on, of the
orthodox creed of the Church as against the Arians, and damnatory of
every article of the heresy severally; ascribed to Athanasius at one
time, but now believed to be of later date, though embracing his theology
in affirmation of the absolute co-equal divinity of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost in the Trinity.

ATHANASIUS, Christian theologian, a native of Alexandria, and a
deacon of the Church; took a prominent part against Arius in the Council
at Nice, and was his most uncompromising antagonist; was chosen bishop of
Alexandria; driven forth again and again from his bishopric under
persecution of the Arians; retired into the Thebaid for a time; spent the
last 10 years of his life as bishop at Alexandria, where he died; his
works consist of treatises and orations bearing on the Arian controversy,
and in vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity viewed in the most
absolute sense (296-373).

ATHEISM, disbelief in the existence of God, which may be either
theoretical, in the intellect, or practical, in the life, the latter the
more common and the more fatal form of it.

ATHEISM, MODERN, ascribed by Ruskin to "the unfortunate persistence
of the clergy in teaching children what they cannot understand, and in
employing young consecrate persons to assert in pulpits what they do not
know."

ATHELNEY, ISLE OF, an island in a marsh near the confluence of the
Tone and Parret, Somerset; Alfred's place of refuge from the Danes.

ATHE`NA, the Greek virgin goddess of wisdom, particularly in the
arts, of war as of peace, happily called by Ruskin the "'Queen of the
Air,' in the heavens, in the earth, and in the heart"; is said to have
been the conception of Metis, to have issued full-armed from the brain of
Zeus, and in this way the child of both wisdom and power; wears a helmet,
and bears on her left arm the aegis with the Medusa's head; the olive
among trees, and the owl among animals, were sacred to her.

ATHENAEUM, a school of learning established in Rome about 133 by
Hadrian.

ATHENAEUS, a Greek writer of the 3rd century, wrote a curious
miscellany of a book entitled "Deipnosophistae, or the Suppers of the
Learned," extant only in an imperfect state.

ATHENAG`ORAS, an able Christian apologist of the 2nd century, was
Athenian and a pagan by birth, but being converted to Christianity, wrote
an apology in its defence, and a treatise on the resurrection of the
dead.

ATH`ENS, the capita