Church Fathers: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 07: 27.02.14 Oration XXI Part 1

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Church Fathers: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 07: 27.02.14 Oration XXI Part 1



TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 07 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 27.02.14 Oration XXI Part 1

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Oration XXI.

On the Great Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria.

The reference in 22 to "the Council which sat first at Seleucia ... and afterwards at this mighty city," leaves no room for doubting that the Oration was delivered at Constantinople. Further local colour is found in the allusions of 5. We are assured by the panegyric on S. Cyprian (Orat. xxiv. I) that it was already the custom of the Church of Constantinople to observe annual festivals in honour of the Saints: and at present two days are kept by the Eastern Church, viz., Jan. 18th, as the day of the actual death of S. Athanasius, and May ad, in memory of the translation of his remains to the church of S. Sophia at Constantinople. Probably, therefore, this Oration was delivered on the former day, on which Assemani holds that S. Athanasius died. Papebroke and (with some hesitation) Dr. Bright pronounce in favour of May 2d. Tillemont supposes that a.d. 379 iS the year of its delivery; in which case it must have been very shortly after S. Gregory's arrival in the city. Since, however, no allusion is made to this, it seems, on the whole, more likely that it should be assigned to a.d. 380. The sermon takes high rank, even among S. Gregory's discourses, as the model of an ecclesiastical panegyric. It lacks, however, the charm of personal affection and intimate acquaintance with the inner life, which is characteristic of the orations concerned with his own relatives and friends.

1. 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. For all who have lived according to God still live unto God, though they have departed hence. For this reason, God is called the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, since He is the God, not of the dead, but of the living.hyperlink Again, in praising virtue, I shall be praising God, who gives virtue to men and lifts them up, or lifts them up again, to Himself by the enlightenment which is akin to Himself.hyperlink For many and great as are our blessings-none can say how many and how great-which we have and shall have from God, this is the greatest and kindliest of all, our inclination and relationship to Him. For God is to intelligible things what the sun is to the things of sense. The one lightens the visible, the other the invisible, world. The one makes our bodily eyes to see the sun, the other makes our intellectual natures to see God. And, as that, which bestows on the things which see and are seen the power of seeing and being seen, is itself the most beautiful of visible things; so God, who creates, for those who think, and that which is thought of, the power of thinking and being thought of, is Himself the highest of the objects of thought, in Whom every desire finds its bourne, beyond Whom it can no further go. For not even the most philosophic, the most piercing, the most curious intellect has, or can ever have, a more exalted object. For this is the utmost of things desirable, and they who arrive at it find an entire rest from speculation.

2. Whoever has been permitted to escape by reason and contemplation from matter and this fleshly cloud or veil (whichever it should be called) and to hold communion with God, and be associated, as far as man's nature can attain, with the purest Light, blessed is he, both from his ascent from hence, and for his deification there, which is conferred by true philosophy, and by rising superior to the dualism of matter, through the unity which is perceived in the Trinity. And whosoever has been depraved by being knit to the flesh, and so far oppressed by the clay that he cannot look at the rays of truth, nor rise above things below, though he is born from above, and called to things above, I hold him to be miserable in his blindness, even though he may abound in things of this world; and all the more, because he is the sport of his abundance, and is persuaded by it that something else is beautiful instead of that which is really beautiful, reaping, as the poor fruit of his poor opinion, the sentence of darkness, or the seeing Him to be fire, Whom he did not recognize as light.

3. Such has been the philosophy of few, both nowadays and of old-for few are the men of God, though all are His handiwork,-among lawgivers, generals, priests, Prophets, Evangelists, Apostles, shepherds, teachers, and all the spiritual host and band-and, among them all, of him whom now we praise. And whom do I mean by these? Men like Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve Patriarchs, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, the Judges, Samuel, David, to some extent Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, the Prophets before the captivity, those after the captivity, and, though last in order, first in truth, those who were concerned with Christ's Incarnation or taking of our nature, the lamphyperlink before the Light, the voice before the Word, the mediator before the Mediator, the mediator between the old covenant and the new, the famous John, the disciples of Christ, those after Christ, who were set over the people, or illustrious in word, or conspicuous for miracles, or made perfect through their blood.

