If you like our YouTube channel, please subscribe by clicking on the subscribe button and then by also clicking the bell above to get an automatic update whenever we produce another YouTube video for our See Answers TV channel. Please share our videos with your friends and relatives. May God bless you. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what is done for Christ will last. Greetings and welcome once again to our program. I'm Larry Wessels, your host, and I want to thank you for being with us today. This is Christian Answers Presents. We've now been doing this program since we first began as a cable access outreach in Austin, Texas back in 1985. So we've been doing telecasts for a long time. And each telecast has been on some different subject. and how we relate biblical topics or biblical issues and what the Scripture says to those topics and issues. So today, we're going to talk about an important character in Christian church history, Athanasius. And of course, to help us with this is our webmaster for our website, www.historycourt.com, which is ancient church history. Many people are totally ignorant of that subject. That is a subject that needs to be known in this day and age because false prophets love to use early church history as a way to prop up their own false religions. Those at home may not know that my special guest for this broadcast is our Director of Research for Christian Answers, Steve Morrison. There he is right there on the screen. I was forced to give away his situation when he brought that up about the misuse of early church history. But false prophets like to use anything they can to pervert the obvious biblical truth that's there, either if they're perverting the Word of God itself or early church history. And Steve has done a great job in creating this website, www.historycart.com, in helping people just out there just need a little direction and a way to study it for themselves to keep from being deceived by all these religions that misuse it on a regular basis. And with that, Steve, as I already introduced, our subject today is Athanasia. in church history. Now, obviously, most people who are watching this right now don't have a clue who he is, or much less a lot about early church history. Before you begin on that, could you just reiterate one more time a little bit about your website, historycard.com, and then move right into the subject at hand, which would be Athanasius. Thank you. Well, historycard.com just has a lot of summaries of writings of early Christian writers. It also has other writers, historical stuff, also stuff about early Muslim writers for what Islam really taught and really teaches. You can just kind of search through that and see. And that's kind of, a lot of it was taken from other websites, biblequery.org and muslimhope.com, but HistoryCart is just sort of the historical parts of it. But the stuff I'm saying today can be found all in HistoryCart or also in biblequery.org. Now it's interesting you said something about Islam there pertaining to your website. Now it seems that Islam might have had an impact on the church from about 600 and on, 600 AD and on. Do you see any of that reflected in early church history? Prior to 600 AD, none whatsoever. But starting with John of Damascus, with his relative, I believe his uncle, was the one who let the Muslims into Damascus. And it's a complicated interaction. But from that time on, there was that and also some effort to read back into early church history stuff that wasn't really there, as we'll find out a little bit later today. All right. Well, today's subject is Now, what's interesting about him is we even mentioned him in one of our ministry newsletters, which I'm holding up right now, our Christian Answers newsletter, Christian Debater Guide, Volume 2, Number 2, way back. But of course, I felt in these newsletters we did over the years, over the decades, that certain topics weren't being addressed enough by Christian churches in general. And so this one was on the testimony to the eternal Godhead, the Trinity. And of course, the lead article is by Dr. Edward Bickerstaff, author of the book, The Trinity. And of course, this has a lot of excellent material in it concerning what the Bible says about the Trinity. And as we go through from page to page here, Here on page 5, our viewers at home can see you there, Steve. A simple seven facts about the Trinity, from your article, extra article on the Trinity there. But as we... And on that very same page, on page 5, next to Steve's article, we find the Admonition Creed down here on the left-hand side of the page on page 5. And it says right there, Quote, we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one. The Glory, Equal, the Majesty, Co-Eternal, such as the Father is, such as the Son, and such as the Holy Ghost. The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. So likewise, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Ghost almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. Yet there are not three gods, but one God. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding. And in this Trinity, none is greater or less than another, but the whole three persons are co-eternal together and co-equal. so that in all things, as is aforesaid, the unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity, is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved must think of the Trinity." Quoted from Psychopedia of Biblical Theology and Ecclesiastical Literature, New York, 1871, by John McQuintock. James Strong, volume 11, I guess that's volume Roman number 2, page 560-561. We have some people at home who are just seeing the Athanasian Creed, and with that as a setup, I'd like you to begin our analysis on Athanasians. Alright, Athanasius is a complex and interesting guy, he's a good Christian, he wrote a ton about the Trinity, and what he wrote was good. Actually though, curiously enough, that the Athanasian Creed, as far as we know, was not actually written by Athanasius. But it is consistent with everything he taught. But he had such a stature as kind of a giant among Christian theologians that I found in my study of church history that he has kind of a unique place. I