The Man Who Built Up the Christian Church

A History of Mankind (296)

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Athanasius’ impact on the Roman world went well beyond his decisive role in key theological discussions that helped shape the Church, and in turning the position of bishop of Alexandria into something akin to a Christian pharaoh.

As a writer, Athanasius also did much to promote a completely new literary genre, focused on the self-mortification of literary holy men like the hermit Anthony. The hermit supposedly was so illuminated by his experiences that, upon returning to human company, he hurried to Alexandria to help refute the teachings of Arius with much the same arguments as Athanasius used; despite decades of privations, on his death in 356 he was believed to be over 100¹.

Characters such as this offered a new model for sainthood, and for literary success: heavily incentivized by the Church and sympathetic secular powers, multiple books described holy men and women who lived for years on some pieces of fruit or grass and muddy water; some stood motionless, without support or sustenance, on the top of columns. Some went without food, sleep and drink, mortifying their bodies, crucifying their flesh, sleeping on the ground, wearing sackcloth, locked in narrow cells sprinkling themselves with ashes and wearing chains².

Ascetics on the Anthony mold were widespread and successful in Egypt, Athanasius’ native land, because Christianity offered a particularly attractive deal to the majority of the Egyptian population that descended from the pharaonic era and had been oppressed and exploited by Greeks and Romans for centuries: by converting to the new religion of equality, Egyptians could aspire to instant equality with other Christians and share, for once, in the general well-being of the empire without being the ones who paid for other people’s parties.

Saint Anthony the Great by Michael Damaskinos (16th century). Credit: Wikipedia.