4. With some of these Athanasius vied, by some he was slightly excelled, and others, if it is not bold to say so, he surpassed: some he made his models in mental power, others in activity, others in meekness, others in zeal, others in dangers, others in most respects, others in all, gathering from one and another various forms of beauty (like men who paint figures of ideal excellence), and combining them in his single soul, he made one perfect form of virtue out of all, excelling in action men of intellectual capacity, in intellect men of action; or, if you will, surpassing in intellect men renowned for intellect, in action those of the greatest active power; outstripping those who had moderate reputation in both respects, by his eminence in either, and those who stood highest in one or other, by his powers in both; and, if it is a great thing for those who have received an example, so to use it as to attach themselves to virtue, he has no inferior title to fame, who for our advantage has set an example to those who come after him.

5. To speak of and admire him fully, would perhaps be too long a task for the present purpose of my discourse, and would take the form of a history rather than of a panegyric: a history which it has been the object of my desires to commit to writing for the pleasure and instruction of posterity, as he himself wrote the life of the divine Antony,hyperlink and set forth, in the form of a narrative, the laws of the monastic life. Accordingly, after entering into a few of the many details of his history, such as memory suggests at the moment as most noteworthy, in order both to satisfy my own longing and fulfil the duty which befits the festival, we will leave the many others to those who know them. For indeed, it is neither pious nor safe, while the lives of the ungodly are honoured by recollection, to pass by in silence those who have lived piously, especially in a city which could hardly be saved by many examples of virtue, making sport, as it does, of Divine things, no less than of the horse-race and the theatre.

6. He was brought up, from the first, in religious habits and practices, after a brief study of literature and philosophy, so that he might not be utterly unskilled in such subjects, or ignorant of matters which he had determined to despise. For his generous and eager soul could not brook being occupied in vanities, like unskilled athletes, who beat the air instead of their antagonists and lose the prize. From meditating on every book of the Old and New Testament, with a depth such as none else has applied even to one of them, he grew rich in contemplation, rich in splendour of life, combining them in wondrous sort by that golden bond which few can weave; using life as the guide of contemplation, contemplation as the seal of life. For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and, so to say, its first swathing band; but, when wisdom has burst the bonds of fear and risen up to love, it makes us friends of God, and sons instead of bondsmen.

7. Thus brought up and trained, as even now those should be who are to preside over the people, and take the direction of the mighty body of Christ,hyperlink according to the will and foreknowledge of God, which lays long before the foundations of great deeds, he was invested with this important ministry, and made one of those who draw near to the God Who draws near tO us, and deemed worthy of the holy office and rank, and, after passing through the entire series of orders, he was (to make my story short) entrusted with the chief rule over the people, in other words, the charge of the whole world: nor can I say whether he received the priesthood as the reward of virtue, or to be the fountain and life of the Church. For she, like Ishmael,hyperlink fainting from her thirst for the truth, needed to be given to drink, or, like Elijah,hyperlink to be refreshed from the brook, when the land was parched by drought; and, when but faintly breathing, to be restored to life and left as a seed to Israel,hyperlink that we might not become like Sodom and Gomorrah,hyperlink whose destruction by the rain of fire and brimstone is only more notorious than their wickedness. Therefore, when we were cast down, a horn of salvation was raised up for us,hyperlink and a chief corner stone,hyperlink knitting us to itself and to one another, was laid in due season, or a firehyperlink to purify our base and evil matter,hyperlink or a farmer's fanhyperlink to winnow the light from the weighty in doctrine, or a sword to cut out the roots of wickedness; and so the Word finds him as his own ally, and the Spirit takes possession of one who will breathe on His behalf.

8. Thus, and for these reasons, by the vote of the whole people, not in the evil fashion which has since prevailed, nor by means of bloodshed and oppression, but in an apostolic and spiritual manner, he is led up to the thronehyperlink of Saint Mark, to succeed him in piety, no less than in office; in the latter indeed at a great distance from him, in the former, which is the genuine right of succession, following him closely. For unity in doctrine deserves unity in office; and a rival teacher sets up a rival throne; the one is a successor in reality, the other but in name. For it is not the intruder, but he whose rights are intruded upon, who is the successor, not the lawbreaker, but the lawfully appointed, not the man of contrary opinions, but the man of the same faith; if this is not what we mean by successor, he succeeds in the same sense as disease to health, darkness to light, storm to calm, and frenzy to sound sense.

