St. Athanasius and the proper formation of the laity

Today is the memorial of St. Athanasius, the great fourth-century bishop of Alexandria. He was so fabulous a bishop that three separate emperors exiled him from his see five different times. Yeah, you rock!

Among all his truly amazing and even miraculous deeds and achievements, including being one of St. Antony's closer disciples and writing his life, which played a most instrumental role in the conversion of St. Augustine of Hippo, etc., etc., one of the ones that most stands out for me was his extraordinary formation of the laity of Alexandria.

During his third exile, in the mid-350's, the self-indulgently semi-Arian Emperor Constantius tried to impose one of his lackeys, a priest named George, as bishop in Athanasius's place. After listening to him preach for a while, the people decided they'd had quite enough of his heresy, so they dragged him out of his (really Athanasius's) pulpit and lynched him in the market just outside.* That's what I call "Catholic Action!"

(It should be noted that this was a political thing, really, and not mere random violence, since the soldiers - Arians by association at the very least - had murdered some dozens of the faithful when they had come to arrest Athanasius and impose George and the (false) bishop. By killing George, they were explicitly rejecting Constantius's interference in the local Church. The clear message was "George sleeps with the fishes." He who lives by the sword, etc.)

Anyway, Constantius was no doubt deeply pissed, but he didn't try to impose another Arian lackey as (false) bishop. Not too long after, he died, and his cousin, Julian -- the last remaining relative of Constantine the Great, later called "Julian the Apostate" -- permitted all the exiled orthodox bishops to return to their sees.

St. Athanasius, confessor and doctor of the faith, pray for us. By your holy example and intercession, may we so love and believe the true and holy Catholic faith, that we defend it as worthily.

* NB, please don't take this as any kind of endorsement of violence, political or otherwise. The fourth century was a violent age; in that context, this action might be seen as admirable in defense of the faith. In the abstract, Christ who died for us, certainly does not desire us to kill for him. Certainly in today's politics, such an action would not be commendable in any way.

Brevia Theologica: defending the transitional diaconate

When the heresiarch Arius tried to work out a logical doctrine of the Trinity to protect God's impassibility from the Passion of the Son, he made the error of dividing what should not be divided; namely, the "one substance" of the divinity, the unity of the three Persons. It is logical, if only by the standard of natural reason, but it fails in soteriology, and so ultimately failed to account for what it tried to account for.

It seems to me that there is a modern parallel in some circles of sacramental theology. Those who propose to do away with the "transitional" diaconate, as it is called, make the same error Arius once made, dividing the unity of the one sacramental reality of orders, so that the (purely natural) logic of the distinction between deacon and sacerdos will be clear.

In a similar way, this error also fails in soteriology. First, the proclamation of the Gospel - the invitation - must precede communion in the Holy Eucharist - the "banquet." If the priest does not receive the sacra potestas of kerugein as a deacon, the invitation is disconnected from the banquet, and our Holy Mass becomes two separate ritual actions, rather than one action with two parts. The salvific graces of hearing the Gospel then do not lead to and culminate in the Eucharist; while the Eucharist risks becoming ahistorical and mythologized, detached from the concrete Gospel proclamation.

Second, Christ was both deacon ("the servant of all") and priest (simultaneously victim, priest, and altar of the one perfect sacrifice); and indeed, He is both in the same act of His Passion. If we detach these two aspects of His saving act in the sacrament of Order, we detach the two meanings of the act. Service and sacrifice then point away from each other, rather than to each other; and even, they become mutually exclusive meanings of the Passion. Service then leads only back into the world -- the "shipwreck of the world," recall -- and fails to connect in any meaningful way with grace. Sacrifice, meanwhile, again risks an ahistorical mythologizing, in which grace fails to penetrate to the level of everyday life (service).

Third, given that Christ did not institute the diaconate prior to His Passion, if the diaconate is detached from a meaningful relationship to the sacrifice of the ministerial priesthood, and hence from the actual graces of the Eucharist, how does one defend its sacramentality? In the same way, what becomes of the "fullness of orders" of the episcopate, and therefore of the whole doctrine of apostolic succession?

Arius's solution didn't work with respect to the Trinity. It doesn't work with respect to Holy Orders, either.