The Bishop in the Desert

In 356 AD, imperial soldiers stormed a church in Alexandria, Egypt, with orders to arrest Bishop Athanasius. The Arian heresy — which denied the full divinity of Christ — had captured the ear of Emperor Constantius II, and the full weight of Rome now turned against one stubborn bishop who refused to bend. It was the fourth of five exiles Athanasius would endure.

He fled into the Egyptian desert, sheltered by monks in remote monasteries along the Nile. For six years, the most powerful empire on earth hunted him while he lived among sand and silence, writing the theological works that would shape Christianity for centuries. His enemies mocked him as a fugitive. His allies whispered the phrase that echoed through the ages: Athanasius contra mundum — Athanasius against the world.

But the world could not devour what God intended to preserve. Athanasius outlived the emperor who exiled him. The Council of Constantinople in 381 vindicated everything he had defended. The dragon of imperial power had raged, but the truth about who Christ is — fully God, fully with us — survived the wilderness and emerged triumphant.

John's vision in Revelation captures this same cosmic drama. The dragon rages. The woman flees to a place the Almighty has prepared. And from heaven comes the declaration that still echoes: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God." What the Most High shelters, no force on earth can consume.