Who's Who In Christian Theology: Athanasius

ATHANASIUS (c. 295-373) Bishop of Alexandria (Egypt)

Athanasius did more than anyone else to bring about the triumph of the orthodox Nicene faith over Arianism, a struggle to which he devoted forty-five years and for which he was exiled five times.

Athanasius was born in Alexandria and was trained there as a theologian. He moved up rapidly as reader, deacon, and theological adviser for Bishop Alexander, accompanying him in 325 to the Council of Nicaea (near Constantinople, now Istanbul in modern Turkey). Athanasius succeeded Alexander as bishop upon Alexander’s death in 328.

The conflicts which necessitated the Council of Nicaea began in Alexandria. They existed when Alexander was bishop and continued throughout the life of Athanasius. The first came from a challenge by Melitius of Lycopolis to the authority which the bishop of Alexandria exercised over the whole church of Egypt. Melitius formed a schismatic church in reaction to the lenient treatment Alexander’s predecessor gave to those who had denied the faith during the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Diocletian. A greater conflict soon to engulf the whole church began when Arius, an Alexandrian presbyter, advocated the view that Christ was not eternal but was created by the Father Arius was condemned by Alexander in 319 at a synod in his city; but Arian views spread rapidly in the East, where prominent bishops held similar views. The Council of Nicaea was called in 325 by the Roman emperor Constantine to settle the Melitian and Arian issues and to bring unity to the church and civic peace to the area.

Condemnation of Arius by the council and even the adoption of the Nicene Creed did not bring the peace and unity which Constantine desired. There was ambiguity in the way the bishops understood the creed they had signed. As a result, Arius eventually signed the creed himself (with a few private additions). The emperor then ordered Athanasius, now bishop of Alexandria, to restore Arius. When the order arrived, Athanasius refused to readmit Arius — whereupon false charges were brought against Athanasius at the synod of Tyre (335), and Constantine exiled him.

The sanction of Arian views by the emperor threatened to turn Christianity into a philosophy mixed with pagan thought. Arians believed in a single supreme God who made contact with the world through lower creatures such as the Son and the Spirit. The Son was a suffering divine hero who was to be worshiped, very much like the hero gods of the Greeks. Since that view was so similar to paganism, Arianism made the monotheism of Christianity acceptable to many who were adopting the religion of the emperor. Athanasius recognized the danger and frequently called the Arians heathens.

As Arianism’s greatest opponent, Athanasius emphasized redemption and the necessity of the Incarnation of the Word (Christ) for man’s salvation (Oration on the Incarnation of the Word). He taught that it was necessary for the Word to be as eternal as God if he was to form the divine image in man. This was also the emphasis of his primary theological work, The Three Orations against the Arians (335 or later). In Three Orations Athanasius taught that since the Scripture describes the Son as “begotten” of the Father, he must be of the same nature as the Father, not a creature of the Father. Christ was generated spiritually, not created. In the second oration Athanasius rejected the Arians’ baptism because they did not baptize in the name of the Trinity as understood in Scripture.

Athanasius’s periods of exile spanned the rule of four emperors: Constantine, Constantius, Julian (a pagan who tried to restore the old gods), and Valens (who exiled Athanasius for only four months). His first exile lasted until Constantine’s death in 337. He returned to Alexandria only to be deposed the same year by a synod of Antioch. From 346, there was relative peace until he was again deposed in 355. The years 361 and 362 saw him back in his bishopric, but emperor Julian exiled him in the fall of the second year. He went back to Alexandria in 363, was deposed in 365, and recalled in 366. Through these trying times Athanasius struggled for the faith without yielding. He made it difficult for emperors to deal with him. At times he would delay appearing before their court, or would escape to appear before the emperor at another time and place — to the surprise of everyone. Throughout the struggles the majority of Christians in Alexandria remained devoted to him. One major benefit resulted from his two exiles in the West: the Latin church came under his influence.

