We just heard some of Jesus’ words during his last supper discourse where today he describes the meaning of the parable of the vine and the branches and simply brings it back to the love that exists in the Trinity and the love that ought to joyfully be present among all of us. We need to get to a point in our lives where we’re so at peace in our relationship with God that a joy begins to emanate from us naturally, not forced or faked, but naturally as a fruit of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In other words, this joy would be of supernatural origin. Saint Athanasius whom we celebrate today glowed with this supernatural joy. We’ll hear more about him in a bit, but first let’s have a glance at the readings for today.
We saw how Paul and Barnabas, even after being persecuted to the point of death, were nevertheless full of joy and the Holy Spirit. In today’s first reading we have the results of the first convened Council of the Church, at Jerusalem to which, in yesterday’s readings, we saw Paul and his cohort attend. Peter will have a prominent role in clarifying and authoritatively deciding on the matters which will be deliberated and this is already reflective of how everyone respected the fact that Christ himself chose him and his successors in order to fulfill that divinely instituted office.
The Council of Jerusalem can be said to be divided into three parts:
- the speech of Peter as head of the apostles;
- the statement of James, the first appointed bishop and leader of the local church in Jerusalem—what today would be called “a diocese”—a particular pastoral territory. And,
- an ‘encyclical’ letter [the first of many!] sent to the churches, which we will see tomorrow.
We remember that to Peter himself was explicitly made known the will of God that the Gentiles must have the gospel preached to them and that peoples formerly unclean in the eyes of the Jews must no longer be considered so and that many of the ritual obligations of the Jews, such as those involving unclean foods, were no longer relevant. This happened when he had the vision about all the different kinds of animals (see chap 10:9). Peter’s experience with Cornelius the first gentile convert to Christianity, and the baptism he received with the seal of the Holy Spirit was also a sign to him regarding the certitude of his decisions regarding the gentiles. The receiving of the Holy Spirit was always taken as the irrefutable proof of being accepted by God. That was seen clearly in the case of Cornelius and his household.
Peter says:
“God, who knows the human heart, testified to them [the Gentiles] by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us.” Let’s not provoke God’s anger therefore, by placing… “…on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?” Acts 15:10.
By “yoke” here, Peter means the Mosaic Law. Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” Galatians 5:1.
Paul felt impelled to say this because many Jewish converts were going back to full observance of the Mosaic law, while it had been revealed that all that is needed is to “be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus” Acts 15:11. Again from Galatians we read, “…we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through the faith of Jesus Christ…no one will be justified by the works of the law” Galatians 2:15-16.
Does this mean one stops doing good works? Of course not, because otherwise faith would be considered dead (James 2:14-26). But they are good works done in freedom and in cooperation with God’s gratuitous grace which always comes first. To say we believe in God, yet not live accordingly means we’ve only intellectualized faith, and haven’t yet interiorized it, and this is perilous to our eternal well-being.
James then speaks as well, who is not only an apostle and a Jew, but also a relative of Jesus in some distant way and as we said, the first bishop of Jerusalem. He contradicts the demands of his fellow Jews who were requiring circumcision from the newly converted gentiles. He endorses the words of Peter, confirming them with a passage from the prophet Amos: “I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David…so that all other peoples may seek the Lord…” Amos 9:11-12. Given this clear indication from above, James goes on to say that Gentiles who wish to convert should not be discouraged with unnecessary burdens.
Isn’t this beautiful? The Church is already learning to become more human in our treatment of each other, which seems to be a response to our Saviour’s own lamentation that “They” , some of the lawyers,
scribes and pharisees, “crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.” Matthew 23:4.
Now, the fact that our Lord became truly human, was tempted like us and knew what suffering meant made some people think that he could therefore not be divine at the same time. The hypostatic union, a term given to the union and integration of the two natures, human and divine, in the one person of Christ, was not a well-formulated dynamic in theology at that time. Many heresies were therefore bound to be born, and hence the powerful and illuminated figure of Saint Athanasius whom God so lovingly placed on the scene when some of these heresies had arisen.
Athanasius, the first declared “Doctor of the Church” was born in Alexandria, in northern Egypt, in 293. Among his noted accomplishments was his dealing with the heresy of Arius which morphed into Arianism. At the first Council of Nicaea in 325, Athanasius argued against Arius and his doctrine that Christ is of a distinct substance from the Father; in other words, that Christ was not divine. He would continue this struggle with Arianism for most of his life, especially after becoming the Patriarch of Alexandria in 328. After this, due to the influence the Arians were gaining, he was exiled for a total of 17 of his 46 years of episcopate.
After long years of struggle he died peacefully 2 May, 373. He left behind a large corpus of writings and was hailed as “the pillar of the Church” by Gregory of Nazianzus. He is now numbered as one of the greatest Doctors of the Church ever to live, but his struggle goes to show you, that truth has arrived to us at a cost, and that is why we should always know, defend, and most importantly live it in our lives. This was Saint Athanasius’ journey, and it is ours as well.
His theological efforts were an important milestone in the history of the Church and he rendered an outstanding service to truth that was divinely revealed. The Athanasian Creed was probably composed during his life, but not actually by him. If you have never seen this creed, please look it up and you will see how beautifully it details the unmistakable truths of the Divine Trinity and is a testament to Athanasius even if it wasn’t written by him. In his works there is deep spiritual feeling and understanding, and as Cardinal Newman said, he stands as "a principal instrument after the Apostles by which the sacred truths of Christianity have been conveyed and secured to the world."
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