the Scriptures thoroughly, and he knew the Coptic-speaking countryside too. That would matter later.

In the bishop’s house. As a young man he came into the household of Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, and was made a deacon and the bishop’s secretary. It was a turbulent place to serve. One of Alexander’s own presbyters, Arius, had begun to teach that the Son of God was a creature — the first and greatest of creatures, through whom all else was made, but made nonetheless. Alexander condemned the teaching, Arius appealed to friends in other cities, and the quarrel spread across the eastern church.

Nicaea. In 325 the emperor Constantine, who wanted one church in one empire, summoned the bishops to Nicaea in Asia Minor. Some two or three hundred came. Alexander brought his young deacon. Athanasius had no vote, but he was there when the council declared that the Son is “of one substance” with the Father — homoousios, in the Greek — true God from true God, begotten, not made. Arius was condemned. It looked like the end of the matter. It was the beginning.

Bishop. When Alexander died in 328, Athanasius, then about thirty, was chosen to succeed him. His election was disputed from the start, and he inherited not only the Arian quarrel but a bitter schism in Egypt led by the followers of Meletius, a bishop who had broken with Alexandria years before. The Meletians and the friends of Arius found common cause against him. For the rest of his life he would be surrounded by charges.

The charges. They were extraordinary. He was accused of taxing the people for linen vestments, of breaking a chalice at a presbyter’s altar, of murdering a Meletian bishop named Arsenius and keeping his severed hand for magic — until Arsenius was found alive. At the Council of Tyre in 335 a synod packed with his opponents condemned him anyway. He went straight to Constantinople and confronted the emperor in person. Then came a new charge, that he had threatened to hold back the grain ships from Egypt that fed the capital, and Constantine sent him away to Trier, on the Moselle, at the far edge of the empire. That was the first exile.

Rome. Constantine died in 337, and his sons let the exiles return. Athanasius was home within the year. But the eastern emperor, Constantius, favoured the party of Arius, and in 339 a rival bishop, Gregory, was installed in Alexandria with the help of soldiers. Athanasius fled to Rome. Julius, bishop of Rome, and a western council received him as the rightful bishop. It was the second exile, and it lasted until 346, when political pressure from the West forced Constantius to let him go back. Alexandria welcomed him with rejoicing.

The night in the church. Ten years of uneasy peace followed. Then, when Constantius had become sole emperor, he set out to bring the whole church into line, and one bishop after another in the West was compelled to condemn Athanasius. On a night in February 356, soldiers surrounded the church of Theonas in Alexandria, where he was leading a vigil. He sat in his bishop’s chair and told the deacon to begin Psalm 136, and the people answered each verse with its refrain, for his mercy endureth for ever. He would not leave until the congregation had gone out safely. Then his clergy half carried him away through the crowd, and he vanished.

The desert. For six years he was hidden. He moved among the monks of the Egyptian desert, and among friends in the city, and no one betrayed him, though the emperor’s agents searched hard. Antony, the old hermit he had known and loved, had died in 356, and in these years Athanasius wrote his Life for monks in other lands who had asked to hear of him. He wrote defences of his conduct, a history of the Arian persecution, and letters to his friend Serapion on the Holy Spirit. The years of hiding were among the most fruitful of his life.

Julian and Valens. Constantius died in 361, and his cousin Julian, who had abandoned the faith and wanted to restore the old gods, allowed the exiled bishops home, perhaps hoping they would tear the church apart. Athanasius returned in 362 and at once began to heal divisions among those who confessed the Nicene faith. Julian, finding him too effective, banished him again that same year — the fourth exile — calling him an enemy of the gods. Julian died on campaign in 363, and Athanasius came back. A fifth exile followed under the emperor Valens in 365, a short one; tradition says that he hid for some months in his father’s tomb outside the city. In 366 he was restored for the last time.

The last years. He had seven quiet years. He went on writing, teaching, ordaining and corresponding with bishops across the empire, and in 367 his annual Easter letter to the churches of Egypt set out the books of the Old and New Testaments, the earliest surviving list of exactly the twenty-seven books of our New Testament. He died in Alexandria on 2 May 373, in his own house and his own city, having outlived every emperor who had banished him. Eight years later, at the Council of Constantinople in 381, the church confirmed the faith of Nicaea and confessed the Holy Spirit as Lord and giver of life. He did not live to see it. He had held the line long enough for others to see it.

The man. He was small, and his enemies mocked him for it. He was quick, shrewd and sometimes ruthless in controversy, and his opponents were not wrong that he could be hard to deal with. But the people of Alexandria loved him, the monks of the desert trusted him, and the old hermit Antony left him, as a last gift, the worn garment Athanasius had once given him new. A bishop who could win the love of both the city crowd and the desert fathers was more than a politician. He was a pastor who believed that the truth about Christ was worth everything, and who spent everything on it.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Athanasius grew up in a church that remembered its martyrs. Find out about one Christian in your own country’s history who suffered for the faith, and thank God for them.

2. He was falsely accused again and again. If you are carrying an unjust accusation, bring it to God in prayer and leave its vindication with Him.

3. He would not leave the church until his people were safe. Ask what it would mean for you to put the safety of others ahead of your own comfort this week.

4. Psalm 136 was the psalm of his worst night. Read it aloud this week, and say its refrain after every verse.

5. Consider what you would be unwilling to sign, say or deny, whatever it cost. Write it down, and ask God for the courage to keep it.

A PRAYER

Lord God, You kept Your servant Athanasius through five exiles, through false charges and the hatred of the powerful, and You brought him home in peace.

Thank You for his faithfulness to Your Son when faithfulness was costly, and for the friends You gave him in the desert and the city.

When I am falsely accused, keep me from bitterness; when the truth is unpopular, keep me from silence.

Teach me, in the dark night as in the day, to say with Your people that Your mercy endureth for ever. Amen.