mean, there are maybe 800 or 900 prominent theologians and writers throughout church history. And some of them, like Augustine, are very big in Roman Catholicism. They're also very big among Protestants. Greek Orthodox, not really at all. They don't like what Augustine said about sin. Others like John Chrysostom are very, very big with the Eastern Orthodox, but they aren't really very prominent or well known with Roman Catholics or Protestants, though Chrysostom was an outstanding expository preacher. But there's one guy who's kind of held in high esteem by all groups, and that is Athanasius. Everybody likes Athanasius. Roman Catholics refer to him. Protestants really refer to him. Not just us, but others too. Not only that, the Cots really consider him one of their own. He's from Alexandria. They like his stuff. They study his stuff. Nestorians also really like Athanasius. So everybody pretty much kind of likes Athanasius. And with all that, what actually did he say? And was Athanasius really a Roman Catholic? Was he really an Eastern Orthodox? Was he really an Evangelical, or a Copt, or a Nestorian? And it turns out, as kind of the summary version of this talk, he wasn't completely any of those. But we will see that he was as close to one thing as he was another. Isn't there a scripture that says, beware when all men speak well of you? Well, if you're never criticizing, that's true. But another way to be aware of that is that if they all speak well of you, then they might have a rosy-eyed view of what you said and not pay attention to some of your actual words. And I think that's kind of what happened here after he dies. Okay, I got you. I've read all of his writings, which are pretty much in this book, and a few additional things. And there's also some stuff that claims to be by Athanasius, but is not by the early Athanasius of Alexandria. There are at least two other people in later times also named Athanasius. There's another thing he called the life of Anthony, which may have been by Athanasius. We're not sure, kind of the jury's out on that, but there is a probability it was, and I looked at that too. All right, I don't kind of care for calling him Athanasius the Great, which the Eastern Orthodox call him, because it's too easy for people to idolize saints. But that being said, Athanasius really was a great Christian, and he had a very positive impact, but his teaching had some flaws too. So this video today is going to show Athanasius' teaching, and we can see how he says some things that might be uncomfortable for Eastern Orthodox. Some might be uncomfortable with the stories of the Copts. And yes, some things might be a little uncomfortable for Evangelicals also, as well as Roman Catholics. So we'll see what he has to say. First of all, let's talk about some of his really positive contributions and good teaching. on the Trinity and the nature of the Christ, he wrote against Arians. Now, Arians believed that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were God, but they believed that Jesus was of a different substance, or else a lesser substance, or else a similar substance, but not the same substance as God the Father, almost like some kind of demigod. And Athanasius wrote against that. And he wrote a whole lot about that, and what he wrote was good stuff. He also wrote some about the sufficiency of scripture. You might call it crema scriptura. He said that we should meditate on scripture day and night, and he quotes Psalm 1, verses 1 and 2. For example, in Easter letter 5, chapter 1, page 517, also Easter letter 11, page 6, 535. Here's a good quote from him. But since the Holy Scripture is of all things sufficient for us, therefore recommending to those who desire to know more of these matters, to read the divine word, I now hasten to set before you that which most claims attention, and for the sake of which principally I've written these things. This is to the bishops of Egypt, 356 AD, chapter 1.2, page 225. So since Scripture is sufficient, there'd be no essential doctrine of Christianity that's missing from Scripture. And of course, that would include venerating pictures of people. And we're going to see everything Athanasius said about venerating icons. Actually, he said nothing whatsoever, but we'll get to that later. All right, so Athanasius stressed the primacy of Scripture. All right, some people would like to say that maybe that meant Sola Scriptura. Well, To be honest, he did not actually go that far. He recognized the authority of bishops also. So he said, if you really believe that all bishops have the same equal authority, and you do not, as you assert, account them according to the magnitude of their cities. And he wrote this in Defense Against the Arians, chapter 2.25, page 115. It also says, it is this that has thrown the churches everywhere into such confusion, for pretenses have been devised, and bishops of great authority and advanced age have been banished for holding communion with me. This is his defense before Constantius, chapter 13, page 243, when he endured a lot of opposition from the Arian bishops who had been appointed there essentially by the emperor. And then Athanasius talks about how some contend against an ecumenical council, in this case the Council of Nicaea, on the Councils, chapter 33, page 468. So Athanasius views the councils and bishops as having authority also, so you really can't say sola scriptura for Athanasius. He also said that the church could not hold together without bishops, in letter 49, to Dracontius, which is chapter 4, page 538. He also said, inventors of unlawful heresies, who indeed refer to the scriptures, but do not hold such opinion as the saints have handed down, and receiving them as the traditions of men err, because they do not rightly know them nor their power. So he's talking about traditions here. So Easter letter 2, chapter 6, page 511. He appeals to apostolic tradition, letter 51, page 561 to 562. So Athanasius believed scripture was true, and he believed scripture had authority, but he also believed scripture had sufficient authority. And this sounds just like what evangelicals say. But on the other hand, he was called Pope Athanasius, actually before any pope was