Athanasius (296-373 AD), the stern defender of the Catholic Faith, was born at Alexandria in Egypt. He was made Deacon by Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, whose successor he afterwards became. He accompanied that Prelate to the Council of Nicaea where, having refuted the impious doctrine of Arius, he became such an object of hatred to the Arians that from that time forward they never ceased to lay snares for him. Thus, at a Council held at Tyre at which the majority of the Bishops were Arians, the party suborned a wretched woman who was to accuse Athanasius that when lodging in her house, he had offered violence to her. Athanasius was accordingly brought before the Council. One of his priests, Timothy, went in with him, and pretending that he was Athanasius, he said to the woman: “What! Did I ever lodge at your house? Did I violate you?” She boldly answered him: “Yes, it was you.” She affirmed it with an oath, besought the judges to avenge her, and punish so great a crime. The trick being discovered, the impudent woman was ordered to leave the place.
The Arians also spread the report that Athanasius had murdered a certain Bishop Arsenius. Having put this Arsenius into confinement, they brought forward the hand of a dead man saying that it was the hand of Arsenius, and that Athanasius had cut it off for purposes of witchcraft. But Arsenius having made his escape during the night, presented himself before the whole Council and exposed the impudent malice of Athanasius’ enemies. But even this they attributed to the magical skill of Athanasius and went on plotting his death. They succeeded in having him banished, and accordingly, he was sent to Treves in Gaul. During the reign of the emperor Constantius who was on the Arian side, Athanasius had to go through the most violent storms, endure incredible sufferings and go wandering from country to country. He was driven several times from his See, but was restored, at one time by the authority of Pope Julius, at another by the help of the emperor Constans, Constantius’ brother, at another by the decrees of the Councils of Sardica and Jerusalem.
During all this time the Arians relented not in their fury against him. Their hatred of him was unremitting, and he only avoided being murdered by hiding himself for five years in a dry well where he was fed by one of his friends, who was the only person that knew the place of his concealment. Constantius died and was succeeded by Julian the Apostate, who allowed the exiled Bishops to return to their respective Sees. Accordingly, Athanasius returned to Alexandria, where he was received with every possible mark of honour. Not long after, however, he was again obliged to flee, owing to the persecution he met with from Julian, who was instigated by the Arians. On one occasion, when he was being pursued by the Emperor’s satellites who were ordered to put him to death, the Saint ordered the boat in which he was fleeing from danger to be turned back. As soon as he met the persecutors, they asked him if Athanasius was anywhere near. He answered that he was not far off. While they, therefore, went one way, he sailed the other and got back to Alexandria where he remained in concealment till Julian’s death.
Another storm soon arose in the city and he was obliged to hide himself for four months in his father’s sepulchre. Having thus miraculously escaped from all these great dangers, he died peacefully in his own bed at Alexandria during the reign of the emperor Valens. His life and death were honoured by great miracles. He wrote several admirable treatises, some on subjects pertaining to practical piety, and others on the dogmas of Catholic faith. He for six and forty years, and amid the most troubled of times, governed the Church of Alexandria with extraordinary piety. Saint Athanasius became known as the ‘Father of Orthodoxy,’ and was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Saint Pius V in 1568. To him is attributed (whether correctly or not), the following Creed:
“Whoever wishes to be saved must above all keep the Catholic faith. For unless a person keeps this faith whole and entire, they will undoubtedly be lost forever. This is what the Catholic faith teaches: we worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity. Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit.Dom Prosper Guéranger:
But the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have one divinity, equal glory, and co-eternal majesty. What the Father is, the Son is, and the Holy Spirit is.
The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is boundless, the Son is boundless, and the Holy Spirit is boundless. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, and the Holy Spirit is eternal.
Nevertheless, there are not three eternal beings, but one eternal being. So there are not three uncreated beings, nor three boundless beings, but one uncreated being and one boundless being. Likewise, the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Spirit is omnipotent.
There are not three omnipotent beings, but one omnipotent being. Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.
However, there are not three gods, but one God. The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord. However, there are not three lords, but one Lord. For as we are obliged by Christian truth to acknowledge every Person singly to be God and Lord, so too are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say that there are three Gods or Lords.
The Father was not made, nor created, nor generated by anyone. The Son is not made, nor created, but begotten by the Father alone. The Holy Spirit is not made, nor created, nor generated, but proceeds from the Father and the Son. There is, then, one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three sons; one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits. In this Trinity, there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less. The entire three Persons are co-eternal and co-equal with one another. So that in all things, as is has been said above, the Unity is to be worshiped in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity.
Whoever therefore, who wishes to be saved, must believe thus about the Trinity.
It is also necessary for eternal salvation that they believes steadfastly in the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man.
As God, He was begotten of the substance of the Father before time; as man, He was born in time of the substance of His Mother. He is perfect God; and He is perfect man, with a rational soul and human flesh. He is equal to the Father in His divinity, but inferior to the Father in His humanity. Although He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ. And He is one, not because His divinity was changed into flesh, but because His humanity was assumed unto God. He is one, not by a mingling of substances, but by unity of person.
