Good evening!
Alright. So last week I tried to be very nuanced about the you know the approach to Nicaea as as we were as a church.
Getting to that point, and I'm emphasize the fact that they didn't walk in thinking that they were going to.
You know about the question of whether or not the Son of God was divine.
That was. That is sort of a way that we look back on what happens at Nicaea, but it originally isn't quite that cut and dry, for most of the people who were there, and I emphasize that what they were there to debate was the degree.
You know the way that they could talk about the son and the father, and the degree to which they could talk about them being the same, and the way that they could talk about them being different, and which side various people emphasized, and they talked about that in terms of generation, language, generation of the sun, so we get
that not completely, accurately. But we get that represented in some of our translations talking about Christ as the only begotten that's a little bit more physical and crafts of a translation than would really be ideal for that terminology, but that is the language that they
are, that they are arguing about and working through. What does it mean that the sun is, or that the what is the generation of the sun by the Father?
What does that mean, and how should they talk about it so like, I say, that then becomes a discussion about the divinity of the sun, and they come to the point where that really is what they're what they end up arguing about.
But initially, it is this question of generation, and what kind of you know, if you, if you take it too far to the sameness direction, you end up having, you know what's called modalism, where there's where they are the same God and they just appear as father sometimes as sun sometimes as
holy Spirit, and there's not really any distinction, any real distinction between them.
And if you take it too far to the difference side, if you're over emphasizing the difference, you end up with people who subordinate the sun so much that he's, you know, a completely different kind of entity than the father.
And that's what you get up. Get get with Aries, who was sort of the the flashpoint that leads to the Council of Nicaea.
So everybody was arguing about and discussing these issues areas is the flash point.
He's kind of the star of the show at Nicaea.
He's really the the subject that they're talking about, and he insists just this is all just kind of a refresher on Niceia. I am.
Gonna get to Athanasius. He insists, first of all, that in talking about that generation, that it is not eternal, that there's a point when this is the heretic, just as a reminder.
Duck around that language. She might say that it's that this occurs outside of time, but that there is a point when the father generates the son, and before that is just the father.
He is the only ungenerated, and he existed apart from the sun, and that after that point is the sun and Nicaea condemns that Nicaea essentially says that they are equally eternal, that there was never a time that the father was not generating the sun, that they exist you know
both all the time I was about to say from the same point in time, but they don't exist from a point in time.
That's the whole point. He he also said that although the sun wasn't eternally generated, he's not the same as not the same kind of divinity, not the same level.
I guess, as the father, that he is the first and the best creation that there's this huge gap between the sun and everything else like us.
You know all the other aspects of creation. There's a huge gap between us.
We could never bridge that gap, you know, don't understand the sun as sort of just one of us, but that there's a real gap we call it an ontological gap, which is just to say there's a real gap about what they are between the sun and the father that
will that gap will become really theologically important. About 50 or 60 years later.
They don't address that so much now where they don't use that as an important way of talking about Trinitarian theology at this point, but but that time will come for them in 50 or 60 years for us maybe in a week.
Or 2, I'm not sure. So areas is just one with those things that he's saying.
He's just one extreme expression of this emphasis on the difference between the father and the son, and he's afraid that if you say that that they are distinct, but that they're co eternal, that you essentially are setting up 2 separate guidelines and that's why
he's wanting to to reduce the status of the sun.
So at Nicaea everybody, except, for you know, obviously areas and 2 Libyan bishops sign on to condemn areas and to condemn his theology.
And so, you know, you'd think that this takes care of the issue.
But there are a lot of Christian still out there who do have a high view of of the distinction that needs to be made between father and son, and who think that while they're able to sign on to Nica's language, and this is where John came in and said I thought we were gonna have
that funny word with all the OS. And they stuck an eye in the middle sometimes to fight over.
So for so that John can get that bid, and I'll tell you what he's asking about, and that's Homo Osios.
If you've ever heard that that's language that comes from Nicaea and the Homo means the same, and the refers to the essence.
So, when, if you've heard the nice thing, Creed and you've heard references to cons substantial or of the same substance, those are translations of that word which was a word that was fought over at Nicaea cause.
It was. It was problematic already. Then some heretics had used it, and so some of the orthodox theologians were uncomfortable using it in the creed.
But it was really the only way that they could get all the way to the point where where areas and people on his side couldn't kind of weasel around the language.
They even weaseled around that a little bit, but they they couldn't.
Areas at least, was not able to weasel around that.
So yes, Tom.
Yes, he was.
