§ 163. Athanasius the Great.
I. S. Athanasius: Opera omnia quae extant vel quaj ejus nomine circumferuntur, etc., Gr. et lat., opera et studio monacliorum ordinis S. Bene-
First edition in Latin hj John Lange, Basil. 1553; in Greek and Latin by Fr&nt. Diicmis, Par. 1630, in 2 vols. Tliere exists but one Greek manuscript copy of Nicephorus, as far as we know, which is in the possession of the imperial library of Vienna.
* Ilis works are edited by Vallarsl, Veron. 1745, vol. i. fol. (unfinished). The Ecclesiastical History has several times appeared separately, and was long a needed gubetitute for Eusebius in tlve West.
§ 163. ATIIANASIU6 THE GREAT. 882
dicti e congregatione S. Mauri (Jac. Lopin et B. rJe Montfaucori), Paris, 1698. 3 torn. fol. (or rather 2 tomi, the first in two parts). This is the most elegant and correct edition, but must be completed by two volumes of the Collectio nova Patrum, ed. B. de Montfaucon, Par. 1706, 2 torn. fol. More complete, but not so handsome, is the edition of 1777, Patav., in 4 vols. fol. (Brunet says of the latter "Edition moins belle et moins chere que celle de Paris, mais augmentee d'uu 4° vol., lequel renferme les opuscules de S. Athan., tires de la Collectio 7wva du P. Montfaucon et des Aneedota de Wolf, et de plus VinterpretatAo Psalmorumy) But now both these older editions need again to be completed by the Syrian Festal Letters of Athauasius, discovered by Dr. Tattam in a Nitrian monastery in 1843; edited by W. Cureton in Syriac and English at London in 1816 and 1848 (and in English by R. Burgess and IT. Williams^ Oxf, 1854, in the Libr. of the Fathers) ; in German, with notes by F. Zarsoin, at Leipzig in 1852 ; and in Syriac and Latin by Card. Angela Mai in the Nova Patr. Bibliotheca, Eom. 1853, tom. vi. pp. 1-168. A new and more salable, though less accurate, edition of the Opera omnia Athan. (a reprint of the Benedictine) appeared at Petit-Montrouge (Par.) in J. P. Migne's Patrologia Gr. (tom. xxv.-xxviii.), 1857, in 4 vols.
The more important dogmatic works of Athanasius have been edited separately by /. C. Tliilo^ in the first volume of the Bibliotheca Patrum Grajc. dogmatica, Lips. 1853; and in an English translation, with explanations and indexes, by J. H. JSfewmun, Oxf. 1842-'44 (Library of the Fathers, vols. 8, 13, 19). n. Gregokius Naz. : Oratio panegyrica in Magnum Athanasiuin (Orat. xxi.). Several Vit^ Athan. in the 1st vol. of the Bened. ed. of his Opera. Acta Sanctorum for May 2d. G. Hermant : La Vie d'Athanase, etc. Par. 1679. 2 vols. Tillemont: M6moires, vol. viii. pp. 2-258 (2d ed. Par. 1713). W. Cave: Lives of the most eminent Fathers of the first Four Centuries, vol. ii. pp. 145-364 (Oxf ed. of 1840). Schrookh: Th. xii. pp. 101-270. J. A. Mohlee: Athanasius der Grosse und die Kirche seiner Zeit, besonders im Kampfe mit dem Arianismus. Mainz, 1827. 2d (title) ed. 1844. Heinrich Voigt: Die Lehre des heiligen Athanasius von Alexandria oder die kirchliche Dogmatik des 4ten Jahrhunderts auf Grand der biblischen Lehre vom Logos. Bremen, 1861. A. P. Stanley: Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church. New York, 1862, lecture vii. (pp. 322-358).
Athanasius is the theological and ecclesiastical centre, aa his senior contemporary Constantine is the political and seen lar, about which the Nicene age revolves. Both bear the titl€ of the Great ; the former with the better right, that his greatness was intellectual and moral, and proved itself in suffering
886 TUIED PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
and through years of warfiire against mighty errors uud against the imperial court. Athanasiun contra mundum^ et iwuH' dus contra Athanasium, is a well-known sentimeiit which strikingly expresses his fearless independence and immovable fidelity to his convictions. He seems to stand an unanswerable contradiction to the catholic maxim of authority : Quod sem/per^ quod tibique^ quod ah oTnnihus credituni est, and proTes that truth is by no means always on the side of the majority, but may often be very unpopular. The solitary Athanasius, even in exile, and under the ban of council and emperor, Mas the bearer of the truth, and, as he was afterwards named, the " father of orthodoxy." '
On a martyrs' day in 313 the bishop Alexander of Alexandria saw a troop of boys imitating the church services in innocent sport, Athanasius playing the part of bishop, and performing baptism by immersion.^ He caught in this a glimpse of future greatness ; took the youth into his care ; and appointed him his secretary, and afterwards his archdeacon. Athanasius studied the classics, the Holy Scriptures, and the church fathers, and meantime lived as an ascetic. He already sometimes visited St. Anthony in his solitude.
In the year 325 he accompanied his bishop to the council of Nicsea, and at once distinguished himself there by his zeal and ability in refuting Arianism and vindicating .the eternal deity of Christ, and incurred the liatred of this heretical party, which raised so many storms about his life.
In the year 328 ^ he was nominated to the episcopal succes-
' 'O vaTrjp Trjs op^o5o|iaj. So Epiphanius already calls him, Hxv. 69, c. 2.
' So Rufinus relates, II. E. 1. i. c. 14. Most Roman historians, Ilcrmaut, Tilleaiont, Butler, and the author of the Vita Athan. in the Bencd. ed. (torn. i. p. iii.) reject this legend, partly on account of chronological difficulty, partly because it seemed incompatible with the dignity of such a saint. Mohler passes it in silence.
^ This is the true date, according to the summaries of the newly-discovered Festal Letters of Athanasius, and not "a few weeks [or months rather] after the close of the council," as the editor of the English translation of the histoiical tracts of Athanasius (Oxford Library of the Fathers, 1843, Preface, p. xxi.), and even Stanley (1. c. p. 325), still say. The older hypothesis rests on a misapprehension of the TTfi/Tt ^7)j/6t in a passage of Athanasius, Apol. pro fuga sua, tom. i. P. 1, p. 140, which Tlicodorct erroneously dates fiotn the close cf the council of Nicira, it stead ol the readmissiou of the Mclctians into the fellowship of the church (H. E, i. 26)