About This Book
ABOUT THIS BOOK
lius. He also knew that to sever the Three Persons from each other by saying that they differ in substance or nature is a horrible mutilation of Deity. Such knowledge and awareness enabled him to preserve the unity of the Godhead by consistently teaching the Trinity, dealing with the concept of person without either losing the Three Persons in the Unity or dividing the Substance among the Three Persons.
. Therefore, he first helped stop the disease of heresy at the holy Council of Nicea, that gathering of the 318 chosen men united in the Holy Spirit. He was not yet one of the Bishops at that time, but he was held in the highest regard by the members of the Council because they considered virtue as valuable as office. Later, when the flame of heresy had been fanned by the blasts of the evil one and had become very widespread (so much so that almost the whole of earth and sea were enveloped in the resulting tragedies) the fight raged fiercely around him who was the noble champion of Christ the Word.
And a little further on:
. when all the rest who sympathized with us were divided into three parties and many were faltering in their understanding of the Son and still more in that of the Holy Spirit, he was the first
. .. to undertake to confess in writing, with absolute clarity and distinctness, the Unity of Godhead and Essence of the Three
Persons. Thus he enabled us later under the influence of inspiration, to come to the same faith with respect to the Holy Spirit as most of the Fathers had already come to with respect to the Son.
Finally:
He was the patron of the wedded and virgin state alike, both peaceable and a peacemaker, and an attendant upon those who are passing from this life. In fact, if I wanted to detail the excellence of his virtue, I would be able to confer many titles upon him.
A MESSAGE FROM THE BISHOP
All these accolades and more are reflected in the warmth and 1Excerpted and paraphrased from Oration xxi, On the Great Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Vol. 7, trans. Browne and Swallow, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Henry Shaff and Henry Wace, Second Series (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), pp. 269-280.
THE RESURRECTION LETTERS
spirit of Athanasius' Festal Letters — his annual letters sent to the churches under his care, announcing the dates of Easter.
Most of the letters also included a message to the people, exhorting and encouraging them, pointing them to the meaning of the Easter Feast. Each letter is packed with wisdom, knowledge, light, and blessing. They convey a sense of life with Christ and a participation in redemption that makes the heart of the believer leap with joy. Always Athanasius calls his people away from enchantment with the world to reality, from time to eternity.
In these days of light and frothy Christian books that fail to draw us to the heart of God, we have come to expect pop psychology and personal experience. Our diet of religious reading comes almost entirely from popular speakers, professors, fad promoters, and sociologists. What a pity! By missing the keen spiritual insight of the great Fathers of the faith, we are missing out on some of the best instruction the church has ever been given.
I first encountered the Festal Letters of St. Athanasius through my good friend, neighbor, and co-worker, Bishop J.
Richard Ballew, who has spent thousands of hours studying the Council of Nicaea and the events and personalities surrounding it. Soon I longed to present those letters in the language of our day, and I have labored to do this faithfully. My prayer is that I have been able to adequately communicate Athanasius' messages.
I worked from the 1854 English translation by the Reverend Henry Burgess? and the revision of that translation by Miss
Payne-Smith.? (Burgess made his translation from the Syriac version discovered a few years earlier.*)
You will find twelve letters here; not all of Athanasius' Festal *The Festal Letters of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria (London: Oxford
University Press, 1854).
3St. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters, Vol. 4, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (1971).
4] also found the Latin translations (Patrum Nova Bibliotheca, Tom. VI, Rome:
Typis Sacri Consilii Propagando Christiano Nomini, 1853) to be useful in deciding on appropriate meanings for some expressions.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Letters are extant. These are the only ones we have in their entirety (with the exception of two which are very short, containing no message). In the older translation there are several fragments, but I have chosen to present only complete letters, because these set forth the full development of Athanasius' thought on his subject. These letters compose Part II of this volume.
Then, too, I have prepared a chapter on the life of Athanasius and a chapter on how Easter was celebrated in the early church.
I trust these additions to Part I will help orient modern readers to the content of the letters. This book closes in Part III with a brief exhortation to the celebration of this greatest of all Christian holy days (we must be doers and not hearers only), together with a suggested schedule of pre-Easter readings and a review of Lenten practices in the church.
I therefore deliver these Festal Letters, these Resurrection Letters, with the hope and prayer that they will be of service to the church of Jesus Christ in these trying days, as they were in the trying days of their author.
JACK N. SPARKS
ACADEMY OF ORTHODOX THEOLOGY
ISLA VISTA, CALIFORNIA
APRIL, 1979
EASTER IN THE
EARLY CHURCH
For most Americans the word "Easter" carries with it a variety of associations. Easter eggs (candy and painted). Candy in baskets. Bunnies. Baby chicks (marshmallow and real).