called in Rome. He was strongly the authority of bishops in the Nicene Council. So it's sort of like an Eastern Orthodox person says. So on one hand, he says more like an evangelical would like to hear. On the other hand, he says more like something that an Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic would like to hear. How do we reconcile these two parts of Athanasius? And I think the best way is let's let Athanasius reconcile those two parts himself. And what he says, for although sacred and inspired scriptures are sufficient to declare the truth, while there are other works of our blessed teachers compiled for this purpose, if he meet with which a man will gain some knowledge of interpretation of scriptures and be able to learn what he wishes to know, still, as we have not a present hand in the competitions of our teachers, we must communicate in writing to you what we learn from them. The faith, namely, of Christ the Savior, thus any should hold cheap the doctrine taught among us, or think faith in Christ unreasonable. This is in Athanasius Against the Heathen, written 318 A.D., part 1, chapter 1.3, page 4. So, evangelicals believe that early Christian writers are not infallible. However, their good teachings can be a reminder of Scripture, and a check on our interpretation of Scripture. So we don't know that Athanasius really put these two together completely correctly, but he was certainly on the right track with the primacy of scriptures. Now let's move on to say what Athanasius thought about pictures of God and statues. Okay, now kind of a reminder from our earlier show, the Roman Catholic Church, they will venerate statues and images of icons. The Eastern Orthodox Church does not venerate statues, but they do venerate pictures or images of saints or Christ or things like that. So Athanasius said not to portray the deity in human or animal form. Here's what he says. And generally, if they can see the deity to be corporeal so that they can try for it and represent belly and hands and feet and neck also and breast and the other organs that go to make man, see to what impiety and godlessness. Their mind has come down to just have such ideas of deity, dot, dot, dot. But these and like things are not properties of God, but rather of earthly bodies. He said this in Against the Heathen, chapter 22, page 15 and 16. He also goes on to say, for ye carve the figures for the sake of the apprehension of God, as ye say, but invest the actual images with the honor and title of God, thus placing yourselves in a profane position. This is Against the Heathen, chapter 21.1, page 15. So all Eastern Orthodox believe this about statues. And the Greek Orthodox, but not completely the Russian, they consistently believe that you should not have pictures of God the Father. Russian Orthodox, they have taught on one hand that you shouldn't have pictures of God the Father, but they have a very famous icon that has a picture of God the Father as a man and a picture of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as three men talking with Abraham. All right, but regardless, they venerate pictures of Jesus and saints. And Athanasius was totally unaware of any Christians doing anything like this. It's just not what the scripture would have us to go with. If you think about idols, you have references like in 1 Chronicles, 1 Chronicles chapter 16, verse 26. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, 19 through 22, 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 4-6. And then what we have here, I just want the viewers at home to see this, you look in Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 1-6, people at home can see the references there to all these pagan idolaters things of that nest, like that. But then you see there, "...but thus shall ye deal with them. Ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire." You can also see in 2 Chronicles 34, verses 3-7, you find, once again, mentions about cutting down the groves, carved images, and molten images, He broke in pieces and made dust of them, scattered that dust over the graves of them who had sacrificed unto them, and so forth. You're basically told about the cut down of all the idols throughout the land of Israel, the return to Jerusalem, this is one of the kings of Israel, I think it was Josiah here. And so, you have plenty of references in the Scripture about idolatry. And to me, it's interesting, these references I just gave are clearly anti-Israel, or as we can look at in modern day, anti-Christian practices. It's sort of like if Jehovah's Witnesses built altars and idols with statues and pictures, or the Mormons did it. We clearly think, well, they're not Christians to begin with, and that's what we're looking at here. These people were not real Israelites. They're worshiping other gods. But at the same time, you think about what John says in 1 John 5.21, he says, Will children keep yourselves from idols? Amen. And there's plenty of other references. But you can have idolatry within what's called the Christian Church. We're looking at these things that we know are outside the Christian Church. But then the devil, being so cunning as he is, can actually incorporate idolatry inside what's called the Christian church. So we have to watch out on the outside and the inside. It reminds me of what Paul warned the elders about there in Acts chapter 20, about among your own selves shall come those who have you seek after them and they'll cause division inside the church. So there's a problem there when it comes to idolatry, whether inside or outside, there's a problem with those who call themselves Christians engaging in it, yet trying to excuse it as something else. And the pagan idolaters are doing basically the same thing that these guys who claim to be Christians are doing. But, oh, for some reason it's different. But anyway, I could go on and on with this. So anyway, I've put in two cents worth. And so proceed, brother. All right, well, thank you. So with idolaters, other people, and Aryans, what did Athanasius say about persecuting others? Should you spread the truth by the sword? Well, here's what he said. If it be a bad thing to flee, it is much worse to persecute. For