Athanase d'Alexandrie

v. 296-373 4th century Feast day: May 2

Holding the faith whole when it would be so easy to shave it down.

Who was Athanase d'Alexandrie?

Bishop of Alexandria, exiled five times (seventeen years away from his see) for holding that Christ is truly God. Taking refuge among the monks of the Egyptian desert, he wrote the Life of Antony, which would awaken vocations across the Empire. Against him, it was said, the whole world; he held firm.

In their own words

He became man that we might be made divine.

On the Incarnation, 54

The Psalms are like a mirror: whoever sings them sees himself in them, and sees there the movements of his own soul.

Letter to Marcellinus on the Psalms, 12

To understand the mind of those who speak of God, one must begin by washing and cleansing one's soul, by one's manner of living.

On the Incarnation, 57