9. The duties of his office he discharged in the same spirit as that in which he had been preferred to it. For he did not at once, after taking possession of his throne, like men who have unexpectedly seized upon some sovereignty or inheritance, grow insolent from intoxication. This is the conduct of illegitimate and intrusive priests, who are unworthy of their vocation; whose preparation for the priesthood has cost them nothing, who have endured no inconvenience for the sake of virtue, who only begin to study religion when appointed to teach it, and undertake the cleansing of others before being cleansed themselves; yesterday sacrilegious, to-day sacerdotal; yesterday excluded from the sanctuary,hyperlink to-day its officiants; proficient in vice, novices in piety; the product of the favour of man, not of the grace of the Spirit; who, having run through the whole gamut of violence, at last tyrannize over even piety; who, instead of gaining credit for their office by their character, need for their character the credit of their office, thus subverting the due relation between them; who ought to offer more sacrificeshyperlink for themselves than for the ignorances of the people;hyperlink who inevitably fall into one of two errors, either, from their own need of indulgence, being excessively indulgent, and so even teaching, instead of checking, vice, or cloaking their own sins under the harshness of their rule. Both these extremes he avoided; he was sublime in action, lowly in mind; inaccessible in virtue, most accessible in intercourse; gentle, free from anger, sympathetic, sweet in words, sweeter in disposition; angelic in appearance, more angelic in mind; calm in rebuke, persuasive in praise, without spoiling the good effect of either by excess, but rebuking with the tenderness of a father, praising with the dignity of a ruler, his tenderness was not dissipated, nor his severity sour; for the one was reasonable, the other prudent, and both truly wise; his disposition sufficed for the training of his spiritual children, with very little need of words; his words with very little need of the rod,hyperlink and his moderate use of the rod with still less for the knife.

10. But why should I paint for you the portrait of the man? St. Paulhyperlink has sketched him by anticipation. This he does, when he sings the praises of the great High-priest, who hath passed through the heavenshyperlink (for I will venture to say even this, since Scripturehyperlink can call those who live according to Christ by the name of Christs):hyperlink and again when by the rules in his letter to Timothy,hyperlink he gives a model for future Bishops: for if you will apply the law as a test to him who deserves these praises, you will clearly perceive his perfect exactness. Come then to aid me in my panegyric; for I am labouring heavily in my speech, and though I desire to pass by point after point, they seize upon me one after another, and I can find no surpassing excellence in a form which is in all respects well proportioned and beautiful; for each as it occurs to me seems fairer than the rest and so takes by storm my speech. Come then I pray, you who have been his admirers and witnesses, divide among yourselves his excellences, contend bravely with one another, men and women alike, young men and maidens, old men and children, priests and people, solitaries and cenobites,hyperlink men of simple or of exact life, contemplatives or practically minded. Let one praise him in his fastings and prayers as if he had been disembodied and immaterial, another his unweariedness and zeal for vigils and psalmody, another his patronage of the needy, another his dauntlessness towards the powerful, or his condescension to the lowly. Let the virgins celebrate the friend of the Bridegroom;hyperlink those under the yokehyperlink their restrainer, hermits him who lent wings to their course, cenobites their lawgiver, simple folk their guide, contemplatives the divine, the joyous their bridle, the unfortunate their consolation, the hoary-headed their staff, youths their instructor, the poor their resource, the wealthy their steward. Even the widows will, methinks, praise their protector, even the orphans their father, even the poor their benefactor, strangers their entertainer, brethren the man of brotherly love, the sick their physician, in whatever sickness or treatment you will, the healthy the guard of health, yea all men him who made himself all things to all men that he might gain almost, if not quite, all.

11. On these grounds, as I have said, I leave others, who have leisure to admire the minor details of his character, to admire and extol him. I call them minor details only in comparing him and his character with his own standard, for that which hath been made glorious hath not been made glorious, even though it be exceeding splendid by reason of the glory that surpasseth,hyperlink as we are told; for indeed the minor points of his excellence would suffice to win celebrity for others. But since it would be intolerable for me to leave the word and servehyperlink less important details, I must turn to that which is his chief characteristic; and God alone, on Whose behalf I am speaking, can enable me to say anything worthy of a soul so noble and so mighty in the word.

