Athanasius was a Greek by birth and education, Greek also in subtle thought and philosophic insight, in oratorical power and supple statesmanship.  Though born almost within the shadow of the mighty temple of Serapis at Alexandria, he shows few signs of Coptic influence.  Deep as is his feeling of the mystery of revelation, he has no love of mystery for its own sake, nothing of the Egyptian passion for things awful and mysterious.  Even his style is clear and simple, without a trace of Egyptian involution and obscurity.  We know nothing of his family, and cannot even date his birth for certain, though it must have been very near the year 297.  He was, therefore, old enough to remember the worst days of the great persecution, which Maximin Daza kept up in Egypt as late as 313.  Legend has of course been busy with his early life.  According to one story, Alexander found him with some other boys at play, imitating the ceremonies of baptism—­not a likely game for a youth of sixteen.  Another story makes him a disciple of the great hermit Antony, who never existed.  He may have been a lawyer for a time, but in any case his training was neither Coptic nor monastic, but Greek and scriptural, as became a scholar of Alexandria.  There may be traces of Latin in his writings, but his allusions to Greek literature are such as leave no doubt that he had a liberal education.  In his earliest works he refers to Plato; in later years he quotes Homer, and models his notes on Aristotle, his Apology to Constantius on Demosthenes.  To Egyptian idolatry he seldom alludes.  Scripture, however, is his chosen and familiar study, and few commentators have ever shown a firmer grasp of certain of its leading thoughts.  He at least endeavoured (unlike the Arian text-mongers) to take in the context of his quotations and the general drift of Christian doctrine.  Many errors of detail may be pardoned to a writer who so seldom fails in suggestiveness and width of view.  In mere learning he was no match for Eusebius of Caesarea, and even as a thinker he has a worthy rival in Hilary of Poitiers, while some of the Arian leaders were fully equal to him in political skill.  But Eusebius was no great thinker, Hilary no statesman, and the Arian leaders were not men of truth.  Athanasius, on the other hand, was philosopher, statesman, and saint in one.  Few great men have ever been so free from littleness or weakness.  At the age of twenty he had risen far above the level of Arianism and Sabellianism, and throughout his long career we catch glimpses of a spiritual depth which few of his contemporaries could reach.  Above all things, his life was consecrated to a simple witness for truth.  Athanasius is the hero of a mighty struggle, and the secret of his grandeur is his intense and vivid faith that the incarnation is a real revelation from the other world, and that its issues are for life and death supreme in heaven and earth and hell for evermore.

[Sidenote:  Early years of his rule at Alexandria.]