Study Of The Theological Thought Of Athanasius

As one of the most important theologian in early Christian,Athanasius not only was one builder of the Greek(Eastern)Christian theology,but also influenced the Latin(Western)Christian theological tradition through the Nicene Creed.He was a great Christian who held the Christian Faith tightly and devoted himself to fight for the whole life,should be viewed as significant and definitely appealing even in such a time which is full of martyrdom.Based on the comprehensive study of previous scholars,this paper shall be divided into four chapters to explain the theological thoughts of Athanasius.At first,an abstract instruction of the times and places in which Athanasius lived as the background will be given.In space,the development and social situation of Alexandrian would be given as reference for affairs happened here.In time,we would travel back to acknowledge the origins of the Nicene crisis,including the Melitian schism,Arius and the changes of policy.Under the circumstance,a brief introduction of the Council of Nicaea,from which Athanasius stepped into the history,will be given.At last,the typical and representative incidents during his life would be chosen in case we could track the diversification in his thoughts.As to Athanasius’s thought,the theory of God and Christ will be analyzed.It focuses on the meaning of Athanasius’s theory of creation,which claims that God is the unity of transcendence and internality.In terms of the theory of Christ,there are two different ways.The one way is to discuss the divinity of Christ by the relationship between Christ and God;the other is to discuss the human nature of Christ by the physical structure of Jesus Christ.At the same time,it attempts to integrate Athanasius’s discussion of Christ’s death and resurrection during the debate,so that to present Athanasius’s maintenance of the divinity of Christ.Finally,it will slightly discuss the role of "homoousia" in solving this problem.Based on the content above,the Anthropology of Athanasius will be analyzed.Started with the relationship of God and creation,Athanasius divided human into three parts:nous,soul and body,which is the realistic basis of his theory of salvation.At last,the paper would attempt to execute some summary and evaluation of his status and contributions from the downstream of the history.Generally speaking,there should be three aspects.Athanasius should be respected by everyone as the first person who gave out the whole and correct list of the New Testament as known in history by now.Secondly,his recording of St.Anthony’s life as a monk deeply influenced the monasticism later.At last,for the systematic of doctrine in early Christian,what he did in the process of struggling with Arius provided a hard pan for the conformation of orthodox.In short,this paper attempts to analyze the works of Athanasius,in order to come to the conclusion of the overall framework of his theological system and main content,which would be further improvement to related research.Meantime,it helps to learn the developing and consummation of early Christianity theological system.