the one party hides himself to escape death, and the other persecutes with a desire to kill. In Defense of its Flight, chapter 8, page 257, this is in the context of the Aryans who are out to get him and kill him. So he was against persecuting others. He also says, it is a true part of godliness not to compel, but to persuade. And this is in History of the Arians, chapter 67, page 29. If only the historical Roman Catholic Church had heeded Athanasius. Also another kind of blight upon Augustine is that Augustine did support persecution of heretics and, but Athanasius says don't persecute anybody. So that kind of makes, to me, makes Athanasius stand kind of head and shoulders above some other later people. Okay. Moving on, we looked at little individual points that were good teaching. Let's look at things kind of overall. The Athanasius wrote, if you have a book about, let's say, this size, wrote about 468 pages, 56 of which were before the Nicene Council. And in these 468 pages, which is a lot of pages, it's actually pretty densely packed with good stuff. He wrote at least 576 teachings that four or more pre-Nicene Christians taught, none denied, and Christians today would agree with. That's a lot of stuff. Okay. Of course, Athanasius hit the big things, like Jesus redeemed us by bearing our sins, rise from the dead, but even minor things, like the abomination of the cause of desolation, Naphtali and Laban, you know, minor biblical characters. I mean, he knew scripture backwards and forwards and over. There are about a total of about 1,100 or so teachings that four or more pre-Nicene Christians taught and none denied, and Athanasius wrote more than half of them. And these, by the way, if you want to see all of them, are at https://www.biblequery.org/.doctrine/.doctinalstatements/.athanasiestaught. And you can also see www.biblequery.org/.history/.churchhistory/.whatniceatoemphasischristianstaught. And you can see Nicene to Pre-Nicene, Nicene to Ephesus Christians taught, including Athanasius. And then you can compare that with what the early Christians taught at www.biblequery.org slash history slash church history slash what early Christians taught dot html dot. And have you ever read something and said, you know, I'm not sure I agree with this. And then after you've pondered it a while, you say, you know, that's absolutely right. And I changed my thinking and I do agree with that. Well, I kind of had that moment, a moment like that reading Athanasius. Athanasius had a brilliant point. He said, polytheism is atheism. And I said, well, now wait a second. You know, okay, one guy is not an atheist, but if you have multiple guys, that would seem to me on the surface, farther than atheism, then, you know, even one guy, but, um, Athanasius had a brilliant point here. You know, we believe as Christians, that there is one eternal being who existed all powerful as a governor of all, he knows all you do with every wishes. Atheists believe that it's empty up there, so to speak. Okay. Now, polytheism, typically has lots of gods and goddesses that act pretty much like people, except with greater powers. I mean, think of the Avengers or something like that. They're just people that can do special things. But behind the gods, most polytheists also believe it is, quote, empty. Athanasius said, for the rule of more than one is the rule of none. For each one, we cancel out the rule of the other, and none would appear ruler, but there would be anarchy everywhere. So I thought, that's a brilliant thought, that if you believe in tons of gods and goddesses, there's no one who's really made everything, who's eternally existent, everything of that. And they're really no better than atheists who believe that they're beings with some special powers. I've always kind of agreed with that without knowing it. It's just, it made this very enlightened statement about it, because I've always looked at most religionists that don't really take, they don't really take Christ that seriously. or the biblical gospel as practical atheists. In other words, they claim to be Christians, let's say, but yet they don't really live their lives from day to day as if there's a God at all. I used to be doing, before I became a Christian, on May 16, 1981, I was raised in a Christian church, but I was a nominal one. I thought, well, if I go to church on Christmas and Easter, most of the time I'd skip Easter, I'd just go at Christmas. That was good enough to get me into heaven, you know, because that's sort of like a fire insurance policy. You know, I'm tipping my hat to God. Oh, okay. And that's good enough. But the rest of the time, I was living like an atheist, basically. I was living like God's way over here in some box and I don't know if I can I'll bring them out at Christmastime, I'll go give a little worship, and I'll put them back in a box and not worry about them, and I'll live my life the way I jolly well please. And that's what a lot of religionists do. So, sort of like what Athanasius was saying here, a lot of these people are practical atheists, even though they have some claim about a deity, whether it be multiple gods like Mormons, or a singular god like Jehovah's Witnesses, or whatever else is out there. Well, with all the stuff that Athanasius wrote, and he wrote on a ton of topics, there are some things that Athanasius was silent about. And one of these, particularly, is kind of interesting. For example, unfortunately, Athanasius, he never affirmed or denied that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. Evangelicals sure wish he would have said that, but he actually didn't say that. The other thing he's silent on, and we'll look at this in more detail, is that he said nothing about venerating images. He didn't speak really against it because he'd never heard of it. Alright, so in his writings he never mentioned venerating images of Jesus, of people, or anything else. However, this was quote-unquote fixed. And let me tell you how it was fixed. Historian Agapius in 593 AD, now this is a couple of centuries after Athanasius, He records this story about a Jewish person who rented the house of a Christian, and he found a picture of a Virgin Mary in the house. And so he urinated