him that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians
and was mighty in words and in deeds.^8
- Athanasius was about twenty-three years old when
he returned to Alexandria. No sooner had he settled in
his native town than he bent his forehead under the hands
of the venerable Abba Alexandros, to rise to deacon. His
soul, already robust, received in the effusion of Divine
Grace an overflow of power.
In the IVth century, the deacon still exercised the
active functions set down by the early Church. He
constituted ‘the eyes and the ears, the mouth and the
hand, the heart and the soul of the Bishop’. These words
describe most fittingly what Athanasius became to Abba
Alexandros from that time onwards. He was not only the
power which sustained the soul of the aged Pope, but was
the light which illuminated his path. And Abba
Alexandrous leaned on him as a father leans on a beloved
son. Both worked together in harmonious concord: both
were aspiring spirits, with the same keen understanding
and the same lofty Ideals – which served the Church to
the very end. Athanasius went about his work,
performing its, lowest to its highest demands. Part of the
day he spent in the poorest slums giving succour to the
disinherited of the earth: feeding the hungry, clothing the
naked, visiting the prisoners and the strangers. If during
his errands of charity, he met a brother whose faith was
shaken, he reaffirmed him with words of confidence and
comfort.^9
Arius well knew this formidable foe, of whom he
was secretly jealous. He, therefore, shot his venom and
his biting sarcasm at both the Pope and Athanasius: both
shared the pangs and the honour of being hated for
righteousness' sake.^10