By Fr. Georges Florovsky
Athenagoras of Athens, the most lucid and eloquent writer among the Apologists, was most probably a pagan who converted to Christianity. Bossuet considered him the author "of one of the finest and earliest Apologies of the Christian religion." Almost nothing is known of his life except that he was an Athenian and considered himself "a Christian philosopher." St. Photius held that he was the same Athenagoras to whom Boethos, the Platonist, dedicated his work On Difficult Expressions in Plato (Bibl. Cod. 154 f.). He is mentioned by Methodius in De resurrectione (I, 36) and by Philip Sidetes in his lengthy Χριστιανική Ιστορία. About 177 Athenagoras wrote his Plea Regarding Christians — πρεσβεία περι των χριστιανών. Α second work, On the Resurrection of the Dead — περί αναστάσεως νεκρών — has been attributed to him and he was most probably the author.
Athenagoras is the first to write so penetratingly about the unity of God. "All philosophers, then, even if unwillingly, reach complete agreement about the unity of God when they come to inquire into the first principles of the universe." God is "uncreated" and "eternal." God is "uncreated, impassible, and indivisible. He does not therefore consist of parts." God is the "Creator." "I have sufficiently shown that we are not atheists since we acknowledge one God, who is uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, and illimitable. He is grasped only by mind and intelligence, and surrounded by light, beauty, spirit, and indescribable power. By him, the universe was created through his Logos, was set in order, and is held together… Let no one think it stupid for me to say that God has a Son, for we do not think of God the Father or of the Son in the way of poets… But the Son of God is his Logos in idea and in actuality — εν ίδέα και ενεργεία. For by him and through him all things were made, the Father and the Son being one. And since the Son is in the Father and the Father in the son by the unity and power of the Spirit, the Son of God is the mind and Logos — νους και λόγος — of the Father.” The Son is “the first offspring of the Father. I mean that he did not come into being — ουχ ως γενόμενον, for, since God is eternal mind, he had his Logos within himself from the beginning, being eternally logical — άιδίως λογικός. Indeed, we say that the Holy Spirit himself, who inspires those who utter prophecies, is an effluence — άπόρροιαν — from God, flowing from him and returning like a ray of the sun. Who, then, would not be astonished to hear those called atheists who admit God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and who teach their unity in power and their distinction in rank? — την εν τη τάξει διαίρεσιν." Christians “are guided by this alone — to know the true God and his Logos, to know the unity of the Father with the Son, the fellowship of the Father with the Son, what the Spirit is, what union — ένωσις — exists between these three, the Spirit, the Son, and the Father, and what is their distinction — διαίρεσις — in union.”
- The Byzantine Fathers of the Fifth Century, ch. 4.