Bright, new spring clothes. Parades. Ham for Sunday dinner.
Oh yes—and Christ on and off the cross.
Those of us in the church know (as do probably most Americans) that the latter connection is the ancient one. Indeed, we would rate it as the most important association for us. At Easter we remember Christ on the cross, the empty tomb, and His resurrection. But what of our ancient predecessors in the faith?
What did they believe? How did we arrive at today's celebration of Easter? The answers to these questions serve not only to inform us of the holy traditions of the early Christians, but they also set in vivid context the great importance of the Resurrection Letters of Athanasius.
A WORD WE NEED TO KNOW: PASCHA
From earliest Christian times, Easter has been the most important yearly festival of the church. It is, in fact, the oldest of all Christian celebrations.
As we go back to the beginning days of the church, we find that the church Fathers used a term unfamiliar to us for Easter
—Pascha. A sermon for this great festival of the church, written by Melito of Sardis (c. 190), ends this way:
EASTER IN THE EARLY CHURCH
This is the alpha and the omega.
This is the beginning and the end— an indescribable beginning and an incomprehensible end.
This is the Christ.
This is the King.
This is the General.
This is the Lord.
This is the one who rose up from the dead.
This is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father.
He bears the Father and is borne by the Father, to whom be the glory and the power forever. Amen.
The Peri Pascha of Melito:
Peace to the one who wrote, and to the one who reads, and to those who love the Lord in simplicity of heart.
But why the term Pascha? Because Pascha is the Aramaic derivation of the Hebrew word Pesach, which means "Passover." Most of the earliest Christians spoke Aramaic, and as the faith spread, the name was retained.
One thing we know for certain is that the church's origins are Jewish. It was to the Jews that the Messiah was promised, and it was to them that the Father sent the Son. The first apostles and Christians were Jews. And although the church quickly spread to the Gentile world and rapidly abandoned Jewish law and most Jewish customs, it began in a Jewish environment and was initially interpreted in this environment. We should not be surprised, therefore, that much Christian thought and practice is rooted in Judaism.
Thus the Pascha: Passover. Its very name is an arrow pointing down the long corridor of time, and its tip reaches to a slave people in Egypt.
1Cerald F. Hawthorne, "A New English Translation of Melito's Paschal Homily," Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation, ed. Gerald F.
Hawthorne (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), pp. 174-75.
THE RESURRECTION LETTERS
THE PASSOVER
The Passover was, and is, the major holiday (indeed, "holy day") in the Jewish calendar. It celebrates the Israelites' delivery out of slavery in Egypt. That deliverance is recorded in the second book written by Moses: Exodus. Most of us recall that event and the attendant circumstances. Israel had become a nation of slaves, building tombs, monuments, and cities for the great Pharaohs of Egypt. They might have remained there, eventually being assimilated into the local population. But God had a great destiny in mind for Israel, and He gave Moses the task of leading them out of Egypt.
But there was a problem. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, liked things as they were, and even a series of dreadful plagues sent by God was insufficient to move him. Finally God, through Moses, told each Israelite family to sacrifice a lamb and eat it hastily during the night, together with unleavened bread and certain herbs. They were to eat in traveling clothes, for they were about to leave. The blood of the lamb was to be put on the doorpost of every Israelite home. During that night the Lord killed the firstborn son of every Egyptian family, but the firstborn males of the Israelites were spared because of the blood on the doorposts.
So it was that Pharaoh gave up and allowed Israel to leave Egypt. This day of deliverance has been celebrated ever since.
After the Exodus, God told Israel to keep a yearly Passover vigil, eating the sacrificial lamb, unleavened bread, and herbs during the night. They were to explain to their children the significance of the celebration, for, "It is a night to be observed for the LorD for having brought them out from the land of Egypt" (Exod. 12:42).
This is why we see that at the time of Christ every Jew made it a point to be in Jerusalem at least once in his life for the Passover, for it was only in Jerusalem that the Passover could be completely celebrated.
THE LITURGY
t Each year, on the afternoon of the fourteenth of the Jewish
EASTER IN THE EARLY CHURCH
month Nisan," the lambs brought by all Jews were slaughtered in the temple. Then each man would take his slaughtered lamb to his home or dwelling place to prepare for the supper that night. The Jewish day ran from sundown to sundown, so that very night was the fifteenth of Nisan, the night of the Passover.
It was customary to fast on the fourteenth until the time of the Passover supper.
That supper was more than just a feast; it was a religious observance. Along with the actual meal there were blessings and prayers, psalms, and the reading and explanation of Scripture.
