Ordo Praedicatorum

Friday, May 2 was the Feast of St. Athanasius, the fourth century bishop of Alexandria and doctor of the Church who defended the Nicene faith in the divinity of Christ. In a homily preached at the conventual Mass at the Dominican House of Studies, Rev. Br. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. preached on the saint’s significance for today.

On the evening of October 24^th, in the year 362, St. Athanasius began his fourth of five exiles from the episcopacy of Alexandria, at the age of 67. He was paddling up the Nile river by night, aware that somewhere not far behind him, a ship of Imperial soldiers were pursuing him, with orders to take him prisoner and probably to take his life, given by none other than the emperor who had renounced his Christian baptism, the so-called Julian the Apostate. Conscious that he could not out run his captors, Athanasius instead turned his boat around and paddled past them. When some one called down to him, “Have you seen Bishop Athanasius,” he replied in turn, “Not long ago I saw him going that way,” pointing over his shoulder, and added “If you act quickly, you might catch him.” And he kept paddling.

“Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you.” These are the words of the Lord spoken to St. Paul in the book of Acts (18:9), but they could also aptly be said to St. Athanasius. He seems to have been an almost feverish man, of quick wit, reactivity, and terse activism, but also a person who loved monasticism and spent years in exile hidden with monks in Egypt, writing treatises not only about the divinity of the Lord, but also about the newfound way of life of monks in the Egyptian desert, which incidentally, he helped bring to Rome during his exile there. He had enemies that were formidable, such as Eusebius, the Arian patriarch of Constantinople, the Emperor Constantius, and Julian the Apostate, who called him “the enemy of the gods.” But he also had great friendships, with Pope Julian, during his years of exile in Rome, St. Anthony the Great, his spiritual mentor, and St Pachomius, who called him, “The Father of the Orthodox faith in Christ.”

Of course in a real sense, as the champion of the divinity of Christ and the council of Nicaea, Athanasius was the enemy of the gods. Against the back drop of a traditional Greek pantheon of mediating figures, Arius and Arianism had posited the creature Jesus Christ as an emissary of God—supreme among all others certainly—but one among a host nonetheless. And Athanasius’s unambiguous denial of this teaching, and his corresponding excommunication of Arius, which were at the source of his first exile, were controversial because they were the denial of the possibility of a middle road between Trinitarian monotheism and polytheistic syncretism, wherein all religions remained viable. You must choose between the gods of civic society (who cannot save) and the belief in the unique mediator Jesus Christ, who alone can reconcile humanity with God because he alone is both God and man. So goes the logic of Athanasius.

But the life and example of Athanasius also teach us a great deal about the meaning of the Church as an ecclesial body, and the mystery of light and shadows in the body of Christ. Here I’ll limit my observations to two brief points.

First, Athanasius’ life teaches us that it is not enough to have institutions, buildings, Episcopal leadership, and even Sacraments and Holy Scripture, if these do not create a distinct culture of hearts and minds, a tissue of human members, visible and invisible, in whom the body of Christ thrives. Why could Athanasius return to Alexandria as Bishop after five successive exiles, each time to be received enthusiastically by the people and the monastic communities, despite Imperial attempts to destroy him, despite perhaps even a majority of eastern Bishops at the time who were Arian sympathizers? It was because of his moral authority as a Christian and a preacher. It was because he spoke to the sensus fidei, the sense of the faithful, of the monks and of the ordinary people of the city, without compromise, while confronting the very difficult controversies of his age directly, and convincingly, in ways that helped his auditors. And it was because he loved the people he served more than his own safety, and life. In other words, if we want to win the struggle over the identity of Christianity in our culture, we have to enter into the intellectual and moral agonies that afflict our contemporaries, both intellectually and personally, and offer truthful, and convincing answers from the Gospel, in a way of life that does not fear questions, and which is compassionate, but that also is not intimidated or overwhelmed by the values of secularism.

Second, Athansius’ life shows that the deepest source of identity, and of division on the level of culture, have to do with belief or unbelief in the divinity of Christ. All other decisions about culture are secondary. Christ is what is most concrete in culture. That’s still true today. We’re used to thinking about the natural law as something that can bind people together even in a pluralistic society, despite religious differences. Both human reason and the Catholic Church teach that this is the case, and its certainly true. But ultimately in concrete history, our discernments concerning natural law are deeply influenced by our understanding of the mystery of Christ, by our acceptance or rejection of the mystery of the Incarnation, of He who is Himself the enemy of the gods, the end of relativism. Think about the connection between the rational, moral belief in the natural right to life, and the apostolic, Catholic faith as the two are bound together in history. So whether we preach the moral teachings of the Church, or if we preach the divinity of Christ, we are not really in that wholly different a situation than St. Athansius. Our faith is the source of the deepest unity among human beings, or the deepest division. And this means that while we do need to do all that we can to make ourselves understood, rationally, supernaturally, compassionately, we shouldn’t expect to always be accepted. It’s certainly not our right and privilege. In fact, if we are not sometimes being rejected for what we say, we might not be doing what we’ve been commissioned to do. Because Christ is a Savior but, He is also a stumbling block, destined for the rise and fall of many in the house of Israel.

It’s true that in some ways, our historical age—like that of Athansius—seems to be in a kind of dark night of faith as regards the divinity of Christ; and in our civic life, there is a clear return of the time of the plurality of gods, our enemies out number us and are more efficient than we are. They have many warships, and our own little boat—the bark of Peter—seems to be moving rather slowly. But we should simply be sure to turn ourselves in the right direction: not out to the sea, a place that is teaming with human commerce, but back upriver toward the heart of Egypt, the desert, where our monastic friends are hard at work, and busy at prayer. There the river of life is not found in the waters, but in the blood, the blood of Christ that flows into the sea, not of this world, but of heaven. The greatest tradition that we pass on is the Eucharist, the handing over of the body and blood of Christ, that is itself the wellspring of life for the Church. To assure that this life is transmitted, all we must do is to be the faithful stewards of the mysteries of God, day by day. From this source, God can and will raise up a thousand Athanasius’—in our age or in any other—like a pillar of cloud, to lead the Church by day, and a pillar of fire, to lead the Church by night.

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