12. In the palmy days of the Church, when all was well, the present elaborate, far-fetched and artificial treatment of Theology had not made its way into the schools of divinity, but playing with pebbles which deceive the eye by the quickness of their changes, or dancing before an audience with varied and effeminate contortions, were looked upon as all one with speaking or hearing of God in a way unusual or frivolous. But since the Sextuseshyperlink and Pyrrhos, and the antithetic style, like a dire and malignant disease, have infected our churches, and babbling is reputed culture, and, as the book of the Actshyperlink says of the Athenians, we spend our time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. O what Jeremiahhyperlink will bewail our confusion and blind madness; he alone could utter lamentations befitting our misfortunes.

13. The beginning of this madness was Arius (whose name is derived from frenzyhyperlink ), who paid the penalty of his unbridled tongue by his death in a profane spot,hyperlink brought about by prayer not by disease, when he like Judashyperlink burst asunderhyperlink for his similar treachery to the Word. Then others, catching the infection, organized an art of impiety, and, confining Deity to the Unbegotten, expelled from Deity not only the Begotten, but also the Proceeding one, and honoured the Trinity with communion in namehyperlink alone, or even refused to retain this for it. Not so that blessed one, Who was indeed a man of God and a mighty trumpet of truth: but being aware that to contracthyperlink the Three Persons to a numerical Unity is heretical, and the innovation of Sabellius, who first devised a contraction of Deity; and that to sever the Three Persons by a distinction of nature, is an unnatural mutilation of Deity; he both happily preserved the Unity, which belongs to the Godhead, and religiously taught the Trinity, which refershyperlink to Personality, neither confounding the Three Persons in the Unity, nor dividing the Substance among the Three Persons, but abiding within the bounds of piety, by avoiding excessive inclination or opposition to either side.

14. And therefore, first in the holy Synod of Nicaea,hyperlink the gathering of the three hundred and eighteen chosen men, united by the Holy Ghost, as far as in him lay, he stayed the disease. Though not yet ranked among the BiShops, he held the first rank among the members of the Council, for preference was given to virtue just as much as to office. Afterwards, when the flame had been fanned by the blasts of the evil one, and had spread very widely (hence came the tragedies of which almost the whole earth and sea are full), the fight raged fiercely around him who was the noble champion of the Word. For the assault is hottest upon the point of resistance, while various dangers surround it on every side: for impiety is skilful in designing evils, and excessively daring in taking them in hand: and how would they spare men, who had not spared the Godhead? Yet one of the assaults was the most dangerous of all: and I myself contribute somewhat to this scene; yea, let me plead for the innocence of my dear fatherland, for the wickedness was not due to the land that bore them, but to the men who undertook it. For holy indeed is that land, and everywhere noted for its piety, but these men are unworthy of the Church which bore them, and ye have heard of a briar growing in a vine;hyperlink and the traitorhyperlink was Judas, one of the disciples.

15. There are some who do not excuse even my namesakehyperlink from blame; who, living at Alexandria at the time for the sake of culture, although he had been most kindly treated by him, as if the dearest of his children, and received his special confidence, yet joined in the revolutionary plot against his father and patron: for, though others took the active part in it, the hand of Absalomhyperlink was with them, as the saying goes. If any of you had heard of the hand which was produced by fraud against the Saint, and the corpsehyperlink of the living man, and the unjust banishment, he knows what I mean. But this I will gladly forget. For on doubtful points, I am disposed to think we ought to incline to the charitable side, and acquit rather than condemn the accused. For a bad man would speedily condemn even a good man, while a good man would not be ready to condemn even a bad one. For one who is not ready to do ill, is not inclined even to suspect it. I come now to what is matter of fact, not of report, what is vouched for as truth instead of unverified suspicion.

16. There was a monster from Cappadocia, born on our farthest confines, of low birth, and lower mind, whose blood was not perfectly free, but mongrel, as we know that of mules to be; at first, dependent on the table of others, whose price was a barley cake, who had learnt to say and do everything with an eye to his stomach, and, at last, after sneaking into public life, and filling its lowest offices, such as that of contractor for swine's flesh, the soldiers' rations, and then having proved himself a scoundrel for the sake of greed in this public trust, and been stripped to the skin, contrived to escape, and after passing, as exiles do, from country to country and city to city, last of all, in an evil hour for the Christian community, like one of the plagues of Egypt, he reached Alexandria. There, his wanderings being stayed, he began his villany. Good for nothing in all other respects, without culture, without fluency in conversation, without even the form and pretence of reverence, his skill in working villany and confusion was un-equalled.