I, if I remember correctly, he does leave, but he's there partly to defend himself, but he's not there to make any decisions at this. At this point.
Anyway, it's only the bishops who are allowed to actively engage, and he's not a bishop.
He's a priest in Alexandria, so it's only the bishops who are actively able to engage, and they don't.
Even the Emperor who calls for it because he wants to unify Christianity.
He wants to get this troublesome argument going on down in Egypt he wants to get it over with, so that we can get back to reunifying the church and and creating a spirit of unity in the Empire around it.
So they weren't looking for 100% unanimity.
So area sleeves. The 2 Libyan bishops that are referred to.
They also, you know, storm off when it becomes clear. The direction that Council is.
Gonna go. But yeah, not everybody has to agree. They just it's kind of like the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
They had to come up with some language that everybody could kind of be like, okay, yeah, that's close enough.
I can. I can. I can interpret that in a way that I'm comfortable with.
That's you know. That's what's going on.
And all of politics, and anytime you've got 300 people together that have to agree on something.
Politics, happens.
So now we get to. You know the the star of the show for tonight, which is Athanasius.
He's at Nicaea, like, I say, only the bishops themselves are allowed to engage directly in the debate at my seat.
But he is there as a a fairly young man.
He's about 25 years old, and he's there, and some of this is on your timeline that I gave you.
He's there sort of as an assistant to Alexander, who's the Bishop of Alexandria?
Probably as a secretary, and it's very likely that some of Alexander's theological contributions at the at the Council were actually drafted by Athanasius, because Athanasius was.
He was sort of a theological deacon, different deacons had different strengths.
Deacons were typically at this time. They didn't work directly with the priests or the presbyters.
They worked more directly with the Bishop, and this is sort of a structure that is starting to form at the time that the deacons work for the Bishop, and they are doing things for the bishop.
So a lot of times the deacons actually had a closer relationship.
Working relationship with the Bishop than any of the priests under his authority would have, so that was Athanasius's role at Nicaea, and while he is like, I say, he's sort of the the theological thinking deacon who's making those kinds of contributions his
theological expression is gonna develop a lot over the next few years or so he will.
He will spend a lot of time defending the theology that he understands coming out of Nicaea, but his way of doing that will change over time as he goes forward.
Do things that we really need to understand, to understand about if we're gonna understand.
Athanasius, the first one is that he is 100%.
No holds barred, fully committed to the full. True, uncompromised divinity of Christ.
The divinity of the sun. That is, that is something that he will not and cannot compromise on.
He's committed to an understanding of the Trinity that affirms that fact.
And he's committed to destroying any theology that he thinks compromises it at all.
So you have to put athenacious, solidly on that he is not particularly interested in compromise.
He wants to make sure that that theological expression and other things kinda control by the way, side a little bit.
But that theological idea that the sum of God is fully divine, truly defined, he is a 100% committed to that.
The second thing is that he is both the theological and the political equivalent of a street brawler.
He will get down and dirty if that's what's required.
He has no qualms about doing that. He will. He will do whatever it takes, and and he doesn't have a lot of scruples about how it gets done.
And that comes to some degree out of the the climate of Alexandria itself.
At the time. Well, I say, at the time, it's not even just at the time it's been hundreds of years.
It was.
So we think of Alexandria as an intellectual center of the ancient world, and it definitely was, you know, the library of Alexandria was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, and everybody intellectual ends up there at least, for a time, if not for their entire career they're
at least there for a while, because that's where you have to go to engage with the best and the brightest.
So it is those things, but at the same time that city had a reputation for for violence, for political violence, for religious violence, that we just don't even understand.
I mean they when we had riots in Milwaukee, and we call them riots.
They were kind of, you know. They weren't all that.
Impressive as Ryot, as real riots go.
When we had riots a few years ago in Milwaukee.
That would be nothing compared to Alexandria now there were periods of time when things were relatively peaceful, but there was the constant threat of destruction going on in Alexandria between well, even between factions within these groups.
But the very large pagan population that was still in Alexandria.
The Jewish population of Alexandria, which was a probably about a quarter of Alexandria's population, and had been large for a long time.
The Jewish population of Alexandria had been significant.
Even before the time of Christ, and continued up to this point to be a really important segment of Alexandria and society, and then the growing Christian movement, which was not as big.
It was becoming politically powerful, especially since it became legal. Back in the around 3, 12, 3, 13.
In that time period it starts to gain more and more.
But even before that it was a pretty significant segment of the population, at least enough to cause problems right?
Christians are going to disagree with Jews about.
