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c. A.D. 296 – 373

Athanasius

of Alexandria

Worth knowing

  • Deacon and secretary to the bishop of Alexandria at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and bishop himself from 328. He defended the Nicene Creed for the rest of his life.
  • Exiled five times by four different emperors over some forty-five years for refusing to soften the Council's wording. "Athanasius against the world" became a proverb for exactly this.
  • On the Incarnation, written while he was young, argues that the Word became man so that humanity could be restored to God's image. Its most quoted line is "He was made man that we might be made God."
  • Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione were originally two halves of one argument: first why the pagan gods fail, then why the Incarnation is the answer.

In Scholar’s Dream, Athanasius has four books

Athanasius’s quotes in the game

Every quotation from Athanasius that a player meets in Scholar’s Dream, attached to the move that says it. Or see them as a plain list →

In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other, and each thing a book can do in a debate is called a move. Every quote below is spoken by one of those moves. Open “How it works in the game” under a quote to see the move, which books learn it, and which arguments it answers best.

“For being Word of the Father, and above all, He alone of natural fitness was both able to recreate everything, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be ambassador for all with the Father.”

Athanasius, On the Incarnation 7.5 (trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move Only the Maker Remakes
ChristologyArgument · power 78 · 100% accurate

In the gameA creature cannot re-create a creation — it can only be part of one. So whoever remade the world was not made. Athanasius spent forty-five years and five exiles refusing to move off this.

Learned byOn the Incarnation (Lv 1), Athanasius’ Corpus (Lv 36)

Strong against
×2Changeable by Naturean argument · why?

A changeable creature could not remake creation; it would need saving itself. The Son who saves the world is its unchanging Maker.

×2Exalted Creaturean argument · why?

Only the one who made the world can remake it. If the Son remakes creation, he cannot be the first of the creatures. He is their Maker.

×2God by Gracean argument · why?

A title cannot remake the world. Only the Creator can do that, so the Son must be God by nature, not by courtesy.

×2The Thaliaan argument · why?

If the Son had a beginning, he is a creature, and a creature cannot remake creation. The one who saves the world must be the one who made it, so there was never a time when he was not.

“When the body is quiet, and at rest and asleep, man moves inwardly, and beholds what is outside himself, travelling to other countries, walking about, meeting his acquaintances… But to what can this be due save to the rational soul?”

Athanasius, Contra Gentes 31 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move The Soul Travels Without the Body
AnthropologyArgument · power 54 · 100% accurate

In the gameAsleep, the body lies still — and the mind walks other roads and meets other faces. Something in us is not the body. May steady the reader’s own Defend.

Learned byOn the Incarnation (Lv 8)

“The image-maker, as though forgetting the work he has done himself, prays to his own productions, and calls gods what just before he was paring and chipping… it is not the material that has adorned the art, but the art that has adorned and deified the material.”

Athanasius, Contra Gentes 13 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain). He is deliberately echoing Isaiah 44:9–20.public domain
How it works in the game: the move The Sculptor Forgets
RationalityArgument · power 58 · 100% accurate

In the gameA little while ago it was a block he was cutting to shape. Now he kneels to it, having somehow forgotten whose hands did the shaping.

Learned byOn the Incarnation (Lv 12)

“Every city and village, not knowing the gods of its neighbours, prefers its own, and deems that these alone are gods… all the nations that are infatuated with idols have different opinions and religions, and consistency is not to be met with in any one case.”

Athanasius, Contra Gentes 23 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move A God for Every Village
RationalityArgument · power 62 · 100% accurate

In the gameEgypt does not know the gods of Phoenicia, and the next village worships what this one calls unclean. If they cannot agree among themselves, the agreement is not what makes any of them true.

Learned byOn the Incarnation (Lv 16)

Strong against
×2The True Word: On the Godsan argument · why?

Athanasius turned the argument around. It is the village gods that are local: every town worships its own. The God who made everything can come to any village he chooses.

“there are other books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness… that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd.”

Athanasius, 39th Festal Letter (367), trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
How it works in the game: the move Appointed to Be Read
EcclesiologyArgument · power 80 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe other half of the first canon list, and the half nobody quotes. Athanasius fixes twenty-seven books and then names a second shelf — real, useful, handed to new converts, and not Scripture. A church that can say which books are which does not have to burn the rest.

Learned byThe 39th Festal Letter (Lv 22), The Festal Letters (Lv 32)

“These are fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let him take ought from these.”

Athanasius, 39th Festal Letter (367), trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain.public domain
How it works in the game: the move Fountains of Salvation
BibleArgument · power 92 · 100% accurate

In the gameEaster 367. The bishop of Alexandria lists the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, in the order the church still has them, and then draws the line around them out loud — the first surviving time anyone does.

