ALLEN TIMILEHIN OLATUNDE
FEBRUARY 2011
INTRODUCTION
Early African Christianity on the base of scholarship has good and lasting foundation on the thesis of Athanasius who was one of the Christian fathers that upheld the Christian faith from heretic pitfalls. This paper has a deep review over a legend that stood to confront the doctrinal argument which might divide the church of God and the confrontation has to do with the African blood in the hero which is the ability to keep what is valuable to the heart with the last streams of blood. The African of today has forgotten the bases of his religion in which the fathers died to keep alive. We are dying for temporal treasure which the latter generation will never place value on. Athanasius died to embrace the matter of Trinity which is mystery yet experience everyday. Trinity is our life and being. The scholarship on Trinity still has base on what Athanasius believed to be the truth about the issue. African, especially Nigerian believes in Trinity even from our traditional religion has little traces to the Trinity though in their deity belief.
Nicene orthodoxy worth fighting for as Athanasius asserted so also Christianity of today should also embrace especially in Nigeria. Athanasius and his affirmation of the trinity and the influence in Nigeria 21st century is the focus of this paper.
WHO WAS ATHANASIUS?
http://enotes.com/classical-medieval-criticism/athanasius, (internet source), states that the most important Church leader of the fourth century, Saint Athanasius was a strong and vocal opponent of the popular minister Arius and his heretical views of the Incarnation. His exegetical skills and brash manner involved him in constant controversy on matters involving the Trinity and the nature of the relationship between God the Father and the Son of God. His contentious, lifelong battles led to his exile from Alexandria on five separate occasions. A persistent fighter against the heresy of the Arians, he was revered by his supporters as the “Father of Orthodoxy.” Today Athanasius is recognized for his substantial influence on early Christianity and is considered the greatest advocate ever of the Church's position on the Incarnation.
Little is known of Athanasius's early life and his writings reveal a negligible amount of personal information. He is believed to have been born in Alexandria, Egypt, and possibly to have been educated in grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. He reached the status of deacon by 318, and it is probably about this date that two of his most famous works were written: Oratio contra Gentes (Against the Gentiles), and Oratio de incarnatione Verbi (On the Incarnation of the Word). The strength of Athanasius’s arguments in these works gained the Bishop of Alexandria's attention. The early years of Christianity were rife with contentiousness: Arius preached that the Son of God was distinct from and subordinate to God the Father; Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria, believed that the Arian views were essentially pagan. The emperor of Rome, Constantine, ordered a council composed of hundreds of bishops to meet in 325 in Nicaea with the directive that the leaders come to some agreement regarding the nature of Christ and the Trinity, so that the Church could show a united front. The Bishop of Alexandria chose Athanasius to accompany him, and Athanasius was the conservatives' champion at the council. Although at times Athanasius appeals to reason, his ultimate position is that the nature of the Trinity is beyond the ability of mortals to comprehend and thus must simply be accepted on faith. Arius refused to sign the creed of the council and was expelled from the Church. Soon, however, he and his supporters prevailed on the emperor and Constantine changed his mind, now siding against Athanasius's position. Athanasius became Bishop of Alexandria in 328, a post he would hold for the rest of his life. He was in the midst of controversy throughout his life and suffered many exiles. Athanasius steadfastly defied Arianism in spite of its sometimes tremendous endorsement by other church leaders, rejected cooperation, and ultimately prevailed in his battle for Orthodox doctrine.
WAS ATHANASIUS AN AFRICAN?
C.S.M.V. (1953, 17) states that Athanasius was an Egyptian by birth and a Greek by education. His ancestors may have seen Israel go out of Egypt and the Holy family comes in; but, apart from a reference to two prophecies about that country, he shows no sign of national consciousness, nor does he, as do many of the Egyptian saints, display Coptic temperament. His home was in Alexandria, the brilliant cosmopolitan name-city of the Macedonian conqueror who, six centuries before, had laid the foundations of Athanasius’s world; and most of his life was spent in the same place. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia (2009) confirms the birth of Athanasius to be in Alexandria, Egypt, Athanasius received a classical education before entering the famous theological school of his native city. He was ordained a deacon as a young man and served as secretary to the bishop of Alexandria. His life was African from cradle to grave. Much was not about his early life, his parents were not Christian, but his mother took him to the Patriarch of Alexandria.