You know, shared texts and about ideas about what they mean, and that would frequently result in violence.
Buildings being destroyed, all kinds of things and the religious violence in Alexandria was bad enough that it would get the for involved.
You've most of you have probably heard of Philo.
He was a Jewish philosopher and commentator, who lived in Alexandria.
This is back in the first century. One of his, you know.
He wasn't just a philosopher and a commentator.
He also at times would you know, because he was respected as a philosopher?
He would get drafted into political things, and one of his writings is called the Embassy to Gaius.
When he and Guy says, You know, frequently used Caesar first name.
I don't remember. I don't remember which, Emperor it was.
Which of the Caesars, but he, along with some others, was commissioned to go to Rome and submit.
This plea to the Roman government, please, please, please don't come down here to Alexandria and destroy the city.
We promise we'll stop having all kinds of religious warfare going on in the city and killing each other and destroying buildings and commerce and everything can get back to normal.
Please don't raise the city absolutely. Fileo! Ph.
I l o.
The reason, the Romans cared so much is because Egypt was the the breadbasket of the Mediterranean world. Right?
They had wouldn't as long as the Nile floods.
That's where so much grain was going to come from that they said most of the Roman Empire, and so Rome's, you know, Rome might put up with a little bit.
Not a lot, but a little bit of religious rioting in Judea.
Eventually they'll clamp down on it, but if you're an Alexandria and you're threatening drain production.
And, more importantly, threatening grain shipments, because it's the port.
Then Rome is going to get interested real fast. So they had a reputation for religious violence and Rome had a reputation for getting involved in it, because not only did they not want did they not want shipping and everything stopped by the violence they didn't want to administer it directly
themselves, either because the only thing worse than dealing with this city full of Christians and Jews and pagans who were responsible for getting grain to you is being directly responsible for this city, full of Christians and Jews and pagans so they didn't want direct administration.
They wanted the Alexandrians to exist peoplefully on their own, just with a little bit of Roman supervision.
So those are the things that you have to know going in.
He's a 100% committed to the Deity of the sun.
He's a street brawler, and he'll do whatever it takes to win his point.
And Alexandria is, is full of. He's not the only street brawler in town.
Alexandria is full of straight brawlers, and they're all willing to get down and dirty.
All right.
So let me look for a moment.
Okay, that's where I am. Yes.
Yes.
So!
It's a relatively short. It's maybe 10 years if you're talking about the presentation of disunity between like Arius and Alexander.
Okay, so Carmen's question, just so that zoom, here's it, too, was whether there was growth in the church in Alexandria during this time, particularly during those 10 years or so between when areas kind of really stirs things up and say, Nicaea when he's exiled and there
was. I don't know exactly how much, partly it's hard to say, because some of the visible growth that you're gonna have is people who are who have kind of wanted to join the church right along.
Who now are coming into the church, and that's because, the church, being legal, is still fairly new.
So you've got a lot of people who already were sympathetic, who now are entering, and and so I wouldn't count them as as real growth. They're not, you know.
They're not exactly new people coming to know Price, but they are, you know.
They give the appearance of the church growing, and also both sides of this debate are drawing people to themselves.
And so you've got, you know, both people who are aligning themselves with Alexander, and later Athanasius, and people who are aligning themselves with areas both of those churches.
If you will, our experience and growth. Hagenism is struggling. I don't think they're getting many converts from Judaism, but paganism is struggling mightily during this time.
So like, I was saying, in the course of this, what? What areas, what areas, what Athanasius is doing?
Is, he is. He is trying to make the case for what he understands to be the theology that came out of the Council of Nicaea.
He is trying to win the day for that theological perspective, for the emphasis on the you know, the the highest understanding of the divinity of the sun.
He's trying to make whatever case he can to win that.
And in the course over the course of time his language for that will chain or will change, is maybe strong, but it'll it'll progress.
It'll develop early on if you wanna look at John, chapter 14.
This is a an important text forum.
John, chapter 14, verse 10.
Christ says, do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the father who dwells in me does his work.
So this idea that he's talking about where he says the father is in me.
The way Athanasius interprets that, and explains it is not that it's some sort of some sort of physical thing, or that.
And this is an important thing that he's opposing because some people are trying to argue that that this is what it means that the father generates the son.
He says it's not that, you know something almost metaphorically, that not physically.
But you can think of it in those terms, comes forth from, and remains attached to the Father, and that is the sun, and so there's that continued connection.
People were discussing it that way, and in that sense, you know, they're sharing that stuff.