on it. And after it was discovered, the Jews were expelled to the city. Okay. Now, so far, I've told you nothing that relates to Athanasius. He died in 373 AD. However, some years later, an anonymous legend tells the same story, essentially, with Jewish person who rented a Christian's house, saw an icon of Christ, and the crucifixion was reenacted on the icon because the icon bled. And then the Jews and those around them were converted. This was told by a Bishop Athanasius, this is a different guy who went to the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which is called the Council of Nicaea II, which is in 787 AD. Now, note this Athanasius was 40 years after Athanasius of Alexandria. At least one Greek Orthodox person thought this was the same Athanasius as the first Council of Nicaea. I was told this, you know, with email, but also you can see this at https://sphoenicia.org slash statueandicon.html for more info. So there's a different guy named Athanasius who lived over four years later, who basically took a kind of an accreted legend that was told in one way and then added on later and was told by a different guy named Athanasius. And some people have projected that back to the original Athanasius and said, aha, Athanasius did talk about icons after all. Well, different Athanasius. Um, and also there's some question is that did the later Athanasius really say this or was just his name put on it too? Okay, another thing that Athanasius never said in all the writings that he had, even things like Laban, which, you know, just a minor character in Genesis, he never talked about ever praying to Mary or the saints. Now, this got, quote, fixed too. There is a very famous, quote, prayer of Athanasius to Mary in later Roman Catholic writings. So you say, aha, Athanasius did pray to Mary. However, there's no reference where Athanasius ever wrote or said this. Likewise, there is a homily in Papyrus of Turin 71-216 in Gambero as 106. It's supposedly by somebody named Athanasius. It doesn't say which Athanasius, and we do not know who claimed it was by any Athanasius. Now, the other thing is that when you look at Eastern Orthodox writings, this prayer of Athanasius, remember Eastern Orthodox really like Athanasius, they have no mention of this, at least not that I've seen anywhere. So this thing, I think, was made up by the Western Church, and then the Eastern Church said, no, we'll just reject these spurious things. Okay, so he was silent on these crucial things and the writings that we do have, but these are so important to the gospel, are so important to Christianity, and he was totally silent. I think his silence speaks volumes here. Definitely, because if they were so important, he would have definitely mentioned all of that, praying to Mary and so forth. I would prefer just to stop here, say Athanasius is a great guy, and he's almost never wrong, and end the story. Well, we can't stop here. We're going to go on and see the stuff that he said, and I have a little code here in that when you see something that says O, that means that Eastern Orthodox or Orthodox would disagree with it. R means Roman Catholics would disagree. E means Evangelicals would disagree. And if it's in lowercase, that means some would agree and some disagree. So one thing that evangelicals think is a poor terminology is calling Mary the mother of God, or it can be translated Mary the bearer of God, in Greek is calling Mary Theotokos. Okay. And evangelicals would disagree with that. They say, yes, Mary certainly was the mother of Jesus and Jesus is holy divine, but they would say, but he's not really the mother of God, the father and Mary's not the mother of God, the Holy Spirit. And actually Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, they don't say Mary's the mother of the father of Holy Spirit either. But when you say mother of God, it just seems kind of like too imprecise a language. All right, so here's what Athanasius said. John, while yet in the womb, left for joy at the voice of Mary, mother bearer of God. This is in Four Discourses Against the Arians, Discourse 3, chapter 26, page 411. Also chapter 33, page 412. And also another reference too. Also, here's a quote from him, once also, whereas the flesh is born of Mary, bearer of God, he himself, referring to Jesus, is said to have been born, referring just to others, in the origin of being. So he's kind of showing the paradox of how Jesus was born of Mary, and yet Jesus created the universe. So he said Mary was the bearer of God in four discourses against the Arians, Discourse 3, Chapter 34, page 412. So each Orthodox, Coptic, and Roman Catholic, they all say that Mary was the bearer of God. The Council of Ephesus in 431 AD pronounces anathema not only against Nestorius, who denied that, but also against all who don't anathematize those who deny that. So if you don't say that Mary was the bearer of God, Or, you don't say the people are cursed of God, if they don't say Mary's the bearer of God, then you are cursed of God, according to the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. You know, I'm not so sure I really like the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. It's like the Judaizers that Paul railed against in the book of Galatians, particularly in chapter 1 there, verses 6 through 9, because they were just... As far as we know about the Judaizers in Galatians, Their only beef was to say, well, if you're going to be a real Christian, you've got to be circumcised. Don't mention anything else beyond that that we can read in Galatians aside of circumcision. But that seems to be just a simple add-on to the gospel. But Paul just blasts them for doing that and anathematizes them for adding just that one little thing of circumcision. Now, here's the Council of Ephesus. I mean, what a beautiful day on these guys over here for holding something that disagrees with us over there, when you're going to hell. You're adding other qualifications to the gospel just for the fact that you're going to hell if you don't agree with what we say here. And that seems to be going far beyond what we see the Judaizers do, that Paul's so Now, when the story was messed up on the nature of Christ, the fact that