Athanasius of Alexandria

Athanasius was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and as a young deacon accompanied his bishop, Alexander, to the Council of Nicaea in 325. The council had been called to settle the teaching of Arius, a priest who said that the Son of God was a created being, and it declared that the Son is of one substance with the Father. In 328 Athanasius became bishop of Alexandria, and he spent the next forty-five years defending the Nicene faith. Emperors who favored the Arian side sent him into exile five times, for a total of about seventeen years; he lived in Trier, in Rome, and hidden among the monks of the Egyptian desert. His opponents gave rise to the saying Athanasius against the world. He wrote On the Incarnation, explaining why God became man, and the Life of Antony, about the desert hermit, which helped spread monasticism across the Christian world. His Easter letter of 367 is the earliest known list of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament exactly as accepted today. He died in Alexandria in 373.

Athanasius of Alexandria is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Christian bishop of Alexandria, named a Doctor of the Church in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica