An ironic paradox lies at the heart of the legacy of the work alternatively known by titles such “A Plea Regarding the Christians” and “A Plea for the Christians” among other variations. The paradox is intricately connected to the overall and longstanding obscurity of the author. Composition is conventionally dated back to some point in the years between 176 and 180 following the birth of Christ and both figures to whom it is addressed are far better known to the historical record: Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. What is so ironic about this paradoxical obscurity is that one single section of the overall surviving text can effectively be argued to have played a greater role in shaping the modern American evangelical Christian church since 1973 than any other early Christian author or, for that matter, quite possibly or any Christian author who followed Athenagoras, including such notable figures as Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine.
For the most part, the writings in “The Plea” address the typical philosophical issues of the early Christian philosopher, but to a lesser degree of insight and original thought. For instance, the author responds to allegations of atheism by responding that Christians are simply monotheists. This leads naturally into a logical rejection of the tenets of polytheistic worship. He also delves into more Aristotelian subjects regarding theology such as explicating how Christians separate their God from the matter of the universe. Significance space is given over to offering a rationale for the existence, hierarchy and purpose of angels and giants within the working space of God above and humans below. Much of this is fascinating and all of it is interesting, but it is not until Chapter XXXV that the real influence of this work is made manifest.
Extraordinarily enough, this section which became epoch-altering in the latter quarter of the 20th century comprises only that very short chapter. Two pages later, the entire text comes to close. The subtitle of Chapter XXXV is “The Christians condemn and detest all cruelty.” The first half the proceeds response with an answer to the opening query: “What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers?” The extended nature of what turns out to be a rather nebulous and vague answer turns out to be just so much window dressing waiting for the author to get to the point that he wants to reveal by dramatically pulling open the curtains to show off the true subject at hand:
“And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God's care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it.”
The irrefutable truth offered by facts which have been at hand for more than two millennia is that there is quote from scripture—in either the Old or New Testament—which directly address the issue of opposition to abortion and describe the fundamental dogma of the pro-life movement so explicitly as those words of the mysterious Athenagoras quoted above. The best that scriptural justification can come up with is God saying He knows who everyone is even before they appear in a womb. But what Athenogoras wrote nearly 2000 years ago could come right out of a sermon or the anti-abortion literature passed out by those obstructing entrance into abortion provider facilities.
If there is any one single figure in the history of Christian theology who can be identified as the “source of the Nile” of the obsessive wing of the pro-life movement who consistently rate it as the most important issue by which they judge a political candidate, it is the obscure author of the little-known “Plea Regarding the Christians.” Over the course of the almost fifty years stretching from 1973 to the controversial election of 2020, Athenagoras managed to leap from being on the verge of completely forgotten to becoming the metaphorical political godfather of the most powerful single-issue voting bloc in America in the 21st century.
