On the Incarnation: Saint Athanasius (Popular Patristics Series Book 44)

by Athanasius of Alexandria

by the love for humankind and goodness of his own Father he appeared to us in a human body for our salvation.

Such order indicates that they did not come into being spontaneously, but shows that a cause preceded them, from which one can apprehend the God who ordered and created all things.

according to them God is only a craftsman and not the Creator of being, if he fashions underlying matter but is not himself the cause of matter.

but from nothing and having absolutely no existence God brought the universe into being through the Word,

but making them according to his own image

they might be able to abide in blessedness, living the true life which is really that of the holy ones in paradise.

he secured beforehand, by a law and a set place, the grace given.

so that if they guarded the grace and remained good, they might have the life of paradise—without sorrow, pain, or care—besides having the prom...

Thus, then, God created the human being and willed that he should abide in incorruptibility;

nor does repentance recall human beings from what is natural, but merely halts sins.

but from a spotless and stainless virgin, ignorant of man, pure and unmixed from intercourse with men.

he might turn them again to incorruptibility

making the body his own and by the grace of the resurrection banishing death from them as straw from the fire.

for this reason he takes to himself a body capable of death, in order that it, participating in the Word who is above all, might be sufficient for death on behalf of all, and through the indwelling Word would remain incorruptible, and so corruption might henceforth cease from all by the grace of the resurrection.

the incorruptible Son of God consequently clothed all with incorruptibility in the promise concerning the resurrection.

For the race of human beings would have been utterly dissolved had not the Master and Savior of all, the Son of God, come for the completion of death.

but avenges and saves it as his own work, having regard not for the carelessness of the inhabitants but for his own honor.

that the deficiency of creatures for the understanding and knowledge of the maker was great, again had mercy on the human race, in that being good he did not leave them destitute of the knowledge of himself, lest their being should be profitless. For what profit would there be for those who were made, if they did not know their own Maker?

God anticipated also their carelessness, so that if they cared not to recognize God through themselves, through the works of creation they might not be ignorant of the Creator.

but they were for the whole inhabited world a sacred school of the knowledge of God and the conduct of the soul.

So he rightly took a mortal body, that in it death might henceforth be destroyed utterly and human beings be renewed again according to the image. For this purpose, then, there was need of none other than the Image of the Father.

Therefore he himself did not suffer when the Virgin gave birth, nor by being in the body was he defiled, but rather he sanctified the body also.

the death of all was completed in the lordly body, and also death and corruption were destroyed by the Word in it.

that he might offer it as his own on behalf of all and as himself suffering for all, through coming into it “he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Heb 2.14–15).

the Life of all, our Lord and Savior Christ, did not contrive death for his own body, lest he should appear fearful of some other death, but he accepted and endured on the cross that inflicted by others, especially by enemies, which they reckoned fearful and ignominious and shameful, in order that this being destroyed, he might himself be believed to be Life, and the power of death might be completely annihilated. So something wonderful and marvelous happened: that ignominious death which they thought to inflict, this was the trophy of his victory over death.

nor as Isaiah was he sawn in part, that in death he might keep his body undivided and whole and that there be no pretext for those wishing to divide the Church.

But since the Savior’s raising the body, no longer is death fearsome, but all believers in Christ tread on it as nothing, and would rather choose to die than deny their faith in Christ. For they really know that when they die they are not destroyed, but both live and become incorruptible through the resurrection.

death has been destroyed by Christ and its corruption dissolved and brought to an end.

but by the sign of the cross all magic ceases, all witchcraft is brought to naught, all idols are deserted and abandoned, all irrational desire

For the Son of God “is living and active” (Heb 4.12), works daily, and effects the salvation of all.

he is the true Son of God, being from him as the Father’s own Word and Wisdom and Power, who in the last time took a body for the salvation of all, and taught the world about the Father, destroyed death, granted incorruptibility to all through the promise of the resurrection, raising his own body as first-fruits of this and showing it as a trophy over death and its corruption by the sign of the cross.

the Lord came not to be put on display but to heal and to teach those who were suffering.