they kind of went overboard with that. Now, let me try to explain, especially to the Eastern Orthodox, why it is that Protestants don't like the term mother of God or bearer of God. First of all, it's not scriptural. There's so many titles of Jesus, and there's so many things in scripture that we need to believe and follow. It's like, why do we need to add this thing that was a term coined by man? Now, as long as you understand about the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, and those particular things, which Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestants, Copts, and historians agree upon, you know, that's good. But this term is not really scriptural. Also, as I said earlier, you know, the bearer of God, she's the bearer of Christ, I'll be happy to say that, but I don't like to say anything that sounds like she's the bearer of the Father and the Holy Spirit. At least that will confuse some non-Christians, even though the other groups don't believe that Mary was the bearer of the Father or of the Holy Spirit either. So if it's kind of a term that leads to misconceptions, why use the term if it's not even scriptural? Okay, so why don't you just call it the Virgin Mary is the mother of the Son of God? You know, why can't we just say that? That would be fine. Another thing that Athanasius said is he said Mary was an ever-virgin, meaning that she didn't have any children ever besides Jesus, of course. And he said this in four discourses against Arians, Discourse 2, Chapter 70, Page 3 to 6 to 387. He was not the first. Prior to him, we know of two writers who also affirmed this, Apollitus and Peter of Alexandria. Peter of Alexandria lived about the same time as Athanasius, just a little bit older. So evangelicals would be against that because, you know, the New Testament talks about Jesus as brothers and sisters, and James was a brother of Jesus, you know, a half-brother. But then, at least Roman Catholics say, oh, that, you know, brothers and sisters must be cousins there because if it meant real brothers and sisters, then they couldn't believe Mary was an ever-virgin. Now, Matthew 1.25 doesn't say that Joseph had no union with Mary. He said Joseph had no union with Mary until Jesus was born. And also it mentions Jesus' brothers in Matthew 12, 46-47, Matthew 13.55, Mark 3.31-32, Luke 8.19-20, John 2.12, and John 7.3-10. Okay, with all these places, the idea that they're cousins is not mentioned once in the Bible or in pre-19 writers. The word is not unknown. The word cousin is in the New Testament, Colossians 4.10, but not late in Jesus. So if they were cousins, the Bible just could have said cousins, you know, but it said brothers. And when the Bible and later church tradition contradict each other, we should believe the Bible. Correct. Because look at a situation where you marry your wife, And then she has a divine interaction with the deity as a child. And then you're expected in this marriage for the rest of your life never to, you know, come together with your wife for the entire time. Even that's inconsistent with the way God has things set up when it concerns marriage, for it to be fruitful and multiply. That's part of what marriage is about. And yeah, this doctrine here would say, well, Joseph, you just, no, you can't, you can't do anything to your wife now. You just gotta, you just gotta, you know, it doesn't make any sense in the biblical context of what we know from scripture, Old Testament, New Testament. So evangelicals would differ with what Athanasius said about that. You think Athanasius is wrong? Well, Athanasius is just wrong on that point. Right. Yeah, and unfortunately it's not the only place. Here's a place that Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Evangelicals in reading Athanasius, this part, would all say that he was wrong. Okay, Athanasius was kind of Nestorian leading in one spot. When it says that no one knows the day of the hour of Christ's return, not the son, only the father, then Athanasius says, but why, though he knew, he said, no, not the son knows. And he says, this I think none of the faithful is ignorant, is that he made this as those other declarations as many by reasons of the flesh. Nestorians teach us, and Nestorius himself is kind of questionable how far he went with this, but later Nestorians went farther. They teach that Christ had two wills and one body. It's like there was a human Christ and there was a divine Christ. And so the human Christ submitted to the father and divine Christ was like two wills, almost like, not quite two beings, but getting there. And while we say no, Orthodox, Catholics, Evangelicals, Protestants, they all say no. Christ had two natures, human and divine. But there's only one Christ. When we pray, we don't pray to two Jesuses. There's only one Jesus. But Nestorians kind of split up in the two worlds in a way that's kind of weird and is unbiblical. Okay. Anyway, let me go back to this quote and see if this sounds uncomfortably Nestorian to you. But why, though he knew, he said, no, not the son knows. The key here being Christ. This, I think, none of the faithful is ignorant. This, that he made this as those other declarations as many of our reason of the flesh. For this is not, as before, is not the word deficiency, but of that human nature whose property it is to be ignorant, dot, dot, dot. Certainly, he says in the gospel concerning himself and his human character. Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son. It is plain that he knew also the hour of the end of all things as the word, though as man he is ignorant of it. For ignorance is proper to man, and especially the ignorance of those things, dot, dot, dot. For since he was made man, he is not ashamed because of the flesh, which is ignorant to say, I know not, that he may show that knowing is God, but ignorant according to the flesh. And therefore, he said, no, not the Son of God knows, lest the Godhead should seem ignorant, but simply, no, not the Son, that the ignorance might be the Son as born from among men. So if you can, this is in Four Discourses Against the Arians, Discourse 3, Chapter 43, Quotes 417. So if you can follow this contorted thinking, it's like the Son of God was not ignorant, but the Son of Man was. So we're talking about two sons here in one body. Okay, I really don't like this, and I think any Christian from the Council of Ephesus on that kicked out the Nestorians wouldn't like this either. So this is kind of a problem, you know, did Jesus know or did he not know? Well, Athanasius says yes on one hand and no on the other hand. Yes, as far as the Son of God knew, but the Son of Man didn't know. Well, they're the same one, okay? One can understand now why Nestorians admire Athanasius so much. Even though saying Mary is a bearer of God is anathema or horrible to Nestorians, they still like Athanasius despite that because he said this. Now what the Bible says though, the Bible never even hints that Jesus was two beings or two minds in one body. Colossians 2.19 says the fullness of God dwelt in him. And Hebrews 1.3 says the son is the exact representation of God's being. Yet Hebrews 2.14 says He's shared in our humanity, and Hebrews 2.17 says that Jesus was made like us in every way. So the Bible is clear there are two natures, but not two wills. So the mystery of the Incarnation is that Jesus was every bit as human as we are, except about sin, and He's every bit as much God as the Father. Okay? Well, that's tying in with the historical Christian doctrine of the hypostatic union of Christ. So that's why Nestorianism is considered a heresy in this regard. And the opposite extreme of Nestorianism is Monophysitism, and the Council of Ephesus in 431 kicked out the Nestorians, and the Council of Chalcedon kicked out the Monophysites. So I look through Athanasius' writings and say, well, can I find some teachings that are more monophysite than they are orthodox? And at least in my reading, I've not found anything that was monophysite-leading, but only Nestorian-leading. Now, another thing that Roman Catholics and evangelicals and orthodox would disagree with, perhaps Pots and Nestorians too, though I haven't verified that, is Nestorians really mired the teacher origin. Now Origen was one weird guy. If you think of the essential doctrines of Christianity, Origen affirmed all those. But he had some weird ways of allegorizing the Bible. He also believed that everyone would eventually go to heaven, maybe after being in hell for a while, including Satan. He didn't believe in reincarnation, he was against that, but he believed souls preexisted. Athanasius, in my opinion, admired origin too much. Here's what he said. In concerning the everlasting coexistence of the word with the Father, and that he is not of another essence or substance, but proper to the Father's, as the bishops in the council said, you may hear again from the labor-loving origin also. For what he has written as if inquiring, and by way of exercise, that no one take as expressive of his own sentiment but of parties who are contending investigation, for what he definitely declares that is the sentiment of the labor-loving ban. This is in defense of the Niacin definition, chapter 27, page 168. Okay, now there are at least five other pre-Nicene virtual originists, so this was kind of a problem with the early Christianity in that they liked him too much, including Athanasius, and others saw there was a problem here. Another thing that Athanasius said that I really don't like is he talked about the collective guilt of the Jews. First of all, when Jesus was at the trial, and you remember when the crowd of people, Pilate asked, do you want to give me free Barabbas or free Jesus? And they all said free Barabbas. You know, how many people were in that? You know, was it the whole city? Who was it? Well, it turns out that they have excavated where they think is the place that this happened. And it could have held at most maybe 400 people, maybe 500. And so, and a lot of them were probably hand-picked, you know, by the scribes and Pharisees to be there. So it's one thing to say that Jewish people, you know, were involved in crucifying Jesus. That's true. But to say the collective guilt of all Jewish people, that's not right. That's going too far. Well, unfortunately, Athanasius in 339 AD, he wrote about desecration of the churches in Alexandria. And he said they, meaning the heathen soldiers, that is non-Jewish, you know, pagans, were burning the books of Holy Scripture, which they found in the church. And the Jews, the murderers of our Lord, and Godless heathen entering irreverently." This is Old Strange Boldness, the Holy Baptist. This is in Circular Letter 3, page 94. This is regrettable, that he kind of stereotyped the Jews as the murderers of our Lord. However, the slight piece of good news, Athanasius did not say anything against the Jews, or against Jewish people, beside this. I sure wish he hadn't said this either, because you don't say this. This is not accurate to say about Jewish people. Jesus' dialogue with Pontius Pilate is found in the Gospel of John, chapter 19. And when you look at verse 11 there, Jesus is talking to Pilate, and he said, Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. Therefore, He that delivered me unto the path, the greater sin." And you can cross-reference that to Matthew 23, verse 14. So, when we think about the crucifixion story overall, Jesus Himself said to Pontius Pilate that the ones who turned Him over to Pilate were guilty of the greater sin. Overall, all I'm saying is the Jews are culpable in this thing, just like the Romans and everyone else. And this is all in the predestined plan of God. But basically what you're saying, when I'm dealing with Jewish people on the street today or wherever, you know, I'm not looking at them the same way as back then with that crowd of scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites and those guys that are plotting against Christ. We were guilty of the greater sin, but we see the culpability. of all these people against Christ at his crucifixion? Well, Caiaphas and Sanhedrin, the leaders, the scribes, and the Pharisees were against Jesus. But you remember, all the people of the first church were all Jewish people. So, yes, there was a great deal of guilt for the people involved, but you don't extend it to the entire race. Someone could be Jewish, and they may not ever