The involvement and contribution of Athanasius in church development and theology proved his African blood connectivity. The activities that made him ruled over the Arianism shall be better stands the test of being an African man. C.E.A.C. (2010, 1.5) affirms the contribution of Athanasius with other African scholars in Christianity appreciation over centuries when heresy aggravated to smuggle out Christian doctrine. The impact of African was not under-estimated to the effect of sustenance. African loves consistency and aggressiveness on issues that matters to the community. It is true that in the earliest centuries of Christianity it was the land of Ham that provided the majority of the Christian intellectuals (Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa). Where would Christian theology be without Origen, Tertullian, Augustine, Arius, and Athanasius – to name a few? Black men from the Northern part of Africa were great heroes in upholding the tenet of what we embrace today. There is no doubt that Athanasius was not a black man. His contribution with others is African.
In support with the research of Center for Early Africa Christianity, the position of African with Jews has been well established in which there will be missed up with Jewish African. Many Jews had lived multiple generations in Africa, especially in the great international city of Alexandria, for two or three centuries before the coming of Christianity. This is evident from their extraordinarily influential translation into Greek of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. At its very apex came the brilliant Jewish intellectual tradition of Philo with his approach to biblical events and metaphors. This Jewish community became a seedbed of preparation for the gospel that would echo throughout world Christianity.
The approach of African, especially Athanasius against heresy is well recognized. C.E.A.C. (2010, 2.5) affirms Surprising Role of heresy: The major dogmatic battles with heresy were fought out in Africa before they were received ecumenically. Gnosticism, Arianism, Montanism, Marcionism, and Manichaenism were all thoroughly and substantively argued as problems of biblical interpretation in Africa before these arguments reached clear definitions in the North. What is difficult to see is that this controversy is thoroughly African in character, language, and spirit. The astute reasoning set forth by Athanasius had already long resided quietly in the apostolic memory and tradition, but was articulated by the leading bishop of Africa in opposition to another influential African, Arius.
Among conflicts that were first settled in African Synods before Nicaea were issues on penitence, diocesan boundaries, Episcopal authority, and ordination, as well as Christology and teaching on the trinity. The main voices in these debates were African. They sorted out the ecumenical acceptability of the views of Sabellius and Tertullian and Arius and Athanasius and Origen--- all Africans. Ecclesiology and penitential patterns that became normative for Europe were first tested in Africa.
It is known that Athanasius was present as a deacon and that the Council of Nicea was deciding the issue of Christ’s relation to the Father—and issue that had its origins in Alexandria, Egypt in Africa. Most of the energy of the church in the first few centuries was concerned with the doctrine of Christ and his relationship to the Father. That, in fact, is why the first ecumenical or world-wide council was called in 325 A.D. And Africans were very well represented at the council. In fact, the chief person who spoke on behalf of the church was a deacon by the name of Athanasius. He spoke in defense of the Son’s equality with the Father, and the result was what is known as the Nicene Creed which many churches, including my own, say every Sunday in church as a summary of what Scripture teaches about God.
The Africans, Athanasius inclusive, stood the controversy whose arguments were very important in the struggle to define the Trinity and the role of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they should not underestimate Africa’s contribution.
QUALIFICATIONS OF A LEGEND THEOLOGIAN
Gregory of Nazianzus (1989) begins his panegyric oration on “the great Athanasius” thus, “In praising Athanasius, I shall be praising virtue. To speak of him and to praise virtue are identical, because he had, or, to speak more truly, has embraced virtue in its entirety.” Davidson, Ivor J. (2005) ascertains that though he was from Egypt he held to little of his heritage. Wace, Henry (1991) says, “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.” What did hold his interest was the Christian scripture, something he studied from an early age. However, there is need to appreciate the fiery attempt to defend the truth that is now the theology of the church today, especially African.
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia (2009) notes that Theology, discipline that attempts to express the content of a religious faith as a coherent body of propositions. Theology is narrower in scope than faith, for whereas faith is a total attitude of the individual, including will and feeling, theology attempts to bring to expression in words the elements of belief that are explicitly or implicitly contained in faith. Not every verbal expression of faith is theology, however. The first verbalizations of faith were naive and mythological. Theology arose out of reflection upon these first naive utterances. For instance, in the New Testament the disciple Thomas exclaims to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” but a long process of reflection and speculation came between that simple confession and the theological declaration, made by the Council of Nicaea (ad 325), that Jesus Christ is “one in substance with the Father.” This example demonstrates the tendency to move from concrete language (“Lord”) to conceptual language (“substance”). This explanation has a good link with Athanasius in his theological work to defend the theology of Trinity through incarnation doctrine and Christology. The attempts to resolve the controversy brought about the establishment of a theological thought that express the faith of the Christian community. However, the background of Athanasius helped his legendary attempt to withstand the furnace of heresy.
