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Athanasius Contra Mundum

Today is the memorial of one of the most heroic bishops in the history of the Church, the great Saint Athanasius (+373), who stood contra mundum, against the world – mighty foe of Arianism, and the hero of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, whose essays on the fourth-century bishop still make for delightful and edifying reading. Highly recommended.

It was by studying the early Church that Newman realized that there was no ‘Anglican’ via media between what he saw as the ‘excesses’ of Rome and the poverty of stripped-down Protestantism. No, from the very beginning, Newman discovered, there was only Catholicism, with all that entails, and as he famously concluded ’to delve into history is to cease do be a Protestant’. Quite so.

Athanasius was consecrated bishop of the great see of Alexandria in 328, while still very young (some even dispute whether he was of the then-canonical age of 30). As the current bishop, Alexander, lay dying, the people acclaimed ‘Athanasius for bishop!’, as they would do in the African city of Hippo for Augustine toward the end of the same century.

Praise the Lord

Read the Whole Article at https://catholicinsight.com/