17. His acts of insolence towards the saint you all know in full detail. Often were the righteous given into the hands of the wicked,hyperlink not that the latter might be honoured, but that the former might be tested: and though the wicked come, as it is written, to an awful death,hyperlink nevertheless for the present the godly are a laughing stock, while the goodness of God and the great treasuries of what is in store for each of them hereafter are concealed. Then indeed word and deed and thought will be weighed in the just balances of God, as He arises to judge the earth,hyperlink gathering together counsel and works, and revealing what He had kept sealed up.hyperlink Of this let the words and sufferings of Job convince thee, who was a truthful, blameless, just, godfearing man, with all those other qualities which are testified of him, and yet was smitten with such a succession of remarkable visitations, at the hands of him who begged for power over him, that, although many have often suffered in the whole course of time, and some even have, as is probable, been grievously afflicted, yet none can be compared with him in misfortunes. For he not only suffered, without being allowed space to mourn for his losses in their rapid succession, the loss of his money, his possessions, his large and fair family, blessings for which all men care; but was at last smitten with an incurable disease horrible to look upon, and, to crown his misfortunes, had a wife whose only comfort was evil counsel. For his surpassing troubles were those of his soul added to those of the body.hyperlink He had also among his friends truly miserable comforters,hyperlink as he calls them, who could not help him. For when they saw his suffering, in ignorance of its hidden meaning, they supposed his disaster to be the punishment of vice and not the touchstone of virtue. And they not only thought this, but were not even ashamed to reproach him with his lot,hyperlink at a time when, even if he had been suffering for vice, they ought to have treated his grief with words of consolation.

18. Such was the lot of Job: such at first sight his history. In reality it was a contest between virtue and envy:hyperlink the one straining every nerve to overcome the good, the other enduring everything, that it might abide unsubdued; the one striving to smooth the way for vice, by means of the chastisement of the upright, the other to retain its hold upon the good, even if they do exceed others in misfortunes. What then of Him who answered Job out of the whirlwind and cloud,hyperlink Who is slow to chastise and swift to help, Who suffers not utterly the rod of the wicked to come into the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous should learn iniquity?hyperlink At the end of the contests He declares the victory of the athlete in a splendid proclamation and lays bare the secret of his calamities, saying: "Thinkest thou that I have dealt with thee for any other purpose than the manifestation of thy righteousness?"hyperlink This is the balm for his wounds, this is the crown of the contest, this the reward for his patience. For perhaps his subsequent prosperity was small, great as it may seem to some, and ordained for the sake of small minds, even though he received again twice as much as he had lost.

19. In this case then it is not wonderful, if George had the advantage of Athanasius; nay it would be more wonderful, if the righteous were not tried in the fire of contumely; nor is this very wonderful, as it would have been had the flames availed for more than this. Then he was in retirement, and arranged his exile most excellently, for he betook himself to the holy and divine homeshyperlink of contemplation in Egypt, where, secluding themselves from the world, and welcoming the desert, men live to God more than all who exist in the body. Some struggle on in an utterly monastic and solitary life, speaking to themselves alone and to God,hyperlink and all the world they know is what meets their eyes in the desert. Others, cherishing the law of love in community, are at once Solitaries and Coenobites, dead to all other men and to the eddies of public affairs which whirl us and are whirled about themselves and make sport of us in their sudden changes, being the world to one another and whetting the edge of their love in emulation. During his intercourse with them, the great Athanasius, who was always the mediator and reconciler of all other men, like Him Who made peace through His bloodhyperlink between things which were at variance, reconciled the solitary with the community life: by showing that the Priesthood is capable of contemplation, and that contemplation is in need of a spiritual guide.

