Chapter II.
A. §§1–3. , 298–325.
§1. Early years, 298–319.
§2. The Arian controversy before Nicæa
(319–325).
§3. (1.) (325).
§3. (2.) Situation at the close of the
Council (325–328).
a. . Its in the history of doctrine.
b. The ‘Ομοούσιον.’
c. Materials for reaction. 1. Persecuted Arians. 2. Eusebius and the Court. 3. Ecclesiastical conservatism. Marcellus and Photinus.
B. §§4–8. (328–361).
§4. Early years of his Episcopate
(328–335), and first troubles.
§5. The Council of Tyre and First Exile
(335–337).
§6. Renewed troubles and Second Exile
(337–346).
(1) At Alexandria (337–339).
(2) At Rome. Council of Antioch, &c. (339–342).
(3) Constans; Council of Sardica, and its sequel
(342–346).
§7. The golden Decade (346–356).
(1) Athanasius as bishop.
(2) Sequel of the death of Constans.
§8. The Third Exile (356–361).
(1) Expulsion of Athanasius.
(2) :—(a) ‘Anomœans’; (b) ‘Homœans’; (c) ‘Semi-Arians.’
(3) Athanasius in his retirement.
C. §§9, 10. (362–373).
§9. Under Julian and his successors; Fourth
and Fifth Exiles (362–366).
§10. Last years. Basil, Marcellus, Apollinarius (366–373).
Id primum scitu opus est in proposito nobis minime fuisse ut omnia
ad Arium Arianos aliosque haereticos illius aetatis itidemque
Alexandrum Alexandrinum Hosium Marcellum Serapionem aliosque Athanasii
familiares aut synodos spectantia recensere sed solummodo ea quæ
uel ad Athanasii Vitam pertinent uel ad eam proxime
accedunt.—.
Athanasius was born between 296 and 298. His parents, according to later writers, were of high rank and wealthy. At any rate, their son received a liberal education. In his most youthful work we find him repeatedly quoting Plato, and ready with a definition from the Organon of Aristotle. He is also familiar with the theories of various philosophical schools, and in particular with the developments of Neo-Platonism. In later works, he quotes Homer more than once (Hist. Ar. 68, Orat. iv. 29), he addresses to Constantius a defence bearing unmistakeable traces of a study of Demosthenes de Corona (Fialon, pp. 286 sq. 293). His education was that of a Greek: Egyptian antiquities and religion, the monuments and their history, have no special interest for him: he nowhere betrays any trace of Egyptian national feeling. But from early years another element had taken a first place in his training and in his interest. It was in the Holy Scriptures that his martyr teachers had instructed him, and in the Scriptures his mind and writings are saturated. Ignorant of Hebrew, and only rarely appealing to other Greek versions (to Aquila once in the Ecthesis, to other versions once or twice upon the Psalms), his knowledge of the Old Testament is limited to the Septuagint. But of it, as well as of the New Testament, he has an astonishing command, ᾽Αλεξανδρεὺς τῷ γένει, ἀνὴρ λόγιος, δυνατὸς ὢν ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς. The combination of Scriptural study and of Greek learning was what one expects in a pupil of the famous Alexandrian School; and it was in this School, the School of Clement and Origen, of Dionysius and Theognostus, that young Athanasius learned, possibly at first from the lips of Peter the bishop and martyr of 311. The influence of Origen still coloured the traditions of the theological school of Alexandria. It was from Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria 312–328, himself an Origenist ‘of the right wing,’ that Athanasius received his moulding at the critical period of his later teens.