In Front | An Easter Letter from “the Black Dwarf”

Nicknamed “the black dwarf” by his enemies, Athanasius of Alexandria had a reputation as a fearsome debater who was exiled multiple times for his role in rarly church controversies. He factors so heavily in the early formation of Christian doctrine that some scholars consider him to be the “father” of orthodoxy, or right Christian teaching. One of the three ecumenical, or universal, creeds of the early church, the Athanasian Creed, is named for him.

Part of his responsibility as Bishop of Alexandria was sending an annual letter around the Christian world to designate the official date for Easter, at that time the most important day in the Christian calendar. These Easter letters, or Festal letters, were part of a wider Church initiative, following the Council of Nicea, to unify Christian churches through shared doctrines and feast days.

Never one to shy away from authoritative statements, Athanasius offered more than calendar dates in his letters. In AD 367, he included a list of New Testament Scripture, which he referred to as the canon, a closed and definitive list. Athanasius’ canon includes the exact 27 books that we recognize today as comprising the New Testament, making his letter the first known text to do so. After naming these books, he closes with a warning against any later inclusion of apocryphal texts, those of doubtful authenticity:

Let no one add to these or take anything from them . . . No mention is to be made of the apocryphal works. They are the invention of heretics, who write according to their own will, and gratuitously assign and add to them dates so that, offering them as ancient writings, they may have an excuse for leading the simple astray.

You can read this festal letter by following this link (accessed Nov 11, 2020):

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htm 

Sources: Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Volume 1, 1984, pp. 199-200; D. H. Williams, ed., Tradition, Scripture, and Interpretation: A Sourcebook of the Ancient Church, pp. 172-173.