Athanasius of Alexandria

Scripture is the court of appeal — Contra Gentes opens by calling the inspired writings sufficient to declare the truth, and the Discourses settle every Arian proof text by exegesis without appealing to Nicaea's authority. He defends non-biblical terms like homoousios on the ground that they carry Scripture's own sense, and presses the Arians to name which teacher or tradition they got their doctrine from. Tradition corroborates and shifts the burden of proof; it is not a second source.

WORTH CORRECTINGThe line often quoted here as "the tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning" is not in De Decretis — it belongs to Ad Serapionem 1.28, which was not read. Don't attribute it to De Decretis.

Against the Heathen 1.3"For although the sacred and inspired Scriptures are sufficient to declare the truth"

Festal Letter 39 (367) draws an explicit line. Twenty-two Old Testament books are "included in the Canon"; Wisdom, Sirach, Esther, Judith and Tobit are outside it — "not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us." The Didache and the Shepherd join that second tier. Apocrypha proper he rejects outright as "an invention of heretics." His New Testament list is exactly the modern 27, including Revelation.

WORTH CORRECTINGHis canon is neither the Protestant 66 nor the Tridentine one, and the divergences cut both ways: ESTHER sits in the read-only tier, and "Jeremiah with Baruch, Lamentations, and the epistle" counts as one canonical book — so Baruch is inside his canon. His own practice is looser than his list; he cites the Shepherd and quotes Wisdom as though authoritative.

Festal Letter 39.7 — "not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read"

The Son is not a creature but an offspring proper to the Father's essence, eternally begotten. His signature argument is that Scripture uses "before," "once," and "when" of creatures and never of the Word, so the Arian "there was when He was not" is imported rather than exegeted. The Radiance-and-Light analogy carries the weight: no one ever saw light without its brightness.

WORTH CORRECTINGHe deliberately avoids the word homoousios itself in Discourses I–III to conciliate the semi-Arians, using "proper to the Father's essence" instead, and defends the actual term in De Decretis.

Against the Arians I.11"no holy Scripture has used such language of the Saviour, but rather 'always' and 'eternal'"

Classic Alexandrian Word-flesh: the Word prepares a body in the Virgin as a temple and instrument, makes it His own, and wields it — "He became man, and did not come into man," aimed against the idea that the incarnation was an intensified prophetic indwelling. He does distinguish what Christ does as man from what He does as God, which is the substance of what Chalcedon later formalized, but there is no two-natures formula and little emphasis on a human soul.

WORTH CORRECTINGChalcedon is roughly 80 years after his death; don't read two-natures back into him. He does use theotokos matter-of-factly some 70 years before Ephesus.

On the Incarnation 8.3"He prepares the body in the Virgin as a temple unto Himself, and makes it His very own as an instrument"

The fall is ontological decay rather than primarily forensic guilt or inability. Man was made from nothing and so mortal by nature; the image and the indwelling Word held corruption off, and the transgression forfeited that grace, so the race began disintegrating back toward non-existence. On the will he runs the opposite way from later Augustinianism: the soul after the fall retains self-determination.

WORTH CORRECTINGAnyone using Athanasius for bondage of the will will be disappointed. Contra Gentes 4 locates the post-fall problem in misdirected motion and lost contemplation, not lost ability.

Against the Heathen 4.2"she is after all made with power over herself"

His soteriology is deification and does not map onto forensic or infused justification; forcing either distorts him. The logic is exchange rather than courtroom — the Word takes a body conjoined to all by a like nature, and by that body death is undone and incorruption clothed on the race. Participation is the mechanism, so what happens to the believer is real transformation into likeness with God. He never poses the question of how a sinner is reckoned righteous.

WORTH CORRECTINGDiscourse III.33 states it as a strict conditional: "if the works of the Word's Godhead had not taken place through the body, man had not been deified." The Greek behind "made God" at section 54 is theopoiethomen.

On the Incarnation 54.3"For He was made man that we might be made God"

The language is relentlessly universal and the argument requires it — "in the stead of all," "the ransom of all," "the debt owing from all." Because the Word assumed a body of the same nature as everyone's, the death of all is discharged in that one body and incorruption reaches the whole race. The only restriction he draws is in application: those who believe tread down death.

WORTH CORRECTINGRead this as pre-framing rather than a vote in the Reformed debate. His concern is the metaphysics of how one body can carry the whole race, not the divine intent behind the cross.

On the Incarnation 25.4"signifying by what manner of death He was to ransom all"

Not addressed in the texts read. His framework is corporate and ontological — what happened to human nature when the Word assumed it — rather than a doctrine of who is chosen and on what basis.

Not analysed in the texts read. He speaks of believing and of the faith of the church but never breaks faith into components.

Not addressed in the texts read.

He stakes the argument of the whole apologetic on miracles happening in his own day and invites the reader to test it: use the sign of the cross in the presence of oracles and magic and see what follows. Demons flee, oracles have gone silent, magic is nullified — and he says flatly this is not words but experience.

WORTH CORRECTINGHis examples are exorcism, the silencing of pagan oracles, and contempt of death in the martyrs — not tongues or prophecy. Continuation of miraculous power, in categories that aren't his.

On the Incarnation 48.3"he shall see how by its means demons fly, oracles cease, all magic and witchcraft is brought to nought"

Strikingly absent from On the Incarnation. The one place it could appear — his quotation of "except a man be born again" — he glosses as the soul recreated in God's image, with no mention of water or rite. Nothing on infants.

WORTH CORRECTINGHis baptismal theology would have to come from the festal letters and Ad Serapionem, which were not reached.

Absent from the texts read. Sacrifice and offering language is everywhere in On the Incarnation but always of Christ's body given to death, never of the Eucharist.

On the Incarnation 56 sets out the second coming plainly: Christ returns not to suffer but to judge all by what each has done in the body, and the two destinies are the kingdom of heaven and everlasting fire. Sober expectation rather than developed eschatology, with no hint of annihilation or restoration.

On the Incarnation 56.3"for them that have done evil everlasting fire and outer darkness"

He affirms a bodily second coming and a general resurrection — Christ's risen body is the first-fruits of the resurrection of all — but there is no thousand years, no earthly reign, and no chiliasm anywhere in the eschatological sections where it would have to appear.

WORTH CORRECTINGAssigned from the absence of millennial framing in the sections that actually treat the second coming, not from a statement rejecting it.

On the Incarnation 32.6"bestowed incorruption upon all by the promise of the Resurrection"