Learned byThe 39th Festal Letter (Lv 22), The Festal Letters (Lv 28), Athanasius’ Corpus (Lv 40)

Strong against
×4Another Testamentan argument · why?

Athanasius listed the books of the New Testament in 367 and drew the line around them himself: let no man add to these, neither let him take anything from these!

×4The Book of Mormona book · why?

Athanasius listed the books of the New Testament in 367 and drew the line around them himself: let no man add to these, neither let him take anything from these!

×2The Rochester Rappingsan argument · why?

If the dead could add to what God has said, the Bible would never be finished. Athanasius drew the line in 367, and nobody on the other side of the grave was consulted!

“the renewal of creation has been the work of the self-same Word that made it at the beginning. For it will appear not inconsonant for the Father to have wrought its salvation in Him by Whose means He made it.”

Athanasius, On the Incarnation 1.4 (trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move Word Made Flesh
ChristologyArgument · power 70 · 100% accurate

In the gameFrom Athanasius: only the Creator can recreate.

Learned byOn the Incarnation (Lv 24), Athanasius’ Corpus (Lv 36)

Strong against
×4One Nature After the Unionan argument · why?

It holds the flesh in place — which is the one thing his union cannot do.

×4The Ugly Broad Ditchan argument · why?

Lessing’s ditch says history can never carry necessary truth. The claim on the table is that it did, once, on purpose — the Word made flesh, a fact about a Tuesday.

×3The Many Faiths, One Realan argument · why?

Hick says the faiths are level roads to one summit. Athanasius answers with a fact and not a view: God himself became a man. That cannot be one road among several, because it is not a road at all. It is an arrival.

×2Changeable by Naturean argument · why?

The Word who became flesh is the Word who made the world. He was truly tempted, but he was never a creature who might have gone the other way.

×2Devout Man Onlyan argument · why?

A devout man can teach, but he cannot remake the world. The Word who made creation became flesh to renew it, and that is why he is worshipped.

×2Exalted Creaturean argument · why?

Athanasius’ answer: only the one who made the world can remake it. A creature, however high, cannot save creation, because it is part of creation.

×2God by Gracean argument · why?

Athanasius says the Word who renews creation is the same Word who made it. That is who the Son is, not a title he was lent.

×2The Thaliaan argument · why?

The Word who became flesh is the Word through whom everything was made, time included. The one who made time did not begin within it.

×2The True Word: On the Godsan argument · why?

The Word who came down is the Word who made the world. Coming into his own creation does not change the Creator.

×2Thirty Aeonsan argument · why?

The thirty levels exist to keep God away from matter. John 1 answers that he came down all of them himself — the Word, made flesh.

“For it is impossible for them to exist together, because they are mutually destructive.”

Athanasius, Contra Gentes 6–7 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain) — on the dualists’ two contrary principles. He also presses the "third nature dividing them" horn.public domain
How it works in the game: the move Two Gods Cancel Out
RationalityArgument · power 66 · 100% accurate

In the gameSet a good god and an evil god side by side as equals and each one’s existence defeats the other’s will. Neither ends up almighty, and the whole arrangement falls over.

Learned byOn the Incarnation (Lv 32), Athanasius’ Corpus (Lv 44)

Strong against
×2The Two Kingdomsan argument · why?

Athanasius’ logic: two equal gods, one good and one evil, would each block the other. Neither would be almighty, so neither would be God.

“Good is, while evil is not; by what is, then, I mean what is good, inasmuch as it has its pattern in God Who is. But by what is not I mean what is evil, in so far as it consists in a false imagination in the thoughts of men.”

Athanasius, Contra Gentes 4 (trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain); pressed again at ch. 7.public domain
How it works in the game: the move No Substance in Evil
Theology ProperArgument · power 68 · 100% accurate

In the gameGood is, because it has its pattern in God, who is. Evil is not — it is what men invent when they stop looking at what is. Athanasius said it decades before Augustine made it famous.

Learned byOn the Incarnation (Lv 36)

Strong against
×2The Two Kingdomsan argument · why?

Athanasius wrote that good truly exists, because it comes from God, and evil does not exist in the same way. Evil is a turning away from what is, not a second thing that was always there.

“For Christ’s enemies, being ignorant of this scope, have wandered from the way of truth, and have stumbled on a stone of stumbling, thinking otherwise than they should think.”

Athanasius, Against the Arians III.28 (trans. Newman & Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move The Scope of Scripture
ExegesisArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameA verse quoted against you is being read without the thing the whole book is doing. Ask what the passage is FOR before arguing about what it says, and half the proof-texts stop working.

Learned byAthanasius’ Corpus (Lv 48)

“it was His will that the Summary of our faith should have the same bearing, in bidding us be baptized, not into the name of Unoriginate and originate, nor into the name of Creator and creature, but into the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

Athanasius, Against the Arians I.34 (trans. Newman & Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move Not Into Creator and Creature
Theology ProperArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameWhen the argument is about a word, ask what the church actually DOES. Nobody was ever baptised into the name of the Unoriginate and the originate; the rite settles the question the term was invented to blur.