Athanasius (1953) adds that alongside his formal education Athanasius was taught in the school of persecution. In 303, under the emperor Diocletian, Christians suffered under the Great Persecution. At this time churches were destroyed, books were burned and Christians were subjected to harm. The church in Egypt suffered greatly, producing many martyrs. It was not until the defeat of Maxentius at the MilvianBridge by Constantine in 312 that the persecution finally halted. Such trial would have strengthened Athanasius in the faith. Not only did he learn about Christianity but he saw fellows Christians martyred. He “had faced the possibility of martyrdom…and he had made his own the faith for and by which the martyrs died—the faith of the Creator-Word Incarnate, the crucified and risen, the living and triumphant Christ.”
The ability to stand to defend the faith either explicitly or implicitly grounded the legendary roles in Athanasius. He was able to pen down words of scripture through thorough study to combat heresy. McMahon, C. Matthew (1998) comments in his writings that he is constantly seeking the religious significance in every doctrinal issue. This religious significance is to be found in the implications that each doctrine has for certain basic principles that are at the heart of Christianity. The two doctrines that were most important to him were surrounding Theology Proper (monotheism) and the Christian doctrine of salvation. Archibald Robertson (1954) remarks on the writings of this legend becomes reading for Christians of all later generations, are the passages where as in a continuous song of triumph Athanasius proclaims the visible victory of the cross, which is now bringing, not only holiness to individuals and destruction of idols and (heresy), but peace to the world. Athanasius has the quality that encouraged him to present this great work against Arianism. Archibald Robertson states further:
The combination of the enthusiasm of a youthful mind with the wisdom of a great one has given the treatise On the Incarnation its place among those Christian classics which are read not only as documents in the history f chrism thought but as treatments of the subjects with which they deal. In against the Heathen, Athanasius attacks, as Jews and Christians at Alexandria had for centuries, the absurdity of popular paganism, and defends on rational grounds the principle that a unified and orderly universe is the work of one Creator, who rules it by his Logos (Word, or Reason).
In the letter of St. Athanasius to Marcellinus on the interpretation of the Psalms evidently shows the quality of a theologian that dissect the scripture with scripture interprets scripture principle. He counseled his followers on what takes to build theology. From the book of St. Athanasius on the Incarnation, The Treatise DeIncarnation Verbi Dei states, “My old friend made a point of this, that the things we find in the Psalms about the Saviour are stated in the other books of scripture too; he stressed the fact that one interpretation is common to them all, and they have but one voice in the Holy Spirit.” (C.S.M.V.)
McMahon, C. Matthew (1998) notes that Athanasius takes Scripture and works his doctrines from the Bible. He is free from the excessive speculation that is often accompanying the Alexandrian theologians of the day. Because Athanasius, though, believed he needed to champion monotheism and Christology in the senses previously described, he did not formulate a full Trinitarian creed, though he was orthodox on the descriptions he did use around the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Driscoll, Mark (2011), comments that a man of slight build and gracious demeanor, Athanasius fought boldly for his Trinitarian God and Lord Jesus Christ. Members of his churches were murdered, including men who were hung and women who were slaughtered. Athanasius' enemies routinely brought false charges against him; they ran him out of town into exile on five occasions, for a total of seventeen of his forty-five years as bishop. Pastor Athanasius was dearly loved by his people and was warmly welcomed by them each time he returned from exile. He died in 373 as an elderly man, loving pastor, and pastor to fellow pastors. Eight years after his death, in 381, Athanasius was finally vindicated when his doctrines about Jesus Christ were officially confirmed as biblical orthodoxy at the Council of Constantinople, some sixty years after the Arian controversy erupted.