And so they were understanding what that means, and he says, No, that's not, that's not what's going on.
He says that this has to do with explaining the relationship between father and son, and that the sun or no, not the sun exactly, but the idea of the sun, the the presence, the existence of the sun, is intrinsic to who the Father is that the Father is Father because you can't be a Father, without
a son or a daughter, I guess, but in this we're talking about a sun, so we'll just limit it.
There he can't be a father without a child. You're just a guy without a child, and Athanasius is saying that the father is always the father, and so the sun is always a part of that.
He would not be the father without the sun, and so that's what intrinsic is meaning when I use it, there is that it is just a part of being God.
The Father is that there is the sun, and Athanasius explains this verse in that way, and he's using that father, son, language, and the things that they share.
The you know the the radiance of the light, the you know.
There are several other metaphors that he uses that are along the same lines.
To say that this relationship has always existed, and this sort of characterizes it.
That's what he's doing early on, later on, around the 3 fifties or so he'll get into that Oca.
That essence, that substance, language that I was talking about near the beginning.
But that's not even though that's like the thing that we look back at.
Nicaea. That's you know, the homouous language, the same substance.
That's kind of what we think of as being characteristic of Nicaea.
But Atanish doesn't pick it up. Nobody really talks about it.
Nobody uses it as I mean it gets talked about song, but nobody's using it as the thing that's going to win the battle right.
That's not how we're going to convince everybody of the Deity of the Sun.
Hmm! Not until you know the 3 fifties or 3 sixtys does that become really significant?
Time is getting short. So I wanna jump over to the well.
It's not jumping over for y'all. It's jumping over for me.
Jump over to the timeline a little bit, and go through some of those, because one thing that's you know, sort of a fact that you might know about tenacious is that he's actually banished from Alexandria sent him to exile 5 times in the course of his like the years that
he's Bishop of Alexandria, he he becomes so, if you know, just going down, he attends the Council of Nicaea in 3, 25, and in 3 28, 3 years later Alexander dies, and Athenacious becomes Bishop of Alexandria
there's some questions about that. Whether he was pulling some political strings at that point to get himself elected.
He probably was, because some of the chief rivals, like the other people, that might have become bishop if he hadn't, were at least much more sympathetic to the Aryan party.
And he didn't wanna see that happen. So I don't doubt that he was pulling some strings to get himself chosen as bishop.
There were also questions because he wasn't apparently quite 30 yet, and we think 30 we don't know for sure. 30.
But there were objections that we're saying that he hadn't reached the age where he could become bishop.
Yet when he was made bishop, and we think that was probably 30.
Partly it would have been weird for it to be 29.
That's you know, who chooses 29 as a cutoff age.
But excuse me.
Right. And so that's where eventually we know, you know, if we go to another 50 years down the road, we know that there may be, we think that they're making it 30 here because of you know, Old Testament precedent and Leviticus.
So then he's becomes bishop in 3 28, 3, 35 he summoned to Tyre to a council, and at Tyre he is exiled to to go, he's exiled to call.
He's accused there of it, potentially planning to cut off grain supplies to Constantinople.
That's the offense for which he's deposed from his bishop's role and sent off to tire where he goes to a town called Trio, which you may see on some maps, as Trevis and it's where my mother went to high school.
Yeah, Ruth's been like, you gotta say that. It's where my mother went to high school, and you can still go now, and you can see Constantine's thrown room.
It's been turned into a Lutheran church, but the basilica of Constantine is still there, because he had his capital.
There, and while he was in tear he was he was actually, he was not treated as this, you know.
Shamed, exile sent off into the wild. He was greeted, as you know, an honored guest got to be good friends with the Bishop Maximum.
There and met some other people, and, you know, refined. His theological argumentation.
And so, presumably the Emperor learned that the worst thing to do, if you have a bishop who's a theological problem, is to relieve him of all of his administrative duties and send him off on a sabbatical for a couple of years to refine his
craft. He's gonna come back more trouble than before, Tom, you had a question.
So that becomes interesting. There are 2 things going on. The council, which is a council of bishop, is deposing him from his role as bishop, but it's the Government that sends them into exile.
This this council was called by Constantinople, which was one of Constantine's sons, and so it is Constantius who sends him into exile of legally.
All just!
It wasn't a side thing, but I don't know if it was the only thing Tom's exposing the holes in my preparation.
But you could do it with a so Tom, saying that you know what kind of role does the Bishop have the elders here?
Certainly don't have authority to shut down the port of Milwaukee, and there would be no more shipments out.
