Life of St Athanasius the Great and Account of Arianism

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128 Pages (Part I)

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This, adds Sozomen (ii. 17), was the origin of his subsequent attachment to Alexander as deacon and secretary. The story is credited by some writers of weight (most recently, by Archdeacon Farrar), but seems highly improbable. It depends on the single authority of a writer not famed for historical judgment, and on the very first anniversary of Peter's martyrdom, when Alexander had hardly ascended the episcopal throne, Athanasius was at least fourteen years old. The probability that the anniversary would have been other than the first, and the possibility that Athanasius was even older, coupled with the certainty that his theological study began before Peter's martyrdom, compel us to mark the story with at least a strong note of interrogation. But it may be allowed to confirm us in the belief that Alexander early singled out the promise of ability and devotion which marked Athanasius for his right-hand man long before the crisis which first proved his unique value.

His years of study and work in the bishop's household bore rich fruit in the two youthful works already alluded to. These works more than any later writings of Athanasius bear traces of the Alexandrian theology and of the influence of Origenism: but in them already we trace the independent grasp of Christian principles which mark Athanasius as the representative of something more than a school, however noble and many-sided. It was not as a theologian, but as a believing soul in need of a Saviour, that Athanasius approached the mystery of Christ. Throughout the mazes of the Arian controversy his tenacious hold upon this fundamental principle steered his course and balanced his theology. And it is this that above all else characterises the golden treatise on the Incarnation of the Word. There is, however, one element in the influence of Origen and his successors which already comes out, and which never lost its hold upon Athanasius,--the principle of asceticism. Although the ascetic tendency was present in Christianity from the first, and had already burst forth into extravagance in such men as Tertullian, it was reserved for the school of Origen, influenced by Platonist ideas of the world and life, to give to it the rank of an acknowledged principle of Christian morals--to give the stimulus to monasticism (see below, p. 193). Among the acclamations which accompanied the election of Athanasius to the episcopate that of heis ton askeon was conspicuous (Apol. Ar. 6). In de Incarn. 51. 1, 48. 2, we seem to recognise the future biographer of Antony [3] .

[3] The actual connection of Athanasius with Antony at this period is implied in the received text of 'Vit. Anton.' Prolog., for it could scarcely fall at any later date. At the same time the youthful life of Athanasius seems fully accounted for in such a way as to leave little room for it (so Tillemont). But our ignorance of details leaves it just possible that he may for a time have visited the great hermit and ministered to him as Elisha did of old to Elijah. (Cf. p. 195, note 2.)

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