The fatherhood of God has had a central, if increasingly controversial, place in Christian thinking about God. Yet although Christians referred to God as Father from the earliest days of the faith, it was not until Athanasius in the fourth century that the idea of God as Father became a topic of sustained analysis. Looking at the genesis of Athanasius' understanding of divine fatherhood against the background of Alexandrian tradition, Widdicombe demonstrates how the concept came to occupy such a prominent place in Christian theology.