So what is his role that allows him to to cut off grain supplies to Constantinople?
You gotta remember you can do anything with a riot and he had a bunch of Christians at his back and call, and so you can earn the ships, or or you know, burn the docks, or just have you know staffed the ships with Christians and have them turn left when they were
supposed to go. Who knows? I don't know what plan they thought he had, but it is definitely true that if you're in Alexandria and you have enough people and some torches and swords, you can accomplish a lot.
This time. I don't think so. He planned some nefarious things, but I this was pretty far fetched, and I don't think that that he was planning this.
I'll go back and look at the skeptical scholar on this, and see what he thinks.
But no, I don't think he was actually gonna cut off grand shipments to Constantinople.
Maybe, but.
Alright, so we'll move on then. So he's he's shipped off to tear in in what's now Germany at the time.
Gaul, and he stays there for about 2 years, at which I'm sorry.
I said it was Constantius. I was wrong this time was Constantine Constantine.
Hadn't died yet, so it was. Constantine whose sentimental exile, and then 3 37.
Constantine dies, and so Athanasius's exile is lifted and he's able to go back home.
He gets home, and then the next summer, which I think that would have been, Constantius decides that you know you kind of jump the gun a little bit.
There, and so he renews his exile and and kicks them out of Alexandria again, in 3 38.
So Athanasius takes this opportunity of his second exile to travel to Rome, where he met with Juliet.
Yeah. Julie, us, who, Catholicism would say, was Pope Julius?
I don't know whatever Patriarch Pope, Bishop, whatever role we wanna give them.
At this point. I'm not, you know, absolutely comfortable calling anybody of Pope before Leo.
Once we get to Leo. Sure, yeah, they're definitely the Pope.
But I'm not comfortable using that for Julius, at least not entirely.
But he goes there. He meets Julius, he becomes friends with Julius Julius, you know.
Thanks, sounds like you're pretty much on track.
You believe what I believe, so he's got Julius, then, as a friend for the rest of Julius's life, and he travels to a wide range of other places.
Throughout the Mediterranean world, but staying out of Egypt during the rest of this exile, and then in 3, 45, he gets permission from the Emperor from Constantius to return to Alexandria.
I sat on the handout he takes the long way home.
He's not that far. He's in Aquileia, which is in Northern Italy.
He could have just gone down Italy hopped on a ship and been back in Alexandria in short order, but he takes the long way, and he doesn't get to Alexandria until October of 3 46.
So it's about a year and a half later he spends that year and a half going, a variety of other places and doing 2 things sort of rounding up more support, bringing people to understand what the stakes were in this theological fight that is still ongoing and also making sure that things
were arranged in Alexandria, so that going back would be fairly successful, and when he gets back to Alexandria, in October of 3 46, he actually then that begins the longest period that he's ever in Alexandria during the time that he's Bishop right he's
Bishop for 48 years, and during that time this 10 year stretch from 3 46 to 3 56 is the longest, you know, in a row that he's ever in the city, which is just amazing to me.
Okay. Tom.
He's still. That depends on who you ask.
Just come back to.
Well, that I mean you remember my answer to your last question, so it's not.
It's not even just that he doesn't play by the rules.
It's that the Alexandrians are, or some portion of the Alexandrians are ready to use you know, just the normal method of putting the guy you like back in his position, which is beating up on the people standing in the way that's just kind of the way you do.
It so there's some element of that. There's also I don't remember which time it's he's coming back now, but there's a guy named George, who was Bishop, who was made Bishop of Alexandria in place of him and he is you know coming
from the area inside which we haven't really gotten to this.
But one of the things that Athanasius manages to do.
And this is where I say that he's, you know, political, anthological street brawler.
I will get back to answering your question, Tom, but one of the things that he does, as he says.
Okay. Here's the line.
Areas is way out in the hall. If we really put all of the different positions on the Deity of Christ on a spectrum, arias would be stupid.
But I'm over here, and I think even the people right here have confromised too much on the Deity of Christ, or their diminishing the Deity of Christ.
Too much. And so what he does, instead of being, you know, really precise and saying, Okay, this guy's a Hawaiian.
This guy's a homo Euzian.
This guy is an Unnumbia. That guy's a you know me, instead of which is what scholars now have done right.
There's a cottage industry over the last 75 years of dividing up, maybe not quite that long, but dividing up all of these different groups, and precisely identifying their theologies.
Atanace says, areas is condemned. The whole church, even the ones who don't like me.
