Athanasius Against the World

This is a story some of you may be familiar with, but you may not know the full story. It comes to bear for me today because it seems the Protestants of Facebook have been trying to run the 'Firebrand out of town.

Not today, Satan!

This is a story about St. Athanasius, who was literally run out of town by heretics, forced into exile because he chose to stand unwaveringly with what the Church teaches on the nature of Jesus Christ, even while many were in strong and vocal opposition to it.

There are moments when truth does not look victorious.

Sometimes it looks isolated. Outnumbered. Politically inconvenient. Sometimes it stands in a courtroom, or before bishops, or before an emperor, and everyone in the room seems to be saying, Just bend a little. Just soften the language. Just make peace.

Saint Athanasius knew that pressure really well.

He was still a young deacon when he attended the Council of Nicaea in 325. The Church was facing the Arian heresy, which denied the full divinity of Christ. Arius and his supporters did not necessarily sound like enemies of Jesus. They used religious language. They spoke of Christ with reverence. But they refused to confess the Son as fully God, eternally begotten of the Father, “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.”

Athanasius saw the error, and the danger of Arianism. If Christ is not truly God, then Christianity isn't true at all. The Incarnation becomes a fairy tale. Something less than God entering His own creation to save us. The Cross becomes something less than the saving act of God Himself. The Eucharist, grace, redemption, worship — all of it begins to unravel.