Learned byAthanasius’ Corpus (Lv 54)

“But see! you still do not believe and are seeking for arguments. We however make our proof ‘not in the persuasive words of Greek wisdom’ as our teacher has it, but we persuade by the faith which manifestly precedes argumentative proof.”

Athanasius, Life of Antony 80 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move Not in Persuasive Words
FaithArgument · power 86 · 95% accurate

In the gameAntony to the philosophers who had come out to the desert for a debate: you want an argument, and I will give you a demonstration instead. Then he asked them to try their own on the men who had been brought to him.

Learned byAthanasius’ Corpus (Lv 60)

“they were caught whispering to each other and winking with their eyes, that ‘like,’ and ‘always,’ and ‘power,’ and ‘in Him,’ were, as before, common to us and the Son, and that it was no difficulty to agree to these.”

Athanasius, De Decretis (Defence of the Nicene Definition) 20 (trans. Newman & Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
How it works in the game: the move Whispering and Winking
PresuppositionArgument · power 96 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe Arians agreed to every phrase, because every phrase could also be said of an ordinary man. So the council looked for a word they could not sign. The words had stopped meaning anything.

Learned byAthanasius’ Corpus (Lv 66)

Passages you can read in the game

Longer excerpts the Scriptorium holds on screen for a player to sit and read, word for word.

“In the beginning wickedness did not exist. Nor indeed does it exist even now in those who are holy, nor does it in any way belong to their nature.”

Athanasius, Against the Heathen 2 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain, lightly modernized).
from On the Incarnation

“The way of truth will aim at reaching the real and true God. But for its knowledge and accurate comprehension, there is need of none other save of ourselves.”

Athanasius, Against the Heathen 30 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain, lightly modernized).
from On the Incarnation

“For being Word of the Father, and above all, He alone of natural fitness was both able to recreate everything, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be ambassador for all with the Father.”

Athanasius, On the Incarnation 7 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).
from On the Incarnation

“For He was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”

Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).
from On the Incarnation

Words Athanasius’s books borrow from others

Moves these books can learn whose quotation comes from somebody else. The citation on each one names who actually said it.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”

Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.
How it works in the game: the move Affirm
Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

Learned byOn the Incarnation (Lv 13), Athanasius’ Corpus (Lv 54)

“The Church, though dispersed … the whole world… has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith… carefully preserves it, as if dwelling in but a single house.”

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.10.1–2 (trans. Roberts & Rambaut, ANF 1, public domain; condensed).public domain
How it works in the game: the move Rule of Faith
ChristologyArgument · power 55 · 100% accurate

In the gameOne public tradition, handed down openly in all the churches.

Learned byOn the Incarnation (Lv 28)

Strong against
×4Gos. Judasa book · why?

And this book is BUILT on that error — it has nowhere left to stand once the rule is read out.

×4Gos. Thomasa book · why?

And this book is BUILT on that error — it has nowhere left to stand once the rule is read out.

×2"That’s Three Gods"an argument · why?

Irenaeus points to the one faith held by the churches everywhere: one God the Father, one Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The church has always named three and counted one God.

×2Hidden Sparkan argument · why?

Irenaeus shows the church has not grown through sharing secrets but by bearing witness (publicly!) to the truth, from Germany to Egypt.

×2Letter to Floraan argument · why?

Ptolemy wrote it privately, to one woman. Irenaeus’ test is a faith said aloud in every church, for anyone to compare.

×2The Traitor’s Handsan argument · why?

Irenaeus points to the one faith held by all the churches together. The Donatists kept a pure church in one province, but the true church is spread through the whole world.

×2Thirty Aeonsan argument · why?

Irenaeus’ complaint was that no two Valentinian teachers described the aeons the same way. He compared their disagreements against the shared and consistent testimony of the church — the Rule of Faith.

“Which is easier, to tell the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven;’ or to say, ‘Arise, and take up your bed, and walk?’ But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…”

Mark 2:9–11 (WEB).
How it works in the game: the move Authority to Forgive
ChristologyArgument · power 90 · 100% accurate

In the gameJefferson’s razor can cut Jesus’ claim off the page, but not out of the scene. Jesus proves his authority to forgive sins by telling a paralysed man to pick up his mat and walk home. The ethics and the claim come together.

Learned byAthanasius’ Corpus (Lv 42)

Strong against
×3The Razored Biblean argument · why?

The razor cannot separate what it claims to: the very sentence that heals the paralytic is the sentence that claims the authority to forgive him. Cut one and the other goes with it.

Who else was alive

Athanasius against everyone else in the game.

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