This well documented study focuses on the career of Archbishop Athanasius of Alexandria during the 300s AD. But beyond that, Barnes illuminates the surrounding age with its assumptions, passions, and realities. Behind the official statements of a winner in church history, Barnes shows us the evidence of a fallible, ambitious, vindictive man, striving to defeat his rivals by almost any means necessary. The ups and downs of this man's career are close to breathtaking. Barnes' careful research reveals a saga of disturbing political hardball over the future of power in Rome's new imperial religion.



--author of Correcting Jesus