There were, however, many bishops in the East who were not Arians and had no sympathy with the Arian bishops who controlled the Eastern church during the rule of Constantius. At the same time, they did not completely agree with the wording of the Nicene Creed: “the Son of God . . . of one substance with the Father.” The majority of those bishops held that the essence of the Son is “like” that of the Father. For them the creedal phrase did not make a clear distinction between Father and Son. In 359 Athanasius made a great step toward reconciliation with that majority in his Letter Concerning the Synods. He apologized to Basil of Ancyra and said that those who accepted the Nicene Creed but questioned the term “of one substance” should be treated as brothers. Athanasius went further toward reconciliation by calling a synod in Alexandria (362) during his brief return while Julian was emperor. The final step in the triumph of orthodoxy came after the death of Athanasius under the emperor Theodosius at the Council of Constantinople in 381.

In addition to contributing to the defeat of Arianism, Athanasius helped shape the Christian ideal of monasticism. He brought monasticism out of isolation in Egypt with his book, The Life of Antony. Athanasius knew the desert hermit monk personally and through his writing made the pattern of Antony’s life the ideal in the East. The Life of Antony also had an impact on many in the West.--J. Newton


Source:
WHO’S WHO IN CHRISTIAN HISTORY
J. D. Douglas and Philip W. Comfort,
EditorsDonald Mitchell, Associate Editor
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
WHEATON, ILLINOIS

Hoping for a fruitful year

Hope I could write: "The year 2008 was the busiest year we had here in the mission field. The year 2009 is the beginning of our fourth year here in Thailand. Ministries are starting to take off and the day care is growing. Teaching at the Bible school is taking much of my time. The actual teaching takes two hours but the preparation and making the lessons easy to translate takes a lot of hard work. I prepare the lesson using Powepoint because I find it very helpful if you are teaching with an interpreter. It makes the translation a lot easier.

This year, I have to divide my time in teaching, preaching, writing, working around the house, gardening and driving the school bus plus the fact that I am a husband and a father of three home schooled children.

This year I need to move forward with the paper so I will be reading and write a few sentences each day as I had been doing before the tragedy happened.

I will read The Crucified God by Jurgen Moltmann for a start this year and I am hoping to accomplish something this year. Sigh

Meanwhile here is an interesting quote from Moltmann from CG, page 8.

Fundamentalism fossilizes the Bible into an unquestionable authority. Dogmatism freezes living Christian tradition solid. The habitual conservatism of religion makes the liturgy inflexible, and Christian morality--often against its better knowledge and conscience--becomes a deadening legalism.

Happy New Year

Last night I took the courage to upgrade my Mac OS X from Panther 10.3.9 to Tiger 10.4.11. The happy results are I was able to install Missingsync 4.04 and the latest version of Journler. Missingsync makes it possible for me to synchronized my Mac with my (actually borrowed) Windows Mobile Toshiba e380. Journler on the other hand makes it possible for me to write my journal and other stuff. This enables me to to post offline which is the usual situation I am in right now.

This year, I need to spend a lot of times writing my paper. Hopefully, I can also blog regularly.

I preached in the church this morning and upon seeing that there were more locals than the internationals who attended the worship service, I requested Isaac (our official translator in the Jubilee Bible School) to translate for me. It has been a while since I preached with translator and I still found it uncomfortable.

Anyways, last night as I was preparing the sermon and I was looking for a good illustration to the introduction. I found this prayer from e-sword illustration tools.

May this be our prayer for the new year as well.

Lord, I confess before You that:

I have had longings and nudges from You which I did not translate into action.

I have made decisions without consulting You, then have blamed You when things went wrong.

I have said that I trusted You, yet have not turned my affairs over to You.
I have been greedy for present delights and pleasures, unwilling to wait for those joys which time and discipline alone can give.

I have often sought the easy way and have consistently drawn back from the road that is hard.

I have been fond of giving myself to dreams of which I am going to do sometime, yet have been so slow in getting started to do them.

Forgive me for all the intentions that were born and somehow never lived.

And now I claim Your promise to change me. Do for me what I cannot do for myself. Lead me into a new tomorrow with a new spirit. Cleanse my heart; create within me new attitudes and new ideas, as only You can. Amen.