Each action of the Passover service had a meaning. All who partook, even the servants, were to recline while eating
— the custom of the day for free men. Of course, the meal was eaten at night because it was during the night that the Lord had
"passed over" His people. And every year Israel was to eat it in haste, dressed in traveling clothes, ready to "leave Egypt." The food, which included the Paschal sacrifice, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and four glasses of wine, carried symbolic meaning. When the food was brought in, the eldest son was to ask his father why this night was different from all other nights.
Then the father instructed his son, reading the Passover story from Deuteronomy 26:5ff. and explaining it. Rabbi Gamaliel is quoted as saying that in order to fulfill the Passover, the verses concerning three things must be explained: "Passover, because
God passed over the houses of our fathers in Egypt; unleavened bread, because our fathers were redeemed from Egypt; bitter herbs, because Egyptians embittered the lives of our fathers in Egypt." Then, following the explanation of Passover, after prayers and with the last glass of wine, the Hallel (Psalms
113-118) was sung.
MORE THAN A MEMORY
We must emphasize that the Passover meant far more than a simple commemoration of the events of the Exodus. For the 2The Jewish year begins with the month they call Nisan, which, because of calendar differences, falls somewhere between March and April.
THE RESURRECTION LETTERS
people of Israel it was the great festival of redemption, and for the participants in the Passover supper there was a sense of personal involvement in that redemption. Indeed, the Mishna® says, "In every generation a man must so regard himself as if he came forth out of Egypt." Time was not a barrier to participation in that great deliverance. Each family member was instructed to view himself or herself as having been personally delivered by God from the hands of the Egyptian taskmasters. Part of the reenactment of the historical deliverance was also the expectation of future deliverance. The Passover was a feast of hope, looking forward to the coming of the Messiah.
OUR PASSOVER
To the church at Corinth, Paul the apostle wrote, "Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast" (1 Cor. 5:7). From the very beginning of the church
Christ was clearly associated with the Passover lamb, and the supper immediately passed over into Christian practice. The Gospels and the Epistles tell us that the first Exodus finds its fulfillment in Jesus. Indeed, He speaks of Himself in terms of the Exodus and the Passover. The whole Gospel of John is built on the framework of the Passover and its celebration.
The annual celebration has a meaning centered on the risen Christ and the salvation accomplished in His death and resurrection. As St. Peter put it, the church is "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people" (1
Peter 2:9). Thus there is good reason for St. Paul to tell the Christians at Corinth that Christ is the true Paschal Lamb who has been sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7).
Just as the Jewish Passover celebration has the explanation built into it, so also the "royal priesthood" has the explanation, for in baptism its members have passed through the water, dying with Christ and rising in new life. St. Ambrose expressed well the concept of passage:
8This is the code of Jewish laws arranged about A.D. 200 which forms the foundation for the Talmud, the authoritative body of Jewish tradition.
EASTER IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Now since you are celebrating the holy Pasch, you should know, brethren, what the Pasch is. Pasch means the crossing-over; and so the Festival is called by this name. For it was on this day that the children of Israel crossed over out of Egypt, and the Son of God crossed over from this world to His Father. What gain is it to celebrate the Pasch unless you imitate Him Whom you worship; that is unless you cross over from Egypt, that is, from the darkness of evildoing to the light of virtue, and from the love of this world to the love of your heavenly home?4
Although there were some variations in practice, the Pascha is most noted for the fact that the basic elements of its observance were the same everywhere.
THE PRECEDING FAST
Always the Paschal celebration was preceded by a fast. In the earliest days of the church, the service itself was an all-night vigil. It included the reading of Scripture, singing of Psalms, presentation of homilies, prayer, and baptism; and it concluded with a Eucharist.5
A fast? Yes, a fast! The church prepared itself for the festival, each one depriving the body that the whole person might be ready for the experience of redemption. It does not seem that the fast was the same everywhere, for early descriptions vary from fasts of one to six days. Nevertheless, a fast was common to all. By Athanasius' day in the fourth century, the fast extended over forty days, with those forty days associated closely with prayer, discipline, and good works —as well as the teaching of candidates for baptism. The days of Holy Week, leading up to the day of celebration, were special days of preparation.®
The Paschal observance began with a vigil on the Saturday night before Easter and continued until Sunday morning. But this vigil was not a preparation for a coming celebration; it was
4Sunday Sermons of the Fathers, (Chicago: Regnery Press, 1958), Vol. 3, p. 219.
5See, for example, Didiscalia Apostolorum, trans. R. H. Connolly (London:
Oxford University Press, 1929), p. 189.
6For further information on fasting in the church, see the section in this book,
"Questions and Answers Concerning Lenten Practices," p. 205.