Athanasius of Alexandria

## Who Was Athanasius of Alexandria? Athanasius of Alexandria was bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, from 328 to 373. As a young deacon he attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 with Bishop Alexander. Three years later he became bishop himself.

He spent the next 45 years defending the Nicene faith that the Son is fully God. Emperors exiled him five times, for a total of about 17 years. His stand gave rise to the Latin phrase Athanasius contra mundum, Athanasius against the world.

## Major Works On the Incarnation, his classic explanation of why the Word became flesh.

Life of Antony, a biography of the Egyptian desert monk.

Discourses (Orations) Against the Arians, three books defending the deity of Christ.

His 39th Festal Letter, written in 367, is the first known list of the 27 New Testament books exactly as we have them.

## On the Incarnation Athanasius asks why God became man. Humanity was made in God’s image but fell into corruption and death. Only the Word who made us could remake us. So He took a body, died in our place, and rose to defeat death. Chapter 54 holds his best‑known line: He became man that we might be made God. Athanasius meant that believers share in God’s life by grace, not that they become divine by nature.

## Life of Antony Antony of Egypt left his wealth around 270 and spent decades in the desert in prayer. He died in 356 at about 105 years old. Athanasius knew him and wrote his life around 360. Much of the book deals with spiritual warfare. Demons attack Antony with noises, visions, and shapes of wild beasts and soldiers. Antony teaches that they are weak, that they flee at the sign of the cross and the name of Christ, and that believers need not fear them. The book spread fast. In his Confessions, book 8, Augustine says hearing Antony’s story helped bring about his own conversion.

## Four Discourses Against the Arians Arius taught that the Son was a creature, the first and greatest, but still made. Athanasius answered that if the Son is a creature, then Christians worship a creature and no creature could save us. The image shows four discourses. Scholars accept the first three as genuine. The fourth was written by someone else. He worked through the Scriptures Arians used, such as Proverbs 8:22, and showed how they fit the Son’s eternal deity.

## Deity of Christ, Defense of Orthodoxy, and Church Leadership For Athanasius, salvation depended on the deity of Christ. He led the Egyptian church through years of exile, hiding at times with desert monks. His persistence helped the Nicene faith win out at the Council of Constantinople in 381, eight years after his death.

## How to Read Athanasius Today Start with On the Incarnation. It has 57 short chapters and reads in about 2 to 3 hours. Use the St Vladimir’s Seminary Press edition translated by John Behr, which includes C. S. Lewis’s introduction. Read Life of Antony chapters 16 through 43 for Antony’s teaching on demons. Both are free in the Nicene and Post‑Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 4.

## About the Author CK Quarterman is a USAF veteran, independent author, and publisher at CKQbooks. He writes the Malaterrestrials nonfiction series, which examines evil earthbound non‑human intelligences through Scripture and history, along with the Watchers’ Universe and Sons of the Flood fiction series. Find his books at ckqbooks.com.

Truth · History · Scripture