A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John on this feast of Saint Philip and Saint James apostles. Jesus said to Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my father also. From this point on, you do know him.
You have seen him. Lord, Philip said to Jesus, show us the father, and that will be enough for us. Philip, our lord replied, after I have been with you all this time, you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the father. How can you say, show us the father?
Do you not believe that I am in the father and the father is in me? The words I speak are not spoken of myself. It is the father who lives in me accomplishing his works. Believe me that I am in the father and the father is in me, or else believe because of the works I do. I solemnly assure you, the man who has faith in me will do the works that I do and greater even than these.
Why? Because I go to the father, and whatever you ask in my name, I will do so as to glorify the father in the son. Anything you ask me in my name, I will do. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
With all due respect to Saint Philip and Saint James, I, want to address you this morning with a few words on yesterday's saint, Saint Athanasius. At the last minute I switched my course and, as you know, delivered myself of a few well chosen words on another subject. I couldn't resist it. But today I want to pay tribute to Saint Athanasius. You know, in the Western world we we tend so much to forget the Eastern world and that the church of Jesus Christ started in the East.
It didn't start in Rome or in Italy or in the West. And the early church fathers are Greek. They're not Romans or Latins, and the language is Greek. All the first councils of the church, the ecumenical councils, all in the East around Asia Minor, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Nicaea. They're all in Asia Minor.
Now here I wanna bring home. Here we sit in Garrett Park in the year of our lord 1984. Here we're celebrating the feast of two apostles, Philip and James. At the same time now, of course, they're down coming around the end of the Mediterranean. They're down in what today we call Israel.
Now we read an epistle here from Saint Paul, and he's over there in Greece. Now, again, here we have the feast of Saint Athanasius, a Greek, a bishop of Alexandria. Remember the emperor was living over in Constantinople. The emperor wasn't in Rome. And here here we you see what I'm trying to point out, we are part of this totality.
There weren't many people sitting around the table drinking tea with Saint Athanasius in the fourth century thinking much of Garrett Park, Maryland and being a nuclear free area. That wasn't one of the things that perturbed them. One of the things that did perturb them in 03/25 in Nicaea was, who is Jesus Christ? Is he a man, or can you say he's God? Well, here once again, and this is the point I wanna drive home.
Here again, the intellectuals, the the the elite, the the finer thinking people, the peoples the people whose lives were elevated or they thought they were elevated above the common vulgar herd said, this you can't tell us that the son of a woman who died on the cross and went through all that horrible mess, you can't tell us that that was god. This, remember, is the fourth century AD, and the name of this heresy was Arianism from the from the leader of it who was named, believe it or not, Arius. Now the great this was the great this was the great religious problem. Who is Jesus Christ? And the elite said, well, whatever he is, he isn't god.
And yet, it was Athanasius who stood up and said, he is god. He is god. This child conceived in a womb, born as a baby, lived as a child, grew to manhood, went through the passion cross, and some kind of a resurrection, whatever it was. That person, I better not say that, but whatever that was, Athanasius says, that's god. And Arius says, it can't be.
God couldn't you can't that's that's blasphemy. And, again, who won out? Athanasius was exiled four times. Four times he he he had to leave his home in Asia Minor. Four times.
And what sustained him? Here's another very important point. Was his appeal to Rome, to the Pope in Rome. This is the early part of the fourth century. The the council of Nicaea is 03/25.
Now this is we this is these are our people. This is the church. The Arians started out by being just as much of a Christian and a Catholic as anybody. Augustine isn't born yet. Augustine won't be born till March, but he's he will be born before Athanasius dies.
And Augustine is over in Hippo, just across the Mediterranean roughly from Rome. Not from Rome, but from the the end of the boot of of Italy. There's our church. These are our people, and they are in turmoil. They are in great turmoil, and blood is shed, and lives are and people are suffering.
Why? To answer the question, who or what is Jesus Christ? And Arius said, well, whatever he is, he's not God. And Athanasius says, whatever he is, he is God and truly divine, the logos. See, here's another thing we get in the problem with language because the Greeks were referring to the second person of the blessed trinity almost invariably as logos, l o g o s, which we translate as the word.
Well, forget it. It's terrible. Now it took three it took over a hundred and fifty years to work this thing out. Athanasius was at the beginning, and the first attack was that Jesus Christ is not God. Does that ring a bell?
Where are we today in 1984? You can find plenty of people who are saying, of course, I respect Jesus Christ. He was one of the finest men who ever lived. Why? I respect him as much as I respect Socrates and Muhammad Gandhi.
And my reply to that is, come on in the bar and let's have a drink. It's all that's worth. Don't debate it because there's one thing you can't say as CS Lewis said about Jesus Christ, you cannot say that he was exclusively and only a good man because if that's all Jesus Christ was, he was a devil incarnate. Then you see the so the council of Nicene three twenty five, that drove home against all the odds. That drove home the against the Arians that the son of Mary is God.
Well, of course, the next question is, how do you figure this out? So then you had two sit next to the the next two councils. You had the council of Ephesus in '4 about 04/31, and then you had the council of Chalcedon in April. And it's those three ecumenical councils, they're all in the East, they're all in Asia Minor, they're all Greek speaking, but there you have worked out the theology of Jesus Christ, the son of God, and the son of Mary. First that his first of all, Nicea said his God.
His God. Then the next problem was, is if he's God, then how about his humanity? So some people said he didn't his humanity was just an illusion. So the next council, the council of Ephesus said he is both he's both God and man, truly God and truly man. Then the question was, well, was he then he's two things.
And if he's two things, he's not one thing. And so finally, you have the counsel of Chalcedon which saying, and here was the form. Remember, they are Greek speaking, that you have two separate complete natures and one person. And it was the council of Ephesus which said, of course, that Mary is truly the son the mother of God if she were the mother of Jesus Christ. And so here you have it.
Now this is going back to to the council after the fourth century. And here we sit, you see. These this is this is our world. This this is where our faith lies. Here's where our formulas of faith come from.
I believe in one god and his son, Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary, true god and true man, suffered and died on the cross and rose from the dead. Do you realize what you're saying when you say those words? They are tremendous. And we just shoot them off like that, you know, like bubbles. But men and women in the fourth century were fighting and willing to lay down their lives for this.
And so I could not skip Saint Athanasius. He may be a Greek, but he's truly a saint and he suffered, and I may say died to sustain our faith in 1984 that the son of Mary is truly the son of God in the person of Jesus Christ. The name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.