Voices and influences
Athanasius of Alexandria
Driven out of his own city five times for refusing to call the Son of God a creature — one man against an empire that kept changing its mind.
Summary
This site quotes Athanasius of Alexandria 210 times across 34 books, and lists 3 works.
- Lived 296 to 373, Egyptian.
- Quoted here most in Luke: 36 of 210.
Athanasius of Alexandria
- Lived
- 296 to 373
- Nation
- Egyptian
- Tradition
- Early Church
- Body
- Coptic Orthodox
5 of 210 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Athanasius of Alexandria died in 373 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
“If any of our own people also inquire, not from love of debate but from love of learning, why he suffered death in no other way except on the cross, let him also be told that no other way than this was good for us…”
The rest of the quotation
and that it was well that the Lord suffered this for our sakes. For if he himself came to bear the curse laid upon us, how else could he have "become a curse" unless he received the death set for a curse? And that is the cross.
Deuteronomy 21:23 you must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. BSB
“This statement [about fools] is directly followed by one pointing out that their actions correspond with their thoughts: ‘They are corrupt, and their behavior is evil.’”
Festal Letters 9:8, 12:6, 373
The rest of the quotation
The unrighteous person corrupts his body in every possible way: stealing, committing adultery, cursing, getting drunk, and doing similar things.… Count on it: those who are fools in their thoughts will do wicked deeds. As the Lord said [to the Pharisees], "How can you speak good things when you are evil?" And they truly were evil, because their thoughts were wicked.
Psalms 14:1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; their acts are vile. There is no one who does good. BSB
“People who cling to evil thoughts do not stand for truth but for falsehood. They do not stand for righteousness but for iniquity, because their tongue learns to speak lies. They have done evil, never pausing so that they could repent.”
Festal Letters 9:4, 373
The rest of the quotation
Persevering with delight in wicked actions, they run to them without even looking back. They even tread underfoot the commandment about neighbors, and instead of loving them, they plot evil against them. As the ancient saint testifies, "Those who plot evil against me have spoken lies and plan treachery all day long."
Psalms 38:12 Those who seek my life lay snares; those who wish me harm speak destruction, plotting deceit all day long. BSB
“Even before he became man, he was King and Lord everlasting, being image and word of the Father.”
Psalms 45:6 Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever, and justice is the scepter of Your kingdom. BSB
“But since there are poorly instructed people who, while resisting the doctrine of a Son, think little of the words ‘from the womb before the morning star I begat you,’ as if this referred to his relation to Mary, alleging that he was born of…”
The rest of the quotation
Mary "before the morning star." Since to say that "womb" could not refer to his relation toward God, we must address the issue briefly here. If then, because the "womb" is human, therefore it is foreign to God; "heart" too clearly has a human meaning, for that which has heart has womb also.
Psalms 110:3–4 Your people shall be willing on Your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendor, from the womb of the dawn, to You belongs the dew of Your youth. The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind: “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Athanasius of Alexandria 210 times across 34 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Athanasius was born in Egypt about 296, in the last generation of Christians who grew up expecting to be arrested. He was a boy in Alexandria when the Great Persecution under Diocletian broke over the city in 303. He came out of it holding one conviction he never once softened: the church had not held out for a good man or a great teacher. It had held out for God himself, come in a body. He wrote that down while he was still young. On the Incarnation, probably finished before he was thirty, argues that only God could undo what death had done to the human race, and that God did it by taking flesh and dying in it. Its most quoted line is a trade: he became man that we might become God. Athanasius meant that God's own life is handed to people who could never manufacture it themselves. In 325 he traveled to the Council of Nicaea as a deacon, secretary to his bishop Alexander. He was under thirty and had no vote. The council had been called to settle the teaching of Arius, an Alexandrian presbyter who held that the Son of God was the first and highest of creatures — made, not eternal. There was, Arius said, when he was not. Nicaea answered with one word: homoousios, of one substance with the Father. Nearly every bishop present signed it. Then the empire changed its mind, and went on changing it for the next fifty years. Alexander died in 328 and Athanasius was elected bishop of Alexandria at about thirty-three. He held the see for forty-five years. He spent seventeen of them in exile. The first