Dela Paz November Update

Here is our latest newsletter. I hope somebody is still reading this blog.

The van broke down

The van spewed engine oil on the road on my way to the church when I was bringing the people to the church last Sunday. I wasn't aware of it until I picked up some church members on our way and told me that the van was spilling a lot of oil on the road.

I really felt bad about it. First because I still had to bring my family yet to the church and second the spilled oil was fatal for hundreds of motorcycles that pass on the road. I stopped on the red light in a turn and I left a pool of spilled oil there. The police found out about it and they put sand on it.

Maybe ten months ago, I noticed the leak from the engine and asked the mechanic to do something about it. He put new gaskets and oil seal, but after a week the oil started to leak again. I mentioned it to him and he started to reason out about the cylinder being loose. Although I think that a loose piston would not cause oil leaks, I didn't argue. It was hard argue with someone you don't understand and can't understand you. So when I called him last Sunday, he was kinda apologetic for doing a bad job.

Anyways, the van broke and the good side of it is I have a break doing the bus run. And it feels good. When I volunteer to do the bus run for the church's school and the nursery I thought it would be a relaxing drive and therapeutic at times. But the school grew and the number of students doubled within six months. This results to an unexpectedly long drive that took two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. It becomes really a serious difficult work. Not that I am complaining.

The van broke down, but it feels good. I almost praying that the repair will take longer. But again, I have to think about the children being driven dangerously in a motorcycle to the school.

The blogger's word verification and typing the characters you see in the picture to post this still annoys me.

So little time, so much to do

I'm falling behind with my blogging. The main reason is we have been very busy in the training center. We had hosted a week of church planting seminar and another week of Condensed World Mission Course. These activities did not only involved teaching but lots of errands and food preparations. I hope to catch up with blogging soon. Also I can't post offline using MarsEdit because of blogger's word verification. This is very annoying.

Reading biblical narratives

Big percentage of the Biblical materials is narrative. Narrative is a literary form characterized by sequential action involving plot, setting and characters. The meaning of the narrative derives primarily from the actions of its characters. Rather than telling us how to live or how not live, stories teach us the same through the actions of the characters.

The purpose of these stories is theological. God uses them to teach us theology. The Bible gives us examples how to teach profound truth through stories and I believe we can use it to teach our people too.

Why did God choose narrative literature to communicate theological truth to us? Why didn't he communicate everything through essays or law? Think for a moment about these questions. Here Duvall and Hays list some of the advantages and disadvantages of using narrative to communicate theological truth.

Advantages of Using Narrative to Communicate Theological Truth

1. Narratives are interesting, both to children and to adults.
2. Narratives pull us out into the action of the story.
3. Narratives usually depicts real life and are thus easy to relate to. We find ourselves asking what we would have done in that situation.
4. Narratives are easy to remember.
5. Narratives portray the ambiguities and complexities of life.
6. God can include himself as one of the characters in the narrative. Thus he can teach us about himself by what he says and does in specific contexts.
7. Narratives are holistic; we see characters struggle, but we also often see resolution of their struggles. We see the entire character.
8. Narratives relates short incidents and events to a bigger overall story.

Disadvantages of Using Narrative to Communicate Theological Truth

1. The meaning of the narrative can be subtle or ambiguous and not clearly stated; the casual reader may miss it altogether.
2. The reader may get enthralled with the narrative as a story and miss its meaning.
3. The reader may assume that since literature is narrative, it deals only with history and not theology.
4. The reader may read too much theology in the narrative (allegorizing).

Here the pros outweigh the cons. The authors of the Bible thought the same. I agree with Duvall and Hays that God chose to use the literary device known as narrative as major way to communicate his big story precisely because the biblical narratives engage us in such a powerful way. They challenge us, interest us, rebuke, puzzle us, and entertain us. They stick in our memory. They make us think and reflect. They involve us emotionally as well as intellectually. They teach us about God and his plan for his people. They teach us about all kinds of people--good ones and bad ones, faithful, obedient ones and mule-headed, disobedient ones. They teach us about life in all its complexities and ambiguities.