IMPLICATION OF ATHANASIUS LEGENDARY TO NIGERIAN SYSTEM
U.S. Library of Congress (Internet source) comments on the statistical facts of Christianity in Nigeria. The majority of Christians were found in the south. A few isolated mission stations and mission bookstores, along with churches serving southern enclaves in the northern cities and larger towns, dotted the Muslim north. The Yoruba area traditionally has been Protestant and Anglican, whereas Igboland has always been the area of greatest activity by the Roman Catholic Church. Other denominations abounded as well. Presbyterians arrived in the early twentieth century in the Ibibio Niger Delta area and had missions in the middle belt as well. This latter area was an open one. Small missionary movements were allowed to start up, generally in the 1920s, after the middle belt was considered pacified. Each denomination set up rural networks by providing schooling and health facilities. Most such facilities remained in 1990, although in many cases schools had been taken over by the local state government in order to standardize curricula and indigenize the teaching staff. Pentecostals arrived mostly as indigenous workers in the post-independence period and in 1990 Pentecostalism was spreading rapidly throughout the middle belt, having some success in Roman Catholic and Protestant towns of the south as well. There were also breakaway or africanized churches that blended traditional Christian symbols with indigenous symbols. Among these was the Aladura movement that was spreading rapidly throughout Yorubaland and into the non-Muslim middle belt areas.
However, this country located at the trigger point of African map, Nigeria has future attempts to stand the test for their faith if the legendary roles of Athanasius are applied. There are controversies on Christian faith within the country whereby some deny the faith for comfort and peace. Among the church, denominationalism engulfs Christian doctrine and the remnants are tired of upholding the truth because of the majority in the heretic mass movement. Nigeria, a nation that embraces spirituality and raw faith that were sent through the Western world still in need of men like Athanasius that will stand to prove the point for everyone to know and understand why to relegate heresy that is much appreciated in our churches today. The orthodox churches have started to paint their messages to avoid mass migration of members to these churches.
Controversy had been in the church of Nigeria from inception as Babalola (1976) remarks over that a leadership issue was a major cause of schisms among Christians in Nigeria. This is because African Churches had quarrels with some doctrines and practices of Christianity in Nigeria. They claimed that European leaders in the established Missions monopolized leadership positions among themselves. They did not place Africans in the Church leadership positions, but, they do place them in subordinate positions to the Europeans. Besides, polygamy was another problem that faced established Churches in Nigeria. Mission kicked against polgamy in Nigeria. Many Africans who cherished their culture and tradition left the Orthodox Churches for indigenous ones. Mention could be made of the Cherubim and Seraphim Movement where many lovers of polygamy came to join. This is because the Movement accommodates some of the African traditions which the established Churches kicked against. In the Anglican Church, many adherents who opposed infant baptism were expelled from the Church. Those who were sent away from the Church joined the ChristApostolicChurch or the CelestialChurch. Nevertheless, we need leaders like Athanasius, a man of learning, devoted much time to study and research to counter the block of heresy that might slaughter the true message of Christianity. The alternative to truth does not exist in Christianity than to stand out to uphold it.
The legendary role of Athanasius can be applied to solve issues of denominationalism, combination of traditional practices, social class in the church and inter-ethnic conflicts within a church, body or denomination by locality or language. There is need to revisit the attempt of Arianism in the church to sponsor heresy by dividing the church by doctrinal standing. In Nigeria, the opportunity to rekindle the spirit of legendary of theologian is widely open as to the standards of the theological studies in the church, where sound theology is taught to defend the faith. The ability to understand the need to unite the church with teaching of love rather than individualism as the Westerners lives. We are Africans. We live by collectivism approach. Our homes are built to form communities. Therefore, Christ should be taught to encourage peaceful living. Also, culture and ethic beliefs that are not Christian should be discouraged in the church. Let there be council like Nicene in churches, denominations to iron out issues on ethic conflict in which the Arians underneath are unveiled by our sound teaching through serious Bible study. However, Nigeria has better chance to promote the spirit of Athanasius that fights the course of Christ till He comes.
WORKS CITED
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Archibald, Robertson. Athanasius: Christology of the later fathers. The library of Christian classic, volume 11, eds, Hardy, Edward Rochie. London: S.C.M. Press and Philadelphia: Westmisnter Press, 1954. 44.
Athanasius. On the Incarnation: The Treatise De Incarnatione Verbi Dei. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1953.
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CEAC. How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity. Seminar I: Introduction, Center for Early Africa Christianity, 2010.
Davidson, Ivor J. A Public Faith: From Constantine to the Medieval World AD 312-600. Volume Two, The Baker History of the Church. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2005. 39-40.
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S. Gregory Nazianzen, “Oration XXI” in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church Second Series Volume VII: S. Cyril of Jerusalem and S. Gregory Nazianzen (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 269.
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Wace, Henry. “Prolegomena” in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church Second Series Volume IV: St. Athanasius (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), xiv.
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