20. Thus he combined the two, and so united the partisans of both calm action and of active calm, as to convince them that the monastic life is characterised by steadfastness of disposition rather than by bodily retirement. Accordingly the great David was a man of at once the most active and most solitary life, if any one thinks the verse, I am in solitude, till I pass away,hyperlink of value and authority in the exposition of this subject. Therefore, though they surpass all others in virtue, they fell further short of his mind than others fell short of their own, and while contributing little to the perfection of his priesthood, they gained in return greater assistance in contemplation. Whatever he thought, was a law for them, whatever on the contrary he disapproved, they abjured: his decisions were to them the tables of Moses,hyperlink and they paid him more reverence than is due from men to the Saints. Aye, and when men came to hunt the Saint like a wild beast, and, after searching for him everywhere, failed to find him, they vouchsafed these emissaries not a single word, and offered their necks to the sword, as risking their lives for Christ's sake, and considering the most cruel sufferings on behalf of Athanasius to be an important step to contemplation, and far more divine and sublime than the long fasts and hard lying and mortifications in which they constantly revel.

21. Such were his surrounding when he approved the wise counsel of Solomon that their is a time to every purpose:hyperlink so he hid himself for a while, escaping during the time of war, to show himself when the time of peace came, as it did soon afterwards. Meanwhile George, there being absolutely no one to resist him, overran Egypt, and desolated Syria, in the might of ungodliness. He seized upon the East also as far as he could, ever attracting the weak, as torrents roll down objects in their course, and assailing the unstable or faint-hearted. He won over also the simplicity of the Emperor, for thus I must term his instability, though I respect his pious motives. For, to say the truth, he had zeal, but not according to knowledge.hyperlink He purchased those in authority who were lovers of money rather than lovers of Christ-for he was well supplied with the funds for the poor, which he embezzled-especially the effeminate and unmanly men,hyperlink of doubtful sex, but of manifest impiety; to whom, I know not how or why, Emperors of the Romans entrusted authority over men, though their proper function was the charge of women. In this lay the power of that servanthyperlink of the wicked one, that sower of tares, that forerunner of Antichrist; foremost in speech of the orators of his time among the Bishops; if any one likes to call him an orator who was not so much an impious, as he was a hostile and contentious reasoner,-his name I will gladly pass by: he was the hand of his party, perverting the truth by the gold subscribed for pious uses, which the wicked made an instrument of their impiety.

22. The crowning feat of this faction was the council which sat first at Seleucia, the city of the holy and illustrious virgin Thekla, and afterwards at this mighty city, thus connecting their names, no longer with noble associations, but with these of deepest disgrace; whether we must call that council, which subverted and disturbed everything, a tower of Chalane,hyperlink which deservedly confounded the tongues-would that theirs had been confounded for their harmony in evil!-or a Sanhedrim of Caiaphashyperlink where Christ was condemned, or some other like name. The ancient and pious doctrine which defended the Trinity was abolished, by setting up ahyperlink palisade and battering down the Consubstantial: opening the door to impiety by means of what is written, using as their pretext, their reverence for Scripture and for the use of approved terms, but really introducing unscriptural Arianism. For the phrase "like, according to the Scriptures," was a bait to the simple, concealing the hook of impiety, a figure seeming to look in the direction of all who passed by, a boot fitting either foot, a winnowing with every wind,hyperlink gaining authority from the newly written villany and device against the truth. For they were wise to do evil, but to do good they had no knowledge.hyperlink



Footnotes



1 S. Matt. xxii. 32.



2 1 John i. 5.



3 S. John i, 23; v. 35.



4 Anthony, "the founder of asceticism," the most celebrated of the monks and hermits of the Thebaid desert. His life by S. Athanasius is certainly genuine, and even if, as some suspect, interpolations have been inserted, its substantial integrity is undoubted. (Newman, Ch. of the Fathers, p. 176.)



5 Body of Christ i.e., the Church, His mystical body.



6 Gen. xxi. 19.



7 1 Kings xvii. 4.



8 Isai. i. 9.



9 Gen. xix. 24.



10 S. Luke i, 69.



11 Isai. xxviii. 16.



12 Ma. iii. 2, 3.



13 1 Cor. iii. 13, 15.



14 S. Matt. iii. 12.



15 The throne, etc., as Patriarch of Alexandria. The date of his consecration is A.D. 326.



16 The Sanctuary, or "the Sacraments." Exod. xxvi. 33.



17 To offer more sacrifices, i.e., These priests are to only "men which have infirmity." who need to offer for their own sins, as well as for those of the people; but because they are even more sinful than their flocks, they need a greater and more frequent atonement.



