The Paschal Message of Athanasius

The Paschal Message of Athanasius

Nathan K. N.G.

Because of the modern awareness of hidden biases against heresies in orthodox historical sources, scholars nowadays tend to re-examine them critically so that a fairer early church history may be reconstructed. Following this trend, a revival of Athanasian studies has appeared in the last few decades. While some still praise him as a saint, others denounce him as a liar or a gangster. A survey of those works criticizing the bishop shows that they all focus mainly on the so-called historical writings of Athanasius, making no attempt to do justice to his ascetical, homiletic, exegetical and doctrinal treatises. By analyzing his paschal message, this study tries to reevaluate the pastoral concern of the bishop, and hence his personality and spirituality.

After investigating Athanasius' paschal message with special consideration of his life situation, the author finds that the Alexandrian bishop was actually very interested in religious devotion. He put much more effort on spiritual guidance of his flock than on political struggle with his opponents. Even at the time when he was severely oppressed, pastoral support still occupied a considerable part of his mind. The festal writings reveal that he was more like a pastor than a gangster. The modern negative portrait of the historical Athanasius should be reassessed.