Duvall & Hays, Grasping the God’s Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading and Interpreting, and Applying the Bible, pp. 288-294

Interpreting Revelation

Reading Duvall & Hays' Grasping God's Word has been a fascinating experience for me. The book provides me with the latest method in biblical studies. They are reinforcing the traditional methods that scholars find to be still valid. They also present some of the more effective approach to studying the different literary genres of the books of the Bible.

Here Duvall and Hays suggest specific principles in interpreting Revelation. The following are mostly direct quotes from their book:

Read Revelation with humility. We should resist "Revelation-made easy" approaches. Revelation is not easy. People who must satisfy their curiosity or people who are unwilling to live with any uncertainty are those most likely to read into Revelation things that are not there. Beware of interpreters who appear to have all the answers to even the smallest questions. "Experts who claim absolute knowledge about every minute detail of Revelation should be held in suspicion. Reading with a humble mind means that we are willing to admit that our interpretation could be wrong and to change our view when biblical evidence points in a different direction.

Try to discover the message to the original readers. Discovering the message to the original audience is top priority with any book of the Bible, but especially with this one. When it comes to reading Revelation, the tendency is to ignore the first Christians and jump directly to God's message to us. Some people use today's newspapers as the key to interpreting Revelation. But as Keener notes, this approach does not fit well with a high view of Scripture.

The best place to begin is with the question: What was John trying to communicate to his audience?" If our interpretation makes no sense for original readers, we have probably missed the meaning of the passage. Fee and Stuart remind us of how important it is to discover the message to the original audience: As with the Epistles, the primary meaning of the Revelation is what John intended it to mean, which in turn must also have been something his readers could have understood it to mean.

Don't try to discover a strict chronological map of the future events. Don't look for Revelation to progress in a neat linear fashion. The book is filled prophetic-apocalyptic visions that serve to make a dramatic impact on the reader than to present a precise chronological sequence of future events.

Take Revelation seriously, but don't always take it literally. Some who say we should interpret Scripture symbolically do so in order to deny the reality of scriptural truth or a historical event. When they say that something is figurative or symbolic, they mean that it is not real or that it never happened. That is not the intention of this book. We insist that picture language with its symbols, images, and figures is capable of conveying literal truth and describing literal events. Picture language is just another language vehicle, another way of communicating reality. In our way of thinking, Revelation uses picture language to emphasize historical reality rather than to deny or diminish it.

Pay attention when John identifies an image. When John himself provides a clue to the interpretation of an image, we should take notice. In other words, we should pay close attention when John identifies or defines the images for his readers. We can not assume that images like lampstands would always refer to the churches. John may use the same image to refer to different things.

Look to the Old Testament and historical context when interpreting images and symbols. Revelation uses language at several different levels:

Text level: words written on the page
Vision level: the picture that the words paint
Referent level: what the vision refers to in real life

One of the most difficult aspects of reading Revelation is knowing what the images and symbols refer to. Even when we understand what is happening at the text and vision levels, we may not know what Revelation is saying, but we are often not sure what it is talking about.

The two places to go for answers are to the first-century historical context. Revelation uses much of Old Testament imagery. The book is filled with echoes and allusions to the Old Testament. In fact, Revelation contains more Old Testament references than any other New Testament book, with the Old Testament appearing in almost 70 percent of Revelation's verses. Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel make the most important contribution to Revelation.

Above all, focus on the main idea and don't press all the details. This last interpretive guideline is perhaps the most important of all. With most literary genres in the Bible, we begin with the details and build our way toward an understanding of the whole. With revelation, however, we should start with the big picture and work toward an understanding of the details. As we seek to identify the theological principles, we should focus on the main ideas.

The details of any particular section will heighten the impact on the reader but will not change the main idea. Resist the temptation to focus on the details so that you miss the main idea. Don't let the main point of each section or vision fade from view. As has been said, when reading Revelation, the main thing is to make the main thing the main thing.

*The image is from Meta-Logic Cafe'.

Duvall & Hays, Grasping the God’s Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading and Interpreting, and Applying the Bible, pp. 288-294