removal came in 335. A synod at Tyre, stacked with his opponents, tried him on a heap of charges — including the murder of a bishop named Arsenius, whose severed hand was said to be in Athanasius's possession for magic. Athanasius produced Arsenius alive, with both hands. He was condemned anyway, and Constantine sent him to Trier on the Rhine to keep the peace in Egypt. The second exile ran from 339 to 346, most of it in Rome, where Bishop Julius took his side and the Western church began to grasp what was at stake. The third was the hardest. In February 356, soldiers surrounded the church of Theonas during a night vigil with the congregation inside. Athanasius later wrote that he refused to leave until the people were dismissed; in the confusion the monks and clergy got him out through the crowd. He vanished into the Egyptian desert for six years while the emperor Constantius installed a rival bishop by force. The fourth exile came under Julian, who had abandoned Christianity; the fifth, four months of it, under the Arian emperor Valens in 365. Somewhere in those years the phrase attached itself to him: Athanasius contra mundum — Athanasius against the world. For long stretches it was close to literal. Councils at Rimini and Seleucia in 359 produced formulas that dropped the Nicene word, and Jerome later said the whole world groaned to find itself Arian. Athanasius did not bend, did not negotiate the term, and did not go quiet. He wrote from hiding. The Orations against the Arians and the Defense of His Flight were composed by a fugitive. The desert kept him alive, and he paid it back. Out of those hidden years came the Life of Antony, his portrait of the old hermit he had known personally. It was translated into Latin almost at once and became the most widely read book in the ancient church after the Bible — the book that carried monasticism into Europe and, as Augustine records, helped push him toward his own conversion at Milan. One more document belongs on his account. Every Easter the bishop of Alexandria sent out a festal letter fixing the date of the feast. The thirty-ninth of these, written in 367, lists the books the church receives as Scripture. Its New Testament is the twenty-seven books, no more and no fewer — the earliest surviving list that matches the one in a reader's hands today. He came home for the last time in 366 and died in his own bed on 2 May 373, still bishop, having outlasted four emperors and a rival for his chair. He never held political power. He was short, dark, and easy to caricature, and his enemies did. What he left was the church's confession that Jesus of Nazareth is God of God, not a splendid creature standing between us and the Father — and the plain demonstration that one man refusing to sign can outlast an empire. Sources: Athanasius, On the Incarnation; Athanasius, Life of Antony; Athanasius, Festal Letter 39 (367); Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History; Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, vol. 4.
3 works
How to read this voice
On the Incarnation
318
17 quotations on this site
Four Discourses Against the Arians
360
6 quotations on this site
Life of Anthony
360
Not quoted on this site yet
Their whole shelf sits at Athanasius (CCEL) and New Advent - Athanasius.
210 quotations across 34 books
Where this voice is quoted
The wicked will return to Sheol— all the nations who forget God.
“When, by faith and knowledge, the Lord's people have embraced true life, they surely receive the joy of heaven. The wicked, however, since they do not care about the Lord's life, are rightly deprived of its blessings.”
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; their acts are vile. There is no one who does good.
“This statement [about fools] is directly followed by one pointing out that their actions correspond with their thoughts: "They are corrupt, and their behavior is evil."”
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will dwell securely.
“We die not by our own choice but by necessity of nature and against our will. However, the Lord, being himself immortal yet having mortal flesh, had power, as God, to separate from his body and to take it back again, when he would.… For…”
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.
“Creation … points to God as its Maker and Artificer, who reigns over creation and over all things, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; whom would-be philosophers turn from to worship and deify the creation that proceeded from him, which yet itself worships…”
Lift up your heads, O gates! Be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of Glory may enter!
“It was not the Word himself that needed an opening of the gates, being Lord of all; nor were any of his works closed to their maker; but we it was that needed it, whom he carried up by his own body.”
You are my hiding place. You protect me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah
“He caused a light to shine at the prayer of the psalmist, who said, "My Joy, deliver me from those who surround me"; this being indeed true rejoicing, this being a true feast, even deliverance from wickedness, to which a person attains by thoroughly adopting…”
I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise will always be on my lips.