18 Heb. vii. 27; ix. 7.



19 1 Cor. iv. 21.



20 St. Paul. To whom here the Ep. to the Hebrews is assigned.



21 Heb. iv. 14.



22 Ps. cv. 15.



23 Christs. i.e., Ps. cv. 15. "Touch not Mine anointed." (LXX..) and Vlg. "my Christs."



24 1 Tim. iii. 2 et deq.



25 Cenobites miga/dej. Cf. Orat. ii. 29: xliii. 62.



26 S. John iii. 29.



27 Under the yoke, i.e. "Married." Cf. Orat. xlii. 11.



28 2 Cor. iii. 10.



29 Acts vi. 2.



30 Sextuses. Sextus Empiricus (cent. 3 a.d.) a leader of the later Sceptic school. Pyrrho of Elis (cent 4 b.c.) was the founder of the earlier.



31 Acts xvii. 21.



32 Lam. i. 1.



33 Frenzy. Cf. Orat. ii. 37; xxxiv. 8.



34 A profane spot, lit "porfane places" - plural as contrasted with the e'n to/pw a 9gi/w. Lev. vi. 16. etc., etc.: in which the priests must eat of the sacrifices. The meaning of the phrase is "Arius died excommunicated" - indeed on the eve of the day on which the Emperor Constantine had ordered him to be restored to communion.



35 Like Judas. C.f. Epiph. Haer. 68. 7; Socr. i 38. Theodoret i.4.



36 Acts. i 18.



37 In name,, etc., i.e., They used the name Trinity, although it was rendered meaningless by their false doctrine as to the inequality of the Tree Blessed Persons.



38 To contract, etc. On this whole passage cf. Orat. ii. 36, 37, notes.



39 Which refers, etc., or "which consists in personal relations." Cf. on i'dio/thj. Orat. xliii. 30.



40 Nicaea, A.D. 325. Athanasius was present as theological assistant to Alexander of Alexandria.



41 Isai. v. 2 (lxx.); vii. 23, v. 1. "in a vineyard."



42 S. Luke vi. 16.



43 Namesake. Gregory, a Cappadocian, nominated to the see of Alexandria, by the Arian Bishops at Antioch, after the banishment of Athanasius, A.D. 340.



44 h 9 xe\ir 0 Abessalw!m. "The hand of Absalom," prob. a misquotation of 2 Sam. xiv. 19. "The hand of Joab." 2 Sam. xv. 5.



45 Corpse, etc. Athanasius was charged with having murdered Arsenius, and his enemies produced a hand which, they said, had belonged to the dead man.



46 Job. ix. 24.



47 Ib. ix. 23.



48 Ps. lxxxii. 8.



49 Dan. xii. 9.



50 Job ii. 7 et seq.



51 Ib. xvi. 2.



52 His lot, lit. "the dreadful (thing)" i.e. "reproach him, as having brought his sufferings upon himself" - or `reproach him with impiety

0' - the cause of his sufferings.



53 Enevy, i.e. of the devil. Wisdom ii. 24. Cf. § 32 of this Oration.



54 Job xxxviii. 1.



55 Ps. cxxv. 3.



56 Job xl. 3 (lxx.).



57 Homes, etc. The monasteries of lower Egypt and the Thebaid. This was A.D. 356.



58 1 Cor. xiv. 28.



59 Col. 1. 20.



60 Ps. cxli. 50 (LXX.).



61 Exod. xxxii. 15; xxxiv. 1.



62 Eccles. iii. 1.



63 Rom. x. 2.



64 Unmanly men, the Eunuchs, the chamberlains of Constantius.



65 Servant, etc., probably Acacius.



66 Gen. xi. 4.



67 S. John xi. 47 et seq.



68 d xa/raka lit. "a pale" - one of the may which formed the palisade. Perhaps there is play on the word xarakthra "a letter" in reference to the insertion of the letter iota in the Nicene formula - which then became Homoiousion, i.e., "Like in substance." This action on the part of the Semi-Arians (who formed the majority of the Council of Seleucia A.D. 359), was the first step to the Homoion of the Acacian party, who prevailed at the council of Constantinople. A.D. 360, and professed great devotion to the use of Scriptural terms.



69 Eccles. v. 9.



70 Jer. iv. 22.