Athanasius, Primate of Egypt, was born in Alexandria about the year 296 A.D. There are no particulars on record of his lineage or his parents. Alexander, then officiating as primate or patriarch of Alexandria, brought him up in his own family, and superintended his education, with the view of his entering on the Christian ministry. In his youth, he often visited the celebrated hermit St Antony, and embraced for a time the ascetic life with the venerable recluse. He was only a deacon when appointed a member of the first general council at Nice (325), in which he distinguished himself by his erudition and his eloquence.
His patron, Alexander, having died in the following year, he was duly elected to the primacy by the clergy and people; and was but newly installed in his office, when Arius, who had been banished at the time of the condemnation of his doctrine at Nice, was recalled, and made a recantation of his erroneous principles. Athanasius, it is said, refused on this occasion to comply with the will of the emperor that the heretic should be restored to communion. On this account, and in consequence of several other charges brought against him by the Arian party, he was summoned by the Emperor Constantine to appear before the synod of Tyre, in 335 A.D., which deposed him from his office. The sentence was confirmed by the synod of Jerusalem in the following year, when he was banished to Augusta Trevirorum (Treves). In 338, however, he was recalled from his banishment, and restored to the primacy at Alexandria. His entrance into the city was like a triumphal procession; but the Arians soon rose against him, and (in 341) he was again condemned by a council of ninety-seven (mainly Arian) bishops, assembled at Antioch. Against this decision a protest was made by a hundred orthodox bishops at Alexandria; and in a council held at Sardica, 300 bishops, countenanced by Julius, Bishop of Rome, confirmed the decision in favour of Athanasius, who was again replaced in his office (349). The Arians once more acquired the ascendancy after Constantius (in 353) had been made emperor of both the East and the West; for in that year Athanasius was condemned by a council held at Arles, and the sentence was confirmed by another held at Milan in 355, the influence of the sovereign being strongly exerted to secure his condemnation. As the resolute patriarch had declared that he would not leave his place without an express order from the emperor, violent means were resorted to for his expulsion. While engaged in conducting divine service, he was interrupted by a company of soldiers, from whom he made his escape into the Egyptian desert. A price was set on his head; and to avoid his persecutors, he retired from the usual haunts of the anchorites to a remote desert in Upper Egypt, where he was attended by but one faithful follower. Here he wrote several works to confirm orthodox Christians in their faith. On the accession of Julian to the imperial throne, toleration was proclaimed to all religions, and Athanasius returned to his former position as Patriarch of Alexandria (361). His next controversy was with the heathen subjects of Julian, to whom the patriarch, by his zeal in opposing their religion, had made himself very offensive. To save his life, he was compelled again to flee from Alexandria, and remained concealed in the Theban desert until 363, when Jovian ascended the throne. After holding office again as patriarch for only a short space of time, he was expelled anew by the Arians, under the Emperor Valens. Athanasius now found refuge in the tomb of his father, where he remained hidden four months, until Valens, moved by petitions from the orthodox Alexandrians, restored the patriarch to his see, in which he continued till his death in 373 A.D.
Athanasius was the leading ecclesiastic during the most trying period in the history of the early Christian Church. His ability, his conscientiousness, his judiciousness and wisdom, his fearlessness in the storms of opposition, his activity and patience, all mark him out as a conspicuous ornament of his age. Though twenty years of his life were spent either in exile, or what was equivalent to it, yet his prudence and steadfastness, combined with the support of a large party, crowned his exertions with complete success. He was a clear thinker, and as a speaker, was distinguished for extemporaneous precision, force, and persuasiveness.
His writings are polemical, historical, and moral; all marked by a style simple, cogent, and clear. The polemical works treat chiefly of the doctrines of the Trinity, the incarnation of Christ, and the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
The earliest edition of the collected works of Athanasius in the original Greek appeared in two volumes, folio, at Heidelberg in 1600. Better is the great edition by Montfaucon (1698); and the standard edition in four volumes of the Abbé Migne's great Patrologia Græco-Latina (1860). Athanasius' Four Orations against the Arians, and his Oration against the Gentiles, were translated by Parker (1713); his Treatise on the Incarnation of the Word, by Whiston (1713; another edition, 1880). The Epistles of Athanasius in defence of the Nicene Creed, and on the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia, together with his first Oration against the Arians, were translated, with notes, by Cardinal Newman (1842). See the church histories by Neander and others; also works on Athanasius by Möhler (2d ed. 1844), Böhringer (2d ed. 1874), and R. W. Bush (1888); Bright's edition of the Orations against the Arians; Hooker's fervid eulogy in his Ecclesiastical Polity (book v.); Duc de Broglie's narrative in his L'Eglise et l'Empire au IVeme Siècle, tomes i. ii. (Paris, 1856); Canon Bright's article 'Athanasius' in Smith's Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Biography; and A. Robertson's Select Works and Letters of Athanasius (1892). But it is singular (as Cardinal Newman has observed) that hardly any professed ecclesiastical historian has given a more lively impression of the greatness of Athanasius than the sceptical Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vols. iii. and iv. See the article ARIUS.