User:G.W./Athanasius

Childhood and early education

Because of the circumstances of his ordination as bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius' date of birth is obscure and controversial. The minimum age for admission into the priesthood was probably about thirty years (twenty-nine on inclusive reckoning). Since Athanasius' ordination of 8 June 328 was challenged on these grounds, it is not certain which side of 298 he was born on. Timothy Barnes begins his account by stating that Athanasius was born "at the very end of the third century"; he later narrows that statement, on the basis of Athanasius' reluctant admission that he was a deacon at the time of Peter's death, to specify a birthdate in summer 299. A later tradition dates it to 295.

Athanasius' family was of low social status. Constantius would later mock the bishop for this fact, and already in 346 calling Alexandria Athanasius' "ancestral hearth"; Athanasius himself pointed up his low origins in his polemical writings. The future bishop does not seem to have received much in the way of a classical education in letters. His readings were almost exclusively Biblical and exegetical in nature. He names Plato only three times in all his writings, and even then, he only references the most widely known of the philosopher's passages: the creation narrative in the Timaeus, the beginning of the Republic, and the parallel between the leader of a state and the captain of a ship in the Politicus. Nor do Athanasius' works follow the laws of contemporary rhetorical theory; even the Defense Before Constantius does not, even though Athanasius says that he is a forensic speech. In a speech of 380, John Chrysostom claimed that Athanasius had only read as much in non-Christian matters as was necessary to show that he did not hate them from ignorance alone.

A group of ecclesiastical historians writing in the late fourth century and after relate a "pleasant" but apocryphal tale of the bishop's childhood. The bishop of Alexandria, Alexander, met the child at the beach, playing as a bishop among his friends. Since it was 25 November, the anniversary of Peter of Alexandria's martyrdom, Alexander read the event as an omen and called the children to his house to offer them an education. As soon as he reached maturity, Athanasius was made deacon; he became Alexander's most trusted assistant.

Asceticism

Authorship of the Vita S. Antoninus.

Historiography and reputation

[Jean Le Clerc, Isaac de Beausobre, Johann Lorenz von Mosheim]

[Athanasius and anti-Trinitarian theologies—Arianism, Socinianism, deism—in the modern era]

Edward Gibbon

It is no paradox that the most penetrating and most admired portrait of Athanasius ever delineated in modern times comes from the pen of a man who detested Christianity.

Timothy Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius (Harvard, 1993), p. 1

On which, see Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 21. Gibbon never owned an edition of Athanasius, nor did he use Scipione Maffei's 1738 edition of the ancient account of the bishop's later life (though he does use Maffei's work in his later chapters on Julian the Apostate). He also appears ignorant of J. D. Mansi's discussion of the bishop in his Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima Collectio (1759). The apparent source of Gibbon's material on Athanasius is the work by Tillemont and the Benedictine editors, whom he trusts explicitly: "we should enjoy and improve the advantage of drawing our most authentic materials from the rich fund of his own epistles and apologies".

[Womersley's Watchmen has a chapter on Gibbon's portrait of Athanasius]

See also

• Itineraries of the Roman emperors, 337–361

Ancient sources

• Gelasius of Cyzicus. Historia Ecclesiastica.
• Philostorgius. Historia Ecclesiastica.

• Walford, Edward, trans. Epitome of the Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius, Compiled by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855. Online at Tertullian. Accessed 15 August 2009.

• Rufinus. Historia Ecclesiastica.
• Socrates. Historia Ecclesiastica (History of the Church).

• Zenos, A.C., trans. Ecclesiastical History. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 2. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Online at New Advent. Accessed 14 August 2009.

• Sozomen. Historia Ecclesiastica (History of the Church).

• Hartranft, Chester D. Ecclesiastical History. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 2. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Online at New Advent. Accessed 15 August 2009.

• Sulpicius Severus. Sacred History.

• Roberts, Alexander, trans. Sacred History. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 11. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Online at New Advent. Accessed 14 August 2009.

• Theodoret. Historia Ecclesiastica (History of the Church).

• Jackson, Blomfield, trans. Ecclesiastical History. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 3. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Online at New Advent. Accessed 15 August 2009.

Modern sources

• Arnold, Duane W.-H. The Early Episcopal Career of Athanasius of Alexandria. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991.
• Barnes, Timothy D. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.
• Barnes, Timothy D. Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.
• Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edited by David Womersley. London: Allen Lane, 1994 [1776–88]. [The 1906 Bury edition is available, without pagination, at The Online Library of Liberty. Accessed 23 October 2009.]
• Newton, Isaac. "Paradoxical Questions concerning the morals & actions of Athanasius & his followers". Unpublished MS, c. early 1690s. Online at the Newton Project in normalized and diplomatic versions. Accessed 12 November 2009.

External links

• Documents of the Early Arian Controversy on Fourth Century Christianity at Wisconsin Lutheran College
• Contents of Opitz's Athanasius Werke on Fourth Century Christianity at Wisconsin Lutheran College