As a rational soul and flesh are one man: so God and man are one Christ. He died for our salvation, descended into Hell, and rose from the dead on the third day. He ascended into Heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there He shall come to judge the living and the dead. At His coming, all men are to arise with their own bodies; and they are to give an account of their own deeds. Those who have done good deeds will go into eternal life; those who have done evil will go into the everlasting fire.
This is the Catholic faith. Everyone must believe it, firmly and steadfastly; otherwise they cannot be saved. Amen.”
The court of our divine King, during this grandest of Seasons, is brilliant beyond measure. And today it is gladdened by the arrival of one of the most glorious champions that ever fought for His holy cause. Among the guardians of the Word of Truth confided by Jesus to the Earth, is there one more faithful than Athanasius? Does not his very name remind us of dauntless courage in the defence of the sacred deposit, of heroic firmness and patience in suffering, of learning, of talent, of eloquence — in a word, of everything that goes to form a Saint, a Bishop, and a Doctor of the Church? Athanasius lived for the Son of God. The cause of the Son of God was that of Athanasius. He who blessed Athanasius blessed the eternal Word, and he insulted the eternal Word who insulted Athanasius.
Never did our holy Faith go through a greater ordeal than in the sad times immediately following the Peace of the Church, when the Barque of Peter had to pass through the most furious storm that Hell had so far let loose against her. Satan had vainly sought to drown the Christian race in a sea of blood. The sword of persecution had grown blunt in the hands of Diocletian and Galerius, and the Cross appeared in the heavens, proclaiming the triumph of Christianity. Scarcely had the Church become aware of her victory when she felt herself shaken to her very foundation. Hell sent upon the Earth a heresy which threatened to blight the fruit of three hundred years of martyrdom. Arius began his impious doctrine — that He, who had hitherto been adored as the Son of God, was only a creature, though the most perfect of all creatures. Immense was the number, even of the clergy, that fell into this new error. The Emperors became its abettors, and had not God Himself interposed, men would soon have set up the cry throughout the world that the only result of the victory gained by the Christian religion was to change the object of idolatry and put a new idol, called Jesus, in place of the old ones.
But He who had promised that the gates of Hell should never prevail against His Church faithfully fulfilled His promise. The primitive faith triumphed. The Council of Nicaea proclaimed the Son to be consubstantial to the Father, but the Church stood in need of a man in whom the cause of the Consubstantial Word should be, so to speak, incarnated — a man with learning enough to foil the artifices of heresy, and with courage enough to bear every persecution without flinching. This man was Athanasius, and everyone that adores and loves the Son of God should love and honour Athanasius. Five times banished from his See of Alexandria by the Arians, who even sought to put him to death, he fled for protection to the West, which justly appreciated the glorious Confessor of Jesus’ Divinity. In return for the hospitality accorded him by Rome, Athanasius gave her of his treasures. Being the admirer and friend of the great Saint Antony, he was a fervent admirer of the monastic life which, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, had flourished so wonderfully in the deserts of his vast Patriarchate. He brought the precious seed to Rome, and the first monks seen there were the ones introduced by Athanasius. The heavenly plant became naturalised in its new soil, and though its growth was slow at first, it afterwards produced fruit more abundantly than it had ever done in the East.
Athanasius, who has written so admirably upon that fundamental dogma of our Faith — the Divinity of Christ — has also left us most eloquent treatises on the mystery of the Pasch. They are to be found in the Festal Letters which he addressed each year to the Churches of his Patriarchate of Alexandria. The collection of these Letters, which were once thought to have been irretrievably lost, was found in the Monastery of Saint Mary of Scete in Egypt. The first, for the year 329, begins with these words which beautifully express the sentiments we should feel at the approach of Easter: “Come, my beloved brethren, celebrate the Feast. The season of the year invites you to do so. The Sun of Justice, by pouring out His divine rays upon you, tells you that the time of the Solemnity is come. At such tidings let us keep a glad feast. Let not the joy slip from us with the fleeting days without our having tasted of its sweetness.” During almost every year of his banishment, Athanasius continued to address a Paschal Letter to his people. The one in which he announces the Easter of 338, and which he wrote at Treves, begins thus: “Though separated from you, my brethren, I cannot break through the custom which I have always observed, and which I received from the tradition. of the Fathers. I will not be silent. I will not omit announcing to you the time of the holy annual Feast, and the day on which you must keep the Solemnity. I am, as you have doubtless been told, a prey to many tribulations. I am weighed down by heavy trials. I am watched by the enemies of truth, who scrutinise everything I write in order to rake up accusations against me and, thereby, add to my sufferings. Yet, notwithstanding, I feel that the Lord strengthens and consoles me in my afflictions. Therefore do I venture to address to you the annual celebration, and from the midst of my troubles and despite the snares that beset me, I send you, from the further most part of the Earth, the tidings of the Pasch which is our salvation. Commending my fate into God’s hands, I will celebrate this Feast with you. Distance of place separates us, but I am not absent from you. The Lord who gives us these Feasts, who is Himself our Feast, who bestows upon us the gift of His Spirit, He unites us spiritually to one another by the bond of concord and peace.”