Know that areas is condemned that guy's an area that guys an area that guy's an area that guy's an area that guy's an area that guy's an area that guy's an area and that guy's an area and everybody over there is an area it's like in today's
political debate. If you decide, you know everybody who's just left of center, even a little bit left of center.
They're all Socialists, not just the ones out in the hall who are still Socialists, all of them are Socialists, or everybody who's right of center.
They're all just a bunch of fascists. There's just pain them with that brush.
That's what area does. And he does it because it's a way to wipe out all of this problematic theology.
It's, you know, it's a little bit blunt. It's a blunt instrument to use, but that's what he's and he's doing that because he wants to wipe out what he sees as problematic theology.
This is what athenacious does. It is one of the most successful, you know.
I'm gonna frame the question. That's important and political debate, right?
You've gotta frame the question in a particular kind of way.
So that it's possible or easier to get people to see it.
The way you see it. This has got to be the most successful framing of the debate that has ever been done.
With the possible exception of Julius Caesar, or, like Napoleon, hasn't been long enough ago yet to count, but Julius Caesar, getting beat up pretty bad and gall, and sending back accounts of it.
That make him look wonderful, and that lasts for a long, long time.
Athanasius frames this debate, maybe even better than Caesar does, because he does this in this very last.
You know the last 2 lines on your timeline 3 66.
He's returns to Alexandria, and is restored for the last time.
As bishop, and he has a fairly quiet 6 or 7 years, and Alexandria there.
One of the things he does is he's reframing this a little bit.
He's he actually can' a history to be written.
History of Christianity in Alexandria, 300 to the present.
And the way he frames it where they are. All Aryans is so successful that at least in the first half of the 19 hundreds that was still how the debate was framed.
You know that it had been nuanced enough that there were Aryans, and there were semi-aryens, but that was as nuanced as the scholarly debate got, and I dare say today, even if you go into sort of a general history of Christianity that's still, how
it's framed. It's framed if you go on, Wikipedia, unless you go into a specific article about, you know the home ins as opposed to the Homeomo homo.
That's still how it's gonna be framed in technical scholarship.
People have said, Yeah, you know, that's that's not quite what it was.
But his framing of that debate lasted for 1,600 plus years.
So pretty, pretty, effective record. And to be fair, I think that it was.
Hi, I think that it was political. I think that he was using tools to accomplish his goals, but I think his objectives were right.
Alright. I think the bad theology he was trying to destroy was bad theology.
You know what I would, I be happier in my refined 20 first Century Ivory Tower Scholarship, if he had done this piecefully over coffee at at a conference in a nice hotel absolutely!
But things don't get done that way, especially in Alexandria.
They get done with torches and with clubs and with brutal, brutal essays.
Yeah, Bill, was first, sorry.
Does he? Okay? So Constantine himself was basically nice, seeing, although he didn't care too much, he had Constantine had several sons, Constantius, which is the one that I've mentioned a couple of times, would be classified as kind of a semi-arian.
He wasn't. I'm actually gonna use that term now because he wasn't.
He wasn't interested enough in the question, and he didn't.
Articulate a response on the question enough to position him more precisely.
But he was. He leaned toward the Aryan side, but just like Constantine, really, what he wanted was order.
He just, you know, if you guys wanna be nice seeing. And you guys wanna be Aryan as long as you don't try to kill each other.
And you just discuss this over coffee at a convention in a nice hotel it's fine with me.
Be whatever you want, just be sure that the Crane shipments continue.
Crying out loud, let the Grange shipments continue. So that's where constant Ts was.
Yeah. So what you're trying to say is.
Oh, boy, that was bad!
Ray wants us to not have coffee, but have Punch.
Brad, do you have a pond, or do you have a question?
Okay. So you wanted me to to actually send that. Okay, yeah.
Alright!
Bye!
So they to a large degree, they did have the Bible to a large to.
In fact, athenacious, and I didn't even put this in your.
It's in one of your earlier handouts. I forgot to put it in here Athanasius is actually the first person in one of he sent letters every year to all the churches under his authority.
I guess, to tell them what the date of Easter was.
Gonna be that was part of the responsibility of the Bishop.
He had access to the. You know the astronomers in the scholars, and so he could find out.
You know. When is that full moon gonna be okay. So that makes that Easter.
And then it sorry. I need to send out a letter, and then one of those in addition to that cause, he didn't just say, You know, it's April, whatever it is.
This year. I don't even know what.
April ninth. Okay, so it's he.
He doesn't just say it's April ninth.
