The Foundations · Defender of the Faith
Why Athanasius Matters
The bishop who staked his life on the full divinity of Christ.
Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373) is one of the most influential figures in Christian history. As a young deacon he stood at the Council of Nicaea (325); as bishop of Alexandria he spent nearly half his life in exile defending the Nicene confession that the Son is truly God, of one essence with the Father. Without Athanasius, the story of Nicene Christianity — and the shape of the faith confessed by Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants alike — would look very different.
The Arian crisis
In the early 4th century, the priest Arius taught that the Son was the first and greatest of God's creatures, but not himself God in the fullest sense. If Arius was right, Christ was a creature worshipping the Creator, and the Christian confession that 'Jesus is Lord' meant something far weaker than the apostles had proclaimed.
The Council of Nicaea rejected Arianism and confessed the Son as homoousios — of the same substance — with the Father. But the controversy did not end at Nicaea. For decades afterward, imperial politics swung back and forth, and Athanasius stood, often almost alone, for the Nicene faith.
Contra mundum
Athanasius was exiled five times under four different emperors. The Latin phrase Athanasius contra mundum — 'Athanasius against the world' — became shorthand for the courage to stand for the truth even when it seems the whole Church has drifted. He was not against the world for its own sake; he was for the world that God became man to save.
On the Incarnation
In his early treatise On the Incarnation, Athanasius set out the logic of the Nicene faith with unforgettable clarity: 'God became man that man might become god' — that is, that human beings might share, by grace, in the divine life. Only one who is truly God could accomplish this; only one who became truly man could accomplish it in us.
His lasting influence
The Nicene Creed as we know it, the settled Christian canon of the New Testament (Athanasius's Festal Letter of 367 is the earliest surviving list of the 27 books), and the very possibility of a united Nicene confession across East and West all bear his fingerprints. Every Christian who confesses that Jesus is 'true God from true God' stands, whether they know it or not, in Athanasius's debt.
“He became what we are that he might make us what he is.”
“The Son of God became man so that we might become sons of God.”