“The Lord loves thankful people. They never cease to praise him, and they regularly thank him. In both good times and bad times they offer praise and thanksgiving to God.”
For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.
“The bishops [at the Council of Nicea], having detected the Arians' deceitfulness in this matter, collected from Scripture those passages that say of Christ that he is the glory, the fountain, the stream and the express image of the person; and they quoted the following…”
Those who seek my life lay snares; those who wish me harm speak destruction, plotting deceit all day long.
“People who cling to evil thoughts do not stand for truth but for falsehood. They do not stand for righteousness but for iniquity, because their tongue learns to speak lies. They have done evil, never pausing so that they could repent.”
Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever, and justice is the scepter of Your kingdom.
“Even before he became man, he was King and Lord everlasting, being image and word of the Father.”
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you above your companions with the oil of joy.
“The word therefore does not imply the reward of virtue or conduct in the Word but the reason why he came down to us. It indicates that the Spirit's anointing took place in him for our sakes.”
You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but You brought us into abundance.
“And although the entrance is "straight and narrow," once inside we see a vast and limitless space, greater than any other anywhere. We have been told of these things by eyewitnesses and heirs.”
May his name endure forever; may his name continue as long as the sun shines. In him may all nations be blessed; may they call him blessed.
“And if, as David says in the seventy-first [LXX] psalm, "His name remains before the sun and before the moon, from one generation to another," how did he receive what he always had, even before he now received it?”
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish for us the work of our hands— yes, establish the work of our hands!
“Thus, if Isaiah says, "The everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth"; and Susanna said, "O everlasting God";42 and Baruch wrote, "I will cry to the Everlasting in my days," and shortly after, "My hope is in the Everlasting, that he will…”
Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, I will put to silence; the one with haughty eyes and a proud heart, I will not endure.
“And Jezebel was able to injure the most religious Naboth by her false accusations; but then it was the wicked and apostate Ahab who listened to her.”
In the beginning You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
“Therefore the Image of the unalterable God must be unchangeable; for "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever."”
How many are Your works, O LORD! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures.
“Doubtless the things that came to be through the Word, these are "founded in wisdom" and what are "founded in wisdom," these are all made by the Hand and came to be through the Son.”
Here is the sea, vast and wide, teeming with creatures beyond number, living things both great and small. There the ships pass, and Leviathan, which You formed to frolic there.
“Let us, therefore, in the faith of the disciples, converse frequently with our Master. For the world is like the sea to us, my brothers, of which it is written, "This is the great and wide sea, there go the ships; the Leviathan, which you…”
May my meditation be pleasing to Him, for I rejoice in the LORD. May sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more.
“Thus then, being before instructed and taught, they [the people of Israel] learned not to do service to any one but the Lord.”
Your people shall be willing on Your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendor, from the womb of the dawn, to You belongs the dew of Your youth.
“But since there are poorly instructed people who, while resisting the doctrine of a Son, think little of the words "from the womb before the morning star I begat you," as if this referred to his relation to Mary, alleging that he was born of…”
Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear…
“But this all inspired Scripture also teaches more plainly and with more authority, so that we in our turn write boldly to you as we do, and you, if you refer to Scripture, will be able to verify what we say.”
Truly, O LORD, I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have broken my bonds.
“When we read this, we correctly understand that Solomon was a natural and genuine son and do not consider him a servant just because we hear him so called.”
The LORD is on my side; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? The LORD is on my side; He is my helper.
“And how should Christ, who said to Abraham, "Fear not, for I am with you," and encouraged Moses against Pharaoh and said to the son of Nun, "Be strong and of a good courage," himself be terrified before Herod and Pilate?”
I will not die, but I will live and proclaim what the LORD has done.
“Thus it is that sinners, and all those who are aliens from the catholic church, heretics and schismatics, since they are excluded from glorifying [God] with the saints, cannot properly even continue to be observers of the feasts.”
Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the Law of the LORD.
“And as he is Firstborn among brothers and rose from the dead "the firstfruits of them that slept"; so, since it became him "in all things to have the preeminence," therefore he is created "a beginning of ways," that we, walking along it and entering…”