Love, Athanasius, he gives them a whole lot more than that, and in one of them he says something about you know these are the books that you know that we recognize, and I don't.
I don't think he calls it the New Testament, but effectively the New Testament and it's the first example we have of somebody saying that this is my list that lines up exactly with what we have orders a little bit different.
But he has the same books that we use, but most of them wouldn't have been disputed right there, you know.
Some people were unsure about revelation. Some people weren't sure about Hebrews.
Some people thought second, Peter was problematic, and they weren't sure.
But for the most part they did have Scripture, so they all had access to it.
It came down to interpretation, because Scripture.
We come at it no, that the sun is divine. And so when we read it, that's clear on the page.
But if we come at it, and and we're so, if you have someone who's absolutely committed to the idea that you know God, the Father is divine, and and sees any sort of multiplicity as problematic that person can read the same Scripture that you and I read and
find ways of saying, Well, see, this. This is subordinating the son.
The Father sends the son, so he must be subordinate in some way, and it's all a question of interpretation.
Then they do have the same, the same texts.
Trying to remember where I was.
Alright! We'll get back to the list. I know I had said that from 3 46 to 3 56 was the longest period that he was in Alexandria, and then an Alexandra in 3 56 he's removed again there had earlier been council
that had deposed him like 5 years earlier, I think, and everything just ignored it.
In 356. The Emperor sent troops to Alexandria to actually remove him, and rather than letting himself be arrested, he goes off into the countryside, hiding.
He doesn't always even leave town. Sometimes he's in the city of Alexandera in hiding.
Other times he's hiding around Alexandria, and he he does some traveling.
Then also, but not quite as much as he had in some of his earlier ones, and during this time he kind of transitions and I don't think it's really anything he does.
But during this time he transitions from being, you know, from the rest of the country world.
Looking inside. Oh, that troublemaker! Down in Alexandria!
And by the time he goes back to town to Alexandria in 362.
He's viewed as elder statesman. Athanasius, who fought the fight for the truth.
Obviously Aryans don't view them that way. But the orthodox, the one, the Christians we would recognize as orthodox, are starting to view him with more respect by the time he goes back in in 3 62 in 3 62, it gets really complicated
and confusing. So let let me find my additional notes over here.
All right. So in 3 62 he is briefly allowed back into Alexandria.
He goes back in in February, but ends up being kicked out in 3 62, and I told you this is all part of a larger effort by the Emperor Julian to tear apart the church so what happens is somebody asked me if Constantius was a Christian it was
you right, Bill. So Constantius was like, I said, kind of a he was a Christian.
He was baptized as a Christian. His theology was kind of area.
He didn't care too much about it. He mostly wanted order, so he put up with a lot of things when he dies.
His cousin Julian who, if you've heard of Julian the Apostate, this is Julian the Apostate.
He becomes emperor, and the first thing he does is, he says, well, maybe not.
The very first thing, but very, very early, he says, I know what will tear the church apart if they have competing bishops in their towns.
If I just say, Okay, musical chairs, everybody swap.
So he recalled all of the bishops that had been kicked out of their cities out of their churches by Constantius.
Anybody exiled by Constantius can come back. So Athanist says.
That's me. I'm headed, by. By the way, Julian is called the Apostate, because he was raised as a Christian.
He was educated as a Christian. He claimed to be a Christian until he became emperor and won the battle that made him emperor over the whole empire, and then he said, I'm actually a pagan, and I'm gonna return us back to the old Gods he required
all the soldiers, including all the Christians, to sacrifice to the old gods.
And that's why we so lovingly call him Julian de Apostate.
So Athanasius goes back into town in 3 62, and then Julian realizes that this program is not working, he thought.
At least it's not working in Alexandria, he thought he could destroy the church by sending back those bishops, and so he decides specifically with Athanese.
Since Alexandria seems to be unifying around him, he exiled Athanasius from Alexandria.
The local government says, you know that nobody's gonna like that.
People really like this dude. So the local Alexandrian government, the Roman officials in charge right to the Emperor and say, You know, can he stay cause they really like him?
And they've got torches, and they really like him, so can he stay.
And Julian's response is to say, You know what, and parents you may have done this.
I know I've done this that you tell the kid you can't have this, and they come and they argue.
It's like, okay, all right, you can't have it for 3 days.
That's kind of what Julian does. He's like.
Oh, you wanna keep him okay. He can't even stay in Egypt.
He's exiled from Egypt now, so that's how he gets exiled from Egypt and entirely.
