Fear and Harmony in Athanasius’s Against the Heathen

Even in his rejection of pagan faith systems, Athanasius, like other early Church Fathers, inherited a set of assumptions from classical schools of thought, such as the pre-eminence of reason over the senses and the danger of unmonitored emotion, and also forms of expression, such as certain tried and tested metaphors and analogies.

His apologetic treatise, Against the Heathen, makes use of ideas and images widely found in classical philosophical texts whilst deploring pagan religion. The work explores the role of fear in the degeneration of humankind, and reveals the rationality of orthodox Christian belief by means of musical metaphor. It also provides a valuable framework for the Life of Antony, by showing how demons are able to create a microcosm of disorder in a harmonious universe.

Athanasius argues that moral disorder arose when people ceased to follow the dictates of reason and instead became embroiled in the sensory realm. Humans turned away from the singular goodness of God and focused instead on the cares of the body, and their souls became confused and sullied by the multitude of desires.55 As a result of this disturbance, they began to do what was opposed to their rational nature and use parts of their bodies in defiance of their proper function: for instance, ears, previously the means by which humans could pay heed to the word of God, came to be used for the purpose of disobedience.5⁶ People developed a fear of death, which enslaved them to the worship of pagan deities.^[514] Athanasius follows a long tradition of apologetic writing by highlighting the influence of demons in idolatrous worship.5^[515] In Against the Heathen, he argues that those who worshipped lifeless things, and performed human sacrifices to these creations, were demon-possessed.5^[516] Although humans made the initial movement away from God, demons preyed on human fear.

As explained in the Life of Antony, demons were created as good and rational spirits, but they fell from heavenly wisdom and took to wandering the earth, causing havoc first among pagan Greeks, then Christians, aiming to prevent humans from returning to God.^[517] In several of his works, Athanasius talks of how demons inhabit the air, and, in the Life, evil spirits deliberately block the way to heaven for ascending souls^[518] Physical intervention is by no means their only tactic. As we shall see, demonic anti-music in the Life bears a resemblance to the way in which demons initially turned humanity’s attention away from the greater cosmic picture and towards its immediate environs.

Athanasius attempts to lead pagan worshippers out of error. Using an analogical argument for the existence of God, Athanasius discusses how nature, through its order and harmony “διά της τάξεως καί αρμονίας”, proclaims the existence of a single master and creator figure^[519] Order indicates the presence of a leader, whereas disorder indicates anarchy^[520] Like pagan philosophers before him, Athanasius uses a lyre metaphor to show that a balanced and ordered life is akin to the harmony of musical tones.^[521] He draws an analogy between the harmonising wisdom of God, which maintains a balance of contraries throughout creation, and a musician, who can tune the lyre and create a pleasing harmony from a combination of low, high and middling notes^[522] ^{^[523]} Another metaphor that Athanasius uses is that of a choir composed of singers of different natures and abilities, led by a conductor who brings out each person’s particular talent and so orchestrates the voices into a single harmony.66 In such a way, the diverse elements of the universe work together and proclaim the presence of a leader.

Athanasius stresses the centrality of Christ in this scheme.

It is through the Son that God co-ordinates the harmonious universe. Expanding on the lyre image, Athanasius remarks that Christ, the Wisdom of God, holds the universe like a well-tuned lyre that produces a balanced sound, combining things of the air with the things on earth and in heaven^[524] Thus, the Incarnation, an act of redemption which heals the rift between heaven and earth, is imagined in cosmological and musical terms as a way of re-establishing correct relations between elements. Elsewhere, Athanasius refers to Christ as a physician to whom humankind, bitten by the serpent, was delivered^[525] Furthermore, by dying himself, Christ removed the fear of death that inhibited the spiritual fulfilment of human kind^[526] ^{^[527] Order is also evident at the micro-level, in the constitution of the human body. Athanasius compares rational control of the sensory system to the harmony of a lyre. The senses, when stimulated, resound like the notes produced when lyre strings are plucked. The rational capacity of the soul is like a musician who knows how to craft a melody from the diverse sounds made by the strings.70 It orders and arranges the body by interpreting sensory input and judging what the appropriate response should be. Reason thus arbitrates between the senses, allowing for a correct evaluation of the external environment, and positions the soul towards the presence of the holy and away from bodily desires. The ordered soul is thus a microcosm of the harmonious universe: each is synthesised and harmonised by wisdom and rationality.
When relations between parts of the soul, and the soul and the cosmos, are well-balanced, the result is gpgovia and health of the human spirit. What happens, though, when these relations are upset? If the individual were to become fearful, and fail to attend to divine order, his or her ability to perceive the cosmos correctly and rationally may be impaired. This would lead the soul into a state of disorder (dra^ia). The noisy demons that feature in the Life of Antony make their attack precisely by disrupting relations in this way.}

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Source: Bhayro Siam, Rider Catherine (eds.). Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period. Leiden, Boston: Brill,2017. — xiv, 434 p.. 2017

Fear and Harmony in Athanasius’s Against the Heathen

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