Athenagoras of Athens

• Honorific Prefix — Saint • Name — Athenagoras of Athens • Born — c. 115 • Died — c. 190 • Feast Day — (Eastern Orthodox Church) • Venerated In — Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church • Birthplace — prob. Athens • Place of death — prob. Athens • Canonized Date — Pre-Congregation • Attributes — Athenagoras, the Athenian, Philosopher, and Christian (self-styled)

In his writings he styles himself as "Athenagoras, the Athenian, Philosopher, and Christian". There is some evidence that he was a Platonist, as Alexander Wilder puts it: “Pantaenus, Athenagoras and Clement were thoroughly instructed in the Platonic philosophy, and comprehended its essential unity with the Oriental systems”. A convert to Christianity, Athenagoras went to Alexandria and taught at what would become its celebrated Christian academy.

The Embassy for the Christians, the date of which is fixed by internal evidence as late in 176 or 177, was a carefully written plea for justice to the Christians made by a philosopher, on philosophical grounds, to the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus, whom he flatters as conquerors, "but above all, philosophers". The Apology is an early attempt to use Platonic ideas to interpret Christian belief for Greek and Roman cultures. He first complains of the illogical and unjust discrimination against the Christians and of the calumnies they suffer, and then meets the charge of atheism (a major complaint directed at the Christians of the day was that by disbelieving in the Roman gods, they were showing themselves to be atheists). This first strongly-reasoned argument for the unity of God in Christian literature is supplemented by an able exposition of the Trinity. Assuming then the defensive, he justifies the Christian abstention from worship of the national deities by arguing that it is absurd and indecent, quoting at length the pagan poets and philosophers in support of his contention. Finally, he meets the charges of immorality by exposing the Christian ideal of purity, even in thought, and the inviolable sanctity of the marriage bond. In refuting the charge of cannibalism Athenagoras states that Christians detest all cruelty and murder, refusing to attend contests of gladiators and wild beasts and holding that women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder for which they will have to give an account to God.

The treatise on the Resurrection of the Dead, the first complete exposition of the doctrine in Christian literature, was written later than the Apology, to which it may be considered as an appendix. The writer brings to the defence of the doctrine the best that contemporary philosophy could adduce. After meeting the objections common to his time, he seeks to prove the possibility of a resurrection in view either of the power of the Creator, or of the nature of our bodies. To exercise such powers is neither unworthy of God nor unjust to other creatures. He argues that the nature and end of man demand a perpetuation of the life of body and soul. Although he clearly teaches the immortality of the soul and of the resurrection body, he argues that the soul is unconscious between death and resurrection: "[T]hose who are dead and those who sleep are subject to similar states, as regards at least the stillness and the absence of all sense of the present or the past, or rather of existence itself and their own life."