But Julian is killed in battle fairly quickly. Athanasius and a lot of Christians interpret that as divine judgment on him for trying to scramble the Church.
But when when Julian dies, Athanasius then goes to the new Emperor, who's a guy named Jovian, will skip over one who was in between.
But he goes to the new Emperor Jovian, and gets a letter that says he can go back to Alexandria as the bishop, because one time he got in trouble because he went back to Alexandria and resumed his responsibilities as Bishop and the emperor
ended up saying, Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! I said you could go back to town.
I didn't say you could go back to your church, so this time he gets a letter saying I want him to go back to Alexandria, as the Bishop.
But half an age just doesn't go straight back to town.
He sticks around in wherever it was. Don't believe it was Constantinople, but wherever it was that he had gone to talk to the Emperor, he sticks around to fight a few.
Theological battles there, because there are a lot of other people coming to the Emperor, asking if they can go back to their place or ask for you know his blessing on what they were doing.
So he stays to fight a few theological battles, and eventually goes back to Alexandria.
Now in 3, 64, and then in 3, 65. He's, I say, forced by political circumstances to leave Alexandria.
So what happened? The political circumstances are that Valence, who is another new emperor?
There's a new Emperor on the throne, and he orders everybody exiled by Constantius and restored under Julian, to be deposed.
Well, Athanasius was exiled by Constantius, and restored by Constantius, and exiled by Julian, and restored by Julian.
So he's kind of got everything going on in this mix, and the Alexandrians say, wait a minute. He doesn't count.
He shouldn't count under this new rule, cause Valence is trying to restore something in the church, and they say we want to keep this guy and Valen's order.
Let's see Alexandria argues that it doesn't, shouldn't apply to athenacious both the Government and the people.
Valens doesn't really want to observe this, because whatever else Athanicious is on troublemaker.
So he continues to press on this and an athanist does leave town to avoid arrest.
But eventually the Emperor has to relent, because, as always, it comes down to.
He doesn't want there to be a riot in Alexandria, and he's got important business much farther to the East, so he says you know what you can have them back.
You can have them back just don't burn down the city and don't cut off the Grange shipments.
I need to go do this thing, and you can have your stupid bishop back.
So he allowed. He allowed Athanasius then to come back, and so finally, in 3 66, Athanasius returns for the last time, and is restored as the bishop of Alexandria, and I already was saying, he spends his last few years.
You know, both trying to. Now bring all of the Alexandria and Egyptian, because they have something like a metropolitan system set up where he is, sort of the supreme bishop in that area.
And so he's trying to bring all of the Egyptian Church into unity over these few years.
And also, you know, finish the job of framing the debate, so that all of those people who have what he consider bad theology would not be able to get back in afterwards, and in 3 73 he dies.
So that is a rapid run through Athanasius. We already had a number of questions, but are there any others?
Before I, before I bring Athanasius to a conclusion.
I so? Fred asked, when they adopt the Athenian Creed?
But I can look that up for you, but ironically it has nothing to do with Athanasius.
Except that the people who wrote it thought, Hey, people like Athenacious.
Let's tack his name on to it. Kind of like the Apostles didn't write the Apostles.
Craig. It just gets associated with them to give it a little more.
Yeah. The Athenian Creed was the same way.
Any other questions, anything that I skipped over that I shouldn't have.
Yeah, I'm seeing a couple of things, but they will come in just as easily next week.
Or the following week. So John will get back to the the Homoiens and the homoiyosum, and all that stuff with the I stuck in in the middle.
We'll get back into that in later weeks. Okay, all right, let me close this in prayer. Then.
Father, we thank you for the preservation of truth. We thank you that whatever we may think of as methods that throughout the centuries there have been people like Athanasius who saw the truth of your son's divinity so clearly, and thought to be sure that that truth would be preserved thank
you that your spirit was in that, giving them success at times when it seemed unlikely, and perhaps holding them back a little bit, when when he would have gone too far.
We thank you that throughout this time, even as those who denied the divinity of the sun held political power and held most of the church offices around the Roman world, we thank you that there was always a witness, there were always those who understood the truth about your Son and were able to continue to
proclaim that continue to spread, that continue to spread a true gospel, not a not a gospel that was neutered, so that there would continue to be new Christians rising up, father, we thank you that that has continued even to this day we pray that from looking at Athanasius Career we
would we would learn how important some of the distinctions are.
We would learn to to look to you and follow you and look to your word.
You to fight these bottles, to interpret your word closely, carefully, and recognize the Deity of your Son throughout it. In Christ's name we pray Amen.