How grand is this Pasch celebrated by Athanasius an exile on the Rhine in union with his people who keep their Easter on the banks of the Nile! It shows us the power of the Liturgy to unite men together and make them, at one and the same time, and despite the distance of countries, enjoy the same holy emotions and feel the same aspirations to virtue. Greeks or Barbarians, we have all the same mother country, the Church. But what, after Faith, unites us all into one family is the Church’s Liturgy. Now there is nothing in the whole Liturgy so expressive of unity as the celebration of Easter.
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You were throned, Athanasius, on the Chair of Mark in Alexandria. And your name is emblazoned near his on the sacred Cycle. He left Rome, sent by Peter himself, to found the second Patriarchal See. And you, three centuries later, visited Rome as successor of Mark to seek protection from Peter’s successor against them that were disturbing your venerable See by injustice and heresy. Our Western Church was thus honoured by your presence, O intrepid defender of the Faith! She looked on you with veneration as the glorious Exile, the courageous Confessor, and she has chronicled your sojourning in her midst as an event of dearest interest.
Intercede for the country over which was extended your Patriarchal jurisdiction, but forget not this Europe of ours which gave thee hospitality and protection. Rome defended your cause. She passed sentence in your favour and restored you your rights. Make her a return, now that you are face to face with the God of infinite goodness and power. Protect and console her Pontiff, the successor of that Julius who so nobly befriended you. A fierce tempest is now raging against the Rock on which is built the Church of Christ, and our eyes have grown wearied looking for a sign of calm. Oh pray, that these days of trial be shortened, and that the See of Peter may triumph over the calumnies and persecutions which are now besetting her, and endangering the faith of many of her children.
Your zeal, Athanasius, checked the ravages of Arianism, but this heresy has again appeared in our own times and in almost every country of Europe. Its progress is due to that proud superficial learning which has become one of the principal perils of the age. The Eternal Son of God, Consubstantial to the Father, is blasphemed by our so-called philosophers as being only Man — the best and greatest of men, they say, but still, only Man. They despise all the proofs which reason and history adduce of Jesus being God. They profess a sort of regard for the Christian teaching which has hitherto been held, but they have discovered (so they tell us) the fallacy of the great Dogma which recognises, in the Son of Mary, the Eternal Word who became Incarnate for man’s salvation. Athanasius, glorious Doctor of holy Mother Church, humble these modern Arians! Expose their proud ignorance and sophistry. Undeceive their unhappy followers by letting them see how this false doctrine leads either to the abyss of the abominations of Pantheism, or to the chaos of Scepticism, where all truth and morality are impossibilities.
Preserve within us, by the influence of thy prayers, the precious gift of Faith with which our Lord has mercifully blessed us. Obtain for us that we may ever confess and adore Jesus Christ as our eternal and infinite God: “God of God, Light of Light, True God of True God, Begotten, not made, who for us men and for our salvation took Flesh of the Virgin Mary.” May we grow each day in the knowledge of this Jesus until we join you in the face-to-face contemplation of His perfections. Meanwhile, by means of holy Faith, we will live with Him on this Earth that has witnessed the glory of His Resurrection. How fervent, O Athanasius, was your love of this Son of God, our Creator and Redeemer! This love was the very life of your soul and the stimulus that urged you to heroic devotedness to His cause. It supported you in the combats you had to sustain with the world, which seemed leagued together against your single person. It gave you strength to endure endless tribulations. Oh pray that we may get this same love — a love which is fearless of danger because faithful to Him for whom we suffer — a love which is so justly due, seeing that He, though the Brightness of His Father’s glory and Infinite Wisdom, emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the Cross (Philippians ii. 7, 8). How else can we make Him a return for this His devotedness to us, except by giving Him all our love, as you did, O Athanasius, and by striving to compensate the humiliations He endured for our salvation by ever singing His praise?Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Rome, the holy martyrs Saturninus, Neopolus, Germanus and Celestine who after much suffering were thrown into prison where they rested in the Lord.
Also the holy martyrs Exuperius and Zoe, his wife, with their sons, Cyriacus and Theodulus who suffered under the emperor Hadrian.
At Seville, St. Felix, deacon and martyr.
The same day, St. Vindemial, bishop and martyr, who with the holy bishops Eugenius and Longinus, combated the Arians by his teaching and miracles, and was decapitated by order of king Hunneric.
At Avila in Spain, St. Secundus, bishop, who is also mentioned with others on the fifteenth of this month.
At Florence, the bishop St. Antoninus, of the Order of Preachers, renowned for holiness and learning. His feast is kept on the tenth of this month.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
