Athanasius liked a good story and was good at telling them. However, due to the incredibly important theological issues he was involved in, his story has been co-opted by academics. In truth, I love and appreciate the academics who have researched and written, and the work they have accomplished in this field. But theology belongs to the church and should be done on behalf of the church. Likewise, the story of the church belongs to the church and should be told in a way that the average churchgoer can appreciate.
The topics we are dealing with are not easy, but the language can at least be simplified to help the process. I do not want to sound intelligent, but I do want to make the content of our story intelligible. That story will be part history, and part Bible study - a Bible study with Greek and Latin sprinkled in.
Every once in a while, decisions have needed to be made - such as whether the story of Athanasius baptising his friends is a legend or solid history - and I have done my best to make them. On the other hand, there are numerous other academic squabbles that we do not need to deal with, and I have tried to stay out of the fray.
The legend of Athanasius baptising his childhood friends illustrates the difficulties before us. Here, we will need to separate fact from fancy, distinguish between bias and fair truth, discover and dissect complex theological terms, and maintain a firm grasp on several threads of a convoluted story at once.
In other words, the story we are about to tell is remarkably similar to real life in the church today. This story remains as relevant and significant today as it was long ago, due to the important questions asked then and the foundational answers revealed. The question Jesus posed - "Who do you say I am?" - is one of the most crucial questions we can ask. And the answers we give to that question are, likewise, critical for understanding Jesus, and for our salvation. In Africa today, this is a question posed by Muslims and still gotten wrong by Jehovah's Witnesses.
We, as a Christian community, often forget the answers of our mothers and fathers in the faith. When Jesus was first born and began his ministry, many questioned his identity, as he was a new and powerful presence. People dug to find the answers they sought. In Mark's Gospel, for example, Jesus is first known as a teacher, and then as a prophet. Some people eventually accepted him as the Messiah, and others eventually realised that he is the Son of God.
Today in the West, many accept that Jesus is both Son of God and Son of Man, fully divine and fully human. However, there are whole swathes of people who disagree, and those who accept Jesus' divine-human status are unable to explain these things to them because, as a community, they have moved on from there and no longer have those questions or their answers readily at hand.
This presents the challenge this book is designed to meet. It will return to that time - 1700 years ago - when the question of Jesus' identity and relationship to the Father was most seriously posed, and unfold the answers that were then given. We will enter the story through the life of the young Athanasius. He became an intrepid man, physically and spiritually brave, willing to endure considerable suffering in the cause of God and his truth. He was a deep and broad thinker: his knowledge of Scripture was unparalleled, as was his practical ability to exegete the text and its context. He could hold seemingly paradoxical realities in both hands at once, and so to arrive at the central truth they affirmed. Athanasius understood both "earthly things" and "heavenly things," and could distinguish between the two. These abilities and qualities enabled him to stand out as a giant during the fourth century.