want to come to Christ and tell you so, and you can still be their friend. Another thing that maybe isn't as serious about people, but this is just a mess-up, is he said that jealousy has no place with God. Athanasius said we should not ascribe jealousy to God in four discourses against the Aryans, Discourse 2, Chapter 29, page 363. That sounds nice and logical and stuff, except Scripture says the opposite. Scripture said God has jealousy. Zealotry for people worshiping others and idols in Exodus 25, 34, 14, Deuteronomy 4, 24, Deuteronomy 5, 9, Deuteronomy 6, 15, Joshua 24, 19, Nahum 1, 2, Zechariah 8, 1, and 1 Corinthians 10, 22. Athanasius was very well versed in scripture. but he kind of flipped up here. And sometimes, um, people, even people today, Roman Catholics, evangelicals, Orthodox, anybody, we can sometimes get so caught up in studying theology that we don't spend a life studying scripture. And if scripture disagrees with our theology, then that's an opportunity for us to grow and change our theology. When I find that my theological views don't agree with the Bible, I just want to go with the Bible. And I think everyone ought to be a Biblicist, and we may not be interpreting things perfectly, but that's why we kind of have each other, to keep each other in check, you know, to do that. Another thing is that Athanasius was inconsistent on the Apocrypha. Now, the Apocrypha isn't one thing. The Roman Catholic Church today has some Old Testament books that are not in the Protestant Bible or the Jewish Bible, and they are called Apocrypha, and most people think that's all there is. But the Eastern Orthodox, they have books that are Apocrypha, that is the same as the Roman Catholic, plus a few extra books. And the Coptic Church has some apocryphal books that are in addition to that. So there are various books that some Christians have accepted as scripture on a lesser level, or even scripture on the same level, and Athanasius, rather than saying all that was wrong, like we have in Delicus with kind of hope, He didn't actually say it was right, he was kind of inconsistent on it also. So here's what he said about it. It's a little complicated. He said, but since we have made mention of heretics as dead, but of ourselves as possessing the divine scriptures for salvation, and since I fear less, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, some feel the simple should be beguiled in simplicity and purity. by the subtlety of certain men, and to henceforth read other books, those called apocryphal, led astray by the similar of the names of the true books, I beseech you to bear patiently, if I also write by wherever matters which you are acquainted, influenced by the need and the veins of the Church." This is in Eastern Letter to 367 AD, Chapter 2, page 551. So what books would be apocryphal books that he says aren't so good? So this sounds great from evangelical perspective so far. However, in chapter 7, page 554, he says the books of Wisdom, Sirach, Judas, Tobit, which are in the Roman Catholic apocryphal, teachings of the apostles, which is not, and the shepherd, meaning shepherd or hermits. He said they're not included in the canon, so they're not a part of the Bible, but he said they're still good to read. Okay. So he was like, kind of positive for them, but they weren't really scriptural. Okay. Then in 367 AD, and this is a long quote, I apologize, but for greater exactness, I add this also writing necessity, but there are other books beside those, not indeed including the Canon, but appointed by the fathers to be read by those who newly join us, who wish for instruction in the word of God in us. The wisdom of Solomon, the wisdom of Sirach and Esther and Judith and Tobit, and that which is called teaching of the apostles and the shepherds. But the former, meaning Old New Testament books, are included in the canon, the latter are merely read. Nor is there any place to mention them apart from writings. But they are an invention of heretics who write them when they choose, dot, dot, dot. So using them as ancient writings, they may find occasion to lead us straight to symbols. It is in Eastern Letter 39, Chapter 7, page 552. Athanasius, on one hand, he was writing against all these made-up books by heretics, And so he said, stick to the canon, stick to the scriptures, which would be the Old and New Testament that we have today. That sounds great. But then he adds, but these other books are really good to read, and so read these also. So if you stop here, it sounds like, OK, so he accepts that these are scripture, but they're good to read. However, maybe inconsistent with this, Athanasius also quoted as Scripture Barak, Wisdom, Sirach, and two additions to Daniel. He quoted from Susanna and Daniel also. So he quoted from Wisdom 624 and Sirach 189 of Scripture and Four Discourses Against the Arians, Discourse 2, Chapter 79, page 391. He lists the books of the Old Testament like our list, except he also has Barak. Barak, by the way, was a secretary of Jeremiah. In Easter letters on 367 AD, chapter 4, page 552, he quotes the scripture Daniel 14.5, which is the story of Bel and the dragon. The dragon was this dead idol that Babylonian priests, according to the story, you know, people make offerings to it, and he proved that the dragon wasn't there. But anyway, in Four Discourses Against the Aryans, Discourse 3, Chapter 30, Page 410, he quoted from the story of Susanna in Four Discourses Against the Aryans, Discourse 1, Chapter 13, Page 314, and also in Athanasius on Psalms, And he quoted from Tobit 4.18 right after Matthew 6.6 and Isaiah 32.6. So he didn't actually say it was scripture, but he quoted it right in line with the other scriptures with no delineation at all. The defense before Constantine is chapter 7, page 244. Some cases he said they weren't scripture, but they're good to read. But in these cases he said it was scripture. So again, Athanasius lived a fairly long life. And I guess you, maybe someone who lived that long can't always be consistent on everything. Could you just tell, for a moment, our viewers about your apocryphal section on BibleQuery.org? All I do there, basically, is list different apocryphas that different groups have.