Athanasius was a protégé and successor of Patriarch Alexander of Alexandria, who’s often credited with having come up with the Trinity doctrine. While this isn’t quite true, Athanasius had a good deal to do with this matter, so this common supposition isn’t too far off the mark.
Still a young man at the time, Athanasius became prominent as the Arian conflict heated up in Alexandria. A deacon and advisor to Alexander, Athanasius appears to have been even more incensed at Arius’ teaching — that Christ was not eternal, having not existed until the Incarnation — than the Patriarch himself. He began to devise a Christology which answered Arius’ own, yet asserted the divinity and eternality of Christ.
He is not mentioned as having any authority or influence prior to the Council of Nicaea, however, he was said to have been Alexander’s closest assistant, so he must have had some importance within the Patriarch’s circle, at least, and possibly within the See of Alexandria.
At Nicaea, Athanasius became the chief spokesman for the anti-Arian, Alexandrian view. Whether he was assigned this task by Alexander, or appropriated it for himself, is unknown. But he must have been greatly respected by Alexander and probably a number of other bishops present. He argued that Arius’ view, that Christ had come into existence at a finite point in time, violated Christ’s eternality and aseity (i.e. self-existence) and thus made him non-divine.
To do this, Athanasius called upon Christian documents for support. But first, he had to establish their authority. He did so by citing prior Church Fathers such as Irenaeus. One of his key pieces of evidence was the opening passage of the gospel of John; he had to demonstrate John’s authority as an apostolic gospel, then used those verses, in which Christ is referred to as the Λογος (Logos, usually translated into English as “the Word”), which is said to have been with God at the beginning of time, and to have been God, then (λογος ην προς τον θεον και θεου ην ‘ο λογος, logos ēn pros ton theon, kai theou ēn ho logos (“And the Word was with God, and the Word was God”).
Despite Arius’ own considerable speaking skills, and the fact that as many as 1/3 of the bishops had been on his side to begin with or leaning in his direction, Athanasius successfully impressed upon the assembly to affirm Christ’s full divinity. The Council overwhelmingly declared Arianism an unacceptable, heretical doctrine, because it denied Christ’s divinity. Furthermore, any future doctrine that did this, or implied it, would automatically be considered heretical.
Although he triumphed at the Council of Nicaea, Athanasius had a great deal of trouble for the rest of his career. Only a year after Nicaea, he succeeded his mentor, Alexander, as Patriarch of Alexandria despite being ostensibly too young to be a bishop (let alone a metropolitan). His tenure was punctuated by several resurgences of Arianism within his See, however. Partly because of this, and his rivalries with Roman officials — including four different Roman emperors — he was driven from office, and from Alexandria itself, several times.
At one point he took refuge with a remote ascetic community living in caves along the Nile, one which may well have had Gnostic leanings. There’s no evidence, though, that they influenced him much, nor is there any evidence that he did anything about them later.
Very likely because of the protracted conflict that endured pretty much for the length of his patriarchate and life, Athanasius dealt with opposing doctrines rather sternly. His partisans harassed, assaulted, and ostracized the opposition. He justified the violence he incited by claiming that eternal salvation was at stake; that is, some temporal discomfort was a comparative bargain if it saved one’s eternal soul.
Over the years, Athanasius refined his Christology, attempting to reconcile Christ as God with Christ also as a distinct Being. While Nicaea had decided this must be the case, the Council had not actually developed a Christology which explained this. It was up to Athanasius to do so.
Ultimately he had to resort to a coined word, ‘ομοουσιος (homoousios). This compound word is best translated into English as “consubstantial”; but in Greek, it meant “self (singular) substance.” It is difficult to determine the meaning of this word, though, since Athanasius invented it, and he did so only because he couldn’t describe his concept using any existing words.
Athanasius’ invention thus became the heart of what would become the Trinity doctrine, which held that God was three Persons who are eternally One but also fully God in his or its own right. Thus, each is separate, but each is God, and thus simultaneously the whole.
This set the stage for later Christian heresy-smashing. Prior to Athanasius the worst that a Christian could get away with doing to a “heretic” was to shun him or her, remove him from office (if he was a cleric), and drive him or her away from a community. Athanasius, though, set a precedent for harassment and violence, one which would be followed by his successor Cyril of Alexandria, and much later, for instance during the Inquisitions of the Middle Ages.
Another legacy Athanasius left behind was a foundation for the Trinity doctrine. Ultimately defined and adopted after his death at the First Council of Constantinople (381), and affirmed at subsequent Councils, it has been a core part of Christian doctrine, ever since. To some degree, we owe this to the fierce tactics of Athanasius, who did not hold back when it came to enforcing doctrine which he thought led to salvation, and wiping out doctrine that he thought endangered it.
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