On this day, May 2nd, in the year 373 A.D. one of my favorite characters from the time of the early church died--Saint Athanasius. In the forward to Athanasius' book On the Incarnation (St. Vladimer Press), C.S. Lewis said of him,
"Saint Athanasius stood contra mundum for the Trinitarian doctrine 'whole and undefiled,' when it looked as if all the civilized world was slipping back from Christianity into the religion of Arius--one of those 'sensible', synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended today and which then, as now, included among their devotees many highly cultivated clergymen. It is the glory of Saint Athanasius that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away."
Indeed. Athanasius contra mundum--Athanasius against the world!
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