St. Athanasius

St. Athanasius also called Saint Athanasius of Alexandria he was the chief defender for Christian orthodoxy in the 4th century battle against Arianism the heresy that the Son of God was a creature of like,but not of the same substance as God the Father.

He received his philosophical and theological training in Alexandria.In 325 he attended Bishop Alexander of Alexandria as Deacon at the Council of Nicaea

Athanasius’s two-part work of apologetics, Against the Heathen and The Incarnation of the Word of God, completed about 335, was the first great classic of developed Greek Orthodox theology. In Athanasius’s system, the Son of God, the eternal Word through whom God made the world, entered the world in human form to lead men back to the harmony from which they had fallen away. Athanasius reacted vigorously against Arianism, for which the Son was a lesser being, and welcomed the definition of the Son formulated at the Council of Nicaea in 325: “consubstantial with the Father.”

Among Athanasius’s other important works are The Letters [to Sarapion] on the divinity of the Holy Spirit and The Life of St. Antony, which was soon translated into Latin and did much to spread the ascetic ideal in East and West. Only fragments remain of sermons and biblical commentaries.