[SECTION XI.]—SAINT ATHANASIUS.
The renowned and undaunted defender of the Catholic faith against the errors which in his day threatened to overwhelm Gospel-truth, Athanasius (the last of those ante-Nicene writers into whose testimony we have instituted this inquiry), was born about the year 296, and, after having presided in the Church as Bishop for more than forty-six years, died in 373, on the verge of his eightieth year. It is impossible for any one interested in the question of primitive truth to look upon the belief and practice of this Christian champion with indifference. When I first read Bellarmin's quotations from Athanasius, in justification of the Roman Catholic worship in the adoration of saints, I was made not a little anxious to ascertain the accuracy of his allegations. The inquiry amply repaid me for my anxiety and the labour of research; not merely by proving the unsoundness of Bellarmin's representation, but also by directing my thoughts more especially, as my acquaintance with his works increased, to the true and scriptural views taken by Athanasius of the Christian's hope and confidence in God alone; the glowing fervour of his piety centering only in the Lord; his sure and certain hope in life and in death anchored only in the mercies of God, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ alone.
Bellarmin, in his appeal to Athanasius as a witness in behalf of the invocation of saints, cites two passages; the one of which, though appearing in the edition of the Benedictines, amongst the works called doubtful, has been adjudged by those editors [Vol. ii. p. 110 and 122] to be not genuine; the other is placed by them among the confessedly spurious works, and is treated as a forgery.
The first passage is from a treatise called De Virginitate, and even were that work the genuine production of Athanasius, would make against the religious worship of the saints rather than in its favour, for it would show, that the respect which the author intended to be paid to them, was precisely the same with what he would have us pay to holy men in this life, who might come to visit us. "If a just man enter into thine house, thou shalt meet him with fear and trembling, and shalt worship before his feet to the ground: for thou wilt not worship him, but God who sent him."
The other passage would have been decisive as to the belief of Athanasius, had it come from his pen. "Incline thine ear, O Mary, to our prayers, and forget not thy people. We cry to thee. Remember us, O Holy Virgin. Intercede for us, O mistress, lady, queen, and mother of God." [Vol. ii. p. 390-401.]
Had Bellarmin been the only writer, or the last who cited this passage as the testimony of St. Athanasius, it would have been enough for us to refer to the judgment of the Benedictine editors, who have classed the homily containing these words among the spurious works ascribed to Athanasius; or rather we might have appealed to Bellarmin himself. For it is very remarkable, that though in his anxiety to enlist every able writer to defend the cause of the invocation of saints, he has cited this passage in his Church Triumphant as containing the words of Athanasius, without any allusion to its decided spuriousness, or even to its suspicious character; yet when he is pronouncing his judgment on the different works assigned to Athanasius, declaring the evidence against this treatise to be irresistible, he condemns it as a forgery. [Bellarm. de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis, Cologne, 1617, vol. vii. p. 50.]
Since, however, this passage has been cited in different Roman Catholic writers of our own time as containing the words of Athanasius, and in evidence of his genuine belief and practice, and that without an allusion even to any thing doubtful and questionable in its character, it becomes necessary to enter more in detail into the circumstances under which the passage is offered to our notice.
The passage is found in a homily called The Annunciation of the Mother of God. How long this homily has been discarded as spurious, or how long its genuineness had been suspected before the time of Baronius, I have not discovered; but certainly two centuries and a half ago, and repeatedly since, it has been condemned as totally and indisputably spurious, and has been excluded from the works of Athanasius as a forgery, not by members of the Reformed Church, but by most zealous and steady adherents to the Church of Rome, and the most strenuous defenders of her doctrines and practice.
The Benedictine editors[64], who published the remains of St. Athanasius in 1698, class the works contained in the second volume under two heads, the doubtful and the spurious; and the homily under consideration is ranked, without hesitation, among the spurious. In the middle of that volume they not only declare the work to be unquestionably a forgery, assigning the reasons for their decision, but they fortify their judgment by quoting at length the letter written by the celebrated Baronius, more than a century before, to our countryman, Stapleton. Both these documents are very interesting.
Footnote 64:[(return)]
Here I would observe, that though the Benedictine editors differ widely from each other in talent, and learning, and candour, yet, as a body, they have conferred on Christendom, and on literature, benefits for which every impartial and right-minded man will feel gratitude. In the works of some of these editors, far more than in others, we perceive the same reigning principle—a principle which some will regard as an uncompromising adherence to the faith of the Church; but which others can regard only in the light of a prejudice, and a rooted habit of viewing all things through the eyes of Rome.