and even when he was banished, he became a writer by duty and necessity. A first essay, On the Incarnation of the Divine Word (c. 335), was soon followed by more lengthy Orations Against the Arians and other polemical essays, linked with the crisis around Arius and in defense of the synod of Nicea in 325. Each year, whenever possible, Athanasius sent a circular letter to the churches under his leadership. After 356 he wrote the Life of Antony, the earliest Christian biography. Athanasius’s use of
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