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What do you do when the emperor, for the fifth time in three decades, sends you into exile—and you're 70 years old.

A normal person would consider his options. Check out retirement villas; cruise the Aegean; ride a camel around the Pyramids; book a trip to the Holy Land.

With a lifetime of accomplishments, Athanasius deserved better than a one-way ticket to nowhere.

In earlier years the "black dwarf" (as his enemies called the short man with the dark skin), then 32, had been elected bishop of Alexandria, the Egyptian city that influenced the empire. He'd penned On the Incarnation, a definitive theological treatise on the divinity of Christ, and The Life of Antony, a bestselling biography of the desert saint. He'd played a significant role at the Council of Nicea, the first worldwide conference of the church.

He'd fought his whole life for what he thought was decided at Nicea: that Jesus was fully human and fully divine: "God from God, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father." When the council voted for this creed, he was sure the Arians (who believed Christ was created and therefore not equal with God) would blow away with the Mediterranean winds.

But politics blew back. Arians not only hung around, but managed to gain places of power. They whispered into the emperor's ear that Athanasius (who kept publicly insisting the emperor enforce the Nicene decisions) trafficked in murder, illegal taxation, sorcery, and treason.

Emperor Constantine—who craved peace rather than truth, and didn't have much patience with critics—held a hearing. Condemned on trumped up charges, Athanasius was banished to what is now present-day Germany.

Honor and banishment
When Constantine died two years later, Athanasius was allowed to return to his post. Two years later, Arians gained control of key church posts, and Athanasius had to flee to Rome for asylum. And on it went for decades, as Athanasius repeatedly gained and then lost his office.

When he was allowed to return to Alexandria at age 68, he no doubt looked forward to ending his administration in peace.

Not quite. Within two years, Valens, the Western emperor—and, you guessed it, an Arian—ordered Athanasius banished again.

No one could blame Athanasius for throwing in the miter now. The burden of bearing the weight of the orthodox cause—the tedious debates, the false accusations, the lurid rumors, and marginal interest in truth—had surely shrunken his already diminutive frame. At some point, even he had to see that the future of Christianity was Arianism.

But when Valens issued his order, Athanasius refused to leave his city. Soldiers came and he hid, some later said, in his father's tomb. They certainly couldn't find him at his usual haunt, the Church of Saint Dionysus: soldiers stormed the church, but there was no sign of him.

Four months later, Valens reversed his decree. Athanasius returned to Alexandria again, where he remained for his last seven years, corresponding with other bishops, healing jealousies in his diocese, and composing letters to his churches.

In one letter, Athanasius made what many consider his greatest contribution to Christianity. He clarified what new books (in addition to the Old Testament books) his churches should consider "Scripture." Over the next hundred years, Athanasius' list gradually became the list the entire church used to define the New Testament.

When Athanasius died in 373, Arianism still held sway. But eight years later, when Emperor Theodosius took the throne, Arianism was banned, and the decision of the 325 Council of Nicea reaffirmed. The church has never considered Arianism an option again, and it still recites regularly the Nicene Creed, affirming that Jesus is "true God of true God."

For this we can thank, among others, the stubborn, little man who refused to quit.

Adapted from CHRISTIAN HISTORY magazine. To subscribe to CHRISTIAN HISTORY, call 1-800-873-6986.

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